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"The Fashioner of all existence shaped the Earth Out of primeval sea of nothingness with sacrifice supreme, A form of manifold treasure nursed to
life through alms
The Earth was given to men to realise their desired destiny"
Prithivi Sukta
"The earth is a kind of symbolic crystallisation of universal life, a reduction, a concentration, so that the work of evolution may be easier to
do and follow."
The Mother
EARTH A SYMBOL
Like the Vedic Rishis, Sri Aurobindo to realised that the
entire universe is only an objectivisation of the Supreme. It is as though the Supreme had brought himself out of himself in order to know himself and even to live himself and see himself as if in a cosmic-mirror.
It is the Being growing gradually aware of himself in an eternal self - Becoming. The goal of this becoming is none else but a graduated union of the created with the Creator - a union achieved in absolute freedom,
full consciousness and a loving willingness.
In this eternal Becoming, the earth is the chosen centre of the material universe and its evolution. It is a kind of symbolic crystallisation of
universal life. It is, as it were, the reduction, the concentration, the focus of the entire universe and its holds within itself the concentrated force and the secret which will awaken, develop and finally reveal a
total manifestation of the Supreme Spirit which is hidden deep in Matter. The earth is a symbol of the divine possibility and potential in Matter and as it reveals the hidden Divine Consciousness, the whole material
universe shares in and benefits from the unravelled Light, Consciousness and Ananda. To manifest the Spirit's secretes, to transform Matter, so that -
" The mind of earth shall be a home of light,
The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,
The body of earth a tabernacle of God"
Sri Aurobindo,Savitri (B. 11.C4)
ist he meaning of the earth.
However, there is a method in this "meaning" of the earth: it is the Great Process, the Evolution.
Emergent Evolution or Special Creation
"A spiritual evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter in a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal the indwelling
Spirit, is then the key-note, the central significant motive of the terrestrial existence. This significance is concealed at the outset by the involution of the Spirit, the Divine Reality, in a dense material
Unconsciousness." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, P. 824)
According to Sri Aurobindo, the cosmic manifestation is the result of a double movement :involution and evolution. Involution is the first movement by
which the supreme Consciousness-Force undergoes a process of self-limitation and simultaneous densification until it assumes the form of a dense material Inconscience. Between the plane of the supreme Consciousness
and the Inconscience are formed in this process of involution many planes of consciousness and universal principles and worlds each characterised by certain powers and forms of consciousness.
The highest triple planes, the planes of Sachchidananda - the Unity of the Divine Existence, the Power of the Divine Consciousness - the Force in the
bliss of the Divine Delight - form the basis of manifestation and are normally beyond the reach of the human mind.
Below, comes the intermediary level of the Supermind which can be characterised as self - effectuating Truth - Consciousness, it is the Ritam of the Vedas. After a series of descending planes, we have the lowest three planes of Mind, Life
and Matter. The lowest of the low is the level of Unconsciousness which is an apparent negation of the Spirit. But, just as in an aerial, all the upper segments are telescoped into the lowest segment, so to all the
powers and planes above it are involved in the Unconsciousness. Evolution is the opposite process by which the Consciousness Force emerges again step by step, level by level revealing itself, manifest itself on that
level of Consciousness. The starting point of the evolution is therefore the Unconscient of which, under the pressure of the involved Consciousness-Force and that of the physical plane that Matter emerged. It
gradually developed into the physical cosmos as we know it and of which earth is the symbolic representation of the material evolution
The unconscious Matter was then churned until a point of tension, when, under the pressure of the involved Consciousness - Force and the Life
principle, it gave birth to Life. Inert Matter changed enough to express a little more of the Spirit. Through the transition of species that belong neither to the mineral nor to the vegetable kingdom, the
semi-conscious plants appeared on the surface of the earth. And little by little, over millions of years of concentrated incubation going through another transitional
passage between what is no longer a plant and still not yet an animal, the life principle brought forth the conscious animal. Once more, by a double
action of a descent from above and a pressure from below, the Mind principle was born in the physical world and the intelligent and self-conscious Man was delivered by Life. Unlike the earlier species, Man can will
and mould his future.
The evolutionary nicus cannot stop short with the incomplete, ignorant man. Man is only a transitional being, a rung in the sterna unravelling of the
Spirit's evolutionary ladder and cannot be the last term in evolution. If matter gave birth to life - that can only be because Life was involved in Matter, and on the same basis if Mind followed Life, because Mind
was involved in Life, there seems to be little objection to a farther step in the series and admit that the Mind itself is only a form and a veil of higher states which are beyond Mind. If the animal has been a
living laboratory in which Nature has fashioned Man, then Man too "may well be a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose conscious co-operation She [Nature] wills to work out the superman, the
god. Or shall we say, rather to manifest God?"
"For, if evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that which slept or worked in her involved, it is also the overt realisation
of that she secretly is. We cannot, then, bid her pause at a given stage of evolution, nor have we the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse and presumptuous or with the Rationalist as a disease or
hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secure God, then the manifestation of the divine in himself
and the realisation of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man upon earth." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine) (Vol.18.P.4)
In this ascent of evolution, man, though ignorant and limited in this consciousness and capacities, has to bring out of himself the fully conscious
being, "a divine manhood or a spiritual and supramental supermanhood which shall be the next product of the evolution." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol.19,P.825) That transition is the beginning of a
new evolution from knowledge to greater knowledge unlike the present process of evolution which is from ignorance to knowledge.
This is the "desired destiny" that the earth has put before man and if out of his attachment to the ignorant mind and life man is incapable
of exceeding himself, then Nature may surpass him and the superman may take the lead of creation. If man betrays earth's trust in him, he may be inviting upon himself the catastrophe that befell all the species that
Nature withdrew from the face of the earth as redundant and otiose in its evolutionary travail and purpose.
Supermind in the Evolution
Looking at the present deplorable condition of mankind many thinkers may voice Beatrice Bruteau's opinion:
Perhaps Aurobindo's attitude of optimism and his belief that his program is correctly practicable may seem a distortion of our experience. Is it
not his expectation that the Gnostic Being [Supramental Being] will evolve on earth, and the divine life as he describes it be lived here, somewhat fantastic?"
(Worthy is the World p. 271)
Sri Aurobindo himself had foreseen the objections and the disbelief of philosophers to his vision of the supramental race. The materialistic
philosophers would deny any possibility of a divined Matter; the religious philosophers would suspect earth's capacity for a divine life for they would not be ready to relinquish their ideal of attaining heaven
beyond earth. The common man cannot even think of any kind of transformation of the earth into a perfect divine earth. Everyone would ask for a concrete proof of such a supramental consciousness! As a remark on the
doubting Thomases, who take pride in their rationalism and stand only by "scientific proof", Sri Aurobindo wrote:
"A few shall see what none yet understands;
God shall grow up while the wise man talk and sleep;
For man shall not know the coming till its hour
And belief shall be not till the work is done".
Sri Aurobindo,Savitri (Vol.28, P.55)
The root cause of this disbelief and this incertitude is our imperfect idea of the spirituality which has been at its best a 2construction of our
intellect in its ignorance of the whole truth of the world. We have largely thought of the Spirit as something superterrestrial, looking down upon us and attracting us out of the earthly existence. Naturally, we
conclude that a departure from the earth is the highest salvation, the sole release. Or, we convince ourselves that the world is a place of suffering, of ignorance and the only worthy future for man is an escape
into heavens beyond: there is no divine prospect for us here upon earth!
If we look closely at the process of past evolution on earth, we notice that at each step there is an intimation of what the following step will be.
The plant contains an obscure possibility of the conscious animal; the animal mind, similarly, is astir with the movements of feeling and perception and the rudiments of conception that are the first ground for man
the thinker. in like manner, we find that the evolutionary Consciousness-Force is endeavouring to develop out of him the supramental being of which the first signs are his stress on spirituality, his awareness of
his imperfection and limitation and his striving towards something that is beyond what he now is. This straining towards self-exceeding, towards some divine fulfilment, towards the perfection of his body, mind and
life cannot be fulfilled, accomplished without the descent of the higher consciousness into Matter anymore than the lotus can rise from mud by the power of the mud. Sunlight is needed." The sunlight that
humanity needs in its ascent is what Sri Aurobindo has called the Supermind.
" There is no conclusive validity, " argues Sri Aurobindo," in the reasoning that because this is a world of Ignorance , such a
transformation [of man into Superman]... cannot be achieved at all.... This conclusion could only be solely valid if Ignorance where the whole meaning, substance and power of the world manifestation.... But the
Ignorance is only a portion of this World-Nature; it is not the whole of it, not the original power or creation.... In universal Mind itself there are ranges above our mentality which are instruments of the
cosmic truth-cognition, and into these the mental being can surely rise; for already it rises towards them in supernormal conditions or receives from them....intuitions, spiritual intimations, large influxes of
illumination or spiritul capacity. All these ranges are conscious of what is beyond them, and the highest of them is directly open to the Supermind, aware of the Truth-Consciousness which exceeds it".
(The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 845)
What Sri Aurobindo is aluding to, spiritually and the levels beyond mind, have hardly anything to do with religion as it is understood or practised
today. It is obvious that reasons cannot be the directing light, the regulating and harmonising principle, the highest guide to the deepest aspirations of man, namely, his urge to reach the infinite, the
transcendent, the universal, the One. The legitimate function of reason is to justify and illumine for man his various experiences and to give him faith and conviction in holding on to the enlarging of his
consciousness. It cannot ultimately arrive at any final truth because " it can neither get to the root of things nor can't embrace the totality of their secrets."
" Its limit is reached, "states Sri Aurobindo," its function is finished when it can say to man, 'There is a soul, a Self, a God in
the world and a man who works concealed and all his self-concealing and gradual self-unfolding. His minister I have been, slowly to unseal your eyes...until there is only my own luminous veil between you and
him. Remove that and make the soul of man one in fact and nature with this Divine..." (The Human Cycle, Vol.15,p.114)
Because of these inherent limitations of reasons, the guide to human life and society was sought in religion. Apart from its outward machinery of
creed, cult, ceremony and symbol, the essence of religion is to seek God. It reaches man to live out the true and intimate relations between man and God. But, unfortunately, this spiritual core experience of
religion is always shrouded by particular creed, cult, sect, religious society or Church which ends up in religious fanaticism - another name for superstitions, aberrations, violences and crimes sanctioned, admitted
and supported by the particular religious creed. Therefore, religion as it is today, has failed to be the proper guide of human life because it has confused the essential with the adventitious, true religion with
religionism.
True religion is spiritual religion, a seeking after God, the opening of the deepest life of the soul to the indwelling Godhead, the eternal
Omnipresence. Spirituality has therefore nothing to do with renunciation and mortification of life, it offers only but does not impose upon man moral codes as aids and props. "Spirituality respects the freedom
of the human soul - because it is itself fulfilled by freedom; and the deepest meaning of freedom is the power to expand and grow towards perfection by the law of one's own nature, dharma". (The Human Cycle, Vol.15, p.170)
"In spirituality then would lie our ultimate, our only hope for the perfection whether of the individual or of the communal man,"
concludes Sri Aurobindo. A spirituality that would take up into itself man's rationalism, aestheticism, ethics, vitalism, corporeality, his aspiration towards knowledge, his urge towards perfection, his demand
for power and fullness of life and being... is a power which even man's too self-sufficient reason can accept as sovereign and to see in its own supreme light, its own infinite source." ( Ibid ) p. 171.
The highest of the spiritual capacities in man has been till now the overmind according to Sri Aurobindo, but man's immemorial quest has been,
covertly, to strive towards that zenith of his consciousness in manifestation - the Supermind. Sri Aurobindo strove all his life for the sovereign manifestation, a descent into earth-consciousness of this highest
evolutionary status in ignorance - the Supermind. His concrete experience is that the luminous destiny:
"It is this certainty that authorises us," says Sri Aurobindo" to believe that mind and humanity also will tend towards the
realisation that will be far beyond our present dreams of perfection. A mind of light will replace the present confusion and trouble of this earthly ignorance; it is likely that even those parts of humanity
which cannot reach it will yet be aware of its possibility and consciously tend towards it; not only so, but the life of humanity will be enlightened, uplifted, governed, harmonised by this luminous principle
[the Supramental Principle] and even the body become something much less powerless, obscure and animal in its propensities capable instead of new and harmonised perfection."
(The Supramental Manifestation) Vol.16. P.65
It was Nietzsche who first coined the word Superman and insisted upon the imperative necessity of the present human race to be replaced by a stronger
one. For Nietzsche, the superman is an embodiment of absolute power, has the supreme sense of the ego and lives dangerously. He is one who towers far above the vast multitudes of people and has the power to impose
upon them his own sovereign will. The Superman arrogantly repels all suffering and misery and is a complete stranger to the ideal of sorrow and service as liberating forces.
Conceived as it is, the concept of superman in Nietzsche is completely devoid of Knowledge and Love and the Superman becomes a destructive and
malevolent force. He becomes the deification of the demon in man.
"The Superman of the Divine Man, as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo on the contrary has for his distinguished mark a thorough divine transformation
of all the parts of his embodied existence including even the grossest physical. He will have the infinite power of God, but he would be loath to make any personal or egoistic use thereof. As a playmate of the
Divine, he would unreservedly offer his body, life and mind, as plastic instruments in the hand of god so that life on earth may be turned into a sacred poem of divine ecstasy. Again the Superman is not, as
Nietzsche thinks him to be, the highest embodiment of the biological force of Nature, not even as modified and refined by the aesthetic and aristocratic virtues of which the higher reaches of humanity seem
capable." (V. Madhusudan Reddy, Sri Aurobindo´s Philosphy of Evolution, p.333)
Sri Aurobindo´s Superman is essentially a new species that is to come after many intermediary stages of human transfiguration.
Georg Bernhard Shaw, in his play ´Man and Superman´ stresses on the need of the collective evolution of man into Superman, 'if any genuine progress is
to be made beyond what has already been achieved. What we require most today is a democracy of Superman, says Shaw, if "we wish to eliminate the yahoo, or his vote will wreck the Commonwealth." (Bernhard
Shaw, Man and Superman, p.218)
Shaw rightly stresses on radical change of human nature by the 'omnipotence of the objective circumstances of human living. Whereas Sri Aurobindo
insists on a total conversion, transform nation of man's being and consciousness from within outwards. And this can be done only by the bringing into active operation the dynamic principle of Truth-Consciousness,
Supermind of which mind is only a poor delegate.
Perhaps, Prof. Alexander comes a little close to Sri Aurobindo in his concept of 'the fourth principle', 'the deity'. "We cannot tell what is the
nature of deity, of our deity, but we can be certain that this is not mind, or if we use the term spirit as equivalent to mind, deity is not spirit, but something different from it in kind." (Samuel Alexander,
Space, Time and Deity, Vol.11, p.348) The emergence of deity does not in any case affect the earlier species, according to Prof. Alexander. The space-time matrix remains as a fixed back-drops for the new species.
Man's fate is thus sealed, for he himself cannot evolve into the higher principle or race. Such is the dark suffering destiny of man.
But, in Sri Aurobindo it is the destiny of man to receive the Higher Consciousness and to be transformed into the Divine Man. The coming of the
Superman would be a great event of joy and harmony not only for human species but for all creatures on earth. The advent of Superman and gnostic beings would, therefore, "be the crowing consummation of the
increasing process of self-manifestation of the Spirit in material conditions," says Sri Aurobindo.
"Finally, a word about Jivanmukta and the Superman: while the Superman of Sri Aurobindo must needs be a Jivanmukta Purusha, not all Jivanmuktas are Supermen. Supermanhood is a far richer concept and a
greater achievement than Jivanmukti. There have indeed been numerous instances of Jivanmukti in the past, but Supermanhood is yet to blossom forth in the course of further evolution. Emancipated from the drive of
desire, the Jivanmukti stands outside the stream of evolution. Freed from the shackles of the body, he refrains from the supreme effort to turn the body into a perfect image of the Divine or into a medium of the
Spirit's manifestation in Matter. Enraptured by the ascending movement of God towards self-objectification, and, as a consequence, misses the significance of the cosmic process. The Jivanmukta sits in eternal
contemplation of the realm of perfection, which consequently has a paralysing effect on life and its activity. And while "Jivanmukta only identifies himself, by means of a make believe..., with body retained
for cosmic purposes by God and is seen to perform actions", the Superman enters into conscious co-operation with the Divine Power which secretly guides the process of evolution. (Sri Aurobindo's Philosophy of
Evolution, p.337-38)
EARTH'S GOALS
The Prithivi Sukta mentions:
"Earth is the matrix of many things, the wide arena of man's struggle against darkness. The Goda have set up her goals to increasingly achieve
and fulfil.
May the Lord of life make available and fulfil to us all her religions."
The next goal of the earth, as envisaged by Sri Aurobindo, is a 'New Humanity' which would be a race of human beings but delivered from Ignorance and
possessed of a 'mind of light'. This humanity would be a part of the later divine life upon earth which would be governed by the Supramental race. This New Humanity would be an inevitable part of Nature's evolution
and not an exception.
This New Humanity will probably be the dominating force of the coming age, the Spiritual Age. In his book, The Human Cycle, Sri Aurobindo traces the
progress or human society through distinct psychological stages which he terms as a) Symbolic b) Typical c) Conventional d) Individualist e) Subjective and f) Spiritual.
The evolutionary nisus has brought successfully the elite of humanity to the subjective age. But in doing so, 'the evolution of mind working upon life
has developed an organisation of the activity of mind and use of matter' in such a way that it has now become a burden to man and it can no longer be supported by human capacity without an imminent inner growth, an
inner development of consciousness. The burden of materialisation seems to be too great for 'the petty mind and small life-instincts' and humanity seems to be heading perilously 'under the drive of the vital ego'
towards a 'darkness of violent shifting incertitude'. Nature in man seems to be confronting herself 'with a critical choice' and "an accommodation of the ego-centric human individuality, seperative even in
association, to a system of living which demands unity, perfect mutuality, harmony, is imperative", warns Sri Aurobindo.
Fortunately for man, the choice seems to have been taken by its spiritual pioneers and the elite of humanity is heading towards the Age of
Spirituality, declared Sri Aurobindo.
It is this transition to a New Age, a New Cycle of human progress that is the root cause of all the present turmoils in mankind. The crisis we face
today is essentially a crisis of evolution and always, "the end of a stage of evolution," Sri Aurobindo said in 1910, "is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of the
evolution." It is this 'recrudescence of all that has to go out of the evolution 'that is being experienced all over the world today. It is taking different forms, names, excuses, but basically everywhere it is
the same "replacement of the mental government of intelligence by the spiritual government of Consciousness." The obvious and irrefutable sign of this transfer of governance is the state of universal
tension which has reached such a point where "it must break through and emerge into a ... new consciousness" or else go backwards and be a prey of darkness and inertia. "We can take this as a sure
sign of the infusion into Matter of a new principle of force, of consciousness, of power which, through its very Presence, is creating this acute state," observed the Mother.
"Such then is the destiny of man and mankind - man to rise to higher heights of consciousness beyond mental reason that are not governed by
the principle of unity, identity, mutuality and totality. In order words, he will take his seat in the status of his soul, his inner and inmost being, his divine personality where he is one with all beings and
with the world. this is a rare and difficult realisation for man as he is today, but tomorrow it will be his normal nature." (NoliniKanta Gupta, Collected Work, Vol.1 p.237)
In the poetic and prophetic expression of Sri Aurobindo:
"Earth is doubting future hides our heritage:
The Light now distant shall grow native here,
The strengths that visits us our comrade power;
The ineffable shall find a secret voice,
The Imperishable burn through Matter's screen
Making this mortal body godhead's robe.
The spirits greatness is our timeless source
And it shall be our crown in endless Time."
(Sri Aurobindo, Savitri Vol. 28 -p.110)
This vision and prophecy of the next goal of the earth and man's destiny, as analysed by Sri Aurobindo in his study of the psychological cycles of
human society find their echo in other theories of cosmic and astrological cycles as enunciated by Indian and other ancient cultures.
The Hindu tradition of the yugas holds that the Kali yuga is the most negative and dark of all the four yuga. However, as we have now approached the closing phase of this yuga, "a human and planetary transition between the old age of darkness and the new upswing of consciousness towards the New Age of light is coming about. It is sometimes called the Golden Age", notes Moira Timms. And her interesting conclusion, very similar to that of Sri Aurobindo, is as follows :
"The human race will be fully equipped to complete the remainder of this Earth sojourn in a state of perfection :harmony with each other,
nature and the Creator. By gaining mastery over the physical plane, this life - wave will then be ready to progress to a higher sphere of existence on its evolutionary journey."
(Prophecies to take into Twenty First Century, p.33)
In the Americas, there is a tradition of Hopi creation which also tells of four successive worlds. This tradition also mentions that the fourth worlds,
the present earth is being 'purified by the Great Spirit.'
Be it the tradition of the Mayas, the Incas, the Greeks, all of them speak in one voice about the purging that will take place in 'the present age, a
purging that may seem as the end of the world' but in fact it is the end of the old and beginning of the birth pangs of a 'New Age'. "However, they can more accurately be described as a healing crisis and
cleansing of the Earth, the Karma that is due to and playable before the new phase can become operable. Only the purest water can become vapour, and this is how it will be with us humans caught up in this
evolutionary process." (Moira Timms, P.34)
According to the astrological cycles, Polaris is our present polar star and it -
"represents the point of polarity between cosmic winter/summer, night/day, Pisces/Aquarius. It governs the depolarisation of Earth's
consciousness.... As Aquarius pours forth the waters of life from the fullness of his vessel, the Earth will be purified by his gift. But when the waters settle and become calm, we shall see reflected in their
stillness a new reality. An expanded state of harmony and wisdom awaits as the New Order of the Ages stabilises".
(Moira Timms, p.55)
Truly, as the I Ching describes, "After a time of decay comes the turning point." The time of decay is now and the period of awakening the
greatest spiritual possibilities of man is also now. The worship of gods and the worship of matter have kneaded the human consciousness and have made matter less unconscious of itself, more responsive to the touch
of the Higher Spiritual Consciousness paving the way for a total manifestation of the Divine Consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo's vision of a divine life upon earth seems to be the culmination and fulfilment of all the past prophecies and calculations of a new
world, a new earth, a new race. The crucial difference between others' views and Sri Aurobindo's is his emphasis upon the radical transformation of human nature. Without an inner change man can no longer cope with
the gigantic development of the outer life. "In our present life of Nature, in our eternalised surface existence, it is the world that seems to create us; but in the turn to the spiritual life it is we who must
create ourselves and our world. In this new formula of creation, the inner life becomes of the first importance and the rest can be only its expression and outcome." (The Life Divine, p. 1108) In practice, this
is the first preoccupation for creating a new earth-life, for bringing in a new order of beings - to create the inner life and then to convert our thought, feeling and action in the dynamic world into perfect
instrument of that inner realisation.
Our second preoccupation would be the perfection of the spiritual and pragmatic relation between the individual and the collective. This can come about
only by a complete universality and oneness with all life upon earth. Then the third and last desideratum is a new world, a new earth-life, a new race that would serve as the link between man and superman. "
This calls for the appearance not only of isolated evolved individuals acting in the unevolved mass, but of many gnostic individuals forming a new kind of beings and a new common life superior to the present
individual and common existence." ( Sri Aurobindos Philosophy of Evolution, p. 343)
The fulfilment of the third desideratum is the mission and meaning of Sri Aurobindo´s life. He is the harbinger of a revolution of New Consciousness.
" From the beginning of the earth's history, " says the Mother, " in one form or another, Sri Aurobindo as always prescribed over the
great terrestrial transformations. " And this time too, he has come to fulfil the next future of earth's destiny, to welcome the children of a New Race of Evolution II.
About his own work for the new earth, Sri Aurobindo once wrote in a poem:
Coercing my godhead I have come down
Here on the sordid earth...
But the god is there in my mortal breast
Who wrestles with error and fate.
The gulf twist the depths and heights is bridged
And the golden waters pour...
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn;
Like flames to the kingdoms of Truth and Bliss:
Down a gold-red stair-way wend
The radiant children of Paradise
Clarioning darkness´s end.
A God's Labour
Sri Aurobindo has shown the direction of Earth´s destiny and has prepared the path for all those who would like to walk consciously on that Sunlit Path
and hasten the golden future of the Earth. In simple terms, the aspirant for the New Earth has first to increase control over his own lower nature and live in inner self and native. Second, the individual must
surrender consciously, willingly, joyously his whole inner being to the new light, the new truth of the Supramental force. Thirdly, this inner harmony and unification of the being must be extended to the cosmic
consciousness. As the Mother puts it, " First the consciousness must be transformed, then life, then the forms. It is in this order that the new creation will happen. "
All the individuals who would follow these steps of self transcendence and self-transformation would be on their way towards supermanhood. The large
mass of humanity might still remain for long content, satisfied, happy with only a partially uplifted human nature. But this would be a sufficiently good base for the advent of the new race, " In any case these
would be beginnings only and cannot constitute the fullness of the divine life upon earth, it would be a new orientation of the earthly life but not the consummation of its change. For that here must be the
sovereign reign of a supramental truth-consciousness " says Sri Aurobindo.
The consummation of the earth's destiny would be when the body will become a faithful and capable instrument, perfectly responsive to the spirit; when
Matter will reveal itself as an instrument of the manifestation of Spirit; when there is " the sovereignty of the Spirit over its own instruments, its possession of itself and its possession of life in the
power of the Spirit, a new consciousness in which humanity itself shall find its own self-exceeding and self-fulfilment by the revelation of the divinity that is striving for birth within it. This is the sole true
supermanhood and the one real possibility of a step forward in evolutionary Nature. " ( The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 1068 )
" If there is an evolution in material Nature and if it is an evolution of being with consciousness and life as its two key terms and powers, this
fullness of being, fullness of consciousness, fullness of life must be the goal of development towards which we are tending and which will manifest at an early or later stage of our destiny. The self, the Spirit,
the Reality that is disclosing itself out of the first inconscience of life and matter, would evolve its complete truth of being and consciousness in that life and matter. It would return to itself, - or, if its end
as an individual is to return into its Absolute, it could make that return also, - not through frustration of life but through a spiritual completeness of itself in life. Our evolution in the Ignorance with its
chequered joy and pain of self-discovery, its half-fulfilment, its constant finding and missing, is only our first state. It must lead inevitably towards an evolution in the Knowledge, a self-finding and
self-unfolding of the Spirit, a self-revelation of the Divinity in things in that true power to itself in Nature which is to us still a Supernature. ( The Life Divine, Vol. 19, p. 1069-70 )
If this be the Golden Vesture of the New Earth, let us pray to the Lord:
O Goddess, Mother of all, maker of many races
That live across your vast stretches, O Earth,
Grant all our prayer: May the Lord of all,
The Right - Incarnate, furnish you all that you may need.
May all your regions free from waste or decay
O Earth, ever grow luxuriant to make us prosperous.
Living a full span of life, always conscious and vigilant
May we always offer you our loving homage.
O Earth, sweet dispenser of human destiny
Grant me my luminous lot that I may be at peace -
With myself and in harmony with powers celestial.
Set me, O Mother-Seer, in good grace and transforming Truth.
Prithivi Sukta
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