{"id":3136,"date":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:46:14","slug":"19-natures-law-in-our-progress-unity-in-diversitylaw-and-liberty-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-ideal-of-human-unity\/19-natures-law-in-our-progress-unity-in-diversitylaw-and-liberty-vol-the-ideal-of-human-unity","title":{"rendered":"-19_Natures Law in Our Progress-Unity in Diversity,Law and Liberty.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER XVII <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nNATURE’S LAW IN OUR PROGRESS\u2014UNITY <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\nIN DIVERSITY, LAW AND LIBERTY<\/font>
\n<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n F<\/font>OR<\/font> man alone of terrestrial creatures to live rightly
\ninvolves the necessity of knowing rightly, whether, as rationalism
\npretends, by the sole or dominant instrumentation of his reason
\nor, more largely and complexly by the sum of his faculties; and
\nwhat he has to know is the true nature of being and its constant
\nself-effectuation in the values of life, in less abstract language the
\nlaw of Nature and especially of his own nature, the forces within
\nhim and around him and their right utilisation for his own greater perfection
\nand happiness or for that and the greater perfection and happiness of his fellow creatures. In the old phrase
\nhis business is to learn to live according to Nature. But Nature
\ncan no longer be imaged, as once it was, as an eternal right rule
\nfrom which man has wandered, since it is rather a thing itself
\nchanging, progressing, evolving, ascending from height to more
\nelevated height, widening from limit to broader limit of its own
\npossibilities. Yet in all this changing there are certain eternal
\nprinciples or truths of being which remain the same and upon
\nthem as bedrock, with them as a primary material and within
\nthem as a framework our progress and perfection are compelled
\nto take place. Otherwise there would be an infinite chaos and
\nnot a world ordered even in the clash of its forces. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe subhuman life of animal and plant is not subjected to
\nthis necessity of knowledge nor of that which is the necessary accompaniment of knowledge, a conscious will impelled always
\nto execute what knowledge perceives. By this exemption it is <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-157 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nsaved from an immense amount of error, deformation and disease, for it lives spontaneously according to Nature, its knowledge
\nand will are hers and incapable, whether conscient or subconscient, of variation
\nfrom her laws and dictates. Man seems on the
\ncontrary to possess a power of turning his mind and will upon
\nNature and a possibility of governing her movement, even of
\nvarying from the course she dictates to him. But here there
\nreally a deformative trick of language. For man’s mentality is also a part of his nature. It is, we may say, Nature become part
\nconscious of her own laws and forces, conscious of her struggle
\nof progression and inspired with the conscious will to impose
\na higher and higher law on her own processes of life and being
\nIn subhuman life there is a vital and physical struggle, but no
\nmental conflict. Man is subjected to this mental conflict and
\ntherefore at war not only with others but with himself; and
\nbecause he is capable of this war with himself, he is also capable
\nof that which is denied to the animal, of an inner evolution,
\na progression from higher to higher type, a constant self-transcending. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThis evolution takes place at present by a conflict and progress of ideas applied to life. In their primary aspect human ideas
\nof life are simply a mental translation of the forces and tendencies of life itself as they emerge in the form of needs, desires and
\ninterests. The human mind has a practical intelligence more or
\nless clear and exact which takes these things into account and
\ngives to one and another a greater or less value according to its own
\nexperience, preference and judgment. Some the man accepts and
\nhelps in their growth by his will and intelligence, others he rejects, discourages and even succeeds in eliminating. But from
\nthis elementary process there emerges a second and more advanced character of man’s ideas about life; he passes beyond the
\nmere mental translation and ready dynamic handling to a regulated valuation of the forces and tendencies that have emerged
\nor are emerging in him and his environment. He studies them
\nas fixed processes and rules of Nature and endeavours to understand their laws
\nand norm. He tries to determine the laws of  his <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-158 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nmind and life and body, the law and rule of the facts and forces
\nabout him that constitute his environment and determine the
\nfield and the mould of his action. Since we are imperfect and
\nevolutionary beings, this study of the laws of life is bound to envisage two aspects; it perceives the rule of what is and the rule
\nof what may or ought to be, the law of our actualities and the law of our potentialities. The latter takes for the human intellect which tends always to an arbitrary and emphatic statement
\nof things, the form of a fixed ideal standard or set of principles
\nfrom which our actual life is a fall and deviation or towards
\nwhich it is a progress and aspiration. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe evolutionary idea of Nature and life brings us to a
\nprofounder view. Both what is and what may be are expressions
\nof the same constant facts of existence and forces or powers of
\nour Nature from which we cannot and are not meant to escape,
\nsince all life is Nature fulfilling itself and not Nature destroying
\nor denying itself; but we may raise and we are intended to raise,
\nchange and widen the forms, arrangements and values of these
\nconstant facts and forces of our nature and existence, and in the
\ncourse of our progress the change and perfectioning may amount
\nto what seems a radical transformation although nothing essential is altered. Our actualities are the form and value or power
\nof expression to which our nature and life have attained; their
\nnorm or law is the fixed arrangement and process proper to that
\nstage of evolution. Our potentialities point us to a new form,
\nvalue, power of expression with their new and appropriate arrangement and process which is their proper law and norm.
\nstanding thus between the actual and the possible, our intellect
\ntends to mistake present law and form for the eternal law of our
\nnature and existence and regard any change as a deviation and fall or else, on the contrary, to mistake some future and potential law and form for our ideal rule of life and all actual deviation
\nfrom that as an error or sin of our nature. In reality, only that is eternal which is constant through all changes and our ideal can
\nbe more than a progressive expression of it. Only the utmost
\nor height, wideness and fullness of self-expression possible <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-159 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nto man, if any such limit there be, could be regarded, did we
\n <\/i>know of it,\u2014and as yet we do not know our utmost possibilities,
\n\u2014as the eternal ideal. . <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWhatever the ideas or ideals which the human mind extracts from life or tries to apply to life, they can be nothing but
\nthe expression of that life itself as it attempts to find more and
\nmore and fix higher and higher its own law and realise its potentialities. Our mentality represents the conscious part of the movement of Nature in this progressive self-realisation and self-fulfilment of the values and potentialities of her human way of living.
\nIf that mentality were perfect it would be one in its knowledge
\nand will with the totality of the secret Knowledge and Will
\nwhich she is trying to bring to the surface and there would be no
\nmental conflict. For we should then be able to identify ourself
\nwith her movement, know her aim and follow intelligently her
\ncourse,\u2014realising the truth on which the Gita lays stress that it
\nis Nature alone that acts and the movements of our mind and
\nlife are only the action of her modes. The subhuman life vitally,
\ninstinctively and mechanically does this very thing, lives according to Nature within the limits of its type and is free from internal conflict though not from conflict with other life. A superhuman life would reach consciously this perfection, make the
\nsecret Knowledge and Will in things its own and fulfil itself
\nthrough Nature by her free, spontaneous and harmonious
\nmovement unhasting, unresting, towards that full development
\nwhich is her inherent and therefore her predestined aim. Actually, because our mentality is imperfect, we catch only a glimpse
\nof her tendencies and objects and each glimpse we get we erect
\ninto an absolute principle or ideal theory of our life and conduct; we see only one side of her process and put that forward as the
\nwhole and perfect system which must govern our ordering of our
\nlife. Working through the imperfect individual and still more
\n<\/i>imperfect collective mind, she raises up the facts and powers of
\nour existence as opposing principles and forces to which we attach ourselves through our intellect and emotions, and 
\nfavouring and depressing now this and now another she leads them in<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-160 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe mind of man through struggle and conflict towards a mutual
\nknowledge and the sense of their mutual necessity and towards
\na progressively right relation and synthesis of their potentialities
\nwhich is represented in an increasing harmony and combination
\nof realised powers in the elastic potentiality of human life. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe social evolution of the human race is necessarily a
\ndevelopment of the relations between three constant factors,
\nindividuals, communities of various sorts and mankind. Each
\nseeks its own fulfilment and satisfaction, but each is compelled
\nto develop them not independently but in relation to the others.
\nThe first natural aim of the individual must be his own inner
\ngrowth and fullness and its expression in his outer life; but this
\nhe can only accomplish through his relations with other individuals, to the various kinds of community religious, social, cultural
\nand political to which he belongs and to the idea and need of
\nhumanity at large. The community must seek its own fulfilment,
\nbut ‘whatever its strength of mass consciousness and collective
\norganisation, can accomplish its growth only through its individuals under the stress of the circumstances set forth by its
\nenvironment and subject to the conditions imposed by its relations to other communities and individuals and to humanity at
\nlarge. Mankind as a whole has at present no consciously organised common life; it has only an inchoate organisation determined
\nmuch more by circumstances than by human intelligence and
\nwill. And yet the idea and the fact of our common human existence, nature, destiny has always exercised its strong influence
\non human thought and action. One of the chief preoccupations
\nor ethics and religion has been the obligations of man to mankind. The pressure of the large movements and fluctuations of
\ntoe race has always affected the destinies of its separate communities, and there has been a constant return pressure of separate
\ncommunities social, cultural, political, religious to expand and
\ndelude, if it might be, the totality of the race. And if or when
\ne whole of humanity arrives at an organised common life and seeks a common fulfilment and satisfaction, it can only do it by
\nmeans of the relation of this whole to its parts and by the aid of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-161 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe expanding life of individual human beings and of the communities whose progress constitutes the larger terms of the life of  the race. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nNature works always through these three terms and none of them can be abolished. She starts from the visible manifestation of the one and the many, from the totality and its constituent units and creates intermediary unities between the two
\nwithout which there can be no full development either of the
\ntotality or of the units. In the life-type itself she creates always
\nthe three terms of genus, species and individual. But while in
\nthe animal life she is satisfied to separate rigidly and group summarily, in the human she strives on the contrary to override the
\ndivisions she has made and lead the whole kind to the sense of
\nunity and the realisation of oneness. Man’s communities are
\nformed not so much by the instinctive herding together of a
\nnumber of individuals of the same genus or species as by local
\nassociation, community of interests and community of ideas; and
\nthese limits tend always to be overcome in the widening of
\nhuman thoughts and sympathies brought about by the closer
\nintermingling of races, nations, interests, ideas, cultures. Still, if
\novercome in their separatism, they are not abolished in their
\nfact, because they repose on an essential principle of Nature,\u2014
\ndiversity in unity. Therefore it would seem that the ideal or
\nultimate aim of Nature must be to develop the individual and
\nall individuals to their full capacity, to develop the community
\nand all communities to the full expression of that many-sided
\nexistence and potentiality which their differences were created
\nto express, and to evolve the united life of mankind to its full
\ncommon capacity and satisfaction not by suppression of the fullness of life of the individual or the smaller commonalty, but by
\nfull advantage taken of the diversity which they develop. This
\nwould seem the soundest way to increase the total riches of mankind and throw
\nthem into a fund of common possession and enjoyment. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe united progress of mankind would thus be realised by
\na general principle of interchange and assimilation between <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-162 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nindividual and individual and again between individual and
\ncommunity, between community and community and again between the smaller commonalty and the totality of mankind,
\nbetween the common life and consciousness of mankind and its
\nfreely developing communal and individual constituents. As a
\nmatter of fact, although this interchange is what Nature even
\nnow contrives to bring about to a certain extent, life is far from
\nbeing governed by such a principle of free and harmonious mutuality. There is a struggle, an opposition of ideas, impulses and
\ninterests, an attempt of each to profit by various kinds of war on
\nthe others, by a kind of intellectual, vital, physical robbery and
\ntheft or even by the suppression, devouring, digestion of its fellows rather than by a free and rich interchange. This is the aspect of life which humanity in its highest thought and aspiration
\nknows that it has to transcend, but has either not yet discovered
\nthe right means or else has not had the force to apply it. It now
\nendeavours instead to get rid of strife and the disorders of growth
\nby a strong subordination or servitude of the life of the individual
\nto the life of the community and, logically, it will be led to the
\nattempt to get rid of strife between communities by a strong
\nsubordination or servitude of the life of the community to the
\nunited and organised life of the human race. To remove freedom
\nin order to get rid of disorder, strife and waste, to remove diversity in order to get rid of separatism and jarring complexities is the
\nimpulse of order and regimentation by which the arbitrary rigidity of the intellectual reason seeks to substitute its straight line
\nfor the difficult curves of the process of Nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut freedom is as necessary to life as law and regime; diversity is as necessary as unity to our true completeness. Existence is only one in its essence and totality, in its play it is necessarily multiform. Absolute uniformity would mean the cessation
\nof life, while on the other hand, the vigour of the pulse of life may be measured by the richness of the diversities which it
\ncreates. At the same time while diversity is essential for power
\nand fruitfulness of life, unity <\/b> is necessary for its order, arrangement and stability. Unity we must create, but not necessarily <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-163 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nuniformity. If man could realise a perfect spiritual unity, no
\nsort of uniformity would be necessary; for the utmost play of
\ndiversity would be securely possible on that foundation. If again
\nhe could realise a secure, clear, firmly held unity in the principle, a rich even an unlimited diversity in its application might
\nbe possible without any fear of disorder, confusion or strife.
\nBecause he cannot do either of these things he is tempted always
\nto substitute uniformity for real unity. While the life-power in
\nman demands diversity, his reason favours uniformity. It prefers
\nit because uniformity gives him a strong and ready illusion of
\nunity in place of the real oneness at which it is so much more
\ndifficult to arrive. It prefers it, secondly, because uniformity
\nmakes easy for him the otherwise difficult business of law, order
\nand regimentation. It prefers it too because the impulse of the
\nmind in man is to make every considerable diversity an excuse
\nfor strife and separation and therefore uniformity seems to him
\nthe one secure and easy way to unification. Moreover, uniformity in any one direction or department of life helps him to economise his energies for development in other directions. If he can
\nstandardise his economic existence and escape from its problems, he is likely to have more leisure and room to attend to his
\nintellectual and cultural growth. Or again, if he standardises his
\nwhole social existence and rejects its farther possible problems,
\nhe is likely to have peace and a free mind to attend more energetically to his spiritual development. Even here, however, the
\ncomplex unity of existence asserts its truth: in the end mans
\ntotal intellectual and cultural growth suffers by social immobility, by any restriction or poverty of his economic life; the spiritual existence of the race, if it attains to remote heights, weakens I
\nat last in its richness and continued sources of vivacity when it
\ndepends on a too standardised and regimented society; inertia
\nfrom below rises and touches even the summits. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nOwing to the defects of our mentality uniformity has
\nto a
\ncertain extent to be admitted and sought after, still the real
\nof Nature is a true unity supporting a rich diversity. Her secret is clear
\nenough from the fact that though she moulds on a general <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-164 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nplan, she insists always on an infinite variation. The plan of
\nthe human form is one, yet no two human beings are precisely
\nalike in their physical characteristics. Human nature is one in its constituents and its grand lines, but no two human beings
\nare precisely alike in their temperament, characteristics and psychological substance. All life is one in its essential plan and
\nprinciple; even the plant is a recognisable brother of the animal
\nbut the unity of life admits and encourages an infinite variety of
\ntypes. The natural variation of human communities from each
\nother proceeds on the same plan as the variation of individuals; each develops its own character, variant principle, natural law.
\nThis variation and fundamental following of its own separate
\nlaw is necessary to its life, but it is equally necessary to the
\nhealthy total life of mankind. For the principle of variation
\ndoes not prevent free interchange, does not oppose the enrichment of all from a common stock and of the common stock by all
\nwhich we have seen to be the ideal principle of existence; on the
\ncontrary, without a secure variation such interchange and mutual
\nassimilation would be out of the question. Therefore we see that
\nin this harmony between our unity and our diversity lies the
\nsecret of life; Nature insists equally in all her works upon unity
\nand upon variation. We shall find that a real spiritual and psychological unity can allow a free diversity and dispense with all
\nbut the minimum of uniformity which is sufficient to embody
\nthe community of nature and of essential principle. Until we
\ncan arrive at that perfection the method of uniformity has to
\nbe applied, but we must not over-apply it on peril of discouraging
\nlife in the very sources of its power, richness and sane natural
\nself-unfolding. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe quarrel between law and liberty stands on the same
\nground and moves to the same solution. The diversity, the variation must be a free variation. Nature does not manufacture,
\ndoes not impose a pattern or a rule from outside; she impels life to grow from within and to assert its own natural law and development modified only by its commerce with its environment. All
\nliberty, individual, national, religious, social, ethical takes its <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-165 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nground upon this fundamental principle of our existence. By
\nliberty we mean the freedom to obey the law of our being; to
\ngrow to our natural self-fulfilment, to find out naturally and
\nfreely our harmony with our environment. The dangers and
\ndisadvantages of liberty, the disorder, strife, waste and confusion
\nto which its wrong use leads are indeed obvious. But they arise
\nfrom the absence or defect of the sense of unity between individual and individual, between community and community,
\nwhich pushes them to assert themselves at the expense of each
\nother instead of growing by mutual help and interchange and to
\nassert freedom for themselves in the very act of encroaching on
\nthe free development of, their fellows. If a real, a spiritual and
\npsychological unity were effectuated, liberty would have no
\nperils and disadvantages; for free individuals enamoured of unity
\nwould be compelled by themselves, by their own need to accommodate perfectly their own growth with the growth of their
\nfellows and would not feel themselves complete except in the
\nfree growth of others. Because of our present imperfection and
\nthe ignorance of our mind and will, law and regimentation
\nhave to be called in to restrain and to compel from outside. The
\nfacile advantages of a strong law and compulsion are obvious, but
\nequally great are its disadvantages. Such perfection as it succeeds
\nin creating tends to be mechanical and even the order it imposes
\nturns out to be artificial and liable to break down if the yoke is
\nloosened or the restraining grasp withdrawn. Carried too far an
\nimposed order discourages the principle of natural growth which
\nis the true method of life and may even slay the capacity for real
\ngrowth. We repress and over-standardise life at our peril; by
\nover-regimentation we crush Nature’s initiative and habit or
\nintuitive self-adaptation. Dwarfed or robbed of elasticity, the
\ndevitalised individuality, even while it seems outwardly fair and
\nsymmetrical, perishes from within. Better anarchy than the long
\ncontinuance of a law which is not our own or which our real
\nnature cannot assimilate. And all repressive or preventive la
\nis only a makeshift, a substitute for the true law which must develop from
\nwithin and be not a check on liberty but its outward <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-166 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nimage and visible expression. Human society progresses
\nreally and vitally in proportion as law becomes the child of freedom; it will reach its perfection when, man having learned to
\nknow and become spiritually one with his fellow-man, the spontaneous law of his society exists only as the outward mould of
\nhis self-governed inner liberty. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-167 <\/font><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XVII   NATURE’S LAW IN OUR PROGRESS\u2014UNITY IN DIVERSITY, LAW AND LIBERTY    FOR man alone of terrestrial creatures to live rightly involves the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-ideal-of-human-unity","wpcat-63-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136","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=3136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}