Volume VI, Issue 9
Author: Beloo Mehra
The Root Cause
The root cause of all major problems we face today as human race can be broadly traced back to two opposing lines of thought and practice. On one side we have an approach to life which looks at the existence only from a materialistic-utilitarian perspective. For such a mindset, what is physically seen is the only reality. Also, this reality can be manipulated for making human life more pleasurable and comfortable by the use of scientific or rational mind.
In one of its extreme expressions, this led to the rejection of all religion and religious impulse. And in another way, the same mindset became the driving force for all colonial or imperialistic campaigns of Europe. This is typically considered a practical, future-oriented approach, generally identified with the Western model of development and progress.
On the other side, we have a conventional and conservative mindset typically stuck in the ways of the past. It is keener on preserving the form rather than the essential spirit of the past. In its extreme forms such a way of thinking may refuse to see value in any outer material progress, especially when an ascetic tendency becomes stronger.
Such an approach is also prone to perversion and distortion. And it can very quickly open itself to tendencies of religious obscurantism, fundamentalism, even mindless use of violence for conflict-resolution. The risk is stronger when the religion gets hijacked by lowest impulses of human nature such as greed, lust for power, and ambition.
The Way Out
In their own ways, both such approaches are responsible for the conflicts we see in the world today. Neither can offer a solution from within their narrow ideological cages. Sri Aurobindo could foresee such an impasse as far back as in 1916 when he wrote:
“For the most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge”.
~ CWSA, 13: 137
Once the West more or less rejected religion and religious impulse, it almost exclusively turned to fulfilling external desires and impulses. As a result, its life became governed by political and economic ideals and necessities. Even when there has been some reawakening of the religious mind and a growing interest and curiosity regarding spiritual and psychical seeking, the West’s tendency has been to address matters of the world by “mechanical methods and as the thinking political and economic animal, simply because it knows no other standpoint and is accustomed to no other method.” (ibid.)
At the same time, the alternative of going back to a religious mould of life focused more on the outer forms and practices, the outer shell of the religion with not much regard for its inner true kernel, is no longer going to be acceptable to the rational and questioning mind of humanity. The solution is to be found in a spiritual view of life and living.
The Triple Message of India
Indian spiritual view of life and existence holds the key to solving the problems humanity faces today. But for this to happen Indians must wake up to the true meaning of spirituality. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the triple message of India – psychical, spiritual and moral. He writes, “India believes in and has the key to a psychical world within man and without him which is the source and basis of the material” (CWSA, 8: 55). He adds that the West has caught glimpses of this truth but is fumbling for the key.
Once the truth of Divinity within is realised, the spiritual message of essential oneness with all souls becomes a living truth. Consequently, love and self-sacrifice for the larger collective becomes the basis of all ethical and moral discipline. Sri Aurobindo explains,
It follows that Love is the highest law and that to which evolution must move. Ananda, joy and delight, are the object of the lila and the fulfilment of love is the height of joy and delight. Self-sacrifice is therefore the fundamental law.
Sacrifice, says the Gita, is the law by which the Father of all in the beginning conditioned the world, and all ethics, all conduct, all life is a sacrifice willed or unconscious. The beginning of ethical knowledge is to realise this and make the conscious sacrifice of one’s own individual desires.
It is an inferior and semi-savage morality which gives up only to gain and makes selfishness the basis of ethics. To give up one’s small individual self and find the larger self in others, in the nation, in humanity, in God, that is the law of Vedanta. That is India’s message.
Knowing Not Enough
But perhaps the most important sentence comes at the end of the passage. That is where Sri Aurobindo emphatically reminds Indians what they must do. He cautions that Indians must not be content with knowing that they have inherited this great Wisdom. Just having an intellectual pride in this ancient wisdom will only lead to a chauvinistic pride. What is needed is real work on the ground! India “must rise up and live it before all the world so that it may be proved a possible law of conduct both for men and nations”. (ibid.)
In her greatest eras, Indian spirituality “has not been a tired quietism or a conventional monasticism, but a high effort of the human spirit to rise beyond the life of desire and vital satisfaction and arrive at an acme of spiritual calm, greatness, strength, illumination, divine realisation, settled peace and bliss” (CWSA, 20: 132). This is the work we must do — to live the truth of life-affirming spirituality, to rise beyond the life of vital satisfaction.
Rejection of New is Unspiritual
But Sri Aurobindo is no revivalist, nor a proud nationalist singing past glories. His cosmic and comprehensive seer-vision points the way to a new creation. This new creation would necessitate a new world culture. It must base itself on Spirit as the centre and build its forms the way a spiritual culture would do. But this does not automatically imply that everything that Indian civilisation came up with was perfect and nothing useful can be assimilated from others. As he writes,
India can best develop herself and serve humanity by being herself and following the law of her own nature. This does not mean, as some narrowly and blindly suppose, the rejection of everything new that comes to us in the stream of Time or happens to have been first developed or powerfully expressed by the West.
Such an attitude would be intellectually absurd, physically impossible, and above all unspiritual; true spirituality rejects no new light, no added means or materials of our human self-development. It means simply to keep our centre, our essential way of being, our inborn nature and assimilate to it all we receive, and evolve out of it all we do and create.
India has to first fully recover her life-affirming spirituality. She must shed the ascetic tendencies which dominated the Indian collective psyche over a certain period of her civilisation’s march. While staying true to this central truth of her being, she must then effectively assimilate in her own way, or reject, if necessary, the variety of external forces and influences coming from everywhere.
Offerings in the Current Issue
Starting with the September 2025 issue, we shall feature insights and perspectives that will help us elaborate on the “spiritual solution” as the only solution for the varied challenges we face today in the world. Whether it is educational crisis, cultural decadence, ecological problems, social stratification, economic concerns or others, we shall look for the deeper insight and penetrating light through which to examine both the challenge and the possible solution.
On September 5, we released a special video produced for the occasion of Teachers’ Day. It featured Sri Aurobindo’s call for each one of us to offer all our works, our capacities, at the feet of Mother India who is an expression of the Divine Shakti that animates all, that is the Source of All. Today we present 8 new offerings in this month’s issue.
We open with important selections from Sri Aurobindo’s essay titled ‘The Renaissance in India‘. Here he speaks of a true understanding of the rebirth of the soul of India that is “governed by the principle of spirituality”. This new ideal of integral spirituality is not about other-wordliness or asceticism or excessive religiosity. Rather, in its fullness, it is an all-inclusive orientation to life which takes all human aims and endeavours and gives them a greater and diviner sense.
Read in 2 parts our Guiding Light feature titled, Spiritual Culture and Application of Spirituality to Life.
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When we see the world around us, we have often asked ourselves questions such as the following.
- Why is the world the way it is?
- How or when will things get better?
- Everyone says that Truth will one day win, but I don’t see that happening anywhere when I look around?
- Why is Divine not concerned about justice?
We feature, in 2 parts, an illuminating conversation of the Mother dated 8 January 1951. It brings to light some critical points upon which we must deeply contemplate. For example, why we must motivate the children to cultivate an abiding faith in “the certitude of Truth’s final victory”, despite all the outer circumstances.
The Mother gives a profound explanation of the nature of equilibrium on which the world is founded. She explains how this concept may be simply explained to a young child. She emphasises that from their infancy children must be taught that there is an inner reality. And that this inner reality is within themselves, within the earth, within the universe.
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Sri Aurobindo’s vision for a new India necessitates a real grounding in the innate civilisational genius that made the ancient India abundantly rich in all spheres – spiritual, intellectual and material. The Veda is the spiritual and psychological seed of Indian culture. The Upanishads are the expression of the truth of highest spiritual knowledge and experience that has always been the supreme idea of Indian culture and the ultimate objective to which it directed the life of the individual and the aspiration of the soul of the people.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Upanishads as the supreme work of the Indian mind, the highest self-expression of its genius, its sublimest poetry, its greatest creation of the thought and word. But what made the age of Upanishads possible? Watch a video featuring Sri Aurobindo’s awe-inspiring response to this question. The featured passage is excerpted from one of his essays on Indian Literature.
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In the Tales and Stories section, we resume our series The Upanishads Elucidated by Lopa Mukherjee. We meet Kavi who is looking for that Spark-ling which will help him cut through the different nets that bind him. In the Vedic symbolism, Vṛtra (Vṛitra) is the Coverer, the Serpent, the demon who covers and holds back the Light. The personification of the Inconscient, he obstructs the free movement of the illumined rivers of the truth.
The story titled Indrajāl – Be a Spark-ling in Indra’s Cosmic Net tells us of the modern Vritras which bind us in tight nets. How do we invoke the power of Indra which can help us conquer these Vritras? Where lies the spark that can activate the vajra of the Indra?
We hope our readers will enjoy going through the various offerings in this issue. As always, we offer this work at the lotus feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
In gratitude,
Beloo Mehra (for Renaissance Editorial Team)
~ Design: Beloo Mehra
