Being Human and Bridges across the Afterlife

Are we facing an evolutionary crisis? The Hindu February 2, 2013 MANOJ DAS

According to Sri Aurobindo, “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.” Sri Aurobindo envisions a future when the mind could be transformed into a Supramental gnosis…

To a professor who was logically convinced of Sri Aurobindo’s vision but wondered if the ugly man of today could really grow into something beautiful, a rustic school teacher told, “If a wonder like the lotus could bloom out of mud with the Sun’s Grace, why cant out of our muddy mind bloom the Supramental with the Divine’s Grace? We may replace Divine’s Grace with Evolutionary thrust, if we please. 7:51 pm

Failure of the Ordinary View of Karma from Sri Aurobindo Studies 

We generally approach the world and life with an overlay of the moral and ethical viewpoint that we would like to see operative there. We tend to try to shape the world in our own image, rather than try to view it “as it is” independent of our specific viewpoint or ideology. This filtering of experience, however, tends to distort the reality and eventually, to mislead us about the significance of our lives…

We expect the world to conform to our notions of morality, right and wrong, and when we see that the world appears not to reward the good, or punish the evil, we try to find a way to justify what we perceive to be a failure of the universe by creating the idea of rewards or punishments in some after-life or next lifetime.

A more sound method must be used to understand the significance of life and the world, a method not colored by emotional or mental preconceptions, a method that first observes, then organizes the observed facts before overlaying convenient interpretations over them.

Sri Aurobindo points out that “The problem of knowledge is after all this, to reflect the movements of the Infinite and see, and not to force it into a mould prepared for it by our intelligence.”

Comment on Sattwic ego, Rajasic ego and Tamasic ego from Comments for IYSATM Amsha January 29, 2013 at 12:04 am

“The object of the yoga is to enter into and be possessed by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the Divine for the Divine’s sake alone, to be tuned in our nature into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works and life to be the instrument of the Divine. Its object is not to be a great yogi or a Superman (although that may come) or to grab at the Divine for the sake of the ego’s power, pride or pleasure. It is not for Moksha though liberation comes by it and all else may come, but these must not be our objects. The Divine alone is our object.” Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, vol.2

Comment on Developing one’s own spiritual atmosphere (Gita 3:17) by Mark from Comments for IYSATM An additional Quotation from The Mother on the topic of ‘Developing a Spiritual Atmosphere’:

“The inner law, the truth of the being is the divine Presence in every human being, which should be the master and guide of our life.

When you acquire the habit of listening to this inner law, when you obey it, follow it, try more and more to let it guide your life, you create around you an atmosphere of truth and peace and harmony which naturally reacts upon circumstances and forms, so to say, the atmosphere in which you live. When you are a being of justice, truth, harmony, compassion, understanding, of perfect goodwill, this inner attitude, the more sincere and total it is, the more it reacts upon the external circumstances; not that it necessarily diminishes the difficulties of life, but it gives these difficulties a new meaning and that allows you to face them with a new strength and a new wisdom; whereas the man, the human being who follows his impulses, who obeys his desires, who has no time for scruples, who comes to live in complete cynicism, not caring for the effect that his life has upon others or for the more or less harmful consequences of his acts, creates for himself an atmosphere of ugliness, selfishness, conflict and bad will which necessarily acts more and more upon his consciousness and gives a bitterness to his life that in the end becomes a perpetual torment.” Collected Works of the Mother 3:279

Preparing for the Miraculous The Belgian writer Georges Van Vrekhem explores these and other timeless questions in the light of Sri Aurobindos evolutionary concept and casts a refreshing new look on issues that have been the lasting preoccupation of seekers throughout the ages. This book contains the edited versions of eleven talks that Georges Van Vrekhem gave in Auroville in 2010 and 2011:

* Adam Kadmon and the Evolution
* The Development of Sri Aurobindo's Thought
* Preparing for the Miraculous
* What Arjuna Saw: the Dark Side of the Force
* 2012 and 1956: Doomsday?
* Being Human and the Copernican Evolution
* Bridges across the Afterlife
* Sri Aurobindo's Descent into Death
* Sri Aurobindo and the Big Bang
* Theodicy: "Nature Makes no Mistakes"
* The Kalki Avatar.