Chapter
II
The
Place of Man in Evolution
An evolution of consciousness is the central motive of terrestrial
existence. The evolutionary working of Nature has a double process:
an evolution of forms, an evolution of the soul.
A SPIRITUAL evolution, an evolution of consciousness in Matter
is a constant developing self-formation till the form can reveal
the indwelling spirit, is . . . the key-note, the central significant
motive of the terrestrial existence. This significance is concealed
at the outset by the involution3 of the Spirit,1 the Divine Reality,
in a dense material Inconscience; a veil of Inconscience, a veil
of insensibility of Matter hides the universal Consciousness-Force2 which works within it, so that the Energy, which is the first
form the Force of creation assumes in the physical universe,
appears to be itself inconscient and yet does the works of a
vast occult intelligence. The obscure mysterious creatrix ends
indeed by delivering the secret consciousness out of its thick
and tenebrous prison; but she delivers it slowly, little by little,
in minute infinitesimal drops, in thin jets, in small vibrant
concretions of energy and substance, of life, of mind, as if
that were all she could get out through the crass obstacle, the
dull reluctant medium of an inconscient stuff of existence. At
first she houses herself in forms of Matter which appear to be
altogether unconscious, then struggles towards mentality in the
guise of living Matter and attains to it imperfectly in the conscious
animal. This consciousness is at first rudimentary, mostly a
half subconscious or just conscious instinct; it develops slowly
till in more organized forms of living Matter it reaches its
climax of intelligence and exceeds itself in Man, the thinking
animal who develops into the reasoning mental being but carries
along with him even at his highest elevation the mould of original
animality, the dead weight of subconscience of body, the downward
pull of gravitation towards the original Inertia and Nescience,
the control of an inconscient material Nature over his conscious
evolution, its power for limitation, its law of difficult development,
its immense force for retardation and frustration. This control
by the original Inconscience over the consciousness emerging
from it takes the general shape of a mentality struggling towards
knowledge but itself, in what seems to be its fundamental nature,
an Ignorance. Thus hampered and burdened, mental man has still
to evolve out of himself the fully conscious being, a divine
manhood or a spiritual and supramental supermanhood which shall
be the next product of the evolution. That transition will mark
the passage from the evolution in the Ignorance to a greater
evolution in the Knowledge, founded and proceeding in the light
of the Superconscient and no longer in the darkness of the Ignorance
and Inconscience.
This terrestrial evolutionary working of Nature from Matter
to Mind and beyond it has a double process: there is an outward
visible process of physical evolution with birth as its machinery,--for
each evolved form of body housing its own evolved power of consciousness
is maintained and kept in continuity by heredity; there is, at
the same time, an invisible process of soul evolution with rebirth
into ascending grades of form and consciousness as its machinery.
The first by itself would mean only a cosmic evolution; for the
individual would be a quickly perishing instrument, and the race,
a more abiding collective formulation, would be the real step
in the progressive manifestation of the cosmic Inhabitant, the
universal Spirit:1 rebirth is an indispensable condition for
any long duration and evolution of the individual being in the
earth-existence. Each grade of cosmic manifestation, eacy type
of form that can house the indwelling spirit, is turned by rebirth
into a means for the individual soul, the psychic entity,4 to
manifest more and more of its concealed consciousness; each life
becomes a step in a victory over Matter by a greater progression
of consciousness in it which shall make eventually Matter itself
a means for the full manifestation of the Spirit.
Man
occupies the crest of the evolutionary wave. With him occurs
the passage from an unconscious to a conscious evolution.
It must be observed that the appearance of human mind and body
on the earth marks a crucial step, a decisive change in the course
and process of the evolution; it is not merely a continuation
of the old lines. Up till this advent of a developed thinking
mind in Matter evolution had been effected, not by the self-aware
aspiration, intention, will or seeking of the living being, but
subconsciously or subliminally6 by the automatic operation of
Nature. This was so because the evolution began from the Inconscience
and the secret Consciousness had not emerged sufficiently from
it to operate through the self-aware participating individual
will of its living creature. But in man the necessary change
has been made,--the being has become awake and aware of himself;
there has been made manifest in Mind its will to develop, to
grow in knowledge, to deepen the inner and widen the outer existence,
to increase the capacities of the nature. Man has seen that there
can be a higher status of consciousness than his own; the evolutionary
oestrus is there in his parts of mind and life, the aspiration
to exceed himself is delivered and articulate within him: he
has become conscious of a soul, discovered the self and spirit.
In him, then, the substitution of a conscious for a subconscious
evolution has become conceivable and practicable, and it may
well be concluded that the aspiration, the urge, the persistent
endeavour in him is a sure sign of Nature's will for a higher
way of fulfillment, the emergence of a greater status.
At
each step one recieves an intimation of what the following
step will be.
Already, in what seems to be inconscient in Life, the signs
of sensation coming towards the surface are visible; in moving
and breathing life the emergence of sensitive mind is apparent
and the preparation of thinking mind is not entirely hidden,
while in thinking mind, when it develops, there appear at an
early stage the rudimentary strivings and afterwards the more
developed seekings of a spiritual consciousness. As plant life
contains in itself the obscure possibility of the conscious animal,
as the animal mind is astir with the movements of feeling and
perception and the rudiments of conception that are the first
ground for man the thinker, so man the mental being is sublimated
by the endeavour of the evolutionary Energy to develop out of
him the spiritual man, the fully conconscious being, man exceeding
his first material self and discoverer of his true self and highest
nature.
The nature of the next step is indicated by the deep aspirations
awakening in the human race. The action of the evolutionary Nature
in a type of being and consciousness is first to develop the
type to its utmost capacity by just such a subtilization and
increasing complexity till it is ready for her bursting of the
shell, the ripened decisive emergence, reversal, turning over
of consciousness on itself that consitutes a new stage in the
evolution. If it be supposed that her next step is the spiritual
and supramental being, the stress of spirituality in the race
may be taken as a sign that that is Nature's intention, the sign
too of the capacity of man to operate in himself or aid her to
operate the transition. If the appearance in animal being of
a type similar in some respects to the ape-kind but already from
the beginning endowed with the elements of humanity was the method
of the human evolution, the appearance in the human being of
a spiritual type resembling mental-animal humanity but already
with the stamp of the spiritual aspiration on it would be the
obvious method of Nature for the evolutionary production of the
spiritual and supramental being.
It is pertinently suggested that if such an evolutionary culmination
is intended and man is to be its medium, it will only be a few
especially evolved human beings who will form the new type and
move towards the new life; that once done, the rest of humanity
will sink back from a spiritual aspiration no longer necessary
for Nature's purpose and remain quiescent in its normal status.
It can equally be reasoned that the human gradation must be preserved
if there is really an ascent of the soul by reincarnation through
the evolutionary degrees towards the spiritual summit; for otherwise
the most necessary of all the intermediate steps will be lacking.
It must be conceded at once that there is not the least probability
or possibility of the whole human race rising in a block to the
supramental level; what is suggested is nothing so revolutionary
and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality,
when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress
of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane
of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will
necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal
constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental
and emotional and sensational constitution and also to a great
extent of the body-consciousness and the physical conditioning
of our life and energies; but the change of consciousness will
be the chief factor, the initial movement, the physical modification
will be a subordinate factor, a consequence. This transmutation
of the consciousness will always remain possible to the human
being when the flame of the soul, the pyshic kindling, becomes
potent in heart and mind and the nature is ready. The spiritual
aspiration is innate in man; for he is, unlike the animal, aware
of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something
to be attained beyond what he now is: this urge towards self-exceeding
is not likely ever to die out totally in the race. The human
mental status will be always there, but it will be there not
only as a degree in the scale of rebirth, but as an open step
towards the spiritual and supramental status.
A
change of consciousness is the major fact of the next evolutionary
transformation, and the consciousness itself, by its own mutation,
will impose and effect any necessary mutation of the body.
In the previous stages of the evolution Nature's first care
and effort had to be directed towards a change in the physical
organization, for only so could there be a change of consciousness;
this was a necessity imposed by the insufficiency of the force
of consciousness already in formation to effect a change in the
body. But in man a reversal is possible, indeed inevitable; for
it is through consciousness, through its transmutation and no
longer through a new bodily organism as a first instrumentation
that the evolution can and must be effected. In the inner reality
of things a change of consciousness was always the major fact,
the evolution has always had a spiritual significance and the
physical change was only instrumental; but this relation was
concealed by the first abnormal balance of the two factors, the
body of the external Inconscience outweighing and obscuring in
importance the spiritual element, the conscious being. But once
the balance has been righted, it is no longer the change of body
that must precede the change of consciousness; the consciousness
itself by its mutation will necessitate and operate whatever
mutation is needed for the body. It has to be noted that the
human mind has already shown a capacity to aid Nature in the
evolution of new types of plant and animal; it has created new
forms of its enivronment, developed by knowledge and discipline
considerable changes in its own mentality. It is not an impossibility
that man should aid Nature consciously also in his own spiritual
and physical evolution and transformation. The urge to it is
already there and partly effective, though still incompletely
understood and accepted by the surface mentality; but one day
it may understand, go deeper within itself and discover the means,
the secret energy, the intended operation of the Consciousness-Force
within which is the hidden reality of what we call Nature.
All these are conclusions that can be arrived at even from the
observation of the outward phenomena of Nature's progression,
her surface evolution of being and of consciousness in the physical
birth of the body. But there is the other, the invisible factor;
there is rebirth, the progress of the soul by ascent from grade
to grade of the evolving existence, and in the grades to higher
and higher types of bodily and mental instrumentation. In this
progression the psychic4 entity is still veiled, even in man
the conscious mental being, by its instruments, by mind and life
and body; it is unable to manifest fully, held back from coming
to the front where it can stand out as the master of its nature,
obliged to submit to a certain determination by the instruments,
to a domination of Purusha by Prakriti.8 But in man the psychic
part of the personality is able to develop with a much greater
rapidity than in the inferior creation, and a time can arrive
when the soul entity is close to the point at which it will emerge
from behind the veil into the open and become the master of its
instrumentation in Nature. But this will mean that the secret
indwelling spirit, the Daemon, the Godhead within is on the point
of emergence; and, when it emerges, it can hardly be doubted
that its demand will be, as indeed it already is in the mind
itself when it undergoes the inner psychic influence, for a diviner,
a more spiritual existence. In the nature of the earth life where
the mind is an instrument of the Ignorance, this can only be
effected by a change of consciousness, a transition from a foundation
in Ignorance to a foundation in Knowledge, from the mental to
a supramental consciousness, a supramental instrumentation of
Nature.
There is no reason to suppose that this transformation is impossible
on earth. In fact, it would give the truest meaning to earthly
existence. There is no conclusive validity in the reasoning that
because this is a world of Ignorance, such a transformation can
only be achieved by a passage to a heaven beyond or cannot be
achieved at all and the demand of the psychic entity is itself
ignorant and must be replaced by a merger of the soul in the
Absolute. This conclusion could only be solely valid if Ignorance
were the whole meaning, substance and power of the world-manifestation
or if there were no element in World-Nature itself through which
there could be an exceeding of the ignorant mentality that still
burdens our present status of being. But the Ignorance is only
a portion of this World-Nature; it is not the whole of it, not
the original power or creator: it is in its higher origin a self-limiting
Knowledge and even in its lower origin, its emergence out of
the sheer material Inconscience, it is a suppressed Consciousness
labouring to find, to recover itself, to manifest Knowledge,
which is its true character, as the foundation of existence.
In universal Mind itself there are ranges above our mentality
which are instruments of the cosmic truth-cognition, and into
these the mental being can surely rise; for already it rises
towards them in supernormal conditions or receives from them
without yet knowing or possessing them intuitions, spiritual
intimations, large influxes of illumination or spiritual capacity.
All these ranges are conscious of what is beyond them, and the
highest of them is directly open to the Supermind, aware of the
Truth-consciousness which exceeds it. Moreover, in the evolving
being itself, those greater powers of consciousness are here,
supporting mind-truth, underlying its action which screens them;
this Supermind and those Truth-powers uphold Nature by their
secret presence: even, truth of mind is their result, a diminished
operation, a representation in partial figures. It is, therefore,
not only natural but seems inevitable that these higher powers
of Existence should manifest here in Mind as Mind itself has
manifested in Life and Matter.
Man's
urge towards spirituality is an undeniable indication of the
inner drive of the Spirit within towards emergence, its insistence
towards the next step of its manifestation.
If a spiritual unfolding on earth is the hidden truth of our
birth into Matter, if it is fundamentally an evolution of consciousness
that has been taking place in Nature, then man as he is cannot
be the last term of that evolution: he is too imperfect an expression
of the spirit, mind itself a too limited form and instrumentation;
mind is only a middle term of consciousness, the mental being
can only be a transitional being. If, then, man is incapable
of exceeding mentality, he must be surpassed and supermind9 and
superman must manifest and take the lead of the creation. But
if his mind is capable of opening to what exceeds it, then there
is no reason why man himself should not arrive at supermind and
supermanhood or at least lend his mentality, life and body to
an evolution of that greater term of the Spirit manifesting in
Nature.
Chapter
3
