‘Two are the measures of the cosmic Dance’. The dance of Krishna, the dance that accompanies and brings with it the Delight of creation, and the dance of Kali, the dance that brings the delight of destruction, the passing away of all that has outlived its purpose. They are two facets of the One Reality, the former prepares us for the latter and again the latter prepares us for the former. Destruction paves the way for a New creation. Each Godhead is an aspect or power of the One Divine and we must be able to see the Godhead in its universal action. We should also be able to integrate the action of these Godheads with the greater Truth of the Transcendent Divine from whom they emerge, in whom they are established, by whom and for whom they exist. Such is the grand synthetic and integral vision of Sri Aurobindo where each thing finds its true place. The present talk explores some of these areas.
Words of Sri Aurobindo
God who is essentially Sacchidananda, is in manifestation Satyam, Prema, Shakti, Truth, Strength and Love. Whatever is consistent with the truth and principle of things, whatever increases love among men, whatever makes for the strength of the individual, the nation and the race, is divine, it is the law of Vaivaswata Manu, it is the sanatana dharma and the Hindu shastra. Only, God is the triple harmony, He is not one-sided. Our love must not make us weak, blind or unwise; our strength must not make us hard and furious; our principles must not make us fanatical or sentimental. Let us think calmly, patiently, impartially; let us love wholly and intensely but wisely; let us act with strength, nobility and force. If even then we make mistakes, yet God makes none. We decide and act; He determines the fruit, and whatever He determines is good…..
Unknown to men the social revolution prepares itself, and it is not in the direction they think, for it embraces the world, not India only. Whether we like it or not, He will sweep out the refuse of the Indian past and the European present. But the broom is not always sufficient; sometimes He uses the sword in preference. It seems probable that it will be used, for the world does not mend itself quickly, and therefore it will have violently to be mended…..
So much depends on Time & God’s immediate purpose that it is more important to seek out His purpose than to attach ourselves to our own nostrums. The Kala Purusha, Zeitgeist & Death Spirit, has risen to his dreadful work lokakshayakritpravriddhas, increasing to destroy a world, and who shall stay the terror & mightiness & irresistibility of Him? But He is not only destroying the world that was, He is creating the world that shall be; it is therefore more profitable for us to discover & help what He is building than to lament & hug in our arms what He is destroying. But it is not easy to discover His drift, & we often admire too much temporary erections which are merely tents for the warriors in this Kurukshetra and take them for the permanent buildings of the future…..
Has the time arrived for that destruction? We think that it has. Listen to the crash of those waters, more formidable than the noise of assault, mark that slow, sullen, remorseless sapping, watch pile after pile of our patched incoherent ramshackle structure corroding, creaking, shaking with the blows, breaking, sinking silently or with a splash, suddenly or little by little into the yeast of those billows. Has the time arrived for a new construction? We say it has. Mark the activity, eagerness and hurrying to and fro of mankind, the rapid prospecting, seeking, digging, founding see the Avatars & great vibhutis coming, arising thickly, treading each close behind the other. Are not these the signs and do they not tell us that the great Avatar of all arrives to establish the first Satya Yuga of the Kali?….
Yes. A new harmony, but not the scrannel pipes of European materialism, not an Occidental foundation upon half truths & whole falsehoods. When there is destruction it is the form that perishes, not the spirit for the world and its ways are forms of one Truth which appears in this material world in ever new bodies and constantly varied apparel the inward Eternal taking the joy of outward Mutability. The truth of the old Satya that is dead was not different from the Truth of the new Satya that is to be born, for it is Truth that restores itself always and persists. In India, the chosen land, it is preserved; in the soul of India it sleeps, expectant of that soul’s awakening, the soul of India leonine, luminous, locked in the closed petals of the ancient lotus of strength and wisdom, not in her weak, sordid, transient & miserable externals. India alone can build the future of mankind; in India alone can the effective Avatar appear to the nations. And until He appears, it is for India to gather herself up out of her dust & degradation, symbol of the shattered Satyayuga, commune with her soul by Yoga and to know her past & her future.
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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 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.
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 re-assimilated. 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.
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In 1919 Sri Aurobindo wrote that the chaos and the calamities were perhaps the pangs of the birth of a new creation. How long is this going to continue? In the Ashram, in India and eventually in the world?
It will continue until the world is ready and willing to receive the new creation; the consciousness of this new creation is already at work upon earth since the beginning of this year. If instead of resisting, people were collaborating, it would be quicker. But stupidity and ignorance are very obstinate!
November 29, 1969
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So to want to ascribe to the divine Action and the divine Power the disorder and confusion and destruction is yet more human nonsense. It’s inertia (not to speak of ill will), it’s inertia that CAUSES the catastrophe. It isn’t that the catastrophe is willed, or even that it’s foreseen: it is CAUSED by the resistance.
Then, added to this is the vision of the action of the Grace that comes and mitigates the results wherever possible, that is to say, wherever it’s accepted. And that’s what explains that the aspiration, the faith, the complete trust of the human, terrestrial element, have a power of harmonization, because they allow the Grace to come and mend the consequences of blind resistance.
I think I already told you, there’s a kind of golden Force pressing down (gesture); it has no material substantiality, and yet it feels terribly heavy….
Yes, yes.
… It presses down on Matter, to force it, to compel it to turn INWARDLY to the Divine – not an external flight (pointing above) but inwardly turning to the Divine. And the apparent outcome seems to be inevitable catastrophes. But along with this sense of inevitable catastrophe, there come solutions to situations or events that look simply miraculous.
As if both extremes were becoming more extreme: the good getting better and the bad worse. Like that. And a stupendous Power PRESSING down on the world. Such is my impression.
Those who know how to turn to … (how shall I put it?) who SINCERELY call upon the Divine, who feel it’s the only salvation, the only way out, and who sincerely offer themselves, then … (gesture of bursting open) within a few minutes, it becomes a wonder – for the least little thing: there’s no big or small, important or unimportant, it’s all the same.
This gives an idea of the change brought about in the world by the supramental Descent. Things that were insignificant are becoming quite categorical: a small mistake becomes categorical in its consequences while a little sincerity, a true little aspiration becomes miraculous in its results. The values are intensified in people. Even materially, the least little error has huge consequences, while the slightest sincerity of aspiration has extraordinary results. The values are intensified, they stand out more.
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One sees that the world in general is at present in a sort of disequilibrium and chaos. Does this mean that it is preparing itself for the manifestation of a new force, for the descent of the Truth? Or is this the result of the action of hostile forces in revolt against this descent? And what place does India occupy in all this?
It is both at the same time. It is a chaotic means of preparation. India should be the spiritual guide explaining what is happening and helping to shorten the movement. But, unfortunately, in her blind ambition to imitate the West, she has become materialistic and neglectful of her soul.
October 13, 1965
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Why this chaotic condition in our present government? Is it the sign of the change for the good, for the reign of Truth?
It is the pressure upon the entire earth of the force of Truth which causes disorder, confusion and falsehood to spring up everywhere in a refusal to be transformed.
India has become the symbolic representation of all the difficulties of modern mankind.
India will be the land of its resurrection—the resurrection to a higher and truer life.
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In the whole creation the earth has a place of distinction, because unlike any other planet it is evolutionary with a psychic entity at its centre. In it, India, in particular, is a divinely chosen country.
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India is the country where the psychic law can and must rule and the time has come for that here. Besides, it is the only possible salvation for this country whose consciousness has unfortunately been distorted by the influence and domination of a foreign nation, but which, in spite of everything, possesses a unique spiritual heritage.
Blessings.
August 2, 1970
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Before dying falsehood rises in full swing.
Still people understand only the lesson of catastrophe. Will it have to come before they open their eyes to the truth?
I ask an effort from all so that it has not to be.
It is only the Truth that can save us: truth in words, truth in action, truth in will, truth in feelings. It is a choice between serving the Truth or being destroyed.
