Page 24 - NAMAH-Apr-2022

Namah Vol. 30, Issue 1, 24th April 2022

— or at least begin to become — a gnostic being.
This is obvious; the individual work should
go on ahead and the collective work should
follow; but it so happens that spontaneously,
without any arbitrary intervention of the will,
the individual progress is controlled, so to
speak, or held back by the collective state.
Between the individual and the collectivity
there is an interdependence from which one
can’t totally free oneself, granting that one
tries. And even a person who tried in his yoga A few lines from Savitri summarise it all:
to liberate himself totally from the terrestrial
and human state of consciousness, would be “All by spiritual links were joined to all
tied down, in his subconscious at least, to And bound indissolubly to the One:
the state of the mass, which acts as a brake Each was unique, but took all lives as his own,…
and actually pulls backwards. One can try to None was apart, none lived for himself alone,
go much faster, try to drop all the weight of Each lived for God in him and God in all… (6)”
attachments and responsibilities, but despite
everything, the realisation, even of one who References
is at the very summit and is the very first in
the evolutionary march, is dependent on the 1. The Mother. The Collected Works of the Mother,
realisation of the whole, dependent on the Volume 12. Cent. Ed. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo
state of the terrestrial collectivity. And that Ashram Trust;1978, pp. 93-94.
indeed pulls one back, to such an extent that
at times one must wait for centuries for the 2. The Mother. Collected Works, Volume 9; 1977, pp.
Earth to be ready, in order to be able to realise 170-71.
what is to be realised.
3. Ibid., pp. 173-75.
And that is why Sri Aurobindo also says,
somewhere else, that a double movement is 4. Sri Aurobindo. The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo,
necessary, and that the effort for individual Volume 25. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram
progress and realisation should be combined Trust; 1997, pp. 255-57.
with an effort to try to uplift the whole mass
and enable it to make the progress that’s 5. The Mother. Collected Works, Volume 9, p. 141.
indispensable for the greater progress of the
individual: a mass-progress, it could be called, 6. Sri Aurobindo. Birth Centenary Library, Volume
which would allow the individual to take one 28. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust;
more step forward…(5).” 1970, pp. 323-24.

Dr. Alok Pandey, an editor of NAMAH and a member of SAIIIHR, is a doctor practising at the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

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