Skip to Content

01. The Human Aspiration - 1

I. The Human Aspiration *

After Man appeared on earth, his thoughts awakened to what he reallywas. This awakening became a search for something till it became a preoccupation. What he was after in those early days continues to occupy him till today. No amount of disbelief can make him forget his search. That quest is a search for perfection, Truth and Bliss. Indeed it is really a search for God. Today man has endlessly discovered the truths of science and technology but Man remains unsatisfied by them all. Man’s quest for God, Light, Freedom, Immortality has come to stay forever.

Surely these ideals are pursuing Man. They follow him even when he forgets. But his environment is a direct contradiction of these high ideals. These ideals belong to the higher and deeper experiences of humanity and only the idealist can attain to them. Occasionally an individual reaches there. Being alone, the entire society opposes him and his ideal. Hence, he has to revolt against the society to keep his ideals. In the event the entire collective society has come to realize these high goals, no revolution is necessary. It could be a general smooth progress of social evolution.

Man is egoistic and is almost an animal. His ideal is to know, possess and be the divine being. It means he has to become god. Our mentality is physical and obscure. We have to reach the rich fullness of the supramental illumination. Man seeks passing pleasures. They give him pain and emotional suffering. His aim is to build peace in his life and the further goal is a spring of endless bliss. Life is mechanical and its daily necessities lay a heavy demand on his energies. In this context, he must establish freedom. His body is subjected to death and is constantly becoming old. He is to take upon himself the goal of immortal life. These goals are the aims of Nature in earthly life. When these goals are realized it will be the manifestation of God in life.

Man is a social creature; society is his god. Man does not think in terms of achieving more than what the society has achieved. He is unable to conceive that he will be able to accomplish what no one else has accomplished. His ideals and his environment are contradictory. He accepts his environment. That is not the end. It is possible to think ahead of the society and go further. When Man wants to progress, he tries harder and harder. Nature too follows that method. When Nature exhausts all known methods and still wants to go further, her method is different. It is a method of presenting an ideal as opposites. Nature

splits a goal into positive and negative aspects of life and puts it before Man. Man chooses one of them and makes a small progress. Instead, if he comes to accept both of them and tries to unite them, he makes the greatest progress. That is the method Nature employs when she wants to make a hitherto unknown progress. This is the method of overcoming difficulties or converting difficulties into opportunities.

Where there is harmony there is no problem. When harmony disappears and disharmony arises, problems rise. Often an unsolved problem shows itself. Mind looks at it and knows it can solve it. There is a practical animal part in man. That does not even notice the problem. Less civilized people do not notice dirt in their houses. One with an awakened mind cannot miss the disharmony or not notice the problem. While the lower part in him tries to accept the problem or a compromise, the higher part in him tries always to solve it. This is also the character of all Nature. All Nature instinctively seeks harmony. Life and Matter compel harmony. Life quickly settles a quarrel. A stone disturbed from its place soon reaches its resting place thus restoring harmony. Mind observes, thinks and arrives at perceptions. For the Mind, its perceptions must fall into a pattern. Otherwise Mind will not feel the harmony. It arranges its perceptions into a harmonious idea.

Often disorders arise. The real man inside restores the order. If the disorder is great, his effort to restore the order also is equally great. Matter is still, unmoving. Life is too full of energy and is all movement. Life comes out of Matter. They try to compromise between the unmoving Matter and actively moving Life. It results in slow motion. We call it inertia, tamas. This is a solution of Nature when it tried to harmonise dull Matter and active Life. Not content with this initial success, Nature is looking for greater complexities. The final victory for Nature will be to harmonise the body and mind. That will result in an immortal body.

Mind is conscious. The will too is conscious. Matter expresses itself in form. Life expresses itself in the form of energy. Life and matter are mechanical and sub-conscious. Science was born when Man tried to reconcile and bring together Mind and Matter. Mind thinks about Matter and creates a useful thing for life. This is what Science does. Science is the result of Mind and Matter coming together. This has produced astonishing results that are marvels. Science seeks knowledge, but does not possess it. Ultimately man will possess the knowledge which he now seeks through Science. Then he will have Truth and Light. They will enable him to do all that he wants. Truth will make him omnipotent. Now we see the method of opposites of Nature giving great results. God and Nature compel Man to unite the opposites and win a victory. We speak of evolution of Life in Matter. This does not explain anything. We do not see why Life should come out of Matter. Nor do we know how. The ancient Vedanta says Life is involved in Matter and therefore evolves. So also, Vedanta says Mind is involved in Life. In truth, Matter is a form of Life. Life itself is a form of consciousness. When we accept Life is evolving out of Matter and Mind is evolving out of Life, it is possible for us to go to the next step. Mind, then, should evolve to higher states. So, Man’s seeking for God, Freedom Light, Bliss, Immortality is understandable.

The urge or impulses to evolve is there in Matter, Mind and Life. It is gradually evolving. As it evolves, it will also evolve the necessary organs and capacities. Life reacts with sensitivity. Its higher sensitivities become thought. Mind is evolved thus by the higher sensitive reactions of Life. As Life evolves Mind, so Mind will evolve the life of divine on earth.

It is said man evolved out of the animal. The animal served as a laboratory to create man. Therefore we can say the next species will evolve out of man. If man offers Nature willing cooperation, he will become the laboratory for the Superman to be produced. Superman is god. The evolving of Superman is known to be the manifestation of God.

If something is involved in Nature, it may be evolving. All that has slept in Nature all these days may be waking up now. Nature, in truth, is what is secretly sleeping inside her. If that is true, how can Nature stop the evolution? It is not within Nature’s power to prevent its secret emerging out of her. The religious people do not approve of the ways of Nature when she goes beyond their experience. The rationalist also condemns Nature as perverse. We cannot join them and disapprove of what Nature does – say in an earthquake or volcanic eruption – because we know the hidden secrets of Nature are thus evolving.

Maybe Spirit is involved in Matter. Maybe Nature is secret God. Therefore God is evolving out of Matter. In that case, this is the most legitimate aim of Man. If we accept this as truth, reason will believe in the divine life in an animal body.

God, the immortal, lives in the mortal body of man. Man has an undying aspiration to realize the indwelling God. God is the universal consciousness. It exists as a single entity. Man lives in the divided ego and the limited mind. This ego and this mind represent that universal consciousness, God. God is transcendent, indefinable, timeless, spaceless. He made space and time possible. Truths of God are higher truths. Terms of Man are lower terms. Man can realize God. Man living in the lower terms can realise God of higher terms. Human reason can accept this truth. Mankind as a whole knows that secret by its instinct. It is the intuition of humanity that knows God directly.

Human life faces practical, material problems like disease, suffering, death. Logical thought tried to solve these problems for ages but failed. So, this inquiry was given up. It is not wise to give up this search, because sooner or later this inquiry is again taken up. When Man comes to this inquiry a second time, he pursues it with greater vigour. It is this practice of Man that helped mysticism and the search for God. New religions arose out of this search. To give up a search because it is difficult, He says, is not wise. That is a superstition.

The great Mother has a deeper will. Nature has a hidden Truth. It is a cosmic necessity that that secret must be found out. That way we will obey the Mother. To give up that search is to revolt against the great Mother. As She will not allow us not to discover Her secret, it is rational to accept the search. Presently that search is obscure. By random aspiration Man comes to it. His intuition for God is obscure. Let us bring that search into the field of reason, and a conscious will.

There is a hidden higher light of bright intuition in Man. It is a self-revealing truth which knows itself readily. It is obstructed by our ignorance. It is inoperative because Man does not encourage that light. Behind the evil, it dwells. Occasionally that light emerges as a flash. It is our duty to aspire for that light to fully emerge. It will lead us to a higher state of consciousness. Mind itself will be only a veil of that consciousness. Man’s future is a progressive path of self-enlargement. To reach that he has to pass through the splendours of higher consciousness.

********

Note: * Ch.I, Book I of The Life Divine



book | by Dr. Radut