Sri Aurobindo first willed, established, created by his Yoga-Tapasya, a new world

Re: 01: Savitri Awakes among the Human Tribes
by RY Deshpande on Tue 09 Jan 2007 03:09 AM PST Profile Permanent Link

But what is going to close the choice? “Post-human destinies”-wallahs would insist on the first. The second would be like Cortez discovering a new island in the Pacific that, spotting it, we have to just sail to it. The third is, Vishvamitra-like for Trishanku, create a new world. But in Sri Aurobindo’s yogic-spiritual philosophy what is envisaged is the working of transcendental powers in the earth-consciousness, the earth-existence, the earth-life, in the sky and the air and the fire and the water and in the earth-stuff itself, not only in its countless material forms but also in its precious soul, and in its open and progressive and spacious spirit.

Earth is the “significant centre” of the universe from the point of view a divine manifestation, as if created to focus all effort on one point. So, not by abandoning it, which is harshly suicidal, but by living in its creative essence and psyche can the true meaning of life, of the becoming itself be realised. We must fully recognise that there is something wonderful here, very meaningful also, that to go by the following lines (Collected Poems, p. 524)

Earth has beatitudes warmer than heaven’s that are bare and undying,

Marvels of Time on the crest of the moments to infinity flying.

But there is a genuine difficulty vis-à-vis man as the mental being. About his present occupation in the world and the urge that drives him in it and what is expected of it to come out, Sri Aurobindo writes:

“He seeks to know Matter in order to be master of the material environment, to know Life in order to be master of the vital existence, to know Mind in order to be master of the great obscure movement of mentality… he seeks to know himself in order to be master of himself, to know the world in order to be master of the world. This is the urge of Existence in him, the necessity of the Consciousness he is… To find the conditions under which this inner impulsion is satisfied is the problem man must strive always to resolve and to that he is compelled by the very nature of his own existence and by the Deity seated within him… Either man must fulfil himself by satisfying the Divine within him or he must produce out of himself a new and greater being who will be more capable of satisfying it. He must either himself become a divine humanity or give place to Superman.” (The Life Divine, pp. 208-09)

The imperative is fully put: Man must either himself become a divine humanity or give place to Superman. Notwithstanding man’s limitations, the appearance of the divine humanity, the divine multitude, divyam janam as the Veda says, is the entire thrust present in the evolutionary movement. Behind it is the Will of the Unmanifest to manifest himself in the fine multiplicity of existence, bahusyām prajāyeyeti. There has to be the “universal incarnation”. By whatever means it be, Superman has to arrive in this creation. It is in this context we must view the possibilities of post-human destinies in which perhaps the techno-capitalism of Prof. Luis Suarez-Villa or his protagonists has just a minuscule role.

It appears to me that, and there are sufficient hints in Savitri for such a belief, a creation of a new world was the important task the Yogi was carrying out. Sri Aurobindo first willed, established, created by his Yoga-Tapasya, a new world in the Transcendent and the next move was to bring it down here, which indeed is the Mother’s work, of manifestation. By whatever means or process the new thing is to appear here there has to be a prototype of it in the Transcendent, the supporting creation up there. Then only can the new destinies dawn here. Support from above alone can make something here possible. RYD