Many years ago, philosopher George Santayana after discussing the work of Lucretius, Dante and Goethe said: “it is time some genius appears to reconstitute the shattered picture of the world. He should live in the continual presence of all experience and respect it; he should at the same time understand nature, the ground of that experience.” Such a genius we find in Sri Aurobindo. For, in him fuse into a phosphorescent glow reason and revelation, science and poetry, description and prophecy, philosophy and Yoga.

History is an account of great men, and great men do not live a single life. They embody the collective aspirations of the community of humanity, nay of an age, and perceive the far off truths which to a common man would otherwise remain unknown. They struggle, they suffer, endure and endeavour, aspire and achieve, accomplish and manifest in their lives the many visions of all the ages as realised possibilities. They are indeed makers of human destiny. And Sri Aurobindo, like Krishna, comes into history from outside of history to bid the earth to its greater destiny, to raise humanity out of its present animal nature and help it to participate in its own innate divine nature.

Through the ages attempts have been made to discover the Truth behind the fleeting, perishable phenomena and to seek refuge in its bosom. But this is not the truth of existence, and certainly not the end of the evolutionary process. The individual is as real as the Universal and the Transcendent, for the three are the three poises of Reality. It is only when the individual surpasses his normal human consciousness, breaks through the many moulds of his ego, and realises and embraces in its entirety the double nature of the Divine, namely the static consciousness and the dynamic nature of Sachchidananda, that he consciously lives and functions simultaneously as the individual, the universal and the transcendental. This can be accomplished only with the help of Rta as the Vedic Rishis called it, the Chit-Shakti, the Truth-Consciousness or Supermind, as Sri Aurobindo names it. Man’s body is not a blind prison-house, but a potential tabernacle of God, a marvellous mechanism for the manifestation in Matter of the Light, Love, Joy and Force of the Divine. The body is the only means, the kshetra in and through which the individual can realise and manifest God integrally. It is the only splendid mansion of God, built by God out of his own primary substance, ananda for his own habitation and manifestation. All his life Sri Aurobindo worked towards accomplishing this for the whole of humanity. With unflagging concentration and unrelaxed intensity of tapasya and yoga. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have worked for the descent of the Supramental, and delivered humanity from ignorance and incompetence, from falsehood, finitude and death. Because of them the resurgent spirituality of India is well on its way to the recovery of the ancient vision of the unity of all existence and of the progressively self-fulfilling Will of the Divine in creation.

A robust, all-comprehending, all-transmutting spirituality is arising to strengthen the vitality of the people. And the lofty dream of the Vedic seers of creating an immortal race upon earth will surely be fulfilled.

A new and more enduring theory of the universe produces a new and more enduring civilization. The chief aim of civilization should be the perfection of the race and the actualisation of its many ideals which needs renewed dedication, consecration and surrender to the divinity within and without us. Such evolutionary progress is possible only in an atmosphere of courage, faith and determined devotion. A theory of the universe which is both evolutionary and affirmative of the spiritual basis of the world and life alone is capable of overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and convictions of humanity today. The remedy lies in the conscious awareness of the evolutionary march of civilization in the context of the dynamic inter-relationship between the human and the Divine.

The edifice of our present civilization is certainly built upon sand and rubble and by its very nature and disposition, short-lived. Its suicide is already in progress. Being exposed to the overwhelming pressure of circumstances of its own ignorant creation, it is facing total disintegration. This is because we are not guided by any philosophy or worthwhile objective. It is always the vision of the future that subscribes value and endurance to civilization.

Economic determinism, over-work, physical fatigue and incapacity for self-collectedness, lack of humanity and of spiritual convictions have grievously injured the personality of modern man, and greatly impaired his creative activity. He has lost his freedom and ceased to be a genuine thinker. He is totally taken up by the animal struggle for existence. A spirit of superficiality, cheap sociability and utter absence of the search for true self-improvement seem to take complete hold of modern man. Humanity needs to be rescued from this pestilence and fraud of our so-called civilization.

The crisis in civilization is too deep and grievous for the human mind to repair. It needs the discovery and operation of a new dimension of human nature. It is only the Truth-Consciousness that can salvage us, guide us and fulfil us. The Mother says:

“The moment approaches when the Truth will govern the world.
Will you work to hasten its coming?”

Editor’s Note: This article is based on a talk given by the author at the Institute of Human Study, Hyderabad, on 24.11.1971. This article was previously published in ‘Footnotes To The Future’ published by IHS in 1993.

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