March 9, 2011 – GUIDANCE OF SRI AUROBINDO

The Brahmin first ruled by the book & the ritual,
the Kshatriya next by the sword and the buckler;
now the Vaishya governs us by machinery & the dollar,
& the Sudra, the liberated serf, presses in with his doctrine of the kingdom of associated labour.
But neither priest, king, merchant nor labourer is the true governor of humanity;
the despotism of the tool and the mattock will fail like all the preceding despotisms.
Only when egoism dies & God in man governs his own human universality,
can this earth support a happy and contented race of beings.

Sri Aurobindo

(Thoughts and Aphorisms 356)

GUIDANCE OF SRI AUROBINDO

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Sri Aurobindo’s teaching states that this One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the process by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.

But while the former steps in evolution were taken by Nature without a conscious will in the plant and animal life, in man Nature becomes able to evolve by a conscious will in the instrument. It is not, however, by the mental will in man that this can be wholly done, for the mind goes only to a certain point and after that can only move in a circle. A conversion has to be made, a turning of the consciousness by which mind has to change into the higher principle. This method is to be found through the ancient psychological discipline and practice of Yoga. In the past, it has been attempted by a drawing away from the world and a disappearance into the height of the Self or Spirit. Sri Aurobindo teaches that a descent of the higher principle is possible which will not merely release the spiritual Self out of the world, but release it in the world, replace the mind’s ignorance or its very limited knowledge by a supramental Truth-Consciousness which will be a sufficient instrument of the inner Self and make it possible for the human being to find himself dynamically as well as inwardly and grow out of his still animal humanity into a diviner race. The psychological discipline of Yoga can be used to that end by opening all the parts of the being to a conversion or transformation through the descent and working of the higher still concealed supramental principle

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Sri Aurobindo