Power of a New Ideal

Dec. 22, 2001

  • An ideal attracts people.
  • Its power reveals in some and not in others.
  • Such power expresses when the ideal moves from the mental consciousness to the physical substance.
  • Even when it moves from the mental consciousness to the substance in the mind, i.e. brain, the power begins to reveal.
  • The substance of the mind is in direct relation with the consciousness of the body. Hence the result. The substance of the body is still deeper.
  • All new ideals that are attractive to youth and the new-fangled are socially suspect.
  • Often the new adherent desires to take the knowledge part of it and implement it, expecting that the method which that knowledge expresses will work. It never works because,
    • as one is shy of disclosing the source of his knowledge, the power of that source cannot express.
    • insincerity to the origin of the knowledge renders knowledge ineffective.
    • one foolishly tries to combine the knowledge of the new and the power of the old.
  • Mahatma Gandhiji’s satyagraha produced results in politics as he was NOT shy of the origin of his knowledge that is power.
  • An idealist is one who aims at creating a new society destroying the old one. By avoiding his source, he acts from his social personality. The psychological power of the ideal cannot express through his social personality.
  • The followers of Mahesh Yogi could build an international movement because they were proud of their origin. They were not ashamed of an Indian technique.
  • Leonardo da Vinci worked in the catacombs clandestinely.
  • A client sees the power of Mother coming from a devotee but is shy of acknowledging it for social reasons. The power will not stay long.
  • Children often are shy of parents as they belong to an earlier generation. Government officers and ministers are shy of acknowledging non-official assistance. The Occident rarely recognises the Orient. These people will always remain pious worshippers devoid of essential power. European governments would not recognise John Meynard Keynes but the U.S. acknowledged him and benefitted.
  • Sri Aurobindo said that Napoleon should not have gone away from Josephine as he drew his power from her. He was an evolutionary Force, which she supported. By desiring an heir, he shifted his emphasis to heredity which it was his business to demolish.
  • What Nehru was shy of acknowledging, Indira directly acknowledged and proudly drew upon which was the strength of her success.
  • Bank schemes that thrive on local support where the secret of success is projected as the bank’s scheme are confined to the locality. They do not spread all over the nation. Grameen Bank did not commit that error.
  • All of Elizabeth's anxiety, in Pride and Prejudice, issued out of the fact that she was unwilling or even shy of acknowledging the help Darcy gave. She could not bring herself to disclose even to Jane that Darcy was passionately in love with her. Lady Catherine’s tirade, her father’s abuse of Darcy after giving Darcy his consent, Jane’s shocked surprise at the engagement are the milder versions of the deep uncertainty and anguish Elizabeth felt from the time she heard of his help to Lydia till he again actually proposed to her.
  • To summarise and repeat,
    • Achievement in Mother is spiritual. Avoidance of the origin is social.
    • Success will not happily court a man who is shy of owning her.
  • The principle that will work here and the principle that hinders accomplishment have their roots all over the personality of the project.
    • For an ideal or method to yield its power, either one should happily take the power, proudly acknowledging its source or offer that method the power of his own personality.
    • In the absence of either, it remains a pious empty ideal or ensures failure.
    • Even when one changes the method by the power of his personality, the insincerity in his intention will interfere.
    • The wish to use a power and the unwillingness to give it its due is not sincere. Insincerity will reap the rewards of insincerity.
    • In 1940 when Congress declared itself against the war, Sri Aurobindo sent a contribution to the Governor of Madras as a token of His support of war at the risk of being branded a British stooge.
    • Inter-caste marriages where one proudly acknowledges the status of what he secretly sought becomes accepted in the community and even celebrated. Social ostracism comes only to those who are shy of what they moved toward.
  • Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and Mother’s Power will spread all over the world when their followers are proud of what they follow.
  • The symptom of that pride is seen in the world and its past interpreted in the Light of Sri Aurobindo, instead of trying to fit Him into the framework of either the European thought or Indian tradition.

Viewed from every cardinal principle of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, this attitude of taking a social view of a spiritual power stands in the way.

  • Contradictions are complements.
    • This view perpetuates contradictions.
  • Spirit is Matter
    • Here is an endeavour to keep Spirit away from society.
  • What matters is the whole, not the part.
    • Here we create two parts and keep them apart.
  • The subconscient and superconscient are to be united.
    • Society is subconscient and Spirit is superconscient.
  • Ego is the problem.
    • Here, we emphasise social ego or psychological ego.
  • Reason becomes intuition by shedding sense.
    • This view emphasises the senses.
  • Sat wants to lead our life.
    • We keep our life consciously away from Sat.
  • Force is conscious.
    • We separate the social force from the conscious Spirit.
  • Man seeks the objects missing Sachchidananda that expresses through that.
    • We seek the object of the society.
  • Maya is the consciousness of the Absolute.
    • To us Maya is illusion, society is real.
  • Supermind creates, not mind.
    • We insist on mind.
  • The Divine Soul emerges in life when we shed ignorance.
    • We seek egoistic ignorance.
  • The origin of Ignorance is the point of separation from Supermind.
    • We insist on that separation.
  • Life brings matter under the control of mind.
    • We keep life apart from mind.
  • Matter is Delight of being.
    • To us matter is dull matter, i.e. society is valuable by itself.