A Comment on Savitri

[I read the following in one of the blogs of Tusar N Mohapatra — Savitri Era Open Forum. I am sending this comment thereon.

Marko Says: May 10th, 2007 at 1:15 pm Hi anon, I can appreciate what you are saying and agree with most of it. But I was coming from a different perspective, that of literature and poetry, while you seem to be coming from that of teaching, transformation and transmission.
The perspective of literature was actually started by Tusar by his remark “For his poem Savitri, he ranks along with Dante, Milton, and Goethe.” Those three did not write from the perspective of a teaching that they wanted to put into the world like Aurobindo, although obviously Dante and Goethe were spiritual developed. So when Tusar says Savriti ranks along with Dante, Milton and Goethe he is coming from the perspective of literature.
And I don’t think that you can maintain Savriti is on the same level as the Divine Comedy here. And this is not a subjective experience thing. Specialists in the field of literature and poetry are the ones would have the last say in this. Well, those specialists have written libraries full of praise for the Divine Comedy and they did not and will not do so for Savriti. And again this is not because I don’t like Aurobindo, because I do, but I also want to keep things in perspective and stay realistic. In my view, Tusar’s comment was not realistic. Open Integral ]

A Comment on Savitri :

I think my friend Tusar N. Mohapatra was too modest and not really unrealistic, when he said : “For his poem Savitri, he ranks along with Dante, Milton, and Goethe.” What one finds what the Future Poetry will be and when one reads through the poems and even the prose of Sri Aurobindo, I find them to be far above even the best normal poems on earth, including even The Divine Comedy. Savitri cannot be compared to any other poem, when we think of the New Vision that Sri Aurobindo has given us.

In the Future, of which Sri Aurobindo and The Mother had the dream, and for bringing upon which They worked so much, the present ‘realistic’ standards of valuation of literature will change. And the Future seems not to be too far. There will be difference between poems with some Inner Vision and poems with high imagination and even visions from layers NOT too high. From the highest literary appreciation of the present day literary critics, The Divine Comedy may be one of the best. But I have not heard or read anywhere that The Divine Comedy has been sought after as The Light by anyone, as millions today have accepted and are accepting Savitri. As a thing of Beauty, The Divine Comedy has been a Joy for ever, no doubt. But it has never really been the equal to Savitri in bringing us to Light and Truth and the eternal Beauty.

We are advancing on earth. And as we are marching ahead, our standards are also growing and changing. As we are on the Way to live more and more in and with an integral consciousness, our standards of evaluation will also change. Arts for arts sake will be there, pure literature will also be there, but the true evaluation will only be from the integral viewpoint.

One — who is sincerely trying to understand Sri Aurobindo, what Consciousness He represents — will never compare Him with Goethe, Milton or Dante, though they were very great. And His creations, which really belong to the Future and Truth, cannot be compared to any creation of imagination, even of the highest poetic value as per the present day or past valuation. Dante and Goethe were no doubt spiritually developed. But was Sri Aurobindo simply spiritually developed? HE is the Light and the Leader of the Next Evolution.

The Mother has said in 1972 :
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 met Sri Aurobindo on 29th March 1914.
The next day, on 30th March, She wrote :
Gradually the horizon becomes distinct, the path grows clear, and we move towards a greater and greater certiude.
It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance, He whom we saw yesterday is on earth ; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth.
O Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overwhelms with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope has no bounds.
My adoration is beyond all words, and my reverence is silent.

In 1972, in the birth centenary of Sri Aurobindo, 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.

Again, She said:
Man is the creation of yesterday.
Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being.

And yet another, written on 1 January 1972:
Sri Aurobindo does not belong to a country but to the whole earth. His teaching leads us towards a better future.

In the Words of Sri Aurobindo, Savitri is the Divine Word. And it is the most realistic Truth.

Barin Chaki
11-05-2007

SUJATA

The beginning of a New Age

As Satprem completed his Work in his old human body and began his new journey in a new exitsence for manifestation of The New World of supramental consciousness, following The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, Sujata also followed him on 4th May 2007. She was 81 years old.

My friend Tusar N. Mohapatra informed me today as follows :

Sujata also left us
10 May 2007, 5:15 Uhrjj.vanhoutte

For information of the community, Sujata have also left us, more or less a month after Satprem, on May 4, 2007. She was 81 years old and lived since the age of 9 in the Ashram of Sri Aurobindo.

OOOO

Sujata cannot really leave us.

She spent a much long period of her life in collaboration with Satprem to transform the human existence, following the Mother and Sri Aurobindo.
How can she leave us who the way-farers to the same goal?

We will always meet her and be inspired by her on the Way.

The Consciousness and the Spirit of Sujata can never die. The spirit will continue to work for conquering death and ignorance and help others in conquering death and ignorance, in the Way led by The Master and The Mother, in collaboration with Saprem. She will be present, along with Satprem, in the New World, among the New Race!

There has been now a beginning of a New Age — of a Rejuvenation of the march towards The New Horizon, The New World. Death can never win.

The Progress towards the Supramentalisation of the World will continue till the Work is finally done.

Barin Chaki
10-05-2007

On Satprem

Satprem: Life without Death

From Sandra ►

Sandra says :

I'm a bit stunned as I write this. I'm not an obituary writer, but here I am, for the third time in the past month-and-a-bit, writing about someone who died recently. I was just looking online for a link to Satprem 's book The Mind of the Cells for a girlfriend of mine who I chatted with today in the sunny garden here in Bonn. Another friend overheard us, and told us about his experience of being with Satprem in 1973, just after the death of Mirra Alfassa, The Mother.

And now, a few hours later, I read that Satprem died on the 9th of April this year.
I know virtually nothing about Satprem, other than he wrote The Mind of the Cells and other books ( e.g. Life Without Death, on my 'to read' list…) and that he was one of the few people who understood what The Mother was doing. What he shared in The Mind of the Cells lives in my own cells…. in my heart and mind and soul and body, always there, reminding me of so something rare and often forgotten – unseen or unknown even – & not only forgotten in my own consciousness, but in the thoughts and consciousness and life of so many of those around me.

OOOO

The Mind of the Cells is about The Mother's extraordinary 'experiments' in transformation and evolution through the body. What Satprem and the Mother explored has stayed with me like a light in the darkest tunnels of my own journey. I believe I 'left' my body (as much as was possible without actually going insane or dying) when I was seven, - and that my life from that point onwards has been a path of reconnecting to this body. I deeply sense and experience that this reconnection is not simply a 'getting back in'- it's wider than that, part of my own evolution – and because I'm in the middle of this journey ( or somewhere along a spectrum that may not be vertical), I can't quite express what is actually happening.I've always felt that I am here in a 'body' for a reason, that the wild and often extremely uncomfortable physical ride this body is on is not a 'mistake' or a problem. I believe that the evolution of consciousness, of being human - of becoming - is through this body; I believe that 'enlightenment' is not a process of disconnecting from the physical into some 'higher' more ethereal realm, rather it is a fully physical and felt experience (I have to say that this is more than a belief, it's a kind of knowing that is not about being 'right'). Reading The Mind of the Cells washed over me like a wave of warm ocean, curling me into its heart, saying Yes, what you experience is absolutely precise and on track.

OOOO

Thank you Satprem, thank you Mother Mirra.
I had the same thoughts about Satprem that I had about U.G. Krishnamurti - I hoped that 'one day' I would meet him. Both lived quite reclusively, out of the public eye, and I'm sad that I did not make a greater effort to sit with them in this life. I'm reminded to never take for granted what is here, and to reach out to all who have touched me, supported me, encouraged me, and tell them how grateful I am.

And, I loved what Barindranath Chaki wrote on his Satprem blog: “Satprem cannot die…He will be there, till the Work he has undertaken is done”. Perhaps this is why I'm writing this - so that the flame of Sri Aurobindo, The Mother and Satprem can be passed along - to anyone who is touched by anything I've written, to anyone who feels that the physical experience is absolutely integral to consciousness, then please, read these extraordinary people's books, share the flame. Let's live in the fire of life, exploring all its corridors and pathways, let us – hand-in-hand – walk where there are no roads, no maps, on and into this great adventure of the unknown.

OOOO

Added later:

“It happened in the deserted canyons near Pondicherry. I was sitting there quietly, when out of a hollow came three men. Instantly I knew: “They're coming to kill me.” I stayed where I was, without moving. And strangely without any effort or concentration, I suddenly felt as if emptied of myself, without any reaction, without fear, without anything, like a stone, but a conscious stone looking unconcerned at some kind of show, just as one can be both witness and actor in a dream. Except for its neutrality, the feeling was not really that of a rock, but rather that of a body, my body, as something utterly transparent and null, and a little indistinct. Nothing moved, there was not a quiver or a throb - and I had nothing to do with it, there was no “self-control” involved, no effort. Something had taken hold of me in a transparent immobility The three men were there: two in front, one behind. I didn't move. they talked amongst themselves. Then a kind of voice in me said, “Get up.” I rose, with my back to the canyon. One of them took off my watch, no doubt to simulate a robbery. The man behind came in front of me. I saw the killer raise his arm to push me into the canyon. I followed the movement of that arm, my eyes met the gold-coloured eyed of the killer. he lowered his arm, hesitated a moment as if he was not sure what to do , or exactly why he was there. It seemed that he too now watched the scene as if it did not make any sense, or as if he had forgotten what he had come for. He turned around, the others turned, around, and they left. Then they started to run as if panic stricken. And my heart suddenly remembered that it should have been frightened, that they had wanted to kill me.. and it started pounding like mad.The only thing I know is that had there been the slightest effort on my part, the slightest contraction or reaction to push those men back, even an inner refusal, a mere “no” inside, they would have killed me instantly: the opposition thus raised would have met and challenged their vibration and the reaction would have touched off the whole process. But there was nothing, not even a breath of reaction; I was like thin air, as it wore: the others vibration passed through me like a breeze, unobstructed. Can you kill a breeze? Some kind of contact is necessary in order to kill, you have to have a handle - here, there was no handle, for the was nothing, and since there was nothing, there was nothing!”

[ From Satprem: The mind of the cells ]

Sandra Jensen

[http://sandrajensen.zaadz.com/]

[As a comment on my blog Satprem, simultaneously published in Zaadz, Sandra says :
Thank you so much for this, dear Barindranath. I was just writing my own Satprem blog, only having discovered today that he died, and while I was researching him I found you here, what a gift.
Love,
Sandra]
~Barin Chaki~

A comment on 'Satprem'

From Juliette ►

juliette said...

Dear Mr Chaki

I don't know why since some days I was trying to remember the title of Satprem's book : the Sannyasin I have read more than thirty years ago on the land of India when I stayed for a visit in Auroville. This book was kind of a bible for me at that time, when I was opening it at any page I found a relevent answer to my quest to find truth in this life. This book was the seed to show me the way. Then after a while I gave that book to some one but still keeping strong inside the impact of it. Then as a sign, suddenly, some days ago, I remembered the atmosphere of this book but forgoten the title and wondering if Satprem was still alive. So I searched in Internet and found out from your article that he died ten days ago. What a coïncidence although I've rarely thought of him during those past years. I share with you the sadness of his lost as he is a human being of our time who brought light on the way of many people's life and I am very grateful to him. For all the best to you and to those who loved him.

Juliette
4:06 AM

Satprem

Satprem
[30-10-1923 — 09-04-2007]

This cannot be an obituary. I will not say that Satprem is no more! I cannot say that he has passed away! I will not write about his works and achievements and then forget him.

Definitely, he was an author. He wrote several beautiful books, the likes of which nobody has written. He has edited and organized Mother’s Agenda, which contain the seed of the Next Future, the Next Evolution. And not only that, he is a part and parcel of Mother’s Agenda.

The possibility that there will be many more authors like him is rare. His writings are what he is! And he is unique, only one.

But Satprem is not only an author, he is an adventurer, following the footprints of The Adventure, and of The Creatrix. He wanted to break the habit of the body, the habit of death. He wanted to break into the realm of the supermen's world, the New World.

Man has to pass into the becoming of the Superman. Man has to transform himself, individually and socially, so that the New Race will come into being on earth. The Supramental World cannot come on earth, unless there is some real endeavour for it. And that has to come as soon as possible. That is the only Solution before the humankind.

And that is what Satprem has been doing. Satprem, along with Sujata, concentrated exclusively to the transformation of the cellular consciousness of the body and to the realisation of the next evolution, from Mind to the Supermind. They were / are in search of the great journey from manhood to supermanhood. And all this is the Work of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Satprem described Sri Aurobindo as The Adventure of Consciousness. He wrote :

“The age of adventures is over. Even if we reach the seventh galaxy, we will go there helmeted and mechanized, and it will not change a thing for us; we will find ourselves exactly as we are now: helpless children in the face of death, living beings who are not too sure how they live, why they are alive, or where they are going. On the earth, as we know, the times of Cortez and Pizarro are over; one and the same pervasive Mechanism stifles us: the trap is closing inexorably. But, as always, it turns out that our bleakest adversities are also our most promising opportunities, and that the dark passage is only a passage leading to a greater light. Hence, with our backs against the wall, we are facing the last territory left for us to explore, the ultimate adventure: ourselves.”
He further wrote :
“There is no more room on the teeming beaches, no more room on the crowded roads, no more room in the ever-expanding anthills of our cities. We have to find a way out elsewhere. But there are many kinds of "elsewheres." Those of drugs are uncertain and fraught with danger, and above all they depend upon an outer agent; an experience ought to be possible at will, anywhere, at the grocery store as well as in the solitude of one's room--otherwise it is not an experience but an anomaly or an enslavement. Those of psychoanalysis are limited, for the moment, to the dimly lit caves of the "unconscious," and most importantly, they lack the agency of consciousness, through which a person can be in full control, instead of being an impotent witness or a sickly patient.
Those of religion may be more enlightened, but they too depend upon a god or a dogma; for the most part they confine us in one type of experience, for it is just as possible to be a prisoner of other worlds as it is of this one--in fact, even more so. Finally, the value of an experience is measured by its capacity to transform life; otherwise, it is simply an empty dream or a hallucination. Sri Aurobindo leads us to a twofold discovery, which we so urgently need if we want to find an intelligible meaning to the suffocating chaos we live in, as well as a key for transforming our world. By following him step by step in his prodigious exploration, we are led to the most important discovery of all times, to the threshold of the Great Secret that is to change the face of this world, namely, that consciousness is power.”
Following the footprints of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Satprem himself became an adventurer. His existence is a dedication to the Cause of passing on to the Next Evolution, for creating the New World, where there will no more of any death or decay, any old age, any disease, any defeat for man. He endeavoured for translating this dream onto the reality. He was preparing himself for the great leap beyond ordinary humanity.

Satprem cannot die. I feel his presence, without any vacant feeling. He will be there, till the Work he has undertaken is done! If he dies, along with him dies the human hope and the human dream. He is a hope for all of us — the dreamers. He is a hope for all of us — the rebels. He is the hope for all of us — the adventurers towards The New Horizon, The New World.

He is the Spirit that can never die. The spirit will conquer death and let others conquer death, in the Way led by The Light and The Force.

His name will shine for ever at the Feet of The Master and The Mother. He will be present in the New World, among the New Race!

{Also published in Barin Chaki, Barin's Blog and barin chaki's blog simultaneously.)

Barindranath Chaki

The Next Evolution

The Next Evolution 5

Some clarifications

To begin with, I am to say that, I am not a scientist, not a biologist, though my search and research is as a student of Philosophy, with a special emphasis in the Philosophy and Teaching of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother [Mira Alfassa]. I am a humble seeker of Truth, and that is the reason why I have read some scientific literature, as much and as thorough as possible, as required in the search and research of Philosophy. It is aptly said, Philosophy begins when Science ends.

In The Next Evolution 4, I wrote :

"From the scientific viewpoint, now man is at the apex of Evolution.

"This statement was commented by someone in barinchaki.sulekha.com as follows :

“I have never heard any serious scientist make a ludicrous claim like that. Would you cite research publications that arrive at that conclusion. This is a popular myth that most scientists try to correct.” The comment is quoted below.*

I am making some references below which will demonstrate that serious and real scientists are / were there on earth who holds / held the same view, as that of mine.
1. Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975), a Russian geneticist, said in his famous 1973 essay Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution :
“A biologic species does not say to itself, "Let me try tomorrow (or a million years from now) to grow in a different soil, or use a different food, or subsist on a different body part of a different crab." Only a human being could make such conscious decisions. This is why the species Homo sapiens is the apex of evolution [Note by Evowiki : Dobzhansky is not suggesting humans are the purpose of evolution….]
2. Edward L. Crisp, Ph.D., Professor of Geology, West Virginia University at Parkersburg, writes in his essay ORGANIC EVOLUTION :

“Classification of Organisms: classifying organisms into groups based on their similarities. A formal classification of organisms into major groups was devised by the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1798) during the late 1700s. The Linnaeus system of classification is a hierarchical scheme, as one proceeds up the classification ladder the categories become more inclusive. Obviously Linnaeus used similarities of shared characters to relate organisms into groups, however, he believed in the immutability of species and thought his classification reflected God's plan, from simple primitive organisms to complex organisms with man at the apex.

3. Constance Areson Clark writes in his essay "Evolution for John Doe** : Pictures, and the Scopes Trial Debate " in Journal of American History, 87 (March 2001), 1275-1301 that man is the culminating point in Evolution :

“Many of the diagrams designed by Osborn and his colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History resembled Darwin's diagram in their bushiness, especially those illustrating the concept Osborn named "adaptive radiation," the diversification of related organisms as they adapt to different environments. Darwin's branching concept of evolution was not, however, the primary image offered to the public in diagrams of the 1920s. A characteristic example is the tree (figure 4.) in Benjamin C. Gruenberg's The Story of Evolution, a highly stylized, conventionalized rendering, including no information about time or extinction, conveying the impression that there is a single "main line" of evolution, culminating in "man" (in a suit!).

Thus we find that some scientists of worth and fame accept and state that man or the Homo sapiens is the apex of evolution.

No more, then, is this statement Man is at the apex of evolution is ludicrous, as scientists, including geologists are sayimg so.

OOOO

The comment referred to Stephen Jay Gould :
“This centuries most noted evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould spent a large part of his career decimating what
he called the idea of the "Ladder of Progress" citing evolution as a progressive march from the worms , culminating in
Humans.”

Thus, Stephen Jay Gould had the main objection with the idea of Ladder of progress. I have never used the idea of the Ladder of progress, for that was / is not the purpose of my essay.

Anyhow, there were / are several scientist who totally disagreed with Gould. Professor John Maynard Smith, (6 January 1920 – 19 April 2004), a British evolutionary biologist and geneticist, was one of them. About him, let me quote from Wikipedia :

“Maynard Smith thought that Gould trivialized the role of adaptation, and criticised Gould's periodic invocation of large scale mutations. In a review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Maynard Smith wrote that Gould "is giving non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory.

“One reason for such criticism was that Gould appeared to be presenting his ideas as a revolutionary way of understanding evolution, which relegated natural selection to a much less important position. As a result, many non-specialists inferred from his early writings that Darwinian explanations had been proven to be unscientific (which Gould never wanted to imply). His works were sometimes used out of context as a "proof" that scientists no longer understood how organisms evolved, giving creationists ammunition in their battle against evolutionary theory. Gould himself corrected some of these misinterpretations and distortions of his writings in later works. "

Another such Scientist is Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941), who is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer who holds the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
Dawkins writes in his book Human Chauvinism :
“To evolution: is it progressive? Gould’s definition of progress is a human-chauvinistic one which makes it all too easy to deny progress in evolution. I shall show that if we use a less anthropocentric, more biologically sensible, more ‘adaptationist’ definition, evolution turns out to be clearly and importantly progressive in the short to medium term. In another sense it is probably progressive in the long term too…xxx xxx xxx xxx
“Gould is wrong to say that the appearance of progress in evolution is a statistical illusion. … To be sure, complexity, braininess and other particular qualities dear to the human ego should not necessarily be expected to increase progressively in a majority of lineages – though it would be interesting if they did…. But if you define progress less chauvinistically – if you let the animals bring their own definition – you will find progress, in a genuinely interesting sense of the word, nearly everywhere.
Now it is important to stress that, on this adaptationist view (unlike the ‘evolution of evolvability’ view to be discussed shortly), progressive evolution is to be expected only on the short to medium term. Coevolutionary arms races may last for millions of years but probably not hundreds of millions. Over the very long timescale, asteroids and other catastrophes bring evolution to a dead stop, major taxa and entire radiations go extinct. Ecological vacuums are created, to be filled by new adaptive radiations driven by new ranges of arms races. The several arms races between carnivorous dinosaurs and their prey were later mirrored by a succession of analogous arms races between carnivorous mammals and their prey. Each of these successive and separate arms races powered sequences of evolution which were progressive in my sense.…
“Ironically for such an eloquent foe of progress, Gould flirts with the idea that evolution itself changes over the long haul, but he puts it in a topsy turvy way which has undoubtedly been widely misleading.… For Gould, evolution in the Cambrian was a different kind of process from evolution today. The Cambrian was a period of evolutionary ‘experiment’, evolutionary ‘trial and error’, evolutionary ‘false starts’. It was a period of ‘explosive’ invention, before evolution stabilised into the humdrum process we see today. It was the fertile time when all the great ‘fundamental body plans’ were invented. Nowadays, evolution just tinkers with old body plans. Back in the Cambrian, new phyla and new classes arose. Nowadays we only get new species!
“Gould expects us to be surprised. Why? The view that he is attacking - that evolution marches inexorably towards a pinnacle such as man - has not been believed for 50 years. But his quixotic strawmandering, his shameless windmill-tilting, seem almost designed to encourage misunderstanding (not for the first time: on a previous occasion he went so far as to write that the neo-Darwinian synthesis was ‘effectively dead’!). The following is typical of the publicity surrounding Wonderful Life (incidentally, I suspect that the lead sentence was added without the knowledge of the credited journalist): "The human race did not result from the ‘survival of the fittest’, according to the eminent American professor, Stephen Jay Gould. It was a happy accident that created Mankind" (Daily Telegraph, 22nd January 1990). Such twaddle, of course, is nowhere to be found in Gould, but whether or not he seeks that kind of publicity he all too frequently attracts it. Readers regularly gain the impression that he is saying something far more radical and surprising than he actually is.”
Quoting all these extracts is, no doubt, have nothing much to do with The Next Evolution, excepting that I have to take necessary steps in order to clear off the mist created in the atmosphere by the reference to Gould. We find above, in the quotations from Smith and Dawkins, that in Evolution, there may not be any Ladder, but there is Progress! Evolution is progressive.
OOOO

Besides Science, even in Philosophy and Mysticism, there are schools of thought which speak of the human being to be the apex of evolution. Let us see what Julio Savi has written in his book on Bahai faith — The Eternal Quest for God :

“When we study the phenomena of the world of creation, we will see how `... all phenomena of being attain to a summit and degree of consummation, after which a new order and condition is established'. This concept applies also to the world of creation as a whole: man is the apex of the evolutionary process of the world of creation, its `fruit', its `degree of consummation'. But since the evolutionary process must necessarily go forward, in man `a new order and condition' must appear, and such is that condition which Bahá'ís call spiritual, others metaphysical.”

OOOO
What I wrote in The Next Evolution 4 is not “a re-iteration of the popular belief of what science is all about.” That was / is the comment that has been made, an insignificant comment which itself is ludicrous, baseless and unfounded. My essay is not about what is Science, rather it is about something which is beyond Science, but not against or contrary to Science. Nor do I accept the popular belief about Science to be the real Scince. The difference is well known to me.
The person commenting said : Real science is...well...different.

This is not the definition of Science. Science is not mystic poetry, so that you can describe it as something which is indescribable. A real student of Science should be specific and definite, not vague, poetic, mystic.

Wikipedia describes Science as follows :

Science in the broadest sense refers to any system of objective knowledge. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge humans have gained by such research. There are different points of view regarding the scientific method: Methodological naturalism maintains that scientific investigation must adhere to empirical study and independent verification as a process for properly developing and evaluating natural explanations for observable phenomena. Methodological naturalism typically, therefore, rejects supernatural explanations, arguments from authority and biased observational studies. Critical rationalism instead holds that unbiased observation is not possible and a demarcation between natural and supernatural explanations is arbitrary; it instead proposes falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories and falsification as the universal scientific method. (This approach has been generalized to pancritical rationalism.) Instrumentalism rejects the concept of truth and emphasizes merely the utility of theories as instruments for explaining and predicting phenomena. Fields of science are commonly classified along two major lines:
Natural sciences, which study natural phenomena, and Social sciences, which study human behavior and societies.

OOOO

The purpose of this series of essays by me is neither to define or describe Science nor to state that Man is the culmination of Evolution. The aim is to speak of the Next Evolution, definitely after and beyond Man. I had to post these clarifications today on the face of the comment made, so that what I am to present as the Next Evolution is not misunderstood. As I have said, the Leaders of the Next Evolution are Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and I am presenting things here inspired by Them and in Their light.

[* It was commented by protobion on The Next Evolution 4 in barinchaki.sulekha.com, as follows:

"From the scientific viewpoint, now man is at the apex of Evolution."

With all due respect, I have never heard any serious scientist make a ludicrous claim like that. Would you cite research publications that arrive at that conclusion. This is a popular myth that most scientists try to correct. This centuries most noted evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould spent a large part of his career decimating what he called the idea of the "Ladder of Progress" citing evolution as a progressive march from the worms , culminating in Humans. I do not blame you, not do I which criticize, but much of your post seems a re-iteration of the popular belief of what science is all about. Real science is...well...different.

Dare I say, that you are no scientist, or at the very least, certainly no biologist?]

[** The name John Doe is typically used as a placeholder name for a male party in a legal action or legal discussion whose true identity is unknown A female who is not known is often referred to as Jane Doe. A child or baby whose identity is unknown can be referred to as Baby Doe, or as Precious Doe. Additional people in the same family may be called James Doe, Judy Doe, etc. Commonly used in the United States of America, though rarely used now in developed countries.
The Doe names are often, though not always, used for anonymous or unknown defendants.]

[Simultaneously published in barinchaki.sulekha.com. and in barin.zaadz.com.]


Barindranath Chaki
27-03-2007

Thoughts and Aphorisms 3

3. When I speak, the reason says, "This will I say"; but God takes the word out of my mouth
and the lips say something else at which reason trembles.
[Thoughts and Aphorisms, Sri Aurobindo]

Obviously, here Sri Aurobindo is speaking about himself. People, who are in limited consciousness, whose consciousness is mixed with “lower impulses, unreasonable emotions and the vital reactions,” cannot say that this will be applicable to them, as The Mother says.

Ordinarily, sometimes we use our reason calmly, in peace and quietude and some concentration, and reach a decision to say something. But when we start speaking, we are influenced by our lower impulses, irrational emotions and vital reactions, and we utter something that should not be said.

But what Sri Aurobindo says here, is just the opposite. In case of an ordinary person, lower impulses, excitement and passion take hold of the mouth which speaks something different and lower and contrary to what reason decided.

But with regard to the phenomenon, of which Sri Aurobindo is speaking, an Inspiration
comes from above, with a light and a knowledge, greater than the light and knowledge attained through reason. And it makes one speak something which is beyond reason, beyond what is known and decided by reason, something that is beyond the capacity of “the most enlightened reason”.

Sri Aurobindo says that “reason trembles.” Reason trembles, because the higher Truth that comes from a higher region is beyond its comprehension and expectation and acceptance.
The inspirations and revelations which come from above are always more advanced than
whatever is understood and accepted by reason.

What man finds today to be reasonable may not have been accepted by reason in the past, as The Mother says. All revelations and inspirations, that come today to the Consciousness, higher and open, may seem today mysterious.

It may seem paradoxical, unexpected and revolutionary. And reason may tremble today. But in the Future, it will become a reasonable knowledge.

Truth is something which is ever progressive, moving, always being transformed and changed. Truth always leads us forward and reveals us to the relativity of all the manifestations in the world. The world is always progressing towards a higher Truth, a greater Truth.

The Supramental Manifestation is now the highest Truth, but still now this is not understood by the humanity. The ordinary human reason trembles before this highest Truth. But time will come and is sure to come when the majority of the human race shall understand accept It.

As Sri Aurobindo and The Mother say, the Unmanifest will manifest tomorrow.

(Simultaneously published in barin chaki's blog in Sulekha.)

Barin Chaki
23-03-2007