Sri Aurobindo and the Idea of Human Unity

Ramin Jahanbegloo

Sri Aurobindo is well-known figure outside India, but he is mainly known among the European and American readers of esoteric literature as a yogi and a saint. However, Aurobindo was not only a yogi, but also and mainly a social philosopher interested both in spiritual matters and in secular issues. He was particularly a yogi engaged in dharma yuddha (fighting for the supremacy of right over might). His mature ideas found their touchstone in the idea of human unity, but he truly believed all his life that such a spiritual unity would not be possible unless it is preceded by a general change in humankind’s consciousness. Nevertheless, he made it clear in the last chapter of his book The Life Divine that the spiritual transformation of humanity had nothing to do with religion. “There is the possibility in the swing back from a mechanistic idea of life and society the human mind may seek refuge in a return to the religious idea and a society governed or sanctioned by religion. But organized religion, though it can provide a means of inner uplift for the individual and preserve in it or behind it a way for his opening to spiritual experience, has not changed human life and society; it could not do so because, in governing society, it had to compromise with the lower parts of life and could not insist on the inner change of the whole being; it could insist only on a creedal adherence, a formal acceptance of its ethical standards and a conformity to institution, ceremony and ritual…A total spiritual direction given to the whole life and the whole nature can alone lift humanity beyond itself…” Aurobindo summed up the nature of Man in the ideal of a united human society. This unity, according to Sri Aurobindo, could not take place unless Man’s vital and mental nature was uplifted by a spiritual Supernature. Therefore, if true human unity is to be achieved Man needs “to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding of expression of the Divine… taking full advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and not ideally one family…”  In other words, the Divine descends into Cosmic being, while Man ascends through the medium of a Supermind towards the Divine. Therefore, there is a double movement at work here.  Man is eternally seeking the ultimate Reality , which Aurobindo calls Saccidananda using the Vedantic vocabulary. “ Saccidananda”, asserts Sri Aurobindo, “ is the unknown”. Reality is sat, cit and ananda, which aurobino translates by the three concepts of pure existence, conscious force and the delight of existence. The goal is “the flowering of the Divine in collective humanity.” The ideal , says Aurobindo, is the free unity of mankind. “Today”, writes Aurobindo in his book The Ideal of Human Unity, “ the ideal of human unity is more or less vaguely making its way to the forefront of our consciousness…(It) is evidently a part of Nature’s eventual scheme and must come about.”

For Aurobindo the evolutionary process of human unity is possible not through rationality, but through Yogic experience. The way which leads to the life divine is “ integral yoga” This is why Aurobindo thinks that every man is a Yogi, but not a conscious one. Those who have become conscious of this process through the Yogic experience can help the others. The simple reason to this is that, “ All mankind is one in nature… Nothing which any individual race or nation can triumphantly realize …has any permanent value except in so far as it adds something for this human march.”  That is to say, Sri Aurobindo was against the old idea of separation of politics from religion and partly because to him nationalism was a spiritual process. “Nationalism is not a mere political program”, wrote Aurobindo in his daily paper entitled Bande Mataram, “nationalism is a religion that has come from God; nationalism is a creed which you shall have to live…. If you are going to be a nationalist, if you are going to assent to this religion of nationalism, you must do it in the religious spirit. You must remember that you are the instruments of God... Then there will be a blessing on our work and this great nation will rise again and become once more what it was in the days of spiritual greatness. You are the instruments of God to save the light, to save the spirit of India from lasting obscuration and abasement...” Aurobindo based his demand for independence on the Romantic idea of the nation-soul.  In his early writings, he talk about the “soul of India” and in his speeches and writings in 1907-1908, he defined nationalism as a civic religion. In another speech he went further and equated Indian nationalism with the sanatana dharma. Yet, Aurobindo was not interested in perpetuating Hinduism as a sectarian religion. What he was interested in was “ a new synthesis of religious thought and experience, a new religious world-life from intolerance, yet full of faith and fervor, accepting all forms of religion because it has an unshakable faith in the One.” However, for Aurobindo this new synthesis had to go hand in hand with the inalienable right of nations to independence, simply because being ruled by foreigners was an unjust and unnatural condition.  “Political freedom”, Aurobindo declared in 1907, “is the life breath of a nation: to attempt social reform, educational reform, industrial expansion, the moral improvement of race, without aiming first and foremost at political freedom is the very height of ignorance and futility.” In fact, from his early writings Aurobindo was keen to see India play a leading role in the world. This was because he saw the great stage of human progress as a moral and spiritual one and he believed that India had a lot to teach Europe. This was because Aurobindo considered Europe as parceled out in nations, but in his view India was an old civilization. India, according to Aurobindo, had a special place in Asia. Thus, “Asia”, from his point of view, “ was the custodian of world’s peace of mind, the physician of the maladies which Europe generates. She is commissioned to rise from time to time from her ages of self-communion, self-sufficiency, self-absorption and rule the world for a season…when the restless spirit of Europe has added a new phase of discovery to the evolution of the science of material life, has regulated politics, re-based society, remodeled law, rediscovered science, the spirit of Asia, calm, contemplative, self-possessed, takes possession of Europe’s discovery and corrects its exaggeration, its aberrations by intuition, the spiritual light she alone can turn the world.. Asia has always initiated, Europe completed. The strength of Europe is in details, the strength of Asia is in synthesis…It is therefore the office of Asia to take up the work of human evolution, when Europe comes to a standstill and loses itself in a clash of vain speculations, barren experiments and helpless struggles to escape from the consequences of her own mistakes. Such a time has now come in world’s history.” Sri Aurobindo was a true believer in a dialogue of cultures. Therefore he was not in favor of India remaining isolated from the rest of the world, but he was against a blind imitation of the West. As a matter of fact, India’s imitation of the Western society was not only a mistake for India, but also for the whole world. “ If India follows in the footsteps of Europe”, wrote Aurobindo,” accepts her political ideals, social system, economic principles, she will be overcome with the same maladies.”  Aurobvindo was convinced that if India wants to survive as an independent state it had to be conscious about its spiritual force and its diversity. Indian unity would be achieved because of Indian diversity. “Diversity”, proclaimed Sri Aurobindo, “is as necessary as unity to our true completeness.” However, Aurobindo considered unity and uniformity as the law of life. Even though the by Aurobindo felt the the world union as the ultimate goal, he saw the nation as a “necessary unit” and an “indestructible” force. For him there was a limit to nationalism in general. According to Aurobindo, the progress of the civilization depended on its advance towards human unity. “The perfect society”, affirmed Aurobindo, “ will be that which most entirely favors the perfection of the individual; the perfection of the individual will be incomplete if it does not help him towards the perfect state of the social aggregate to which he belongs and eventually to that of the largest possible human aggregate, the whole of a united humanity.” Aurobindo saw the perfection of the individual as a widening and a heightening in human and cosmic development. This heightening results in the integration of all levels of life and the achievement of unicity by the mind. As such salvation for Aurobindo does not have a religious meaning. It is a rebirth of Man as a supramental being. “Man”, writes Aurobindo. “ is a transitional being; he is not final. For in man and high beyond him ascend the radiant degrees that climb to a divine supermanhood. There lies our destiny and the liberating key to our aspiring but troubled and limited mundane existence…Supermind is superman; a Gnostic supermanhood is the next distinct and triumphant evolutionary step to be reached by earthly nature.” In other words, the Supermind helps Man to achieve integral realization of his personality and of ultimate reality. The Supermind is, according to Aurobindo, the supreme truth-consciousness. It is the infinite principle of knowledge. It is the necessary link between the existence, consciousness and bliss (Saccidananda) and the phenomenal worlds of life and mind. As long as the mind is separated from the Supermind it perceives only the particular and not the universal. That is to say, “the mind cannot possess the infinite…it can only lie blissfully helpless under the luminous shadow of the Real cast down on it from planes of existence beyond its reach.” The Supermind , therefore, can bring a big  spiritual change in the nature of Man making possible the new integral personality. Agreeing that realization of non-duality is the purpose of life, Sri Aurobindo holds that each unique individual has a singular path to realization of integral non-dualism.  For this reason, he insists that daily action is itself the means of realization. Just as one practices yoga for the purpose of developing one's inner spirituality, so participation in worldly experience is of the same importance. This is true because, as Aurobindo insists, “All life is yoga.” In other words, the integral yoga prepares the conditions for the descent of Supermind. The yogi realizes himself through the cosmos and through the social life. This is why Aurobindo believes that the process of evolution has a purpose, which is advancing ineluctably toward the realization of the Life Divine here on Earth. Sri Aurobindo elaborated his educational ideas in relation with his ideals of human unity and  “travel towards divine perfection”. For him, the goal of education was the study of the human mind, because he considered the mind as the principal instrument of knowledge. Thus the aim of education, according to Aurobindo is: “ the building of the powers of the human mind and spirit, it is the formation or… the evoking of knowledge and will and the power to use knowledge, character, culture…” For Aurobindo, Man has to be transformed and spiritualized through the educational practice. This process begins with self-knowledge which is self-mastery and it brings ultimately the transformation of Man into a spiritual being. The major task in education is to awaken the aspiration for the divine in the body and in the mind.  However, Sri Aurobindo puts the weight of education on the supramental and the discovery of the psychic being. In his book The Human Cycle, he affirms that: “ The true secret whether with child, or man, is to help him find his deeper self, the real psychic entity within. That, if we ever give it a chance to come forward, and still more, if we call it into the foreground as ‘the leader of the march set in our front’, will itself take up most of the business of education out of our hands and develop the capacity of the psychological being towards a realization of potentialities.” Likewise, Aurobindo’s integral yoga contends that the union with the Divine Supermind is also possible through a complete cooperation with the cosmic creative power. “Yoga”, asserts Aurobindo, “ is the exchange of an egoistic for a universal or cosmic consciousness lifted towards or informed by the super-cosmic, transcendent Unnamable who is the source and support of all things.” Yoga and education are one and the same process through which spirituality emerges in mind. That is why to Sri Aurobindo the eternal truths of ancient wisdom had an appeal. Spirituality unlike religion does not lay excessive stress on dogmas. “ A total spiritual direction given to the whole life and whole nature can alone lift humanity beyond itself”, writes Aurobindo in his book The Life Divine. For it is true that, according to Aurobindo, without the higher spirit, the lower mind cannot be spiritualized. As a spiritual internationalist, Aurobindo puts a lot of emphasis on the transcendent aspect of Man. For Aurobindo the only answer to the crisis in the human world is an enlightened awareness of the spiritual unity of our existence through which a sustainable world unity can be achieved. “The truth of the Spirit”, says Aurobindo, “ may step in and lead humanity to the path of its highest possible happiness and perfection.” According to Sri Aurobindo, the perfection is yet to come, because Man has not constituted yet the final step in his evolutionary process. The goal of spiritual internationalism, therefore, ought to be creation of spiritual human being and spiritual communities. Aurobindo’s concept of human unity is not based on rational norms. It is not aimed at creating a more rational Man. Aurobindo’s goal is mainly aimed at achieving an enlightened spiritualized community.  This spiritualized community would not have nation-states fighting with each other, because in such a community men are not egoistic and look beyond their self-interests. Similarly Aurobindo defines human unity as “the attempt of human mind and life to grow out of national idea and form and even in a way to destroy it, in the interest of larger synthesis of mankind.” For Sri Aurobindo the idea of “unity in diversity” would provide a solid basis for a durable synthesis of mankind. Because of this, he saw a common destiny and a common hope for both the East and the West. “East and West”, he wrote in 1949, “ have the same human nature, a common human destiny, the same aspiration after a greater perfection, the same seeking after something higher than itself, something towards which inwardly and outwardly we move….