“Our Rishis had realized that the greater is the level of one’s consciousness, the closer one is to one’s true Self and the greater is the fulfilment enjoyed by one. The higher is the level of consciousness, the more powerful is its control over the outer instruments. When the consciousness is imprisoned into the surface physical being, one is forced to use the outer instrumentation and one’s consciousness gets further enslaved to it.
Science is concerned with the systematic study of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment based on the power of human reason. It brings about such a concentration on our surface self that our self-knowledge becomes meagre and painfully insufficient. It is of our surface and apparent phenomenal self and nature only and not of our true self and the true meaning of our existence. In such a movement, self-knowledge and self-mastery await in the individual, and as a result, wisdom and right-will is also lacking in his use of world-power and world-knowledge. The more the race is enamoured and mesmerized by the discoveries and new inventions of Science, the more lacking it will be in the right use of the potencies of science. The grave moral and environmental crisis facing us may be looked upon as one of the results of such a movement in the consciousness of man. Man seems to be becoming, increasingly, a slave of the outer instrumentation of physical nature and a plaything in the hands of the powers of ignorance that have come to dominate him because of his increasing isolation from his true Self and its uplifting consciousness which alone can lead him to true Knowledge, Power and Ananda.
Today we are seeking “Progress” through a gross and increasingly intricate machinery of science that inevitably enslaves us by tying us to our surface self by ministering to our desires and passions. Under our present psychological condition, science has become nothing but a bundle of some vicious and ambitious circles which, since they rely solely on outer instrumentation, are progressively leading to the refrigeration of our inner faculties. Fundamentally, any reliance on outer instrumentation tends to draw one away from one’s soul. And the more we move away from our soul, the more we lose touch with the Ananda or the true Delight of existence which alone sustains our lives. Only a very diluted and perverted form of this delight can be found in the brute physical and vital satisfactions offered by our surface physical self. Such satisfactions imply pulling things towards oneself resulting into a dilution of one’s relationships, affinities and good-will and the spirit of service to others which have been given supreme importance in our culture to correct our self-centeredness which may, otherwise, lead to an immense suffering in the individual and collective social existence.
The past two centuries which have been called the centuries of science have been marked by the ushering in of the age of progress and development under the impetus of the impressive march of the ever newer and more and more potent inventions and discoveries of science. With the beginning of this century the pace of the new discoveries and advances in all the fields of human endeavour have reached a dizzying speed – thanks to the latest advances and breakthroughs in the field of information technology. This visibly impressive march of the advances in science and technology and their deep penetration into every walk of life has hypnotized the common man so much that an overwhelming majority of them have – in spite of being not unaware of its very uncomforting and disastrous physical and psychological side effects – come to look upon it as the one effective way for the solution of all our problems. Before delving deeper into this issue it is well to have a glimpse and an overview of what science fundamentally can (or cannot) do for us. For having such an overview, one can do nothing better than look deeply into the whole issue in the light of the following words of Sri Aurobindo, “The utmost widening of a physical objective knowledge, even if it embrace the most distant solar systems and the deepest layers of the earth and sea and the most subtle powers of material substance and energy, is not the essential gain for us, not the one thing which it is most needful for us to acquire. That is why the gospel of materialism, in spite of the dazzling triumphs of physical Science, proves itself always in the end a vain and helpless creed, and that too is why physical Science itself with all its achievements, though it may accomplish comfort, can never achieve happiness and fullness of being for the human race. Our true happiness lies in the true growth of our whole being, in a victory throughout the total range of our existence, in mastery of the inner as well as and more than the outer, the hidden as well as the overt nature; our true completeness comes not by describing wider circles on the plane where we began, but by transcendence.” (CWSA 22: 757-58)
“The West has made the growth of the intellectual, emotional, vital and material being of man its ideal, but it has left aside the greater possibilities of his spiritual existence. Its highest standards are ideals of progress, of liberty, equality and fraternity, of reason and science, of efficiency of all kinds, of a better political, social and economical state, of the unity and earthly happiness of the race. These are great endeavours, but experiment after experiment has shown that they cannot be realised in their truth by the power of the idea and the sentiment alone: their real truth and practice can only be founded in the spirit. The West has put its faith in its science and machinery and it is being destroyed by its science and crushed under its mechanical burden. It has not understood that a spiritual change is necessary for the accomplishment of its ideals.” (CWSA 13: 509-10)
Thus, what science can do for a human being is not really all that much. Unless presided over by the deeper and higher levels of consciousness, it can only burden him with some physical comforts, accompanied sometime – but as often not – by the satisfaction of his animal appetites and the enjoyment of various sensory extravagances which debase him by bringing him down to the level of the animal in him – not a normal animal but an animal deprived of the spontaneity and the unconscious divinity of the animal nature. Science, by itself, cannot really be helpful to man in the attainment of deeper and higher levels of consciousness. When engaged in scientific pursuits or sunk in the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific discoveries, man can, at his very best, remain what he has always been – an ignorance seeking for knowledge. More likely it is that, he will, under the spell of the wonders of material science and its discoveries, begin to sink towards the animal and the demoniac in him. Mere ease and indulgence and excitements of the surface nature cannot carry man any further – rather they carry him away from his soul – the very source of all true joy. To get an insight into the present condition of human beings, let us take the example of an ape who is showered with all the fruits of scientific and technological accomplishments – ease and richness in the availability of food along with every possible comfort and excitement including the excitement of instant transportation to desirable places – even to other planets and other solar systems. Now, how much will all this, in the end, contribute to his real well-being? Practically, nothing. He will remain the two-legged animal he is but deprived of the joy of a spontaneous life and health and agility of an ape of the wild. No real and lasting betterment can ever be attained without the growth of consciousness – what one is within, that one shall enjoy outside. The apparent mastery over physical forces that science tends to endow man with, can begin to reach – as they are beginning to at present – such dangerous levels that the very existence of the human race is jeopardized. Scientific advancements can be safely utilized by man only when they are accompanied by his ascension to deeper and higher levels of consciousness.
However, it appears that – unless truncated by a suicidal war – the present phase of an unbridled human pursuit of knowledge and power through the agency of exploration in all the fields and walks of life is not going to stop short at any conceivable limit. The resulting growth or attainments may be divided into two broad categories – the “inner” and the “outer”. What we call Science is concerned with the “outer” which by itself is always going to be limited to an increasingly efficient manipulation by the human consciousness of what it considers external to it and, as pointed out by Sri Aurobindo earlier, the result will be limited to achieving comfort and not the fullness of our being which alone can bring true fulfilment and happiness which are primarily psychological phenomena. The inner approach is the province of that which is termed Spirituality whose pursuit enables one to approach and live into ever deeper and higher layers of one’s being. The traditional approach to it has been through religion, occultism, spiritual philosophy and spiritual experience. All these represent, essentially, Nature’s attempt to open the inner being.
In the light of all the above discussion, it seems instructive to look into the future prospects for humanity by considering it under the following four possible scenarios progressing from the Worst to the Best in our view:
(i) The balance between the two aforementioned approaches – the “Inner” and the “Outer” – remains practically unchanged from what it is at present. This means that there is practically nothing that enables humanity to change course and the present ever growing trends in the Utilitarian Spirit and Science continues unabated leading to an extinction of human life on earth either through a catastrophic War or a very serious and irreversible (in the short-run) environmental crisis or a mixture of both. Because without a change in the present balance in the near future, for a humanity so heedless and disposed as the present, no advice to change course or any such warning as that of the materialistic scientist Stephen Hawking who advised it to look for another planet for human habitation before this becomes uninhabitable by the end of the century, can be expected to have any significant impact.
(ii) The balance between the “Inner” and the “Outer” changes, somewhat, in favour of the “Inner” just enough to save humanity from extinction but not from a very large scale suffering and destruction which may be looked upon as a means used by Nature to turn the scales further in favour of the “Inner” to enable it to arrive at and continue on a sustainable course of integral development leading it towards a transition from the human (mental) to the divine (supramental).
(iii) The balance between the two approaches gets altered sufficiently in favour of the “Inner” to enable humanity to chart a much safer course – though still not without much suffering and destruction – and arrive at an optimum balance between the two approaches to enable it to proceed on the path of integral development leading it towards a transition from the human to the divine.
(iv) By a special descent and action of the divine Force the optimum balance between the Inner and the Outer is achieved without much suffering and destruction and humanity is swiftly led towards the conditions necessary for the establishment of the divine Life upon earth.
Except for the first scenario, all the other three are consistent with Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s vision of a divine Life upon earth repeatedly expressed in their writings. The following lines from Sri Aurobindo’s Epic Savitri are most inspiring and reassuring:
“All earth shall be the Spirit’s manifest home,
Hidden no more by the body and the life,
Hidden no more by the mind’s ignorance;
An unerring Hand shall shape event and act.
The Spirit’s eyes shall look through Nature’s eyes,
The Spirit’s force shall occupy Nature’s force.
This world shall be God’s visible garden-house,
The earth shall be a field and camp of God,
Man shall forget consent to mortality
And his embodied frail impermanence.
This universe shall unseal its occult sense,
Creation’s process change its antique front,
An ignorant evolution’s hierarchy
Release the Wisdom chained below its base.
The Spirit shall be the master of his world
Lurking no more in form’s obscurity
And Nature shall reverse her action’s rule,
The outward world disclose the Truth it veils;
All things shall manifest the covert God,
All shall reveal the Spirit’s light and might
And move to its destiny of felicity.
Even should a hostile force cling to its reign
And claim its right’s perpetual sovereignty
And man refuse his high spiritual fate,
Yet shall the secret Truth in things prevail.
For in the march of all-fulfilling Time
The hour must come of the Transcendent’s will:
All turns and winds towards his predestined ends
In Nature’s fixed inevitable course
Decreed since the beginning of the worlds
In the deep essence of created things:
Even there shall come as a high crown of all
The end of Death, the death of Ignorance.
……………………………………………….
Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.” (CWSA 34: 707-10)” (The Evolutionary Crisis Before Humanity: Sri Aurobindo Divine Life Trust, Khetan Mohalla, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan 2025: PP. 18-21)
