Originally posted on sciy.org by Ron Anastasia on Fri 14 Oct 2005 06:20 PM PDT
from The Life Divine, by Sri Aurobindo
Book II, Chapter 24: "The Evolution of the Spiritual Man"
"... At first this truth of the spirit and of spirituality is not
self-evident to the mind; man becomes mentally aware of his soul as
something other than his body, superior to his normal mind and life,
but he has no clear sense of it, only a feeling of some of its effects
on his nature. As these effects take a mental form or a life-form, the
difference is not firmly and trenchantly drawn, the soul-perception
does not acquire a distinct and assured independence. Very commonly
indeed, a complex of half-effects of the psychic pressure on the mental
and vital parts, a formation mixed with mental aspiration and vital
desires, is mistaken for the soul, just as the separative ego is taken
for the self, although the self in its true being is universal as well
as individual in its essence, -- or just as a mixture of mental
aspiration and vital enthusiasm and ardour uplifted by some kind of
strong or high belief or self-dedication or altruistic eagerness is
mistaken for spirituality. But this vagueness and these confusions are
inevitable as a temporary stage of the evolution which, because
ignorance is its starting-point and the whole stamp of our first
nature, must necessarily begin with an imperfect intuitive perception
and an instinctive urge or seeking without any acquired experience or
clear knowledge. Even the formations which are the first effects of the
perception or urge or the first indices of a spiritual evolution, must
inevitably be of this incomplete and tentative nature. But the error so
created comes very much in the way of a true understanding, and it must
therefore be emphasised that spirituality is not a high
intellectuality, not idealism, not an ethical turn of mind or moral
purity and austerity, not religiosity or an ardent and exalted
emotional fervour, not even a compound of all these excellent things; a
mental belief, creed or faith, an emotional aspiration, a regulation of
conduct according to a religious or ethical formula are not spiritual
achievement and experience. These things are of considerable value to
mind and life; they are of value to the spiritual evolution itself as
preparatory movements disciplining, purifying or giving a suitable form
to the nature; but they still belong to the mental evolution, -- the
beginning of a spiritual realisation, experience, change is not yet
there. Spirituality is in its essence an awakening to the inner reality
of our being, to a spirit, self, soul which is other than our mind,
life and body, an inner aspiration to know, to feel, to be that, to
enter into contact with the greater Reality beyond and pervading the
universe which inhabits also our own being, to be in communion with It
and union with It, and a turning, a conversion, a transformation of our
whole being as a result of the aspiration, the contact, the union, a
growth or waking into a new becoming or new being, a new self, a new
nature. ..."
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