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 Preface

Ours is an age of spiritual crisis in human history. This crisis is the climax of the
one-sided growth of our rational scientific civilization. A theoretical
understanding of this crisis, its causes and remedies, a necessary prelude to all
future progress of man, requires an examination of the entire process and
methods of social development. Man, today, needs an integral Social Philosophy
which my clarify the relation of individual and society and help in an integral
evolution of the human race into a new spiritual era.
Original Contribution of the Work
Sri Aurobindo occupies a very important position among the social philosophers
of our time. He seriously made a lifelong attempt to arrive at a Philosophy of
Social Development which at once synthesizes the wisdom of the East and the
West, as well as transcends it, on account of its insight into the evolutionary
process of human consciousness and its vision of the future of man. He not only
did not stop at the examination of the process and methods of social
development but suggested new methods based on inherent nature of evolution.
His social philosophy (philosophy of social development) however, has not yet
been systematized and evaluated. The purpose of the present work is three-fold.
It will clarify the scope, nature and methods of Social Philosophy, so that it may
not be confused with other branches of knowledge. Secondly, it will present a
comparative and critical systematization of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of social
development. Finally, it will evaluate Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of social
development in the light of comparative study of other typical theories. The
method to be followed in this work is construction through criticism.
Synopsis
The present work has been divided into three parts. The first part deals with
general principles of social philosophy with special reference to Sri Aurobindo’s
views. After a discussion of the need, value and nature of social philosophy, its
methods have been constructed in the IInd chapter. The third chapter is a
summary of the metaphysical background of Sri Aurobindo’s social philosophy.
The fourth chapter deals with human nature and tries to construct a synthetic and
dynamic outline of it, critically evaluating the views of psychologists, biologists
and philosophers in relation to Sri Aurobindo’s views.
The IInd part analyses the process of social development as outlined by Sri
Aurobindo and compares and contrasts it with other modern theories to arrive at
an evaluation of Sri Aurobindo’s thought. While the Vth chapter gives an outline
of the process of social development from the standpoint of the philosophy of
history, the VIth chapter presents a psychological approach. The VIIth chapter
analyses the ideal of this process.
The IIIrd part deals with the dynamics of social development specially the
different methods of social development. Chapters VIII to XII deal with different
methods of social development and evaluate them with reference to what has
been developed in chapter VII. This part deals with culture and civilization,
education, ethics, religion and finally yoga, both as methods as well as
realisation of social development, as outlined by Sri Aurobindo. Chapter XIII
deals with what Sri Aurobindo has described as ‘gnostic stage’ of mankind and
his speculations about the future of man. Finally, chapter XIV summarises
conclusion of the project.
The author is indebted to all those who have directly or indirectly helped in
the finalization of this work.
RAM NATH SHARMA
 Contents

Preface
PART I
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Chapter I : Social Philosophy: Its Need, Value and Nature
The Crises of our Age – The Contribution of Science – The
Economic Barbarism – The Economic Man – The Sensational Man
– The Progress of Modern Man – The Crisis – The Evolutionary
Crisis – The Problem of Harmony – Social Philosophy: Its need –
Social Philosophy: Its value – Social Philosophy: Its nature – Social
Philosophy and Sociology – Facts and Values – Social Philosophy
and Sociology are Complementary – Social Philosophy: Its Critical
and Constructive Parts
Chapter II : Methods of Social Philosophy
The Essentials of Enquiry – Scientific Method – Limitations of
Scientific Methods – The Philosophical Versus the Scientific
Method – Conclusions of the Philosophers of History – Methods of
Social Philosophy – The Double Process – The Place of Reason –
The Value of Thought – Synthesis of Reason and Intuition – Sri
Aurobindo’s Integral Method in Social Philosophy: Two-Fold
Observation – Inadequacy of Mental Observation – Transcendence
of Mental Level – The Supramental Gnostic Vision – The
Supramental Ascent – Social Philosophy should be Subordinate to
Yoga – The Error of Social Philosophers
Chapter III : Metaphysical Background of Sri Aurobindo’s Social
Philosophy
Integral Metaphysics – Knowledge – Ignorance – Purpose of
 Ignorance – Locus of Ignorance – Sevenfold Ignorance –
Importance of the Conceptions of Knowledge and Ignorance – Truth
as Integral Experience – The Triune Reality – The Absolute – Para-
Brahman – The Three Aspects of Absolute – God – The World –
The World as the Play of Force – Nature of Force – Space and Time
– The Triple Manifestation – The Mother – Lῑlā, the purpose of
creation – The Evolution – The Process – The Three Evolutes in
Ignorance – Matter too is Brahman – Life – Three Stages of the
Evolution of Life – The Mind – The Supermind – From Mind to
Supermind – Higher Mind – Illumined Mind – Intuitive Mind –
Overmind – Not a Rigid Scheme – The Evolution is teleological –
Karma – Rebirth – Evil, Falsehood, Error and Pain

Chapter IV : The Human Nature

A Dynamic Approach – Impact of Culture – The Missing Links –
Integral Perspective of Human Nature – Conclusions of Gardner
Murphy – Need of a New Approach – Sri Aurobindo’s Integral
Psychology – Man and Animal – Universal and Transcendental
Field – Validity of the Yogic Psychology – The Causal Being – New
Concepts of Yogic Psychology – The Structure of Man – The Soul –
Caitya Purusa – Jivatman – Five Sheaths – Four Parts of the Vital –
The Double Principles – The Seven Chakras – The Levels of
Consciousness – The Sub-Conscient – Comparison with Freudian
Unconscious – The Value of the Sub-conscient – The Method to
know the sub-conscient – The Subliminal – The Circumconscient –
The Superconscient – The Supramental Ascent
PART II
PROCESS OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chapter V : Philosophy of History
Stages in the Cycle of Social Development – The Symbolic Age –
The Vedic Symbolism – The Spiral Process – Instinct and Reason –
The Typal Stage – The Conventional Stage – Psychological Stages –
The So-called Satya Yuga – The Individualistic Stage – European
Birth of Individualism – The Psychology of Revolution – The
Triumph of Science – The Scientific Society – Russell’s Conditions
 for the Stability of Scientific Society – Criticism of Russell’s views
– Two Idea-forces – Not Revival but Revolution – The Subjective
Age – Individual and Society – The Objective view of Nation – The
Subjective Trend – German Subjectivism – True and False
Subjectivism – The Error of German Subjectivism – The Value of
German Subjectivism – Two Aspects of German Gospel – The Two
Conflicting Ideals – The Ideal of Larger Collectivity – The
Objective View of Life – The Subjective View of Life – Meeting of
the Extremes
Chapter VI : Psychology of Social Development
The Three Stages – Not a Rigid Scheme – Two Tendencies – The
Principle of Integral Growth – The Rational Stage – Individualism –
Individualism and Democracy – Equality – Liberty – Failures of
Individualism – Failure of Individualistic Democracy – The
Contribution of Democratic Ideals – Results of Democracy – A
Psychological Diagnosis – The Value of the Individual – Spiritual
Individualism – Democratic Socialism – Marxist Socialism – The
Materialistic Basis of Marxism – Contribution of Marxism – The
Transition to Communism – Socialist Democracy – The Opposition
of Democracy and Socialism – Totalitarianism – A New Trend –
The Value of the Collectivist Idea – The Central Fallacy –
Intellectual Anarchism – Spiritual Anarchism – Conclusion

Chapter VII : The Ideal of Social Development

Need of Clarification of the Aim – Integral Knowledge of Reality –
Sevenfold Ignorance – God, Man and Nature – The Realistic Basis –
The Ancient Approach – Contrast of Ancient and Modern
Approaches – The Individualist and the Collectivist Impulses – Man
Transcends Society – Community Between Individual and
Humanity – The Ideal of Four Purusharthas – The Failure of Reason
– The Supra-rational essence of life – The Law of Fragmentation –
The Spritual Aim of Life – Originality of Sri Aurobindo’s Approach
– Free but Necessary Growth – Naturalist Philosophies – Is
Superman Abnormal – Conditions for the Realization of the
Spiritual Aim – The Individual Change – The Communal Change –
The Subjective Trend – Vital, Mental and Psychical Subjectivism –
 The Integral View

PART III
THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chapter VIII : Culture and Civilization
The Components of Culture – Value of Vital Element in Culture –
Culture and Conduct – The Psychology of the Opposition of Culture
and Conduct – Limitations of Ethical Culture – The Aesthetic
Culture and its Limitations – Synthesis of Ethics and Aesthetics –
Need of a Synthetic Principle – The Superiority of Reason – Reason
and Life – The Rational Culture – The Principle of Integration – Sri
Aurobindo’s Vision of the Spiritual Culture – Individuality of
Different Cultures – Real Idealism – Difficulty of the Actualization
of Ideals – Interaction of Cultures – Assimilation

Chapter IX : Education
Self Education – Psychological Basis of Education – Education and
Ideals – Fundamental Principles of Education – The Instrument of
Education – Moral Education – Religious Teaching – Simultaneous
and Successive Teaching – Medium of Instruction – The Training of
the Senses – Sense Improvement by Practice – Training of the
Mental Faculties – Training of the Logical Powers of the Mind –
Perfection of the Body – Education and Yoga

Chapter X : Ethics
The Basic Fallacy – Need of a Dynamic Outlook – The Ultimate
End – Ethics: A means to God-realisation – Transvaluation of
Values – Self-Sacrifice – Positive Ethics – The Criterion of Morality
– Postulates of Ethics – Freedom of Will – Ethics of Self-
Realization – Transcendence of Ethics – Indispensability of Ethics –
The Progress of the Ethical Being – The Spiral of Moral Evolution –
Ends and Means – Political Morality – The Doctrine of Passive
Resistance – Non-violence as a Means – Love in Politics – Gospel
of Nationalism – Morality of Swadeshi – Significance of Violence
and War
Chapter XI : Religion
Value of Religion in Human Life – Revolt against Religion – The
Truth of Anti-religious Trends – The Root of the Evil in Religion –
Meeting of Extremes – Spirituality as the essence of Religion –
Insufficiency of Reason – Philosophy of Religion – Evolution of
Religion – Mysticism and Religion – Religion as a Method of Social
Development – Four Lines of Development in Nature – Role of
Religion in Social Development – Social Basis of Religion –
Individual Aspect of Religion – Failure of Religious Movements –
Causes of this Failure – Limitations of Religion as a method of
social development – Culmination of Religion in Yoga

Chapter XII : The Integral Yoga

Is Yoga a Method of Social Development? – The Aim of Integral
Yoga – Validity of the Method of Yoga – The Theoretical
Justification – The Evolutionary Proof – What is integral Yoga? –
Distinction from other Yogas – Distinction from other Yogas –
Different Aims – Different Methods – The Method of Integral Yoga
– Synthesis of other Yogas – Synthesis of Knowledge, Love and
Work – Surrender – Quietude – Psychicization – Triple
Transformation – Ascent and Descent – Meditation and
Concentration – A Universal Method – No Change En-Masse – Two
Conditions of Realization – Symptoms of Spiritual Age – No
Miracles

Chapter XIII : The Future of Mankind

Limitations of Speculation about Future – Descent of Gnostic
Consciousness – Distinction between Supramental and Overmental
Beings – Unity through Diversity – The Gnostic Being – The
Supramental Being – Fulfilment of Body, Life and Mind –
Personality of the Gnostic Being – A Moral Stage – Difference of
Instrumentation – The Gnostic Collectivity – Gnostic Influence on
Human Race – No Cessation of Inconscience – The Cosmic
Liberation – Oneness of whole Being – The Divine Life – The
Problem of Transition – Supramental Supermanhood – Some
Difficulties – Humanistic Difficulty – Metaphysical Difficulty –
 Observational Difficulty – Religious Difficulty – Doubt in Human
Progress – Sri Aurobindo’s answer to these Difficulties – Refutation
of Arguments against Purpose in Evolution – Refutation of the
Metaphysical Argument – The Evidence of Evolution – Certitude of
Progress – The Significance of the Emergence of Man – Realization
of Triple Truth
Chapter XIV : Concluding Remarks
Meaning of the Present Crisis – A Social Philosophy of Affirmation
– An Indispensible Social Philosophy – Nature of Spirituality – Not
a Reactionary or a Conservative – Yogic Analysis of Human Nature
– An Integral Social Ideal – Real Idealism – Robust Optimism –
Integral Moral Philosophy – Integral Method of Social Development
– Supramental Vision in Social Philosophy – Not a Systematization
– The Progress of the Experiment

Select Bibliography
 PART I
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
• • •
CHAPTER I
Social Philosophy: Its Need, Value and
Nature

“It must be a law and truth that discovers the perfect movement,
harmony, rhythm of a great spiritualized collective life and determines
perfectly our relations with each being and all beings in Nature’s
varied oneness. It must be at the same time a law and truth that
discovers to us at each moment the rhythm and exact steps of the direct
expression of the Divine in the soul, mind, life, body of the individual
creature.” — Sri Aurobindo

The Crises of our Age

Our age is a period of momentous transition in human civilization. All the
notable philosophers of history and culture unanimously agree that the socio-
political tendencies exhibit a dangerous situation. Spengler, Danilevsky,
Schweitzer, Berdyaev, Northrop, Toynbee, Kroeber, Sorokin and Sri Aurobindo,
to name only the most important of them, have all foreseen the present crisis. As
Sri Aurobindo puts it, “Man has created a system of civilization which has
become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still
more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous
servant of his blundering ego and its appetites.”[1] Oswald Spengler interprets
this crisis as the last gasp of a dying civilization. “The history of the megapolitan
machine techniques”, says he, “is fast drawing to its inevitable close. It will be
eaten up from within, like the grand forms of any and every culture. When, and
in what manner, we know not.”[2] Howsoever one may disagree with Spengler’s
pessimistic conclusions, it is not quite so difficult to read the signs of cultural
decay. The creative power of mankind is gradually being lost under the pressure
of technology. The unity of human society is being dissipated by acute
differences and animosities based on the differences of class, colour and power
blocs. Man’s progress in culture has not kept pace with his progress in
technology.[3] The challenges to our age have remained unanswered. The
direction of modern man’s energy is outward. His progress is full of
contradictions. Side by side with a revival of religious and ethical values one
finds a widely prevalent scientific irreligion, abstract dead philosophies,
imperialism, urbanization, international rivalries, racism and class-war. Man’s
routine of life is overworked. He cannot concentrate himself on looking within.
Creative thinking has almost disappeared under the pressure of manufactured
information of newspapers and magazines. Man suffers from what Sri
Aurobindo has aptly called, “thinkophobia.” There is a rapid advance in ethically
indifferent knowledge and technology. “Indeed” as Erich Fromm points out,
“We have the know-how, but we do not have the know-why, nor the know-what-
for.”[4] The spiritual aspect of civilization is fast dying under the exuberance of
the material aspect. “For this ideal, this conscious stress on the material and
economic life was in fact a civilised reversion to the first state of man, his early
barbaric state and its preoccupation with life and matter, a spiritual retrogression
with the resources of the mind of a developed humanity and a fully evolved
science at its disposal.”[5] Thus, “We have entered a dark journey in a time of
darkness.”[6]
The Contribution of Science
As a social philosopher Sri Aurobindo assesses the role of science in human
progress. Science has played an important part in man’s development but it also
presents the most imminent danger to his survival. The danger, however, is not
in science which is only a power, but it is in men who wield this power. Science
has done immense good. It has fought against ignorance through education. It
has everywhere infused an urge for more and more knowledge. It is gradually
universalizing knowledge and intellectual activity. It has enlarged the intellectual
horizon and intensified the intellectual capacity. Its materialism is different from
the old materialism of the identification of self with the body. It is based on the
supremacy of reason. Mind seeks to conquer the physical and vital through
science, a knowledge indispensable for man’s growth. The development of
mental (and physical) science is complementing the knowledge gained through
physical sciences.
In its negative work, science despised philosophy, discouraged poetry and
art in its pragmatic impulse, stayed religion and religious spirit and encouraged
an ugly realism and utilitarianism. This negation, according to Sri Aurobindo,
was also necessary, since all these had lost their spiritual essence and were
enmeshed in obscurantism, dogmatism and formalism. This onslaught by science
made them learn that their own truth is the secret of life and power and, by
finding it alone, they could serve their real purpose in man’s life. Thus science
has prepared man for an age of wider and deeper culture and rendered the return
of the true materialism almost impossible.
The Economic Barbarism
But indirectly, science, by its attitude to life and its discoveries, has led to
another type of barbarism which Sri Aurobindo has called, “that of the industrial,
the commercial, the economic age.” Ours is a material age with economic ideals.
These ideals are certainly not without value but dangerous in being too much
emphasised. Human civilization today has no danger from the barbarians since
science has put an immense power in the hands of civilized man. Man today
faces a danger whose sources are within him. This is the danger of the
resurgence of the old vital and material barbarism in mankind. “For” as Sri
Aurobindo points out, “that is bound to come if there is no high and strenuous
mental and moral ideal controlling and uplifting the vital and physical man in us
and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his inner being.”[7]
Thus according to Sri Aurobindo, what one witnesses in contemporary
society is not a culture but an economic barbarism whose ideal is not the
cultured, thoughtful, noble, moral or religious man but the successful man. Man
has mistaken his vital being for the real self and his aim is the satisfaction of this
vital being, its desires and instincts. The standard and aim of the modern man is
the satisfaction of wants and desires and accumulation of possessions. His
existence in this commercial barbarism is in arriving, succeeding, producing,
accumulating and possessing. “The accumulation of wealth and more wealth, the
adding of possessions to possessions, opulence, show, pleasure, a cumbrous
inartistic luxury, a plethora of conveniences, life devoid of beauty and nobility,
religion vulgarised or coldly formalised, politics and government turned into a
trade and profession, enjoyment itself made a business, this is commercialism.”[8]
This commercialism is at the heart of the present civilization. Its supermen and
rulers are the plutocrats, successful mammoth capitalists and organizers of
industry.
The Economic Man
This commercialism has given birth to the modern economic man. For this
economic man, beauty is a nuisance or a thing otiose. Art and poetry to him is
frivolity or an ostentation and a means of advertisement. Civilization to the
economic man is comfort, morality, social respectability, politics the
encouragement of industry, the expansion of markets, trade and exploitation,
religion pietistic formalism. The aim of the education for him, is to fit the man
for success in a competitive or socialised industrial existence. The purpose of
science is to provide useful knowledge, comforts, conveniences and machinery
of production.
The Sensational Man
The old philistine has been reborn in the modern sensational man, the mental
barbarian with his unintelligent attachment to the life of the body, of the vital
needs and impulses and the ideal of merely domestic and economic human
animal. Modern man lives on a lower mental plane. His life is the life of
sensations, emotions, practical conduct. These are not governed by some higher
principle nor uplifted to some higher level, rather the higher faculties are pulled
down to this lower level. His reason and will are either part of the group mind, or
governed by habitual and mechanical rules and pragmatic, sensational or
emotional elements. Man is not active, but reactive.
The Progress of Modern Man
The modern sensational man, according to Sri Aurobindo, is certainly better than
the old philistine, though not entirely different. Sri Aurobindo admits that man
has progressed from his past. “Thought and knowledge, if not Beauty, can get a
hearing and even produce rapidly some large, vague, yet in the end effective,
will for their results; the mass of culture and of men who think and strive
seriously to appreciate and to know, has enormously increased behind all this
surface veil of sensationalism, and even the sensational man has begun to
undergo a process of transformation.”[9] New methods of education and new
principles of society are coming more and more in practice. Man is also trying to
be mentally active. He feels the necessity of using his higher capacities. He is
surrounded by new information, new intellectual fashions, new ideas and new
movements, which he understands and also tries to put in practice. Modern
educated man thinks about social, political and moral problems and also those of
religion, science and philosophy. He also understands the importance of art for
life, even if he is without any clear ideas about beauty and aesthetics. He reads
poetry and all types of periodical literature and fictions. He has acquired and
discovered more and more knowledge of Nature and tried to know the secrets of
his existence, his own psychology and of the means to attain the results of this
knowledge. He has not only opposed reforms but also fought for them. He has
evolved various political and economic systems, anarchism, syndicalism,
socialism. He has waged a war of ideas or of cultures and led to the uprising of
labour and enfranchisement of women. It is this quick response from the modern
masses that has led to the rapid and almost stupefying success of Communism,
Nazism and Fascism, etc.
The Crisis
All this change however, has not been assimilated and harmonized in man’s life.
The culture, or rather the semblance of it, has been democratized but not
elevated. Education has only given the mental activity and occupations,
intellectual and even aesthetic sensations and emotions of idealism, it has not
redeemed man. Modern man has a craze for general knowledge and popular
science but he never bothers to coordinate or assimilate it. All this is activism
and sensationalism of crude mental being, though much more free and open.
Modern man can hear and execute things provided he is stimulated to do so. The
position of the modern writer, thinker, scientist and artist, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is like that of the cultural Greek slave in a Roman household whose
work was to please, amuse and instruct his master, always keeping an eye on his
tastes and likings. Philosophy, art and literature have been cheapened and
commercialized at an unprecendented scale. Man is facing a grave danger of the
crystallization of the human society into a stable, comfortable, mechanized,
social living without ideal or outlook. According to the analysis and vision of Sri
Aurobindo, “At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is
concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the
human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development, while
in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way.”[10]
The Evolutionary Crisis
Thus the crisis of our civilization, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not what has
been read in its external problems. He sees it philosophically, analyses it
psychologically and interprets it evolutionally. It is an evolutionary crisis, a
crisis due to the failure of reason to guide man’s life at this stage. The details of
Sri Aurobindo’s philosophical and psychological interpretation of the present
crisis have been elaborated in the fifth and sixth chapters of the present thesis.
The evolutionary stress, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the spiritual nisus.[11]
Reason can help mankind only by mediating between life, body and spirit.
Spiritual evolution is the only aim and the sole method in the Social Philosophy
of Sri Aurobindo. “That renounced, he (man) must either relapse and begin all
over again or disappear like other forms of life before him as an evolutionary
failure, through incapacity to maintain or to serve the evolutionary urge,”[12]
warns Sri Aurobindo. Even if man survives, he will exist only like other animal
types while Nature proceeds beyond him to create higher species. Thus man’s
present is full of grave dangers as well as great possibilities. The present fulness
of man’s life is being used for the multiplication of new wants and expansion of
the collective ego, though this same fulness of life can be utilised, for the pursuit
of higher truth, goodness and beauty and a greater and more divine spirit which
may use life for a higher perfection. Science has made the life of mankind
materially one, though this same unity can be made a basis of mental as well as
spiritual oneness. Solution of the present crisis, according to Sri Aurobindo, is
only possible by man’s tramsition from rational and infra-rational elements to
‘spirit’ as the guide of life. The validity of this solution and its advance upon
other theories has been examined in the fifth Chapter of this work.
The Problem of Harmony
Now, what is the real problem in all this crisis of our age? This crisis has been
viewed from different aspects and different problems have been found by
economists, politicians, psychologists, historians and philosophers. According to
Lenin, “War cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and socialism is
created.”[13] For the moralists like Albert Schweitzer, the real problem is the
moral regeneration of man. For the religious men everywhere, what is
hampering human progress is the growing atheism in man. For the sociologist,
the real problem is social disorganisation. For the psychologist, “unless we are
prepared to make this effort to understand and to solve the problem of ourselves,
to clear away the dross and rubbish from our own minds, to master the art of
control and of self-knowledge, we may plan and build, but we shall fail.”[14]
According to many others, the basic problem is not the harmony of man
within but his harmony with his fellow-beings. As C.A. Elwood remarks, “To
views confined to economic relations, the proper method of production and
distribution of material goods would solve the social problem; to the pacifist, the
pressing social problem is that of international relationship, to the Eugenist, the
problem is the control of heredity. To the feminist, this is very largely woman-
problem. But the real problem is the relation of one man to another.”[15] A
creative renaissance of human civilization definitely needs a minimum of what
Schweitzer calls “reverence for life” and what Russell calls “love”. But this
depends on the harmony of social relations, the harmony of loyalities. The basic
problem behind the problems of industrialism, mechanization, war,
centralization of power, lovelessness, immorality and finally all types of
disorganisation, is the lack of harmony between individual and society. As
Einstein said, “I have now reached the point where I may truly indicate what to
me constitutes the essence of the crisis of our time. It concerns the relationship
of the individual to society.”[16]
All these views are true so far as they go but they do not go very far. None
of these touches the real problem whose solution may lead to man’s victory in
the present crisis. The wisest seeing is also the most comprehensive. Wisdom
does not negate but fulfils. Only he understands the real problem involved in the
present crisis who reaches the source of all these difficulties mentioned so far.
Such a view will obviously include the truth in the findings of religious men,
ethicists, sociologists, politicians and economists. Such a synoptic and integral
approach one finds in Sri Aurobindo’s diagnosis that “.....all problems of
existence are essentially problems of harmony.”[17] This harmony is integral, i.e.,
a harmony of all the aspects of existence, the harmony within the individual, the
harmony between individuals, the harmony between individuals and collectivity,
the harmony between various collectivities of men and finally the harmony of
mankind with Nature and with God. Thus the harmony aimed at is the harmony
of the whole existence. The theoretical discussion of this harmony is Social
philosophy, the practical solution is Yoga, and the two are as closely inter-
related as any theory and practice must be.
Social Philosophy: Its need
Now, science cannot solve the problem of harmony. Science has not only failed
to find the principle of harmony between human relations, it has sometimes
made them even worse. To be useful, it should be subordinated to spiritual
ideals. Ideals themselves cannot make man grow unless they are translated into
practice, but their presence is a prelude to all purposive growth. To quote Prof.
Harold H. Titus, “Men have to make decisions and to act, and philosophy should
help them work out a scale of values and a philosophy of life by which they may
live.”[18] What men need today is both a knowledge of facts and a system of
ideals. Social Philosophy will not regenerate men unless it is put into practice. It
is, however, the minimum pre-requisite in all systematic efforts to overcome the
present crisis facing mankind. Those who have visualized the progression of
man’s history, the philosophers of the history of man’s civilization, like
Northrop, Schubert, Berdyaev, Schweitzer and Sorokin agree that man to-day
needs an integral philosophy based upon intuitive foundations, integrated with
rational and sensory reason. The crisis of our age may or may not be the last act
in the drama of human history. Man’s development, his present stage, is not due
to the evolutionary urge of Nature alone. Nature has become self-conscious in
man, so that man may consciously help in her evolution. Nature’s evolution after
the advent of man has been realized not through advent of new species but
through evolution in man’s consciousness. The present crisis, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is Nature’s urge at a further evolution of man’s consciousness. If
man answers to this spiritual call, his problems will be solved. A spiritual change
in human consciousness will usher him into a new era, higher and glorious than
the present one. The revival of love and reverence for life, a change in the
outlook of man, is more urgent than the scientific or technological
developments. Man should pause in his mad race for material progress, in his
victories over the powers of Nature, in his rush to reach the outer space, so that
all these may not be lost in his blundering leap. He should look again into his
past history, understand its philosophical and psychological meaning and realize
the true purpose and meaning of his growth. He should clarify his aims in the
light of Nature’s purpose in him as the spearhead of evolution, in the light of his
complex nature and finally in the light of the metaphysical truths of existence.
He should assess the value of his methods hitherto developed for his growth,
reform them and even change them wherever required. And above all, he should
develop a method at once integrating all these methods and also improving upon
them, at once harmonizing him within himself as well as with his fellow beings
and with the transcendent principle at the back of the whole existence. Man
should take stock of his present social institutions, their merits and demerits and
clearly see their future. All this is necessary, though not sufficient for to attain
actual results, to overcome the crisis nothing less than a complete spiritual
reorientation and even change of methods is required. Thus man needs a Social
Philosophy, a philosophy of social development, culminating in and leading to a
spiritual method of evolution, to attain the ideals theoretically laid down.
The foundations of this spiritual Social Philosophy will obviously be
intuitive, direct, primary, supra-rational, supra-sensory, axiomatic and self-
evident knowledge. Spengler, Schubert, Northrop, Berdyaev, Sorokin, and
Schweitzer all emphasize the mystic or intuitive aspect of this world-view. One
can find this intuitive tendency in the ‘intuitional’ knowledge and creativity of
H. Bergson, in ‘intuition of Essences’ of Husserl, in the epistemological theories
of S. Frank, M. Heideggar, Soren Kierkegaard, K. Jaspers, J.P. Sartre, N.
Hartmann, the aesthetic cognition of Northrop, E. Cassirer, P. Frank and above
all in the integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo. Social Philosophies based on
utilitarianism and progmatism have no chance of success in the present crisis.
The theories advocating material growth or political power merely exhibit
ignorance of the real problem which, as Sri Aurobindo puts it precisely, is “the
complete single development of the human being in himself, the perfectibility of
the indiviudal, a full development of the collective being, the perfectibility of
society, and, more pragmatically restricted, the perfect or best possible relations
of individual with individual and society and of community with community.”[19]
Only a spiritual Social Philosophy can present a useful outline of the solution of
such a comprehensive problem.
Social Philosophy: Its value
Now the value of Social Philosophy is different from the value of art, religion or
Yoga. “The value of theoretical discussion”, as Prof. L.T. Hobhouse rightly
points out, “is in clearing up the conditions of success, in measuring results, in
recognizing elements of success and failure, and planning necessary
readjustments.”[20] Thus, Social Philosophy gives a foresight, a sense of
direction, a vision of goal, a clear idea of the value of various methods to realize
it and finally an understanding of the different steps necessary for its realization.
As Prof. J.S. Mackenzie puts it, “It does help us to see what are the guiding
principles by which our course has to be directed.”[21] Thus Social Philosophy,
like philosophy in general, has its value in clarifying the goal of the entire
process of social development with individual and society as its two equally
important limbs. But every theoretical discussion of ideals has its practical
bearing. In a certain sense, ideals are even more real than facts, since facts are
only partial reflections of ideals. Thus, Social Philosophy is more practical and
comprehensive than Science. Social and individual progress is generally
correlated with the ideals. Social Philosophy determines and guides social
progress and presents a theoretical foundation for all practical attempts towards
the future progress of mankind.
Social Philosophy: Its nature
Social Philosophy is the Philosophy of social development. Philosophy is a
systematization of facts and values.[22] Social Philosophy is, thus, a
systematization of facts and values of social development, i.e., that of the
dynamics of the “web of social relationships”. It is based on a harmonious vision
of the social ideals in consideration with the facts regarding human society. As
philosophy, it views society in the cosmic perspective. It discusses its past as
well as the future and also its place in the cosmic whole. The society considered
here, obviously, is not this or that particular society, but human society in
general. Thus Social Philosophy deals with mankind as a whole. Its approach is
synoptic and integral. It is based on an integral vision of the relations of
individual in the social whole, the inter-relation of various groups, associations,
institutions and collectivities, and above all the relation of mankind to the whole
cosmos and to the Spirit behind it. Like philosophy in general, it is growing to an
ever near approximation to wisdom. Sri Aurobindo has rightly said, “A certain
kind of agnosticism is the final truth of all knowledge.” Social Philosophy is
based upon the experience of the fundamental nature of the social self and upon
the facts of human nature. It is an integral and synoptic vision of the social
whole. It is a science par excellence of social values. The social philosopher
observes and guides the development of mankind. As Prof. L.T. Hobhouse puts
it, “We set before ourselves a conception of the harmonious fulfilment of human
capacity as the substance of happy life, and we have to enquire into the
conditions of its realization. We consider laws, customs and institutions in
respect of their functions not merely in maintaining any sort of social life but in
maintaining or promoting a harmonious life.”[23] Thus, Social Philosophy studies
social relations in the light of the summum bonum of mankind. It enquires into
the nature of this end and interprets relations of social institutions, associations
and communities in its light. It tests the validity of the means prevalent in the
present society. It is thus a normative discipline. It is both critical and
constructive. It is critical of the social existence in the light of its norms. This
criticism is constructive, inasmuch as it shows the way to realize the higher
social life.
Social Philosophy and Sociology
The nature of Social Philosophy becomes clearer by noting its relation with
Sociology. As dealing with facts, Social Philosophy is the philosophy of social
sciences. Hence, it is that it has been often confused with Sociology which has
been defined as “the study of human interactions and interrelations, their
conditions and consequences.”[24]
It was Auguste Comte who for the first time coined the name
“Sociology.”[25] Sociology, as a science, however, has only recently developed.
About its objects and methods, sociologists hive been divided into two schools.
The formalistic school of Simmel, Vierkandt and Von Wiese treats it as a
specialism which studies forms of social relations, as is done in other social
sciences. This, however, was a vague abstraction, since forms cannot be treated
in isolation from the contents. The other school represented by Max Weber,
Maurer and others, defines sociology as a synthesis of all other social sciences.
As differentiated from special sciences, it is a general social science dealing with
the entire web of social relationships of mankind. Durkheim and Hobhouse,
along with most recent sociologists, accept this view.
Now, it is this synthetic character of sociology which has often led many
thinkers either to discard Social Philosophy altogether or to confuse it with
Sociology.
Facts and Values
Social Philosophy deals with values in Social relations and sociology deals with
facts. Hence, the two should not be confused. If sociology at all deals with
values, they are historical values, values as facts. And sociology is only
concerned with their causes and effects. Social Philosophy, on the other hand,
enquires into their validity and finds out higher and more ultimate values as
social ideals. Whatever disagreement there may be among the sociologists about
the nature of Sociology, all admit that it is a science. Now, to assert that
sociology is a science and yet to say that it deals with values is to demand from
science something which is beyond its jurisdiction. As has already been pointed
out, in connection with the explanation of the crisis of our age, science is guided
by power motive and not by any ideal or value. Science is only the knowledge of
phenomena, of means. As Bertrand Russell puts it, “The sphere of value lies
outside science, except in so far as science consists in the pursuit of knowledge.
Science, as the pursuit of power, must not obtrude upon the sphere of values, and
scientific technique, if it is to enrich human life, must not weigh the ends which
it should serve.”[26]
 It goes without saying that these words are applicable to social sciences as
much as to physical sciences. Thus Sociology, if it is a science, cannot include
value in its ken. To say that “Sociology, dealing with the beginning and end of
human experience, must discover its own rock-bottom, basis as well as its
ultimate goal,”[27] and to call it a science in the same breath, is to miss the real
nature of science, a systematic study of a limited field of experience. It appears
that these authors have not only missed the nature of science but also confused it
with philosophy. To say that there is ‘‘irreconcilable diversity”[28] between
philosophy and different specialized fields of knowledge, is to exhibit ignorance
about the nature of philosophy and its relation with the sciences. It must be
admitted that facts cannot be absolutely isolated from values and that Sociology
cannot work in absolute isolation from values. But to say this only means that
Social Philosophy and Sociology are not divided into watertight compartments
and that they interact upon each other like any other knowledge. The fact
remains that Social Philosophy synthesizes the facts of sociology with ideals
supplied by Ethics, Religion and the spiritual vision. To quote Prof. Ginsberg,
“Social science should enable us to utilize our knowledge of one as a means to
realizing the other. Social Philosophy should provide us with the means of
testing the ethical validity of social and political ideals as distinguished from
their sociological possibility.”[29] It would be better here to substitute the word
‘spiritual’ for ‘ethical’ as the latter tests even the validity of ethical and religious
ideals.
Now, it may appear from the above discussion that one may divide the
study of facts and values. The two, however, are so much interconnected that
either cannot be fully studied without reference to the other. Moral values
themselves, as has been amply discussed by Durkheim, Prof. Alexander and
Prof. Ginsberg, among others, cannot be interpreted in isolation from their social
context. Values, as influencing the social behaviour and social change,
necessarily come within the field of sociology. The sociologist studies them as
facts. But strictly speaking, objectivity is a relative concept. In his observation of
the social behaviour and social change, every sociologist looks through the
spectacles of some ideal, however unconscious it may be. Similarly, in dealing
with the values or ideals, one has to note their social origin, their basis in human
nature and their consequences. This means reference to the facts. Thus, in the
configuration of social behaviour both values and facts are interwoven. This,
however, does not lessen the importance of what has already been said that
judgments of value should not be confused with judgements of facts. As Prof.
L.T. Hobhouse has aptly remarked, “We must avoid thinking that either things
happen because they are good, or are good because they happen, otherwise our
statements of fact will be biased and our judgements of value corrupted.”[30]
Mere survival as fact is no proof of the value of any social institution for the
good of mankind. War and slavery for example are facts but none will call them
ideals or values. The idealizing of the actual is often the dethronement of the
ideal. Reading the ideal in the actual is generally a wish fulfilment, a
rationalization which distorts facts. Hence the study of facts and values must be
kept distinct, though not separate. “A complete study of human life thus involves
a synthesis, but not a fusion, of social science and social philosophy.”[31]
Social Philosophy and Sociology are Complementary
Thus Social Philosophy and Sociology are complementary to each other.
Sociology synthesizes the conclusions of social sciences. Social Philosophy
relates them to the highest social good of mankind. Hence, there is bound to be a
certain overlapping. But no science, however synthetic it may be, can tell us
what the highest social good of humanity is. This is precisely what Sociology
would take from Social Philosophy. To exalt either Sociology or Social
Philosophy at the cost of the other is a great error. Every form of knowledge has
its own ‘swadharma’ and its importance lies in its fulfilment. Each must know
how to limit itself before the claims of the others.
Sociology is the study of man in Space and Time. Social Philosophy studies
man and Nature in their origins as well as ends beyond spatio-temporal
limitations. The world of sociology is a part of this wider world. Part and whole
are integrally related. A world of value, in isolation from the world of facts, is as
much an abstraction as a world of facts isolated from values. The former is a part
of the latter, yet without it the latter is not complete. Thus Social Philosophy and
Sociology are interdependent. In ancient India, Sociology was seldom studied as
a science. As a science, it has been only recently introduced. But India has a rich
tradition in Social Philosophy. What Prof. K. Motwani in his small book
“Sociology” describes “Indian Sociology” is not a science but philosophy,
because of its scope, nature and method.
Social Philosophy: Its Critical and Constructive Parts
“Sociology is applied social science, social philosophy is the consideration of the
right and wrong of such application.”[32] The Social philosopher takes the truths
discovered by sociology and evaluates them in the light of his vision of the
highest good of mankind. This is what Morris Ginsberg calls the “Constructive
or Synthetic”[33] part of Social Philosophy which finds out the “validity of social
ideals.” This is, however, not possible by “the application of the results of ethics
to the problems of social organization and social development”[34] as Prof.

Ginsberg assumes. Ethics is a mere passing phase in man’s spiritual evolution.

The Western philosophers have often stopped at this level. Indian philosophers
claim that spirit transcends even moral and religious levels. This will be
discussed in detail in the third part of this work. For the present, it is sufficient to
say that Social Philosophy judges the validity of social ideals on the touchstone
of the spiritual vision of a unity of mankind.
Social Philosophy corrects the abstractions of Sociology which is an
inevitable evil of scientific methods. Thus it presents “a synoptic interpretation
of reality.”[35] It views the Reality as a whole and with the due emphasis on every
aspect. The social philosopher should be master of all social sciences and slave
to none. In addition, he should have a spiritual vision, as a result of the spiritual
experience of reality.
Apart from the constructive part of Social Philosophy, Prof. Ginsberg
rightly points out its other part, viz., “critical or logical.” “It seeks to disentangle
the fundamental categories which they (scientists) employ, the assumptions,
postulates or pre-suppositions upon which they rest, and to subject them to
critical scrutiny and constructive reinterpretation.”[36] Thus, Social Philosophy
enquires into the validity of the logic, methods, concepts, categories and
fundamental principles of social sciences. What methods it will employ to
perform all these tasks is the subject of the following chapter.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. New York (1951), p. 933.

[2] Spengler, O., Man and Technique, p. 90.

[3] Cf. “.......there is no correlation between progress in technique and progress in civilization.” Toynbee,
A.J., A Study of History, Vol. III, pp. 173-174.
[4] Fromm, E., The Sane Society, p. 172.

[5] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. New York (1951), p. 932.

[6] Schweitzer, A., Civilization and Ethics, p. 6.

[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. New York (1951), p. 932.

[8] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. New York (1950), p. 87.

[9] Ibid. p. 99.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 933.

[11]
The Validity of this hypothesis has been critically discussed in comparison with other theories of
evolution, in the seventh chapter of the author’s D. Phil, thesis “The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.”
Third Edition, published by Kedar Nath Ram Nath, Meerut (U.P.), India.
[12] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 932-33.

[13] Lenin, Socialism and War, Moscow, 1949, p. 1.

[14] Hopkins, P., The Psychology of Social Movement, p. 280.

[15] Elwood, CA., The Social Problem, New York (1918), p. 11.

[16]
Einstein, A., Why Socialism, in ‘Monthly Review,’ Vol. I, No. 1, 1949, p. 9.
[17]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 2.
[18] Titus, H.H., Living Issues in Philosophy, Preface to the IInd Ed.

[19]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 927.
[20]
Hobhouse, L.T., The Elements of Social Justice, p. 27.
[21] Mackenzie, J.S., Outlines of Social Philosophy, p. 242.

[22] A detailed constructive criticism of the impotant definitions of philosophy, in order to arrive at this
definition has been presented in the author’s paper, ‘Philosophy, Religion and Science, Agra Univ., J.
Res. (letters), Vol. III, Pt. I (1960), pp. 87-94.
[23]
Hobhouse, L.T., The Elements of Social Justice, p. 27.
[24] Ginsberg, M., Studies in Sociology, p. 23.

[25] Comte, A., Philosophic Positive (1839).

[26] Russell, B., The Scientific Outlook, p. 275.

[27] Motwani, K., Sociology, p. 64.

[28] Ibid.

[29]
Ginsberg, M., On the Diversity of Morals, pp. 299-300.
[30] Quoted by Ginsberg, Sociology, p. 37.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Wright, F.J., The Elements of Sociology, p. 70.

[33] Ginsberg, M., Sociology, p. 26.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Wright, F.J., The Elements of Sociology, p. 73

[36] Ginsberg, M., Studies in Sociology, p. 20.

 CHAPTER II
Methods of Social Philosophy

“The spiritual seeing of God and world is not ideative only, not even
mainly or primarily ideative. It is direct experience and as real, vivid,
near, constant, effective, intimate as to the mind its sensuous seeing
and feeling of images, objects and persons.” — Sri Aurobindo.

The Essentials of Enquiry

The methods of pursuing a knowledge should be decided prior to any beginning
in enquiry if one aims at actually arriving at the truth. A lot of confusion in
knowledge is due to confusion in methods of approach. Every type of knowledge
has its own peculiar nature, its difficulties and limitations in spite of certain
similarities with other types of knowledge. Hence the methods of enquiry in one
cannot give perfect results in the other, though we may get some obscure
glimpses of it. The use of a scientific method in a philosophical enquiry may
give some faint insight into the subject but it is impotent to take us very far. The
value of a philosophy is in its being philosophical and not in its being scientific,
though ultimately science and philosophy are complementary to each other and
the latter, in being synthetic, has to include the knowledge gained through
scientific methods. A philosophical method, for the same reasons, is equally
unsuitable in a scientific enquiry. To be exact in any knowledge, whether of
ends, means or other details, requires more a perception of distinction than of
similarities. To distinguish is not to separate or bifurcate; it is to know the
uniqueness of each in the whole. Thus methods must change to suit the nature of
enquiry.
This distinction of methods, however, does not decide about the superiority
or inferiority of any knowledge. Method is a means which logically as well as
practically follows from the end. As the ends differ so also should the means.
Every knowledge has its own “Swadharma” and to realize it most perfectly
should be its aim. An encroachment in another’s field or a claim to superiority is
unwarranted since even the smallest knowledge has its unique role in the perfect
whole of knowledge.
Clarification about the ends is the first condition of success in an enquiry.
The more clearly one puts a question, the greater clarity one may expect in the
answer. Men fail to get answers from Nature, because they themselves do not
know what they ask. And that is the difference between a scientist and a
philosopher, on the one hand, and a layman, on the other. Clarification about the
means is the second, though by no means less important than the first, condition
of knowledge. It means the suitability of the means for the achievement of the
ends. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “Our ways of knowing must be appropriate
to that which is to be known.”[1] Thus enquiry into Social Philosophy should
begin with enquiry into its methods which directly follow from its nature.
To know is to distinguish, though distinction in its turn also pre- supposes
some knowledge. Thus the distinction of Social Philosophy from Sociology will
also throw some light on the methods of Social Philosophy. Sociology is a
science. Whatever methods it utilizes, whether historical, psychological or
psycho-social, they are scientific methods. Social Philosophy, on the other hand,
is a philosophy. Hence, the difference between the methods of Sociology and
Social Philosophy shall be the same as between those of Science and
Philosophy.
Scientific Method
Scientific method consists in observation of facts, collection of data, their
classification and distinction and inductive generalization of the common
principles. Observation and inference are, thus, the two key-notes of the
scientific method. Observation, generalization and verification are its three
stages. The certainty of scientific judgements is based on their verifiability. The
conclusions of scientific enquiries have changed through past centuries but the
methods of enquiry have more or less less remained the same, in spite of
variation in emphasis here and there.
Limitations of Scientific Methods
Scientific methods have their merits but they have also their serious limitations.
In the first place, the conclusions reached through inductive method are not
certain, as it always leaves exceptions. “A law founded upon an observation of
what is divided in space and time,” says Sri Aurobindo, “cannot be confidently
applied to the being and action of the indivisible; not only it cannot be applied
even to a time infinite or a space infinite.”[2] David Hume showed that faith in
the invariability of causality has no valid reasons. It is merely probable and
never certain. Secondly, scientific methods give us no justification except faith,
to draw inferences about what is unknown from what is known. They cannot
give us a glimpse into the future of mankind, into its spiritual possibilities, into
Nature’s purpose in it and finally into the nature of the occult forces working
upon it. They cannot give us a complete understanding of human nature, the
ideals of mankind, the meanings of its history and the methods for its psychical
and spiritual evolution. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “So long as we confine
ourselves to sense-evidence and physical consciousness, we can conceive
nothing and know nothing except the material world and its phenomena.”[3]
Again, even if scientific methods help us to infer something about these
problems, their inferences are very abstract and do not give us sufficient
information. To quote once again Sri Aurobindo, “Neither the laws nor the
possibilities of physical nature can be entirely known, unless we know also the
laws and possibility of supra-physical nature.”[4] As a matter of fact, much of the
scientific knowledge is based on faith which science does not supply. “The
knowledge that science provides is a supplement to the empirical knowledge by
which all men live, not a substitute for the faith that makes life worth living.”[5]
Science has added to man’s power over Nature but has given him no insight into
her evolutionary truths. That is beyond the scope of scientific methods. Science
is gradually becoming more and more a search for power than for truth. In the
absence of moral and spiritual restraint it may even prove dangerous to the
human race. As Bertrand Russell has aptly remarked, “But if human life is to
continue in spite of science, mankind will have to learn a discipline of passions
which, in the past, has not been necessary.”[6]
The Philosophical Versus the Scientific Method
As distinguished from the limited methods of science, philosophical method is
comprehensive. Scientific methods are inadequate in the field of philosophy,
since they are analytic, piecemeal and quantitative. Philosophy is concerned with
values, which are not only supra-sensual but often also supra-physical. Hence
the enquiry into philosophical issues is outside the scope of empirical,
observational and experimental methods of science; “if the means of knowledge
are indirect and imperfect, the knowledge attained will also be indirect and
imperfect.”[7] As Sri Aurobindo says “....the highest ultimate knowledge sees

things in the whole, in the large and details only as sides of the indivisible
whole, its tendency is towards immediate synthesis and the unity of
knowledge.”[8] Thus philosophy includes scientific knowledge. It only sees it in a
wider perspective, sets its limits and integrates it in its world view.
Conclusions of the Philosophers of History
Before finally coming to the formulation of the method of Social Philosophy, it
is interesting to review the conclusions on which the philosophers of History
have arrived regarding the method of what they call much needed “integralist
philosophy.” Danilvsky, Spengler, Schubert, Berdyaev, Northrop, Toynbee,
Kroeber and Prof. Sorokin, all have arrived at certain conclusions which
marvelously agree with Sri Aurobindo’s findings. They agree (a) that purely
sensory or rational cognitions are not the only forms of cognition; (b) that they
do not give a full cognition; (c) that besides these ways of knowing there is an
additional “intuitive”, “aesthetic,” “mystic”, “supra-rational and supra-sensory”,
“immediate,” form of cognition quite different from the sensory and rational; (d)
that this “third” way consists in a complete identification of the congnizing
subject with the cognized object, in an elimination of any chasm between the
subject and the object, the subject ceasing to be an “observing outsider” in
regard to the object and the subject-object becoming one.”[9]
Thus, in the integral method there is no opposition of the subject and object,
since, as Sri Aurobindo points out, “Consciousness is one in the subject and
object.”[10] It is immediate and intuitive. “It is direct experience and as real,
vivid, near, constant, effective, intimate as to the mind its sensuous seeings and
feeling of images, objects and persons.”[11] It is spiritual knowledge which
includes sensory, logical and intuitive. It does not make a gulf between
“knowing” and “being”, since, as Prof. Berdyaev puts it, “To oppose Knowledge
and Being is to exclude Knowledge from Being.”[12] In this method, “to know” is
“to be” and “to be” is “to be universally and integrally.” As Sri Aurobindo points
out, “...All this awareness exists intrinsically, self-evidently, automatically,
without the need of any act, regard or operation of knowledge, for knowledge
here is not an act, but a state, pure, perpetual and inherent.”[13] This integral
method is the method of all philosophy, social or otherwise.
Methods of Social Philosophy
“The description of the status of knowledge to which we aspire” says Sri
Aurobindo, “determines the means of knowledge which we shall use.”[14]. Thus,
the method of Social Philosophy will be determined by its very nature. It shall
not be transcendental or a priori, as it was for certain early social philosophers,
as in philosophy, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, “We must judge of existence not by
what we mentally conceive but by what we see to exist.”[15] The norms or ideals
of Social Philosophy cannot be determined a priori as some thinkers suppose.[16]
They have their foundation in the philosopher’s spiritual experience of the social
whole and of the purpose of Nature in the evolution of mankind. This spiritual
experience is coupled with the observation of social facts and the process of
human history in its various aspects. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, “We shall
preserve the truths of material science and its real utilities in the final harmony,
even if many or even if all its existing forms have to be broken or left aside. An
even greater scruple of right preservation must guide us in our dealing with the
legacy, however actually diminished or depreciated of the Aryan past.”[17] It is
the spiritual experience which supplies the vision but the vision cannot work in
vaccum. Observation of facts is a necessary condition of the exercise of the
vision.
The Double Process
Thus, the social philosopher has to proceed with a double process. He should
know all the facts and values relevant to his scope, facts of social sciences
specially of sociology, and values of ethics, religion and occult; and he must also
develop a spiritual vision through integral union with Reality so that he may
grasp the inner purpose of Nature. The more he grows in this spiritual vision and
in his knowledge of facts, the nearer shall his Social Philosophy approach the
truth. This knowledge of the inner purpose is not possible through methods
peculiar to science. It requires a direct, intuitive and immediate seeing of the
subtle process in its wholeness. This is what Sri Aurobindo calls yogic vision,
the vision due to direct union with the Infinite in all its richness. It is in the
absence of this vision that man has failed to understand the meaning of the facts
of his existence as well as that of Nature. This is why he has missed the essential
unity of Man and Nature, the infinite possibilities of his own spiritual growth
and the right way to achieve it. It is only with this vision that the social
philosopher will test the spiritual validity of different social ideals, examine
various methods to achieve the ultimate social ideal, assess the merits and
demerits of the present structure of human society and speculate about its future,
in the light of the spiritual ideal and psychology of the social development.
The Place of Reason
A mere mental eclecticism or rational synthesis is no substitute for this spiritual
vision “...since the intellectual reason can only point vaguely or feel gropingly
towards it or try to indicate partial and even conflicting aspects of its
manifestation here, it cannot enter into it and know it.”[18] The dynamic forces of
life are infra-rational or supra-rational. Thought is an instrument and its destiny
is determined by the force which utilizes it. If slave to passions, it shall arrive at
a scepticism and denial of all higher values. If utilized by spiritual vision, it shall
become a harbinger of truth. Not logical consistency, but spiritual harmony is the
aim of the methods of Social Philosophy, though in the ultimate analysis,
spiritual harmony is quite compatible with logical consistency. In this process,
however, it is the spiritual vision which shall guide logic and thought and not
vice versa.
The Value of Thought
Thought undoubtedly has its limitations, “but if the intellect is surrendered,
open, quiet, receptive, there is no reason why it should not be a means of
reception of the light or an aid to the experience of spiritual states and to the
fulness of an inner change.”[19] Thought is not only useful but even indispensable
in Social Philosophy to remove the infra-rational elements which obstruct the
spiritual vision. It is an effective instrument to get rid of all types of
superstitions, prejudices and blind faith. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “Reason is
not the supreme light and yet it is always a necessary light-bringer and unless it
has been given its rights and allowed to judge and purify our first infra-rational
instincts, impulses, rash favours, crude beliefs and blind prejudgements, we are
not altogether ready for the full unveiling of a greater inner illumination.”[20]
Logical consistency is the minimum requirement of any sound philosophy but it
is not the maximum of it. Social Philosophy should be more than a mere
logically consistent theory. It should give us an insight into the secret recesses of
spiritual evolution of mankind.
Synthesis of Reason and Intuition
Thus, the social philosopher will employ both reason and intuition as his
instruments. The integral knowledge is inclusion, indwelling and identity. This is
possible by a widening of the subliminal till it becomes one with the universe.
This intuition, however, is spiritual and should not be confused with mental,
vital or physical intuitions. These others draw their validity after the scrutiny of
reason while spiritual intuition is beyond the intellect. In the sphere of this
higher intuition, reason is not the judge but a silent observer. A spiritual intuition
can be judged only by higher intuition which does not negate the lower, but
shows its limits by transcending it though also including it at the same time.[21]
The spiritual intuition has the four-fold powers of revelation, inspiration, truth-
touch and discrimination.
But, reason and intuition only come in conflict with each other in ignorance
and not in knowledge. Purified, sublimated and illumined reason becomes a
helper to spiritual intuition.
Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Method in Social Philosophy: Two-Fold
Observation
The two-fold method, as discussed above, is clearly visible in Sri Aurobindo’s
Social Philosophy. Philosophy, according to him, “is an attempt to fix the
fundamental realities and principles of being as distinct from its processes and
the phenomena which result from these processes.”[22] Thus the method of Social
Philosophy shall be distinct from that of the sciences. This distinction is marked
even in the method of observation. Social Philosophy, like Sociology takes
account of the facts concerning the web of social relations but it views them
philosophically. The social philosopher, in his observation of the social
phenomena, will not go into the details of the processes, he will rather try to look
into the inner forces working in the web of social relationships and also behind
them. Thus his observation should be deeper and subtler than that of the social
scientist. Social philosopher is concerned with the results of social sciences, but
only in their essence and not with the overt form of statistical generalizations.
Secondly, his observation is synoptic as distinct from the piecemeal method of
the social sciences. It is deeper than the synthesis in Sociology and the
“configuration” in Gestalt Psychology. In his synthetic attempt, the sociologist
“tries to determine the relation between different parts or factors of social life;
for example, the economic and political, the moral and religious, the moral and
legal, the intellectual and the social elements.”[23] The social philosopher, in his
synoptic and deep observation, tries to see the interaction of the different forces
underlying the relation between different factors of social life. To illustrate,
while Sociology will try to determine the different social, economic and political
phenomena which have led to present day crisis, Social Philosophy will seek the
origin of the crisis in the forces underlying these phenomena. It will try to
interpret the present crisis in terms of Nature’s purpose behind it. As Sri
Aurobindo wrote to Dilip, “One has to look at things on all sides to see them
steadily and whole. Once again, it is the forces working behind that I have to
look at, I don’t want to go blind among surface details.”[24]
Inadequacy of Mental Observation
But even this double observation is not sufficient. It is not possible in its fulness
so long as one is confined to mental level. Mind is an instrument of piecemeal
knowledge. Gestalt theory of perception is an improvement upon associationistic
psychology. To see a figure in a background, in a set pattern is a more
comprehensive observation than to see it isolated. But even this theory of
observation does not take us very far, as it is essentially a mental observation.
The limitations of scientific methods are ingrained in the limitations of the mind.
On the mental level, however improved may be the physical instruments for its
help, to know is to limit, to see things in abstraction, to cut the forms out of
concrete reality. Kant’s analysis of the nature of knowledge admirably,
establishes the limitations of the mind. Bergson’s concept of “Platonization”
rightly describes the impotency of the intellect to grasp the concrete reality. But
the instruments of instinct, feeling and will are no substitutes for the failures of
reason as reason is higher than these.
Transcendence of Mental Level
In devising a technique of transcending the limits of mind, Sri Aurobindo has
given a new method to Social Philosophy. According to Sri Aurobindo, beyond
the mind is the Higher Mind. On this level one knows the totality of things
through the transformation and fulfilment of thought. Beyond the Higher Mind is
the Illumined Mind which does not work through cognition but through vision.
Beyond Illumined Mind is the Intuitive Mind which works through intuition.
Still higher is the Over-Mind. It is global in cognition and reconciles the
contradictions of the mental level into complementaries. But even this level is
not a firm ground against the constant pull of inconscience; nor does it transform
the infra-mental instruments such as will, feeling, instinct etc. Beyond Over-
Mind is the Super Mind. According to Sri Aurobindo this Super Mind is the real
truth consciousness.[25]
The Supramental Gnostic Vision
“To see things steadily and see them whole”, says Sri Aurobindo, “is not
possible to the mind, but it is the very nature of the transcendent Supermind.”[26]
It is through this supramental gnostic vision alone that the social philosopher can
have an insight into the purpose of Nature behind the forces working in the
sphere of social relationships. It is here that he can understand how the different
aspects of human nature and the human society will be integrated. It is in this
gnostic vision that the social philosopher can visualize the future transformed
state of the social relationships. It is here that he can understand the true
meanings of Man’s history, its goal, the broad outlines of its achievements, the
limitations of the present method and the way to a true method of social
development. It is here that he can see the interconnections of social problems in
the form of the deeper forces and in the context of the entire cosmic evolution,
past and even future.
Now, this claim might seem exaggerated and unjustified to some
intellectuals. But it should be noted in this connection that Sri Aurobindo’s
claims here are not based on logical deductions, empirical inductions or even
mental thinking. They are based on the fact of his own immediate and direct
experience of the various levels above mind. Factual statements cannot be
challenged by logical difficulties. If the logic conflicts with real experience of
supramental levels it is the logic which should change and bow its head. A fact
can be challenged only by another fact, and none will condemn the other if the
two are equally limited since both only exhibit two different aspects of Reality.
A fact contradictory to other facts is not higher but only different. A higher fact
or experience is that which includes all the lower ones and also transcends them.
Thus the method of supramental vision in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy has
its value in complementing and synthesizing the seemingly contradictory facts at
mental level. It has its validity in being based on intuitive experience, an
experience not confined to Sri Aurobindo alone but equally accessible to all
those who follow the technique with the necessary training and equipment. Its
verification is two-fold, first through personal experience of Yoga open to all
and secondly by the fact that it works.
The Supramental Ascent
Thus, the social philosopher has not only to observe the social forces, he should
also grow and ascend to the supramental level so that by the descent of the
supramental consciousness he may attain the real integral knowledge. This is
indispensable. “For” as Sri Aurobindo points out, “our means and ways of
knowledge and action must necessarily be according to the nature of our
consciousness and it is the consciousness that must radically change if we are to
command and not only be occasionally visited by that higher power of
knowledge.”[27] Mental knowledge is dualistic. Intuition is a transitory glimpse.
In the gnostic stage, the various instruments of mind, viz., memory, imagination,
observation, comparison, contrast, analogy, reasoning etc., turn into direct
realization of the total truth as well as firm possession of it.
Social Philosophy should be Subordinate to Yoga
The technique for this supramental ascent, Sri Aurobindo calls “Yoga”. What Sri
Aurobindo means by it has been discussed in detail in Chapter XII of this work.
For the present it is sufficient to note that there is nothing unscientific, illogical
or mystic in Sri Aurobindo’s conception of Yoga. Social Philosophy, according
to Sri Aurobindo, should be subordinate to Yoga. “The work of philosophy is to
arrange the data given by the various means of knowledge, excluding none and
put them into synthetic relation to the one truth, the one supreme and universal
Reality.”[28] Social Philosophy is a reasoned and conceptual presentation of the
whole body of the facts and values concerning the web of social relationships in
the light of the supramental vision of Nature’s purpose behind them. It analyzes
the difficulties and problems of the present stage of human society, shows the
immense possibilities of the future and suggests the means for the integration
and transformation of the social fabric. “For that is, in the end, the real value of
philosophy for man, to give him light in the nature of his being, the principles of
his psychology, his relation with the world and with God, the fixed lines of the
great possibilities of his destiny.”[29] This is only possible through Yoga, as
“Philosophy”, according to Sri Aurobindo, “is of little help in getting true
knowledge, which must come from experience and actual realisation.”[30] It is
Yoga which supplies vision to the social philosopher though the vision cannot
function in the absence of the data attained through sociology, ethics and
religion. It is Yoga again which will supply the solution. It requires a more or
less arduous training to achieve expertness in any branch of knowledge. Thus
Yoga is a training of the social philosopher. To be an expert, the social
philosopher must be a Yogin.
The Error of Social Philosophers
But the knowledge of the facts and values concerning social relationships is
equally necessary. The sociologist, Richard T. Lapiere, points out what he calls
“the error of the social philosophers”, by which he means, “to rush via airy
speculation to the answers and in so doing miss all the dull but necessary
facts.”[31] Plato, Aristotle, Marx, Spencer, Confucious and Westermarck again
and again repeated the same old notion of society only in different terms. Their
systems, according to Lapiere, were mere rationalizations of their own social
outlook more than an impartial view of the social fabric. In spite of their vision
they distorted the social facts by trying to fit them in an a priori schema. Thus,
social philosophers have often neglected the facts of social relations. But the past
failures are not sufficient to conclude that, “In twenty-five centuries of recorded
philosophizing, however, all that has been proved is that the philosophical
approach to an understanding of society is sterile: that one may debate the causes
and characteristics of society century after century and be no farther along in the
end than in the beginning.”[32] Really speaking, it is not the task of Social
Philosophy to debate the “causes and characteristics of society.” That is the
function of sociology. Lapiere’s statement is based on the supposition of an
antagonism between Social Philosophy and Sociology. The two on the other
hand fulfil each other.
Lapiere’s remarks about the “error of social philosophers,” however, are a
timely warning to the future social philosophers. Social Philosophy should cease
to discuss the questions of facts by speculative methods. These it must rather
take from Sociology. Nor should the questions of values be discussed entirely in
isolation from the facts. Strictly speaking, the distinction of facts and values is a
conceptual abstraction from the concrete reality in which both facts and values
are interwoven. Conceptual abstraction is necessary for theoretical discussions
but one should always keep one’s eye on concrete reality. A Social Philosophy,
worthy of its name shall be founded on the facts of sociology. As the facts
change and grow, so should Social Philosophy. “It thus means mainly the effort
to study values, ends, ideals not primarily what exists or has existed or may
modes of existence.”[33] This, however, is only possible with a yogic vision
viewing the facts in an integral whole. Thus, the method of Social Philosophy is
both empirical and spiritual.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, IInd Edition, p. 43.

[2] Ibid.,p. 42.

[3] Ibid., Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 72.

[4] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 92.

[5] Lapiere, Richard T., Sociology, p. 311.

[6] Russell, B., The Impact of Science on Society, p. 96.

[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 258.

[8] Ibid., p. 84.

[9] Sorokin, Pitrim A., Social Philosophies of an Age of Crisis, p. 308.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, IInd Edition, p. 299.

[11] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on Gita, IInd series, ARYA, p. 134.

[12] Berdyaev, M., Solitude and Society, p. 48.

[13]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, IInd Edition, p. 305.
[14]
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Ist University Edition, p. 351.
[15]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 92.
[16]
Ref. Joshi, N.V., Social Philosophy, p. 3.
[17] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, p. 25.

[18] Sri Aurobindo, The Riddle of This World, p. 24.

[19] Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga, p. 37.

[20] Sri Aurobindo, Evolution, p. 29.

[21]
“What our mind sees as contraries may be to the infinite consciousness not contraries but
complementaries.” Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol, II, p. 219.
[22] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, IInd Edition, p. 456.

[23] Ginsberg, M., Sociology, p. 17.

[24] Roy, D.K., Among the Great, p. 315.

[25] These levels have been discussed in detail in the eighth chapter of the author’s D.Phil., thesis “The

Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.” published by Kedar Nath Ram Nath, Meerut.

[26] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 163.

[27] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, American Edition, p. 562.

[28]
Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, p. 72.
[29]
Sri Aurobindo, Heraclitus, p. 45.
[30] Quoted in Mother India, Aug. 1952.

[31] Lapiere, Richard T., Sociology, p. 18.

[32] Ibid., p. 5

[33] Mackenzie, J.S., Outlines of Social Philosophy, p. 14.

 CHAPTER III
Metaphysical Background of Sri
Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy

“The difference, so metaphysical in appearance, is yet of the utmost

practical import, for it determines the whole outlook of man upon life,
the goal that he shall assign for his efforts and the field in which be
shall circumscribe his energies.” — Sri Aurobindo

Social Philosophy is rooted in the background of metaphysics, as that is the

eternal firm foundation of all philosophy. Our ideals and aims of life are based
on our metaphysical outlook, however vague and crude it may be. Social
Philosophy is determined by the philosopher’s attitude towards the nature of
Reality. The ideals of man and human society are determined by the ultimate

nature of man and the universe. A materialistic mataphysics will give rise to a
materialistic Social Philosophy. An integral Social Philosophy can be developed
only on the basis of an integral metaphysics.
Integral Metaphysics
Such is the Integral Metaphysics of Sri Aurobindo.[1] It is integral in two senses,
first it takes account of the knowledge attained, not through any particular
mental process in man but through his whole being. Thus, it is based on an
integral epistemology. Secondly, its conception of reality is based on neither
man nor God nor world nor any two of these exclusively but on the integral
consciousness underlying these three manifestations of Reality. Reality,
according to Sri Aurobindo, is an integral whole of which the individual, the
universal and the transcendental are three facets. This will now be discussed in
the sequal.
Knowledge
Knowledge, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an integral consciousness of the
Reality in all its integrity. It is not created but discovered. It is not an activity but
truth itself. It is the same as Brahman, the One, the Eternal, the Infinite. It is the
very stuff of man’s spiritual consciousness. It is not a mental process but a
matter of whole being, the physical, the vital, the mental, the psychical and
finally the spiritual. Thus, knowledge is one indivisible whole in which the
highest and lowest are linked through all the mediating links. It has three
aspects, the three steps of its self-achievement, viz., the discovery of the secret,
psychic entity, the realization of eternal self in all, the knowledge of Divine,
Cosmic as well as Transcendent. Of the four powers of the Absolute
Consciousness, knowledge comprises the first three, viz. the Essential, the
Integral and the Multiple. The first is superconscient silence at one end and
inconscience at the other, the second is the supramental concentration, the third
is the overmental awareness.
Ignorance
The fourth power of the Absolute Consciousness-Force is the separative, the
characteristic nature of ignorance. Thus, ignorance, according to Sri Aurobindo,
is also a poise of consciousness-force through limited, practical and exclusive
concentration. It is heightened by man’s exclusive concentration in the present,
oblivious of the past as well as the future. Like this concentration, it serves a
pragmatic purpose, the purpose of evolution and like this concentration, it can be
dissolved through a more arduous training, deepening, heightening and
expanding of the self. As against the supreme Divine self-knowledge, embracing
unity as well as multiplicity and the contrasting complete Nescience, the two
fundamental ways of the operation of consciousness, Ignorance is its third way
in between these two opposites. It is soul’s own characteristic way of self-
withholding of complete self-knowledge, a half-true, half-false knowledge. Its
origin is the limitation of knowledge, its distinctive characteristic a separation of
the being from its own integrality, its boundaries, this separative development of
the consciousness.
Purpose of Ignorance
The purpose of Nature in ignorance is “to do solely what she has to do in some
outer play of existence.” Thus the ignorance serves the purpose of manifestation
since manifestation is only possible by a deployment of knowledge through
ignorance. Without ignorance, existence shall be static though divine and
perfect, since evolution requires elimination of ignorance. To find itself in the
apparent opposites is the meaning of divine descent.
Locus of Ignorance
Hence, the locus of ignorance is neither One nor Many. The One is integral and
undivided. The Many in their integrality are not ignorant of the One. Dualism is
not characteristic of the Many but of the outer layer of the mental and the
physical. Both One and Many are equally real in the philosophy of Sri
Aurobindo. Ignorance is the forgetting of the unity underlying multiplicity,
characteristic of the concentration of consciousness at the mental level. It is
neither original nor primal but a minor, subsequent and relative movement. It has
its locus in Mind. It is mind in which man shuts out his individual consciousness
from the universal consciousness. Mind differentiates and forgets unity.
Sevenfold Ignorance
Ignorance, according to Sri Aurobindo, is seven-fold. In original ignorance man
forgets the true nature of the Absolute and concentrates on either Being or
Becoming as the sole reality. This is the basic ignorance underlying most of the
metaphysical theories in the East and the West. In the cosmic ignorance, man
takes Becoming to be the true nature of cosmos and forgets the Being working
behind it. This is the ignorance at the root of various sciences and the materialist,
vitalist, romanticist theories in philosophy, art, literature and other fields of
knowledge. The third is the egoistic ignorance, whence man identifies his true
self with the ego and forgets its true universal nature. This is the ignorance
working in the social relations and individual life of man in the modern society.
It is this ignorance which Social Philosophy seeks to abolish. The fourth is the
temporal ignorance which leads man to take the present span of his life to be the
whole thing and to forget the immortality of self. This ignorance is the
consequence as well as the cause of the growing materialism in the present
society. The fifth is the psychological ignorance which makes man concentrate
on the surface nature and forget the levels of consciousness below and above.
This is the ignorance underlying most of the present theories of psychology and
other sciences, art, literature and education. All these are also infected with the
sixth type of ignorance, the constitutional, in which man forgets the real
constitution of his integral being and takes body, life or mind or any two of these
to be the whole man. All these six types of ignorance lead to the seventh, the
practical ignorance which is responsible for all the errors, evils, falsehood and
pain in this world, in the individual and society. This is at the root of all the
problems of every day life.
Importance of the Conceptions of Knowledge and Ignorance
The conceptions of knowledge and ignorance have very far-reaching effect on
Social Philosophy. On these conceptions depends the Philosophy of History, the
interpretation of the events in the history of particular societies and humanity as
a whole. Marx, Collingwood and many of the other philosophers of history,
confining their analysis to the surface nature of man, forget the cosmic forces
working on Man and also the inner purpose of Nature in human history. Again,
the interpretation of human nature which has been rightly held to be the basis for
a sound Social Philosophy, is very much influenced by the cosmic, the egoistic,
the constitutional and psychological ignorance. This error in the philosophy of
history, psychology of social development and the concept of human nature
inevitably leads to confusion about the ideal of social development. Practical
ignorance about the methods of social development is a direct corollary of this
confusion. Ignorance about the ends necessarily leads to ignorance about the
means. Thus social philosophers have been groping in the dark and mistaking
their partial remedies for the panacea of social ills. With his subtle analysis of
the nature of knowledge and of the sevenfold ignorance, Sri Aurobindo has
hinted at the errors of the social philosophers. These errors can be avoided by
replacing this sevenfold ignorance with the corresponding sevenfold knowledge.
An integral Social Philosophy should be based on the knowledge of the true
nature of the Absolute, the Cosmos, the Self, the becomings of self, the nature of
sub-conscient and superconscient levels, the complex nature of the integral being
of man and finally the right use of thought, will and action. Nothing less than
this will make a Social Philosophy integral.
Truth as Integral Experience
This, however, is not possible at the mental level and through reason or infra-
rational faculties in man. Coherence within the whole is a mere faith for the
mind and never a certainty, though this faith does not contradict reason. To make
this faith a dynamic truth, a sound basis of judgments in Social Philosophy, the
social philosopher should make it a certainty through integral experience. Mental
coherence is always ideal. The actual coherence of a truth is its coherence in
integral experience.[2] For Sri Aurobindo, the whole truth is the truth of integral
experience, the experience of Consciousness-Force in its triune aspects of
Individuality, Universality and Transcendence with a direct oneness in essence.
The vision of a social philosopher is based not on his study but on his experience
though study also gives him some partial glimpse of the truth. Thus the method
of social philosopher is two-fold, intellectual as well as experiential. The latter is
the foundation of the former. The integral experience at once gives an insight
into the truth as well as in the limitations of the different approaches and their
appropriate place in the whole. Thus the methods of Social Philosophy are
derived from the metaphysical nature of knowledge and truth. Social Philosophy
shall be rational and intellectual since that is the minimum of any philosophy.
But in it reason should adapt to the vision achieved through integral experience,
so that man may arrive at an integral and dynamic Social Philosophy and not a
one-sided and static theory. This integral knowledge is a triune realization of all
in self, self in all and self becoming all; inclusion, indwelling and identity. As
distinguished from infra-rational and rational intuitions, this is the spiritual
intuition of supra-mental level.
The Triune Reality
“The nodus of life”, according to Sri Aurobindo, “is the relation between three
general forms of consciousness – the individual, the universal and the
transcendent or supra-cosmic.” Hence, the knowledge of this triune reality is a
prelude to the understanding of the aim and working principles of life, individual
as well as social. The failures of different Social Philosophies are due to their
partial or absolute ignorance about any one or more of these three aspects of
Reality. Social Philosophy stands and falls with metaphysics.
The Absolute
The Absolute, according to Sri Aurobindo, is Sachchidananda, Existence,
Consciousness and Bliss. It is One with a triple aspect. In it these three are not
three but one. Brahman, the Absolute, embraces all relativities. It is the inner self
of all. It is one in many, conscious in everything. It is transcendent as well as
incommunicable. It is space and all that is in space, subject as well as object. It is
cosmic as well as supra-cosmic. It is the Purusa, the soul as well as the Iswara.
Para-Brahman
The Absolute is para-brahman, indescribable and inconceivable. It is neither
Being nor Non-Being, neither Atman, nor Maya, neither quality nor non-quality,
neither consciousness nor non-consciousness; neither personal nor impersonal;
neither Bliss nor non-Bliss; neither Purusa nor Prakrti, neither God, nor man, nor
animal; neither release nor bondage. It is described by these negatives, since it is
more than all these. All these are its primary or derivative, general or particular
symbols. This, however, does not mean that Para-Brahman negates all these
since in a sense Para-Brahman is all this and all this is Para-Brahman. All this
seems to be beyond the comprehension of the intellect, since Para-Brahman
cannot be reached by mental dialectic. Sri Aurobindo has reached it through
yogic consciousness which integrates and fulfils all other instruments of
knowledge in its ceaseless dynamic progression to higher and wider reality.
The Three Aspects of Absolute
Absolute, in Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics, is being as well as becoming. It is the
one underlying essence of all. Its unity contains infinite plurality and
multiplicity. It is a triune unity, a unity in trinity. According to Sri Aurobindo, it
has three aspects:
1. It is the cosmic Self and Spirit that is in and behind all things and beings,
from which and in which all is manifested in the universe – although it
is now a manifestation in the ignorance.
2. It is the Spirit and Master of our own being within us, whom we have to
serve and whose will we have to learn to express in all our movements
so that we may grow out of the Ignorance into the light.
3. The Divine is transcendent Being and Spirit, all bliss and light and divine
knowledge and power. Towards that highest divine existence and its
light, we have to rise and bring down the reality of it more and more into
our consciousness and life.
This triune conception of reality cuts the Gordian knot of Social
Philosophy. It provides a principle which is the identical essence of man, society
and humanity, a principle, which is dynamic by its very nature and which
satisfies the whole being of man. To reach this principle is the aim of all Social
Philosophy. The deployment of this principle, to make it govern man as well as
society is the ideal of all the methods of social development. The truth of the
existence of such a reality is the basis of the possibility of a Social Philosophy
which may harmonize man, society and humanity in spite of all past failures.
Social Philosophy has failed in its past endeavours because of its original
ignorance about this ultimate Reality. Once it grasps this Reality, it will catch its
central principle and solve its hitherto unsolved problems. The triune character
of this Reality as Existence, Consciousness and Bliss, shows the partiality of the
Social Philosophies based on existential, idealistic, hedonistic and other forms of
pseudo-philosophies. All these three aspects are essential to the individual, the
society as well as humanity. Man has not only to survive, he has to live. Man has
not only to live, he has to grow in his consciousness. The growth should also
increase his happiness, his bliss and harmonious satisfaction of his total self. The
basis and the medium of all this growth in existence, consciousness and bliss
should be the self within, which is the same in society and humanity, in Nature
as well as in Super-Nature.
God
God and Absolute, according to Sri Aurobindo, are merely two aspects of one
and the same Reality. Thus, God is omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. He
is immanent and transcendent, individual and universal. He is the creator, the
sustainer and the destroyer of everything. He is the helper, the guide, the beloved
and the All-loving. He is the inner self of all. He is determinate yet free, perfect
and eternal. He is being as well as becoming. He is the efficient and the material,
the first and the final cause of the world. God is subject as well as object. He is
the object of devotion, love and mystic union. He is endowed with such qualities
as veracity, grace, knowledge, bliss and freedom from pain, evil, suffering,
ignorance, limitation etc. He is the matrix, the nisus as well as the goal of
evolution. God is para-purusa, the supreme self-conscious person. He is the same
as Para-Brahman but while the latter is unmanifest, Para-Purusa is manifest. It is
however, Para-Brahman itself which becomes Para-Purusa. As Sri Aurobindo
puts it, “God or Para-Purusa is Para-Brahman unmanifest and inexpressible,
turned towards a certain kind of manifestation or expression, of which the two
eternal terms are – Atman and Jagati; Self and Universe.”[3]
The World
The nature of the world in metaphysics determines the purpose of man in Social
Philosophy. If the world is an illusion, a Maya full of ignorance, then the only
legitimate ideal of man can be to leave this world at the earliest opportunity. If
the world is an eternal becoming with no being in it, then a meaningless change
shall be the law of life. The ethics of Buddha, great though it was, could not stop
the later Buddhists from running into nihilism and escapism, for, if the world is
misery and eternal flux, the purpose of man’s life here is a perpetual change and
a constant suffering. The one-sided truth that the world is misery, led, as if by
vengeance, to the movement of vām-mārgi Buddhists searching for truth in
woman and wine. A materialistc conception of the metaphysical nature of the
world will, again, lead to a materialistic conception of life as that of Chārvakas
in India and various types of Hedonisms in the West, and above all the present
day materialistic civilization of man. Only a spiritual conception of the
metaphysical nature of the world can be a sound basis for a spiritual Social
Philosophy.
The World as the Play of Force
With Heraclitus, Sri Aurobindo, takes the world to be a play of Consciousness-
Force. The universe is a boundless energy of infinite existence, infinite
movement, infinite activity pouring itself in limitless Space and eternal Time.
This Force is indivisible and gives its whole self to everything at one and the
same time. It is the same everywhere, only the form, manner and results of its
action vary infinitely. This variation leads to the variation in quality and quantity
since the Force is not only quantitative or Existence but, also qualitative
Consciousness as well as Bliss. Present day Science gives no ground to
contradict this vision based on the yogic experience.
Nature of Force
This Consciousness-Force is different from the mental consciousness which is an
evolute and an instrument of it. It is the omnipresent, the one constituent essence
in plants, animals and human beings. Subtler intruments devised in future may
show its presence in Matter. The principle of ‘ex nihilo nihil’ also justifies the
presence of consciousness in Matter. Whatever evolves must have been
involved. Thought has a justification to pass from the known to the unknown.
The conception of the nature of the world in Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics is
based on his findings of the nature of man. If man’s innermost essence is a
Consciousness Force, then by the principle of “Non fit saltits in Natura”, the
same should be the inmost essence of the whole universe, however different the
outer form of things may be.
Space and Time
Thus “Space would be Brahman extended for the holding together of forms and
objects. Time would be Brahman self-extended for the deployment of the
movement of self-power carrying forms and objects; the two would then be a
dual aspect of one and the same self-expression of the cosmic Eternal.’’[4] Space
is the infinity and time the eternity of Brahman in its one state. The three
different states of being with regard to eternity are the timeless eternity, the
simultaneous integrality of Time and the Time movement. Thus against
Śamkara, Sri Aurobindo believes that Time is a manifestation of the Eternal. The
world is not unreal in any sense. Man and Nature are as real as the Absolute. The
three are one in essence. This integral monism, while it solves the problems of
Sāmkhya dualism, also escapes the difficulties of the non-dualism of Śamkara. It
explains both the truths of religion and of philosophy. And above all, it does not
contradict the findings of modern physics. With the modern four-dimensional
theory of space-time, Sri Aurobindo conceives space and time as interwoven like
warp and woof. With the theories of Quanta and Relativity and the principle of
indeterminancy, modern physics has arrived at the hypothesis of an energy of
force whose ways are not mechanically determined. Beyond this, physics has
nothing to say. Sri Aurobindo points out to an indefinable, infinite, timeless and
spaceless absolute existence behind this world of science.
The Triple Manifestation
According to Sri Aurobindo, God as creator is Supermind. The universe is the
result of the multiple concentration of the supramental consciousness. This
concentration, with its triple poises, leads to a triple form of manifestation. “The
first founds the inalienable unity of things, the second modifies that unity so as
to support the manifestation of the Many in One and One in Many; the third
further modifies it so as to support the evolution of a diversified individuality
which by the action of ignorance, becomes in us at a lower level the illusion of
the separate ego.”[5] The first here is not the pure unitarian consciousness of
Sachchidananda but an equal self extension of it. Different theories regarding
creation have emphasized either or two of these levels in exclusion to the other.
Sri Aurobindo’s conception of the triune status of supramental consciousness
thus synthesises the theories of Advaita, Visistādvāita and Dvaita. The third
status of supermind is a poise of blissful dualism which becomes an ignorance
only by the further action of the mind.
The Mother
The Consciousness-Force of Sachchidānanda, Sri Aurobindo calls the Mother, as
it is in Sakta and Tantra philosophies. The four leading powers of this force, Sri
Aurobindo describes as four personalities of the Mother viz., Maheshwari,
Mahākāli, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. As he says, “Maheshwari lays
down the large lines of the world-forces. Māhākali drives their energy and
impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati
presides over their details of organisation and execution, relation of parts and
effective combination of forces and unfailing exactitude of results and
fulfilment.”[6] Besides these four prominent powers, there are innumerable other
powers of the Mother. The Mother creates the universe by her powers and links
it with the Supreme. In her triple poise as Individual, Universal and
Transcendent, she mediates between Man, Nature and God. The Mother not only
governs but also helps and guides the creation. With the conception of the
mother, Sri Aurobindo brings in the working of the phenomena of grace.
Lῑlā, the purpose of creation
The purpose of creation, according to Sri Aurobindo, is lila. The concept of lila
escapes all the traditional difficulties in assigning purpose to the creator. Līlā is a
purpose-less purpose, a natural outflow, a spontaneous self-manifestation of the
Divine. The concept of līlā, again, emphasizes the role of delight in creation. The
concept of Prakrti and Māyā fail to explain the Bliss aspect of Divine. If the
world is a manifestation of the Force of Sachchidananda, the deployment of its
existence and consciousness, its purpose can be nothing but delight. This is the
meaning of līlā, “Līlā the play, the child’s joy, the poet’s joy, the actor’s joy, the
mechanician’s joy of the soul of things eternally young, perpetually
inexhaustible, creating and recreating Himself in Himself for the sheer bliss of
that self-creation, of that self-represenation, Himself the play, Himself the
player, Himself the playground.”[7]
The Evolution
The most important principle in Sri Aurobindo’s cosmology is the principle of
evolution. This is the governing principle in his metaphysics and consequently
also in his Social Philosophy. The key to the understanding of the process of
man’s social development, its goal, methods, nature, meaning and trend is the
principle of evolution, an integral method of social development. Man’s destiny
lies in understanding the real purpose of Nature and in trying to realize it in his
individual as well as social life. His success in this realization depends on his
understanding of the methods of Nature, as Nature, too, is pursuing the same end
and humanity is a phase in Nature’s constant endeavour to achieve that goal.
Man is the child of Nature. Only the Mother Nature will teach him what he will
do and how he will do it. But for that, Man must understand the Mother, not only
in her surface appearance, nor even only in her appearance as energy but also in
her inmost essence of the Consciousness-Force of Sachchidananda. This is what
Sri Aurobindo has attempted in his metaphysics of evolution. And it is here that
the theories of Darwin, Lamarck, Herbert Spencer, S. Alexander, Whitehead,
Lloyed Morgan, Bergson, Hegel and Croce have stopped short of the whole
evolutionary truth. All these serve the useful purpose of emphasizing some one
or more aspects of the working of the nature. But none of these sees her in all her
powers and majesty. This is due to the imperfections of their methods. Sri
Aurobindo by his yogic method of direct and integral oneness with the Nature,
has been able to unravel the mysteries of her aims and methods.
The Process
The world, according to Sri Aurobindo, is a manifestation of the Consciousness-
Force of Sachhidananda. This consciousness has two aspects, illuminating and
effective; state and power of self-awareness and state and power of self-force.
Thus, while it produces and governs the universe of its potentialities by an
omniscient self-energy, it also knows through omnipotent self-consciousness all
that is latent within it. This creative action has its nodus in supermind, the real
idea in which a divine knowledge and a substantial will infallibly develop the
movement and form and law of things in accordance with their self-existent truth
and in harmony with the significance of its manifestation. Knowledge and will
are in perfect union in supermind, as in their substance and nature both are the
same self-existence and self-awareness.
The Three Evolutes in Ignorance
Working in subjection to ignorance, the triple powers of these higher principles
evolve as matter, life and mind. According to Sri Aurobindo, “Mind is a
subordinate power of Supermind which takes its stand in the standpoint of
division actually forgetful here of the oneness behind, though able to return to it
by reillumination from the supramental; life is similarly a subordinate power of
the energy aspect of Sachchidānanda, it is Force working out form and the play
of conscious energy from the standpoint of division created by Mind; Matter is
the form of substance of being which the existence of Sachchidānanda assumes
when it subject itself to the phenomenal action of its own consciousness and
force.”[8]
Matter too is Brahman
Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, Matter too is Brahman. This synthesis of the
extremes of the materialistic and ascetic positions in the metaphysics of Sri
Aurobindo has led to the real-idealism of his Social Philosophy. They are
complementary to each other. Our Social Philosophy should be based on hard
facts determined by different social sciences Psychology, Sociology,
Anthropology, Politics, Economics and History. Thought can legitimately pass
from the known to the unknown but for that passage it must first be very clear
about the known. In establishing his social ideals in relation to scientific facts,
Sri Aurobindo escapes the traditional error of the social philosophers.
 Spirit is the soul of Matter and Matter is the body of Spirit. Yet Matter has
also certain fundamental characteristics which are apparently in contrast with
those of spirit. First, as contrasted with Spirit, Matter is the culmination of the
principle of ignorance. Secondly, it is the culmination of the bondage to
mechanical law, a colossal inertia which opposes all that seeks to liberate itself.
And finally, it is the culmination of the principle of division and struggle. These
are the characteristics of Matter which should increasingly diminish in evolution
from Matter to Spirit and finally disappear on spiritual level. Thus, from Matter
to Spirit, there shall be infinite stages more and more spiritual and less and less
material. Life and mind are the turning points in this progression.
This metaphysical analysis of the process of evolution gives an insight into
the criterion of social development. A progress in social development should
thus mean progressive diminution of ignorance, mechanism, inertia, division and
struggle characteristic of Matter. It determines the ideal of social development as
complete spiritualization and transformation of Matter, the kingdom of Spirit
upon earth. It also clarifies that this does not involve abolition of Matter but only
its control, transformation and integration in Spirit. Social development
necessarily involves material development. But this material development
should be inspired and guided by spiritual development since only thus the
conflict between individuals and communities can be avoided. Material
prosperity is essential for humanity on earth but it should be an instrument for
spiritual purpose. The body should survive, grow and enjoy, as that too is a
manifestation of existence, consciousness and bliss. This, however, should not
be in exclusion of, still less in opposition to, Spirit but in harmony with it, since
Spirit is the true aim of the physical urges of survival, growth and enjoyment. It
is in Spirit alone that these urges can be fully satisfied as there alone these meet
their ultimate Existence, Consciousness and Bliss.
Life
Life, according to Sri Aurobindo, “is a form of the one Cosmic Energy, a
dynamic movement or current of it, positive and negative, a constant act or play
of the force which builds up forms, energises them by an unceasing process of
disintegration and renewal of their substance.”[9] Life is universal, all-pervading
and imperishable. Disintegration and renewal, status and change, birth and death,
all are different forms and organizations of the same life. Secret or manifest,
organised or elemental, involved or evolved, life is everywhere in some form or
the other. There is no essential difference in the life in plant, animal or man.
Birth, growth and death; nutrition, productiveness and sterility; sleep and
waking; energy and depression, the passage from infancy to maturity and
reaction to stimuli are the phenomena common to all. Life manifests itself as
nervous energy full of sub-mental sensation in the plant, as desire-sense and
desire-will in the primary animal forms, as self-conscious sense and force in
developed animal and as mental will or knowledge in man.
Three Stages of the Evolution of Life
According to Sri Aurobindo, there are three stages in the evolution of life, viz.,
material life, vital life, and mental life, the sub-conscious, the conscious and the
self-conscious. In the lowest form, vibration is entirely sub-conscious and seems
wholly mechanical. In the middle stage, life becomes capable of response but
still sub-mental. This is the sphere of animals as the first is that of plants and
material things. In the highest stage, life develops conscious mentality in the
form of a mentally perceptible sensation which is the basis of the development
of sense-mind and intelligence.
In the primary form, life is divided and sub-conscient, the physical energy
of the physicists which is controlled by mechanical forces which govern the
interchange between the form and its environment. In its final form, life attains
an equipoise, which increases as it evolves towards conscious mind. In the
middle, there is death, desire and incapacity resulting in struggle for survival and
conquest of environment. The third stage, though apparently a contradiction of
the first, is really the very fulfilment and transfiguration of it. The prototype of
the first stage of life is the atom which resists the process of dissolution by
aggregation. The physical basis of the vital ego, is, however, dissolved in the
second stage and there is interchange, intermixture and fusion of being with
being. In the third stage, the self-affirmation goes with the impetus for mutual
adaptation; interchange and fusion. This is due to increasing effect of mind
whose law, as contrary to that of physical life, is enrichment through giving,
self-fulfilment through self-sacrifice. The sub-conscious will of the first stage of
life becomes hunger and desire in the second stage which again is transformed
and fulfilled by the growth of lives in the third stage of life.
This metaphysical analysis of the different stages of life justifies the ideal of
life in the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo. Conflict, division, sterility and
depression is a characteristic of the lower forms of life but that is not essential to
it in its higher forms. Equipoise of life is not death. Birth, growth, nutrition,
reproduction etc., do not make a man different from animal or plant. What
constitutes his manhood is the mental will, knowledge and love. These are the
developments of the earlier stages. Hence the earlier stages are not negated but
fulfilled in this stage. Thus the ideal of life is its spiritual transformation. This is
what Nature itself seeks in life in the three successive stages of the evolution of
life before aiming at mental level.
The Mind
The next stage in the process of evolution is Mind. Mind is consciousness which
measures, limits and cuts the forms of things from the indivisible whole and
contains them as if each were a separate integer. It conceives, perceives and
senses things as rigidly separated from the background of a mass and employs
them as fixed units of the material given to it for possession or creation. This
does not mean that mind has no urge to transcend its limitations. It has a
persistent urge to reach the whole. Thus, it is a mere passing phase, a stage in
evolution, with the inherent nisus to exceed itself. It is hence that mind is not
content with analysis but always seeks to arrive at the unity of the whole which
it has broken. Mind’s urge to transcend itself is a symptom of its being a fall
from some higher power, a descent only to ascend again. In that ascent,
however, thought shall not commit suicide but will be transformed, integrated
and fulfilled.
The Supermind
This goal which mind seeks to achieve, is the Supermind, the real idea. It is
neither a universal mind nor Sachchidānanda. It is the intermediate link between
Sachchidānanda and universe. To quote Sri Aurobindo, “We call it Supermind or
Truth-Consciousness because it is a principle superior to mentality and exists,
acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things, and not like the
mind, in their appearance and phenomenal divisions.”[10] This is a logical
necessity for the transition from timeless and spaceless to that which is in time
and space, it is knowledge-will or Consciousness-Force. It is higher than
Brahman-consciousness of the traditional Vedanta. It is fourth to that in its
descent and fourth in man’s ascent to that. In it there is no conflict between idea,
will or force.
The Supermind is the creator. It creates, sustains and upholds the worlds. It
is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, all-inclusive, all-pervading and the lord
within. It is the seat of all trinities. In it there is no distinction of knowledge, the
knower and the known.
From Mind to Supermind
A direct ascent from Mind to Supermind is, however, not possible owing to the
vast difference in their nature. This ascent shall be gradual. Between Mind and
Supermind, Sri Aurobindo points out to Higher Mind, Illumined Mind, Intuitive
Mind and Overmind. Lest these levels might be confused with Supermind, Sri
Aurobindo has taken sufficient pains to distinguish them from one another.
Higher Mind
Beyond Mind is the Higher Mind. It is a mind of large clarity of spirit, a
luminous thought-mind, a mind of spiritual-conceptual-knowledge. In Higher
Mind one knows things in their totality, though not integrally. It is the self-
revelation of an eternal knowledge. Its most characteristic movement is a mass
ideation, a totality of truth-seeing in a single view. In it the idea and truth are not
logically but integrally and spontaneously related. The Higher mind has the
cognitive, conative as well as the affective aspect. It affects not only knowledge
but also life, feeling, will and actions. It affects even the body and replaces its
faith in consent to illness by the potent thought and will of health.
Illumined Mind
The descent of the Higher Mind only prepares the base for the descent of a yet
higher power, the Illumined Mind. As the Higher Mind brings a greater
consciousness into the being through idea and its power of truth, so the
Illumined Mind brings in a still greater Consciousness through a Truth-sight and
Truth-light and its seeing and seizing power.[11] The Higher Mind transforms and
fulfils thought, the Illumined Mind transforms and fulfils visions. As compared
with the slow and deliberate process of the Higher mind, the Illumined Mind
affects almost a violent impetus of rapid transformation. It is a mind of spiritual
light, a luminous inner force and power. It can affect a more powerful and
dynamic integration. It spiritualizes the feelings, emotions and will. It dynamizes
the action and exalts life-movements. Owing to its transforming light the
limitations, inertia, narrow thought-power and doubts of mind are broken.
Intuitive Mind
Both Higher and Illumined Mind depend on Intuitive Mind for their authority.
The Intuitive Mind does not work through cognition or vision but through
intuition. It transforms not only mind but also life and body. It changes the
whole consciousness into the stuff of intuition. It brings its own radiant
movement into will, feelings and emotions. It rests the life and body in the light
and power of truth.
Overmind
Beyond Intuitive Mind is the Overmind. It is the Supermind’s delegate to the
Ignorance. A line divides Supermind and Overmind but it permits a free
transmission. Overmind is the junction of the meeting of the two hemispheres of
the evolution, the higher (Parārdha) constituted of Sat, Chit, Ānand and Mahat,
and the lower (Aparārdha) constituted of mind, life and matter. The Overmind
has no integrality of Supermind, yet it embraces the totality. The overmind has
the origin of cleavage, yet in it this is still founded on the basis of an underlying
implicit unity. All possibilities of combination and relation between separated
powers and aspects are freely organized here. It gives to Sachchidānanda a
character, a teeming of the infinite possibilities, which can be developed into a
number of worlds or thrown together into one world.
Not a Rigid Scheme
This, however, is not a rigid scheme of spiritual ascent. At each stage, the higher
parts of the nature may be provisionally but incompletely organized in the new
consciousness while the lower is in a state of flux. The higher appears when the
lower is sufficiently integrated for the new emergence, yet it is always after the
emergence of higher and its influence upon the lower, that the lower is perfectly
organized. The descending power uplifts it by the intensity of its pressure upon
it. This process is further complicated by the very nature of integration which
requires ascent as well as descent. “Nothing is accomplished until all is
accomplished,”[12] says Sri Aurobindo.
The Evolution is teleological
Evolution, according to Sri Aurobindo, is emergent, free and purposive. The
seemingly mechanical progression of evolution has a spiritual nisus inherent in
it. Like Plato, says Sri Aurobindo, “Thing that is made is attracted towards thing
that is, becoming towards being, the natural to the supernatural, symbol towards
thing in itself, Nature towards God.”[13]
In the scheme of evolution every next evolute is subtler and higher than the
preceding ones, as the why of the evolution is the delight of self-manifestation of
Sachchidānanda. This metaphysical analysis of the purpose of evolution is the
basis of Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of history and his speculations about the
future of mankind. “Delight is existence, Delight is the secret of creation,
Delight is the root of birth, Delight is the cause of remaining in existence,
Delight is the end of birth and that into which creation ceases,”[14] says Sri
Aurobindo. This delight is the reason of imperishability in matter, instinct of
self-preservation in animal and the sense of immortality in man. It shall be fully
realized only on the spiritual plane. An evolution to this level requires ascent as
well as descent, development as well as integration. This integral conception of
evolution is characteristic of Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics as well as his Social
Philosophy.
Karma
Like the theory of evolution, Sri Aurobindo’s conception of the doctrine of
Karma as well as that of Rebirth is also based on the principle of continuity in
evolution. Not only the actions but even thoughts and feelings have their
corresponding influences and results. This law of Karma is not an impediment in
soul’s freedom. It is rather an instrument of its evolution. Again, this law is
mechanical only on the lower levels. Spirit is neither arbitrary nor mechanical. It
is its own master, but it spontaneously follows its own laws of self-expression. It
is in this sense that the law of Karma is explained by Sri Aurobindo.
Rebirth
Thus rebirth is not determined by the law of Karma but by soul’s own nature.
“...that which has no end must necessarily have had no beginning.”[15] It is an
indispensable machinery for the working out of a spiritual evolution. Life is a
term in a graded series through which the secret Spirit in the universe develops
its purpose gradually. According to Sri Aurobindo, “The soul is not bound by the
formula of mental humanity: it did not begin with that and will not end with it; it
had a prehuman past, it has a super-human future.”[16] The metaphysical theory
of Karma and Rebirth is the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s robust optimism in his
Social Philosophy.
Evil, Falsehood, Error and Pain
Thus evil, falsehood, error and pain are only passing phases. These are not
essential to man who is more than a mental being. These will vanish as man
transcends his present level. Thus spirit evolves in and through its opposites.
This, again, is the purpose of these phenomena. These serve their purpose and
disappear on the spiritual level since. “.....a limited consciousness growing out of
nescience is the source of error, a personal attachment to the limitation and the
error born of it the source of falsity, a wrong consciousness governed by the life-
ego the source of evil.”[17] This conception of Evil, Falsehood, Error and Pain in
metaphysics is also the basis of a robust optimism in Sri Aurobindo’s Social
Philosophy.

Notes and References

[1] A detailed and critical evaluation of the integral nature of Sri Aurobindo’s Metaphysics has been

attempted in the author’s D. Phil., thesis, “The Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo”, published by Kedar
Nath Ram Nath, Meerut, Third Edition, 1985.
[2] This has been elaborately discussed in the author’s paper, ‘The Nature of Truth’, Agra Univ. J. Res.

(Letters), Vol. VII, Part I (Jan. 1959), pp. 87-90.

[3] Sri Aurobindo, The Advent, Vol. IX No. 2, p. 22.

[4] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, IInd Edition, p. 107.

[5] Ibid., Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 177.

[6] Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p. 66.

[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, IInd Edition, p. 124.

[8] Ibid., p. 318.

[9] Ibid., p. 213.

[10] Ibid., p. 174.

[11]
Ibid., p. 334.
[12] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, Second Edition, p. 809.

[13] Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, No. 11, p. 23.

[14] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, Second Edition, p. 92.

[15] Ibid., p. 551.

[16] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I, Second Edition, p. 571.

[17]
Ibid., p. 402.
 CHAPTER IV
The Human Nature

“All the problems of human life arise from the complexity of our
existence, the obscurity of its essential principle and the secrecy of the
inmost power that makes out its determinations and governs its
purpose and its processes.”
— Sri Aurobindo

Facts abstracted from the ideals are meaningless. Ideals without their ground in
facts are mere wishful imaginations. Though not deduced from the facts, they
must be integrated with them in the concrete whole of Reality. Social
Philosophy, in its effort to find out the social ideals of mankind and to judge the
validity of human relations by their criterion, should be based on a sound
knowledge of human nature. The investigation of the facts of human nature,
however, does not fall within the scope of Social Philosophy. It is the task of
science to enquire into facts. Philosophy coordinates these facts among
themselves and with values. The enquiry into human nature as a whole cannot be
attempted by any single science exclusively, since man’s complex nature cannot
be comprehended by any one method. Man is a complex of physical, mental, and
psychical levels together with spiritual essence. Thus Social Philosophy will
gather its facts from Physiology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology
and finally from Yoga. All these except the last have been recognized as
valuable by the social philosophers, though no one has attempted a synthetic
view based on them. It is partly because many of these social sciences have been
properly developed only recently and partly because of the absence of the
integral approach to social and human problems. The dynamics of human nature
is the basis of the success of Social Philosophy. This dynamics can be
understood only by a collaboration of the researchers in the fields of personality
psychology, social structure and cultural anthropology. Psychology studies the
individual, sociology studies society, Anthropology studies culture. To
understand man in the inter-relations of individual, society and culture, the three
scientific disciplines should meet on a common ground.
A Dynamic Approach
This synthesis of the conclusions of different sciences should not be mere
juxtaposition or a compromise. Human nature is not something fixed and static.
It is dynamic with innumerable possibilities. One can obtain a dynamic
conception of human nature only by an integral spiritual vision. This integral
dynamic view will look upon man, not only horizontally but also vertically, not
only on the surface but also in the depths, not only in his present forms but also
in the perspective of his past and in the vision of his future. Social Philosophy
should be based on the essential core of human nature but it should duly note the
static as well as the dynamic aspect of this core, its limitations as well as
possibilities.
Impact of Culture
The interaction of man and culture is a two-way relation. Thus, the human
personality differs from culture to culture. Social Philosophy, however, as a
philosophy of not this or that society but of society in general, is concerned with
the general human nature common to all men in all societies. There may be
specific social philosophies and they are useful in their own way, but the
possibility of a general Social Philosophy is amply demonstrated by the fact that
in broad outlines human nature does not change. This general Social Philosophy
may be less useful in particular situations than specific Social Philosophies. But
it is always necessary as a guide to all specific attempts, as it is in a close
approximation to it that all these are fulfilled. Individuality is fulfilled not in
narrow concentration but in universalization and transcendence. What has been
outlined in the present thesis is this general Social Philosophy as distinguished
from the specific ones. Such a Social Philosophy at once harmonizes and
transcends all specific theories. It should be based on universal truths of human
nature. In man, so far as he is influenced by culture, there are two elements, one
comprising those aspects which are due to specific characteristics of a particular
culture, the other including those aspects which are due to general characteristics
common to all the cultures. This second aspect of personality is essential to
human nature, though, as every man is living in “a culture” as distinguished
from “the culture”, the other specific elements shall also be present everywhere.
The Missing Links
Now, a coordination of the facts of Biology, Psychology, Sociology and
Anthropology fails to present a connected picture of human nature, as the factor
of coordination, the uniting link, is not traced. It is real and not only surface
configuration that is required to present a total picture of human nature. It is the
self, the inner individual, the real personality or spirit, the ‘X’ of human
personality, which should be explored, in order to find out the integrating factor
in human beings. This deficiency in knowledge has its roots in the limitations of
scientific methods. Scientific methods are mediated, analytic, indirect and
limited. Hence science cannot comprehend the self. It is this inner reality which
has been sought through art, ethics and religion. This inner reality can be only
directly realized. It is in the absence of any direct method to realize this reality
that the psychologists and sociologists are groping in vain in search of a
coordinating principle in man’s complex nature. All these sciences have
presented a horizontal survey of human nature. Depth psychology (the
researches of Freud, Jung and others) has tried to go into the depths of human
nature and brought out valuable data for further research. But the traditional
scientific methods are not sufficient to explore this field.
Integral Perspective of Human Nature
An integral perspective of human nature is only possible by a direct method to
realize the inner core. As discussed in chapter second, the integral yoga of Sri
Aurobindo is such a method. It is through yoga alone that the ‘X’ of human
personality, unsolved by psychological, sociological and cultural equations can
be disentangled, grasped and realized. It is here that the real dynamic sources of
human personality can be tackled and utilized to integrate and transform human
personality and realize its immense potentialities. It is here that one finds the
universal core of human nature. Hence this knowledge alone can supply a
suitable basis for a Social Philosophy, worthy of its name.
Conclusions of Gardner Murphy
In his voluminous work ‘‘Personality”, Gardner Murphy, after surveying the
entire psychological findings about human personality concludes as follows :
“The psychology of personality as it exists today day will be crushed and
pulverised and a new creation made from the debris, not because of the wisdom
inherent in criticism of it but simply because in grappling with the problems of
man it will be weighed in the balance and found wanting.”[1] Thus, the principles
of psychology show the limits beyond which generalizations cannot be made.
The present schools of psychology have grown out of reactions. Psychology is
uncertain about the nature of man and his place in the cosmos. As Murphy points
out, “We know neither man, nor the cosmos, nor his relation to the cosmos.”[2]
The field theory has undoubtedly very valuable suggestions to offer, e.g., the
melting of the individual and the environment. But the melting of the individuals
into one another has not been sufficiently worked out. The definition of the
“non-individualistic” and “super-individualistic” aspects of human experience
and conduct has not been feasible even on this hypothesis. Many aspects of the
deeper “inter-individual unity” which is a phase of “man-cosmos unity” have not
yet been explored. To balance the tension of frenzied individualism, suggests
Murphy, a “non-individualized or super-individual” form of experience is
needed. The “cosmic time-space coordinates” of man can be known only after
knowing his many other dimensions besides the bio-chemical system.
Need of a New Approach
Thus, Murphy points out the need of a new approach to human personality. This
view has been supported by many other psychologists, sociologists and religious
men. “In a future psychology of personality”, says Murphy, “there will surely be
a place for directly grappling with the question of man’s response to the cosmos,
his sense of unity with it, the nature of his aesthetic demands upon it, and his
feelings of loneliness or of consummation in the contemplation of it.”[3] This
approach to personality would cautiously and modestly make the most of the
similarities between cosmic evolution and human evolution with special
reference to differentiation and integration, it would take note of the specialized
character of human development and the respects in which ontogenetic growth
differs from other characteristic types of species development and inorganic
development.”[4] It is interesting to note that more than two decades before
Murphy published his book, Sri Aurobindo developed a psychology of human
personality which not only remarkably meets Murphy’s speculations but also
supplies practical clues to man’s future evolution, to the solution of his present
crises, to the explanation of his past history and to the realization of a kingdom
of heaven upon earth. This is the yogic psychology.
Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Psychology
Thus Sri Aurobindo presents an integral psychology which supplies the missing
links in the studies of human personality by Psychology, Sociology,
Anthropology and Biology. It has been developed through strenuous efforts and
constant improvement of the technique of integral yoga. Man, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is a microcosm in macrocosm. “Society is only an enlargement of
the individual.”[5] Individuality, universality and transcendence are the triple
aspects of the human personality. Thus, the yogic conception of human
personality emphasizes the non-individualistic and super-individualistic aspects
of human experience, the universality as well as transcendence.
Man and Animal
To the distinction between man and animal, as found by psychology, biology
and other sciences, the yogic psychology adds new data. To quote Sri
Aurobindo, “Man, the mental being in Nature, is specially distinguished from
her less developed creatures by a greater power of individuality, by the liberation
of the mental consciousness which enables him finally to understand more and
more himself and his law of being and his development, by the liberation of the
mental will which enables him under the secret control of the universal will to
manage more and more the materials and lines of his development and by the
capacity in the end to go beyond himself, beyond his mentality and open his
consciousness into that from which mind, life and body proceed.”[6] Thus man is
distinguished from the animal not only by his superior capacities but also by his
immense possibilities, by opening himself to the cosmic forces. Man has in him
a principle which transcends his physical, vital and mental being. This principle
he can reach by transcending all these levels.
Universal and Transcendental Field
Yoga goes deep into the recesses of human consciousness and unravels not only
the space-time coordinates of human personality but also gives him a non-
individual as well as super-individual experience. According to Sri Aurobindo,
man is a nodus in an infinite non-individual as well as super-individual field.
“The individual is a centre of the whole universal consciousness.”[7] This super-
individual as well as non-individual field is wider than the field of the field
theory of Lewin. It constantly acts and reacts on man and shapes his personality
together with the socio-cultural environments. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
“The master and mover of our works is the One, the Universal and Supreme, the
Eternal and the Infinite... All that is, is he, and he is more than all that is, and we
ourselves, though we know it not, are being of his being, force of his force,
conscious with a consciousness derived from his; even our mortal existence is
made out of his substance and there is an immortal within us that is a spark of
the Light and Bliss that are for ever.”[8]
This truth has been established by the enquiry in the essential nature of the
man as well as the universe. This has been realized through a deep self-
awareness, a conscious oneness with cosmic, and a transcendence into
supramental. It is man alone who can achieve this self, though this achievement
is not possible without the help of the cosmic as well as the transcendent. And
this is readily coming when the man goes deeper in his self which is continuous
with Nature and Divine. Contemporary psychology evades this enquiry into
man’s relation with the cosmos. According to Yogic psychology, human
personality should be defined as a process of which the bio-chemical or psycho-
social system is merely one aspect. The experience of the union with the Divine,
has been realized by the mystics in all times and in all places. Human nature
cannot be understood in its integration as well as disintegration unless one
understands the meaning of yogic experience.
Validity of the Yogic Psychology
Research on man’s personality in the clinical and cultural sphere has justified the
ordering of the material of human personality in terms of the conception of self.
The experience of the widening of this self to include other individuals has been
justified not only by religion and yoga but also by group psychology. It is an
accepted fact that during the active participation in group endeavour, the
individual literally loses himself in group consciousness. If this is possible, then
the further extension of the self is a matter of mere degree. The Yogic
Psychology finds its validity not only in experience but also in practical results.
It opens immense new possibilities of power, light, energy and knowledge for
man.[9] It leads to a better understanding of the role and dynamism of the self. It
gives us an understanding of that aspect of human nature which has evaded the
methods of Psychology, Biology, Anthropology, Sociology and other sciences
concerning human nature. It not only describes the cosmic and the transcendent
powers but also devises a whole technique to harness these powers[10] for the
realization of a spiritual society on earth. The findings of this yogic psychology
will now be discussed in the sequel.
The Causal Being
Psychology and the kindred sciences concerning man have so far probed into the
physical and the mental being. Yoga recognizes “a third supreme and divine
status of supramental being termed the causal body.”[11] This “causal body” has
the characteristics of knowledge and bliss. This knowledge is pure, self-existent
and self-luminous truth as distinguished from mental knowledge. This bliss,
again, is a self-delight which is the very nature, the very stuff, of a transcendent
and infinite existence. This causal body is the basis of future development. It is
the secret guide of the process of Nature and the crown emergent of the
evolution. It is in the realization of this spirit within, that the mind, body and
other elements of human personality may attain their fulness. In it, Sri
Aurobindo finds a principle which is one in man as well as in the universe, in
which the purpose of the individual as well as that of the nature is identical and
whose law of development is the law of the development in Nature. This is the
core of human nature on which a sound Social Philosophy can be built up since
it explains both man as well as society and includes both in its evolution. The
technique of the manifestation of this principle, the integral yoga of Sri
Aurobindo, corresponds with Nature’s own processes. Nature, according to Sri
Aurobindo, is “the cosmic energy and working of God Himself,” inspired by “an
infinite but minutely selective wisdom.”[12] Yoga is “in essence a special action
or formulation of certain great powers of Nature.”[13] Thus the quest of the self is
equally the ideal of man as well as of his society. It is so, since, as Sri Aurobindo
points out, “The one infinitely variable spirit in things comes all of himself into
each form of his omnipresence; the self, the Being is at once unique in each,
common in our collectivities and one in all beings.”[14]
New Concepts of Yogic Psychology
“Both for spiritual and philosophical knowledge”, says Sri Aurobindo, “it is
necessary to be clear and precise in one’s own use of terms, so as to avoid
confusion of thought and vision, by confusion in the words we use to express
them.”[15] Sri Aurobindo has not only developed a whole new knowledge by his
yogic experience and exacting introspective analysis and observation, he has
also cautiously coined new terms and concepts to explain realities corresponding
to different types of experiences. Psychologists and other scientists, in their
enthusiasm for physical and biological categories, have often tried to apply them
to widely differing experiences. This over-simplification has led to much
confusion specially about deeper realities. Confusion in concepts leads to
confusion in thought and confusion in thought leads to lack of distinction in
concepts. Hence the need of clarification in concepts is categorical in every
branch of human knowledge, even though the concepts may represent the
experiences only approximately.
The Structure of Man
Man, according to Sri Aurobindo, is “a spirit using the mind, life and body for an
individual and a communal experience and self-manifestation in the universe.”[16]
The structure of man consists of the highest self or the spirit, the soul and the
psychic being, the physical, vital, mental, psychical and the spiritual sheaths or
bodies which enclose the physical body and the ego. Except the ego, all these are
the projections of the self for its manifestation on the earth.
The Soul
The soul, according to Sri Aurobindo, is double. There is a surface desire soul
which operates in vital cravings, emotions, aesthetic faculty and mental seeking
for power, knowledge and happiness. Behind this outer form of psychic
existence is the subliminal psychic entity. As against the former which is the
basis of man’s egoistic existence, the latter is the truer individuality. It is in this
latter that man comes in direct contact with the Universal.
Caitya Purusa
This real soul is called Psychic Being or Caitya Purusa. It becomes one with the
self though it is not identical with it. According to Sri Aurobindo, “The psychic
being realizes its oneness with the true being, the Jvātman, but it does not change
into it”[17] At first veiled by body, life and mind, this caitya purusa gradually
comes forward and dominates them. Psychic being is the inner being, the
individual sold, not the self. It is the evolutionary principle in man. It enters the
body at birth and exits at death. It is that aspect of the self which enters into the
terrestrial life. It is this psychic being which has to withdraw itself from outward
concentration in the ego and grow fully in union with the self. Thus psychic
being is one aspect of the self. The other aspect is that which is known as
Jivātman, the transcendental self. To quote Sri Aurobindo, “The Self has two
aspects and the result of realizing it corresponds to these two aspects. One is
static, a condition of wide peace, freedom, silence: the silent Self is unaffected
by any action or experience; it impartially supports them but does not seem to
originate them at all, rather to stand back detached or unconcerned, Udāsina. The
other aspect is dynamic and is experienced as a cosmic Self or spirit which not
only supports but originates and contains the whole cosmic action – not only that
part of it which concerns our physical selves but also all that is beyond it – this
world and all other worlds, the supra-physical as well as the physical ranges of
the universe. Moreover, we feel the Self as one in all; but also we feel it as above
all, transcendent, surpassing all individual birth or cosmic existence.’’[18]
Jivatman
This is Jīvātman, the Self, the universal in man. This is the ‘Many’ aspect of the
Divine. This is the manifestation of the Divine “as the individualized self or
spirit of the created being.”[19] It is self-existent, pure, stainless, unaffected by the
stains of life, by desire, by ego and ignorance. It is the central principle which
holds together the mental, vital and the physical being through the psychic,
“jīvātman is the individual self, the central being.”[20] This central being
integrates the whole consciousness. It presides over the evolution of the psychic
being. It itself does not evolve. This self is beyond time and space, without name
and form, featureless, relationless, self-blissful, pure conscious existence – self-
sufficient and eternally satisfied with pure being.
Five Sheaths
Sri Aurobindo has not given any details of the five sheaths as the principle is
already well-known in Hindu Philosophy. Sri Aurobindo has, however, clarified
their specific workings. The five sheaths are the physical, the vital, the mental,
the psychical and the spiritual. Of these, the last two correspond to the psychic
being and spirit which have been discussed above. The mental being is
concerned with “cognition and intelligence, with ideas, with mental or thought
perceptions, the reaction of thought to things, with the truly mental movements
and formations, mental vision and will etc., that are part of his intelligence.”[21]
The vital being “is the Life nature made up of desires, sensations, feelings,
passions, energies of action, will of desire, reactions of the desire-soul in man
and of all that play of possessive and other related instincts, anger, fear, greed,
lust etc., that belong to this field of nature.”[22]
Four Parts of the Vital
This vital being has four parts, viz. the mental vital, emotional vital, central vital
and lower vital. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, “There are four parts of the vital being
– first, the mental vital which gives a mental expression by thought, speech or
otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations and other movements of
the vital being; the emotional vital which is the seat of various feelings, such as
love, joy, sorrow, hatred, and the rest; the central vital which is the seat of the
stronger vital longings and reactions, e.g., ambition, pride, fear, love of fame,
attractions and repulsions, desires and passions of various kinds and the field of
many vital energies; last, the lower vital which is occupied with small desires
and feelings, such as make the greater part of daily life, e.g., food desire, sexual
desire, small likings, dislikings, vanity, quarrels, love of praise, anger at blame,
little wishes of all kinds and a numberless host of other things. Their respective
seats are: (1) the region from the throat to the heart, (2) the heart (it is double
centre, belonging in front to the emotional and vital and behind to the psychic),
(3) from the heart to the naval, (4) below the navel.”[23] This subtle classification
can be very favourably contrasted with any description of this aspect of human
nature in the works of psychology and other sciences. They not only failed to
observe the subtle distinction in the vital but also did not distinguish between the
physical, the mental and the vital. The dogmatic application of the law of
parsimony in the explanation of these different levels has led to a lot of
confusion. This lack of distinction can also be observed in the application of
scientific methods specially in dealing with the inner mechanism of man.
The Double Principles
All these five sheaths, according to Sri Aurobindo, have double aspects, the
surface and the inner. Thus, there is a surface physical, vital, mental, psychical
and spiritual; as well as an inner physical, vital, mental, psychical and spiritual.
The outer spiritual is the ego, the inner the real self. The double soul has already
been discussed above. Then, there is surface mind and the subliminal, life and a
subliminal force, physical body and subtler material existence. Thus, “The
surface vital is narrow, ignorant, limited, full of obscure desires, passions,
cravings, revolts, pleasures and pains, transient joys and griefs, exultations and
depressions. The true vital being, on the contrary, is wide, calm, strong, without
limitations, firm and immovable, capable of all power, all knowledge, all
Ānanda. It is moreover without ego, for it knows itself to be a projection and
instrument of the Divine.” “In the same way there is, too, a true mental being, a
true physical being. When these are manifest, then you are aware of a double
existence in you : that behind is always calm and strong, that on the surface
alone is troubled and abscure.”[24]
The Seven Chakras
These subtle bodies, according to Sri Aurobindo, possess seven main centres
called chakras[25]. These centres are located at the base of the spine, over the
solar plexus, the spleen, the heart, in front of the throat, between the eyebrows
and over the top of the head. This conception has been borrowed by Sri
Aurobindo from the ancient Hindu psychologists but he tested it by his own
personal experience and clarified the specialized action of each of them. Thus
the Mūladhāra (base of the spine) governs the physical down to the
subconscient. The Swadhisthana governs the sense movements. The Manipura
(Naval Centre) governs the larger desire movements. The Anāhata or Hrtpadma
(Heart Centre) governs the emotional being. The ViŚuddha (Throat Centre)

governs the expressive and externalizing mind. The (Centre between

the eyebrows) governs the dynamic will, vision, mental formation; the
sahasradala (above the head) governs the higher thinking mind. It consists of the
higher mind, the illumined mind and also the intuitive mind through which the
overmind contacts with the rest.
The Levels of Consciousness
Through his yogic experience and critical analytic powers, Sri Aurobindo has
given a classification of the levels of Consciousness. Besides the conscient level,
Sri Aurobindo speaks of the inconscient, the sub- conscient, the super-conscient
and the subliminal. All these levels are continuous with their universal
counterparts.
The Sub-Conscient
The sub-conscient, in yogic psychology, includes the unconscious as analysed by
Freud and Jung. As Sri Aurobindo says, “In our Yoga we mean by subconscient
that quite submerged part of our being in which there is no wakingly conscious
and coherent thought, will or feeling or organised reaction, but which yet
receives obscurely the impressions of all things and stores them up in itself and
from it too all sorts of stimuli, of persistent habitual movements, crudely
repeated or disguised in strange forms, can surge up into dream or into the
waking nature.” “In the subconscient there is an obscure mind full of obstinate
samskāras, impressions, associations, fixed notions, habitual reactions formed by
our past, an obscure vital full of the seeds of habitual desires, sensations and
nervous reactions, a most obscure material which governs much that has to do
with the conditions of the body.”[26] Thus, the sub-conscient, like Freud’s

unconscious, is the reservoir of rejected and repressed ideas and impulses. It is

instinctive, the animal in man and resists all changes. It is the source of dreams.
In it the inconscient meets with the inner being and sends its formations into
conscient and subliminal being. In deep sleep the subconscient sinks into the
inconscient.
Comparison with Freudian Unconscious
The subconscient is below the level of the mind and conscious life. It is inferior
and obscure. It includes purely physical and vital elements which are neither
observed nor controlled by the mind. The dynamic, yet dumb, consciousness has
its seat in this region. It is from this seat that it operates in the cells and nerves
and the whole body and adjusts their life processes, instinctive and reflex
actions. Since man has developed a mind, he no more works with the direct help
of this region which is the guide of the plant and the animal life. But since the
process of evolution has no violent gaps, man does possess the animal and the
plant through this sub-conscient which covers the lowest functioning of the
submerged sense-mind and remains obscurely at work below our conscious
nature. It is this region which psycho-analysts have tried to explore, though with
crude and indirect methods. Thus the subconscient of yogic psychology is not
identical with the unconscious of the psycho-analysts. Its activity, however,
extends to that region of the hidden mental substratum in which, as Freud also
admits, the past impressions and all that is repressed by the surface ego sinks and
remains struggling to find expression through dreams, suggestions, coma, trance,
automatic vital reaction or impulse, physical or nervous abnormalities, the slips
of pen, tongue, actions etc., and various forms of morbidities, diseases and
unbalances. This subconscient, however, is not at war with the conscious mind.
The waking sense-mind and intelligencce takes from it as much as is required.
But when the subconscient impulses, thoughts and suggestions, etc., are brought
on the surface, the mind translates them into the values of working human sense
and intelligence, as it is ignorant of their nature, origin, operation and values.
The rising of this subconscient is through automatic, reflex and involuntary
actions. It is a consciousness which seems alien to man as it is not a part of his
conscious mind. It is felt only in some abnormal experiences, most commonly in
some diseases or in some disturbance of balance.
The Value of the Sub-conscient
The sub-consdent is very valuable and important for the integration of human
personality. It must be known and controlled before man may aspire after
integrity. It is indispensable for any transformation of human nature, as the
animal and infernal in man has its seat here. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “It
sustains and reinforces all in us that clings most and refuses to change, our
mechanical recurrences of unintelligent thought, our present obstinacies of
feeling, sensation, impulse, propensity, our uncontrolled fixities of character.”[27]
The Method to know the sub-conscient
The sub-conscient, however, cannot be known by a direct plunge into it, since it
would put man into incoherence or into sleep or a dull trance or a comatose
torpor. A mental scrutiny or insight, as in the psycho-analytic method, can give
only some indirect and artificial idea of these hidden activities. According to Sri
Aurobindo, the sub-conscient can be known directly and totally either by
drawing back into the subliminal and by extending ourselves into these obscure
depths; or by ascending to the superconscient and looking down into the sub-
conscient. This awareness will give us a control over the sub-conscient, which is
of utmost importance as the sub-conscient is the inconscient in the process of
becoming conscious.
The Subliminal
The most important discovery of yogic psychology is the subliminal. It is the
meeting ground of involved and evolved consciousness. It has an inner mind, an
inner vital being and an inner subtle physical being, wider than man’s conscious
being. The Universal can be directly experienced by the subtle sense of the
subliminal. It is the source of inspirations, intuitions, ideas, will, sense-
suggestions and urges to actions, as well as the occult powers of telepathy,
clairvoyance etc. It can widen itself and directly know the other individuals and
the universe. It can know the possible courses of subtle world powers. It is secret
intra-conscient or circumconscient. It helps the soul in controlling its instrument
in integral knowledge and integral transformation.
The external mind, the surface consciousness of man, is for the most part a
selection, an exteriorized, mutilated and vulgarized edition of the subliminal.
The surface being of man has evolved out of the ineonscient with the help of this
subliminal. The subliminal mediates between the inconscient and the larger
planes of life and mind whose pressure has helped in the evolution of mind and
life in matter. The physical impulses and reflexes of man are often responses of
those veiled parts modified by the mind. Not only the physical reactions but a
large part of man’s mental and vital which is not a response to the outside world,
is the amalgamated formation of the powers, influences and motives proceeding
from the subliminal. The psychologists, in virtue of the very nature of their
methods have failed to observe the subtle influences of the subliminal, as also of
the superconscient, on the human personality.
The Circumconscient
The subliminal, again, is the circumconscient, “an enveloping consciousness
through which it receives the shock of the currents and wave-circuits pouring
upon us from the universal Mind, universal Life, universal subtler Matter-
forces.”[28] These influences are not perceived by the mind. But the subliminal
perceives and admits them and turns them into formations which can powerfully
influence man’s existence though he may not be aware of this fact. The sources
of the present mind energies and life action can be discovered and controlled by
penetrating the wall separating the subliminal from the outer surface existence of
man. But, to be fully self-aware, the man must live in the subliminal, in the inner
life, mind and self. This will complete the present evolutionary status of man.
The Superconscient
But, an evolution beyond the present status of man is possible only when he
becomes conscious of what is now superconscient. This superconscient includes
the heights of supramental and pure spiritual being. The conscient being,
according to Sri Aurobindo, is in between the subconscient and the
superconscient. Here, action of the subconscient returns to light, the intuition
which manifests as authentic knowledge in the superconscient. This
superconscient is the highest, the deepest and the vastest Self. It is the same as
the Spirit, God, the Over-Soul. It is the Divine principle in man. This is the
source of higher things in man’s life, religion, art, the occult, etc.
The Supramental Ascent
In the rise to this higher level, the first indispensible step is elevation of man’s
force of consciousness into those higher levels of mind in which he receives the
inspirations, intuitions and revelations. When man thus ascends into the higher
mind, the illumined mind and the intuitive mind, which have been discussed in
the preceding chapter, he can receive the influence of the Supermind. The
supramental consciousness, however, does not dawn before the widening and
integration of the other levels of the consciousness of man. Humanity’s ascent to
this supramental consciousness and the latter’s descent into earth’s nature is the
secret purpose of Nature in the process of human history. This is the ideal
presented by Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy. A more detailed description of
this supramental consciousness will be given in the chapters on Yoga and the
Future of Man.

Notes and References

[1] Murphy, G., Personality, p. 926.
[2] Ibid., p. 917.

[3]
Ibid., p. 919.
[4]
Ibid., pp. 918-919.
[5]
Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 105.
[6]
Ibid., p. 69.
[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. I., IInd Edition, p. 45.

[8] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. (1950), p. 231.

[9] This theme has been developed in the author’s paper ‘Parapsychology and Integral Yoga.’ Res. J. Phil.

Soc. Sc. Vol. I, Oct. 1963, pp. 164-177.

[10] This has been elaborated in the author’s paper’ Control of Psi Phenomena in Aurobindo’s Yoga, Indian

Journal of Parapsychology, Vol. III, No. 4, 1961-62, pp. 27-30.

[11]
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. I, Arya, p. 54.
[12]
Ibid., p. 46.
[13] Ibid., p. 37.

[14] Sri Aurobindo, The Problem of Rebirth, p. 60.

[15] Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual, No.6, p. 43.

[16] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, pp. 717-718.

[17] Letters of Sri Aurobindo, Ist Series, Sri Aurobindo Circle, Bombay (1950), p. 137.

[18]
Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1953), pp. 56-57.
[19]
Ibid., p. 29.
[20] Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual No. 6 (Aug. 1947), p. 38.

[21] Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga, pp. 22-23.

[22] Ibid., p. 23.

[23] Letters of Sri Aurobindo, First Series, pp. 156-157.

[24] Sri Aurobindo, Lights on Yoga, pp. 21-22.

[25] Ibid., p. 18.

[26] Ibid., pp. 19-20.

[27] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, p. 655.

[28] Ibid.
 PART II
PROCESS OF SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
• • •
CHAPTER V
Philosophy of History

“The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the
finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full
advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and
nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind
may be really and not only ideally one divine family, but even then,
when it has succeeded in unifying itself, to respect, aid and be aided by
the free growth and activity of its individuals and constituent
aggregates.”—Sri Aurobindo

Social Philosophy should take account of the meaning of the progression of

human history, as that will give it an insight into the aim of mankind, its future
possibilities, and the inherent nisus working in the cycle of social development.
Psychological forces working behind the spiral of social evolution are often so
much tangled and complex that any rigorous analysis becomes difficult. They
have often been neglected by the philosophers of history. The basic fallacy
underlying all such interpretations of the process of social development is the
explanation of the inner by the outer. The approach is seldom truly
philosophical. It is generally based on economic, political or other perspectives.
The Economist tries to explain the entire process in terms of the external
economic laws, the biologist in terms of the struggle for survival and the
politician in terms of the balance of power. Human progress has been generally
assessed in terms of the development in laws, customs, rites, economic and
material well-being, or, at the most, in terms of the organization of the external
relations. Even the psychologists have often interpreted various phenomena in
physiological terms. Again, many philosophers of history reduced the role of
individual to the minimum and interpreted history in terms of the material forces
working on the surface. Even if there were some attempts to look behind the
mask, the insight in the psychological forces was always over-burdened by the
play of economic and political forces. As distinguished from all such attempts,
Sri Aurobindo presents a psychological interpretation of history. In his
Philosophy of History, his vision is firmly centred on the integral principle,
working through all the stages of the cycle of social development, as it is that
integral principle which the social philosopher seeks to grasp, know and utilize
for the regeneration of mankind.
Stages in the Cycle of Social Development
Like Lamprecht of Germany, Sri Aurobindo finds symbolic, typal, conventional,
individualist and subjective stages in the cycle of social development. The
process of evolution, according to him, however, is not linear, as it was for the
nineteenth century philosophers of history, but spiral. He borrows the names
suggested by Lamprecht. But there the similarity ends, as he always keeps a
keen eye on the mutiple and complex nature of man and society. As he says, “A
constant rediscovery and new formulation and larger synthesis in the mind, a
mighty remoulding in its deeper parts because of a greater enlarging Truth not
discovered or not well fixed before, is that Spirit’s way with our past
achievement when he moves to the greatness of the future.”[1]
The Symbolic Age
The earliest stage in the primitive beginning of human society, Sri Aurobindo
calls Symbolic. This stage is always imaginatively or intuitively religious. It is
what Freud and other psychologists and the philosophers of religion call the
totemistic stage. They have taken the totem in its external form. According to Sri
Aurobindo, on the other hand, the totem was merely a symbol for the power
which man sensed behind the forces of Nature.
The Vedic Symbolism
Thus, Sri Aurobindo has presented a deeper and more intuitive interpretation of
the Vedic symbolism. The Vedic Age and also the Pre-Vedic is full of symbols
which represent the forces working behind them. Thus the Sūrya, the Vāyu,
Indra, etc., are not the celestial objects but the powers working behind them. It
was the age of instinct whose truth was later obstructed by reason of the rational
age, though only to find a higher and transformed expression in future spiritual
age. God, for the vedic seers, was not made in the image of man, but rather man
was conceived as an inferior image of God. The marriage hymn, the Purusa
Sūkta and various other hymns, did not represent practical or conventional
institutions. In the Symbolic Age, the material factors were subordinated to
religious and psychological factors. The ritualistic interpretation of Bloomfield
and the allegorical interpretation of Bergaine have missed the inner meanings of
the symbols of Vedic hymns. Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation here is even deeper
than that of Roth, Swami Dayanand and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, etc., though
fundamentally he agrees with them.
The Spiral Process
Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, the earliest stage of human history was a
stage of naive truth and the later sophistications are a fall from that stage. This,
however, does not deny progress as some reactionary and conservative
philosophers might suggest. The fall is a sign of more integral growth. In Sri
Aurobindo’s Philosophy of History, social development of mankind is a fact but
it is not a linear process. It is much more complex and many-sided. It is a spiral,
a zigzag process, in which there is often regression to make the progress more
integrated.
Instinct and Reason
The failure of rationalism in the present stage of human knowledge makes some
go back to romanticism, existentialism, anti-intellectualism and even
irrationalism. This however, is an ignorant attempt to stop the current. Man has
fallen from his pristine unity of instinct, in the dualism of reason. But he cannot
go back, because his fall has a purpose behind it. This purpose is to make
instinct more balanced, more controlled and more refined. But the apotheosis of
man, the rational being, is also a wilful deception. The peace of ignorance is no
alternative to face the dangers. For that, man must transcend himself. It is only in
the evolution to the Spirit that man can regain what he has lost and also can
realize the possibilities of the instinct, reason and will.
The Typal Stage
The second stage after Symbolic is Typal. This “is predominantly psychological
and ethical.”[2] Here religion and spirituality is subordinated to Dharma, the
ethical discipline. Its main contributions are the social ideals, the ideal of social
honour, though these tend to become more and more fixed and traditional.
The Conventional Stage
Thus the typal stage naturally passes into the conventional stage.[3] The types

now become conventions. As the symbols become fossilized in conventions, the

psychological ideas behind them are easily forgotten. Once the type is fixed, the
ethical idea becomes a mere fiction. The division of society becomes a purely
economic division of labour. But when even the economic basis gives way, the
system becomes rather a source of degeneration and falsehood. According to Sri
Aurobindo, forms of institutions must change with the purpose of the spirit
behind them, otherwise they cease to serve their function and disorganize the
individual as well as the social life.
Psychological Stages
Strictly speaking, these stages of development, as pointed out by Sri Aurobindo,
are psychological rather than chronological. It is not a temporal division of the
history of mankind, as these psychological forces work simultaneously as well as
successively at different places in different times. The conventional stage, the
individualistic and other stages, can be witnessed in the contemporary society at
various places. They fix the stage of psychological development of a society,
which serves in the assessment of the value of the present stage as well as in
predicting the future course of progress. The interpretations of history (apart
from Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation) are useful from different perspectives. But
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of history, howsoever one might disagree with its
value from other points of view, is particularly valuable from the standpoint of
Social Philosophy. It serves to interpret the inner psychological meaning of the
past history, the ideal of social development and finally to visualize the future of
mankind. It supplies a firm foundation for an integral Social Philosophy.
The So-called Satya Yuga
Thus, the ideal stage of mankind, according to Sri Aurobindo, is not a return to
the glorious past, but an ascent into a more glorious future. The golden age of
the conventional stage, an age in which spirit is confined but not yet dead, is
often misinterpreted as the ideal stage of human society. This so-called medieval
satyayuga is the ideal of some reactionary social philosophers in the East as well
as in the West. According to Sri Aurobindo, on the other hand, neither the
individual nor the society can regain the true original Spirit, while keeping the
conventional forms, no matter however they attempt to reform them. The
insistence on the external form is against the nisus of time. To regain the spirit,
the old forms should be broken and thrown away. Sri Aurobindo supports a
revolution in individual as well as in social fields. This revolution in its deeper
meaning is always psychological.
The Individualistic Stage
Thus when the gulf between the conventions and the inner truth becomes
intolerable, reason rejects the old form and human society passes from
conventional to individualistic stage. The bankruptcy of the old forms leaves the
individual alone to decide his course. Individualism becomes inevitable and
justified when the social standards, norms and institutions are petrified and
stultify the free growth of the individual soul.
European Birth of Individualism
The individualism, as is admitted by Sri Aurobindo, was first born in Europe. It
spread over the world, as the rest of the mankind was still in the torpor of the
conventional stage. It spread in the East not because the East had no truth of its
own but because it had lost its vitality in the stereotyped conventionalism. The
truths, which the individualistic Europe discovered, were true to its peculiar
analytic and pragmatic reason. Individualism spread because of the West’s
passion for seeking the truth and realizing it in life at all cost. It began in the
revolt of reason and culminated in the triumph of physical science. In the
Conventional Age, religion was dogmatic and persecuted science in its name. In
politics, it sanctioned tyranny. The social order was based on stereotyped
conventions. Gradually, when this burden became intolerable, reason in man
revolted and questioned the authority of society, state, religion and even of the
moral laws and overthrew those that were found bankrupt.
The Psychology of Revolution
The spirit in the individual and society always revolts when its growth is
hampered. This revolt is expressed through the best possible medium available at
that time. The movement of religious freedom in Europe questioned the
scriptures, asserted the right of the individual experience and culminated in
nothing less than atheism and secularism. The development in Europe, according
to Sri Aurobindo, was determined more by Renaissance than by Reformation.
This return of the ancient ‘Greeco-Roman mentality’, coupled with ‘Judas-
christian discipline’ gave Europe its naturalism, science and utilitarianism.
The Triumph of Science
The imperfect human race, however, was not psychologically mature to
assimilate these gifts. The unrestrained individual judgments led to a chaos in
opinions. The absolute assertion of individual or class rights or desires, led to
social disorganization. Thus the search of some general standard of truth and
some common principle of social justice became imperative. Both these
psychological needs were satisfied in science. The truths of science are universal
and veridical. They supplied a rational basis for social life. Science was the
culmination as well as the end of individualistic age.
The Scientific Society
According to Sri Aurobindo, with science, the individual evolved a system
which ushered mankind into a new era add at the same time gave a death-blow
to individualism. This led to the expression of various types of tendencies. It led
to a recoil to a new typal order, the economic or state socialism. The truths of
science are not that of the individual but of the masses. They are applicable to
the man not as an individual, but as a speck in collectivity, as a cog in the
machine, as a member of a species. Thus in a society based on science, all the
institutions will be fixed by the scientific stage, in the naturalistic motives, with
its scientific, economic and administrative experts, who will know the
individuals more than the individuals know themselves. This shall far surpass the
old Asian or Indian order of society in its rigidity. A rigorously scientific society
shall be unitarian, based upon purely economic function and capacity. The
scientific society, according to Sri Aurobindo, is a mere passing phase.
Russell’s Conditions for the Stability of Scientific Society
It would be interesting here, to examine the views of Bertrand Russell, who
maintains that a scientific society can be stable. He admits that, “In the
development of science, the power-impulse has increasingly prevailed over the
love impulse.”[4] He also admits that, “The sphere of value lies outside science,
except in so far as science consists in the pursuit of knowledge.”[5] And yet he
holds that, given certain conditions, a scientific society can be stable. “My
conclusion is, “ says Russell, “that a scientific society can be stable, given
certain conditions. The first of these is a single government of the whole world,
possessing a monopoly of armed forces and therefore able to enforce peace. The
second condition is a general diffusion of prosperity, so that there is no occasion
of envy of one part of the world by another. The third condition (which supposes
the second fulfilled) is a low birth-rate everywhere, so that the population of the
world becomes stationary or nearly so. The fourth condition is the provision for
individual initiative both in work and play, and the greatest diffusion of power,
compatible with maintaining the necessary political and economic framework.”[6]
Elsewhere, Russell maintains that ethics, education, philosophy, religion and
social order, all should be based on science.
Criticism of Russell’s views
But when science is dominated by power-impulse and when the sphere of value
is outside it, then would even the world government be not guided by power
motive? Actually, Russell himself admits this in holding that the world
governments would “enforce peace.” But is enforcement even if it be of peace,
by an external authority, even if it be a world government, compatible with the
ideal of the freedom of creativity which Russell cherishes so much? Would the
general diffusion of prosperity abolish the envy and hatred between man and
between nations. Like Freud, Russell recognizes that the impulse of aggression
is the greatest threat to civilization and hence pleads for the monopoly of armed
forces by the world government. But unless human nature is transformed, what
is the guarantee that the world government will not utilize its force for
exploitation and aggression? This possibility is inevitable, unless the world
government is a totalitarian one. And Russell, certainly, would never like a
totalitarian world government as he favours diffusion of power. But if the world
government is democratic and if the power is thus decentralized in small units,
then is it not possible that the majority party in the world government may
oppress the minority party or the groups or the individuals? If the individual is
given the initiative in work and play, is it certain that he would not misuse it or
that the government would never curb this freedom? This is more so in the
absence of religion and in the secularization of ethics. Thus, so long as human
nature remains what it is – and secular education cannot transform human nature
– the scientific society cannot be stable. It is not difficult to imagine the
disastrous condition of “love, beauty, knowledge and joy of life,”[7] in a scientific
society, the ideals which Russell rightly cherishes so much.
Two Idea-forces
To come to the original theme, in the East, one witnesses struggle between
Western individualism and old conventionalism, in which the former is winning,
though also assuming a changed form. This should have an enormous influence
over the world. As against the suggestion that the Western material and rational
individualism may spread over India, Sri Aurobindo categorically states, “The
influence of the East is likely to be rather in the direction of subjectivism and
practical spirituality, a greater opening of our physical existence to the
realisation of ideals other than the strong but limited aims suggested by the life
and the body in their own gross nature.”[8] The individualistic age of Europe,
however, has fixed two idea-forces of master potency, viz., the conception of
democratic equality of the individuals as well as the liberty of individual growth.
The former is generally accepted and is the basis of the present socialism. The
latter, however, has not been accepted in practice by the Fascists, Communists
and many others, though it is precisely this idea which carries the profoundest
reationalism of the West and the highest spiritualism of the East; and the greatest
possibilities of the future.
Not Revival but Revolution
History, according to Sri Aurobindo, does not repeat itself, though it often
appears to do so. Not revival but transcendence, not modification but
transformation, is the law of the human cycle. Destruction is necessary for
construction. Till the dawn of the European influence, the Indian reformers and
political leaders tried to re-discover the truth of the soul through a wide and
tolerant spiritual reason. Such again was the nationalism in China and the half-
hearted awakening in other Eastern countries. It was the influence of the
Western knowledge and their way of life that awakened a radical and effective
revaluation of ideas and things in Eastern countries. This trend will not stop half
way. “A revolutionary reconstruction of religion, philosophy, science, art and
society is the last inevitable outcome,”[9] says Sri Aurobindo. The truth of the

individual should become the truth of the universal.

The Subjective Age
There are, however some tendencies which seek to modify the trend towards
strict rationalism and the new typal order. The development of physical and
psychological knowledge is opening a new horizon. Dynamic ideas, as
Nietzsche’s will to live, Bergson’s Intuitionism, the Existentialism of Sartre and
Heideggar are sweeping oyer the world. This is the dawn of what Sri Aurobindo
calls the ‘Subjective Age’ which opens a new chapter in man’s history. After the
discovery of the physical, economic and the sociological laws, it becomes clear
to man that this knowledge is a mere part of the whole. Hence he tries to go
deeper within him. As reason stumbles in this search, man seeks other
instruments such as intuitional knowledge and the deeper self-awareness. Thus
the rationalistic ideal is substituted by the intuitional knowledge, the utilitarian
standard by self-realization, the life through physical laws by the life through
cosmic laws, will and power. All this can be noticed in the present vitalistic
theories, pluralism, pragmatism, instrumentalism and existentialism etc. The
subjective trend is obviously more visible in art, music and literature. This was
at first exhibited in psychological vitalism and more concentration on
pathological aspects. This, however, was succeeded by a truly psychological,
mental, intuitive and psychical art, music and literature, which was more
subjective, though still infirm in grasp and rudimentary in form. The will-to-
power and the will-to-live, seizing upon the material and intellectual forces, led
the world to the catastrophies of the great wars. The hope of humanity lies in the
still hidden subjective principle. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “A unifying and
harmonizing knowledge can alone find the way, but that knowledge belongs to a
deeper principle of our being to which oneness and integrality are native. It is
only by finding that in ourselves that we can solve the problem of our existence
and with it the problem of the true way of individual and communal living.”[10]
Individual and Society
The goal of a society, community or nation, like that of the individual, is to seek
its own self, to know the inner law and power and to realize all its potentialities.
Both individual and society have a body, an organic life, moral or aesthetic
temperament, mind and a soul. Strictly speaking, they do not “possess” soul,
soul is rather their very essence. Nation, according to Sri Aurobindo, is a ‘group-
soul’ which realizes itself in corporate life. In his Social Philosophy, the society
is similar to man, not only in essence but also in organization. “The parallel is
just at every turn because it is more than a parallel; it is a real identity of
nature.”[11] The only difference between them is that whereas the individual is an
organization of vital subconscious self, the group-soul is more complex, since it
is constituted of partly self-conscious mental individuals. The group-soul is more
artificial, fluid and less organic. Even in its developed stage, it is only vaguely
subjective. The nation is wrongly conceived in the objective form of
geographical country. The subjective communal consciousness can be developed
only after the realization that the geographical land is only an outer shell, while
the real body is composed by the men and women who form a nation.[12] This

body of the group soul, like that of the individual, is everchanging, though
always the same.
The Objective view of Nation
In contrast to this subjective view of Nation, the objective view has been largely
prevalent both in the East and the West. National existence has been understood
in terms of the political status, extent of borders, economic prosperity and
development, laws and institutions, etc. History has been conceived as a record
of the operation of political and economic motives which have dominated in
national life. According to Christopher Caudwell, “Man’s consciousness is a real
determining factor in history, but it is not man’s consciousness that produces
each stage of social organization for economic production but social
organization for economic production which produces man’s consciousness.”[13]
Some other philosophers conceived history as a mass of individual biographies.
Both these explanations of the historical process are inadequate and
characteristic of the imperfect self-conscious period in national development.
The subjective force had begun to work but had not yet come on the surface.
The Subjective Trend
Thus, the subjective tendency in nationalism is a very recent trend. Nations are
gradually feeling their souls and trying to find them. This trend is obviously
more powerful in new and slave nations, partly because their need of
individuality is stronger and partly because their objective life is less satisfying.
Sri Aurobindo has seen in the uprisings in India, Ireland, and other places, the
tendencies of self-finding, mainly expressed in the swadeshi movements. To be
itself is the law of the individual as well as of the community. This subjective
trend, according to Sri Aurobindo, is more dominant in the East than in the
West. The political movements in India, China, Persia and Japan, are symptoms
of the advent of the subjective age in humanity. The imitation of other nations is
deplored and each nation wants to realize its own self. It is the very demand of
the time spirit. With Marx, Sri Aurobindo admits that man cannot stop the time
process, but, whereas Marx arrives at a social law which does not fulfil the
individual, for Sri Aurobindo, if chaos is not the law of things, the law of the
time process should fulfil the demands of the individual as well as of the social
self. Faith in system and harmony is a postulate on which the entire working of
reason is based. The oneness of the deeper self of man and society is rather a
postulate than an empirical generalization. This, however, is certified by mystic
and yogic experience.
German Subjectivism
Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, even the rise of Germany into a militant and
teutonic collectivity, is an expression of the soul of the nation, though in a very
crude and barbarous form. The dangers, which such a movement has for the
world, are inherent in the very concept of the Nation-soul which, if too narrow,
may seek to grow alone, and at the cost of others. At the instance of the
dangerous nationalism of Germany and Italy, some reject the very conception of
Nation-soul as wrong. But if individualism of man and nation has often been a
source of danger to larger collectivity, that only means that the particular form of
individualism is erroneous. The deeper truth is the same everywhere. Men as
well as nations should not only realize their own selves but also feel the selves in
others and learn to respect, help, and profit by each other in spiritual growth.
This is necessary, if Subjective Age has to help in the growth of humanity. In
Germany, Traitschke wrongly applied the subjective teaching of Nietzsche to
objective conditions in national and international field. The failure of Germany
was not total. It was a failure in some particular directions, which, unfortunately
were so central that, in spite of all the efforts of more than fifty years of
subjective introspection and an equal effort in scientific research, Germany
missed the goal.
True and False Subjectivism
According to Sri Aurobindo, there is a false as well as a true subjectivism. The
dangers of the Subjective Age are as great in comparison with the symbolic,
typal and conventional ages as its gains. And yet if man has not to remain
confined to self-ignorance, the game is worth the candle. The knowledge of the
constitution of man which has been elaborately discussed in the preceding
chapter, makes it clear that while the real self is one, there is the ego, the outer
and the inner mind, vital and physical and the five sheaths which can be easily
confused with the real self. So also is the case with the social constitution.
Egoism is contrary to the principle of life and its growth. Humanity should aim
at the fulfilment of the real self. This is what true subjectivism seeks to achieve.
The Error of German Subjectivism
The ideal of self-realization was generally recognized in Germany though not so
much practised, in the case of the individual, but it was not recognized that these
laws are equally applicable to the nations. This was the fundamental error of
German subjectivism. It did look upon life from the standpoint of the Absolute,
the Individual and the Universal, but it missed the real relation between these
three. Hegel exalted the State as the Absolute. The humanity outside was not
denied, but Germany was hailed as the best, the most advanced, self-realized,
efficient and cultured nation. The essential truth of subjectivity that the same
being expressed equally in all the nations, was forgotten and the biological
principle of the survival of the fittest was put in its place. Nietzsche’s theory of
the superman’s rule over others was misapplied to the relations of the nations
and it was concluded that the rule of Germany, the supreme Teutonic race over
all other nations, is in the interest of the supreme good of humanity, justified by
the law of reason as well as the vision.
This egoistic self-vision of Germany, according to Sri Aurobindo, was the
cause of so many subjective errors. First, the individual was developed,
educated, trained and disciplined as a cell of collectivity, as the instrument for
the execution of the initiative of the collectivity, which was expressed through
the state. Germany founded the cult of the state, perfect, dominant, all-
pervading, all-seeing, all-effective. The individual was more and more
subordinated till he was finally effaced in the state machinery, with the result
that though Germany gained economic, scientific, social and intellectual
efficiency and power, the deeper life, vision, intuitive power, force of
personality and psychical sweetness and largeness were lost. This is a necessary
outcome of the totalitarianism. Again, since the state represents the Absolute,
service to the State is the absolute principle of morality. But while obedience
was the law within the state, success was the determining factor of inter-state
relations. They were based on the principle of the survival of the fittest and the
struggle for survival, the struggle being economic, physical, intellectual and
even cultural. Science taught that man is nothing more than life and body. Hence
these were emphasized as the highest. War became the means of success, though
generally under the pretence of peace. Means were justified by the ends. All
methods, which might lead to success in war and preparation for it in peace time,
were morally justified.
With the survival of the fittest as the aim, which is secured by the
elimination of the unfit and assimilation of the less fit, the conquest of the world
by German culture was held as leading to the highest good of mankind. The
culture was interpreted as the life governed by ideas, based on vital truths and
organized for the highest efficiency. The capacity to adopt this culture depends
on the race. Hence, it was decided that the Nordic race should assimilate the less
capable and eliminate the incapable races. This was not the idea of the majority,
still less of the whole of Germany but of a few personalities dominating national
life. But this minority was of sufficient strength to be able to impose it on the
collective mind.
The Value of German Subjectivism
All these errors have led to an absolute condemnation of German subjectivism
by some thinkers. Sri Aurobindo, however, has passed a very different judgment
on it. German subjectivism, according to him, was an attempt in the right
direction, though with a wrong approach. Its example should be followed by all,
though in a different way. As Sri Aurobindo prophetically remarks, “To go back
is impossible; the attempt is always, indeed, an illusion; we have all to do the
same thing which Germany has attempted, but to take care not to do it
likewise.”[14] To hate or abhor this phenomenon is easier than to understand the

secret of its force, its tremendous sincerity and honesty of conduct and speech,
which are precisely the requisites needed to defeat this phenomena in the minds
of men and in the life of the human race. With his deep insight into the
paradoxes of human history, Sri Aurobindo indicates how the physical defeat of
Germany has not deterred its influence in national and international field.
Two Aspects of German Gospel
In the internal sphere, the compulsion of the individual by the state is prevalent
everywhere, in Socialism, in Bolshevic communism, Fascism and even in many
so-called democracies. In the international field, the signs were there, even
before the war. Germany’s defeat in the war has led to the post-war victory of its
gospel, in practically the whole of the continent. The rise of Germany was only a
symptom of the disease of sacred egoism, inherent in the whole body of the then
international relations. What Germany thought and did more systematically and
rigorously was proclaimed and practised by many others in a less organized and
limited manner. Germany has shown in all its nakedness the evil which was
already working in the human race and thus forced the human race to choose
rather than waver between good and evil. The German error of the confusion of
the self with the body and life, according to Sri Aurobindo, was not a reversion
to barbarism. It was a new bastard creed, an objective subjectivism, born of the
application of the logic of the Absolutistic metaphysics to the conclusions of
materialistic science, of a philosophical subjectivism to a pragmatic positivism.
The Two Conflicting Ideals
Modern science has created two opposite ideals, the exaggerated individualism
and collectivism. The biological principles of the struggle for existence and
survival of the fittest, applied to human life, gave rise to philosophies like those
of Nietzsche and to certain forms of anarchism and strengthened certain forms of
imperialism. On the other hand, the biological principle that Nature seeks to
preserve the type and not the individual, and that the individual life is
impossible, without its subjection to the laws of the communal self-development,
strengthened the modern collectivist theories. As has been already shown above,
Germany expressed both these ideals, one in the egoistic self-assertion of the
individual nation, and the other in the total subordination of the individual to the
collectivity.
The Ideal of Larger Collectivity
But behind the conflict of these two ideals, there is growing a new idea of human
universalism or collectivism for the race which may overcome the ideal of
national separatism. Thus, one finds imperialistic, ideological or cultural
international groups, e.g., the U.N.O., the group of Soviet Russia and its
satellites, the British Commonwealth, the Afro-Asian brotherhood, the Arab
league, etc., which demand the sacrifice of the independent separateness of the
nations in the interest of a larger collectivity.
The Objective View of Life
Both objective and subjective views of life have the individual and nation as
data, but they differ in viewpoint, motive power and character of life.
Objectivism proceeds from analytic reason. Its view is external and mechanical.
In it reason looks from outside mid observes the world as a process to be studied,
as the given. It discovers laws which are mechanically acting upon the
individuals and the groups. These laws are organized and applied as scientific
laws. They are imposed upon the individual by reason or will, as an authority
external to the other parts of his being, or by the reason and will of other
individuals or of the group. They are imposed on the group by its own collective
reason and will, embodied in the state which is external to the group life, or by
the reason and will of some other external group of which it is in some way a
part. Thus the laws of the individual and collective life, social as well as
international, are enforced by some external authority. The state is not an organic
part of the society. It is considered as an entity in itself which imposed its own
idea of right on the individuals of the community. The aim which the society
seeks to find is not its inherent law. It is imposed on it by the state machinery
through external laws. Nations do not aim at something essential to their nature
but at something imposed by international laws. Life is not to grow from within,
it has to be perfected by a machinery which shapes it from outside. As Sri
Aurobindo concludes, “A law outside oneself, – outside even when it is
discovered or determined by the individual reason and accepted or enforced by
the individual will, – this is the governing idea of objectivism; a mechanical
process of management, ordering, perfection, this is its conception of
practice.”[15]
The Subjective View of Life
As against this objective view, the subjective view proceeds from within. It
considers everything from the standpoint of a containing and developing self-
consciousness. The law here is not imposed from outside. Its principle of
progress is more and more recognition, realization and hence shaping of the self-
life, in this view, is a self-creating process. This process develops at first
subconsciously, then half-consciously and finally, fully conscious of the inner
self. In this view, reason is a process in self-recognition, will is a force for self-
affirmation. Both are only parts of the means of self-realization. The subjective
view is a complex view of man’s nature and being and recognizes many powers
of knowledge and forces of effectuation. It even sometimes belittles the
importance of reason and asserts the supremacy of life-impulse, the will-to-be or
intuition, which is conscious feeling, perceiving and grasping of its own truth,
nature and powers rather than their analysis. Thus the subjective view aims at
reaching the self and living in its truth.
Meeting of the Extremes
These two extreme views of life are based on two different views about the
nature of self. If the self is individual, then the aim of life is the power, freedom
and satisfaction of the individual, and one arrives at a subjective point of view.
On the other hand, if the emphasis is laid on the collective self, then the life of
the individual is subordinated to that of the collectivity. These two extremes can
meet only in the realization of the universal being or existence, which fulfils
itself in the individual as well as in the collectivity, by enlarging the idea of the
self. The idea here is the highest at once from the subjective as well as the
objective views of the life. In this ideal, individual and collectivity develop by
mutual fulfilment. This is the true subjectivism, which transcends both
subjective materialism and subjective idealism and discovers the real self of
which the mind, life and body are mere instruments, unequal in hierarchy, but
equal in necessity for integral perfection. The ideal of this integral perfection of
the individual and collectivity will be more fully discussed in the next two
chapters on psychology of social development and the ideal of social
development.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 298.

[2]
Ibid., p. 9.
[3] Ibid., p. 10

[4] Russell, B., The Scientific Outlook, p. 270.

[5]
Ibid.
[6] Russell, B., The Impact of Science on Society, p. 139.

[7] Russell, B., An Outline of Philosophy, p. 312.

[8] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 25.

[9] Ibid., p. 29.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, p. 929.

[11] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 38.

[12] Cf. “Besides geographical and climatic factors, with all those that belong to the material universe, the
only causes that need to be considered by the historian are those indwelling the consciousness of man.”
– Wright, Dr. J.G., The Humanization of History, Hibbert Journal, Vol. XLI. 1942-43, pp. 145-46.
[13] Caudwell, C., Further Studies in a Dying Culture, p. 139.

[14] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 45.

[15] Ibid., p. 63.

 CHAPTER VI
Psychology of Social Development

“The nation or society, like the individual, has a body, an organic life,
a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and a soul
behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which they exist.” —
Sri Aurobindo

The Three Stages

In Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of History discussed in the preceding chapter,
there is a parallelism in the evolution of the individual and the society, since they
are the two facets of the same Consciousness-Force. The same parallelism may
be noticed in his interpretation of the psychology of social development. Thus,
human evolution starts from an infra-rational stage in which man’s actions and
institutions are guided by instincts, impulses, spontaneous ideas, vital intuitions
or coventional responses, the stimuli of desires, needs and circumstances. From
this infra-rational stage, man evolves to the rational stage in which an intelligent
will is the arbiter of his cognitions, conations and affections and governs his
ideas, aims and institutions. If evolution is the principle of the process in Nature,
this rational stage should also pass into a third stage which is spiritual, intuitive
and gnostic.
Not a Rigid Scheme
This threefold classification of the stages of the psychology of social
development is not a rigid, exclusive and absolute division. Often, they exist
simultaneously at different places. They arise out of each other and partially
develop in each other. So long as man remains a man, he is neither of these
exclusively but has all these stages in his complex being. Even the most
primitive savage has some reason as well as some spirituality in him. Even the
most rational man has infra-rational urges and supra-rational inspirations.
Similarly, a spiritual man also has his reason as well as infra-rational urges,
though transformed and divinized. Social Philosophy does not seek to construct
utopias. Its vision is not wholly transcendent of the present as it is based on
human psychology and acknowledges its limitations. As Sri Aurobindo admits,
“Not God, but at his highest a human being touched with a ray of divine
influence, man’s very spirituality, however dominant, must have, while he is still
this imperfectly evolved human, its rational and infra-rational tendencies and
elements.”[1] And as with individual, so also in society, the tendencies of a
particular stage may overpower others, transform them or compromise with
them, but their exclusive play is not the intention of the Nature. Spiritualism, in
Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy, neither compromises nor negates nor
suppresses the rational and infra-rational elements but includes, integrates and
transforms them.
Two Tendencies
Thus, in the psychology of social development, according to Sri Aurobindo, the
infra-rational stage should pass through the rational stage. In this growth of
reason, either the spiritual tendency is done away with for some time or accepted
but surrounded with a vast web of the workings of the intelligence. The first
tendency was seen for the first time in the age of the Sophists in Greece, with its
large number of poets, thinkers, rhetoricians and scientific enquirers, who
stimulated a generalized activity of intelligence even in the masses. The second
tendency can be seen in India where the early mystic seers of the Vedas and
Upanisads were replaced by the philosopher-mystics, religious thinkers and even
intellectual philosophers.
The Principle of Integral Growth
This new growth, for some time, seemed to possess the whole community as in
Athens or old Aryan India, but societies cannot be changed so abruptly, unless
the whole race is prepared. Hence, the first impetus was soon overpowered and
sometimes even crushed by the new growth of the infra-rational forms. The
tradition of living knowledge and lofty ideals of life remains in higher classes or
the highest class as the Brahmins in India, and the masses remain in the infra-
rational habits of mind, though not without some gain from the past. Only an
integral growth is lasting development. Whenever a particular element in man or
society overgrows the other parts, there follows a regression to make the basis
firm and integral, as that is the principle of evolution in Nature. Social
Philosophy should be based on the inherent principles of Nature itself, so that it
may guide towards permanent evolution of man and society. Whenever these are
missed or subordinated to some other principle, political, economic,
sociological, moral or even religious, there is always a danger of relapse and
regression.
The Rational Stage
The present psychological stage of humanity can be generally characterized as
the rational stage. It is attempting to discover and work out the right principle
and a secure foundation for a rational system of society. Its progress is either
adaptive or radical. Radical progressions are characteristic of this age, as reason
has the nature of quick response to new ideas, needs and possibilities, though the
conservative forces in man may restrain it for some time. Thus, several methods
of social development have been put forward, accepted, practised, reformed,
when they faltered, but opposed when they failed, and finally dethroned by some
new principle which also rapidly undergoes the same process. This process will
go on, till reason finds some principle or combination of principles satisfying its
needs.
Individualism
It has been observed in the preceding chapter that the age of reason begins with
individualism, which follows after an age of dominant conventionalism.
Describing individualism, Sri Aurobindo says, “In this view society is there only
as a field of activity and growth for the individual man and serves best its
function when it gives as far as possible a wide room, ample means, a sufficient
freedom or guidance of development to his thought, his action, his growth, his
possibility of fulness of being.’’[2] As the symbols, types and institutions became
conventional, the old methods of mentalizing life ceased to serve their purpose
and the aid of reason became imperative to think out the way of life. The age of
reason is an age of constant progress, since reason always looks for new
possibilities. It questions the facts to improve them by the ideas and ideas to see
if they square with the facts or need improvement to suit some new facts. Reason
questions every convention and institution, however universally accepted or
useful, to find out new possibilities to serve higher purposes. With this universal
questioning, dawns the idea that only a universal application of reason can make
the society perfect. This is the idea behind the ideal of scientific society which
has been discussed in the preceding chapter.
Individualism and Democracy
This reason, universally applied, can be neither that of a ruling class nor of a few
eminent thinkers, as in the former case, it becomes a mere slave to power and in
the latter disfigured and conventionalized in practice. This must be the reason in
each individual searching for some common basis. Thus, with the principle that
every individual has equal reason and will in the determination of the
government and the order of the society, rationalism arrives at individualistic
democracy. “For democracy means a society in which everyone has a chance to
count as an individual, and to do something that is distinctively his own.”[3] This
is not because reason is equal in all the individuals but because if some are given
preference, reason becomes a servant to the infra-rational elements, the power
motive of that class.
Equality
Thus individualistic reason advocated equality which Aristotle declared the basis
of justice. All men are by nature free and equal. As Hobbes said, “Nature hath
made men so equal, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there be
found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than
another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man and man
is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any
benefit, to which another may not pretend as well as he.”[4]
Liberty
Apart from equality, liberty is the most impotant principle of individualistic
democracy. Every person should have the liberty to govern his life by his own
reason and will, unless he impinges on such a right of others. Liberty is a
necessary corollary of equality. Individual judgment is insignificant yet
indispensable to the whole society. Everyone has liberty of reason, opinion,
discussion and forming judgments. These individual judgments together make
for the common judgment of the society. Thus democracy is a government by
popular vote. These judgments are organized only in the case of the ends
common to all, otherwise the individual is left free to adjust, according to his
own reason and will. By this practice of free use of reason, men learn to grow
into rational beings and have a common agreement for a liberal, vigorous,
natural and rationalized life.
Failures of Individualism
According to Sri Aurobindo, these individualistic ideals, however, do not hold
good for a long time on account of some practical difficulties. The present age is
not yet ready for these ideals, as the common man is still far from being a
rational person. Coming from an infra-rational past, he is generally guided in his
thought by selfish interests, impulses and prejudices or suggestions from others,
but not his own reason. Secondly, man uses his reason not to agree with others
but to enforce his own egoism on others. Finally, man does not use his freedom
to adjust his life with that of others but to enforce his aims of life in competition
with that of the life of others. As Joseph A. Schumpeter puts it, “The democratic
freedom is that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in
which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle
for the people’s vote.”[5] Owing to all these difficulties, the individualistic ideals
do not square with the fundamental facts and this gulf leads to ultimate
disillusionment and failure.
Failure of Individualistic Democracy
Thus, in the individualistic democracy, not all individuals but only a dominant
class of politicians rule, while the majority is ignorant. “Politics for the
politicians”, says G.D.H. Cole, “that is the last corruption of a democracy that
has knocked the foundations from under its own feet.”[6] But since the equality
and liberty can be no longer stifled, the failure of parliamentary democracy leads
to a war of classes. It was this inherent defect of individualistic democracy
which led Marx to proclaim the need of class conflict. Again, individualistic
democratic freedom leads to increase in competition resulting in ordered
conflict. In this conflict it is not the spiritual or rational which survives but it is
the most vitally successful which does so. This is not what individualistic reason
intended with the democratic principles of equality and liberty. This is not the
rational order of society nor is it even the least perfection of the individual.
The Contribution of Democratic Ideals
According to Sri Aurobindo, the democratic ideals have done much good to the
human race in spite of all failures of democracy. In the first place, it is for the
first time in human history that man is active, alive and erect en-masse.
Secondly, more men, if not all, know, think, judge and decide all sorts of issues.
Democracy trains men to use their minds and apply their intelligence to life,
though not yet soundly, clearly and rightly. Equality, in education and
opportunities of life, have not yet been realised but equality brought about by
democracy is certainly for greater than it was in the older states.
Results of Democracy
The infra-rational being in man, according to Sri Aurobindo, seeks three things,
viz., satisfaction, power or use and reward of his faculties and the enjoyment of
his desires. In the old societies, these things were secured by each according to
his birth, status and the use of his capacities within his hereditary status. In the
modern society, wealth has become the sole power which can harness all other
powers and provide satisfaction, use and reward of faculties and enjoyment of
desires, as all other bases have been removed. This has led to disorganisation of
society. A plutocratic tendency is increasing under the garb of democracy. A
huge organized competitive system, and a lop-sided development of
industrialism, has been substituted for the old order of society. “These” Sri
Aurobindo concludes, “have been the last results of the individualistic ideal and
its democratic machinery, the initial bankruptcies of the rational age.”[7]
A Psychological Diagnosis
The fundamental defect here, according to Sri Aurobindo, is, not in the
democratic principles, education and individualism, but in making reason their
basis. The inner meaning of the history of social development is psychological,
in which the different principles, first infra-rational then rational, have been
given chance to govern life, tested for a long time and doubted with difficulty. A
great crisis was resolved by man’s transition from infra-rational principles to
rational ones, though this was not through a linear development but after many
progressions and regressions in the spiral process of development. A still greater
crisis is present before mankind to-day, as reason has led man to control Nature
but has failed to gain the inner mastery. “Our present predicament,” says
Bertrand Russell, “is due, more than anything else, to the fact that we have learnt
to understand and control, to a terrifying extent, the forces of Nature butside us,
but not those that are embodied in ourselves.”[8] But Russell and other rationalist
social philosophers fail to note that the inner forces cannot be transformed and
integrated or even fully controlled by reason. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
“Reason and science can only help by standardizing, by fixing everything into an
artificially arranged and mechanized unity of material life. A greater whole-
being, whole- knowledge, whole-power, is needed to weld all into a greater unity
of whole life.”[9]
The Value of the Individual
This higher principle will dawn on human life only through the individuals. The
individual, in the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is continuous with the
community and humanity and yet he transcends these also, as he is more than a
mere part of the whole. “The individual as spirit or being is not confined within
his humanity; he has been less than human, he can become more than human”[10]
Man depends on the universe for the development of his personality but his
future possibilities are not so much due to social influences as due to his own
self, the Absolute within him who transcends the universe.
Spiritual Individualism
Thus the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo sets a very high premium on the
value of the individual. He is the key of the evolutionary movement as it is he
who becomes conscious of the Reality. “Only the people are immortal,” says the
collectivist, “Everything else is transient.”[11] The people, however, are the sub-
conscious mass, always less developed than the developed individual who alone
is the conscious vanguard of progress. The people’s progress depends on
accepting what the individuals have developed. So long as the individual is
undeveloped, he might follow the dictates of society, state or whatever is greater
than himself. But as he grows in spiritual freedom, he need not conform to the
state or community, though ultimately his own perfection leads to the perfection
of society. According to Sri Aurobindo, “The individual does not owe his
ultimate allegiance either to the state which is a machine or to the community
which is a part of life and not the whole of life: his allegiance must be to the
Truth, the Self, the Spirit, the Divine which is in him and in all; not to
subordinate or lose himself in the mass, but to find and express that truth of
being in himself, and help the community and humanity in its seeking for its
own truth and fulness of being must be his real object of existence.”[12] Thus, in
the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, the individual asserts his liberty only to
realize the spiritual liberty of the society and mankind. Spiritual liberty is
correlated with spiritual unity. Individual perfection is a prelude to social
perfection. This spiritual individualism of Sri Aurobindo is quite different from
the rational individualism and anarchism. It is the same as spiritual socialism,
spiritual communism and spiritual humanism, as the Spirit is the same
everywhere.
Democratic Socialism
But since this reality of the individual was not realized in the rational
individualism, it could not serve to maintain the harmony of the society. The
replacement of the old order by an organized competitive system and the
increasing plutocratic tendency, led to the transition of the rational mind from
democratic individualism to democratic socialism. In this ideal, the collective
life was given the sole importance. The existence and growth of the race is the
supreme end. Individual is a mere means to that end. He is a cell of the social
organism. His life should be cast in the mould of rational culture. He is a mere
instrument for the maintenance and efficiency of the collective existence.
Marxist Socialism
This ideology was again the basis of Marxist Socialism which was unfortunately,
based on the principle of class war, as it was born as a revolt against capitalism.
“The history of all hitherto existing society,” declared Marx and Engels, “is the
history of class struggles.”[13] Marxist socialism aims at the establishment of a

classless society in which the free development of each is the condition for the
free development of all. It seeks a government of the proletariat, the people. But
“the people” is a vague term and the government of the socialist states is in the
hands of a few individuals who constitute a dominant class or party. The class
war which led to the abolition of Czardom in Russia again led to the revolution
against the personality cult of Stalin, though in a different form. So long as man
moves by power-motive of the vital and physical ego, there is no reason to
suppose that revolution against Stalinism is the final phase of class war. So long
as human nature remains what it is, the classes will always precipitate out of the
vague mass of people and class-war will never cease.
The Materialistic Basis of Marxism
Again, the true nature of socialism is also disfigured from its start by an
industrial social system and its economic form. It was a direct corollary of the
materialistic interpretation of history. Marx turned Hegel upside down to find the
rational kernel out of the mystic cell.[14] What he found, however, was not the
kernel but only the crust and he accepted it for the real essence. He had the
vision to see the inevitable death of the capitalist system and the importance of
the material basis of man’s social life. But by making matter the whole of Spirit,
economic development the entire panacea and class war the final solution, he
missed the real crux of the problem. Marxist doctrines, however suitable they
may have been in their own time, require a revision, nay a transformation,
according to the changed conditions of to-day and the inherent purpose of
Nature.
Contribution of Marxism
By its timely emphasis on the physical and economic aspects of social life,
Marxism has its value, but as an analysis of the total disease, it is far from being
sufficient. “Its true nature, its real justification”, according to Sri Aurobindo, “is
the attempt of human reason to carry on the rational ordering of society to its
fulfilment, its will to get rid of this great parasitical excrescence of unbridled
competition, this giant obstacle to any decent ideal or practice of human
living.”[15] Socialism wants to establish peace and order in place of an organized
economic battle. In the old society, this peace and order was established on the
basis of artificial or inherited inequality, brought about by the denial of equal
opportunity and justified on the basis of the law of Karman, or destiny or
theological sanctions. Modern man cannot tolerate this injustice. The experiment
to base the social order on individual liberty has failed. Socialism is a dialetical
antithesis. “Socialism therefore” according to Sri Aurobindo, “must do away
with the democratic basis of individual liberty, even if it professes to respect it or
to be marching towards a more rational freedom.”[16]
The Transition to Communism
According to Sri Aurobindo, rational socialism passes into communism by its
very inherent dialectic. In socialism, the democratic emphasis on liberty is
shifted to emphasize equality. This change in stress leads to a radical change in
the basic principles of a rational society. In democracy, there is only equality of
opportunity. Socialism, in addition, pleads for equality of status, as the latter is
the true basis for the former. Equality of status is opposed to the personal or
inherited right of property. Hence socialism abolishes personal property. Not
individuals, but community as a whole, possesses and administers property. As
Marx and Engels said, “The transformation of scattered private property, arising
from individual labour, into capitalist private property is, naturally, a process,
incomparably more protracted, violent, and difficult, than the transformation of
capitalistic private property, already practically resting on socialized production
into socialized property. In the former case, we had the expropriation of the mass
of the people by a few usurpers; in the latter, we have the expropriation of a few
usurpers by the mass of the people.”[17] Thus democracy passes into capitalism
unless it is socialist, and capitalism leads to its antithesis in the communism of
property. But in justifying this abolition of private property, a proposition not
itself unjustified, communism went so far as to deny the very existence of the
individual, except as a member and instrument of society. Not only the property,
but the labour, capacities, education and its achievements, the mind, the
knowledge and the life of man and even the life of his wife and children, belong
to society. Reason and will of the individual is no more trusted for a right and
rational adjustment of man in the society. Hence the collective reasoning mind
and will determine not only all the details of the economic and political order but
also that of the social order and even the ordering of the vital, ethical and
intelligent beings of the individual. Man is thus reduced to a mere working,
thinking and feeling cell of the social organism. This was thought to be the only
way to overcome the egoism of the individualistic life and to realize a perfect
rational order of society in a harmonious world.
Socialist Democracy
This extreme has been undoubtedly avoided by the more democratic socialists,
because of the influence of the old democratic ideas. This approach tries to
secure some sort of compromise between a limited yet rational individual
freedom and the rigours of the collectivist idea. “But,” as Sri Aurobindo points
out, “it is evidently these rigours to which things must tend if the collectivist
idea is to prevail and not to stop short and falter in the middle of its course.”[18]
This hesitation of the democratic socialists or socialistic democrats between the
opposing principles of socialistic regimentation, and democratic liberty, is the
cause of the failure of socialism in so many countries. The collectivistic idea like
the individualistic democracy has, even at its best, certain elements inconsistent
with the real facts of human life and nature. Man cannot tolerate for long any
scheme imposed on his life which is foreign to his real nature. Individualistic
democracy attempted to secure political liberty protected by the state. Socialistic
democracy tries to enforce a social and political equality through the state. The
failure of the former led to the latter and the failure of the latter, according to Sri
Aurobindo, will lead the rational and democratic idea to make yet another
experiment of a third form of society, the intellectual or spiritual Anarchism. An
intellectual anarchism was the idea which Karl Marx himself cherished, though
it is difficult to understand how it could be realized through state socialism.
The Opposition of Democracy and Socialism
Socialism, according to Sri Aurobindo, is opposed to the democratic principles
of liberty, equality and fraternity. These are the demands of the individual and
not inherent in the collective ideal. The individual demands liberty of mind, life
and will of action, the state is more and more compelled by its nature to control
these till personal liberty is pressed out of existence. This was done by social
reason, only to concede another demand of the individual, equality, which was
given priority in socialistic systems. Democracy granted liberty but it granted
equality only in legal and political aspects. Socialism granted equality but only
that much liberty which does not abolish equality. But ultimately, even this
equality was found to be no less an obstacle to social good than the ideal of
liberty. What still had a chance of survival is the third member of the democratic
trinity i.e., Fraternity. This is very much emphasized by the socialists and the
communists at least in theory if not in practice, even after the abolition of liberty
and equality. “But”, as Sri Aurobindo points out, “comradeship without liberty
and equality can be nothing more than the like association of all individuals,
functional classes, guilds, syndicates, soviets or any other units – in common
service to the life of the nation under the absolute control of the collectivist
state.”[19] Thus in the socialist states, liberty is the freedom to serve the

community under state guidance, equality is the theoretical equality of functions,

fraternity is the sense of comradeship in the service of the state. This is nothing
more than a negation of these principles, which, in fact, though essential to
democracy, are not so essential to the collectivist ideal.
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the inevitable destiny, the
extreme and fullest outcome of socialism or the collectivist idea. The essence of
socialism is the governance and organization of the total life of society as a
whole and in detail, by the collective reason and will. This eliminates all internal
competition, exploitation, confusion and waste, this also enforces and perfects
coordination and assures sufficient life for all. Sri Aurobindo is not ignorant of
the fact that in certain states an attempt is being made to realize socialism
through democratic principles, and he hopes that perhaps this may be successful.
“But”, he warns that “if a non-democratic polity and machinery are found to
serve the purpose better, then there is nothing inherently sacrosanct for the
collectivist mind in the democratic ideal; it can be thrown in the rubbish heap
where so many other exploded sanctities have gone.”[20] This warning is timely
in the face of so many states leaving democracy in favour of dictatorship.
Russian Communism has preserved the ideal of a proletarian equality for all in a
classless society but its spirit is a rigorous totalitarianism on the basis of the
dictatorship of the proletariat which in fact means the dictatorship of the
communist party. The dictatorship of the proletariat abolishes even democratic
equality.
A New Trend
The socialism of Karl Marx was a rational system worked out by a logical and
systematic thinking. Russians have, however, transformed it into a social
religion, a collectivistic mystique. This new trend, breaking away from
rationalism, has the symptoms of the death of the rational age. This swing is
more marked in fascist countries, in their totalitarian mystique in the name of the
national soul. Both communists and fascists have led to a crystallization of the
social, economic and political life of the people into a perfectly rigid
organization, the casting of thought, education, expression and action into a set
iron mould with a repression of all that differs. If this denial of freedom to
individual reason becomes universal, it shall be the end of the age of reason.
Recent movements in Russia against the cult of Stalin, and the defeat of the
fascists of Germany and Italy in the last Great War, have restored a more natural
line of progress and led to prolongation of the curve of the age of reason. It has
also given subjectivism a chance and freedom to evolve so that it may take up
the spiral of the human social evolution where the curve of the age of reason
naturally ends.
The Value of the Collectivist Idea
Sri Aurobindo, though he assigns a great value to the individual is not unaware
of the value of the collectivist idea. The central idea, working behind all his
criticism of democracy and socialism, is the inadequacy of reason as the guiding
principle of social life. So long as reason is the basis of the cherished harmony, it
is bound to stumble here and there, no matter what type of social system is
adopted. According to Sri Aurobindo, “The evolutionary nisus is pushing
towards a development of the cosmic force in terrestrial life which needs a larger
mental and vital being to support it, a wider mind, a greater, wider more
conscious unanimised Life-Soul, Animā, and that again needs an unveiling of
the supporting soul and spiritual self within it to mamtain. it.’’[21] It is only on the
basis of this principle that a true harmony of the individuals, nations and
humanity can be realized.
The collectivistic idea of society is based on the fundamental fact that the
individual can use and develop his powers only in a certain relation with society
and that the organization of the individuals leads to much efficiency and
improvement in common good. The obedience of the collective reason and will
is certainly better than the life of narrow egoism. And up to a certain point, man
must follow the dictates of the society and the state.
The Central Fallacy
But the central fallacy underlying both the collectivist ideal and the individualist
theory is that “it ignores the complexity of man’s being and all that complexity
means.”[22] Man is not only the body, life and mind but also a self whose
supreme need is freedom. The control of the lower members, that of the body,
life and mind, is the very necessity of this freedom but that control is self-
control. The community again has not only a body, life and mind but also a soul.
But there is no common reason or will. The concepts of Group-Mind and
General Will in the sense of common reason and will have been rejected by
contemporary social psychologists. The group-soul, according to Sri Aurobindo,
“works out its tendencies by a diversity of opinions, a diversity of wills, a
diversity of life.”[23] Hence the government by the people is always a government
by a number of individuals, whether that number is in theory the majority or the
minority. It is never the common reason or the General Will which governs in a
democratic, socialist or communist state but always the reason and will of a few
dominant men. In the government of the state there is bound to be the
suppression of minority by the majority or vice versa. Democratic liberty
restricted the state and gave freedom to the individual. Collectivism restricted
the individual and gave freedom to the state, the supposed representative of the
collectivity. As the individual reason develops, the needs of freedom and
variation are felt though these need not be harmful to others. Freedom of
thought, devoid of the freedom of action, leads to an intolerable contradiction
and falsity, which though temporarily restrained on account of some immediate
gains, will ultimately lead to a revolt in the clearest and most vigorous minds
and finally in the masses. This may lead to anarchistic thought which is
subversive of the socialistic order. The state may combat this movement by its
educational machinery and by suppression of the freedom of speech and thought.
This suppression, however, will be either ineffective in a rational society or else
the remedy may prove worse than the evil it seeks to combat, as it means the end
of the Age of reason and of the ideal of a rational society. This is the central
defect of the collectivism which aims at a thorough-going mechanization of life.
From the point of view of the psychology of social development, this is the
inherent defect of reason. The principles of reason can deal with physical Nature
but they miserably fail in the sphere of life which is a mobile, progressive and
evolving force. The unifying principle of life can be found only by the
transformation of the life values into those of the Spirit, for it is there alone that
its contradictions can be reconciled. The rational order of society is undoubtedly
an advance upon the infra-rational orders of societies, but it can never arrive at
perfection by its own methods.
Intellectual Anarchism
According to Sri Aurobindo, as the pressure of society upon the individual
increases, the anarchist thought finds its way. Besides, the unimportant gross,
vitalistic anarchism, the intellectual anarchistic thought condemns all types of
governments and blames the social principle for the fall of the man from a
natural to an unnatural and artificial principle of life. Anarchism, according to
Sri Aurobindo, has laid an exclusive emphasis on the individual and ignored the
contribution of the society in man’s development. Anarchists base their theory
on the old dogma that man was originally innocent and perfect. But all the
philosophers who advocate this original perfection, have admitted a later lapse
leading to the need of state control. Thus man’s fall was not due to the social
principle, rather the social principle and state were introduced as a remedy for
man’s fall. On the other hand, if one admits, with Sri Aurobindo and other
contemporary philosophers, that man’s evolution is a gradual ascent, the social
principle should play an important role in man’s growth from infra-rational to
rational stage. Man can be ready for the anarchistic principle of life, only when
his infra-rational nature is governed by some higher principle. It is undeniable
that this growth itself requires abolition of governmental compulsion in favour
of the inner law of man. But the inner law is not the principle on which
intellectual anarchism relies. It relies on the enlightened reason and human
sympathy, the former producing liberty and equality, the latter fraternity and
cooperation. Anarchist thinkers have not sufficiently realized the power of infra-
rational elements in man, the vital egoism which defeats all calculations of the
idealizing reason. Like individualism and collectivism, anarchism has also
missed the complex nature of man. So long as reason is the basis, it is mere
utopian thinking that the state will “wither away.”[24] It is difficult to understand

how the Marxist system can avoid slipping into rigorous collectivism or anarchy.
Spiritual Anarchism
A spiritual anarchism may be suggested as an alternative but the term anarchism
smells too much of indeterminism and even lack of control. Again, spiritualism
has also been generally identified with asceticism and the suppression of the
infra-rational elements, which is contrary to the principle of inner integral
freedom, the very acme of spiritual growth. This theory of spiritual anarchism
has not been consistently developed as a theory of social order. It has been only
casually expressed by saints and religious persons including Gandhi and others.
It is what religion has everywhere and always demanded.
Conclusion
Thus the solution of the problem is psychological. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
“It is a spiritual, an inner freedom that can alone create a perfect human
order.”[25] Spiritual freedom is the sound foundation of the principles of
democracy; liberty, equality and fraternity. That being given, all other problems
discussed so far, will be spontaneously solved. Spiritual comradeship can alone
lead to a perfect harmony in human society. Man’s present crisis is evolutionary.
His whole problem is psychological. The real solution is the spiritual growth of
his consciousness, though physical and mental growth is a necessary prelude to
spiritual evolution, as its ascent is integral. The Spirit is the inmost essence of
all. Its very nature of diverse oneness is to realize the perfection of the
individual, not in isolation from society but in universal nature. It is on this
principle that true communism and individualism can be harmonized. This is Sri
Aurobindo’s conclusion in his psychological analysis of social development. The
preceding discussion in this chapter, shows the inevitability of this solution,
however difficult it may be to realize it. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “This is
not certain; but in any case, if this is not the solution, then there is no solution, if
this is not the way, then there is no way for the human kind.”[26] And there is no
reason to suppose that this is not possible. As a matter of fact, the beginning is
already there. The subjective turn in the present day society, the growing
acceptance of the spiritual solution, at least in theory, and the appearance of the
spiritual individuals here and there are sure signs. Practical difficulties are not
sufficient ground to doubt the possibility of the realization of what is decided by
a clear and compelling reason. Difficulties either show lack of endeavour or
mistakes in methods. It is only on the lower planes that they are signs of human
limitations. On the spiritual plane, there is no limit to human possibilities. What
is required is a change of methods to suit new aims. A critical evaluation of the
existing methods, and an exploration for the method suitable for the realization
of the spiritual ideal, will be attempted in the third part of the present work.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 207.

[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 927.

[3] Cole, G.D.H., Essays in Social Theory, p. 99.

[4] Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Edited by Ernest Rhys, p. 63.

[5]
Schumpeter, J.A., Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1947), p. 269.
[6]
Cole, G.D.H., Essays on Social Thoery, p. 101.
[7]
Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 223.
[8]
Russell, B., Authority and the Individual, p. 125.
[9] Sri Aurobindo, Mother India, p. 929.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 929.

[11] Stalin, Quoted in Plekhanov, The Role of Individual in History, p. 8.

[12] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 930.

[13] Marx, K., and Engels, F., Selected Works, Vol. I. Foreign Languages Publishing House (Moscow),

1955, p. 34.
[14] “To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which under the name of

“the idea”, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the
real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is
nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of
thought.” – Marx, K., Capital, Vol. I. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow (1958), p. 19.
[15] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 223.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Marx, K., and Engels, F., Capital, Vol. I. Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow (1958), p.
764.
[18] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 225.

[19] Sri Aurobindo, Ibid., p. 227.

[20] Ibid., p. 228.

[21] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 935.

[22] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 234.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Engels, F., Anti-Duhring, p. 315.

[25] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 245.

[26] Ibid., p. 246.

 CHAPTER VII
The Ideal of Social Development

“The ideal of human existence personal and social would be its

progressive transformation into a conscious outflowering of the joy,
power, love, light, beauty of the transcendent and universal Spirit.” —
Sri Aurobindo

Need of Clarification of the Aim

Social Philosophy should clarify the summum bonum of social development
before trying to find out methods for it, as these methods themselves shall be
devised according to that aim. It is this lack of clarification of the ultimate end of
human life that has led to so many conflicting theories about the interpretation of
the meaning of the present conditions of human life as well as its future destiny.
This summum bonum of life, in Social Philosophy, should be based on the
metaphysical truths, since man has a pre-human history as well as a post-human
future. Human life is not an isolated episode in the history of the universe. Hence
its aim should be the same as that of Nature, of which it is a creation. Man’s aim
is the fulfilment of the purpose which Nature seeks through him. This purpose of
Nature shall be known by the integral knowledge of Reality. Besides,
metaphysics, philosophy of history and the psychology of man as well as the
psychology of social development give an insight into the ultimate end. Now,
after discussing all these prerequisites in the preceding chapters, and before
beginning the discussion of the different methods of social development, the
present chapter is devoted to the clarification of the ideal of social development.
Integral Knowledge of Reality
The ideal of life in the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is based on the
integral knowledge of Reality. Integral knowledge is the knowledge of all the
terms of Being, matter, life, mind, psyche and self. It presupposes an integral
Reality which has been discussed in chapter III of this thesis. It is knowledge of
both Being as well as Becoming; Timeless as well as Time; Supracosmic as well
as Cosmic; One as well as Many. It is a consciousness of the fundamental
Reality underlying all and exceeding all. It is a synthesis of idealism and realism
and all other perspectives of the integral truth. It is a knowledge of our total
existence, both separately and in the relation of each to all and the relation of all
to the truth of the Spirit. The integral knowledge is the liberation out of
sevenfold ignorance.
Sevenfold Ignorance
Thus the conception of ignorance at once determines the goal of human effort
and the aim of Nature, since man’s life is ignorance at once denying and seeking
knowledge. This ignorance, according to Sri Aurobindo, as has been already
discussed in chapter III is sevenfold i.e., the original, the cosmic, the egoistic,
the temporal, the psychological, the constitutional and finally the practical.
Man’s aim of life is the cancelling of this sevenfold ignorance by the
corresponding sevenfold knowledge i.e., the original, the cosmic, the egoistic,
the temporal, the psychological, the constitutional and finally the practical.
According to Sri Aurobindo, “This would seem to be the method and the result
of the conscious spiritual evolution; a transformation of the life of the Ignorance
into the divine life of the truth-conscious spirit, a change from the mental into a
spiritual and supramental way of being, a self-expansion out of the sevenfold
ignorance into the sevenfold knowledge.”[1] This sevenfold knowledge is not
mental knowing but experience, becoming, change of the consciousness and
being, the spiritual evolution of man, community and humanity. This is the
purpose which Nature seeks in man’s life. It is evident that the theories of the
aims of life, based on any one or more of the many aspects of this complex
nature of man, are ipso facto based on ignorance or partial knowledge. Thus the
materialist, the ascetic, the pragmatist and the mystic; the behaviourist, the
purposivist and the humanist; the instrumentalist, the existentialist and the
individualist; the socialist and the anarchist, to quote only a few of the wide
variety of the contemporary theories of life are true from only limited points of
view and hence are only partially true. Only an integral philosophy of life can
find out the real aim of life. The ideal of social development in Sri Aurobindo’s
Social Philosophy, is based on the revelation of sevenfold integral knowledge,
cancelling the sevenfold ignorance. This is the theory, this the justification and
this the value of Sri Aurobindo’s standpoint. As he says, “Man is there to affirm
himself in the universe, that is his first business, but also to evolve and finally to
exceed himself; he has to enlarge his partial being into a complete being, his
partial consciousness into an integral consciousness; he has to achieve mastery
of his environment but also world-union and world-harmony; he has to realize
his individuality but also to enlarge it into a cosmic self and a universal and
spiritual delight of existence.’’[2]
God, Man and Nature
Thus, the ultimate end of life is a consciousness of the integral Reality, a
conscious unity with the trinity God, Self and Nature. This is the evolutionary
aim, since the involution of the Spirit is the beginning of evolution. The integral
emergence, however, cannot be achieved all at once, because that would be
contrary to the principle of evolution. Hence, consciousness has developed
slowly in Nature, till in man Nature has achieved self-consciousness. In man,
again, the progress should be gradual, though more rapid than in the past
endeavours, as man’s birth is a turning point, a critical stage in earth-nature.
Thus, the aim of man’s life is the search of himself, of God and of Nature,
separately and also simultaneously and integrally. Man’s history has always
been a conscious or unconscious search after this trinity. His social activity, art,
ethics, science, religion and all the manifold activities of his mental, vital,
physical and spiritual existence, have no other aim behind their limited apparent
aims. The summum bonum of man’s social development is not only what his
ethics, science, religion, art and philosophy have sought so far separately as well
as collectively, but to reach the true Spirit and to grow into the being of the
superman and universal Existence, Consciousness, Bliss. In his past, man has
often tried to deny this or that aspect of this trinity or emphasized some one or
the other exclusively. Mystics and ascetics laid emphasis on God and Man and
neglected Nature. The pragmatists, humanists and instrumentalists laid emphasis
on Nature and Man and neglected God. The psycho-analysts, the behaviourists
and the hormists found a theory of life, with hardly any place for God. The
materialists laid sole emphasis on the world, the socialists on society, the
individualists and the anarchists on the individual, the existentialists on
existence, the romanticists on vital being, the idealists on mind, the rationalists
on reason, the empiricists on sense and so on. All these one-sided approaches
have the same urge of the unity of world, Man and God, behind their apparent
denials, though they attempted it by suppression of one or the other of them.
None of these theories could satisfy man, as none achieved the unity by
complete affirmation. No theory of life can satisfy the whole man which seeks to
subordinate or abolish any one of them. Man cannot rest satisfied in himself, or
in the world or in God, excluding the other two, he should get at all these and
grow into their unity. This inherent truth should not be forgotten in the apparent
conflicts of theories, in the jargon of concepts and formulas. Whatever name
may be given, man should arrive at a Divine, a Supreme, a Perfect, an Infinite,
an Eternal or an All, to which everything perpetually and invisibly amounts. Sri
Aurobindo has presented a psychological analysis of man’s multiple strivings.
The words Sachchidānanda etc., are the possible concepts to explain integral
experience. Even if some materialists and rationalists find it difficult to accept
these concepts, they can hardly deny the meaning they convey, only if it is put in
their own imperfect vocabulary.
Again, neither self nor God can be known integrally without the integral
knowledge of the trinity. Even the knowledge of God is impossible without the
knowledge of self and the world. “Man therefore has to enlarge his knowledge of
himself, his knowledge of the world and his knowledge of God, until in their
totality he becomes aware of their mutual indwelling and oneness.”[3]
This integral knowledge, however, cannot appear till late in man’s journey.
This is a slow evolutionary process which begins with man’s affirmation of his
individuality, the egoistic phase of man as well as community, the two facets of
the secret consciousness force. In the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, all the
principles are equally applicable to the individual and the society, since man is a
microcosm in a macrocosm. Man has to find himself as the vital or mental ego
before he can find himself as the soul or spirit. Even the egoism in man is
necessary in the process of evolution. In the evolution of man and society, every
aspect of man’s complex nature, every social institution, however crude it may
appear to posterity, has its value for a time. But in the evolutionary process, each
has its own limits after which it should be subordinated to the higher principle,
not rejected but transformed and integrated into the new light and this process
should never stop, till the ultimate end of the fullest and most integral realization
of the triune unity is achieved.
The Realistic Basis
But all this seems to be something above the present normal life of man. The
ordinary man, in his every day life, does not appear to seek Truth, Goodness and
Beauty, but the satisfaction of his needs. Ethics, art, religion and philosophy
have a place in life but not the central place. The individual, Sri Aurobindo
asserts, has the right to exist, satisfy and fulfil himself. Thus Sri Aurobindo’s
idealism is firmly rooted in realism. Man, according to him, is the Being
labouring to express himself in the material world. “His primary insistent aim,”
says Sri Aurobindo, “must be to live and make for himself a place in the world,
for himself and his species, secondly, having made it to possess, produce and
enjoy with an ever-widening scope, and finally to spread himself over all the
earth-life and dominate it; this is and must be his first practical business.”[4] So
far Sri Aurobindo agrees with the Darwinian version of the aim of life. But then,
in addition to the Darwinian principles of struggle and survival, he points out to
the working of the principle of association and the struggle to increase, enjoy
and possess as equally fundamental in human life. Individualistic and collective
self-assertion; strife and united effort; competitive efforts and cooperative
aspirations; are two diverse but convergent forms of action, two contradictory
but co-existent motives, equally powerful in human life. This dynamism of
human life is the basis of the structure of human society and its continuance,
energy and growth, and the failure of these motives might lead to its total
disorganization and decay.
The Ancient Approach
The purpose of life for the ancient elite was the development of the rational, the
ethical, the aesthetic and the spiritual being. Greeks and Romans emphasized the
first three alone. But India subordinated all these to spiritual purpose. Art, poetry
and philosophy in Greece and Rome, were cherished much more than political
liberty or greatness. India accepted these also but valued religion and spirituality
much more.
Contrast of Ancient and Modern Approaches
Contrary to the ancient view, the modern man has laid greatest emphasis
precisely on those values which were lowest in the ancient world. He aims at
economic organisation, political liberty, order and progress, the comfort and ease
of domestic and social life and science applied to physical, vital and mental life.
His only Gods are life and practical reason, organized in the name of science.
His ideals are the physical and vital good of the individual and community,
physical health, long life, comfort, luxury, wealth, amusement, recreation,
production, wars, invasion, colonization, discovery, commercial victory, travel,
adventure, full possession and utilization of the earth and the expansion of
earthly kingdom on moon and other planets.
The Individualist and the Collectivist Impulses
Modern man exhibits two dominant impulses, the individualist and the
collectivist. The individualist impulse is obviously primary and uses domestic,
social and national life as means for greater satisfaction of the vital individual.
Through family, man satisfies his instincts of possession, companionship and
reproduction, besides the incidental pleasures of physical and vital being. In
society, he gets a wider field of companionship, interchange, associated efforts,
gregarious pleasure, satisfied emotion, stirred sensation and regular amusement.
In groups, associations and nation, he finds fame, leadership, the sense of
affective action or participation in the pride, power and splendour of collective
activity. In all this, the competitive impulse associates with, but predominates
over, the cooperative tendency. When this predominance is extreme, man uses
family, nation and society as mere means for his selfish gains. But at other
places, the collective impulse is more and more dominating, reducing man to a
mere cell in the social organism. In this tendency, man subordinates himself to
the larger vital ego of the family with kuladharma as his sole ideal. Family, like
the individual, uses community as a means but also surrenders and sacrifices
itself, when the cooperative instinct predominates. Thus, as the individual
subordinates himself to the family, so the family subordinates itself to the
community.
Man Transcends Society
Man enriches himself and the nation through his participation in different sects,
classes, communities, institutions and associations. Similarly, by the enrichment
of the national life, he enriches the total life of humanity. But, man cannot be
limited to all these. He is not a mere sum total of his social roles. Like an animal,
he has the tendency of self-limitation and adjustment to his environment, but as
man, he transcends both Nature and Humanity and moulds everything in the
stuff of his growth and expansion.
Community Between Individual and Humanity
Community, according to Sri Aurobindo, is between individual and humanity
and exists for one or the other. Societies, races, religions, communities, nations
and empires have no claim of exclusive growth against individual or humanity.
They have a right to exist and develop, but always in the interests of humanity.
Rights of man or nation depend on their necessity for the fulfilment of human
destiny. The right to be oneself cannot be exercised without exchange from
others. “The law for humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the
finding and expression of the Divine in the type of mankind, taking full
advantage of the free development and gains of all individuals and nations and
groupings of men, to work towards the day when mankind may be really and not
only ideally one divine family, but even then, when it has succeeded in unifying
itself, to respect, aid and be aided by the free growth and activity of its
individuals and constituent aggregates.”[5]
The Ideal of Four Purusharthas
The Indian ideal of four purushārthas of life, Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksa
was based on the realization that integral growth is the principle of life. It
realized that the spiritual recoil from vital is useful to a certain point in giving a
new vigour to the society for a time but beyond that limit it discourages the very
indispensable life-energy and renders it inert, inelastic and narrow, which
ultimately saps the vitality of the spiritual life itself. But this scheme regarded
Moksa or spiritual status as belonging to another world of being rather than this
earthly life and thus rides out the idea of the kingdom of God upon earth. Hence
Sri Aurobindo rejects this ideal.
The Failure of Reason
In the infra-rational stage of life struggle, conflict and limitation are the
principles even of ethics and religion. But these are not the essentials of all life.
Life has also its rich elements of power, beauty, sacrifice, worship, divinity.
These can be brought into prominence by transformation and integration of the
infra-rational elements through some higher principle. This, according to the
Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is the central problem of life. The attempt
of reason in ancient times, in the form of high idealistic, rational, aesthetic,
ethical and religious culture, achieved only an imperfect discipline. The modern
attempt of reason, in the form of a wide and thorough rational, ultilitarian and
efficient instruction and organization of man and his life, has also failed to
realize its promise.
The Supra-rational essence of life
Reason has failed, as the essence of life, according to Sri Aurobindo, is supra-
rational. Life, according to him, is Being and Force, the ultimate forms of which
are the presence of these ideals in life. They can be noticed in the domestic and
social life of man. The love between man and woman, parents and children, the
love of friends, comrades, country and humanity, however, engrossed in egoism
and instinctive discords, are the sure divine possibilities which life exhibits. It is
due to this fact, that certain religions have taken up these very relations, lifted
them from their social context, applied them in soul’s communion with God and
thus presented wonderful movements of Divine power and unity in man. Even
the economic pursuits of life ultimately aim at the abolition of animal squalor
and bareness and the achievement of ease and leisure of the Gods. In the
political field of life also, the ideals of patriotism and democracy etc., have had
as their essence something of this supra-rational essence of life, for which men
suffered and even died. Even wars and strifes have created the virtues of
heroism, courage, energy and strength. The vital life of man, with its two
processes of competition and cooperation, is blindly groping after the realization
of power and unity respectively, manifested in man’s efforts for the conquest of
his environment and his urge towards a unity of mankind. Reasons’s order, in
this direction, is partial and temporary, for the sources of life are either below or
above. Hence, life, in the present age of Reason, is a half-ordered confused
struggle of individuals, clans, tribes, nations, ideas, ideals, civilizations, cultures
and religions etc., each affirming itself but also compelled into constant
association with others. This analysis of the deep roots of life is the foundation
of the summum bonum in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy. It is both
empirically as well as spiritually veridical.
The Law of Fragmentation
According to Sri Aurobindo, a law of fragmentation is the first principle of
activity everywhere from matter to spirit. Life organizes itself physically in
plasm and cell and psychologically in ego. Matter is organized in electrons or
some more palpable minute units. The consciousness first manifests in a unit that
evolves into an individual psyche. Thus the first beginnings everywhere are in
the unit, the individual. This primary law is the force behind the present stage of
life and it also points to the cause as well as to the solution of its conflicts.
The Spritual Aim of Life
Thus, the present conditions of human life themselves exhibit the certainty of the
future evolution. This evolutionary urge should not stop till life achieves its
secret ultimates, the supreme power and the supreme unity, as they constitute the
very nisus of life, however obscure it may seem in the fragmentary beginnings.
This is the demand of both science and religion. To quote Sri Aurobindo, “In the
light of this conception we can perceive the possibility of a divine life for man in
the world, which will at once justify science by disclosing a living sense and
intelligible aim for the cosmic and the terrestrial evolution and realize by the
transfiguration of the human soul into the Divine, the great ideal dream of all
high religions.”[6] Thus, life can attain luminous guidance and mastery of its own
movements by finding the spirit and surrendering itself to it. It is the spiritual
certitude which can truly guide the blind certitude of instincts and speculative
and hypothetical certitude of reason. The oppositions of love and strife, unity
and discord in life, can be reconciled only in spiritual consciousness. Life’s urge
for the growth of being can be fulfilled only when the limited vital being finds
its true self and its cosmic consciousness. Life’s quest for power can be realized
fully only in spiritual power. Life’s thirst for an unmixed and abiding happiness
can be found only in spirit. In spirit alone, can life attain a harmonious fulfilment
of all its powers and possibilities. Everything else has been tried by humanity but
none could save it from weariness and decay. As compared with the progress in
the ancient times, modern achievements seem to be greater only in quantity. The
only hope is in the subjective turn of the age, which still exhibits the possibility
though not the certainty of finding the real secret.
Originality of Sri Aurobindo’s Approach
“Human Society” claims Sri Aurobindo, “itself never seized on the discovery of
the soul as a means for the discovery of the law of its own being or on a
knowledge of the soul’s true nature and need and its fulfilment as the right way
of terrestrial perfection.”[7] Spritualisation, found in the traditional philosophies

and religions, was based on a negation of material life. According to Sri

Aurobindo, however, it is not the denial of life with its demands of physical,
vital and mental levels, but a transformation and fulfilment, ascent and
integration of all these. The spiritual aim is firmly grounded in existence and
seeks its unity with Consciousness and expression in Bliss. The body, life and
mind, are neither ends in themselves nor diseased mortal members, but first, and
as yet imperfect, instruments of the soul whose destiny it is to grow as means of
the manifestation of spirit. This view advocates the possibility of the divinization
of the whole man, in spite of Nature’s first patent contradiction of this
possibility. It holds these very denials to be the necessary earthly starting point
in the evolution of man. Human associations, institutions, communities,
societies, nations or other aggregates are means of a complex manifestation and
self-fulfilment of the Spirit. Spirit, however, neither imposes its ideal on these
nor represses them. Spiritual ideal is a light and inspiration to them so that they
may grow from within. “A large liberty”, says Sri Aurobindo, “will be the law of
a spiritual society and the increase of freedom a sign of the growth of human
society towards the possibility of true spiritualisation.”[8] Spirituality is against
all types of weakness, ignorance, passions and slavery as that of power,
authority, custom, dogma and laws. To be worthy of a higher freedom, man
should shake off all these fetters and follow the inner law of his own being.
Free but Necessary Growth
Spiritual growth is spontaneous, free but necessary. Evolution is a universal
principle in Nature. Yoga and other methods only accelerate its pace. The
purpose of Social Philosophy is not to place some high alien aim before man and
society. It has to uncover the purpose which Nature has been seeking
unconsciously. It is only by an analysis of the inner tendencies that we may
arrive at the absolute values after which life is groping. To place these very
values before man together with the best method of their realization, and to show
the future possibilities in the light of these values, is the task of Social
Philosophy. Sincerity is the only condition required in growth, all else readily
follows. Even denials, if they are sincere, add to the richness of growth. Science
and philosophy cannot be compelled to admit the spiritual truth. But Sri
Aurobindo points out, “Meanwhile they must be left free even to deny God and
good and beauty if they will, if their sincere observation of things so points
them. For all these rejections must come round in the end of their circling and
return to a larger truth of the things they refuse.”[9] What is always necessary is
sincerity and constant growth – inward, outward and upward. This is as true of
the whole man as of any part of his being, of his whole life as well as some
particular aspect of it – domestic, social, national, international. It can be verified
by anyone who has the sincerity to stand with the truth, however paradoxical it
may appear at first sight. What appear as paradoxes to human reason are
complementary facts to the spiritual vision. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “....the
finding is inevitable at the end of all earnest scepticism and denial.”[10] A certain
amount of ignorance, errors and evils, is the necessary price of all growth. This
does not mean that everything should be left to itself. It means that growth
should be realized through inner freedom and not by outer compulsion. The
spiritual aim should be clearly laid before all, though each is free to find his own
way to it. The light and inspiration should always be there, but each should be
shown that it is this light after which he has been always groping. A spiritual
Social Philosophy should show the affirmation hidden in every negation, as the
nature of spirit is to fulfil and integrate.
Naturalist Philosophies
Man’s individual and social development is governed by the balance between
two complementary powers, an implicit will, central to life, and a modifying will
of the idea in mind. Nature’s method in sub-human life is instinctive with all the
ease, spontaneity, beauty, satisfaction and power, characteristic of it. This has
often led many social philosophers to present life according to Nature, as a
panacea of all human ills. One of the latest examples of this approach is the
vitalistic philosophy of Nietzsche. Sri Aurobindo agrees with Nietzsche’s idea
that, to develop superman, out of his present unsatisfactory manhood, is the real
business of man. He also agrees with Nietzsche’s formulation of human end as
“to become ourselves,” “to exceed ourselves,” etc. What he questions, however,
is Nietzsche’s conception of this self, the real nature of man. He does not
disagree with those who put life according to Nature as human end. He disagrees
with their interpretation of Nature itself. “The common defect of these
conceptions,” says he, “is to miss the true character of man and the true law of
his begin, his Dharma.”[11] For Nietzsche the vital man is the true man, for Sri
Aurobindo, man’s essence is deeper and subtler, it is spiritual.
Is Superman Abnormal
Superman is the summum bonum of man. This ideal appears to be supernormal
or abnormal to many modern thinkers. But is man himself normal? Is he not
radically different from animals and plants? As superman is abnormal to man so
also is mind to life and life to matter. The abnormality of superman is not a sign
of imperfection but of greater perfection, which can be achieved only when the
abnormal becomes the normal. Plants and animals are normal and without
conflicts, since they have found their natural perfection. Man is imperfect,
though this imperfection is neither his real nature nor a disease. It is a promise of
the realization of his real nature. What is called normality in contemporary
abnormal psychology is only a provisional order, differing with different
cultures, and also in different phases of the same culture. The true normality,
according to Sri Aurobindo, is the spiritualization of man. This should be the
aim of all psychology which seeks to make man permanently normal and not
only to achieve his temporary conformity to the changing mores of society. A
reorientation of the abnormal psychology in the light of the truths of yoga should
open new vistas for the achievement of the true normality of man. This again
requires a clear distinction between abnormal and supernormal. Confusion in
terms and categories is theoretically unscientific and practically disastrous.
CONDITIONS FOR THE REALIZATION OF THE SPIRITUAL AIM
The Individual Change
Man’s transformation into spiritual individual is the first condition of the
realization of the spiritual aim of social development. As more and more
individuals achieve this aim, the community comes nearer to the goal. It is
through the individual that humanity is offered discoveries and chances of new
development, since the communal mind is subconscious and chaotic, even when
conscious. “Thinkers, historians, sociologists,” says Sri Aurobindo, “who belittle
the individual and would like to lose him in the mass or think of him chiefly as a
cell, an atom, have got hold only of the obscurer side of the truth of Nature’s
workings in humanity.”[12] The spirit first changes the individual, the mass
follows and that too in a very confused fashion. Had it not been so, mankind
would have advanced on its way with a victorious rapidity.
The Communal Change
Hence, there is another important condition of the realization of the spiritual aim,
which should be simultaneously present with the first. This is the necessity of a
society, capable of receiving the truth from the individual, without distorting it
and also capable of effectively assimilating it. A simultaneous presence of both
these conditions was never realized in humanity but that is indispensable for the
spiritual change. That this combination should happen some day is the
undaunted optimism of Sri Aurobindo, based on his spiritual vision of the inner
progression of spirit behind Nature and Human History.
The Subjective Trend
The first essential sign of this hope is the growth of the subjective trend in life,
which has been demonstrated in the philosophy of history and psychology of
social development discussed in the preceding chapters. This subjective trend
can be observed not only in art, philosophy and literature but also in psychology
and physical sciences. As Prof. Eddington says, “If you ask a physicist what he
has finally made out of ether or electron to be, the answer will be not a
description in terms of billiard balls or fly-wheels, or anything concrete, he will
point instead to a number of symbols and a set of mathematical equations which
they satisfy. What do the symbols stand for? The mysterious reply is given that
physics is indifferent to that; it has no means of probing beneath the
symbolism.”[13] Subjectivism has also been applied, though not without dangers,
to politics and economics. Religion is trying to reject the heavy weight of
dogmas and attain the inner spirit. All these are signs of the coming change,
though they may not be sufficient for its certainty.
Vital, Mental and Psychical Subjectivism
If this subjective trend takes hold of the thought, effort, ideas of life in society, it
will give the hitherto vital subjectivism a new tone and atmosphere, a loftier
spirit, wider horizons, greater aims. It may develop a science with real mastery
of the physical world, which may open the doors of other worlds. It may develop
an art which may supersede the past in beauty and save the world from the
ugliness of the utilitarian art. It may open a closer, freer and kindlier interchange
between men. This psychic and mental subjectivism may, undoubtedly, have its
dangers, greater than that of the vital subjectivism but it may also supersede the
vital subjectivism in the changes of a deeper vision, greater security and more
powerful liberating light. The mental and the psychical subjectivism, according
to Sri Aurobindo, are necessary stages in the social development of man in its
upward march towards the Spirit. A miracle of the direct conversion of matter
into spirit is neither possible nor stable. Even if it may be observed in some
individuals having requisite preparation in past life, it is impossible to succeed in
the masses. Such an attempt in the mass is soon overpowered and crushed by its
own machinery.
The Integral View
Spirituality is nothing, if it is not lived inwardly, and if this inward life is not
expressed in outward living. The integral truth is what we create within, what we
become in our universal and transcendent ascent. This free, integral and spiritual
ascent of the individual, nation, as well as humanity, is the ideal of social
development in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy. Clarification of ends is a
necessary prelude to the discussion about means, though one should not demand
a logical clarification of the spiritual ideals beyond the limits of logic, since
logical thought is too inadequate an instrument to follow the ways of the Spirit.
This constitutes the limits of the discussion in this chapter.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 660.

[2] Ibid., p. 610.

[3] Ibid., p. 615.

[4] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 174.

[5] Ibid., p. 77.

[6] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 27.

[7]
Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 251.
[8]
Ibid., p. 255.
[9]
Ibid., p. 256.
[10]
Ibid.
[11] Ibid., p. 260.

[12] Ibid., p. 274.

[13] Eddington, Science and the Unseen World, p. 20.

 PART III
THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT
• • •
CHAPTER VIII
Culture and Civilization

“Towards the spirit if not all the way to it man must rise or he misses
his upward curve of strength; but there are different ways of approach
to its secret forces. ” — Sri Aurobindo

Perhaps the most important method of social development that man has devised
so far is culture and civilization. It is a method for greater satisfaction and
efficiency of the physical, vital and mental life of man in society, through a mass
of social institutions which stimulate mutual cooperation in men through social
laws and customs. This process, evidently, has its own gains and losses. But the
loss is considered to be the necessary price of civilization and not because of
some inherent defect in it. “Civilization,” as Prof. Gardner Murphy puts it,
“consists in large measure of a system of devices for increasing the drives of
man and of both frustrating and satisfying them.”[1] With the development of
civilization, these devices become more and more complex, as one of the tasks
of civilization is also to cure the ills which are created in its process. But when
the structure becomes too complex, if crumbles under its own pressure, a
phenomenon witnessed in the history of dozens of cultures in the past. Social
Philosophy, while dealing with culture and civilization as a method of social
development, should diagnose the reason of its past failures and their cure, if
any. It should assess the gains and losses in this particular process and method,
evaluate its contribution in social development, determine its limitations and
suggest ways of improving and fulfilling its purpose. This is a vital need at the
present juncture of the crisis in human civilization, described in the very
beginning of this thesis.
The Components of Culture
According to Sri Aurobindo, “The culture of a people may be roughly described
as the expression of a consciousness of life which formulates itself in three
aspects. There is a side of thought, of ideal, of upward will and the soul’s
aspiration; there is a side of creative self-expression and appreciative aesthesis,
intelligence and imagination; and there is a side of practical and outward
formulation.”[2] Thus, culture is the consciousness of life created by philosophy
and religion, art, poetry and literature and social and political institutions.
Philosophy formulates mind, religion formulates will, imagination, intuition and
vital turn, and creative intelligence gets expression in art, poetry and literature.
Social and political institutions provide the outer framework for the working of
external life. All these derive their cultural character and main ideas from the
secret spirit. None of these is a whole expression of the spirit. ‘Together they
make up its soul, mind and body.”[3]
Value of Vital Element in Culture
Vital element is essential to every culture. According to Sri Aurobindo, “No
anti-vital culture can survive.”[4] Life is the most severe and most necessary test
of the superiority of a culture. Existence is the first law of human life. A culture
cannot survive without strong stimulus and motive, however high may be its
achievements in science, philosophy and religion; art, poetry and literature. Man
is still a struggling unsuccessful hero in this world. A culture which claims any
greatness should help man in this upward effort. It should inspire the terrestrial
endeavours of man. It should give him “a force for development and a will to
live.”[5] It should help in the “greatness and growth of the race on earth.”[6] It
should result in a strong and successful organization of life. All this depends on
the vital element in culture. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “The infinite can only
be readied after we have grown in the finite, the eternal grasped only by man
growing in time, the spiritual perfected only by man accomplished first in body,
life, and mind.”[7] No culture can claim an integral value unless it leads to
survival, growth and perfection of the community. As Sri Aurobindo puts it,
“While the first value of a culture is its power to raise spirit, its soundness is not
complete unless it has shaped also his external existence and made it a rhythm of
advance towards high and great ideals.”[8]
Culture and Conduct
Thus Sri Aurobindo steers clear of the opposition between culture and conduct.
“.....conduct also is a part of the cultured life and the ethical ideality one of the
master impulses of the cultured being.”[9] The opposition of culture as the pursuit

of ideas, knowledge and beauty with character and conduct has been a strong
tendency in man. This is the opposition which Arnold drew between Hebraism
and Hellenism, exhibited in the exclusive pursuit of Goodness by the former and
that of Beauty by the latter. The Jews were indifferent to science, philosophy,
knowledge and beauty, the Jewish nation gave a severe ethical religion. The
Hellenic mind, on the other hand, worshipped beauty in philosophy, art, life,
religion and in every other activity.
The Psychology of the Opposition of Culture and Conduct
The social philosopher, while diagnosing this historical contrast in two forms of
culture, should find out the psychological principles working in this opposition.
Sri Aurobindo analyses this contrast to unravel the real problem in the process of
culture. The exclusively ethical and exclusively aesthetic cultures are based on
two different, though not opposed, sides of human nature, the former on the side
of will, conduct and character, the latter on the side of sensitiveness to the
beautiful. The former is the basis of the ethical man, the latter creates the
aesthetic man. The ethical man distrusts the arts and aesthetic sense as
destructive of a high and strict self-control. He evolves into the puritan who
rejects pleasure on principle. “I would rather be mad than feel pleasure,” said the
founder of cynicism. The aesthetic man, on the other hand, is naturally
hedonistic and impatient of the ethical rule which tramples on pleasure. Even if
he accepts some moral principle, it is only as an instrument for creating beauty.
This opposition is also found in opposite social and national types, as “society is
only an enlargement of the individual.”[10]
In his philosophy of history, Sri Aurobindo looks to every culture of a
particular epoch as a unique psychological phenomenon and experiment of
Nature towards higher growth. His diagnosis of the reasons of the past failures of
cultures and civilization as a method of social development, is based on his
insight in the psychological phenomena involved in various types of cultures.
Limitations of Ethical Culture
Rome and Sparta exhibit the limitations of the ethical culture. Life in Sparta and
Rome was devoid of the delight of living. Philosophy, art, literature and
knowledge hardly found any place. Free and liberal thought and aesthetic sense
was distrusted. Republican Rome exterminated all Greek culture, language,
education and thought. Sparta admitted only martial music and poetry and even
for these they called in the Athenians. It was this puritanic influence which led
even Plato to banish poetry from his ideal republic. “Let it then”, says Socrates,
“be our defence now that we have recurred to the subject of poetry, that it was
only to be expected that we should expel poetry from the city, such being her
nature.”[11] Sparta passed away leaving nothing attractive. Rome collapsed in the
egoistic licence of later republican and imperial Rome. The basic blunder of the
ethical culture was the limitation of the freedom of development. “The human
mind”, as says Sri Aurobindo, “needs to think, feel, enjoy, expand; expansion is
its very nature and restriction is only useful to it, in so far as it helps to steady,
guide and strengthen its expansion.”[12]
The Aesthetic Culture and its Limitations
Ancient Athens is the example of aesthetic culture. There were two distinct
periods in the Athenian development, first the Athens of Phidias and Sophocles
and the second the Athens of the philosophers. The former emphasized art and
beauty, the latter emphasized thought. Sence of beauty and freedom and
enjoyment of life were the determining forces in the Athens of Phidias and
Sophocles. Thought was in terms of art and poetry. Intellectual discussions
aimed at the pleasure of thinking and the beauty of ideas. Its morality was
conventional and customary, expressed in terms of beauty. Its religion was “an
aesthetic enjoyment touched with a superficial religious sense.”[13] All this
pursuit of aesthetic enjoyment without any high or strong discipline exhausted
Athens within a century and left it without life, will and creativity. It could not
compensate for its deficiency even when it made the attempt because it could not
put its ideas into practice. This weakness of aesthetic culture becomes more
evident in the case of Italy of the Renaissance. In Italy, this revival of learning
was one of the efflorescences of art, poetry and beauty of life. It was little
concerned with high thought and truth. It was sometimes even anti-ethical. It
corrupted religion so much that it led to the violent revolt in Reformation. This
lax, licentious and immoral aesthetic culture led to prostration of Italy and broke
its back-bone in the absence of thought, will and character. As Sri Aurobindo
points out, “If the ethical impulse is not sufficient by itself for the development
of the human being, yet are will, character, self-discipline, self-mastery
indispensable to that development.”[14]
Synthesis of Ethics and Aesthetics
Thus, the failures of ethical and aesthetic cultures are rooted in the psychological
fact that both depend on two powerful elements in the human nature of which,
however, none can become sovereign. To be of permanent value in the social
development of mankind, culture and civilization, should be based on a principle
in human psychology which may satisfy, harmonize and integrate the whole
man. All lower elements, all working compromises, are bound to fail ultimately,
in the face of the barbaric element in every actual civilization. But ethical
conduct and aesthetic sense are necessary for the self-perfection of man. Will,
character and discipline – the essence of moral conduct – are primary conditions
of self-perfection. Aesthetic sense is also indispensable to attain the aim of self-
perfection of mental being. Ethics and Aesthetics, “Tapas and Ānanda”, can by
synthesis make each other more profound, rich and expressive. Introduction of
will, austerity and self-discipline will guide, strengthen and purify the delight of
life. Sense of beauty and delight will introduce gentleness, love and pleasure in
moral sense.
Need of a Synthetic Principle
But, the synthesis, based on a working compromise is in permanent danger of
being disrupted. Hence, it should be enlightened and integrated by some higher
principle, which may disinterestedly disengage and comprehend both. Such a
synthetic principle has been pointed out in the reason and intelligent will.
The Superiority of Reason
Reason, using the intelligent will, is undoubtedly the highest self-governing and
other-governing principle in the present stage of man’s existence. It is not man’s
only means of knowledge, yet it is better than others in many respects. But this
supremacy has also been challenged. Reason’s sovereignty has always been
imperfect and struggling, though in the end it is always generally recognized as
the authority and law-giver. One of the most widely acknowledged rivals of
reason has been faith, specially religious faith, though even this has been often
subordinated to reason. Similarly, imagination, emotion, ethical and aesthetic
need, have often asserted their claims and liberty but all these have been
generally obliged to accept the control of reason, at least partially. Still the
conflict has not stopped till now. Mankind has always been in doubt about the
validity of reason’s control of man’s entire existence, so large, so complex, so
mysterious. It has had a vague feeling that there may be certain powers, perhaps
greater than reason.
Reason and Life
The revolt against reason shows that reason cannot be a synthetic principle. Life
escapes its formulas and systems. Rational systems can help life only when they
do not claim the whole truth. Reason works through abstractions, division,
analysis and generalization. One finds a gulf between ideas and facts, a gulf
which reason cannot bridge. Reason can create only working hypotheses or
partially applicable systems. It becomes either ‘empiric’ or ‘doctrinnaire’. Thus
reason, no doubt has its utility in life, but it cannot satisfy the self-transcending
nature of man. The heights achieved by reason are without depth.
The Rational Culture
Thus a rational culture cannot be the highest unless reason includes the wisdom
of all other powers of knowledge, besides that of intellectual understanding. The
rational man is not the whole man. A rational culture cannot be a true synthesis
of ethical and aesthetic cultures. But rational culture is certainly a higher stage in
the cultural progress of man. The crisis in the present civilization, as has been
discussed in the first chapter of this thesis, serves the purpose of man’s
disillusionment. The method of Nature in the social development of man is to
take a particular principle to its extreme and put it to severe test before replacing
it by a higher principle. The failures of the present rational culture of man, the
present crisis in civilization, expose the limitations of reason as a governor of
life, just as the failures of the civilizations of Sparta and Athens laid bare the
limitations of will and feeling as governing principles of man’s existence. Thus
feeling, will and reason, all have been given a chance to build up a culture
worthy of man. Their failure does not in any way warrant their total rejection, as
none of these is without merits. All these should be given their due place in life.
They should be harmonized in an integral oneness.
Social Philosophy takes account of the history of culture and civilization of
mankind, so that it may avoid the errors committed in the past. A Social
Philosophy, which takes note of the failures of ethical, aesthetic and rational
cultures, will try to find out a principle higher than all these. This principle
should not be a compromise, as a compromise is always likely to be broken,
which may again lead to the repetition of past failures. Thus history repeats
itself. But mankind has come to a stage, where a repetition of history may lead to
the very extinction of all human history. Barbarism has never been fully
conquered by human civilization. It rose again and again, now in the Turkish
form, now in the German form. But this see-saw of civilization and barbarism is
a game, which mankind cannot afford to play any more. The invention of
nuclear weapons (the improvements in the technique of rockets and missiles) has
put such tremendous power in man’s hands that a rise of barbarism in future
threatens a disruption of the entire structure of the human race. This fact is of
immense importance for the social philosopher. This grim situation calls for a
complete reorientation in his methods and outlook.
The Principle of Integration
Thus, culture needs an integrating principle as its essence. This is the spirit in
man. The basis of a true culture, according to Sri Aurobindo, should be neither
biological instinct, nor feeling, nor will, nor reason, nor even religious fervour,
but spiritual vision. The self-transcending tendency of man which gives rise to
culture and civilization cannot rest satisfied in art, ethics, philosophy or religion.
It may stay in these only temporarily, only till it realizes its limitations. It will
pass through these, leaving none but transcending each for something higher and
more integral. And this tendency of self-transcendence will be satisfied only in
spiritual transformation.[15]
Sri Aurobindo’s Vision of the Spiritual Culture
Thus, Sri Aurobindo visualizes a spiritual culture as the culmination of the
present culture of mankind. This conception of spiritual culture is not a
conclusion based merely on the analysis of the past history of man’s civilization.
Social Philosophy is not a philosophy of history. The latter undoubtedly helps it
in its conclusions, since history, after all, is a reservoir of the experience of
thousands of years of human life upon earth. But history itself will not disclose
the aim which social development should seek. Natural process becomes self-
conscious in man, historical and cultural process becomes self-conscious in the
individual. The surveys of the processes of cultural growth presented by
Toynbee and Kroeber justify the principle that the creative growth of an
individual or individuals can lay the foundation of a great device which
constantly enriches the whole growing society. When some redeemer faces an
enigma apparantly insoluble to all other men of society, he takes recourse to
withdrawal. “In each instance,” says Prof. Toynbee, “we shall see the creative
personality or creative minority tackling the path of withdrawal and return in
order to rise, that is to say, to cope with some challenge that is confronting the
society.”[16] Toynbee goes on to point out that after this temporary seclusion, the
creative personality returns to his fellow men to lead them to new light. The
crisis of civilization, as Prof. Toynbee points out, always shows a new point of
self-articulation, the birth of a new phenomenon. In Vol. IX of his book A Study
of History, Toynbee asserts that the mechanism of challenge and response sets
the field for cultural evolutions and arranges for the fulfilment of its possibilities.
[17]

This challenge, can lead both to evolution and the breakdown of civilization.
[18]
If it is met, the society rises to higher level; if not, it falls. Thus, culture is the
product of society’s response to challenges. It is not an accidental product of
social process. Cultures are born of spiritual necessities, though the form of
challenge may be physical.
The apology for this detailed reference to Toynbee’s views, is its marked
similarity to Sri Aurobindo’s findings about the phenomenon of culture, its
origin, decay and progress. Sri Aurobindo fully realized the gravity of the
challenge which human civilization is facing. He studied the reasons of the past
failures of culture and prophesied that man’s culture can survive only if the
present challenge is faced. This challenge, Sri Aurobindo believes, like Toynbee,
to be spiritual. He, however, goes further to find out the solution through his
own experience of spirit. Thus the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, though
very much helped by his philosophy of history, is really based on his Yogic
experience, his inner evolution. It is the inner evolution of human consciousness
which supplies the principles of the cultural growth of future, meeting the
challenge of the present crisis. “The saint”, admits Toynbee, has “the power of
transforming his social milieu into conformity with the creative evolution in
himself.”[19] This is the practical basis of Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy
which, to many engrossed in the intellectual formulas, and lacking the spiritual
vision of the dynamics of social processes, may appear as a religious or mystic
utopia.
Individuality of Different Cultures
Sri Aurobindo agrees with Spengler, so far as he believes in the individuality of
different cultures. “Each nation”, says Sri Aurobindo “is a Shakti or power of the
evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies.”[20] But,
according to Spengler, this individuality is in exclusion of the universality, the
mankind. Thus, as he says, “Mankind, however, has no idea, no plan, any more
than the family of butterflies, or orchids. Mankind is a zoological expression of
an empty world.”[21] Here Sri Aurobindo does not agree with Spengler. For him,
all individual cultures are one in their spiritual essence, all are different powers
of one humanity. “Spirituality is not the monopoly of India; however it may hide
submerged in intellectualism or hid in other concealing veils, it is a necessary
part of human nature.”[22] All history is individual, rightly says Croce, but all
individuals are aspects of one universal or as Radhakrishnan puts it,
“Civilizations of man are rich and diverse no doubt, yet they are based on a
fundamental unity of spirit.”[23] Thus the diversity in different cultures is not
absolute but relative. It consists in a difference of emphasis. As Sri Aurobindo
continues, “But the difference is between spirituality made the leading motive
and the determining power of both the inner and the outer life and spirituality
suppressed, allowed only under disguises or brought in as a minor power, its
right denied or put off in favour of the intellect or of a dominant materialistic
vitalism.”[24]
Human culture, as Sri Aurobindo visualizes it, should not be a monotonous,
single culture, poorer for its uniformity. It should be achieved by the advance of
different cultures on their own lines, till all reach the spiritual level in their own
way. It is on this spiritual level that the contraries become complementaries. Its
unity is not a dead uniformity but a rich unity in diversity. In the Social
Philosophy as well as in the metaphysics of Sri Aurobindo, the unity is always
realized in and through multiplicity, individuality is even preserved in
universality and vice versa. No civilization is sheer barbarism, because of its
difference from the other, since these differences are necessary in the perfection
of human culture. Thus, as Sri Aurobindo points out, “There is here no real
question between barbarism and civilization, for all masses of men are
barbarians, labouring to civilize themselves. There is only one of the dynamic
differences necessary for the completeness of the growing orb of human
culture.”[25]
Real Idealism
Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy presents a real idealism, a meeting of the two
extremes of the materialistic and the exclusive spiritualistic or ascetic culture.
The life value of a culture according to Sri Aurobindo, should be judged by an
evaluation of its three powers; the power of its original conception of life, the
power of its forms in life, the power of the vital execution of its motives in the
actual life of the individual and community. Culture should not only provide a
material structure but also ideals, inspirations and methods of future growth of
the individual and the community. This is essential for a civilization to justify
the status of culture. However necessary may be its material contribution to life,
it is here and not in material contributions that the success and failure of a
culture is determined. All culture is essentially ideal. “The whole aim of a great
culture is to lift man up to something which at first he is not, to lead him to
knowledge, though he starts from an unfathomable ignorance, to teach him to
live by his reason, though actually he lives much more by his unreason, by the
law of good and unity, though he is now full of evil and discord, by a law of
beauty and harmony, though his actual life is a repulsive muddle of ugliness and
jarring barbarism, by some high law of his spirit, though at present he is egoistic,
material, unspiritual, engrossed by the needs and desires of his physical
being.”[26]
Difficulty of the Actualization of Ideals
This, certainly, is a very difficult task, since, as Sri Aurobindo admits, “.....there
is always a great gulf between the ideal and actual practice of life.”[27] No culture
and civilization, ancient or modern, has been successful to present a system
entirely suitable for the integral perfection of man, Each cultural ideal has been
marred by considerable limitations and imperfections in actual practice. The
greater the ideals, the more are the flaws in their actualization. Every culture
suffers by limitations, defects as well as exaggerations of its qualities.
Abstraction is rather the rule than exception in thought as well as in practical
life. Thought makes each culture continue to be living in its vigour but its
defects always threaten to sap this vitality and lead to decay and even total
annihilation. Thus in spite of some temporary and provisional completeness and
harmony realized in some great cultures as that of ancient India, “Mankind is
still no more than semi-civilized and it was never anything else in the recorded
history of its present cycle.”[28] This, however, does not sound the note of the
doom of human culture. It only shows that cultural process is a slow evolution.
All great cultures, according to Sri Aurobindo, pass through three periods in
their history. “There is a first period of large and loose formation; there is a
second period in which we see a fixing of forms, moulds and rhythms; and there
is a closing or a critical period of superannuation, decay and disintegration.”[29]
This last stage presents a crisis in the civilization, a crisis as man is facing in his
present rational culture. This crisis, according to Sri Aurobindo, is due to the
failure of the present cultural forms of the expression of spirit. It can be averted
only by the change of these forms. This transformation of the cultural forms, in
tune with the inner demands of the spirit will usher mankind in the Age of
gnostic culture, which is the theme of the XIII chapter of this work. How far this
change of forms of the cultural process can be realized through education, ethics
and religion, shall be discussed in subsequent chapters. The failure of the reason
as well as the infra-rational elements in this direction, shows that the evolution
of cultural process has now come to a stage when nothing less than the spirit
itself can divine suitable forms for it. The present spiritual crisis of human
civilization requires a change from within, a transformation of the entire race.
For some social philosophers, this is an impossible task and the crisis will lead to
the inevitable doom of the race. But, Sri Aurobindo, with his method of Yoga,
presents a solution discussed in the XII Chapter of this work. This is the basis of
his robust optimism in the future of human culture.
Interaction of Cultures
In this future evolution of mankind, each nation will contribute by growing to
the realization of its own self but each will also contribute in the growth of the
others. This interaction, according to the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is
a permanent feature of cultural growth. This is the law of the individual growth
everywhere. Monadology in individuals or communities has been based on a
false metaphysics bred by one-sided experience. This is true not only about the
physical, vital and mental growth but also in spiritual evolution. The finding of
the self within is not possible without the finding of the self without, though the
former is certainly the basis of the latter. Thus Swadharma is always the first
necessity. Its insufficiency is weakness, its failure disintegration. And the same
law is also true in the case of communities, though the community is certainly
more self-sufficient than the individual. A culture can for a time grow with the
power of inner inter-change without any contact with others. Greek civilization,
for centuries, grew in perfect isolation from the non-Hellenic cultures. The same
thing can be observed again, in ancient Indian and Chinese civilizations. This
aloofness, however, is not possible in the present world, since the different
cultures have come so close that a unified life is an unavoidable conclusion. Not
mere co-existence but active cooperation is the need of the hour.
Assimilation
This interaction, however, cannot be in the form of taking the good and leaving
the bad, a formula so popular and hence so crude and unsound, since if anything
is taken from outside, it shall always be a confusion of good and bad. But this
does not mean that taking anything from outside is improper, as that is necessary
for all development. The real point, as a matter of fact, is not the question of
taking or not taking but that of imitation or assimilation. Imitation is always a
law foreign to the nature of self-development. Assimilation and imitation require
taking over from outside. Thus, Indian Culture, however developed it may be,
must take much from European culture. This should, however, not be in the form
of imitation but assimilation.“What I mean by assimilation”, clarifies Sri
Aurobindo, “is that we must not take it crudely in the European forms, but must
go back to whatever corresponds to it, illumines its sense, justifies its highest
purport in our own spiritual conception of life and existence, and in that light
work out its extent, degree, form, relation to other ideas, application.”[30] This is
what has been described as “ātmasātkarana”, an assimilative appropriation. This
intercharge is the very nature of life. It is the very truth of ultimate Reality in
which every being is a diversity in unity. And it should be the law of every
culture. Superiority is a relative term, since no culture is absolutely superior to
another in ail the aspects. It is superior in being more developed in some more
vital aspects which are also equally necessary for an integral growth. Thus
Europe is superior to India in certain aspects of its culture. India is superior to
Europe in certain more vital aspects of culture. But the need of inter-change,
assimilation and cooperation, is imperative to both. The principles of the cultural
growth should be universal. But the actualization of these principles is individual
and needs interchange with concrete achievements of others. Hence it is that
Social Philosophy cannot offer fixed rules for the actual cultural development. It
can only point out to the past failures, analyse the value of Philosophy and
Science, Art and Literature, Education, Ethics and Religion, in the cultural
growth, devise ways of the improvement of all these and suggest a higher
method, when all these fail. It is this, which has been attempted in the
subsequent chapters of this part of the present work. It should be noted that
culture and civilization, in this view, have been taken both as the process or the
state of social development and its method to evolve to a better future. Its
components have been discussed separately to distinguish them and to show
their value and limitations in social development.

Notes and References

[1] Murphy, G., Personality, p. 129.

[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1959), p. 59.

[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., p. 106.

[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid., p. 107.
[7]
Ibid., p. 206.
[8]
Ibid., p. 365.
[9] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, The Sri Aurobindo Library, Inc. New York (1950), p. 102.

[10] Ibid., p. 105.

[11] Republic, Lindsey’s translation, Book X, p. 311.

[12] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 107.

[13] Ibid., p. 108.

[14] Ibid., p. 109.

[15] “History is to be trancended in the divine blessedness.” — Berdyaev, Divine and the Human, pp. 197-
98.
[16] Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. III, p. 263.

[17] Op. Cit. pp. 394-403.

[18]
Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, p. 12.
[19] Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol. III, p. 240.

[20] Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 5.

[21] Spengler, O., Decline of the West, Vol. I, p. 21.

[22] Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 14.

[23] Radhakrishnan, S., East and West in Religion, pp. 45-46.

[24] Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, pp. 13-14.

[25] Ibid., p. 93.

[26] Ibid., p. 199.

[27] Ibid., p. 201.

[28] Ibid., p. 202.

[29] Ibid., p. 125.

[30] Ibid., p. 444.

 CHAPTER IX
Education

“The chief aim of education should be to help the growing soul to draw
out that in itself which is best and make it perfect for a noble use.” —
Sri Aurobindo

The purpose of the present chapter is two-fold. First, to examine Sri Aurobindo’s
philosophy of education in the light of other modern and ancient approaches.
Secondly, to examine the value of education as a method of social development.
Self Education
“The child’s education”, according to Sri Aurobindo, “ought to be an
outbringing of all that is best, most powerful, most intimate and living in his
nature; the mould into which the man’s action and development ought to run is
that of his innate quality and power. He must acquire new things but he will
acquire them best, most vitally on the basis of his own developed type and
inborn force.’’[1] Thus, true education is always self-education. It is a purposive
process in which the individual realises his inner nature and its seekings. In this
process the educand uses the teachers, schools and books for the realization of
the ends characteristically his own. The educator leads the educand to a stage
when it is the latter’s nature which gives the lead and shows the way. Thus this
is pupil-centred education. Modern philosophers of education are unanimous in
this value of educand in the educational process.
Psychological Basis of Education
According to Sri Aurobindo, “Nothing can be taught to the mind which is not
already concealed as potential knowledge in the unfolding soul of the
creature.”[2] The task of education is not to build something new. It manifests and
develops the potentialities of the human being. The high optimism of Watson,
the environmentalist to mould any one in any way through education is not
proved to be based on sound foundation. Educational theory must be based on
sound psychology. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “The true basis of education is
the study of the human mind, infant, adolescent and adult.”[3] The main defect of
the environmentalist was to think that man is like wood or clay which could be
given any shape. It has now been finally established that man comes to this
world with a certain given structure, capacities and abilities, that there is
something like human nature, that this can be changed under certain limitations
but at the same time has immense possibilities of development. Man’s education
should be according to his nature.
Education and Ideals
The aim of education in society will be determined by the nature of society and
man we cherish. “The educational system which we attempt to set up”, says
Cole, “must depend on the kind of society we mean to live in, on the qualities in
men and women on which we set the highest value, and on the estimates which
we make of the educability both of those who are endowed with the higher
intellectual or aesthetic capacities and of ordinary people.”[4] Sri Aurobindo
cherishes a divine society and a divine man. Hence his scheme of education aims
at the achievement of the divine perfection of man as well as human society. In
his philosophy of education, Sri Aurobindo has tried to arrive at an integral
synthesis of the ideals of the East and the findings of the West. He maintains
with ancient Indian seers that the ultimate aim of education is the fullest and
most perfect realisation of the Divine in man. Education has always been
regarded in India “as a source of illumination and power which transforms and
enables our nature by the progressive and harmonious development of our
physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual powers and faculties.”[5] In the
tradition of ancient Indian system of education, Sri Aurobindo favours an
integral education. Man aims at an integral self-realisation and education is
useful to him to the extent it serves this purpose.
Fundamental Principles of Education
Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy is based on certain fundamental principles. First, the
child should himself know and develop, the teacher should only guide and help.
As Froebel has pointed out, “The fundamental principles of education,
instruction and teaching should be passive and protective, not directive and
interfering.”[6] This is true for every educand without distinction of age and sex.
Secondly, education must suit the particular qualities, capacities, ideas and
virtues etc., of the educand. To follow swadharma is the principle of growth
everywhere, individual as well as national. Imitation is the imposition of an alien
rule. Each individual and each community should have a system of education
suitable to its genius. This is necessary both for the perfect working of society
and individual. Here Sri Aurobindo reiterates what has been already emphasized
by ancient Greek and Indian philosophers of education. According to Plato,
“Each social element should do that which it is most fitted to do, thus
contributing to the common stock the best that it has to give, and receiving from
each other element that of which it is itself most in need.”[7] From this follows
the second principle “that the mind has to be consulted in its own growth.”[8]
This is the principle of individual liberty which Rousseau in the West
emphasized so much. “Let us obey the call of nature;” said Rousseau, the
naturalist, “we shall see that her yoke is easy and that when we give heed to her
voice we find the joy in the answer of a good conscience.”[9] Thus Rousseau
preached education for liberty as if liberty itself is the ultimate end. He,
however, forgot that liberty serves some higher ideal without which it becomes
sheer intemperance. True liberty is the freedom of self-realization and here there
is no conflict of the individual and social ideal, as the self is the same in both.
This ideal of liberty does not stop with the social adjustment of the individual, it
leads to his incessant growth in the Divine. True liberty is neither individual nor
social but divine, as the Divine is ultimately the real foundation of everything.
Rousseau was rightly against all constraint. Constraint in education must give
place to consent but this should be the consent to grow individually, universally
as well as transcendentally.
The ideal of self-realization has been rightly cherished by many as the
proper aim of education but the nature of this self has been missed more often
than not. Sri Aurobindo points out the real psychic entity behind the physical,
vital and the mental formulations as the real self, to be realized in the
educational process. As he says, “The closer touch attempted with the psychical
being behind the vital and physical mentality and an ever-increasing reliance on
its possibilities must lead to the ultimate discovery that man is inwardly a soul
and a conscious power of the Divine and that the evocation of this real man
within is the right object of education and indeed of all human life, if it would
find and live according to the hidden truth and deepest law of its own being.”[10]
Thus the chief aim of education is to help the growing soul to draw out what is
best in itself and to make it perfect.
“The third principle of education”, according to Sri Aurobindo, “is to work
from the near to the far, from that which is to that which shall be.”[11] This, as a
matter of fact, is a direct corollary of the second. The syllabi, the medium of
instruction, the atmosphere of the educational institutions, everything should be
natural to the educand. Not only the ideal but the form of education too must be
swadeshi. Diversity in unit is the principle of spiritual growth everywhere. Thus,
a national system of education should be rooted in the national past, and should
work through the medium of a national language. This, however, does not mean
rejection of Western knowledge, Western science and the English language. As
Sri Aurobindo clearly puts it, “The aim and principle of a true national education
is not certainly to ignore modern truth and knowledge but to take our foundation
on our own belief, our own mind, our own spirit.”[12] This principle has also been
emphasized by other philosophers of education of the resurgent India, viz.
Gandhi, Tagore, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan. “The wider patriotism,
“according to Radhakrishnan, “does not supersede but embraces the narrower
patriotisms.”[13]
The Instrument of Education
The aim of education according to ancient Indian thinkers was described as
Chitta-Vratti Nirodh. Thus Chitta is the instrument of education. Education is a
process of the control of mind so that in the mind may dawn the realization of
the true self. Sri Aurobindo postulates mind or antahkarana as the instrument of
education. Antahkarana, according to Sri Aurobindo, consists of the following
four layers.[14]
(i) Chitta – This is the reservoir of past memories and mental impressions.
This has two aspects, passive and active, with passive and active
memory, respectively. It is the latter which needs education and
training.
(ii) Manas – This receives images of things through sensations of different
sense-organs. It also directly receives mental images and forms mental
impressions. These sensations and impressions supply material to
thought. Thus the training of sense-organs and organs of activity is a
prelude to all sound thinking and the first step in a proper education.
(iii) Buddhi – This is the proper instrument of thought. It systematises
sensations, images and mental impressions. Its functions are of two
types : (a) Functions and faculties[15] of the right hand. These include
judgment, imagination, memory and observation. Its abilities are
comprehensive, creative and synthetic. This part of the mind is the
master of knowledge. It penetrates the soul. It grasps that which is
elusive and unascertained. Its abilities act and manipulate in their own
right. (b) Functions and faculties of the left hand : These are critical and
analytic and include comparison and reasoning. The critical abilities are
 the component parts of the logical reason. They perform the functions
of distinction, comparison, classification, generalisation, deduction,
inference and conclusion. This part of the mind follows the ascertained
truths. It touches only the body of knowledge. Both the above-
mentioned types of functions and abilities are essential for the working
of human reason. Hence both require proper training and development
in a sound system of education.
(iv) Supra-normal faculties – They comprise the functions included in the
working of psi phenomena such as ESP (Extra-sensory perception)
including telepathy and clairvoyance and PK (psychokinesis) and the
phenomena of genius. These, however, cannot be developed by
instruction. The educator can only remove the impediments in their
growth. He should see that they develop properly and without
hindrances. It is to be noted here that Sri Aurobindo has not only
emphasized the importance of these supra-normal, or in modern
parapsychological terminology, paranormal functions, he has also given
hints for their control in his yogic writings.[16] Sri Aurobindo is in
favour of special education to each, suitable to his individuality. For Sri
Aurobindo, as for Aldous Huxley, “A perfect education is one which
trains up every human being to fit into the place he or she is to occupy
in the social hierarchy, but without, in the process, destroying his or her
individuality.”[17]
Moral Education
Sri Aurobindo strongly emphasizes the need of moral education in a sound
system of education. This however, cannot be done by instructions through a
fixed syllabus. These can improve the intellect but cannot lead to emotional
integration. Moral text-books, like other books, may render moral thinking
mechanical and artificial. Man’s moral nature is composed of three things –
emotions, samskaras and svabhava. These are to be transformed if man has to
become moral. Without this transformation, all outer changes at best touch the
fringe but not the centre. Rigid discipline in educational institutions or at home
leads to compulsions, repressions and fits of violence. “The essence of discipline
is, thus, not forced subordination to the will of hated tyrants, but submission to
the example of admired superiors.”[18] Nothing persists unless it becomes a part
of nature. This, however, does not indicate that formal moral and religious
education can be neglected. This negligence will corrupt the race. Purely mental
instruction leads to one-sided development of personality and character.
Wherever this is the system of education, there are bound to be complaints of
indiscipline and lack of character and balance in the educated young men and
women. The ancient Indian system of education in which the Guru was the
living ideal before the disciples was far better than the modern Indian or
European system of education. That system, however, cannot be brought back on
account of many new problems, such as increase of population, urbanization,
industrialization and complexity of modern culture. But it is not impossible to
establish an educational system in which teachers may be friends, guides and
helpers and not hired instructors or benevolent policemen. The only compulsion
necessary for the educand is the compulsion of the inner situations of his self-
development.
Moral training, according to Sri Aurobindo, can be imparted by suggestion
and not by command. As Swami Vivekananda puts it, “Like fire in a piece of
flint, knowledge exists in the mind, suggestion is the friction which brings it
out.”[19] This suggestion has to be exercised by personal example, daily talks and
the books read from day to day. Books provide a kind of satsang, the company
of great souls. For the younger students, the examples of the past should be
presented in an interesting style. For the elder students, ideas and activities of
great men should be presented in a way that may arouse deeper emotions and
higher aspirations. The text-books should avoid all sermons. Sermons do not
change hearts. What is required is the noble example of the teachers themselves
and freedom to the educand to express his moral impulses. The Indian varna
system presents a fine analysis of the different moral qualities required for the
proper functioning of different persons in society. These qualities can be
developed only when the young are given opportunity to train themselves in the
Aryan tradition. Bad qualities, habits and samskars of mind and body should be
treated as curable diseases and removed through the cultivation of positive
virtues and self control. Sri Aurobindo shows a profound insight into human
nature when he points out, “The wildness and recklessness of many young
natures are only the overflowings of an excessive strength, greatness and
nobility. They should be purified, not discouraged.”[20]
Religious Teaching
Together with moral teaching, Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the need of religious
teaching. This religious teaching, however, should not be through the teaching of
religious dogmas, since it either leads to mechanical acceptance of a creed or
creates the fanatic ritualist Theoretical teaching should go with actual practice.
No religious teaching is of any value unless it is practised. This is possible by
religious life through the use of various kinds of sadhana, spiritual self-training
and exercise. No particular form of sadhana can be prescribed for all. Sadhana
may take any form to suit the particular individual but the essential point is that
the essence of religion should be made the ideal of every national institution of
education. The essence of religion, according to Sri Aurobindo is “to live for
God, for humanity, for country, for others and for oneself in these.”[21]
Simultaneous and Successive Teaching
Sri Aurobindo is against teaching by snippets. He favours the ancient Indian
system of education in which there was not so much variety but one or two
subjects were taught thoroughly. It built up a deeper, nobler and more real
culture. Sri Aurobindo does not blindly follow either the ancient or the modern
system of education. He advises the educator to select the most perfect and rapid
means of mastering knowledge. The earliest permissible age for the
commencement of any regular study, according to Sri Aurobindo, is seven or
eight. At this age, the child is fairly capable of concentration and can attend to a
subject for a sufficiently long time. The complaint that the child cannot attend to
a subject for long is applicable only to very young children and that is the
argument given in favour of having so many subjects in the syllabus of early
education. But the cause of inattention is either the very young age of the
educand or a wrong method of teaching based on harsh compulsion. A natural
self-education should substitute this unnatural system. The child should be made
to feel interested in his subject. “To lead him on step by step, interesting and
absorbing him in each as it comes, until he has mastered his subject, is the true
art of teaching.”[22]
Medium of Instruction
The mastery of the medium of instruction is a necessary pre-requisite to any
regular study of a subject. It is only after the mastery of one’s own mother
tongue that one can hope to learn other languages. A mastery of the mother
tongue will open to the educand treasures of literature and history of his own
country. He should be introduced to the life around him. All this is very much in
agreement with Gandhi’s scheme of basic education.
The Training of the Senses[23]
The second important requirement in the early education of the child is the
training of the senses. Man gathers the material of thought through the senses of
sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. These senses function through the physical
nerves and their end-organs – eyes, ears, nose, skin and palate. What is required
in the perfection of the senses is their accuracy and sensitiveness. Accuracy and
sensitiveness of the senses depends on the unobstructed activity of the nerves
and the passive acceptance of the mind. The sense organs, if healthy, do their
work perfectly. The cure of any physical defect in them is the job of the
physician and not of the educationist. The obstructed activity of the nerves may
be of two types. First, the obstruction which stops the information reaching the
mind at all and secondly the obstruction which distorts the information. They
can be cured by the purification of the nervous system, nadi suddhi, the
regulation of breathing. Nadi Suddhi quietens the system and makes for the
habitual steadiness of the nerves. This remedies the emotional disturbance.
Another cause of the disturbance of the information is the obstruction in the
manas. Manas is both a sense-organ and a channel. As a sense-organ, it is
automatically perfect. As a channel, it is subject to obstruction or distortion.
These obstructions are mainly due to three types of obstacles – (i) the nervous-
emotional, which can be removed by purification of the nervous system, (ii)
Emotions warping the impressions, which require the purification of moral
habits, (iii) Interference of associations formed or ingrained in the Chitta, which
can be removed by Chitta Suddhi or purification of the mental and the moral
habits formed in the Chitta. “It consists in bringing about passivity of the restless
flow of thought sensations rising of its own momentum from the passive
memory independent of our will and control.” This makes the intellect free from
all prejudices and preconceptions, so that it may properly discriminate, choose,
select and arrange.
Sense Improvement by Practice
Insufficient use is another cause of the inefficiency of the senses. This is due to
the inattention of the Buddhi. Observation can be developed by care in the use of
the sense and the memory. It requires attention which will be readily reviving, if
the object is sufficiently interesting. “This attention to a single thing is called
concentration.”[24] According to Sri Aurobindo, by steady natural practice

(abhyasa) one can develop the power of double, triple or multiple concentration
which sometimes become indispensable in the process of knowledge. Muscular
coordination specially the coordination of the hands with the sense-organs is
very desirable. “Imitation by the hand ensures accuracy of observation.”[25] This
is developed by means of drawing.
Training of the Mental Faculties
Comenious based his educational system upon the dictum, “Children learn to do
by doing.” Froebel laid down the motto, “Children grow by doing.” Sri
Aurobindo accepts this principle of learning through activity. He, however, also
emphasizes what these philosophers have omitted, i.e. learning through
passivity. The child should be taught to use his sense-organs and physical organs
but at the same time he should also learn to make his mind passive and receptive.
In practical teaching what is necessary is not the presentation of the
different types of knowledge but an appeal to the particular qualities of the
educand in mastering a particular subject. Thus history can be taught by
appealing to interesting narrative, hero worship and patriotism. Science can be
taught by an appeal to the child’s tendencies to inquire, investigate and analyze.
Philosophy can be taught by arousing the child’s intellectual curiosity and the
tendency for metaphysical enquiry. Art can be developed by an appeal to the
educand’s gifts of limitation and imagination.
According to Sri Aurobindo, “The first thing the teacher has to do is to
accustom the pupil to concentrate attention.”[26] This concentration should be
encouraged to know a thing through all the senses, to analyze it and observe it
attentively, succinctly and systematically until he knows it as a whole. All this
learning should be spontaneous and automatic without any pressure from
outside. Besides attention and concentration, memory and judgment should also
be encouraged. This should not be done by means of mechanical repetition.
Memory can be trained by the use of natural things, such as flowers, by
encouraging the child to notice their distinct marks through comparison and
contrast. The observation, distinction, comparison and contrast of the flowers,
leaves, plants and trees, will lay the foundation of the knowledge of botany.
Similarly, astronomy may be learnt by an observation of the stars, geology by
the observation of the earth and stones etc., entomology by the observation of
insects and zoology by the observation of animals. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
“There is no scientific subject the perfect and natural mastery of which cannot be
prepared in early childhood by this training of the faculties to observe, compare,
remember and judge various classes of objects.”[27]
Another ability of the mind which requires training is judgment. Here the
first postulate is self-confidence. The educand should trust his judgment after
judging correctly and closely. Again, he should compare his judgment with those
of others so that he may know how far he was right and where he went wrong.
This comparison and contrast will strengthen the mental faculty of analogy.
Imagination should also be trained. Then there is the need of a fine sense of
words. “The mind should be accustomed first to notice the word thoroughly, its
form, sound and sense; then to compare the form with other similar forms in
points of similarity and difference, thus forming the foundation of the
grammatical sense; then to distinguish between the fine shades of sense of
similar words and the formation of the literary and the syntactual faculties.”[28]
Training of the Logical Powers of the Mind
After training the senses, the learner should be given a training of the logical
powers of the mind. Correct reasoning depends on correctness of the facts or
conclusions, overcoming the difficulty of getting all the facts correctly and
completely and then the elimination of all the possibile conclusions except the
right one. This fallibility can be reduced to the minimum by keenness and care.
Logic should not be taught from text books. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “...it
should proceed from the example to the rule and from the accumulating harmony
of rules to the formal science of the subject.”[29] In this process of learning, the
first step is to draw inference from facts and to trace causes and effects. The
second step is to notice the successes and failures and find out their reasons. It is
only after practice in logical reasoning that logic should be formally taught.
Perfection of the Body
But without physical culture, mental training cannot lead to complete education.
“Where the body is maladjusted and under strain, the mind’s relations, sensory,
emotional, intellectual, conative, with external reality are likely to be
unsatisfactory.”[30] Education aims at an all round and total perfection of the
individual and society. Hence physical culture should form an important part of
the educational process. As Sri Aurobindo puts it, “If our seeking is for a total
perfection of the being, the physical part of it cannot be left aside; for the body is
the material basis, the body is the instrument which we have to use.”[31] Physical
culture aims at the perfection of the body, health, strength and fitness. Sports and
games develop habits, capacities and qualities which are required in the
individual and collective endeavours of man’s life. Physical culture, besides
keeping the body fit and strong, helps in the development of discipline, morale
and character. Different sports need different qualities and thus help in their
development. But as Sri Aurobindo points out, “One development of the utmost
value is the awakening of the essential and instinctive body-consciousness which
can see and do what is necessary without any indication from mental thought
and which is equivalent in the body to swift insight in the mind and spontaneous
and rapid decision in the will.”[32] Collective marches and drill lead to the
formation of a capacity for harmonious and right movements of the body. This
results in an economy of physical effort and elimination of any waste of energy.
It develops the sporting spirit. Games help develop the sense of discipline,
obedience, order and habits of team-work. These qualities are helpful in the
individual, national and international development of all kinds – physical, mental
and spiritual. Again, like the ancient Indian thinkers, Sri Aurobindo emphasizes
the value of Brahmacharya for human perfection. It increases the force within
and turns it towards higher ends. It raises the physical to the spiritual.
Brahmacharya disciplines rajas and makes the student receptive to illumination.
The body should be trained to respond to higher parts of man’s being. This
always used to be a sound foundation of education in ancient India. By mental
control, the body becomes more conscious, self-aware and perfect. Physical
fitness is necessary for any mental acitivity and mental fitness is equally
necessary for effective physical activity. Man’s spiritual evolution needs gradual
evolution of both physical and mental aspects of his being. This requires a
transformation of the body and the mind. No spiritual manifestation can be
perfect without this transformation. This is the fundamental law of evolution
according to Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy.
Education and Yoga
As is clear from the foregoing elaboration of Sri Aurobindo’s views, a complete
education needs the help of yoga. To put it more clearly, yoga is the culmination
of education. In ancient India, preliminary yogic practices formed an essential
part of the syllabus. Yama, niyama, asana, pranayama were practised by the
students. Practice of concentration was an essential training. Both education and
yoga seek the same ultimate ideal of individual and social development. Where
educational practices exhaust their best means for this purpose, Yoga takes up to
lead man to perfection. Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, education does not
end at the physical and mental training still less on literacy or the gathering of
information. It should lead to the highest end, viz., integral development of the
individual and society. And in this process, when it reaches the higher physical,
mental and spiritual levels, it should bow its head to yoga and acquiesce.
 Notes and References
[1]
Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, Second Series, Arya Publishing House, Cal.(1949), p. 319.
[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Sri Aurobindo Library, Inc. New York (1950), p. 2.

[3] Sri Aurobindo, A System of National Education, Arya Publishing House, Cal. (1948), p. 1.

[4] Cole, G.D.H., Essays in Social Theory, p. 47.

[5] Altekar, A.S., Education in Ancient India, p. 8.

[6] Froebels, Chief Educational Writing on Education, Translated by Dr. Fletcherm, p. 32.

[7] Nettleship, R.K., The Theory of Education in Plato’s Republic, 1935, p. 4.

[8]
Sri Aurobindo, A System of National Education, pp. 3-6.
[9] Rousseau, K.J.J., Emile, p. 251.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 35.

[11]
Sri Aurobindo, A System of National Education, p. 5.
[12]
Sri Aurobindo, Integral Education, Compiled by Dr. Indra Sen, Sri Aurobindo International Society,
Pondicherry (1952), p. 4.
[13] Radhakrishnan, S., Report of the University Education Commission, Vol. 1, p. 53.

[14] Sri Aurobindo, A System of National Education, pp. 7-12.

[15] By faculties here Sri Aurbindo means abilities and not powers of the faculty psychology.

[16] The theme has been elaborated in the author’s paper, control of Psi Phenomena in Sri Aurobindo’s
Yoga. Proceedings of the Seminar on Yoga and Parapsychology, Lucknow University, India (1962),
pp. 49-54.
[17]
Huxley, A., Proper Studies, Chatto and Windus, London (1928), p. 136.
[18] Hughes, A.G., Education and the Democratic Ideal, p. 92.

[19] Vivekananda, The Complete Works, Part I, IVth Edition, p. 26.

[20] Sri Aurobindo, A System of National Education, p. 20.

[21] Ibid., pp. 24-25.

[22] Ibid., p. 21.

[23] Ibid., pp. 31-40.

[24] Ibid., p. 38.

[25] Ibid., p. 44.

[26] Ibid., p. 46.

[27] Ibid., p. 49.

[28] Ibid., p. 52.

[29] Ibid., p. 56:

[30] Huxley, A., Ends and Means, p. 220.

[31] Sri Aurobindo, The Supramental Manifestation, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1952), p. 8.

[32]
Sri Aurobindo, Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo international Centre of Education, Vol. XII, No. 1, Feb.
1960, p. 94.
 CHAPTER X
Ethics

Man, therefore, has first of all to become ethical, sukrti, and then to
rise to heights beyond any mere ethical rule of living, to the light,
largeness and power of the spiritual nature, where he gets beyond the
grasp of the dualities and its delusion, dvanda-moha. ” — Sri
Aurobindo

The criterion of social development, according to most of the western social

philosphers, is the moral progress in the individuals and society. Thus ethics has
been considered as the most potent method of social development. This
contention, to be fully verified and examined, requires a two-fold enquiry. First,
what is that standard of morality which is the wisest and hence the widest and
most comprehensive? Such a theory of moral standard will, obviously,
harmonize and integrate all other theories, show their limitations and weld them
into a more perfect theory. Secondly, does moral progress realize an integral
evolution of man and society? As this is the aim of social development,
discussed in the chapter VII of this work, the social philosopher will find out the
true nature of ethics, its highest standard and its value. But he will also see its
value for the achievement of the ideal of social development, find out its
limitations, if there are any, and suggest other methods which might be an
improvement upon it. Sri Aurobindo examines various standards of morality,
presents a standard at once integrating and transcending others, assesses the
value of moral progress in social development, shows its limitations and finally
indicates how religion and yoga advance upon the ethical method.
The Basic Fallacy
The basic fallacy underlying the different theories of ethics is the same as it is in
the theories of psychology, metaphysics and religion. All these suffer from the
defect of abstraction. Theories of ethics, psychology and metaphysics have been
generally built upon the truths of some one aspect of man’s being, on the truth of
the individual in isolation from society and vice versa, and on similar other
abstractions. But as Sri Aurobindo points out, “The ethical being escapes from
all these formulae: it is a law to itself and finds its principle in its own eternal
nature which is not in its essential character a growth of evolving mind, even
though it may seem to be that in its earthly history, but a light from the ideal, a
reflection in man of the Divine.”[1] Morality, religion, science, metaphysics, all

should seek the development of the whole man, not isolated from but in and
through society. This is the aim of all the efforts of man.
Need of a Dynamic Outlook
Apart from this basic fallacy of abstraction, ethics has been generally conceived
as the confirmation of some fixed moral principles. The man must subordinate
himself to the moral law. “The moral law is a categorical imperative”, said Kant.
This imposition of the moral law on man does not take account of the fact that
man is a dynamic being whose laws of practical life should also change
according to his growth. Law is for man’s development. Morality is a mere
means to that end. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “Rising from its infra-rational
beginnings through its intermediate dependence on the reason to a supra-rational
consummation, the ethical is like the aesthetic and the religious being of man a
seeking after the Eternal.”[2] This view seeks to cut at the root of all sorts of
dualism and abstractions. In it, there is no gulf between selfishness and altruism,
theoretical and practical, this world and the other world, moral and non-moral. It
takes account of the whole man, as a progressing, developing being, seeking the
fulfilment of his tendencies.
The Ultimate End
Thus the ultimate end, according to the moral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is
God-realisation. This is the criterion of good and right. “All takes new values not
from itself, but from the consciousness that uses it; for there is only one thing
essential, needful, indispensable, to grow conscious of the Divine Reality and
live in it and live it always.”[3] This is a principle on which Indian sages have
generally agreed. It is the ultimate standard in the ethics of the Gita, of Gandhi
and many other thinkers. It is the real inner meaning of the ethics of self-
realization, for as Sri Aurobindo points out, “The seeking for God is also,
subjectively, the seeking for our highest, truest, fullest, largest self.”[4] In the
philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, man, world and God, are three forms of the same
Reality – Existent, Conscious and Blissful. To realize that Reality is the supreme
end. Thus “Good is all that helps the individual and the world towards their
divine fullness and evil is all that retards or breaks up that increasing
perfection.”[5] These concepts of good and evil in Sri Aurobindo’s ethics are

dynamic since their aim is progressive and evolving in time. Hence no rigid rules
of conduct can be framed. The temporality of the forms of moral conduct is quite
compatible with the eternity of moral ideals.
Ethics: A means to God-realisation
Kant preached “duty for the sake of duty.” Sri Aurobindo along with the Gita,
accepts duty for the sake of God. He interprets the central teaching of the Gita in
a way different from that of Samkara, Ramanuja and Tilak, etc. To him, “The
Gita does not teach the disinterested performance of duties but the following of
the divine life, the abandonment of all Dharmas, sarvadharmān, to take refuge in
the Supreme alone, and the divine activity of a Buddha, a Rama Krishna, a
Vivekananda is perfectly in consonance with this teaching.”[6] Thus, like the Gita,

Sri Aurobindo strongly emphasizes the value of Karma in life. There he agrees
with Tilak, his closest associate in political activities. But he does not admit
Karma as an end in itself. The ideal man of Sri Aurobindo’s moral philosophy
works neither for himself nor for society, nor even for duty itself but for God, as
an instrument in His hand. It is a state higher than of the ideal in Kantian ethics.
‘Duty for duty’ is the highest principle and categorical imperative, so long as
ethical being has not advanced from his mental level. But as the man transcends
mental level, his performance of works becomes an outgrowing from the soul.
Transvaluation of Values
Thus, like Nietzsche, Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the transvaluation of values.
The superman, the Divine, not the demon of Nietzsche, transcends customary
morality, according to the law of his nature. In the spiritual progress of man, as
Sri Aurobindo points out, “there could begin a heightening of our force of
conscious being so as to create a new principle of consciousness, a new range of
activities, new values for all things, a widening of our consciousness and life, a
taking up and transformation of the lower grades of our existence, – in brief, the
whole evolutionary process by which the Spirit in Nature creates a higher type of
being.”[7]
Self-Sacrifice
This transvaluation of values, this realization of the real self, requires self-
sacrifice as its necessary condition. So long as man identifies himself with the
physical and vital needs, impulses and desires, he lives as an animal. Moral
progress requires growth from this lower stage. This growth means a constant
widening and deepening of the concept of self. This requires constant self-
sacrifice which according to Sri Aurobindo “is the flowering of mankind’s
ethical growth, the evidence of our gradual rise from the self-regarding animal to
the selfless divinity.”[8] This evolution, like all integral growth is a gradual
process. The notion of the self is gradually widened and deepened in spiritual
growth. Thus, first the egoistic individual self widens to include the welfare of
the family as one’s own welfare. In the second stage, it is realized that the
community has a larger claim on the man than his family. This communal self is
again enlarged to include the self in nation. This nationalism has been held in
great reverence in the present age. It is sometimes thought to require the highest
self-sacrifice. But the progressive ethical being, realizes that even this self
should be enlarged to include the whole humanity. This has been considered as
the highest realization of self in most ethical theories of self-realization. Sri
Aurobindo points out the need of a still wider and deeper enlargement of self,
the realization of the Divine Self, individual, universal and transcendent. All
lesser selves should be sacrificed for this highest self. This is the true and whole
meaning of self-realization in the moral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.
Positive Ethics
This self-sacrifice does not mean the negation of the lower selves. Sri
Aurobindo’s ethics, like his philosophy, is positive. It negates nothing, but
includes, integrates and fulfils all. And it is here that it has its superiority over
other theories. Sri Aurobindo’s ethics is everywhere based on a sound
psychology. It never preaches repression but spontaneous growth. The really
important thing in moral growth is sincerity and perpetual progress. Given this,
the man can safely go in the enjoyments and thus weaken the passions, before
they drop down like ripe fruits. This is the surest way of progress, since,
coercion and repression duly lead to frustration and pathological symptoms. The
real thing is the positive growth towards the realization of the divine self, for, as
the man advances in this path, the impediments automatically disappear in due
course.
The Criterion of Morality
Thus, the realization of the divine self is the criterion of the morality of action.
“By wrong is meant what departs from the truth, from the higher consciousness
and higher self, from the way of the divine.”[9] Morality, according to Sri
Aurobindo, does not depend on consequences, as among the Hedonists and
Marxists. Nor does it depend on the motive or intention, as among the
rationalists. It depends on the growth of consciousness, on the extent to which
man’s conduct is a true instrument of self-expression, since, as Sri Aurobindo
points out, “Some instruments are treasured up, some are flung aside and
shattered, but all are instruments.”[10] The highest reward of the ethical being is
his inner evolution. It is for this alone and not for any outer result that he acts.
Sri Aurobindo agrees with Pringle Pattison as against Kant, when he says, “But
the truly ethical being does not need a system of rewards and punishments to
follow the path of good and shun the path of evil; virtue to him is its own
reward, sin brings with it its own punishment in the suffering of a fall from his
own law of nature: this is the true ethical standard.”[11]
Postulates of Ethics
God, according to Sri Aurobindo is not a moral postulate. Here he differs from
Kant who demonstrates God as a moral necessity. Sri Aurobindo, like the Gita,
takes morality as a divine necessity. Morality according to Sri Aurobindo, is
transitional and not ultimate. Nor does it depend upon rewards and punishment.
Hence there is no need of bringing in a God as a pay-master. “Cosmic existence
is not a vast administrative system of universal justice with a cosmic law of
recompense and retribution as its machinery or a divine legislator and judge at
its centre.”[12]
Freedom of Will
Nor is rebirth a moral necessity. Thus, of the three postulates of ethics, as laid
down by Kant, Sri Aurobindo only admits freedom of the will. He says, “It is
doubtful whether belief in fate or free-will makes much difference to a man’s
action, but it certainly matters a great deal to his temperament and inner being;
for it puts its stamp on the cast of his soul.”[13] Thus, freedom of the will is the
foundation of ethics. This idea of freedom of the will, in Sri Aurobindo’s ethics,
is the same as it is in the ethics of the Gita. Freedom of the will is not
indeterminism but self-determinism and ultimately God-determinism, as self is
God. This idea bridges the gulf between man and Nature, between freedom of
the will and fate. It steers clear of the old controversy of freedom versus
determinism. As Sri Aurobindo says, “There is a Will or Force in the world
which determines the result of my actions as part of the great whole; there is a
will that determines, concealed by my thought and personal choice, the part that
I shall take in determining the whole. It is this that my mind seizes on and calls
my will. But I and mine are masks. It is All- Existence that gives me my reality;
it is the All-will and All-knowledge that while I calculate, works in me for its
own incalculable purpose. For this very reason, I am right in laying stress on my
free-will.”[14] This is the secret of all conduct, all delight in work. Man is the

instrument; his social self, the actor but his divine self is the real master of the
work. To be that is the consummation of all moral conduct.
Ethics of Self-Realization
“Morality is in the ordinary view”, says Sri Aurobindo, “a well regulated
individual and social conduct which keeps society going and leads towards a
better, a more rational, temperate, sympathetic, self-restrained dealing with our
fellows. But ethics in the spiritual point of view is much more, it is a means of
developing in our action and still more essentially in the character of our being
the diviner self in us, a step of our growing into the nature of the Godhead.”[15]
Thus Sri Aurobindo presents an ethics of self realization. “To discover the
spiritual being in himself is the main business of the spiritual man and to help
others towards the same evolution is his real service to the race.”[16] This
standard as self realization synthesises egoism with altruism, reason with
sensibility, individual with society and even transcends this synthesis.
Perfectionism or Eudaemonism is definitely an advance upon other theories,
when it regards self-realization as the end and includes social and individual,
rational and sensible, egoistic and altruistic aspects in the total self. But while
taking the rational self to do the highest, it falls short of the complete ideal.
Reason, as Hegel has advocated, proceeds through a dialectical process. It
cannot completely transform the infra-rational. This fact has led so many anti-
intellectual philosophers to revolt against the philosophy of “bloodless ballot of
categories.” Some extremists even subordinated reason to passion. Bradley
retorted “Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on
instinct.”[17] Reason in Plato, Aristotle and even in Hegel, is certainly not
intellectual but it is also not the Spirit, since the Spirit not only transcends but
integrates. The spiritual self, as Sri Aurobindo points out, is not only individual
and social but above all transcendental. This transcendental aspect of self has
been missed by almost all the moralists. This self is more than Truth, Beauty and
Goodness since it is Consciousness, Existence and Bliss. In it neither social nor
individual, neither rational nor infra-rational is subordinated to each other but
integrated, transformed and spiritualized. Reason is not an end in itself. With
infra-rational, it also seeks for its destiny.
Transcendence of Ethics
Thus ethics transcends into spirituality. Ethics by its very nature goes beyond
itself. “It is a moral duty not to be moral” says Bradley, and this is “the duty to
be religious.”[18] This phrase, while wrongly calling the religious urge “the duty”,
rightly points out to man’s groping for something higher than ethics. Life seeks
its absolutes. Morality is essentially a matter of mental level. Kant rightly
pointed out the persistent element of conflict in moral life. “Virtue, in fact, lives
in the life of its antagonist”[19] is the paradox of morality. To solve this paradox,
one should transcend the moral level itself. It is then alone that the moral conflict
is reconciled together with all other conflicts. Both Sri Aurobindo and Gandhi
visualized self- realization or God realization as the ultimate end. Gandhi
stopped at the moral level.[20] Sri Aurobindo goes beyond, through religious and
spiritual levels, to envisage a perpetual progress in supramental gnosis. Thus
morality, for him, is a passing phase. As he says, “These problems are of the
mind and the ignorant life, they do not accompany us beyond mind; as there is a
cessation of the duality of truth and error in an infinite Truth-Consciousness, so
there is a liberation from the duality of good and evil in an infinite Good, there is
transcendence.”[21] Thus morality belongs to the level of ignorance. But its real
foundation is the same as that of religion and spirituality. It is man’s urge to
grow, to be universal, to transcend his individuality which leads him towards
morality, though only to transcend to a higher level. “Our inner nature is the
progressive expression of the eternal spirit and too complex a power to be tied
down by a single dominant mental or moral principle.”[22]
Indispensability of Ethics
But transcendence, by no means, disproves the indispensability of ethics. In the
evolution of man, every stage has its importance in the whole. The higher does
not negate the lower but integrates it while transcending it. “But, nonetheless,
there is also this other middle truth of consciousness which awakens us to the
values of good and evil and the appreciation of their necessity and importance;
this awakening, whatever may be the sanction or validity of its particular
judgments, is one of the indispensable steps in the process of evolutionary
Nature.”[23]
The Progress of the Ethical Being
Morality is a middle stage between Nature and Super-Nature. Both Nature and
Supernature are non-moral. Morality transcends Nature; Supernature transcends
morality. Like other impulses and activities, ethical impulse and activity also
arises from the infra-rational and the sub-conscient. With Freud, Sri Aurobindo
admits the sub-conscious and instinctive beginning of whatever is great and
small in human life but that admission does not decide value. Thus morality is at
first instinctive and accepted without questioning. Man obeys the moral law as
the social law or the law of Nature. But gradually man’s reason asserts its
supremacy to correct the crude ethical instinct, to separate and purify the ideas,
to harmonize the clash of moral ideals and finally to arrange a system of ethical
action. This is a necessary stage in our advance but ultimately man cannot
remain satisfied with ethical ideas and ethical will, for the ethical being seeks a
persistent growth in the Absolute. It seeks an inner growth and not the moral
conduct alone. The value of moral conduct is not in its outer result but in its
contribution to inner growth. Action, according to Sri Aurobindo, is alwasy
relative and justice, right, purity and selflessness of an action cannot be decided
by outer consciousness. But the real moral worth is assessed neither by intention
nor by consequence but by the help of the act in spiritual growth, as that alone is
the ultimate end. This is the real consummation of the moral impulse and
conduct. Morality, according to Sri Aurobindo, is neither a calculation of good
and evil in conduct nor an effort to conform to social norms. It is an attempt to
grow into the divine nature. It is this which it seeks through purity, truth, right,
sympathy and charity. This spiritual being, and not the ‘Asur’ of Nietzsche, is
the real superman. Morality consummates in divine nature, when man
spontaneously and naturally becomes divine. His will, at this stage, is neither
infra-rational nor rational but divine. This is the process of the progress of the
ethical being.
The Spiral of Moral Evolution
This analysis of the evolutionary progression of the ethical being in the moral
philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, finds an explanation for all the other theories of
ethics. In the history of ethics, as in the history of any other field of man’s
activity, one finds the same progression from infra-rational through rational to
supra-rational stage. These stages are psychological rather than chronological
and in the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, it is the former which has always
been held as the real meaning of the latter. Man’s progress to mental is through
physical and vital.
Ends and Means
The relation of ends and means has been a matter of keen controversy in ethics.
According to Marx, the end justifies the means. According to Gandhi, the means
justifies the end. Here, Sri Aurobindo favours the latter view. He says “Our
means must be as great as our ends and the strength to discover and use the
means so as to attain the end can only be found by seeking the eternal source of
strength in ourselves,’’[24] Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, if the ends are
great, the means should also be great. In that he agrees with Gandhi. But while
Gandhi confined his outlook to moral level alone, Sri Aurobindo has a wider,
deeper and dynamic outlook. His moral principles do not contradict the
psychological principles, as in Gandhi’s ethics. His political morality is more
realistic and practical than that of Gandhi. Ethics, if it is really to serve any
purpose in the evolution of man, individual as well as collective, should be based
on scientific facts. It is the dualism between facts and values which has made the
facts non-moral and values impotent. Ideal certainly cannot be derived from the
actual but ultimately both these cannot be contradictory, as the essence of both is
the same. Sri Aurobindo always keeps his stand on the firm foundation of spirit,
the metaphysical truth of Reality. And this is the secret of the Real-idealism of
his moral philosophy.
POLITICAL MORALITY
This is the foundation of Sri Aurobindo’s political morality. Like Gandhi he
harmonized ethics and politics. Machiavelli and his followers held that politics
has no connection with ethics. Hobbes, Bain and others subordinated ethics to
politics. Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Hegel and Gandhi subordinated politics to
ethics. Sri Aurobindo subordinates both politics and ethics to spiritual
metaphysics which regulates the principles of both of them, as also of the whole
web of man’s activities.
The Doctrine of Passive Resistance
According to Sri Aurobindo, “It is the nature of the pressure which determines
the nature of resistance.”[25] Thus in the emergency of the national liberty, in the
question of life and death of the nation, revolt against the Government is quite
justified. Sri Aurobindo has not distinguished between passive resistance and
satyagraha, as Gandhi has done. His passive resistance is precisely the same as
Satyagraha in Gandhian technique. According to Sri Aurobindo the method of
peaceful resistance “while less bold and aggressive than other methods, calls for
perhaps as much heroism of a kind and certainly more universal endurance and
suffering.”[26]
Non-violence as a Means
With Gandhi Sri Aurobindo admits the importance of the method of non-
violence in politics and individual life. But while for Gandhi non-violence was
not mere means but an end-in-itself, for Sri Aurobindo non-violence was only a
means which may be dropped wherever it is found unsuitable. His stand here is
just the same as that of the Gita. He says “Aggression is unjust, only when
unprovoked, violence, unrighteous when used wantonly or for unrighteous ends.
It is a barren philosophy which applies a mechanical rule to all actions, or takes a
word and tries to fit all human life into it.”[27] There are no panaceas in politics
and ethics. However high may be the principle, whether Ahimsā, or Panch-Shīla,
they should be applied with realistic caution at least so long as mass psychology
remains what it is. The doctrine of non-violence and Satyagraha, as advocated by
Gandhi, was based on his own personal experience. Gandhi had the genius to
apply his own personal experiences to the masses. Unless human psychology is
changed, the moral ideals as advanced by Gandhi and Christ cannot be practised.
Sri Aurobindo says, “Politics is concerned with masses of mankind and not with
individuals. To ask masses of mankind to act as saints, to rise to the height of
divine love and practise it in relation to their adversaries or oppressors is to
ignore human nature. It is to set a premium on injustice and violence by
paralyzing the hand of the deliverer when raised to strike.”[28]
Love in Politics
Sri Aurobindo does not look to violence and war as a moralist but as a
psychologist and philosopher of history. His insight is deeper than that of those
confined to moral or social phenomena. His ethics is based on an integral
weltanschauung, an integral experience of the spiral evolutionary process of
Reality. Gandhi applied the individual virtue of love in the relation of nations.
Sri Aurobindo corrects this idealistic psychology and says, “Between nation and
nation there is justice, partiality, chivalry, duty but not love. All love is either
individual or for the self in the race or for the self in mankind. It may exist
between individuals of different races, but the love of one race for another is a
thing foreign to Nature.”[29]
Gospel of Nationalism
Nationalism is the greatest God in Sri Aurobindo’s political philosophy though
his nationalism extends to internationalism and ultimately to divinity. The gospel
of nationalism does not mean that Sri Aurobindo favours the politics of power,
the present day diplomacy, which uses individuals and countries as mere tools to
serve the purpose of a particular nation and sometimes of a particular party. His
political philosopy is realistic. But his realism is always based on an integral and
spiritual idealism, his experience of God in him and in others.
Morality of Swadeshi
Long before Gandhi entered the political field in India, Sri Aurobindo led the
national movement and advocated Swadeshi. Swadeshi, he pleaded. is fully
justified politically mid morally. According to him politics, law and government
is an interference with personal liberty, necessary in the larger interest of the
collectivity. Society has a right to interfere in the personal liberty of men when it
tends to injure the interests of the race. Thus, the imposition of the law of
Swadeshi on the individuals is fully justified. Boycott is the negative aspect of
the rule of which Swadeshi is the positive aspect. Just as a nation has a right to
compel its members to use Swadeshi, so it can boycott the foreign goods.
Significance of Violence and War
Sri Aurobindo sometimes favours war and violence as means for the realization
of the end. The end does not justify the means, so long as it is physical, vital or
mental or a mixture of one or more of these, since it will lead to universal
conflict of the individual ends. But the spiritual end justifies all means, as the
spiritual good, whether it is that of an individual or of a nation, does not conflict
with the spiritual good of other individuals and nations. The contraries of the
physical, mental and vital levels become complementaries on the spiritual level.
No moral principle, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an end in itself but each is a
means to spiritual good. Thus Sri Aurobindo has based his moral philosophy on
psychological and spiritual truths. Struggle is the law of Nature and so far as
man is a part of Nature, he cannot avoid it. But as man is also more than Nature,
he works through the laws peculiar to him, through cooperation, association and
love. Sri Aurobindo synthesizes both Naturalism and Idealism when he says
“Strife and destruction are not all; there is the saving principle of association and
mutual help as well as the force of dissociation and mutual strife; a power of
love no less than a power of egoistic self-assertion; an impulse to sacrifice
ourselves for others as well as the impulse to sacrifice others to ourselves. But
when we see how these have actually worked, we should not be tempted to gloss
over or ignore the power of their opposites.”[30] Once the man attains the spiritual
consciousness, the dualism of means and end disappears. His acts, even if
violent, directly flow from divine consciousness. It is a mere pious wish to think
that God is love alone, since the opposite also cannot be outside Him. Evolution
is impossible without struggle, so long as it does not transcend mind. In the
present stage of the world, even violence and war are sometimes not only
justified but morally necessary. It is a spiritual necessity before which “morality
must bow its head and acquiesce”, as morality itself is a mere means to the
spiritual ideal of social development.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 165.

[2] Ibid., p. 272.

[3] Sri Aurobindo, The Riddle of This World, Arya Publishing House, Cal. (1946), pp. 49-50.

[4] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 161.

[5] Sri Aurobindo, The Advent, Vol. III, No. 3, p. 144.

[6] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Sri Aurobindo Library Inc. New York (1950), p. 30.

[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 644.

[8] Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Karmayogin, Arya Publishing House, Cal. (1945), p. 28.

[9] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Vol. I, p, 326.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Karma Yogin, p. 60.

[11]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, pp. 723-24.
[12]
Ibid., p. 726.
[13] Sri Aurobindo, The Superman, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1950), p. 17.

[14] Ibid., p. 19.

[15] Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry (1951), pp. 67-68.

[16] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 787.

[17] Bradley, F.H., Appearance and Reality, Preface.

[18] Ibid., p. 436.

[19] Muirhead, J.H., The Elements of Ethics, p. 137.

[20] “Above the ethical plane lie the religious and philosophical planes. Gandhiji’s aim is humble and his
ideal is fixed only at the moral level.” — Ray, B,G., Gandhian Ethics, p. 7.
[21] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 557.

[22] Sri Aurobindo, The Advent, Vol. III, No. 4, p. 216.

[23] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 542.

[24] Sri Aurobindo, The Ideal of Karmayogin, p. 4.

[25]
Sri Aurobindo, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance, Arya Publishing House, Cal. (1948), pp. 30-31.
[26]
Ibid., p. 31.
[27]
Ibid., pp. 87-88.
[28]
Ibid., p. 81.
[29] Ibid., p. 84.

[30] Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita, The Sri Aurobindo Library, Inc. New York, (1950), p. 40.
 CHAPTER XI
Religion

“The religious life may be the first approach to the spiritual, but very
often it is only a turning about in a round of rites, economies and
practices or set ideas and forms without any issue. The spiritual life, on
the contrary, proceeds directly by a change of consciousness, a change
from the ordinary consciousness, ignorant and separated from its true
self and God, to a greater consciousness in which one finds true being
and comes first into direct and living contact and then into union with
the Divine.” —Sri Aurobindo

The discussion in the foregoing chapters has amply proved the inadequacy of
reason as the basis of a law governing and properly guiding the social
development of man. It is here that one finds the reason of the failure of human
Culture, Education, Science, Philosophy and Ethics to take mankind beyond a
certain limit of social development. And now human civilization is suffering
from stagnation and gradual decay. This poses the problem of the change of
methods, as the old methods have exhausted their limits, the problem to find out
better methods before the failure of present methods might lead to catastrophic
results.
The method of social development should suit the aim and ideal of social
development. In the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, rational culture,
education, art and literature, philosophy and science and even ethics have all
been found inadequate, not because they are useless or their contribution towards
social development is too meagre but because the attainment of the ideal of
social development is beyond their reach.
Value of Religion in Human Life
Here, religion is definitely an advance upon man’s rational culture, science and
ethics, art and literature and even philosophy, “for religion is that instinct, idea,
activity, discipline in man which aims directly at the divine, while all the rest
seem to aim at it only indirectly and reach it with difficulty after much
wandering and stumbling in the pursuit of the outward and imperfect appearance
of things.”[1] Religion has always been a dominant tendency in the human history
not only in the East but also in the West.
Revolt against Religion
It is, however, in the very near past that religion was denounced by many,
including Freud, Russell and Marx, as something not only useless but even
positively harmful. Religion, according to Freud, restores the grandeur of the
primeval father and makes possible the repetition of the emotions belonging to
him.[2] It is “the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity.”[3] It is an “illusion”
which will be shattered with the growth of knowledge. Freud not only rejects a
religion of totemism, naturalism and animal worship, but denounces all religion
as such in unmistakable terms. He says “The more the fruits of knowledge
become accessible to man, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief,
at first only of the obsolete and objectionable expressions of the same, then of its
fundamental assumptions also.”[4] Freud’s conclusions about religion are based
pardy on the observation of what Sri Aurobindo calls “religionism”, as
distinguished from true religion, and partly on the assumption of antagonism
between religion and science. He wrote, “As you know, the struggle between
scientific spirit and religious Weltanschauung is not yet at an end; it is still going
on under our eyes to-day.”[5] This assumption of Freud has been questioned by
even the Western scientists. However irrelevant religion might appear to them,
they do not think it opposed to science. Even Prof. Leuba, who condemns mystic
experience as pathological, does not denounce the value of religion in human
life. In contrast to Freud’s view, he says, “Religion and science would work
hand in hand for the production of a better and happier, a diviner man.”[6] This is
the view widely prevalent at present, in spite of some agnostics and some
materialist sceptics. Religion cannot be uprooted from human life, as it is
instinctive, it can only change its form.
The Truth of Anti-religious Trends
But this denouncement of religion by Freud, Marx and others, is not entirely
baseless. The downwards curve of the evolution too has its reason and its lesson
should be understood to avoid the repetition of failures. Thus, these anti-
religious trends also have a certain truth at their back. The truth is not in their
conclusion but in their premises. This revolt against religion has its justification
in the fact that religions and their exponents have everywhere been too often a
force of retardation, oppression and ignorance. Churches, cults and creeds have
supported superstitions, aberrations, violence and crimes and exploited them for
their own benefit. This of course does not give us any warrant to condemn
religion any more than the crimes and errors committed in the name of liberty
are sufficient ground for its rejection. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “This
chequered history belongs to all human efforts and if it were to count against the
truth and necessity of religion, it would count also against the truth and necessity
of every other line of human endeavour, against all man’s action, his ideals, his
thought, his art, his science.”[7] But this necessity of religion should not stand in
the path of a dispassionate analysis of the historical facts about the shortcomings
of religion. That these evils have been possible in the name of religion is a
sufficient reason to seek for an explanation. How can the claim of religion to
guide politics be justified in the face of religious wars and widespread state
persecutions? How can it be a regulating power in ethics and society, when it led
to such an institution as Inquisition? How can anyone ignore the bloodshed in
the name of Christianity in the medieval history of Europe?
The Root of the Evil in Religion
The evils of religion as those of everything else in human life are in its infra-
rational parts. The basic error, according to Sri Aurobindo, is “in our ignorant
human confusion of religion with a particular creed, sect, cult, religious society
or church.”[8] It is this that led the intolerant pagans to see that Socrates drinks
the cup of hemlock. Even Hinduism, at one time, indulged in the persecution and
hatred of Buddhists, Jains, Shaivas and Vaishnavas. Atheism in philosophy and
science is a reaction against the violence of religious fanaticism bred by the
passions and dark vital nature of the so-called religious men. Narrow religious
spirit has often oppressed the joy and beauty of life by its asceticism and
puritanism, forgetting that love, gentleness, charity, tolerance and kindliness are
also divine and that “God is love and beauty as well as purity.” In politics,
religion has generally joined hands with power and often tried to substitute the
kingdom of God by the kingdom of Pope or priests. In political as well as social
spheres of life, religion has stood against all reforms. Thus, the confusion of
religion with church and dogma led to the evils of religion in all walks of life, so
much so that philosophy, art, science, literature, politics and even ethics had to
revolt against it, instead of making it the law of their life.
Meeting of Extremes
This analysis of the defects of religion leads to the meeting of the extremes in Sri
Aurobindo’s philosophy of religion. Western revolt against religion is true in so
far as it is based on the fact that religion has often turned into what Sri
Aurobindo calls “religionism”. Eastern emphasis on religion as the law of life is
true so far as it is true religion. Thus the Western secular and Eastern religious
ideals are only two facets of the same shield. With his subtle distinction between
religion and religionism, Sri Aurobindo reconciles the ancient and the modern,
the Eastern and the Western approaches. According to him, “True religion is
spiritual religion, that which seeks to live in the spirit, in what is beyond the
intellect, beyond the aesthetic and ethical, and practical being of man, and to
inform and govern these members of our being by the higher light and law of the
spirit. Religionism, on the contrary, entrenches itself in some narrow, pietistic
exaltation of the lower members or lays exclusive stress on intellectual dogmas,
forms and ceremonies, on some fixed and rigid moral code, on some religio-
political or religio-social system.”[9] This, however, does not mean a downright
denial of the aid of forms, ceremonies, creeds or systems in religion. All these
are required by the rational and infra-rational parts in man’s being which too
should be spiritualized. But these are means and not ends. Toleration and free
variation are the cardinal principles of means.
Spirituality is the ideal of religion. This spirituality, however, is not the
negation of life, as, according to Sri Aurobindo, the denial of the ascetic is as
one-sided as the point of view of the materialist. Religion has nothing to do with
social development, if its aim is life negating. Religion should satisfy the whole
being of man. It should perfect his physical, vital and mental being. A denial of
the claim of any of these will lead to a revolt against religion. This dualism
between life and religion becomes still worse in the religions of pessimism and
asceticism, as seen amongst the Christian mystics and flagellants of the
Medieval Europe. It leads to escapism and perversions, as in the case of later
Buddhists.
But equally one-sided and ignorant are the pragmatists, the humanists, the
instrumentalists, utilitarians and the meliorists in subordinating religion to life,
utility and use. Prof. Leuba says in collaboration with his master W. James,
“God is not known. He is not understood, He is used.”[10] This Naturalism, as
Prof. Pringle Pattison rightly points out, is a philosophy of levelling down. The
lower infra-rational elements in man cannot be transformed by secular or
rational control and limitations, by an artificial restriction on their urges. It is
spiritual illumination of higher religion which alone can transform and enlighten
them.
Spirituality as the essence of Religion
Thus spirituality is the essence and criterion of religion. The success of religion
as a method of social development depends on the spiritual element in it.
Religions are serviceable only so far as they are spiritual. When the spirituality is
absent, religion is a mere activity of man, powerful yet never a principle of
guidance in his life. And spirituality is the very opposite of limitation, fixation,
systematization. It is fulfilled by freedom which means the power to expand and
grow towards perfection by the law of one’s own nature. True religion,
according to Sri Aurobindo, is the following of the spiritual impulse in its
fulness, and spirituality is “the attempt to know and live in the highest self, the
divine, the all-embracing unity and to raise life in all its parts to the divinest
possible value.”[11] A religion founded on spirituality will give freedom and
perfection to Philosophy, Science, Art, Social and Political activities and
illumine them for a many-sided finding of their greatest, highest and deepest
potentialities.
Insufficiency of Reason
Thus reason cannot comprehend the truths of religion. A typical example can be
found in the rational treatment of religion by Hegelians, e.g., by Principal Caird,
in his statement, “What lies beyond reason in this sense is simply the irrational
or non-sensical.”[12] Principal Caird exhibits the characteristic ignorance of the
rationalists in the field of religion, as the essence of religion is supra-rational.
Psychological analysis of religion, based on scientific methods suffers from the
“psychologist’s fallacy.” No one can know religion, without himself being
religious. A positive critical reason cannot understand an adult or an ignorant
man a great scientist. Such an attempt, at the best, can touch the surface, the
fringe, but never the inner essence. A rational religion, according to Sri
Aurobindo is “a strange chimera.”[13] The intellectual reason can either reject or

explain away or reform or at the best allow a lower role to religion. All these
reactions have their own utility but none of these approaches is based on the
truth of religion. The sceptic’s demand of a physical proof of the supra- physical
reality of religion contradicts the very principle of verification. Every level of
experience has a verification peculiar to itself. Religious propositions are most
veridical but only through psychic experience. Religion cannot be known
through generalizations. The essence of religion is not the common external
properties of great religions, as Prof. Toynbee has attempted to find. Not
historical but psychological method can unravel the truths of religion. This
psychological method, however, is not observation as that of Prof. Leuba, W.
James and other psychologists, nor introspection, but an analysis based on
personal experience. A comparative science of religion is helpless and
unconvincing, since the aim, the sphere, the process of religion is supra-rational.
It can be known only through “a self-transcending and absolute consecration,
aspiration and experience”. Its faculties are revelations, inspirations, intuitions
and intuitive discernments. Its love is infinite. Its delight passes all
understanding, Its surrender is total and uncompromising. Its way is absolute. Its
fruits are ineffable. To sum up in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “The deepest
heart, the inmost essence of religion, apart from its outward machinery of creed,
cult, ceremony and symbol, is the search for God and the finding of God. Its
aspiration is to discover the Infinite, the Absolute, the One, the Divine, who is all
these things and yet no abstraction but a Being. Its work is a sincere living out of
the true and intimate relations between man and God, relations of unity, relations
of difference, relations of an illuminated knowledge, an ecstatic love and delight,
an absolute surrender and service, a casting of every part of our existence out of
its normal status into an uprush of man towards the Divine and a descent of the
Divine into man.”[14]
Philosophy of Religion
Evidently, reason cannot dictate in the field of religion. But it is not entirely
useless. It can indeed play a vital part in this field but it should be subordinate to
experience. Not logical possibility, but experience through identity, leads to
ontological certainty. To try to fit the religious experience in the set moulds of
intellectual logic is to impose a foreign scheme upon it. Sri Aurobindo accepts
the need and possibility of a philosophy of religion. But reason, in the
philosophy of religion, should only describe as faithfully as possible the supra-
rational experiences. “Its sole legitimate sphere is to explain as best as it can, in
its own language and to the rational and intellectual parts of man, the truths, the
experiences, the laws of our supra-rational and spiritual existence.”[15] This
requires a language, flexible and rich enough to express spiritual experiences
intelligibly. This requires a constant growth of concepts, according to the growth
of the philosopher in spiritual experience.
Thus, philosophy of religion serves its purpose and is therefore necessary.
According to Sri Aurobindo, “Religion could not stand for a moment, if it did
not support itself by intellectual presentation, however inadequate, of profound
truths.”[16] This need of reason is more important in the infra-rational aspect of
religion, its life of the instincts, impulses, sensations, crude emotions and vital
activities. The religions of nature worship, totemism, animal-worship, etc., are
abounding in these elements. These are the sources of so much impurity,
ignorance and superstition in all the religions. It is here that reason can interfere
to enlighten, purify and rationalize the play of the instincts and impulses. Thus
reason has played an important part in religious history by destroying much that
is effete, corrupt and injurious. This process, however, went beyond its limits,
resulting in impoverishment of religion. Religion does not live by its reason but
by its faith. The infra-rational should not be negated but purified and uplifted not
by rational but by spiritual illumimation. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “If reason
is to play any decisive part, it must be an intuitive rather than an intellectual
reason, touched always by spiritual intensity and insight.”[17] It is here that the
antagonism of reason and intuition is abolished. The spirit lifts up reason like
other faculties of man’s being, enlightens it and transforms it in its own light,
power and joy.
Evolution of Religion
The truth about the essential nature of religion, as analysed by Sri Aurobindo, is
amply demonstrated by the history of the evolution of religion. The principle of
evolution gives an insight into that essential character of religions which has
been more or less permanent behind the changing forms. It also shows the
unifying link in the seemingly wide diversities of religions. It shows the
limitations of the psychoanalytic findings about religion and also those of the
dogmas of the theologians. It supplies a correct, catholic and dynamic
perspective of religion.
Evolution, whether of religion or any other phenomenon in human life,
always proceeds by a slow unfolding, since it has to struggle against the
downward pull of instinctive oppositions and obstinate retardations of the
Ignorance. Thus the first beginnings of religion, the religion of totem, animal or
nature-worship were obviously very crude and imperfect. All kinds of
dogmatisms, superstitions and ignorance crop up in this first beginning and it
can be properly understood only in this evolutionary perspective. As the vital
and mental development increased, the intuitions and instincts were generally
subordinated to the intellectual superstructures. Thus religion was gradually
petrified in the forms of creed, institutions, formal practice and ethics. Even the
spiritual experience is substituted by faith, emotional fervour and moral conduct.
This intellectual tendency ultimately led to a complete denial of all occult and
supraphysical elements in religion. This intellectualism, again, on the other hand,
led to a subjective tendency in some persons, independent of sectarian religions.
At this stage, religion again returned to its truth, the spiritual experience.
Mysticism and Religion
This spiritual element was expressed in two forms – esoteric and exoteric, the
way of the mystic and the way of the religious man. These two forms, according
to Sri Aurobindo, characterize the double principle of evolutionary nature, “the
principle of intensive and concentrated evolution in a small space and the
principle of expansion and extension.” The mystic way is the concentrated
dynamic and effective movement. The religious way is the process of diffusion
and status. In this process the spiritual element becomes mixed, diluted and
alloyed, leading to much loss of truth and misuse of occult power. The
intellectual formations lead to a dead mass of cult, ceremony and ritual, a
mechanization of the spirit. Hence the mystics restricted their secrets to a few
initiates. But the democratization of religion is essential, as extensive movement,
in spite of some difficulties, is an inherent necessity of the spiritual urge in
evolutionary Nature. The wider aim of evolution needs much catholicity and
plasticity in religion. According to Sri Aurobindo, “A religion, which is itself a
congeries of religions and which at the same time provides each man with his
own turn of inner experience, would be the most in consonance with this purpose
of Nature: it would be a rich nursery of spiritual growth and flowering, a vast
multiform school of the soul’s discipline, endeavour, self-realisation.”[18] Such

for example has been the religion in India. Its only weakness was its dependence
on a fixed religio-social system which obstructed the native spirit of catholicity.
A certain order is necessary in religion but that should be a growing order.
Nevertheless, in the Indian religion, the spirit has survived in its essentiality.
Religion as a Method of Social Development
According to Sri Aurobindo, “In considering the achieved course of the
evolution of the spiritual being, we have to regard it from two sides, a
consideration of the means, the lines of development utilised by Nature and a
view of the actual results achieved by it in human individual.”[19] So far we have
considered the actual results achieved through religion. Now, it shall be our
endeavour to consider its place in the method of development as utilized by
Nature. Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy is based on the principle of evolution
in Nature. These principles he discovered during his own yogic experience.
Hegel identified Nature’s evolutionary process with the dialectical progression
of logic as he took spirit as reason. Sri Aurobindo identifies Nature’s
evolutionary process with the spiral progression of spirit in yoga. Marx had tried
to correct Hegel by turning him upside down. Sri Aurobindo improved upon
Hegel, by showing the distinction between reason and spirit. His approach,
however, is different from that of post-Hegelians. His is an integral approach
which finds a reasonable place even for Hegel’s conclusions.
Four Lines of Development in Nature
According to Sri Aurobindo, “There are four lines which Nature has followed in
her attempt to open up the inner being, – religion, occultism, spiritual thought
and an inner spiritual realization and experience: the three first are approaches,
the last is the decisive avenue of entry.”[20] Thus religion, occultism, philosophy
and yoga are four methods of evolution in Nature. And of these, only yoga is the
way of decisive entry. These four methods correspond to four necessities of
man’s self-expansion. The man has to know himself and the world. To achieve
this, he should know the mental, vital, physical and psychic being, its powers
and movements and the universal laws and processes of the occult life and mind.
This is achieved through the method of occult. Not only should the man know
the secret powers behind the apparent phenomena but he should also be able to
enter into relation with them and lift himself out his imperfection. This need is
served by religion. This mystic knowledge again, should be correlated with the
principle of things and observed truths of this world. The experience should be
rendered intelligible. This is achieved through philosophy. But this knowledge
gained through occult, religion and philosophy should be turned into experience
and become a part of consciousness. It is here that yoga is indispensable.
Role of Religion in Social Development
Social Philosophy is not very much concerned with religion as such but with its
role in social development, in the achievement of the fulfilment of the individual
and collectivity. It does not look to religion as a set of dogmas but as a dynamic
force which has a definite role in social cohesion and integration of human
personality. Thus, in contrast to the metaphysical and theological aspects of
religion, Social Philosophy is more concerned with its psychological,
sociological and evolutionary aspects.
Religion voices man’s urge against the subnormal and his aspiration after
the supernormal. It develops character and thus cures degeneration. Every
regenerating activity in society which is based on faith in goodness and the
divine possibility of man gathers strength with its alliance with religion. Religion
has its roots in man’s tendency to look upwards. Hence, if man has to progress,
religion must live. It keeps the spirit in social institutions alive and retards the
process of hypostatization. It maintains the social momentum towards progress.
It restricts the factors which lead to static regimentation. Its sprit has often been
enclosed in inadequate and even repulsive forms, but it has again and again
broken through these forms to rebuild all over again. The cause of persecution
and fanaticism in the name of religion, the background of crusades and cruelities
is not religion but the suppression of the infra-rational by ascetic tendencies, the
political alliance of the clergy with the political machinery. Religion has been
often a refuge for escapism; the causes of escapism, however, were not religious
but social. And even if religion has been temporarily an escape, it was religion
which kept the torch of future regeneration burning in pure hearts which
ultimately led to revolt against oppressing tendencies.
Social Basis of Religion
Religion has been rarely in its pure form. Everywhere it was permeated with
social and cultural ideals. A contrast between the secular and the religious is
hardly possible, as even the secular life often expresses religious tendencies. The
real contrast of the secular is with the ecclesiastical, which is not an important
aspect of religion. The essence of religion is spirituality which is absolute; hence
it cannot be subject to relative predicates.
The basis of religion should not be the negative feelings, feelings of fear,
want, guilt and hatred, but the positive fulness of life, joy and freedom. The
values of religion have deepened with the deepening of social values. Religion
has been transformed with the transformation of social ideals. It is an index of
man’s aspiration for and a guide towards future. It is a power which may be
utilized both for good and evil. The more it approaches spirituality, the more it
serves its true purpose, since spirituality is its fulfilment and culmination. The
concept of God also becomes deeper and wider, as man rises in the ladder of
mental and spiritual development. As the nation rises higher in culture, so does
its religion. Religion evolves in correlation with the social evolution, the
evolution of thought, culture and spirituality. As this process becomes more and
more diffuse, religious differences between men and communities also vanish.
This shows the social basis of religion.
Individual Aspect of Religion
But this should not by any means lead to a belittling of the individual aspect of
religion which is even deeper, more concentrated and nearer its essence.
Religion is social only through individuals, neither as a sum total of individual
religions nor anything apart from them, any more than there can be a ‘Group-
mind’ as a totality of individual minds or as something distinct from them.
Religion is social, in the sense that the individual is social. The social aspect of
religion is only an outer and secondary though necessary form. All religion is
primarily personal and individual. A diminution or subordination of this personal
aspect by the socio-religious system of churches, priesthood, rituals and
ceremonies has often crushed the spiritual element in religion. All improvements
through Nature’s method always proceed from individual to social. It is because
this lesson has been often forgotten that we find the degeneration of religion,
leading to a division of life and spirit.
Failure of Religious Movements
It is this fundamental weakness that has led to the past failures of great religions
to uplift mankind permanently. They have undoubtedly done much good to
mankind. Paganism increased the light of beauty, the largeness and height of
man’s life, and aimed at a many-sided perfection. Christianity gave mankind a
vision of divine love and charity. Buddhism gave us the noble path to be wiser,
gentler and purer. Judaism and Islam gave us religious faith in action and
zealous devotion to God. Hinduism, however, opened to us the largest and
profoundest spiritual possibilities.[21] All these religions saved a number of souls.
What is needed for the spiritual purpose, however, is not cult, dogma and creed
but a sustained and all-comprehending effort at spiritual self-evolution. The
spiritual aim is, of course, identical with the aim of subjective religions but it
cannot be realized through a religious movement, which at the most leads to a
temporary uplifting, “partly spiritual, partly ethical, partly dogmatic in its
nature”. Its force may continue because of a great spiritual personality for some
time while a Buddha or a Krishna is on the scene. But this effect is bound to
diminish. Church, dogmas, monastries meant to bind together the faithful,
ultimately subordinate spirituality to intellectual belief, to outward forms of
conduct and to external rituals. The majority gradually rejects even the ethical
principles and subordinates everything to what Prof. Leuba has rightly called, “a
business-like relation to God.”
Causes of this Failure
This failure of great religious movements was due to the neglect of an essential
aspect of spirit, its nature of “a spacious inner freedom and a large unity into
which each man must be allowed to grow according to his own nature.”[22] A
second important cause of failure has been the other-worldly tendency of
religions, the searching of the kingdom of God not on earth but in some far-off
heaven. This was the main reason for the revolt and indifference of scientists to
religion.
Limitations of Religion as a method of social development
Religion is a great intercessor between Spirit and Nature. It prepares man’s mind
and bodily existence for the advent of spiritual consciousness. It leads man to the
point where the inner spiritual light begins to emerge. But it falls short of the
complete realization. Religion is faith in the realization of God. This faith,
however, is not actualized through religion, since it lacks psychicization,
transformation and integration. This difficulty becomes more pronounced in the
attempt of religion to realize this aim in mass. Religion cannot lead to the birth
of the spiritual man, still less of a spiritual race. It does lead to some contact with
divine powers but it cannot lead to a complete oneness. Even in mysticism where
a unity with the divine is realized, it does not lead to a total change of
consciousness. Even when some apprpoximation to salvation was achieved
through mysticism, it never aimed at cosmic liberation. The individual and social
aspects of religion have generally progressed on very different lines, often
opposed to each other. A dualism remains even in the ultimate ideal of religion,
a dualism of the worshipper and the worshipped, man and God, individual and
society, this world and the other world, body and soul, matter and spirit.
Mysticism is the acme of religion but it too could never realize an integral
spiritualization of total consciousness. And it miserably failed as a method of
social development, as it never sought anything more than individual liberation.
The saint, the devotee, the spiritual sage, the prophet and the servant of God, all
realize the spiritualization of some one part or the other of the total being. They
helped mankind indeed but could not change and transform its consciousness.
Culmination of Religion in Yoga
Thus religion is a necessary step between mind and spirit but yoga is
indispensable to make its faith a living realization. As Sri Aurobindo points out,
“It is not sufficient to worship Krishna, Christ or Buddha without, if there is not
the revealing and the formation of the Buddha, the Christ and Krishna in
ourselves.”[23] This culmination in absolute experience is not the “suicide” of
religion, as F.H. Bradley would presume. It is a fulfilment of the urge, the work
and the achievement of religion. It is here that all the characterstic dualism of
religion is abolished in an integral monism.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 192.

[2]
Freud, S., Moses and Monotheism, p. 210.
[3] Freud. S., The Future of an Illusion, p. 76.

[4] Ibid., p. 55.

[5]
Freud, S., New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, p. 216.
[6] Leuba, J.H., The Psychology of Religious Mysticism, p. 318.

[7] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, Second Edition, p. 696.

[8] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, American Edition, p. 195.

[9] Ibid., p. 197.

[10] Leuba, J.H. Monist, July 1901.

[11] Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, p. 75.

[12] Caird, J., Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, p. 47.

[13] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 143.

[14] Ibid., p.144.

[15] Ibid., p. 145.

[16] Sri Aurobindo, Views and Reviews, p. 2.

[17] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 148.

[18] Sri Aurobindo, Ibid., p. 777.

[19] Ibid., p. 765.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Sri Aurobindo, Thoughts and Glimpses, p. 39.

[22] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 295.

[23] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, American Edition, p. 16.

 CHAPTER XII
The Integral Yoga

“If human relations as practised now by men are full of smallness and
perversity and ignorance, yet are they disfigured shadows of something
in the Divine and by turning them to the Divine he finds that of which
they are a shadow and brings it down for manifestation in life. ” — Sri
Aurobindo

The most important method of social development, according to the Social

Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is yoga. Social development, in Sri Aurobindo’s
thought, means something much more than what it means to the sociologists,
politicians and others. It is integral in two senses; first, it includes the
development of the individual as well as that of society. Secondly, it is not only
a physical, vital or mental development, a development of social harmony only,
but a spiritual development or ascent of the individual, nation and humanity.
Is Yoga a Method of Social Development?
Yoga, in India, has always been accepted as a method of individual
development. It was never acknowledged as a method of social development, as
the aim sought by yoga was individual liberation. The West, on the other hand,
has not accepted yoga, even as a method of individual development, still less of
social development. This antipathy of the occident to yoga has its reasons both in
the materialistic tendency of the West and in the one-sidedness and other-
worldliness of the traditional yoga itself. Thus the western reformer tried to
realize individual and social development through norms of civilization, ethics
and religion, through art and literature, philosophy and science and above all
through education. All these methods have been utilized to develop man and
society. They have achieved much, so far as the physical, vital and mental
development is concerned, but they have failed, first, in providing a harmonizing
principle to the individual and society, and secondly, in developing the spiritual
principle in man. Yoga claims to be the highest and supreme method of
individual development. This individual development, however, as the western
scholars have noticed and conceded, is never perfect without a correlated social
development, a fact which the traditional yogas very much missed. Nature
proceeds by a double method of evolution, concentrated as well as diffused,
individual as well as social. And the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is the
conscious version of the process of evolution in Nature. Hence, yoga is a method
of social development. It will not annul, cancel or transcend all the other
methods. It will make them more wholesome and perfect. It will cut the gordian
knot of the puzzles of social development.
The Aim of Integral Yoga
The aim of Integral Yoga is not only individual but cosmic liberation. It is the
realization of that purpose consciously which nature has hitherto sought only
vaguely and unconsciously. “The yoga we practise is not for ourselves alone, but
for the Divine, its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect
a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into
the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not
physical Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the
liberation and transformation of the human being.”[1] The Integral Yoga of Sri
Aurobindo aims at the transformation of the entire earth consciousness. It is
against all type of escapism and other-worldliness. It seeks cosmic liberation. Sri
Aurobindo did not aim at the establishment of a new religion, philosophy or
yoga. This goal was to create a ground for the spiritual growth of humanity and
to find out a sure way to realize supramental truth upon earth. This yoga is the
supreme method to realize the idea of social development. All other methods are
palliatives and temporary compromises, which cannot establish a divine life, a
kingdom of God on the earth. The yogic method transforms the man within as
well as without as an individual as well as a social person.
Validity of the Method of Yoga
A new method of social development, unless its results are observed for a
sufficiently long time, has its validity in the wisdom, efforts and precision of its
pioneer. Integral Yoga is a mystic method without mystification. It is a scientific
method without the limitations characteristic of science. It has been developed
through the wisdom of the ancient sages, seen along with the latest
developments in scientific knowledge, and tried and tested in Sri Aurobindo’s
living experience on account of his persistent and continuous search and spiritual
practice for three decades. It is a clear, precise and positive way.
The validity of the integral yoga as a method of social development,
however, can be verified only after its practise on a large scale. This practice,
again, cannot be expected to lead to a progress in a straight line, as evolution
progresses through a spiral curve. It is more so, as yoga aims at higher
achievement than has been obtained through all other methods of social
development.
All this is evident, if yoga is taken as a method of social development,
attempted by human beings with all their failings and weakness. But yoga is
much more than a mere human effort. It is a process of harnessing the higher
power for the evolution of man on earth. And if these powers are harnessed even
by a few individuals, they will descend upon earth and shall work for the change
far more rapidly than one may expect from the lesser powers. As yoga claims to
harness higher powers, one should hope far more rapid and comprehensive
results than are obtained by other methods. Yoga is a method which has all the
powers of Nature at its back. Hence its effect should be more miraculous than
that of any other method.
Yoga is primarily a subjective method. Hence its verification should be
subjective and individual. But it is also physically veridical, as the subjective
change gradually brings about the objective change. Perfection of individual
should invariably lead to perfection of society; to that extent, the spiritual
evolution transforms the mental, vital and even the physical.
The Theoretical Justification
Practical verification of a method of social development is not the task of Social
Philosophy. It is the work of the social reformer and all other who are busy in
the reconstruction of society. Social Philosophy is practical only in the sense that
it guides the men actually working in society. Its validity is rooted in man’s faith
in the efficacy of reason to predict the course of physical events. This faith is the
foundation of man’s knowledge at all stages. Thus theoretical justification is a
sufficient proof of the validity of a hypothesis in Social Philosophy. In thought,
it is legitimate to pass from the known to the unknown. Inductive principles,
though always probable, work in actual life. What is true of the microcosm is
true of the macrocosm not in the same way. What one man can realize is
realizable in society, though the amount of effort and time needed would differ.
This is the theoretical justification of yoga as a method of social development.
The Evolutionary Proof
But there is also another, a far more concincing proof. It may be called the
“Evolutionary Proof”, a proof from historical and psychological analysis of
evolution in nature. Evolution is the foundation of Sri Aurobindo’s Social
Philosophy, just as much as it is that of his metaphysics and yoga. The history of
evolution in nature shows that nature herself is engaged in a kind of yoga, as she
has always been trying for an ever-increasing expression of her potentialities to
achieve perfection and finally to be united with the divine reality. It is to realize
this ideal that nature has expressed physical life and mind. The evolution from
matter to life and life to mind shows a constant effort to evolve superior
instruments for the expression of the spiritual principle. All these principles have
been at first developed in the individuals and only later, in the species.
Whenever an experiment fails, nature proceeds to make further experiments.
This is the secret of the present crisis in human civilization. The problems which
have been left unsolved show the limitations of the hitherto employed methods
of social development. A crisis is inevitable, as Nature cannot stop its
evolutionary urge. The only remedy to meet this crisis is a change of methods. A
new method should be developed which may integrate and transform all others
and develop in man what the evolutionary urge in nature seeks to realize. Social
philosophers, like Bertrand Russell, have spoken in a dubious language, with an
optimism which hardly amounts to more than a wishful thinking. Gandhi who
had a robust optimism, was hardly successful in finding out a method of social
development. Social Philosophy has not only to point out the ideal but also to
suggest the way for its realization. This principle had been missed by traditional
social philosophers.
Sri Aurobindo is convinced both theoretically and practically that man can
realize the purpose in Nature. “In man her thinker she for the first time upon this
earth devises self-conscious means and willed arrangement of activities by
which this great purpose may be more swiftly and puissantly attained.”[2] With
this faith, Sri Aurobindo advanced in the arduous task of yoga. Integral Yoga has
its validity in the truth of the theory of evolution. The success of the
phenomenon of evolution in nature itself is the demonstration of the success of
yoga as a method of social development, as integral yoga is a compressed form
of the method of evolution in Nature. This evolutionary proof is a sufficient
theoretical reason to convince men to adopt this method. It is justified in theory.
Its result has been very hopeful in the case of individuals. And there is nothing to
stand against the hope that it will fulfil its end in social development as well.
What is integral Yoga?
Integral Yoga is “a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression
of the potentialities latent in the being and a union of the individual with the
universal and transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in
the cosmos.”[3] It is a method which realizes the ideal where other methods fail.
The failure of civilization and culture, philosophy and science, art and literature,
education, ethics and religion is two-fold. First, they suffer from the
characteristic limitations of their present guiding principle, the reason. Secondly,
they have limitations characteristic of their effectiveness, scope and power, etc.
Now, the first limitation can and shall be abolished by substituting Spirit for
reason as the guiding principle. The spiritualization of civilization and culture,
philosophy and science, art and literature, education, ethics and religion will
raise their effect to maximum, harmonize them with one another and perfect
them. But this perfection shall be within their own limitations, since none of
these deals with the whole being in all its individuality, still less with its
universality and transcendence. After being spiritualized, they will lead man to
the Divine, to perfect him in one way or the other, but for the decisive entry into
the Divine, for bringing the Divine upon earth, for psychicization, integration
and supramentalization of individual and humanity, a more profound method is
required.
Distinction from other Yogas
Integral Yoga is not only different from other methods of individual and social
development, it is also quite different from all other traditional yogas. As Sri
Aurobindo points out, “Our yoga is not a retreading of old walks, but a spiritual
adventure.”[4] According to Sri Aurobindo, the past spiritual endeavours have
been seriously limited in two ways. First, no effort was made to spiritualize
mind, emotions, action and physical substance. Secondly, even when some great
souls lived to regenerate society, they could never spiritualize it but remained
confined to some ethical or religious order. According to Sri Aurobindo, a bodily
life, a mental life and a spiritual life is essential to human nature. Each of these is
higher than the preceding one and leads to its perfection. Hence a spiritual life
need not neglect mental or physical life. Sri Aurobindo’s integral Yoga aims at a
spiritual life of man and collectivity but this also includes mental and physical
life in a transformed state. Integral Yoga aims not at an ethics or religion but a
spiritualization of the whole race, the birth of a race of gnostic beings. Purified
by evils and transfigured in soul by divine touch, the yogi acts as a dynamo of
divine electricity in the world. Thus hundreds around him may feel divine thrill
and radiation and become full of divine light, force and bliss. It is because this
truth is neglected by churches, orders, theologies and philosophies that they have
failed to save mankind. A resurrection of the soul in mankind, the advent of an
Age of Truth is possible only by a return to the inner spirit in man, the Christ’s
gospel of the purity and perfection of mankind, Mahomed’s gospel of self
surrender and Chaitanya’s gospel of divine love and joy.
Different Aims
The aim of integral yoga is different from that of other yogas. Hatha Yoga aims
at the conquest of the life and the body. The ideal of Raja Yoga is the liberation
and perfection of the mental being by the mastery of the whole range of thought
and consciousness and control of the emotional and sensational life. Jnana Yoga,
Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga aim at the perfection and divinization of the
intellect, the heart and the will respectively. The Integral Yoga has a wider and
more comprehensive purpose. It aims at the descent of the divine consciousness
in body, life and mind on earth so that they may become fit instruments for the
manifestation of divine. It is this emphasis on the transformation of the very
terrestrial existence that makes Integral Yoga different from all others. “All other
Yogas regard life as an illusion or a passing phase; the supramental (i.e. integral)
Yoga alone regards it as a thing created by the Divine for a progressive
manifestation and takes fulfilment of the life and body for its object.”[5] The only
yoga which comes nearest to this Integral Yoga is the Tantra but here also, as Sri
Aurobindo points out, there is too little stress on the divine potentialities of the
soul, “a haste of insistence on the escape into super-conscience.”[6]
Different Methods
As the aims differ, so also should differ the methods to realize the ideal. Fixed

postures (Asan) and breath control are the chief methods

of Hatha Yoga. These lead to perfection of body and liberation of vitality and
open the higher ranges of consciousness by the awakening of the “coiled-up
serpent” of energy at the base of the spine. The method of Rāja Yoga is to
question and purify the heart-consciousness (Chitta). Its preliminary process is a
careful self-discipline. It requires the practice of truth, renunciation of all forms
of egoistic seeking, non-violence, purity, constant meditation and inclination
towards soul. It accepts the disciplines of postures and breath control in Hath
Yoga but rejects its other elaborate processes. After the control of mind, body
and vital functions, it leads to samadhi by a complete restriction of the mental
activities. This preoccupation with the abnormal state of trance is a chief
limitation of the method of Rāja Yoga. It controls and quietens but does not

transform and transmute the mind, life and body. The methods of
Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga are exclusive concentrations on the
intellect, the heart or the will and that too normally in isolation from the others.

The Yoga begins with an intellectual enquiry into the nature of self
and distinguishes it from non-self. It generally rejects the phenomenal world as
unreal and culminates in identity with pure and unique self. The realization of
the self in all, after the self in oneself, may lead to the spiritualization of the

intellect. Thus, the method of Yoga is effective so far as it goes,

but it does not aim at the integral ideal. The method of Bhakti Yoga is to utilize
all human relations into which emotion enters and apply to them the delight of
the All-loving. It often leads to a union of the lover and the beloved in exclusion
from the world. But it can be extended to spiritualize the whole range of human
emotions. The method of Karma Yoga is to purify mind and will by renouncing
all egoism in work. In it all works and their results are surrendered to the
Supreme Will and Cosmic Energy. This can lead to the spiritualization of human
will and activity. Tantra aims at a synthesis of all these by its secret occult
method of the will-in-power. The partial knowledge of these occult processes,
however, has the danger of leading to serious abuses. Hence this method has not
been accepted by the enlightened. Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, the aims
and methods of the ancient Yoga were not sufficient to realize the evolution of
man’s spiritual consciousness on this earth. He thus sets out to evolve a new
method by his patient labour of several decades, utilizing the wisdom of the past
and modern developments in knowledge.
THE METHOD OF INTEGRAL YOGA
Synthesis of other Yogas
Thus the method of Integral Yoga is different from all other Yogic methods. It is
a synthesis of all these methods. It is a synthesis by seizing upon the common
central principle, the fundamental dynamic force, in different Yogas. That
principle, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the Supermind which is the Divine’s
own knowledge of Himself and His own power of acting. In attempting to
realize this Supermind and to bring it down to earth, the Integral Yoga
synthesizes the aims and utilities of all other Yogas. Thus the aim of Integral
Yoga is to “re-unite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life.” Its
method is “not only to permit but favour the harmony of our inner and outer
activities and experience in the divine consummation of both.”[7]
Synthesis of Knowledge, Love and Work
Integral Yoga is a synthesis of the triple Yogas expressed in Gita, the

Yoga, the Bhakti Yoga and the Karma Yoga. Integral Yoga is a
Yoga of affirmation. It is an integral synthesis of integral knowledge, integral
love and integral work, the cognitive, the effective and the conative aspects of
man’s personality. Thus it leads to a complete integration of personality. It does
not stop at integration. That is only the beginning of the ascent. The Integral
Yoga seeks a perfect knowledge, love and will. Love without knowledge is a
bondage. Knowledge without love is dry and colourless. And both knowledge
and love without action are impotent. Thus in this triod each is necessary for the
other.
Surrender
According to Sri Aurobindo, “To give oneself is the secret of Sadhana not to
demand and acquire.”[8] Thus the “first principle”, “the central process” of
integral yoga is an absolute surrender to Divine. Like the Gita, Sri Aurobindo
also prescribes a three-fold spiritual movement involving first, self consecration,
secondly, being an instrument in the hands of God and thirdly seeing everything
in God. According to Sri Aurobindo, “....a complete surrender means to cut the
knot of the ego in each part of the being and offer it, free and whole, to the
Divine. The mind, the vital, the physical consciousness (and even each part of
these in all its movements) have one after the other to surrender separately, to
give up their own way and to accept the way of the Divine.”[9] This of course is
generally not possible all at once. But it can be achieved gradually by constant
effort and sincerity. It requires a confident attempt together with God’s grace
which follows readily.
Quietude
Surrender implies quietude. It is a necessary condition to face difficulties and to
receive divine light. “Peace and calmness are the first thing and with it wideness
– in the peace you can bear whatever love or Ānanda comes, whatever strength
comes or whatever knowledge.”[10] This calm should be realized not only in
mind but also in life and body and even in the outer conditions. Evidently, this
shall be achieved only gradually and not without many difficulties. Silence is a
stage higher than quietude. Quietude means detachment. It is temporary in the
beginning but gradually it should be possessed permanently and continuously. It
is equality, equanimity.
Psychicization
All this effort is very much helped by the opening of the psychic self within
whose centre is the heart. The awakening of the psychic brings about sudden and
true surrender of the whole being. For this realization, Sri Aurobindo advocates
concentration in the heart. It is also helped by devotion, humility, submission
and dependence. Thus psychic being is different from inner being or inner
consciousness. “The inner consciousness means the inner mind, inner vital, inner
physical and behind them the psychic which is their inmost being.”[11]
Triple Transformation
Sri Aurobindo has always tried to be very clear in his concepts. About
“transformation” he says, “I use transformation in a special sense, a change of
consciousness radical and complete and of a certain specific kind.” “A partial
realization, something mixed and inconclusive, does not meet the demand I
make on life and Yoga.”[12] This transformation is threefold, viz., psychic,

spiritual and supramental. Psychicization is only the beginning, spiritualization

and the descent of the higher consciousness the middle term, while the ultimate
achievement needs the action of the supramental consciousness and force.
Ascent and Descent
Thus integral Yoga is not achieved by ascent alone. It is not concerned simply
with individual liberation. It is not only a way of individual evolution but also a
method of social development. It aims at definite change in the entire earth-
consciousness through a descent of the higher powers upon earth. Hence this
descent is most important in integral Yoga. It is the key to spiritual and
supramental transformation. Thus integral Yoga proceeds by a double method of
ascent and descent. The sacrifice of love, of knowledge and of works is the way
of this triple ascent. The descent follows the absolute consecration. This descent,
Sri Aurobindo points out, is not realization, since, according to him, “Realization
by itself does not necessarily transform the being as a whole; it may bring only
an opening or heightening or widening of consciousness at the top.”[13]
The value of integral Yoga as a method of social development becomes
very clear in Sri Aurobindo’s analysis of the Karma Yoga of the Gita. The
solution of all problems of social life, according to Sri Aurobindo, can be met
only in the complete spiritualization of human life. His Yoga is a method par
excellence for this purpose. As he interprets the message of the Gita, man needs
an integral Yoga, spiritual perfection of the whole being. Gita preaches a
threefold integral Yoga – yoga of works, yoga of love, and yoga of knowledge.
Of this three-fold integral Yoga, the Yoga of works is most important from the
point of view of Social Philosophy. This again is the core of the teachings of the
Gita. As a matter of fact, the Yoga of knowledge and love make this Yoga of
works only more perfect. Sri Aurobindo’s primary aim in retiring from politics
was to develop a spiritual method for the regeneration of the human race.
Thus the real purpose of integral Yoga is to find and establish a new power
of action. It is concerned with the salvation of the whole world. It is for the
harmony of all external as well as internal relations. Thus integral Yoga excludes
escapism, asceticism and other world-negating elements from the yoga of
knowledge and that of love. Thus work is essential in yoga. It should, however,
be done with the right attitude and in the right consciousness, so that it may be as
fruitful as any meditation can be. Explaining the real meaning of work, says Sri
Aurobindo, “I mean by work action done for the Divine and more and more in
union with the Divine – for the Divine alone and nothing else.”[14] This work is
free from all selfish cravings and it does not bind man to the world. It makes him
a fit instrument of the Divine in the world. This creative approach to work
requires an absolute perfection in even the minutest details. It lays the
foundation of a more organized, though free, society that has been ever imagined
by any economist or sociologist. Work here is a sacrifice to God, an offering
which should be sincere and perfect. Thus, all work is for the Divine, as all Yoga
is for the Divine. Work is also necessary for a balance in man’s perfection.
Meditation and Concentration
Meditation and concentration have always been held to be very important in all
types of Yoga. Sri Aurobindo distinguishes between these as follows:
“Concentration means fixing the consciousness in one place or on one object and
in a single condition. Meditation can be diffusive, e.g., thinking about the
Divine, receiving impressions and discriminating, watching what goes on in the
nature and acting upon it, etc.”[15] Concentration is a natural part of meditation. It
should be quiet, easy and without efforts. Meditation is not an end in itself. It is a
mere means to call down the true consciousness and is not even necessary in
certain circumstances. Sri Aurobindo has given a detailed description of the
subsidiary things regarding meditation and concentration, which are not relevant
to our account of Yoga as a method of social development.
A Universal Method
The method of Yoga is universal. It is accessible everywhere and to every one
who is prepared to bear the ordeal. What fundamentally matters in Yoga is not
the Hindu or the Western outlook, but the psychic turn, the spiritual urge, and
these are the same everywhere. The doubts of the Western psychologists like
Sigmund Freud and Prof. Leuba, among many others, are based on
misunderstanding of the nature and method of Yoga. The followers of this path
should have the best that is found in the East or the West. To quote Sri
Aurobindo again, “They will adopt in its heart of meaning the inward view of
the East which bids man seek the secret of his destiny and salvation within; but
also they will accept, though with a different turn given to it, the importance
which the West rightly attaches to life and to the making the best we know and
can attain the general rule of all life.”[16] Thus it is quite clear that the aim of
integral Yoga is the ascent of humanity into a spiritual age.
No Change En-Masse
This change, through Yoga, however, cannot be brought about in the whole of
humanity en-bloc. Nature always progresses by slow and limited
experimentation. Every change must be first realized in the individual, before it
can have its effective hold on the community. It is only through the individual
mind that the masses can clearly know anything, as the communal mind holds
things subconsciously. Sri Aurobindo places a very high value on the individual
and is opposed to all interpretations of history, politics, sociology or philosophy
which seek to reduce the individual to a mere part of collectivity. Prehuman
evolution has been unconscious and hence an atom or an animal has no
individuality, in the sense of conscious freedom. But man is consciously free and
has individuality. Hence he can consciously help Nature in her evolutionary
efforts. When Sri Aurobindo maintains that everything in the world is divinely
ordained, or determined by the universal spirit, that does not mean the negation
of the individuality but rather an affirmation of it, since that universal spirit is
the inner core of man. Man is an instrument for the manifestation of the Divine
will and yet he is an indispensable instrument for its realization. Nature always
effects changes through the individual man or a limited number of men. Man’s
history would have been very different, if whatever has been realized in the
individual would have been at once realized in the masses. But as this is not the
fact, the change through Yogic method will also be first realized in individuals
and only gradually in masses.
Two Conditions of Realization
Thus two conditions must be fulfilled to realize the effect of Yoga. First, there
must be individual or individuals who can realize spirituality and communicate it
to the masses. Secondly, there must be a society or group, ready to receive and
assimilate this light and power. That this has never happened in history, has been
the cause of persistent failures in all attempts for the regeneration of the race.
History, however, is not a dead repetition of events. Evolution is not only
resultant but also emergent. No one can actually fix the moment for the
realization of both these conditions and nothing can be said as to how much
effort will be required to actualize it. Any defect in the initiators or in the
receiving masses might lead to the failure of the whole attempt. But that such a
state may be realized is a certainty based on the very fact of evolution. Sri
Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy stands and falls with the theory of evolution. If
man’s history is not a vain groping in a circle, if there is some purpose in Nature,
if the process is evolutionary, a spiritual age is a certainty which cannot be
rejected, even in the face of worst conditions of the actual state of things. The
only thing necessary is to note whether the symptoms are there right now, or
whether man will have to wait for many more milleniums. And man shall not
only watch passively. By lending his conscious efforts, he can bring the moment
nearer. That is what Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy indicates in the method
of Yoga.
Symptoms of Spiritual Age
Now what are the symptoms necessary for the realization of the spiritual age.
The first symptom obviously is the readiness of the common mind. Of this the
essential sign is “the growth of the subjective idea of life, – the idea of the soul,
the inner being, its powers, its possibilities, its growth, its expression and the
creation of a true, beautiful and helpful environment for it as the one thing of
first and last importance.”[17] These ideas will be explicit in philosophy,
psychology, art, poetry, painting, sculpture, music, ethics, sociology and even in
politics and economics. There will be new unexpected departures of science and
research. Discoveries will be made that pierce through the walls between soul
and matter. Researches will be conducted to extend exact knowledge into the
psychological and psychic realms. Religion will reject its past heavy weight of
dead matter of ritualism and revivify its strength by spiritual transformation.
These signs can be seen in the development of parapsychology, subjective trends
in modern physics, art and literature and philosophy.
This subjective trend, however, is only a first condition. It is neither a
definite entry in, nor a realization of spirituality. And what has been witnessed
so far is only a vital or mental subjectivism. This subjectivism might arrive at a
psychic principle which will place all science and art and other things on a
footing higher than ever witnessed in the past. This will have greater dangers,
but all this process is necessary for the evolution of the human race.
No Miracles
The follower of the integral method of yoga does not believe in mirades. It is a
slow and gradual process, leading humanity from the ordinary life through vital
and mental and psychic Subjectivism to spirituality with many intermediary
stages which cannot be known through speculation. A permanent and integral
spiritualization requires ascent, transformation, integration, as necessary
requisites. The past efforts failed since they tried to change man all at once. Sri
Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy is based on hard facts. Every game has its rules.
One who wants to play must follow the rules or abandon the play itself. “If
mankind is to be spiritualised, it must first in the mass cease to be the material or
the vital man and become the psychic and the true mental being. It may be
questioned whether such a mass progress or conversion is possible; but if it is
not, then the spiritualisation of mankind as a whole is a chimera.”[18] A swift
realization of the spiritual purpose in the human race is possible only at the cost
of reducing the ideal of true spirituality to that extent. What the real spirituality
in the human race means will be explained in detail in the next chapter of this
work.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, First series, pp. 26-27.

[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Vol. I, p. 37.

[3] Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Ist University Edition, p. 4.

[4] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, First Series, p. 28.

[5] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Third Series, p. 327.

[6] Sri Aurobindo, The Problem of Rebirth, p. 52.

[7]
Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis of Yoga, Arya, Vol. I, p. 16.
[8]
Sri Aurobindo, Letters, First Series, p. 246.
[9]
Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, p. 33.
[10]
Sri Aurobindo, More Lights on Yoga, p. 95.
[11] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, First Series, p. 152.

[12] Ibid., p. 23.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga, p. 52.

[15] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Second Series, p. 132.

[16] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 296.

[17] Ibid., p. 277.

[18] Ibid., p. 282.

 CHAPTER XIII
The Future of Mankind

“The significance of our existence here determines our destiny: that

destiny is something that already exists in us as a necessity and
potentiality, the necessity of our being’s secret and emergent reality, a
truth of its potentialities that is being worked out; both, though not yet
realized, are even now implied in what has been already manifested. ”
— Sri Aurobindo

The concept of evolution is the key to understand Sri Aurobindo’s Metaphysics

as well as his Social Philosophy. That, again, is the basis of his speculations
about the future of mankind. The validity of these speculations, is the truth of Sri
Aurobindo’s philosophy of history and psychology of social development, which
have their roots in his experience of integral Yoga. With yoga stands and falls
Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics as well as his Social Philosophy. The future of
mankind depends on the success of yoga as a method of social development, as
all other methods are useful only for a partial progress. Through yoga, mankind
shall resolve the present crisis. It will usher the human race into a new era which
has been visualized by Sri Aurobindo through his yogic experience. The validity
of these speculations, remains unchallenged, so far as these are based on the
personal experience of Sri Aurobindo. The realization of that stage by the human
race, however, very much depends on the course of history. The social
philosopher analyzes the history and psychology of social development,
visualizes the ideal of social development, evaluates the various methods of
achieving it, indicates the best method and speculates about the future of
mankind as a result of that method. That is the sole aim of Social Philosophy. Its
success depends on humanity itself. The trends of the time which the social
philosophy visualizes will be ultimately realized, sooner if men cooperate, later
if many refuse to understand. And how much change here and there, this refusal
will, make in the course of future events, no social philosopher can claim to
decide a priori. This dynamic understanding of the spiral of evolution is a
prelude to understand Sri Aurobindo’s speculations about the future of mankind.
Limitations of Speculation about Future
Now, Social Philosophy, with language as its main instrument, cannot give a
description of the supramental stage of man. Mental perception and knowledge,
by their very inherent limitations, cannot comprehend the actions of supramental
consciousness. It can be said, a priori, that the supramental nature must contain
mundane nature, though in a spiritualized and transformed form. This integration
is the very law of evolution. But the knowledge of the ways of evolution, which
Nature has exhibited so far, can only give a very general idea. It cannot give a
dear cut mental description of the change. The finite mind cannot understand
supramental nature which is in its essence a consciousness and power of the
Infinite. Dualism is characteristic of mind, while oneness is the standpoint of
supramental nature. Intellecutal reason is dictated by mental or vital impulses,
supramental nature works by an inherent spiritual vision. Hence, Social
Philosophy cannot anticipate the supramental stage. The opposition of the
mental and supramental nature, however, can itself be the basis of a vague and
general idea of the first status of the supramental existence. This is the validity
as well as the limitation of the speculations about the future of mankind in Sri
Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy.
Descent of Gnostic Consciousness
The gnostic consciousness, like the mental consciousness, will create a race of
gnostic spiritual beings and take up everything that is ready for transformation.
Like the evolution in the past this supra-mental upsurge will also be
accompanied by the supramental descent. As a process in knowledge, this
descent, as opposed to the descent at lower levels, will not be confined to parts
or surface, but include all, leading to disappearance of the rule of the
Inconscient. It will manifest not only the supramental being, nature and life but
also the overmental, the intuitional and the higher mental, since all these are
successive ascending degrees of the gnostic light and power on earth. It will also
affect the life of ignorance and make it harmonious. It will infuse a freer play in
intuition, sympathy and understanding in human life. The struggle between
lower and higher nature will be substituted by a graded progression from lesser
to greater light. At each level, the conscious beings will expand their own law of
cosmic Nature towards higher possibilities. The evolutionary progress will not
stop but would become harmonious and steady.
Distinction between Supramental and Overmental Beings
According to the nature of the supramental and overmental principles, there
would be a difference in overmental and supramental beings. The overmental
being will work on its own lines separated from the world of ignorance. The
supramental being, on the contrary, will not only work according to his nature
but will also be united with the still surviving mental world, however ignorant it
may be. This is so, as supramental consciousness is integral. Its appearance will
change the whole world and thus pave the way for a more harmonious
evolutionary order upon earth.
Unity through Diversity
As the law of the supermind is unity fulfilled in diversity, its manifestation will
have infinite diversity based on an inherent unity. There shall be degrees of
ascending consciousness not only from mind to supermind, but in the
supramental beings as well. Individual, according to Sri Aurobindo’s Social
Philosophy, is always unique and his uniqueness will not be lost even on the
supramental level.
The Gnostic Being
The gnostic being will feel the universal self and spirit in every part of his
physical, vital and mental existence and activity. He will live and act in “an
entire transcendent freedom, a complete joy of the spirit, an entire identity with
the cosmic self and a spontaneous sympathy with all in the universe.”[1] He will
be worldly and individual but also free and not separative. His individuality will
be true, i.e., universal as well as transcendent. He will be a harmonious
fulfilment of individual, universal and transcendent. This is what man has
always aspired after.
The supramental gnosis gives a complete self-knowledge and with it a
complete self-mastery. The perfection will be limited in the lower grades of
gnostic beings. But in the supramental beings, the perfection would be unlimited,
though full of diversity, since each being shall be a new totality. The restriction
at any moment of his activity is not due to incapacity but first, to dynamic self-
choice, delight and truth of the spirit, and secondly, to the truth of the thing that
has to be done by him in the harmony of the totality. The cognitive and affective
functioning of the supramental being shall be in complete harmony with the
universal and transcendent spirit. Hence, it will remove the impediments in the
social development, which mind has failed to overcome. The ideal of social
development, according to Sri Aurobindo, discussed in Chapter VII of this work,
will be fully realized only on the supramental level. Man will face recurring
crises in his civilization, until he transcends the mental ignorance. An entry into
the gnostic stage is the only solution for a steady progress. All lesser remedies
are temporary and fallible. Individual and society, according to Sri Aurobindo’s
Social Philosophy, cannot be harmonized by the subordination of either to the
other, nor by a balance, but by a transition to the supramental stage, where both
work with the laws of the same truth-consciousness of the Transcendent Being.
The Supramental Being
The supramental being will express the existence, consciousness and bliss of the
spirit, not only in himself but also in his relations with others. The supramental
being, according to Sri Aurobindo, is the highest of the gnostic beings. He is
more than the spiritual man. The spiritual man embraces the joy and grief of
others, the supramental being embraces and yet also transcends these. His
altruism shall not be through self-effacement but through self-fulfillment. He
will act not for results but for pure delight of spirit. He will live in spiritual
totality and act from it. His knowledge shall not be ideative but the Real-idea of
the supermind. The spiritual man constantly guards his inner spiritual being from
the intrusion of the outer forces of darkness. In the inner life of the gnostic
being, the antinomy of inner and outer, the self and the world, shall be abolished.
Nothing can pull him down. His inner peace, love and delight, will embrace the
whole universe. He will find his own self in all and exceeding all. His embrace
of the world of ignorance will not pollute his nature. He will have an inward
contact with the self in others. His outer action will be a mere fringe of his inner
action “by the spiritual supramental idea-force formulating itself in the world.”
His universal inner life will not be confined to physical or terrestrial creation
only, but extend to the knowledge of all other planes of being, hidden behind the
physical plane. He will have full power over them and use them for the
perfection of the physical existence. Thus he will have an immense power over
his entire environment.
Being and Becoming on the supramental level will have the same purpose,
viz., Existence, Consciousness and Delight. The supramental Being will appear
as the symbol of evolution from ignorance to the consciousness of
Sachchidananda. He will be the fulfilment of all that man to-day seeks
imperfectly in ignorance. All knowledge, power and delight he will turn into that
of self.
Fulfilment of Body, Life and Mind
The body, life and mind shall not be suppressed or abolished but fulfilled and
perfected by self-exceeding. They shall also be transformed, since “all will be
the finding of the self by the self in the self.”[2], the self being not ego but spirit.
The knowledge here will not be indirect but a direct knowledge through identity,
a knowledge of essence as well as of details, of ends as well as of means, of
truths as well as of their dynamic processes. It will be rooted in an identity of
knowledge, knower and known, since in it everything is known as part of the
universal consciousness that knows. It will not see the truths as contraries but as
complementaries in the one truth. The quests of life, its urges for growth, power,
conquest, possession, satisfaction, creation, joy, love, beauty, etc., shall attain
the fullest and the highest expression in the gnostic evolution. The gnostic life,
however, will not exist and act for the ego but for Divine in the individual as
well as in the universe. All its urges shall be spiritual and divine. This new
relation of spirit with mind, life and matter, will also lead to the reversal of the
relations of the spirit and body. In the gnostic life, the will of the spirit will
directly control the laws of the body, as even the subconscient and inconscient
will be transformed. In the higher-mind, intuitive and over-mind being, the body
will become sufficiently conscious to respond to the influence of the idea and the
Will-Force “but in the supramental being it is the consciousness with the Real-
idea in it which will govern everything.”[3] The body will be turned into a
“perfectly responsive instrument of the Spirit.”[4] As ultimately, matter too is
Brahman, the gnostic being will care for a perfect and faultless use of his body
for a true harmony and beauty in the physical world. The demands of body,
health, strength, physical perfection, bodily happiness, ease and liberation from
suffering, according to Sri Aurobindo, are not mean, unacceptable or illegitimate
in themselves, for these demands are characteristic of spirit put in terms of
matter. Hence these demands shall be perfectly realized in the gnostic stage,
which will bring a higher spiritual force and greater life-power in the body
unified with the universal life-force. As man grows in evolution, he becomes
more sensible and suffers more keenly in mind, life and body, as the growth in
force is not correlated with growth in consciousness. In the gnostic stage, the
spiritual power will fill the whole being with a supreme energy of
Consciousness-Force which would harmonize with itself all the forces of
existence working upon the body and thus conquer pain and suffering. Man’s
whole being seeks a total delight of existence. Ānanda is the very essence and
matrix of existence. According to Sri Aurobindo, “This Ananda would be
inherent in the gnostic consciousness as a universal delight and would grow with
the evolution of the gnostic nature.”[5] Ecstasy is lower than peace on the
spiritual mind-plane but is one identical state with peace on the gnostic plane.
Personality of the Gnostic Being
Now, if the gnostic being works through a universal consciousness, how can he
have any personality? And if he has no personality, he has no responsibility and
hence no moral obligation. This objection, though valid for the mind, is not
applicable on the supramental plane, as here personality and impersonality are
not opposite but inseparable aspects of one and the same reality. As in Divine, so
also in the gnostic being, the true Purusa is impersonal but in its dynamic truth it
always manifests itself in the particular forms which constitute personality. The
supramental gnostic individual, however, will be a spiritual person but not a
personality in the sense of a fixed pattern.
A Moral Stage
The character of the life and action of the gnostic being shall proceed from this
gnostic individuality. Hence there shall be no conflict of good and evil. All
problems including that of morals shall be abolished with the extinction of
mental ignorance and separative egoism. This has always been the idea of the
liberated man, according to Indian philosophers. Love, truth and right, the
highest virtues obligatory on the moral level become spontaneous on the gnostic
level. This makes all the difference between the present life and the life at the
gnostic level. It shall be a fulfilment of all the laws constructed by man, of the
absolute of all his seekings. In the gnostic being, the individuality will not
contradict universality nor transcendence. Man will be in perfect harmony with
the cosmos but never subordinate to it, as he is transcendent as well. He will
have perfect freedom of self, as his self shall be in spontaneous unity with
Divine. The opposition of Man and Nature shall disappear at the supramental
level. Law is the rule of the mind, while the principle of the spirit is freedom.
The gnostic being shall be self-determined, i.e., God-determined, i.e., free,
according to a self-existent knowledge. His divine unity is the foundation of his
liberty. In him, knowledge and will are always in harmony, as spirit harmonizes
all its instruments. Freedom and order, contraries on the mental level, are
complementary at the gnostic stage. On the gnostic level, there shall be a
spontaneous harmony in the different aspects of the individual as well as
collective being. In the gnostic consciousness there shall be no conflict between
ego and super-ego, selfishness and altruism, since its inner truth is that which
fulfils and transcends both. “There would be no question of selfishness or
altruism, of oneself and others, since all are seen and felt as the one self and only
what the supreme Truth and Good decides would be done.”[6] In supramental
being all powers are intimate to each other and act as one. There shall be no
conflict between knowlege, feeling and will.
Difference of Instrumentation
The instrumentation of the supramental life will be different from other forms of
gnostic life. The higher mental being would act through truth-thought, the
illumined gnostic being through truth-vision, the intuitive gnostic being through
truth-sense and the overmental being through the luminous immediate grasp of
the truth of things. But, in the supramental gnosis, all these instrumentations will
return to their source and subsist as a single body of its knowledge, which in its
turn is the instrumentation of truth-consciousness. This truth-consciousness is
two-fold, “a consciousness of inherent self-knowledge and, by identity of self
and world, of intimate world-knowledge.”[7]
The Gnostic Collectivity
There would be diversity in the gnostic evolution but it will always have a
common basis. As the gnostic individual will be an individual soul-power of the
collectivity, so the gnostic collectivity will be a collective soul-power of the
truth-consciousness. It will act not mechanically but as a spiritual integer. Both
individual and society will have the same integration of life and action,
conscious-unity, spontaneity, truth-vision, truth-sense, truth-action, in the
relation of each with each and all with all. The gnostic society will be “an order
of the conscious unity of souls”, “a freedom of the diverse play of the Infinite in
divine souls”, with “greatest richness of diversity in the self-expression of
oneness.” There shall be a spontaneous adjustment, “a rich many-sided
execution of the thing to be collectively known, done, worked out in life.” “In
the collective gnostic life the integrating truth-sense, the concording unity of
gnostic nature would carry all divergences in itself as its own opulence and turn
a multitudinous thought, action, feeling, into the unity of a luminous life-
whole.”[8] Thus the collective gnostic life, obviously, will be founded on the

principles of the individual gnostic life.

Gnostic Influence on Human Race
By the very fact of evolution, the gnostic manifestation will only be a
circumstance in the whole, while the lower degree of consciousness and life will
also continue. But ultimately, the gnostic life will dominate the whole. The
higher mental, illumined, intuitive and overmental beings will draw all their light
and energy from the supramental manifestation and enlighten whatever ignorant
life comes in their contact. Their contact will make the beings of the ignorance
more conscious and responsive. In the untransformed part of humanity, this
contact will lead to an increasing growth partly intuitionized, or partly illumined,
higher order of mental human beings “in direct or part communion with the
higher-thought.”[9] Thus a whole race of higher humanity will evolve. This
consummation of the higher will lead to a consummation of the lower in its own
degree.
No Cessation of Inconscience
This gnostic evolution will not lead to a complete cessation of the evolution
from Inconscience, as, according to Sri Aurobindo, the movement between the
superconscious and the Inconscience is not a provisional circumstance but an
abiding law of the material manifestation. This is explicit from the tremendous
force of the pervasiveness and durability of the inconscient foundation of the
material universe. The manifestation of supramental consciousness upon earth
will complete the curve of earth-nature, but it cannot have such an all-pervading
effect as to eliminate the matter. And Social Philosophy is only concerned with
the future of mankind upon earth. Hence for our purpose, it is sufficient to note
that the appearance of gnostic life will begin the change of earth-nature which
shall be consummated in the completion of supramental evolution by a supreme
manifestation of the Sachchidānanda.
The Cosmic Liberation
Spiritual realization leads to the liberation of the individual, but it does not
change environmental existence. The gnostic manifestation will change the
whole instrumentation of life and action upon earth. According to Sri
Aurobindo, “Not only to see and find the Divine in all, not only to seek one’s
own individual liberation or perfection, but to seek the liberation and perfection
of others is the complete law of the spiritual being.”[10] Not an Olympian ego of
Goethe or a Titanic ego of Nietzche, but a divine self, one in individual as well
as society and transcending both, is the principle of gnostic life.
Oneness of whole Being
The gnostic being shall have a complete oneness of the whole being with others,
a consciousness of their mind, life and body as one’s own. This intimate oneness
will be the real substitute for qualities of love, sympathy, fellow-feeling, etc. The
gnostic being finds himself not only in his own fulfilment but also in the
fulfilment of others. He lives neither for the individual ego nor for the collective
ego but for the Divine in all beings.
The Divine Life
This is the realization of the Divine life upon earth. The spiritual fulfilment of
the individual is, undoubtedly, its first condition. Its second condition is the
individual’s complete oneness with all life upon earth. Both these conditions had
been emphasized by the Indian philosophers in the past. Sri Aurobindo points
out to a third necessary condition, i.e., supramental change of the total life of
humanity. This requires not only gnostic individuals but also gnostic
communities, based on common truth-consciousness, with self-determined law
and order. Like gnostic individuals, the gnostic communities will also exhibit
considerable free diversity. This diversity will not breed opposition but co-
operation, as there shall be no clamouring for anything. The gnostic being will
be delighted equally in authority as in subordination, for spirit’s freedom can be
felt in both. His role and status in society will thus be determined by a self-
arrangement of Truth. “Unity, mutuality and harmony must therefore be the
inescapable law of a common or collective gnostic life.”[11] The past failures in
the practical realization of the ideal of social development are due to their basis
in an ignorant consciousness suffering from dualism. A gnostic consciousness
may lead to a more perfect realization of the social ideal of mankind. On the
possibility of this change depends the destiny of the human race. If this change is
not possible, man’s future is doomed. But the fact of evolution makes the other
alternative more likely, nay even necessary. “It is our spiritual destiny to
manifest and become that supernature, – for it is the nature of our true self, our
still occult, because unevolved, whole being.”[12] As a matter of fact, the entire
evolution, in the past seems to be a preparation for this change. It was brought
closer at each crisis of human destiny. A trend towards this change, a sense of its
possibility, a new vision, an imperative need, is visible at least in some
individuals. This trend is becoming more and more a crying need, as the tension
of the crisis in man’s destiny increases. This call in the being has an answer in
the Divine and Nature. This answer is the emergence of gnostic consciousness
upon earth.
The Problem of Transition
This answer might be individual at first. Later on, these spiritual individuals,
may form a group based on spiritual principles. These groups may be isolated at
first, as in the form of monastic communities in the past. These monastries in the
past history, always succumbed to the force of ignorance surrounding them, as
this ignorance could not be conquered by any incomplete spiritual aspiration.
The gnostic change will transform ignorance into knowledge. The separate
spiritual communities will be founded with a twin purpose. First, they will
provide a secure atmosphere, place and life to the individual, to concentrate on
its evolution in surroundings where all was turned and centred towards the one
endeavour. Secondly, they will help in formulating and developing the new life
in those surroundings, when everything is ready. This assembly of the spiritual
individuals can also lead to the concentration of the obstructing forces, as each
individual will pool together his own difficulties. It was this difficulty which
became insurmountable in the past. But, it may be overcome now, if Nature is
prepared for the evolutionary change and since the new light will now bring with
it new power. This power will not only guard the gnostic community against the
lower forces, but it will also go a long way towards harmonizing even the lower
forms of life. All these are vague probabilities, for that alone is within the reach
of Social Philosophy. The actual form of things will depend on the dynamics of
the supramental principle itself which is not bound by laws and standards of the
mind.
Supramental Supermanhood
The life of the gnostic beings can be described as spiritual or supermental
supermanhood. This superman, in the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, is
entirely different from the superman conceived in the past. Contrary to the
superman of Nietzsche, Sri Aurobindo’s superman is a supramental superman as
described above. Its appearance will reverse the whole principle of ignorance.
SOME DIFFICULTIES
Humanistic Difficulty
Now, many doubts and difficulties can be raised in the above-mentioned
speculations by Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics, as well as his
Social Philosophy, is based on the concept of evolution. But even the theory of
evolution can be challenged on the basis of insufficient foundation. Has man the
capacity to develop into a higher evolutionary being? Seeing the earthly nature,
as it is, it is difficult to believe in the evolution of the supramental
consciousness. Again, why can the evolution not stop at man? Indeed, this is the
standpoint of many Western thinkers, Humanists, Positivists, Pragmatists,
Instrumentalists, etc. Not only in the present, but in the past also, this type of
thinking has not been uncommon. “Man is the measure of all things” is an old
principle again and again reiterated in human history. Man’s aim is to obtain
manhood. He can’t be superman or God. Even if the superman is born, he shall
be a different species, not an evolution out of man.
Metaphysical Difficulty
Again, even if Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysical contentions about the nature of
creation and rebirth are granted, the inevitability of spiritual evolution of man is
not proved. Traditionally, Advaita Vedanta has taken a different meaning of
man’s spiritual essence. Ātman is already Brahman. Hence, there is no need of
change or evolution. The Absolute, according to the absolutists, including
Samkara and Bradley, is perfect and hence motionless. Therefore, manifestation
has no purpose, no aim to work out. The principle of evolution has not been
sufficiently and finally established in Science and hence cannot be adopted in
metaphysics.
Observational Difficulty
Again, evolution is not proved by observation. The principles of creation appear
to be permanent and unchanging. Types appear and disappear, but one type does
not evolve into another. The missing links in the Darwinian hypothesis are
notorious. Even the evolution of Life and Mind does not prove the evolution of
supermind, since mind and super-mind belong to quite different levels. The
tendency of heredity “is conservative rather than evolutionary.” There is
succession, but not evolution in species. No human race exhibits signs of
superamental nature. Hence what is possible at the most, is the development of a
few individuals but never of the entire race.
Religious Difficulty
Religions, in the past, generally maintained that this earth is a World of
Ignorance and meant to be that and nothing more. The higher powers are in
supra-terrestrial planes. The sole aim of man should be to escape the māyā,
misery of the world. Man is the highest creation of God. The only way to reach
God is to pass out of this cosmic existence. This has been the concept of
liberation, generally advanced by Indian philosophers. Even if sometimes the
possibility of liberation while living was granted, the final liberation was
generally held to be the escape from the mire of the world, the cycle of birth and
rebirth. Neither does the ancient law of Karma, nor that of transmigration,
support the idea of man’s evolution. Liberation from the terrestrial world is the
only true culmination of the human cycle.
Doubt in Human Progress
The idea of human progress has itself been doubted. The findings of the psycho-
analysts, specially those of Sigmund Freud, about the nature of man, go a long
way to show that man has hardly advanced from the animal in his motives and
impulses. The only progress achieved by man is in the knowledge of the physical
world, in the field of science, in the control of environment. Otherwise, he is
hardly any better than the early barbarians. Man’s progress has been circular. He
has not changed, he has only progressed in degree and width. He moves in
ignorance and nothing warrants that he can ever escape this ignorance. The
present political, international, literary, artistic, educational and other
achievements of man, hardly present an optimistic picture of the possibility of a
future spiritual change.
Sri Aurobindo’s answer to these Difficulties
These difficulties, against his contentions, were noticed by Sri Aurobindo and he
met the challenge like a social philosopher, whose theories are based on deep
personal experience, a multifarious active life, a wide learning and, above all, an
integral vision.
Refutation of Arguments against Purpose in Evolution
The hypothesis of purpose in evolution has been questioned on two grounds,
scientific and metaphysical. The scientific objection is rooted in the findings of
physics about the nature of the world as mechanical process of atomic quanta
and bare energy in space-time. The metaphysical argument is based on the claim
that the Absolute is perfect and hence can have no purpose to achieve.
Now, the subjective trend in the present day physics and the principle of
Indeterminacy are against the mechanical principle. Science today no longer
advances any reason against the hypothesis of the play of spiritual forces in the
world. Sri Aurobindo accepts the findings of science, so far as they are
established, but takes recourse to yogic methods, where the scientific methods
fail. It is true that his hypothesis of a secret consciousness and Will-Power,
behind the apparently inconscient energy in matter, cannot be verified by
scientific instruments; but on the other hand there are no scientific findings
which refute this hypothesis. And it is not a mere hypothesis, it is a personal
experience, common to all those who have the vision and the necessary Sadhana.
And if the scientist denies it, the burden of refuting it falls on the scientist, a
burden certainly beyond the capacity of his limited tools.
Sri Aurobindo’s theory of evolution is based on his deep, personal, yogic
experience. That personal experiences differ is no ground to reject them as
invalid, since the validity of the experience can be established by sufficient
training and sincere self-analysis. And where scientific methods fail, other
methods, however undemocratic, become imperative. A democratic sanction, a
universal communication, may be fundamental to all verification in science, but
this should not be the principle in the realms where science has failed. If science
fails to-day in a certain field, there is no wisdom either in waiting for an
unlimited period for some future scientists to unravel the knot or in a dogmatic
scepticism on the issue. Science will do the greatest good to mankind when it
joins hands with yogic, religious, occult and other personal experiences. And
yogic experience is the deepest type of personal experience which Sri Aurobindo
ceaselessly improved and deepened with the precision and sinerity of a great
scientist. And as the great scientists are masters in their own field, so is Sri
Aurobindo in his own field of yoga. The truth of his theory of evolution, based
on his yogic experience, is exhibited by the fact that he never contradicts science
but only points out the limitations of the present day scientific findings and
utilizes them by giving them a suitable place in his scheme. The integral theory
affirms other theories and improves upon them. Such is the theory of world-
nature and evolution, advanced by Sri Aurobindo. And this is the justification of
his Social Philosophy and its speculations about the future of mankind.
Refutation of the Metaphysical Argument
The metaphysical argument of the Absolutists and the Advaita Vedantins against
Sri Aurobindo’s theory of evolution appears to be more serious. Sri Aurobindo
agrees with the Absolutist position that the Absolute can have no unrealized
purpose. He admits that there can be no evolution in the universal totality. But
our earth as science also admits, is a very small part of the totality. Hence, the
evolution of the unevolved principles on earth, as well as the descent of the
higher powers from their own bases, is quite compatible with the perfection of
the whole. Similarly, the teleology of the evolution, as the manifestation of the
greater powers of existence, till the whole manifests itself on earth, is not against
the self-fulfilled purposelessness of the Absolute, since “it proposes only the
realisation of the totality in the part.”[13] Sri Aurobindo agrees with the Vedāntic
idea that the world is a drama, a game, a līlā, but this game has some object to be
accomplished. Ānanda is the principle of all being, but it includes the delight of
self-manifestation. To conclude in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “There can be no
objection to the admission of a teleological factor in a part movement of the
universal totality, if the purpose, – not a purpose in the human sense but the urge
of an intrinsic Truth-necessity conscious in the will of the indwelling Spirit, – is
the perfect manifestation there of all the possibilities inherent in the total
movement.”[14].
The Evidence of Evolution
The phenomenon of evolution is proved both by observation and by reason and
intuition. The scientific theory of evolution is itself and argument in favour of
the spiritual evolution. It is not an indispensable proof, since the two differ in
nature, the former being outer while the latter is inner. The fact of succession in
something self-evident. The order of succession is also proved by the evidence
of science as well as that of the scriptures. Modern theory of the successive
evolution of matter, life and mind is supported by the ancient and medieval
Indian thought, the Upanisads, the Purānas and the Tantra scriptures. The
hypothesis of the evolution of man out of lesser developed species is not
something very difficult to understand. Science has itself demonstrated
enormous improvement in the species or genus. And it is conceivable that
greater changes are possible by the conscious energy in Nature. In this
succession of evolution, the lower form supplied a rudimentary basis for the
higher emergence which became possible by a reversal of consciousness at every
radical transition in Nature. Whether the change is emergent or resultant, is a
question about the method of transition but the fact of evolutionary process
remains in both cases. Now Sri Aurobindo poses an important question here. Is it
possible that the complex human body may be a chance product manifested from
the normal material energy? Evidently, this is not possible without the
intervention of some supra-physical force. This action is necessary in the
miraculous appearance of mind out of life and life out of matter. And this action
presupposes a preparation from below. Thus an ascent from below and a descent
from above are necessary conditions for the emergence of new levels in the
evolutionary process.
Certitude of Progress
Man’s future evolution has its roots in his own type, since the impulse towards
self-exceeding is also his fundamental principle. Thus it is in the very
faithfulness to his own type that man should transcend himself. To be a man
fully, he should be a gnostic being, a superman. The phenomenon of human
progress, according to Sri Aurobindo, cannot be denied, “....there has been in
later development an increasing subtlety, complexity, manifold development of
knowledge and possibility in man’s achievements in his politics, society, life,
science, metaphysics, knowledge of all kinds, art, literature; even in his spiritual
endeavour, less surprisingly lofty and less massive in power of spirituality than
that of the ancients, there has been this increasing subtlety, plasticity, sounding
of depths, extension of seeking.”[15] All this progress in its upward and
downward curves has been a preparation. The appearance of spiritual individuals
in the human race, according to Sri Aurobindo, is a sure sign of the
manifestation of the gnostic being, just as the appearance of ape-kind animal was
the method of human evolution. This sign, undoubtedly, does not suggest the
possibility of the evolution of the whole human race to the supramental level. It
only suggests a capacity in man to evolve to that stage. In this evolution, the
change of consciousness will precede the change in body. As a matter of fact, the
latter will follow from the former. Thus human gradation will be preserved in
this evolution, but the mental status will remain “as an open step towards the
spiritual and supramental status.”[16]
The Significance of the Emergence of Man
The appearance of man upon earth has decisively changed the course of the
process of evolution. Till now evolution was through the automatic operation of
Nature. Man has substituted a conscious for a sub-conscious evolution. In pre-
human stages, the force of consciousness was determined by the efficiency of
the body. In man, this order has been reversed, as the evolution is now inner and
spiritual. Man has helped Nature in various ways, e.g., the change in his mental
and other capacities, and in his environment and even in vegetable and animal
kingdom by producing new species. Hence, he can also help Nature in his own
physical and spiritual evolution. This is proved by observation of physical and
spiritual evolution. The phenomenon of rebirth also proves the same thing. It is
in the form of man that the psychic reality gets an opportunity to dominate and
realize its possibilites. Thus, there is no absolute gulf between knowledge and
ignorance in Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysics. Hence, according to him, the world
nature is ignorant only in a particular aspect of it. The real foundation of
existence is the consciousness, struggling to manifest knowledge. It is this
consciousness in man which will lead him to the supramental knowledge and
being. And this spiritual urge in man has always aspired not only after the
spiritualization of his own being but a spiritual mastery of Nature and a divine
descent in human collectivity. Had man been incapable of this change, he would
have given place to superman. But if man can exceed himself, then he himself,
will arrive at supermind. This is also proved by the double evolution in Nature,
the psychic as well as mental. Had the intention been the exclusive evolution of
spirit and an escape into the other world, this mental evolution would have no
sense. The very fact of the evolution of mind shows that the intention of Nature
is a comprehensive change of the being. This comprehensive purpose makes the
spiritual advance more difficult, since it has to face all possible difficulties on
account of the inertia of mind, life, and body. This impediment often appears so
insurmountable that spiritual impatience leads us to asceticism, illusionism and
other-worldliness. This uncompromising spirit is necessary, as what is required
is complete victory of spirit. Unless spiritual consciousness becomes fully
established, its extension towards other parts of nature is always imperfect.
Realization of Triple Truth
The spiritual human society will realize the three essential truths of existence –
God, Freedom and Unity, which are three aspects of one and the same truth.
None of the three can be realized without the realization of the other two. “When
man is able to see God and to possess him, then he will know real freedom and
arrive at real unity, never otherwise.”[17] The spiritual society will live as a
collective soul and not as a collective ego. It will be the outcome of the
realization of God within and on this earth. All our social activities, education,
science, ethics, art, economic and political structure, will aim at the realization of
the Divine self in man. Science will discover the ways of the Spirit in the masses
as well as behind them. Ethics will develop a divine nature in Man. Art will
reveal the Truth and Beauty which the things symbolize. Education will aim not
only at worldly efficiency but the development and finding of self in man.
Sociology will deal with men as growing souls. Economics will give all men,
“the joy of work according to their own nature and free leisure to grow inwardly,
as well as a simply rich and beautiful life for all.”[18] Politics will treat the nations
as “group souls meant like the individual to grow according to their own nature,
and by that growth to help each other, to help the whole race in the common
work of humanity.”[19] This work, according to Sri Aurobindo, would be “to find
the divine self in the individual and collectivity and to realize spiritually,
mentally, vitally, materially its greatest, largest, richest and deepest possibilities
in the inner life of all and their outer action and nature.”[20] As the inner divine
compulsion grows in the individuals, society will lift the outer compulsions. All
will be perfectly free in a perfectly spiritual society. This perfect freedom will
not be complete without perfect unity, since universality is necessary for the
perfection of individuality. Man’s future destiny depends on a synthesis of the
Eastern spiritualism with the Western emphasis on life. This transition will take
place only gradually and with repeated failures, but once the foundations are
established, the progress shall be smooth. As the number of spiritual men
increases in the world, the advent of gnostic age will be nearer. In this evolution
there will be a hierarchy of development, but it will be a hierarchy, growing
simultaneously in all its parts. The lower will be lifted and guided by the higher
which, in its turn, will also ceaselessly grow. It will usher humanity into a new
spiritual age, into a new stage of the cycle of social development, a stage of
light, knowledge, unity, freedom, spirituality, a divine life on earth.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, Vol. II, American Edition, p. 863.

[2] Ibid., p. 872.

[3] Ibid., p. 875.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., p. 879.

[6] Ibid., p. 893.

[7] Ibid., p. 895.

[8] Ibid., p. 897.

[9] Ibid., p. 898.

[10] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 289.

[11] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, p. 916.

[12] Ibid., p. 918.

[13] Ibid., p. 743.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid., p. 749.

[16] Ibid., p. 750.

[17] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, pp. 283-84.

[18] Ibid., p. 286.

[19]
Ibid.
[20]
Ibid.
 CHAPTER XIV
Concluding Remarks

Sri Aurobindo has presented an integral vision of human nature, an integral

philosophy of history and an integral method of social and individual
development. This constitutes an integral Social Philosophy with an integral
ideal of social development based on an inner analysis of the psychology of
social development. This again, is the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s speculations
about the future of man.
Meaning of the Present Crisis
Sri Aurobindo’s interpretation of the present crisis of human civilization is more
integral and subtle than that of the moralists, scientists, economists, politicians,
philosophers, psychologists and historians, as the Yogic vision characteristically
presents a view far more integral, far deeper and wider than all the others. Sri
Aurobindo has looked into the present problems, not only in their psychological
and historical meanings but also in the perspective of the inner purpose of
Nature, the inherent nisus in her evolutionary process.
A Social Philosophy of Affirmation
In the metaphysics of Sri Aurobindo, the spiritual principle transforms the whole
man and governs his mind, life as well as body. The descent of the higher or the
ascent of the lower into it does not negate but fulfils. This principle is of
considerable importance in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy. His is a spiritual
Social Philosophy of affirmation. The life of the Spirit shall not be a life of
physical, vital or mental frustration, deficiency or incapacity but of more and
more enjoyment, growth and activity of body, vital being and mind. While the
urges of all these are faltering, blind, ignorant and conflicting on the mental
level, in Spirit they will become harmonious, purified, enlightened and smooth
in working.
An Indispensible Social Philosophy
The spiritual ideal of the Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, however lofty it
may appear is what every human being actually seeks in his life though
generally blindly and confusedly and through wrong methods. We have to
readily agree with the proposition that if man must live, he must live more and
more fully, since this is precisely what all of us seek in our own way. But few
know clearly, what living more fully means and that is the reason of man’s
constant failures to live fully. Now, if man would learn from his past failures, he
should realize that to live fully means to be fully. And, as Sri Aurobindo has
repeatedly indicated, to be fully means to be universally and finally to be
divinely. Thus even for the survival, growth and pleasure of his body, life and
mind, man should transcend his present level to reach the status of spirit through
gradual and persistent ascent.
Nature of Spirituality
The nature of this spirituality, has been generally missed by other social
philosophers. It has been often confused with high intellectuality, idealism,
morality, austerity, religiosity and exalted emotional fervour. It is neither of
these, nor even a compound of all these. “Spirituality”, according to Sri
Aurobindo, “is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality of our being, to a
spirit, self, soul, which is other than our mind, life and body, an inner aspiration
to know, to feel, to be that, to enter into contact with the greater Reality beyond
and pervading the universe which inhabits also our own being, to be in
communion with It and union with It, and a turning, a conversion, a
transformation of our whole being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the
union, a growth or waking into a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new
nature.”[1]
Not a Reactionary or a Conservative
Sri Aurobindo is not a reactionary or a conservative. With the grasp and vision
of a Yogi, he sees the merits, the limitations as well as the failures of the present
civilization, shows the philosophical as well as psychological meaning of its past
progression, diagnoses the diseases, visualises the future possibilities and sounds
the timely clarion of warning so that man may successfully overcome the present
crisis and realize his destiny of serving the purpose of Nature on earth.
Yogic Analysis of Human Nature
Sri Aurobindo’s subtle analysis of human nature based on his integral yogic
method is a signal contribution to man’s knowledge of himself. This is the
bedrock on which the future psychology should be founded if it has really to
contribute its share in man’s development, individual as well as social. This
psychology again provides the foundation of an integral Social Psychology.
An Integral Social Ideal
The Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo presents an ideal which satisfies the
whole being of man, in a perfect harmony within himself as well as with his
fellow beings. It is not only a theory of survival but also a message of growth,
and above all a gospel of joy, which is what even the most materialist and selfish
man seeks, though generally through wrong methods. In the Social Philosophy
of Sri Aurobindo, the ideal explains the real, the end the beginning, the present
the past. In the integral perspective, the higher explains the lower, as it integrates
as well as transcends it.
Real Idealism
Sri Aurobindo’s idealism is based on realistic foundations, yet his realism is
never without spiritual insight. As a philosopher of history, he is most idealistic
and yet his idealism is founded upon stark realism. He always keeps his eye on
the central purpose of Nature behind all the progressions and regressions in
human history. As he puts it “Our idealism is always the most rightly human
thing to us, but as a mental idealism it is a thing ineffective. To be effective it
has to convert itself into a spiritual realism which shall lay its hands on the
higher reality of the spirit and take up for it this lower reality of our sensational,
vital and physical nature.”[2] Thus Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy is as
realistic as any pragmatic, humanistic, scientific, positivistic, realistic or even
materialistic Social Philosophy can claim to be. The only difference betwee them
and Sri Aurobindo is that the conception of life in Sri Aurobindo’s Social
Philosophy is wider, deeper, more complex and, above all, accompanied with a
psychological and metaphysical insight into the real inner sources of life
working behind its outer cycle. The conception of life here is not one-sided and
abstract but integral and concrete. In the words of Sri Aurobindo, “Life in its
largest sense is the great web of our internal and external action, the play of
Shakti, the play of Karma; it is religion and philosophy, thought and science,
poetry and art, drama and song, dance and play, politics and society, industry,
commerce and trade, adventure and travel, war and peace, conflict and unity,
victory and defeat, aspirations and vicissitudes, the thoughts, emotions, words,
deeds, joys and sorrows which make up the existence of man.”[3] Thus life is
certainly what it appears on its face but it is also what it seeks secretly through
these outer forms.
Robust Optimism
As a social philosopher Sri Aurobindo is against all types of pessimism. His
Social Philosophy is founded on a robust optimism based on his integral
metaphysics, which is rooted in his integral experience of Divine. Thus he says,
“All pessimism is to that extent a denial of the spirit, of its fullness and power,
an impatience with the ways of God in the world, an insufficient faith in the
divine wisdom and will that created the world and for ever guides it.”[4]
Sri Aurobindo is not satisfied with the utilitarian compromises, partial
remedies, the see-saw of progression and regression. He clearly noticed, more
than any other thinker, the crisis which the human race is facing at present. He
interpreted this crisis not by its overt signs but with a vision into its meaning,
with reference to the great forces working not only behind man but in the whole
cosmos. He realized the gravity of the situation more than any pessimist
philosopher of history or society. And yet he is more optimistic than even the
meliorists, the pragmatists, Russell or Gandhi. This robust optimism is not the
idealism of a divine and religious soul. It is based on his practical solution of the
problem, a remedy surer and more comprehensive than that of the others, as it is
based on ultimate metaphysical truths.
Integral Moral Philosophy
In the integral moral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, no theory has been wholly
rejected. While criticizing any theory, his purpose is always to show its
limitation and never to negate it. Criticism, in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy
is always constructive. And before criticism, he always enumerates the merits of
the theory, since for him each error has a truth behind its false construction. Sri
Aurobindo, in his spiritual vision, looks to all the theories of ethics as stages in
the progress of the ethical being, useful and necessary in their own place in the
spiral evolution of spirit, but limited and hence to be transcended to the higher
stage. Thus, he presents a spiritual conception of morality, an integral ethics,
welding all other theories in its dynamic evolutionary vision and transcending all
in its emphasis on the integral evolution of man. Sri Aurobindo’s perfectionism
is integral in a double sense. It requires perfection of the whole man and it
requires efforts for the transformation of the very earth nature. Kant thought that
man cannot realize the perfection of others and so he advised that one should
seek one’s own perfection and the happiness of others. Sri Aurobindo with his
yogic insight and knowledge points out how by bringing the supramental forces
upon earth, man can even contribute to the perfection of the whole humanity.
Perfection and altruism, in the moral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, are not mere
subjective ideals but objective possibilities. This integral perfection synthesises
egoism and altruism, but it is not a compromise like the principle of golden
mean of Aristotle, since a compromise according to Sri Aurobindo, only shelves
the difficulty, increases the complexity of the problem and multiplies its issues.
Integral Method of Social Development
Social development, in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy, like all other
principles, should be understood in both the individual as well as social aspects,
the intensive as well as extensive evolutionary principles of Nature. The methods
of social development, discussed in the IIIrd part of this work, have been
evaluated with this double purpose in view as according to Sri Aurobindo,
spiritual evolution is not only the aim of the individual but also of society. Social
Philosophy is in search of a method of social development which may realize the
spiritual evolution of the individual as well as of society. The clue to such a
method in Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy, as in the case of all other
problems, has been taken from the evolutionary principle in nature, as man after
all is the medium of nature’s seeking, for the conscious realization of all that it
has imperfectly sought through matter and life.
Supramental Vision in Social Philosophy
Man, according to Sri Aurobindo, can fully overcome the present crisis and
realise his ideal of serving the purpose of nature on earth. Aurobindo’s vision of
the future, however ideal it may appear at first sight, is not Utopian. It
corresponds with the actual aspirations of mankind at all times. Man has
repeatedly failed to achieve these ideals, on account of the imperfection of his
knowledge and the possession of the self.
Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy may be found wanting in some sense
and a more integral Social Philosophy may be offered in its place. But that does
not alter the principle that the more integral is the more true. And how far Sri
Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy is more integral than other views has been
examined throughout the present work.
The contrast between mind and supermind, the inherent urge of mind
towards supermind and the fulfilment of mind in supermind, is the basis of Sri
Aurobindo’s diagnosis of the ills of man’s present civilization and their solution.
All the present difficulties of man, according to Sri Aurobindo, are due to the
failure of the mind to control and harmonize the growing complexities of human
life. This failure threatens a crisis of the failure of man as an evolutionary stage.
The solution is the fulfilment of the very inherent nisus of man as well as of
Nature. This means a transition to supramental level. The vision of this
supramental stage is the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s speculations about the future of
mankind. His psychological analysis of the evolutionary process in its transition
through infra-rational and rational stages is the basis of his philosophy of history
and psychology of social development. The ideal of social development,
according to him, is the harmonious fulfilment of the inherent urges of physical,
vital, mental and psychical aspects in the individual and society. This is not
possible on rational level since reason fails to harmonize all these. Hence the
method of social development should make man and humanity ascend to the
spiritual level. Culture and civilization, education, ethics and religion, help in
man’s individual as well as social ascent to spiritual level in one way or the other
but all these fall short of the whole purpose. The integral yoga is the only
method which leads to a decisive entry. It will spiritualize and integrate the
whole man. And as man becomes spiritual, the problem facing him in his
relations in family and marriage, property and social gradation, nationalism and
state, internationalism and human unity shall be eventually solved.
Not a Systematization
Sri Aurobindo’s Social Philosophy has not been arrived through systematization.
Sri Aurobindo is against all systematization in thought and actual life. His Social
Philosophy is not a construction through abstraction, but a truth-vision based on
integral experience of Reality. System-building has been a great error of the
social philosophers in the past, as the reality underlying the social structure is the
Absolute, the Infinite, on which the finite intellect can never get a firm hold.
This led to the failure of Plato’s Republic, in spite of its presenting a great
idealist philosophy of eternal value. This is the inherent defect of all
systematization in thought. As Sri Aurobindo points out, “But reduce your ideal
to a system and it at once begins to fail; apply your general laws and fixed ideas
systematically as the doctrinnaire would do, and life very soon breaks through or
writhes out of your hold or transforms your system, even while it nominally
exists, into something the originator would not recognize and would repudiate,
perhaps as the very contradiction of the principles which he sought to
eternize.”[5] This difficulty is due to the fact that everything in this world, each
class, type and tendency is in search of its own Infinite Absolute which escapes
the hold of reason. This difficulty is further increased by “a principle of intimate
potentiality and variation” present in each individual, In man, the acme of
evolution, this difficulty reaches its climax. Mankind is unlimited in its
potentiality, and each of its powers and tendencies seeks its own absolute in its
own way. Again, the degrees, methods and combination of these powers also
vary with each individual as man is not only human but also Infinite. Hence it is
that reason cannot fulfil man’s impulse of freedom and mastery of self and
Nature. For that, man should search for a power higher and more integral than
reason. This, however, does not mean an absolute negation of system in Social
Philosophy, as life, whether individual or social, is impossible, without some
sort of system and order. The possibilities of cultural ideals can be actualized
only through social forms. Systematization limits the spirit, form petrifies the
essence and yet the spirit has to manifest itself in forms. Social and cultural
norms, systems, institutions and structures are at once the effectuations as well
as the limitations of the spirit. To conclude in the words of Sri Aurobindo, “All
that is needed is that the lines laid down should be large and noble, capable of
evolution, so that the spirit may move and express itself in life, flexible, even in
its firmness, so that it may absorb and harmonize new material and enlarge its
variety and richness without losing its unity.”[6]
The Progress of the Experiment
The practical realization of the spiritual ideal on the individual basis through the
Yogic method had been undertaken by Sri Aurobindo and ‘The Mother’. That
they realized the ideal has been claimed by their statements, scattered in so many
of their works. The effort on the collective scale has begun in the Ashram at
Pondicherry. As Sri Aurobindo himself said, “This Ashram has been created
with another object than that ordinarily common to such institutions, not for the
renunciation of the world but as a centre and a field of practice for the evolution
of another kind and form of life which would in the final end be moved by a
higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the Spirit.”[7] How far
this aim has been realized by Sri Aurobindo and the ‘Mother’ or by the
collective life of the Ashram, is a matter outside the scope of the present work.
Social Philosophy is only concerned about the theoretical consistency of the
methods of social development. The results for the individuals and collectivity
depend very much on the efforts made by the Sadhakas, their patience and
capacities and innumerable other factors.

Notes and References

[1] Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, American Edition, p. 763.
[2] Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, p. 270.

[3]
Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, p. 209.
[4]
Ibid., p. 158.
[5]
The Human Cycle, p. 122.
[6]
Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, pp. 196-97.
[7] Sri Aurobindo, Letters, Vol. II, p. 465.
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1929.
Joshi, N.V., Social Philosophy.
Kroeber, A.L., Nature of Culture.
Leuba, J.H., The Psychology of Religious Mysticism, Kegan Paul, London, 1929.
Lenin, V.I., Socialism and War, Moscow, 1949.
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1946.
Motwani, K., Sociology: A Comparative Outline, New Book Co. Ltd., Bombay,
1947.
MacIver, R.M., Society: An Introductory Analysis, Macmillan, London, 1952.
Mackenzie, J.S., Outlines of Social Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.,
London, 1952.
Muirhead, J.H., Elements of Ethics.
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Nettleship, R.L., The Theory of Education in Plato’s Republic, 1935.
Plekhanov, G.V., The Role of Individual in History Foreign Languages
Publishing House, Moscow, 1946.
Plato, Republic, Trans. by A. D. Lindsay, J. & M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London,
1954.
Rousseau, J.J., Emile, J.M. Dent & Sons, London, 1950.
Ray, B.G., Gandhian Ethics.
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———, East and West in Religion, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1949.
Russell, B., Principles of Social Reconstruction, George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
 London, 1927.
———, The Scientific Outlook, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1949.
Russell, B., The Impact of Science on Society, George Allen & Unwin Ltd.,
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———, An Outline of Philosophy, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1949.
———, Authority and the Individual, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London,
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———, Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Method in Philosophy, Agra Univ. J. Res.
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Journals
Mother India --------- Aug. 1952
The Advent --------- Vol. IX, No. 2
The Advent --------- Vol. III, No. 3
The Advent --------- Vol. III, No. 4
Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual --------- Nos. 11, 6, 2
Bulletin of Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education --------- Vol. XII,
No.1, Feb. 1960
Indian Opinion --------- Golden Number
Monist --------- July, 1901
Hibbert Journal --------- Vol. XL I, 1942-1943
Monthly Review --------- Vol. I, No. 1, 1949