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How Does Individuality Emerge?

 

November  30, 2005

  • We find the same action in all the four stages of survival, growth, development, and evolution. How do we distinguish the one from the other? What affixes them to one plane and not the other? Can we say all first acts qualify thus? How do we see the same act in one plane after existence has moved to the higher planes? What is the relation between the Individual and the collective? Is there a concept such as collective individual? When the collective rises as one man, does it qualify to be termed as the Individuality of the entire collectivity? Can we think of such distinctive phases in the civilisations of India, Greece, Rome, Europe, Britain, or USA? How can we describe the phenomenon of the last quarter of the 20th century Japan witnessed? How does USA differ from Australia, Canada and South America? Are not these vibrations always present in all of mankind all the time?
  • An evolutionary vibration spreads all over humanity, as the thought of Greece. Indian spirituality did not cross her borders in its original essence. It awoke the Mind in Greece, not the Spirit directly, perhaps because the Spirit for which Greece was ready was only Mind. If that is so, it is a kind of descent which continued in Rome as vital. Again, we see Europe awakening to Mind in Hamlet taking to scientific inquiry. And that is why it was the inquiry of the physical mind. In that case, the rules for ascent, descent, ascent in the descent, descent in the ascent, are to be ascertained, though we know it as pyramid building generally, where neither the horizontal expansion nor the vertical growth is the determinant but their resultant.
  • One thing is obvious, that man moving to meet his needs or fulfil his desires or acting out of complexes such as an inferiority complex will not qualify for the urge of evolution, though he will partially fit into the course of events for its own fulfilment.
  • Isolated great experiments such as Glenn Doman or the discovery of the steam engine in the second century, Asoka's non-violence, Gandhiji's satyagraha can make a mark but will not serve as landmarks in history such as the French Revolution, the Communist Manifesto, the Russian Revolution, the discovery of Copernicus, the appearance of Hamlet with the Mind awakening in him, the beheading of Charles I, American freedom and consequent Prosperity, Indian freedom and the dissolution of colonialism, etc.
  • Technologies that herald such periods in history or appear later to further them are secondary evolutionary instruments serving a subordinate role. Thus, Money is an evolutionary instrument but banks are only a phase in money evolving further. Even electricity or for that matter, no material force can serve that purpose, will not replace a human urge as liberty.
  • The prestige that moved Ramapuram, the power of the neo-literate woman's signature in Bangladesh, the reliability in micro-credit are the EVOLUTION of a human trait to serve a wider vibration. The Individual - the evolutionary individual - one who combines all such partial traits organically in him is the spearhead we speak of here.
  • The Force that is there from 1956 in the earth's atmosphere overtly had been there in buried potential ever since the creation of the earth. Those collective and individual urges that invite that Force overtly or covertly into their functioning are evolutionary in every sense of the word.
  • One symptom of it is the emergence of the infinite into the finite's existence. It is an act of transformation of all the low vibrations into their very opposites.
  • The several characteristics of such an Individual are:

- His earliest origin will be a breaking of shackles which would have been met with INFINITE potentials in an infinitely Free atmosphere.

- His whole destiny collective and individual would have been entirely in his hands.

- His beginning would have been survival and till he reached the phase of evolution NO one from outside would have taken notice of him. But, once he is taken note of, his domination will quickly move to be total, if not integral.

- In all his activities of being, consciousness, force, delight, the stamp of infinity will be there.

o He will feel any problem has a solution.

o His acts will not be ones following the tradition. He would strike new paths in form, force, content, culture, size, scope, etc.

o Rising from the finite to the infinite will be a common characteristic. Infinity may here mean exceeding the achievements of humanity or at least equalling them.

o He would NOT have frowned on the infinite expression of the social forces negatively. To him, it will be an equally good social functioning.

o Culture would never have been his initial or later goal. His functioning would be characterised by actions that break culture.

o His energies will be infinite and will show signs of growing further.

o What dynamic urges were witnessed in lone individuals as pioneers in the previous centuries will now be seen as a national characteristic.

o The very physical atmosphere of such a nation will carry that energy at levels of saturation.

o Bigness in the horizontal plane, perfection in the totality of work will be his constant inspiration. He easily gets into the larger rhythm.

o Marked absence of culture in all activities that were hallmarks of culture is one trait.

o The absence of human culture will be abundantly compensated for by work culture in the physical, culture or relationship in the vital and culture of organising ideas into ideals in the mind.

o Precision is one goal of perfection.

o The culture of making available to the entire population the rare possessions of the few is a dominant trait or urge of the collective.

o Self-reliance, Self-respect, Self-organisation, Self-accomplishment are his accomplished endowments.

o Taking the other man's point of view will be socially inspiring attitude.

o Accomplishments are invariably on the basis of organisation.

o The scientific technology that is a conscious aspiration of the society will thrive on the practical organisation that is constantly innovated or improvised, of which he may be oblivious, as it is in a higher plane than he works now.

o The physical individuality rises from work, the vital individuality from relationship, the mental individual from the IDEAS that preside over the work and relationship, while the Spiritual individuality will be the inner Spirituality that shuns religious worship.

o His successes will be granted to him from the outside world.

o In a sense, he would be thriving on the rest of the world he dominates.

o The conscious pioneer is born as a lone Individual or several sporadic bursting of Individuality when the subconscious is saturated. When the aspiration of Greece was knowledge and everyone was after it in some fashion or other, i.e. the subconscious was saturated with the impalpable dumb aspiration that is an irresistible URGE, a Socrates in the middle of a long chin of thinker was born.

⇁ The conscious pioneer is the results of subconscious saturation of the collective.

When the collective is CONSCIOUSLY saturated, the entire collective becomes one ‘Individual' nation that acts as the pioneer. USA is that today.

⇁ Every Individual in that country is the emerging Individual of Prosperity.

o Conscious saturation of a collective of an aspiration makes the entire collective ONE Individual collective, as the pioneer of which every single member is the emerging Individual.

o This can happen at the physical, vital, mental, spiritual, Supramental levels.

o The descent of Supermind can give birth to one such Supramental Being.

o What we witness in USA is the being of Prosperity.

o The beings of social harmony, rational mentality, illumined Spirituality are in order.

o The psychological Individual will be one who has overcome the need of morality, law and ethics and in that sense, will find himself placed higher than rational mentality.

o This is the order of evolution when we trace it from below.

o As Greece, Rome, Europe have already risen to heights of Thought, Power and practical utilisation of theoretical knowledge - scientific inquiry - which is a lower height than what was reached by the Greeks, their evolution of the Individual will vary from the above formula.

o That rule will apply to the attainment of pure Spirit in India.

o Now a rule new to the above enquiry is to be evolved.

o One work or study we have to undertake is to comment on several types of pioneers and fix him on our scale.

o While it is obvious that Socrates was a mental pioneer in the West, the birth of MIND in the common man in the 15th century symbolised by Hamlet is lost sight of. It is the main reason why the question of why Hamlet delayed killing his uncle remains unanswered.

o It is worth our while to fix Einstein, Tolstoy, Churchill, Marcus Aurelius, Copernicus, Napoleon, Leonardo da Vinci on our scale of evolution.

o One pioneer in each field and a minor one in that field must be so evaluated.

o To the modern thinker, Joan of Arc is a forgotten name. Leonardo was an interesting character who thought of planes and bridges. Marx and Malthus are referred to as debunked economists. The Russian Revolution was an aberration in history to his way of thinking. Thinkers compare Marx to Locke. People take great satisfaction in pointing out that it was Reagan's strength that brought Gorbachev to sense. Even Gorbachev is credited with a little of that thinking. The fact is:

⇁ The tradition is so strong to restore Charles I to the throne.

⇁ The hippies got absorbed into the social mainstream.

⇁ It was taken for granted that Gandhiji's satyagraha won Indian Freedom and Churchill won the war. No one can see the Force behind the British leader while in a spiritual country as India NO ONE has any inkling of the role Sri Aurobindo played in Indian Freedom.

⇁ People can afford not to know the Force behind Churchill but historians cannot be pardoned if they miss the role of Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great, and Leonardo. British authors today describe Napoleon as a devil. Everyone sees the power and wealth of America, not her role in social evolution.

Sri Aurobindo's devotees and sadhaks know him as a Rishi. Most think of Him as an Avatar and are satisfied. To describe Him to oneself as an Avatar is to describe the computer as the latest model of typewriter.

⇁ We invite our enemies as our guests is a pregnant line in Savitri. The minds of sadhaks are traditional. They are incapable of understanding Him. To present the idea that the Individual is emerging is no mean task. The sum total of all his particular achievements will still be in the plane of work and its efficiency, it cannot rise to the plane of Individuality which is the same difference between the Infinite and finite. The whole is different from the sum of the parts. It was heartening to see writers on the USA still quoting de Tocqueville 170 years after he wrote. It is a silver lining.

  • We see that the society takes on itself a new activity and it spreads to saturation as literacy, or say, graduation. No society has as yet all its members as graduates. In food, all industrial countries have attained a status where every member is far above want in food, clothes and shelter. This is a social progress it has gone through in the following stages:

1. A good many get enough; the rest slide down a scale till the bottom touches dire poverty. That good many becomes the majority, a vast majority, a near total of the population ultimately reaching every single individual. During this process, the individual organises his own ability to earn food and reaches Himalayan heights. His organisation is taken by families, communities, organisations and ultimately by the government. This is exceeded by the society.

2. At each stage of further progress, there appears a pioneer, several pioneers, pioneering organisations, companies, communities and finally the very society becomes that Pioneer by espousing that right to the individual member.

3. Such an appearance of pioneers of various grades occurs by the efforts of individuals, communities, societies. At a stage, a whole society becomes that Pioneer, its individual member is called the evolutionary Individual who bases himself on the urge of the entire society. Such a saturation lies in several grades. As far as our inquiry is concerned, what matters is saturation.

4. We have the recorded history of the US citizen who travelled through all these stages as no nation as a whole has done in the plane of material physical prosperity. Hence it is possible to account for our theoretical stand about the emerging Individual.

5. Just now the US citizen is a pioneering universal Individual. What makes the USA popular is this character of her population. This is the main feature of the nation that is USA today, but around this in all the 360 directions are clusters of social phenomena all having the evolutionary hue of various intensities and importance. That will be of interest to one who studies this Theory, not for us who focus only on the emerging Individual who has flooded his entire society with a material physical abundance, whose character for the customer is constant scientific improvement.

  • The cases of Ford, Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Kaiser, etc. have a tale to tell.

⇁ Their growth was no blunted by their own limitation, but by the exhaustion of the field that is the market. Non-evolutionary growth has inbuilt constraints of personality, caste, creed, etc. This is a sign of infinity. Such a progress was fully open to all members of the society uninhibited by the barriers of class or caste or the absence of the evolutionary impetus.

⇁ In the USA we see such pioneers not by the dozen but by hundreds or even thousands. Below them we find a graded accomplishment until it reaches the bottom. Absence of social, religious, individual inhibition is the presence of evolutionary freedom that opens infinity, not freedom the society gives or the individual takes. No achiever in the USA was harassed by the society. The possible emergence of jealousy suffered the sublimation of competition, thus converting a negative factor into a less negative factor with a fringe of positive flavour.

⇁ The achievements in the physical plane enjoyed the characteristics of the physical plane, i.e. bigness, efficiency, non-sentimental attitude, plainness art or artless accomplishment, precision, non-stop supply, capacity for non-stop production.

⇁ Labour has acquired a little of the attitude of the entrepreneur, i.e. the lower class upgrades itself by its own attitude.

⇁ All other social forces and social attitudes subserve this one activity of production in unlimited quantity.

⇁ Before 1900, USA was producing 34% of the world's manufactured goods where the giant Britain which was a distant second did only 7%. And 97% of this immense production was consumed by the national market revealing the absence of social barriers to economic consumption in the USA. The nation as a whole produced and the nation as a whole consumed. There was a nation of people, not a nation of stratified classes who were unable to consume what this growing prosperity produced. It is a barrier evolution will not permit or tolerate. For the Individual to emerge as a pioneer of evolution, the nation as a whole should have been saturated with that urge and its results.

  • The emergence of the Individual, and the collective Individual are themes that must be preceded by a rule that finally and irrevocably fixes a cause for an effect.

⇁ An effect is a result of several contributing causes.

⇁ They split into essential causes and incidental causes.

⇁ One essential cause missing will prevent the act.

Similarly, ONE essential cause present will bring about the act.

⇁ In rare instances, even an inessential cause can play that role. In a final analysis, every essential and inessential cause has a STAGE or form in which it plays the role of inevitability.

1. E.g. the shifting of August 15, 1957 a few minutes earlier at midnight was the direct reason for the uprooting of ten million people.

2. Churchill's role in WWII.

3. FDR's role in the Crash.

4. Morgan in 1907.

5. Final refusal of the Brahmin was the cause for Indian slavery.

6. Feb. 19, 1946 RIN ratings revolt ushered in the announcement of Atlee in the House of Commons about Indian Independence.

7. Draupadi's laughter at Duryodhana.

  • Life exists at physical, vital, mental and spiritual levels. Each level divides into ten or a hundred sub levels or layers. In each layer, each effect has such a decisive cause. To know it is knowledge of life. To act on it is power of life. Rajaji's abolition of ration is one such act. (To collect from history one such example for each sector of life in each of the ten or hundred sub levels will arm a scholar with arguments of FACTS.)
  • A thorough knowledge of spirit in life or subtle life when applied to one major action of his with the full force of analysis is called for. It can be done as study or experiment for the result.
  • Descent of Silence on Dag Hammarskjold in Paris preceded his appointment as UN Secretary General. It was the spiritual imperative to his mission.
  • For our purposes, it is enough we collect those cardinal indicative acts, indicative of the individual's emergence from each sector of social life taken in ten or a hundred levels. About 500 points will more than serve our need.
  • The Individual accomplishes by experiencing enjoyment. He enjoys his life experience which is accomplishment.

o He is the being, his enjoying the discovery of his hidden being in the force and form is his existence. His mind serving as the formal basis for knowledge, action and delight of self-existence is the reversal of divine consciousness into human consciousness. The Reversal of that reversal of involution is that adventure the Soul has taken up on earth.

o To be able to see that in man's life here is to comprehend comprehension. That becoming Self-comprehension for the American will be his yoga. To understand what is understanding is the clue for the Greeks and generally for the Europeans. To the Romans and the British, Mother has predicted doom. They may benefit or we may understand them by knowing what doom is and why it arises at all and how it shows its possibility in those two countries. Why the Indian who sought doom ages ago cannot be doomed is the clue for Indians.

o The enlightenment for the Indian will begin in the USA. Indians are responding to Prosperity in the metropolis now. It is too much to expect Indians to respond to knowledge, as they consciously divorced themselves from it. To bring that partial enlightenment of the Spirit that sought self-obliteration to self-awareness and self-enlightenment and finally self-enjoyment is a task HE assigned us, Indians. Maybe as the Prosperity of America impressed the Indians, the intellectuality of the French will attract them in future. Prosperity and intellectuality will play their partial roles. The full role can only be played by the evolving Spirit, evolving in the parts.

o Only in India it can happen.

o Maybe it is the hardest.

o The hardest of doors, according to Him, is the easiest route.

o Can he bring THAT work as an expression of

Mind

Life

work

Being ...is the Question.



story | by Dr. Radut