Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future - - Growth Online Interview

Growth Online
Sri Aurobindo's Vision of the Future

Interview

In this interview Roy Posner, president of Growth Online, describes what attracted him to the teaching of Sri Aurobindo, what Sri Aurobindo's vision for the future for humanity is, and how we can use his ideas in a practical way in our own lives. Created February 2001. Updated September 2006.

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PART I: First Contact

PART I: FIRST CONTACT

Growth Online: Welcome to the Growth Online interview series.

RP: Thank you. I am happy to be here.

Growth Online: You have been involved with the eastern teachings of Sri Aurobindo for many years. Is that right?

RP: Yes, I have. But please allow me to correct you at the outset. Sri Aurobindo's work is not really an eastern teaching. It is both a western teaching and an eastern teaching, and yet it is neither. Actually, I believe it transcends both.

Growth Online: Why is that?

RP: As a young man Sri Aurobindo was educated at Cambridge in England, and as his later writings reveal, was quite conversant with virtually aspects of western literature, including its great fiction. He was also very well versed in world history, and the social, religious, and spiritual movements of the last ten thousand years. In his thought processes as well as his writing style, he was a very modern thinker. He could jump from analysis of the works of Freud and the latest forms of psychology, to a critique of the works by DH Lawrence and Tolstoy, to a profound discussion on how the emerging UN could influence the future of humanity, an yet still explain the deepest aspect of spirit for the individual, and to the underlying Divine forces that enabled he universe.

He had a staggering grasp of the main issues and developments in the world of politics, science, history, literature, the social movements of the time, and had a deep and broad understanding of the religious and spiritual writings and teachings of the major, and even minor, religious movements of the world.

Sri Aurobindo

He had an extraordinary English vocabulary, as expressed in his letters to his disciples, and in his massive body of writings, that included works of metaphysics, mystical poetry, and social and literary commentary. If it weren't for the more metaphysical and spiritual topics, you would think you were reading a contemporary writer or thinker who published in the London Times. Of course, he also wrote spiritual philosophy and metaphysics, which is not the typical fare of an English journalist. Yet, even there he expressed himself with great precision, with impeccable argument and logic, with beauty of language, almost unparalleled in the history of man.

And yet on top of this vast knowledge of contemporary life, he became perhaps the greatest spiritual figure of the last 100 years.

Growth Online: So did you get involved with his teachings?

RP: Yes, I have been involved in these teachings for many years. Since around 1973 or 1974. Like all of us at that time of great discovery, i.e. in the turbulent and wondrous late 60s and early 70s, we were immersed in a sea of change.

At the time a close friend of mine, was not only reading but was also practicing the ideals set out in Sri Aurobindo's teachings. We grew up together on the same street in Queens in New York City, played baseball on the little league team my father managed, and knew one another in high school. When I went off to college and returned home, I saw that not only had he gotten involved in Aurobindo's teachings, but that it had deeply affected him. He seemed to emanate an inner glow that I was not the only one to recognize; a light that could only come from a person who was connected to something deep and profound.

One day at my parent's home, after returning from college, my friend gave me a copy of French author Satprem's book Adventure of Consciousness, which was sort of the definitive introduction to Sri Aurobindo at the time. It was a very inspiring and thrilling work to a young man of 23. The book not only presented Satprem's impressions of Sri Aurobindo's teachings, but also included pictures of Auroville, the international, UN-sponsored spiritual community that was rising out of the red clay in southern India near the former French enclave of Pondicherry. This was very exciting to me at the time. It was here in Auroville that some of Sri Aurobindo's vision were being played out.

After awhile I began to not only absorb Sri Aurobindo's ideas, but began to feel a very real inner change within my own self; as a new spiritual feeling began to well inside me, paralleling my rising interest in his teachings.

Growth Online: So that was the decisive change for you?

RP: Well there was another incident that also played a big part in my turning to these ideas. At the time (in the mid 70s) there was a big interest in alternate living communities. There was, for example, the development of the new age community of Findhorn in Scotland; famous for its ability to grow an astounding variety of the world's plants in a difficult soil. They claimed they used spiritual means to enable this to occur; even using fairies and elves!

Well, there was one particular gathering that was to have a huge impact on my life. It was a big gathering at the vast St. John the Divine church in upper Manhattan near Harlem in New York City to present to the public three key new age communities -- Findhorn of Scotland, Lindesfarne on Long Island, and Auroville of South India. I knew of all three; and of course was most interested in Auroville, which was the international UN sanctioned free spiritual city developed by Sri Aurobindo's spiritual partner, known as "The Mother."

I walked into this immense church -- I believe it is the longest in the world -- and climbed up to a high side balcony, where I watched the presentation on the three communities. As I watched the narrated slideshow on the Auroville community -- including the new the futuristic architecture, the incredible gardens and trees that were emerging out of the terra cotta clay soil, the latest environmental technologies that were being developed there, I sensed a new world arising there -- guided not by wealth or status or survival, but on profound progressive spiritual values. The entire city was to be an experiment in consciousness. It was overwhelmingly inspiring for me. Some deep chord inside me was touched; the world within me was changing.

I remember one thing in the presentation that really struck me was when the speaker’s statement that one of the NASA astronauts on one of his orbits around the earth had seen an incredible light emanating from the area around Auroville. This made me feel that there really was something special going on there.

At the time, I was an aspiring magazine journalist who had hoped that by covering the gathering, I could write an article on one or more of the three spiritual communities for one of several new age and other cultural issues that were coming into the fore back then. Instead, I came away overwhelmed by the vibration I felt whenever Auroville or Sri Aurobindo or The Mother was mentioned. However, instead of pursuing a career as a journalist, I followed another path -- to follow the path of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and to somehow find a practical work environment where I could meld my efforts to those inner ideals.

Growth Online: So that was how your connection to Sri Aurobindo began?

RP: yes, that’s where it began, My close friend who emanated the vibration and introduced me to some of his works, including Satprem's wondrous breakthrough introductory book on the life of Aurobindo, the Mother, and Auroville; the gathering at St. John the Divine where I saw and felt the spiritual power trying to be born in the new futuristic township of Auroville; and then most importantly that sense inside of something different, something profound and future-oriented that began to well inside me. It was this presence that guided my life thereafter.

Growth Online: But now that you had the inner feeling of the spirit, what vehicle did you find to make it a living reality?

RP: Well, that’s the next part of the story; the decisive part.

(pause) A few years later, after going through a profound two-week darkness from which I awoke from through a spiritual-type experience, I moved out to California and came in contact with a group of individuals in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles who were taking the ideas of Sri Aurobindo and applying them to practical, everyday areas of life. For example, they started a business to distribute products from Auroville and nearby Pondicherry, trying to apply Aurobindo's principles in the activities of their work, whether it be going down to the port to pick up goods, or selling out in the field, or keeping the accounting system up to date. In all aspects, they were trying to apply his principles -- not just business, but in Indian development, in literary thought, and others. When I saw what they were doing, I very much wanted to get involved. It was the fulfillment of a dream, to connect spirit with my practical working life.

So that was the next great turning point of my life. It was in 1976. Applying Sri Aurobindo's ideas to all of the activities of work became the focus of my life, and continues to be so today. After all, he did say that all life is yoga; meaning that every bit of work we do is an opportunity to apply spirit to it, to enable its infinite potential of life to emerge through it. It was thus a dynamic, practical spirituality that was just what I was looking for.

Growth Online: So what happened next?

RP: Well, that’s the next part of the story; the final piece of the puzzle you might say.

Well after a while, I moved back north to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I felt more at home, and where I started my own distribution company -- selling the goods that my friends were importing from India. I continued to try to practice spiritual disciplines in my work. E.g. before I would talk with the buyer at a store I was trying to sell to, I would open myself to "the spiritual Force." The idea is that when you open to that power, it takes over, enabling everything to go right, including getting the sale! Some of the results were absolutely astounding, as life would respond to my efforts in the most extraordinary way. Now only was there a presence emerging within myself, but I saw how the spirit could be applied to the practical details of life outside myself.

(pause) So now I had come full circle in my life. I had found my inner calling; and it was supported by an outer work, in which I could apply the power of the spirit. I was now in essence reborn into a new life; I had gone passed through some great opening to a new way of living.

Growth Online: That’s an aspiring story. It sounds like it was a time of great adventure.

RP: Overwhelming adventure; within and without. [ep]

Growth Online: (pause) I have a different sort of question. I can understand why you would be attracted to a guru like Sri Aurobindo and feel that kind of presence, but what were the ideas that appealed to your intellect? Or were you just led by the feelings and experiences you had?

RP: That's a very good question. Though many of us at the time were having all sorts of inner and outer experiences, from drugs to gurus, which definitely attracted our emotions and feelings, there was also the intellectual, the ideals and metaphysics, the teachings and philosophy of Sri Aurobindo that had a great impact on my life.

After all, I had just spent years at Syracuse University expanding my intellect in areas such as history, science, psychology, sociology, and so forth. The world was also changing very rapidly around us in the mid 70s; there was great intellectual ferment and change. I had been reading many ideas from many authors; things like Lao Tsu's Buddhist Tao Te Ching (The Way of Life); Alan Watts' explanation of the similarity of religious and philosophical ideas of east and west (he was once a clergyman who became a prophet of new age thinking); books on comparative religion; and the psychologies of Carl Jung, among many others. In college I also studied modern western philosophy, though I found it utterly incomprehensible! I believe I failed the course twice!

I began to move in circles where all sorts of new, stimulating, fascinating ideas, became available to me. Add into this mix the tumult of what was going on in the world, the winding down of the Vietnam war, Nixon's impeachment, the upheaval in China, hippies traveling the roads in the US, gurus popping up like orange poppies in the fields; it was certainly an overwhelming and wild time.

Still there was no body of work, teaching that put it all together for me. Something deep inside me was missing; intellectually and spiritually. When I came in contact with the teachings of Sri Aurobindo I felt all the loose threads and ferment of that era coagulating into something pure, profound, clear, and yet very rich, and complex. When I read Satprem's explanation in Adventures of Consciousness of Sri Aurobindo's vision of the future, I finally felt that this was the real thing, the real adventure, the great vision of the future that no one else I had read had understood.

Perhaps even more important to me was the fact that in reading Aurobindo's works I felt a great presence and spirit within me starting to develop. I began to feel it more and more in my daily life. In that feeling, aside from something so rich and deep, there was this sense of something very different, infinitely creative, undiscovered, visionary, and futuristic. This was something quite unexpected. I felt I had made contact with the future, or the future of spirit. It was exactly what my modern soul had searched for. It was the future of spirit that I was now experiencing in my emotions as a profound inner delight. It was nothing like meditations or other experiences I had had in the past. This was radically different!

Growth Online: It sounds like the turning point of your life. I admire your luck!

So I guess that brings us to the subject at hand, Aurobindo's vision of the future. You mention Satprem's book Adventure of Consciousness as the starting point, the work that first brought you in contact with Aurobindo's teachings. What was it in the teachings that really got to you?

RP: First, let me speak of Satprem, and his style of writing. To a young man of 24 his prose were very exciting. Satprem as you might know was perhaps the main disciple, if you will, of the woman known as The Mother. The Mother was really Sri Aurobindo's great partner in implementing his vision for the future. Satprem described in glowing, sometimes apocalyptic prose, how life on earth in its current form had reached its current frontiers and boundaries. He suggested that society had gone as far as it could go, in its old thinking, in its old perceptions of what is real and true. Satprem felt that we couldn't go any further this way without the society going mad. For Satprem there had to be a fundamental change in the way individuals and society operated and functioned and perceived things; the way we perceive our very purpose of existence. The world had gone to the breaking point, and we could no longer function in the old way. For him Sri Aurobindo was the way out, or perhaps the way in to a new frontier of consciousness; to the emergence of a new world, with new thinking.

I like using that term "new thinking." It's a term Gorbachav, my other hero, has popularized. His country had gone to the outer boundaries of its possibilities, and could obviously go no further. Instead of testing those boundaries, he gave up the entire system (!), and opened it to a new freedom, to a new level of possibilities. In the same way Sri Aurobindo gives us an opening to a world that went beyond the nearly spent boundaries of the old thinking in the world; old thinking in the in the west, as well as the east. Aurobindo gave us a vision of what a future society could be like if we transcended the old thinking of the old religions, including all of its superstitions of the West and the East; the stifling materialism; the limitation of the scientific method and western rationalism that did not include the realm of spirit and consciousness. He opened the doors to a whole new frontier. Naturally, this was very stimulating to my intellect.

One of the things that made Sri Aurobindo's vision most appealing to me was the belief that in all activities, situations, circumstances in life one could bring in a spiritual force to uplift those acts. Whether you were a businessman, a writer, a sportsman, a politician, it didn't matter. Everyone and everything was included.

One does not experience the Divine by retreating from life to some hermitage or otherwise separate ourselves from the daily activities of life. Spirituality is to be brought into and expressed through life, through every act, circumstance, and situation.

For him every thing is part of the world movement and evolution; everything was part of an inner, Divine unfolding. The main problem was that humans did not know this. So Sri Aurobindo came to reveal to us what was not known, to give us a vision of what was possible.

He suggested that if we were to come to understand the spirit within us or about us, we would actively participate in our own personal evolution, the evolution of our society, even the evolution of the universe itself! That is, we could actively participate in the destiny of the human race. Aurobindo suggested that we could infuse the spiritual plane into our lives, to uplift all activities and circumstances; be it related to our work, our families, our business, or the social institutions we are part of.

So everything in life was to be included! Nothing and no one was to be denied; even the murderer, the dictator, and the promiscuous lover played a role in the universal unfolding. Everyone and every thing could go one step further, could grow, develop, and evolve; could find the spiritual planes within it, so that the real, infinite, potential of the thing could be let loose.

In such a way, we could move beyond the boundaries of what we perceive as the possible. We could overcome the earlier boundaries that Satprem had so passionately railed against. The final frontier was not outside ourselves, but was within. That changed the whole equation. It opened the doors to infinite possibilities; to a new frontier, a new world, a new future possibility.

PART II: A Vision and a Boon

Growth Online: You've expressed the events that led you to Sri Aurobindo. Still was there a body of work, a coherence of thought, a logic to Aurobindo's ideas that attracted you to his path?

RP: Absolutely! Your question really gets us to the heart of the matter.

First of all his influence stems from his utter rationality in his thought; a rationality that almost any western thinker would envy. Take his opus The Life Divine. In this book he attempts in the most complex of metaphysical terms to systematically uncover the process by which the universe came into being, the nature of existence, the purpose and destiny of existence in the universe, including the purpose and destiny of human life on earth. He takes us through this discovery in a rational way. At a further point you come to realize that these metaphysical expressions of the nature of creation and existence are not mere speculation of a man's mind but the real experience of a seeker who had reached the summits of spiritual experience and insights.

And what inspires us aside from his almost super-natural reasoning powers in his writings are the mind-boggling conclusions he has come up with.

Growth Online: Which is ...

RP: Which is that there is a future before us so utterly different than what we might expect; that there are forces and possibilities so staggering, that we must reevaluate our entire belief system, dismantle much of our intellectual underpinnings, and relearn a new vocabulary of life so we can understand this new future.

Even more amazing is the fact that he actually discovered the very forces that he said would change the world. In other words, he became an instrument for bringing about and facilitating the very future he had laid out before us.

Growth Online: Is that where this concept of Supermind that he is so identified with comes in?

RP: Yes, that is the ultimate instrument for change that he discovered. However before I go into that, I think I need to explain what the goal was that he envisioned for our existence, and where he felt the human race would be heading.

Sri Aurobindo's thoughts and vision begins with the assertion that humans may not be the final rung on the evolutionary scale. That we might witness the emergence of a new species, one that is above and beyond the human. Or, perhaps we could say that it is perhaps the same human species, but that is evolving to a new level that appears very different in functioning, inwardly and outwardly, from the current humanity. Different, emotionally, mentally, spiritually -- even one day physically!

He has developed his vision of a future humanity or new species, depending on how you look at it, based on a logical, rational evaluation of the past. Among the topics he addressed are: what is the source of the universe we live in? what has the universe and the human race come to at this point in time? and where are we headed? He traced an arc that reached back to the original principle or source of the universe, the Divine, to the creation that emerged from that source; to our present state and condition, and on to the possibilities in the future.

What is truly remarkable is how he shows how the past and the present inevitably leads to his vision of the future.

Finally, he also tells us how to begin to make that future a possibility now. What is appealing to me, is that this fantastic future he envisions can come about very soon, perhaps in in our lifetime, perhaps even now.

It was appealing in 1975 for a young man of 24 to see the gardens and futuristic small modern edifices rise in Auroville in India. It was however more interesting to hear how the dwellers in Auroville were making an effort to create a new spiritual-based future; not only through the new shops, new technologies, and beautiful gardens and forests that arose out of a wasteland; but through their own individual experiments in growth and consciousness.

I guess you can think of Auroville as a kind generic lab of consciousness. Put a bunch of people in a community where money is no longer used, and let them create a new world based not only on some new physical means, new technological means, but on a new consciousness means. Don't tell them how to create the new world; let the experiment unfold in its own way. The only obligation of the Aurovillians was that they agree to collaborate in building a new type of future. If they were able to build this new future by changing the fundamental way that they operate internally, they could help bring about the new world.

Of course I later found out that one did not have to live in Auroville to undertake such an experiment in the future. It could be done anywhere; perhaps even better if you were outside of Auroville! After all it is the daily activities, in life's moments that the future that Sri Aurobindo envisioned was to be built. Life's daily activities and circumstances was the cloth out of which the new world was to be woven. It is how we act at every moment in time, or at least in the major moment in our lives, or in the major sweeps and currents of our lives, that we build the bridge to this new world.

Did you know that Sri Aurobindo was a revolutionary activist? In the early part of the 20th century he worked for Indian independence, and engaged in radical politics to try to loosen India from the colonial grip of the British empire.

Also, since he was at that time a revolutionary, he was someone the British were very eager to capture. They did capture him one time and put him in the Alipore jail. There he had the first great religious experience of his life, which led him to give up his revolutionary activities. To avoid the British authorities who were trying to hunt him down, he retreated to the French enclave of Pondicherry, south of Madras in South East India, where he assembled a small group of followers. There he began a massive effort to understand the nature of existence, and began to write staggering amounts of metaphysics, philosophy, commentary, and analysis. There he began his own personal and spiritual transformation in earnest.

Growth Online: So what did he write about?

One of the things he wrote about is the evolution that humans were going through over the last ten thousand years. He described how humans were slowly evolving from our physical and vital/emotional centers, to our mental and even spiritual centers. Now in the last five hundred years, and especially in the last fifty years or so, we are seeing a vast development of our mental functioning and capacities. We as a race have slowly moved from the inconscience, inertia, and incapacity of the physical plane; and the passions, irrationality, attachments, and ego of the vital/emotional plane, to the knowledge, perceptions, and insight of the mental plane. We are moving ahead in this direction very quickly of late.

Just look at the Internet. It is really a new, more complex form of organization. Organization is itself a power of thought and mind. So the power of mind is beginning to expand exponentially in the world.

But Sri Aurobindo believed that this mental level was just the starting point for something much vaster -- the spiritual plane. Just as the mental is for the most part a vast leap beyond the vital/emotional, mostly animal nature of the human being, the spiritual is a vast leap beyond the mental realm. This is very hard for a human to fathom, because we view the world from a vital and mental fog. To the vital the spirit cannot be felt, so the spirit can't exist; to the mind the spirit cannot be easily conceived, so it is questionable whether it exists at all.

Sri Aurobindo envisioned that the human race had the capacity to fully move beyond the passion and ego centricities of the vital plane, was fully ready to embrace the mental levels, and had the capacity to enter the spiritual domain. In fact he believed the spiritual domain was our ultimate destiny. He envisioned a future world where all activities would be infused with the spirit, which would lead to our own perfection and the perfection of life on earth.

We would also be tapping into an infinity of possibility and potential that the vital and mental levels could never offer, let alone comprehend. The spiritual domain would enable us to accomplish a hundred, a thousand, a million, a billion, a trillion, an infinite quantity greater than what could be accomplished at the mental level. The same for the experience of joy and happiness. the spiritual could thus release the infinite potential of life.

And to think that the mental level was itself a quantum level beyond the vital/emotional level! While we as humans are trumpeting the arrival of technology as great change in the world, it is but a trifle of what is possible at this spiritual level, a region we have hardly even begun to understand, let alone enter. That is what Sri Aurobindo was suggesting in his massive body of writings.

Growth Online: But his spiritual level has been there all along, and still we have not gone anywhere near what you are suggesting.

RP: Well there are two points to be made here. First of all the spiritual level has been bandied about in our consciousness for only about two thousand years. Having said that only a very very few have operated from this poise. Even those who have lived at this level have done so in a limited way, when you consider the range of experiences, powers, and aspects of the spiritual domain. It is if we were to sift the sands of history to find those who have truly embraced the spiritual domain, only to find a few, mostly irregular grains in our catch. Now however we are beginning to understand the vast complexity, richness, and possibilities of the spiritual domain. Sri Aurobindo brings these out in his writings. So the first point is that the spiritual domain is still the undiscovered country.

The other point is that the spiritual plane is itself evolving! This is where Sri Aurobindo looms large in the picture! After tracing in The Life Divine the source of the universe, what he calls the Absolute, and how the universe was created and unfolded from out of the Absolute, including us, he uncovers something that is unique in the history of consciousness. He has discovered in essence a new aspect and quality of God!

He reveals that the Divine, God, Brahman, the One, whatever you call it, would never have become the creation if it weren't for the power that he called the Truth Consciousness. This power is the force of action that created the Many, that is our universe, our world, us, out of the One, the Absolute, infinite, Omnipresent Reality.

Sri Aurobindo in his analysis of the creation noticed that something interesting happened in the studying the process that led to the creation. That same Truth Consciousness that acted on the One, the Absolute to help bring about the creation itself disappeared when the universe was created. This creative, active element of the spirit, the Truth Consciousness, that actually was the spring that brought about the creation out of the Absolute, the Many out of the One, was now hidden in the creation, in matter, in us.

So 15 billion years go by, and a gentleman named Sri Aurobindo has perhaps the deepest inner experiences an individual has ever had in human history, and makes a great discovery. Sri Aurobindo believes he has discovered the very spring that activated the universe, just below the surface of our current world. And if we were to uncover this force, power, spring of the creation, harness it, make it a tool in our lives, we could have a power in our own individual lives that mirrors the power that created the universe!

He called this power, this force, this energy the "Truth Consciousness," and the "Supramental Consciousness." Sri Aurobindo believed that if we discovered and utilized this Truth Consciousness in our lives, then a new world was possible; a world so utterly different from our current functioning that it could bring about a fundamental change to existence and harbor a change in the human race, perhaps even the emergence of a new species.

However, before he could reveal such a power to the world, he had to see its effect in his own life. In his own experiments he utilized this new power to see how it functions. He began to understand the nature of its power, how it must have played a role in the creation of the universe from out of the One, and how it must be the lever of humanity's evolution and maybe even the evolution of the universe itself. Outside of his efforts to help in the development of his disciples and in his great body of writing, he spent much of his later years trying to "bring down" this power into the world in a more fully formed way.

The Mother

For example, he had discovered that this power would only operate if it was fully absorbed into the world's atmosphere. Along with his partner The Mother (Mira Alfassa) he worked inwardly to bring about the descent of this consciousness, which they also called Supermind, into the earthly realm. At one point in 1967 (seventeen years after Sri Aurobindo's passing), in the midst of the student rebellions in Paris and elsewhere, the Mother announced that the power had descended fully into the earth consciousness. That is was now effecting governments around the world. She even later said that anyone born after that time was more fully under the influence of its power.

Fortunately along the way he had also discovered some unique functionings of this power. For example, take the idea of accomplishing something. Normally in life if we have a knowledge about something, we also need to have a corresponding will so that it can be carried. I know what I should do plus I want to do it. Together it leads to an action taken. Well this new functioning operated very differently. At the very moment we are conscious of the thing to do, that is the knowledge, we also have the full will to do it. Or we can say that when we have the will, the knowledge also arrives. When we carry it out it ends successfully, perfectly because we have both elements to make it a success. In other words, when one is open to this new consciousness there pours into the being knowledge and will together, at the same time. Knowledge and will are fused into one thing. This results in perfect outcomes of actions that we initiate. This is not how human life normally works!

There are many other related ways that this power operates in the world. For example, there are perceptions that we experience when we are guided by this power, or live a life utilizing this power. Normally when we function in life we are focused on ourselves, and the things outside ourselves are perceived as separate or different from ourselves. With this new functioning there is no division between what we are and what is outside us, there is a perception that they are part and parcel of the same thing. There is not this constant distinction between me and life around me. So life becomes fluid; we are in perfect harmony with our environment, with circumstances that happen around us. This is no conflict, division, we know what to do and see what life requires of us. This same phenomenon exists between ourselves and other people. We perceive ourselves and other we are in contact with as part of the same substance and spirit. Again there is none of the constant distinction between myself and others, between my desires and theirs, between my thoughts and theirs. This obviously must lead to greater harmony of action and interaction in the situations and circumstances of life. In all of these instances we move from duality and the conflicts of opposites to a state of harmony and fusion. This is obviously a whole new type of existence.

So if we learn how to open to this force we begin to live in this astounding new way, a way that has no precedence in human history. As a result every problem could be solved, they can even be solved instantly. Also, everything that happens occurs at just the right moment. People appear on the scene just at the right time. Auctions taken lead to perfect outcomes, life cooperates, people and things are in sync. There is a perfect rhythm on the world around us, and in our own feelings, thoughts, and actions.

In addition, the force also opens up the doors to infinite possibilities and potentials around us. Things that we perceived as limited in scope -- whether a business transaction, scientific research, money, or whatever -- are now seen and understood to have infinite scope. Past limitations turn into great multiples and infinities.

Our perceptions of quantity and quality change, our perceptions of space and time is different, the nature of cause and effect to bring about outcomes would be overthrown, and on and on. In the area of accomplishment we can accomplish not at twice the level we do now, but at hundreds, thousands, infinitely times greater; without even the need of a single new piece of technology! How is this possible? It's because underneath, through our contact with truth consciousness an infinity of possibility is released. The Truth consciousness, the Supramental power releases infinite potential and possibility this in our lives. This was the staggering power that Sri Aurobindo had uncovered.

So this Truth Consciousness completely changes the equation of life. This force and power is the amazing discovery that Sri Aurobindo made. He then asked us to make the effort to move toward this force. Minimally he asked us to elevate ourselves beyond the limitations of our current mental, vital, and physical capacities. That is what we call personal growth today. He asked us to make the minimal effort to overcome some of these limitations in our daily lives. Yes, this itself requires a great effort. Yet this effort at personal transformation of our nature must be the foundation of the even greater possibilities that of the Truth Consciousness

He then suggested that to those who were sincere in their aspiration that this greater power, this Supramental force, was available to anyone who chose to open themselves to it. An individual could bring it into their everyday lives, into their businesses, their careers, into their aspirations, plans, and actions for improvement. For example, if one opens to it at each key point of the day it brings down powers that create accelerated or even instant accomplishment. Everything starts working right, life cooperates. It is too incredible to believe. And yet it works every time one opens to it. That is what the pioneers are telling us. My own experiences have been the same.

So if we utilize this force the world is completely different! We are not up against the barriers of the world that Satprem railed against. We enter another world completely! And yet on the surface, at least initially, it all looks the same; the world goes on, mostly oblivious to the workings of this change that is taking place in a small numbers of individuals. After a while there would be a movement, a coagulation of individuals who are operating from this poise. So after a while a new society could emerge, based on the workings of the Force. Then we truly have the beginnings of a new world; a divine life on earth as Sri Aurobindo called it.

Sri Aurobindo in the final analysis was trying to bring down this force in greater measure into the earth's consciousness so that people like us could experience it, recognizer it, tap into it. By opening to the force everything works out perfectly, suddenly, and in the most unexpected ways. It is in a way the same force as was discussed in Star Wars. You call the teacher said "remember the Force, Luke." When we do, suddenly you know what to do, how to do it, everything works out, everyone and everything in life collaborates. It's a symphony of perfection and unity. It is the deepest truth unfolding. It is a new way of life, a new world.

It is a power that has never been so available as it is now. Sri Aurobindo called it down into the world through his unbelievable spiritual insights and powers. His partner The Mother brought it down further. It is now fully available to us to tap into to create instantaneous accomplishment and success, not to mention the great joy we feel as a result of experiencing this great success.

Growth Online: So this force can help us in our own personal evolution, and even in society's evolution?

RP: Yes, that's it! And there's even more!

While I have spoken of this power to create infinite results in the world; infinitely more accomplishment, more success, more happiness, and so forth, there is also a purpose that this power has that is beyond our own human purposes. While we can use this force to not only help us overcome our personal limitation, poor attitudes and other limited capacities, as well as bring about tangible results in our daily lives, our businesses and other social institutions, this force also has its own purpose that we need to recognize. Not only did this Truth Consciousness, this power, play a role in the creation of the universe, but it plays a role in the ultimate destiny of the universe itself! And that we as individuals can collaborate in that destiny!

Growth Online: What's the logic behind such a conclusion? I mean, what are the facts or metaphysics that could lead you to such a conclusion?

RP: Let me explain. One way to see the Truth Consciousness is to understand that its purpose is to help us use it to reunite us with the Absolute, the God, the Divine from which we all came from in the first place. The ultimate purpose then of the Truth Consciousness in the universe we live in, in our destiny, is to connect us, the creation, back to its source, the Absolute, from which all arose.

This rediscovery by the cosmos, the universe, us of this spiritual source is both our ultimate purpose and ultimate joy; and it is also the Absolute, God, the Creator, the Divine's ultimate purpose and delight! In fact that is precisely why the cosmos was created by the Divine in the first place; so that the cosmos, in its endless multiplicity and diversity of forms, through its evolution, and we as instruments of the cosmos, could experience the very delight of existence and joy that the Absolute contained in the first place.

So the Truth Consciousness is the force that helps us evolve, and is the great means that brings us to this ultimate delight and joy, fulfilling our ultimate purpose, which also fulfill the Divine's original purpose in creating the cosmos in the first place.

(pause) So we are asked if we want to participate in this journey; do we want to collaborate in it. We can collaborate in a number of ways. One way is by growing, developing, and evolving as an individual. That is the minimum; what we normally call personal growth. We can also collaborate by aspiring to bring this higher power, this Truth Consciousness, into our lives to perfect ourselves and the world we live in. A few individuals can even become instruments of the full establishment of the force in the world. Maybe its not even a few, perhaps it can be done in masse. In any case at some point a new humanity begins to appear, a new species filled with the light and workings of this truth consciousness in their lives, perhaps in their very cells. A divine life on earth then becomes the fulfillment of the destiny of the cosmos.

He offers us this enormous scale of collaboration and opportunity. It is up to us to decide if we wish to participate, and if so at what level. So this is the vision of the world that he offers to us.

"I saw them cross the twilight of an age,
The sun-eyed children of the marvelous dawn,
The great creators with wide brows of calm,
The massive barrier-breakers of the world
And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,
The laborers in the quarries of the gods,
The messengers of the Incommunicable,
The architects of immortality.
Into the fallen human sphere they came,
Faces that wore the Immortal's glory still,
Voices that communed still with the thoughts of God,
Bodies made beautiful by the Spirit's light,
Carrying the magic word, the mystic fire,
Carrying the Dionysian cup of joy,
Approaching eyes of a diviner man,
Lips chanting an unknown anthem of the soul,
Feet echoing in the corridors of Time."

(p.344 from the canto "The Vision and the Boon," from the 20000+ line epic poem Savitri by Sri Aurobindo)

PART III: Making it Practical

Growth Online: So how do we start? How does an individual fit into this enormous picture?

RP: To answer this let me begin with a story. I was working as a salesperson down in the San Fernando Valley in the mid 70s. I was involved with a company, Mere Cie, that was selling products from India, and in particular from organizations and groups who were followers of Sri Aurobindo. These individuals had dedicated themselves to utilizing Sri Aurobindo's ideas in their daily work.

I remember one time I sat in front of the owner and he asked me to sell the one product that I most disliked to sell! I told him that nobody wants these things. At one level he agreed, but he added one additional point. He said that if I were to open myself to a higher power, the force (that is the Truth Consciousness), before I entered the store or spoke with the buyer there, I would open up more possibilities for success. To be honest I did not follow his advice very well. I remained pretty much unwilling to sell these what I perceived to be hard-to-sell products, and more importantly I only rarely took up his advice about opening to this higher power before commencing a sale.

Twenty five years later I use this technique often, though not often enough, and always see the positive benefit that results. For example, if before I do a training session I open to this higher power, I notice that at the end of the day when I review how things went in the class, I noticed that things went much better than normal, that life seemed to cooperate with me, that people seemed happier, that the whole atmosphere was better, that my students and I felt energized at the end of the day.

So I learned this technique, which we call "Consecration," or consecrating an event, or opening to a higher power before commencing an activity. Again the name isn't that important. The functioning and results is! This is a spiritual technique that anyone can use to create very positive outcomes to activities, projects, circumstances; to any act or event in life. If you experience it once, you are hooked for life. You have found a way out of the box, the normal functioning in life. You begin to see and feel that you can become the master of life.

Of course, consecration is but one of a number of ways to interact with this power. One can learn to use the power to overcome one's limited nature or call it into the problems one has. So you can aspire for the power to overcome a personal limitation), you can call the power into your self or situation to overcome a negative situation, you can offer yourself to work for this power to manifest in the world through works, involvement, donations, and other means.

Growth Online: So Sri Aurobindo mostly worked at the level of a future possibility. He must not have like much about our past or what humans are now.

RP: Well though Sri Aurobindo wrote in great detail about this power and a future humanity that would evolve into something greater in the light of this power, he also wrote extensively on how humans are currently evolving, even if they never come in contact with spiritual powers, or are being part of some kind of future spiritual destiny.

In books such as The Synthesis of Yoga and in his thousands of letters to his followers he mapped out what human beings basically are made up of, what our positive and negative qualities were within that makeup, and how we can learn to shed those negative qualities, and learn to open to the spiritual realm, the force, so that we can grow and evolve, which makes us far more healthy, productive, happy people. I think for most people that is enough! Being an instrument of universal creation and the cosmos is out of the picture for most!

Fully accepting the majority of the tenets of Darwin and his evolutionary scientific view, Sri Aurobindo was able to clearly show how matter, life, and mind evolved on earth (and perhaps elsewhere) through the mineral, plant, animal, and human form. What made his thinking unique in this areas is that he went a step further back to trace the causes of our evolution, of why there is positive and negative in the world, and how these positive and negative attributes, these dualities in our bodies, our emotions, and our thoughts led to our current conditions as human beings. He shows that the limitations we have as humans today can be traced back to the creation as duality, which manifest in duality in all aspects of our being -- in our thoughts, emotions and feelings, sentiments, values, actions, and our bodies.

For example, humans get sick, have illness, and ultimately die. This is because of the limitations of our original nature. Likewise body is also filled with inertia and "tamas," an Indian term related to inertia and immovability. The body does not want to change and get out of its fixed habits. This can be traced back to the original inconscience of matter that we as plants, animals, and humans evolved out of.

The same is true for the vital realm that evolved out of the physical. Although this vital is filled with energy and sensation that the purely physical plane lacks, the vital/emotional plane is also filled with its own ignorance, falsehoods, incapacities. Because it evolved out of the inconscient physical plane, it shares its negative qualities, but then through its energies it manifest the negative qualities of the physical plane in new, unique positive and negative way. Thus the vital expresses the original ignorance and falsehood of the inconscience through desire, passion, attachment, and ego.

Then out of the vital capacities came further powers of consciousness, particularly in man, in the form of mind, our ability to think. The mental plane, i.e. the brain and our thought processes also has the foundation of the Inconscience of the physical and the weaknesses of the vital, carries forth their falsehoods, and manifests new falsehoods in within the thinking process and functioning. For example, Sri Aurobindo states that the mind is an exclusionary organ. It accepts one thing over another thing. That is it sees one truth and not the whole truth. Or, it is attached to one idea over another because of the ego sense and attachments of the vital. Or it perceives things within the limits of a rigid causality, or it believes in things that are simply wrong or false.

I have put this all in a negative context to show the weakness of our nature. The positive side can also be explained. The ultimate fulfillment of the physical in perfect and beautiful, energy-filled forms; the beautiful emotions and sentiments that are part of our vital nature; the deepest understandings and perceptions of the mental realm. Together they make life a joy; and in fact their existence in the first place is the once again the very joy of the creator's delight. In fact at another level Sri Aurobindo says that there is no negativity in the world. There is only positive delight! This can however be understood at the most profound Truth Consciousness level.

So what is most useful for most of us is that Sri Aurobindo concluded that if we want to be better humans, we need to change our ignorant, false nature, our incapacities, so that our truer nature. If we made this effort, then surely we could function better in the world. Greater accomplishment, more success, greater joy.

This is in essence why we created Growth Online to give a vision of what we could become at a practical level, not the cosmic, although we address these too. We developed a series of practical topics that can help any individual not only overcome the limitation of his or her nature, but create the conditions so that person can accomplish and achieve in life at far greater levels than they are now accomplishing and achieving, and where a person can be far happier and joyful than they are now. We try to open the doors to achievement, infinite success, and infinite joy.

So another more limited though perhaps more practical vision Sri Aurobindo gives us is that we can get out of our limitations to become fully integrated beings. This in fact has been the focus of the entire New Age movement for the last twenty five years. It has now dispersed far beyond its original new age participants and has entered all aspects of society, from business management, even to traditional religion. We can see if we look closely that integral personal growth is a knowledge that has crept into all aspects of life. In other words, the idea of personal growth, development, evolution, a fundamental tenet of Sri Aurobindo (and of course many others) is now in the mainstream. Twenty five years later a far greater potential for achievement, success, joy, integration, and wholeness is available to everyone, en masse. We have organized consciousness into a discipline like math, science, cooking and cleaning. It's up to use to utilize this knowledge in our daily lives.

So at the very least we can make the effort to "upgrade" ourselves, to use the computer software vernacular. We can improve our capacities, i.e. overcome our mental, vital, physical limitations, by overcoming our negative attitudes and habits, by organizing ourselves better, by upgrading our skills, by applying our personal values in all parts of our lives, and in so many other ways. These approaches have the net effect of helping us become more integral individuals; capable of accomplishing at infinitely greater levels, and experiencing a joy that we would never have known before.

Sri Aurobindo often spoke of the integration of the parts of our being so that we could live more productive and happy lives. Why he has so much credibility in this area is that he was able to trace the cause of our incapacities all the way to the source of creation. He said that is out of the creation came a world of ignorant, inconscient, divided forms, and then traced this fact through the development of the three planes of human existence, the physical, the vital/emotional, and the mental. Out of that he could say that there was a way out; that we can make the effort to overcome our limitations, which release the hidden potential that lies just below the surface.

Beyond this we can go further. We can also learn to understand how life really works. I said earlier that was the fun part. We can begin to understand what's really happening in life, when people interact, when life's circumstances and situations unfold, when there is a sudden life response that comes out of no where in response to a changed attitude. We can use this knowledge to begin to master life around us. So we can learn to understand and harness these hidden patterns of life that are constantly effecting the outcomes of all events and circumstances in life.

Again at Growth Online we talk about the connection between the outer events in life and our inner perceptions. We say that if we change certain key negative perceptions, attitudes, reluctances, habits in our life, then life instantly responds! We call this phenomenon "Life response," and is an incredible thing to experience. Experience it just once in your life and your life can be changed forever. I change an attitude, and someone suddenly calls me out of the blue with a big opportunity. I overcome a reluctance, and suddenly money appears in the mail from out of nowhere. There are endless examples.

And Life response is but of these types of type phenomenon, one hidden pattern of life that we reveal, that defies our normal perceptions of the world. In fact this is an area where The Mother's Service Society has done tremendous research, and has uncovered many of these hidden patterns and powers in life. Here at Growth Online we have brought these out for all to read, so individuals can understand these forces at work, and make use of them. The example I described earlier, the power of opening to a higher power before commencing an event is another example.

In a similar vein one can begin to understand the hidden patterns and factors that can lead to great accomplishment in life.

So an individual can at the highest level participate in the unfolding of the spiritual destiny of the universe, or, if a little less ambitious(!), can simply learn to make his being more whole by learning the fundamental techniques of personal growth, including higher attitudes, more skills, greater and more integral knowledge, more energy, more organization, and other capacities to make them an a more integral person. One can also learn the inner functionings in life, such as the Life Response and Consecration techniques, which are magical experiences, and where one can become the master of life. One can also learn, if so inclined, to understand the nature of the Truth Consciousness and the destiny of world, to collaborate in its unfolding. One can also embark on a journey of transformation to find one's personal evolving soul, discover and open to the descent of the Force and Light into our being to overcome and transform our physical, vital, and mental nature, thus evolving into a new spiritual-oriented being, culminating in the supramental transformation, where we become the ultimate evolutionary individual.

So which path should we take? The road to take all depends on the individual; what motivates them, and what they are looking for, seeking in life.

Growth Online: What were you looking for?

RP: For me as a young man, when I felt the possibility of a new type of man, a new type of future, based on the spiritual change, it touched on my idealism. But then seeing it in action in my life, when I saw these magical powers at work in every day life, it stimulated the emotions and also made me comprehend the great possibilities of how these forces can be used in one's work, in business, in society. However, interestingly enough, it was not until I made the more mundane decision to change my negative attitudes and habits and opinions, overcome my limitations of will and inertia, that is, only when I made the effort to make myself a more integrated personality, was I able to fully utilize this higher knowledge and powers in my every day life. To be honest I am still a complete amateur in this area! I wish I learned this all when I was 17. For all of you younger people out there, you are blessed that this knowledge is available to you now; that you can take it up now, when you are young! I guarantee that once you experience the unbelievable magic, miraculousness, and pleasure and joy and delight of this journey, then your games and other diversion will begin to feel bland and empty. This is the great adventure! The adventure of a lifetime!

So in the end Sri Aurobindo helped us understand our limitations, mapped out a way to become a more integral person, revealed to us the unseen spiritual forces at work in life, uncovered a force and consciousness that enabled infinite possibilities, and ultimately revealed the destiny of humanity and the universe. It is up to us to decide how we want to collaborate in this possibility!

Growth Online: Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences with us. It certainly gives us a lot to think about!

RP: It was a pleasure. Thank you very much for inviting me.

MAIN POINTS

Sri Aurobindo's vision begins with the assertion that humans may not be the final rung on the evolutionary scale. That we might witness the emergence of a new species, one that is above and beyond the human. Or, perhaps we could say that it is perhaps the same human species, but that is evolving to a new level that appears very different in functioning, inwardly and outwardly, from the current humanity. Different, emotionally, mentally, spiritually -- even one day physically!

Sri Aurobindo gave us a vision of what a future society could be like if we transcended the old thinking of the old religions, including all of its superstitions of the West and the East; the stifling materialism; the limitation of the scientific method and western rationalism that did not include the realm of spirit and consciousness. He opened the doors to a whole new frontier.

He believed that there is a future before us so utterly different than what we might expect, that there are forces and possibilities so staggering, that we must reevaluate our entire belief system, dismantle much of our intellectual underpinnings, and relearn a new vocabulary of life so we can understand this new future.

Sri Aurobindo described how humans were slowly evolving from our physical and vital/emotional centers, to our mental and even spiritual centers. Now in the last five hundred years, and especially in the last fifty years or so, we are seeing a vast development of our mental functioning and capacities. We as a race have slowly moved from the inconscience, inertia, and incapacity of the physical plane; and the passions, irrationality, attachments, and ego of the vital/emotional plane, to the knowledge, perceptions, and insight of the mental plane. We are moving ahead in this direction very quickly of late.

Sri Aurobindo envisioned that the human race had the capacity to fully move beyond the passion and ego centricities of the vital plane, was fully ready to embrace the mental levels, and had the capacity to enter the spiritual domain. In fact he believed the spiritual domain was our ultimate destiny.

Sri Aurobindo's believed that in all activities, situations, circumstances in life one could bring in a spiritual force to uplift those acts. Whether you were a businessman, a writer, a sportsman, a politician, it didn't matter. Everyone and everything was included. All life could be infused with the spirit, and that spirit can release the infinite capacities hidden in life, from infinite success and accomplishment, to infinite joy and bliss.

In his opus The Life Divine Sri Aurobindo describes how the universe was created out of the Absolute, Omnipresent reality; how life evolved in the cosmos, what the purpose of life is, and what the destiny of the individual and humanity is.

He describes there how the One created the Many for the purpose of Delight. This he calls the Involution. He said that out of the creation came a universe, a cosmos, and our world of ignorant, inconscient, divided forms. At this point the Evolution then begins. The purpose of the Evolution is to rediscover the hidden Spirit (that was lost in the Creation) fulfilling the original purpose of Creation, Delight of existence. That fulfillment comes through the rediscovery of the hidden spirit, and then to utilize its infinite powers to create infinite possibility in life.

After tracing in The Life Divine the source of the universe, what he calls the Absolute, and how the universe was created and unfolded from out of the Absolute, including us, he uncovers something that is unique in the history of consciousness. He has discovered in essence a new aspect and quality of God.

He reveals that the One would never have become the creation (i.e. the Many) if it weren't for the power that he called the Truth Consciousness. This power is the force of action that created the Many, that is our universe, our world, us, out of the One, the Absolute, infinite, Omnipresent Reality. It is the power that compelled the Absolute, to manifest into the Many, i.e. the cosmos and universe. This creative, active element of the spirit, the Truth Consciousness, was the spring that brought about the creation out of the Absolute, the Many out of the One.

He called this power, this force, this energy the "Truth Consciousness," and the "Supramental Consciousness." Sri Aurobindo believed that if we discovered and utilized this Truth Consciousness in our lives, then a new world was possible; a world so different from our current functioning that it could bring about a fundamental change to existence and harbor a change in the human race, perhaps even the emergence of a new species.

If we open to this power in our lives we will capture the infinite powers of Creation. If we learn how to open to this Truth Consciousness Force we begin to live in an astounding new way, a way that has no precedence in human history.

Every problem could be solved, they can even be solved instantly. Actions taken lead to perfect outcomes; life cooperates, people and things are in sync. There is a perfect rhythm on the world around us, and in our own feelings, thoughts, and actions. In addition, the force also opens up the doors to infinite possibilities and potentials around us. Things that we perceived as limited in scope -- whether a business transaction, scientific research, money, or whatever -- are now seen and understood to have infinite scope. Past limitations turn into great multiples and infinities. Our perceptions of quantity and quality change, our perceptions of space and time is different, the nature of cause and effect to bring about outcomes would be overthrown. The Truth consciousness, the Supramental power releases infinite potential and possibility this in our lives. This was the staggering power that Sri Aurobindo had uncovered.

Ultimately by opening to the Truth Consciousness all aspects of our being can be transformed, and we can then begin to see the emergence of a new type of person, a new species perhaps, utilizing the Supramental, Truth Consciousness Force in all parts of one's existence. Eventually we become the Supramental being and race; or as Sri Aurobindo calls it, a Divine Life on earth.

Sri Aurobindo actually discovered the very forces (i.e. the Supramental) that he said would change the world. In other words, he became an instrument for bringing about and facilitating the very future he had laid out before us.

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Related Topics:

For an overview of Sri Aurobindo's life and works click here.

For more on the vision that Sri Aurobindo offers the world, click here.

To review a fresh interpretation of the central ideas of Sri Aurobindo, click here.

To see how individuals, businesses, and social institutions can follow the process of creation to infinite accomplishment, success, and joy, mirroring the process described by Sri Aurobindo by which an infinite universe manifest from the One, click here.

To go to Growth Online's sub-site providing new insights into the life and teachings of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, please click here.

For an overview of what a spiritualized, evolutionary person might be like, click here.

For an overview of what a divine life on earth might be like, click here.

To learn about how the universe was created in the first place from out of the One, click here.

To learn about how humans evolved to their current state, and what humans are basically made up of, click here.

To learn about the phenomenon of "Life Response," click here. To learn about the spiritual technique of Consecration, click here. To learn about the hidden patterns of life, click here.

To read another interview explaining the working of The Force in our lives, click here.

To go to the site of the Auroville international township, click here.

To go to the site of the Mother's Service Society, where they are applying Sri Aurobindo's ideas in many areas of life, including social development, business development, education, science, and literature, click here.

To get an answer to a problem you are having in life, click here.

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