Page 9 - NAMAH-Jan-2018

Namah Editorial

blows that the universal narcissism of mankind paradigm, the human being is not only traced
suffered at the hands of post-Renaissance from the atavistic past but is simultaneously
science were firstly, the cosmological blow drawn by the unborn future.
when Copernicus proclaimed that the earth
was not the centre of the universe and secondly Thus while Freud concentrates on the ‘form’
the biological blow rendered by Darwin and from the phylogenetic perspective of evolution,
his supporters who showed that man was not Sri Aurobindo views it from the poise of the
separate from the lower animals in the organic Idea behind the form while not belittling the
scheme of things (That he considered the third form. He also goes beyond the biological
blow to be psychological, derived from his own evolution to a cosmic evolutionary scheme
theory of psychoanalysis which showed that that envisages that the human mind is
“the ego is not master in its own house (3)” is not the end of evolution. There are newer
another matter). It was the Darwinian-historical matrices of cognitive consciousness that
perspective that influenced Freud’s attempt can manifest leading to the appearance of
to put all human ideation in a overwhelming higher forms that could surpass the present
phylogenetic perspective. mental being. In doing so, he surpasses the
phylogenetic perspective to unravel the
While not denying the phylogenetic paradigm constant appearance of newer and newer
of evolution, Sri Aurobindo considers that ideas that cannot be explained from the past
behind each evolutionary form that is limited repertoire of human experience.
in the constraints of time and space, there is a
unique Idea whose source lies in the Infinite The New Idea
Reality beyond time and space. Both the ‘Idea’
from the limitless realms of consciousness and The history of consciousness is replete with
the ‘form’ within the limits of the universe new ideas that arose sporadically and cannot
are valid constructs. “Behind each form of life be simplistically explained by the settled poise
there is a divine idea which determines its of the past. Of course, a new idea would need
form and its limits and the form circumscribes an occasion to manifest. An analysis of
the potentialities of life…. The idea which the events that build up the occasion can
thus determines is the cause and the form be construed from the past but that is not
which thus limits the sign of the Finite in the related to theuniqueness of the new idea
universe. The universe is an infinity creating waiting for manifestation. A classic example
innumerable finite expressions of itself in idea was the conflict in Mahaabhaarata which led to
and form within its own infinite being…. the colloquy at Kurukshetra. The psycho-
Therefore in and behind all finite life in the social events that unfolded one after another
universe there is an infinite reality seeking to to produce the momentum leading to the
arrive at itself which must in its self-unfolding battlefield could be traced along multiple
create finite forms of life which are yet able in lines moving from the past. Yet they just
their consciousness and movement to manifest served to provide a matrix where an entirely
and realise the infinite. Man is such a finite- new idea was to be born.
infinite and the sole type of such a form of
life that yet exists upon the earth (4).” In this Anirvan explains that instead of interpreting

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