{"id":49,"date":"2013-07-13T01:25:33","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=49"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:25:33","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:25:33","slug":"48-man-slave-or-free-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03\/48-man-slave-or-free-vol-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","title":{"rendered":"-48_Man Slave or Free.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\n
\nMan ― Slave or Free?<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                    T<\/font>HE <\/font>
\n<\/b>exclusive pursuit of Yoga by men who
\nseclude themselves either physically or mentally from the contact of the world
\nhas led to an erroneous view of this science as something mystic, far-off and unreal. The secrecy which has been
\nobserved with regard to Yogic practices, a necessary secrecy in
\nthe former stages of human evolution \u2014 has stereotyped this
\nerror. Practices followed by men who form secret circles and confine the instruction in the mysteries strictly to those who have a
\ncertain preparatory fitness, inevitably bear the stamp to the outside world of occultism. In reality there is nothing intrinsically
\nhidden, occult or mystic about Yoga. Yoga is based upon certain laws of human psychology, a certain knowledge about the
\npower of the mind over the body and the inner spirit over the
\nmind which are not generally realised and have hitherto been
\nconsidered by those in the secret too momentous in their consequences for disclosure until men should be trained to use them
\naright. Just as a set of men who had discovered and tested the uttermost possibilities of mesmerism and hypnotism might hesitate
\nto divulge them freely to the world lest the hypnotic power should
\nbe misused by ignorance or perversity or abused in the interests
\nof selfishness and crime, so the Yogins have usually preserved
\nthe knowledge of these much greater forces within us in a secrecy
\nbroken only when they were sure of the previous ethical and
\nspiritual training of the neophyte and his physical and moral fitness for the yogic practices. It became therefore an established
\nrule for the learner to observe strict reserve as to the inner experience of Yoga and for the developed Yogin as far as possible to
\nconceal himself. This has not prevented treatises and manuals
\nfrom being published dealing with the physical or with the moral
\nand intellectual sides of Yoga. Nor has it prevented great spirits
\nwho have gained their Yoga not by the ordinary careful and scientific methods but by their own strength and the special grace of
\nGod, from revealing themselves and their spiritual knowledge<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 374<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nto mankind and in their intense love for humanity imparting
\nsomething of their power to the world. Such were Buddha,
\nChrist, Mahomed, Chaitanya, such have been Ramakrishna and
\nVivekananda. It is still the orthodox view that the experiences
\nof Yoga must not be revealed to the uninitiated. But a new era
\ndawns upon us in which the old laws must be modified. Already
\nthe West is beginning to discover the secrets of Yoga. Some of
\nits laws have revealed themselves however dimly and imperfectly
\nto the scientists of Europe while others through Spiritualism,
\nChristian Science, clairvoyance, telepathy and other modern
\nforms of occultism are being almost discovered by accident
\nas if by men groping in the dark <\/b> and stumbling over truths
\nthey cannot understand. The time has almost come when India
\ncan no longer keep her light to herself but must pour it out
\nupon the world. Yoga must be revealed to mankind because
\nwithout it mankind cannot take the next step in the human
\nevolution.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nThe psychology of the human race has not yet been discovered by science. All creation is essentially the same and proceeds by similar though not identical laws. If therefore we see
\nin the outside material world that all phenomena proceed
\nfrom and can be reduced to a single causal substance from
\nwhich they were born, in which they move and to which they
\nreturn, the same truth is likely to hold good in the psychical
\nworld. The unity of the material universe has now been acknowledged by the scientific intellect of Europe and the high
\npriests of atheism and materialism in Germany have declared
\nthe ekamevādvitīyam<\/i>, in matter with no uncertain voice. In
\nso doing they have merely re-affirmed the discovery made by
\nIndian masters of the yogic science thousands of years ago. But
\nthe European scientists have not discovered any sure and certain
\nmethods, such as they have in dealing with gross matter, for investigating psychical phenomena. They can only observe the
\nmost external manifestations of mind in action. But in these
\nmanifestations the mind is so much enveloped in the action of the
\nouter objects and seems so dependent on them that it is very difficult for the observer to find out the springs of its action or any
\nregularity in its workings. The European scientists have there-<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 375<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfore come to the conclusion that it is the stimulations of outside
\nobjects which are the cause of psychical phenomena, and that
\neven when the mind seems to act of itself and on its own material,
\nit is only associating, grouping together and manipulating the
\nrecorded experiences from outside objects. The very nature of
\nmind is, according to them, a creation of past material experience
\ntransmitted by heredity with such persistence that we have grown
\nsteadily from the savage with his rudimentary mind to the
\ncivilised man of the twentieth century. As a natural result of these
\nmaterialistic theories, science has found it difficult to discover
\nany true psychical centre for the multifarious phenomena of mind
\nand has therefore fixed upon the brain, the material organ of
\nthought, as the only real centre. From this materialistic philosophy have resulted certain theories very dangerous to the moral
\nfuture of mankind. First, man is a creation and slave of matter.
\nHe can only master matter by obeying it. Secondly, the mind
\nitself is a form of gross matter and not independent of and master
\nof the senses. Thirdly, there is no real free will, because all our
\naction is determined by two great forces, heredity and environment. We are the slaves of our nature, and where we seem to be
\nfree from its mastery, it is because we are yet worse slaves of our
\nenvironment, worked on by the forces that surround and manipulate us.<\/font><\/p>\n

\nIt is from these false and dangerous doctrines of materialism
\nwhich tend to subvert man’s future and hamper his evolution
\nthat Yoga gives us a means of escape. It asserts on the contrary
\nman’s freedom from matter and gives him a means of asserting
\nthat freedom. The first great fundamental discovery of the
\nYogins was a means of analysing the experiences of the mind and
\nthe heart. By Yoga one can isolate mind, watch its workings as
\nunder a microscope, separate every minute function of the various parts of antahkarana<\/i>, the inner organ, every mental and
\nmoral faculty, test its isolated workings as well as its relations to
\nother functions and faculties and trace backwards the operations
\nof mind to subtler and ever subtler sources until just as material
\nanalysis arrives at a primal entity from which all proceeds, so
\nYoga-analysis arrives at a primal spiritual entity from which all
\nproceeds. It is also able to locate and distinguish the psychical<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 376<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\ncentre to which all psychical phenomena gather and so to fix
\nthe roots of personality. In this analysis its first discovery is that
\nmind can entirely isolate itself from external objects and work
\nin itself and of itself. This does not, it is true, carry us very far,
\nbecause it may be that it is merely using the material already
\nstored up by its past experiences. But the next discovery is that
\nthe farther it removes itself from objects, the more powerfully,
\nsurely, rapidly can the mind work, with a swifter clarity, with
\na victorious and sovereign detachment. This is an experience
\nwhich tends to contradict the scientific theory, that mind can withdraw the senses into itself and bring them to bear on a mass of
\nphenomena of which it is quite unaware when it is occupied with
\nexternal phenomena. Science will naturally challenge these as
\nhallucinations. The answer is that these phenomena are related
\nto each other by regular, simple and intelligible laws and form
\na world of their own, independent of thought acting on the
\nmaterial world. Here, too, Science has this possible answer that
\nthis supposed world is merely an imaginative reflex in the brain
\nof the material world and to any arguments drawn from the definiteness and unexpectedness of these subtle phenomena and their
\nindependence of our own will and imagination, it can always
\noppose its theory of unconscious cerebration and we suppose
\nunconscious imagination. The fourth discovery is that mind is
\nnot only independent of external matter, but its master; it can
\nnot only reject and control external stimuli, but can defy such
\napparently universal material laws as that of gravitation and
\nignore, put aside and make nought of what are called laws of
\nnature and are really only the laws of material nature, inferior
\nand subject to the psychical laws because matter is a product of
\nmind and not mind a product of matter. This is the decisive
\ndiscovery of Yoga, its final contradiction of materialism. It is
\nfollowed by the crowning realisation that there is within us a
\nsource of immeasurable force, immeasurable intelligence, immeasurable joy far above the possibility of weakness, above
\nthe possibility of ignorance, above the possibility of grief which
\nwe can bring into touch with ourselves and, under arduous but
\nnot impossible conditions, habitually utilize or enjoy. This is
\nwhat the Upanishads call the Brahman and the primal entity<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 377<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nfrom which all things were born, in which they live and to which
\nthey return. This is God and communion with Him is the
\nhighest aim of Yoga \u2014 a communion which works for knowledge, for work, for delight.<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage <\/font>
\n\u2013 378<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Man ― Slave or Free?                       THE exclusive pursuit of Yoga by men who seclude themselves either physically or mentally from the contact of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-03-the-harmony-of-virtue-volume-03","wpcat-4-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","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=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}