There is a cry the world over pointing at the damage and the harm that we humans have caused to the earth. Several measures are being suggested such as awareness and education as well as enactment of strict laws. But if we have to discover the true solution then we have to understand the deeper reasons. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo not only foresaw all this, the deeper reasons and the true remedy, but also shared the vision of the Future.
Words of the Mother
One thing seems clear: humanity has reached such a generalized state of tension – tension in effort, tension in action, tension even in daily life – with such an excessive hyperactivity, such an overall restlessness, that the species as a whole seems to have reached a point where it must either burst through the resistance and surge forth into a new consciousness, or else sink back into an abysm of obscurity and inertia.
This tension is so total and so generalized that obviously something must break. It cannot go on like this. Yet all this is a sure sign that a new principle of force, consciousness and power has been infused into matter and by its very pressure has produced this acute state. Outwardly, we might expect to see the old habitual means used by Nature whenever she wants to bring about an upheaval; but here there is a new phenomenon, which is evidently visible only in a select few, although even these few are widespread enough – this phenomenon is not localized in one point or one place in the world, for the signs are to be found in every country all over the earth: the will to find a new, a higher, an ascending solution, an effort to surge forth into a vaster, more encompassing perfection.
Certain ideas of a more general, more extensive, more collective nature, as it were, are being worked out and are at work in the world. And the two go together: a greater and more total possibility of destruction and an inventiveness that unrestrainedly increases the possibility of catastrophe, a catastrophe that would be much more massive than it has ever been; and at the same time, the birth, or rather the manifestation, of much higher and more comprehensive ideas and wills which, when heard, will bring a vaster, more extensive, more complete and more perfect solution than before.
This struggle, this conflict between the constructive forces of an ascending evolution, of an increasingly perfect and divine realization, and the more and more destructive forces – powerfully destructive, forces of an uncontrollable madness – is becoming more obvious, unmistakably visible, and it is a kind of race or battle as to which will be first to reach its goal. All the hostile, anti-divine forces, these forces of the vital world, seem to have descended upon earth and are using it as their field of action; and at the same time, a new, higher, more powerful spiritual force has also descended upon earth to bring a new life to it. This renders the battle more bitter, violent and visible, but apparently more decisive, too, which is why we may hope to arrive at an early solution.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when man’s spiritual aspiration was turned towards a silent, inactive peace, detached from all the things of this world, an evasion of life to avoid the struggle, precisely, to rise above the battle, to be liberated from effort. It was a spiritual peace where, along with the cessation of tension, struggle and effort, suffering in all its forms also ceased, and this was considered the true and unique expression of the spiritual and divine life. This is what was considered divine grace, divine succor, divine intervention. And even now, in this age of anguish, tension and hypertension, this sovereign peace is of all help the best received, the most welcome, the relief asked and hoped for. For many, it is still the true sign of divine intervention, of divine grace.
In fact, no matter what you wish to realize, you must begin by establishing this perfect and immutable peace – it is the necessary basis for any work; but unless you are thinking of an exclusive or personal and egoistic liberation, you cannot stop there. There is yet another aspect to the divine grace, the aspect of progress that will be victorious over all obstacles, the aspect that will propel humanity into a new realization, open the doors unto a new world, enable not only a select few to benefit from the divine realization, but through their influence, their example and their power, bring a new and better condition to the rest of humanity.
It opens vistas of realization into the future and already foreseen possibilities through which an entire section of humanity, which is consciously or unconsciously open to the new forces, will be lifted up, as it were, towards a higher, more harmonious, more perfect life … and even if individual transformations are not permissible nor possible in all cases, at least there will be a kind of uplifting of the whole, a harmonization of everything, enabling a new order, a new harmony to be established and the anguish of disorder and the present strife to disappear and be replaced by an order that will allow for the harmonious working of the whole.
There will be other consequences that by opposite means will tend to eradicate the perversion and ugliness created in life due to the intervention of the mind, a whole range of deformations that have aggravated suffering, misery, moral poverty, a whole zone of sordid and repugnant miseries that makes an entire portion of human life so hideous. That must disappear. That is what in many respects makes humanity infinitely inferior to animal life, with its simplicity and its natural spontaneity, and which in spite of everything is harmonious. Suffering among animals is never as miserable and sordid as it is in a whole section of humanity perverted by a mentality exclusively turned towards egoistic needs.
One must rise above, surge forth into the Light and the Harmony, or sink back down into the simplicity of a wholesome, unperverted animal life.
(After a moment of silence, Mother adds)
But those who cannot be lifted up, who refuse to progress, will automatically lose the use of the mental consciousness and fall back into an infrahuman stage.
One can well understand that physical misery or the unequal distribution of the world’s wealth could be remedied. One can think of economic and social solutions that could remedy all that, but this particular misery, this mental misery, this vital perversion – it is this that cannot change, that does NOT WANT to change. And those who belong to this kind of humanity are condemned in advance to disintegration.
The meaning of original sin is precisely this: the perversion that began with the mind.
That part of humanity, of the human consciousness, which is able to unite with the Supermind and liberate itself will be completely transformed. It is moving towards its future reality as yet unexpressed in the outer form; the part very close to the simplicity of the animal, close to Nature, will be reabsorbed by Nature and thoroughly reassimilated. But that corrupted part of the human consciousness, which through its wrong use of the mind allows this perversion, will be abolished.
That kind of humanity belongs to an unfruitful attempt – and will be eliminated, like so many other abortive species which have vanished in the course of universal history.
Certain prophets in the past had this apocalyptic vision, but as usual things became mixed, and along with their vision of the apocalypse they did not have the vision of the supramental world that will come to uplift the consenting part of humanity and transform this physical world. However, to give hope to those born into this perverted part of the human consciousness, redemption through faith was taught: those who have faith in the sacrifice of the Divine in Matter will automatically be saved, in another world – faith alone, without understanding, without intelligence. They never saw the supramental world, nor did they see that the great Sacrifice of the Divine in Matter is that of an involution which will lead to the total revelation of the Divine in Matter itself.
June 1958
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We probably know a little bit of history starting from a particular cataclysm. But how many cataclysms have there been?…
Yes, how many cataclysms have there been?
(silence)
Now, for great upheavals men want to do without Nature’s help. It seems that five nations have atomic bombs, and the bombs of just one of those nations are enough to … vrrf! destroy the earth. So if all this (because it’s new, after all) If even one very small aggregate of cells could succeed in having the complete experience of transformation right to the end, that would be more effective than great upheavals – much, much more effective.
But it’s more difficult. Much more difficult. And it doesn’t cause big dazzling “events” that make a great to-do.
Yes, it’s linked to the general state of the world.
Absolutely.
And there really doesn’t seem to be any progress. The feeling, on the contrary, is that men, heads of state, human consciousnesses are getting tinier and tinier.
Yes, perfectly correct….
That’s perfectly correct. But I mean that according to my vision (which I don’t think is mine, it’s not a personal vision), nights and days like yesterday (which aren’t pleasant) obviously give you a knowledge, and upheaval [Kali] still belongs to the old method – it’s accepting that the world hasn’t changed. While this sort of apparent shrinking is in fact perhaps the proof that the earth consciousness has changed and is putting pressure on what resists, which gets smaller and smaller, but harder and harder….
As if all that’s conscious and living were being extracted, and what remains becomes more and more stony.
(silence)
The conscious perception of the two elements (the body is becoming a representative object; not just symbolic: representative), the perception of the state of consciousness of those elements that belong to the past, to the past evolutionary movement, and of those that are open to the new method, if I may say so, is clearer and clearer; it’s perceptible as clearly as, more clearly than external physical things, than the external form…
And it’s not with violence that we will succeed. You know, the only thing that can triumph is this supreme Vibration of Love, but there is an incapacity to receive, and then (it’s a strange phenomenon), this incapacity to receive causes a sort of sifting, and it’s only elements that are as if watered down that can pass through – the Thing in itself in its true essence cannot….
And it’s clear (you can see it in very small details) that if there were direct contact, something would be as if shattered – it would cause something to be shattered. Yes, too abrupt, too sudden a change, like something that’s shattered….
May 26, 1967
(Regarding the New Year message: “Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.” A disciple asks Mother, “What is the meaning of ‘abyss’ in your New Year Message?” Mother’s reply, in English:)
Right now there is a great tension. They have all taken positions as if to start war. It is the blind passion that men put into their international relations.
At the base of it all there is fear, general distrust, and what they believe to be their “interests” (money, business) – a combination of these three things. When these three lowest passions of humanity are brought into play, that is what I call “the abyss.”
When someone has decided to consecrate his life to the seeking for the Divine, if he is sincere, that is to say, if the resolution is sincere and carried out sincerely, there is absolutely nothing to fear, because all that happens or will happen to him will lead him by the shortest way to this realisation.
That is the response of the Grace. People believe that the Grace means making everything smooth for all your life. It is not true.
The Grace works for the realisation of your aspiration and everything is arranged to gain the most prompt, the quickest realisation – so there is nothing to fear.
Fear comes with insincerity. If you want a comfortable life, agreeable circumstances, etc., you are putting conditions and restrictions, and then you can fear.
But it has no business in the sadhana!
October 16, 1964
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When you are assailed by the vision of such disorder and confusion, you have to do only one thing, to enter into the consciousness where you see only one Being, one Consciousness, one Power—there is only a single Unity—and all this is taking place within this Unity. And all our insignificant visions and knowings and judgments and… all that is mere nothing, it is microscopic in comparison with the Consciousness presiding over All. Therefore, if one had the least sense of the reason why separate individualities existed, one would see that it was only for allowing aspiration, the existence of aspiration, of this movement of self-giving and surrender, trust and faith. And it is this that is the very reason why individuals were built up; and then, for you to become that in all sincerity and intensity… it is all that is needed. It is all that is needed, it is the only thing, the only thing that stays; all the rest… phantasmagoria.
And it is the only thing valid in every case: when you want to do a thing, when you cannot do a thing, when you move, when the body is no more able to move… in every, every case, that only, only that: to come in conscious contact with the Supreme Consciousness, to be united with it; and… to wait. There!
It is then that you receive the exact indication of what you ought to do at each minute—to do or not to do, to act or to be stone still. That is all. And even to be or not to be. That is the only solution. More and more, more and more, the certitude is there: this is the only solution. All the rest is mere childishness….
All that is for teaching the world to turn back to the Lord in its consciousness…. Why? It is for this that there has been a creation?…
Only, one must arrive at a state where there is naturally no more preference nor desire nor repulsion nor attraction, nothing —all that is gone.
And above all, above all, no fear—particularly. That is the most essential of all things.
