Having just finished reading the book, The Life Divine, by Sri Aurobindo, an early 20th century spiritual teacher, guru, and philosopher from India, I am inspired by his clear descriptions of the evolutionary spiritual path of humanity. He describes how humanity evolved into the mental beings that we are today. As mental beings we have harnessed the power of the mind to accomplish great things.
Some have put the mind at the top of the chart, the height of our progress. It is thought that, with greater development of the mind, we will solve all our problems. But Aurobindo clearly illustrates that developing our mental capacity is just a step along the way toward our greater evolution. That greater evolution is in becoming fully spiritual beings.
While the mind is a pathway to our spiritual nature, it is not the ultimate instrument for experiencing it fully.
Those of us who have tapped into our divine intuition can attest to the infinitely more expansive intelligence and wisdom accessed. We can probably all recognize this infinite intelligence at work with things that have happened in our lives that we never could have planned, such as meeting someone who becomes pivotal on our life’s journey. All the synchronicities that had to occur for the seeming chance meeting, and yet chance cannot encapsulate these divinely fortuitous occurrences.
These spiritual experiences are mere glimpses of what might be possible should we begin to live fully as spiritual beings, moving beyond the limitations of mind. Imagine those experiences we call miracles being commonplace, or the creative genius unleashed in a moment of surrender becoming our norm.
Aurobindo wrote, “An entirely new consciousness in many individuals transforming their whole being, transforming their mental, vital and physical nature-self, is needed for the new life to appear; only such a transformation of the general mind, life, body nature can bring into being a new worthwhile collective existence.”
He describes growing into what is already inherently our destiny, what is, in truth, already hidden within us. Perhaps the first step is beginning to release the idea that mind is the highest faculty that we have, and to open to experiencing more of our spiritual nature.
Aurobindo further states that this transformation is calling us, not only to individual transformation, but a collective awakening to our spiritual nature, to the emergence of societies with people grounded just as fully in their spiritual faculties as people today are in their mental faculties.
A society living from its transcendent spiritual nature would be able to see beyond the pairs of opposites that we find ourselves entangled with today. It would be able to embody the famous Rumi quote, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there,” and the core concept of the Science of Mind philosophy that states “Spirit is a transcendent, perfect Whole that contains and embraces all seeming opposites.”
This is our destiny, to recognize and embody our own inherent wholeness, and then see the inherent wholeness of life itself.
In the next segment of this series, we will explore more deeply what this spiritual transformation entails.
Enjoy the journey.
Rev. Gregory Toole is offering a four-week online class entitled “Becoming an Evolutionary Human,” beginning May 15. Click here for more information.
Somseva™ 