The Superman: an Evolutionary Leap is not limited to the Mind’s Extrapolation from its Present Status
The human mind has difficulty imagining the possibility of an entirely new direction for evolutionary development, and tends to try to “read” the future by extrapolation from the present and the past. Thus, we see Nietzsche describing the “superman” as someone who has a higher mental functioning and vital force of effectuation, who then has the “right” and the “power” to disregard the strictures of the society’s structure because he has gone “beyond” them. The Third Reich envisioned a master race of men bred to be stronger and more ‘pure’ and more intelligent to rule over “inferior” races of the world. We see utopian and dystopian visions that extrapolate mental capacities and lines of development, particularly with application of advances in technology developed through the mind, which portray either a positive or a negative view of the future. In popular culture we see a proliferation of fantasies about “super-powered” individuals who either take on enhanced functions of their senses of perception and action, or who have advanced capacities physically, vitally or mentally, but again, as extrapolations from what we know from our mental viewpoint.
We can reflect that a dog cannot conceive of the type of powers of mind and action that resulted from the development of the mental powers in humanity. Similarly, humanity cannot envision the next evolutionary phase, which Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental evolution. The shift in standpoint, the development of new insights, powers and value-sets that are implied in such a dramatic shift are not subject to straight-line extrapolation from our present mental framework. Therefore, we pose obstacles and limitations and “impossibilities” in advance on something about which we have no basis for making such conclusions. We argue that “human nature is fixed and cannot change” or similar viewpoints that circumscribe our conceptions of what the future may look like. Just as the dog could not conceive of space flight and beings from this planet landing on the moon, so the human being cannot conceive of a development and a society based on a totally new understanding and relationship to the universal manifestation.
Sri Aurobindo writes in The Life Divine: “A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature. That might be described, since it surpasses the mental human level, as a life of spiritual and supramental supermanhood. But this must not be confused with past and present ideas of supermanhood; for supermanhood in the mental idea consists of an overtopping of the normal human level, not in kind but in degree of the same kind, by an enlarged personality, a magnified and exaggerated ego, an increased power of mind, an increased power of vital force, a refined or dense and massive exaggeration of the forces of the human Ignorance; it carries also, commonly implied in it, the idea of a forceful domination over humanity by the superman. That would mean a supermanhood of the Nietzschean type; it might be at its worst the reign of the ‘blonde beast’ or the dark beast or of any and every beast, a return to barbaric strength and ruthlessness and force: but this would be no evolution, it would be a reversion to an old strenuous barbarism.”1
- Santosh Krinsky
(Institute for Wholistic Education & Lotus Press, USA)
1 https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life
Keywords: Superman, Supermind, Supramental, Gnostic, Evolution, Human race, Mental limitation
Nice Article! Very True!!!
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ReplyDeleteThe problem outlined here is well stated: we cannot use the mind in order to envision what is beyond it—and thus the distorted results. This is similar to the often quoted saying by Albert Einstein that (to paraphrase) ‘a problem cannot be solved by the same state of consciousness that has created it’.
The question then becomes: how should we proceed?
One possible approach is to understand the mind in more detail. In yoga psychology different levels of mind have been described, such as Chitta, Manas, and Buddhi. Of these the latter would be important for our discussion. Simply stated, we need to develop concentration methods that take us beyond the sense-mind and our emotions. Of the higher levels of mind that Sri Aurobindo has described, one may be most useful here: Intuition (Intuitive mind). How can we develop our intuition and utilize it for gaining insight into our transformational processes?
More specifically, how can we envision ourselves in a state that is further transformed beyond our current state of consciousness? To do this visioning we need a different kind of ‘visualization’ than that which uses the mind as its instrument. Here is where the Psychic Being enters the process. The Psychic Being, which is a portion of Divine consciousness in us, holds the blueprint for our evolutionary process, and we need to access this blueprint—or at least as much of it as we need for the next steps in our journey.
The visions of the soul can be accessed through intuitive imagination, or as it is known is Sufism as the imaginal consciousness. The imaginal originates from a deeper order of inner/psychic consciousness (the Subliminal in integral yoga), rather than from the brain-mind. We can develop methods of accessing our soul’s vision of our transforming self through creative intuitive exercises. There may be many ways of doing this that follow a few basic steps:
1- Developing our aspiration for envisioning a transformed version of ourselves. This is not by any sense ideal or ultimate—Just what we need to know about the next version of ourselves in our journey of transformation.
2- Devising a concentration technique for accessing the imaginal. This could be done without any external tools, or alternatively, we could employ writing, poetry, or expressive arts such as music, painting etc.
3- Allowing the psychic symbols to reveal themselves.
4- Working with the essential meaning of the symbols we discover to inspire our transformation process.
The key to a successful exercise would be to remember the purpose of our inquiry clearly along the way using the following question: What is the step in my process of transformation?
It is important for us to keep our inquiry uncontaminated by all mental concepts that originate form outside of our consciousness, and letting our psychic consciousness guide the way.