{"id":1968,"date":"2013-07-13T01:38:36","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1968"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:38:36","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:38:36","slug":"40-a-message-to-america-vol-36-autobiographical-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/36-autobiographical-notes\/40-a-message-to-america-vol-36-autobiographical-notes","title":{"rendered":"-40_A Message to America.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tA Message to America <\/a>
\n<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t I have been asked to send on this occasion of
\n\t\t\tthe fifteenth August a message to the West, but what I have to say
\n\t\t\tmight be delivered equally as a message to the East. It has been
\n\t\t\tcustomary to dwell on the division and difference between these two
\n\t\t\tsections of the human family and even oppose them to each other;
\n\t\t\tbut, for myself I would rather be disposed to dwell on oneness and
\n\t\t\tunity than on division and difference. East and West have the same
\n\t\t\thuman nature, a common human destiny, the same aspiration after a
\n\t\t\tgreater perfection, the same seeking after something higher than
\n\t\t\titself, something towards which inwardly and even outwardly we move.
\n\t\t\tThere has been a tendency in some minds to dwell on the spirituality
\n\t\t\tor mysticism of the East and the materialism of the West; but the
\n\t\t\tWest has had no less than the East its spiritual seekings and,
\n\t\t\tthough not in such profusion, its saints and sages and mystics, the
\n\t\t\tEast has had its materialistic tendencies, its material splendours,
\n\t\t\tits similar or identical dealings with life and Matter and the world
\n\t\t\tin which we live. East and West have always met and mixed more or
\n\t\t\tless closely, they have powerfully influenced each other and at the
\n\t\t\tpresent day are under an increasing compulsion of Nature and Fate to
\n\t\t\tdo so more than ever before.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThere is a common hope, a common destiny, both spiritual and
\n\t\t\tmaterial, for which both are needed as co-workers. It is no longer
\n\t\t\ttowards division and difference that we should turn our minds, but
\n\t\t\ton unity, union, even oneness necessary for the pursuit and
\n\t\t\trealisation of a common ideal, the destined goal, the fulfilment
\n\t\t\ttowards which Nature in her beginning obscurely set out and must in
\n\t\t\tan increasing light of knowledge replacing her first ignorance
\n\t\t\tconstantly persevere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBut what shall be that ideal and that goal? That depends on our
\n\t\t\tconception of the realities of life and the supreme Reality.   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>551<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\t\t\tHere we have to take into account that there has been, not any
\n\t\t\tabsolute difference but an increasing divergence between the
\n\t\t\ttendencies of the East and the West. The highest truth is truth of
\n\t\t\tthe Spirit; a Spirit supreme above the world and yet immanent in the
\n\t\t\tworld and in all that exists, sustaining and leading all towards
\n\t\t\twhatever is the aim and goal and the fulfilment of Nature since her
\n\t\t\tobscure inconscient beginnings through the growth of consciousness
\n\t\t\tis the one aspect of existence which gives a clue to the secret of
\n\t\t\tour being and a meaning to the world. The East has always and
\n\t\t\tincreasingly put the highest emphasis on the supreme truth of the
\n\t\t\tSpirit; it has, even in its extreme philosophies, put the world away
\n\t\t\tas an illusion and regarded the Spirit as the sole reality. The West
\n\t\t\thas concentrated more and more increasingly on the world, on the
\n\t\t\tdealings of mind and life with our material existence, on our
\n\t\t\tmastery over it, on the perfection of mind and life and some
\n\t\t\tfulfilment of the human being here: latterly this has gone so far as
\n\t\t\tthe denial of the Spirit and even the enthronement of Matter as the
\n\t\t\tsole reality. Spiritual perfection as the sole ideal on one side, on
\n\t\t\tthe other, the perfectibility of the race, the perfect society, a
\n\t\t\tperfect development of the human mind and life and man’s material
\n\t\t\texistence have become the largest dream of the future. Yet both are
\n\t\t\ttruths and can be regarded as part of the intention of the Spirit in
\n\t\t\tworld-nature; they are not incompatible with each other: rather
\n\t\t\ttheir divergence has to be healed and both have to be included and
\n\t\t\treconciled in our view of the future. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe Science of the West has discovered evolution as the secret of
\n\t\t\tlife and its process in this material world; but it has laid more
\n\t\t\tstress on the growth of form and species than on the growth of
\n\t\t\tconsciousness: even, consciousness has been regarded as an incident
\n\t\t\tand not the whole secret of the meaning of the evolution. An
\n\t\t\tevolution has been admitted by certain minds in the East, certain
\n\t\t\tphilosophies and Scriptures, but there its sense has been the growth
\n\t\t\tof the soul through developing or successive forms and many lives of
\n\t\t\tthe individual to its own highest reality. For if there is a
\n\t\t\tconscious being in the form, that being can hardly be a temporary
\n\t\t\tphenomenon of consciousness; it must   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>553<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nbe a soul fulfilling itself and this fulfilment can only take place if there is
\na return of the soul to earth in many successive lives, in many successive
\nbodies.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe process of evolution has been the development from and in
\n\t\t\tinconscient Matter of a subconscient and then a conscious Life, of
\n\t\t\tconscious mind first in animal life and then fully in conscious and
\n\t\t\tthinking man, the highest present achievement of evolutionary
\n\t\t\tNature. The achievement of mental being is at present her highest
\n\t\t\tand tends to be regarded as her final work; but it is possible to
\n\t\t\tconceive a still further step of the evolution: Nature may have in
\n\t\t\tview beyond the imperfect mind of man a consciousness that passes
\n\t\t\tout of the mind’s ignorance and possesses truth as its inherent
\n\t\t\tright and nature. There is a truth-consciousness as it is called in
\n\t\t\tthe Veda, a supermind, as I have termed it, possessing Knowledge,
\n\t\t\tnot having to seek after it and constantly miss it. In one of the
\n\t\t\tUpanishads a being of knowledge is stated to be the next step above
\n\t\t\tthe mental being; into that the soul has to rise and through it to
\n\t\t\tattain the perfect bliss of spiritual existence. If that could be
\n\t\t\tachieved as the next evolutionary step of Nature here, then she
\n\t\t\twould be fulfilled and we could conceive of the perfection of life
\n\t\t\teven here, its attainment of a full spiritual living even in this
\n\t\t\tbody or it may be in a perfected body. We could even speak of a
\n\t\t\tdivine life on earth; our human dream of perfectibility would be
\n\t\t\taccomplished and at the same time the aspiration to a heaven on
\n\t\t\tearth common to several religions and spiritual seers and thinkers. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe ascent of the human soul to the supreme Spirit is that soul’s
\n\t\t\thighest aim and necessity, for that is the supreme reality; but
\n\t\t\tthere can be too the descent of the Spirit and its powers into the
\n\t\t\tworld and that would justify the existence of the material world
\n\t\t\talso, give a meaning, a divine purpose to the creation and solve its
\n\t\t\triddle. East and West could be reconciled in the pursuit of the
\n\t\t\thighest and largest ideal, Spirit embrace Matter and Matter find its
\n\t\t\town true reality and the hidden Reality in all things in the Spirit. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t11-8-49 <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSri Aurobindo     <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 <\/font>553<\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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