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The Message of Sri Aurobindo: God, Romantic Love, and Physical Immortality
Sri Aurobindo is the most overlooked
and underestimated sage/ yogi/ philosopher of the modern era. He was so
revolutionary that even his own disciples and followers have failed to fully
comprehend the most radical aspects of the message of Savitri,
which he considered his most important work: its soteriology of romantic
love, its (physical) immortalism, its
eschatological vision including the eternal union of soul mates or twin souls –
in short, its distinctive, if not unique, vision of romantic love as the most
powerful redemptive force in the modern world.
According to Sri Aurobindo the
ultimate goal of the process of spiritual evolution is not the individual
attainment of liberation, not individual absorption in the Absolute( in Brahman),
not the individual’s ecstatic communion
with God, although these may be foretastes of the end- goal. It is the divine
life on earth for all— which he described as the union of heaven and earth, of
God and humanity. In his great epic poem Savitri, Aurobindo makes it
clear that the attainment of the divine life on earth, the union of humanity
and God is integrally connected with---cannot be separated from-- the union of
twin souls eternally bonded by love, and thus with the transcendence of
death. In fact, according to Savitri,
(romantic) love is “the bright link”
that unites earth and heaven, man and God. (p. 633 ) Satyavan calls
Savitri, his beloved, his “gold link” to God (p.408).
St Augustine famously wrote in
Confessions “[Y]ou have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is
unquiet until it rests in you.” But for
the protagonists of Aurobindo’s epic poem–and perhaps for many, if not most,
human beings-- the ideal of a solitary union with God, without the union with
one’s mate,one’s twin soul, could never be fully satisfying. Satyavan tells
Savitri, his twin soul, that he has spurned God’s invitation to dwell in heaven
for,“heaven's insufficient without thee.” “ Savitri, Godhead and woman,
moonlight of my soul /I have turned away from the celestials' joy /And heaven's
insufficient without thee.” (p 717).
What person in love would not say to his/her beloved, “Heaven is
insufficient without you”?
But of course “science”( but see below) and philosophy and “common sense” deem this a fairytale. Sri Aurobindo was the greatest philosopher/ yogi ever to affirm that this “fairytale” ending is the will of the Divine.(In fact he was one of only two philosophers who affirmed this. Vladimir Solovyov, the great 19th century Russian Christian philosopher was only other writer of whom I am aware, not translated from Russian until recently, who reached conclusions remarkably similar to those Aurobindo reached years later—however his solitary personal life did not exemplify his ideal, as did that of Sri Aurobindo and “the Mother.” See Vladimir Wozniuk, 2003)
If love leads to suffering, to
tragedy, it is not an unqualified good. To the philosopher, death poses the
conundrum: Is love good? The question
then arises for each person: Should I love?
It is rational to reflect on this question and even to make the decision
as follows, “I choose not to love because the anguish of losing my beloved to
death in the end is too great for me to want to bear.” (I am examining this
dilemma from the perspective of the survivor not the deceased for obvious
reasons –although I assume life after death.)
Modern psychology posits that the reluctance to love is a manifestation
of psychopathology, of an irrational”fear of intimacy.” But that is because its
examination is superficial: it ignores the dilemma for lovers posed by death
itself.
The choice to avoid romantic love was
a choice most spiritual masters and seekers before Sri Aurobindo—and after--
consciously or unconsciously made. Since they assumed that the body was eternally
mortal, they regarded it as unimportant (if not contemptible) and valorized the
immortal soul or, in the case of Buddhists, the cosmic “emptiness.” The inevitably tragic nature of mortal love,
in all its fragility, was one reason–conscious or unconscious–that they viewed
romantic love and marriage (even when it was based on love) as at best
incidental to salvation and at worst a hindrance. In either case, “attachment”
to other human beings (e.g., true love), as they saw it, only added to the sum
of human suffering. This is why the Buddha advocated “detachment” as the best
spiritual strategy for minimizing suffering.
In Savitri, Aurobindo is saying through Savitri–in her debate with Death-- that these various other-worldly soteriologies, including the Western ideal of a post-mortem heaven, all based on idealization of post-mortem disincarnate existence, constitute in fact a surrender to death, even itself a kind of death because they are less than a full affirmation and a full embrace of life and love. The point is brilliantly made in Savitri by making Death the advocate of these spiritual soteriologies – and an advocate most insistently of the dominant Hindu ideal of the rejection of life and the eternal immersion of the soul in Brahman.
Sri Aurobindo was the only Indian philosopher , the only yogi who renounced this ideal, affirming in its stead the divine life on earth
Aurobindo
explicitly states that the union of Savitri and Satyavan is “a new act in the
drama of the world” and a herald of a greater age. The eternal union of Satyavan and Savitri is
necessary in order for them to fulfill their messianic charge and to lead
humanity to the divine life on earth. The Mother has said that the character of
Satyavan is partly autobiographical–he is, she said an Avatar, an incarnation
of God, he represents Sri Aurobindo. (The
Dual Power of God, p2) Savitri and Satyavan are the dual power of God,
together they are the messianic power that can transform the world. And indeed
Aurobindo had noted his union with the Mother was necessary for their own
redemptive work.(https://auromere.wordpress.com/
2011/07/08/how-to-choose-the-right-life-partner Accessed Jan.2019)
Aurobindo had a strong sense of
confidence in his mission from an early age, “I know I have the power to redeem
the fallen race,” he wrote while still a young man (Reddy,p.61) And he had no
doubt that his own mission included the abolition of death In one of his poems (“The Pilgrim of the Night”) he wrote, “And
yet I know my footprints path shall be a pathway to [physical] immortality.”
(https://www.searchforlight.org/KDSethna/APathwaytowardsImmortality.html,
Accessed Jan. 2019) Those of us who are awed by the profound and revolutionary
revelations in the voluminous writings of Aurobindo well understand the relief
and enthusiasm of the Mother–Mirra Alfassa or Mirra Richard (at that time)---
reported in her journal on the day of her first meeting with Sri Aurobindo in
Pondicherry, India where she had traveled with her erstwhile husband, Paul
Richard:
“It matters not if there are hundreds
of beings plunged in the densest ignorance. He whom we saw yesterday is on earth.
His presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be
transformed into light, when Thy reign shall indeed be established upon earth”
(Nandakumar, p. 415, Accessed January,
2019,http://www.auromira.in/index.php/109-about-the-mother-sri-aurobindo/111-29th-march-the-day-when-mirra-alfassa-met-sri-aurobindo)
The realization of the ideal of the eternal union of lovers, of male and female, Purusha and Prakriti, Shiva and Shakti---based on the attainment of physical immortality-- is the logical denouement, the telos, of the evolutionary dialectic of (romantic)love. Love aims beyond death for a union that is not sundered, over and over (lifetime after lifetime), by death. It aims to forge a new being, an eternal “Two-who are one”(to use Aurobindo’s phrase) or a two-in-one, of which Savitri and Satyavan, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, were preliminary prototypes. Although Aurobindo wrote that he and the Mother were one soul in two bodies, he more accurately describes this union (of Savitri and her spouse) in Savitri: “in their commingling spirits one forever, Two-souled, two-bodied for the joys of Time.” (p.707)
Fortuitously the centuries old dogmatic belief in the inevitability of death is attenuated when we consider the advances made by science, by gerontology. The gerontologists on the leading edge of science believe we are on the verge of being able to stop or reverse aging. Aubrey De Grey, the gerontologist with the most salient public profile, claims we can achieve virtual biological immortality within 25 years .(https://www.tendencias21.net/Aubrey-de-Grey-Aging-is-emphatically-not-an-inescapable-destiny_a15346.html) Dr George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School believes we will be able to reverse aging within 10 years. (https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/02/george-church-indicates-reversal-of.html)TThey are speaking about lifetimes lasting over a thousand years, or more. Others believe it may take a century or more to develop the ability to stop aging but almost all believe it will be achieved within the forseeable future. (Biological immortality is only a step on the way, since it does not entirely eliminate death.
Most if not all Aurobindonians agree.
They venerate Sri Aurobindo and his twin soul and spiritual partner Mirra
Alfassa, known as “the Mother”, and affirm not merely their paramount and
singular importance, but their divinity. Thus many were enraged with
Aurobindo’s controversial contemporary biographer Peter Heehs who dismissed
cursorily the idea that Aurobindo might be an “Avatar” –although he evidently
did not think it implausible to describe Jesus and Krishna as Avatars.(See
Heehs quote at https://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2008/09/ accessed January,
2019)
The concept of the Avatar is
ambiguous. But to understand Sri
Aurobindo it must be understood —as he
himself insisted--- – that in any case Aurobindo was not a freak in the process
of humanity’s spiritual development. He wrote, “When you say that I could do this only in
my case because I am an Avatar(!) and it is impossible in any other case, you
reduce my sadhana to an absurdity and Avatarhood also to an absurdity. For my
Yoga is done not for myself who need nothing ...but precisely for the
earth-consciousness, to open a way to the earth-consciousness to change.”
(Nirodbaran’s Correspondence with
Sri Aurobindo, Vol. 1, p. 135,
Http://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/sri-aurobindos-avatarhood-and-the-lives-of-sri-aurobindo-by-peter-heehs-vishwas-patel,
accssed Jan 2019) To another disciple he explained,
“I transformed my nature from what it was to
what it was not. I did it by a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to
show what could be done and how it could be done. I did not do it ..by a
miracle without any process. I say that if it is not so, then my Yoga is
useless and my life was a mistake—a mere absurd freak of Nature without meaning
or consequence.”(Avatarhood,
https://www.sabda.in/catalog/bookinfo.php?websec=ENGA-EA-045) )
He was not a deux vex machina
for humanity’s evolutionary crisis.
No, he was himself a highly advanced product of humanity’s spiritual evolution,
and thus, as the Mother realized from their first meeting, he presaged our
future, he showed us what we could and would become. This would be true whether
Aurobindo was an “Avatar” or not since his own definition of Avatar fit right
into his evolutionary perspective. (Aurobindo
on Himself, Acessed 2019 at
https://auroramirabilis.blogspot.com/2008/09)
Aurobindo stated in Essays on the
Gita that the purpose of the Avatar was to advance the evolutionary
process, to help solve the evolutionary crisis, “to give a spiritual
mould of divine manhood into which the seeking soul of the human being can cast
itself. ”It is “to exemplify the possibility of the Divine manifest in the
human being, so that man may see what that is and take courage to grow into it
” It is also to leave the influence of
that manifestation vibrating in the earth-nature and the soul of that
manifestation” governing over humanity’s spiritual endeavor. It is to give a
“way of self-moulding” by which the individual can grow into divinity.
But Aurobindo continues–and here he
differs from many before him–this growth is “no mere isolated and individual
phenomenon,” but it is “the work for the race, to assist the human march, to
hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward
gravitation.., to prepare even, however far off, the kingdom of God, the
victory of the seekers of light and perfection,.. and the overthrow of those
who fight for the continuance of the evil and the darkness.” This is I believe
the best description of the work and mission of Aurobindo and the Mother—and it
is our work and our mission now–as
Aurobindo emphasized. He wrote: “The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna,
Buddha [or Aurobindo/the Mother, Savitri/Satyavan] in external humanity [or in
literature–Savitri] has for its inner truth the same manifestation of
the eternal Avatar within our own inner humanity.”
( Essays on the Gita Aurobindo on
Himself,http://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/the-gita-on-avatarhood Accessed
2019).”
From Aurobindo’s Vedic perspective the
human soul is divine. That is, in the most important sense what distinguishes
the Avatar from us is the unusual-- divine-- nature not of his being, but of
his/her mission. He/she is the pathbreaker, the pioneer, the world-redeemer—the
messiah. (Aurobindo concept of the Avatar resembles the Messiah, more than any
other.) We’ll see later this new model of God-in humanity, this “mould” of
divine humanity which Sri Aurobindo intended us to manifest within “our own inner humanity” was exemplified in
Savitri and Satyavan -– and also in the life of Aurobindo and the Mother --and
it remains “vibrating” in the collective mind of the humanity: The new model is
the “dual power,” “the two-in one,”–the goal is the eternal union of twin
souls, the marriage of “the eternal bridegroom and the eternal bride.”( See “A
Dual Power of God”)
The
Two Sides of Sri Aurobindo
I must acknowledge that there is a strange inconsistency in Aurobindo’s
writings, which may help to explain why Aurobindonians are so discomforted by
the ideal of romantic love as a redemptive force—and why some Aurobindonians
deny the manifest sense of Savitri, and why none of the commentaries on Savitri
point out the obvious: that romantic love is “the star” of the poem. For example, in Savitri and
Aurobindo’s other (early) poems, romantic love is pitted against death, and the
outcome of the struggle determines the destiny of his protagonists, if not all
humanity.
Yet Sri Aurobindo consistently told
his disciples that not only are all sexual relations an impediment to
their spiritual work but even the emotional bonds between a husband and
wife–love---could only be an obstacle to sadhaks (spiritual aspirants) who
sought a higher spiritual goal than that of ordinary “householders”, e.g. those
who were practitioners of the yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo (“Integral
Yoga”) at their ashram. Thus, in his ashram not only was sex banned but even
husband and wife had to sever their emotional ties and place union with the
Divine above all. This could be attained through surrender to Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother-- theirs was the only union that was sanctioned in the ashram,
although of course they did not have a sexual relationship. (Most disciples
regarded them as divine, and Aurobindo stated explicitly that Mirra was the
Divine Mother.) (.http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-03%20The%20Ashram/_Relations%20with%20others/-04_Sexual%20Relations.htm,
Accessed January, 2019)
Thus, in his Letters on Yoga Aurobindo
wrote
“The initial aim in the Integral
Yoga being an absolute surrender and dedication of the whole being to the
Divine, any human relation of love between the sexes, however romantic it may
appear to our lower nature, is a fatal counter-attraction, and cannot but end
in spiritual disaster.” He warned that “there must be no exclusive
attachment,. in which one gets glued to a person and cannot make the Divine,..
the sole object of one's love and adoration.” (Letters on Yoga II http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Rishabhchand/-01%20English/The%20Integral%20Yoga%20of%20Sri%20Aurobindo/-17_The%20Physical%20Nature%20and%20its%20Purification-2.htm,Accessed
January, 2019)
If Aurobindo had not written Savitri
one would indeed be forced to conclude
that Aurobindo saw no place for
romantic love in the spiritual life. In my opinion
he would thus be denying the most
powerful force that exists for the spiritual transformation of the earth, recognized
as such in Savitri – he would be denying the “gold link” itself between
heaven and earth.
However even in his correspondence with
disciples he often qualifies his disparagement of both romantic love and
sex. He tells a disciple that it is
difficult for the spiritual aspirant to find the right woman for a wife, a
“spiritual companion”. “[But [w]hen
found, a spiritual companion doubles your life and power and increases your
speed of [spiritual] progress tenfold.”
Aurobindo cautioned a disciple that
“ so far as the yogic life is concerned the sexual act with one’s own
wife is as much harmful as that with any other woman ” But then he added, “Only
those who have risen above the human level[to the “supermental” as he calls
it]...can possibly make a proper use of the sexual act for a spiritual
purpose.” When the disciple asked what
happens to lust at this above- human level, Aurobindo responded, “The Higher
Power can take up the things in its own way and prevent the harmful effects.
Then the method and the act become absolutely different from the human.”
(https://medium.com/@sanjeevpatra/marriage-a-redundant-and-irrelevant-institution-for-spiritual-sadhaks-5cd28ba68f38, Acccessed Jan
2019).
In Sri Aurobindo’s last important essay he
amplified this point acknowledging that “the sex principle” could not be
excluded from “a divine life on earth,” that it is “in one of its aspects a
cosmic and even a divine principle”–it takes the form of Purusha (the male
principle–soul) and Prakriti (the female principle–nature) which are necessary
for creation and integral in their
interchange for the process of the development of life itself. It remains
to be seen in what way the sex principle “can be admitted into the new and larger
life....[S]ex
will have to be refined, submit to the spiritual or psychic impulse and shed
all its lighter, frivolous or degraded forms and feel the touch of the purity
of the ideal.” (Volume 16 "The Supramental
Manifestation and Other Writings"
published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram -
Pondicherry
diffusion by SABDA , http://intyoga.online.fr/supram03.htm.) Aurobindo stops short of saying
what is obvious to many spiritual aspirants— sex will have to be transformed
from a means of recreational leisure to a ceremony of worship, to a sacramental
commemoration of the divinity, the holiness, of the beloved (Sherrard,1976,
Sovatsky,1999). Pleasure may be its by-product, it should not be its goal.
Aurobindonians may have been more
influenced by the Mother who did not share Aurobindo’s views on romantic love
which she repeatedly said was invariably inferior to the love of God. She
wrote, “To love truly the Divine we must rise above all attachments. To become
conscious of the Divine Love, all other love must be abandoned."
(http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Jugal%20Kishore%20Mukherjee/-01%20English/The%20Practice%20of%20the%20Integral%20Yoga/-018_On%20Human%20Relationships%20in%20Sadhana.htm)
But in Savitri Death makes this
argument and Savitri vigorously repudiates it. “I have loved too the body of my
God,” she told Death. It is romantic love, love for the spiritual-physical
being of the twin soul that forges the union of Satyavan and Savitri; and the
Mother herself said she thought that Satyavan was an Avatar, “an incarnation of
the Supreme”( A Dual Power of God, p.2)—thus from her perspective even
an Avatar can have explicitly romantic feelings. (In the poem Satyavan was not
depicted by Aurobindo as an Avatar. Arguably he became an Avatar after
Savitri saved him.)
In her own case this distinction between
romantic love and love for God was otiose as she repeatedly affirmed that Sri
Aurobindo was God-- an Avatar, an incarnation of God. Therefore, she
must have felt that her romantic love for Aurobindo – for the
physical-spiritual entity of Aurobindo— was elevated above mere human love
because Aurobindo was God. She was not
indulging in the “inferior” love of another human being—she was loving God.
But for the Mother to make this kind of
distinction is to completely contradict the message of Savitri, The
mission of the Mother and Aurobindo was to model a new kind of relationship for
others, to create “a spiritual mould” for others to cast themselves into, to
help the individual to grow into the divine. The Mother contradicts the meaning of her own
mission, by implying that her union with Aurobindo is walled off from the
“purely human” romantic relationships of others.
Savitri says”I have seen God smile
at me in Satyavan/
I have seen the Eternal in a human
face.” Every human being who is truly in
love experiences God smiling in his/her
beloved, although he/she may use other words to describe it.
The distinction between romantic love
and love of God is -- from the mystical perspective -- at best an
unintelligible distinction since we are all divine, Avatars or not. “I have loved too the body of my God,”
Savitri says. As a teacher
Aurobindo made the same mistake—to a
lesser degree. Nevertheless, both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Savitri and
Satyavan are prototypes of the eternal Two-in one relationships that will be
characteristic of the next stage of our collective spiritual evolution.
But it was on the issue on sex that the Mother’s ideas were most limited
by modern culture and divergent from Aurobindo’s– she described sex as
“bestial,” saw no place for it in the divine life (unlike Aurobindo) and looked
forward to
“the
disappearance of certain ungainly protuberances, such as the genital organs of
man and the mammary glands of woman.” ( All is She CWM 15: 281, https://aurosociety.org/pdf/All%20Is%20She.pdf Accesed Jan. 2019)
What kind of love bonded Sr Aurobindo to
the Mother?
“Mother
[Mirra Alfassa] and I are one but in two bodies;” Aurobindo said.. https://auromere.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/twin-souls He wrote, “The Mother's
consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine Consciousness in two,
because that is necessary for the play. Nothing can be done without her
knowledge and force, without her consciousness...” “The Mother and myself stand
for the same Power in two forms... Ishwara-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti are only
the two sides of the one Divine (Brahman),” Aurobindo wrote. And the Mother had
said, "Without him, I exist not; without me he is unmanifest." http://savitri.in/library/resources/lives-of-sri-aurobindo/dec-21-2008)
Nirodbaran wrote, “One of
disciples observed that only two persons
have realized and put into practice Sri Aurobindo's Yoga of surrender: the
Mother surrendering to Sri Aurobindo and Sri Aurobindo to the Mother....The two
consciousnesses were one so that when Sri Aurobindo met with the accident [he
tripped and broke his leg] the Mother felt at once the vibration in her
sleep."(Nirodbaran,1988, Accessed in Jan 2019, Whether they were
literally “one” is a moot question, but all who observed were aware of the deep
communion between the two of them, and the synchronicity of their thoughts and
feelings.
http://www.fromthestars.com/page123.html.) Aurobindo
wrote in Savitri
“The Two who are
one are the secret of all power” (See A Dual Power of God, p75)
Could this
profound and harmonious male-female union have evolved in the absence of romantic
love? I think not, not unless love of
the Avatar is ipso facto “non-sexual,” non-romantic, non-physical –even
when it has aspects of romantic, physical and sexual love! The Mother
repeatedly said that she was Savitri. We
know they did not have sexual relations but that does not exclude physical
attraction. In fact when Mirra realized Sri Aurobindo was going to die she said
she told him, “I
would leave this body and melt into him with no regret or difficulty; I told
him this in words, not just in thought” which evokes the image of astral bodies
if not physical bodies merging.
( See http://savitri.in/library/mother/the-mother-on-savitri-a-compilation.)
The trope of melting into each other
is quintessentially Romantic– it is the pervasive metaphor for the communion of
twin souls in Savitri. Shelley described two lovers, as “one soul of
interwoven flame.” (Solomon, 1988,p.42; K.D.Verma,1995) Robert Solomon, in his insightful essay,
states that the idea of a “union” between a man and a woman was “the central
theme of the Romantic period” (Ibid).
But the idea that the Mother might have
romantic feelings, let alone sexual feelings, for Aurobindo as well as a spiritual
and intellectual communion with Sri
Aurobindo, would be vigorously denied by most Aurobindonians, ( Sri Aurobindo
was careful not to reveal very much about his private life, as he famously
noted– we know only that the Mother and
he did not have a sexual relationship. ) For whatever reason Aurobindonians
appear to believe that physical attraction or anything resembling romantic love
would diminish the soteriological power and ontological purity of the meeting
and union of Aurobindo and the Mother.
Why? Because both Eastern and Western
societies have been bedeviled for centuries by a profoundly anti-sexual
misogynist culture. Aurobindo and Mirra Alfassa both repudiated the misogyny of
the culture in a manner that was revolutionary for the time and place but
neither freed themselves entirely from the culture’s negative attitude toward
sexuality, particularly the Mother. Plato had idealized the concept of eros but
Christianity degraded it to “selfish and grasping eroticism,” and non-sexual
agape was so highly elevated “to the
point of such.. selflessness that it is clear it was an attitude ultimately
possible only by God”(Solomon,p.70). This was exactly the attitude of the
Mother, raised as she was in the Christian West.
To reiterate again, there was a marked
distinction in this regard between the Mother and Aurobindo– evinced in
everything the latter wrote. But
particularly in Sri Aurobindo’s poetry and plays in which immersed in the
Romantic tradition he attained a freedom he did not display in his
correspondence with his disciples. Thus Sri
Aurobindo wrote the greatest affirmation of romantic love and its
soteriological potential –Savitri-- ever written by a philosopher or theologian.
The illustrious scholar R Srinivasa
Iyengar, one of Aurobindo’s original disciples and first biographers, compares
the first meeting of Mirra Alfassa(later the Mother) with Aurobindo to the
first meeting of Savitri and Satyavan–virtually all commentators, including the
Mother, agree Savitri is largely autobiographical. Iyengar writes, “The
moment Mirra had so ardently looked forward to had arrived at last, and there
was a blaze of instantaneous recognition. Sri Aurobindo was clearly the Master
of her occult life, the “Krishna” she had met so often in her
dream-experiences. Their first meeting and the current of feelings that may
have gone through them are echoed in these lines of Savitri: “Here first
she met on the uncertain earth The one for whom her heart had come so far.
Attracted as in heaven star by star, They wondered at each other and rejoiced
And wove affinity in a silent gaze. A moment passed that was eternity’s ray, An
hour began, the matrix of new Time” ( Selections from On the Mother, p22,Accessed Jan 2019
at
http://www.sacar.in/publications/New%20Race%20Archives/journal-of-intergral-studies/Feb_April_2013/The%20Meeting.pdf)
Sophistry can purge Aurobindo’s meeting
–and relationship– with Mirra Alfassa (the Mother) of all romantic feelings–and deem it an
unfathomable “ mystery” how the union of male and female Avatars can be
effected without any romantic feelings; in the same manner many Christians deal
with inconvenient facts about Jesus’ alleged celibacy.
Just now I discovered a webpage by an
Aurobindo disciple and I find the same hackneyed memes that have dominated
Christianity for centuries– they completely conflict with Savitri’s defense of
human love–love for Satyavan, not for God alone. (Https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/sri-aurobindo-a-champion-of-love)
This author copiously quoting Savitri, claims human love is inferior to
God’s love because it is “based on give and take, or reciprocity.” (This is the
same argument conservative Protestant Christians made against romantic love–see
below) Ironically the author in support of his argument for the inferiority of human
love quotes Death each time, not Savitri! But he did not read Savitri
carefully because Savitri answers every argument of Death. Note to
Aurobindonians: Sri Aurobindo is on the side of Savitri, not Death! Unfortunately, many disciples have such a low
regard for romantic love, they are unwittingly on the side of death—as
illustrated by this disciple who unthinkingly imputes Death’s argument in
Savitri to Sri Aurobindo!
Of course, the kind of profound human
love between adults celebrated by Sri Aurobindo must be based on
reciprocity. The goal is the union of twin souls.There cannot be union without
reciprocity! The love of Savitri and
Satyavan, Aurobindo and the Mother, was reciprocal– on this basis they “grow
into” each other. God did not intend for men to be like medieval
knights loving and adoring unattainable women who were married to other men for
the purpose of breeding and raising royal heirs. This kind of “courtly love”
was at best an early stage in the development of romantic love. Savitri
represents a vision of mature romantic love.
The same author claims that Sri Aurobindo
believed the love for the transcendent divine is superior to human love. This
is not true of Aurobindo, although it was true of the Mother.
(https://www.speakingtree.in/blog/sri-aurobindo-a-champion-of-love\
Savitri denies this dichotomy –she claims that human love “is the far
Transcendent's angel here.’” (p633); To clinch this spurious argument the
Aurobindo disciple unwittingly quotes Savitri’s mother who is the foil for one
of Savitri’s– and Aurobindo’s- - most impassioned
affirmations of the grandeur of romantic
love! ( Savitri, pp.432–436)
Aurobindo shows the same kind of
inconsistency regarding death–the “villain” in Savitri— as he does
towards love. In Aurobindo’s advice to disciples he minimized the significance
of death. Here is a statement to a
disciple that is typical of what
Aurobindo said to disciples:
“What is vital is the supramental change of
consciousness - conquest of death is something minor and, as I have always
said, the last physical result of it, not the first result of all or the most
important - a thing to be added to complete the whole, not the one thing needed
and essential. To put it first is to reverse all spiritual values - it would
mean that the seeker was actuated, not by any high spiritual aim but by a vital
clinging to life or a selfish and timid seeking for the security of the body -
such a spirit could not bring the supramental change...” (The Integral Yoga,
p.94, https://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/37_35/1364_e.htm http://intyog)
It may be true that “a timid seeking for
the security of the body” should not play a large role in the spiritual quest
but that was not the motive behind Savitri’s battle with Death – it was her
yearning for eternal union with Satytavan. This was a motive of which Aurobindo
wholly approved in Savitri—which Savitri vigorously defended when Death
told her she was merely surrendering to “flesh that calls to flesh to serve its
lust.” (p.608) Death said her love for Satyavan was merely “a hunger of the
body and the heart” (p611) which Savitri romanticized and deified.
“A thrill in its yearning makes it seem
divine,”(p. 610) Death tells her, thus echoing the sentiment of religious
traditions–toward romantic love-- from antiquity. No, Aurobindo’s heroine says
to Death, “My love..came to me from God[and] to God returns.” (p612). In other words,
romantic love unites heaven and earth.
Savitri says: “Even in all that life and man have marred/A whisper of
divinity still is heard” (p.612). Love is “a voice of the Eternal ecstasy”
(p.613). She and Savatyan are “twin souls born from one undying fire” (p.614).
Despite the inconsistency in
Aurobindo’s statements, and the generally uninspired comments he makes to his
disciples about romantic love, it is undeniable that Aurobindo did consider
the conquest of death to be essential–as shown by Savitri and his plays
and poetry. The conquest of death is clearly central to his vision of the
divine life on earth. Furthermore, the
conquest of death was an issue that obsessed Aurobindo (I use “obsess”
only because unfortunately there is no non-pejorative word in English that
aptly describes this often-inspired state)– he did not regard it as “something
minor.” This theme runs throughout his poems and plays, even before he became a
mystic. One can assume in his own personal life after 1920 –after the Mother
came to live with him--conquering death was important and essential largely
because of his desire to preserve his union with the Mother--to live happily
ever after.
It was as if Aurobindo the guru was
unaware of Aurobindo the poet-philosopher. Let us not deny that Aurobindo the poet spoke
from a deeper part of his psyche. As one literary critic says of Aurobindo’s
plays, “All the plays underline the need for[romantic] love, which is the
great solvent of all varieties of evil and can defy death and turn dross into
gold.” (See The Triumph of Love in Sri Aurobindo’s Plays by S Krisna
Bhatta, Accessed January, 2019 at
http://yabaluri.org/CD%20&%20WEB/triumphofloveinsriaurobindosplaysapr75.htm)
Aurobindo’s disciple, Dr
K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar ,another
student of literature wrote, “He is convinced that it is only
through[romantic] love..that the entire life of mankind can be transformed. In Urvasie
(1896) as well as Love and Death (1899), indomitable love is presented
as beating against the gates of mortality and gaining a victory over Death in
one or another way” (Iyengar,1985).
These were written before Aurobindo’s
mystical experiences. In one of his plays one of the characters expressed
bluntly the idea that seemed to inspire all of Aurobindo’s early writings,“….some
day surely the world too shall be saved from death by Love.” (Ibid) And this
idea, nascent in his early work, reaches maturity in Savitri—the only
epic poem love ever written that depicts love’s conquest over death(Bhatta, op.
cit).
I take
my cues from Aurobindo the seer, the Romantic, not the guru more constrained by
time and place and culture. To understand Aurobindo’s writings one must realize
how unlike other yogis he was. I have never come across another yogi who
affirmed the redemptive power of romantic love. Even Sri Aurobindo’s disciples
tend to deny the manifest meaning of his words with the claim that it is all
merely “symbolic.” In an important
ground-breaking essay on the redemptive power of the union of twin souls, the
authors say nothing about the redemptive power of romantic love itself
--and even seem to imply that in the new age the union of Aurobindo and the
Mother will be the only twin soul union (A Dual Power of God).
Love and Death of
the Twin Avatars
It is only when Savitri is united with her twin soul, Satyavan–bound
together by romantic love-- that together they become a messianic force for the
salvation of humanity, of the earth. Sri Aurobindo himself said that although
he could attain union with God on his own it was only when he bonded with the
Mother that he was able to be a creative force for the redemption of the earth.
(https://auromere.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/how-to-choose-the-right-life-partner,
Accessed Jan, 2019)
It is a fact that in Savitri --although
rarely emphasized in the hundreds of commentaries written about it-- it is
romantic love that conquers death. It is the love of its protagonist, Savitri,
for her soul mate, Satyavan, that provides the motivation for her to undertake
the endeavor to discover her inner self and to confront, battle and conquer
death, and it is in the name of romantic love that Savitri convicts death of
falsehood and deceit and defends her own eschatological vision, at variance as
it is with the predominant other-worldly soteriologies of the East and West. If
Aurobindo’s vision in Savitri is more than a fairy tale, if it is
symbolic of deeper truths, then romantic love will have a predominant place in
the economy of redemption.
The immortality of the soul– the hallmark
of Eastern religion-- does not compensate for the mortality of the body. The
death of the body accompanied by the dissolution of the personality and the
bereavement of the lover (the spouse, usually) upon the death and loss of the
beloved has an unforgettable effect upon the survivor– with this trauma
endlessly repeating and reverberating throughout our innumerable life times.
Envisioning Satyavan’s imminent death, Savitri asks herself poignantly how long
it will be before they will meet again, "how long before the great wheel
in its monstrous round restores us to each other and to our love..."(Savitri,
p471)This is the human tragedy.
Even Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were
helpless against the tragedy of death. Sri Aurobindo faced death stoically but
not with care-free indifference. From the accounts of his last days it is
obvious Sri Aurobindo was not happy about dying–and leaving the Mother. The
Mother claimed it was a sacrifice he chose to make for the good of humanity,
and that otherwise he would have lived forever. The true believers among
Aurobindonians believe this because the Mother said it–but she gives no
intelligible reason why his death should benefit anyone. It is true however
that, as she also said, that although Aurobindo was ready, the world was not
yet ready for his teaching.
It is also true that their suffering was
consistent with Aurobindo’s distinctive concept of the Avatar. “The Avatar does
not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but as the divine leader of humanity and
the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he
must assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be a means of redemption,
—as did Christ,—secondly, to show how, having been assumed by the divine soul
in the human nature, it can also be overcome in the same nature,—as did
Buddha.” (Essays on the Gita,
http://savitri.in/blogs/light-of-supreme/the-gita-on-avatarhood, Accessed in
Jan 2019) Unlike the Buddha, Aurobindo and the Mother point the way to a
collective transformation—a triumph over death.
The Mother candidly described the impact
of Sri Aurobindo’s death upon her. She said it was a “sledgehammer blow” and
“an annihilation.”
“‘The very idea that
Sri Aurobindo might leave his body was absolutely unthinkable.” They had to put
him in a box and the box in the tomb for her to be convinced that it had really
happened …
“Nothing, nothing,
no words can describe what a collapse it was for [me] when Sri Aurobindo left.” (Georges Van Vrecken, Beyond Man,p639)
https://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/other/van_vrekhem-beyond_man.htm#19i
‘I had already had all my experiences,
but with Sri Aurobindo, during the thirty years I lived with him (a little more
than thirty years), I lived in an absoluteness, an absoluteness of security --
even physical, even the most material security. A sense of absolute security
because Sri Aurobindo was there … Not for one minute in those thirty years
did that leave me. That was why I could do my work with a Base, really, a Base
of absoluteness — of eternity and absoluteness. I realized it when he left:
that suddenly collapsed... Nothing, nothing
unfortunate could happen, for he was there. So when he left, all at once … a
fall into an abyss.” (Ibid
639)
(Note how this belies her comment above that human love should be less
important than divine love.)
His death illustrates that even the wisest
among us, even the “enlightened”
are devastated by death. Aurobindo
and the Mother did not take the traditional “self-sufficient “solitary path of
the yogi or the monk but chose to love and bond with each other-- to affirm
each other’s divine individuality-- and not to love above all the bodiless God
or the formless Divine. And because of this fact, death was largely experienced
by them as tragedy. If Aurobindo and the Mother were Avatars then even Avatars,
like Jesus, are not necessarily accepting of death which separates them from
their twin soul. Of course, their
apparent defeat by death was only provisional if one believes, as I do, that
they were world redeemers whose mission was to end the reign of death. As
Aurobindo wrote, “And yet I know my footprints path shall be a pathway to
immortality.” “(The Pilgrim of the Night,”1938, http://auromaa.org/the-pilgrim-of-the-night/, Accessed Jan
2019)
The Nostalgia for Paradise–
Romanticism in the Modern Age
For centuries the memory of paradise-lost haunted the human psyche. This
is why the myth of the Garden of Eden has been the dominant religious trope of
Western society until recently. Unfortunately, modern secular society treats it
all as superstition and thus death is regarded as normative. Even most religious authorities regard death
as normative, and they promote the immortality of the soul or the fantasy of a
bodiless heaven as if they were compensations for death and the defeat of
mortal love.
Mircea Eliade stated that
“the nostalgia for Paradise” or “the mythical remembrance of a non-historical happiness., discernible both
in archaic and Christian societies ..has haunted humanity from the moment when
man first became aware of his situation in the Cosmos.” (p.71 ) But in modern
secular society the nostalgia for paradise has largely faded–it is not the
foundation for an eschatology or a religious hope which would ensure that
paradise remained on the horizon of the collective imagination, as it did in
the past.
Eliade goes on to say that the mystic
and the shaman recover this paradise. I would add that the lover recovers it as
well. This is powerfully evinced in Savitri
which conveys vividly the paradisal splendor of the union or rather the reunion
and nuptial relationship of its protagonists. As Savitri puts it ,”My spirit
has glimpsed the glory for which it came,/The beating of one vast heart in the
flame of things, /My eternity clasped by his eternity /..This, this is first,
last joy and to its throb /The riches of a thousand fortunate years /Are
poverty ...In sunlight and a dream of emerald ways /I shall walk with him like
gods in Paradise. ” (p.435).
Even in secular society the archetype
of paradise still pervades the popular imagination, it is reactivated in the
lives of every couple who ever falls in love. Thus it pervades popular culture
but in a desacralized form -- romantic love is not recognized as a mystical or
messianic state, except within rare esoteric sub-cultures. In secular society
paradise is not considered ontologically normative–neither paradise nor its
foretaste in romantic love has any soteriological or eschatological
significance even for the religious imagination. It is not embodied in a
foundational myth nor do religious organizations hold out any hope of the
collective recovery of paradise.
Eliade notes sadly, “the recovery [by
the mystic and the shaman] is only provisional, for neither . . . succeeds in
annihilating death; neither succeeds in completely reestablishing the situation
of primordial man” (p. 69). Nor of
course do the lovers. But Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother testified in the 20th century that modern society can
make a full recovery. If the manifest sense of Savitri is not denied or
overlooked, it is clear that it is a promissory note that death will be
defeated, that lovers–all of us--- can recover paradise, eternally.
In his fascination with love and
death and the fall,Sri Aurobindo stands in the tradition of Milton and European
Romanticism(which he studied extensively as a student in England and as a
poet). Morris Abrams, the great Romantic literary critic, wrote that the
Romantics, both German and English, “undertook radically..to recast in terms
appropriate for their own age the Christian pattern of the fall, the redemption
and the emergence of a new earth which will constitute a restored
paradise”(Abrams,p.29) This is what Aurobindo did for our own age when he
revitalized and placed upon the foundation of his unique mystical soteriology
the central Christian trope of paradise regained.
But let us note the distinctive
feature in European Romanticism and in Aurobindo’s neo-Romanticism –the
recovered unity is not “the simple undifferentiated unity of its origins, but a
unity that is higher because it incorporates the intervening differentiations”
(p184). It thus fuses the idea of circular return with that of linear progress—
denoting the Romantic figure of the spiral, This idea is dominant in Aurobindo.
But the Romantic version of paradise-restored
does not recover the immortality
of primordial man/woman. And in both Christian and Romantics version
of paradise regained romantic love is at best a metaphor. In Christianity “the
coming of the new heaven is signalized by the marriage between Christ and the
heavenly city, his bride” (Abrams,p42) – for Christ and the people of Israel.
In Wordsworth the marriage is between mind and nature (p.27-9) It is only
recently that reconstructed Christians are arguing that there was a holy
marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.But in Savitri the hieros gamos between Savitrri and Satyavan, the world
redeemers, is depicted by Aurobindo as the herald of a “greater age” when the
mortality of humanity will be transcended. .
When Aurobindo proclaimed the victory
of love over death—eternal love and immortality–thus implying it is
available to all lovers, he carried Romanticism further than its acolytes ever
imagined possible. European Romanticism ended in melancholy
defeat(Riasanovsky,1992)–--its memory virtually destroyed by the horrors of the
20th century. In Aurobindo’s epic his Romeo and Juliet
vanquish death itself. While modernists
poets and critics (eg T S Elliott), cynically decried the naivete of Romantism
and celebrated its death Sri Aurobindo (unnoticed in Pondicherry) took up the European Romantic trope, infused it
with cosmic optimism and completed its narrative arc.
Romantic
Immortalism
The realization of the ideal of the eternal union of lovers, of male and female, Purusha and Prakriti, Shiva and Shakti---based on the attainment of physical immortality-- is the logical denouement, the telos, of the evolutionary dialectic of (romantic)love. Love aims beyond death for a union that is not sundered, over and over (lifetime after lifetime), by death. It aims to forge a new being, an eternal “Two-who are one”(to use Aurobindo’s phrase) or a two-in-one, of which Savitri and Satyavan, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, were preliminary prototypes. Although Aurobindo wrote that he and the Mother were one soul in two bodies, he more accurately describes this union (of Savitri and her spouse) in Savitri: “in their commingling spirits one forever, Two-souled, two-bodied for the joys of Time.” (p.707)
Although I believe Savitri presents
the strongest argument for what I call Romantic immortalism, I must acknowledge
here that Sri Aurobindo never states explicitly that the attainment of new
eternal romantic unions for all humanity is the goal of the process of
spiritual evolution, he never states that the union of Savitri and Satyavan ---
of “the eternal bridegroom and the eternal bride”(p.638)—is the prototype of
the unions that will be formed in the new age of which their marriage is the herald.
This is probably a manifestation
of Aurobindo’s ambivalence or reticence but it may also be (at least in part) because
Savitri ends before the divine life for humanity is realized, and
thus while it alludes to it, it does not describe it in exhaustive detail. The
climatic ending of the poem is Savitri’s reunion with Satyavan— and the promise
of God that the new age heralded by their union will entail the abolition of
death for humanity. (It must be mentioned that Aurobindo was still
planning to polish the Epilogue at the time of his death. Nandakumar, p.418)
Although Aurobindo is circumspect in
describing the future of love, Savitri presents an extraordinarily
strong and consistent affirmation and defense of the spiritual nature of
romantic love—unprecedented among Eastern yogis (including Aurobindo’s writing
on yoga), unprecedented among philosophers(Eastern and Western) and rare among
mystics. “My love [for Satyavan].. came to me from God,” Savitri says. (p612)
Considering the importance of romantic
love in the life of Savitri and Satyavan, and the preponderant role it played
within Aurobindo’s other poems and plays it makes no sense to argue that
romantic love would fade away in the new age, although the Mother seemed to
imply just that (see above)\and although there are Aurobindonians who would
argue that the only union of twin souls that will occur will be of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother, reunited to inaugurate the union of heaven and
earth. But Aurobindo could not be
more unequivocal about love in the new age: “Yet nothing is lost of mortal
love's delight.” Savitri says to
Satyavan after his resurrection and their reunion:
“Lo, we have looked upon the face
of God,
Our life has opened with divinity.
We have borne identity with the
Supreme
And known his meaning in our mortal
lives.
Our love has grown greater by that
mighty touch
And learned its heavenly
significance,
Yet nothing is
lost of mortal love's delight.
Heaven's touch fulfils but cancels
not our earth..
All that I was before, I am to thee
still,
Close comrade of thy thoughts and
hopes and toils.” (p719)
Romantic love is not replaced by
the pure love of God—agape does not supplant eros. Rather they complement each
other. The union of Savitri and Satyavan, of “the eternal bridegroom and the
eternal bride” is a prototype for all humanity. Of course Auobindo’s union with
the Mother, as we know it, was not as full–encompassing body and soul-- as the
Savitri-Satyavan union. ”I have loved too the body of my God,” says Savitri. As
far as I know this was never addressed or explained–not even mentioned by the
authors of A Dual Power of God who argue that Savitri is “a
spiritual autobiography of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother” (p.76)
It is possible that Aurobindo did not
realize the implications of his own commemoration of “mortal love.” Or it is
possible that like many Indians it was not a topic he felt comfortable talking
about—except in the guise of the poet. Romantic love is the “Not-Yet” (Ernest
Bloch) impinging on our lives today, the fleeting foretaste now of the eternal love unions of the
“greater age” yet to come. It would be contrary to the spirit of Aurobindo to
underestimate the value for all human beings of the union of twin souls
( no longer mortal)-– and thus to fail to do justice to the most important
general point in Aurobindo’s eschatology–that romantic love is the link between
heaven and earth, that it is the key that opens the gates of paradise. If this
is true then it must be because of the universal impact of romantic love— all
come under its spell, from pauper to king.
When we look at those products of
the collective imagination, from fairy tales to popular romance (from high-brow
to vulgar genres) that express the most fundamental yearnings and aspirations
of humanity we find always the same happy ending, described explicitly or by
unspoken implication, in the refrain: “They lived happily ever after.” In the depths of every individual’s psyche
these words are silently intuitively recognized not as fairy tale, not as
psychotic delusion, but as the formulation of our deepest longings and the
expression of the will of the cosmic Spirit, spelling ultimately the end of
death.
This helps to explain the nature of
Aurobindo’s mission to help resolve the evolutionary impasse of humanity.
Savitri points to the next phase of humanity’s evolution: the fullest union of
male and female– the creation of eternal
twin soul unions. This romantic ideal
could well be the archetypal lure that will motivate humanity to take the leap
into the future.
Vladimir Solovyov in the 1890s described
love in terms that anticipated Savitri – his audacious vision, with its
Dionysian emphasis, surpassed the Romantics of his century or for that matter
the spiritual romantics of the 1960s counter-culture (eg, Marcuse, Norman
O’Brown). According to Solovyov, the
ultimate messianic state is the union of soul mates–they are the reproduction
in finite beings of the union that exists for God and his feminine Other,the
world–it is a state of harmony and delight.(Although in Savitri it is
Satyavan who is described as the soul of the world.) This was exactly what Sri
Aurobindo described as the union of Purusha and Prakriti as embodied in
Satyavan and Savitri. “The wedding of the Eternal Lord and Spouse/Took place
again on earth in human form.” (p.411) But this must occur in every couple. Savitri and Satyavan, Aurobindo and the
Mother are, I believe, the divine prototypes–however vague or imperfect-- for
humanity, the divine mould in which human beings can caste themselves (to
paraphrase Aurobindo on the mission of the Avatars) .
Solovyov writes in cosmological terms
that link the individual with cosmic forces—
the eschatological consummation to which Savitri alludes throughout the
poem find its theological subtext in Solovyov’s theological formulation: “For
God, His other (i.e., the universe) possesses from all eternity the image of
perfect femininity, but He desires that this image should exist not merely
for Him alone, but that it should be realized and incarnated for each
individual being capable of union with it. The eternal feminine itself
strives for such a realization and incarnation for it is not merely an inert
image in the Divine mind, but a living spiritual being possessing all the
fullness of powers and activities. The whole cosmic and historical process
is the process of its realization and incarnation in a great manifold of forms
and degrees.” (See translation
“Beauty, Sexuality and Love” pp 128 in Alexander Schememann, Ultimate
Questions:An Anthology of Russian Religious Thought) This historical-cosmic
process found its highest expression to date in the life of Sri Aurobindo, in
the eternal union of Savitri and Satyavan in Aurobindo’s greatest work, and in
the messianic union of Aurobindo and the Mother.
Science and
Romantic Immortalism
Fortuitously the centuries old dogmatic belief in the inevitability of death is attenuated when we consider the advances made by science, by gerontology. The gerontologists on the leading edge of science believe we are on the verge of being able to stop or reverse aging. Aubrey De Grey, the gerontologist with the most salient public profile, claims we can achieve virtual biological immortality within 25 years .(https://www.tendencias21.net/Aubrey-de-Grey-Aging-is-emphatically-not-an-inescapable-destiny_a15346.html) Dr George Church, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School believes we will be able to reverse aging within 10 years. (https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/02/george-church-indicates-reversal-of.html)TThey are speaking about lifetimes lasting over a thousand years, or more. Others believe it may take a century or more to develop the ability to stop aging but almost all believe it will be achieved within the forseeable future. (Biological immortality is only a step on the way, since it does not entirely eliminate death.
But
a striking fact about gerontology to date is that its understanding of the
nature of aging is completely different from the popular conception of aging
and death. We know now that death is not the result of a law of physics, a law
of nature– when we look at it through biological lens it loses its aura of
inevitability.
Biologist Josh Mitteldorf, writes that his friends are confused when he
tells them the body does not just wear out. “Friends often look at me quizzically when
I tell them this. One says, “But I can
feel myself wearing down.” And another: “Nothing works the way it used to. Isn’t that the definition of wearing
out?” And again: “Do you mean it’s all
in my head, it’s not really happening?” and then a moment later, “do you mean
it doesn’t have to be this way?”)This last formulation is getting a little
closer to what I mean. . It’s not
imaginary but it is not caused by wearing down. There is no physical necessity
for aging. ...Living things can repair themselves” (https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2014/04/
Entropy is not a factor in mortality because living things are not
closed systems All gerontologists realize death is not a
result of “wear and tear”—otherwise animals would not have such widely varying
morality age- maximums. If it were there would
not be an immortal jellyfish–that never dies, not from biological causes. ( p. 75,Mitteldorf
and Sagan)
Mitteldorf believes that aging is “an orderly program of self-destruction,
orchestrated by gene expression.” Others propose other explanations but
scientists agree: we do not have to die.
(https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2014/04 Accessed Jan
20219)
And elsewhere Mitteldorf notes,
“the idea
that bodies wear out with age is so ancient, so pervasive, and so deeply rooted
that it affects our thought in unconscious ways” This is the root of the idea that death is
inevitable, that to talk of abolishing death is to engage in fantasy. But death
in a sense has already been provisionally
defeated–by nature. Growth is the successful resistance to aging, to
death. Once we understand that, we realize
death is not an ontological limit. The principle which enables the
growing being to flourish could enable all of us to transcend death.
Scientists would merely have to program
nature to do what nature spontaneously did, after nature stops doing it, or
else to stop the program of self-destruction. As Mitteldorf notes: “ Organisms
in their growth phase become stronger and more robust; no physical law
prohibits this progress from continuing indefinitely. Indeed, some animals
and many plants are known to grow indefinitely larger and more fertile through
their lives..” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43048830_Aging_Is_Not_a_Process_of_Wear_and_Tea
“Still, some people say the “end run” has to come to an end some
time. How can repair be “perfect”? Well, it doesn’t have to be perfect. There is
nothing perfect about a 20-year-old body, and it is the body’s metabolic choice
whether to build itself ever stronger, more resilient and less vulnerable to
disease, or allow it to decay, or (in between) to maintain a constant level of youthful
robustness indefinitely.
…and indeed, some animals and many plants
do go on getting stronger and larger, with lower and lower mortality risk, year
after year after year. This is called
negative senescence, a fancy word for aging backwards. Most trees do it, as well as lobsters, clams,
some turtles, and possibly sharks and whales.
If physics demanded that living organisms
always degrade, then growth and development would be impossible.. Evolutionary
biologists almost all appreciate this—aging is a problem for evolution, not for
physics.”
(http://hplusmagazine.com/2015/11/23/anti-aging-medicine-two-paths-diverge/
What Mitteldorf means is that evolutionary
biologists–not physicists-- must explain why we die: Natural selection ought to
result in immortality.(
Those
interested in his explanation can read his book.
In Savitri Death says:
“The Cosmic Law is greater than thy will/Even God obeys the Laws he made/The
Law abides and never can it change.” (p.654)
But
the fact that the body grows in spite of damage mean it has within it the
capacity to transcend death, to change “the law”–the process of growth if it
did not stop would potentially lead to
eternal life, triumph over
death. “ Organisms
in their growth phase become stronger and more robust; no physical law
prohibits this progress from continuing indefinitely”https://www.researchgate.net/publication/43048830_Aging_Is_Not_a_Process_of_Wear_and_Tea
But
it stops for some reason. Mitteldorf says it stops deliberately–because
death prevents over population and confers evolutionary advantage on groups. “But aging is not
caused by wearing down. It is more
accurately an orderly program of self-destruction, orchestrated by gene
expression. Some aspects of aging appear
as accumulated damage.., but on closer inspection even these are seen to be
entirely avoidable consequences of the body shutting down its repair systems. https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2014/04/07/no-the-body-doesnt-just-wear-out-as-we-get-older/, Others, like Aubrey De Grey, say the body is
just not wired to maintain growth and repair after the age of reproduction–for
reasons yet unknown.
But my point is death is a contingency. Gerontology is based on the
premise that biology itself has the potential to resist aging. And within this
perspective gerontologists are coming up with different ways to reverse or
nullify the effects of aging. In an age of Science gerontology has the
potential to revive the nostalgia for paradise that used to be the preserve of
messianic religion or occultism
For
centuries many people in the West –Christians and Jews-- did believe in the
advent of a deathless paradise when the Messiah(or Jesus) returned. In America
the Great Awakenings fanned these embers of messianic fath. The 2nd
Great Awakening led to a popular revolt against the pessimism and fatalism of
the dominant Calvinist-Augustinian version of Christianity— and to the
affirmation of a more optimistic universalist interpretation of Christian
messianism. The millennialist fever of the 2nd Awakening led the
masses of Christians to embrace the vision of heaven on earth while the more
activist types hoped to hasten the coming of the millennium by becoming active
in abolitionism or other “progressive” causes (to use an anachronistic modern
phrase). (Farber, 2012). (As stated above this universalist perspective was
discouraged by the Augustinian tradition in Christianity, continued by
Calvinists and today by “pre- millennialist” Christians.)
The possibility of paradise, eclipsed by secularism and conservative
evangelical Christianity in the 20th century, was revitalized by the
utopianism of the 1960s counter-culture and the New Age movement—which left
their influence upon counter-cultural subcultures of the early 21st
century. The most “utopian” or messianic
of the Eastern mystics,Sri Aurobindo,
had little influence upon the counter-culture or New Age–largely because
of his poetic high- brow writing style which many people claimed to find
difficult to understand. Unfortunately, new agers in America were more
captivated by escapist Eastern mystics who did not fully embrace the world.
Many of these celebrity gurus preached celibacy while they used their positions
of power to have multiple covert sexual liasons with disciples. They could not practice what they preached
because it was not a genuine solution to the problems of modern men and women.
Romantic immortalism is the solution to the tragedy of love and death and the
Aurobindo’s writing provides a philosophical basis for the synthesis of
Romanticism and biological immortalism.
Of course Aurobindo expected that immortality would be a result of an
occult spiritual discipline, not scientific interventions. In
fact he had warned of the consequences of the latter since death as he saw it
was ultimately a product of a egocentric consciousness and if it was conquered
before consciousness had changed it would merely lead to another cul de sac.
Ultimately we need to transcend the ego by the opening of the individual
to the cosmos and to God. The gnostic human will be as superior to the human as
the human is to the animal. Aurobindo wrote: “We have the realisation of the
All in the individual by the transformation of the limited ego into a conscious
centre of the divine unity and freedom as the term at which the fulfilment
arrives.... This is the supreme birth which maternal Nature holds in herself;
of this she strives to be delivered.” The Life Divine, Chapter
7,https://www.urantiagaia.org/eng/spiritual/aurobindo/life_divine1_aurobindo7.htm
Aurobindo wrote, “Death itself as well
as suffering, evil, limitation are the creation… of a distorting consciousness
which has fallen from the total and unifying knowledge of itself into some
error of division and partial experience.”
In other words we no longer have an intuitive sense of our unity with
all other beings. Our separateness is only one aspect of our reality but it is
all that distorted consciousness sees, “This is the fall of man typified in the
poetic parable of the Hebrew Genesis. This is the fruit which Adam and Eve… the
soul tempted by Nature, have eaten. The redemption comes by the recovery of the
universal in the individual and of the spiritual term in the physical
consciousness. Then alone the soul in Nature can be allowed to partake of the
fruit of the tree of life and be as the Divine and live forever.” The Life Divine,
Chapter 7,https://www.urantiagaia.org/eng/spiritual/aurobindo/life_divine1_aurobindo7.html But in Savitri romantic love is the first stage in the recovery
of the consciousness of “the universal in the individual. “It is its
precondition One the first greatest of
the early Romantics, Shelley, was the first to realize that fact. “When love
occurs it broadens and does not narrow the heart, enabling the lovers...to see
their oneness as evidence of the inherent communion that links them with
everything in the universe”(p421).
But will this change in consciousness change the actual functioning of
our bodies? Aurobindo believed it
would–there is first a transcendence of limited egoic consciousness and a full
openness to the Infinite.To quote one of Aurobibndo’s disciples: “{Man] does
not need necessarily to die, he does not stand in an obligation to dissolve the
forms in which he is at present confined, if he knows the art of connecting his
finite forms with the rush of the infinite ocean of Life.... If the ego ceases
to be confined to its finitude and if the ego comes to learn and know the truth
of the infinity, the imperishable infinity of stability as also the infinity of
imperishable flow of Life, and if it comes to know and also applies its knowledge
of the Immortal Reality and Immortal Life, then there is no inevitability of
these three great deficiencies which seem to be the imperative yoke and law of
human life, incapacity, desire and
death.”( Integral Yoga and Evolutionary Mutation,Joshi Kireet
...http://motherandsriaurobindo.in/_StaticContent/SriAurobindoAshram/-09%20E-Library/-03%20Disciples/Kireet%20Joshi/-01%20English/Integral%20yoga%20and%20Evollutionary%20Mutation/-06_The%20Problem%20of%20Death%20and%20Physical%20Immortality.htm
But the point I want to make here is that
there is no conflict between Aurobindo’s goal of physical immortality and
eternal love and the scientist’s goal of biological immortality. The latter may
be a necessary step towards the former, towards achieving an eternal union
of twin souls. Why? Well obviously because scientists are close to achieving
the goal of reversing aging and extending life—to at least hundreds of years.
But also there is a need for a popular immortalist movement and because in a
secular scientific age the imprimatur of Science can give credibility to the
ideal of immortality and thus help revive in a largely disenchanted world(to
use Max Weber’s phrase), the long suppressed nostalgia for paradise.
Aubrey De Grey realized that there is a resistance to overcoming
aging–he refers to the “pro-aging trance”–what I call the pro-death trance.:So
far he is the only gerontologist who has taken it upon himself to act as a kind
of evangelical crusader for the scientific ideal of ending aging. Thus he is
making the public aware of the promise that science holds today and helping to
raise funds for anti-aging research. Even the secular ideal of “biological
immortalitly” is a turn away from the separative egoistic consciousness and
necrophilic fixations that afflicts the modern world—and that are manifested in
the social pathologies of modern capitalism – from ecological destruction to
permanent war.
Science now holds virtual immortality almost within its grasp. The opportunity to
realize our messianic vision, to transform our ancient “memory” of paradise
into reality, has never been so great. (Nor has humanity ever been so imperiled
by the threat of self annihilation.) But the collective will to realize this
ideal is lacking. We have been trained to believe it is fantasy and few people
are prepared to accept it as an imminent possibility. Without the pressure of a mass movement the
power eite may very well suppress anti-aging technologies–since eternal life
would be a threat to their power and profit margins, which they value more than
eternal life or eternal love.
The Evolutionary Crisis–The
Resolutiom
From time immemorial, the death of the body/personality and
re-incarnation of the soul has served the species as a primary means and
necessity for spiritual growth. I believe the current spiritual- social crisis
of humanity— as evinced by the social pathologies that threaten are continued
existence--- is an indication that this modality has now outlived its
usefulness, it no longer leads to a salutary spiritual regeneration of humanity
with each new generation.
Furthermore the rise and development of
individuality in the modern age, the decreasing importance of extended kinship
networks, the gradual emancipation of women over the last century and the
growing realization of an ideal of equality between the sexes, (see Solomon, p.
36, p.43) has led not merely to a deeper
intimacy between the sexes but to a growing sacralization of the soul mate or
romantic(spousal) union. This is not to imply that society as a whole is
post-secular, only that influence of secularism has been waning, as evident in
the growing appeal of the idea of romantic love–which is sacral love— which
blossomed in the 1960s counter-culture, although compromised by the secular
idea of “free love."
As the love bond between spouses, soul mates, twin souls becomes more
valued, our yearning for an eternal union with our beloved becomes stronger and
more conscious. Thus death becomes more traumatizing and intolerable to the
conscious and unconscious mind. From an
Aurobindonian perspective death is not an inexorable natural law but an
anachronistic product of our lack of spiritual maturity that now thwarts our
deepest yearning for eternal union with our twin souls, and is thus the
greatest obstacle to our happiness, to taking the next step in our spiritual
development and to the establishment of a civilization based on love. Aurobindo
calls this the “evolution in the Knowledge” as opposed to “evolution in the
Ignorance.”
htps://www.urantiagaia.org/eng/spiritual/aurobindo/life_divine1_aurobindo7.html/
Neither the brilliant work of scientists nor even the contribution of
spiritual pioneers is enough in itelf to bring about the age of immortality. Aurobindo
said
“No matter how glorious’the crop
of saints and hermits devoted to the spiritual life unless the race, the
society, the nation, is moved toward the spiritualization of life, or move
forward led by the light of an ideal,the end must be weakness, littleness and
stagnation”(farber,p.371). It’s time to promulgate this ideal, this vision of
physical immortality and eternal love.
It is the loss of any kind of vision of paradise in the modern
secular world, any kind of messianic/utopian eschatology, that is the main reasons for the spiritual stagnation
that is leading humanity to the brink of self-destruction. We need a rebirth of Romanticism, a new
Romantic eschatology, or an immortalist philosophy that welcomes the advances
of scientists—of those great scientific
pioneers like Aubrey De Grey on the cutting edge of the effort to find a cure
for aging. But in order for immortalism to provoke the kind of new great
awakening that can save humanity from the abyss, it must be based on the vision
of eternal life and eternal love—it must be not secular immortalism but
neo-Romantic immortalism.
.The Mother said “ Savitri
is the supreme revelation of Sri Aurobindo’s vision.” The vision of the eternal union of twin souls,
of “the union of the eternal bridegroom and the eternal bride,” – born of the love of Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother– is the key to the recovery of paradise on earth.
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