The Next Evolution

The Next Evolution 3

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.

The Mother

Sri Aurobindo is The Leader of the next evolution. He is the first Person to know and declare that the humanity must go beyond itself, that Man has to evolve beyond himself towards supermanhood, and then towards becoming a supramental being. That is the Will of the Supreme. That is the design of Nature, rightly speaking, of Supernature.

While Matter is apparently Inconscient, evolution from Matter to Man is through Ignorance. Though Man has been evolved with more consciousness and knowledge in him in comparison with the Ape and other living beings, still he is half-conscious, half-fulfilled, with incomplete, insufficient and inconclusive knowledge, with more or less ineffective and superficial knowledge. Man has been evolved with Mind, is still being evolved with Mind, but what he carries with him as the Mind, is only a very small and miniature fragment the real principle of Mind. The humanity as a whole has not yet evolved or used or even become conscious of the higher and deeper ranges of Mind, which are touched and partly used only by a few. However, these few persons let us believe that transcendence of the present state is possible. Our endeavor for self-discovery and world-discovery is also only half-fulfilled, partial and inconclusive and insufficient. Our previous Leaders have led some, but the mass still gropes in darkness, and the followers have begun clashes, feuds and wars, and have the journey regressive and backward towards the primitive state of mind, though dressed and decorated with ornaments of modern superficialities.

From the scientific viewpoint, now man is at the apex of Evolution. But as we know, Man is not perfect. He lives with ignorance, incapacity, imbalance, disharmony, chaos, disorder, aimlessness, unhappiness, sufferings, diseases and death. We live only in moments, having inherited a ‘brief animal' mind. We do not know our past, our future, or our destiny.

Blessed with an incomplete and imperfect mental consciousness that Nature has bestowed on him, Man lives with Ignorance in all walks of his life and existence. He is uncertain about the results of his actions or about the certainty of his thoughts, of his future achievements and even about his own survival or his purpose on earth or his destiny. Our history is filled with stories of our repeated bloodsheds, battles and massacres, including two World Wars. And instead of loving our earth, we have divided and sub-divided and further subdivided it into smaller and smaller regions and fought against each other. We live thus backwards towards a regression.

We are not conscious that there is some higher aim and meaning for our life and existence. We live with our narrow egoistic choices and more or less selfish activities. We do not want to know beyond our nose and most of the time shut up our eyes, outer and inner.

However, that is only an aspect of the Truth. Inborn with him is a longing for happiness, joy, for light and knowledge. And always with him there is Hope. Without hope, he cannot be. Hope is an eternal companion of man.

A beautiful, joyous, harmonious and luminous Future of divine perfection is waiting for Man as his evolutionary possibility and goal. This is his evolutionary Future. He cannot continue for ever as he is and has been now. He has to proceed ahead from the present square. Or else, the evolutionary forces of Nature - Supernature -will surpass him and choose some other means for fulfilment of the goal : ever-progressive manifestation of Consciousness.
That is our Future, preordained. We shall have to ascend.
Despite all Darkness and Ignorance around us, we have relentlessly endeavored to conquer the situation we are born in on this earth. The results are civilization, science, medicine, philosophy, arts, education, social activities, spirituality and yoga.

We are not sure whether our present ignorant activities would lead us to an extinction, like that of the Dinosaurs that existed during the Mesozoic Era.
However, though we are imperfect in all our attempts, we have not given up. And to all our endeavors for more than last fifty millennia, the inner askesis and inner necessity and aspiration of the humankind has been answered by the Supreme with the New Possibility, with the New Hope, that Sri Aurobindo has brought for us.

To lead us towards the New Possibility, towards the conquest of Darkness and Ignorance and Death, towards the Advent of the New Light, of the Supramental Consciousness, of the New Race, the Supramental Race, that is the AIM of Sri Aurobindo. The humanity has to evolve into a race of supramental beings, or else he will be replaced by a race of higher beings, in order to give effect to the evolutionary progress: this is the necessity of Evolution.

This is what The Mother [Mira Alfassa] has said about our choice :
Men, countries, continents!
The choice is imperative:
Truth or the abyss.

We need not forsake our normal life for this journey to the Future, nor should we discard the society and the social and material responsibilities, for reaching this Future. We can start the journey from where we are now, simply by changing our inner attitude and inner aspiration and our approach and activities.

Tena tyaktena bhunjeetha. [Ishopanishad].
By that renounced, thou shouldst enjoy. [Sri Aurobindo].

Sri Aurobindo says further :

A heavenlier passion shall upheave men's lives,
Their mind shall share in the ineffable gleam,
Their heart shall feel the ecstasy and the fire.
Earth's bodies shall be conscious of a soul;
Mortality's bond slaves shall unloose their bonds,
Mere men into spiritual beings grow
And see awake the dumb divinity.

Sri Aurobindo has given us a luminous Future ! Mere men will grow into spiritual beings, freed from darkness, ignorance, sufferings and death!!

Barindranath Chaki
15-11-2007