(3)
Admitting that the society or
group, like the individual has, besides its soul, also a mind, life and body,
the important question immediately arises: What exactly is the nature of the
group-mind, group-life, group-body? We have a fairly clear idea of the mind,
life and body of the individual man by direct experience aided by scientific
knowledge, but our notions of these parts of the group-being, even when we
admit their real existence, are altogether vague and uncertain. Taking first
the most external part, the physical body, what really is meant by the body of
a society or a group? The physical body of the individual man is evident to us;
we know that it is a living organism composed of innumerable cells forming
themselves into tissues, organs, systems, etc. of his body. But what is the
physical body of a group? Is it the geographical territory within which its
members reside, as it is often understood? But then it is a very different
thing from the human body because the former is only a piece of land while the
latter is a living organism. If, however, the body of a group is also a living
organism, then what are its constituent units and how do they differ from the
cells of the individual's body? Sri Aurobindo answers these questions by
stating:
"There
is only this difference that the group-soul is much more complex because it has
a great number of partly self-conscious mental individuals for the constituents
of its physical being instead of an association of merely vital subconscious
cells. At first, for this very reason, it seems more crude, primitive and
artificial in the forms it takes; for it has a more difficult task before it,
it needs a longer time to find itself; it is more fluid and less easily
organic. When it does succeed in getting out of the stage of vaguely conscious
self-formation, its first definite self-consciousness is objective much more
than subjective. And as far as it is subjective, it is apt to be superficial or
loose and vague. This objectiveness comes out very strongly in the ordinary
emotional conception of the nation which centres round its geographical, its
most outward and material aspect, the passion for the land in which we dwell,
the land of our fathers, the land of our birth, country,
patria, vaterland, }anmabhumi. When
we realise that the land is only the shell of the body, though a very living
shell indeed and potent in its influences on the nation, when we begin to feel
that its more real body is the men and women who compose the nation-unit, a
body ever changing, yet always the same like that of the individual man, we
are on the way to a truly subjective communal consciousness. For then we have
some chance of realising that even the physical being of the society is a
subjective power, not a mere objective existence. Much more is it in its inner
self a great corporate soul with all the possibilities and dangers of the
soul-life."[1]
Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo,
the real body or the physical being of the society is composed not of the
geographical territory on which it is located but of its individual members.
These are, so to say, the cells of its bodily organism. This obviously implies
that the society or the group has no separate body of its own independent of
its individual members; it is only in and through them that it has to organise
and develop its physical embodiment on earth. This has been very explicitly
stated by Sri Aurobindo while explaining the process of the organisation of the
individual and collective beings in the course of evolution:
"The
initiation of the evolutionary emergence from the Inconscient works out by two
forces, a secret cosmic consciousness and an individual consciousness manifest
on the surface. The secret cosmic consciousness remains secret and subliminal
to the surface individual; it organises itself on the surface by the creation
of separate objects and beings. But while it organises the separate object and
the body and mind of the individual being, it creates also collective powers of
consciousness which are large subjective formations of cosmic Nature; but it
does not provide for them an organised mind and body, it bases them on the
group of individuals, develops for them a group-mind, a changing yet continuous
group-body. It follows that as the individuals become more and more conscious
can the group-being also become more and more conscious; the growth of the
individual is the indispensable means for the inner growth as distinguished
from the outer force and expansion of the collective being."[2]
This statement of Sri Aurobindo also makes it clear
that as the external body of the group-soul is not separately formed in the
evolution but is composed of its individual members, so too its external
life-parts and mind are not separately formed but are based upon and developed
through the life-parts and the minds of its individual members.[3]
(4)
The soul of a nation or of any other communal group is
its true self and reality, but in the process of terrestrial evolution it does
not overtly express itself from the beginning of group-life. As in the case of
the individual human being, though his soul or the psychic being is his true
self, yet in the earlier course of his evolution on earth it remains concealed
and secret in his inmost being and is represented in his surface nature by his
ego-self, so too in the earlier stages of its evolution the group-soul remains
secret from the external group-consciousness in which it is represented by the
group-ego.
Though the ego is a false representation of the true
soul of the individual human being, yet it dominates his evolving frontal
consciousness so entirely that he identifies himself with it as his own self
and lives altogether under its control. It is for this reason that man in his
evolution on earth is first the physical man identifying himself with his outer
physical ego and controlled by its instincts, needs and cravings; then he
becomes the vital man identifying himself with his vital ego and driven by its
desires, passions and impulses; then he begins to evolve into the mental man
and when he fully succeeds in doing so, he becomes the true man identifying
himself with his mental ego and governed by its intelligence and will. In all
these stages, through which he progresses in innumerable cycles of birth, he
has hardly any direct awareness of his true soul which yet secretly governs
all his evolutionary development; it is as an ego and for the ego that he lives
till he evolves eventually into the spiritual being by finding his true divine
self and lives in and for it in his inner and outer existence. This is because
evolutionary Nature in the initial stages of her development on earth makes her
predominant preoccupation the development of the outer instrumental ego-self of
body, life and mind, and it is only when after a very long labour she has
brought them to some degree of perfection that she takes up definitively the
evolution of the inner consciousness and spirit. The necessity for this
egoistic development and its justification as a stage in man's evolution is
explained by Sri Aurobindo thus:
"But this spiritual
truth and true aim of his being is not allowed to appear till late in his
journey: for the early preparatory business of man in the evolutionary steps of
Nature is to affirm, to make distinct and rich, to possess firmly, powerfully
and completely his own individuality. As a consequence, he has in the beginning
principally to occupy himself with his own ego. In this egoistic phase of his
evolution the world and others are less important to him than himself, are
indeed only important as aids and occasions for his self-affirmation.... This
primary egoistic development with all its sins and violences and crudities is
by no means to be regarded, in its proper place, as an evil or an error of
Nature; it is necessary for man's first work, the finding of his own
individuality and its perfect disengagement from the lower subconscient in
which the individual is overpowered by the mass-consciousness of the world and
entirely subject to the mechanical workings of Nature. Man the individual has
to affirm, to distinguish his personality against Nature, to be powerfully
himself, to evolve all his human capacities of force and knowledge and
enjoyment so that he may turn them upon her and upon the world with more and
more mastery and force; his self-discriminating egoism is given him as a means
for this primary purpose. Until he has thus developed his individuality, his
personality, his separate capacity, he cannot be fit for the greater work
before him or successfully turn his faculties to higher, larger and more divine
ends. He has to affirm himself in the Ignorance before he can perfect himself
in the Knowledge."[4]
"For
this reason Nature invented the ego that the individual might disengage himself
from the inconscience and subconscience of the mass and become an independent
living mind, life-power, soul, spirit, co-ordinating himself with the world
around him but not drowned in it and separately inexistent and ineffective. For
the individual is indeed part of the cosmic being, but he is also something
more, he is a soul that has descended from the Transcendence. This he cannot
manifest at once, because he is too near to the cosmic Inconscience, not near
enough to the original Superconscience; he has to find himself as the mental
and vital ego before he can find himself as the soul or spirit."[5]
There is the same primary necessity and justification
for the group-being in its evolution to find and affirm itself first as an
ego-self before it can find and perfect itself as the soul or spirit. It has
first to emerge as a distinct entity from the primal Inconscience of the lower
universal Nature, in which all is utter chaos and formless flux, by forming for
itself a separate self and affirming and firmly securing its independent
existence in the midst of that incoherent flux. Its natural preoccupation in
this initial stage of evolution is therefore an egoistic self-assertion, for
without it, it would not be possible for it to disengage itself as a distinct
entity from the overwhelming welter of the inconscient Nature. It is only when
its outer ego-self is sufficiently secured and developed that it can
attempt the higher evolution of its soul and spirit and realise its ultimate
goal.[6]
[1] Sri
Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, (CWSA,
Vol. 25), pp 35-36
[2]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (CWSA, Vols. 21-22), p 720
[3]
"The society has no discoverable common reason
and will belonging alike to all its members; for the group-soul rather works
out its tendencies by a diversity of opinions, a diversity of wills, a
diversity of life, and the vitality of the group-life depends largely upon the
working of this diversity, its continuity, its richness." Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle, (CWSA, Vol. 25), p 210.
[4]
Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (CWSA, Vols. 21-22), p 719
[5] Ibid., p.
722
[6]
It is
very necessary to keep in view this distinction between the outer ego-self of
the society or community and its true soul or self because an indiscriminate
identification of the two is bound to lead to the same gross errors and
dangerous consequences as those which arise from the mistaken identification of
the ego-self of the individual with his true soul. The communal ego, like the
individual's, is a formation of the ignorant Nature and, in its progressive
evolution, it is subject to the same limitations, perversions and falsehoods of
that Nature as the individual is. In extreme cases it may even, like the
individual, be possessed by dark Asuric forces, bringing ruin and disaster not
only upon itself but upon other communities as well. Instances of such
possessions are not wanting in the history of humanity, and in recent times
there have been such glaring examples of them that Sri Aurobindo has repeatedly
warned against the misleading and dangerous tendency to confuse the communal
ego, especially as represented by the collectivist State, with the true soul of
the community. To quote one such warning: "The communal ego is idealised
as the soul of the nation, the race, the community; but this is a colossal and
may turn out to be a fatal error. A forced and imposed unanimity of mind, life,
action raised to their highest tension under the drive of something which is
thought to be greater, the collective soul, the collective life, is the formula
found. But this obscure collective being is not the soul or self of the
community; it is a life-force that rises from the subconscient and, if denied
the light of guidance by the reason, can be driven only by dark massive forces
which are powerful but dangerous for the race
because they are alien to the conscious evolution of which man is the trustee
and bearer. It is not in this direction that evolutionary Nature has pointed
mankind; this is a reversion towards something that she had left behind
her." Sri
Aurobindo, The Life Divine (CWSA,
Vols. 21-22), pp. 1093-94
Some
exponents of what is known as the Idealistic or the Metaphysical Theory of the
State in Western political philosophy, notably Hegel and his followers, put
forth a view of the nation-state which is a clear example of the false
representation of the collective ego of the nation as its true soul or self.
The State, which is nothing else but the organised collective ego of the
nation, is idealised and glorified by them as a super-individual omnipotent
divine entity with absolute authority to command unquestioning worship and
obedience of the individual. This conception of the State has exerted an
enormous influence in the recent political history of Europe and has powerfully
encouraged the growth of the various types of the totalitarian States which
have been largely responsible for plunging the world into the two great wars.
Sri Aurobindo has thoroughly exposed the fallacy of this idea of the State in
his writings at a number of places. For concise statements of his criticism of
the State Idea, see Chap IV, "The Inadequacy of the State Idea", The Ideal of Human Unity and Chap. V,
"True and False Subjectivism", The Human Cycle.
[Title
provided by Compiler and references updated. From
Kishor Gandhi’s “Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The New Age”, pp 36-42 (First
Edition in 1965)]
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