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"The Evolution of the Spiritual Man"
(Book 2 Chapter XXIV)

 

 

 

Sri Aurobindo explains the four ways Nature has opened man to the spiritual reality -- through religion, occultism, spiritual philosophy and spiritual experience. Each is higher than the previous. The latter -- spiritual experience -- is the one of greatest significance. (In the next chapter, he will explain the method of evolution of the spiritual man by going through the triple transformation.)

 

Here are the main points in greater detail:

 

(in development)

 

 

 

[DETAILS]

• Mental man makes Life and Matter its servants, using them for the fulfillment of its own ideas, will, and wishes.

• There is an evolutionary energy in him to develop a spiritual man, the fully conscious being. Two questions arise: What is the exact nature of that transition, and what is the process of that emergence?

• Life evolves from matter because life is already involved in matter; the same with mind form life; and so too spirituality from mind.

• Spirit is the final evolutionary emergence because it is the original, first involutionary element. [i.e. spirit is there in The Absolute.]

• "There can be a decisive emergence in which the being separates itself from thought and sees itself in the inner silence as the sprit in mind, or separates itself from the life-movements, desires, sensations, kinetic impulses and is aware of itself as spirit supporting life, or separates itself from the body-sense and knows itself as a spirit ensouling Matter ... "

• The individual can become aware of his Individual Self, the Universal Self, and the Transcendent Self. [Later we will see that he explains that the individual begins this process through individual transformation, done by connecting to his inner, psychic, soul being, and extending outward to the universal and transcendent.]

• Signs of the Spiritual Emergence (the Supermind) for the individual: There is an inherent, intrinsic, self-existent consciousness which knows itself by the mere fact of being; which knows itself through a self-identity or direct connection with the object of knowing; which discovers in itself something that is not merely of life or mind or body.

• There is a triple [or actually quadruple] transformation; the Personal, the Psychic, the Spiritual, and the Supramental.

• First half-lit connections to spirit: Initially there can be an initial limited spiritual connection; such as when the psychic pressures the mental and vital parts, or a formation mixed with mental aspiration of vital desire or enthusiasm, perhaps influenced by a high belief or self-dedication or altruistic eagerness mistaken for true spirituality. Thus, these first half-lit connections to spirit are inevitable.

• The what is true spirit? "Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind, life and body, an inner aspiration to know, to feel, to be that, to enter in contact with the greater Reality beyond and pervading the universe which inhabits our own being, ..."

• The spiritual retreat from life: Sometimes the limitations of our physical, vital, and mental beings become such an impediment that the spiritual urge becomes impatient and tries to reject life, mortify the body, to seeks its own separate salvation, departing perhaps into pure spirit outside life or even separate from one's physical being.

• There are four ways that Nature has followed in an attempt to open the inner being -- religion, occultism, spiritual thought, and an inner spiritual realization and experience. These have a necessity in Nature because they relate to something true or necessary to the total aim of her evolution.

• Nature slowly unfolds from the Inconscience born of the Involution.

• From p.863 he explains the limitations of religion. On p.864 he explains how religion yields to spirituality. On p.866 he explains how early forms of religion was a systemization of man's early intuitions in Nature; the early cause of occultism, and other courses of early religions; how mind developed trying to understand Nature, even as it lost its intuitive connection with Nature. On p.867 he describes the rise of creeds and ethics; a continued development of intellect and materialism and the reemergence of a higher spirituality in the new age of the current period. He describes all of these in greater details in the next dozen pages. On p. 879 he describes the emergence of spiritual philosophy of the East (e.g. the Gita, and Patanjali) and the West. (Religion in the West is based more on creedal theology than philosophy.)

• The first types of real spiritual emergences: It is when the spirit has a permeating influence on our natural activities; or there is a spiritual turn through a spiritual formations of -- uplifting illuminations, of the emotional or aesthetic being, or ethical formation of character, in some life action. Perhaps there is an awareness of an inner light, guidance, or connection with something to obey that is beyond the mind. In other words, higher illuminations and intuitions.

• Different types of spiritual status for the individual: The sage and seer lives in the spiritual mind. The devotee lives in the spiritual aspiration of the heart. Its self-offering and seeking. The saint is moved by the psychic being and inner heart powerful to govern the emotional and vial being. The highest spiritual type is the liberated man who has realized the Self and Spirit within, entered into the cosmic consciousness, is in union with the Eternal, and accepts life and action and utilizes the Power in life and action. At its furthest stage this liberated man has a total liberation of soul, mind, heart, and action, casting them all into the sense of the cosmic Self and the Divine Reality. Beyond this is the supramental ascent and the Transcendence.

• The individual development must precede the collective spiritual development.

• "In the evolution of the spiritual man here must necessarily be many stages and in each stage a great variety of individual formations of the being, of the consciousness the life, the temperament, the ideas, the character."  [This reflects the idea that in the fundamental unity there is a scope for great diversity.]