Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy And Yoga - Some Aspects

SRI AUROBINDO—A SHORT INTRODUCTION

Sri Aurobindo does not perhaps need any introduction now at this late stage. He has already become like his own SAVITRI a legend and a symbol. Still to those of us who have not known much or studied much of Sri Aurobindo, this small introduction may prove useful.

Sri Aurobindo is unique in this sense that in history of culture both of East and West, there is none who can compare with or come near him in learning and scholarship. If only we take account of the vastness of his erudition, neither Plato nor Shankara nor both of them together approach him although at the initial stages of his life, he had to learn from both of them in depth and breadth, height and subtlety of knowledge not acquired from external sources but intuitive and over mental and latterly supramental he has no second. If the title "sakala-sastra-parang-gata" (One, who has acquired mastery over all branches of knowledge) is really applicable to any one, it is justly applicable to him and him alone in the' whole range of human history.

While our economists and politicians and educationists and social reformers like those of other countries of the world are groping in the dark for finding a solution to age-long human problems and have failed and are failing to find any solution, he had in a single line offered us the prescription : If once mankind consents to be spiritualised, the whole human problem will be solved. Later on, as his own consciousness evolved

Page 1

from the spiritual to supramental, he found a remedy for all human ills in the supramentalisation of the race. He has prescribed the highest height of spirituality, the Supermind, as the only panacea for the whole human race and for the whole of earth-consciousness, for mind is not its last stage and its upward ascent has not ended. He therefore turned all the energy of his mind spirit to the discovery of the Truth-consciousness or Super-mind as he has termed it, and was not content till he had himself reached it in his own mind and life. In the whole evolutionary process beginning from vegetable to life-consciousness in the worms, insects, reptiles, birds and thence to the mental consciousness of the animals and finally to the emerging higher consciousness of man, the mental being, the earth is progressively moving towards the yet un evolved spiritual and supra-mental consciousness which is at the summit of our evolutionary destiny. When the summit is reached humanity will progress from a basis of knowledge to higher knowledge and not from ignorance to increasing knowledge as now. In the Truth-consciousness, there is an all-round and overwhelming order, peace, harmony and bliss. Not the transitional joy and pleasure of our conception but the Ananda of the Divine with His omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence and these are to be embodied in the superior types of mankind who open themselves to its influence and strive for it for the change of their whole consciousness and nature. The whole world will profit by this descent of super-mind in the terrestrial life. There will be a peace and progressive harmony in the lives of all the lower and inferior creation.

Sri Aurobindo came to assure us of the beauty of

Page 2

the future of earth-life freed from all sorrows and sufferings and struggles and strifes of the present life of the world with its ignorance, darkness and falsehood which are bound to be replaced by their divine opposites and earth-life will be transformed into divine life even assuring physical immortality to the body.

He has himself offered his body for the hastening of this process of the descent of the immortal Supermind on earth and the Mother of the Ashram, his divine collaborator in this stupendous task of world-transformation, has assured us that Supermind has descended in the earth-consciousness and taken a permanent abode here. It has to wage a strenuous and unceasing war against the forces of the ignorance, darkness and hostility of the forces that rule the earth-nature but its conquest over all these hostile and opposing forces is sure and inevitable. All that is needed on our part is collaboration with this slowly emerging force of Truth-consciousness and everything will be all right in time.

"The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,

More and more souls shall enter into light,

Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear

And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame

And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight

And human wills tune to the divine will."

Page 3

Religion And Spirituality

It is trite to observe that the religion and spirituality are not one and the same though in the minds of many of the present and the utterance of the past generation of spiritual teachers and thinkers they are or were identical. The distinction between these two has been clearly brought out by Sri Aurobindo among the modern spiritual thinkers and writers. According to him, religion is only one of the three approaches to spirituality, the other two being occultism and spiritual philosophy. Each of these three may lead separately or together or in varying collaboration to direct spiritual experience and realisation which constitute real spirituality. "Spirituality", observes Sri Aurobindo in his Life Divine, "is not a high intellectuality, not idealism, not an ethical turn of mind or moral purity and austerity, not religiosity or an ardent and exalted emotional fervour, not even a compound of these excellent things ; . . . Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind, life and body ... It is a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our whole being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the union, a growth or awakening to a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new nature."

Religionists, on the contrary, who count by millions all over the world are satisfied with observation of certain religious rites and ceremonies such as, going to the churches and temples, offering worship to the deities and trying to live a moral and ethical life according to their scriptures. The religious man continues to live

Page 4

the same inner and outer life as others only modified by the exigencies of his avocation be it that of a priest, a monk or a nun, a wandering fakir or sadhu or a life in some religious institutions such as a monastery, or math or a mashed. There is no demand on him for a radical change of consciousness or of his inner and outer life as in the case of a spiritual seeker. Spirituality or spiritual life demands utmost concentration of consciousness on the part of the seeker. His is a one-pointed orientation of life towards the Spirit, the object being the utter elimination of the narrow and ignorant ego— complex which culminates in complete union and identity with the Spirit.

While there are myriads and myriads of religious institutions in all the organised and denominational religions of the world, Hindu, Muslim, Christian and others, spiritual institutions on such organised scale are not many. For, at the head of a spiritual institution there must be a self-realised man, the Guru or the Teacher who is very rare and difficult to find. A Ramakrishna-Vivekananda or a Sri Aurobindo appears once in many centuries to lead the benighted humanity to the path of Dharma or righteousness—though we are fortunate that in course of less than a century these Masters appeared on the Indian scene. Their appearance was probably necessitated by the prevailing world conditions where Dharma had fallen into decline with the rise of Adharma or sin or unrighteousness and the promise of Sri Krishna had to be redeemed by the descent of the Avatars for the regeneration of humanity.

Apropos of our subject, it is relevant to quote Swami Vivekananda here. The Swami defines religion in the following terms in his Raja Yoga :

Page 5

Each soul is potentially divine.

The goal is to manifest this divine within, by controlling nature, external and internal.

Do this work, or worship, or psychic control or philosophy—by one, or more, or all o£ these—and be free.

This is the whole of religion, Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.

This is the whole of religion, says Vivekananda. In the language of the present generation, we would say, this is the whole of spirituality—this discovery of the soul or the true being, the spirit in us. The last part of his observation pertains to religion. The formalities of religion such as those mentioned above end when spirituality or rather spiritual experience begins. We can thus justly say that spirituality begins when religion ends as it has been rightly said earlier : Religion begins where philosophy ends.

"Our souls can visit in great lonely hours

Still regions of imperishable Light,

All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power

And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss

And calm immensities of spirit Space."

Page 6

The Gita And The Mother

Sri Krishna's Gita is well-known to the spiritual seekers all over the world from time immemorial and has been acclaimed by the elite as one of the best spiritual guide whose value remains unimpaired to this day because of the eternal verities it contains. Sri Aurobindo's Mother is not so well-known to the present-day spiritual seekers as his more renowned Magnum Opus, the Life Divine to the elites, the intellectuals and others who are interested in philosophical literature. From the point of view of practical guidance to spiritual or more properly speaking, the supramental Truth, this has an abiding value not only for the present but for all times to come in the future.

This is all the more true that while the Gita insists upon the separation of the Soul from Prakriti or nature as the ultimate goal of human life in this world of ignorance, sorrow and suffering, of birth and death, of old age, disease and ultimate decay and personal salvation and escape from re-birth as the highest object of life, Sri Aurobindo, on the contrary teaches that while realisation of the Soul is the first and primary object of human life, the mere separation of the Purusha or Soul from Prakriti is only one, that is, the first step towards the real goal of human existence which is complete union with the Divine both in soul and nature. And the motives of personal salvation and escape from rebirth are tabooed in his Yoga. These two primary objects of human life, whatever their values and utilities in the past, are no longer sufficient to meet the demands

Page 7

of an age which are quite opposite to those of an earlier age when withdrawal from life after spiritual illumination was considered the goal of life a£*er the destined fall of the body. In the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo there has to be a total and radical transformation of the material world to warrant the full manifestation of the Divine in matter and that requires a higher spiritual effort and performance than the mere separation of the Purusha consciousness or Soul from Prakriti or executive nature to which the soul is subject from its very birth in a mortal body.

The separation of the soul from nature may give us a certaito mastery over the movements of our ignorant and egoistic nature, mental, vital and physical but mastery is not transformation. A certain but not complete mastery. Sri Aurobindo, therefore, insists that we have to go deeper after this first realisation of the soul to the Psychic entity lying dormant in the deepest recesses of our being. This psychic transformation has been achieved by only a limited number of human beings up to the present. But this is only a first step in his yoga, the triple transformation of psychic, spiritual and supramental change will achieve a complete and radical change of human nature so as to usher in a new birth, a new life and a new consciousness in the human life. Speaking of the evolutionary growth and ascent of consciousness from inert and inconscient matter, he traces how life consciousness developed out of the inconscience first in the vegetable kingdom, then in insects, worms, reptiles, birds and beasts and lastly in the developed mental consciousness of developed animals and human beings. The mental consciousness

Page 8

of human beings is not the last term of the evolutionary progression of consciousness. It will exceed Mind as mind has exceeded the life consciousness of animals and culminate in supramental consciousness—its ultimate goal in terrestrial life. From a world of ignorance, sorrow and suffering, full of strife and discord, we shall enter a new world of peace, harmony, bliss and love. The Divine omniscience and omnipotence will reign in the transformed human beings, the supermen in the new creation and the whole world order will be one of peace and harmony because of the superior race of men who will be the leaders of the terrestrial life.

"The supramental change is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of earth-consciousness ; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit." And again : "As there has been established on earth a mental consciousness and power which shapes a race of mental beings, so now there will be established here a gnostic consciousness and power which will shape a race of gnostic spiritual beings and take up into itself all of earth nature that is ready for this new transformation." Since this was what he foresaw in his spiritual vision, he dedicated all his life to bring the supramental change in himself and in the Mother, his divine collaborator in this stupendous work of earthly transformation and wrote some letters to a disciple in answer to his queries which have been collected and published in what is known as Sri Aurobindo's, "The Mother". It contains all the practical guidance needed for supramental realisation on the part of the spiritual seekers. His Yoga is called the yoga of Transformation or the Integral yoga and the way to it is perfect and unreserved surrender to the Divine Mother who

Page 9

is the Divine Shakti and the mystery behind the whole creation.

"Those who wish to help the Light of Truth to prevail over the forces of darkness and falsehood can do so by carefully observing the initiating impulses of their movements and action, and discriminate between those that come from the Truth and those that come from the falsehood, in order to obey the first and to refuse or reject the others.

This power of discrimination is one of the first effects of the Advent of the Truth's Light in the earth's atmosphere.

If we allow a falsehood, however small, to express itself through our mouth, or our pen, how can we hope to become perfect messengers of Truth ? A perfect servant of Truth should abstain even from the slightest inexactitude, exaggeration or deformation."

Page 10

Ego And The Divine Self

The concept of Ego is not unknown to the educated intelligentsia of the world ; one may have a clear mental idea of the ego, but yet know it not just as one may have known all that is said and written of God and yet know Him not at all. Ego is the identification of the Self or Soul with its constantly changing and perishable instruments;, body, mind and life. It is so pre-occupied with itself, so involved and identified with its own workings that it has no time or inclination to detach itself even mentally to know its real nature. Sri Aurobindo has defined ego as a falsification of our true individuality by a limiting self-identification of it with this life, this mind and this body. It separates us from God and all His creation and ties us up to a small, narrow and ignorant ego-centric individuality. it is th e ego-consciousness that suffers from all the dualities of life like love a n d hatred, joy and sorrow, heat and cold etc. and is the ca use of all the strife s and discords of life . T he ego has, .how ever , an important role to play in the ear ly stages of its development from the indistinguishable mass substance of the sub-cans-cient and the inconscient in us. One must develop Ian egoistic personality and know himself a s the mental
a n d vital ego before he can realise himself as the Self or Spirit. E go is the ignorant a n d separative principle in our lives. In spiritual seeking , it must eliminate its elf order to rise to the Unitarian consciousness of the
Spirit. where the ego sees things in division, district

Page 11

tion and separation, the spiritual consciousness sees all as the One Self. This oneness is at the core of the creation and multiplicity and diversity of names and forms are only on the surface. Therefore the Yogi or the spiritual man is always equal-visioned and sees all as the One Self. He makes no distinction between a learned Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and the pariah.

This One Self or Soul is pervasive of the whole universe of its own creation, both animate and inanimate, is near and far but is imperceptible to human intelligence because of its extreme subtlety. The Self in us which is a spark of the Divine has to be uncovered from its sheaths of body, mind and life by persistent and sleepless endeavour. At last when the ego-comrplex is completely dissolved, it manifests itself to the seeker. Then we are one with the Divine and enjoy not only divine peace, bliss and harmony but also share with Him his omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence.

This Divine can be realised in one or two or all the three aspects of its presence, the individual or immanent divine, the cosmic or universal divine and the transcendental or supracosmic divine.

Faith, sincerity, humility, devotion and surrender are absolutely indispensable for the spiritual seeker to realise the Divine. This faith must not be an egoistic faith in one's own strength and capacity but in the Divine Grace and omniscience which knows better than ourselves what is or is not good for us. There must be a constant and unfailing reliance on the divine grace. Sincerity, is to say the least, our only safe-guard in the path and will invoke divine's grace which will infallibly

Page 12

protect us from all dangers and pitfalls of the way. Our devotion must not only be true and sincere but must well out from the depths of our being. Though this is not easy at the beginning, the more we become recipients of the grace the more it becomes spontaneous and sincere till at last it culminates in a whole-hearted surrender to the Divine. Humility is also an essential and indispensable element in the seeking of the Divine. The attitude of the seeker should be :

"Je ne sais rien,

Je ne suis rien,

Je ne puis rien,

Je suis dans L' obscurite de

I' insconscience."

"I do not know anything,

I am nothing, I can do nothing,

I am in the obscurity of the inconscience."

(From the Mother's Prayers &: Meditations)

The Mother has, in a few illuminating sentences clearly brought out the distinction between the Ego and the Self. She observes : The Ego is always thinking of what it wants and has not ; that is its constant preoccupation. The Self is intimately aware of what it is given and continues in endless gratitude.

Page 13

Sri Aurobindo's Message Of Synthesis

Sri Aurobindo's writing are voluminous and they cover an immense variety of subjects ranging from the most ordinary to the most serious and sublime things of human life. Hardly any aspect of life is left out of his vast and extensive field of research and finding. But the central theme and core of all his teaching is spiritual and it is a spiritual and supramental solution that he always advocates as the only conclusion of his most intimate study of all human problems. For the Spirit underlies everything ; it is at the base of life, its apex, centre as well as circumference. There is no escape from its all-pervasive presence if we are to look life straight in the face and not evade its hurdles and difficulties by a mere superficial tinkering nm the surface or a withdrawal from its activities. Everything of this world is to be covered with the Lord, says the Upanishad, and renunciation is recommended as the best means of enjoyment of all its riches and pleasures. If peace and happiness be the goal of human life along with knowledge and power, then we must find the Spirit first and foremost, for the Spirit is everything, it comprises everything true, good and beautiful.

There is no joy in passing, finite and limited things. Therefore, we must seek that which is unlimited, eternal and infinite. As the world is constituted today, no perfection is to be found anywhere other than in the Spirit because it is the only perfect power and principle of our being. But at the same

Page 14

time, these limited worldly things and actions are not to be despised or discarded because they too are a play, a manifestation of the Spirit. All can change, says Sri Aurobindo, if the God-touch is there. If once mankind consents to be spiritualised, all human problems will be automatically solved because in the Spirit which is nothing but Love, Knowledge, Power, Beauty and Bliss, there is no problem. Where can there be room for strife, discord, sorrow and suffering where there is nothing but One ? But this One need not be one white monotony of colour less purity of existence. It can and does deploy itself in an infinite multiplicity. The "Spirit is One but its manifestations are many. But these manifestations are at present only a travesty of the truth of the Spirit because of a heavy pall of ignorance that covers our limited mental intelligence. Once this mist of the ignorance is dispelled by the light of the sun of knowledge (Supermind), we know the world as it truly is—a creation of the Spirit by the Spirit in itself for the manifold enjoyment of its own diversity. This is the .core of Sri Aurobindo's teaching —that the true truth of existence is to be found only in the Spirit, Soul, the Divine Reality or whatever one chooses to call it and once, that is discovered, everything will automatically find its right place is the creation . The .crea to r , created and the creation are one in essence. For the purpose of the play (Lila), it is diverse in manifestation. This is the central truth arid it has a value as much for today as for tomorrow and the future, for he deals with eternal verities which are not subject to fluctuations caused by time, space and

Matter and Spirit have throughout the ages been

Page 15

the subject matter of divergence of philosophy both Eastern and Western and their effect upon the thought and life of the people has either been acceptance of Matter as the basic reality of existence or its denial and the affirmation of the Spirit on the other hand, as the sole truth of life. The antinomy between Spirit and Matter was never entirely resolved though some efforts might have been made now and then to arrive at a compromise between the two. Sri Aurobindo has come to give us a complete synthesis between the two by his own highest and deepest experience in the realms of both. "The affirmation of a divine life upon earth and an immortal sense in mortal existence can have no-base unless we recognise not only eternal Spirit as the inhabitant of this bodily mansion, the wearer of this mutable robe, but accept Matter of which it is made, as a fit and noble material out of which He weaves constantly His garbs, builds recurrently the unending series of His mansions."

But even if we accept the truth both of Matter and Spirit, their difference in practical life is such, Matter seems to be so much a negation of Spirit, that it is difficult to believe that it also is Brahman (Spirit) unless we recognise a series of ascending terms of consciousness linking the one to the other such as life, mind, super-mind and the grades that link mind to supermind ; then only the identification and identity between the two become complete and we can, according to Sri Aurobindo, envisage a divine life upon the earth with Matter as the pedestal and Spirit as the summit of that life.

Spirit is the soul and reality of what we call Matter and Matter is the body and form of the Spirit. There is thus no antinomy between the two. They are one

Page 16

differing only in manifestation. Matter is Spirit involved and Spirit is Matter evolved out of its own involution—a play of hide and seek leading to self-discovery. It is the constant urge of the hidden Spirit to emerge out of its involution that has created the successive steps in the ascension of consciousness into life, mind, higher mind, illumined mind, intuition, over mind—and supermind as the last term of its self-expression. In divine life, this supermind has to be reached through a complete annulment of the separative and limited ego-consciousness and its powers brought down to mind, life and body to create a divine life in Matter through a total and radical transformation of their nature and substance.

In Yoga also which is the practical side of his philosophy, the triple part of Karma, Jnana and Bhakti (Works, Knowledge and Devotion) has to be fused and unified from their exclusiveness into one in the final union with the Supreme. Knowledge culminates in devotion and the two are fused into one by work for the Divine. Synthesis both in philosophy and Yoga of all the apparent strifes and discords is the message of Sri Aurobindo. We have to work it out in our lives both individual and collective to arrive at divine unity, peace, bliss and harmony. And this union can come only by an integral self-giving and surrender of all the parts of our being to the Divine.

Page 17

Churning Of Universal Life - Its Significance

Never before in history has there been such a worldwide crisis in the life of humanity. There is no region of earth which is free from the turmoil and upheaval social, economic and political. From one corner o£ the earth to the other the scene is the same everywhere, disenchantment with the present ways of life in all countries whether large or small, rich or poor. The same malaise has more or less equally affected all the peoples of the earth. There is no peace anywhere. Even in the midst of plenty as in America, West Germany and Japan, there is a growing feeling of the uncertainty of tomorrow and people are almost panic-stricken at the thought of what lies in store for them in the near future, for peace is indivisible.

Add to this the political and economic rivalries of the great powers who, instead of trying to find a solution to their difficulties, are only adding fuel to the fire by resorting to power-politics in every region of the earth making a world-wide conflagration almost a certainty in the not very distant future. If they have so far been deterred from igniting the flames of war, it is the conviction of uncertainty about their own survival in the case of a nuclear holocaust.

But how long, one wonders, will this uncertainty continue ? The day is not probably far off, when tired of waiting for the prospects of a better and brighter future, the belligerent powers may take the decision to start a devastating war both nuclear and conventional

Page 18

which will swallow up the whole world and take it back once again to the dark ages. The whole international relation is poisoned with so much doubt, distrust and animosity that it is difficult even to envisage a peaceful and negotiated settlement of the differences that divide the nations into two powerful camps, the capitalist and the .communist regimes.

A third power will always be on the look-out to fish in the troubled waters and wait like a vulture for the dead end of two contending giants so that it may emerge victorious out of the ruins. These are not mere speculations but those who have an insight into human affairs will confirm their truths. China is bidding its time for a war to break out between U. S. and U. S. S. R. and L J. S. A. for a war between China and Russia. The political and diplomatic moves between the two erstwhile and deadly enemies point to the truth of this assertion. The whole atmosphere of the world has been vitiated by espionage, suspicion and mutual distrust. What a degeneration in international relations that when talks for control of armaments are going on, there is a mad race for arms increase and research for more and more lethal weapons for mutual destruction. Hypocrisy cannot go farther.

In a world where the whole outlook of men and nations is purely materialistic, where the needs of the body are considered more important than the needs of the soul, one cannot expect anything better than pure self-interest for survival and exploitation and domination over the weaker sections of humanity. This had been carried on openly and unashamedly by the colonial powers since the invention of steam, the use of gunpowder and mass destructive devices. People were

Page 19

ruthlessly killed, their lands seized and they were reduced to slaves where wholesale genocide was not feasible. Thus the whole of Africa and Asia was brought under foreign domination for ruthless exploitation of their resources in men and materials. The process still continues under various subterfuges and camouflages but the result is the same. The world is now divided between the haves and have-nots and there is tooth-and-nail resistance on the part of the developed nations to allow anything like equality to their less developed brethren. In the background of a world which is still dominated or sought to be dominated by sheer brute force, superior armaments and developed technology, one cannot expect men and nations to give up their hard-won privileges in having all the comforts and amenities of life. And there is a mad race of competition not only in the political and military spheres among the industrialised nations but also for economic hegemony acquired over the years. This is the overall picture of the world as it is today.

Where moral and spiritual values are at the lowest ebb and the principle of might is right is followed without the least compunctions of conscience, where treachery, falsehood, bribery and corruption are the order of the day, where the principle is each man and nation for himself and itself, how can one expect a world order of peace, amity and harmony ? Individual and national degradation seem to have reached the rock-bottom of degeneracy ; where everything in life and each of its value has touched the bed-rock of moral and spiritual degradation, there is no scope for further degeneration and the destiny of the race, if it is to survive, must recover its goal. From the experience of the material and

Page 20

vital aspects of existence which vitiate even the purely mental and moral life, we must emerge into a spiritual era of living where everything in life will be true, good and beautiful and by realisation of the oneness of the Spirit, we shall realise the essential unity, peace and harmony of a life full of knowledge, power, love and bliss. The age-long preaching of the sages of unity in diversity of the Many in One and of the One in Many, will no longer remain a theory or speculation but will be actually realised in human life.

It is for this that the evolutionary nature is in travail and which she is seeking to deliver to a distressed humanity by churning of the ocean of universal life with all its nectars and poisons. So that the evil and poison-i

Our souls can visit in great lonely hours

Still regions of imperishable Light,

All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power

And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss

And calm immensities of spirit Space.

—Sri Aurobindo.

Page 21

ADDENDUM

Answer to questionnaires regarding the present day ills

of the world.

I am not a prophet who can answer the questions of over-population, hatred, passions and the lust for power that are most characteristics of the crucial age through which the whole humanity is passing. But I have sought to answer in my own way the questions posed by you in this article which was written by me some month ago.

Obviously, the remedy does not lie in our hands. There must be and we believe, there is a higher power that is guiding the destiny of human race through all the toils, strivings and travails of the race. If we see only the dangers and disasters of the present which is obvious even to the most blind, we need not despair of the evolutionary destiny of the human race which is, as you say, heading for destruction.

Even though we try to take a detached view of the whole situation, we are no less pained at what is happening throughout the world now (and not only in India) but knowing as we do that we cannot help or retard the situation by so much as our little finger, we are content to leave things to the Divine who alone is responsible for all the adverse as well as good happenings according to our petty and funny standards of human judge ment, narrow, limited, ignorant and arrogant, at the same time Have patience, see, wait and watch.

Page 22

As it is, the spiritual state of consciousness is rare and difficult to reach. So far what has been achieved was individual. The generalisation of the spiritual consciousness among the whole humanity will not be possible even after the Supramental Power manifests in terrestrial life. There will always be a gradation, an hierarchy of the lrurnan consciousness at different levels, physical, vital, mental and supramental.

The gifts of the spirit crowding came to him ;

They were his life's pattern and privilege.

A pure perception lent its lucent joy ;

Its intimate vision waited not to think ;

It enveloped all Nature in a single glance,

It looked into the very self of things ;

Deceived no more by the form he saw the soul.

—Sri Aurobindo.

Page 23

A Review Of The World As It is - A Rejoinder

The point you have raised and the question posed will require volumes to answer in days and weeks.

But I shall try without much intervention o£ mental thought to answer you as follows : —

I am dealing with these subjects as any layman with moderate knowledge and in touch with the happenings of the world will deal.

First you have to see that there are two forces- working in antagonism—this naturally has been the case all along but their struggles and contradictions have been much accentuated since the last Great World War. On the one side there is some constructive activity on the part of the U. N. O. and on the other hand, a global preparation for vast and immense destructive purposes.

All this is naturally due to ignorance on the part of the human beings who are now entrusted with the governance of their countries. These are being swayed by personal or collective ambitions, desires and impulses to see their countries greatness, power, strength remain unimpaired even at the cost and expenses of other countries. This mentality dominated by the ignorant, crude and self-assertive vital propensities is responsible for the major international troubles and wars in economic and political fields. It was expected by the founders of the U. N. O. the five Great World Powers, U. S., U. S. S. R., France, England and China that the foundation of the U. N. by their collective efforts will bring an era of peace and prosperity throughout the World. But human

Page 24

nature dies hard even death does not end our egoistic and hence ignorant beings. The result was suspicion, distrust and competition among these Superpowers for rivalry in every field except as I mentioned the social, educational, economic end cultural relations. This is where there is some semblance of unity among nations. They act together in cases of floods, famine, earthquakes, epidemics etc., occurring in any part of the world. Otherwise there is antagonism, rivalry and bitter competition in the two major fields of human existence, viz., politics and economics where you can see how the powers are ranged against themselves and spending millions, billions and trillions of dollars etc., simply for destructive purposes of their fellowmen.

If we leave spirituality alone (the domain of saints, sages, seers, Avatars) we shall see the recent resurgence of animosity among all sections of people on account of religious fanaticism, communal clashes, ethnic intolerance etc., is mainly and fundamentally due solely to economic causes the dwindling resources of the people one sect or another, of one country or another and the attempt by force to weed out other nationalities or ethnic groups from their native country. The obsession of humanity even of the elites all over the world for possession of power, pelf and authority has led to a degeneration and downward trend of consciousness even in our own country and elsewhere also to such an extent that some 25 or 30 years back we could not even imagine such a set back in the moral standard of humanity. But all this is perhaps needed for evolutionary purpose. Unless man's consciousness changes from his narrow, selfish, ignorant and limited egoistic individual consciousness to an enlarged, liberated, universal, impersonal

Page 25

and Unitarian consciousness which is the spiritual or Divine consciousness which sees things in their essence of unity and not in the passing phenomena o£ diversity, there is not much hope for the present humanity. Who knows, but an immense devastation and death following a global nuclear war may be necessary to rouse the Real consciousness of man so that he may change and have peace, prosperity and harmony in life.

This is for the future as predicted by Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and other great seers. A new consciousness other than the mental, i.e., Supra-mental or Truth-consciousness will bring about the desired change in Life. But we all must contribute our share.

Even on the struggling Nature left below

Strong periods of illumination came ;

Lightnings of glory after glory burned,

Experience was a tale of blaze and fire,

Air rippled round the argosies of the Gods,

Strange riches sailed to him from the Unseen

Splendours of insight filled the blank of thought.

Knowledge spoke to the inconscient still nesses,

An inspired Knowledge sat enthroned within

Whose seconds illumined more than reason's years ;

—Sri Aurobindo.

Page 26

Continence In Spiritual Life

Spiritual seekers all over the world know that spiritual life is based upon certain moral rules and principles. These are truthfulness, non-injury to others, non-stealing, continence etc. called Yama in Raja Yoga. The others are Niyama which consists of cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study and self-surrender to God, Without these virtues there can be no basis of spiritual life. '

Naturally, when one begins spiritual life under the aegis of a Guru or competent spiritual teacher, many of these qualities will be lacking in the seeker but by practice one comes to acquire them and slowly and gradually enter into spiritual life. The one most imperative need on the part of the seeker is sincerity without which spiritual life is impossible. So those who aspire for spiritual life must be above all very sincere. In spite of his failings in other respects, if he is sincere, he must arrive at the goal one day be it in this or some other life. The spiritual quest is such that once it is begun it will continue throughout our lives till the goal, that is, Yoga (Union) with the Divine is achieved. It may take 'more or less time but patience and perseverance are sure to lead the seeker ultimately to goal. Therefore, if one is sincere and earnest in his quest, he need not despair or give up hope for the Divine is always there to help him out of his difficulties. He who chooses the Infinite, says Sri Aurobindo, has been already chosen by the Infinite.

Page 27

Vivekananda elucidating the 38th Aphorism of Patanjali (by the establishment of continence energy is gained) thus observes : The chaste brain has tremendous energy and gigantic will-power. Without chastity there can be no spiritual strength. Continence gives wonderful control over mankind. The spiritual leaders of men have been very continent and this is what gave them power. Therefore the Yogi must be continent.

Again, the Yogis claim that of all the energies that are in the human body, the highest is what they call Ojas. Now this is stored up in the brain, and the more Ojas is, in a man's head, the more powerful he is* the more intellectual, the more spiritually strong.

Now in every man there is more or less of this Ojas stored up......The Yogis say that part of the human energy which is expressed as sex energy, in sexual thought, when checked and controlled, easily becomes changed into Ojas. It is only the chaste man or woman who can make the Ojas rise and store it in the brain ; that is why chastity has always been considered the highest virtue. A man feels that if he is unchaste, spirituality goes away, he loses mental vigour and moral stamina. That is why in all the religious orders in the world which have produced spiritual giants you will always find absolute chastity insisted upon. There must be perfect chastity in thought, word and deed. If a man leads an impure life, how can he expect to become a Yogi ? (From Vivekananda's Raja Yoga).

Sri Aurobindo likewise has banned all sex, gross or subtle from his Yoga in accordance with the tradition of spiritual seeking. Sex is one of the greatest hinderance to spirituality no less than the ignorant and divisional principle of Ego. The Mother of Sri Aurobindo

Page 28

has put a total ban on all sexual acts for they are so many steps towards death. That is why in ancient times in all sacred and secret institutions this act was interdicted to all spiritual seekers. Continence is the rule for all and for those who aspire for supramental truth, this continence must be replaced by a complete and total abstinence. It goes without saying that for the result to be truly beneficial, all sexual desires, thought and impulsions should be eliminated not only from the mental and vital consciousness but also from the consciousness of the body.

A Sanskrit saying on this subject runs thus : What men call Yoga, is no yoga at all. Brahmacharya (Chastity, continence) is the best of all Yogas.

A few shall see what none yet understands ;

God shall grow up while the wise man talk and sleep

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done.

—Sri Aurobindo

Page 29

Moksha

To turn to the Divine is the only truth in life.

—Sri Aurobindo

Moksha, i.e., the liberation of the Soul from the dominance of Prakriti was considered the highest goal of life from time immemorial. In fact, after the Vedic age and during the period of the Upanishads when the Vedic ritualistic practices fell into disuse and the Jnana kanda came into prominence in our spiritual seeking, the sole objective was to get rid of the subjection of the embodied soul to Prakriti or executive nature. This was behind the whole of Shankara's philosophy of Adwaitavad. He emphasised the existence of the Soul or Atman to the exclusion of the whole of the phenomenal nature because it was something fleeting and evanescent and was regarded as Maya or Illusion which created the illusory Ego which was the cause of so much sorrow, suffering and misery in this short and transitory human existence. The Brahman alone was Real because it was unborn, undying, infinite and eternal and all this phenomenal world was unreal because it was passing and transitional. Xo get rid of this transitory and inconstant phenomenal existence full of hazards of life and its uncertainties and difficulties, it was necessary to dissolve the ego-complex and then only we could enter into the Divine Life and enjoy the bliss of life while it lasted. This spiritual ideal became so wide-spread and deep-rooted in the mind of Indian people that life and matter were neglected in an exclusive

Page 30

pursuit of the Spirit and the moment one realised it, he attained to the bliss of Brahman. Naturally, even this was not an easy job to accomplish and the hundreds and even thousands who succeeded in realising their Self were emulated by the rest who had a spiritual seeking. Thus at the top level of Indian humanity, the very best were cut off from the world and the result was failure of vital and material life which was considered fit only for the ignorant masses. This state of affairs continued to be prevalent up to the advent of Ramkrishna and Vivekananda. Vivekananda wanted to broadcast the spiritual message of the Gita and Upanishads by bringing it out of the caves and mountains and give a new orientation to life but he never thought of transformation of human nature both vital and physical which he compared to the tail of a dog which could never become straight—it must always revert to its crooked curl of nature. At a higher vital and mental level, one could live a spiritual life and to that extent enjoy the bliss of the Brahman. The ignorant world had thus no prospect, no chance to get better and would .continue the same scene of sorrow, suffering and misery that it was from the start of this terrestrial life.

Sri Aurobindo had to delve deeper and soar higher than all our previous attempts to better life in this earth and he found a clue to this mystery in the Vedic literature where he found the gospel of the Truth consciousness or Supermind as he termed it. This was "beyond the ordinary spiritual consciousness which meant the arrival at the stage of separation of Purusha or the Soul from Prakriti and was never tried even by the Vedic Rishis to bring down to earth. Like the

Page 31

mental consciousness and Power which has been in operation on earth shaping a race of mental beings, this supramental consciousness has to be brought down to earth to shape a race of spiritual or gnostic beings and it his is what he has done by sacrificing his own life for the future of humanity.

This will naturally take time for its manifestation as Mind took time to appear in the life-being of the animals. The evolutionary principle works through gradual and progressive stages and not through violent and cataclysmic upheavals. This is all I have to say about the importance given to Moksha or withdrawal from life in the past.

It has been often charged that, striving for Spiritual liberation or Moksha, is selfishness on the part of the individual. Moksha or liberation is not the pursuit of self realisation on the part of an individual . Is the pursuit of knowledge, selfishness? If not, why should the pursuit of the highest knowledge, i .e., self- knowledge be considered such? The play of involution and evolution, of self .concealment and self discovery is the 'Lila ' of the Divine one. Every being and everything is inhabited by the Divine which is His own self-creation, then why should not soul in man seek the Divine attracted like iron to magnet t? It is the nature of the soul to realise its highest self, i.e., the Divine inhabitant in his own and in the body of the whole creation. Naturally, it is only in the human embodiment and at the highest at that, this search for the Divine self begins. This is the principle of the evolutionary Nature of the Consciousness- the physical aspect to which we pay so much attention is only secondary and derivative. The higher and higher forms of creation embody higher and higher

Page 32

form of consciousness—till in the man of realisation the highest, i.e., the Sat-chit-ananda is realised. Then you know, the spiritually realised soul does not live for himself alone but for the good of the entire creation. Why should the self realised Soul, the Guru, Guide, Avatar and others have tried by their examples, teaching and influence to raise humanity to their own levels if they were not inspired and motivated by a sense of Oneness, the unity of the whole creation ?

"Earth must transform herself and equal Heaven

Or Heaven descend into earth's mortal state.

But for such vast spiritual change to be.

Out of the mystic cavern in man's heart

The heavenly Psyche must put off her veil

And step into common nature's crowded rooms

And stand uncovered in that nature's front

And rule its thoughts and fill the body and life.'"

—Sri Aurobindo

Page 33

EVOLUTIONARY TYPES—RELIGIOUS & SPIRITUAL MAN

Although all men look similar to one another, there is always a great difference in their mental and moral consciousness so much so that at the lowest end of the human mental development, men represent more or less animal consciousness and are almost on the same mental plane with the animals of developed intelligence. These men represent the physical mind and belong in the terminology of the Gita to the class of tamasic type. Tamas is the principle of inertia and ignorance and-these men have no higher objectives in life than those demanded by the necessities of sheer physical existence. At a higher stage of human mental development, we have what is called the rajasic type who are active, dynamic and kinetic in their nature. They are motivated by lust of power and enjoyment and are never satisfied with the routine and ordinary life like the physical man. They are the pioneers in the adventurous games of life like science and technology and extend the limits of physical existence by their inventions and discoveries of nature's secrets. Above this type, we have the purely mental man of the sattwic type who lives in the mind and things of the mind, artists, writers, poets, philosophers and others. The sattwic type is noted for light, balance and harmony, for truth, honesty, kindness, compassion etc. etc. and are strictly moral and aesthetic in their nature. They represent the highest human development within the range of mental intelligence but cannot go beyond the limited field of knowledge-ignorance of the mind. They can glimpse the truth from afar and even point!

Page 34

the way to reach it but for that another consciousness is needed and that is the spiritual .consciousness. When the mind and mental consciousness is completely exceeded, the spiritual or truth-consciousness begins. The spiritual is in effect the reversal of the mental consciousness, for, where the mind sees things in division, distinction and separation, the spiritual vision is Unitarian. It looks at the essential unity at the core, the oneness at the centre and diversity only at the surface of the manifestation of the One Spirit.

Spiritual consciousness thus lies at the summit of and beyond mental consciousness which begins with the physical mind and ends with the purely mental or sattwic mind with the rajasic development in the middle. This, in short, is the course of evolutionary development of human mental consciousness.

We regard the sattwic or the religious men as' the highest manifestation of mental consciousness. And they represent a fairly large number of human beings. Poets, philosophers, writers, artists, painters, sculptors and others are the at-present highest type of human mental development but they are all confined within the limits of knowledge-ignorance of the mind. The spiritual men, on the other hand, have exceeded the limits of mind and have by the highest human effort reached the spiritual status. This is a very difficult and arduous task and those who have thus reached the spiritual status are called the spiritual men. So we see the rarity of this type of men amongst us. If we have sattwic or religious men by thousands, spiritual men can be counted only on fingers. They are one or even less in a million. Saints, sages, mystics, prophets and incarnations of the Divine are rare and hard to find anywhere in the

Page 35

world. Their presence helps to uplift humanity by setting examples of egoless ness, disinterested work, truth and divine love and compassion before the rest of humanity. Men are confined to their ego-consciousness which ties them down to their narrow and ignorant body-mind life complex and separates them from all other human beings and living objects as something other than themselves. The Divine is One but His manifestations are diverse and many. If only man can reach the Divine, he can realise his unity with the whole of creation. This is the whole principle of spiritual life but it is a slow, long, difficult and and process.

That is why men generally have shunned this path and chosen in spite of the vicissituales of life, its sorrows and sufferings, blows and buffets, to live the easy, familiar and ignorant lives which have come down to them from generations to generations.

No human problem has been effectively solved to this day by the effort of mere mind. They are growing more complex and insoluble so life continues to be as poor, unhappy, dark and ignorant as ever before. If a change for the better of human life is to be brought about, it must be done by men taking to the spiritual path. There is no other way. Mind and mental humanity have long been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Hence the imperative necessity of the spiritual change. And this can only be brought about by spiritual men by their single and combined efforts.

Page 36

The Present Ills Of Life And Their Remedy

The definition of civilisation, its signs and characteristics have so often and so thoroughly been gone into in the recent and past history of mankind that they do not need any re-iteration here. If adherence to moral and spiritual values constitutes civilisation, then admittedly we are not living now in a civilised world. This deterioration of moral and spiritual values applies equally to individuals and nations of the whole world as we know it at present. There is hardly any exception. No country or community can claim to be completely civilised in the light of what constitutes real as opposed to faked civilisation barring some hundreds, nay, even thousands of individuals to be found amongst the various nations who constitute the world community to-day.

What are these moral and spiritual values which are the core of civilisation ? They are certainly truth, honesty, sincerity, uprightness, kindness, love, compassion and right and just dealings between individuals and between nations. Do we find these among men and nations of the world to-day save a few thousands here and there ? But a few thousand people do not constitute a nation ; they are to be considered rather as exceptions than rules to the all-round deterioration of moral and spiritual conduct which has unfortunately overwhelmed the bulk of humanity. In international

Page 37

relations hypocrisy, insincerity, dishonesty, falsehood, treachery and suspicion have come to govern the conduct of nations.

A civilised existence would ensure freedom from fear and suspicion in our individual, national and international relations. No treachery or breach of faith should vitiate individual and collective life. Mentally, humanity has progressed beyond imagination from the beginnings of our ancestors, the cavemen, hunters and nomads who lived more or less animal lives though they were far superior to the animals in intelligence. But having once settled to agricultural life, men developed various arts and sciences. A fairly civilised existence commenced with pursuits of higher arts and sciences. Music, poetry, literature, painting, architecture, sculpture were cultivated. A collective life with ideas and ideals of philanthropy, humanitarianism and social services was built up in course of a few centuries. Medical, engineering and other sciences grew. Man began slowly and consciously to master his environment. Navigation developed from its crude beginnings. And the industrial revolution with the discovery of steam-power brought about a thorough revolution in men's and nations' external lives.

With the growth of international trade and commerce came the phenomena of colonialism. The use of fire-power enabled the colonial powers to conquer other people's lands and territories and exploit their human and material resources for their own aggrandizements to the infinite misery of the conquered people who were turned into slaves of the conquerors. Thus selfishness, greed, tyranny and exploitation came to take the

Page 38

place of love, sympathy and understanding of others which formerly characterised the life of a simple and primitive people. Greed, rapacity, treachery and violence took the place of their opposites with the result that men became more and more brutalised in their dealings not only with their inferiors but also with other fellowmen of their own ranks. two great wars were fought ostensibly to ensure peace but really to entrench the superior powers in their newly acquired territorial possessions. This has continued to this day and international relations have so much deteriorated that double-dealing, duplicity, treachery and spying are no longer counted as something wrong, harmful and un civilised but are resorted to as a matter of principle which justifies the dictum : Everything is fair in love and war. This is the state at which the so-called civilised human beings of the day have arrived. What farther degeneration awaits humanity is known only to the gods.

The age-long remedy suggested for this downward trend of humanity has been, since the time of the Buddha, to inculcate moral teachings which are universal in principle and applicable to all. But from the results it is clear that no amount of moral teaching and preaching is effective for transformation of the crude human nature however mentally enlightened. So, Buddha's teaching of ahimsa, non-violence, love and compassion has come to naught. Latterly, in our days, it was sought to be revived by Gandhi but his powerful advocacy of truth and non-violence has also become ineffective in the life not only of humanity in general but of his own countrymen in particular and he had to

Page 39

acquiesce in the outburst of violence that overtook the whole country following his "Quit India" slogan in the early forties of this century.

It is a tragic irony of fate that the apostle of nonviolence should himself fall a victim to the bullet of an assassin. Political- murder and violence have since become a commonplace all over the world.

Lying, violence, insincerity, hypocrisy and dishonesty have become rampant in the whole world and have almost turned into a way of daily life of mankind. Commercialism, is the bane of the day. And profit-making being the sole motive behind commercialism, it is to earn money any how, by hook or crook, by means fair or foul that has become the order of the day. More than 200 years ago, the Irish poet wrote in an inspired vein : Till fairs the land to hastening ills a prey/Where wealth accumulates, men decay. This truth is more than amply borne out by the insane craze for accumulation of wealth both individually and nationally and the inevitable result is the decadence of all moral and spiritual values which is sure to lead men and nations to utter and absolute ruin.

What. then, is the remedy to arrest this downward trend of human mentality which claims to have reached the acme of civilisation because of its scientific and technological achievements ? A journey to the moon or space shuttles has certainly not solved the many complex, subtle and intriguing problems of human life. The many mechanical and electrical gadgets may have added to the comforts and luxuries of physical existence and instant communication by means of radio and television may have brought humanity closer but they have not certainly solved the basic problems of selfish-

Page 40

ness and ego. For the ego is a falsification of our true individuality by a limiting self-identification of it with one mind, one body and one life which are constantly changing from birth to death. What then is the true being which animates us and is changeless, eternal and infinite ? A little reflection will convince us that it is not the mind much less- our life and body which is eternal and imperishable, and makes us one with all and with God who is the One and Unique source of this manifested creation rich and varied and manifold in nature. This is the Spirit, Atman or Brahman and it is to the discovery of this secret entity in us that all our hit man life and effort have to turn to make our lives happy, peaceful and blissful with the antecedent omniscience and omnipotence (knowledge and power) which are lacking in us at the present. To rise above our ignorant, narrow and selfish mentality which is the creation of the ego-prim, ciple in us which sees and acts in division, separation and distinction is then, the first and foremost task of a really enlightened and civilised humanity. The rest are only ancillary and secondary to this principal object of our life which is to discover the divine Reality in us in place of the Ego. A new orient tation of our life from the ignorant mental to spiritual and supramental consciousness is the call of the Spirit in us and to ignore this call is to invite certain defeat, death and disaster both for men and nations. It is the heightening, widening and deepening of the ignorant mental to the spiritual and supramental or truth consciousness that is the need of the hour. The task is no doubt difficult and arduous but this is the only remedy for the present ills of life. There is no other way.

Page 41

EXPRESSION

The opposite of expression is repression. When we repress our honest feelings, it may cause complication. We are not, however, free to express all our feelings, so the question of which feelings to express is constantly with us. There is no easy answer to that,, but it is helpful for us to realize that the greatest creation of man is a loving expression of self. Personality and character are our gifts to the world. Learning to express our feelings in a positive manner is a worthy goal.

Page 42

Passing Of This Civilisation

To all appearances, we are heading for a new birth, a new civilisation through all the throes, pangs and turmoil's of the present times. The crisis in human destiny was never so acute as now. Never in the history . of man such rapid and revolutionary changes took place in his life throughout the globe as humanity is facing today. This is only a prelude to some corning significant change of which few of us are really conscious. To a discerning intellect it ought to be evident that ours is a world which is constantly changing ; there is nothing stable even for a moment. It is in a state of constant flux and what appears stable is only an illusion of the senses. It is like the mass of waters of a river which gives some appearance of stability when there is no current or flow satisfactory to the eyes. Or, a block of stone which apparently shows no signs of change but which is changing slowly all the while because of the action of the sun, rain and wind. Motion of Matter in Space, motion of change in Time are the condition of our existence. But such is the veil of Maya or Illusion, man seldom takes .cognizance of this constant change in his life and surroundings and goes on as if things are fixed and stable for ever. But for this illusion, there could not be the continuance of the world. A rational and intelligent human being would certainly get disgusted with this perpetual change and would prefer to remain inactive because of the lack of certitude that life would always remain fixed, pleasant and prosperous.

Page 43

For the bulk of humanity there is no choice or will ; they are like the dumb driven cattle.

This is the rationale of the working of the Divine Conscious Force which is at work behind all the happenings of this world. If men were always conscious that tunings would not remain fixed and stable, they would not in all probability accept life and withdraw from it in the hope of finding some ultimate solution to this mystery—something that is stable and permanent. And for this human failure, the world as we know it, would certainly come to an end. There would be no progress in life, material or spiritual and stagnation would be the result of a creation meant to be always progressive even in the midst of this eternal change and flux.

During the last fifty years of the epoch in which we are living, materialistic civilisation seems to have reached its acme—if we can add to it the prospect of man's flying in the air with a vertical uplift like the helicopter for a short distance and in fair weather—the picture of our scientific and technological achievements will be more or less complete. Man has subjugated earth, air and water and by his discoveries reduced space and time almost to the vanishing point. His scientific and technological achievements are reflected in immense increase in industrial and agricultural output with an inconceivable increase in global trade, commerce, communication and transport. All these testify to human intelligence and capacity to reorganize life on earth on a better and more decisively improved scale than when he began his life as a cave man or a nomad. But unfortunately he is no better now notwithstanding his vast advance in materialistic civilisation than what he was mentally and morally during his

Page 44

first primitive stage. He continues to remain the same narrow, self-regarding petty egoistic being that he was in the past and has not enlarged his .consciousness in conformity with his material achievements. Millions of years have passed from the stone and iron age which marked his step by step advance in conquering the domain of matter but he is even now in his inner life what he was in those primitive times. He has conquered outer nature but his inner nature remains the same, beyond his control. His passions, instincts, desires and impulses still dominate him. He has no control over his senses. He is not master of himself though he has a great mastery and control over the external nature. He has no doubt developed the powers of reason but this reason turns traitor the moment his own self-interest is affected. And this—not only for the individual human being but also for the collective life. Greed, lust for power and domination over others are his characteristic nature even in these days of so-called enlightened self-interest which is only an euphemism for blatant exploitation of others. He is at enmity not only with his neighbour but also at loggerheads with whomsoever stands in the way of the aggrandise ment of his individual and collective ego. Thus sects are ranged against sects, tribes against tribes, religion against religion and nations against nations. He wages relentless wars against his own kind and is seeking complete destruction of his enemies by constant attempts at new discoveries of the most lethal weapons. He has no scruples of conscience to grab and confiscate the land of others and perpetrate genocide in order to be sovereign over others. From this point of view, namely aggression against his so-called enemies, he is

Page 45

no better than animals who have no compunctions of .conscience because mind is not developed in them. Whereas the elite of the present humanity who have been put at the helm of the governments of their countries by popular choice betray the same intolerance towards other nations and communities simply because their social, political and economic ideologies differ.

Now, if humanity is to survive, this mentality must be completely eliminated from our nature. Man must first be master of himself before he can be master of others. Brute force can subjugate for a time but this is only for a time, for, "Freedom's battle once begun Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son/ Though baffled oft/is ever won".

If all the past civilisations have perished in the incessant change and flux of the times, there is no reason why this materialistic civilisation of the present which typifies ever-increasing speed and commercialism with all their attendant evils, should not also disappear. So, let us prepare for a better, higher and more enduring type of civilisation to replace it in which stress should be laid on the life of the Spirit, for Spirit is One, infinite and immutable amidst the constant changes of the phenomenal world. The future civilisation is destined to be a spiritual civilisation which will bring to humanity all that it lacks at present, rlamely, Consciousness, Power, Peace, Bliss, Harmony and Love, in other words, a Divine Life on earth.

Page 46

This Commercial Civilisation Must Go

Greed, excessive greed for profit has no doubt brought about this present imbalance in international economic relations as lust for power has politically divided the world into communist and capitalistic blocks making one the avowed enemy of the other. That the world is heading towards a major disaster is evident to any discerning intellect ; it does not require a prophet or seer to forecast the calamitous end to which men and nations are heading with such amazing rapidity. Is there no remedy to arrest this dangerous trend in the affairs of humanity at large ,?

Lust, anger and greed like other evils such as jealousy, ill-will, fear and hatred etc. are inherent in human nature. Education and mental enlightenment have not been able to eliminate these ingrained evils of vital and physical nature. On the other hand, the more clever and intelligent one is, the less scrupulous he becomes in his dealings with his fellowmen. Whatever might have been the case before, the exceptions are rare now-a-days. Hypocrisy, insincerity and dishonesty have become customary and normal in dealings between men and men and nations and nations. Mind itself becomes deformed and reason turns traitor the moment our own vital, i.e. self interest is affected. Perverted logic from the mental source comes to justify and bolster the claims, calls and impulsions of our vital nature. There is no compunction of conscience in economic and political relations. Lust for power and greed for gain have become the sole criterion of individual

Page 47

and international relations. The exceptions are few and rare.

To add to all these vicious trends, unabashed worship is offered to Mammon and Power-god everywhere in this iron age. No regard is paid to the man of virtue or the pious man ; he is laughed at as an imbecile unfit to live in this world of thriving wickedness and sin. The honest politician has no place in the politics of his country or the world. He must be corrupt and unscrupulous to gain the plaudits of the multitude. The good discriminating few have no place in this degenerate world where false standards and values count and prevail. Even children are taught by examples of their elders that earning of money is- the ultimate object of life and all their education is meant to qualify them for this ulterior end so that they may live a life of comfort and luxury.

When civilisation flourishes under the garb of increasing commercialism and politics becomes a power-hunt' for men and nations disregarding all the cherished moral and spiritual values of the past, it only indicates the extent and enormity of the degeneration. We have probably touched the bed-rock of moral and spiritual degradation. Now a powerful lever is needed to raise humanity from the level of beasts to which it has sunk (except in a few rare cases) to the level of the gods.

And for this the only remedy is to banish commercialism and debased politics from the consciousness of men and nations. This is no easy task. But no great achievements have ever been possible without great and sustained efforts. Look at the achievements of mere physical science which is a bagatelle compared to

Page 48

spirituality. How many thousands of skilled and unskilled labour, scientists and technologists went into work for preparation for a journey to the moon or a space shuttle and how marry millions and billions of dollars were spent on them^for how many decades of years ?

Spirituality which lies at the core of life but which is hidden from all ordinary sense and mental perceptions also needs the same serious and ardent preparations for years before it can become operative in the life of men and nations ; but that is no reason why it should be relegated to the back-ground in the hope that a future humanity will take up the task of our redemption. No, it is high time that each one of us and specially the elites made a sincere and strenuous effort to recover our lost spiritual heritage and became truly enlightened and civilised men and women. The cost in monetary terms is nil.

KEY

Wouldn't it be wonderful if you had a magic key that could open all the doors to success and happiness in life ? You have that key ! It is called "receptivity". The things that you are receptive to in life ultimately are attracted to you. It is as Katherine Hunch man Newcomb has said : "Can you not see that you must develop ? You must have openness of mind—receptivity. Some people are living in pint pots with the covers down. Where are you living ?" Lift the cover off and be receptive. It is the magic key to progressive living.

Page 49

A Real Yogi

In this intellectual age, Yoga, a carefully worked out practical science, is often confused with mere intellectual knowledge. That is way we find a plethora of so-called yogis who sell their yoga-knowledge. A real yogi who has realised his Self, Soul or the divine Reality of his being, is rare and difficult to meet. The yogi never sells his yoga-knowledge for any consideration whatsoever. He alone is the divinely appointed Teacher who imparts spiritual knowledge only to' those who are .capable of receiving it. There are not many who are really capable of receiving the light of spiritual knowledge. A certain mental and moral development in the right direction is necessary for a conscious spiritual evolution. Only when there is an unquenchable fire of aspiration for the Divine and a real thirst for spiritual knowledge, does the seeker inevitably meet the right Guru and undergoes the baptism of fire under his influence. And once the awakening touch is received, there is no rest for the soul till it reaches the goal of all spiritual seeking, viz., union with the Divine either in one life or in a few lives of continuous self-progression.

Several years back from now, I had my first encounter with a real yogi whose miraculous powers have left an abiding impression on me. I was not very much prone to believe in miracles and wanted to put all such exhibitions of abnormal or super normal powers to the test of verification by scientific means. These means, alas, are useless when applied to occult and supra-physical phenomena which we come across from time to time.

Page 50

In a remote ashram in an out-of-the-way place in U. P. I met the yogi who had a tall erect figure and the energy and vitality of youth although he was far advanced in age. He received us—my father, grand-mother and a cousin of only 9 years—with the usual geniality and benevolence of a realised soul after we had made our customary pranams by touching his feet. He himself prepared our food in the smoldering fire of a log of wood which had only to be activated for the needed cooking. This he did three times a day without any aid from any quarter.

His activity during the whole day lay in ministering to the needs of the people who .came to him for all kinds of succour. The sick, the distressed, the mentally deranged and the officials who wanted promotion and transfer—all came to him in spite of the fact that the place was remote from all human habitations and difficult of access. There was no human tenement within the radius of a mile of his ashram. From my constant watch of the Ba Baji for the 5 days of my stay with him, I concluded that he must have conquered sleep.

My first feeling on entering the ashram was that of a peace of mind which I had never had before. It was all spontaneous and .came naturally because of the atmosphere of peace that his very presence radiated. We soon became intimate and went together for long walks along the bank of the Jamuna which flowed sluggishly by. He narrated to me various spiritual experiences. I was not satisfied with the narrations and frankly told him that I could believe in the Divine only when some concrete instances of power were demonstrated to me. He only smiled at my audacious challenge.

Page 51

One evening he took me out on a stroll with my young cousin. We had to cross a narrow channel of water but it was not easy for me to leap it with the boy in my arms. The Babaji easily crossed it in one effortless bound. When my turn came I felt that I was going to fall in the water but instantly some strange power pushed my legs over to the other side. This was a real surprise to me, for without this unexpected happening, I was sure to splash in the water. When I recounted to the Babaji what had happened, lie significantly gave me a smile and said nothing. But this was to be followed by a more serious and concrete exhibition of supernormal power. He divined what was passing or about to pass in my mind even before the thought had taken regular form. Thus he shattered all my egoistic self-confidence and made me humble. What a power was there in the man ! He could see into the workings of your mind even from a distance and expose them even before you had the slightest chance to forestall him.

He recounted many incidents in which he had done daring acts at the risk of death to himself to prove that the yogi by virtue of this superconscient knowledge is not bound by the laws of physical nature. For example, he had on more than one occasion swallowed big lumps of opium and held deadly cobras captive in his hand only to let them off unscathed afterwards. There were also nocturnal encounters with wild beasts such as wolves, leopards, panthers and others that let him pass quietly because they were made to feel that he was not only non-violent and fearless but full of love and compassion for all ! For behind the appearances of men and beasts, he saw the presence of the one Divine in all. Countless instances of miraculous cures of hope-

Page 52

less cases were cited to me by witnesses who were present on the spot and whose testimony could not be called in question any more than my own.

He lived up to the tenets of the Gita for the welfare of every being, ceaselessly working for men and women and consciously gave up his body when he felt that his mission in life was over.

The following lines are my tribute to such a person written long after his passing away :

THE LIVING-FREE

Love of fame I laugh to scorn ;

Wealth I hold in lighter esteem.

Men die daily and are daily born

For purposes that to themselves are dim.

Letters, sciences, crafts and arts—

All have a value of their own ;

But the science of science and art of arts,

Life remains a mystery still unknown.

He who has fathomed the secrets of life

And has crossed the ocean of death—

For him no more struggle and strife,

Sorrow and suffering that inhere in mortal breath.

That man is a Jivan Mukta, the living-free,

A refuge to all like the sheltering tree.

Page 53

Longevity In The Ashram

In 1920's average longevity of an Indian, if I recollect correctly, was a mere 23 years only. In ig8o's it has reached the national average of about 57 years. A record increase in about 80 years. This is due to the control and eradication of four largest epidemics in the country namely, plague, cholera, small-pox and malaria which used to take toll of millions and millions of lives annually. The high rate of infant mortality of those times has also been successfully reduced thanks to the improvements of the hygienic conditions of the people. On the whole, there has been a' great improvement in medical and public health care and the social services which are also to be taken account of in the reduction of mortality and increase of average expectation of life: Where formerly it was difficult to find a man of the age of sixty, it no longer seems so strange and bizarre to meet a man of seventy, eighty and even upwards. Two factors are then responsible for this more than doubling of the average expectation of life, viz., control of epidemics and reduction of infant mortality. There is a greater awareness now of the value of the health and hygienic needs in the country. After independence numerous urban and rural health centres have been established in the country like India with its numerous population which is on the increase to the tune of 15 millions a year, it is a meagre, it must be conceded that something substantial has been done to meet the health challenge of the people. Efforts are on the way and we hope to see better results in the not very distant future ensuring health and longevity of its people.

Page 54

The Ashram here is unique in respect of the average life-expectation of its inmates. It is nothing unusual to find any number of men and women here ranging from 70 upwards to go. I cite one of the instances : In one house alone there were three above eighty, three above seventy and a few below. In one family alone there are five from above eighty to ninety. All this has been possible due to strict disciplined life and dietary habits of the inmates.

It has been observed that walking is one of .the best exercises for the old people. In the Ashram there are a number of persons above 80 who do walking from four to six hours a day. And all of them are keeping good health.

There are fixed times for the three meals served here. They are purely vegetarian but quite nutritious. They contain milk, curds, bananas and brown bread and rice in addition to the usual dal and vegetables. It has been observed, that those who take too much protein food like meat and fish have been more subject to ailments than the pure vegetarians. Not only the average longevity of an ashramite is greater than the Indian average but the ashramites generally have better health than the people of the same age outside.

In Georgia, a state in the U. S. S. R. it is nothing unusual to meet people above 100. The climate of the place added to dietary habits of the inhabitants accounts for this rather strange phenomenon. People who live in hilly and mountainous countries and have to walk up and down the valleys for their daily work are also said to be very long-lived.

Page 55

THE SECRET OF THE ALLIES' SUCCESS IN WORLD WAR II

(Few realise that the age-old adage, "Man proposes and God disposes", is the quintessence of wisdom distilled by the sages. The truth of the adage can never be questioned because it bears the testimony of countless generations of men. Human will is always impotent before the Will of the Divine who has always the final decision in all matters terrestrial and supra-terrestrial.

If in spite of the glaring impotency of human" will, men still believe that they are all-mighty and all-knowing, it only betrays their folly, ignorance and arrogance. Instances of such movements of the human ego are not rare. They are common to men placed at the helm of the governance of their countries whether chosen democratically or come to power dictatorially. To overlook the existence of a Power which is infinitely greater than any human power, single or combined, is to invite danger and disaster. This we have seen in the case of Napoleon, Hitler and Tojo.

We do not really know the source of their defeat but attribute it to adverse circumstances and a combination of forces against them. This is only a superficial and therefore misleading knowledge of the true causes of their downfall. Men in pride of power, authority and governance will always claim that it is they and their superior intelligence and strategy that have brought their victories but the real and unquestionable source of their victory is certainly not their superiority but the intervention of some higher Power, sometimes

Page 56

the highest, that we can conceive of in our sober and detached assessment of the Truth. Or, who could have conceived of the disastrous defeat of the victorious Nazis after their resounding success at Narvik and Dunkirk ?

It is said that whom God wants to destroy, He first makes mad. Is it not true in the case of the ill-fated invasion of Russia by Napoleon and Hitler and of the bombing of Pearl Harbour by Tojo's air-arm, a bombing, which was but a brilliant passage to a terrible doom ? To deny this is to evince lack of the most elementary knowledge of human affairs.

So long as human beings, even the most mentally developed ones, are involved in the life of the ego which is a deformation of our true Being which is the self, soul or the divine reality in us, this higher knowledge is denied to us. Yet, a foreknowledge might be ours if we could always take the Spirit's stand. As Sri Aurobindo says :

"An inspired Knowledge sits enthroned within

Whose seconds illumine more than reason's years"

(Savitri)

Sri Aurobindo has envisaged the possibility of human beings, the elites, transcending the mental ignorance and rising to the truth of the spirit which is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. If by spiritual self-discipline and self-surrender to the divine Power, we eliminate the ego and identify ourselves with the Divine, then we also become omniscient and omnipotent. This is not an impossible ideal ; this identification has been achieved by all spiritual Masters who have appeared on the human scene from time to

Page 57

time in order to lift the veil of ignorance and darkness from men's eyes. Sri Aurobindo has himself affirmed his role in defeating the Japanese and the Nazis. When they were victoriously progressing in their march to world-domination, he used his spiritual powers to stop their victories and turn them into defeat and disaster. This is the inner history of how the world was saved from domination by the Asuras. Likewise the Mother used her spiritual powers in making the Chinese withdraw from the Indian plains in the 1962 war.

To the ordinary unenlightened human mind entrenched in ego, ignorance and self-assertion, all these events may seem to be chimerical. Till we have raised ourselves above the limited horizon of our half-enlightened mental intelligence, the truth of spiritual living with its unity, peace and harmony, its knowledge, power, love and bliss will look like an impossible ideal, or, if possible, meant only for a few and not for humanity in general. But spiritual truth like all other truths is a fact of life and has been more or less generalised in human lives in the past. All we can do now is to surrender to the Divine, the Omnipotent Power which guides our destinies and be identified with Her in our knowledge, will and action. Then only the miracle will have been achieved and human life become life 'divine.

Page 58

A Letter On Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine

Even if Life Divine appears too difficult for you to understand, I can only ask you to persevere with it so that, light of understanding may dawn upon you one day. I am compelled to accept whatever Sri Aurobindo writes as true and authentic and have only to realise their truth by practice and practical application in life. Even if one understands his writings intellectually, they are of no use unless and until you practise them in actual day-to-day life. Otherwise, all remain in the intellectual domain and are useless for the purpose of life. You can never be sure of understanding the Life Divine in all' its details but you can have an idea of the principles.

There are two views of life, one materialistic and the other, spiritual and both of them are partially and not wholly true. But if you can synthesis them and unify them in a comprehensive understanding, then you can arrive at the integral knowledge. The materialistic view though true from the point of view of the external senses and objective knowledge is opposed by spiritual knowledge which is based on subjective experiences which are not verifiable by objective tests. Physical life suffers from the experience of dualities like heat and cold, hunger and thirst, pain and pleasure, attractions and repulsions etc. which are so true to ordinary human consciousness but there is the subjective way of evading or escaping them by complete detachment and living in the spirit. The spiritualists claim that theirs is an abiding and eternal reality while matter

Page 459

and material life are subject to constant change and are fleeting and transitory.

The sages have .found that there is an eternal Reality stable and unchanging behind this phenomenal world of constant change. Matter or material life is subject to birth, growth,, development and decay and nothing .can stop this process of creation, preservation and destruction. But what is matter ? It is only a form taken by energy in this eternal work of creation, preservation and destruction. This is the work of Chit-Shakti, the conscious Power of the Divine. Shiva and Kali are one, not two. When at rest, it is Shiva and when creating, it becomes Kali.

These phenomenal creations of trillions of names and forms are not outside itself for there is nothing except this sole abiding one Existence or the Existent which is described by the sages as Brahman. This Brahman has a triple character, 1) Transcendental or Absolute beyond the reach of mind and senses, of thoughts and words ; 2) Being or sat-chit-ananda and lastly, 3) Becoming of the Being which we call the. world of phenomena in which He hides himself for discovery by the supreme head of this creation, namely, men. He is no doubt the summit of the present creation and far exceeds the rest of it in intelligence. But he is still masked by the ignorance and obscurity of the material creation and only by a supreme effort at self-finding does he at last discover Ih is true nature, that is the nature of the Sat-chit-ananda. This is the divine play and all those have realised their true being have unanimously testified to this truth of creation.

Now with all this data of creation given, of involution and evolution of the -divine consciousness, it will not

Page 460

be difficult to follow the evolutionary process which is the sole theme of the Divine Life. Sat or existence becomes Matter, Chit or Consciousness hides itself in conscience and Ananda into its opposite insensibility. 'The first to emerge from this swoon of inconscience is matter, dull and insensitive, then slowly life emerges in the form of vegetable Kingdom with clearly discernible consciousness in plants and trees and afterwards in worms, insects, reptiles, birds and beasts and lastly, in animals of developed intelligence like cats" dogs, cows and horses etc. to be ultimately followed by hum in beings of dwarf intelligence, the intelligent human creator from its primitive appearance in cavemen, nomads and hunters and lastly, the developed intelligence of thinkers, writers, poets, artists, painters, sculptors, architects, musicians and scientists of different denominations. But all these at the summits of human mental intelligence have still to work under the shadow of the ignorance cast on them when the Divine created them and gave them freedom to separate their cortscrotrsriess from the supreme divine consciousness, that is, these intelligent human beings are still subject to the original inconscience illumined -to some extent by progressive growth of knowledge and consciousness culminating in the attainment of the supreme divine consciousness through various turns and vicissitudes of ignorance in several lives of continuous self-progression towards the supreme self-knowledge.

ADDENDUM

Further to the above letter, I thought of writing in some details about our traditional Yoga and Spirituality

Page 461

and Sri Aurobindo's supramental Yoga which is a complete departure from the tradition, so far, as the end and aim of this new Yoga is concerned, One without a second, our philosophical tenet has not been adequately matched by the other tenet. Which is ; Verily All this is Brahman—One and the Many, this is the starting point of all our philosophical disputes. We lose sight of the experience and realisation of the ancient sages that the One has become Many and the Many are One. When actual realisation comes we see that the One divine in All.

All are the Divine—and there is nothing else besides. If we forget that, He is not only in everything but is everything _? we lose all. The Non-being, Being and Becoming are the triple aspect£of the One Divine. The Infinite is manifested in Being as Sat-chit-ananda and He again is manifested as this .created world within His own being (Becoming).

It is the Mind in ignorance that makes all sorts of distinctions, divisions and separations such as, Being and Non-being (Sat-Asat). "The real "Monism-Adwaita" is that, which does not seek to bisect Its existence into two incompatible entities Brahman and Not-Brahman, Self and Not-Self, a real Self and an unreal, yet perpetual Maya. It it be true that the Self alone exists, it must be also true that all is the Self." (Life Divine—Reality omnipresent).

It is the mind in ignorance that makes division in the indivisible and sets up rigid dogmas like if it is One, it cannot be Many. But spiritual experience shows that both are true. There is nothing incompatible in the One becoming Many. At the core of everything is the One-the multiplicity, diversity are on the surface of

Page 462

the phenomena. That is why all those who look for truth must dive behind the surface to the depth. The truth of things lies in depth behind the surface.

All spiritual efforts have been to lead this creation to the Origin that is, the Creator. Many do not know that both Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Vivekananda helped Sri Aurobindo to this Yoga by their Occult Presence. He has himself testified to this truth.

Go on reading the Gita and the Gospels^Light will come. One should not despair.

Patience

All good abides with him who waited wisely." These words of Thoreau speak to the virtue of patience. Don't leave the dock before your ship comes in. Time has great power to solve problems. The person who has the wisdom to work and wait usually finds out that; this pays off. The patient person has conquered the malady of complaining. So just be patient today. Your calm endurance will pave the way for good to come into your life.

Page 463

Essence Of Life

You have asked me—"What is the truth of life ?" This question has been answered long back by our ancient sages and the modern ones like Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and others who have not only an intellectual apprehension of what life is but a true, real and concrete realisation of it in the truth of the Spirit, Atman of which we read so much in the Gita. Life is nothing but a concrete manifestation of the Spirit in millions and trillions of physical forms. The Spirit is One but its manifestations are innumerable and varied. What we all are and see all about us is nothing but the One and sole Atman in its various forms and disguises. He or It is the One and also the Many. He does not like to rest Alone in His unmanifested state—therefore this mystery of self-creation. He is in the saint and the sinner, the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor, in health and disease but is veiled from the perception of even the highest of his creation, Men by his Yoga Maya who live in unconsciousness, division and ignorance of their real Self, the Atman all-pervading, immortal, eternal and infinite. This is our real Nature but we are all deluded by Maya, a self-deluding ego that we are all separate and divided beings and that is why there is so much clash, conflict and bitter struggle in their daily and ephemeral lives. You know very well that those who have realised their real Selves like the sages I have mentioned above are full of divine Love because they live in their Selves and not in division as all the rest of the creatures, human, beasts, birds, reptiles, worms

Page 64

etc. do. When T3ine sees the One Self in all in their various disguises in names and forms, how can he be deluded and what fear and grief has he ?

This in substance is what I know of life but if you want to know in details written by men of Realisation, I can only recommend to you Vivekananda's Jnana Yoga and Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine. But it is never enough to know things intellectually, by mere mind. One has to live in the real sense of the word in order to know and understand. God is not something or some one remote and abstract. We ourselves are God in disguise, and in ignorance and in order to realise God we have to live in divine .consciousness and not in our separated, narrow, ignorant, and individual Ego. Get rid of the Ego and you know what life is, what God is.

Now, listen to my philosophy of life. It is my personal experience after years of living a disciplined yogic life under the aegis of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo :

Here, we are ajj. born to pay our nature's debts, Ignorance, folly, disease and sundry other states. These are the high ransom the Soul must pay, To free itself from nature's evil and intricate way. Therefore,

Our reliance must be on God, and not on men, However great, good and powerful they may be. Death, desire and incapacity—these three Are still on earth—the reigning sovereign.

Page 65

THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE—AND THEIR ONLY

SOLUTION

The problems of life are age-old problems. They have so far defied any solution by mental, moral and material means. Science and technology have no doubt extended the boundaries of knowledge but they have left the fundamental problems of life untouched. That is why although scientific achievement has culminated in landing man on the moon, a feat deemed impossible even in early sixties, science has done nothing to change the basic nature of man, his possessive, acquisitive and domineering instincts, his predatory habits, his bellicosity and distrust of fellowmen and, last but not least, his incapacity to control his own nature, the passions, lusts, greed's and desires that dominate him to the end of his life.

What at the best Science has achieved is the improvement of man's material life, the many comforts and amenities it has placed at his disposal in his personal, group and social existence. It has, at the same time, because of man's incapacity to control his own primitive nature, brought him face to face with the dangers of fratricidal wars threatening the annihilation, if not of the whole, of a large and the most advanced section of the human race. Science has placed in his hands such lethal weapons, conventional, nuclear, chemical and bacteriological, as when used on a global scale, may easily bring about the collapse of civilisation and a return to barbarism in course of a few months if not of weeks. And this it no mere speculation but

Page 66

almost a certainty if he fails to bring his erring and animal instincts which govern his relations with his kind into some sort of immediate control. At one end we are going to conquer the moon by our latest scientific and technological knowledge and at the other we are threatened with death and destruction for want of elementary control over our own selves.

Reason, it has been said, is what distinguishes man from animal but this reason turns traitor the moment our so-called self-interest is involved. This interest is not merely material ; it is ideological also. Problems of life have always defied the powers, of mind and reason because they are only half-lights and vitiated by our conflicting notions of self-interest. This accounts for the present cold war which more than once has brought the world to the brink of a hot war between Western Democracy and East-European Communism. Throughout the ages, man on the whole has remained the same ignorant, crude, selfish, narrow and rapacious creature in spite of his vaunted civilisation and enlightenment and the progress of his mental and moral life. Morality is born out of mind which is ever-changing, restless and unstable ; and mental ideas, unlike the eternal verities, are subject to constant changes. Morality, on account of the resistance of the recalcitrant life nature, does not touch the roots of existence which is always one though different in the manifestation, in names and forms. "Existence," declares the Veda, "is One ; sages call it by different names."

Physically, vitally and mentally men are distinct and different from one another. This is the case all over the world ; no two beings and things are the same.

Page 67

But what lies at the base of all these differences in humanity is the one, immutable and eternal Spirit of which mind, life and body are the ever-changing and perishable surface instruments. And it is the life of the Spirit which is unchanging, one and the same everywhere in spite of the differences of race, religion, climate, culture, tradition and history of the various peoples that inhabit the earth,—the life of the Spirit pure, true and perfect in its knowledge, will and workings, that we have to discover if we are to survive as a race.

Real spiritual light comes to man when he is able to stand completely detached from his mental, vital and physical existence and transcend the limitations on knowledge imposed by an ignorant and only half enlightened mind. But a certain mental growth and development in the right direction is necessary as a preliminary condition and it is to live in the mind and be the mental witness of the activities of mind, life and body without being in any way identified with them. Blessed are those who can do it. they have become masters of their nature—are no more its slaves. The ordinary mortal, however intellectual he may be, cannot differentiate in action between his body-mind-life complex, which he calls himself, and the Spirit within which is his real self. This failure to distinguish our true being from its surface instruments lies at the root of all our failures to tackle human problems. Ordinarily it is the vital being or the desire-self in us that rules and governs our conduct. It is the dominance of the crude, ignorant, selfish and dangerous vital nature of man that is at the base of all our troubles and difficulties, perturbations and upheavals both individual and collective ; for the vital in us is not concerned

Page 68

with truth, right or justice. It seeks self-affirmation, life-growth and satisfaction of all its desires and impulses. "It tries," says Sri Aurobindo, "to dominate the mind and get from it by dictation a sanction and order of execution for its own will of self-affirmation, a verdict of right and truth and good for its own vital assertions, impulses and actions. It is concerned with self-justification in order that it may have room for full self-affirmation. But if it can get the assent of the mind, it is quite ready to ignore all these standards and set up only one standard, the satisfaction, growth, strength and greatness of the vital Ego." This attitude of the vital is what we generally find in the case of politicians, statesmen and military chiefs whose minds are carried away by and subjected to the demands and insistences of their desire-selves, and thence follow all the clashes, .conflicts and wars between the nations.

No amount of mental and moral teaching, preaching and practice can bring about a change of the human vital nature. Since the time of the Buddha, non-violence has been preached. The emperor Asoka banned all wars and killings in his dominion but human nature has not changed. The frantic efforts made by statesmen and politicians after the First World War did not in the least succeed in bringing about any change of human nature in the direction of peace, amity, concord and harmony. If anything, the conditions deteriorated to such an extent that they not only brought about the Second World War on a more massive and international scale but are even now threatening the existence of human race by the spread of nuclear and thermo-nuclear armaments. Unless therefore this vital nature of man is changed, there appears

Page 69

no hope for human survival. And that change can come only by self-knowledge, by a change of our present half-enlightened mental consciousness into a spiritual and supramental Truth-consciousness or All-knowledge, All-power, All-bliss. A change of consciousness alone can bring about a change of human nature—from the ignorant separative .consciousness of the mind to the illumined Unitarian consciousness of the Spirit.

If the phenomena of life have to be seriously probed, we have to go deep down below the surface of existence. On the surface we find constant changes going on every moment both in ourselves and in our environment. In the field of science and technology specially, changes have been rapid and remarkable during the last thirty years or so. The whole world is brought amazingly close together by the discoveries in the methods of transport and communication so that it is no longer possible to live a life of isolation from the rest of the world as in the days of yore. Many of us feel a nostalgia for the past when life was not so busy and hectic in the mere pursuit of living and men and women had leisure for a life of peace, quiet and contentment favorable to the life of the Spirit. What we have to do in our age of speed and science is to find our moorings and secure a basis in the stable and the eternal Spirit and allow ourselves on this basis to participate in all the changes in and around us. Then only can we have real self-knowledge and the peace and happiness which are wholly dependent on it. However much we may try, peace in outer life is impossible without inner self-finding. To run after the satisfaction of the senses in the pursuit of happiness is like running

Page 70

after a mirage. The source of all knowledge, peace and happiness lies within ourselves and not outside. This is the first lesson that we have to learn if we are to progress in life, and not end it where we began, like the animals, in sheer ignorance.

Life is a constant struggle for existence, survival, growth, expansion and perfection. Because of its many imperfections and shortcomings there is no such thing as smooth sailing in it till we reach the Perfect, the Unchanging and the Eternal. It is an ever-changing and ceaseless drama full of strange and unforeseen turns and vicissitudes of fortune. All life ends in death, some partly fulfilled and the rest in hopeless failure. But whatever the differences in the approach as to the ways and means, the ultimate goal of life is the same for all. It is an eternal quest for knowledge, power, peace, harmony, joy and happiness. Only our self-ignorance diverts us from the true path of self-fulfilment by leading us to various by-paths and tangles which only delay the journey and ultimate arrival at the goal. The only rational and supra-rational solution of the problems of life therefore is a change of Consciousness followed by a change of Nature. There is no other way.

Page 71

The Divine Being - Spirit And Matter

I had earlier written something of the nature of the Divine Being and His manifestations in myriads names and forms which constitute our Universe. Now, the mystery is how and why should the One Divine be manifested or manifest Himself into the 'Many instead of remaining the unchanging and infinite One.

We are aware of the Universe of Matter, Life and Mind which is cognisable by our senses and reason. The immaterial or the Spiritual is known to us only indirectly by faith or authority. All our spiritual experience has owed the reality of the Spirit or Atman as the One, Infinite, Eternal and Unchanging. We have to accept this discovery of the Rishis, Sages, Saints, Seers, Mystics, Yogis, Prophets and Avatars of Gods till we can ourselves realise the Atman. It is no use denying a thing simply because we do not know of its existence. We must exalt ourselves by our own efforts to know whether there is a thing like the spirit, self, soul or the Atman.

Now taken on the authority of the realised souls like those mentioned above, we see there are two principles active on the earth : (i) Spirit or the Atman (ii) Matter at the other end. Now, if the Divine is one, how has He become the Many, if He is the Spirit how or why has He become Matter ? This brings the principle of the Evolution 'to the fore. The Spirit is involved in Matter and what is involved must in course of time evolve. Matter and Spirit are then not different, two distinct and separate entities having nothing in common in between them. Apparently so, though not really. Spirit is the Soul and Reality of Matter

Page 72

and Matter the name and form of the Spirit. In any case, Matter to us seems so very different and opposed to the Spirit which is immaterial that unless there are gradations, levels and planes leading from the One to the other, it is difficult to believe that Matter and Spirit are one.

These gradations, levels and degrees are found in consciousness which is the nature of the Sat-Ghat-Ananda (the Divine) connecting the one with the other. The Spirit which is all consciousness chose to be all Unconsciousness or Inconscient for the delight of the play or Lila of Self-discovery in its extreme opposites. Thus, Substance (Sat) becomes Matter ; Chit (Consciousness) becomes Unconsciousness in extreme Ignorance and Ananda (Bliss) becomes Insensitiveness or Nirananda and Suffering and Sorrow.

Now the nature of Sat-Chit-Ananda is Consciousness and the nature of Consciousness is Power, Force and that again is pure and unalloyed Bliss. When the one Divine plunges into the Inconscient. and Ananda a Bliss becomes insensitiveness, then begin sorrow and suffering of the living creatures as they emerge from the creation of Matter. He apparently loses Himself in the Force of His own creative consciousness. Gradually, on the principle of evolution, consciousness has to emerge out of its involution in the Unconsciousness or the Inconscient. From this sea of inconscience, emerges only Matter—inconscient Matter ; then it emerges into life as in plants and vegetables and then into the undeveloped Mind of the animals and lastly into the developed intelligence of Man. But mind is still left in the Domain of the Ignorance—it has become partially self-aware. That partial self-awareness has

Page 73

to ascend still to the Supramental conciousness which is the Truth-conciousness of the Spirit or the Atman. Mind is only an intermediate stage of conciousness rising out of the total inconscience and ending with the Supramental conciousness which is the final emergence of the Truth-conscious spirit from its involution in Matter.

This in a nut-shell is the whole history of the evolution of consciousness which is the theme of Sri Aurobindo's Life Divine. It is difficult to understand at first but persistent study will bring »"$ne the Light of Truth and Knowledge.

Darwin has in his "Origin of Species" dwelt at length only on the evolution of the form—insect, worms, reptiles, amphibious creatures like frogs and tortoise, then higher and higher types of animal formation till developed (mentally) like cows, horses, cats, dogs, monkeys come into being ending with the appearance of Man. But what really is worth noticing in this evolution is the evolution of conciousness from the in-conscient Matter to the manifestation of the Supramental Truth-consciousness in man which is the final aim and end of this terrestrial Life.

Page 74

Human Beliefs And Means Of Synthesis

Religion is not spirituality or spiritual realisation. It is a mental approach to spiritual life based upon moral and ethical and even certain aesthetic principles evolved by the human mind. It consists mostly of cre dal theology, dogma and rites and rituals of various kinds. A mental belief or conviction lies at the base of religions. All the divergences of religious belief and practice rise from this mental attitude of their respective seekers. That is why there is so much fanaticism, bigotry and war in religions. Therefore there is so much intolerance, hatred and opposition between the followers of different religions. This cannot be avoided till the ignorant mental foundation and belief in religious theology and dogma and superstition are not eliminated from the consciousness of humanity in the light of a rational religion—that is to say, a religion guided not by sentiments and emotions but by reason. Even if such a rational religion comes into existence, it will not be able to avert certain clashes and conflicts because of self-interest based on a wrong conception of self. The only way to eliminate religious clashes and conflicts is to rise above all these pettiness and trivialities which do not form the kernel of religion which is to seek the truth or god of one's conception which can be arrived at only by a spiritual seeking and experience. That is why the present intellectual trend is to seek the spiritual truth behind the phenomena and make that the basis of our life and all its activities.

It will be right to say, that even the most tolerant Hindu religion which had absorbed so many sects and

Page 75

creeds and made them part of its universalism failed to absorb Muslims and Christians which propagated their religions either by coercion or by altruistic and philanthropic works. The fact was that ever since Buddha and Shankara appeared on the Indian scene and made Nirvana or Moksha their principal appeal to the people, the life element and the material life were relegated to the background and we fell an easy prey to the more dynamic invaders from the west. Now the balance has to be righted in the light of the new spiritual ideals recovered from our past' and that is how the spiritual idea propagated by Vivekananda had such a worldwide appeal. But because it stressed more of an individual than collective spiritual ideal through social and humanitarian services, it failed to bring about a change of our social economic and political life. Sri Aurobindo saw that nothing good for collective life emerged out of the neo-spiritual ideals of Ramkrishria and Vivekananda and that' there was a downward trend of consciousness in the masses which cared more for material prosperity for themselves than a spiritual goal which would lift them out of all sorrows and sufferings of this transitory life on earth. He therefore delved deep into the spiritual traditions of the past based on the Vedas and Upanishads and found that there was only one way out of the age-long impasse between the material life of the 'Vest and spiritual life of the East and that is to establish a new way of life, a new principle of consciousness .higher than the mental principle which has been operative on earth from millions and millions of years without being able to effect the least change of life for the better. The egoistic way of life became crueler and cruder and worse and worse both individual

Page 76

ly and collectively. This is what brought in so much clash and conflicts between individuals and individuals and between nations and nations ending in two global wars without being able to remedy in the least the sordid human affairs. He at last found a clue to the change of entire terrestrial life in the principle of "Supermind" or the Supreme truth-consciousness which is leaning down on earth for co-operation for its descent from the supramental world. This is what he and the Mother have brought down to earth which will ultimately change the whole tenor of terrestrial life. The supermen will be men who are identified with the Divine always in their consciousness but they will maintain the earth-play in diversified unity. Each will find himself in all and all will be reflected fully in each. The ever-changing and ever-changeless infinite will no longer be regarded as two opposite poles of existence, one negating the other. Earth will be a scene of peace, bliss, unity and harmony and established in the full glory of the Sat-Chit-Ananda.

This may and must take time. But we must be prepared to give it a fair chance by our individual and collective collaboration for the common goal. If another 2 to 3 hundred years lapse before the manifestation of this gnostic or supramental consciousness, we have nothing to worry. Mind and mental principle have operated for millions of years without being able to check the downward trend of human consciousness. But the supreme truth consciousness will be able to achieve it in course of a few hundred years which is nothing compared to the age of earth-history. In the meantime, we must also evolve and progress in consciousness from birth to birth which we must have

Page 77

already done in our existence from life to life in the past.

So we should dedicate our life and consciousness to the Divine. This dedication will bring us peace, happiness and prosperity even in this life of sorrow and suffering, joy and grief, health and sickness, poverty and wealth, and all the other dualities resulting from the Egoistic consciousness in which we live at present and which is the one cause of all our miseries and sufferings of life. The Ego is not only ignorant but very arrogant also.

In the Supramental life there will be no need for religion because the goal of all religions which is to find God or Truth, will have been already attained by individual and collective humanity, who will always live in the Supreme Truth Consciousness.

If religions still remain they will do so as lower manifestations of Spiritual Truth as the hglrarchy of life from the physical to the mental will also remain as part of the Supramental Creation.

Only his law they count and him obey; They hold no traffic with error and its reign; They are guardians of the silence of the Truth, They are keepers of the immutable decree. A deep surrender is their source of might, A still identity their way to know. Motionless is their action like a sleep.

Page 78

Direct Approach To Sri Aurobindo

Some one has very pertinently remarked that Sri Aurobindo is the only Master who has left nothing for his disciples to say and and that is perfectly true. If we took note of the various writings of Sri Aurobindo, from his daily letters to the ashramites to the highest flights of his imagination in poetry, literature and philosophy, we cannot but be impressed by the stupendous work he has left for posterity covering every field of human thought and activity with the only exception of finance and economics. Yoga, philosophy and spirituality are his forte but there is hardly any field of human relations, society, politics, education, arts, science and literature where he has not some grand observation to make in his own unique and masterly way. From the inconscient beginning of man to his superconscient destiny, there is nothing in the whole process of evolution, material as well as spiritual, which has escaped his pen. Then, his writings are meant for all classes of men, from the struggling neophyte to those who are far advanced intellectually. There is nothing hazy or obscure in what he writes. It may be that the true spirit of his philosophy and mystic poetry will be unintelligible to all except the initiates, but there is scope for all for a clear intellectual comprehension. His approaches are many sided and suited to different tastes and capacities of understanding. There is the intellectual, the emotional and the imaginative approach. He teaches as much through the abstract as through the concrete realities of life. He reaches all either through the intellect or the heart. His letters

Page 79

meant for practical guidance of the disciples in their spiritual endeavour are as simple, clear and lucid as possible.

Those therefore that in the pride of their intellect think that they will be able to convey the message of Sri Aurobindo to others by their learned exegesis, must be labouring under some kind of self-deception. Each has his own way of understanding the Master, for that ho imposition of one's own understanding on others is called for. As one progresses on the spiritual way, his understanding also becomes more and more clear till he is ready for realisation of the truth. After all, it is realisation that counts in spiritual life. A high development of mere intellect is not the aim of yoga. All knowledge is within ourselves ; only it has to be called out from the depths. The Master's own writings are alone sufficient to give the needed word or help, for his words carry the mantra which no other's writings can. To write learned and elaborate commentaries on the Master's yoga and philosophy is comparatively easy ;' to transform one's own consciousness and nature In the light of his teaching is much more difficult. When the sun rises, do we need to strike a match or candle-stick to show that it is the sun ? No, it is self-evident and self-luminous. So are the writings of Sri Aurobindo. They require no commentators to throw light on them. That can only be done as a sort of intellectual gymnastics for the writers.

One must have the divine's command and the divine commission to do the divine's work, then only his voice will carry the needed weight. In the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago there were many representatives of the different religions of the world

Page 80

but who has heard of their names and what about their learned papers read out so eloquently at the time? Only Vivekananda survives and that is because he had the divine commission and was an orator by divine right while the others were not. In India, during the last seventy-five years or so, we have had a number of commentaries on the Gita written by many eminent men in different fields of life but without any or much spiritual background. The result is all these commentaries have disappeared leaving to posterity only the work of Sri Aurobindo and it is obvious that he alone had the divine commission to write the commentary while the others had not. Sri Aurobindo must have anticipated events : that is why he had left nothing unsaid or unwritten, specially about his own yoga and philosophy.

Whoever is too great must lonely live.

Adored he walks in mighty solitude;

Vain is his labour to create his kins,

His only comrade is the Strength within.

Thus was it for a while with Savitri,

All worshipped marvelling ly, none dared to claim.

Her mind sat high pouring its golden beams,

Apart in herself until her hour of fate.

Page 81

Avatars - Their Teachings - A Letter

Read the Gita and try to practice its truth's as far as it is possible in your worldly surroundings.

What I would like to advice you, is not to judge spiritual ii&ma. personalities and spirituality from your mental standpoint Spiritual is a higher consciousness than mental which is almost ignorant compared with spiritual consciousness which is the consciousness of truth.

So., to judge Sri Krishna and Sri Rama from your ignorant and mental consciousness will not be of any meaning. It will be senseless, and land one in a helpless morass from which one will not be able to extricate himself. I am not therefore enlighten you about the actions of 'Krishna and Rama', who even as men are incomparably superior to us and have given humanity a higher standard of life and consciousness through thousands of years.

Both Sri Rama and Sri Krishna are regarded as Avatars. I do not know about other Avatars mentioned by poet Joy dev, because they are not essential for our Yoga which is to transform the mental into the spiritual and supramental consciousness for which Sri Aurobindo came. He is also an Avatar like Sri Ram-Krishna.

The Avatars help in the progress in the evolution of consciousness—that is, why there is a progressive gradation from inferior grade to superior consciousness. Sri Aurobindo represents the latest, though certainly

Page 82

not the last. Many more will come millions years after,—who knows ? The supramental has yet to manifest in the earth-consciousness. It is said that, the more one lives the more one learns. But it is not merely an intellectual knowledge. Most of us know all that has been said or written of God.&is

immanence, universality and transcendence; His omniscience and omnipotence—and his omnipresence. The triune aspect of Sat-Chit-Ananda, but do we know Him at all ? To know is to become—he who knows the Brahman, becomes the Brahman.

About Sri Krishna,—wisdom of Sri Krishna whom millions regard as God himself. If you fail to understand the mastermind of the world you should attribute your failure not to his fault or failure on His part but your rien lack of understanding. What we do not understand, we deny or decry. This is human nature. In order to understand Krishna you should attain to the level of! his .consciousness as Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Vivekananda and as others have done, then only you know what he is and why the is adored, worshipped, and revered by millions all over the world throughout the thousands of years. He delivered the great and abiding message of the Gita and Gospel of Niskama Karma.

Regarding Yoga, he has repeatedly asked us to work and work and never sit idle. Yogna is nothing but the outcome, the result and product of Karman. So Yogna has to be performed whatever they are, if only they are not tainted with selfish aims which characterise! the works of all worldly people. We have to surrender everything to Him and take refuge in Him and Him alone,—which is a difficult thing to be done.

Page 83

Tine best course will be to cease reading too many books and .concentrate only on one, be it Gita or Vivekananda's work.

Sri Aurobindo is the only authentic commentator of the Gita and his, "an introduction to Gita" is excellent. Nothing could be better because while others write from their intellect, and he writes from direct experience.

Please note that it takes a very long time to eliminate the Ego. This is spiritually a radical change from ignorance to knowledge, to Truth-consciousness, from the mental to the spiritual to supramental status, through the opening of the Psychic-Being in us as, "Chaitya-Purasha"-, one can simply try to remember the Divine always under all circumstances not to forget the Divine is the secret.

The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,

More and more souls shall enter into light,

Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear

And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame

And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight

And human wills tune to the divine will.

Sri Aurobindo

Page 84

Philosophy, Theology and The Truth - A Letter

The distinction you make between Philosophy and Theology is,, I think, not warranted by facts, for both imply the highest knowledge, the knowledge of the ultimate Truth of existence and both are speculative and intellectual. We have intuitive philosophies in the Srutis and Smritis, Vedas and Upanishads which are not at all speculative but realised truths given or recorded in mental forms. The Life Divine of Sri Aurobindo, for example, which has been acclaimed as the greatest philosophical work of this Century, is according to Sri Aurobindo himself not philosophy but record of his own experience seen and realised and lived. You see the truths of religion or Philosophy and Theology differ according to the differing mental and intellectual per ception of their authors or founders. Spiritual truth is always one and the same though there are different rungs or levels of spiritual Realisation. Thus we have the Dwaita, Adwaita and Visisthadwaita philosophies each true in its own sphere and you can have realisation on any one or all three of these planes but ultimately as Vivekananda says, all the other two lead to Adwaita which is the highest truth on the spiritual plane.

I am not competent to say anything about the teachings of different Philosophies but I shall only quote from Mahabharata the answer of Yudhisthir to Yaksha about—

कः पन्था (What path to follow?)

Yudhisthir answer,

घेदा घिमिन्ना घिमिन्नाः नासौ मुनियस्य मत न भिन्नम् |

घर्मस्य तत्चं निहितं गुहाया महाजनः येनगतः स पन्था ||

(The truth of religion lie hid in the caves, amid

Page 85

the conflicting claims. The only way is to tread the path that the Greats have trod).

I am afraid you will never find a solution to the truths of religion on mental planes as is evident from the differing philosophies. Under the circumstances it is best to. follow one you prefer as we have done in choosing the integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and find out the truth by your own personal experience.

Science deals with laws of physical nature. But we have a vital nature, a mental nature. Psychology is an effort at the study of our vital and mental nature, but this is a very imperfect and perfunctory way to learn because it studies only the surface and does not go into the roots of our nature. For that yoga, the practical philosophy is needed. There are different methods, but all, lead to the same Truth if followed patiently and consistently to the end. For that Guidance is needed.

I have not yet reached that stage when I can go out and preach. But you can well realise that we have had some experiences some 'Grace' of the Divine which make us stick to this life through thick and thin, even though Sri Aurobindo has long left his and the Mother has followed suit. Recently, we have arrived at a conscious stage of our evolutionary destiny and our struggle will not cease till we have arrived at the Goal, the Divine, the One Divine who is All.

Please refer to Vana-Parua (canto on exile of Parndavas)' of 'Maha-Bharata-c-lverses 310 to 313 mainly 312 wherein Dharmarajya (God of Justice, Keeper of Righteousness and Death) put a number 'o f questions to Yudhisthir to test his knowledge and sense of Justice-this is one of the questions-Ed.

Page 86

Humanity - Peace And Harmony

I had dealt with the workings of two contradictory forces, those of good and evil, light and darkness and Truth and Falsehood. These antagonists are striving to dominate our earth life ; they have ever done since the creation arrived at mental consciousness culminating in the creation of a mental humanity. But mind and mental humanity though they have been taken in the forefront of our life for over many millions of years have long been weighed in the balance and found wanting. That is how at the peak of human mental development we find ourselves no better than primitive animals which act on physical and vital desires and impulses and have not the least control over themselves. Satisfaction of hunger and sex is their sole preoccupation From that point of view the present humanity is not better than the animals because, self-preservation and race-preservation have been the dominant instincts even amongst men, the exceptions being the very few saints, sages and mystics who have contact with the higher and deeper ranges of our Being, which is the Self, Soul or the Divine Reality of our Existence, one in all, infinite, immortal and vmchanging amidst the constant changes of our body, mind and life culminating in the death and dissolution of our material existence.

There is a teleological object in the creation. It is not something accidental or without end or purpose. The object is the evolution of the full Consciousness which is involved in the involutionary process. The

Page 87

Divine who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent has chosen to hide His omniscience etc., in the dense involution of the Consciousness in its total opposites. He must find Himself in opposites of his own involution in the Inconscience. Probably the time has now come for humanity to arise out of its somnolence to its true Stature of Divinity. But because of its entrenched habits of egoistic life spread over millions of years it is not ready peacefully to co-operate in the emergence of full consciousness in a quiet, peaceful and harmonious working. Hence, the necessity of this world-wide strife, turmoil, war and its widespread devastations.

You cannot deny that the last two World Wars have to a certain extent helped in the raising of our limited human egoistic and separative consciousness to the necessity of human unity at political and economic levels. This is only a beginning on the mental level and cannot be realised in practice till the selfishness, inherent in ordinary human viral being is not eradicated by a new spiritual and supramental orientation. This is a very difnculttonerous task and may take even centuries for preparation, for even, if the mind is prepared to shed off its limits and ignorance because it is an instrument of nature open to change and progress, not so the life-being or the vital nature of man. It is fixed in its operation of consciousness and can only change when there is a spiritual orientation of the Being : but I hope, the widespread interest now shown all over the world for spirituality even on mental levels will one day succeed in changing the selfish nature of the vital. Then the real work will be accomplished and there will be an end to fighting between men and

Page 88

men and communities against communities and war at national and international levels will cease.

In the present we have to be content with what we see going on in the World at large, the aggressive attitude of the militant nations, the emergence of fanaticism, the Sectarian intolerance, communal strifes and competitive existence leading to unrest and disorder and disharmony in our individual and collective lives.

Another problem that immediately concerns us is the population explosion in Asian and African countries. Imagine that only less than 40 years back we were half our present numbers. If this goes on unchecked there is hardly any prospect of prosperity in our lives. Peace, they say, is global we cannot live in isolation these days. The world has become physically one. Rapid transport and communication have brought about this unique phenomenon in our lives. But so long as militancy and exploitation rule the conduct of individuals and nations there is little prospect of any global improvement in the standard of our living. But it is hoped, that when trust replaces suspicion, friendliness replaces enmity and truth replaces falsehood we shall see the reduction of military expenditure all over the globe—even to the bare necessity of self-defence and when there is an understanding and harmony in international relations, the vast resources of the nations will be dev ted to the removal of want, poverty, ignorance and disease from the weaker sections of humanity. Already as we know small-pox has been eradicated from the world. So it will be with* other epidemics given the good-will of the nations. A New Era of health and happiness will dawn upon us.

Page 89

Where Truth and Courage and Love Lack

Truth, says Sri Aurobindo, is the basis of spirituality and courage is its soul. With love of God, says Vivekananda, will come as a sure effect, the love of everyone in the Universe and we shall begin to see Him in all existences and all existences in Him. This is at once a test, a warning and an admonition to those who delude themselves into thinking that they are loving God when in reality they do nothing but love themselves and hate .and condemn and criticise others. Mere physical contact with the spiritual guide and preceptor is of no avail if the seeker does not foster the growth of truth, courage and love in his being. Where truth and courage and love are lacking, there is not only no spirituality but even the very foundation of spiritual life has hardly been laid. This is an elementary lesson which all seekers of God should always bear in mind. Otherwise, all their efforts for spiritual realisation are likely to come to nought.

An absolute supernatural darkness falls

On man sometimes when he draws near to God :

— Sri Aurobindo

Page 90

Spiritual Life and Family Alignments

All attachments is a hindrance to spiritual seeking. Family ties constitute one of the greatest, strongest and most persistent attachments of all. Needless to say that whatever be the necessity of such attachment to keep up the stability and solidarity of family life even at the expense of truth, right and justice, the utility of such ties in spiritual life is absolutely nil. So long as there is any" attachment to individuals as members of family— an attachment which flows from particular relationship, such as husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister etc, the prospect of any spiritual liberation and up lift ment of consciousness is a far cry. In spiritual life we have to outgrow all our personal narrowness and limitations and family relationships certainly constitute such narrowness and limitations. They have therefore to be strictly eschewed in spiritual seeking. We cannot remain attached to our natal and marital relations and yet have the same broad universal vision that sees the equal Brahman in all. When Arjuna was overwhelmed with grief and sadness at the prospect of killing his own relatives, near and dear ones without whom life would not be worth living, Sri Krishna rebuked him by saying that the wise ones do not grieve over the passing of any. For the soul is eternal while the forms only are passing. There is no meaning in abstaining from killing involved in Dharma-Yuddha even though the killed were one's own flesh and blood. Pertaining to the forms only, the family ties are relative and passing while the soul is eternal and indestructible

Page 91

and to the ties of soul only we should adhere. There is no difference and distinction in soul-substance ; it is one and the same for all while our natural forms differ from objects to objects and from individuals to individuals. But all natural forms that come into existence are not only mutable and perishable but they are reborn again and again under different names and forms in different times and climes. This is the secret of re-birth of which He, Sri Krishna has the knowledge while Arjuna has it not.

The family relations originate in primal selfishness and their tendency is to endure through habits, customs and traditions. Very few people can outgrow the family ties and be fair and just in their dealings with outsiders. Father and son, husband and wife will usually if not invariably join together to fight the third man even if he happens to be in the right ; so will all the other members of the family. They would not stop to weigh the pros and cons or the right and justice involved in case of quarrel with outsiders. All will pool their strengths together to defeat the adversary. That is also the case with national or collective egos. International wars are the natural consequences of such attitudes. All these are the aberrations and failings of the vital or life-being of humanity. This is patent in all human affairs. But the spiritual seeker is a seeker of Truth. He cannot and must not align himself with any kind of falsehood. He has to uphold truth even if it means breaking of family interests and ties. He is above all ties of personal relationship which ties him down to ordinary and lower consciousness. We cannot take up the cudgel on behalf of our father, mother, brother, sister, husband and wife when they are wrong just because we belong

Page 92

to some family. Such an attitude will be fatal to spiritual life which insists on Truth and nothing but truth and rejection of falsehood and error, and all hasty and summary judgments.

This was the compelling reason why all spiritual aspirants left their homes and families in order to seek the Spirit. Within the narrow limits of family life, it was found impossible to pursue an existence which was favorable to the efflorescence of spiritual knowledge. Hence withdrawal of flight from family life was the prevailing rule. But under different auspices and special environment created for spiritual aspirants this Bight may not be necessary. What is necessary is a change of consciousness which will place the family relations in proper perspective and see that it in no way interferes with our seeking of the Truth. In a spiritual society there will be no more narrow family ties. The whole society would be one big family favorable to spiritual seeking and fulfilment.

And all that was destroyed must be rebuilt And old experience laboured out once more. All can be done if the God-fought is there.

— Sri Aurobindo

Page 93

Sri Aurobindo's International Centre of Education

Many people who know or have heard of Sri Aurobindo Ashram do not know of its core, the heart-centre and pivot of all its manifold activities, the International Centre of Education. Sri Aurobindo had long thought of this centre for radiating his teachings through its alumnies as the best way to spread his spiritual message to the whole world. After the passing away of the Master, the Mother formally opened this centre with a few teachers and students of the Ashram school. In course only of a few years, it has grown into unimaginable dimensions and attracted teachers from all parts of India and abroad. And the number of students from the kindergarten stage to higher course has so much increased of late that it is difficult to find accommodation for all the applicants. People had to wait sometimes from

Special attention is paid to physical education of the children. Though there are now 4 outlets for physical and sports activities, they are just sufficient to accommodate the various group members for their daily exercises after the school hours. The number of each group is limited to about a hundred. Besides, there is a modern and up-to-date swimming pool maintained under strict hygienic conditions in addition to the facilities of sea-swimming by individuals and groups. There is also a spacious gymnasium for indoor

Page 94

exercises. The sports ground has one of the best tracks in India and the indoor gymnasium is equipped with all modern apparatuses. For a single institution to offer so many facilities for games and sports is no small credit. The Mother laid gorsier

It is strange and amusing to find people doubting about the future of the Ashram after the passing away of that Mother, the life and soul of the Institution. Their argument is that the death of the Mother would leave a void and lead ultimately to the withering away of the Ashram itself for want of any overt spiritual guidance. They do not know that prior to her leaving the body, the Mother had given assurance to the Ashramites that she would leave her consciousness here in case she had to go and prior to that Sri Aurobindo had given assurance to the Mother that he would not leave the earth-atmosphere till the earth was transformed. The Ashram, the Mother has said, is the cradle of future humanity and from here will issue the race of supermen.

Due to subversive activities of a few disgruntled elements from within and hostile onslaughts from without, the Ashram had to face some dangers at one time but that danger is now a passed phase. The Ashram is forging its way to the achievement of its goal, the manifestation of the Supermind. Thanks to the unwearied labour and dedicated service of the old sadhaka who are now dead and gone and to the help and example offered by those who are still alive

Page 95

and the possibilities of the annual young recruits to the membership of the Ashram from the Centre of Education itself, the cycle of progress will go on with added momentum from generation to generation till the supermen emerge from here and the supramental light spreads to other center from here and the supramental light spreads to other centres of the Ashram like fire from hearth to hearth, from alter to alter.

The core of this manifestation will be the International Centre of Education. In their divine wisdom, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo laid a solid, sure and secure basis for their work of Transformation of the earth-life in the International Centre of Education of the Ashram.

Night, splendid with the moon dreaming in heaven In silver peace, possessed her luminous reign. She brooded through her stillness on a thought Deep-guarded by her mystic folds of light, And in her bosom nursed a greater dawn.

— Sri Aurobindo

Page 96

Sri Aurobindo as a Literary Genius

Sri Aurobindo is better known as a philosopher and yogi than for his literary creations. That he is the pioneer of the integral philosophy of life and has done all that could be done to bring down the supramental power and principle in the earth life is well known to the elite of humanity. What however is less known of him is his most remarkable and original contribution to English language and literature. His letters, essays, aphorisms, poems, dramas and philosophical writings stand out as something unique in literature both as regards the originality of their thought-points as their wonderful literary and artistic excellence. Each one of his major works, such as The Foundations of Indian Culture, The Ideal of Human Unity, Human Cycle and The Future Poetry is a marvel of its kind. To delineate the value of his philosophical writings as embodied in his Essays on the Gita, The Synthesis of Yoga and his magnum opus the Life Divine would be beyond the scope of this short and so necessarily perfunctory and inadequate appreciation of his literary genius. As for his epic Savitri, it is already a part of the great classics of the world and has only to be repeatedly studied for the appreciation of its beauty, sublimity, grandeur and the novelty of its theme. His sonnets, lyrics and longer narrative poems are always redolent with a singular grace, charm and power. His poems Past and Present and Last Poems are simply marvellous and masterly contribution to the mystic and metaphysical poetry of the world. A detailed study

Page 97

and appreciation of his literary excellence are the work of the critic and connoisseur but no man or woman with a modicum of literary taste and inclination can ever fail to relish and enjoy the wonderful beauty of his prose, poetry, drama and other literary creations. His Life Divine, for example, is a singular and masterly exhibition of sustained and faultless literary style, perfectly chaste and elegant and quite in consonance with the spirit of its sublime and majestic philosophy. All his writings are replete with intuitive and over-mental truth and are therefore a source of perennial inspiration as much to the truth-seeker as to those? who approach them from merely intellectual standpoint for his logic is cogent, consistent and flawless. As he writes from a silent mind, he is always divinely inspired and his words carry the mantra, i.e., the charm and power of spirituality in them as is usual with the Masters. He who has once tasted the nectar of Sri Aurobindo will be satisfied with nothing else. One or two quotations from his writings will not be out of place here :

He who would bring the heavens here

Must himself descend into the clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

And tread the dolorous way.

The gifts of the spirit came crowding to him ;

They were his life's pattern and his privilege.

A pure perception lent its lucent joy :

Its enveloped all Nature in a single glance,

It looked into the very self of things ;

Deceived no more by the form he saw the soul.

Page 98

When we withdraw our gaze from its egoistic preoccupation with limited and fleeting interests and look upon the world with dispassionate and curious eyes that search only for the Truth, our first result is the perception of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself in limitless Space, in eternal Time, an existence that surpasses infinitely our ego or any ego or any collectivity of egos, in whose balance the grandiose products of aeons are but the dust of a moment and in whose incalculable sum numberless myriads count only as a petty, swarm.

A guidance, a governance begins from within which exposes every movement to the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the divine realisation : every region of the being, every nook and corner of it, every movement, formation, direction, inclination of thought, will, emotion, sensation, action, reaction, motive, disposition, propensity, desire, habit of the conscious or sub-conscious physical, even the most concealed, camouflaged, mute, recondite, is lighted up with the unerring psychic light, their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their obscurities, deceptions, self-deceptions, precisely indicated and removed : all is purified, set right...etc.

Where judge ment ceases and the word is mute And the Unconcealed lies pathless and alone. There came not form or any mounting voice ; There only were Silence and the Absolute.

— Sri Aurobindo

Page 99

Sri Aurobindo's Message for To-day

Before we deal with the present subject of discussion—Sri Aurobindo's Message for Today—it is as well to consider briefly the life and work of Sri Aurobindo, the mystic, philosopher, poet, patriot, prophet and lover of humanity as that will give us a right perspective and help in the proper understanding of his Message in today's context.

Born in Calcutta on the 15th August, 1872 of Bengali parents, he was educated in England from his early childhood and became an all-round and accomplished scholar in the sciences, humanities and classics of several European languages at the age of 21 when he came back to India and joined the Baroda State Service. Here he became extremely popular with the rising generation of students not only for. his vast erudition but also for his burning patriotism, simple and unassuming manners and above all the matchless integrity of his personal character. Later on he had to divert his teaching .and study of Indian philosophy and yoga to the political field on

Page 100

of his people from the age-long inertia into which they had sunk by his soul-stirring speeches and writings in English and Bengali journals which he edited. As a result of his political activities, he was, as anticipated, arrested and detained in jail for more than a year in connection with what is now famous as the Alipor Bomb Case. His jail life in the solitary cell was productive of deep and far-reaching experiences of mystic and spiritual character which completely changed him from being at one time an agnostic to a total and confirmed believer in God whose knowledge, power, bliss and oneness we can all share by uniting with Him in our enlarged highest consciousness as much in static as in dynamic life experiences. He was, however, honorably acquitted of all the charges of conspiracy against him and had to retire at first to Chandannagar and then to Pondicherry, both former French possessions in India, by a divine command from above. He sailed from Chandannagar incognito in a French ship and arrived at Pondicherry on the 4th April 1910 with a few disciples and settled here permanently in the Ashram which he founded in 1926, till his demise in December 5, 1950. 'From November 24, 1926, he went into complete seclusion leaving the Ashram in charge of the Mother, his collaborator in the divine work.

It will be wrong to assume that because Sri Aurobindo retired from active public and political life, he had cut off all connection with the outside world on account of his pre-occupation with the inner spiritual life which became more and more of absorbing interest to him not only for his own but also for the life of the whole humanity for his life had by now become one with the life of the world.

Page 101

A fourth dimension of the aesthetic sense

Where all is in ourselves, ourselves in all

To the cosmic wideness re-aligns our souls. (Savitri)

He took as deep and wide an interest in the affairs of the world as was possible from this seclusion and devoted himself to the task of finding solutions to all the problems that have perplexed and vexed humanity since its very birth and inception. His life-long researches in these fields found expression one by one in the articles written by himself alone in the philosophical journal ARYA which he started in 1914 during the First World War and which continued to pour out for 7 long years in inspired and luminous language such spiritual solutions to social and political problems of our times as are now to be found in various book forms, The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, War and Self-determination etc. His other major works on philosophy, yoga, culture, art and literature such as the Life Divine, Essays on the Gita, Synthesis of Yoga, Foundations of Indian Culture, Future Poetry, Savitri, Collected Poems and other classic works in drama, criticisms, essay and a collection of letters to his disciples appeared one after another covering practically every possible field and aspect of human life and activity.

Sri Aurobindo's title to immortality rests on his success in bringing down the Supermind or the Supreme Truth-consciousness which the ancient Vedic seers had only glimpsed and visited but not brought down to the earth consciousness for the transformation of earthly life. This initiates a new principle in the earth life like the mental principle and will be generalised in humanity in those sections that are ready for the new transformation. He himself was the pioneer

Page 102

and set the example for all mankind to follow. Sri Aurobindo probed the problems of life to their utmost depths and was not .content to deal with them superficially from the standpoint of mere intellect or even of the ordinary spiritual consciousness which found a solution for all the malaise of earth life in a spiritual liberation of the soul alone while its instruments, the body, mind and life remained unchanged and tied to an ignorant separative consciousness which constitutes the individual ego, the root cause of all the ills and sufferings of earthly life.

He found the inconscience or the nescience at the base of existence pervaded by a supreme but involved Consciousness that strove through various successive mediums or forms of expression like matter, life and mind to emerge fully into its own sovereign and independent Reality. This Consciousness has taken millions of years and myriads of physical forms—insentient matter, plants, insects, birds and animal life—to come to the human mental stage of evolution but there also it is still enveloped by its inconscient beginnings and is even in the highest and widest reach of the mind only a dim and pale reflection of the original Truth-consciousness, truth-power and truth-light. Its ultimate emergence "is a thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of earth-consciousness for the mind is not its last summit and its upward ascent has not ended". Mind at its best is only a half light and an insecure, untrustworthy and and unreliable guide to life. That is why all efforts to solve human problems on mental basis have always failed throughout the ages. It is only with the full and complete emergence of the Supermind or the supreme Truth-consciousness out of its involution in the inconscience

Page 103

that a change of earth life is not only possible but inevitable for then the basis of the ignorance will have completely disappeared and the supreme Truth consciousness or the Divine gnosis as Sri Aurobindo calls it will work unhampered in the light and power of truth and bring about a total and radical change of human life, transforming even the material body,—no longer a travesty of the divine inhabitant within it—into its immortal divine substance. Here is Sri Aurobindo's prophecy of the future quoted at random from Savitri :

In matter shall be lit the spirit's glow.

In body and body kindled the sacred birth;

Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,

The days become a happy pilgrim march,

Our will a force of the Eternal's power,

And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.

A few shall see what none yet understands;

God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;

For man shall not know the coming till its hour

And belief shall be not till the work is done. Sri Aurobindo's writings are voluminous and they cover an immense variety of subjects ranging from the most ordinary to the most serious and sublime quests of human life. Practically hardly any aspect of life is left out of his vast and extensive field of research and finding. But the central theme and the core of all his teaching is Spiritual and it is a spiritual and supramental solution that he always advocates as the only conclusion of his most intimate study of all human problems. For the Spirit underlies everything; it is at the base of life,

Page 104

its centre as well as circumference. Go where we will and do what we on, there is no escape from its all-pervasive presence if we are to look life straight in the face and not evade its hurdles and difficulties by a mere superficial tinkering on the surface.

Everything in this world is to be covered with the Lord, says the Upanishad and renunciation is recommended as the best means of enjoyment of all the world's riches and pleasures. If peace and happiness be the goal of human life along with knowledge and power, then there also it stands to reason that we find the Spirit first and foremost to make ourselves worthy and deserving of all the blessed things of life.

There is no joy in passing, finite and limited things. Therefore we must seek that which is unlimited, eternal and infinite. As the world is constituted to-day and with our present narrow and limited perspective, no perfection can anywhere be found except in relation to the Spirit because it is the only unborn, undying, eternal and infinite power and principle of our being. But at the same time, these limited worldly things and actions are not to be despised or discarded because they too are a manifestation of the spirit. All our outlook can change, says Sri Aurobindo, if the God-touch is there. If once mankind consents to be spiritualised, all human problems will be automatically solved because in the Spirit which is nothing but Love, Knowledge, Power, Beauty and Bliss there is no problem. Where is there any room for strife, discord, sorrow and suffering where there is nothing but One ? But this One need not be one white monotony of colour less existence. It can and does deploy itself in an Infinite multiplicity. The Spirit is One but its

Page 105

manifestations are many. But these manifestations are at present only a travesty of the truth of the spirit because of a heavy pall of ignorance that covers our limited intelligence. Once this mist of the ignorance is dispelled by the light of the sun of knowledge (the Supermind), we know the world as it truly is a creation of the spirit by the spirit in itself for the manifold enjoyment of its own diversity. This then is the core of Sri Aurobindo's message—that the true truth of existence is to be found only in the Spirit, Soul, the Divine Reality or whatever one chooses to call it and once That is discovered, everything will automatically find its light place in the .creation. The creator, created and the creation are one in essence. For the purpose of the play (Lila), it is diverse in manifestation. This is the central truth of Sri Aurobindo's teachings and it has a value as much for to-day as for to-morrow and the future for he deals with eternal Verities which are not subject to fluctuations caused by time, space and causation.

Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future

"The Iron age is ended. Only now

The last fierce spasm of the dying past

Shall shake the nations, and when that has passed,.

Earth washed of ills shall raise a fairer brow."

— Sri Aurobindo

END

Page 106