Seeing the current conditions of the Earth and politics makes me concerned, but at the same time I keep reflecting on what you had said that day. I do believe in the Divine plan at work, but I wonder: should we not take steps to stop the atrocities that humans are hurling at Mother Earth?
The earth has always been riddled with challenges and difficulties. There has never been an Age of mankind when death and disease were not, or wars not, or conflicts, confusion and chaos did not shake mankind. Even in Satyuga there were arrogant kings who had to be dealt with by Parashuram; the ideal kingdom of Rama yet had to witness the abandonment of Sita; the world responded to Sri Krishna’s advent by the terrible Kurukshetra War and, finally in our own Age, the Age of Sri Aurobindo, we see the two goriest wars that history has ever known. What really is the real problem we must then ask, the true illness so that we may find the radical remedy? If we go just a little deeper into the various issues, including Climate change and several other ways through which humanity has degraded the earth, we shall discover that the single common factor is human nature as it stands today.
The spiritual way has tried to tackle this root problem but has not found any satisfactory answer. The best they could find was either a Sattwic moral way of life, a limited goodness, so to speak, for it hardly has the power to change the society. The other option is to escape out of the play into Nirvana. In other words, whether you try through protests or meditative practices, the condition of earth remains unchanged. It is here that Sri Aurobindo brings a novel and radical solution. Briefly, it means that human nature must change, transformed into a higher divine nature. Otherwise we will move in futile circles of largely cosmetic changes. It is here that each one must choose. Yes, change is needed, not so much in government and systems alone, but most importantly in human nature. Each one must choose one’s field, but choose wisely, whether to strive for a temporary change here and there or for a more radical remedy, so to say. The Mother reveals this in one of Her conversations in 1957:
‘This is the condition of the earth, and it is not very bright. But for us one possibility remains—I have spoken about it to you several times already—even if, outside, things are deteriorating completely and the catastrophe cannot possibly be avoided, there remains for us, I mean those for whom the supramental life is not a vain dream, those who have faith in its reality and the aspiration to realise it—I don’t necessarily mean those who have gathered here in Pondicherry, in the Ashram, but those who have as a link between them the knowledge Sri Aurobindo has given and the will to live according to that knowledge—there remains for them the possibility of intensifying their aspiration, their will, their effort, to gather their energies together and shorten the time for the realisation. There remains for them the possibility of working this miracle—individually and to a small extent collectively—of conquering space, duration, the time needed for this realisation; of replacing time by intensity of effort and going fast enough and far enough in the realisation to liberate themselves from the consequences of the present condition of the world; of making such a concentration of force, strength, light, truth, that by this very realisation they can be above these consequences and secure against them, enjoy the protection bestowed by the Light and Truth, by Purity—the divine Purity through the inner transformation—and that the storm may pass over the world without being able to destroy this great hope of the near future; that the tempest may not sweep away this beginning of realisation.
Instead of falling asleep in an easy quietude and letting things happen according to their own rhythm, if one strains to the utmost one’s will, ardour, aspiration and springs up into the light, then one can hold one’s head higher; one can have, in a higher region of consciousness, enough room to live, to breathe, to grow and develop above the passing cyclone.
This is possible. In a very small way, this was already done during the last war, when Sri Aurobindo was here. It can be done again. But one must want it and each one must do his own work as sincerely and completely as he can.’
(Ref. https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/7-august-1957#p16)
So while change we must, both within and without, towards a better earth and a better human life but it is upto us whether to work towards brief, temporary changes or a radical, permanent change, whether we apply palliatives or try out the true and lasting cure.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
