Old people everywhere keep thinking about the ‘good old days’. It is everywhere and in every age of mankind. But if we really have faith in Sri Aurobindo and The Mother then we should actually be looking towards the future and know that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, the appearances of today notwithstanding. But the physical mind stuck to outer appearances cannot understand it and if things are not according to its standard format and ideas of what is good and bad, not according to its preferences and comfort zones then it takes them to be bad.
The real reason is however explained by the Mother in one of her conversations.
‘Mother, for quite some time there has been a feeling that the general consciousness in our activities has fallen, especially since the Ashram has grown so large. What is the reason for it and how can we put it right?
Are you referring to all the activities of the Ashram or only to sports?… All the activities of the Ashram?
I don’t know very many, Mother: in the ones I see.
(After a long silence) It is something rather complicated. I shall try to explain it.
For a very long time the Ashram was only a gathering of individuals, each one representing something, but as an individual and without any collective organisation. They were like separate pawns on a chess-board—united only in appearance—or rather by the purely superficial fact of living together in the same place and having a few habits in common—not even very many, only a few. Each one progressed—or didn’t progress—according to his own capacity and with a minimum of relations with others. So, in accordance with the value of the individuals constituting this odd assemblage, one could say that there was a general value, but a very nebulous one, with no collective reality. This lasted a very long time—very long. And it is only quite recently that the need for a collective reality began to appear—which is not necessarily limited to the Ashram but embraces all who have declared themselves—I don’t mean materially but in their consciousness—to be disciples of Sri Aurobindo and have tried to live his teaching. Among all of them, and more strongly since the manifestation of the supramental Consciousness and Force, there has awakened the necessity for a true communal life, which would not be based only on purely material circumstances but would represent a deeper truth, and be the beginning of what Sri Aurobindo calls a supramental or gnostic community…. He has said, of course, that, for this, the individuals constituting this collectivity should themselves have this supramental consciousness; but even without attaining an individual perfection—even while very far from it—there was at the same time an inner effort to create this “collective individuality”, so to speak. The need for a real union, a deeper bond has been felt and the effort has been directed towards that realisation.
This has caused some… disturbance, for the tendency was formerly so individualistic that certain habits have been upset, I don’t mean materially, for things are not very different from what they were, but in a somewhat deeper consciousness. And above all—that is the point I want to emphasise—this has created a certain inner interdependence which has naturally lowered the individual level—a little—except for those who had already attained an inner realisation strong enough to be able to resist this movement of what I might call “levelling”. And this is what gives the impression that the general level has fallen, which is not correct. The general level is on a higher plane than it formerly was, but the individual level has dropped in many cases, and individuals who were capable of one realisation or another have felt, without understanding why, weighed down by a load they did not have to carry before, which is the result of this interdependence. It is just a temporary effect which, on the other hand, will lead to an improvement, a very tangible general progress.
Of course, if each individual was conscious, if instead of yielding to this kind of levelling effect, he resisted it in order to transform, transmute, uplift the elements, influences, currents he receives from the group, then the whole would rise up into a higher consciousness far ahead of where it was before.’
CWM 9
More and more people are coming because that is how it is meant to be. The Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s Light is going to touch and awaken every spot of darkness upon earth. So the influx will increase. One has to understand and if possible help or at least set a good example but to complaint and lament is a sign of weakness and narrowness, sometimes selfishness because one is being pushed out of one’s comfort zones. To see the Divine everywhere and in everything and in everyone is one of starting points of the Yoga. We can start by seeing them in the mass of humanity coming to seek solace here. Where else will they go for relief and remedy but to the Divine?
Affectionately,
Alok Da
