... spoken of "the formation of ego-individuality". Ego-individuality means...? There are individual egos and collective egos. For example, the national ego is a collective ego. A group may have a collective ego. The human race has a collective ego. It is bigger or smaller. The individual ego is the ego of a particular person; it is the smallest kind of ego. Oh, there is of course a vital ego, a mental... languages, the knowledge of many countries and ages, one widens his ego very much, one begins to grow less narrow-minded. Naturally, with yoga one can overcome all this consciously. Does the collective ego depend on the individual ego of the individuals who form the collectivity? Yes. Usually collective egos are inferior in quality to individual egos. Instead of being a multiplication or even ...
... accommodation keeps the social whole in being. Between community and community there is a still worse accommodation with a constant recurrence Page 1071 of the strife of collective ego with collective ego. This is the best that we can do and all our persistent readjustments of the social order can bring us nothing better than an imperfect structure of life. It is only if our nature... Transcendent and Universal that moves out through his universalised individuality into the action of the universe. As he does not live for a separate ego, so too he does not live for the purpose of any collective ego; he lives in and for the Divine in himself, in and for the Divine in the collectivity, in and for the Divine in all beings. This universality in action, organised by the all-seeing Will in the... all that arises from it, community of interests, a common civilisation and culture, a common social law, an aggregate mentality, an economic association, the ideals, emotions, endeavours of the collective ego with the strand of individual ties and connections running through the whole and helping to keep it together. Or, where there is a difference in these things, opposition, conflict, a practical ...
... dissolution of mind by the death of the body; the one abiding truth is eternal Nature working in the race—this or another—and her purpose should be followed, not ours,—the fulfilment of the race, the collective ego, and not that of the individual should be the rule of life. Another trend of thought, more vitalistic in its tendencies, fixes on the conscious ego as the supreme achievement of Nature, no matter... entity. If light, peace, deliverance, a better state of existence are to come, they must descend into the soul from something wider than the individual, but also from something higher than the collective ego. Altruism, philanthropy, the service of mankind are in themselves mental or moral ideals, not laws of the spiritual life. If into the spiritual aim there enters the impulse to deny the personal ...
... and saw that in fact, as a matter of life, That seemed to express itself as the ego and, reasoning from the conclusions of modern Science, it saw the individual merely as a cell of the collective ego. This collective ego was, then, the greatest actual organised expression of life and to that all ought to be subservient, for so could Nature and its evolution best be assisted and affirmed. The greater human... efficient organised collective life already existing; practically, then, by the growth, perfection and domination of the most advanced nations, or possibly of the one most advanced nation, the collective ego which has best realised the purpose of Nature and whose victory and rule is therefore the will of God. For all organised lives, all self-conscious egos are in a state of war, sometimes overt, sometimes... organised and efficient collective will and self-directing energy? The State, there was the secret. Let the State be perfect, dominant, all-pervading, all-seeing, all-effecting; so only could the collective ego be concentrated, find itself, and its life be brought to the highest pitch of strength, organisation and efficiency. Thus Germany founded and established the growing modern error of the cult of ...
... greater and diviner spirit which would intervene and use life for a higher perfection of the being: but it is being used instead for the multiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego. At the same time Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal Force and has made the life of humanity materially one, but what uses this universal Force is a little human individual... But it has not been found in experience, whatever might have once been hoped, that education and intellectual training by itself can change man; it only provides the human individual and collective ego with better information and a more efficient machinery for its self affirmation, but leaves it the same unchanged human ego. Nor can human mind and life be cut into perfection-even into what is ...
... enough, but it will be a commencement, a true gate and not a blind entrance. A spiritualised society would live like its spiritual individuals, not in the ego, but in the spirit, not as the collective ego, but as the collective soul. This freedom from the egoistic standpoint would be its first and most prominent characteristic. But the elimination of egoism would not be brought about, as it is now... largest universality, nor his own life to be full life except as it is one with the universal life. He will not live either for himself or for the State and society, for the individual ego or the collective ego, but for something much greater, for God in himself and for the Divine in the universe. The spiritual age will be ready to set in when the common mind of man begins to be alive to these truths ...
... it needs life-room, a space in the sun, self-assertion, survival. It needs these things for itself and for those with whom it associates itself, for its own Page 644 ego and for the collective ego; it needs them for its ideas, creeds, ideals, interests, imaginations: for it has to assert these forms of I-ness and my-ness and impose them on the world around it or, if it is not strong enough... to some demand of the heart or for some right or high purpose but cannot be made the rule or nature of life; so exaggerated, it would only feed and exaggerate the ego of others or magnify some collective ego, not lead us or mankind to the discovery and affirmation of our or its true being. Sacrifice and self-giving are indeed a true principle and a spiritual necessity, for we cannot affirm our being ...
... in that case, be turned towards a satisfaction of his legitimate vital propensities under the precarious government of a trained mind and reason and for the best advantage of the personal and collective ego. But Sri Aurobindo cannot accept this view of man nor, therefore, these goals of education as ordinarily envisaged. He does not, of course, deny that the things alluded to above do represent... observed: "...it has not been found in experience, whatever might have once been hoped, that education and intellectual training by itself can change man; it only provides the human individual and collective ego with better information and a more efficient machinery for its self-affirmation, but leaves it the same unchanged human ego." (SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 1057-58) Where do we go then from here ...
... We shall not only share among ourselves the riches which we shall have acquired, whether material or spiritual. We shall not simply live beyond the notion of property, the mark of individual or collective ego. Our very being will be shared. This will not, however, be done according to extraneous codes, as since the time of Moses, or more precisely, since Leviticus, when for the first time in the history ...
... greater and diviner spirit which would intervene and use life for a higher perfection of the being: but it is being used instead for the multiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego. At the same time Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal Force and has made the life of humanity materially one; but what uses this universal Force is a little human individual ...
... 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 ...
... symbols and significant figures. The new society would be a field of unending education and of perpetual youth. The new society would live, not in the ego, but in the spirit, not as the collective ego but as the collective soul. Page 56 ...
... the different degrees and levels of consciousness. We have spoken of the mounting frames of reference, and accordingly there is a family ego, a national ego and even there is a humanity ego. The collective ego is as strong as the individual ego. It is only in the transcendent consciousness, the consciousness of the Divine who is the one true Person, that the inferior egos are eliminated or sublimated ...
... largest universality, nor his own life to be full life except as it is one with the universal life. He will not live either for himself or for the State and society, for the individual ego or the collective ego, but for something much greater, for God in himself and for the Divine in the universe.14 It can be said that such a spiritualized society will be a true inner theocracy, ...not the ...
... promote collective life; what they do would depend upon their identification with the others, first of of all. For the individual is egoistic even there. And his ego is not submerged into the larger collective ego of the race or culture or nation or humanity. Until it becomes indentified in the soul,—not in the mind, not in self-interest, not in the power-aspect of the collectivity but in the soul-aspect ...
... the present "evolutionary crisis" in earth-history when two wholly opposed possibilities seem to be open to Man: either an accelerated pursuit of new wants and the "aggressive expansion of the collective ego" that must lead mankind to the Abyss, or a daring spiritual-supramental adventure of consciousness leading to the Life Divine on a terrestrial base. Of this latter possibility Sri Aurobindo writes ...
... the following additional paragraph : For, in truth, saviours they will be, as each being of this new type will not live either for himself or for State or society, for the individual ego or the collective ego, but for something much greater, for God in himself and for God in the world. ...
... ourselves on the earth as the animals do, not only having made to keep it and develop its best vital and egoistic or communal use for the efficiency and enjoyment of the individual, the family or the collective ego, substantially as is done by the animal families and colonies, in bee-hive or ant-hill for example, though in the larger, many-sided way of reasoning animals; it is also, and much more charact ...
... intellectual and cultural activity and progress may do much, but need not by themselves be sufficient to bring into being the fully powerful psychological factor that would be required. And the collective ego created would have to rely on the instinct of unity alone; for it would be in conflict with the Page 562 separative instinct which gives the national ego half its vitality. It is ...
... usurpation by the ignorant Asura. The social law, that second term of our progress, is a means to which the ego is subjected in order that it may learn discipline by subordination to a wider collective ego. This law may be quite empty of any moral content and may express only the needs or the practical good of the society as each society conceives it. Or it may express those needs and that good, ...
... power of Supernature for bringing in and extending that greater life and nature; whatever conquest and adventure will be there, will be for that only and not for the reign of any individual or collective ego. Love will be for him the contact, meeting, union of self with self, of spirit with spirit, a unification of being, a power and joy and intimacy and closeness of soul to soul, of the One to the ...
... central fact which gives a significance otherwise altogether lacking to the mechanical structure of the universe. Man is here not merely to utilise his world for the service of his individual and collective ego; he is here as a medium in which the Spirit within, the secret growing Consciousness can evolve farther its self-manifestation, arrive from a partial to a complete consciousness and, since life ...
... appearances before those who work under him. Unfortunately the same rule does not apply to a spiritual leader vis-a-vis his disciples. A great spiritual personality is so often surrounded by a collective ego-wall of mediocre followers that truth-seekers cannot help but hesitate to approach the Master. I often feel that all these legends grow around a luminary not because the disciples have too much ...
... of mind by the death of the body; the one abiding truth is eternal Nature working in the race — this or another — and her purpose should be followed, not ours. The fulfilment of the race, the collective ego, and not that of the individual should be the rule of life. Another trend of thought, more vitalistic in its tendencies, fixes on the conscious ego as the supreme achievement of Nature, no matter ...
... all that arises from it, community of interests, a common civilisation and culture, a common social law, an aggregate mentality, an economic association, the ideals, emotions, endeavours of the collective ego with the strand of individualities and connections running through the whole and helping to keep it together. Or, where there is a difference in these things, opposition, conflict, a practical ...
... largest universality, nor his own life to be full life except as it is one with the universal life. He will not live either for himself or for the State and society, for the individual ego or the collective ego, but for something much greater, for God in himself and for the Divine in the universe." "The spiritual age will be ready to set in when the common mind of man begins to be alive to these ...
... the mass can arrive at a clear knowledge and creation of the thing it held in its subconscient self. 35 If the society of the future is to be a spiritual society, in the place of the collective ego there has to emerge a collective soul, and such group souls have "like the individual to grow according to their own nature and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the ...
... 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 ...
... Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. "Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a Page 78 collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, ...
... 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 ...
... of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out 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. We instinctively act and... false accountantship which prevents us from drawing the right and full value from life. There is a sense in which these pretensions of the human mind and ego repose on a truth, but this truth only emerges when the mind has learned its ignorance and the ego has submitted to the All and lost in it its separate self-assertion. To recognise that we, or rather the results and appearances we call ourselves, are... keep a false account. We are infinitely important to the All, but to us the All is negligible; we alone are important to ourselves. This is the sign of the original ignorance which is the root of the ego, that it can only think with itself as centre Page 104 as if it were the All, and of that which is not itself accepts only so much as it is mentally disposed to acknowledge or as it is forced ...
... of a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite movement, infinite activity pouring itself out 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. We instinctively act and... false accountantship which prevents us from drawing the right and full value from life. There is a sense in which these pretensions of the human mind and ego repose on a truth, but this truth only emerges when the mind has learned its ignorance and the ego has submitted to the All and lost in it its separate self-assertion. To recognise that we, or rather the results and appearances we call ourselves, are... We Page 79 are infinitely important to the All, but to us the All is negligible; we alone are important to ourselves. This is the sign of the original ignorance which is the root of the ego, that it can only think with itself as centre as if it were the All, and of that which is not itself accepts only so much as it is mentally disposed to acknowledge or as it is forced to recognise by ...
... the nation-unit took place round the vital-ego of the collective egos culminating in two devastating World Wars. If the vital-ego leads the nation hardly any other result is to be expected. Yet, paradoxical though it may sound, universal Nature is pressing forward to the unity of mankind not withstanding the two World-Wars. The only unit of collective life that remains to be achieved is mankind... or political rights only but on the need of freedom to express ' the national soul. ' The collective consciousness awoke under the name of ' Bharat-Shakti ' or ' Bharat-Mata 'when the national movement started in India. The collective life of nations has been dominated by the vital-ego of the collectivity, not by its deeper soul. It is in Europe that the nation-units were first organised and... him to solve all his problems. It is necessary that the t ego ' in man should be replaced by the new Consciousness. Most of our philosophers thought ignorance to be an individual problem whereas to Sri Aurobindo, it is a collective problem; in fact, it is a cosmic problem. Very often it is seen that the ignorance of the collectivity is far more dangerous than that of the individual. The Indian ...
... surrender to the Divine alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, the formation of a collective Vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the Divine, purification, surrender... work. When I find someone both honest and capable he becomes very precious. The Mother Negligence In the Ashram, negligence in work is treachery. The Mother The collective work ...the collective work should not suffer because of personal work. The Mother Page 22 Entire consecration to the Divine You seem to forget that by the fact... better to continue the work even if one feels lazy? Page 9 That depends on the work; there we enter another domain. If it is a work that you are doing for the collectivity and not for yourself personally, then you must do it, whatever happens. It is an elementary discipline. You have undertaken to do this work or have been given the work and have taken it up, therefore ...
... alone, rejection of ego and all the ordinary vital movements and the training in a psychic elevation, selflessness, obedience, renunciation of all mental, vital or other self-assertion of the limited personality. Self-affirmation is not the aim, development of the personal self is not the aim, the formation of a collective vital ego is also not the aim. The merging of the little ego in union with the... work does not exist in the Asram. All is organised and interrelated; neither the heads of departments nor the workers are independent. To learn subordination and cooperation is necessary for all collective work; without it there will be chaos. As for the Yoga aspect of these personal clashes, dislikes etc. and of the work itself, I have written about that before. 10 March 1936 Page 756 ... is likely to be a seesaw between ecstatic expectation and viraha, abhimāna, despair, which will make it not a short cut but a long one, a zigzag, not a straight flight, a whirling round one's own ego instead of a running towards the Divine. 10 December 1934 Page 743 If I remember right, you wrote to me that work is only a means for the preparation of the spiritual life; otherwise ...
Share your feedback. Help us improve. Or ask a question.