Man is at a critical juncture

Man is at a critical juncture

Jitendra Sharma pays homage to Sri Aurobindo by sharing his (and the Mother’s)  vision of an evolving consciousness in man  

and how it can provide an answer to the  present global turmoil that we are facing

This year, the world is commemorating the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo. He is  known as a great yogi, philosopher, poet, literary critic, and revolutionary. 

Background 

Born as Aurobindo Ghose in Kolkata on August 15, 1872, he went to England for his studies. He  appeared for the Indian Civil Services examination in Cambridge but absented himself in the  last part of the horse-riding test. After coming to India, he joined the service of the Maharaja of  Baroda. Soon, he joined national politics. His articles in Bande Mataram, Karmayogin, and other  revolutionary journals enthused the youth everywhere. In May 1908, he was arrested in the Alipore  Conspiracy Case. In prison, he had many spiritual experiences. He was acquitted on May 6, 1909.  On April 4, 1910, he went to Pondicherry and stayed there for four decades. 

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Current crisis 

At present, the entire world is in a state of tur moil. Global warming, wars, the Ukraine cri sis, diseases, and fear have infiltrated man’s  psyche. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic  gripped humans in all parts of the world. The  coronavirus continues to take lives everywhere.  Man is desperately searching for solutions to  these unforeseen problems. The present world  crisis concerns the entire humanity the world  over. But we all know that the night is darkest  before dawn. A new world is about to be born.  

Change of consciousness 

According to the integral vision of Sri Au robindo, the divine consciousness has descend ed to the lowest levels of Matter to release the  dormant Spirit in the core of Matter. There is  a lot of resistance from below, resulting in a lot  of dirt, wickedness, and illness. All these are  the signs of the resistance that is coming up  violently. The more the pressure of the divine  force from above increases, the more the wild  resistance from the inconscient below increas es. This reaction and process are quite natural  because the lowest planes of existence have to  be transformed completely by the divine con sciousness. At present, there is a lot of disorder  and chaos on all levels of man’s heart, mind,  and body. It is because we have a deep-rooted  reluctance in us to open ourselves to the divine  light. The only solution is to offer ourselves in  all sincerity to the Divine. We should not open  ourselves to harmful beings and dark forces  which ever seek to use us as their mediums.  The Mother says: “The future of the Earth de pends on a change of consciousness. The only  hope for the future is in a change of man’s con sciousness, and the change is bound to come.  But it is left to men to decide if they will col laborate for this change or if it will have to be  enforced upon them by the power of crashing  circumstances.” When the Supramental Force  

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will become effective on earth, men will act as  docile instruments of the Divine Will. Sri Au robindo expresses his future vision in Savitri  thus: 

Escape, however high, redeems not life, Life that is left behind on a fallen earth. Escape cannot uplift the abandoned race Or bring to it victory and the reign of God. A greater power must come, a larger light. Although Light grows on earth and Night  recedes,  

Yet till the evil is slain in its own home 

And Light invades the world’s inconscient base And perished has the adversary Force, 

He still must labour on, his work half done. 

Now begins the expedition to stop thoughts.  We want no mind. Freedom from thoughts.  Now we become serious seekers. We meditate,  chant, heal, regress, affirm, undergo therapies,  and do all kinds of practices to become a better  version of ourself. And we do. 

But we do not experience Silence because we  are always in a state of becoming. And becom ing is never-ending. Because the person that  wants to become is kept alive by the desire to  become. These people remain seekers for life,  not realising that they are Life. 

Internal yoga 

Sri Aurobindo’s mystic profundities are illu minating. He does not believe in any dichot omy between the material world and the Spir it. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “We speak  

of the evolution of Life in Matter, the evolu tion of Mind in Life; but ‘evolution’ is a word  which merely states the phenomenon without  explaining it. . . . Yoga means a change of con sciousness; a mere mental activity will not  bring a change of consciousness, it can only  bring a change of mind.” According to the Ve 

dantic view also, the Spirit is already involved  in the Matter. In the tenth Mandala of the Rig  Veda too, we have the concept of evolution and  involution. Only what is involved, can evolve.  Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga aims at the total  transformation of man. “The sadhana of this  yoga,” says Sri Aurobindo, “does not proceed  through any set mental teaching or prescribed  forms of meditation, Mantras, or others, but  by aspiration, by a self-concentration inwards  or upwards, by self-opening to an Influence, to  the Divine Power above us and its workings, to  the Divine Presence in the heart, and by the  rejection of all that is foreign to these things. It  is only by faith, aspiration, and surrender that  this self-opening can come.” 

In the future stage of evolution, man will ex ceed the mind and attain Supermind, through  which the whole world will be transformed.  The supramental force will help man to be come more and more conscious and to con quer death. Sri Aurobindo’s epic poem Savitri  prophesies thus: 

A blind god is not destiny’s architect . . .  The Supermind shall claim the world for light  And thrill with love of God the enamoured  heart … 

Nature shall live to manifest secret God. 

Emergence of the Superman 

The Superman will naturally have God, light,  freedom, bliss, and immortality. Through his  own spiritual practice, Sri Aurobindo has  made it possible for mankind to transcend  mental consciousness for the process of  

complete transformation. Sri Aurobindo says,  “The animal is a living laboratory in which  Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man  himself may well be a thinking and living lab 

oratory in whom and with whose conscious  co-operation she wills to work out the super man, the god.” Again, he assures: “Evolution  is not finished; reason is not the last word nor  the reasoning animal the supreme figure of  Nature. As man emerged out of the animal, so  out of man, the Superman emerges.” 

Man is a transitional being with an inherent  impulse to evolve towards divine conscious ness. Sri Aurobindo explored prodigiously  through his body’s cellular consciousness the  secrets of evolution which the asphyxiating  earth needs badly at present. Only a spiritual  consciousness can help man to transcend the  present terrestrial crisis and move towards an  era of love, peace, harmony, and universal bon 

homie. 

Dr Jitendra Sharma is a professor of French in Calicut. He is an ex-student of the  Ashram School and has a PhD in Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry. He is the author of the  book, Concept of Man in Sri Aurobindo’s Poetry. 

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