{"id":118,"date":"2013-07-13T01:26:03","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=118"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:26:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:26:03","slug":"36-on-ideals-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16\/36-on-ideals-vol-16-the-supramental-manifestation-volume-16","title":{"rendered":"-36_On Ideals.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nOn
\nIdeals<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n                             <\/span>I<\/span><\/b>DEALS
\nare truths that have not yet effected themselves for man, the realities of a
\nhigher plane of existence which have yet to fulfil themselves on this lower
\nplane of life and matter, our present field of operation. To the pragmatical
\nintellect which takes its stand upon the ever-changing present, ideals are not
\ntruths, not realities, they are at most potentialities of future truth and only
\nbecome real when they are visible in the external fact as work of force
\naccomplished. But to the mind which is able to draw back from the flux of force
\nin the material universe, to the consciousness which is not imprisoned in its
\nown workings or carried along in their flood but is able to envelop, hold and
\ncomprehend them, to the soul that is not merely the subject and instrument of
\nthe world-force but can reflect something of that Master-Consciousness which
\ncontrols and uses it, the ideal present to its inner vision is a greater reality
\nthan the changing fact obvious to its outer senses. The Idea is not a reflection
\nof the external fact which it so much exceeds; rather the fact is only a partial
\nreflection of the Idea which has created it.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Certainly, ideals are not the ultimate Reality, for that is too high and
\nvast for any ideal to envisage; they are aspects of it thrown out in the
\nworld-consciousness as a basis for the workings of the world-power. But they are
\nprimary, the actual workings secondary. They are nearer to the Reality and
\ntherefore always more real, forcible and complete than the facts which are their
\npartial reflection. Reflections themselves of the Real, they again are reflected
\nin the more concrete workings of our existence. The human intellect, in
\nproportion as it limits itself by the phenomena of self-realising Force, fails
\nto catch the creative Idea until after we have seen the external fact it has
\ncreated; but this order of our sense-enslaved consciousness is not the real
\norder of the universe. God pre-exists before the world can come into being, but
\nto our experience in which the senses act first and only then the finer workings
\nof consciousness, the world seems to\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-301<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

come
\nfirst and God to emerge out of it, so much so that it costs us an effort to rise
\nout of the mechanical, pluralistic and pantheistic conceptions of Him to a truer
\nand higher idea of the Divine Reality. That which to us is the ultimate is in
\ntruth the primary reality. So, too, the Idea which seems to us to rise out of
\nthe fact, really precedes it and out of it the fact has arisen. Our vulgar
\ncontrast of the ideal and the real is therefore a sensuous error, for that which
\nwe call real is only a phenomenon of force working out something that stands
\nbehind the phenomenon and that is pre-existent and greater than it. The Real,
\nthe Idea, the phenomenon, this is the true order of the creative Divinity.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>The pragmatic intellect is only sure of a thing when it finds it realised
\nin Power; therefore it has a certain contempt for the ideal, for the vision,
\nbecause it drives always at execution and material realisation. But Power is not
\nthe only term of the God- head; Knowledge is the elder sister of Power: Force
\nand Consciousness are twin aspects of being, both in the eternal foundation of
\nthings and in their evolutionary realisation. The idea is the realisation of a
\ntruth in Consciousness as the fact is its realisation in Power, both
\nindispensable, both justified in themselves and in each other, neither warranted
\nin ignoring or despising its complement. For the idealist and visionary to
\ndespise the pragmatist or for the pragmatist to depreciate the idealist and
\nvisionary is .a deplorable result of our intellectual limitations and the mutual
\nmisunderstandings by which the arrogance of our imperfect temperament and
\nmentality shuts itself out from perfection. It is as if we were to think that
\nGod the Seer and Knower must despise God the Master of works and energies or the
\nLord of action and sacrifice ignore the divine Witness and Originator. But these
\ntwo are one and the division in us a limitation that man- kind has yet to
\nconquer.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>The human being advances in proportion as he becomes more and more
\ncapable of knowing before he realises in action. This is indeed the order of
\nevolution. It begins with a material working in which the Prakriti, the
\nexecutive Power, is veiled by its works, by the facts it produces, and itself
\nveils the conscious- ness which originates and supports all its workings. In
\nLife the force emerges and becomes vibrant in the very surface of its\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-302<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

works,
\nlast, in Mind the underlying consciousness reveals itself. So, too, man is at
\nfirst subject in his mentality to the facts which his senses envisage, cannot go
\nbehind and beyond them, knows only the impressions they make on his receptive
\nmind. The animal is executive, not creative; a passive tool of Matter and Life
\nhe does not seek in his thought and will to react upon and use them: the human
\nbeing too in his less developed state is executive rather than creative; he
\nlimits his view to the present and to his environment, works so as to live from
\nday to day, accepts what he is without reaching forward in thought to what he
\nmay be, has no ideals. In proportion as he goes beyond the fact and seeks to
\nanticipate Nature, to catch the ideas and principles behind her workings and
\nfinally to seize the idea that is not yet realised in fact and himself preside
\nover its execution, he becomes originative and creative and no longer merely
\nexecutive. He begins thus his passage from subjection to mastery.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>In thus progressing humanity falls apart after its fashion into classes;
\nit divides itself between the practical man and the idealist and makes numerous
\ncompromises between the two extremes. In reality the division is artificial; for
\nevery man who does anything in the world, works by virtue of an idea and in the
\nforce given to him by ideals, either his own or others’ ideals, which he mayor
\nmay not recognise but in whose absence nevertheless he would be impotent to move
\na single step. The smaller the ideals, the fewer they are and the less
\nrecognised and insisted on, the less also is the work done and the progress
\nrealised; on the other hand, when ideals enlarge themselves, when they be- come
\nforceful, widely recognised, when different ideals enter into the field, clash
\nand communicate their thought and force to each other, then the race rises to
\nits great periods of activity and creation. And it is when the ideal arisen,
\nvehement, energetic, re- fuses to be debarred from possession and throws itself
\nwith all the gigantic force of the higher planes of existence on this reluctant
\nand rebellious stuff of life and matter to conquer it that we have the great
\neras which change the world by carrying out the potentialities of several
\ncenturies in the action of a few decades.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Therefore wherever and whenever the mere practical man\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-303<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

abounds
\nand excludes or discourages by his domination the idealist, there is the least
\nwork and the least valuable work done in that age or country for humanity; at
\nmost some preliminary spadework, some labour of conservation and hardly
\nperceptible motion, some repression of creative energies preparing for a great
\nfuture outburst. On the other hand, when the idealist is liberated, when the
\nvisionary abounds, the executive worker also is uplifted, finds at once an
\norientation and tenfold energy and accomplishes things which he would have
\notherwise rejected as a dream and chimera, which to his ordinary capacity would
\nbe impossible and which often leave the world wondering how work so great could
\nhave been done by men who were in themselves so little. The union of the great
\nidealist with the great executive personality who receives and obeys the idea is
\nalways the sign of a coming realisation which will be more or less deep and
\nextensive in proportion as they are united or as the executive man seizes more
\nor less profoundly and completely the idea he serves and is able to make
\npermanent in force what the other has impressed upon the consciousness of his
\nage.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Often enough, even when these two different types of men work in the same
\ncause and one more or less fulfils the other, they are widely separated in their
\naccessory ideas, distrust, dislike and repudiate each other. For ordinarily the
\nidealist is full of anticipations which reach beyond the actual possibilities or
\nexceed the work that is destined to be immediately fulfilled; the executive man,
\non the other hand, is unable to grasp either all the meaning of the work he does
\nor all its diviner possibilities which to him are illusion and vanity, while to
\nthe other they are all that is supremely valuable in his great endeavour. To the
\npractical worker limiting himself by patent forces and actual possibilities the
\nidealist who made his work possible seems an idle dreamer or a troublesome
\nfanatic; to the idealist the practical man who realises the first steps towards
\nhis idea seems a coarse spoiler of the divine work and almost its enemy: for by
\nattaching too much importance to what is immediately possible he removes the
\ngreater possibilities which he does not see, seems to prevent and often does
\nprevent a larger and nobler realisation. It is the gulf between a Cavour and a
\nMazzini, between the prophet of an\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-304<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

ideal
\nand the statesman of a realisable idea. The latter seems
\n<\/span>always to be justified by the event, but the former has a deeper
\njustification in the shortcomings of the event. The successes of the executive
\nman hiding away the ideal under the accomplished fact are often the tragedies of
\nthe human spirit and are responsible for the great reactions and disappointments
\nit under- goes when it finds how poor and soulless is the accomplished fact
\ncompared with the glory of the vision and the ardour of the effort.<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>It cannot be doubted which of these two opposites and complementaries is
\nthe most essential to success. Not only is the upheaval and fertilising of the
\ngeneral consciousness by the thinker and the idealist essential to the practical
\nrealisation of great changes, but in the realisation itself the idealist who
\nwill not compromise is an indispensable element. Show me a movement without a
\nforce of uncompromising idealism working somewhere in its sum of energies and
\nyou have shown me a movement which is doomed to failure and abortion or to petty
\nand inconsiderable results. The age or the country which is entirely composed of
\nreasonable, statesmanlike workers ever ready for concession and compromise is a
\ncountry which will never be great until it has added to itself what is lacking
\nto it and bathed itself in pure and divine fountains and an age which will
\naccomplish nothing of supreme importance for the progress of humanity. There is
\na difference however between the fanatic of an idea and the true idealist: the
\nformer is simply the materialistic, executive man possessed by the idea of
\nanother, not himself the possessor of it; he is haunted in his will and driven
\nby the force of the idea, not really illumined by its light. He does harm as
\nwell as good and his chief use is to prevent the man of compromise from pausing
\nat a paltry or abortive result; but his excesses also bring about great
\nreactions. Incapable of taking his stand on the ideal itself, he puts all his
\nemphasis on particular means and forms and overstrains the springs of action
\ntill they become dulled and incapable of responding to further excitation. But
\nthe true idealist is not the servant of the letter or the form; it is the idea
\nwhich he loves and the spirit behind the idea which he serves.\n<\/p>\n

 
\n           
\n<\/span>Man approaches nearer his perfection when he combines in himself the
\nidealist and the pragmatist, the originative soul\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-305<\/span><\/span>
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

and the executive power. Great
\nexecutive personalities have usually been men of a considerable idealism. Some
\nindeed have served a purpose rather than an ideal; even in the idea that guided
\nor moved them they have leaned to its executive rather than its inspiring and
\noriginative aspect; they have sought their driving force in the interest,
\npassion and emotion attached to it rather than in the idea itself. Others have
\nserved consciously a great single thought or moral aim which they have laboured
\nto execute in their lives. But the greatest men of action who were endowed by
\nNature with the most extraordinary force of accomplishment, have owed it to the
\ncombination in them of active power with an immense drift of originative thought
\ndevoted to practical realisation. They have been great executive thinkers, great
\npractical dreamers. Such were Napoleon and Alexander. Napoleon with his violent
\nprejudice against ideologues and dreamers was him- self a colossal dreamer, an
\nincurable if unconscious ideologist; his teeming brain was the cause of his
\ngigantic force and accomplishment. The immense if shapeless ideas of Alexander
\nthrew – themselves into the form of conquests, cities, cultures; they broke down
\nthe barriers of Greek and Asiatic prejudice and narrow self-imprisonment and
\ncreated an age of civilisation and soul-interchange.<\/p>\n

But
\nthese great personalities do not contain in themselves the combination which
\nhumanity most needs; not the man of action driven by ideas, the pragmatist
\nstirred by a half-conscious exaltation from the idealistic, almost the mystic
\nside of his nature, but the seer who is able to execute his vision is the higher
\nterm of human power and knowledge. The one takes his stand in the Prakriti, the
\nexecutive Force, and is therefore rather driven than leads himself even when he
\nmost successfully leads others; the other takes his stand in the Purusha, the
\nknower who controls executive force, and he possesses the power that he uses. He
\ndraws nearer to the type of the divine Seer-Will that has created and governs
\nthe universe. But such a combination is rare and difficult; for in order to
\ngrasp the ideal the human soul has to draw back so far from the limitations,
\npettinesses, denials of the world of phenomenal fact that the temperament and
\nmentality become inapt for executive action upon the concrete phenomena<\/p>\n

\nPage-306<\/span>
\n 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

of life
\nand matter. The mastery of the fact is usually possible to the idealist mind
\nonly when its idealism is of no great depth or power and can therefore
\naccommodate itself more easily to the actual life-environment.<\/p>\n

         
\nUntil
\nthis difficulty is overcome and the Seer-Will becomes more common in man and
\nmore the master of life, the ideal works at a disadvantage, by a silent pressure
\nupon the reluctant world, by occasional attacks and sudden upheavals; a little
\nis accomplished in a long time or by a great and sudden effort, a little that is
\npoor enough, coarse enough, material enough compared with the thing seen and
\nattempted, but which still makes a farther advance possible though often after a
\nperiod of quiescence and reaction. And times there are, ages of stupendous
\neffort and initiative when the gods seem no longer satisfied with this tardy and
\nfragmentary working, when the ideal breaks constantly through the dull walls of
\nthe material practical life, incalculable forces clash in its field, innumerable
\nideas meet and wrestle in the arena of the world and through the constant storm
\nand flash, agitation of force and agitation of light the possibility of the
\nvictoriously fulfilled ideal, the hope of the Messiah, the expectation of the
\nAvatar takes possession of the hearts and thoughts of men. Such an age seems now
\nto be’ coming upon the world. But whether that hope and expectation and
\npossibility are to come to anything depends upon whether men prepare their souls
\nfor the advent and rise in the effort of their faith, life and thought to the
\nheight and purity of a clearly-grasped ideal. The Messiah or Avatar is nothing
\nbut this, the divine Seer-Will descending upon the human consciousness to reveal
\nto it the divine meaning behind our half-blind action and to give along with the
\nvision the exalted will that is faithful and performs and the ideal force that
\nexecutes according to the vision.\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-307<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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