Spiritual Evolution of Life
I am doing a course on Integral Studies (Writings of Sri Aurobindo). Recently while doing some course readings,
was struck by a thought which took me back to one of my own blogs - Humanizing Nature.
Sri Aurobindo talks about the story of creation. The way I understood the story - First there was divine light
that existed everwhere, it was all that there was. To experience itself, it created the darkness from itself. It
created it's opposite. It then dived into this darkness and reached its deepest point. From there it began its
ascent upwards, in the process causing the cycle of evolution. Hence if we look at all life around us in different
stages of evolution, then we can see the truth of this process of spiritual evolution. Man being a fourfold being
physical, vital, mental, spiritual. We see the same existing of all life in nature. You would find some things in
predominantly in the physical like the plants, some in predominantly the vital like the animals and then there is
man who has evolved predominantly to become mental. We see these three qualities in nature and it gets reflected
in man.
Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophy) spoke the same thing keeping man at the center. Nature is a reflection of man.
Either way the relation exists between man and nature, for me its not important what was first, but I see an
integration of Darwin's evolution and spiritual evolution. So if we see such a thing in nature and individual men,
we should expect to see the same thing in society also. There are going to be humans who would predominantly be in
their physical senses, then there would be humans who would predominantly be in their vital senses and then there
would be those predominantly in their mental senses. According to what Sri Aurobindo said, in man's being, the
spirit, soul or psychic is what supports the development of the three systems. However the action of the psychic
is vieled, hidden. So if for every man a hidden psychic/soul is able to support the functioning of his entire
being, the same can be expected of human society.
A few spiritual men are able to support the burden of the rest of the population. Why I say this is because I was
quite troubled by -
Why is it that human society as such does not seem to evolve at a accelerated pace in the spiritual domain?
Why is the population increasing
Why is there poverty?
It seems the solutions to these are so simple. Get into action, spread love, think positive. But then I realized
these solutions address three different parts of the being, since we are mostly mental, our solutions are not
working. An integration of these three is required which can be brought about only by the spiritual force. One
that brings balance.
Since within individual's itself these forces are limited, suppressed or conditions not favourable for their
expression, we would similarly find very few such people within society. I mean I cannot really expect to find
large number of really evolved beings. It is but not the time. Also everything that is happening around the world,
is in consonance with the spiritual evolution of life. I do not attempt to say whether it is good or bad, loss of
life in war definately defeats the purpose and is regressive, but if I look at it from the spiritual stand point,
I realize that till people do not See war for what it is, they are unlikely to realize the impacts of it and make
conscious choices.
Similarly we find that few spiritual persons are able to support the needs of many people. If one member in the
family is very loving, he can tolerate more uncaring people around him. That is the power of good over evil. Good
can accomodate more evil. So if I believe that there is more evil in the world around me, then I must also believe
the opposite that more good is also being generated in the world to be able to support that evil, because evil
cannot support evil.
Looking at human civilizations also I realize the same pattern existing. It seems that civilizations reflected the
different stages of man's spiritual evolution. Prehistoric man was predominantly physical, ensuring that physical
nature around him could be controlled. He developed power, control etc, iron age, copper age, bronze age all
related to physical. Then in the greater civilizations Egyptian, Indian, Mesopotamian etc we see intense work on
arts, sculpture, beauty, the world was pictorial. Evolution of language was about to take place. We were moving
from the era of vital (beauty) to the era of mental - language, concepts. But in all these epochs of human
development the spiritual component was missing. Or if present was intuitively sensed. But no civilization or
never before in man's existence has the integration of all four existed, if it did we would not be in
the mess we perceive ourselves to be. The integration is yet to occur. Attempts have to be made at this
evolution.
I was reading the book - Story of Sculpture and saw the hieroglyphic designs of the Egyptians. It struck me that
their communication was mostly pictorial in nature. Before that communication during the time of Vedas in India
was predominantly oral in nature. The human cycle of civilizations, the human story of progress is reflected
in the development of the child. The child first walks, he then talks, he then draws, he then writes.
It is our job to develop integrated human beings, only then can we hope for spiritual development of society,
spiritual evolution of man. But our job is not simple, we have to ensure that we bring out the best in each child
during each stage of development. When one can see this reflection of life in life itself, see the man in society,
see the society in man, see nature in humans, humans in nature, microcosm and macrocosm, one truly begins to get
aware of the stream of life and the idea of immortality of life (not individuals).
Initially one feels upset that why are others not able to see these things, but that is because one is
keeping oneself outside this stream of life, keeping objectivity. But then one will realize that whatever one
is doing, is also the doing of the larger forces, it is but a divine play, then one becomes a part of the divine
play, channelizes it, allows it to manifest within one self and others.
Thats when one looses this seperative consciousness of 'I'.
One feels one belongs.
One always did :)