Intellectually one of the
greatest mystics of India after Shankara, and
indeed of the world, Sri Aurobindo worked out a whole system of
mysticism, which he called Integral Yoga and which had to serve as a
kind of road map for students of mysticism. The road map consisted of
describing the different levels or stages that a human being
(potentially) evolved to in the course of his life. Every level was
clearly delineated and marked out the emotional, intellectual and
spiritual growth one was able to attain. The levels increase, as we
come higher, in complexity, but also in value. So we find at rock
bottom the material level of the gross elements our body, one stage
higher in complexity, is made of. Our body is controlled by the vital
force, which gives the body its emotions, its drives, its perceptions,
its predilections, its aversions. At the third stage the mental comes
out in evolution and begins to control the material and the vital. But
there was yet another, a fourth level, that was so to speak promised to
us by evolution. It had hitherto only been realized by a small number
of exceptional individuals. Aurobindo called it the supramental. It was
the realm of Spirit, lying hidden in clouds of mystery, both in the
cosmos as in the deepest recesses of our interiority. His whole yoga
was aimed at bringing this higher level of evolution to the world.
Aurobindo was one of those
mystics who believed in truth. With patience
and endurance this truth of yoga could be attained: a person could be
lifted up to these higher supramental levels of spiritual development.
Aurobindo´s mysticism believed that there were higher forces
operating in the world, that were an aid to this evolution. The God of
Aurobindo´s world was an evolving Goddess. He called this Goddess
´the Mother´. She was an aid to the world in bringing it
finally back to its primal condition of perfect and blissful rest in
Godhead (much like in the mythology of catholicism Maria is mediatrix
between man and God). In the practice of the spiritual life it meant
that the sadhak (the
spiritual aspirant) had to surrender him/herself
to the loving care of the Mother. Her Grace would eventually redeem.
But the Grace of the Mother,
coming from above, was not the only force
that was helpful to the sadhak. The liberating force also came from
below: the lower levels of the material, the vital/bodily and the
mental all showed this tendency of their own: they wanted to be raised
to higher levels. Aurobindo explained this by pointing to the fact that
enlightenment was already resident at the lower levels. There it showed
an innate tendency to become realized. This inner enlightenment of all
the levels (´always already the case´) Aurobindo called
´the inner being´ of a person. He meant that in the inner
core of all the levels a spiritualized nucleus was prominent, though
hidden in mystery, that was accessible to our intuition. So eg. in the
vital there was a spiritualized version of all emotions already
resident: lust wanted to be spiritual love, anger wanted to be rightful
indignation etc. So from both ways, from above as from below, all the
levels had an inclination to spiritualization. This meant for Aurobindo
that not the so called naturalness of our body, our emotions, our
thoughts and our feelings were natural, but that it was their
supranaturalness that was
natural.
Approval: Aurobindo´s
description of being as consisting of
successive evolutionary levels, that show an increase in value, is a
tempting one. Somehow it seems to match the psychological and
existential facts. It is in line with the inner experience. It explains
eg. why we all feel embarrassed about our body and its emotions. Our
body makes us feel uncertain about ourselves. This simple fact is
proved by just one glance in the mirror. Especially
when we grow older
the value of our body decreases and our live becomes more centered in
mind, soul and Spirit. The higher levels of our being are definitely an
improvement upon the lower levels. There is an innate tendency in our
lives to grow to these higher levels. But it is not given on forehand.
It takes discipline and a definite will not to remain identified with
the lower levels of body and its emotions. Evolution is not a screaming
command, but more like a gentle push, a persuasion from nature. We have
out of our own accord to comply with it.
Aurobindo´s theory also
explains the fact that at a certain
moment in life we become discontented with living from one particular
level. We feel that a richer life is promised to us if we somehow
manage to become more soulful, more caring, more from the heart. We
want to grow higher. We want to become spiritual (each in his own way).
We have the intuition that the riddle of life somehow finds an answer
in the regions beyond our mind, in our soul and further still, in far
and unknown lands that are in need of exploration. This challenge now
becomes our greatest adventure. When we grow older we want to leave our
history and our personality behind and take the dive into the great
unknown. We all, in different degrees, develop the ability for
contemplation in our lives, especially when the end draws near. This
ability is what makes us humans. It is the spiritual force in us. It is
the defining force of evolution.
So this was Aurobindo´s
yoga: lending a hand to this evolution.
Key words in this respect were: trust
and surrender. Trust in the
workings of evolution that worked at lifting the lower up to the higher
and infusing the higher into the lower. And surrender to the divine
shakti, the Force, that helped
us in realizing this upward path. He
called his yoga ´integral´ because it addressed all the
levels of a human being, both vital and mental and beyond. So jnana was
necessary to gain trust and understanding. But bhakti was just as
important, because it conditioned the psychic being of a person, her
soul, into surrendering to the spiritual force. The inner or central
being of man had a twofold appearance: at the one hand it was the
psychic being, the individual soul, that was the emotional witness of
all the levels, more in a personal way. This psychic being we feel
evolving through the years and through practice. It is the soul in us
that grows. But at the highest level our inner being is nothing but the
Jivatman, the inner Spirit in
us. This Jivatman never evolves but is
always blissful in its full perfection. It has no needs and everything
in it is always already realized. This Jivatman is the same as Brahman,
the Godhead.
So what Aurobindo seems to
suggest is: do not bother about Spirit. It
needs no bothering. Work at the lower levels. Bring your psychic being
to the foreground. Give her evolution a little push by letting her
focus on Spirit instead of on the vital and the mental. And also:
transform the vital and the mental by bringing your psychic being to
it. Make your thoughts and emotions more soulful. This is not only to
be done in meditation. But it is a transformation that takes all the
energies of your whole life to practise. In the end becoming fully
consciousness will realize a total blending and eventually a complete
identity of our soul and our Spirit. Then the goal of our evolution is
reached.
At the lower levels Spirit is
present but more hidden, more clouded in
ignorance, more passive. So to put it bluntly, there is at first glance
not much God to be found in rock, in dust, in dung and excrements.
That´s why the material appalls us or leaves us cold. But when we
contact life forms of higher evolution like plants, animals, human
beings, our soul rejoices more and more, because we recognize in these
life forms the Spirit that we actually are. So these higher life forms
have taboos surrounding them. Here we feel forbidden to kill and
eat. For then we would be violating the Spirit that we feel as the most
precious part of ourselves.
According to Aurobindo Spirit
can oppose itself at these lower levels.
There are forces at work in the material, vital and mental levels that
are contrary to evolution. They want to prevent the lower levels from
becoming spiritualized. These dark forces need to be overcome first. As
we can see here, Aurobindo´s thinking was still tinged with
mythology. He believed that these forces were Asura´s, devils,
that were operative in the dark unconscious of the world. But even if
we
skip aside all his mythology, we can still see that he has a point
here. Let us take his words in a symbolic way. He meant that the body
and the vital are not used to the peace and harmony of Spirit. In a way
it is very unnatural for the body to be calm and blissful all the time.
The nervous system is easily aroused by hormonal attacks. From the
moment we are born our body is used to violent upheavals of emotions.
In such a nervous body it is not very easy to realize Ananda. When we
meditate our body and mind sometimes refuses to comply in becoming
calm. And everyone who has experienced Kundalini attacks after
meditation knows the struggle and pain the body can give to the
aspirant who wants to open up his heart to Spirit.
The body and its vital emotions
have formed a habit of reacting on
outside stimuli. This has created our identification with the outside
world and with the inner thoughts and emotions that were provoked by
these stimuli. To take just one obvious example out of a whole panorama
of experiences: every time we see a beautiful sexy woman our body gets
excited and we are being pulled down to the lower levels of our body.
When this happens we surely will not die on the spot. We might even
enjoy it for a while. But deep in our hearts we do not want these
emotions. They enslave us. They make us feel subservient. So it is with
other emotions like jealousy, anger, ambition, power etc. They are
provoked by the outside world. We have formed a habit in giving in to
them. If we want to become happy this habit has to be reversed.
But at this point some further
questions present themselves that
somehow reach the very heart of spirituality. So let´s be very
careful here. For right now most readers would like to ask: why should
we try to transcend the vital in the first place? What is the use of
that? Is this not again the same old repression and the same old
devaluation of our very life blood and our body that Plato forced down
our Western throats? And see with what result: centuries of men and
women alienated from their body, living in philosophically and
theologically sanctioned neurosis.
Why should we not enjoy our body?
Are not our emotions the very juice of our life´s sapling? Who
would want to live a day without the stirring and exhilarating
agitations
of our body? They are the feast of life.
The answer Aurobindo gives to
this question is a simple one: surely,
the emotions give pleasure, but there is a far greater joy to be found
in life! And this joy and immense satisfaction can only be found if we
leave the body and its emotions behind and go onward. One day there
will come a time when we laugh about these little pleasures of
the
body, just like the grown up man smiles on the children he sees playing
at the playground. In his wisdom he will not condemn their merriment.
Somehow they represent the glory of life. Their play and their
merriment move him and bring tears to his eyes. But he knows that their
play is childish and that the peaceful happiness and the wisdom of his
adult years is far more to be preferred. Just watching. Just
enjoying the feast of life with an ecstatic heart in its deep abyss of
stillness. That is a joy beyond any comparison. It has left the
childish joy of the body far behind.
´Yeah, but how do I know?
Will I ever reach this blissful state
the mystics speak of? Admittedly, not all my emotions are a merriment
to me. Sometimes my lust or my ambition change in its opposite and make
me feel depressed, lonely and victimized. Then I am fed up with my
emotions. Then like a modern time Attis I´m eager for cutting
them all off. In the morning I can be agitated by the joy of my
emotions, but in the evening, when weariness drops my head to a less
cheerful stance, the exhaustion often leaves me depressed. Then I would
surely want to find a way of transcending them. But how to know? Is it
feasible for a human being?´
´Trust me´,
Aurobindo says. ´I have done it. So why
shouldn´t you? This transcendence is promised in our evolution.
You can grow to it, if only you would focus it and make it the only
thing you want in life. It can only be one or the other. You cannot
serve two lords in this respect. The transcendence takes all the energy
you have. But if you truly want it, it will happen, because you can
already, right this very moment, feel the transcendence in you. All you
have to do is to close your eyes and see that the deepest You has
always been transcendentally free. Now, just lift your lower levels up
to this Spirit which you are.´
Criticism: but now a second,
and even more important question presents
itself. How to do it? And here we have to be more careful still. So
much
can go wrong. The greatest danger lies in repressing our emotions. This
is also a point of concern for Aurobindo. He warns us not to repress
our feelings. For it will only result in a greater duality and split in
our
inner life. And like Freud said: repressed feelings become stronger
instead of weaker. Aurobindo is aware of this difficulty in our
sadhana. But his solution
still presents some problems, I´m
afraid. In More Lights on Yoga
(1935) he writes that we have to take the
perspective of the Purusha/Witness
each time we are confronted with the
problems of the vital in our life. We have to remain still and passive.
We have to refuse to give in to the demands of our body and our vital
emotions. The Purusha/Witness always remains aloft and unperturbered.
All it takes is shifting our center of awareness from our personal self
to the Purusha. When ignored and not taken seriously the emotions are
stopped from being fueled, wither away and at last die.
But, it must be said, this is
extremely difficult, also very dangerous,
and only successful after many years of practice. In the beginning of
our sadhana it is sheer impossible to ignore our emotions and take a
higher stance. There is also the great danger of slipping into
stoicism, forcefully controlling our emotions, one of the greatest
dangers of spiritual life. If we take emotions like sex or anger it is
for the beginning aspirant virtually impossible not to give in. The
inner life would be totally ripped to pieces, would the beginner engage
in an ascetic battle with his emotions, especially when he is
still young and very vital (in the sense of Aurobindo). It would not be
healthy not to give in to the sex drive. And when the nervous system is
still very tensed and the sadhak is being besieged by nervous tensions,
depressions or fits of rage, that are the remnants of a life of pain,
injury and frustration, it is also not very healthy not to give in to
these emotions, for the boiling kettle might explode when the steam is
not afforded a way out.
My solution has always been,
when faced with the problem of stubborn
vital emotions, to show them gentleness and friendship. It is like with
an angry friend. It is not very useful and supportive to become
contaminated and swept away by his anger. But when we bring gentleness
and understanding to his emotion, when we begin to see the deeper
reasons of his being upset and explain it to him, the anger can in the
wide and clear space of our mutual love and understanding find a way
out and eventually die down. So it is with our own emotions. They have
to come out. But we ourselves have to remain the older and wiser
friend, who knows and understands.
So let´s be very
practical here. For there is no use of beating
ourselves around the bush in such essential matters. What to do if we
become sexual? And notice: we can become extremely sexual in (or after)
our meditations, for the sexual orgasm is a way for the parasympathic
nervous system to release stress. This parasympathic branch of the
nervous system is highly activated by meditation, which explains why we
can become very sexual meditating. It is the way our body/mind finds a
way to Spirit. It´s a nothing but a helpful physiological
process. So the sexual orgasm can be used as a tool for reaching
enlightenment, because of its abililty to destress the nervous system.
To overstate it a bit for the sake of argument: enlightenment is
only another word for a totally destressed nervous system. Some
branches of mysticism have seen and acknowledged this profound (but
also
dangerous) truth of spirituality and have given the sexual orgasm a
worthy role in the sadhana.
But now we see Aurobindo
raising his finger. His objection is that sex,
anger and the vital as a whole create strong and lingering objects in
our consciousness. Because of the pleasure involved in ´letting
them out´, these mental and soulful objects lay down fertile
seeds in our consciousness that are to sprout anytime in the future. So
if we water the seeds by giving them attention and authority, they will
disturb us at moments we don´t want them to, dispelling our peace
and tranquility all the time. So it is better not to give them too much
attention. Then the seeds will die from lack of care and attention.
I agree there is a danger here
in identifying ourselves with the
objects the emotions create in our consciousness. This is the main
thing we want to avoid in mysticism. But it is not as great as that
other danger: neurosis by repression. So a possible solution might be:
1. we only ´give
permission´ for objectifying, when there
is a considerable amount of violence in the emotions that last for
considerable time. So if we notice that a particular emotion dies down
after a few minutes we can ignore it. But if a very violent attack of
sex or rage is fighting its way out, we must give it attention. Because
this is the signal of the body that it wants to destress itself.
2. This second step is a very
important one. It is crucial for the
success of our sadhana. When we are forced to objectify, we choose the
soul for the field of objectification. This means that we only live out
the emotion in our fantasy and in our personal sphere, on our own. When
some feelings of old rage about past humiliations cloud our mind, we
lock ourselves up in our room and start looking the rage right in the
eye, while saying to ourselves how this rage feels and why it is there
etc. That way we will live it out in our fantasy. We´ll picture
with closed eyes the exact moment the humiliation occurred and how our
emotions reacted or should have reacted on the spot. We might scream
and curse at this moment, but it is only lived out in fantasy, not in
real life with real persons. We might want to take a cushion to punch
at, or throw our shoes against the wall, but even in these fits of rage
we try keeping the perspective of the Witness looking at this small
melodrama. This is what I would call re-enactment
by fantasy and it is
a very important method of mysticism, which has the purpose of clearing
away the seeds of the vital. That way they will not bother us again.
But we must never take this rage out of the sphere of fantasy into
waking life reality. See them for what they are: only inner realities
of our vital life.
3. The violent emotions are
left in the room after we have had these
´attacks´. When they have died down we again take the
perspective of the Witness as much as possible. So we let these moments
of destressing only be momentary. This is also the way to address our
sexual feelings. After the fantasy of masturbation we again fall back
into Emptiness and leave the sexual imaginary for what it is. This
method is greatly supported by the sexual orgasm itself. We should try
to adhere to the mindless state that occurs spontaneously after an
orgasm. The moment right after is very suited for meditation. If we use
these mindless moments of the body with awareness and caution they will
greatly benefit our sadhana.
The greatest danger of sex is
the immense vital pleasure it provokes.
This makes this passion far more dangerous than the other emotions that
want to find a way out. Emotions like anger, loneliness, fear, jealousy
etc. do not create attachment with the same intensity. It is this
attachment in the case of sex that makes her power for objectifying
mental imaginary so strong. So this third point is very crucial in the
case of sex: we have to detach right away from it, when it has found
its way out.
This is the reason we have to
be very careful with a sexual partner. It
is harder to fall into Emptiness after an orgasm with a live sexual
partner, because of the object of our emotions staying present in
waking time reality. It would be better to part ways after sex. That
way each partner would more easily reach the mindless state. So when it
must need be, it is best to have sex with a partner who also has the
insight that for sexuality to be useful, it has to refrain from
creating any lingering objects in the mind. This can only be the case
when there is deep love and spiritual understanding between the two
lovers. Then both reach the mindless state easily, supported by their
love and concern for their mutual spiritual advance. Under these
conditions they can leave eachother be, without any claim or
attachment, without bearing any grudge, in the free state of Emptiness.
Another possibility to avoid
attachment is to have more sexual partners
than one. That way all the beamed energies the vital emotion focuses on
one target tend to dissipate more. Dissipated energies loose their
intensity and strength. We can more easily let go of objects in our
consciousness if not all energy is focused on one point. But we have to
be very careful here also, because the attachment to more sexual
partners can be just as intense as with one. Then the vital will not be
transcended, but strenghtened instead. And because of the considerable
time and energy involved in living with more than one sexual partner
it may weaken our sadhana, instead of intensifying it.
So perhaps the best thing to do
is, as in the case of anger, not to
objectify our sexual feelings to waking time reality, but to let them
form objects only at the fantasy level of soul, in the world of
dreams. Strange as it may seem (only few people seem to acknowledge
this fact) but as Spirit is concerned this fantasy level of soul
constitutes a higher level than the level of gross forms and
consequently offers greater value (Marcel Proust was, though not in a
enlightened way, aware of this). So when we take the objects of our
sexuality to soul level instead of to bodily/material level, the degree
of purification that is reached is a higher one than at a lower level.
This is the reason that in most spiritual traditions celibacy is seen
to be more advantageous than marriage. For in celibacy the vital
energies tend to spiritualize more, because they are lifted out of this
lower level to a more subtle one.
Eschatology
Evolutionary biologists warn us
not to see evolution as a fixed
blueprint of reality. They want to avoid seeing evolution as a Big Plan
that was created on forehand by some omniscient Demiurg. The key word
in contemporary evolutionary science is contingency: nature evolves by
trial and error. That some species survive and evolve is a matter of
chance. These species have the good luck that they are the best fitted
to survive in a given environment. But it might as well have been some
other species or some other individual. Not the strong survive but the
ones the best fitted, a matter of pure luck and a result of the
superabundance of natural variety in the species. There is no natural
law to be found that can predict how evolution will proceed. God does
play dice. In fact it is his favorite game. He is just as curious how
the dice will fall as we are. But each diced fragment of reality,
when it occurs, falls into a certain pattern, a social environment,
that has developed a sort of habit
of behavior. This habit, that has
worked well over the years, is not a fixed law. When something better
comes up the habit is replaced or re-adapted. It is to this habit that
the new dice adapts itself. So it gives the impression that it is
evolving.
These are words of criticism
that we have to keep in mind when reading
Aurobindo. For the central word in his mysticism is evolution. He
believed that all of life, not only the material and the biological,
evolved. There are some convincing arguments to be found to back up
this theory. Also in Europe some philosophers have argued that
evolution is not confined to the material and the biological
preclusively, but that we can see the workings of evolution also
present at the more subtle levels of psychology, philosophy,
spirituality and culture at large. Especially Schelling and Hegel, and
in more recent years Habermas, were strong advocates of cultural
evolution. It was their main objective to show that cultures and
societies evolve in the course of history to greater complexity and to
greater value. Hegel believed, just like Aurobindo, that all of life
eventually would coincide with Geist,
which he saw as the beginning,
the steering force and the telos
of the world.
In the eyes of Aurobindo
spirituality is nothing but a compliance with this
steering force of evolution. At the deep fundamental level of our
prayers and meditations, but also at the surface level of day to day
reality, we have to give in to the rising tide of the Force. Then in
the end the descendence of the supramental to the lower plains of the
mental, the vital and the material will ultimately take place. What he
called ´work´ was our conscious effort to assist this
evolutionary tendency. We were helped in this respect by the the divine
force of the Mother, because this spiritual growth was nothing but the
ground plan of nature herself. It would certainly succeed if we would
clear away all the obstacles preventing it.
The big debate concerning these
questions is not between creationists and evolutionists, because
that debate is a bit silly and childish. But the big issue is really
between
people who believe in evolution with
design and the ones who believe in
evolution without design.
Aurobindo belonged to the former group. His
faith in God´s plan with the world was unshakable. He believed
that everything in the cosmos was heading towards ultimate unification
in Godhead. For him it was the one crucial axiom that made trust and
surrender possible. The great truth of this axiom was to be found in
the deep stillness of meditation. It was revealed to Aurobindo in the
depth of his ecstasy.
I do not want to question this
theory, because it might be true.
Nothing, in fact, might even be more true than this one theory, I say
with reverence. Many mystics and many pious believers insist that there
is a spiritual plan that governs the world. They have experienced it to
the marrow of their bones, so they say. We can use their testimonies to
strengthen the case of Aurobindo and the other philosophers of
evolution.
But the great problem with this
theory is that it might easily slip
into spiritual pathology. This has unfortunately happened to all the
major world religions. Even more strongly so in many religious cults.
This pathology is called eschatology,
the belief that at a certain
moment in time the end of evolution will definitely and conclusively
been reached. Then the worlds will have reached the end of the Great
Cycle and will again be re-united in Brahma. Or Jesus or the Messiah
will have come down from heaven to found a new spiritual constitution
on earth. This belief easily wants to see itself fulfilled. So it has
happened numerous times in history that religious cults have assigned a
special date on the calendar to the coming of this Judgment Day and
Final Delivery, each time to their own disappointment, when they saw
the clock strike twelve and nothing eventually happened. Or worse
still:
complete cults have committed suicide in the sure belief that their
souls had reached the ending of time, like it happened with the
followers of rev. Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, in the seventies. Even Mirra Alfassa, ´the
Mother´ of Aurobindo´s ashram in Pondicherry, suffered from
an attack of eschatology, when she declared one beautiful summer day in
the year 1958 that ´the Supramental has finally descended to
earth´. It is no small wonder that such proclamations provoke
bouts of mass hysteria, when prophesied by leaders with authority.
As mysticism is concerned this
eschatology entails the danger that the
sadhak will be seduced into looking ahead to the future, to a time
when hopefully all of his problems will have come to an end, instead of
completely living in the Here and Now of the one and only reality there
is. Then ´the plan´ easily slips in and all mystical
effectivity will be lost. For then the aspiring mystic will bring all
his hopes and expectations to his meditations. And again will there be
a someone who is doing something in order to reach something. But all
hopes and expectations must be cleared away from consciousness. Only
then can Grace happen, if she chooses to do so. Grace happens only out
of grace. It is not of our doing. Mysticism should only concern itself
with the nihil.
Enlightenment is found at
another dimension, at the vertical dimension,
of reality. We must not project her on the horizontal line of our
existence in time, as is done in eschatology. Aurobindo might be right
in stating that our ability to see this vertical dimension may increase
as we proceed on the horizontal line, but that is another matter. It is
not the same thing as believing that ´now we are wretched, but
one day we will be saved´. This is nothing but a perversion of
spiritual insights. This perversion has resulted in the life denying
belief in a happy afterlife for the soul, which might be a comfort to
most people, but the certainty of which has not been proved until this
day. Death must not become our eschatology, but only the Here and Now
of this life.
Is there a divine plan working
in the cosmos? Does this plan give
meaning to life? Or can life also be meaningful in absence of any
definite plan? Is there a game of dice going on in the world?
Or is on every head and in every fur each single hair counted? Is
enlightenment something that is reached in the future or is it
´always already´ the case?
Maybe all these questions sink
away in the fundamental unknowability of
the world where they are forever
resolved and redeemed in everlasting
blissfulness.
clearly delineated and marked out the emotional, intellectual and
spiritual growth one was able to attain. The levels increase, as we
come higher, in complexity, but also in value. So we find at rock
bottom the material level of the gross elements our body, one stage
higher in complexity, is made of. Our body is controlled by the vital
force, which gives the body its emotions, its drives, its perceptions,
its predilections, its aversions. At the third stage the mental comes
out in evolution and begins to control the material and the vital. But
there was yet another, a fourth level, that was so to speak promised to
us by evolution. It had hitherto only been realized by a small number
of exceptional individuals. Aurobindo called it the supramental. It was
the realm of Spirit, lying hidden in clouds of mystery, both in the
cosmos as in the deepest recesses of our interiority. His whole yoga
was aimed at bringing this higher level of evolution to the world. 
glance in the mirror. Especially
when we grow older
the value of our body decreases and our live becomes more centered in
mind, soul and Spirit. The higher levels of our being are definitely an
improvement upon the lower levels. There is an innate tendency in our
lives to grow to these higher levels. But it is not given on forehand.
It takes discipline and a definite will not to remain identified with
the lower levels of body and its emotions. Evolution is not a screaming
command, but more like a gentle push, a persuasion from nature. We have
out of our own accord to comply with it. 
about these little pleasures of
the
body, just like the grown up man smiles on the children he sees playing
at the playground. In his wisdom he will not condemn their merriment.
Somehow they represent the glory of life. Their play and their
merriment move him and bring tears to his eyes. But he knows that their
play is childish and that the peaceful happiness and the wisdom of his
adult years is far more to be preferred. Just watching. Just
enjoying the feast of life with an ecstatic heart in its deep abyss of
stillness. That is a joy beyond any comparison. It has left the
childish joy of the body far behind.
anytime in the future. So
if we water the seeds by giving them attention and authority, they will
disturb us at moments we don´t want them to, dispelling our peace
and tranquility all the time. So it is better not to give them too much
attention. Then the seeds will die from lack of care and attention.
Even Mirra Alfassa, ´the
Mother´ of Aurobindo´s ashram in Pondicherry, suffered from
an attack of eschatology, when she declared one beautiful summer day in
the year 1958 that ´the Supramental has finally descended to
earth´. It is no small wonder that such proclamations provoke
bouts of mass hysteria, when prophesied by leaders with authority.
