In discussing the dysfunctional American political system, and the policy of what he calls “disjointed incrementalism” (i.e muddling through), as opposed to a synoptic approach centred on long term goals, William Ophuls observed in 1977:
“[..] disjointed incrementalism is not well adapted to handling profound value conflicts, revolutions, crises, grand opportunities, and the like -in other words, any situation in which simple continuation of past policies is not an appropriate response. Most important, because decisions are made on the basis of immediate self-interest, muddling through is almost tailor-made for producing policies that will generate the tragedy of the commons. [..] Indeed, in its purest form, muddling through is policy making by default instead of by conscious choice -simply an administrative device for aggregating individual preferences into a ‘will of all’ that may bear almost no resemblance to the ‘general will’. [Cf. Rousseau]”
“[..] we Americans have taken muddling through, along with laissez faire and other prominent features of our political system, to an extreme. We have made compromise and short-term adjustment into ends instead of means, have failed to give even cursory consideration to the future consequences of present acts, and have neglected even to try to relate current policy choices to some kind of long-term goal. Worse, we have in fact taken the radical position that there can be no common interest beyond what muddling through produces. In brief, we have elevated what is an undeniable administrative necessity into a philosophy of government, becoming in the process an "adhocracy" virtually oblivious to the implications of our governmental acts and politically adrift in the dangerous waters of ecological scarcity.” (EPS, p.192,193)
Independently of what he has later said about the causes of our current predicament, which are impossible to obviate, and what many people nowadays repeat, knowingly or not, by way of disconnecting from this harsh reality on both sides of the Atlantic; there is one element that prevails and will always prevail, for as long as there is anyone ready to fight for it. This was clearly seen by Sri Aurobindo at a crucial moment in history, to his enormous credit, and is perfectly expressed in the last point of Goeffrey Jackson’s code, written in the midst of his obscure captivity:
“I represent in this place a great and honourable nation, which is a force [..] for good in the world.”
Unfortunately, muddling through is no longer “policy making by default instead of by conscious choice,” nor is it mere dysfunctionality. Now the muddling through is by conscious choice—the dysfunctionality is the point.
That force for good always acts but unfortunately the good for which it acts is much larger than the small self-interested good, and therefore it acts on a much larger timescale than the democratic system allows. Autocratic systems are able to plan on larger timescales, and that’s their advantage—until the force for good intervenes, which tends to make use of such drastic measures as a global war. As Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1950, if the UN fails in its objectives (which it did, and for the reason clearly stated by him) then a third global war may be necessary. But we may rest assured that there is always someone ready to fight for the greater good, and “One man’s perfection still can save the world” (Savitri).
At the time, and “for the greater good”, wasn’t Arjuna the “one man” guided/transformed to perfection by Krishna to “save the world”? A great battle, with vast destruction, was necessary then to allow evolutionary progress to continue?
So, what will that be that mechanism now, in the present, that is necessary to allow evolutionary progress to continue? Is that even an applicable proposition? Will it be that a person (or persons) – actually soul (or souls – psyche beings) - will attain perfection to thwart dark forces within humanity’s narrow mental and ego-driven consciousness that can actually help consciousness to evolve beyond this plateau? Will humanity even have a hand in it, or rather will some of humanity just get on with it and work the skill of Yoga regardless of the outcome, and that will be enough?
Thanks, Bob, for your thoughts — which raise so many questions. Let me begin by putting the line from “Savitri” into context. Savitri, having found her psychic being and become one with it, exclaims:
“O soul, my soul, we have created Heaven,
Within we have found the kingdom here of God,
His fortress built in a loud ignorant world....
What more, what more, if more must still be done?”
“Savitri” is written in blank verse, which to Sri Aurobindo “is the most difficult of all English metres; it has to be very skilfully and strongly done to make up for the absence of rhyme, and if not very well done, it is better not done at all.... You have to vary your metre by a skilful play of pauses or by an always changing distribution of caesura and of stresses and supple combinations of long and short vowels and by much weaving of vowel or consonant variation and assonance....” Compare the exuberant rhythm of the last line with the calm objective detachment of the subsequent lines:
In the slow process of the evolving spirit,
In the brief stade between a death and birth
A first perfection’s stage is reached at last;
Out of the wood and stone of our nature’s stuff
A temple is shaped where the high gods could live.”
Even if the struggling world is left outside
One man’s perfection still can save the world.
...
A camp of God is pitched in human time.
Do you notice how the rhythmic flow is broken by the omission of a few lines? Anyway, what is reached is “a first perfection’s stage.” From this camp of God, this temple where the high gods (the powers of a higher consciousness) can live, the Delight/Ananda at the heart of Reality/Brahman can conquer the world.
In a commentary on the Kena Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo asks: “what will be the result of knowing and possessing Brahman as the supreme Ananda?” The answer: “It is that towards the knower and possessor of the Brahman is directed the desire of all creatures. In other words, he becomes a centre of the divine Delight shedding it on all the world and attracting all to it as to a fountain of joy and love and self-fulfilment in the universe.”
Thus, perfection has many stages. What Arjuna is taught by Krishna is one step towards perfection. It is to “abandon all dharmas, all standards and rules of being and action, and take refuge in Me alone”—in Krishna, who is both the inner Divine one in a succession of Avatars. Saving the world, too, takes many stages. And to reach a further stage often takes a war. As Sri Aurobindo wrote in the 1950 postscript chapter to “The Idea of Human Unity,”
“If the third war which is regarded by many if not by most as inevitable does come, it is likely to precipitate as inevitably a further step and perhaps the final outcome of this great world-endeavour. Nature uses such means, apparently opposed and dangerous to her intended purpose, to bring about the fruition of that purpose. As in the practice of the spiritual science and art of Yoga one has to raise up the psychological possibilities which are there in the nature and stand in the way of its spiritual perfection and fulfilment so as to eliminate them, even, it may be, the sleeping possibilities which might arise in future to break the work that has been done, so too Nature acts with the world-forces that meet her on her way, not only calling up those which will assist her but raising too, so as to finish with them, those that she knows to be the normal or even the unavoidable obstacles which cannot but start up to impede her secret will. This one has often seen in the history of mankind; one sees it exampled today with an enormous force commensurable with the magnitude of the thing that has to be done. But always these resistances turn out to have assisted by the resistance much more than they have impeded the intention of the great Creatrix and her Mover.”
As to individuals (persons, souls), they play a significant role only to the extent that they satisfy the two conditions mentioned above: to find and identify with the psychic being, the inner Divine, and to “abandon all dharmas” and take refuge in the Divine, which allows them to become conscious instruments in the hands of the Divine. But keep in mind that ultimately even the so-called anti-divine forces play an instrumental role, even if it is by instigating another World War (which looks more and more likely, but what do I know).
In discussing the dysfunctional American political system, and the policy of what he calls “disjointed incrementalism” (i.e muddling through), as opposed to a synoptic approach centred on long term goals, William Ophuls observed in 1977:
“[..] disjointed incrementalism is not well adapted to handling profound value conflicts, revolutions, crises, grand opportunities, and the like -in other words, any situation in which simple continuation of past policies is not an appropriate response. Most important, because decisions are made on the basis of immediate self-interest, muddling through is almost tailor-made for producing policies that will generate the tragedy of the commons. [..] Indeed, in its purest form, muddling through is policy making by default instead of by conscious choice -simply an administrative device for aggregating individual preferences into a ‘will of all’ that may bear almost no resemblance to the ‘general will’. [Cf. Rousseau]”
“[..] we Americans have taken muddling through, along with laissez faire and other prominent features of our political system, to an extreme. We have made compromise and short-term adjustment into ends instead of means, have failed to give even cursory consideration to the future consequences of present acts, and have neglected even to try to relate current policy choices to some kind of long-term goal. Worse, we have in fact taken the radical position that there can be no common interest beyond what muddling through produces. In brief, we have elevated what is an undeniable administrative necessity into a philosophy of government, becoming in the process an "adhocracy" virtually oblivious to the implications of our governmental acts and politically adrift in the dangerous waters of ecological scarcity.” (EPS, p.192,193)
Independently of what he has later said about the causes of our current predicament, which are impossible to obviate, and what many people nowadays repeat, knowingly or not, by way of disconnecting from this harsh reality on both sides of the Atlantic; there is one element that prevails and will always prevail, for as long as there is anyone ready to fight for it. This was clearly seen by Sri Aurobindo at a crucial moment in history, to his enormous credit, and is perfectly expressed in the last point of Goeffrey Jackson’s code, written in the midst of his obscure captivity:
“I represent in this place a great and honourable nation, which is a force [..] for good in the world.”
That force for good must now act.
Unfortunately, muddling through is no longer “policy making by default instead of by conscious choice,” nor is it mere dysfunctionality. Now the muddling through is by conscious choice—the dysfunctionality is the point.
That force for good always acts but unfortunately the good for which it acts is much larger than the small self-interested good, and therefore it acts on a much larger timescale than the democratic system allows. Autocratic systems are able to plan on larger timescales, and that’s their advantage—until the force for good intervenes, which tends to make use of such drastic measures as a global war. As Sri Aurobindo wrote in 1950, if the UN fails in its objectives (which it did, and for the reason clearly stated by him) then a third global war may be necessary. But we may rest assured that there is always someone ready to fight for the greater good, and “One man’s perfection still can save the world” (Savitri).
At the time, and “for the greater good”, wasn’t Arjuna the “one man” guided/transformed to perfection by Krishna to “save the world”? A great battle, with vast destruction, was necessary then to allow evolutionary progress to continue?
So, what will that be that mechanism now, in the present, that is necessary to allow evolutionary progress to continue? Is that even an applicable proposition? Will it be that a person (or persons) – actually soul (or souls – psyche beings) - will attain perfection to thwart dark forces within humanity’s narrow mental and ego-driven consciousness that can actually help consciousness to evolve beyond this plateau? Will humanity even have a hand in it, or rather will some of humanity just get on with it and work the skill of Yoga regardless of the outcome, and that will be enough?
Thanks, Bob, for your thoughts — which raise so many questions. Let me begin by putting the line from “Savitri” into context. Savitri, having found her psychic being and become one with it, exclaims:
“O soul, my soul, we have created Heaven,
Within we have found the kingdom here of God,
His fortress built in a loud ignorant world....
What more, what more, if more must still be done?”
“Savitri” is written in blank verse, which to Sri Aurobindo “is the most difficult of all English metres; it has to be very skilfully and strongly done to make up for the absence of rhyme, and if not very well done, it is better not done at all.... You have to vary your metre by a skilful play of pauses or by an always changing distribution of caesura and of stresses and supple combinations of long and short vowels and by much weaving of vowel or consonant variation and assonance....” Compare the exuberant rhythm of the last line with the calm objective detachment of the subsequent lines:
In the slow process of the evolving spirit,
In the brief stade between a death and birth
A first perfection’s stage is reached at last;
Out of the wood and stone of our nature’s stuff
A temple is shaped where the high gods could live.”
Even if the struggling world is left outside
One man’s perfection still can save the world.
...
A camp of God is pitched in human time.
Do you notice how the rhythmic flow is broken by the omission of a few lines? Anyway, what is reached is “a first perfection’s stage.” From this camp of God, this temple where the high gods (the powers of a higher consciousness) can live, the Delight/Ananda at the heart of Reality/Brahman can conquer the world.
In a commentary on the Kena Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo asks: “what will be the result of knowing and possessing Brahman as the supreme Ananda?” The answer: “It is that towards the knower and possessor of the Brahman is directed the desire of all creatures. In other words, he becomes a centre of the divine Delight shedding it on all the world and attracting all to it as to a fountain of joy and love and self-fulfilment in the universe.”
Thus, perfection has many stages. What Arjuna is taught by Krishna is one step towards perfection. It is to “abandon all dharmas, all standards and rules of being and action, and take refuge in Me alone”—in Krishna, who is both the inner Divine one in a succession of Avatars. Saving the world, too, takes many stages. And to reach a further stage often takes a war. As Sri Aurobindo wrote in the 1950 postscript chapter to “The Idea of Human Unity,”
“If the third war which is regarded by many if not by most as inevitable does come, it is likely to precipitate as inevitably a further step and perhaps the final outcome of this great world-endeavour. Nature uses such means, apparently opposed and dangerous to her intended purpose, to bring about the fruition of that purpose. As in the practice of the spiritual science and art of Yoga one has to raise up the psychological possibilities which are there in the nature and stand in the way of its spiritual perfection and fulfilment so as to eliminate them, even, it may be, the sleeping possibilities which might arise in future to break the work that has been done, so too Nature acts with the world-forces that meet her on her way, not only calling up those which will assist her but raising too, so as to finish with them, those that she knows to be the normal or even the unavoidable obstacles which cannot but start up to impede her secret will. This one has often seen in the history of mankind; one sees it exampled today with an enormous force commensurable with the magnitude of the thing that has to be done. But always these resistances turn out to have assisted by the resistance much more than they have impeded the intention of the great Creatrix and her Mover.”
As to individuals (persons, souls), they play a significant role only to the extent that they satisfy the two conditions mentioned above: to find and identify with the psychic being, the inner Divine, and to “abandon all dharmas” and take refuge in the Divine, which allows them to become conscious instruments in the hands of the Divine. But keep in mind that ultimately even the so-called anti-divine forces play an instrumental role, even if it is by instigating another World War (which looks more and more likely, but what do I know).