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Sri Aurobindo and Human Unity* Amaury de Riencourt
THE fundamental problem of human unity appears insoluble under The problem is all the more acute in that this implosion has increased tensions between many human groups rather than decreased them. The search for national and cultural identity, now threatened by the depersonalization caused by an anonymous industrial civilization, is prompting many to look back wistfully at the past in an attempt to find roots and a sense of personal destiny that are being stripped away by this convergence itself. The very elements that could have provided links with which to consolidate human unity are being thrown overboard since they would compel contemporary men to outgrow themselves in the process of searching for a new identity: the belief in monotheism, for instance, is a perfect example. Under the spur of the new "Death of God" theology, Christians retain Christ but dismiss God altogether; Muslims can combine fanatical belief in the Prophet and virtual dismissal of Allah, for Muhammad provides them with a separate identity, but Allah does not; most Israelis are either agnostics or outright atheists, but the first item in their education is a thorough knowledge of the Bible in Hebrew. All and one, they emphasize what differentiates them from one another. Everywhere, minorities that have not been completely deprived of their sense of historical identification in Cyprus, Ireland, the United States, Europe and other parts of the world are rearing their heads and are increasingly emphasizing what makes them different from the majorities. In other words, fast as mankind
Page-278 converges on itself, the centrifugal tendencies increase at the same bewildering speed. But underneath the almost desperate search for separate identity by reaching far back into the past, there is an opposite trend propelling men toward a synthetic approach which the mere fact of human implosion renders indispensable. This synthesis, however, cannot remain a mere intellectual syncretism, an artificial construction of the mind; it has to become flesh: only a new type of man Sri Aurobindo's superman can fully embody it and provide the leadership required for progress toward human unity. Synthesis was one of the keywords of the cultural awakening that took place in Bengal in the nineteenth century at the time, merely a synthesis between Hindu thought and tradition and the Judeo-Protestant Christianity that held sway in the leadership of Western civilization. This synthesis did not quite work out as its nineteenth century proponents had hoped, because Western society was still too stable and sure of itself. As it so happened, it is largely the Germans who began to work out a certain syncretism between Western and Eastern thought and a great deal of German philosophy bears the imprint of Indian culture. Even today this remains true, inasmuch as the major syncretistic effort now bears on the relationship between traditional philosophic schools, East and West, and the philosophy of science. An uninterrupted tradition links Schopenhauer, Max Miiller and Heinrich Zimmer with such outstanding physicists as Erwin Schrodinger whose speculations on Vedanta place him in the mainstream of that tradition. Up to date, the latest is the notable physicist and philosopher of science, Professor von Weizsacker, Director of the Max Planck Institute in Starnberg, whose lengthy introduction to Gopi Krishna's work, The Yogi and the Physicist, probably contributes more to this developing syncretism than any other previous work along the same lines. However, as mentioned previously, syncretism can only prepare the intellectual groundwork; what is now required is the living synthesis, made far more possible today, thanks to the fact that Western societies have lost their former stability and self-assurance, providing an opening wedge to the infiltration of a variety of non-Western influences no longer on a merely intellectual plane, but on a far more massive, popular and emotional one involving large portions of the younger generations. In an underground, almost subliminal way, something like a crude synthesis is actually taking place, deep down in the psyche of contemporary man. The trend in the West, especially in the United States, is unmistakable; the growing disillusionment at the core of industrial civilization, the rapidly accelerating rejection of what is now termed the Protestant-Puritan ethic, Page-279 the refusal to countenance the dehumanizing impact of technology which entails a new artificiality of life, the impersonality of the fast-increasing bureaucracies required to run the increasingly complex administrative establishments of modern States, the destruction of Nature's ecological balance and the increasing pollution, thanks to which industrialized and I Imaginative intellectuals all look for the good and worthy life, but present us with Utopias that have no more chance of concrete realization than Plato's in ancient times. But they do testify to the existence of a trend, even those like Marcuse that propound heretical forms of Marxism: they are all breaking away from the sceptical, urbane agnosticism and positivist anti-religious mould of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Without being quite conscious of it, they testify to the rebirth of some form of religiosity, however vague. They may be "inverted transcendentalists" or immanentists searching for sexual liberation and the concrete "resurrection of the body"; they are all concerned with the "absurdity" of present-day life, of contemporary man's "one-dimensionality", with a search for a new "life-style" in the post-industrial world. They search, but they do not find. What all this implies is that, back of all these intellectual enquiries and suggestions, there is a groundswell of dissatisfaction with present-day conditions which provides an emotional, as well as an intellectual, opening for the intrusion of non-Western elements and concepts and life-styles the first step toward a creative synthesis. This has already happened in the past; perhaps the most noteworthy example is that of the syncretistic movement that swept the Hellenistic world, before and after Christ, at the time when Rome was establishing its empire all around the Mediterranean; which ended in the Christian synthesis. The difference is that today this is happening on a much larger, planetary scale, not in a forcibly unified but limited empire such as the Roman one. Nevertheless, the breakdown of morals in the economically developed countries, the widening generation gap, the rise of terrorism and anarchy, the widespread use of drugs, the disintegration of the family and of traditional kinship ties due to the fantastic spread of urbanization, everything points to a change of phase in history which might well be pointing to the end of history itself and usher in an entirely new geological age hopefully, the age of superman, whose chief characteristic will be to embody in creative fashion the synthesis to * which we referred earlier. Probable outcome of the present disintegration of all traditional structures, this new man will be endowed with a sort of cosmic consciousness Page-280 which manifests itself only dimly as yet, in a few scattered instances. He will be the joint product of all that present and future scientific knowledge will have to offer but without in any way relying exclusively on the external facilities offered by technology and the remoulding of the environment as advocated by such behaviourists as B. F. Skinner, nor merely sinking into drug-induced raptures. He will become superman because he will work at it, strive for it with all his might and will-power, using scientific knowledge and technology as launching pads for his take-off, jiot as props or substitutes. This cannot take place without a profound transformation of the unconscious mind, made perhaps easier by the penetrating researches made by such contemporary structural anthropologists as Claude Levi-Strauss in his analysis of mythology's deep structures. Sri Aurobindo, whose cosmic optimism embraced the whole of evolution from distant past to future, felt certain that the coming of superman was as sure as the coming of man before the appearance of mankind, and that his progress from mind to supermind would be as revolutionary as the progress of unconscious life to conscious mind. But he did more than proclaim this advent; as is traditional in India, he was also a mystic who experimented with himself and expounded a philosophy of transformation rather than intellectual information. In reply to a disciple's query, he once stated: "What you call thinking, I never do. I see or I don't see. That is all."1 His total being was involved in the search for the processes whereby such a new type of man could arise, and undoubtedly he felt himself to be the mystical spearhead of evolution itself, as if thousands of years of spiritual quest in India and elsewhere liberating the soul of the devotee who escaped into transcendental spheres but doing little for his fellowman, was now going to be deflected toward the socialization of spiritual knowledge and its extension to mankind at large, so that through a reshaping of matter, life and mind, an entirely new spiritualised way of life could prevail on this planet. It is difficult not to see in Sri Aurobindo's evolutionism a striking parallel with the cosmic vision of the French anthropoligist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a keen student of the human phenomenon who stressed the vast difference between the animal kingdom, open to a great variety of species and dispersion, and the subsequent human race, so closed up on itself, structured and exclusive of all other forms of life the cardinal difference being the birth of reflection in the human being who not only thinks, but knows that he thinks. From then on man could reflect
Page-281 the universe in his own mind, remember the past and foresee the future, and direct his own evolution. In one gigantic leap, Humanity outstripped mere Life, as the superman of the future will outstrip mere man. Just as man was not merely a new animal species but a new form of life, the future's superman will embody an entirely new type of thought and being. Just as thoughtful, reflective man represented an "interiorization" of the individual converging upon himself, the future's superman will symbolise the convergence of mankind upon itself through technicosocial means a thickening film of humanity covering the planet's surface which, having reached the limits of its spatial extension and diversification that had stretched, time-wise, through the Paleolithic, the Neolithic and historical times, is now reaching saturation point and will henceforth have to progress in another dimension: the deepening of its consciousness, a collective interiorization of humanity as a whole, in order to counteract the centrifugal tendencies that threaten contemporary mankind. The leader in the process will have to be this new type of man. In The Ideal of Human Unity, Sri Aurobindo clearly defined the future ideology in religious terms: "The fundamental idea is that mankind is the godhead to be worshipped and served by man and that the respect, the service, the progress of the human being and human life are the chief duty and chief aim of the human spirit." (p. 310) But, he warns, and questions, "... whether a purely intellectual and sentimental religion of humanity will be sufficient to bring about so great a change in our psychology", since "...it does not get at the centre of man's being. The intellect and the feelings are only instruments of the being ..." (p.313). It only remains to conclude, in Sri Aurobindo's words, that the goal can be secured when founded upon a change of the inner human nature and inner way of living", leading to a "larger inward life", (p.314) "The unity of the human race ... can only be secured and can only be made real if the religion of humanity, which is at present the highest active ideal of mankind, spiritualises itself and becomes the general inner law of human life." (p.316) In other words, this new religious mode must not only be thought out intellectually, but must be experienced and actually lived obviously, in the beginning, by a small number of exceptional men drawn from all over the world, from every nationality and every living culture. Multi-dimensional men will then become the living embodiment of the great synthesis, synthesis between the most profound psychological insights provided by traditional religions and the most recent findings of psychoanalysis and biochemistry. In one of his most eloquent passages, Sri Aurobindo emphasized that India "...must send forth from herself the future religion of the entire world, the Eternal religion which is to harmonize all religions, Page-282 science and philosophies and make mankind one soul."1 It only remains to conclude that, in keeping with this historical destiny, it is essential that this harmonization be carried out by breaking with hoary tradition, and opening up to scientific investigation the mystical treasures inherited from the past, which are still so much part of the present in India, and should now be shared with mankind at large, since they belong to the future of a united humanity.
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The Sevenfold Path of Human Unity* Haridas Chaudhur
THE purpose of this paper is not to summarize the views and ideas of Sri Aurobindo in regard to the ideal of human unity. My intention is rather to outline in a rough sketch a blueprint for human unity in the light of Sri Aurobindo's teachings. For the sake of succinct presentation, the suggested blueprint may be called the Sevenfold Path of Human Unity, such as follows:
1. BALANCE OF JUSTICE, NOT BALANCE OF POWER At present some big powers are inclined to think of human unity and world peace in terms of maintaining the status quo. But so long as any single country, race or nation, continues to remain under the unjust political domination or economic exploitation of a foreign country or a domestic military dictatorship, genuine human unity can hardly be achieved. It is necessary, as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi recently said, "to tip the balance of power in favour of peace and international cooperation... and the blossoming of the spirit of man"1 through world-wide justice and prosperity. Since 1955-56, the international balance of power degenerated into the balance of terror, with the rivalry in the arms race having entered into the thermonuclear age.2 But terror can hardly smother the voice of protest for long. With pockets of gross injustice and military suppression hiding underground volcanoes in different parts of the globe, the hope of unity and peace is bound to remain a mere chimera.
2. FIVE ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL CONDUCT
Drawing inspiration from the teachings of the Buddha, India's former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru brilliantly hit upon the concept of
Page-284 Panchsheel1 as the regulative ethics of international relations. These principles are: (1) Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; (2) Mutual non-aggression; (3) Mutual non-interference in others' internal affairs; (4) Equality and mutual benefit; and (5) Peaceful co-existence. These five ethical principles can be regarded as detailed elaboration of Mahatma Gandhi's two fundamental spiritual principles of truth (satya) and non-violence (ahimsd). Pandit Nehru rightly pointed out that "in these days of ballistic missiles, hydrogen bombs, and space travel" observance of such ethical principles has become an imperative necessity.2 Be it, however, noted here that no abstract principle can be blindly and unconditionally applied to the everchanging concrete situations of life regardless of unique and emergent combinations of circumstances. No verbal statement of truth is absolutely valid, simply because it represents an abstraction from the concrete fullness of reality. Also, it represents a determinate perspective of Being, which is essentially ineffable and indeterminable, as Vedanta teaches. The absolute and u niveral truth is one with multidimensional Being (Brahman), which is beyond all dogmas and doctrines, ethical principles and religious creeds, metaphysical world-views and political ideologies. All these represent only relative truths. To equate the absolute with any particular creed or ideology is a glaring fallacy. That is why every country or nation has a right to choose freely its own ideology and socio-political system in careful consideration of its prevailing social, economic, political and cultural conditions. The decisive factor in every emergent crisis in international relations must always remain the ultimate good of humanity as a whole. Considerations of the supreme good, of which equality, justice, and freedom' are essential ingredients, must always take precedence over abstract ethical principles. It is this fundamental axiom of spiritual humanism which lent justification to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's military intervention in Bangladesh with a view to saving a nation of 78 million people from genocide and military suppression. While discussing the theory of "defensive resistance", Dr. Karan Singh rightly points out that the "peaceful approach is, in Sri Aurobindo's concept, by no means unconditional... he had no aversion to the use of force if circumstances so demanded".3
Page-285 3. A WELL-BALANCED SCHEME OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Every country should have at least one world university wedded to the ideals of human unity and world peace. Instead of providing an apparatus for cultural conditioning in the exclusive interest of its own socio-economic system or political ideology or ethicoreligious creed, its ultimate goal should be to provide training for international leadership in the best interests of humanity as a whole. The country's representatives to the United Nations should be selected from among the graduates of this world university. The guiding principles of sound international education can be defined as follows: 1)An objective understanding of the cultural values, socio-economic systems, political ideologies, national aspirations, and international attitudes of the world's different countries. 2)A genuine appreciation of every nation's right to choose freely its sociopolitical system in accordance with its own distinctive national genius. Such an appreciation is possible only after renunciation of ideological dogmatism and cultural provincialism. The Vedantic doctrine of the manifoldness of truth (ekam sad viprah bahudha vadanti) can serve as the basis for such appreciative openmindedness. 3)Training in the art of international communication. Linguistic barriers, religious and cultural differences, semantic problems related to divergent conceptual frameworks, clash of narrow national interests and motivations, etc., so often stand in the way of effective international communication. 4)Training in global or planetary awareness. Problems of alarming proportions such as steadily increasing over-population, irreversible environmental deterioration, thermonuclear over-production, etc., are seriously threatening today the fate of our planet. A vivid realization of this crisis will intensify the spirit of international cooperation for the common good of the world community. It is likely to strengthen the bonds of unity and solidarity among different nations in the face of common danger and provide a meaningful outlet and creative sublimation for the aggressive impulses of various nations. 5)Training in non-dichotomous thinking. National egotism combined with the dualistic logic of "either or" has played a large part in dividing the world into antagonistic camps. It has given rise to the attitude: "If you are not with me, you are against me." It blinds one to the truth that diversities of viewpoint are actually a healthy stimulant to continuous growth and progress and are therefore necessary for the multicoloured richness of human culture. Page-286 4. OPENNESS TO THE INTEGRATIVE POWER OF THE SUPERMIND In discussing the problem of human unity it would be pertinent to raise the question. What is the ultimate unifying principle of human life? Or, is there any such principle at all? Is the dream of human unity an uncritical mode of wishful thinking? Is the human species, with so many self-contradictory impulses inherent in human nature, ultimately doomed to extinction and shameful disappearance from the face of the earth? From the study of history we know that externally imposed human unity achieved by despots and dictators, by conquerors and emperors, has always been more or less short-lived. Human consciousness, an essential attribute of the spirit in man, is always capable, as Jean-Paul Sartre beautifully shows, of transcending all manner of determinism, and envisioning better alternatives to a given state of humiliating bondage. Consciousness is, in its essence, "a pure and simple negation of the given", and it exists as "an engagement toward a certain not yet existing end".1 So attempts at unity by imperialistic methods have always failed, even though, as Sri Aurobindo points out, evolutionary Nature might have temporarily sanctioned such methods as a few steps forward in the direction of unity. Likewise attempts at world unity with the help of a particular religious creed propagated in the name of a particular Messiah or Prophet have always met with failure. The reason is that no religious creed or theological dogma, which is essentially an inadequate and imperfect conceptualization of the structure of reality, can be said to embody the absolute truth. Proselytizers fail to recognize that creeds and dogmas have only relative validity.° For the same reason it is impossible to achieve unity in terms of a definite political ideology, however good and effective it may be for some country at a given time. Belief in unity through a fixed ideology fails to take into account the fact that every political ideology derives its validity from a particular set of historical circumstances. Wide differences in socio-economic, political and cultural conditions prevailing in different countries require suitable variations in political ideology to inspire the development of different countries in accordance with their distinctive national genius. But still there is no gainsaying the fact that the unitive impulse on the whole predominates over separative tendencies in the human species. Julian Huxley points out that man is the only successful type which has remained as a single inter-breeding group or species, and has not radiated
Page-287 out into a number of biologically separated assemblages (like the birds, with about 8,500 species, or the insect with over half a million).1 Throughout history this unitive impulse has gained an increasing measure of strength and momentum through migrations, intermarriages, world travels, improvements in transportation and communication, and expanded mental horizons revealing the tremendous human potential on this lovely little planet of ours. How would then the ultimate human unity come about ? How would the discords of national rivalry and clashing bloc interests be overcome? In the view of Sri Aurobindo, the ultimate human unity can be achieved only by the manifestation in human evolution of a higher trans-conceptual level of consciousness. Such a consciousness fully cognizant of Being as the unitary ground of all existence, would appreciate diversity in unity, freedom within harmony, and cooperation on a footing of equality. The wish for human unity has assumed many forms in many countries. The kingdom of heaven on earth is its religious name. Since man is not a stranger on earth, since on the contrary he is a native child of mother earth and a product of evolutionary nature, to suggest that the basic longings of man are out of touch with reality is an unwarrantable assumption of dualistic thinking. The integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is inspired by the ontological insight that man's deepest aspirations and ideals are in ultimate analysis a reflection in his consciousness of the fundamental trend of planetary evolution. The upward impulse of man is, in his view, part of a fundamental method of Nature and the very sense of her universal strivings.2 Mahatma Gandhi has shown how the ethical principles of truth and non-violence can be effectively applied toward the solution of the socioeconomic and political problems of a country. Sri Aurobindo points out that there are even much deeper forces of the spirit in man such as the light and power of nirvana, samadhi, cosmic consciousness, overmind, super-mind, etc. An abiding solution of the problems of human discord and division calls for an application of such deeper powers of the spirit toward global unity. What Sri Aurobindo calls integral Yoga is systematic training in mobilizing the deeper spiritual resources of man toward the solution of world problems. The supermind, the highest integrative and self-effectuating creative energy of Being, can alone lay the foundation for a genuine Kingdom of Heaven on earth.
Page-288 There are two noteworthy features of India's foreign policy as wisely fashioned under the guidance of Pandit Nehru. These are dynamic neutrality and military non-alignment. First, India believes in a non-doctrinaire and non-committal attitude to conflicting political ideologies. The ancient sages of India taught that the truth is multiple in its manifestation. So various articulations of truth which give rise to divergent ideologies are only partially and relatively valid. It is therefore both logically valid and humanistically imperative that there should be harmonious cooperation among all nations cutting across seemingly conflicting ideological barriers. Secondly, India believes that instead of the division of the world into antagonistic military blocs in the name of national security of peace, it is desirable that the number of militarily non-aligned countries should more and more increase. The gradual widening of tension-free peaceful zones will have a curbing effect upon the military bloc strategy of international power politics. This policy of military non-alignment is the application in world affairs of the concept of Ahimsa or Non-violence which is central to India's spiritual heritage. 6. REORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ORGANIZATION The UNO as a peace-keeping agency of the world is still in its infancy. A reorganization of its structure and functions in the best interests of abiding peace is long overdue.r The UNO represents, to use an expression of Teilhard de Chardin, the beginning of cephalization of the human race engaged in the process of unification. But in order that it may serve as the sober and efficient brain of mankind, a thorough overhaul is necessary. As matters stand at present, in the event of a global catastrophe or armed hostility between two or more nations, the UN can easily be reduced to impotency. Any one of the five original members of the UN Security Council is in a position to veto the proposal for necessary steps toward peace. Even when the right kind of resolution is passed, the UN has not the ability to implement the resolution. Nor has it the powers to enforce its laws regarding the fundamental rights of man. When the superpowers are agreed upon a particular international issue, they can afford to go ahead independently of the UN or in utter disregard of its collective conscience. Thus a Concert of Superpowers can Page-289 easily set itself up as a higher world authority endowed with the moral right to rule the world. That would be a sophisticated modern version of the old principle of might is right. When, on the other hand, the superpowers do not agree upon a vital issue of war and peace, there is nothing that the UN can effectively do. It is quickly reduced to the status of an international debating society, allowing Nero to fiddle while Rome burns. With regard to its developmental agencies such as the World Bank, International Trade and Tariff, Aid to Developing Countries, International Monetary System, and the like, effective measures are urgently called for against the practice of favouritism and exclusive-club mentality. Tariff, trade and foreign exchange regulations should be revised in such a way that the tendency of rich nations growing richer and the poor nations growing poorer can be arrested. Toward the successful operation of the United Nations as an impartial world organization as the real head of the international body politic it is imperative that the developing countries should have an opportunity to deal with the developed countries on a footing of friendship and equality. There can be no international cooperation in the true sense of the word without the have-not nations having a real sense of participation in major decisions regarding world affairs, economic, political and cultural.
7. THE NEED FOR MTJLTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH The problem of human unity is an enormously complicated issue. It doncerns human relations in their various aspects, and human life in its various facets. Since man is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, a multi-disciplinary approach is called for to overcome the present-day crisis that says : unite or perish! It is not enough to restructure the United Nations, putting teeth into its resolutions. However perfect the UN apparatus may become, in the last analysis, it is the human factor behind the apparatus that would always count most. In order that the ruling powers of the UNO may have a sincerely dominant international outlook, it is not enough that they have sound knowledge of international politics, trade, commerce and monetary systems. It is imperatively necessary that their unconscious motivations are in harmony with their conscious desire for unity and peace. To that end international education must be accompanied by training in integral self-discipline in terms of an integrated value-system. The ideal world society Page-290 cannot be established without a genuine change of heart. And there can be no genuine change of heart without the right kind of training in value-consciousness. In these days of technological advancement, mechanical perfection, and efficiency of operation, the need for the heightening of value-consciousness has assumed a sense of urgency and vital necessity. So the ultimate need today is a purposeful coordination of all the relevant disciplines of knowledge on the basis of perfect self-integration, as Sri Aurobindo has emphasized. Such self-integration would naturally involve a transvaluation of traditional value-systems in the light of an integral vision of the ultimate goal of human unity and progress in the context of the cosmic situation. For instance, in tackling the problem of environmental pollution the need is not only for concerned cooperation among the various nations of the world. The latest findings of various sciences including astrophysics, biochemistry, thermodynamics, oceanography, etc. and the technical know-how based upon them must be freely drawn upon through sustained consultations among various scientists, technicians, statesmen, and dedicated internationalists. Big-business representstives have to be persuaded to replace the motivation of production for profit with the principle of 'production for use'. People have to be re-educated to renounce such luxuries as require colossal wastage of nature's energy resources. And the environmental issue must not be capitalized by the highly industrialised nations to control the growth of undeveloped countries in the interests of the monopolistic progress of the industrial giants. Thus it is evident that any single world problem requires for its solution the combined blessings of science and self-discipline, technology and humanitarianism, world economics and global ethics, international politics and integral truth-vision. As there is no single magic formula, the need is for an internationally coordinated multidisciplinary approach. In order to achieve the mobilization of various human disciplines toward the solution of pressing world problems, it is necessary that the UNO should evolve into some kind of federation of free nations or a simple confederacy of the peoples for the common ends of mankind.1 Until the next breakthrough in human evolution is accomplished, maximum use of the forces of international education and communication has to be made.
Page-291 Human Unity and Sri Aurobindo* Edith Schnapper
MY first reaction when I received the invitation to participate in this J-Vi- Seminar on Sri Aurobindo and Human Unity was twofold. I felt honoured and delighted, but at the same time, the magnitude of the subject somewhat stunned me and I was asking myself if I could possibly do justice to it. Although the problem of unity had fascinated me for years, I had approached it mainly from the inner point of view of the personal and practical pursuit of the Integral Yoga, rather than concentrating on its more external, its social, cultural, economic and political aspects. But then I remembered Sri Aurobindo's emphasis that the transformation of life he envisages is a movement originating in an inner call or search which, as it proceeds, by necessity expands outwards, and in doing so gradually erases the division of inner and outer. Thus in our quest for a higher existence of harmony and unity, it is the inner life that is of first importance, and its aim, according to the Integral Yoga, is to be in full and effective union with the Divine; in other words, its prime and ardent concern is the healing of the existing rift between man, the world and God. It is of this inner process of healing that I should like to speak today, a process that leads from disunion and separation to union within and unity without. If asked for the root cause of this rift, most religions, I think, would point to that deeply ingrained and passionately held notion of a separate and independent self, or (in psychological terms) the notion of the ego, that "pragmatic and effective fiction" as Sri Aurobindo calls it, that influences, directs and controls our actions and reactions, our desires, emotions and vital impulses. In fact, is it not around this fiction that most of our life revolves? (Its chief function is to act as a powerful magnet motivating and drawing into its sphere of influence our choices and responses, as well as our judgements and decisions). By its very nature it is dualistic; it is the creator of that illusory yet deep division between the I and the not-I, and in this way it dissects life's continuum and imposes upon it the inexorable law of the pairs of opposites. Under its dominance, life becomes identified with an existence wholly controlled by dualism, a shuttlecock game swaying from one extreme to the other. Supported by our mind and reason,
Page-292 we are led to believe that this is the only life there is and, consequently, that any endeavour to go beyond dualism is doomed to failure (for it can only lead to a dissolution of life itself). Nevertheless, the call to transcend the realm of dualism has ever been the great challenge from the world's saints and seers reaching us across the centuries. How can the evidence of our everyday life and this call to transcend it be combined? That all life is an interplay of contraries cannot be denied. This interplay, the cosmic dance as it is seen here in India, is the very stuff of manifested life itself; (it constitutes life just as its cessation without retrieve means stagnation and ultimately death). Furthermore, integration and final synthesis of the dualities of life reveal themselves as the means to attain to a higher mode of existence where dualism, as we know it, is transcended. The search and even longing for such an integration and synthesis appear to be inborn in man's evolutionary being; yet there are periods in human history when the darkness of separation from God obscures this liberating vision. The modern world seems to have entered such a period of darkness, and it is for this reason that the search for a life not dominated by dualism has become of such crucial importance as to be a question of survival. Instead of a dynamic interplay of life's contraries expressing as well as pointing to a higher unity, we see nothing but mutually exclusive oppo-sites that do not complement but obstruct and even fight to eradicate each other. Instead of inter-dependence there is only the destructive rule of the either-or (separative and exclusive). The god Janus appears to confront us everywhere, double-faced and looking in opposite directions. Indeed this Janushead could be said to have become the symbol of our ego-dominated world, the symbol of the split between man and the world, the within and the without, body and soul, matter and spirit. All are separated by unbridgeable gulfs denoting alienation, hostility, selfishness and ultimately despair and destruction. These are the stark and forbidding premises from which we have to set out in our search for a healing and life-restoring union with the Divine. It is essential to realise that, however genuine the search, if we remain within the framework of dualism, there is no hope of success. For any solution therein is by its very nature one-sided and therewith spurious. What invariably happens is that, in order to avoid the clash of opposites, we opt for one side whilst trying to minimise, ignore or destroy the other. The result is necessarily an enforced truce, a form of peace that can only be maintained by repression or oppression. The outcome is not unity, not Page-293 an enriched but an impoverished life, a travesty of its fullness and wholeness. At its worst it is the life under totalitarian rule, of mass indoctrination and detention camps. Personal freedom cannot be allowed because it imperils the spurious unity and peace, both of which are wholly dependent on the enforced maintenance of a one-sided outlook on life. A similar situation prevails in the spiritual field. Here, too, the healing of the split between God and man is only too readily sought on the premises of dualism. When we seek access to the life of the Spirit, we often take it for granted that the life of matter has to be severely curbed and even shunned. Lasting peace and happiness cannot be found, we believe, in the midst of the struggles and stresses of everyday life. Religion thus tends to become identified in many minds with partial or complete withdrawal from life and in this way life is further dissected and robbed of much of its vitality, variety, and depth. True union with God, it is thought, can only be experienced in the monastic cell, the cave or beyond the grave, where life's contraries no longer interfere. It may well be that here we have touched upon one of the main reasons why modern man has become predominantly non-religious. He tends to identify the life of the Spirit with other-worldliness and an inability to cope with the exigencies of day-to-day existence. A chasm has thus opened between the religious and the secular life. Happiness, for the great majority of people, concerns the ego, and its pursuit belongs to the realm of matter. Religion, well aware of this fact, has in recent years, responded to the charge of other-worldliness with a new emphasis on action and involvement in everyday affairs as well as a tendency to discredit mystical leanings which are frequently regarded as outdated and altogether undesirable. The sad fact is that this appears to be happening at a time when from the other side, the secular side of life, there is a steadily increasing demand for guidance in the inner life and a turning to mysticism, Yoga, meditation and prayer. Trends like these are hopeful signs, yet in so far as they are merely compensatory, they are likely to do no more than cause yet another swing to the opposite extreme 'and never the twain shall meet'. For if religion panders to secular life by adopting its ways and stooping to its demands, it is in danger of losing contact with its mystical core, the source of its strength and the reason for its existence. Furthermore, as we can witness around us, the didactic knowledge of the practice of the presence of God falls into disuse and is eventually forgotten. Emphasis on the search within, approaches on the dualistic level, necessarily lead to an equally unbalanced state. As of old, it is found that the inner and outer demands cannot both be met satisfactorily. If an escape out of this dilemma is sought by plunging into the long neglected Page-294 fields of the psyche coupled with a disgust of external life constantly interfering on all sides, the risk is that one loses one's grip on the world and, in consequence, becomes flooded with subconscious forces that can easily overwhelm and endanger the psychological health of the individual. The going beyond the opposites of which the spiritual teachings speak is different. The solution to the tug of war is sought, not on, but beyond the dualistic level. There is no attempt here to make one side dominate the other, thus side-stepping the real issue, a gimmick that the ego will at every stage suggest and work for. The dualities are left intact. The actual process involved is a complicated one, yet once set in motion and experienced, it is simplicity itself. Just because it is a process that cannot be grasped or described from the vantage point of the ego's dualistic nature, it appears to be shrouded in mystery and, what is more, it has to contend with the fiercest opposition from our master the ego as well as from our dualistically functioning reason. Both will do their utmost to prevent this process from getting under way and from receiving, for its survival, the necessary psychic and physical energy. We think and speak in opposites; it is the only language at our disposal, and it is therefore the language we are forced to use if we want to describe this process of transcendence. If the language itself cannot be changed, the way of using it can. The linguistic tool that performs this service for us is the paradox, the immediate juxtaposition of two mutually exclusive terms or statements. Indeed, it can be said that paradoxical utterances are likely to be found wherever the attempt is made to give a description of inner happenings pertaining to the spiritual path. (Evelyn Underhill has made this point succinctly: "At once a journey, yet a development; a stripping off, yet a completing; a victory, yet a self-loss; only" in a paradox can its supernal nature be made clear." The paradox carries our habitual way of thinking in opposites ad absurdum, and in doing so frees us from the exclusiveness of the 'either-or', that most potent weapon of the ego. Furthermore, the dualism with its false limitations is transcended; it thus presents us with a challenge, for it expresses an inner conflict that demands to be resolved. Seen from the psychological point of view, this is indeed the effect the paradox has upon us whether we come across it in print or by way of oral instructions. However, these two sources are not the only ones available to us. Life itself offers us plenty of opportunities to enter into this inner process which C. G. Jung calls the transcendent function. Almost at every moment we are faced with the necessity to make a choice between two diametrically opposed possibilities, or to tackle a seemingly insoluble problem. The tension created, often attended by a feeling of frustration, must not be evaded but Page-295 endured as a precondition to that liberating experience which opens out towards a non-dualistic awareness. Basically there occur two main types of paradoxes, both freely used in the relevant texts of Eastern as well as Western mysticism and both revealing certain salient features of the Way. The first type occurs in the following saying by a Chinese Zen master:
The opposing terms, praise and abuse, to take hold of and to get rid of, belong to the same level of meaning, the level of everyday life where they cancel each other out. Here, however, their 'either-or' relationship is replaced by 'both this and that' or, negatively by the 'neither-nor' as used with great effect here: "When you meet a master in the street, neither speak, nor be silent. Then how will you greet him?" A two-pronged attack is here made on our mind. It is being stunned and made to fall silent (for "the great gate of charity" can only be entered with a silent mind; in addition, we are being taught the lesson of the need for non-attachment and equanimity in the face of the contraries of life. As we read in the Bhagavadgita, "Treating alike pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, then get ready for the battle"). 'There exists another version of this type of paradox; here too, the mutually exclusive terms refer to one and the same grade of significance, not the mundane but the higher realm of enlightenment and illumination. The paradox is used to indicate the utter beyondness, the all inclusiveness and wholly otherness of that which it describes, whether it does so in personal or impersonal terms. In the Mundaka Upanishad, we are told "IT is all that is and all that is not", or, in the Koran: "He is the First and the Last and the Manifest and the Hidden". Frequently these utterances are couched in negative terms: "THAT is not this, not that" or, positive and negative together: "IT is one in Many and Many in One, yet neither One nor Many." The same technique is used by Dionysius the Areopagite when he says, "HE is both at rest and in motion, and yet is in neither state ..." If this type of paradox, in baffling the mind, teaches it the futility of trying to comprehend the Supreme, the second type is likely, not only to Page-296 silence it, but to make it turn away in disgust. What is a most potent expression of this form of paradox is found in several sayings of Jesus in the Gospels: "They seeing see not, and hearing they hear not;" or, even more striking: "He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Here life means death and death means life, an insight that lies at the very heart of all spiritual seeking, and wherever it occurs it is couched in the language of the paradox; thus Chuang Tzu, "To be annihilated and yet to exist, this is convergence of the supernatural into One"; or Sri Aurobindo, in the following lines from Savitri:
So as to make sense of this seeming non-sense, we need the knowledge as well as the actual experience of different levels of consciousness. Without this living knowledge, we only see meaningless and even absurd utterances; with it a deeper significance is revealed and a door opens leading to new realms of experience. In the process of trying to solve the riddle posed by the paradox we are jolted out of our one-level existence and are led to discover other planes where different modes of awareness and different values apply. In fact, everything appears to become reversed; what is seeing on one level is not-seeing on the other, what is saving is losing, what is death here is life there, (and what is action reveals itself to be non-action, for "The secret of the magic life consists of using action in order to acfiieve non-action"). The opposing terms used in these sayings clearly refer to different grades of awareness, one wider or higher than the other, and because the higher includes the lower but not vice versa the two grades are made to coalesce or, in other words, the illusion of separate strata vanishes, and the realisation dawns that "the One is the Many, the Many the One." This is the coincidence of opposites and stands for a non-dualistic experience, here and now. Invariably these paradoxical statements are given in the present tense, 'A is B' or 'A is not-A'; only thus can the immediacy of the experience be conveyed. The moment the attempt is made to make sense of this non-sense, in fact when logic and reason get to work, the trans-formatory power inherent in the paradox is lost. What happens is that the coincidence of opposites is interpreted as referring to the future. A comparison between two different translations of the same text clearly Page-297 shows this process at work. In the Tao Te Ching it is said:
To be tattered is to be renewed, To be in want is to possess... Here the full force of the paradox is intact, whereas in another rendering of the same lines, the break has occurred, dualism has won:
Not only has the clash of opposites gone, but the deeper meaning of the words has gone too. (The first lines of the Sermon on the Mount here come to mind: 'Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God.' With the second line the switch to the future takes place: 'Blessed are ye that hunger now for ye shall be filled.' The Kingdom of God is here seen as not of this world, and the coincidence of opposites is, therefore, removed. What is said can now be grasped and analysed by the mind and utilised by the ego, for the language used is its own language, the factual language of dualism. With this, the transformation envisaged is referred to the future, the death that means life here and now, has given way to the hope of things to come. In this way the paradox becomes rationalised and is destroyed in the process). There exists another method of invalidating the paradox. Here, although left intact, it is neutralised, as it were, and deprived of its inherent power to summon us to the battle of the contraries. What happens is that the mind opts out; the paradox is accepted in faith, in the faith of the 'credo quia absurdum est'. (A case in point is the teaching of the Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, found in various forms in so many traditions. This most potent paradox, when approached in this way, becomes reduced to an article of faith which we accept and believe in passively, and more often than not, unquestioningly.) Such a reaction is synonymous with a refusal to respond dynamically to the challenge thrown out by the paradox. With this a stalemate is reached in which the transcendent function, or to use a more recent term, the method of juxtaposition,1 cannot operate, with the result that the sought-for breakthrough to another dimension cannot occur.
Page-298 The path of integration and unity, then, leads us to the 'Straight Gate'. At this point of crisis, standing between the opposites, the double-faced god Janus reveals himself for what he really is, the god of gates and thoroughfares, the holder of the key that opens doors and allows us to pass over their thresholds, the god who sees at once the interior and the exterior like Brahma who is both inward and outward looking. This point of crisis is encountered, in most cases, not only once, but innumerable times, for the process involved is a gradual one. We have to die a thousand deaths so as to experience a thousand new births. Everytime this happens, the ego has to relinquish anew the central position it holds in our life and submit to an authority greater than itself, until eventually it surrenders its illusory independence unconditionally. At that point, dualism ceases to dominate our life and we are freed from its one-sided, and therewith false, solutions which breed misunderstandings, strife and disunity. Instead, we see the ego for what it really is, 'an intermediate representation of something beyond itself, as Sri Aurobindo calls it; in this way, its relationship to the One Existence is realised and experienced, and a living link is established between the world of the ego, the world of opposites, and God. That which had been cut off through ignorance and falsehood returns to its true source, and the triangle of creation, the One manifesting in the polarities of the world, is once more restored. Mythologies of many and various traditions colourfully describe this trinity of things. The One giving birth to the two, the point of stillness, creating polar motion, the swing of the pendulum. In other words, the One is also the Divider, He is the Logos who set a compass on the face of the Deep (Proverbs, VIII. 27). So long as this triune relationship remains a living human experience, the creative energy can flow freely, and manifested existence, the world ot" the dualities, is seen as the outflow on a lower level, of the One Reality creating, by its interplay of forces, the dynamis that sustains life and the universe. (Once this experience is lost, however, as it is to a large extent in the modern world, instead of mutuality and interdependence, the natural outcome of our common link with the 'Higher Third', God, there is only exclusiveness and opposition. The warring forces become an end in themselves, whatever they touch falls asunder. The divisive tendency is self-perpetuation, it leads to fragmentation, as we can witness all around us. Sri Aurobindo's teaching is one vast apotheosis of this process of transcendence. By fully accepting the world of dualities, yet at the same time reaching out towards That which restores their true function in the scheme of things, he opens the way to a cosmic synthesis never before envisaged. Whatever the point reached in the practical pursuit of his Yoga, the inherent dynamic force is derived from the ever expanding inclusiveness Page-299 as well as transcendence that he insists on. Everything, however refractory in appearance, has to be accepted, integrated into a higher unity and therewith transformed. For, as he says, "transcendence transfigures; it does not reconcile but rather transmutes opposites into something surpassing them that effaces their opposition" (The Life Divine, Vol. I, VII, p. 51). Most Yogas terminate this process of integration and transcendence at the level of the ego. In the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo, this is only the first if vital step, for, as he declares repeatedly, his Yoga begins where the others end. What comes after? Here, again, the self-same process of integration and transcendence comes into play. To the age-old aspiration towards the spiritual heights, the ascent of man to God, Sri Aurobindo has added its opposite, the descent of the Spirit of the Divine into man. With this he has changed fundamentally and decisively the entire approach to the spiritual life. For centuries an overemphasis on the upward motion, away from the exigencies of-mundane life, had progressively falsified man's aspiration for union with God. Dualism had crept in and had corroded even this sanctuary of human endeavour. A goal other than the spurious one of an unending ascent seemed non-existent. This situation Sri Aurobindo saw for what it was. He did not attempt to gloss over the hopelessness of the impasse reached by suggesting well-tried remedies like stricter moral conduct, or a return to what the various faiths have to offer in their rituals and creeds, in their life of prayer, meditation and intercession. He knew that these remedies in themselves were inadequate and therefore powerless to heal the deep fissure that separated, not only the individual, but mankind from God. Only a descent from above, he maintained, can rescue us from our one-sided existence and lead us to that point of synthesis where ascent and descent disappear as independent movements. At this point the great adversaries and seemingly irreconcilable opposites, Matter and Spirit, reveal their true identity and oneness. For here Spirit is seen as involved and evolving in Matter which itself becomes, in Sri Aurobindo's words 'the form of Spirit', and he speaks of the creative energy in Matter as a movement of the power of the Spiiit; furthermore, he asserts that here in Matter, as the habitation of the Spirit, there can be a realisation of the Spirit. To say, that the evolving and emergent power of the Spirit moves towards greater and ever expanding spiritual freedom is, to Sri Aurobindo, synonymous with saying that man moves towards greater and ever-expanding oneness and harmony, for freedom, equality (or brotherhood) and unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit (The Ideal of Human Unity, p. 369). Thus the emergent Spirit, in Nature, in Man, in the world IS that secret drive towards unity and identification that is at work in all existence. To Page-300 open ourselves to this power within, to experience it, co-operate with it and live it, is the precondition for the establishment on earth of the new, the gnostic consciousness whose inherent movement, naturally and spontaneously so, is towards oneness and identification with the Divine and therewith towards universal harmony and a manifold unity in the world. What this means, I think, I better leave to Sri Aurobindo to describe:
Page-301 The Contemporary Consciousness and Its Urge Towards Unity: An Aurobindonian Perspective* Aster Patel
BENEATH the clash of forces and the resultant chaos that mark the present times, a few very powerful ideas have progressively taken shape and have now reached some definite stage of maturation. Of these, one of the foremost is the ideal of human unity. This ideal received a first formulation in the early idealistic stages of the French Revolution and, subsequently, it was further elaborated upon by the thinkers of the nineteenth century. More recently, however, it has received a wider generalisation among thinking people everywhere. Apparently at least, this is due, in a large measure, to the facility and increased possibilities of communication, growth of international institutions and the spread of the scientific attitude, which is universal in its reference. These factors have certainly made an important contribution to the greater generalisation of this ideal. It is interesting to observe that the youth enjoys, in a marked manner, a spontaneous perception of the truth of this ideal. There is a facility of understanding and a flow of natural sympathy on the basis of sharing in a coirfmon humanity even where there is, on the surface, ample ground for disagreement and diversity. This seems to be indicative of the fact that the ideal of human unity is beginning to acquire some living force. From being a lofty intellectual construction, it is making an attempt, with whatever great difficulty and this cannot be minimised, to enter the arena of life. But the passion for unity as such is as ancient as humanity itself: this is one of the primeval longings! The Indian mind, in particular, has had a special seeking for unity. At its best, it has consistently been characterised by a need to synthesise, to harmonise all conflicting elements and to see them as forming part of an essential totality. The richness of a self-expressive, concrete unity has been the root perception here. This tendency of the Indian mind reaches in Sri Aurobindo a fine point of culmination. Given such atavism, it was only to be expected that India, once she achieved political freedom, would seek to make her contribution to the modern
Page-302 growth of the ideal of human unity and that of internationalism. This she has attempted to do and in various forms, not only in the matter of intellectual enrichment of the ideal, but in trying to work out actual ways by means of which the ideal can be made part of life. We thus accept the fact that the ideal of human unity represents one of the great idea-forces that move us profoundly today. What we shall attempt to do, in this paper, is to arrive at a more lucid understanding of the essential implications of this ideal and of the possibility of its progressive realisation in the framework of contemporary life. The following are the specific points that we wish to consider in this respect:
We are living through a period of a profound crisis of civilisation crisis of values, of norms, of beliefs. This has a special relevance to the Western half of the world, but India is far from being altogether immune to it. This crisis have progressively become more acute but, in the course of the last decade, it has reached an acme of tension and has acquired a degree of gravity that has profoundly shaken men everywhere. Why has this crisis come upon us and what does it seek to rectify? A crisis in human affairs implies a lack of equilibrium, a lack of harmony. What is then called for is a recovery of equilibrium, or rather the discovery of a new equilibrium, for there is never a going back, and each step that is taken has to be a step forward. The curve of progress is an irreversible fact. Modern civilisation is a product of the European Renaissance "and, uptil the present moment, it has followed a continuous line of progress which has been marked by an absolute confidence in the sole validity of scientific truth as the panacea for all ills that afflict humanity. Man has thus sought a knowledge of the laws and processes of nature for the purpose of wielding a greater mastery over them and for a more effective utilisation of the same. As a result of this, an immense structure of civilisation has been built up a structure so powerful that it tends to assume today almost an independent status, it is an entity by itself. And man, the creator, feels helpless before that which he has created: he is incapable of handling it with a sense of real mastery, incapable of imposing upon it the right direction of further growth. There is a precarious hiatus between knowledge and action: our knowledge greatly surpasses our capacity to rightly use that knowledge. Otherwise stated, man has not made an inner progress in the quality of life as such, in the growth of his essential human faculties Page-303 which would be commensurate with the progress made in the external domain. It is this disparity of progress, this imbalance of growth within and without, that has provoked the present crisis of civilisation. Man knows what is true, what is just, but he cannot live according to it, either individually or collectively. It is evident that we are living through a period of history when knowledge alone is proving inadequate: when it is essential to become. The important question is no longer "How and what shall we know?", but "How shall we live?" The importance which the contemporary consciousness attaches to the primacy of living, of becoming, offers a very interesting parallel to the position of Sri Aurobindo on the subject and, through him, to the Indian tradition in general. Existentialist thinking in the West has raised this issue in a very powerful manner but has, unfortunately, not yet given it a particularly positive content. In spite of this, it is interesting to observe how the need of practice is being universally felt. The essential seeking tends towards the re-creation of the personality of man, for the conditions of his existence can only be a reflection of the nature and quality of the former. If, therefore, we wish to change these conditions, man himself must consent to and seek to change, by however slow stages and in however small a degree. To expect it to be otherwise is an irrational demand! Such a solution appears to be radical but the contemporary consciousness is wary of half-measures, which trace an eternal round and ultimately lead nowhere in particular. What is the nature of this change that we seek? Generally speaking and in a variety of different ways, we are seeking to explore further dimensions of spiritual and other psychological experience, so as to enrich these resources of inner life and make them powerful enough to embrace the gigantic structure of external life that has been built up. The potential of the being of man is in question: it has long been largely ignored. Can its intrinsic worth be discovered and brought into active play ? An important new dimension begins to emerge here: that of the integration of spiritual and human values within a greatly enlarged framework of a rich and complex external life. Philosophically speaking, this leads to a perspective of totality, with the spiritual reality as foundational. This urge for wholeness, if we may so formulate it, the whole considered as an organic fact and not one arrived at by piecemeal construction, appears to be present, in howsoever incipient or implicit a manner, in the contemporary consciousness or rather in those sections of it which are the most progressive and forward-looking. This becomes fairly evident if one has the opportunity to meet large numbers of young people from different representative international communities spread out in various parts of the world. It is on Page-304 such data that we make the above assertion. The formulation of this urge for wholeness is nebulous and poorly defined for the present, but it undoubtedly exists in an embryonic form. We must observe here that Sri Aurobindo offers a philosophical justification for the emergence of such a tendency in the human mind. We shall presently consider this at some length. In the meanwhile, we would like to make a passing reference to the fact that this movement towards integration, towards wholeness, has already found some tangible expression in psychology through the Gestalt school and the important and comprehensive work done by Jung. One also remembers here thinkers like Toynbee and le Pere Teilhard de Chardin. In the scientific field too, there have been some interesting developments in this respect in recent years. Whereas the Cartesian method of investigation considered the whole as an aggregate of parts, recent discoveries have led to a reversal of this position and it is now being affirmed, more specially in the domain of biological sciences, that the whole is an organic reality independent of the parts that constitute it. The whole as the primary fact of reality is the chief assertion made in these instances that have been offered. We have thus far attempted to describe, in terms of values, the cultural milieu of the present times and, in doing so, have given some kind of form and content to what we have called 'the contemporary consciousness', the sections of it that are forward-looking. Sri Aurobindo offers, as we have stated earlier, a justification of the same in terms of philosophical understanding. It would be interesting to briefly consider this now. For Sri Aurobindo, the world of our experience is a multi-dimensional fact. The various levels of differentiation which constitute it correspond to an ascending scale of values from that of discrete plurality to that of progressive wholeness, culminating in total integration. These levels of experience correspond to the realms of matter, life, mind and supermind, which is existentially and qualitatively the highest of these levels and which possesses a total integration of what we call knowing, feeling and willing on the psychological level. Between mind and supermind, Sri Aurobindo distinguishes a whole hierarchy of intermediate domains which he characterises in great wealth of detail. This differentiation of levels of experience does not imply an absolute plurality, but only reveals the concrete content of an organic totality. This totality is, for Sri Aurobindo, the primary fact and the differentiation is the secondary but necessary fact of experience. The ontological Reality is a multiple unity: unity is the basis and supporting force even of the plurality. Sri Aurobindo further affirms that this organic totality is an evolving fact and this affirmation is corroborated by contemporary findings in many Page-305 fields of knowledge. The various levels of experience are linked together by means of an ascending order of evolution from the realm of matter to life, from that of life to mind, from mind to spirit. This ascension from one level to another takes place by means of a triple action of the force of consciousness that of widening, heightening and integration. Thus each level is taken up into the next higher one, and there assimilated and transformed. Evolution is consequently an integrative process. It denotes, in fact, a two-fold movement: the first being an inverse process, that of involution, by means of which the higher levels get involved in the lower ones and are present there as potentiality. Only thus can the evolution of each successive level out of the precedent one take place: a secret potentiality indicative of the higher levels must exist at the lower levels of experience. It is interesting to observe that the particular dimension of this evolutionary progression which has a special attraction for Sri Aurobindo is that of the prospective rather than the historical. The exploration of the prospective, of the infinitely richer possibilities of the future, their characterisation, the means of reaching out to them and actualising them this latter is an important point and we shall return to it further on this is what Sri Aurobindo essentially seeks to do. Since this has a very special relevance to the problem we are attempting to understand, we shall consider it at some length. Sri Aurobindo characterises this dimension of the prospective in terms of qualitatively newer levels of experience each successive level possessing a progressively greater degree of integration of knowing, feeling and willing. The mental level of experience, which is our present possession, is characterised by an essential division in the personality and its functioning, eveh though there is present at this level a very definite and persistent seeking for wholeness. This fact receives ample corroboration from both traditional Indian and modern Western psychology. But this seeking for wholeness, which is present at the mental level, arrives at varying degrees of fruition only in the ranges of experience beyond that of the mental level, which Sri Aurobindo discerns in the dimension of the prospective. It is this qualitative change in the level of experience towards which all evolution tends: a change which points to the possibility for man of arriving, by gradual approximation, to a state of whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power. A prospect most marvellous to contemplate! It is interesting to observe here that this preoccupation with the future, as briefly formulated here, is one of the more dominant characteristics of contemporary thought, however variously it may find expression. This ascendancy of the future over the human spirit, a kind of a polarisation of attention on this particular dimension, an attempt to reach out towards the Page-306
'not-yet-there', the urge to actualise it these seem to be, philosophically, some of the most powerful attitudes prevalent today. To restate this fact in a more concise manner, there are two essential attitudes which are implied here. Firstly, the attitude of 'anticipation': to feel out into the future and to try to sense the shape of things to come. Secondly, the attitude of 'actualisation': to seek to give a concrete form to that which is thus sensed. Of all philosophers, no one seems to represent these attitudes as fully and clearly as does Sri Aurobindo. These find, in him, a corresponding twofold expression: the creation of a complex and consistent system of thought and the elaboration of a distinct psychological discipline that can help man to actualise this range of future possibility. In fact, he lays a special emphasis on the importance of 'actualisation', or to use a richer Indian equivalent, 'realisation' in terms of experience and qualitative growth of consciousness. To know is the first indispensable necessity, but thus to know that knowledge remains not merely conceptual but is embodied in the totality of the being as a fact of concrete experience. We have had occasion to refer earlier to this point. This truth, as we have already remarked, is firmly embedded in the Indian tradition. Among modern Western thinkers too, this primacy of the 'practical' receives serious consideration. Of these, Prof. Julian Huxley evinces a particular interest in the problem. He states that, once it is recognised that the attainment of a new quality of consciousness is the true and final goal of man, we would need to create "a science of human possibilities" to help us work out the long process of psycho-sociological evolution that lies ahead. The expression "a science of human possibilities" is most intriguing! Sri Aurobindo feels for this, as we have seen, a very special attraction and elaborates in this connection a psychological discipline of growth and evolution of the individual, which he terms 'Integral Yoga'. This is a fresh creation but which offers, at the same time, a synthesis of the essential elements of the traditional disciplines of yoga. It has a very special relevance for the contemporary consciousness in the matter of terminology, methodology and philosophical basis of the entire discipline. This is largely due to the fact that the 'Integral Yoga' rests within the framework of a philosophy of evolution. For Sri Aurobindo affirms that the evolution of the individual can be pursued only by remaining faithful to the processes that evolutionary Nature has herself pursued in her movement upward. The two are co-terminous one with the other. The difference between them being that the latter takes place subconsciously, whereas the former can proceed in a conscious and deliberate manner, thus greatly accelerating the course of the movement. It is interesting to remark upon the relevance of this disci- Page-307 pline to the essential content of Huxley's expression "a science of human possibilities". The feeling, that a deliberate and methodised effort should be made towards self-enrichment and self-exceeding, is becoming steadily more pervasive. This is so, partly perhaps under the stress of critical circumstance and the necessity to react to the cultural crisis that we are passing through. Sri Aurobindo would say that the fact that this crisis has come upon us is indicative of an evolutionary nisus that is urging us to look for a qualitatively new status of life. But man has to consciously make this effort to grow, to grow within. For, with the appearance of man in the course of evolution, the product of the process becomes the agent of the process: the active participation of the individual in carrying the movement further becomes essential. Only such an effort on the part of man can lead towards the progressive realisation of greater ideals, such as that of human unity, and make them part of life in its concreteness. To sum up the position that we have taken in this paper, we would like to state the following:-
Page-308 as providing the basic inspiration for all the rest.
We conclude by saying that this is, doubtless, a radical demand to make. And this is no understatement! The acceptance of this demand calls for spiritual hardihood, for a sort of heroism that is far from facile. But, fortunately, humanity in its better moments does not look for facility. It has room for adventure and this truly is adventure! Such is the message of Sri Aurobindo: the imperative demand he has the audacity to make upon mankind. The measure in which we respond to such audacity will determine the measure of success achieved by this Seminar. Page-309 Arabinda Basu
'THE respected Chairman** has asked me to speak on anything that I care to choose as my theme. As I was not due to speak here this afternoon and as I have not come prepared with any address either written or thought out in my mind, I would accept the advice of the Mahabharata to follow the path trod by the great ones and speak on Nothing. It is well-known that in the Nyaya philosophy abhdva or non-existence is a knowable category. When it is said that there is no motorcar in this Hall, one perceives the absence of the motorcar. It is not our purpose to enter into a discussion of the validity of the logic of this idea. We are thinking of Nothing in the context of spiritual and mystical philosophy. Let us immediately point out that Nothing or Non-Being has had a very long and respectable history in spiritual mysticism and in philosophies based upon some sort of mystical experience. We say 'some sort of mystical experience' because there are different types and patterns of such experience. We are considering the question from Sri Aurobindo's point of view. Let us see what he says about Tat. "The Upanishads speak of the Absolute Parabrahman as Tat...."1 Again, "Parabrahman being the Absolute is indescribable by any name or definite conception. It is not Being or Non-Being, but something of which Being and Non-Being are primary symbols; not Atman or un-Atman or Maya; not Personality or Impersonality; not Quality or Non-Quality; not Consciousness or Non-Consciousness; not Bliss or Non-Bliss; not Purusha or Prakriti; not god nor man nor animal; not release nor bondage; but something of which all these are primary or derivative, general or particular symbols."2 It will also be useful in this connection to hear Sri Aurobindo's explanation of the famous Vedic formula om tat sat. "Tat, That, indicates the Absolute. Sat indicates the supreme and universal existence in its principle. Om is the symbol of the triple Brahman, the outward-looking, the inward or subtle and the super-conscient causal Purusha. Each letter A,U,M indicates one of these three
Page-310 in ascending order and the syllable as a whole brings out the fourth state, Turiya, which rises to the Absolute." We come across the experience-concept of Tat in the Veda. This term is used to indicate an aspect of the Reality about which nothing in the way of description can be said. In the Taittiriya Upanishad it is said, "In the beginning all this was the Non-Being. It was thence that Being was born."3 "The Unknowable, if it is at all, may be a supreme state of Sachchidananda beyond our highest conceptions of existence, consciousness and bliss; that is what was evidently meant by the Asat, the Non-Existent of the Taittiriya Upanishad, which alone was in the beginning and out of which the existent was born,..."4 Sri Aurobindo is aware that the Chhandogya Upanishad VI.2.1 does not accept this contention of the Taittiriya Upanishad. He says, "Another Upanishad rejects the birth of being out of Non-Being as an impossibility; Being, it says, can only be born from Being." But Sri Aurobindo comments on this as follows, "But if we take Non-Being in the sense, not of an inexistent Nihil but of an x which exceeds our idea or experience of existence, a sense applicable to the absolute Brahman of the Advaita ...the impossibility disappears, for That may very well be the source of Being whether by conceptual or formative Maya or manifestation or creation out of itself."5 Sri Aurobindo had an experience in which not only was everything in the world presented as materialised shadow, as an empty cinematographic show but in which there was no immediate feeling of the Self either. The sheer That was the only Reality and it did not allow or tolerate the reality of anything else. From the quotation from The Hour of God given above, it can be seen that Tat, That, is, in Sri Aurobindo's view, even beyond Non-Being. But in so far as our approach to the Reality from our position ifl the cosmos is concerned, the whole world of multiplicity can be reduced to or be seen to be resting on Being. Yet when the spiritualised mind wishes to go farther, it comes to the conception and experience of Non-Being. In this sense Tat can be said to be Non-Being. But Being and Non-Being then appear to human consciousness as the two last poles of the Reality, it being the sheer That. The experience of That Sri Aurobindo described as Nirvana, extinction of the feeling of the reality of the world, personal self or the pure I, or even the cosmic Self. This is how he describes it in a poem entitled Nirvana:
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How should we then understand pure Being in relation to Non-Being, Sat to Asat, and both in relation to the Unknowable ? Pure Being is the base and the source of the universe while Non-Being represents the Reality's freedom from its own aspect as the foundation and fount of the creation. "Pure Being is the affirmation by the Unknowable of Itself as the free base of all cosmic existence. We give the name of Non-Being to a contrary affirmation of Its freedom from all cosmic existence, freedom, that is to say, from all positive terms of actual existence which consciousness in the universe can formulate to itself, even from the most abstract, even from the most transcendent."7 Sri Aurobindo works out this idea in many places in The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga and his other works. What is interesting in this connection is that he thinks that the Shunya of the Buddha is the same as the Non-Being of the Taittiriya Upanishad as he interprets that concept. In the quotation given above from The Life Divine in which he makes a brief reference to the Chhandogya Upanishad, he says that the sense of the x which exceeds our idea or experience of existence is applicable to the Void or Zero of the Buddhists also. In a letter he says: "Buddha, it must be remembered, refused always to discuss what was beyond the world. But from the little he said it would appear that he was aware of a Permanent beyond equivalent to the Vedantic Para-Brahman, but which he was quite unwilling to describe. The denial of anything beyond the world except a negative state of Nirvana was a later teaching, not Buddha's."8 Not only is the Non-Being of the Buddha not a nullity but the same Reality as Being, Sat of the Vedantin, but also according to Sri Aurobindo, "The Buddhist Nirvana and the Adwaitin's Moksha are the same thing. It corresponds to a realisation in which one does not feel oneself any longer as an individual with such a name or such a form, but an infinite eternal Self spaceless (even when in space), timeless (even when in time). Note that one can perfectly well do actions in that condition and it is not to be gained Page-312 only by Samadhi."9 "It (Nirvana of Buddha) is the same (as Brahma Nirvana of the Gita). Only the Gita describes it as Nirvana in the Brahman while Buddha preferred not to give any name or say anything about that into which the Nirvana took place. Some later schools of Buddhists described it as Shunya, the equivalent of the Chinese Tao, described as the Nothing which is everything."10 As metaphysical concepts, and also as spiritual experiences, there may be, indeed there is, a subtle difference between the two. Sat or Existence of the Advaita Vedantin is Silence, but the Non-Being, Void or Zero of the Buddha, says Sri Aurobindo, is Silence beyond the Silence. It is true that in the Non-Being even the idea and experience of the Self are transcended. Sri Aurobindo called the experience Nirvana, because in it all positive existence, even the most abstract, was extinguished and from the quotations given above (9, 10), it is clear that he identifies the Buddhist Nirvana with the Advaitin's Moksha. Incidentally I have heard some exponents of Advaita Vedanta deny that this was an Advaitic experience. The argument is that on Sri Aurobindo's own admission the experience came, unbidden and unintended, by the complete silencing of the mind, an entire citta-vrtti-nirodha, constriction or stopping of all modes of mind-stuff. And this was described by the critic as prasamkhyanavada, the theory of the separation (of Purusha and Prakriti). The idea is that the experience was arrived at not by the traditional method of jndna-yoga, by the deliberate rejection of the false identification of the Self with the products of Maya, namely, the body, the senses, the mind, the intellect and separative ego. As if spiritual experience is a doctrine or a theory and as if there is any absolute rule that the experience of the transcendent Self because for Sri Aurobindo That, Tat, is the Self but in its supreme transcendent aspect can be had only by one method. Besides, in the method of Advaita Vedanta also there must be manonasa, destruction or dissolution of the mind. Surely all vrtti-s or modes of the mind are to be burnt out in jndna-yoga also. It does not make the slightest difference for actual experience by which method it is obtained. It is also to be noted that only That alone was real and the world reduced to an illusion which it is not according to the Sankhyas.* It should be pointed out that Sri Aurobindo's own idea of the Para-brahman is different from that of what he understands to be the Para-brahman of Advaita Vedanta. The latter he understands to be Existence, Self, Sad-Atman, which is devoid of qualities, features, attributes, action, space, time and causality and out of which all phenomena are rejected.
Page-313 But his own idea of Parabrahman is not Being nor Non-Being but the transcendent Absolute, the Unknowable, of which Non-Being and Being are the two last apparently contrary symbols. It may be asked whether the Buddha himself really believed in what Sri Aurobindo describes as the illimitable Permanent. This is a particularly pertinent question because Buddhism has been described as sarvavainasika-vada, the doctrine of complete non-existence. Here is what the Buddha says in Udana, VIII.1.3: "There is, O Bhikkhus, the Unborn, which has not become, is Uncreate and Unevolved. If, O Bhikkhus, there were not that which is Unborn, which has not become, is Uncreate and Unevolved, there could not be cognised here the birth of what is born, has become, is created and evolved. And surely, O Bhikkhus, there is that which is Unborn, has not become, is Uncreate and Unevolved therefore is cognisable the springing out of what is born, has become, and is created and evolved." And again, "There is the other realm, where neither earth is nor water, neither fire nor air, neither the boundless realm of space nor the boundless realm of consciousness, neither this world nor another, neither moon nor sun. This I call neither coming nor going nor standing, neither origination nor destruction, without base, without beginning, without foundation is this. The same is the cessation of the suffering." From the two passages quoted above, it will be clearly seen that the Buddha definitely accepted an unmixed, unchanging, unevolving and uncreate Reality, and that that Reality is what would be called in the philosophical language transcendent, not only of the world as we know it but also of its foundation. We can in this connection remember the Taittiriya Upanishad's description of the Reality as anilaya, homeless. In regard to the criticism that the Buddha did Tiot believe in any reality whatsoever, that he was a destroyer of all idea of a permanent Absolute, we can certainly deny the charge in the Buddha's own words. He says in the Majjhimanikaya, Sutta 22, that the gods cannot trace the position of the Tathagata, of the Bhikkhu who is liberated, vimuttacitta, that he is untraceable (ananuvejjo, ananuvedya) here and now, and that for saying this, some shramanas and brahmanas falsely, wrongly, erroneously, untruely, asatd, tuccha, musd, abhutena, accuse him, the Buddha, of being a vendsiko, a 'destroyer', of preaching the annihilation, the destruction, the nullification, ucchedam, vinasam, vibhavam, of existence. He goes on to repeat, regretfully it seems, that the good shramanas and brahmanas wrongly accuse him of what he is not, of what he does not teach. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Non-Being as "a zero which is All"11. Obviously this means the universe emerges from the Non-Being. Not only did the Buddha assert an illimitable unmixed immutable Something, he also Page-314 regretted that people accused him unfairly of preaching the doctrine of no-reality, of proclaiming the idea that he was a destroyer, vendsiko or vaina-sika. This shows very clearly how even in his own days the Buddha's doctrine was misunderstood. Many mystic philosophers had to admit an aspect of the supreme Reality which cannot be described by the experience-concept of Being. Albert the Great, for example, openly asserted that God was beyond being. At the beginning of his book De Adhaerendo Deo he says: "Let nothing come between thee and God. The soul in contemplation views the world from afar off, just as, when we proceed to God by the way of abstraction, we deny to Him, first of all, bodily and sensible attributes, then intelligible qualities, and lastly, that being (esse) which would keep Him among created things."12 One can also think of the Pseudo-Dionysius, Plotinus, Eckhardt and many other equally great mystic thinkers in this connection. For instance, Plotinus actually called the One, his supreme Reality, Nothing, though it is also the basis of all being. Eckhardt made a clear distinction between Godhead and God. He described the former in terms like the Desert, the Dark Abyss, the Wordless Godhead, the Nameless Nothing, the Naked Godhead. It has been said in this connection that the Reality is Nothing because it is no thing in particular. Some of the later Upanishads identify Shunya with Brahman, for example, suddhah putah sunyah sdntah,13 the pure, the unmixed, the void, the still, sunyabhdvena yuiijiyatli, that should be worshipped as the Void. In the Sarva-vedanta-siddhdnta, ascribed to Shankara, it is said that what is called Shunya by the Buddhist is the same as the Brahman of the Vedan-tins: yat sunyavadinam sunyam brahma brahmavadindm ca yat, that which is the Shunya of the Shunyavadins, that which is Brahma of the Brahmavadins. Thus Sri Aurobindo is definitely right in ascribing to'the Buddha or interpreting his Shunya not as a nullity but the Self, Sat-Chit-Ananda in the aspect in which it transcends its aspect of Sat or Being. Of course the Buddha himself did not put the idea in the same terms. But Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Reality Omnipresent of which the Non-Being, the Being, Self, Soul arid the Divine are different aspects, it itself being neither of these exclusively but all of these integrally and simultaneously. Brahman for him stands for the Absolute of which there are two main aspects, Parabrahman and Parameshwara or Parapurusha. Of the former he says: "God or Parapurusha is Parabrahman unmanifest and inexpressible turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two eternal terms are Atman and Jagati, Self and Universe. Atman becomes in self-symbol all existences in the universe; so too, the universe when known, resolves all its symbols into Atman. God being Parabrahman is Himself Absolute, neither Atman nor Maya nor un-Atman, neither Being Page-315 nor not-being, (sat, asat), neither Becoming nor non-Becoming (sambhuti, asambhuti), neither Quality nor non-Quality (saguna, nirguna); neither Consciousness nor non-Consciousness (caitanya, jada); neither Soul nor Nature (purusa, prakrti), neither Bliss nor non-Bliss; neither man, nor god, nor animal; He is beyond all these things, He maintains and contains all these things in Himself as world; he is and becomes all these things. "The only difference between Parabrahman and Parapurusha is that we think of the first as something beyond our universe-existence, expressed here indeed, but still inexpressible, and of the second as something approaching our universe-existence, inexpressible indeed, but still here expressed. It is as if, in reading a translation of the Ramayana or Homer's Iliad, we were to look at the unapproachable something no translator can seize and say 'This is not the Ramayana', 'This is not the Iliad' and yet, looking at the comparative adequacy of the expressions which do succeed in catching something of the original spirit and intention, were at the same time to say 'This is Valmikie,' 'This is Homer'. There is no other difference except this of standpoint. The Upanishads speak of the Absolute Parabrahman as Tat; they say Sa when they speak of the Absolute Parapurusha."15 Sri Aurobindo makes a distinction between the Absolute and the Infinite. "Parabrahman is the Absolute, and because It is the Absolute, it cannot be reduced into terms of knowledge. You can know the Infinite in a way, but you cannot know the Absolute.... "You can become Parabrahman; you cannot know Parabrahman. Becoming Parabrahman means going back through self-consciousness into Parabrahman, for you already are That, only you have projected your-selWorward in self-consciousness into its terms or symbols, Purusha and Prakriti through which you uphold the universe. Therefore, to become Parabrahman void of terms or symbols you must cease out of the universe. "By becoming Parabrahman void of Its self-symbols you do not become anything you are not already, nor does the universe cease to operate. It only means that God throws back out of the ocean of manifest consciousness one stream or movement of Himself into that from which all consciousness proceeded."16 In the above quotation also we find that Parabrahman is beyond the universe, beyond its self-symbols of Purusha and Prakriti, Conscious-Soul and Nature-Soul. But it is also to be noted that in the same passage Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Infinite and of the possibility of knowing it in some way. We may say that the Infinite is the Absolute but not in its transcendent self-nature, svariipa, but as the basis and source of the universe which is the Infinite manifest as a world of finites. This is Parameshwara, Page-316 the supreme Lord of whom Atman, Self and Purusha, Conscious Soul, are two aspects. This view is not pantheistic in that it does not equate God with All. God is more than the All. But this is true that it accepts the idea that God is All. We may say in Sri Aurobindo's words that the Zero is All but the Zero passes through, as it were, the Infinite which is a moment of its native svarupa, self-form. God or the Infinite is the All and the All is all existences, thus Zero is All. When Sri Aurobindo was anundertrial prisoner in the Alipur Central Jail he had another spiritual experience in which Vasudeva, the omnipresent Divine, was seen as everything; the bars of the window of his cell, the blanket which served as a couch, the meagre utensils, the tree outside his room, the prisonguard marching up and down, everything was Vasudeva. This experience was a development from that of Nirvana, Tat was now realised as Sah, the transcendent That was also known as the cosmic He who has become extended in the universe.17 In Sri Aurobindo's conception, the experience of Parabrahman is beyond knowledge, even self-knowledge. But the Infinite, Sat-Chit-Ananda, knows himself. Sri Aurobindo calls the self-awareness and world-awareness of God the Supermind. It is in the supramental consciousness that all knowledge of the different aspects of the Reality and the total knowledge of the world, its laws and processes are contained. We can say that the Supermind is the source, the material, the guiding Knowledge and the ac-tualising Will of the universe. It is through the Supermind that God manifests himself as individual self, as the soul in the world and as mind, life and body. There is nothing which is not Brahman though it must be admitted that everything is only a mode of its self-manifestation. As Sri Aurobindo says in The Synthesis of Yoga, even our mortal existence is made of the Infinite substance. The Supermind is a concentration of the Being, Consciousness-Force and Delight of Existence of Sat-Chit-Ananda. It is infinite Consciousness turned into the faculty of infinite Knowledge, it is infinite Consciousness turned into infinite Will. In a way the Supermind is the central category of Sri Aurobindo's spiritual philosophy. This is the beginning of the descent of Consciousness down to and as Matter through different levels of progressive self-veiling of itself. The descent and involution are twin processes by which Sat-Chit-Ananda hides himself and puts on the mask of material Inconscience. But the mask which hides is designed to be the medium that will manifest. Matter is the starting-point of the evolution of the hidden Consciousness. For evolution is the manifestation of what is un-manifest but existent and involved in Matter. Of this progressive evolution or self-manifestation of the Spirit in this world there are several stages Page-317 which are, counting from the bottom, Matter, Life, Mind, Supermind, Delight of Existence, Consciousness and Being. Sri Aurobindo's concern was the evolution of the Supermind. His great idea is the overt manifestation of the Knowledge which is now veiled by Ignorance. The latter is awareness of multiplicity without that of the inherent Unity of all things. But it harbours within itself the aspiration for the perception of the basic unitary Reality of things without losing the sense of Multiplicity as the manifestation of One. Indeed the full emergence of the supramental consciousness in man, the mental being, will enable him to know the Reality as One, as One in Many, the Many in the One, but also to have the intimate living experience of the One as each thing in the world and each object in it as the One wholly and entirely. "But rightly to know and express the Highest is not easy for man the mental being because the highest Truth and therefore the highest modes of existence are supramental. They repose on the essential unity of what seems to the intellect and mind and are to our mental experience of the world opposite poles of existence and idea and therefore irreconcilable opposites and contradictions, but to the supramental experience are complementary aspects of the same Truth. We have seen this already in the necessity of realising the Self as at once One and Many; for we have to realise each thing and being as That; we have to realise the unity of all as That, both in the unity of sum and in the oneness of essence; and we have to realise That as the Transcendent who is beyond all this unity and this multiplicity which we see everywhere as the two opposite, yet companion poles of all existence. For every individual being is the Self, the Divine in spite of the outward limitations of the mental and physical form through which it presents itself at the actual moment, in the actual field of space, in the actual succession of circumstances that make up the web of inner state and outward action and event through which we know the individual. So equally, every collectivity small or great is each the Self, the Divine similarly expressing itself in the conditions of this manifestation. We cannot really know any individual or any collectivity if we know it only as it appears inwardly to itself or outwardly to us, but only if we know it as the Divine, the One, our own Self employing its various essential modes and its occasional circumstances of self-manifestation. Until we have transformed the habits of our mentality so that it shall live entirely in this knowledge reconciling all differences in the One, we do not live in the real Truth, because we do not live in the real Unity. The accomplished sense of Unity is not that in which all are regarded as parts of one whole, waves of one sea, but that in which each as well as the All is regarded wholly as the Divine, wholly as our Self in a supreme identity."18 We have said above that Supermind is not only Knowledge but also Page-318 Will. The application of the Will to Matter, Life and Mind is for the purpose of the release out of them as well as in them their hidden reality the Supermind. This will result in what Sri Aurobindo calls the transformation of Nature. Since Matter, Life and Mind are different formulations of Consciousness-Force through its own supramental Knowledge-Will and since there is evidently the emergence of Matter from the Inconscient, of Life from and in Matter, of Mind from and in living Matter, there will obviously be also the evolution of the Supermind in the mentally conscious human being who lives in a physical body. But for the Supermind to embody itself and also function in man, his nature must undergo an extremely radical change or transformation. Matter in itself will become conscious of its truth, as also will life and mind. Then will it be possible for God to be fully manifest in this world, then will his self-manifestation reach its culmination. It will now be seen that the Zero, full of all potentialities but in such a way that they seem to be absent in it, is travelling full circle and going to be manifest in this world which is to all intents and purposes opposed to whatever the Reality is in its most transcendent aspect. Sri Aurobindo believes that the theory of evolution in its essence goes back to the Vedas and the Upanishads and that, though its details are not worked out in the ancient scriptures, he is quite certain that the progressive emergence of consciousness from its own lower formations is not a new idea. In fact he has said that the modern accounts of evolution do not touch the depth of the mystery but are theories about the formation of more complex organisms from simpler organisms. But his interest is evolution of consciousness. Consciousness patently is the most important fact in the universe, however we may explain its origin. Not only that, but according to Sri Aurobindo's ideas, which he said are those of the Vedanta of the Upanishads, nothing can manifest overtly which is not already existent covertly. Elements of life must have been present in Matter, otherwise Life could not have emerged out of and in Matter. Similarly Mind could not have emerged in living Matter unless it was already involved in Life and Matter. But Mind cannot be the creator of the universe since it cannot control it, in fact, it does not even understand it properly and fully. A consciousness more perfect, comprehensive and powerful must be the creator of the world, but it is involved in Mind, Life and Matter and it is therefore destined to evolve here in the world. This of course means that this higher consciousness, to wit the Supermind, will be manifest here on earth through and in man, the thinking, living body. It is clear that the manifest Supermind, the evolved Knowledge-Will, will not reject Mind, Life and Matter but take them up as material to which its transforming power will be ap- Page-319 plied to make them ready for the emergence of the superman, of God. Mind will have become a perfect receiver and reflector of total knowledge, life a channel of unturbid waves of conscious force, body a luminous image of the immortal substance. This will be the full working out of the intention of Nature in terrestrial evolution, the evolution of God in Matter and the consummation of the human aspiration. "To know, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoistic consciousness, to convert our twilit or obscure physical mentality into the plenary supramental illumination, to build peace and a self-existent bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by physical pain and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death and constant mutation, this is offered to us as the manifestation of God in Matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution."19 Thus the indescribable transcendent Tat, self-defined as Sachchida-nanda, becomes the world of finite creatures and objects so that things which seem to deny or at least obscure almost completely their essential reality can overtly manifest and embody the Infinite Zero. * * * It is well known that Rabindranath Tagore and Romain Rolland, the two great artists and intellectual giants, were both also great lovers of humanity and believers in East-West understanding and concord. Rolland wrote a biography of Vivekananda, Tagore said of the fiery and leonine Swami that he was a bridge between the East and the West. The French savant described Sri Aurobindo as the greatest synthesis of the genius of the East and the West, a great Rishi holding in his hands the bow of creative energy. And the Indian poet said that Sri Aurobindo had the Word with him which all were waiting to hear from him and that through him India would speak to the world: 'Hearken unto me.' It is in the fitness of things that an international seminar devoted to the exposition, explication and interpretation of Sri Aurobindo's thoughts on human unity should be held as the culminating function of the celebrations on the occasion of his Birth Centenary. It is not surprising, needless to say that it is very gratifying, that sixty representatives from twenty countries in four continents should be present at this seminar, wishing to pay tributes to the seer-philosopher who not only wrote on the Life Divine but also on the Ideal of Human Unity.*
Page-320 It has already been explained by various people at this concluding session of the International Seminar on Sri Aurobindo and Human Unity that his faith in the eventual emergence of a World Government and of mankind as a family of free nations springs from his spiritual philosophy. The main point of this philosophy is that God, transcendent of the universe, is yet immanent in it in which he is evolving ever higher expressions of his divine Being. Behind everything and in everything in the world the Divine is present as the inmost Reality and effective Force. Sri Aurobindo is of the view that not only is God manifest as the spiritual soul in the individual but that there is also a soul of a society, a nation and even of humanity. Just as a man has to find his soul, and by the light of the power of that discovery, has to integrate his nature in such a manner that it can be organised as a perfect expression of spiritual knowledge, power, peace and joy, so also the society must discover its soul if it would perfectly unify the respective interests of its members allowing everybody to develop in accordance with their innate nature, capacities and potentialities to the perfection they are capable of achieving. In a similar manner the soul of a nation must come to the front if the sub-nations making up the nation are to live in freedom and yet in amity and concord. Unity in diversity is the ideal rule of collective life. When it comes to humanity as a whole Sri Aurobindo applies the same principle. There is according to him a collective soul of humanity, a communal spirit of mankind. And it is only on the basis of the recognition of the soul of humanity that human unity can be securely built. All this may sound too abstract and idealistic. A careful perusal of the two books of Sri Aurobindo in which he deals with the basic principles of social evolution and the forces determining human unity, The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity respectively, will convince the reader that he had a masterly and complete grasp of the actualities of the human situation. True that his approach is basically psychological, for being a Yogi, a mystic and spiritual philosopher, he knew that the 'without' is only a projection of the 'within', that the outer is only a distorted manifestation of the inner struggling to grow into the perfect image of that which animates and determines its evolution. But he was perfectly aware of and gives a very realistic analysis of the economic, political, administrative and cultural factors involved in the struggle between nations and also of how they can be dealt with in order to bring about a World Government. Sri Aurobindo totally rejected a dead uniformity in the field of social, national and international life. He did not at all recommend a World State which would impose a uniform pattern of existence and life on all he peoples and nations of the world. No, each nation must be left free to
Page-321 develop in accordance with its innate genius. This however has led in the past to struggle and war. But the solution is not to have all nations toe an international line but to divest themselves of national egos and bring to the forefront their national souls. Ego is a divisive principle, the soul is a harmonising entity and power. Sri Aurobindo believes that in the process of the evolution of the World Government there will have to be economic, military and administrative unity. In the absence of economic unity there will be the traditional struggle for markets; if there is no administrative integration on an international scale, a World Government cannot function; if there is no international police force, there will always be some nations misled into armed adventures to bolster up their own interests. But all of these things belong to the organisation of the external machinery of the World Government. None of these things will be sufficient to ensure secure peace unless there is in man and in mankind a deeply felt need, a vital need, for unity. If we do not feel in the very yarrow of our bones that we will not exist unless we live as cooperative sections of a common humanity, no amount of international organisation will be able to ensure unity and peace. What is needed therefore is a new psychological approach to the issue of human unity. Sri Aurobindo concludes by saying that men and nations must accept humanity as worthy of worship. He is not speaking of a religion of humanity as, for example, expounded by Auguste Comte. While he is in basic agreement with the ideals of this religion of humanity, he is completely convinced that this has no chance of becoming a real and living ideal unless it accepts the spiritual dimension of the life of humanity. What is needed is a spiritual religion of humanity. "A spiritual religion of humanity is thee-hope of the future. By this is not meant what is ordinarily called a universal religion, a system, a thing of creed and intellectual belief and dogma and outward rite. Mankind has tried unity by that means; it has failed and deserved to fail, because there can be no universal religious system, one in mental creed and vital form. The inner spirit is indeed one, but more than any other the spiritual life insists on freedom and variation in its self-expression and means of development. A religion of humanity means the growing realisation that there is a secret Spirit, a divine Reality, in which we are all one, that humanity is its highest present vehicle on earth, that the human race and the human being are the means by which it will progressively reveal itself here. It implies a growing attempt to live out this knowledge and bring about a kingdom of this divine Spirit upon earth. By its growth within us oneness with our fellow-men will become the leading principle of all our life, not merely a principle of co-operation but a deeper brotherhood, a real and an inner sense of unity and equality and Page-322 a common life. There must be the realisation by the individual that only in the life of his fellow-men is his own life complete. There must be the realisation by the race that only on the free and full life of the individual can its own perfection and permanent happiness be founded. There must be too a discipline and a way of salvation in accordance with this religion, that is to say, a means by which it can be developed by each man within himself, so that it may be developed in the life of the race. To go into all that this implies would be too large a subject to be entered upon here; it is enough to point out that in this direction lies the eventual road. No doubt, if this is only an idea like the rest, it will go the way of all ideas. But if it is at all a truth of our being, then it must be the truth to which all is moving and in it must be found the means of a fundamental, an inner, a complete, a real human unity which would be the one secure base of a unification of human life. A spiritual oneness which would create a psychological oneness not dependent upon any intellectual or outward uniformity and compel a oneness of life not bound up with its mechanical means of unification, but ready always to enrich its secure unity by a free inner variation and a freely varied outer self-expression, this would be the basis for a higher type of human existence."20
REFERENCES
All references are to the 30-volume collected works of Sri Aurobindo in the Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, in 1972. 1Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 17, The Hour of God, p. 69. 2Ibid., pp. 66-67. 3Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, p. 27 f.n. 4Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, p. 568. 5Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, p. 28 f.n. 6Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 5, Collected Poems, p. 161. ' Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, pp. 28-29. 8 Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 22, Letters on Yoga, p. 62. ' Ibid., p. 62. 10Ibid., p. 62. 11Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, p. 28. 12See, Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, Macmillan and Co., London, 1909, p. 219. 13Maitri, II. 4. 14Amrita, XI. 16 Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 17, The Hour of God, pp. 68-69. 18 Ibid., pp. 65-66. " Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 2, Karmayogin, Uttarpara Speech, p. 4. 18 Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 20, 77ie Synthesis of Yoga, p. 359. 18 Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 18, The Life Divine, pp. 1-2. 20 Sri Aurobindo, CE., Vol. 15, Social and Political Thought, pp. 554-555. Page-323 |