The Next Evolution

The Next Evolution 1

As we generally know, this earth is a field of Evolution. Evolution is the history of life on earth, which has been well said by Darwin. According to him, man is the consequence of an evolution. But Darwin has stated nothing with reference to evolution after the appearance of Homo Neanderthal, or of Homo Sapiens at the latest. He told us nothing about any evolution after the appearance of man on earth, or even about the purpose why man was evolved at all. And his view was a scientific truth, limited to the epistemology of Science. Science discovers and finds the Truth, which is but only a partial aspect of the whole Truth; it does not go beyond the senses, beyond the apparent, even with the help of logic. It is based on the experiences of the senses.
Reason and logic are the means of finding Truth, but they cannot be the only means or the whole of the means. An integral seeker of the complete Truth, even a true student of Philosophy, realizes this. There are other methods or means.

Sri Aurobindo has said in 'Thoughts and Aphorisms’:

There are two allied powers in man : knowledge and Wisdom. Knowledge is so much of the Truth, seen in a distorted medium, as the mind arrives at by groping ; Wisdom what the eye of the divine vision sees in the spirit.
Late, I learned that when reason died, then Wisdom was born; before that liberation, I had only knowledge.

OOOO

Science, not to speak of the human commonsense, has not seen beyond the mortal imperfect Man. Is man the final word in Evolution, in the entire Manifestation in Nature on earth? Has Nature remained satisfied having reached at something through Evolution which is so incomplete, so imperfect, so ignorant and so incapable such as man? How can he be the last thing? Of course, Mankind has many lofty and high Aspirations and Dreams and Hopes! Will they fail? Man has to know himself, strive towards Perfection and transcend himself. Out of man, the superman has to emerge. That is the goal of this Manifestation, as it has been said by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. That is purpose and goal of Evolution, of onward movement of the Supernature. That is the reason why men would evolved further beyond the Homo Neanderthal, even beyond the Homo Sapiens. Man has to go beyond the limits of mind and reason, scale newer and higher heights of Consciousness and ascend the Supramental Consciousness, and bring in the Dreams and Hopes! Will they fail? Man has to know himself, strive towards Perfection and transcend himself. Out of man, the superman has to emerge. The advent of the supramental race is THE NEXT EVOLUTION.
The Advent of the Supramental Race on earth is the goal of this Manifestation, as it has been said by Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. That is purpose and goal of Evolution, of onward movement of the Supernature. That is the reason why men would evolved further beyond the Homo Neanderthal, even beyond the Homo Sapiens. Man has to go beyond the limits of mind and reason, scale newer and higher heights of Consciousness and ascend the Supramental Consciousness, and bring in the supramental race on earth. This is the Truth Sri Aurobindo has brought for us. We have to live for this Goal, this Truth.

OOOO

The Mother has told :

There is an ascending evolution in nature which goes from stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal to man. Because man is, for the moment, the last rung at the summit of ascending evolution, he considers himself as the final stage in ascension and believes there can be nothing on earth superior to him. In that he is mistaken. In his physical nature he is yet almost wholly an animal, a thinking and speaking animal, but still an animal in his material habits and instincts. Undoubtedly, nature cannot be satisfied with such an imperfect result ; she endeavours to bring out a being who will be to man what man is to the animal, a being who will be a man in the external form, and whose consciousness will rise far above the mental and its slavery to ignorance.

These further steps beyond man, for transcending the limits of ignorance in man, for the advent of the supramental race is the next evolution.

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
25-12-2006

The Supramental Manifestation

The Supramental Manifestation 3

From Mind to Supermind II

We have seen that according to Sri Aurobindo, the higher hemisphere of existence begins with Supermind, but one has to go across several mental worlds, which are clearly above the ordinary mind, where we generally dwell and which we believe to be the Mind. These are, as seen earlier, the levels of the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind or Intuition, and Overmind, in an ascending order. And the supramental plane is beyond all these planes.
The Higher Mind is the first of the supra-rational levels or grades of existence, the first level of the Spiritual Mind or of the Superconscient. It is a stage of evolution beyond the rational mind, and is also an ascent to a plane above the level of pure thinking mind.
The Higher Mind has its origin in Overmind and, in an ulterior manner, in Supermind. The first decisive step beyond our normal human Intelligence, our ordinary mentality, is an ascent into the Higher Mind, which is not any more a mind of mingled light, obscurity or half-light. It has a large clarity of the Spirit.

About the Higher Mind, Sri Aurobindo has said:
Its basic substance is a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamisation capable of the formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming, of all of which there is a spontaneous inherent knowledge. It is therefore a power that has proceeded from the Overmind, -- but with the Supermind as its ulterior origin, -- as all these greater powers have proceeded: but its special character, its activity of consciousness is dominated by Thought; it is a luminous thought-mind, a mind of Spirit-born conceptual knowledge. [ The Life Divine ]

Because of the original identity of the Higher Mind with Overmind — and also with Supermind — it has an all-awareness, and it also carries the truths held in this identity. The Higher Mind has a capacity of a swift, victorious and multitudinous conception. The Higher Mind is also a greater mind of knowledge, and its Ideas have the self-power of realizing its conceptions.
In Evolution, our ordinary mind had a task to do: raising of the consciousness beyond matter and life, beyond ignorant animal hood. But as it came to enlighten and lead, it became engrossed and involved in darkness and ignorance.

An errant ray from the immortal Mind
Accepted the earth's blindness and became
Our human thought, servant of Ignorance.
An exile, labourer on this unsure globe
Captured and driven in Life's nescient grasp,
Hampered by obscure cell and treacherous nerve,
It dreams of happier states and nobler powers,
The natural privilege of unfallen gods,
Recalling still its old lost sovereignty. [Savitri]

Beyond our ordinary mind, which is fundamentally a principle of Ignorance, the Higher Mind is the first step, the first plane of existence. In Savitri, Sri Aurobindo refers to this plane as the Greater Mind, Thought and the Spirit of Mind.

For Thought transcends the circles of mortal mind,
It is greater than its earthly instrument:
The godhead crammed into mind's narrow space
Escapes on every side into some vast
That is a passage to infinity.
It moves eternal in the spirit's field,
A runner towards the far spiritual light,
A child and servant of the spirit's force. [Savitri]

The Higher Mind is the realm of the greater Thought. Here, there is no necessity of arriving at a proposition by logical reasoning (such as the one that must follow from the major and minor premises of a syllogism), a proposition that is a search and also is critical of oneself and one's errors. Here, there are no logical steps towards a conclusion, there is no mechanism of deductions and inferences, no linking together of ideas as in a chain in order to arrive at some knowledge, for the limping action of Reason is a movement of Ignorance in search of knowledge, and it protects its steps against error and erects “a selective mental structure for its temporary shelter” basing it on foundations which are already carefully laid but are never firm, not supported on a soil of innate awareness. The foundations are “imposed on an original soil of nescience.” [Words selected from The Life Divine ]

The Higher Mind is also beyond the mental intuition, “that other way of our mind at its keenest and swiftest, a rapid hazardous divination and insight, a play of the searchlight of intelligence probing into the little known or the unknown.” [Words selected from The Life Divine ]

It is therefore beyond the two conventional ways of reaching and finding Truth : logical reasoning, which is slow and limping, and intuition, which is quick but occurring at irregular intervals; having no pattern or order in time.

The Higher Mind is a Knowledge that formulates itself on a basis of self-existent all-awareness and manifests some part of its integrality, a harmony of its significances being put into thought-form. It can freely express itself in single ideas. Its most characteristic movement is a mass ideation, a system or totality of truth-seeing at a single view. Here, the relations between ideas, between one truth and another are not established by logic; but they pre-exist and emerge as already seen in the integral whole. Here, there is an initiation into forms of an ever-present knowledge, which is till now inactive. This knowledge is not a system of conclusions from premises or data. But this thought is a self-revelation of eternal Wisdom, not an acquired knowledge. There is a great totality of truth known and experienced, but still this totality is capable of infinite enlargement, having no end to the aspects of knowledge.

Besides the aspect of cognition, the Higher Mind has also the aspect of will, of dynamic effectuation of the Truth. Here, this greater and more brilliant Mind works always on the rest of the being, “the mental will, the heart and its feelings, the life, the body, through the power of thought, through the idea-force.” [ The Life Divine ] It tries to purify, deliver and create through knowledge. The idea is put into the heart or the life as a force to be accepted and worked out. Heart and life become conscious of the idea and respond to its dynamisms. Their substance begins to change itself accordingly, and the feelings and actions become the vibrations of this higher wisdom, become informed with it and are filled with the emotion and the sense of it. The will and the life impulses are charged with its power, in a similar way. The idea works even in the body, and as a result, for example, the powerful thought and will of health replaces the faith of the body in illness and its consent to illness, or the idea of strength calls in the substance, power, motion, vibration of strength. The idea generates proper force and form and imposes it on our substance of Mind, Life or Body. In this way its working proceeds and it charges the whole being with a new and superior consciousness, laying down a foundation of change, and prepares it for a superior truth of existence.

This distinction between cognition and action, between Idea and Will, between Chit and Tapas (Consciousness and Force), is maintained by Sri Aurobindo in all levels, even up to Supermind.
The presence and influence of the Higher Mind is often found in philosophers and thinkers, and it is less opaque and has more freedom. The background is no longer fully gray or with the gray borders on the blue. And the little bursts of light that descend are less quickly swallowed by the darkness of ignorance. The descending bursts of life are more intense, more abundant and frequent than in the ordinary mind. Joy lasts longer, love becomes wider. We become aware and conscious of true and causeless love and joy — we come to know them properly. The movements are less subject to the endless conditions of the lower levels of consciousness.

Sri Aurobindo speaks of ‘the Spirit of Mind’ and ‘the great stairs of thought,’ while referring to the Higher Mind, the Greater Mind.

In gleaming clarities of amethyst air
The chainless and omnipotent Spirit of Mind
Brooded on the blue lotus of the Idea.
A gold supernal sun of timeless
Truth Poured down the mystery of the eternal Ray
Through a silence quivering with the word of Light
On an endless ocean of discovery.
Far-off he saw the joining hemispheres.
On meditation's mounting edge of trance
Great stairs of thought climbed up to unborn heights
Where Time's last ridges touch eternity's skies
And Nature speaks to the spirit's absolute. [Savitri]

Regarding the influence of the Higher Mind or the Greater Mind on our ordinary world of Death and Ignorance, we find the reference below:

Awake in a luminous sphere unbound by Thought,
Exposed to omniscient immensities,
It casts on our world its great crowned influences,
Its speed that outstrips the ambling of the hours,
Its force that strides invincibly through Time,
Its mights that bridge the gulf twixt man and God,
Its lights that combat Ignorance and Death. [Savitri]

In the realm of Ignorance, these higher forces of the planes of the Superconscient become limited. When the superior power of these higher planes of Mind is first perceived or experienced on earth, a natural misconception can easily arise regarding their vast possibilities. But in the lower world the situation is not the same as in their own realm.

Sri Aurobindo has said:
It has here to be emphasized that these higher forces are not in their descent immediately all-powerful as they would naturally be in their own plane of action and in their own medium. In the evolution in Matter they have to enter into a foreign and inferior medium and work upon it; they encounter there the incapacities of our mind and life and body, meet with the unreceptiveness or blind refusal of the Ignorance, experience the negation and obstruction of the Inconscience. On their own level they work upon a basis of luminous consciousness and luminous substance of being and are automatically effective; but here they have to encounter an already and strongly formed foundation of Nescience, --- not only the complete nescience of Matter, but the modified nescience of mind and heart and life. [The Life Divine]


When the Higher Mind descends, the ordinary mind, along with the lower nature, puts resistance. The descent of the higher Idea from the Higher Mind is possible only into the developed mental intelligence, but even there it has to overcome the heavy obstruction from a mass or system of formed ideas belonging to the mental plane and also the will to persistence and self-realization of these ideas. For all ideas are forces and have a formative or self-effective faculty greater or less according to the conditions. Thus there is a power of resistance readily formed which opposes or minimizes the effects of the descending Light, a resistance which may turn into a refusal, a rejection of the Light, or become an attempt to impair, subdue, cleverly modify or change or perversely deform the light, so as to make it suitable to the ideas of the Ignorance.

Unless one is very open and receptive to higher truths, one's preconceived ideas will obstruct and ruin everything. Not only any kind of belief that adheres to exact word or letters, but also philosophical and intellectual ideas and conceptions, which may seem to be all right on their own level, may cause resistance to the Higher Light.

Resistance is also put by the lower levels of the being. When the ideas, that are preconceived or already formed, are dismissed and are not allowed to persist any further, they still recur from outside, as they are still in force and currency in the universal Mind, or they may recede downwards into the vital, physical or subconscient parts and from there sweep back or rise again at the least opportunity to reconquer their lost sphere. Evolutionary Nature gives this right of persistence to things that were once established by her for bringing “a sufficient steadiness and solidity to her steps.” [The Life Divine ]

This "right of persistence" is a necessity of Nature for a progressive evolutionary manifestation in the world of "collision and struggle and intermixture of Forces".

There is resistance in the Vital and the Subconscious, in the lower levels of being, in the heart and life and body. The same phenomenon recurs here more intensely. The Higher Light does not meet the ideas here, but meets “emotions, desires, impulses, sensations, vital needs and habits of the lower Nature…” They are less conscious than ideas and, therefore, are blinder in their response and more obstinate and self-assertive.

Sri Aurobindo says :
This power of persistence, recurrence, resistance of established things in Nature is always the great obstacle which the evolutionary Force has to meet, which it has indeed itself created in order to prevent a too rapid transmutation even when that transmutation is its own eventual intention in things. [ The Life Divine ]

We have thus seen that the old nature and the old habits in matter and life and the ordinary mind pose stubborn resistance and obstructions to the Descent of the Higher Light. This has to be overcome, and for this purpose, most of the spiritual teachings prefer the ascetic path of renunciation and transcendence, without bringing any change or transformation to this world. But Sri Aurobindo has shown us the Way which is greater and nobler than renouncing and transcending the world, the Way of transformation of matter and the lower nature, with a view to further the Evolution towards the complete and integral manifestation of the Divine, of the Existence-Consciousness-Bliss in Matter, on earth, which will not be a Nirvana, a return to the Unmanifest.

The lower nature resists Transformation also. At each level of the Ascent, the resistance and the obstacle may progressively diminish, but they will be there. To enable the descent and working of the Higher Light — from the Higher Mind to the Supermind — without a heavy resistance and obstruction, the seeker has to acquire a deep quietude of the nature, a control and tranquility and even silence in his mind and life and body. Still then, the universal Ignorance and obscurity in the individual make of mind and life and body may create resistance and obstruction.
A psychic tranformation and in a greater degree a spiritual tranformation will reduce the hold of the Ignorance. But these influences do not altogether eliminate the resistance, obstruction and limitation. The original basis of Nescience will still be there, requiring always to be changed, enlightened, and diminished in its extent and action. The power of the spiritual Higher Mind will be modified and diminished at its entrance into our ordinary mind and as a result it will not be sufficient to remove all these obstacles. But it can make a first change, which will enable a higher ascent and a more powerful descent and further prepare the seeker for a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge and action. The Illumined Mind is the next greater Force.

Barindranath Chaki
24-11-2006

References :

The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo
Savitri by Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness by Satprem
KHEPER — The Kheper Website of M Alan Kazlev

The Supramental Manifestation

The Supramental Manifestation 2

From Mind to Supermind I

According to Sri Aurobindo, the higher hemisphere of existence begins with Supermind. But before reaching Supermind, one has to pass through several mental worlds, which are distinctly above the ordinary mind — the ordinary mind, where we generally dwell and which we believe to be the Mind. These are, as we have seen earlier, the levels of the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind or Intuition, and Overmind, in an ascending order. Obviously, these planes are not the supramental plane, which is beyond them. Sri Aurobindo has given these names to these planes of consciousness and has also described them in distinct terms.

These planes can be experienced by the people who are so capable. According to Sri Aurobindo, these four planes constitute the Superconscient, or the Super-consciousness, but again, these superconscient planes do not constitute the supramental plane: though, they definitely lead, in an ascending order, towards the Supermind.

It may be so that for a few persons, the Higher Mind or even the Illumined Mind does not seem to be super-conscious, as that may be a part of their waking consciousness. As evolution makes progress, the seeker ascends to these peaks of consciousness one after another and makes them part of their normal waking consciousness.

The Superconscient is our evolutionary future, just as the subconsciousness in our mental principle is our evolutionary past.

In this connection, Satprem says:

Each of them is a whole world of existence, vaster and more full of activity than the earth, and our mental language is ill-suited to describe them; we would need the language of the visionary or the poet — “another language,” said Rimbaud. This is what Sri Aurobindo did in Savitri, his epic poem to which we refer the reader.

A million lotuses swaying on our stem,
World after coloured and ecstatic world
Climbs toward some far unseen epiphany.

[Savitri]

OOOO

When we ascend to these planes of mind, our vision of the world gets transformed. We might have observed that the ordinary mind sees things step by step, in succession and in a linear way. It cannot see or understand or comprehend more than one thing at a time. It cannot take any leap, surpassing logic, as in such a situation, things would appear hazy, irrational or incoherent to our ordinary mind. When it accepts something as fact or as truth, then all that is different from that fact or truth is rejected as false. That is the reason of the problem that if we accept one philosophy or one religion, we discard others and there is clash and intolerance. The ordinary mind operates with all limitations, like a closed box. Satprem says: it works like a camera shutter, letting in one and only one image at a time. Anything that is not found on its momentary little screen belongs to the limbo of error, of falsehood and darkness. All things thus fit in an inexorable system of opposites — white or black, truth or error, God or Satan — and it plods along like donkey on a road, seeing one tuft of grass after another.

The ordinary mind relentlessly forms little pieces of time and space. The more there is descent in the levels of consciousness, the pieces of time and space get smaller and smaller. Whatever comes in front of its narrow and limited focus appears to be true, and other things are in error, are wrong and untrue. It has divided time past, present and future. It differentiates between truth and so-called falsehood, good and evil, and sees several opposites. It analyses, but has not ordinarily learned to make a synthesis. We see one colour and speak of black and white, and puzzle and ponder over the problem of various colours of life and reality in an effort to solve or understand it. The ordinary mind is incapable of having a true picture, a true understanding of Truth, of Reality.

But there is the thirst in us, the aspiration in us, for more and more understanding, more and more comprehension, more and more enlightenment. That is the Fire in us, which does not have its source in the ‘ordinary mind’: but it is an inextinguishable flame, an inextinguishable fire, which is burning in our psychic being, in our soul, and which does not depend upon any religion, any intellectual philosophy, any mental construction.

A disciple asked The Mother [Mira Alfassa] :

Each time that I try to rise a little, there is a setback.

The Mother replied :

As for your progress — it is because you are trying mentally and the mental is always a limitation to the consciousness. It is only as the aspiration from the heart and the psychic that can be effective. (And when you stop trying, you let me work in you and I know the proper way!)

[The Words of the Mother: Collected Works Vol. 14]

The Mother further said in another occasion :

It is only love that can understand and get at the secrets of the Divine Working. The mind, the physical mind especially, is incapable of seeing correctly and yet it always wants to judge. It is only a true humility in the mind, allowing the psychic to rule the being, that can save human beings from ignorance and obscurity.


Mind has become a field of errors, of ignorance and doubt and obscurity, of lies and falsehood. Mind wanders all the time. It is like a public square.

The Mother has said :

Some people call it a public square, because everything comes there, goes across, passes, comes back … All ideas go there, they enter at one place, leave by another, some are here, some there, and it is a public square, not very well organized, for usually ideas meet and knock into one another, there are accidents of all kinds.

She has further said :

In the human mind there is a morbid and deplorable habit of doubt, argument, skepticism.

And again, She has said :

It is a disease of the ordinary human intellect — which comes, moreover, from separation, division — to make a thing always either this or that. If you choose this, you turn your back on that; if you choose that, you turn your back on this.

It is an impoverishment. One must know how to take up everything, combine everything, synthetise everything. And then one has an integral realization.


OOOO

Sri Aurobindo says : Mind is only a preparatory form of consciousness.

Mind cannot see the whole, it sees the part only. The whole seems to the mind to be only the assemblage of several parts. Sri Aurobindo has said : Mind is a passage, not a culmination.

Sri Aurobindo says:

But first he met a silver-grey expanse
Where Day and Night had wedded and were one:
It was a tract of dim and shifting rays
Parting Life's sentient flow from Thought's self-poise.
A coalition of uncertainties
There exercised uneasy government
On a ground reserved for doubt and reasoned guess,
A rendezvous of Knowledge with Ignorance.
At its low extremity held difficult sway
A mind that hardly saw and slowly found;
Its nature to our earthly nature close
And kin to our precarious mortal thought
That looks from soil to sky and sky to soil
But knows not the below nor the beyond,
It only sensed itself and outward things.
This was the first means of our slow ascent
From the half-conscience of the animal soul
Living in a crowded press of shape-events
In a realm it cannot understand nor change;
Only it sees and acts in a given scene
And feels and joys and sorrows for a while.
The ideas that drive the obscure embodied spirit
Along the roads of suffering and desire
In a world that struggles to discover Truth,
Found here their power to be and Nature-force.
Here are devised the forms of an ignorant life

[Savitri, Book II, Canto X]


OOOO


However, originally, Mind is a principle of Light. Mind has a purpose and a meaning. Sri Aurobindo again says :

Escaping over a wide and shimmering bridge,
He came into a realm of early Light
And the regency of a half-risen sun.
Out of its rays our mind's full orb was born.
Appointed by the Spirit of the Worlds
To mediate with the unknowing depths,
A prototypal deft Intelligence
Half-poised on equal wings of thought and doubt
Toiled ceaselessly twixt being's hidden ends.

[Savitri, Book II, Canto X]

Whatever may be Mind’s imperfections, it had and has a special purpose in the evolutionary progress. Originally, Mind is a principle of Light amid darkness, an instrument of and from the Supermind, set to work for further evolutionary progress on earth.

Sri Aurobindo says:

Mind is not in its very nature an inventor of errors, a father of lies bound down to a capacity of falsehood, wedded to its own mistakes and the leader of a stumbling life as it too largely is at present, owing to our human shortcomings : it is in its origin, a principle of light, an instrument put forth from the Supermind and though set to work within limits and set to create limits, yet the limits are luminous borders for a special working, voluntary and purposive bounds, a service of the finite ever extending itself under the eye of infinity. It is this character Mind that will reveal itself under the touch of Supermind and make human mentality an adjunct and a minor instrumentation of the supramental knowledge. It will even be possible for the mind no longer limited by the intellect to become capable of a sort of mental gnosis, a luminous representation of the Truth in a diminished working extending the power of light not only to its own but to lower levels of consciousness in their climb towards self transcendence. Overmind, Intuition, Illumined Mind and what I have called the Higher Mind, these and the other levels of a spiritualised and liberated mentality, will be able to reflect in the uplifted human mind and its purified and exalted feeling and force of life and action something of their powers and prepare the ascent of the soul to their own plateaus and peaks of an ascending existence. This is essentially the change which can be contemplated as a result of the new evolutionary order and it would mean considerable extension over the evolutionary field itself.


But when we ascend in the planes of the Superconscient, from Mind to Supermind, through the four planes of higher consciousness, mentioned earlier, our vision and consciousness then widens, step by step, more and more from the narrow, limited, ignorant, linear consciousness, full of contradictions, to the global consciousness. Supermind is described by Sri Aurobindo as the global consciousness, as the higher hemisphere of consciousness. Hemisphere means half of the terrestrial globe. The higher Truth is not separated or isolated from the earth. The whole Truth is not without the lower half, the higher is not opposed to the lower, rather, it fulfils the lower Truth. The descent of the Supramental is for the fulfilment of the earth. We are to search and find the Infinite in the finite, the Eternal in the temporal, the Whole in the fraction. And that is the promise to be fulfilled by the descent of the Supramental Consciousness.

Satprem further says :

The ascent of consciousness is not only the story of the conquest of time, it is also the conquest of joy, of love, of the vastness of being.

From ordinary mind to the plane of Overmind — and even to the plane of the Supermind — it is the quality of light and the quality of vibrations that differ. And this quality of light and vibrations distinguishes one plane from the other. And if we look at the ordinary mind in its aspect of light from the Seer’s viewpoint, we find that the Light here has a sort of grayness, along with ‘a number of dark little spots’ or some obscure vibratory small nodes or knobs or knots. They move like a swarm of flies, flying from one person to another. Sometimes, there is a descent of a little burst of light, a little joy or a little love, into the grayness of the ordinary mind. According to Sri Aurobindo, this plane of ordinary mind is a ground of neutrality, which is thick and sticky, absorbing, which is subject to a number of conditions, which discolours everything and has an obscure gravitation pulling everything down.

We shall see next about the ascending planes of the Superconscient and our progress in those realms.

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
16-11-2006

The Supramental Manifestation

The Supramental Manifestation 1

We, the human beings, are born in ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, out of ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness, and are bearing and carrying in us the same ignorance and darkness and unconsciousness. Did the first Homo Neanderthal [1] , or rather the first group of Homo Neanderthals, ever had the capacity or the possibility of even dreaming of the present day world, or even the world of the times of the Vedas, or of the age when there was the Buddha on earth, or even when Jesus was traveling and walking on this earth, of dreaming and imagining that some Newton or Einstein or Hawkins, some Shakespeare or Shaw or Tagore, some Sri Ramkrishna or Swami Vivekananda, one Sri Aurobindo or Mira Alfassa would be born in this race?

That was and is the story of the human evolution — from the first group of Homo Neanderthal to the first Persons who realized and touched the Supramental Consciousness : Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa].

It was surely the Divine Intervention on earth that there was the appearance of the first group of Homo Neanderthals. Amid all ignorance and darkness and amid all animal and vital activities, the first group of rebels of the Light appeared. They wanted to break the chains, wanted to surpass the animal limits and habits, the animal way of instinctive but subjugated life. They started to stand erect and started using Mind, though initially in a small, rudimentary and limited degree. They started walking, talking, laughing, thinking though in a crude way. They began the human world — a world of Hope, of Aspiration, of Struggle against darkness and divisions and death, against Inconscience and Ignorance and Incapacity.
Sri Aurobindo said that this race, though “born into a world of ignorance and inconscience,” was “capable of an upward evolution of its consciousness and an ascent into the light and power and bliss of a spiritual being and spiritual nature.”
That was a moment, when the first group of Homo Neanderthals appeared — a step towards the Future, at that point of Time, as early as 350,000 years ago.
Now, we have Sri Aurobindo, the Hope of Man, who has promised us of the New World, the New Horizon, and not only that, he has also taken, along with The Mother [Mira Alfassa], the First Steps towards the Next Future, the Illumined Future.

***

The Mother said : What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world's history is not a teaching, not even a revelation ; it is a decisive action, direct from the Supreme.

During the Birth Centenary of Sri Aurobindo in 1972, The Mother gave us the following Message:
“Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world: the supramental.
“Let us prepare for it in all sincerity and eagerness.”

The Mother gave us also other messages on Sri Aurobindo at that time, one of which I am quoting below:
“Man is the creation of yesterday.
Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.”

On 30 January 1972, she further told us:
“Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he has told us and endeavor to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the new manifestation.”

***

Supermind is not a higher type of Mind. It is not a more perfect mind. Every student of Sri Aurobindo knows it.

According to Sri Aurobindo, Mind is a “half-lit and diminished principle.” Generally, the word ‘Mind’ is used to mean the general and ordinary mental consciousness, including the vital and emotional aspects. The vital and emotional aspects of our consciousness, all our passions, cravings, hungers, sentiments etc belong to the vital being or the principle of Life in us, as per the definition given by Sri Aurobindo. The vital being or Life is different from Mind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo. Even our higher emotions, love, sympathy, patriotism, — all of them — belong to the vital being, but the higher vital being. When we mention of the heart, not the physical one, but the emotional center, we then refer to the inner higher vital. Mind generally refers to the principle of reason and logic, intelligence, memory, will, thinking, understanding etc. This is the “half-lit and diminished principle of mind.” However, Mind is also used in a higher and wider sense. In the wider sense, it refers to the higher ranges starting from the Higher Mind to the Overmind. Of course these ranges exclude Supermind. As I have stated, Supermind is not a higher mind. It is a Higher Consciousness, transcending all the stages and planes of Mind. In between the ordinary Mind and the principle of Supermind, according to Sri Aurobindo , there are four stages of Mind: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then, the Overmind.

To begin with, Overmind is the highest stage where the mental consciousness could reach, till the Manifestation of the Supermind. It is the Plane of the gods and goddesses, wherefrom several Avatars of the Supreme manifested and represented Him on earth. It is the Consciousness which was represented by Sri Krishna on earth, according to Sri Aurobindo. As Sri Aurobindo has stated, the Higher Mind is the first of the supra-rational levels or planes or grades of existence and consciousness, the first level of “Spiritual Mind”. It is an evolutionary stage beyond the rational mind. It is an ascent to a plane above the level of pure thinking mind, and there can be a descent also from this plane. Above the Higher Mind, there is a further and even more powerful and revelatory supra-rational level or plane of existence and consciousness, which is called the Illumined Mind. The Higher Mind prepares an integration of the being into a greater Force of consciousness and knowledge. This greater Force is that of the Illumined Mind, a Mind no longer of higher Thought, but of spiritual Light. Here, in place of the clear spiritual intelligence and the tranquil daylight of the Higher Mind, one finds “an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the Spirit.” And the characteristic action of ‘the larger conceptual-spiritual principle’ adds a fiery ardour of realization and a rapturous ecstasy of knowledge to the consciousness. The Higher Mind has the characteristic of the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace, whereas the Illumined Mind has the feature of a play of lightnings of of spiritual truth and power breaking from above into the consciousness.

About the Intuitive Mind, Sri Aurobindo has said:

“Intuition is above the illumined Mind which is simply the higher Mind raised to a great luminosity and more open to modified forms of intuition and inspiration. … The Intuition is the first plane in which there is a real opening to the full possibility of realization - it is through it that one goes farther - first to Overmind and then to Supermind.”

Of course,there are mental, vital, subtle physical intuitions as well as intuitions from the higher and the illumined Mind, and even from the Overmind, as stated by Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo speaks of seven major planes of existence. He also suggests that between Mind and Supermind, or lower (finite, limited, ignorant) and higher (infinite, divine, perfect) creation, there is an important transitional or intermediate reality, which He calls the Overmind.

“At the source of …Intuition we discover a superconscient cosmic Mind in direct contact with the Supramental Truth-Consciousness, an original intensity determinant of all movements below it and all mental energies, – not Mind as we know it, but an Overmind that covers as with the wide wings of some creative Oversoul this whole lower hemisphere of Knowledge-Ignorance, links it with that greater Truth-Consciousness while yet at the same time with its brilliant golden Lid it veils the face of the greater Truth from our sight, intervening with its flood of infinite possibilities as at once an obstacle and a passage in our seeking of the spiritual law of our existence, its highest aim, its secret Reality. This then is the occult link we were looking for; this is the Power that at once connects and divides the supreme Knowledge and the cosmic Ignorance.” [The Life Divine, p.278]

The Overmind is the plane of the great Gods, the individualized expression of the unitary Supramental Truth. These powers oversee the phenomenal world. It is the level where multiplicity first appears, and indeed is the principle that originally causes multiplicity.

“Overmind Energy (has the)…capacity of separation and combination of the powers and aspects of the integral…all-comprehending Unity (of the Supermind). It takes each aspect or power and gives it an independent action in which it acquires a full separate importance…” [The Life Divine, p.279]

Thus multiplicity emerges from Unity; the Archetypes emerge from the Unmanifest Absolute. Here we have the distinction between the Unmanifest and the Manifest Absolute or Godhead.

***

From Overmind, the next Ascension in the spiritual journey, is to Supermind.
It is the Ascent to Supermind and the Descent of the Supramental Consciousness on earth makes the Next Evolution possible.

Sri Aurobindo has said:

“The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above.”

Thus, as we have seen, Supermind is a principle which is out of reach of the common ordinary mind. But when Man reaches the higher regions of mind, namely the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuitive Mind, and then the Overmind, as defined by Sri Aurobindo, when Man reaches there, he can have the glimpses and the touch of Supermind. It may be very difficult, even appear to be impossible. But when the Supramental Consciousness is present on earth, things will be easier, much easier.
And now the Supermind is on earth, actively present on earth. I am quoting the oft-quoted message of the Mother from Mother's Agenda Vol.1:

FIRST SUPRAMENTAL MANIFESTATION

(During the common meditation on Wednesday
The 29th February 1956)

This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material, was there present amongst you. I had the form of a living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive golden door, which separated the world from the Divine.
As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single movement of consciousness, that ‘the time has come', and lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck one blow on the door and the door was shattered to pieces.
Then the supramental Light and Force and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninterrupted flow.

***

The Mother has said in this regard:

“The Manifestation of the Supramental upon earth is no more a promise but a living fact, a reality. It is at work here, and one day will come when the most blind, the most unconscious, even the most unwilling shall be obliged to recognise it.”

Thus, we can see that Mind has reached the its last ranges and is on the process of handing over the task of the Evolution to the supramental consciousness. This is the Truth. We should no longer remain limited within the ranges of our ordinary small ranges of the Mind, but should endeavor to transcend our mental selves and begin our inner journey to the New Creation taken up by the supramental consciousness.

[Continued]

Barindranath Chaki
05-11-2006

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[1]——>

a. The Neanderthal : An extinct human species (Homo neanderthalensis) or subspecies (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) living during the late Pleistocene Epoch throughout most of Europe and parts of Asia and northern Africa and associated with Middle Paleolithic tools.[The Free Dictionary]
b. The Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) or Neandertal was a species of the Homo genus that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia. The first proto-Neanderthal traits appear in Europe as early as 350,000 years ago. By 130,000 years ago, full blown Neanderthal characteristics had appeared and by 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals disappeared from Europe, although they did not reach extinction in Asia until 30,000 years ago.[ Collected from Wikipedia ]
c. The most widely accepted view among current anthropologists is that Homo sapiens originated in the African savanna between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago, descending from Homo erectus, and colonized Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years ago, and finally colonized the Americas by 10,000 years ago. They displaced Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis and other species descended from Homo erectus (which had colonized Eurasia as early as 2 million years ago) through more successful reproduction and competition for resources.[ Collected from Wikipedia ]
d. Homo erectus (upright man) is an extinct species of genus Homo. In 1890s it was first described as Pithecanthropus erectus based on a skullcap and a modern-looking femur (thighbone) found from the bank of the Solo River central Java.
Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists have debated the role of H. erectus in human evolution. Early in the century, due to discoveries on Java and at Zhoukoudian in China, it was believed that modern humans first evolved in Asia. This contradicted Charles Darwin's statements of African origins. However, during the 1950s and 1970s, numerous fossil finds from East Africa (Kenya) yielded evidence that the oldest hominins originated there. It is now believed that H. erectus is a descendant of earlier hominins such as Australopithecus and early Homo species (e.g., H. habilis). [Hominini is the tribe of Homininae that only includes humans (Homo), chimpanzees (Pan), and their extinct ancestors. Members of the tribe are called hominins (cf. Hominidae, "hominids") .]
Australopithecus shared several traits with modern apes and humans and were widespread throughout Eastern and Southern Africa from 4.4 million years to 1.7 million years ago. The available hominid footprints are remarkably similar to modern humans and have been positively dated as 3.7 million years old. Until recently, the footprints have generally been classified as Australopithicine because that had been the only form of pre-human known to have existed in that region at that time; however, some scholars have considered reassigning them to a yet unidentified very early species of the genus Homo.
Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus africanus are among the most famous of the extinct hominids. A. africanus used to be regarded as ancestral to the genus Homo (in particular Homo erectus). However, some fossils assigned to the genus Homo have been found that are older than A. africanus. Thus, the genus Homo either split off from the genus Australopithecus at an earlier date or both developed from a yet possibly unknown common ancestor independently.
According to the Chimpanzee Genome Project, both human (Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and Homo) and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus) lineages diverged from a common ancestor about 5-6 million years ago, if we assume a constant rate of evolution.
H. erectus originally migrated from Africa around 2.0 million years ago, and dispersed throughout most of the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa), reaching as far as Southeast Asia.
Fossilized remains dating to 1.8 and 1.0 million years old have been found in Africa, Europe, and in Indonesia and China in Asia. H. erectus remains an important hominin since it is believed to be the first to leave Africa. Some scholars believe that H. erectus is an evolutionary lineage, derived to have been the ancestor to modern H. sapiens.
Homo erectus has fairly derived (advanced) morphological features, and a larger cranial capacity than that of the newly found Homo habilis. The forehead (frontal bone) is less sloping and the teeth are smaller. Homo erectus would bear a striking resemblance to modern humans, but had a brain about 75 percent (950 to 1100 cc) of the size of that of a modern human's. These early hominines were tall, on average standing about 1.79 m (5 feet, 10 inches). The sexual dimorphism between males and females was almost the same as seen in modern Homo sapiens with males being slightly larger than females.
Homo erectus used more diverse and sophisticated tools than its predecessors. H. erectus first used tools of the Oldowan style and later progressed to the Acheulean style. The surviving tools from both periods are all made of stone. Oldowan tools are the oldest known formed tools and date as far back as about 2.4 million years ago. The Acheulean era began about 1.2 million years ago and ended about 500,000 years ago. The primary innovation associated with Acheulean handaxes is that the stone was chipped on both sides to form two cutting edges.
Homo erectus were probably the first early humans to fit squarely into the category of a hunter gatherer society and not as prey for larger animals. Anthropologists believe that H. erectus was socially closer to modern humans than the more primitive species before it.
The discovery of Turkana boy in 1984 has shown evidence that despite H. erectus's more human-like anatomy, they were not capable of producing sounds of a complexity comparable to modern speech.
H. erectus migrated all throughout the Great Rift Valley, even up to the Red Sea. Early humans, in the person of Homo erectus, were learning to master their environment for the first time. Attributed to H. erectus, around 1.8 million years ago in the Olduvai Gorge, is the oldest known evidence of mammoth consumption. It is suggested that H. erectus may have built rafts and travelled over oceans.
Some dispute that H. erectus was able to control fire. The earliest (least disputed) evidence of controlled fire is around 300,000 years old and comes from a site called Terra Amata, which lies on an ancient beach location on the French Riviera. This site seems to have been occupied by Homo erectus. There are older Homo erectus sites that seem to indicate controlled use of fire, some dating back 500,000 to 1.5 million years ago, in France, China, and other areas. A discovery brought forth in March of 2004 stated that there is evidence for controlled fires in excavations in northern Israel from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago.
Homo erectus remains one of the most successful and long-lived species of the Homo genus. It is generally considered to have given rise to a number of descendant species and subspecies. The oldest known specimen of the ancient man was found in Africa. Homo neanderthalensis came much later as descndants, followed by Homo sapiens, still later.



Barindranath Chaki
05-11-2006

In the Hour of God

Sri Aurobindo spoke of The Hour of God.

Not all moments are the Hour of God. There have been the Ages of Darkness on earth, on several places on earth. Men have been left to their ignorance and egoism, to their lack of knowledge and wisdom, to their imperfection and incompleteness, to their mortality.

But some Hours on earth are those of the Divine.

There are moments when the Spirit moves among men and the breath of the Lord is abroad upon the waters of our being; there are others when it retires and men are left to act in the strength or the weakness of their own egoism. The first are the periods when even a little effort produces great results and changes destiny; the second are spaces of time when much labour goes to the making of a little result. [ The Hour of God ]

This earth is a field of Evolution : Evolution of the Spirit involved in Matter. All living beings and all humans are the outcome of this Evolution. But Man is not in the final stage of Evolution. He is in the initial stage of the Manifestation of Consciousness. He is in a rudimentary stage. So imperfect, so incomplete he is !

As Sri Aurobindo said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he aspires and dreams for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Ultimately, the task of Evolution is to manifest the Divine, the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda). The Superman is to emerge and manifest out of Man. Man has to prepare and transform himself for the coming of the Superman. He should grow and become the Superman. That is the purpose of Man's appearance — the Advent of the Superman, of the Supramental Consciousness — and the purpose must now be fulfilled, through man's surpassing himself will do that. If Man fails to collaborate with the new phase of evolution, the evolutionary forces will surpass him, push him aside, go beyond him and find out its own means.

During the periods when the Divine is not actively interfering with the Manifestation, and is in distance, Man may call the Divine and the ‘smoke of sacrifice’ that he offers through his work and aspiration and prayer reaches the Divine. The Hour of God is the answer of the Divine, and His Grace!

It is true that the latter [ordinary moments] may prepare the former [the Divine moments], may be the little smoke of sacrifice going up to heaven which calls down the rain of God’s bounty. [ The Hour of God ]

The Divine Consciousness descends and becomes ready to answer the Call and the Aspiration of the human being, to lift him up to Light and Force and Joy and Love, but Man fails. The Divine comes and gives us Light, shows us the Way, but we cover the Light with the Shades of Darkness and create hurdles on the Way by creating walls and barricades of Ignorance. We love Darkness and Ignorance and thus we ignore Light and Truth and Wisdom. We are never really prepared.

This is the Time when the field is ready for the human being to grow and become the supramental being. The Hour of God that has descended on earth with the coming of Sri Aurobindo still continues and will continue till the Work is accomplished, till the Supramental Beings emerge on earth.

If the Hour of God recedes back, the Supernature then will definitely have a different Plan, which will never be a welcome situation for Man. Humanity will then have to face warfares and destructions and irrecoverable losses.

Unhappy is the man or the nation which, when the divine moment arrives, is found sleeping or unprepared to use it, because the lamp has not been kept trimmed for the welcome and the ears are sealed to the call. But thrice woe to them who are strong and ready, yet waste the force or misuse the moment; for them is irreparable loss or a great destruction.
[The Hour of God]

Sri Aurobindo calls us for being prepared, for becoming ready, and never to waste the force or misuse the moment. He calls us to become pure, cleansing all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vanity, in this Hour of God. Any insincerity will bring in ‘the blow’ caused by the wrath of God.

In the hour of God cleanse thy soul of all self-deceit and hypocrisy and vain self-flattering that thou mayst look straight into thy spirit and hear that which summons it. All insincerity of nature, once thy defence against the eye of the Master and the light of the ideal, becomes now a gap in thy armour and invites the blow. Even if thou conquer for the moment, it is the worse for thee, for the blow shall come afterwards and cast thee down in the midst of thy triumph.
[The Hour of God]


Sri Aurobindo has said thus elsewhere on sincerity :

To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together - the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender.
[The Mother]

On sincerity, the Mother [Mira Alfassa] has said :

One must have an absolutely transparent sincerity. Lack of sincerity is the cause of the difficulties we meet at present. Insincerity is in all men. Insincerity is in all men. There are perhaps a hundred men on earth who are totally sincere. Man’s very nature makes him insincere — it is very complicated, he is constantly deceiving himself, hiding the truth himself, making excuses for himself. Yoga is the way to become sincere in all parts of the being.
It is difficult to be sincere, but at least one can be mentally sincere… The force is there, present as never before; men’s insincerity prevents it from descending, from being felt. The world lives in falsehood, all relations between men until now have been based on falsehood and deceit. Diplomatic nations between nations are based on falsehood. They claim to want peace, and meanwhile they are arming themselves. Only a transparent sincerity in man and among nations can usher in a transformed world.

[February 1968 : Words of the Mother]

Insincerity is thus ingrained in human beings. For a transformed world, they will have to become sincere and pure. Let us stand up in the truth of our purpose : a supramental manifestation on earth and a transformed world.

But being pure cast aside all fear; for the hour is often terrible, a fire and a whirlwind and a tempest, a treading of the winepress of the wrath of God; but he who can stand up in it on the truth of his purpose is he who shall stand; even though he fall, he shall rise again; even though he seem to pass on the wings of the wind, he shall return.

Nor let worldly prudence whisper too closely in thy ear; for it is the hour of the unexpected, the incalculable, the immeasurable. Mete not the power of the Breath by thy petty instruments, but trust and go forward. But most keep thy soul clear, even if for a while, of the clamour of the ego. Then shall a fire march before thee in the night and the storm be thy helper and thy flag shall wave on the highest height of the greatness that was to be conquered. [The Hour of God]

Thus, we must keep our soul clear and stop listening to the clamour of the ego. We may have fall and failure, but if we stand up with our purpose, we shall rise again, we shall return.

Now, in this Hour of God, even a little effort on our part in this direction will produce great results and change the human destiny.

In the Hour of God, let us be sincere, to ourselves, to the humanity, to the Divine.

The Mother has said:

Be honest towards yourself — (no self-deception).
Be sincere towards the Divine — (no bargaining in the surrender).
Be straightforward with humanity — (no pretence and show).

The Mother has further said in this connection:

Before the Eternal Consciousness a drop of sincerity has more value than an ocean of pretension and hypocrisy.

If we, the mankind as a whole and individually, really aspire for progress, for real progress, instead being and remaining stationed with all darkness, division, difficulties, ignorance, incompleteness and imperfection, then the only way is to be sincere.
If we really aspire to march towards the New Horizon, towards the New World, the first principle that is to be adopted by us should be sincerity.

The Mother has again said :

All division in the being is an insincerity.
The greatest insincerity is to dig an abyss between your body and the truth of your being.
When as abyss separates the true being from the physical being, Nature fills it up immediately with all kinds of adverse suggestions, the most formidable of which is fear, and the most pernicious, doubt.
Allow nothing anywhere to deny the truth of your being —this is sincerity.



Barindranath Chaki
2-11-2006

No Religions

The Mother has said that the Age of Religions is over. She and Sri Aurobindo repeatedly proclaimed that Their Teaching is not a Religion, that Their intention was never to form or propagate any religion. With reference to Auroville, She has specifically declared that “Auroville is for those who want to live a life essentially divine but who renounce all religions whether they be ancient, modern, new or future.”

I am quoting below the oft-quoted declaration of the Mother relating to Auroville:

Auroville and the ReligionsWe want the Truth.For most men, it is what they want that they label as truth.The Aurovillians must want the Truth whatever it may be.Auroville is for those who want to live a life essentially divine but who renounce all religions whether they be ancient, modern, new or future.It is only in experience that there can be knowledge of the Truth.No one ought to speak of the Divine unless he has had experience of the Divine.Get experience of the Divine, then alone will you have the right to speak of it.The objective study of religions will be a part of the historical study of the development of human consciousness.Religions make up part of the history of mankind and it is in this guise that they will be studied at Auroville - not as beliefs to which one ought or ought not to adhere, but as part of a process in the development of human consciousness which should lead man towards his superior realization.PROGRAMMEResearch through experience of theSupreme TruthA life divinebutNO RELIGIONSOur research will not be a search effected by mystic means. It is in life itself that we wish to find the Divine. And it is through this discovery that life can really be transformed.

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I have recently read the posting dated October 6, 2006, in Savitri Era, a Blog published by my friend Tusar Mahapatra, which is placed below for reference :

No confusion over the identity as a religion

That Savitri Era constitutes a religion was adjudicated by Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy in his famous dissenting judgemnet of 8th November, 1982 in the Auroville Case
[We do not desire to enter into any polemics over Sri Aurobindo's teachings as it is not within the judicial province to do so except to the limited extent of finding out whether his teachings have the necessary spiritual content to qualify as religious doctrine and how his followers understood these teachings...
Sri Aurobindo, of course, disclaimed that he was founding a religion. No great religious teacher ever claimed that he was, founding a new religion or a new school of religious thought. The question is not whether Sri Aurobindo refused to claim or denied that he was founding a new religion or a new school of religious thought but whether his disciples and the community thought so. …
If the followers of Sri Aurobindo constitute a religious nomination as, to my mind, they undoubtedly do, the members of Sri Aurobindo Society are certainly a distinct and identifiable section of the ‘religious denomination’] EXTRACTS FROM THE JUDGEMENT BY JUSTICE O. CHINNAPPA REDDY IN AUROVILLE CASE New Delhi, 8th November, 1982. ¶ 9:44 AM

¯¯¯

After reading the posting, I felt I am back to square one.

Even if JUSTICE O. CHINNAPPA REDDY has opined so, by giving such a dissenting note, it raised several questions in my mind. Should we accept finally the adjudications given by the Honorable Justice Reddy ? Should we then declare that we have formed another religion, like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, even Hinduism etc? And many other questions came to my mind, especially about the Future of the Teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

I wanted further details about the Auroville case to answer my questions.

And luckily I found more details in Marketime, another blog published by Tusar.

The completer note given by the Honorable Justice Reddy is given below:

I have the good fortune of having before me the scholarly Judgement of my brother Misra L. I agree with my brother Misra J. t the Writ Petitions must fail. With much that he has said, also, I agree. But with a little, to my own lasting regret, I do not agree. It therefore, proper for me to explain the points of my disagreement. …We do not desire to 'enter into any polemics over Sri Aurobindo's teachings as it is not within the judicial province to do so except to the limited extent of finding out whether his teachings have the necessary spiritual content to qualify as religious doctrine and how his followers understood these teachings... …Sri Aurobindo, of course, disclaimed that he was founding a religion. No great religious teacher ever claimed that he was, founding a new religion or a new school of religious thought. The question is not whether Sri Aurobindo refused to claim or denied that he was founding a new religion or a new school of religious thought but whether his disciples and the community thought so. …
If the followers of Sri Aurobindo constitute a 'religious nomination as, to my mind, they undoubtedly do, the members of Sri Aurobindo Society are certainly a distinct and identifiable section of the ‘religious denomination’… ... But, the question is has the Fundamental Right guaranteed by Art.26 been infringed by the Auroville (Emergency Provisions) Act 1980. We have to notice straightaway that the Act did not take away the management of Sri Aurobindo Society. What it did or purposed to do was "to provide for the taking over, in the public interest, of the management of Auroville for a limited period and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto" . . . ... the question arises whether Auroville is an institution established and maintained for religious and charitable purposes and whether its management of Auroville is 'a matter of religion '.
Auroville is a township and not a place of worship. It is a township dedicated not to the practice and propagation of any religious doctrine but to promote international understanding and world peace, surely, a secular and not a religious activity.... The management of the International, cultural township of Auroville is not, in our opinion, a matter of religion. . . . On the several other questions argued before us I accept the conclusion of Misra J. . The Writ Petitions are accordingly dismissed but in the circumstances there will be no order regarding costs. . J.(0. CHINNAPPA REDDY) New Delhi, 8th November, 1982.

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I will try to understand and analyze the dissenting note given by the Honorable Justice Reddy, with due respects to him.

But his adjudications were not the whole truth. As we know, it was a dissenting note.

The Government of India had set up a probe to enquire into the reports of mismanagement and diversion of govt. funds by Sri Aurobindo Society. Consequently, the society sought minority status from the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court dismissed the petition, mainly on the ground that The Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother do not form a religion and the Ashram, the Society and Auroville were not religious institutions. The final order and judgment passed by the Honorable Supreme Court were mainly based on the quotations from of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

I am quoting below the conclusive portions from the judgment passed by the Honorable Supreme Court :

“On the basis of the materials placed before us viz., Memorandum of Association of the Society, the several applications made by the Society claiming exemption under s.35 and s.80 of Income-tax Act, the repeated utterings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother that the Society and Auroville were not religious institutions and host of other documents there is no room for doubt that neither the Society nor Auroville constitute a religious denomination and the teachings of Sri Aurobindo only represented his philosophy and not a religion... ...”

In the body of the judgment, there are some quotations from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother. I am placing the relevant portions below:

“In Sri Aurobindo's own words (The Teaching and the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo 1934, p . 6): "The Ashram is not a religious association. Those who are here come from all religions and some are of no religion. There is no creed or set of dogmas, no governing religious body; there are only the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and certain psychological practices of concentration and meditation, etc. for the enlarging of the consciousness, receptivity to the Truth, mastery over the desires, the discovery of the divine self and consciousness concealed within each human being, a higher evolution of the nature."
Sri Aurobindo himself said: "I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old."
Sri Aurobindo says again : "We are not a party or a church or religion." Sri Aurobindo exposes: "Churches and creeds have, for example, stood violently in the way of philosophy and science, burned a Giordano Bruno, imprisoned a Galileo, and so generally misconducted themselves in this matter that philosophy and science had in self-defense to turn upon Religion and rend her to pieces in order to get a free field for their legitimate development.”
The Mother said on 19.3.1973: " Here we do not have religion.”
Sri Aurobindo says again: “Yogic methods have something of the same relation to the customary psychological workings of man as has to scientific handling of the natural force of electricity or of steam to the normal operations of steam and of electricity. And the two, are formed upon a knowledge developed and confirmed by regular experiments, a practical analysis and constant results. All methods grouped under the common name of Yoga are special psychological processes grounded on a fixed truth of nature and developing, out of normal functions, powers and results which were always latent but which her ordinary movements do not easily or do not often manifest."

It is pertinent to quote Mother's answer to a question:
"Q. Sweet Mother, what is the difference between Yoga and religion?
Mother's Answer: Ah! My child. It is as though you were asking me the difference between a dog and cat."
There can be no better proof than what Sri Aurobindo and the Mother themselves thought of their teachings and their institutions to find out whether the teachings of Sri Aurobindo and his Integral Yoga constitute a religion or a philosophy. The above utterings from time to time by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother hardly leave any doubt about the nature of the institution.

[Interested readers may some more relevant portions of the Judgment of the Honorable Supreme Court here.]

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It may be seen that Justice Reddy begins his dissenting note with the following words:

“We do not desire to 'enter into any polemics over Sri Aurobindo's teachings as it is not within the judicial province to do so except to the limited extent of finding out whether his teachings have the necessary spiritual content to qualify as religious doctrine and how his followers understood these teachings.”

Though Justice Reddy had given the Note otherwise, the Judgment of the Honorable Supreme Court was that the Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother do not form any religion. From a perusal of the quotations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother made in the Judgment, it becomes crystal clear that Sri Aurobindo and the Mother did never mean to propagate or found any religion. Rather, they were fully opposed to the idea. Let me repeat what Sri Aurobindo is quoted to have said: “… philosophy and science had in self-defence to turn upon Religion and rend her to pieces in order to get a free field for their legitimate development.”

Thus, we find that the Honorable Supreme Court has declared the Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother do not form any religion, or any religious denomination.

And I am thankful also to Justice Reddy who says that he does not “… desire to 'enter into any polemics over Sri Aurobindo's teachings as it is not within the judicial province to do so …”

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So, the Truth is that the Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother is not a Religion. We, Their followers, need not rejoice and follow the Religion of Sri Aurobindo and Mother very religiously, very devoutly, and begin conflicts with other religions, and remain devoutly stationed and fixed with the new ‘creed’ for another millennium, forgetting the Aim of the Progressive Realisation of the Supramental Transformation, forgetting any real progress as visioned by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

The Mother said on April 29, 1953:

Otherwise [if people sought for the truth], there would be no religion : there would be masters and disciples, people with a higher teaching and an exceptional experience. That would be fine. But as soon as the master is gone, what happens is that the knowledge he gave is turned into a religion. Rigid dogmas are established, religious rules are born, and all you can do is bow before the Table of the Law…. Luckily for all of you [children here], you have no religion. And I hope you will never have any, because that is closing the door on progress.”

Let me quote another note from the Mother on religion :

( A note to a visiting Western woman who wanted to teach in a “religious school.”)

One must not confuse a religious teaching with a spiritual teaching. Religious teaching belongs to the past and arrests progress, while spiritual teaching is the teaching of the future. It enlightens the consciousness and prepares it for the future realization.

Spiritual teaching is above religions and strives towards a total truth. It teaches us to come into direct contact with the Divine.

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On April 29, 1961, the Mother replied to a disciple who asked whether a religion could be founded on Sri Aurobindo’s teachings. She wrote :

“…. Men are such fools that they can change anything at all into a religion, so great is their need for a fixed framework for their narrow thought and limited action. They do not feel secure unless they can affirm, ‘this is true and that is not’. But such an affirmation becomes impossible for anyone who has read and understood what Sri Aurobindo wrote. Religion and yoga are not situated on the same plane of the being, and spiritual life can exist in its purity only if it is free from all mental dogma.”

On April 3, 1957, the Mother stated as follows:

“A new religion would be something not only useless, but harmful. It’s a new life that has to be created ; it’s a new consciousness that has to be expressed. It is something that is beyond intellectual limits and mental formulas. It’s a living truth that must manifest.”

Again, the Mother stated on June 9, 1929 :

“It is often said that, if Jesus came back, he would not be able to recognize what he taught in the forms that have been imposed on it, and if Buddha were to come back and see what has been made of his teaching, he would immediately run back discouraged to Nirvana ! All religions have each the same story to tell. The occasion for its birth is the coming of a great Teacher of the world. He comes and reveals and is the incarnation of a Divine Truth. But men seize upon it, trade upon it, make an almost political organization out of it. The religion is equipped by them with a government and policy and laws, with its creeds and dogmas, its rules and regulations, its rites and ceremonies, all binding upon its adherents, all absolute and inviolable. Like the State, it too administers reward to the loyal and assigns punishments for those that revolt or go astray, for the heretic and the renegade….

This attitude is natural to the religious mind ; but it is just that which makes religion stand in the way of the spiritual life…. When you stop at a religious creed and tie yourself in it, taking it for the only truth in the world, you stop the advance and widening of your inner soul.”

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Let us see what Sri Aurobindo tells us :

“How much stupidity and hatred men succeed in packing up decorously and labeling ‘Religion’ !

The quarrels or religious sects are like the disputing of pots, which shall be alone allowed to hold the immortalizing nectar. Let them dispute, but the thing for us is to get at the nectar in whatever pot and attain immortality.”

Sri Aurobindo further tells us in another occasion :

“… Then again, I don’t believe in advertisement except for books etc., and in propaganda except for politics and patent medicines. But for serious works it is a poison. It means either a stunt or a boom ― and stunts and booms exhaust the thing they carry on their crest and leave it lifeless and broken high and dry on the shores of nowhere ― or it means a movement. A movement in the case of a work like mine means the founding of a school or a sect or some other damned nonsense. It means that hundreds and thousands of useless people join in and corrupt the work or reduce to a pompous farce from which the Truth that was coming down recedes into secrecy and silence. It is what has happened to ‘religions’ and is the reason of their failure…”

Founding a new religion means repeating the same mistake that has happened in connection with all religions on earth ― the Truth that was coming down receded into secrecy and silence, leaving the ‘religions’ nowhere.

He says on August 18, 1935 :

“I may say that it is far from my purpose to propagate any religion, new or old, for humanity in the future. A way to be opened that is still blocked, not a religion to be founded, is my conception of the matter.”

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To found a religion basing on the Teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, or to declare Their Teachings and thought and philosophy as a religion is an act of gross disobedience and deception to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It is a fall, a failure and a frustration of Their Teaching. It is act of rebellion.

Founding a religion will be creating an obstruction between the seeker and the Truth that is descending.

Let us understand it and stop from disobeying and deceiving Them, from stopping the Truth that is still descending for us.
Let us not stop the Progress.

Let us not forget the Aim, the Purpose : the Supramental Manifestation on Earth. Let us not pull back and stop the March towards the New World, towards the New Horizon.


Barindranath Chaki

09-10-2006

All choice

On the Way

Sri Aurobindo is Himself the Adventure of Consciousness, as described by Satprem, a disciple. And if one aspires and endeavours to follow the Light and the Words of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa] and is inspired by Them and walks through the Way trodden by Them, beginning from adolescence, one has to grow up as a sort of adventurer of Consciousness, a seeker of Truth. And this is not a blind faith. This is an Understanding, a Light that comes from above and grows within, more and more intuitively and yet satisfying all claims Reason, even surpassing the limits of Reason, the failures and falls of Reason.

With all humility, I say that from my adolescence I endeavoured for understanding and following Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, not as a religion, not as any worship or puja, not as a dogma, not as a way of creating another group or any group, but as a clear and open Truth, universal and worldwide and limitless, accepting and acceptable to all human beings on earth for surpassing all their imperfections and limitations, for surpassing all difficulties and deficiencies, all divisions and darkness and death. And on the Way I met some others. And we walked together, often. The aim of the Adventure, the journey through the Unknown and the New was and is to reach The New Horizon, The New World, the Eternal Dawn of the Supramental World. We the human beings have to evolve into a New Race, surpassing all our human and animal limitations and imperfections and inconscience and ignorance and incapacities.

I have a dream, a dream of marching, along with others, towards The New Horizon, The New World. And I request all others to march towards The New Horizon, The New World. Hence, let us collect all that is golden in our harvest so far, since the beginning of the human journey, and march towards The New Horizon. It is not that we will leave this world and go elsewhere to find another planet in search of the New World. Nor should we become recluses. We need not retire into some forests or mountains. We will change this world. We can see that this world, as it is now, is in an extremely bad state of affairs. Falsehood, hatred, selfishness, corruption, greed, deception, violence, cruelty, inhumanity, and hunger for power - these appear to be the ruling forces now. All the noble Ideals or Ideas that prevailed on earth and inspired many of our noble ancients or our forefathers, have, as it were, become obsolete. Look at history and the present day earth: ideologically, and in consciousness, men seem to have become pygmies. The entire human society is sitting on a heap of bombs - atomic or non-atomic. In relationships, we can no more find beauty and love and fellow feeling. In Arts and culture, vulgarity has almost replaced beauty. In the name of religion, the people fight each other, and they are taking themselves farther away from the Divine, from spirituality. You may live for a definite purpose, a purpose higher than ordinary, which will bring you more fulfilments, more joy. The higher your purpose, the greater is the joy and fulfilment. The higher the Consciousness you aspire for, and the wider your consciousness, the more purposeful your life becomes, the greater is your joy. We may orient our endeavor, our way of life, towards limited personal happiness and satisfaction, or towards a greater and wider Joy and fulfilment, along with others, for others, maybe with the whole of mankind, for the entire mankind, for higher values of Truth, Light, Wisdom, Beauty, Creativity, Goodness, Love, Wideness, Harmony and Peace, Total Well-being.

Our journey is towards the next evolution.
And Sri Aurobindo is The Leader of the next evolution.
He was the first Person to know and declare that the humanity must go beyond itself, that Man has to evolve beyond himself towards supermanhood, towards becoming supramental beings. That is the Will of the Supreme, that is the design of Nature, of what He has termed as Supernature.

Sri Aurobindo has said :

Our evolution in the Ignorance with its checkered joy and pain of self-discovery and world-discovery, its half fulfilments, its constant finding and missing, is only our first state. It must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a self finding and self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the Divinity in things in that true power of itself in Nature which is to us still a Supernature.

The Mother has said :

A new consciousness is at work upon earth to prepare the coming of the superhuman being.Open yourself to this consciousness if you aspire to serve the Divine Work.To come into contact with this new consciousness, the essential condition is no longer to have any desires and to be wholly sincere.

Further, She has also said:

To leap into the new consciousness, the first condition is a mental modesty sufficient to be convinced that all one thinks one knows is nothing in comparison with what remains to be learned. All that one has learned externally must be only a foothold enabling one to rise towards higher knowledge.

Hence, we aspire for and dream of marching towards The New Horizon, The New World.

With this dream, with these ideas and aspirations and hopes, this website is created, which I name The New Horizon. My idea is not only to dream or be a visionary, but to spread my dream, my vision, my consciousness, my aspiration, along with the bases of my philosophical and spiritual understanding, throughout the people around the world, through my Blogs and Websites. I hope the Light and Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother will inspire the people and change their attitude and approach, so that a Society can grow and march towards The New Horizon, The New World.

There is no narrowness here. It is open to all other thinkers and Seers and spiritual Leaders of the Past and the Present and even of the Future who seek to change this world from darkness to Light, from falsehood to Truth, from death to Immortality. Not only the Dream, but also the required Action will be dealt with in these pages.

I will express myself though arts and poetry, through philosophical, intellectual and spiritual deliberations. You are invited and welcome to join or visit this place as a valuable and valued member or guest, in order to walk along towards The New Horizon.

Barin

24-09-2006

[This posting is published in my new Blog Barin Chaki and also simultaneously published by me in All choice. Barin ]