The New Horizon

In our journey as human beings so long, we have committed enormous mistakes and follies, we have seen tremendous cruelties and massacres, we have seen ourselves engrossed in ignorance and dissipation, and as a consequence, we have most of the time found ourselves dwelling in darkness, with lots of sufferings and chaos and obscurity. 

But there have always been some golden linings. Men have always tried to come out of this darkness, from this animal consciousness that they inherited from evolution. They have sought for Truth and Light and Love, for liberation from the bondage of death and diseases, of division and darkness. They have endeavored to bring joy and happiness amidst all sufferings and pains.

And there has always been the golden ray of Hope for men. At least some men have always burned the incense of Aspiration for progress, for all that is True, Good and Beautiful, all that is Divine, all that is from the Supreme. There has been some progress, in spite of all regressive movements. And there has always been some Descent from the Supreme Consciousness and Being amid this humanity living in darkness. 

Hence, let us collect all that is golden in our harvest so far, since the beginning of the human journey, and march towards the New Horizon. It is not that we will leave this world and go elsewhere to find another planet in search of the New World. Nor should we become sannyasins or recluses. We need not retire into some forests or mountains. We will change this world.

We can see that this world, as it is now, is in an extremely bad state of affairs. Falsehood, hatred, selfishness, corruption, greed, deception, violence, cruelty, inhumanity, and hunger for power - these appear to be the ruling forces now. All the noble Ideals or Ideas that prevailed on earth and inspired many of our noble ancients or our forefathers, have, as it were, become obsolete. Look at history and the present day earth: ideologically, and in consciousness, men seem to have become pygmies. 

We have been seeing destructions and wars throughout this earth: In India, in USA, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and earlier, elsewhere. We are seeing terrorists and suicide-bombers. The entire human society is sitting on a heap of bombs - atomic or non-atomic. In relationships, we can no more find beauty and love and fellow feeling. In Arts and culture, vulgarity has almost replaced beauty.

This earth is an evolutionary field. Evolution is the history of life’s manifestation on earth. This has been well said by Darwin. According to him, man is the consequence of this earthly evolution. But he did not proceed beyond the appearance of Homo Neanderthal. He said nothing about evolution after the appearance of man upon earth, or about the reason why man was evolved at all. His view was a scientific truth, within the material viewpoint of Science.

As Sri Aurobindo has said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he has the aspiration and dream for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Evolution aims at ultimately manifesting That which is the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda), the Divine. Out of Man shall manifest the Superman. Man has to become the Base, the Instrument for the Advent of the Superman. He has to grow into the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled, and man’s surpassing himself will do that. Man has to collaborate with the new evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

In the name of religion, the people fight each other, and they taking themselves farther away form the Divine, from spirituality. 

Sri Aurobindo has said:       

The end of a stage of evolution is usually marked by a powerful recrudescence of all that has to go out of evolution.

This earth is an evolutionary field. Evolution is the history of life’s manifestation on earth. This has been well said by Darwin. According to him, man is the consequence of this earthly evolution. But he did not proceed beyond the appearance of Homo Neanderthal. He said nothing about evolution after the appearance of man upon earth, or about the reason why man was evolved at all. His view was a scientific truth, within the material viewpoint of Science.

As Sri Aurobindo has said, the time has come when evolution must surpass man. Man is not the perfect being, not the complete being. But he has the aspiration and dream for becoming perfect, for becoming complete. Evolution aims at ultimately manifesting That which is the Source of this Manifestation, the Supreme Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (in Sanskrit and other Indian languages called Sat-Chit-Ananda or Sachchidananda), the Divine. Out of Man shall manifest the Superman. Man has to become the Base, the Instrument for the Advent of the Superman. He has to grow into the Superman. The purpose of the appearance of man must now be fulfilled, and man’s surpassing himself will do that. Man has to collaborate with the new evolution, or the evolutionary forces will ignore him and go beyond him and find out its own means.

No doubt, Science and logic stand guard against falsehood, superstition and ignorance. But Science discovers and finds only a partial aspect of the Truth. Reason and logic are not the only bases of Truth. And the integral seeker of the complete Truth, a true student of Philosophy realizes this.

Sri Aurobindo has said in ‘Thoughts and Aphorisms’: 

Late, I learned that when reason died, then Wisdom was born; before that liberation, I had only knowledge.

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind and sees.

Reason divides, fixes details and contrasts them; Wisdom unifies, marries contrasts in a single harmony.

In fact, the last thing or the last stage will never come, as evolution will go on eternally, forever. But man has to proceed forward ahead, surpassing his present stage of incompleteness, imperfection. He has to know himself, strive towards Perfection and surpass himself. As it has been said earlier, the Superman shall emerge out of Man. Man has to surpass all the limits of mind and reason, scale newer and newer heights of Consciousness and ascend to Gnosis, the Supramental Consciousness, and then shall emerge on earth the supramental race. This is the Truth Sri Aurobindo has brought for us. We shall have to live for this Goal, this Truth