Spirituality and society

 

What the modern spirit has sought for is the economic social ultimate, - an ideal material organisation of civilisation and comfort, the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation of a utilitarian rationality which will make the individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society. What remained from the spiritual ideal was - for a time - a mentalised and moralised humanitarianism relieved of all religious colouring and a social ethicism which was deemed allsufficient to take the place of a religious and individual ethic. It was so far that the race had reached when it found itself hurried forward by its own momentum into a subjective chaos and a chaos of its life in which all received values were overthrown and all firm ground seemed to disappear from its social organisation, its conduct and its culture.(Sri Aurobindo, Life Divine II, 28) .

However, we do not know exactly what we do and what we must become. We take what we can get of knowledge, power and strength, of purity, peace and happiness, and we become what we can become. Our goals and our desire to achieve them, and even the little that we can win, turns into nets, in which we get caught, and these things become then for us the goal of our life', (Sri Aurobindo, Life Divine II, 27)

'A rational and scientific formula of the vitalistic and materialistic human being and its life, a search for a perfected economic society and the democratic cultus of the average man are all that the modern mind presents us in this crisis as a light for its solution', (Sri Aurobindo, Life Divine II, 28)

Psychology has therefore also published a system justification theory .

Modern societys

Our modern culture is based on the principle of concurrence. Man has inherited this behaviour from the animal kingdom, where it is a neccessity to survive, but it is also the inherent egoistic basis of his nature.

We see the limitations of this system - which has little and often only instinctive morality - today : There is growingly less win because of more concurrence, people loose their jobs and so moral is degrading.

The explosion of population is another reason of this degradation. Only a certain rich class benefits from such developements.

In the not so industrialized  countries with their uncontrollable explosion of population people mostly have to work under incredible conditions and earn just as much as to survive and therefore the moral degrades further.


A society without ethic rules is the basis for irresponsibleness and conscience-lotness. On the other hand have tolerance and moral never been  principles of very simple or of primitive people, who love the primitive and natural things of live, independent of their position in society.
The subconscious forces and drives of the animal-kingdom are still an important and omnipresent factor in daily life, and man must first leave these roots behind, before true relationships are possible.

Therefore modern wars have another battlefield within the societies, the manyfolded battles for position and power, for posession and wealth, and for the most attractive life-partner(of course also in a higher sense), the three points of attraction for the small human ego.

A worldly socialism can not really change these problems, because his basis would  be the too human nature with its self-assertion and the various vital and negative forces, which earlier or later have always lead to corruption, crime and supression in such societys.

Similar problems have the democracies with their lack of inner values and  allegedly free play of forces and their lobbyists. Other alternatives in form of outer theocracys suppress the vital with bids and rules and cannot lift up the human psyche.

First through the true broad self-realization of the 'universal religious principles' and methods of the 'Universal Doctrine' would mankind be able to elevate above the animal kingdom and learn to transform the primitive human nature, a transubstantiation and transfiguration which the majority of mankind does not want. First through the selfrealisation of higher and of universal religious principles(atma-jnana) can man really raise above the animal kingdom (step 10 of the path).


"We must replace competition and strife by collaboration and fraternity." - The Mother (M. Alafassa,  SriAurobindo)

The opposite of the principle of concurrence is the principle of solidarity(to use a modern name), which must be a basis of every big and long lasting society, but it does not involve the necessary transubstantiation.

The highest form of this principle would be the "charity". But this principle has been misinterpreted in the past, because it is too high for the current human nature and a problem for worldly religions. It was at first thought for equal wanderers on the path.

Jesus said clearly : "My next one is who fulfills the will of the divine father", ie. who does not live in the will of his small human ego and his vital forces, and he and the Bible say : "Next - love is equivalent to the fulfilment of the ten commandments"(Mark. 12,31) - and not only with the fulfilment after the letter. But he who loves his neighbor as himself does not have the means to induce him to enter the path "from the swineherd to the father." On the other hand, in the apostolic letters, exists the sentence 'do not go to the heathen'!

In the eastern spirituality charity is not so much known, because the systems of yoga are mostly a kind of subtle spiritual egoism(work for the karma). The Bhakti-Yoga touches it.

Words related to compassion in Hinduism are daya, karuna and anukampa, and besides also karunya, ghrina, kripa, and anukrosha. The Padma Purana defines Daya as the virtuous desire to mitigate the sorrow and difficulties of others by putting forth whatever effort necessary. The Matsya Purana describes daya as the value that treats all living beings as one's own self, wanting the welfare and good of the other living being. In the Mahabharata, Indra praises Yudhishthira for his anukrosha for all creatures. Taken literally, this also meant supporting the most primitive wishes.

In buddhism exists a similar wish to resolve all beings(Karuna, Metta) and therefore mettā bhāvanā


The psychic roots of the modern global culture with its new possibilities of communication are still the vital forces of the common self, the forces of samsara(maya), in comparison to the spiritual self and the self of Philosophy.

Many people beleive simpleminded, that man controls the highly complex nature, because science has detected and learned to use many laws of the material surface and made step by step formerly unbeleivable technical insights possible.

Our industrial technical shaped culture tries to whitewash the primitive roots and the perishableness with technical innovations and styling and luxury, and it tries to make the happy consumers blind and satisfied and tame, also to guarantee the sales.
But besides many temporary successes the results of techniqs were too often the destruction of the environment and the loss of the biological balances and overexploitation of the natural resources, a plundered and poisoned nature.

Our culture learns to control the outer forms, and it fills them mostly with old or laughable and exaggerated contents (old wine in new bottles), often only seeking for a gap in the market which allows to survive. Man has been taught how to smile and to play his role in society. Therefore lie and falsehood have become a daily companion.

Modern humanism is  caricature of ancient humanism.  It is self-assertion of the little self-centered self. This Humanism tends to cover only the human dimension in an anthropocentric view.  A neohumanism would be an extension, which not only  sympathetically respects all created beings but extends it in direction of spirituality.

The worldwide overpopulation is only one unsoluble indicator and another consequence of the lack of the safety offered within social systems and of course of the fact that sex is still a big primitive value in most societys, who live in a consciousness of the small samsaric self. 

Globalisation

Another modern problem is the international interweaving of world-economy.

The poor countrys serve mostly as supplier of cheap raw materials for the industralised countries, who would not be able to have this standard of life without such cheap sources. Their often very overpopulated  societies have become a caricture of a modern society just serving as a inexpensive supplier of work and industrial products and as markets for the industry-nations and as suppliers who are highly indebted. Their inner structures are often examples of  corruption and unscrupulousness, in which all old values are overthrown and all firm ground seems to disappear from its social organisation, its conduct and its culture.


"The first danger is a resurgence of the old vital and material primitive barbarian in a civilised form; the means science has put at our disposal eliminates the peril of the subversion and destruction of an effete civilisation by stronger primitive peoples, but it is the resurgence of the barbarian in ourselves, in civilised man, that is the peril, and this we see all around us.
For that is bound to come if there is no high and strenous mental and moral controlling and uplifting the vital and physical man in us and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his inner being. Even if this relapse is escaped, there is another danger, - for a cessation of the evolutionary urge, a crystallisation into a stable comfortable mechanised social living without ideal or outlook is another possibl outcome. Reason by itself cannot maintain the race in its progress; it can do so only if it is a mediator between the life and the body and something higher and greater within him; for it is the inner spiritual necessity, the push fom what is there yet unrealised within him that maintains in him, once he has attained to mind, the evolutionary stress, the spiritual nisus
." (Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine, II pg.1053)


As result of the modern  materialistic and naturalistic way of life mankind sinks more and more into the dark samsaric forces of the body and closes the doors to the forces of higher evolution, so that the big majority of the sunken souls has no rebirth.

Morality and higher Nature-Law are in reality the same, based on the distant principle of a divine harmony, which does not develop through the observance of the rules and ethics of a specific religious movement. Only a spiritual harmony on the basis of a transformed human nature could prevent a coming chaos.

Freedom

Freedom is a part of the human rights.

Real cultural life needs at least the well known but insufficient four freedoms (Freedom of personal deveolpement, Freedom of religion, Freedom of need, Freedom of fear) as A.A. Baileys new WGW stated over 50 years ago.

But it must be seen that the support by her White Brothership is in reality an illusion, and so the WGW had no real success.

Nowadays is freedom often misunderstood as complete unboundedness, as "to do what one wants". The result of such freedom is unlimited consum and a growth of world population in direction of a worldwide desaster. It is a false asuric freedom.

Such a view forgets the retroactions of all deeds in the area of karma. True freedom must pass the filter of introspection, only then it can be a freedom from the forces of chaos and samsara.

Absolute freedom would mean the disentanglement from everything inclusive the limitations of the small person. Real universal freedom would presume a free will. In the divine, the will is the revelation of the highest infinite divine force, and this force and the plan are in unity. Because of the omnipotence this willpower is absolute irrespective. 

The acting human ego-centered or selfcentered will has its origin in the reaction on circumstances and challenges in the material world, on wishes and desires, which actuate the will, but which are unconsious and  invisible indirect consequences of a higher Adi - Dharma. The success of the effort depends upon many unclear factors. Often this will undertakes false or fruitless efforts in direction of the target and the achievement of the aim is unsure.
Even the highly developed ego-centered(Ahamkara) mental volition(Mahat) is still a product of Maya, and therefore the true "white magician" with his developed personality must surrender to the plans of the divine.

'If, however, there is no escape from the Law, if Nature is supreme and inexorable, there can be no salvation; freedom becomes a chimaera, bondage eternal. There can be no escape, unless there is something within us which is free and lord, superior to Nature....', Sri Aurobindo - On Yoga (PDF). 

First trough identification and transformation with the spiritual willpower can true freedom be reached (Moksha). First this  is liberation from the influences of Maya and Prakriti.

In the hidden background of the spiritual will stands the force of the divine providence. First the enlightened master in his unity sees that behind success and failure stands a divine plan and the acting of the divine providence - which cannot be escaped.

Human love

Cultural and historically is 'Love' a term that is used in many contexts and in different shades of meaning.
The very lowest form Sex, as described in many layersof society as love, is nowadays still one of the big values of life, but a doorway of death and of negative involutionary forces, inspite of improved production of dopamines in the brain as a lure of nature. This widespread low level of love is also a sign of how much the majority of mankind lives from the lower Vital nature, and how immature mankind is for a global world culture - a visible result is the everything endangering overpopulation and the plundering of the resources.

On the other hand is the social consenus often based on a natural instinctive affection, often with authoritarian characteristics, and comes depending on the level of evolution from an ancient and often socialized Groupconsciousness, and turns in its reverse, if it does not find its confirmation.

Sri Aurobindo spoke in this context from the "Passionflower of human love",
"What is commonly called love, is in reality of the main vibration of universal Love as far away as hate, the latter is only narrowed, hardened, and stiffens and the other hits out, that's the whole difference"(The Mother(M. Alafassa, SriAurobindo), Bulletin 2/1966)

Love is principally the attempt to draw at something desirable, from wherever the desire may come, that individual can have very primitive backgrounds, including the object of desire. The disappointment brings forth hatred and anger. So called love feelings are usually merely a reflection of continued astral-ethereal or instinctive desire.

Therefore, Buddhism also warns against greed, hatred and anger(ignorance).

"The facing of the Divine love should not be the usual lively feeling to which give the people that name. Because that is not love but a vital desire, an instinct for appropriation and the drive to have and to monopolize. Not only is this not the divine love, but it may not be permitted the least interference in the yoga. The true love of the Divine is a self-giving, free of claim, full of submission and devotion. It demands nothing, does not trade, is not the violence of jealousy, arrogance, or anger, because these things are not created in it. In response gives the divine Shakti herself, but free through her presence into your mind, your awareness of your body vital and consciousness of the body." (Sri Aurobindo , On Yoga II, Band I, part II,7)

Spiritual love is an aspect of spiritual bliss(Ananda). Hinduism says "The husband loves his wife because of the ATMAN"( Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad), where of course, the spiritually developed person is meant...

"Love is one of the big primary forces of the universe. It exists in itself, regardless of the objects in which and through which and for which it reveals in an always free movement."(The Mother, Talks, 2.6.1929)

"If you are in touch with your spiritual being, you begin to perceive somehow, what may be the divine love. Do not try to enter into direct relationship with the divine love, because there is still a lively desire that drives you. Ye would not be aware of that, but it would be a lively desire". (The Mother(Aurobindo), Talks 1951)
Love is not a sexual relation. Love is not vital attraction or vital exchange. Love is not the need of the heart for affection. Love is an all-powerful oscillation, starting directly from the One, and only the very pure and very strong is able to receive it and to reveal it. To be puremeans, only to be open for the influence of the Highest and for no other." (The Mother(Aurobindo) - Bulletin, 11/1963)

Even in Dzogchen-Buddhism exists the theorem "not to fall for the human love ", which is so far away from the true love of the divine ananda.

"Respect, I do not speak of that what people call happiness which comes from the pleasure, from the forgetting, from the adiaphora - all that is not even a caricature of the true bliss(Ananda), but more a devilish invention to let you loose the path.
I talk here of a delight, which is the perfect peace, shadowless light, harmony, utter beauty and irresistible power, the delight that the divine presence itself is, in its essence, in its will, and in their realisation
."(The Mother,Evening Talks 1955)

(J. Lorber writes aptly about the heavenly love and the hellish Love)

In the first letter of John of the New Testament we read to this:
"I have written to you fathers, because you know the one who is from the beginning (3.Initiation) I have written unto you young men, because you are strong and the Word of God remains in you, and ye have overcome the evil (2. Initiation).
"Love not the world nor the things in it. If any man loves the world, is not in the the love of the Father. For everything that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the Eyes,and the pride of life, is not of the father but of the world. And the world passes away with the the lust, but who fulfills the will of God does remain forever
."(1. John. Letter 12)
(Further in Mathew 13,22)

Wisdom and knowledge

Wisdom is often looked at as a deep insight into the circles and laws of the cycles of life, which goes beyond the accumulation of pure knowledge.
Human wisdom has a materialistic connotation since it  rises little above the everyday, and because it differs fundamentally from the universal spiritual wisdom(Chit) or the wisdom of true emptiness(Prajna).

At each plane of creation exist different laws, which are often a synthesis of the laws of the next lower plane. Very highest consciousness is " Chit" and it is simultaneously the highest wisdom and the ultimate omniscience, which reveals in Kashmir Shaivism as Sadvidya-Tattva, in Hinduism as Chit and spiritual Atman, and in the Bible as 'Holy Spirit'(Genesis etc.).

The gradation of the forces of wisdom generates the characteristics of the laws of the lower worlds and keeps these maya-worlds in motion.

The wisdom of the mind is a egocentric rational (often not even that - e.g. if glamouring emotions play with) weighing of experience and acquired knowledge and it is thus often incorrect and not spontaneous. To the mind  the higher wisdom must therefore often appear as a folly. This problem, however, exists already in modern quantum physics.

The spiritual seeker is lead by the knowledge and the wisdom of the masters without to put aside the reason, and he tries to connect with the power of wisdom through spiritual practices.

In modern societies the higher laws  are more and more neglected and often also combated under the pressure of the businessworld and of materialistic science.

The  exaggerated and too secular human rights stand on paper, and therefore stands this solidifying deluded modernized and from the highest deity discarded culture before a dangerous future - on its predetermined path back into the forces of the unconscious, from which few souls are reborn.

The "Mother"(Aurobindo) said : "Modern man is an Asura (a negative entity). The Asuras understand only the language of struggle" and further "to defeat lie and falsehood, that is the path ", and Sri Aurobindo also said, "power, wealth and sex are the three main attractions of the human ego".

The average man is completely unsensitive for spirituality, and he follows the rules of his unconscious nature. The simple rule is : "Where the STREAM does not flow exists no hunger for the stream".

Social integration

Psychology speaks about Escapism  if a person or a group secrets from the wordly rythms and rules, and it looks at moksha as a form of delusion and speaks about sociability as the skill, tendency or property of being sociable or social, of interacting well with others. This would be tolerable in a spiritual society, but it is a means of suppressing individual tendencies.

"The Individual does not owe highest loyalty to the state which is a machine, nor to the community which is only a part of life and not the whole life. His obligation is to the truth, the self, the spirit, the divine in himself and in all.
His real life goal should not consist in subordination to the mass or to lose in the mass, but to find and to express the truth of being in itself, and to help the community of humanity to find their own truth and fullness of being"
, (Sri Aurobindo)

Therefore it is advisable for the true seeker to live after the old traditional hermetic principle of "KNOWING-DARING-WILLING-RETICENCE", which is a bit like in the middle-ages, because we have to live in a modern intolerant and often very negative world.

The purpose of the modern enlightenment was once to see things with the reason and not to beleive in vague and strange explanations, but modern reason is based on models and notions and terms and ideas with their limitations.
The majority of people is not even enough intelligent to understand these scientific developements and the contemporaneous limitations of modern science, and people would not live after the spiritual rules of a sadhana because they are bound to the zigzag course of their vital nature.


Some readers may argue that these thoughts about psychology and society are not necessary for the understanding of the spiritual process. But as the disciple is a part of this world, scientific progress should not be ignored but spiritually illuminated, and everybody causes karma for other people in daily life and is still working at his own personal karma.


So i have not completely disclosed the Universal Path for people on the black path, who just want to draw the biggest advantage out of all things or those who do not want to applicate INTROSPECTION in practice or who do not want to surrender to the divine rules and forces.
This website has been written for the people of true good will and for true spiritual seekers !
The spiritual seeker must be able to fight intelligently and  must know what he really wants. The ASPIRATION must be a flame and he must be willing to surrender to he higher spiritual rules and to his growing inner divine self. And not at least he must have the necessary personal DHARMA - the agreement of the highest Divine.

== Literature ==

 

* Sakar : Neohumanism (and universalism)