{"id":1153,"date":"2013-07-13T01:32:56","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1153"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:32:56","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:32:56","slug":"26-the-advent-and-progress-of-the-spiritual-age-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15\/26-the-advent-and-progress-of-the-spiritual-age-vol-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","title":{"rendered":"-26_The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\n\t\t
\n\t\tCHAPTER XXIV<\/font><\/span><\/b>
\n\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\tThe
\nAdvent and Progress of the Spiritual Age<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/font>I<\/font><\/b>F <\/b>
\nA subjective age, the last sector of a social cycle, is to find
\nits outlet and fruition in a spiritualised society and the emergence of mankind
\non a higher evolutionary level, it is not enough that certain ideas favourable
\nto that turn of human life should take hold of the general mind of the race,
\npermeate the ordinary motives of its thought, art, ethics, political ideals,
\nsocial effort, or even get well into its inner way of thinking and feeling. It
\nis not enough even that the idea of the kingdom of God on earth, a reign of
\nspirituality, freedom and unity, a real and inner equality and harmony – and
\nnot merely an outward and mechanical equalisation and association
\n<\/font>
\n– should<\/font><\/span> become definitely an ideal of life; it is not enough that this ideal
\nshould be actively held as possible, desirable, to be sought and striven after,
\nit is not enough even that it should come forward as a governing preoccupation
\nof the human mind. That would evidently be a very great step forward, – considering what the ideals of mankind now
\nare, an enormous step. It would be the necessary beginning, the indispensable
\nmental environment for a living renovation of human society in a higher type.
\nBut by it- self it might only bring about a half-hearted or else a strong but
\nonly partially and temporarily successful attempt to bring something of the manifest
\nSpirit into human life and its institutions. That is all that mankind has ever
\nattempted on this line in the past. It has never attempted to work out
\nthoroughly even that little, except in the limits of a religious order or a
\npeculiar community, and even there with such serious defects and under such
\ndrastic limitations as to make the experiment nugatory and without any bearing
\non human life. If we do not get beyond the mere holding of the ideal and its
\ngeneral influence in human life, this little is all that mankind will attempt
\nin the <\/font> <\/p>\n

\nPage-246<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

future. More is needed; a general spiritual awakening
\nand aspiration in mankind is indeed the large necessary motive-power, but the
\neffective power must be something greater. There must be a dynamic re-creating
\nof individual manhood in the spiritual type.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>For the way
\nthat humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an aspiration which is for the most part left <\/span>only
\nas an aspiration, accepted only as a
\npartial influence. The <\/span>ideal is not allowed to mould the whole life, but
\nonly more or less to colour it; it is often used even as a cover and a plea for
\nthings that are diametrically opposed to its real spirit. Institutions are
\ncreated which are supposed, but too lightly supposed to embody that spirit and the fact that the ideal is
\nheld, the fact <\/span>that men live under its institutions is treated as
\nsufficient. The holding of an ideal becomes almost an excuse for not living
\naccording to the ideal; the existence of its institutions is sufficient to
\nabrogate the need of insisting on the spirit that made the institutions. But
\nspirituality is in its very nature a thing subjective and not mechanical; it is
\nnothing if it is not lived inwardly and if the outward life does not flow out
\nof this inward living. Symbols, types, conventions, ideas are not sufficient. A
\nspiritual symbol is only a meaningless ticket, unless the thing symbolised is
\nrealised in the spirit. A spiritual convention may lose or expel its spirit and
\nbecome a falsehood. A spiritual type may be a temporary mould into which
\nspiritual living may flow, but it is also a limitation and may become a prison
\nin which it fossilises and perishes. A spiritual idea is a power, but only when
\nit is both inwardly and outwardly creative. Here we have to enlarge and to
\ndeepen the pragmatic principle that truth is what we create, and in this sense
\nfirst, that it is what we create within us, in other words, what we become.
\nUndoubtedly, spiritual truth exists eternally beyond, independent of us in the
\nheavens of the Spirit; but it is of no avail for humanity here, it does not
\nbecome truth of earth, truth of life until it is lived. The divine perfection
\nis always there above us; but for man to become divine in consciousness and act
\nand to live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is meant by
\nspirituality; all lesser meanings given to the word are inadequate fumblings or
\nimpostures.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-247<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

This, as the subjective religions recognise, can only be
\nbrought about by an individual change in each human life. The collective soul
\nis there only as a great half-subconscient source of the individual existence;
\nif it is to take on a definite psychological form or a new kind of collective
\nlife, that can only come by the shaping growth of its individuals. As will be
\nthe spirit and life of the individuals constituting it, so will be the realised
\nspirit of the collectivity and the true power of its life. A society that lives
\nnot by its men but by its institutions is not a collective soul, but a machine;
\nits life becomes a mechanical product and ceases to be a living growth.
\nTherefore the coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by the appearance of
\nan in- creasing number of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the
\nnormal intellectual, vital and physical existence of man, but perceive that a
\ngreater evolution is the real goal of humanity and attempt to effect it in
\nthemselves, to lead others to it and to make it the recognised goal of the
\nrace. In proportion as they succeed and to the degree to which they carry this
\nevolution, the yet unrealised potentiality which they represent will become an
\nactual possibility of the future.<\/font>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>A great
\naccess of spirituality in the past has ordinarily had for its result the coming
\nof a new religion of a special type and its endeavour to impose itself upon
\nmankind as a new universal order. This, however, was always not only a
\npremature but a wrong crystallisation which prevented rather than helped any
\ndeep and serious achievement. The aim of a spiritual age of mankind must indeed
\nbe one with the essential aim of subjective religions, a new birth, a new
\nconsciousness, an upward evolution of the human being, a descent of the Spirit
\ninto our members, a spiritual reorganisation of our life; but if it limits
\nitself by the old familiar apparatus and the imperfect means of a religious
\nmovement, it is likely to register another failure. A religious movement brings
\nusually a wave of spiritual excitement and aspiration that communicates itself
\nto a large number of individuals and there is as a result a temporary uplifting
\nand an effective formation, partly spiritual, partly ethical, partly dogmatic
\nin its nature. But the wave, after a generation or two or at most a few
\ngenerations, begins to subside; the formation remains. If there has<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-248<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

been a very powerful movement with a great spiritual
\npersonality if as its source, it may leave behind a central influence and an
\ninner discipline which may well be the starting-point of fresh waves; but these
\nwill be constantly less powerful and enduring in proportion as the movement
\ngets farther and farther away from its source. For meanwhile in order to bind
\ntogether the faithful and at the same time to mark them off from the
\nunregenerated outer world, there will have grown up a religious order, a
\nChurch, a hierarchy, a fixed and unprogressive type of ethical living, a set of
\ncrystallised dogmas, ostentations, ceremonials, sanctified superstitions, an
\nelaborate machinery for the salvation of man- kind. As a result spirituality is
\nincreasingly subordinated to intellectual belief, to outward forms of conduct
\nand to external ritual, the higher to the lower motives, the one thing
\nessential to aids and instruments and accidents. The first spontaneous and
\npotent attempt to convert the whole life into spiritual living yields up its
\nplace to a set system of belief and ethics touched by spiritual emotion; but
\nfinally even that saving element is dominated by the outward machinery, the
\nsheltering structure becomes a tomb. The Church takes the place of the Spirit
\nand a formal subscription to its creed, rituals and order is the thing
\nuniversally demanded; spiritual living is only practised by the few within the
\nlimits prescribed by their fixed creed and order. The majority neglect even
\nthat narrow effort and are contented to replace by a careful or negligent piety
\nthe call to a deeper life. In the end it is found that the spirit in the
\nreligion has become a thin stream choked by sands; at the most brief occasional floodings of its dry bed of conventions still prevent it from becoming a memory
\nin the dead chapters of Time.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>The ambition of a particular
\nreligious belief and form to universalise and impose itself is contrary to the
\nvariety of human nature and to at least one essential character of the Spirit.
\nFor the nature of the Spirit is a spacious inner freedom and a large unity into
\nwhich each man must be allowed to grow according to his own nature. Again – and this is yet another source of inevitable
\nfailure – <\/font>the usual tendency of these credal religions<\/font><\/span>
\n<\/font>is<\/font><\/span> to turn towards an after-world and to make the
\nregeneration of the earthly life a secondary motive; this tendency grows in<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-249<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

proportion as the original hope of a present universal
\nregeneration of mankind becomes more and more feeble. Therefore, while many new
\nspiritual waves with their strong special motives and disciplines must
\nnecessarily be the forerunners of a spiritual age, yet their claims must be
\nsubordinated in the general mind of the race and of its spiritual leaders to
\nthe recognition that all motives and disciplines are valid and yet none
\nentirely valid since they are means and not the one thing to be done. The one
\nthing essential must take precedence, the conversion of the whole life of the
\nhuman being to the lead of the Spirit. The ascent of man into heaven is not the
\nkey, but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the descent also of the
\nSpirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature.
\nFor that and not some post mortem salvation is the real new birth for which
\nhumanity waits as the crowning movement of its <\/font> long obscure and painful course.<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>Therefore
\nthe individuals who will most help the future of humanity in the new age will
\nbe those who will recognise a spiritual evolution as the destiny and therefore
\nthe great need of the human being. Even as the animal man has been largely
\nconverted into a mentalised and at the top a highly mentalised humanity, so too
\nnow or in the future an evolution or conversion –
\nit does not greatly matter which figure we use or what theory we adopt to
\nsupport it – of the present type of humanity into a spiritualised humanity is
\nthe need of the race and surely the intention of Nature; that evolution or
\nconversion will be their ideal and endeavour. They will be comparatively
\nindifferent to particular belief and form and leave men to resort to the
\nbeliefs and forms to which they are naturally drawn. They will only hold as
\nessential the faith in this spiritual conversion, the attempt to live it out
\nand whatever knowledge – the form of
\nopinion into which it is thrown does not so much matter – can be converted into
\nthis living. They will especially not make the mistake of thinking that this
\nchange can be effected boy machinery and outward institutions; they will know
\nand never forget that it has to be lived out by each man inwardly or it can
\nnever be made a reality for the kind. They will adopt in its heart of meaning
\nthe inward view of the East which bids man seek the secret of his destiny and
\nsal-<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-250<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

vation within; but
\nalso they will accept, though with a different <\/span>turn given to it, the
\nimportance which the West rightly attaches to life and to the making the best
\nwe know and can attain the general rule of all life. They will not make society
\na shadowy background to a few luminous spiritual figures or a rigidly fenced ~<\/span> <\/font>
\nand<\/font><\/span> <\/font>
\nearth-bound
\nroot for the growth of a comparatively rare and <\/font> <\/span>sterile flower of
\nascetic spirituality. They will not accept the theory that the many must
\nnecessarily remain for ever on the lower ranges of life and only a few climb
\ninto the free air and the light, but will start from the standpoint of the
\ngreat spirits who have striven to regenerate the life of the earth and held
\nthat faith in spite of all previous failures. Failures must be originally numerous
\nin everything great and difficult, but the time comes when the experience of
\npast failures can be profitably used and the gate that so long resisted opens.
\nIn this as in all great human aspirations and endeavours, an a priori <\/i>declaration of impossibility is
\na sign of ignorance and weakness, and the motto of the aspirant’s endeavour
\nmust be the <\/font> solvitur ambulando1<\/sup> <\/font><\/i>
\n of the
\ndiscoverer. For by the doing the difficulty will be solved. A true beginning
\nhas to be made; the rest is a work for Time in its sudden achievements or its
\nlong patient labour.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>The thing to
\nbe done is as large as human life, and there- fore the individuals who lead the
\nway will take all human life for their province. These pioneers will consider
\nnothing as alien to them, nothing as outside their scope. For every part of
\nhuman life has to be taken up by the spiritual, – not only the intellectual,
\nthe aesthetic, the ethical, but the dynamic, the vital, the physical; therefore
\nfor none of these things or the activities that spring from them will they have
\ncontempt or aversion, however they may
\ninsist on a change of the spirit and a transmutation of the form. In each power of our nature they will seek for its own
\nproper means of conversion; knowing that the Divine is conceal- ed in all, they
\nwill hold that all can be made the Spirit’s means of self finding and all can
\nbe converted into its instruments of divine living. And they will see that the
\ngreat necessity is the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind and the
\nopening of that<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1
\n\t\t<\/font><\/sup>The
\nanswer of Stephenson to those who argued by strict scientific logic that his
\nengine on rails could not and should not move, "Your difficulty is solved
\nby its moving.<\/font><\/span>"<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-251<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

mind again into its own higher reaches and more and more
\nintegral movement. For before the decisive change can be made, the stumbling
\nintellectual reason has to be converted into the precise and luminous
\nintuitive, until that again can rise into higher ranges to overmind and
\nsupermind or gnosis. The uncertain and stumbling mental will has to rise
\ntowards the sure intuitive and into a higher divine and gnostic will, the
\npsychic sweetness, fire and light of the soul behind the heart, hrdaye guhāyām, <\/i>has to alchemise our
\ncrude emotions and the hard egoisms and clamant desires of our vital nature.
\nAll our other members have to pass through a similar conversion under the
\ncompelling force and light from above. The leaders of the spiritual march will
\nstart from and use the knowledge and the means that past effort has developed in
\nthis direction, but they will not take them as they are without any deep
\nnecessary change or limit themselves by what is now known or cleave only to
\nfixed and stereotyped systems or given groupings of results, but will follow
\nthe method of the Spirit in Nature. A constant rediscovery and new formulation
\nand larger synthesis in the mind, a mighty remoulding in its deeper parts
\nbecause of a greater enlarging Truth not discovered or not well fixed before,
\nis that Spirit’s way with our past achievement when he moves to the greatness
\nof the future.<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This
\nendeavour will be a supreme and difficult labour even for the individual, but
\nmuch more for the race. It may well be that, once started, it may not advance
\nrapidly even to its first decisive stage; it may be that it will take long
\ncenturies of effort to come into some kind of permanent birth. But that is not
\naltogether inevitable, for the principle of such changes in Nature seems to be
\na long obscure preparation followed by a swift gathering up and precipitation
\nof the elements into the new birth, a rapid conversion, a transformation that
\nin its luminous moment figures like a miracle. Even when the first decisive
\nchange is reached, it is certain that all humanity will not be able to rise to
\nthat level. There cannot fail to be a division into those who are able to live
\non the spiritual level and those who are only able to live in the light that
\ndescends from it into the mental level. And below these too there might still
\nbe a great mass influenced from above but not yet ready for the light. But even
\nthat would be a transfor-<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-252<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

mation and a beginning far beyond anything yet attained.
\nThis hierarchy would not mean as in our present vital living an egoistic
\ndomination of the undeveloped by the more developed, but a guidance of the
\nyounger by the elder brothers of the race and a constant working to lift them
\nup to greater spiritual level and wider horizons.. And for the leaders too this
\nascent to the first spiritual levels would not be the end of the divine march,
\na culmination that left nothing more to be achieved on earth. For there would
\nbe still yet higher levels within the supramental realm, as the old Vedic poets
\nknew when they spoke of the spiritual life as a constant ascent, –<\/p>\n

<\/font>
\n <\/font><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n


\n"State is born upon state; covering after covering be- comes conscious of
\nknowledge; in the lap of the Mother the soul sees."<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n


\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/font> <\/span>This at
\nleast is the highest hope, the possible destiny that opens out before the human
\nview, and it is a possibility which the progress of the human mind seems on the
\nway to redevelop. If the light that is being born increases, if the number of
\nindividuals who seek to realise the possibility in themselves and in the world<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-253<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

grows large and they get nearer the right way, then the
\nSpirit who is here in man, now a concealed divinity, a developing light and
\npower, will descend more fully as the Avatar of a yet unseen and unguessed
\nGodhead from above into the soul of mankind and into the great individualities
\nin whom the light and power are the strongest. There will then be fulfilled the
\nchange that will prepare the transition of human life from its present limits
\ninto those larger and purer horizons; the earthly evolution will have taken its
\ngreat impetus upward and accomplished the revealing step in a divine
\nprogression of which the birth of thinking and aspiring man from the animal
\nnature was only an obscure preparation and a far-off promise.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nTHE END<\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage-254<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXIV The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0IF A subjective age, the last sector of a social cycle, is to find…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-15-social-and-political-thought-volume-15","wpcat-25-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}