Thank you for this Ulrich. Sri Aurobindo’s sentence cannot be overemphasised, and it falls perfectly in line with other similar conclusions at the end of the religious quest (Nishitani’s last sentence, Chesterton’s dictum that Christianity has never been tried, or Bonhoeffer’s commitment of trying it, and subsequently dying for it), but we must not lose sight of the material conditions that to a large extent we have, irreversibly and inadvertently, imposed on ourselves; and from which many of these horrible conflicts, and many conflicts yet to be born, will inevitably proceed. (No need to highlight that this barely explains, if anything, does not justify).
When Sri Aurobindo wrote that sentence, there were 2 billion people on this planet, when I was born there were 4, now there are 8 billion, and by the time you and I see the Truth there will probably be 12. The population increase per generation, when the below quote from the Īśa Upanišad was written, was in the region of 0.2%. If my calculations are right, today is 35%.
“Demoniac, verily, are those worlds enveloped in blinding darkness, and to them go after death, those people who are the slayers of the self.” (Īśa Up. 3)
Adrian: “we must not lose sight of the material conditions that to a large extent we have, irreversibly and inadvertently, imposed on ourselves.”
More importantly, I believe, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are puppets in the hands of forces we do not understand. And it’s not just a matter of understanding, we must become aware of them, only then are we able to put ourselves on the right side. As long as that’s not the case, we are the blind leading the blind. As I said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but from where we are now, it seems a dim light at the end of a very long tunnel.
Thank you for this Ulrich. Sri Aurobindo’s sentence cannot be overemphasised, and it falls perfectly in line with other similar conclusions at the end of the religious quest (Nishitani’s last sentence, Chesterton’s dictum that Christianity has never been tried, or Bonhoeffer’s commitment of trying it, and subsequently dying for it), but we must not lose sight of the material conditions that to a large extent we have, irreversibly and inadvertently, imposed on ourselves; and from which many of these horrible conflicts, and many conflicts yet to be born, will inevitably proceed. (No need to highlight that this barely explains, if anything, does not justify).
When Sri Aurobindo wrote that sentence, there were 2 billion people on this planet, when I was born there were 4, now there are 8 billion, and by the time you and I see the Truth there will probably be 12. The population increase per generation, when the below quote from the Īśa Upanišad was written, was in the region of 0.2%. If my calculations are right, today is 35%.
“Demoniac, verily, are those worlds enveloped in blinding darkness, and to them go after death, those people who are the slayers of the self.” (Īśa Up. 3)
Adrian: “we must not lose sight of the material conditions that to a large extent we have, irreversibly and inadvertently, imposed on ourselves.”
More importantly, I believe, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are puppets in the hands of forces we do not understand. And it’s not just a matter of understanding, we must become aware of them, only then are we able to put ourselves on the right side. As long as that’s not the case, we are the blind leading the blind. As I said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but from where we are now, it seems a dim light at the end of a very long tunnel.