The ideal of Human Unity as articulated by Sri Aurobindo through a uniquely Indian genius of perfect individual in a perfect society

Globalization that is entire world connecting, communicating, competing and affecting each other has been a decisive force of our times. However, while stupendous progress in Science, technology, Economies and Management has brought humanity together like never before, the apparent external unity is hardly having anything resembling to cooperative, fulfilling, complimenting elements governing it, rather it is the opposites of these and the forced mechanical means for its operations which have brought us to a situation of evolutionary crisis as human minds and souls are hardly ready for such change and its catastrophic repercussions. Moreover, so far there is no agency which has come to surface which can control, guide and elevate these material forces so that globalization in external world can be an aid for the age old ideal of the Human Unity and collective human emancipation, which was not just foreseen but even proclaimed, attempted and reiterated by India.

Wisdom cannot become mechanical or translate into any artificial agency. To avoid peril of this force, great change is needed in heart and mind of the race.

The major factors are :

1. Amazing progress in Science and Technology

2. Their large scale application production and services of goods and transport across globe

3. Social Political, commercial, industrial institutes tending to mechanization, standardization, dehumanization in not just management and governance but even in interpersonal and intrapersonal relations.

4. The leaning to capitalist MNC culture where there is always want to multiply, competitive, here Vital and Physical are served by Mental.

5. Truth, Beauty, Goodness is denied and cheapened and bargained rather rthan getting elevated by the power of reason.

6. Mankind moving to economic and Vitalistic barbarism.

There can be two major forces seen pointing to this evolution of consciousness and in that process march of the individual, community and nations.

A)The dream of global family and multi layered happiness fades as UN, G7 and WB get ineffective and inconclusive, We thus need a deeper study and new solution. Need to again see the multi layered struggle in  history to harmonize the claims of individual and aggregates, centralization and decentralization,  material welfare and spiritual growth and so on.

B)Another powerful force for this march is the progress in consciousness studies and in evolutionary studies as done by various branches of Science.

‘A growing number of authors suggest that for an effective study of consciousness a new, non-reductionistic understanding of the basic nature of reality might be essential (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, 1991; Baruss and Moore, 1998; Griffin, 1998; Velmans, 2000). Some of these recently suggested approaches have their roots in traditional methodologies of scientific inquiry, while others have been envisioned in contemplative traditions and spiritual practice.’  

However this view is severely opposed by several scientists and those who support it are also having a fundamental materialsit biase. In the owrds of Cornellison : ‘Of course, not everyone accepts the pervasiveness of consciousness. McGinn, for example, agrees that the genesis of non-spatial consciousness out of an unconscious physical brain is not understandable, but leaves the unsolved riddle right there. About our inability to grasp the nature of non-spatial consciousness, he says apologetically, “It must not be forgotten that knowledge is the product of a biological organ whose architecture is fashioned by evolution for brutely pragmatic purposes” and in a footnote: “we too are Flatlanders of a sort: we tend to take the space of our experience as the only space there is or could be” (McGinn, 1995, p. 230). In harmony with his pessimistic view of our human possibilities for understanding reality, McGinn does not accept panpsychism. In the quoted article he still agrees that some form of panpsychism is the only way out of the conundrum of Chalmers’ “hard problem,” but in his later The Mysterious Flame, he denies that it could do even that (McGinn, 1999, pp. 95-104).

Chalmers (cf., 1998) is one of the most outspoken supporters of panpsychism and has argued extensively against materialism. His writings are an interesting example of how deeply the physicalist view of reality is engrained in contemporary Western philosophy: the materialist bias shows even in those authors who are apparently opposing it. ‘( Cornellison )

This shows how deep the present materialist and reductionist paradigm has gone and how impossible it is to solve this crisis by mental solutions. It needs a higher consciousness, a radically different paradigm to raise above the debate and there the need of a deeper study of the whole process of the evolution of consciousness.

I. The problem on Individual and his inner and outer planes of consciousness level:

Sri Aurobindo states:

The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious cooperation she wills to work out the superman, the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God? For if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her pause at a given stage of her evolution, nor have we the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth.

‘Sri Aurobindo sees evolution primarily as an ongoing evolution of consciousness. He holds that the human mind is much too imperfect a type of consciousness to be the final resting point of nature, and that just as life developed out of matter, and mind out of life, a still higher form of consciousness is bound to develop out of the mind. For his evolutionary ontology of consciousness, Sri Aurobindo bases himself on the Vedāntic view of consciousness, which says that consciousness is pervasive throughout reality and that it manifests as a range of ever-higher gradations of consciousness and being. In matter, consciousness is fully engrossed in its own existence and shows itself only as matter’s habit of form and its tendency to obey fixed laws. In plant and animal life, consciousness begins to emancipate a little, there are the first signs of exchange, of giving and taking, of feelings, drives and emotions. In the human mind we see a further emancipation of consciousness in the first appearance of an ability to “play with ideas in one’s mind” and to rise above the immediate situation. The mind is characteristically the plane of objective, generalized statements, ideas, thoughts, intelligence, etc. But the mind is also an inveterate divider, making distinctions between subject and object, I and thou, things and other things.’ Within the Vedic tradition, the ordinary human mentality is considered to be only the most primitive form of mental consciousness, most ego-bound, most dependent on the physical senses. Above it there is the unitary Higher Mind of self-revealed wisdom, the Illumined Mind where truths are seen rather than thought, the plane of the Intuitive Mind where truth is inevitable and perfect, and finally the cosmic Overmind, the mind of the Gods, comprehensive, all-encompassing. But in all these mental planes, however far beyond our ordinary mentality, there is still a trace of division, the possibility of discord and disharmony. One has to rise beyond all of them to find a truly Gnostic consciousness, intrinsically harmonious, perfect, one with the divine consciousness that upholds the universe.

Many spiritual traditions have claimed that it is possible to connect or even merge with an absolute consciousness beyond mind, but, according to Sri Aurobindo, it is at this moment for the first time becoming possible to let a supramental consciousness enter into one’s being and transform it in every respect. The comprehensive, supramental transformation of all aspects of human nature is the central theme of Sri Aurobindo’s work. While at present this can be done only to a limited extent, and at the cost of a tremendous individual effort, he predicts that eventually the supramental consciousness will become as much an intrinsic, “natural” part of earthly life as our ordinary mentality is now.

( Cornellison )

As Cornellison puts it : ‘These, then, are three of the main elements that characterize Sri Aurobindo’s writings: the urge for progress toward ever greater freedom and perfection, the idea that the forces at work in the individual are concentrated reflections of similar forces at work in the large and leisurely movements of Nature, and the notion of consciousness as the fundamental reality. These three ideas come together in Sri Aurobindo’s concept of an ongoing evolution of consciousness,

The march is cyclic and spiral and not linear and logical. It is zig zag and swinging to and fro. It includes ascent and integration both. The ascent also has transformation of the lower. The evolution of human species and the laws of that evolution follow development of faculties of body, life and mind, of physical base and infusion of powers from above.

As soon as lower elements achieve a certain point of maturity, they tend to higher grades of achievements in a gradual manner so as to interweave lower and higher in a complex series of harmony of conflicting claims. Evolution is  a continuous process and humanity is a crucial link in it. Beyond mind are higher, deeper, wider ranges of consciousness which must be attained. As animal is a living laboratory to evolve to man the mental being, similarly, man is living and thinking laboratory for Nature to raise higher than man.

In the Vedic ontology, from which Sri Aurobindo derived his concept of consciousness, consciousness is not only seen as individualized awareness. It is the very essence of everything in existence and as such not only the source of individuation and the sense of self, but also a formative energy:

Consciousness is not only power of awareness of self and things, it is or has also a dynamic and creative energy. It can determine its own reactions or abstain from reactions; it can not only answer to forces, but create or put out from itself forces. Consciousness is Chit but also Chit Shakti, awareness but also conscious force.

— Sri Aurobindo 1991, p. 234

Consciousness is moreover not considered as a simple yes/no phenomenon that is either there or not, but as manifesting in a hierarchy ranging from the seeming obliviousness of matter below, to the seemingly superconscient Spirit above. All three aspects of consciousness – its cosmic nature, its energy aspect, and its ability to differentiate itself into varying forms and degrees – combine to produce the processes of involution and evolution of consciousness that have given to our world its particular character:

Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence – it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it – not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when consciousness … forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently “unconscious” energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality, it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form. When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something more than mere man.

— op. cit., pp. 236-7

II. The problem on the Human Cycle and Human Unity level:

Now onwards the evolution is not confined to unconscious progression of Nature. It is conscious effort, aspiration from human being and grace from the Divine which accelerate this process. There is sense of freedom that comes with deviation of Self consciousness, and with process of rational and normative Consciousness. That bring the element of chance or alternate possibilities, some of which can be perilous as well . hence Sri Aurobindo terms this as a great adventure of consciousness. Free will is must in this process and not any sort of determinism. There has been three preoccupations of individual and collective :

1. Complete development of the individual being

2. Complete development of the collective being

3. Perfectability of the society.

4. Or best possibilities of the individual and collective relations : individual with individual’ individual with collectivity, collectivity with other collectivities.

There fore there can be different extremes in this pursuit:

One is individual is all important and collectivity is only filed or structure for individual’s growth.

Other is collective whether society, race, nation is all important and individual is just a instrument, a consumable, a cog for the collective growth. The soul of a collective is in its culture power of life, ideal and institutes and ways of expression.. and individual has to do cast in that mould for its own survival.

The second one was more common in almost all ancient cultures. However in India there was a special balance in two in the concept of Siddha , Bhagwata or Mukta, which means an individual by the virtue of his will Tapas can raise to the heights of God, can be God. Though the first three stages of life namely student and celibate, householder, recluse were within and with the aid of society and its meticulous structure, the forth was stage of Sanayasi, the liberated who was super social. Thus was given a multilayered multistaged structure of four stages of life, four ashrams, four varnas, and three gunas, with four purusharthas…dharma, Artha, Kaam , Moksh to help every one to grow , to evolve as per his or her swabhava, swadharma, samskara and adhikara…

As per Sri Aurobindo, a stage of acute conflict of standards pushes /presses us to search for unifying and harmonizing knowledge. An individual is key to evolutionary movement. It is only individual which becomes conscious of reality and his relation to collectivity. India’s allegiance is to the truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine,..which is in him and in all. He is not to subordinate to mass , rather he has to help and be helped by other individuals and community in this process.

An individual’s allegiance to use Sri Aurobindo’s own words,

must be to the Truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to subordinate or lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of being in himself and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its own truth and fullness of being must be his real object of existence.

India moves upto spiritual freedom, which is also spiritual oneness. And therefore even a Siddha or Mukta or a incaranation also moves and turns back after enlightenment to serve the god in mankind, to raise all who are still in delusion : Shivobhave Jeevseva.

For the awakened individual:

1. Realization of his truth of being and his inner liberation-perfection of realization

2. Perfected community can exist only by perfected individual

3. Perfection is by a) discovery and affirmation in life and by each of his own spiritual being. b) and discovery by all of their spiritual unity and harmony integration..?

There can be no real perfection in us except for our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the instrument.. existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration and harmony.

Real freedom : discovery and disengagement of the Spiritual Reality within us.    

Only means of true perfection is the sovereignity and self effectuation of the Spiritual Reality in all the elements of our nature.

In the words of Sri Aurobindo:

For the awakened individual the realisation of his truth of being and his inner liberation and perfection must be his primary seeking, first, because that is the call of the Spirit within him, but also because it is only by liberation and perfection and realisation of the truth of being that man can arrive at truth of living. A perfected community also can exist only by the perfection of its individuals, and perfection can come only by the discovery and affirmation in life by each of his own spiritual being and the discovery by all of their spiritual unity and a resultant life of unity. There can be no real perfection for us except by our inner self and truth of spiritual existence taking up all truth of the instrumental existence into itself and giving to it oneness, integration, harmony. As our only real freedom is the discovery and disengagement of the spiritual Reality within us, so our only means of true perfection is the sovereignty and self-effectuation of the spiritual Reality in all the elements of our nature.

..

Life was most richly lived has left behind most precious fruits when human societies

were organized in small independent centers. In Europe it was three stages : first when tribes in Israel were strong, then in Greek period and finally in artistic Italy. It was more frutiful in Germany, Italy, England and France , not in Roman and Russian empire. In India also it was Pallavas, Chalukyas, Pandya, Chola, Chera that she was at her best, not in mighty states and empires. When life is diffused in vast spaces it loses its colour richness and variety.

‘As Sri Aurobindo remarks, the organisation was great and admirable, but the individual dwindled and life lost its colour, richness, variety, freedom, and victorious impulse towards creation. Eventually, therefore, the Roman Empire declined and failed; the huge mechanism of centralisation and union brought about smallness and feebleness of the individual; mechanisation prevailed and the Empire lost even its conservative vitality and died of an increasing stagnation.’( Kireet Joshi )

The Problem of Individual and collectivity: centralize and decentralize, freedom and order, unity and diversity are few of the paradoxes which it has to manage. The ideal law of social development needs to be found and followed. Here world must be united but individual should be free to find himself : freedom of self discovery, self realization and self perfection is a must.

 

The law of ideal development for individual can be :

1. Free development from within,

2. respect, aid and get aided by same free development in others

3. To harmonise his life with life of social aggregate

4. To pour himself out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.

The law for community or nation is :

Similar like above

5. Free development from within,

6. respect, aid and get aided by same free development in other nations or communities

7. To harmonise community or national life with life of greater communities like continent or the world

8. To pour self out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity.

Law for humanity is :

Pursue upward evolution to find and express Divine in the type of mankind taking full advantage of free development and gains of all individuals, nations, and groups, realize and dream of a divine family and even then also respect, aid and be aided by growth of all individuals and aggregates.

The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and not only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity of its individuals and constituent aggregates.

This ideal never got operative in the imperfect stages through which mankind has travelled so far. However present stage is a time when human beings are trying more and more to know themselves, to find ideal law of his being and his societal existence, to find and to become gradually that which is perfection. This is subjective stage as per Sri Aurobindo when knowledge is increasing and diffusing itself with an unprecedented rapidity and when individuals, societies and nations all are discovering their respective subjective selves.  

He explains that in Human cycle that the society passes through symbolic, Typal, Conventional, Rational and Subjective stages. In rational stage, different ideals like Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood were floated and cherished, each true in itself but contradicting other. Equality is tolerable only with greasing of love and brotherhood. Liberty is possible only when Equality is not imposing and only aiding the growth. Harmony holds the key and at rational stage as mind divides and pursues its reductionist idea as if that is the sole truth, it is difficult to harmonise the apparently contradicting ideals: but in suprarational age: that is turn to true subjectivity it is something which can be achieved.

Sri Aurobindo states:

Yet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is the freedom of its self-development, the self-development of the divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common life, a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil itself in the life of the race.

I

This is the age of acute crisis which appears multidimensional and multidisciplinary, but in its essence it is an evolutionary crisis according to Sri Aurobindo.  

Role of reason is not to govern but to mediate and only the inner freedom or spiritual freedom can create the spiritual order and a spiritual anarchy. Three forces seem to be dominant now: 1.First is asserting Barbarism , 2. second is human reason spinning dreams but not fulfilling them, 3. Human being consents to rise above Reason and get spiritual.

It is a spiritual, an inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human order. It is a spiritual, a greater than the rational enlightenment that can alone illumine the vital nature of man and impose harmony on its self-seekings, antagonisms and discords. A deeper brotherhood, a yet unfound law of love is the only sure foundation possible for a perfect social evolution, no other can replace it. But this brotherhood and love will not proceed by the vital instincts or the reason where they can be met, baffled or deflected by opposite reasonings and other discordant instincts. Nor will it found itself in the natural heart of man where there are plenty of other passions to combat it. It is in the soul that it must find its roots; the love which is founded upon a deeper truth of our being, the brotherhood or, let us say, for this is another feeling than any vital or mental sense of brotherhood, a calmer more durable motive-force, – the spiritual comradeship which is the expression of an inner realisation of oneness. For so only can egoism disappear and the true individualism of the unique godhead in each man found itself on the true communism of the equal godhead in the race; for the Spirit, the inmost Self, the universal Godhead in every being is that whose very nature of diverse oneness it is to realise the perfection of its individual life and nature in the existence of all, in the universal life and nature.

According to Sri Aurobindo : At present Humanity is undergoing an evolutionary crisis….

At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man’s ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, aesthetic and material satisfaction. Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites. …A greater whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power is needed to weld all into a grater unity of whole-life.

Two forces which can help are , Internationalism and the religion of humanity. However the force of internationalism may be contradicting another truth and force that is nationalism and this can block the move to internationalism unless nation soul idea and spiritual universal idea of India takes the lead.

Krunvanto Vishwam Aryan,

Ettdeshe prasutasya sakashat …

To awaken soul in man, to make him live by soul and not by ego is the inner meaning of religion. To this religion of humanity is progressing. Here again Sanatana Dharma, the mother of religion to use term by Swami Vivekananda is going to be the religion of humanity as that which is eternal can only be universal and vice versa.

As a part of this crisis, and as an aid to the higher choice that can be made by humanity, Sri Aurobindo perceives two important phenomena of the modern world which present a great sign of hope. These two phenomena are those of internationalism and of religion of humanity. But these two phenomena need to be understood in their inner implications. For internationalism seems to oppose the truth and force of nationalism, and this opposition can be fatal to a harmonious transition to a new world of harmony. There is today a sentiment helped and stimulated by the trend of forces that favours the creation of an international world organisation that may ultimately result in a possible form of unification. This sentiment is a cosmopolitan and international sentiment. At one stage, it came to be presented concretely in the conception of the League of Nations. As Sri Aurobindo points out, this conception was not well inspired in its form or destined to have a considerable longevity or a supremely successful career. But the very fact that this idea was presented and even manifested in a concrete form, even though for a short term, was in itself an event of capital importance and meant the ushering in of a new era in world history. ( Kireet Joshi )

If this is not solution then there is no solution. If this is not the way then there is no other way. The terrestrial evolution must pass beyond man and the form of life must be born that is nearer to the divine.

Sri Aurobindo affirms forcefully:

… if this is not the solution, then there is no solution; if this is not the way, then there is no way for the human kind. Then the terrestrial evolution must pass beyond man as it has passed beyond the animal and a greater race must come that will be capable of the spiritual change, a form of life must be born that is nearer to the divine. After all there is no logical necessity for the conclusion that the change cannot begin at all because its perfection is not immediately possible. A decisive turn of mankind to the spiritual ideal, the beginning of a constant ascent and guidance towards the heights may not be altogether impossible, even if the summits are attainable at first only by the pioneer few and far-off to the tread of the race. And that beginning may mean the descent of an influence that will alter at once the whole life of mankind in its orientation and enlarge for ever as did the development of his reason and more than any development of the reason, its potentialities and all its structure.

A decisive turn, a constant ascent to the heights even if the ascent is possible only for few now and not for race is the inevitable turn to the future and in that process India’s march to her destiny is going to play a key role.

***

1 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, pp. 5-6

2 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, page 930

3 Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, pp. 930-31

4 Sri Aurobindo: The Human Cycle, Centenary Edition, Volume 15, pp. 63-4

5 Sri Aurobindo: The Human Cycle, Centenary Edition, Volume 15, pp.206-7

6 Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, American Edition, pp.933-34

7 Sri Aurobindo: The Ideal of Human Unity, Centenary Edition, Volume 15, pp.556-57.

8 Sri Aurobindo: The Ideal of Human Unity, Centenary Edition, Volume 15, pp.546-7

9 Ibid., page 207

‘Sri Aurobindo and the Ideal of Human Unity’ by Sri Kireet Joshi, from “Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and Other Essays”, 2003, pp. 111-135