The 127th Birth Anniversary of Sri Aurobindo falls today

Love and unity at a spiritual level

By V. Murugesu

In the early seventies, a papal envoy visited the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, at Pondicherry, India and met Sri M.P. Pandit, a sadhak and well-known exponent of the teachings of Sri Aurobindo. The papal envoy was the Secretary of the sections for non-Christians at the Vatican and was on a tour of the south-east seeking to understand the traditions of that part of the world. He was eager to know of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram as he had read the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.

Sri Pandit made a general statement of the teachings pointing out that everything in Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, known as the Integral Yoga, is considered from the point of spiritual evolution. All life on earth is the development of a spiritual consciousness. The whole character of this evolution is spiritual. What the Western scientists, led by Darwin, spoke about in the last century is concerned only with the physical process. Development is not of form, it is not an external but an inner development, a development of consciousness. There is one consciousness developing from matter, through the material stage, the plant stage etc. - each stage a higher development of life. The whole of nature is in evolution.

"The world was a conception and a birth
Of Spirit in Matter into living forms,
And Nature bore the Immortal in her womb,
That she might climb through him to eternal life."
(Savitri: Book One, Canto Three).

In man it arrives at a stage when the evolutionary process becomes conscious, and can direct itself. The nature of this consciousness which is evolving is at heart Divine. It is what we may call God. It is the Spirit. The direction of this evolution is upward and it aims at the full manifestation or God on earth.

Man is the vehicle, the highest developed vehicle so far. He embodies the developing consciousness and expresses it. All that constitutes civilisation, culture, are so many attempts at a progressive perfection of that consciousness which seeks to express itself.

Life on earth has a meaning. Man has a soul, it is the spark of the Divine that grows, and in the measure in which the soul grows, man gets nearer to God.

"We are the sons of God and must be even as He,
His human portion, We must grow Divine."
(Savitri: Book One, Canto Four)

This progress necessarily cannot be compressed in one lifetime. Spiritual evolution necessarily presupposes a series of births for the soul in which it gains experience and develops. Left to nature it would take millenniums, thousands of years, but when man has become conscious he can expedite that process, by a psychological self-discipline for developing his consciousness more quickly. We call that process Yoga. The whole aim is to raise the human potency at all levels, at the mental level, at the physical level, at the psychological level, at the soul level; there is no end; it goes on increasing.

The ideal that Sri Aurobindo established is the ideal of human perfection. Man cannot rest with his present life characterised by suffering, pain, ignorance.

Man is in a transitional stage. If he evolves consciously he can develop more elements of perfection and develop himself in the image of God, manifest the divine consciousness. But man does not live alone.

Real unity comes at the soul level, not by legislation, not by propaganda. To the extent that you are awake within and feel harmony with others you radiate oneness and love to others. To that extent you are true and you contribute to world unity.

At the township of Auroville people from all over the world gather. They profess no formal religion. Their religion, their God is truth: truth in consciousness, truth in speech, truth in action. Their religion is Love. They stress those aspects of life which build up harmony, and radiate love.

Each individual is left free to pursue his quest towards God. An environment has been created where persons are given economic security. They don't have to spend their energies in earning their bread, they are maintained. They participate in community life, contribute their best, but each one is free to choose the life of progress that he wants. So the accent is on the essence of the scriptures. The message of love as we understand it from the Bible, the message of work for God in the world as we understand it from the Gita, of brotherhood of man as we understand it from the Koran, all these and more have been integrated into this way of life.

The Sri Aurobindo movement does not believe in punishment; but in Grace. Grace from above and human effort from below. God does not punish. God helps. Man punishes himself by his ignorance. It is not God who punishes. There is no hell, there is no heaven. We create heaven and hell within ourselves by our mental movements, by our emotional movements.

The writer is founder trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Centre, Sri Lanka

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