Page 34 - NAMAH-Apr-2024

Namah Vol. 32, Issue 1, 24th April 2024

an instinctive need to explore beyond the last
limits. He is soft-wired to seek the ultimate
freedom, the last bedrock of Reality, the final
Truth. Man is also born with the dream of
changing his earthly life and the world he
inhabits. This search for going beyond the
limits has taken two paths that are known in
Indian thought as the path of the gods and
the path of the titans. The path of the gods is
abnormal now, will certainly be quite common a vertical ascent of man by transcending his
and natural for the new race, the man of ego-self. At the same time this transcendence
tomorrow. But probably the constant exercise of does not mean getting disconnected with the
it will be detrimental to the reasoning faculties. life of humanity. It is rather a taking up of it,
As man possesses no more the extreme physical refining and sublimating it. The path of the
ability of the monkey, so also will the superman titans is, in contrast, a horizontal expansion
lose the extreme mental ability of man, this of man, aggrandising his ego-self and the
ability to deceive himself and others. empire of his ambition and desire. This is
how the Mother explains it:
Thus, man’s road to superman-hood will be
open when he declares boldly that all he has “Actually, in human life, the whole moral
yet developed, including the intellect of which problem is concentrated in the conflict between
he is so rightly and yet so vainly proud, is now the vital will with its impulses and the mental
no longer sufficient for him, and that to uncase, power with its decrees. When the vital will is
discover, set free this greater power within, submitted to the mental power, then the life of
shall be henceforward his great preoccupation. the individual or of the society becomes moral.
Then will his philosophy, art, science, ethics, But it is only when both, vital will and mental
social existence, vital pursuits be no longer an power, are equally submissive to something
exercise of mind and life for themselves, in a higher, to the supermind, that human life is
circle, but a means for the discovery of a greater exceeded, that true spiritual life begins, the
Truth behind mind and life and the bringing life of the superman; for his law will come
of its power into our human existence. And from within, it will be the divine law shining
this discovery is that of our real, because our in the centre of each being and governing life
highest self and nature (2).” from therein, the divine law multiple in its
manifestation but one in its origin. And because
The Superman of its unity this law is the law of supreme order
and harmony.
The word that has been used by Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother for this new being is Thus, the individual, no more guided by
Superman. Mankind has often dreamed egoistical motives, laws or customs, shall
of exceeding its limits. In fact, we can even abandon all selfish aims. His rule will be
say that man is characterised by his urge to perfect disinterestedness. To act in view of
exceed, even cross all limits. Man is born with a personal profit, either in this world or in

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