The theme of evolution was central
to Sri Aurobindo’s thought almost throughout his life. We have a set of essays
written by him in 1909 which first came out in the weekly review Karmayogin edited by him when he was in Calcutta;
this was after his acquittal in the Alipore Bomb Case filed against the
revolutionaries, including himself, in
1908. It is quite appropriate that we should read these over again to celebrate
the centenary year of their appearance. Along with these three selected pieces,
from Harmony of Virtue, must also go
the absolutely last set of articles Sri Aurobindo dictated in 1950; this was at
the request of the Mother who wished him to contribute to the newly started
periodical, the Bulletin of Physical Education. These last writings were later
published, in January 1952, in the book entitled The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth. The most important thing
we become aware of in these revelations is the arrival of what Sri Aurobindo
called the Mind of Light, the mind of the physical receiving the Supramental.
It is this Mind of Light which governs the race of beings who provide a link between
the Mental and the Gnostic beings,—the Intermediate Race. If we do see a change
in the writings of these two periods, separated by forty years, then it is not
a change or shift of any kind in his central concepts related to the principles
and methods of evolution, evolution which is more a collective change of
consciousness, a change pertaining to spiritual evolution than to the evolution
of form. The difference is due to the great yogic work that had gone towards
the realization of the life divine upon earth, the difficult and untiring
yoga-tapasya of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. To view it in any other manner,
other than an occult-yogic work, howsoever appealing it might be to the
rational mind, is to miss the entire purport of the evolutionary objective
itself. One might please oneself with theories and concepts, but that would
avail hardly anything if the day’s job is to make the evolutionary possibility
a realised certainty. Precisely in it lies the convincing uniqueness of Sri
Aurobindo’s vision and work, and it is that we must celebrate during the
centenary year, celebrate the first appearance of the theme in 1909. ~ RYD
The Process of Evolution
The end of a stage of evolution is
usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the
evolution. It is a principle of Nature that in order to get rid of any powerful
tendency or deep-seated association in humanity, whether in the mass or in the
individual, it has first to be exhausted by bhoga or enjoyment,
afterwards to be dominated and weakened by nigraha or control and,
finally, when it is weak, to be got rid of by samyama, rejection or
self-dissociation. The difference between nigraha and samyama is
that in the first process there is a violent struggle to put down, coerce and,
if possible, crush the tendency, the reality of which is not questioned, but in
the second process it is envisaged as a dead or dying force, its occasional
return marked with disgust, then with impatience, finally with indifference as
a mere ghost, vestige or faint echo of that which was once real but is now void
of significance. Such a return is part of the process of Nature for getting rid
of this undesirable and disappearing quantity.
Samyama is unseasonable and would be
fruitless when a force, quality or tendency is in its infancy or vigour, before
it has had the enjoyment and full activity which is its due. When once a thing
is born, it must have its youth, growth, enjoyment, life and final decay and
death; when once an impetus has been given by Prakriti to her creation, she
insists that the velocity shall spend itself by natural exhaustion before it
shall cease. To arrest the growth or speed unseasonably by force is nigraha,
which can be effective for a time but not in perpetuity. It is said in the Gita
that all things are ruled by their nature, to their nature they return and nigraha
or repression is fruitless. What happens then is that the thing untimely slain
by violence is not really dead, but withdraws for a time into the Prakriti
which sent it forth, gathers an immense force and returns with extraordinary
violence ravening for the rightful enjoyment which it was denied. We see this
in the attempts we make to get rid of our evil samskāras or associations
when we first tread the path of Yoga. If anger is a powerful element in our
nature, we may put it down for a time by sheer force and call it self-control,
but eventually unsatisfied Nature will get the better of us and the passion
return upon us with astonishing force at an unexpected moment. There are only
two ways by which we can effectively get the better of the passion which seeks
to enslave us. One is by substitution, replacing it whenever it rises by the
opposite quality, anger by thoughts of forgiveness, love or forbearance, lust
by meditation on purity, pride by thoughts of humility and our own defects or
nothing ness; this is the method of Rajayoga but it is a difficult, slow
and uncertain method; for both the ancient traditions and the modern experience
of Yoga show that men who had attained for long years the highest self-mastery,
have been suddenly surprised by a violent return of the thing they thought dead
or for ever subject. Still, this substitution, slow though it be, is one of the
commonest methods of Nature and it is largely by this means, often
unconsciously or half-consciously used, that the character of a man changes and
develops from life to life or even in the bounds of a single life-time. It does
not destroy things in their seed and the seed which is not reduced to ashes by
Yoga is always capable of sprouting again and growing into the complete and
mighty tree. The second method is to give bhoga or enjoyment to the
passion so as to get rid of it quickly. When it is satiated and surfeited by
excessive enjoyment, it becomes weak and spent and a reaction ensues which
establishes for a time the opposite force, tendency or quality. If that moment
is seized by the Yogin for nigraha, the nigraha so repeated at
every suitable opportunity becomes so far effective as to reduce the strength
and vitality of the tti"vr sufficiently for the application
of the final samyama. This method of enjoyment and reaction is also a
favourite and universal method of Nature, but it is never complete in itself
and if applied to permanent forces or qualities, tends to establish a see-saw
of opposite tendencies, extremely useful to the operations of Prakriti but from
the point of view of self-mastery useless and inconclusive. It is only when this
method is followed up by the use of samyama that it becomes effective.
The Yogin regards the tti"vr merely as a play of Nature with
which he is not concerned and of which he is merely the spectator; the
anger, lust or pride is not his, it is the universal Mother's and she works it
and stills it for her own purposes. When, however, the vrtti is strong,
mastering and unspent, this attitude cannot be maintained in sincerity and to
try to hold it intellectually without sincerely feeling it, is mithyācāra,
false discipline or hypocrisy. It is only when it is somewhat exhausted by
repeated enjoyment and coercion that Prakriti or Nature at the command of the
soul or Purusha can really deal with her own creation. She deals with it first
by vairāgya in its crudest form of disgust, but this is too violent a
feeling to be permanent; yet it leaves its mark behind in a deep-seated wish to
be rid of its cause, which survives the return and temporary reign of the
passion. Afterwards its return is viewed with impatience but without any acute
feeling of intolerance. Finally, supreme indifference or udāsīnatā is
gained and the final going out of the tendency by the ordinary process of
Nature is watched in the true spirit of the samyamī who has the
knowledge that he is the witnessing soul and has only to dissociate himself
from a phenomenon for it to cease. The highest stage leads either to mukti
in the form of laya or disappearance, the tti"vr vanishing altogether and for good,
or else in another kind of freedom when the soul knows that it is God's līlā
and leaves it to Him whether He shall throw out the tendency or use it for His
own purposes. This is the attitude of the Karmayogin who puts himself in God's
hands and does work for His sake only, knowing that it is God's force that
works in him. The result of that attitude of self-surrender is that the Lord of
all takes charge and according to the promise of the Gita delivers His servant
and lover from all sin and evil, the vŗttis working in the bodily machine without affecting the soul and
working only when He raises them up for His purposes. This is nirliptatā,
the state of absolute freedom within the līlā.
The law is the same for the mass as
for the individual. The process of human evolution has been seen by the eye of
inspired observation to be that of working out the tiger and the ape. The
forces of cruelty, lust, mischievous destruction, pain-giving, folly,
brutality, ignorance were once rampant in humanity, they had full enjoyment;
then by the growth of religion and philosophy they began in periods of
satiety such as the beginning of the Christian era in Europe to be partly
replaced, partly put under control. As is the law of such things, they have
always reverted again with greater or less virulence and sought with more or
less success to re-establish themselves. Finally, in the nineteenth century it
seemed for a time as if some of these forces had, for the time at least,
exhausted themselves and the hour for samyama and gradual dismissal from
the evolution had really arrived. Such hopes always recur and in the end they
are likely to bring about their own fulfilment, but before that happens another
recoil is inevitable. We see plenty of signs of it in the reeling back into the
beast which is in progress in Europe and America behind the fair outside of
Science, progress, civilisation and humanitarianism, and we are likely to see
more signs of it in the era that is coming upon us. A similar law holds in
politics and society. The political evolution of the human race follows certain
lines of which the most recent formula has been given in the watchwords of the
French Revolution, freedom, equality and brotherhood. But the forces of the old
world, the forces of despotism, the forces of traditional privilege and selfish
exploitation, the forces of unfraternal strife and passionate self-regarding
competition are always struggling to reseat themselves on the thrones of the
earth. A determined movement of reaction is evident in many parts of the world
and nowhere perhaps more than in