{"id":980,"date":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=980"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:31:43","slug":"14-standards-of-conduct-and-spiritual-freedom-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20\/14-standards-of-conduct-and-spiritual-freedom-vol-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","title":{"rendered":"-14_Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


\nChapter
\nVII<\/span><\/font><\/b> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font><\/span>Standards of
\nConduct and Spiritual Freedom<\/font><\/span> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font><\/span>HE<\/span><\/font> knowledge on
\nwhich the doer of works in Yoga has to found all his action and development has
\nfor the keystone of its structure a more and more concrete perception of unity,
\nthe living sense of an all-pervading oneness; he moves in the increasing
\nconsciousness of all existence as an indivisible whole: all work too is part of
\nthis divine indivisible whole. His personal action and its results can no longer
\nbe or seem a separate movement mainly or entirely determined by the egoistic
\n\u201cfree\u201d will of an individual, himself separate in the mass. Our works are part
\nof an indivisible cosmic action; they are put or, more accurately, put
\nthemselves into their place in the whole out of which they arise and their
\noutcome is determined by forces that overpass us. That world action in its vast
\ntotality and in every petty detail is the indivisible movement of the One who
\nmanifests himself progressively in the cosmos. Man too becomes progressively
\nconscious of the truth of himself and the truth of things in proportion as he
\nawakens to this One within him and outside him and to the occult, miraculous and
\nsignificant process of its forces in the motion of Nature. This action, this
\nmovement, is not confined even in ourselves and those around us to the little
\nfragmentary portion of the cosmic activities of which we in our superficial
\nconsciousness are aware; it is supported by an immense underlying environing
\nexistence subliminal to our minds or subconscious, and it is attracted by an
\nimmense transcending existence which is superconscious to our nature. Our
\naction arises, as we ourselves have emerged, out of a universality of which we
\nare not aware; we give it a shape by our personal temperament, personal mind
\nand will of thought or force of impulse or desire; but the true truth of
\nthings, the true law of action exceeds these personal and human formations.
\nEvery standpoint,
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 177<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

every man-made rule of
\naction which ignores the indivisible totality of the cosmic movement, whatever
\nits utility in external practice, is to the eye of spiritual Truth an imperfect
\nview and a law of the Ignorance.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when we
\nhave arrived at some glimpse of this idea or succeeded in fixing it in our
\nconsciousness as a knowledge of the mind and a consequent attitude of the soul,
\nit is difficult for us in our outward parts and active nature to square accounts
\nbetween this universal standpoint and the claims of our personal opinion, our
\npersonal will, our personal emotion and desire. We are forced still to go on
\ndealing with this indivisible movement as if it were a mass of impersonal
\nmaterial out<\/span><\/p>\n

of which we, the ego,
\nthe person, have to carve something according to our own will and mental
\nfantasy by a personal struggle and effort. This is man’s normal attitude
\ntowards his environment, actually false because our ego and its will are creations
\nand puppets of the cosmic forces and it is only when we withdraw from ego into
\nthe consciousness of the divine Knowledge-Will of the Eternal who acts in them
\nthat we can be by a sort of deputation from above their master. And yet is this
\npersonal position the right attitude for man so long as he cherishes his
\nindividuality and has not yet fully developed it; for without this view-point
\nand motive-force he cannot grow in his ego, cannot sufficiently develop and
\ndifferentiate himself out of the subconscious or half-conscious universal
\nmass-existence.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the hold
\nof this ego-consciousness upon our whole habit of existence is difficult to
\nshake off when we have no longer need of the separative, the individualistic
\nand aggressive stage of development, when we would proceed forward from this
\nnecessity of littleness in the child-soul to unity and universality, to the
\ncosmic consciousness and beyond, to our transcendent spirit-stature. It is
\nindispensable to recognise clearly, not only in our mode of thought but in our
\nway of feeling, sensing, doing, that this movement, this universal action is
\nnot a helpless impersonal wave of being which lends itself to the will of any
\nego according to that ego’s strength and insistence. It is the movement of a
\ncosmic Being who is the Knower of his field, the steps of a Divinity who is the
\nMaster of his own progressive force of action. As the move- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 178<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

ment<\/span><\/span> is one and
\nindivisible, so he who is present in the movement is one, sole and indivisible.
\nNot only all result is determined by him, but all initiation, action and process
\nare dependent on the motion of his cosmic force and only belong secondarily and
\nin their form to the creature.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what then
\nmust be the spiritual position of the personal worker? What is his true
\nrelation in dynamic Nature to this one cosmic Being and this one total
\nmovement? He is a centre only \u2013 a centre of differentiation of the one personal
\nconsciousness, a centre of determination of the one total movement; his
\npersonality reflects in a wave of persistent individuality the one universal
\nPerson, the Transcendent, the Eternal. In the Ignorance it is always a broken
\nand distorted reflection because the crest of the wave which is our conscious
\nwaking self throws back only an imperfect and falsified similitude of the
\ndivine Spirit. All our opinions, standards, formations, principles are only
\nattempts to represent in this broken, reflecting and distorting mirror
\nsomething of the universal and progressive total action and its many-sided
\nmovement towards some ultimate self-revelation of the Divine. Our mind
\nrepresents it as best it can with a narrow approximation that becomes less and
\nless inadequate in proportion as its thought grows in wideness and light and
\npower; but it is always an approximation and not even a true partial figure.
\nThe Divine Will acts through the aeons to reveal progressively not only in the
\nunity of the cosmos, not only in the collectivity of living and thinking
\ncreatures, but in the soul of each individual something of its divine Mystery
\nand the hidden truth of the Infinite. Therefore there is in the cosmos, in the
\ncollectivity, in the individual, a rooted instinct or belief in its own
\nperfectibility, a constant drive towards an ever increasing and more adequate
\nand more harmonious self-development nearer to the secret truth of things. This
\neffort is represented to the constructing mind of man by standards of
\nknowledge, feeling, character, aesthesis and action, \u2013 rules, ideals, norms and
\nlaws that he essays to turn into universal Dharmas.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>* <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 179<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

If we are to
\nbe free in the spirit, if we are to be subject only to the supreme Truth, we
\nmust discard the idea that our mental or moral laws are binding on the Infinite
\nor that there can be anything sacrosanct, absolute or eternal even in the highest
\nof our existing standards of conduct. To form higher and higher temporary
\nstandards as long as they are needed is to serve the Divine in his world march;
\nto erect rigidly an absolute standard is to attempt the erection of a barrier
\nagainst the eternal waters in their outflow. Once the nature-bound soul
\nrealises this truth, it is delivered from the duality of good and evil. For good
\nis all that helps the individual and the world towards their divine fullness,
\nand evil is all that retards or breaks up that increasing perfection. But since
\nthe perfection is progressive, evolutive in Time, good and evil are also
\nshifting quantities and change from time to time their meaning and value. This
\nthing which is evil now and in its present shape must be abandoned was once
\nhelpful and necessary to the general and individual progress. That other thing
\nwhich we now regard as evil may well become in another form and arrangement an
\nelement in some future perfection. And on the spiritual level we transcend even
\nthis distinction; for we discover the purpose and divine utility of all these
\nthings that we call good and evil. Then have we to reject the falsehood in them
\nand all that is distorted, ignorant and obscure in that which is called good no
\nless than in that which is called evil. For we have then to accept only the
\ntrue and the divine, but to make no other distinction in the eternal processes.<\/span><\/p>\n

To those who
\ncan act only on a rigid standard, to those who can feel only the human and not
\nthe divine values, this truth may seem to be a dangerous concession which is
\nlikely to destroy the very foundation of morality, confuse all conduct and establish
\nonly chaos. Certainly, if the choice must be between an eternal and unchanging
\nethics and no ethics at all, it would have that result for man in his
\nignorance. But even on the human level, if we have light enough and flexibility
\nenough to recognise that a standard of conduct may be temporary and yet
\nnecessary for its time and to observe it faithfully until it can be replaced by
\na better, then we suffer no such loss, but lose only the fanaticism of an
\nimperfect and intolerant virtue. In its place we gain openness
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 180<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

and a power of continual
\nmoral progression, charity, the capacity to enter into an understanding
\nsympathy with all this world of struggling and stumbling creatures and by that
\ncharity a better right and a greater strength to help it upon its way. In the
\nend where the human closes and the divine commences, where the mental
\ndisappears into the supramental consciousness and the finite precipitates
\nitself into the infinite, all evil disappears into a transcendent divine Good
\nwhich becomes universal on every plane of consciousness that it touches.<\/span><\/p>\n

This, then,
\nstands fixed for us that all standards by which we may seek to govern our
\nconduct are only our temporary, imperfect and evolutive attempts to represent
\nto ourselves our stumbling mental progress in the universal self-realisation towards
\nwhich Nature moves. But the divine manifestation cannot be bound by our little
\nrules and fragile sanctities; for the consciousness behind it is too vast for
\nthese things. Once we have grasped this fact, disconcerting enough to the
\nabsolutism of our reason, we shall better be able to put in their right place
\nin regard to each other the successive standards that govern the different
\nstages in the growth of the individual and the collective march of mankind. At
\nthe most general of them we may cast a passing glance. For we have to see how
\nthey stand in relation to that other standardless spiritual and supramental
\nmode of working for which Yoga seeks and to which it moves by the surrender of
\nthe individual to the divine Will and, more effectively, through his ascent by
\nthis surrender to the greater consciousness in which a certain identity with the
\ndynamic Eternal becomes possible. <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

There are
\nfour main standards of human conduct that make an ascending scale. The first is
\npersonal need, preference and desire; the second is the law and good of the
\ncollectivity; the third is an ideal ethic; the last is the highest divine law
\nof the nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Man starts on
\nthe long career of his evolution with only the first two of these four to
\nenlighten and lead him; for they constitute the law of his animal and vital
\nexistence, and it is as the
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 181<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

vital and physical
\nanimal man that he begins his progress. The true business of man upon earth is
\nto express in the type of humanity a growing image of the Divine; whether knowingly
\nor unknowingly, it is to this end that Nature is working in him under the thick
\nveil of her inner and outer processes. But the material or animal man is
\nignorant of the inner aim of life; he knows only its needs and its desires and
\nhe has necessarily no other guide to what is required of him than his own
\nperception of need and his own stirrings and pointings of desire. To satisfy
\nhis physical and vital demands and necessities before all things else and, in
\nthe next rank, whatever emotional or mental cravings or imaginations or dynamic
\nnotions rise in him must be the first natural rule of his conduct. The sole
\nbalancing or overpowering law that can modify or contradict this pressing
\nnatural claim is the demand put on him by the ideas, needs and desires of his
\nfamily, community or tribe, the herd, the pack of which he is a member.<\/span><\/p>\n

If man could
\nlive to himself, \u2013 and this he could only do if the development of the
\nindividual were the sole object of the Divine in the world, \u2013 this second law
\nwould not at all need to come into operation. But all existence proceeds by the
\nmutual action and reaction of the whole and the parts, the need for each other
\nof the constituents and the thing constituted, the interdependence of the group
\nand the individuals of the group. In the language of Indian philosophy the
\nDivine manifests himself always in the double form of the separative and the
\ncollective being, vyaşţi, samaşţi. Man, pressing after the
\ngrowth of his separate individuality and its fullness and freedom, is unable to
\nsatisfy even his own personal needs and desires except in conjunction with
\nother men; he is a whole in himself and yet incomplete without others. This
\nobligation englobes his personal law of conduct in a group-law which arises
\nfrom the formation of a lasting group-entity with a collective mind and life of
\nits own to which his own embodied mind and life are subordinated as a
\ntransitory unit. And yet is there something in him immortal and free, not bound
\nto this group-body which outlasts his own embodied existence but cannot outlast
\nor claim to chain by its law his eternal spirit.
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 182<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

In itself
\nthis seemingly larger and overriding law is no more than an extension of the
\nvital and animal principle that governs the individual elementary man; it is
\nthe law of the pack or herd. The individual identifies partially his life with
\nthe life of a certain number of other individuals with whom he is associated by
\nbirth, choice or circumstance. And since the existence of the group is
\nnecessary for his own existence and satisfaction, in time, if not from the
\nfirst, its preservation, the fulfilment of its needs and the satisfaction of
\nits collective notions, desires, habits of living, without which it would not
\nhold together, must come to take a primary place. The satisfaction of personal
\nidea and feeling, need and desire, propensity and habit has to be constantly
\nsubordinated, by the necessity of the situation and not from any moral or
\naltruistic motive, to the satisfaction of the ideas and feelings, needs and
\ndesires, propensities and habits, not of this or that other individual or
\nnumber of individuals, but of the society as a whole. This social need is the
\nobscure matrix of morality and of man’s ethical impulse.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not
\nactually known that in any primitive times man lived to himself or with only
\nhis mate as do some of the animals. All record of him shows him to us as a
\nsocial animal, not an isolated body and spirit. The law of the pack has always overridden
\nhis individual law of self-development; he seems always to have been born, to
\nhave lived, to have been formed as a unit in a mass. But logically and
\nnaturally from the psychological view-point the law of personal need and desire
\nis primary, the social law comes in as a secondary and usurping power. Man has
\nin him two distinct master impulses, the individualistic and the communal, a
\npersonal life and a social life, a personal motive of conduct and a social
\nmotive of conduct. The possibility of their opposition and the attempt to find
\ntheir equation lie at the very roots of human civilisation and persist in other
\nfigures when he has passed beyond the vital animal into a highly individualised
\nmental and spiritual progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

The existence
\nof a social law external to the individual is at different times a considerable
\nadvantage and a heavy disadvantage to the development of the divine in man. It
\nis an advantage at first when man is crude and incapable of self-control and
\nself- <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 183<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

finding, because it
\nerects a power other than that of his personal egoism through which that egoism
\nmay be induced or compelled to moderate its savage demands, to discipline its
\nirrational and often violent movements and even to lose itself sometimes in a
\nlarger and less personal egoism. It is a disadvantage to the adult spirit ready
\nto transcend the human formula because it is an external standard which seeks
\nto impose itself on him from outside, and the condition of his perfection is
\nthat he shall grow from within and in an increasing freedom, not by the
\nsuppression but by the transcendence of his perfected individuality, not any
\nlonger by a law imposed on him that trains and disciplines his members but by
\nthe soul from within breaking through all previous forms to possess with its
\nlight and transmute his members. <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

In the
\nconflict of the claims of society with the claims of the individual two ideal
\nand absolute solutions confront one another. There is the demand of the group
\nthat the individual should subordinate himself more or less completely or even lose
\nhis independent existence in the community, the smaller must be immolated or
\nself-offered to the larger unit. He must accept the need of the society as his
\nown need, the desire of the society as his own desire; he must live not for
\nhimself but for the tribe, clan, commune or nation of which he is a member. The
\nideal and absolute solution from the individual’s standpoint would be a society
\nthat existed not for itself, for its all-overriding collective purpose, but for
\nthe good of the individual and his fulfilment, for the greater and more perfect
\nlife of all its members. Representing as far as possible his best self and
\nhelping him to realise it, it would respect the freedom of each of its members
\nand maintain itself not by law and force but by the free and spontaneous consent
\nof its constituent persons. An ideal society of either kind does not exist
\nanywhere and would be most difficult to create, more difficult still to keep in
\nprecarious existence so long as individual man clings to his egoism as the
\nprimary motive of existence. A general but not complete domination of
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 184<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

the society over the
\nindividual is the easier way and it is the system that Nature from the first
\ninstinctively adopts and keeps in equilibrium by rigorous law, compelling
\ncustom and a careful indoctrination of the still subservient and ill-developed
\nintelligence of the human creature.<\/span><\/p>\n

In primitive
\nsocieties the individual life is submitted to rigid and immobile communal
\ncustom and rule; this is the ancient and would-be eternal law of the human pack
\nthat tries always to masquerade as the everlasting decree of the Imperishable,
\neşa dharmah sanātanah. And the ideal is not dead in the human mind;
\nthe most recent trend of human progress is to establish an enlarged and
\nsumptuous edition of this ancient turn of collective living towards the
\nenslavement of the human spirit. There is here a serious danger to the integral
\ndevelopment of a greater truth upon earth and a greater life. For the desires
\nand free seekings of the individual, however egoistic, however false or
\nperverted they may be in their immediate form, contain in their obscure shell
\nthe seed of a development necessary to the whole; his searchings and stumblings
\nhave behind them a force that has to be kept and transmuted into the image of
\nthe divine ideal. That force needs to be enlightened and trained but must not
\nbe suppressed or harnessed exclusively to society’s heavy cart-wheels.
\nIndividualism is as necessary to the final perfection as the power behind the
\ngroup-spirit; the stifling of the individual may well be the stifling of the
\ngod in man. And in the present balance of humanity there is seldom any real
\ndanger of exaggerated individualism breaking up the social integer. There is
\ncontinually a danger that the exaggerated pressure of the social mass by its
\nheavy unenlightened mechanical weight may suppress or unduly discourage the
\nfree development of the individual spirit. For man in the individual can be
\nmore easily enlightened, conscious, open to clear influences; man in the mass
\nis still obscure, half-conscious, ruled by universal forces that escape its
\nmastery and its knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this
\ndanger of suppression and immobilisation Nature in the individual reacts. It
\nmay react by an isolated resistance ranging from the instinctive and brutal
\nrevolt of the criminal to the complete negation of the solitary and ascetic. It
\nmay
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 185<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

react by the assertion
\nof an individualistic trend in the social idea, may impose it on the mass
\nconsciousness and establish a compromise between the individual and the social
\ndemand. But a compromise is not a solution; it only salves over the difficulty
\nand in the end increases the complexity of the problem and multiplies its
\nissues. A new principle has to be called in other and higher than the two
\nconflicting instincts and powerful at once to override and to reconcile them.
\nAbove the natural individual law which sets up as our one standard of conduct
\nthe satisfaction of our individual needs, preferences and desires and the
\nnatural communal law which sets up as a superior standard the satisfaction of
\nthe needs, preferences and desires of the community as a whole, there had to
\narise the notion of an ideal moral law which is not the satisfaction of need
\nand desire, but controls and even coerces or annuls them in the interests of an
\nideal order that is not animal, not vital and physical, but mental, a creation
\nof the mind’s seeking for light and knowledge and right rule and right movement
\nand true order. The moment this notion becomes powerful in man, he begins to
\nescape from the engrossing vital and material into the mental life; he climbs
\nfrom the first to the second degree of the threefold ascent of Nature. His
\nneeds and desires themselves are touched with a more elevated light of purpose
\nand the mental need, the aesthetic, intellectual and emotional desire begin to
\npredominate over the demand of the physical and vital nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The natural
\nlaw of conduct proceeds from a conflict to an equilibrium of forces, impulsions
\nand desires; the higher ethical law proceeds by the development of the mental
\nand moral nature towards a fixed internal standard or else a self-formed ideal
\nof absolute qualities, \u2013 justice, righteousness, love, right reason, right
\npower, beauty, light. It is therefore essentially an individual standard; it is
\nnot a creation of the mass mind. The thinker is the individual; it is he who
\ncalls out and throws into forms that which would otherwise remain subconscious
\nin the amorphous human whole. The moral striver is also the individual; <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 186<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

self-discipline, not
\nunder the yoke of an outer law, but in obedience to an internal light, is
\nessentially an individual effort. But by positing his personal standard as the
\ntranslation of an absolute moral ideal the thinker imposes it, not on himself
\nalone, but on all the individuals whom his thought can reach and penetrate. And
\nas the mass of individuals come more and more to accept it in idea if only in
\nan imperfect practice or no practice, society also is compelled to obey the new
\norientation. It absorbs the ideative influence and tries, not with any striking
\nsuccess, to mould its institutions into new forms touched by these higher
\nideals. But always its instinct is to translate them into binding law, into
\npattern forms, into mechanic custom, into an external social compulsion upon
\nits living units.<\/span><\/p>\n

For, long
\nafter the individual has become partially free, a moral organism capable of
\nconscious growth, aware of an inward life, eager for spiritual progress,
\nsociety continues to be external in its methods, a material and economic
\norganism, mechanical, more intent upon status and self-preservation than on
\ngrowth and self-perfection. The greatest present triumph of the thinking and
\nprogressive individual over the instinctive and static society has been the
\npower he has acquired by his thought-will to compel it to think also, to open itself
\nto the idea of social justice and righteousness, communal sympathy and mutual
\ncompassion, to feel after the rule of reason rather than blind custom as the
\ntest of its institutions and to look on the mental and moral assent of its
\nindividuals as at least one essential element in the validity of its laws.
\nIdeally at least, to consider light rather than force as its sanction, moral
\ndevelopment and not vengeance or restraint as the object even of its penal
\naction, is becoming just possible to the communal mind. The greatest future
\ntriumph of the thinker will come when he can persuade the individual integer
\nand the collective whole to rest their life-relation and its union and
\nstability upon a free and harmonious consent and self-adaptation, and shape and
\ngovern the external by the internal truth rather than to constrain the inner
\nspirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even this
\nsuccess that he has gained is rather a thing in potentiality than in actual
\naccomplishment. There is always<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 187<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

<\/a>a disharmony
\nand a discord between the moral law in the individual and the law of his needs
\nand desires, between the moral law proposed to society and the physical and
\nvital needs, desires, customs, prejudices, interests and passions of the caste,
\nthe clan, the religious community, the society, the nation. The moralist erects
\nin vain his absolute ethical standard and calls upon all to be faithful to it
\nwithout regard to consequences. To him the needs and desires of the individual
\nare invalid if they are in conflict with the moral law, and the social law has
\nno claims upon him if it is opposed to his sense of right and denied by his
\nconscience. This is his absolute solution for the individual that he shall
\ncherish no desires and claims that are not consistent with love, truth and
\njustice. He demands from the community or nation that it shall hold all things
\ncheap, even its safety and its most pressing interests, in comparison with
\ntruth, justice, humanity and the highest good of the peoples. <\/span><\/p>\n

No individual
\nrises to these heights except in intense moments, no society yet created
\nsatisfies this ideal. And in the present state of morality and of human
\ndevelopment none perhaps can or ought to satisfy it. Nature will not allow it,
\nNature knows that it should not be. The first reason is that our moral ideals
\nare themselves for the most part ill-evolved, ignorant and arbitrary, mental
\nconstructions rather than transcriptions of the eternal truths of the spirit.
\nAuthoritative and dogmatic, they assert certain absolute standards in theory,
\nbut in practice every existing system of ethics proves either in application unworkable
\nor is in fact a constant coming short of the absolute standard to which the
\nideal pretends. If our ethical system is a compromise or a makeshift, it gives
\nat once a principle of justification to the further sterilising compromises
\nwhich society and the individual hasten to make with it. And if it insists on
\nabsolute love, justice, right with an uncompromising insistence, it soars above
\nthe head of human possibility and is professed with lip homage but ignored in
\npractice. Even it is found that it ignores other elements in humanity which
\nequally insist on survival but refuse to come within the moral formula. For
\njust as the individual law of desire contains within it invaluable elements of
\nthe infinite whole which have to be protected against
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 188<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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the tyranny of the
\nabsorbing social idea, the innate impulses too both of individual and of
\ncollective man contain in them invaluable elements which escape the limits of
\nany ethical formula yet discovered and are yet necessary to the fullness and harmony
\nof an eventual divine perfection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover,
\nabsolute love, absolute justice, absolute right reason in their present
\napplication by a bewildered and imperfect humanity come easily to be
\nconflicting principles. Justice often demands what love abhors. Right reason dispassionately
\nconsidering the facts of nature and human relations in search of a satisfying
\nnorm or rule is unable to admit without modification either any reign of
\nabsolute justice or any reign of absolute love. And in fact man’s absolute
\njustice easily turns out to be in practice a sovereign injustice; for his mind,
\none-sided and rigid in its constructions, puts forward a one-sided partial and
\nrigorous scheme or figure and claims for it totality and absoluteness and an
\napplication that ignores the subtler truth of things and the plasticity of
\nlife. All our standards turned into action either waver on a flux of
\ncompromises or err by this partiality and unelastic structure. Humanity sways
\nfrom one orientation to another; the race moves upon a zigzag path led by
\nconflicting claims and, on the whole, works out instinctively what Nature
\nintends, but with much waste and suffering, rather than either what it desires
\nor what it holds to be right or what the highest light from above demands from the
\nembodied spirit.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The fact is
\nthat when we have reached the cult of absolute ethical qualities and erected
\nthe categorical imperative of an ideal law, we have not come to the end of our
\nsearch or touched the truth that delivers. There is, no doubt, something here that
\nhelps us to rise beyond limitation by the physical and vital man in us, an
\ninsistence that overpasses the individual and collective needs and desires of a
\nhumanity still bound to the living mud of Matter in which it took its roots, an
\naspiration that helps to develop the mental and moral being in us: this new
\nsublimating element has been therefore an acquisition of great importance; its
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 189<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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workings have marked a
\nconsiderable step forward in the difficult evolution of terrestrial Nature. And
\nbehind the inadequacy of these ethical conceptions something too is concealed
\nthat does attach to a supreme Truth; there is here the glimmer of a light and
\npower that are part of a yet unreached divine Nature. But the mental idea of
\nthese things is not that light and the moral formulation of them is not that
\npower. These are only representative constructions of the mind that cannot
\nembody the divine spirit which they vainly endeavour to imprison in their
\ncategorical formulas. Beyond the mental and moral being in us is a greater
\ndivine being that is spiritual and supramental; for it is only through a large
\nspiritual plane where the mind’s formulas dissolve in a white flame of direct
\ninner experience that we can reach beyond mind and pass from its constructions
\nto the vastness and freedom of the supramental realities. There alone can we
\ntouch the harmony of the divine powers that are poorly mispresented to our mind
\nor framed into a false figure by the conflicting or \u00a0<\/span>wavering elements of the moral law. There
\nalone the unification of the transformed vital and physical and the illumined
\nmental man becomes possible in that supramental Spirit which is at once the
\nsecret source and goal of our mind and life and body. There alone is there any
\npossibility of an absolute justice, love and right \u2013 far other than that which
\nwe imagine \u2013 at one with each other in the light of a supreme divine knowledge.
\nThere alone can there be a reconciliation of the conflict between our members.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other
\nwords there is, above society’s external law and man’s moral law and beyond
\nthem, though feebly and ignorantly aimed at by something within them, a larger truth
\nof a vast unbound consciousness, a law divine towards which both these blind
\nand gross formulations are progressive faltering steps that try to escape from
\nthe natural law of the animal to a more exalted light or universal rule. That
\ndivine standard, since the godhead in us is our spirit moving towards its own
\nconcealed perfection, must be a supreme spiritual law and truth of our nature.
\nAgain, as we are embodied beings in the world with a common existence and
\nnature and yet individual souls capable of direct touch with the Transcendent,
\nthis supreme truth of ourselves must have a
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 190<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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double character. It
\nmust be a law and truth that discovers the perfect movement, harmony, rhythm of
\na great spiritualised collective life and determines perfectly our relations
\nwith each being and all beings in Nature’s varied oneness. It must be at the
\nsame time a law and truth that discovers to us at each moment the rhythm and
\nexact steps of the direct expression of the Divine in the soul, mind, life,
\nbody of the individual creature.\u00b9 And we find in experience that this supreme
\nlight and force of action in its highest expression is at once an imperative
\nlaw and an absolute freedom. It is an imperative law because it governs by
\nimmutable Truth our every inner and outer movement. And yet at each moment and
\nin each movement the absolute freedom of the Supreme handles the perfect plasticity
\nof our conscious and liberated nature.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ethical
\nidealist tries to discover this supreme law in his own moral data, in the inferior
\npowers and factors that belong to the mental and ethical formula. And to
\nsustain and organise them he selects a fundamental principle of conduct essentially
\nunsound and constructed by the intellect, utility, hedonism, reason, intuitive
\nconscience or any other generalised standard. All such efforts are foredoomed
\nto failure. Our inner nature is the progressive expression of the eternal
\nSpirit and too complex a power to be tied down by a single dominant mental or moral
\nprinciple. Only the supramental consciousness can reveal to its differing and
\nconflicting forces their spiritual truth and harmonise their divergences.<\/span><\/p>\n

The later
\nreligions endeavour to fix the type of a supreme truth of conduct, erect a
\nsystem and declare God’s law through the mouth of Avatar or prophet. These
\nsystems, more powerful and dynamic than the dry ethical idea, are yet for the
\nmost part no more than idealistic glorifications of the moral principle
\nsanctified by religious emotion and the label of a superhuman origin. Some,
\nlike the extreme Christian ethic, are rejected by Nature because they insist
\nunworkably on an impracticable absolute rule. Others prove in the end to be
\nevolutionary compromises and become obsolete in the march of Time. The true
\ndivine <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00b9 Therefore
\nthe Gita defines \u201cDharma\u201d, an expression which means more than either religion
\nor morality, as action controlled by our essential manner of self-being. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 191<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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law, unlike these mental
\ncounterfeits, cannot be a system of rigid ethical determinations that press
\ninto their cast-iron moulds all our life-movements. The Law divine is truth of
\nlife and truth of the spirit and must take up with a free living plasticity and
\ninspire with the direct touch of its eternal light each step of our action and
\nall the complexity of our life issues. It must act not as a rule and formula
\nbut as an enveloping and penetrating conscious presence that determines all our
\nthoughts, activities, feelings, impulsions of will by its infallible power and
\nknowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

The older
\nreligions erected their rule of the wise, their dicta of Manu or Confucius, a
\ncomplex Shastra in which they attempted to combine the social rule and moral
\nlaw with the declaration of certain eternal principles of our highest nature in
\nsome kind of uniting amalgam. All three were treated on the same ground as
\nequally the expression of everlasting verities, sanātana dharma<\/i>. But two of these elements are evolutionary
\nand valid for a time, mental constructions, human readings of the will of the
\nEternal; the third, attached and subdued to certain social and moral formulas,
\nhad to share the fortunes of its forms. Either the Shastra grows obsolete and
\nhas to be progressively changed or finally cast away or else it stands as a rigid
\nbarrier to the self-development of the individual and the race. The Shastra
\nerects a collective and external standard; it ignores the inner nature of the
\nindividual, the indeterminable elements of a secret spiritual force within him.
\nBut the nature of the individual will not be ignored; its demand is inexorable.
\nThe unrestrained indulgence of his outer impulses leads to anarchy and
\ndissolution, but the suppression and coercion of his soul’s freedom by a fixed
\nand mechanical rule spells stagnation or an inner death. Not this coercion or
\ndetermination from outside, but the free discovery of his highest spirit and
\nthe truth of an eternal movement is the supreme thing that he has to discover.<\/span><\/p>\n

The higher
\nethical law is discovered by the individual in his mind and will and psychic
\nsense and then extended to the race. The supreme law also must be discovered by
\nthe individual in his spirit. Then only, through a spiritual influence and not by
\nthe mental idea, can it be extended to others. A moral law can be <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\u2013 192<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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imposed as a rule or an
\nideal on numbers of men who have not attained that level of consciousness or
\nthat fineness of mind and will and psychic sense in which it can become a reality
\nto them and a living force. As an ideal it can be revered without any need of
\npractice. As a rule it can be observed in its outsides even if the inner sense
\nis missed altogether. The supramental and spiritual life cannot be mechanised
\nin this way, it cannot be turned into a mental ideal or an external rule. It
\nhas its own great lines, but these must be made real, must be the workings of
\nan active Power felt in the individual’s consciousness and the transcriptions
\nof an eternal Truth powerful to transform mind, life and body. And because it
\nis thus real, effective, imperative, the generalisation of the supramental consciousness
\nand the spiritual life is the sole force that can lead to individual and
\ncollective perfection in earth’s highest creatures. Only by our coming into
\nconstant touch with the divine Consciousness and its absolute Truth can some
\nform of the conscious Divine, the dynamic Absolute, take up our earth-existence
\nand transform its strife, stumbling, sufferings and falsities into an image of
\nthe supreme Light, Power and Ananda.<\/span><\/p>\n

The
\nculmination of the soul’s constant touch with the Supreme is that self-giving which
\nwe call surrender to the divine Will and immergence of the separated ego in the
\nOne who is all. A vast universality of soul and an intense unity with all is the
\nbase and fixed condition of the supramental consciousness and spiritual life.
\nIn that universality and unity alone can we find the supreme law of the divine
\nmanifestation in the life of the embodied spirit; in that alone can we discover
\nthe supreme motion and right play of our individual nature. In that alone can
\nall these lower discords resolve themselves into a victorious harmony of the
\ntrue relations between manifested beings who are portions of the one Godhead
\nand children of one universal Mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>*<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

All conduct
\nand action are part of the movement of a Power, a Force infinite and divine in
\nits origin and secret sense and will even though the forms of it we see seem
\ninconscient or
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 193<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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ignorant, material,
\nvital, mental, finite, which is working to bring out progressively something of
\nthe Divine and Infinite in the obscurity of the individual and collective
\nnature. This power is leading towards the Light, but still through the
\nIgnorance. It leads man first through his needs and desires; it guides him next
\nthrough enlarged needs and desires modified and enlightened by a mental and
\nmoral ideal. It is preparing to lead him to a spiritual realisation that
\noverrides these things and yet fulfils and reconciles them in all that is
\ndivinely true in their spirit and purpose. It transforms the needs and desires
\ninto a divine Will and Ananda. It transforms the mental and moral aspiration
\ninto the powers of Truth and Perfection that are beyond them. It substitutes
\nfor the divided straining of the individual nature, for the passion and strife
\nof the separate ego, the calm, profound, harmonious and happy law of the universalised
\nperson within us, the central being, the spirit that is a portion of the
\nsupreme Spirit. This true Person in us, because it is universal, does not seek
\nits separate gratification but only asks in its outward expression in Nature
\nits growth to its real stature, the expression of its inner divine self, that
\ntranscendent spiritual power and presence within it which is one with all and
\nin sympathy with each thing and creature and with all the collective
\npersonalities and powers of the divine existence, and yet it transcends them
\nand is not bound by the egoism of any creature or collectivity or limited by
\nthe ignorant controls of their lower nature. This is the high realisation in
\nfront of all our seeking and striving, and it gives the sure promise of a
\nperfect reconciliation and transmutation of all the elements of our nature. A
\npure, total and flawless action is possible only when that is effected and we
\nhave reached the height of this secret Godhead within us.<\/span><\/p>\n

The perfect
\nsupramental action will not follow any single principle or limited rule. It is
\nnot likely to satisfy the standard either of the individual egoist or of any
\norganised group-mind. It will conform to the demand neither of the positive
\npractical man of the world nor of the formal moralist nor of the patriot nor of
\nthe sentimental philanthropist nor of the idealising philosopher. It will
\nproceed by a spontaneous outflowing from the summits in the totality of an
\nillumined and uplifted being, will <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 194<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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and knowledge and not by
\nthe selected, calculated and standardised action which is all that the
\nintellectual reason or ethical will can achieve. Its sole aim will be the
\nexpression of the divine in us and the keeping together of the world and its progress
\ntowards the Manifestation that is to be. This even will not be so much an aim
\nand purpose as a spontaneous law of the being and an intuitive determination of
\nthe action by the Light of the divine Truth and its automatic influence. It
\nwill proceed like the action of Nature from a total will and knowledge behind
\nher, but a will and knowledge enlightened in a conscious supreme Nature and no
\nlonger obscure in this ignorant Prakriti. It will be an action not bound by the
\ndualities but full and large in the spirit’s impartial joy of existence. The
\nhappy and inspired movement of a divine Power and Wisdom guiding and impelling
\nus will replace the perplexities and stumblings of the suffering and ignorant
\nego.<\/span><\/p>\n

If by some
\nmiracle of divine intervention all mankind at once could be raised to this
\nlevel, we should have something on earth like the Golden Age of the traditions,
\nSatya Yuga, the Age of Truth or true existence. For the sign of the Satya Yuga is
\nthat the Law is spontaneous and conscious in each creature and does its own
\nworks in a perfect harmony and freedom. Unity and universality, not separative
\ndivision, would be the foundation of the consciousness of the race; love would
\nbe absolute; equality would be consistent with hierarchy and perfect in
\ndifference; absolute justice would be secured by the spontaneous action of the
\nbeing in harmony with the truth of things and the truth of himself and others
\nand therefore sure of true and right result; right reason, no longer mental but
\nsupramental, would be satisfied not by the observation of artificial standards
\nbut by the free automatic perception of right relations and their inevitable
\nexecution in the act. The quarrel between the individual and society or
\ndisastrous struggle between one community and another could not exist: the
\ncosmic consciousness imbedded in embodied beings would assure a harmonious diversity
\nin oneness.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the actual
\nstate of humanity, it is the individual who must climb to this height as a
\npioneer and precursor. His isolation will necessarily give a determination and
\na form to his outward activities that must be quite other than those of a con-<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 195<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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sciously<\/span><\/span> divine
\ncollective action. The inner state, the root of his acts, will be the same; but
\nthe acts themselves may well be very different from what they would be on an
\nearth liberated from ignorance. Nevertheless his consciousness and the divine mechanism
\nof his conduct, if such a word can be used of so free a thing, would be such as
\nhas been described, free from that subjection to vital impurity and desire and
\nwrong impulse which we call sin, unbound by that rule of prescribed moral formulas
\nwhich we call virtue, spontaneously sure and pure and perfect in a greater
\nconsciousness than the mind’s, governed in all its steps by the light and truth
\nof the Spirit. But if a collectivity or group could be formed of those who had reached
\nthe supramental perfection, there indeed some divine creation could take shape;
\na new earth could descend that would be a new heaven, a world of supramental
\nlight could be created here amidst the receding darkness of this terrestrial ignorance. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage
\n\u2013 196<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter VII   Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom    THE knowledge on which the doer of works in Yoga has to found all his action…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20-the-synthesis-of-yoga-volume-20","wpcat-20-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","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=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}