The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 8

Perfection and Progress

Perfection is a relative term. A thing may be perfect in relation to the present or the past; it may not be so in relation to what is to come. Creation is a perpetual movement, a perpetual progression. Each time a new consciousness manifested upon earth, it was very natural for men of the epoch to have the impression that it was the final definitive realisation, at least a very great progress.

Still we must note that even for an animal, say an elephant or a dog, human capacities appear as marvellous; they feel, the dogs do, that man possesses almost divine powers. So men too from the stage where they are have a hint of things beyond; that is why we are not wholly satisfied, we have the feeling in spite of all things achieved that there is something else which escapes, indeed the true thing escapes, we turn around it, but never touch it. It means that man is ready for a further progress. If it were not so, if he were satisfied only with what he can do, he would try to do that alone, better and better perhaps, but in the same groove. However, it is not that: he seeks something else, something quite different, which is truly true, on which one can count, which does not crash down when one supports oneself

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upon it, something durable, permanent, the Rock of Ages. This need of eternity, of an absolute good and absolute beauty awakens exactly at the moment when one is ready to receive a new consciousness.

For a very long time, perhaps from the very beginning —I do not mean from the beginning of human evolution, for there have been earlier periods when, before the true man appeared, intermediate beings at first were tried who were much nearer the animal; I mean the beginning of a sufficiently developed human form when it became ready to receive something from above—there have been always and there are still individuals who carry in them this need of the eternal and the absolute. It is only little by little, very gradually, through cycles of enlightenment and obscurity that something like a collective consciousness in humanity awakes to the need of such a higher existence. And today this necessity seems evidently very general, cutting across all turmoils and stupidities of mankind: that shows that the time is near.

Yes, for a very long time, men were told, "It will be, it will be", were given the promise. It was promised, thousands and thousands of years ago, that a new consciousness, a new world, something of the Divine would manifest itself upon earth; it was always in the future, somewhere in the revolution of the ages. One had not this feeling, this sensation that it is here and now.

By far the larger part of humanity, in fact, most of it, need to make a very great effort to imagine what the future may be like. Its consciousness is so much tied

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down to what is that it finds it difficult even to imagine that things can be otherwise. When what shall be becomes, for at least the consciousness of a group of individuals, an inevitable necessity and what has been and is appears to it as an absurdity that cannot last, then and then only comes the moment for the change to happen, not before.

The question still remains whether the thing can happen and will happen individually before it happens collectively. But no individual realisation even can be complete or approach perfection, unless and until it is in harmony with a group consciousness representing a new world. There is always an interdependence between the individual and the collective so much so that an individual realisation is bound to be restricted and diminished in an irresponsive atmosphere. Earth life as a whole has to follow a certain curve of progress in order that a new world and a new consciousness may appear in it.

So the future realisation does depend, partially at least, upon you, individually and collectively. Have you ever tried to conceive what the new consciousness may mean, what the new race and the new world would look like?

It is evident that the advent of man upon the earth has changed the terrestrial conditions. One cannot say that this has been to the greatest good of all, for it meant much suffering in many places. Also it is evident that the complication which the human being has brought with him into life has not always been favourable to him

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or to others. Bur from another point of view it did mean a progress, a marked progress among the lower species. Man mixed himself up with the life of animals, with the life of plants, even with the life of metals and minerals; it was not, as I said, to the great joy of all those with whom he busied himself; but in any case, their conditions of life were changed by this interference. In the same way, it is likely that the supramental being, whatever he may be, when he comes, will change considerably the life upon earth. We cherish this hope in our heart and in our mind that all the ills the earth suffers from will be, if not completely cured, at least to a large extent alleviated and that conditions of living here will be more pleasant and harmonious, at least tolerable for all. That is quite possible. In man, the mental consciousness that he incarnated acted, by the very force of its nature, for its own satisfaction, for its own growth, without much consideration for the consequences of its actions. The Supramental, on the other hand, will act differently; that is our hope, at least.

Human life, however, is brief and naturally there is a tendency in man to shorten the distances in proportion to his dimensions. Still there will come a time when the thing will happen; there will be a moment or a movement that will at last land into the reality. Once upon a time there came a moment when the mental being could appear upon earth. The start may be poor, very incomplete, very partial, but after all there was the start. Why should not the same thing occur now?

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to me—they who are more for profiting by what they possess than for risking to lose all in the hope of something that may or may not happen tomorrow, I assure you, such people will not notice the change even if it happens right under their nose. They will say, "It is all right, we do not care, there is nothing to regret". Quite possibly; but after all, they might have to regret, we do not know.

In any case, that is what I mean by sincerity. That is to say, if you regard the new realisation as the only thing truly worth living for, if what is is intolerable, not only for oneself, perhaps not so much for oneself as for the whole world, one feels the need of it if one is not small and egoistic; one feels that the present has lasted too long and one can do nothing but take up all that one is, all that one can and throw oneself completely—head foremost, without looking backward, without considering what may happen or not—into the adventure. It is far better to jump into the abyss, than to stand on the brink shivering.

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