From: "Richard" <rcarlson@...>
Date: Mon Jun 6, 2005  8:09 pm
Subject: Re: [jyotilist] AUM 2005 - The Promise of the Future

A few comments on the paper just sent about the AUM. First is that the paper was entirely exploratory in nature and in fact out of dialog with the presenters of the Aum conference a less blurry eyed vision is emerging. Hopefully an even clearer picture will arise at the AUM. The paper itself has been substantially revised and will be available in this and the next issues of Collaboration.

 The topic at hand concerns an aspect of our cultural lives in which not one of us remains untouched. Indeed even history first comes to light by means of the tools humans create. The world is speeding up before our eyes, that is evolution proceeds geometrically not arithmetically which means that we generally do not have time to reflect on the latest innovation in the biological or information science when the next wave of new technology emerges. Sri Aurobindo writes:

In modern times, as physical Science enlarged its discoveries and released the secret material forces of Nature into an action governed by human knowledge for human use, occultism receded and was finally set aside on the ground that the physical alone is real and Mind and Life are only departmental activities of Matter. On this basis, believing material Energy to be the key of all things, Science has attempted to move towards a control of mind and life processes by a knowledge of the material instrumentation and process of our normal and abnormal mind and life functioning's and activities; the spiritual is ignored as only one form of mentality. It may be observed in passing that if this Endeavour succeeded, "it might not be without danger for the existence of the human race", even as now are certain other scientific discoveries misused or clumsily used by a humanity mentally and morally unready for the handling of powers so great and perilous; for it would be an artificial control applied without any knowledge of the secret forces which underlie and sustain our existence.

Unless a dialog emerges between science and the spiritual disciplines which can shed some light on the secret forces which underlie and sustain life, there certainly might be a danger for the human race and the program of the evolution of consciousness. Surely a yoga concerned with the future evolution of consciousness and the transformation of the very cell of the body has an interest in consciousness being altered at the cellular level by those unaware of the damage which can be done when those forces which sustain our existence are undermined. If one accepts these premises then surely there is reason for some dialog between those practicing a yoga of the cells for a spiritual transformative experience and those manipulating life on the cellular level who are driven by material gains. One example is in the field of Bio-ethics which remains a very murky terrain which waffles between fundamentalist religious concerns and the profit motive of big business. But there is certainly very few if anyone today (at least who I know of ) who is attempting to inform this debate from the perspective of one with true wisdom such as the Mother.

Indeed the evolution will still blindly proceed on this level without such integral feedback, however the caveat has been laid out many years ago by Sri Aurobindo on what can happen if the new discoveries of science are clumsily used by a human mentality and morality unready for the handling of powers so great.

rich