An Evolutionary Crisis and a Choice of Destiny from Sri Aurobindo Studies Jul 13, 2012
Humanity
has essentially gotten to the point where it is on the edge of the abyss and is
facing a stark choice of its future and to a very great degree, even its
potential survival. We have explored, developed and unleashed enormous forces
at the material level, to the point of having the power to manipulate the
building blocks of the material world through nuclear research, and the
building blocks of life through genetic research and manipulation. We have
brought the whole world together with a clash of cultures, ideas, motivations
and religious sentiments, with the enormous tension and conflict that arises
through that meeting process. We have gained enormous powers to manipulate the
mind, emotions and desires and have used these powers to accentuate and drive
ever greater desire and hunger for “more”. We exploit the world’s resources with
abandon and fail to address the impact, the “unintended consequences” of our
actions.
All
of the new powers we have developed have not been matched by the development of
new higher ideals and a greater guiding light for the application of these
popwers. We thus find ourselves struggling, suffering and on the very brink of
destruction, confused, living in a world whose complexity far exceeds the
ability of the human mind to understand or harmonise.
What
is needed, the choice before us, is whether we will use the pressure of these
contradictions, the pressure of our very ability to survive, to find our
spiritual destiny, our evolutionary direction in the development of
universality and harmony, and in the development of new powers of spiritual
consciousness which alone can resolve the contradictions we face and harness
the forces we have unleashed, and put them to work for a greater goal, or
whether we will fall victim to our own partial, limited success on the material
and vital planes… We have reached the limitations of the power of mental
organisation to grapple with the complexity of the forces in the world.
This Week Tamil Nadu: Heehs in the line of fire, again - Gopu Mohan :
Fri Jul 13 2012, 03:57 hrs Indian Express
When
his visa was finally renewed, US-born historian Peter Heehs might have thought that
the controversy around his biography on Sri Aurobindo was a closed chapter. As
it turns out, it is not. A group of MPs cutting across party lines has written
to the trustees in charge of the Aurobindo ashram, in the process reopening the
whole controversy surrounding The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, a book critically
acclaimed yet derided by Aurobindo’s devotees. The letter, signed jointly by 68
MPs, has asked the trustees for an explanation why they did not take any action
against Heehs for what he wrote. The case against Heehs is that his work shows
Sri Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa — Mother to members of the ashram — in bad
light.
Collective Values from Auroville Radio by contact@aurovilleradio.org (Nola)
Yeserday's
General Meeting to discuss collective values and priorities has showed that
need to communicate and find common solutions is more than obvious. Although we
might have different opinions and ideas how to proceed, is also clear that
collective spirit of community is there, at least amongst those who
participated. And as we may differ on some points, to most members of community
the leading thread - idea, set forth by the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is clear,
along with the higher inner state of consciousness in progress
The
evolutionary process of Nature provides humanity the opportunity, but not the
guarantee, of providing the foundation for the next evolutionary stage to
develop. Historically we note the systematic development of increasing powers
of consciousness. There is a general correllation with an increasing power and
complexity of consciousness through this development, with the first stages
generally corresponding to the basic physical and vital needs and
considerations, with further development focused on the mental and emotional
powers including ethics, morality, aesthetics, religion and spirituality and
science.
There
is however an apparent roadblock that could represent an opportunity for
humanity to miss the opportunity to lead the further evolutionary development.
The rise of materialism and focus on the use of science to develop physical
comfort and media for distraction and entertainment has created a society that
has essentially gone back to a focus on the physical and vital needs and
fulfillment of desire. Should humanity fail to overcome the temptation to
simply create a society of physical creature comforts and vital satisfaction,
without encouraging, supporting and developing the higher ranges of
consciousness, then we would become another “dead end” of evolution, a species
that becomes more or less “static” in the increasing development of
consciousness, an evolutionary “failure”.
Nature
will not abandon its further development. It is simply that another form or
species will have to develop to take over for the failed initiative of
humanity.
Sri
Aurobindo describes the necessary impetus: “…it is the inner spiritual
necessity, the push from what is there yet unrealised within him that maintains
in him, once he has attained to mind, the evolutionary stress, the spiritual
nisus.”
If
we reject this effort, then humanity will lose its pre-eminence in the current
evolutionary developmental cycle.
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
was a social evolutionist without question but he was never crudely social
Darwinist. He was a liberal utilitarian first who traded heavily in
evolutionary theory in order to explain how our liberal utilitarian sense of
justice emerges.
Though
a utilitarian, Spencer took distributive justice no less seriously than Mill.
For him as for Mill, liberty and justice were equivalent. Whereas Mill equated
fundamental justice with his liberty principle, Spencer equated justice with
equal liberty, which holds that the “liberty of each, limited by the like
liberty of all, is the rule in conformity with which society must be organized”
(Spencer, 1970: 79). Moreover, for Spencer as for Mill, liberty was sacrosanct,
insuring that his utilitarianism was equally a bona fide form of liberalism.
For both, respect for liberty also just happened to work out for the
utilitarian best all things considered. Indefeasible liberty, properly
formulated, and utility were therefore fully compossible…
Spencer's
liberal utilitarianism also has much to recommend for it simply for its much
undervalued importance in the development of modern liberalism. If Mill and
Sidgwick are critical to making sense of our liberal canon, then Spencer is no
less critical. If both are crucial for coming to terms with Rawls particularly,
and consequently with post-Rawlsianism generally, as I strongly believe both
are, then Spencer surely deserves better from recent intellectual history.
Intellectual history is one of the many important narratives we tell and retell
ourselves. What a shame when we succumb to scholarly laziness in constructing
these narratives just because such laziness both facilitates meeting the
pedagogical challenges of teaching the liberal tradition and answering our need
for a coherent philosophical identity.
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