{"id":3502,"date":"2013-07-13T01:48:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3502"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:48:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:48:58","slug":"26-the-advent-and-progress-of-the-spiritual-age-vol-the-human-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/the-human-cycle\/26-the-advent-and-progress-of-the-spiritual-age-vol-the-human-cycle","title":{"rendered":"-26_The Advent and Progress of the Spiritual Age.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\nCHAPTER XXIV<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTHE ADVENT AND PROGRESS OF THE
\nSPIRITUAL AGE<\/b> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI<\/font>F A <\/b> SUBJECTIVE age, the last sector of a social cycle, is to
\nfind its outlet and fruition in a spiritualised society and the emergence of mankind on a higher evolutionary level, it is not enough
\nthat certain ideas favourable to that turn of human life should
\ntake hold of the general mind of the race, permeate the ordinary
\nmotives of its thought, art, ethics, political ideals, social effort,
\nor even get well into its inner way of thinking and feeling. It is
\nnot enough even that the idea of the kingdom of God on earth,
\na reign of spirituality, freedom and unity, a real and inner equality and harmony\u2014and not merely an outward and mechanical
\nequalisation and association\u2014should become definitely an ideal
\nof life; it is not enough that this ideal should be actively held as
\npossible, desirable, to be sought and striven after, it is not enough
\neven that it should come forward as a governing preoccupation
\nof the human mind. That would evidently be a very great step
\nforward,\u2014considering what the ideals of mankind now are, an
\nenormous step. It would be the necessary beginning, the indispensable mental environment for a living renovation of human
\nsociety in a higher type. But by itself it might only bring about a
\nhalf-hearted or else a strong but only partially and temporarily
\nsuccessful attempt to bring something of the manifest spirit into
\nhuman life and its institutions. That is all that mankind has ever
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 291<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nattempted on this line in the past. It has never attempted to work
\nout thoroughly even that little, except in the limits of a religious
\norder or a peculiar community, and even there with such serious
\ndefects and under such drastic limitations as to make the experiment nugatory and without any bearing on human life. If we do
\nnot get beyond the mere holding of the ideal and its general influence in human life, this little is all that mankind will attempt
\nin the future. More is needed; a general spiritual awakening
\nand aspiration in mankind is indeed the large necessary motive power, but the effective power must be something greater. There
\nmust be a dynamic recreating of individual manhood in the
\nspiritual type. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nFor the way that humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an aspiration which is for the most part left only
\nas an aspiration, accepted only as a partial influence. The ideal
\nis not allowed to mould the whole life, but only more or less to
\ncolour it; it is often used even as a cover and a plea for things that
\nare diametrically opposed to its real spirit. Institutions are created
\nwhich are supposed, but too lightly supposed to embody that
\nspirit and the fact that the ideal is held, the fact that men live
\nunder its institutions is treated as sufficient. The holding of an
\nideal becomes almost an excuse for not living according to the
\nideal; the existence of its institutions is sufficient to abrogate
\nthe 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 nothing if it is not lived inwardly and if the outward life does not flow out of this inward living. Symbols, types,
\nconventions, ideas are not sufficient. A spiritual symbol is only
\na meaningless ticket, unless the thing symbolised is realised in
\nthe spirit. A spiritual convention may lose or expel its spirit
\nand become a falsehood. A spiritual type may be a temporary
\nmould into which spiritual living may flow, but it is also a limitation and may become a prison in which it fossilises and perishes.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 292<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nA spiritual idea is a power, but only when it is both inwardly
\nand outwardly creative. Here we have to enlarge and to deepen
\nthe pragmatic principle that truth is what we create, and in this
\nsense first, that it is what we create within us, in other words,
\nwhat we become. Undoubtedly, spiritual truth exists eternally
\nbeyond independent of us in the heavens of the spirit; but it is
\nof no avail for humanity here, it does not become truth of earth,
\ntruth of life until it is lived. The divine perfection is always there
\nabove us; but for man to become divine in consciousness and act
\nand to live inwardly and outwardly the divine life is what is
\nmeant by spirituality; all lesser meanings given to the word are
\ninadequate tumblings or impostures. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis, as the subjective religions recognise, can only be
\nbrought about by an individual change in each human life. The
\ncollective soul is there only as a great half-subconscient source
\nof the individual existence; if it is to take on a definite psychological form or a new kind of collective life, that can only come
\nby the shaping growth of its individuals. As will be the spirit and
\nlife of the individuals constituting it, so will be the realised spirit
\nof the collectivity and the true power of its life. A society that
\nlives not by its men but by its institutions, is not a collective soul,
\nbut a machine; its life becomes a mechanical product and ceases
\nto be a living growth. Therefore the coming of a spiritual age
\nmust be preceded by the appearance of an increasing number
\nof individuals who are no longer satisfied with the normal intellectual, vital and physical existence of man, but perceive that a
\ngreater evolution is the real goal of humanity and attempt to
\neffect it in themselves, to lead others to it and to make it the recognised goal of the race. In proportion as they succeed and to the
\ndegree to which they carry this evolution, the yet unrealised
\npotentiality which they represent will become an actual possibility of the future. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nA great access of spirituality in the past has ordinarily had <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 293<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfor its result the coming of a new religion of a special type and its
\nendeavour to impose itself upon mankind as a new universal
\norder. This however was always not only a premature but a
\nwrong crystallisation which prevented rather than helped any
\ndeep and serious achievement. The aim of a spiritual age of mankind must indeed be one with the essential aim of subjective
\nreligions, a new birth, a new consciousness, an upward evolution
\nof the human being, a descent of the spirit into our members, a
\nspiritual reorganisation of our life; but if it limits itself by the old
\nfamiliar apparatus and the imperfect means of a religious movement, it is likely to register another failure. A religious movement
\nbrings usually a wave of spiritual excitement and aspiration that
\ncommunicates itself to a large number of individuals and there
\nis as a result a temporary uplifting and an effective formation,
\npartly spiritual, partly ethical, partly dogmatic in its nature. But
\nthe wave after a generation or two or at most a few generations
\nbegins to subside; the formation remains. If there has been a
\nvery powerful movement with a great spiritual personality as its
\nsource, it may leave behind a central influence and an inner
\ndiscipline which may well be the starting-point of fresh waves; but these will be constantly less powerful and enduring in proportion as the movement gets farther and farther away from its
\nsource. For meanwhile in order to bind together the faithful
\nand at the same time to mark them off from the unregenerated
\nouter world, there will have grown up a religious order, a
\nChurch, a hierarchy, a fixed and unprogressive type of ethical
\nliving, a set of crystallised dogmas, ostentations, ceremonials,
\nsanctified superstitions, an elaborate machinery for the salvation
\nof mankind. As a result spirituality is increasingly subordinated
\nto intellectual belief, to outward forms of conduct and to external
\nritual, the higher to the lower motives, the one thing essential to
\naids and instruments and accidents. The first spontaneous and
\npotent attempt to convert the whole life into spiritual living
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 294<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nyields up its place to a set system of belief and ethics touched by
\nspiritual emotion; but finally even that saving element is dominated by the outward machinery, the sheltering structure becomes a tomb. The Church takes the place of the spirit and a
\nformal subscription to its creed, rituals and order is the thing
\nuniversally demanded; spiritual living is only practised by the
\nfew within the limits prescribed by their fixed creed and order.
\nThe majority neglect even that narrow effort and are contented
\nto replace by a careful or negligent piety the call to a deeper life.
\nIn the end it is found that the spirit in the religion has become a
\nthin stream choked by sand; at the most brief occasional floodings
\nof its dry bed of conventions still prevent it from becoming a
\nmemory in the dead chapters of Time. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe ambition of a particular religious belief and form to
\nuniversalise and impose itself is contrary to the variety of human
\nnature and to at least one essential character of the Spirit. For
\nthe nature of the Spirit is a spacious inner freedom and a large
\nunity into which each man must be allowed to grow according
\nto his own nature. Again\u2014and this is yet another source of inevitable failure\u2014the usual tendency of these credal religions is to
\nturn towards an after world and to make the regeneration of the
\nearthly life a secondary motive; this tendency grows in proportion
\nas the original hope of a present universal regeneration of mankind becomes more and more feeble. Therefore while many new
\nspiritual waves with their strong special motives and disciplines
\nmust necessarily be the forerunners of a spiritual age, yet their
\nclaims must be subordinated in the general mind of the race and
\nof its spiritual leaders to the recognition that all motives and disciplines are valid and yet none entirely valid since they are means
\nand not the one thing to be done. The one thing essential must
\ntake precedence, the conversion of the whole life of the human
\nbeing to the lead of the spirit. The ascent of man into heaven is
\nnot the key, but rather his ascent here into the spirit and the <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 295<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ndescent also of the spirit into his normal humanity and the transformation of this earthly nature. For that and not some postmortem salvation is the real new birth for which humanity waits
\nas the crowning movement of its long obscure and painful course. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nTherefore the individuals who will most help the future of
\nhumanity in the new age will be those who will recognise a spiritual evolution as the destiny and therefore the great need of the
\nhuman being. Even as the animal man has been largely converted
\ninto a mentalised and at the top a highly mentalised humanity,
\nso too now or in the future an evolution or conversion\u2014it does
\nnot greatly matter which figure we use or what theory we adopt
\nto support it\u2014of the present type of humanity into a spiritualised
\nhumanity is the need of the race and surely the intention of
\nNature; that evolution or conversion will be their ideal and endeavour. They will be comparatively indifferent to particular
\nbelief and form and leave men to resort to the beliefs and forms
\nto which they are naturally drawn. They will only hold as essential the faith in this spiritual conversion, the attempt to live it
\nout and whatever knowledge\u2014the form of opinion into which it
\nis thrown does not so much matter\u2014can be converted into this
\nliving. They will especially not make the mistake of thinking
\nthat this change can be effected by machinery and outward institutions; they will know and never forget that it has to be lived
\nout by each man inwardly or it can never be made a reality for
\nthe kind. They will adopt in its heart of meaning the inward
\nview of the East which bids man seek the secret of his destiny
\nand salvation within; but also they will accept, though with a
\ndifferent turn given to it, the importance which the West rightly
\nattaches to life and to the making the best we know and can
\nattain the general rule of all life. They will not make society a
\nshadowy background to a few luminous spiritual figures or a
\nrigidly fenced and earth-bound root for the growth of a comparatively rare and sterile flower of ascetic spirituality. They will not
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 296<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\naccept the theory that the many must necessarily remain for ever
\non the lower ranges of life and only a few climb into the free air
\nand the light, but will start from the standpoint of the great
\nspirits who have striven to regenerate the life of the earth and
\nheld that faith in spite of all previous failure. Failures must be
\noriginally numerous in everything great and difficult, but the time
\ncomes when the experience of past failures can be profitably
\nused and the gate that so long resisted opens. In this as in all great
\nhuman aspirations and endeavours, an a priori<\/i> declaration of
\nimpossibility is a sign of ignorance and weakness, and the motto
\nof the aspirant’s endeavour must be the solvitur ambulando<\/i> of
\nthe discoverer. For by the doing the difficulty will be solved. A
\ntrue beginning has to be made; the rest is a work for Time in its
\nsudden achievements or its long patient labour. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe thing to be done is as large as human life, and therefore
\nthe individuals who lead the way, will take all human life for
\ntheir province. These pioneers will consider nothing as alien to
\nthem, nothing as outside their scope. For every part of human
\nlife has to be taken up by the spiritual,\u2014not only the intellectual,
\nthe aesthetic, the ethical, but the dynamic, the vital, the physical; therefore for none of these things or the activities that spring
\nfrom them will they have contempt or aversion, however they
\nmay insist on a change of the spirit and a transmutation of the
\nform. In each power of our nature they will seek for its own
\nproper means of conversion; knowing that the Divine is concealed in all, they will hold that all can be made the spirit’s
\nmeans of self-finding and all can be converted into its instruments of divine living. And they will see that the great necessity
\nis the conversion of the normal into the spiritual mind and the
\nopening of that mind again into its own higher reaches and more
\nand more integral movement. For before the decisive change can
\nbe made, the stumbling intellectual reason has to be converted
\ninto the precise and luminous intuitive, until that again can rise
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 297<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ninto higher ranges to overmind and supermind or gnosis. The
\nuncertain and stumbling mental will has to rise towards the sure
\nintuitive and into a higher divine and gnostic will, the psychic
\nsweetness, fire and light of the soul behind the heart, hridaye
\nguhayam,<\/i> has to alchemise our crude emotions and the hard egoisms and clamant desires of our vital nature. All our other members have to pass through a similar conversion under the compelling force and light from above. The leaders of the
\nspiritual march
\nwill start from and use the knowledge and the means that past
\neffort has developed in this direction, but they will not take them
\nas they are without any deep necessary change or limit themselves by what is now known or cleave only to fixed and stereotyped systems or given groupings of results, but will follow the
\nmethod of the Spirit in Nature. A constant rediscovery and new
\nformulation and larger synthesis in the mind, a mighty remoulding in its deeper parts because of a greater enlarging Truth not
\ndiscovered or not well fixed before, is that Spirit’s way with our
\npast achievement when he moves to the greatness of the future. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nThis endeavour will be a supreme and difficult labour even
\nfor the individual, but much more for the race. It may well be
\nthat, once started, it may not advance rapidly even to its first decisive stage; it may be that it will take long centuries of effort to
\ncome into some kind of permanent birth. But that is not altogether inevitable, for the principle of such changes in Nature
\nseems to be a long obscure preparation followed by a swift gathering up and precipitation of the elements into the new birth, a
\nrapid conversion, a transformation that in its luminous moment
\nfigures like a miracle. Even when the first decisive change is
\nreached, it is certain that all humanity will not be able to rise
\nto that level. There cannot fail to be a division into those who are
\nonly able to live in the light that descends from it into the mental
\nlevel. And below these too there might still be a great mass influenced from above but not yet ready for the light. But even that
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 298<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nwould be a transformation and a beginning far beyond anything
\nyet attained. This hierarchy would not mean as in our present
\nvital living an egoistic domination of the undeveloped by the
\nmore developed, but, a guidance of the younger by the elder
\nbrothers of the race and a constant working to lift them up to a
\ngreater spiritual level and wider horizons. And for the leaders too
\nthis ascent to the first spiritual levels would not be the end of the
\ndivine march, a culmination that left nothing more to achieved
\non earth. For there would be still yet higher levels within the
\nsupramental realm, as the old Vedic poets knew when they spoke
\nof the spiritual life as a constant ascent,\u2014
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nbrahmānas tvā śatakrato <\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nud vamśam iva yemire;<\/i>      
\n<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nyat sānoh sānum āruhat,<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nbhūri aspasta kartvam,\u2014
\n<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n"The priests of the word climb thee like a ladder,
\nO hundredpowered. As one ascends from peak to peak, there is made clear
\nthe much that has still to be done." But once the foundation has
\nbeen secured, the rest develops by a progressive self-unfolding
\nand the soul is sure of its way. As again it is phrased by the
\nancient Vedic singers\u2014<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/p>\n

\nabhyavasthāh pra jāyante,<\/i><\/font><\/p>\n

\n pra vavrer vavriś ciketa;<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\nupasthe mātur vi caste,<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

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

\nThis at least is the highest hope, the possible destiny that
\nopens out before the human view, and it is a possibility which
\nthe progress of the human mind seems on the way to redevelop.
\nIf the light that is being born increases, if the number of individuals who seek to realise the possibility in themselves and in the
\nworld grows large and they get nearer the right way, then the
\nSpirit who is here in man, now a concealed divinity, a developing
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 299<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nlight and power, will descend more fully as the avatar<\/i> of a yet
\nunseen and unguessed Godhead from above into the soul of mankind and into the great individualities in whom the light and
\npower are the strongest. There will then be fulfilled the change
\nthat will prepare the transition of human life from its present
\nlimits into those larger and purer horizons; the earthly evolution
\nwill have taken its great impetus upward and accomplished the
\nrevealing step in a divine progression of which the birth of thinking and aspiring man from the animal nature was only an obscure
\npreparation and a far-off promise. <\/font><\/p>\n

\nPage – 300<\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHAPTER XXIV THE ADVENT AND PROGRESS OF THE SPIRITUAL AGE   IF 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":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-human-cycle","wpcat-81-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502","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=3502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}