Sri Aurobindo's Radical Social Vision: the Possibility of Telepathic Utopia
“The greatest future triumph of the thinker will comewhen he can persuade the individual integer and the collective whole to rest their life-relation and its union and stability upon a free and harmonious consent and self-adaptation, and shape and govern the external by the internal truth rather than to constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.”
~ Aurobindo Ghose, The Synthesis of Yoga
Aurobindo Ghose (also known as Sri Aurobindo) was a Bengali mystic and political activist who wrote about political and social theory, philosophy, religion, and spiritual poetry. Some of his major works are The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, Secrets of the Vedas, Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle, and The Ideal of Human Unity. The latter of these works, in which Aurobindo deals with social concerns and presents a philosophical ideal of what a future idealized society should be, will be the focus of this article. I will analyze Aurobindo's projections of what would constitute an ideal society, and compare this with the real-life scenario of Aurobindo's ashram, and the existing commune of Auroville in Puducherry, south India. My goal is to lay out a theoretical picture of what a future society might look like if Aurobindo's views, methods, and practices, were applied on a wide scale, and formed the basis of a spiritual ethics of social action. Since this is unlikely to ever actually occur, this paper will be speculative, in the vein of a “thought experiment” to use a popular term. The major technique, or ability, which would form the basis of this utopian society based on Aurobindo's thought is the power of telepathy—the sharing of thoughts at distance between people without external verbal communication.
At the beginning of The Ideal of Human UnityAurobindo writes “while it is possible to construct a precarious and quite mechanical unity by political and administrative means, the unity of the human race, even if achieved, can only be secured and can only be made real if the religion of humanity, which is at present the highest active ideal of mankind, spiritualises itself and becomes the inner law of human life” (Heehs, 1998, 148). This passage strikes a chord with me, and I feel that Aurobindo's conclusion is correct—the unification of the human race in a peaceful and constructive manner will necessarily utilize a means of government, forms of social communication, and of religion and personal ethics, which seeks to find and establish a common ground of humanity and equality. Within our current mode of society and governance we have all kinds of codified hierarchies and insider/outsider distinctions. Our current political system is based on the ideological division of supposed binary opposites; there is left wing/right wing, Democrat, Republican, and something else on the periphery of that called “Independent.” There is a division between the wealthy who more easily wield the tools of political power, and the disenfranchised poor who cannot afford lobbyists and do not generally have their views and needs well represented within our current political system. In this way, political power is often consolidated into the hands of the few, the affluent, and those families who have traditionally held political positions for the past centuries. This divisive and complicated system seems to do the opposite of what Aurobindo sees as the ideal, which is to create a psychic and spiritual unity of humans that subsequently informs and substantiates government.
In the preceding passage Aurobindo presents us with the intriguing position that the “religion of humanity” must “spiritualise itself and become the inner law of human life.” What does this mean? What is the distinction Aurobindo is making here between religion and spirituality? I read this to mean that the “religion of humanity” i.e. the outward forms of religious expression we see as churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. needs to turn inward and become personalized, “spiritualised,” within the experience of the individual themselves. Aurobindo's term “inner law” means a divinely inspired intuitive understanding of ethics. This would mean no more external religious interpretations of truth, and no more political interpretations of truth would be required. No “authorities” beyond ones own self would be relied upon for definitions or boundaries of reality. In Aurobindo's words from The Synthesis of Yoga, “internal truth” would “shape and govern the external,” “rather than constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.” Is this possible? What would the implications be? How could this kind of self-knowing governance come about?
In Aurobindo's writings he saw the future state of governance as probably having one or two possible organizations, “there is likely to be either a centralised World-State or a looser world-union which may be either a close federation or a simple confederacy of the peoples for the common ends of mankind. The last form is the most desirable, because it gives sufficient scope for the principle of variation which is necessary for the free play of life and the healthy progress of the race” (Heehs, 1998, 151). Aurobindo believes that a World-State or one-world government would inevitably become stagnant, monolithic, and unresponsive to the needs of the people; the triumph of the World-State government would be “the triumph of the idea of mechanical unity or rather of uniformity” (Heehs, 1998, 152). In contrast, Aurobindo thinks that “a centralised socialistic State may be a necessity of the future, once it is founded, but a reaction from it will be equally an eventual necessity of the future” (Heehs, 1998, 152). However, both of these efforts will be ultimately futile—or rather, impermanent—attempts to solve the problem of governance and social responsibility. Aurobindo saw this happening in great cycles of social change which were inevitable because of the systemic organization structures of these forms of government. He writes, “the greater its pressure [to control peoples' lives], the more certainly will it be met by the spread of the spiritual, the intellectual, the vital and practical principle of Anarchism in revolt against that mechanical pressure. So, too, a centralised mechanical World-State must rouse in the end a similar force against it and might well terminate in a crumbling up and disintegration, even in the necessity for a repetition of the cycle of humanity ending in a better attempt to solve the problem” (Heehs, 1998, 152).
Why are these forms of government destined to fail, or become inadequate, according to Aurobindo? That is because they are based on formations of external truth, social symbols, and arbitrary divisive distinctions rather than an organic psychic unity of humanity which in itself gives rise to government. Aurobindo saw the latter as an undreamt political possibility which could possibly form the basis of a future government and social system. InThe Ideal of Human Unity Aurobindo writes,
The saving power needed is a new psychological factor which will at once make a united life necessary to humanity and force it to respect the principle of freedom. The religion of humanity seems to be the one growing force which tends in that direction; for it makes for the sense of human oneness, it has the idea of the race, and yet at the same time it respects the human individual and the natural human grouping. But its present intellectual form seems hardly sufficient. The idea, powerful in itself and in its effects, is yet not powerful enough to mould the whole life of the race in its image. For it has to concede too much to the egoistic side of human nature, once all and still nine-tenths of our being, with which its larger idea is in conflict (Heehs, 1998, 152).
This is a remarkably insightful passage about the status of modern religion. Aurobindo views the “religion of humanity” (which I take to mean the religions of humanity) as a positive force for human unity, but one that is ultimately still mired in the dualistic world of egoistic concerns and externally based distinctions. He comments that the egoistic side of human nature is in conflict with the larger idea of human unity which religion seeks to promote and facilitate. We can see how political hierarchies and religious hierarchies both create insider/outsider distinctions which necessitate different levels of political empowerment.
If we would like to critically define the current status of our Democracy in realistic terms, we would probably be forced to conclude that American government is not, in fact, a Democracy, but rather a Republic, or a “representative Democracy,” which, unfortunately has become increasingly less and less “representative” and increasingly oppressive of personal freedoms rather than supportive of them. Recent legalization of previously illegal and invasive wiretapping spy procedures upon unsuspecting citizens is only one of many examples of the development of an authoritarian surveillance and police state which has seems to have become the trend in American government (1). To be even more specific about definition in light of the facts, we might conclude that American government is actually a corporate oligarchy, in which an elite group of financially powerful corporate interests dictate public policy and political decision from behind the scenes. The industry of political lobbying by wealthy corporations is hardly a secret, but the real implications of this for the power structure of American politics is not well understood. With the recent removal of corporate restrictions on campaign funding, the veil of influence that corporations exert over American politics is now even more transparent (2).
Acknowledging that this is in fact the case, we might then accurately define American political system as a Fascist oligarchy. Here I am adopting the incendiary term “Fascist” with well-thought intent. I mean this designation of “Fascist” in the sense that the Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini meant when he said, “Fascism is the merger of corporate and state power” as was described in the Fascist manifesto published in Il Popolo d'Italia on June 6, 1919 (3). With the recent corporate “bailout” under the heading of the Troubled Assets Relief program (TARP) in which billions of taxpayer dollars went directly into the pockets of formerly wealthy banks, and many blatant and documented mis-uses of this money, the corruption of the state in terms of the influence military-industrial complex and Wall Street upon American politics, the “merger of corporate and state power” to use Mussolini's phrase, has never been more evident (4). The concerns of Aurobindo are quite relevant to our current political landscape.
Our political salvation, according to Aurobindo, lies in the establishment of psychic unity which has its grounds in religious truth, but would also be different from current religious understanding. Towards the end of The Ideal of Human Unity Aurobindo describes what this might look like.
A spiritual religion of humanity is the hope of the future. By this is not meant what it ordinarily called a universal religion, a system, a thing of creed and intellectual belief and dogma and outward rite. Mankind has tried unity by that means; it has failed and deserved to fail, because there can be no universal religious system, one in mental creed and vital form. The inner spirit is indeed one, but more than any other the spiritual life insists on freedom and variation in its self-expression and means of development. A religion of humanity means the growing realisation that there is a secret Spirit, a divine Reality, in which we are all one, that humanity is its highest present vehicle on earth, that the human race and the human being are the means by which it will progressively reveal itself here. It implies a growing attempt to live out this knowledge and bring about a kingdom of this divine Spirit upon earth. By its growth within us oneness with our fellow-men will become the leading principle of all our life, not merely a principle of cooperation but a deeper brotherhood, a real and an inner sense of unity and equality and a common life (Heehs, 1998, 154).
Aurobindo stresses the point that this unity would not be based in a system, or a creed, or belief, or ritual. These are the things which traditionally constitute religion. As Aurobindo points out, by and large the project of religion has failed, if its attempt has been to help humanity realize its divine unity. Aurobindo's solution is for us to realize that there is “a divine Reality, in which we are all one.” This understanding would necessarily transcend the boundaries of nationality, race, religion, economics, because its source is deeper than any of these more superficial traits of humanity. Getting to the spiritual source of humanity is where we would find the basic commonality and real oneness which, if properly understood and communed with, could possibly foster a prevalent psychic unity among all humans. For this to truly happen, the realization would have to be based in a mystical-type consciousness of non-duality. This psychic unity would be grounded in a level of communication deeper and more primal than verbal language. To accomplish this humanity would have to evolve a capacity for consistent telepathic communication.
While this may seem like a bizarre or radical conclusion, there is actually a strong basis for this concept within Aurobindo's life and practice. Telepathy is thought to be one of the siddhis, or magical powers, which may be gained from following a spiritual path such as Tantra. Some of the siddhis mentioned in Hindu literature may be relevant to the modern scientific term “telepathy.” InThe Lives of Sri Aurobindo, historian Peter Heehs writes,
Following an ancient tradition, Aurobindo spoke of eight siddhis: two of knowledge, prakamya and vyapti; three of power, aishwarya, ishita, and vashita; and three of the body, mahima, laghima, and anima. The siddhis of knowledge constitute what is known in the West as telepathy. The siddhis of power are applications of will by which one mind can influence another. The siddhis of the body overlap with the next chatusthaya, the quaternary of the body (Heehs, 2008, 240).
Traditionally it is thought that with enough concentration and practice, one could develop and perfect the use of these types of powers. Certainly Aurobindo took these ideas seriously in his own practice. Aurobindo even documented the progress of his meditative and vigilant spiritual practice in the “Record of Yoga,” a journal which he kept. Heehs writes of Aurobindo's partial mastery of these powers, “By 1911 he was able to report that he could 'put himself into men and change them,' that he 'had been given the power to read men's characters and hearts, even their thoughts' (here he added: 'but this power is not yet absolutely complete'), that he could guide action 'by the mere exercise of will,' and that he was 'in communication with the other world' (adding that this was 'yet of a troubled character')” (Heehs, 2008, 242). There are several stories of Aurobindo's attempts to directly influence reality through the force of his psychic will, and even encouraging other people to do this as well (5). Yet Aurobindo's attempts were not entirely successful; for the most part he was only partially successful in these types of experiments. However, in the context of understanding these siddhi powers and how Aurobindo conceived them, we may better understand Aurobindo's “ideal of human unity” and how he might have pictured the future development of humanity in the areas of politics, religion, society, and the spiritual self.
Aurobindo believed, as was the tradition surroundingsiddhis, that any person regardless of class, race, nationality, or status, could, with proper discipline and attention, develop these kinds of siddhi powers as a natural result of spiritual practice. In this understanding we could consider that perhaps these powers are currently latent within the whole of humanity, accessible, but usually only explored by certain gifted and focused people such as Aurobindo. This means that at the present time only a small few of humans are able to use these sorts of powers. However, with proper training and practice, anyone could learn to master these forms of extra-sensory perception and mental extension.
This makes sense in terms of Aurobindo's cosmology: we could consider that these siddhi powers are an aspect of the latent, yet omni-present foundation of the “supermind” or “supermental intellect” which Aurobindo describes as the trajectory of human consciousness towards a teleological end of ultimate psychic unification (6). Perhaps the ability of telepathy would be a consequential result of the “descent of the Overmind” that Aurobindo described. If Aurobindo's premise is true, and our individual minds are immersed in some kind of larger, more integrated, more informed, “supermind” of which we are individualized manifestations, and this “supermind” is actively creating and influencing us towards an end of psychic unity, we might conclude that eventually the siddhi powers could become a natural and everyday part of human life. The most important of these, within the context of Aurobindo's argument for psychic unity and self-governance, are the siddhis associated with telepathy and the sharing or extension of mental functions between minds: prakamya and vyapti.
What is telepathy? In Telepathy and Clairvoyance: Views of Some Little Investigated Capabilities of ManDutch professor W.H.C. Tenhaeff, former Director of the Parapsychological Institute of the State University of Utrecht writes that telepathy is “the receipt in one's mind of thoughts that emanate from the consciousness of another person” (Tenhaeff, 1957, 23). According to Roger Luckhust's book, The Invention of Telepathy, (Oxford University Press, 2002) the term “telepathy” was coined in December 1882 in the first volume of the house journal of psychical research: 'we venture to introduce the words Telaesthesia and Telepathy to cover all cases of impression received at a distance.' My first chapter tracked the preconditions for the emergence of this object within the perturbations of scientized modernity in the 1870's, working with the insight that 'the place of knowledge lays down the conditions for the appearance of the objects of science, for their validation as real, and for the terms on which they are knowable'. (Luckhurst, 2002, 60).
To construct a more modern definition for “telepathy” as it has come to be understood we might say something like “mental impression, cognition, and information exchange at a distance, sometimes between two or more individual minds.” However, as Aurobindo noted, there had already been a philosophical system for describing this type of “psychic action at a distance” for centuries before the term was coined by scientists in 1882: thesiddhis had long since been noticed, and well documented within the religious and mystical literature of Hinduism. Westerners scientists like Frederic Myers who were interested in telepathy and similar evidences of extra-sensory perception and psychic ability, were studying phenomena which had already been fairly well understood, and even mastered by advanced practitioners of Tantra, for thousands of years. Aurobindo himself can be counted as an example of this tradition, although technically he was not a Tantric.
One comparison that could be made of Aurobindo's model would be with the Western philosophical idea of the noosphere, as developed by authors such as Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and the French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (7). The noosphere is conceived of as a layer of thought-energy which envelops the planet in a similar manner as our atmosphere does, but in an immaterial sense. Scientists have identified many energetic layers which surround and envelop the earth (even though we may not be able to directly perceive them), including the bio-magnetic layer produced by the earth's core, layers of radio waves, sound, light, gravity, the Van Allen belt of charged plasma, and many other forms of radiation (8). Some people have taken seriously the idea that the mental substance of human thought might form a “layer” of energy which could theoretically be tapped into and accessed. The “Akashic record” is one such concept found in the literature of the occult (9). Research from the Global Consciousness Project carried on by the Institute of Noetic Sciences has tried to suggest a method for study of the collective information patterns within the whole of human consciousness. A statement on their website reads:
The Global Consciousness Project, also called the EGG Project, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites around the world. The archive contains more than 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second. Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We predict structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. When millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network data show meaningful departures from expectation. This is a powerful finding based in solid science.
Their idea is that important global events which imprint the collective psyche could be correlated with statistical shifts in random number generators. Eventually they hope to be able to read this data and even develop it as a predictive tool.
One could argue that the Internet, particularly in the form of recent social networking websites, is already functioning as a crude pseudo-telepathic superstructure of human thought and information exchange. José Argüelles discusses this possibility in his book Time and the Technosphere. Argüelles argues that the technosphere, meaning the Internet and the externalized technological communications network, may be a pre-cursor to the development of an organically and biologically integrated telepathic network which would link all of the minds on the planet together into a single planetary consciousness or perhaps a diverse, multi-faceted group consciousness (10). Observing how the technological evolution of computing has made incredible, almost unthinkable, leaps and bounds in the past fifty years, we could imagine that in the next two hundred years there will be some amazing developments in information technology. The trend in information technology seems to be the development of an increasing personal intimacy and information exchange between geographically distanced groups of people, using the machines as the interface, and an increasing trend to embed our personalities and habits within the external technological infrastructure of the Internet through social networks, etc. The end result, which may already be partially visible, seems to be the establishment of a collective personality based on the information, perceptions, and input of individuals—all mediated by technologies which are becoming increasingly integrated to be compatible with the biological system of the human body.
In modern science there is still an ongoing and heated debate amongst scientists as to the validity of such psychic powers, or psi, as the psychic energy is sometimes called. The institutions of science have unfortunately been extremely squeamish about approaching these kinds of phenomena. The reason is probably because the necessary conclusions of the truth of psychic phenomena, particularly things like telepathy and clairvoyance, would directly undermine the established materialist view which is the fundamental and indispensable foothold and basis of modern science. For scientists to include psychic phenomena into the conventional view of what human is, they would need to rewrite much of the known science relating to human mental functioning to include the reality that the human spirit is somehow able to transcend the boundaries of the material world in a way which is still, on the whole, not comprehensible by current science.
However there are examples of intrepid scientists who have dared to breach this experimental ground. Some scientists such as Dr. Dean Radin and Dr. Charles Tart, have dedicated their careers to ask some of these questions, and studying the effects of psi in a laboratory setting (11). There has also been considerable interest in psychic abilities within the studies of the governmental intelligence agencies such as the CIA, which has conducted numerous projects to study psychic ability, and use trained psychics to carry out various tasks related to intelligence gathering (12). The “paranormal” as it is called is an area of science which seems to frighten and disconcert many mainstream scientists, but in the future it could become a promising area of scientific study. As Sir Cyril Burt writes in the preface toThe Mind Readers: Some Recent Experiments in Telepathy,
During the last few decades, current beliefs in almost every branch of science have undergone a revolutionary change. The little we think we understand turns out to be but a fraction as compared with what still defies our comprehension. No longer therefore need we feel unduly perturbed by new facts or new phenomena undreamt of in Horatio's philosophy or in Tait and Thomson's physics. The plain duty of the scientist is neither to reject nor to neglect these seeming oddities. Only by concentrating on the rare and elusive clues that indicate cracks and inadequacies in the orthodox doctrines of today can genuine progress be achieved (Soal, 1960, 14).
I suspect that once this field of study is finally reviewed by mainstream science in a reasonable and sensible way, much new data about the experience of psychic phenomena and the immaterial components of human consciousness might be learned. Until then, phenomena like telepathy are relegated to fringe science and the pages of religious and mystical literature such as the tradition of Sri Aurobindo. Yet if we consider this assertion that some individuals can develop means of communication that is more internalized, more deeply originated and deeply felt, than verbal communication—as Frederick Myers, Dean Radin, Charles Tart, Teilhard de Chardin, and Aurobindo Ghose have suggested—what would be the conclusions of this? If this ability could be trained and developed into a global communications network, what implications might there be for future forms of political and social organization?
I can imagine a world in which children are taught from birth and encouraged to develop their psychic and spiritual powers, in terms of dreaming, telepathy, etc. If these educational programs were successful perhaps a basic commonality of thought and mental substance could be achieved, maybe similar to Aurobindo's concept of the “supermind” directly manifest and utilized as the primary means of communication. Writing and texts would become secondary to the direct experience of telepathic transmission. Within this mental superstructure, true Democracy, i.e. self-governance, could be more easily achieved. The general organization might function like this: autonomous communes, telepathically linked, which define for themselves their own rules and behaviors, without any nation states, or religions, to dictate the norms of behavior and social communication. This would be similar to Aurobindo's concept of a future “loose world-union” or “confederacy” of states. This might be along the lines of Marshall McLuhan's concept of the “global village” which he saw as a possible future of social organization (13). Howard Bloom's book The Global Brain might also describe what this kind of social organization could resemble (14). This form of organization might also resemble Gandhi's idea for India's ideal form of government, resembling the tribal village councils of olden times (15).
I can imagine a kind of telepathic council of all citizens of a “global village” or autonomous communes, where they would gather to make decisions, based not only on materialistic rationalization and logic, but also emotional empathy and deep, experiential understanding of others and their needs. This would be an implicitly ethical system, based on intuitive ethics which would be debated and formulated by each “global village” or autonomous commune separately. If someone broke the ethical rules there would not be a system of punitive and psychologically damaging prison or physical punishment, but rather an expulsion and social ostracization similar to the village councils described by Gandhi. In effect, the social punishment would be that if you can't get along with your peers, you have to find another place to live and another group of people who you can get along with. This form of social punishment might prove to be more effective than the currently disappointing failure of punishment “rehabilitation” which is the methodology employed by the current U.S. prison system. Basing a society on cooperation and inclusiveness rather than competition and social hierarchies could be helpful in solving some of our modern problems.
For real-life examples of how this form of society could actually play out, we can look at existing communes such as Auroville, and how they are organized and function. To get a sense of the ideals of the township of Auroville we can examine their charter, presented by Auroville founder Mirra Alfassa, also known as “The Mother,” with whom Aurobindo lived in his ashram. This charter, given at the inauguration of Auroville in 1968, consists of four main points:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville, one must be a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity (Auroville.org).
Auroville, also called the “City of Dawn” is designed in a manner that is fitting of Aurobindo's personality: its rules are permissive, open, tolerant, but the dedication to spiritual work and community building is strong, following the example of Karma yoga. There is a strict application process and several levels of residence or membership within the community, entailing different privileges and responsibilities. Leadership roles are shared amongst different people at different times. The population is remarkably diverse, with more than 2,000 permanent residents coming from over 40 countries (16).
A section of the Auroville website titled “Toward a Human Unity” applies Aurobindo's philosophical views to the modern circumstances of Auroville. They describe a new “truth-consciousness” which will evolve human society toward a “spiritual age of humanity.”
This 'spiritual age of humanity' then will represent a transformation in the nature of man as momentous as the appearance of the thinking mind on earth. In the same way as for millennia the mind was the centre of our life, so, in the new age opening for humanity, or 'supra-mental' age, the soul will become the centre of all life and activities. A new stage in the evolution of man has already begun; a new consciousness, higher than the mind, a truth-consciousness, as Sri Aurobindo said, in which the dualities, hesitations and limitations of the mind and the greed and blindness of the ego will no longer exist, has already started to appear, and all the upheavals and convulsions that are at present so painfully tearing our earth are the outward signs of this evolutionary crisis. This new consciousness is already at work in the atmosphere of the earth: we can connect with it, we can call it in ourselves, we can use it to transform our entire nature and consequently the world in which we live. It is in this wide and far-reaching sense that Auroville is dedicated to human unity. All are invited.
While Auroville and Aurobindo's vision are worthwhile ideals, the commune may have not always lived up to the concept of “a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.” Auroville is a functional and vibrant commune, but it is still far from the vision of a telepathic utopia.
Aurobindo himself realized that this process of “descent of the supramental force” was actually a gradual and slow process which was not likely to manifest in terms of an overnight revolution. Rather, over a period of time, the higher consciousness would form and crystallize itself within matter, and transform it. This became increasingly clear as Aurobindo became older. Peter Heehs writes in his biography,
Sri Aurobindo's task, as he visualized it, was to prepare a 'step forward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make.' For a while he thought that he could accomplish the task in a relatively short time. Asked towards the end of 1932 whether the supermind would descend 'within a decade,' he replied, 'I don't know about the date—dates are things that one ought not to fix too rigidly; but I certainly hope we won't have to wait for a decade! Let us be more sanguine and put the beginning of the decade and not the end as the era of the Descent. It is more likely then to make haste.' He remained generally sanguine for a year or two more. In November 1933, after noting that 'the supramental has not descended into the body or into Matter,' he added: 'it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable.' And ten months later: 'The supramental Force is descending, but it has not yet taken possession of the body or of matter—there is much resistance to that. It is the supramentalised Overmind Force that has already touched, and this may at any time change into or give place to the supramental in its own native power.' But by the end of 1934 it was becoming clear that the process would take much longer than anticipated. 'The descent of the Supermind is a long process,' he wrote that October, 'or at least a process with a long preparation, and one can only say that the work is going on sometimes with a strong pressure for completion, sometimes retarded by the things that rise from below and have to be dealt with before further progress can be made' (Heehs, 364).
And this task has yet to be completed. Aurobindo's teleological model is describing a deeply recurring pattern in reality which could be described as “spiritual evolution.” Not only the evolution of the individual, but the evolution of the whole planet and the structure of human consciousness. Will this evolution involve a further individualization of consciousness, or the shift towards a more cooperative, shared consciousness that could be mediated through telepathy? Time will tell, but certainly efforts such as Auroville and other communes are fledgling attempts at the kind of shared consciousness or “spiritual religion of humanity” described in the writings of the modern mystic Sri Aurobindo.
Notes
1. Wall Street Journal online. “The Obama Justice Department Adopts the George W. Bush Administration's Legal Stance on Presidential Powers.” March 7th, 2009. Web.
2. New York Times online. “Supreme Court Blocks Ban on Corporate Political Spending.” January 21st, 2010. Web.
3. Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford Press, 2002.
4. Federal Reserve Bank online. “TARP Program Information.” Web. April 20th, 2010.
5. Heehs, Peter. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Columbia University Press (2008) 242.
6. McDermott, Robert A., ed. The Essential Aurobindo. New York: Schocken Books Inc. (1973) 203.
7. For information about Vernadsky see Samson, Paul R.; Pitt, David C. The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society, and Change. London: Routledge (1999). For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin see Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man (1955) New York: Harper Perennial 2008.
8. National Geophysical Data Center online. “More Information about Geomagnetic Fields.”
9. De Purucker, G. Occult Glossary: A Compendium of Oriental and Theosophical Terms. London: Theosophical University Press (1933) 4.
10. Argüelles, José. Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company (2002).
11. Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. New York: HarperOne (1997). Tart, Charles T. “Physiological Correlates of Psi Cognition.” International Journal of Parapsychology (1963) Vol. 5, 375-386.
12. Puthoff, H.E. “CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute.” Journal of Scientific Exploration (1996) Vol. 10, 63-76.
13. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press (1962).
14. Bloom, Howard. Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. New York: Wiley (2001).
15. Chakrabarty, Bidyut. Social and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. London: Routledge (2005).
16. Wikipedia online. “Auroville.” Web. May 3rd, 2010.
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McDermott, Robert A., ed. The Essential Aurobindo. New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1973.
Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. New York: HarperOne (1997).
Soal, S.G., Bowden, H.T. The Mind Readers: Some Recent Experiments in Telepathy. New York: Doubleday, 1960.
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man (1955) New York: Harper Perennial 2008.
Tenhaeff, W.H.C. Telepathy and Clairvoyance: Views of Some Little Investigated Capabilities of Man (1957). Charles C. Thomas Publisher. Springfield, Illinois, 1972.
Photo: Auroville, an "experimental" township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India near Puducherry in South India, used under Creative Commons license courtesy of mckaysavage.
“The greatest future triumph of the thinker will comewhen he can persuade the individual integer and the collective whole to rest their life-relation and its union and stability upon a free and harmonious consent and self-adaptation, and shape and govern the external by the internal truth rather than to constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.”
~ Aurobindo Ghose, The Synthesis of Yoga
Aurobindo Ghose (also known as Sri Aurobindo) was a Bengali mystic and political activist who wrote about political and social theory, philosophy, religion, and spiritual poetry. Some of his major works are The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, Secrets of the Vedas, Essays on the Gita, The Human Cycle, and The Ideal of Human Unity. The latter of these works, in which Aurobindo deals with social concerns and presents a philosophical ideal of what a future idealized society should be, will be the focus of this article. I will analyze Aurobindo's projections of what would constitute an ideal society, and compare this with the real-life scenario of Aurobindo's ashram, and the existing commune of Auroville in Puducherry, south India. My goal is to lay out a theoretical picture of what a future society might look like if Aurobindo's views, methods, and practices, were applied on a wide scale, and formed the basis of a spiritual ethics of social action. Since this is unlikely to ever actually occur, this paper will be speculative, in the vein of a “thought experiment” to use a popular term. The major technique, or ability, which would form the basis of this utopian society based on Aurobindo's thought is the power of telepathy—the sharing of thoughts at distance between people without external verbal communication.
At the beginning of The Ideal of Human UnityAurobindo writes “while it is possible to construct a precarious and quite mechanical unity by political and administrative means, the unity of the human race, even if achieved, can only be secured and can only be made real if the religion of humanity, which is at present the highest active ideal of mankind, spiritualises itself and becomes the inner law of human life” (Heehs, 1998, 148). This passage strikes a chord with me, and I feel that Aurobindo's conclusion is correct—the unification of the human race in a peaceful and constructive manner will necessarily utilize a means of government, forms of social communication, and of religion and personal ethics, which seeks to find and establish a common ground of humanity and equality. Within our current mode of society and governance we have all kinds of codified hierarchies and insider/outsider distinctions. Our current political system is based on the ideological division of supposed binary opposites; there is left wing/right wing, Democrat, Republican, and something else on the periphery of that called “Independent.” There is a division between the wealthy who more easily wield the tools of political power, and the disenfranchised poor who cannot afford lobbyists and do not generally have their views and needs well represented within our current political system. In this way, political power is often consolidated into the hands of the few, the affluent, and those families who have traditionally held political positions for the past centuries. This divisive and complicated system seems to do the opposite of what Aurobindo sees as the ideal, which is to create a psychic and spiritual unity of humans that subsequently informs and substantiates government.
In the preceding passage Aurobindo presents us with the intriguing position that the “religion of humanity” must “spiritualise itself and become the inner law of human life.” What does this mean? What is the distinction Aurobindo is making here between religion and spirituality? I read this to mean that the “religion of humanity” i.e. the outward forms of religious expression we see as churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. needs to turn inward and become personalized, “spiritualised,” within the experience of the individual themselves. Aurobindo's term “inner law” means a divinely inspired intuitive understanding of ethics. This would mean no more external religious interpretations of truth, and no more political interpretations of truth would be required. No “authorities” beyond ones own self would be relied upon for definitions or boundaries of reality. In Aurobindo's words from The Synthesis of Yoga, “internal truth” would “shape and govern the external,” “rather than constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.” Is this possible? What would the implications be? How could this kind of self-knowing governance come about?
In Aurobindo's writings he saw the future state of governance as probably having one or two possible organizations, “there is likely to be either a centralised World-State or a looser world-union which may be either a close federation or a simple confederacy of the peoples for the common ends of mankind. The last form is the most desirable, because it gives sufficient scope for the principle of variation which is necessary for the free play of life and the healthy progress of the race” (Heehs, 1998, 151). Aurobindo believes that a World-State or one-world government would inevitably become stagnant, monolithic, and unresponsive to the needs of the people; the triumph of the World-State government would be “the triumph of the idea of mechanical unity or rather of uniformity” (Heehs, 1998, 152). In contrast, Aurobindo thinks that “a centralised socialistic State may be a necessity of the future, once it is founded, but a reaction from it will be equally an eventual necessity of the future” (Heehs, 1998, 152). However, both of these efforts will be ultimately futile—or rather, impermanent—attempts to solve the problem of governance and social responsibility. Aurobindo saw this happening in great cycles of social change which were inevitable because of the systemic organization structures of these forms of government. He writes, “the greater its pressure [to control peoples' lives], the more certainly will it be met by the spread of the spiritual, the intellectual, the vital and practical principle of Anarchism in revolt against that mechanical pressure. So, too, a centralised mechanical World-State must rouse in the end a similar force against it and might well terminate in a crumbling up and disintegration, even in the necessity for a repetition of the cycle of humanity ending in a better attempt to solve the problem” (Heehs, 1998, 152).
Why are these forms of government destined to fail, or become inadequate, according to Aurobindo? That is because they are based on formations of external truth, social symbols, and arbitrary divisive distinctions rather than an organic psychic unity of humanity which in itself gives rise to government. Aurobindo saw the latter as an undreamt political possibility which could possibly form the basis of a future government and social system. InThe Ideal of Human Unity Aurobindo writes,
The saving power needed is a new psychological factor which will at once make a united life necessary to humanity and force it to respect the principle of freedom. The religion of humanity seems to be the one growing force which tends in that direction; for it makes for the sense of human oneness, it has the idea of the race, and yet at the same time it respects the human individual and the natural human grouping. But its present intellectual form seems hardly sufficient. The idea, powerful in itself and in its effects, is yet not powerful enough to mould the whole life of the race in its image. For it has to concede too much to the egoistic side of human nature, once all and still nine-tenths of our being, with which its larger idea is in conflict (Heehs, 1998, 152).At the beginning of The Ideal of Human UnityAurobindo writes “while it is possible to construct a precarious and quite mechanical unity by political and administrative means, the unity of the human race, even if achieved, can only be secured and can only be made real if the religion of humanity, which is at present the highest active ideal of mankind, spiritualises itself and becomes the inner law of human life” (Heehs, 1998, 148). This passage strikes a chord with me, and I feel that Aurobindo's conclusion is correct—the unification of the human race in a peaceful and constructive manner will necessarily utilize a means of government, forms of social communication, and of religion and personal ethics, which seeks to find and establish a common ground of humanity and equality. Within our current mode of society and governance we have all kinds of codified hierarchies and insider/outsider distinctions. Our current political system is based on the ideological division of supposed binary opposites; there is left wing/right wing, Democrat, Republican, and something else on the periphery of that called “Independent.” There is a division between the wealthy who more easily wield the tools of political power, and the disenfranchised poor who cannot afford lobbyists and do not generally have their views and needs well represented within our current political system. In this way, political power is often consolidated into the hands of the few, the affluent, and those families who have traditionally held political positions for the past centuries. This divisive and complicated system seems to do the opposite of what Aurobindo sees as the ideal, which is to create a psychic and spiritual unity of humans that subsequently informs and substantiates government.
In the preceding passage Aurobindo presents us with the intriguing position that the “religion of humanity” must “spiritualise itself and become the inner law of human life.” What does this mean? What is the distinction Aurobindo is making here between religion and spirituality? I read this to mean that the “religion of humanity” i.e. the outward forms of religious expression we see as churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. needs to turn inward and become personalized, “spiritualised,” within the experience of the individual themselves. Aurobindo's term “inner law” means a divinely inspired intuitive understanding of ethics. This would mean no more external religious interpretations of truth, and no more political interpretations of truth would be required. No “authorities” beyond ones own self would be relied upon for definitions or boundaries of reality. In Aurobindo's words from The Synthesis of Yoga, “internal truth” would “shape and govern the external,” “rather than constrain the inner spirit by the tyranny of the external form and structure.” Is this possible? What would the implications be? How could this kind of self-knowing governance come about?
In Aurobindo's writings he saw the future state of governance as probably having one or two possible organizations, “there is likely to be either a centralised World-State or a looser world-union which may be either a close federation or a simple confederacy of the peoples for the common ends of mankind. The last form is the most desirable, because it gives sufficient scope for the principle of variation which is necessary for the free play of life and the healthy progress of the race” (Heehs, 1998, 151). Aurobindo believes that a World-State or one-world government would inevitably become stagnant, monolithic, and unresponsive to the needs of the people; the triumph of the World-State government would be “the triumph of the idea of mechanical unity or rather of uniformity” (Heehs, 1998, 152). In contrast, Aurobindo thinks that “a centralised socialistic State may be a necessity of the future, once it is founded, but a reaction from it will be equally an eventual necessity of the future” (Heehs, 1998, 152). However, both of these efforts will be ultimately futile—or rather, impermanent—attempts to solve the problem of governance and social responsibility. Aurobindo saw this happening in great cycles of social change which were inevitable because of the systemic organization structures of these forms of government. He writes, “the greater its pressure [to control peoples' lives], the more certainly will it be met by the spread of the spiritual, the intellectual, the vital and practical principle of Anarchism in revolt against that mechanical pressure. So, too, a centralised mechanical World-State must rouse in the end a similar force against it and might well terminate in a crumbling up and disintegration, even in the necessity for a repetition of the cycle of humanity ending in a better attempt to solve the problem” (Heehs, 1998, 152).
Why are these forms of government destined to fail, or become inadequate, according to Aurobindo? That is because they are based on formations of external truth, social symbols, and arbitrary divisive distinctions rather than an organic psychic unity of humanity which in itself gives rise to government. Aurobindo saw the latter as an undreamt political possibility which could possibly form the basis of a future government and social system. InThe Ideal of Human Unity Aurobindo writes,
This is a remarkably insightful passage about the status of modern religion. Aurobindo views the “religion of humanity” (which I take to mean the religions of humanity) as a positive force for human unity, but one that is ultimately still mired in the dualistic world of egoistic concerns and externally based distinctions. He comments that the egoistic side of human nature is in conflict with the larger idea of human unity which religion seeks to promote and facilitate. We can see how political hierarchies and religious hierarchies both create insider/outsider distinctions which necessitate different levels of political empowerment.
If we would like to critically define the current status of our Democracy in realistic terms, we would probably be forced to conclude that American government is not, in fact, a Democracy, but rather a Republic, or a “representative Democracy,” which, unfortunately has become increasingly less and less “representative” and increasingly oppressive of personal freedoms rather than supportive of them. Recent legalization of previously illegal and invasive wiretapping spy procedures upon unsuspecting citizens is only one of many examples of the development of an authoritarian surveillance and police state which has seems to have become the trend in American government (1). To be even more specific about definition in light of the facts, we might conclude that American government is actually a corporate oligarchy, in which an elite group of financially powerful corporate interests dictate public policy and political decision from behind the scenes. The industry of political lobbying by wealthy corporations is hardly a secret, but the real implications of this for the power structure of American politics is not well understood. With the recent removal of corporate restrictions on campaign funding, the veil of influence that corporations exert over American politics is now even more transparent (2).
Acknowledging that this is in fact the case, we might then accurately define American political system as a Fascist oligarchy. Here I am adopting the incendiary term “Fascist” with well-thought intent. I mean this designation of “Fascist” in the sense that the Fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini meant when he said, “Fascism is the merger of corporate and state power” as was described in the Fascist manifesto published in Il Popolo d'Italia on June 6, 1919 (3). With the recent corporate “bailout” under the heading of the Troubled Assets Relief program (TARP) in which billions of taxpayer dollars went directly into the pockets of formerly wealthy banks, and many blatant and documented mis-uses of this money, the corruption of the state in terms of the influence military-industrial complex and Wall Street upon American politics, the “merger of corporate and state power” to use Mussolini's phrase, has never been more evident (4). The concerns of Aurobindo are quite relevant to our current political landscape.
Our political salvation, according to Aurobindo, lies in the establishment of psychic unity which has its grounds in religious truth, but would also be different from current religious understanding. Towards the end of The Ideal of Human Unity Aurobindo describes what this might look like.
Aurobindo stresses the point that this unity would not be based in a system, or a creed, or belief, or ritual. These are the things which traditionally constitute religion. As Aurobindo points out, by and large the project of religion has failed, if its attempt has been to help humanity realize its divine unity. Aurobindo's solution is for us to realize that there is “a divine Reality, in which we are all one.” This understanding would necessarily transcend the boundaries of nationality, race, religion, economics, because its source is deeper than any of these more superficial traits of humanity. Getting to the spiritual source of humanity is where we would find the basic commonality and real oneness which, if properly understood and communed with, could possibly foster a prevalent psychic unity among all humans. For this to truly happen, the realization would have to be based in a mystical-type consciousness of non-duality. This psychic unity would be grounded in a level of communication deeper and more primal than verbal language. To accomplish this humanity would have to evolve a capacity for consistent telepathic communication.
While this may seem like a bizarre or radical conclusion, there is actually a strong basis for this concept within Aurobindo's life and practice. Telepathy is thought to be one of the siddhis, or magical powers, which may be gained from following a spiritual path such as Tantra. Some of the siddhis mentioned in Hindu literature may be relevant to the modern scientific term “telepathy.” InThe Lives of Sri Aurobindo, historian Peter Heehs writes,
Following an ancient tradition, Aurobindo spoke of eight siddhis: two of knowledge, prakamya and vyapti; three of power, aishwarya, ishita, and vashita; and three of the body, mahima, laghima, and anima. The siddhis of knowledge constitute what is known in the West as telepathy. The siddhis of power are applications of will by which one mind can influence another. The siddhis of the body overlap with the next chatusthaya, the quaternary of the body (Heehs, 2008, 240).Traditionally it is thought that with enough concentration and practice, one could develop and perfect the use of these types of powers. Certainly Aurobindo took these ideas seriously in his own practice. Aurobindo even documented the progress of his meditative and vigilant spiritual practice in the “Record of Yoga,” a journal which he kept. Heehs writes of Aurobindo's partial mastery of these powers, “By 1911 he was able to report that he could 'put himself into men and change them,' that he 'had been given the power to read men's characters and hearts, even their thoughts' (here he added: 'but this power is not yet absolutely complete'), that he could guide action 'by the mere exercise of will,' and that he was 'in communication with the other world' (adding that this was 'yet of a troubled character')” (Heehs, 2008, 242). There are several stories of Aurobindo's attempts to directly influence reality through the force of his psychic will, and even encouraging other people to do this as well (5). Yet Aurobindo's attempts were not entirely successful; for the most part he was only partially successful in these types of experiments. However, in the context of understanding these siddhi powers and how Aurobindo conceived them, we may better understand Aurobindo's “ideal of human unity” and how he might have pictured the future development of humanity in the areas of politics, religion, society, and the spiritual self.
Aurobindo believed, as was the tradition surroundingsiddhis, that any person regardless of class, race, nationality, or status, could, with proper discipline and attention, develop these kinds of siddhi powers as a natural result of spiritual practice. In this understanding we could consider that perhaps these powers are currently latent within the whole of humanity, accessible, but usually only explored by certain gifted and focused people such as Aurobindo. This means that at the present time only a small few of humans are able to use these sorts of powers. However, with proper training and practice, anyone could learn to master these forms of extra-sensory perception and mental extension.
This makes sense in terms of Aurobindo's cosmology: we could consider that these siddhi powers are an aspect of the latent, yet omni-present foundation of the “supermind” or “supermental intellect” which Aurobindo describes as the trajectory of human consciousness towards a teleological end of ultimate psychic unification (6). Perhaps the ability of telepathy would be a consequential result of the “descent of the Overmind” that Aurobindo described. If Aurobindo's premise is true, and our individual minds are immersed in some kind of larger, more integrated, more informed, “supermind” of which we are individualized manifestations, and this “supermind” is actively creating and influencing us towards an end of psychic unity, we might conclude that eventually the siddhi powers could become a natural and everyday part of human life. The most important of these, within the context of Aurobindo's argument for psychic unity and self-governance, are the siddhis associated with telepathy and the sharing or extension of mental functions between minds: prakamya and vyapti.
What is telepathy? In Telepathy and Clairvoyance: Views of Some Little Investigated Capabilities of ManDutch professor W.H.C. Tenhaeff, former Director of the Parapsychological Institute of the State University of Utrecht writes that telepathy is “the receipt in one's mind of thoughts that emanate from the consciousness of another person” (Tenhaeff, 1957, 23). According to Roger Luckhust's book, The Invention of Telepathy, (Oxford University Press, 2002) the term “telepathy” was coined in December 1882 in the first volume of the house journal of psychical research: 'we venture to introduce the words Telaesthesia and Telepathy to cover all cases of impression received at a distance.' My first chapter tracked the preconditions for the emergence of this object within the perturbations of scientized modernity in the 1870's, working with the insight that 'the place of knowledge lays down the conditions for the appearance of the objects of science, for their validation as real, and for the terms on which they are knowable'. (Luckhurst, 2002, 60).
To construct a more modern definition for “telepathy” as it has come to be understood we might say something like “mental impression, cognition, and information exchange at a distance, sometimes between two or more individual minds.” However, as Aurobindo noted, there had already been a philosophical system for describing this type of “psychic action at a distance” for centuries before the term was coined by scientists in 1882: thesiddhis had long since been noticed, and well documented within the religious and mystical literature of Hinduism. Westerners scientists like Frederic Myers who were interested in telepathy and similar evidences of extra-sensory perception and psychic ability, were studying phenomena which had already been fairly well understood, and even mastered by advanced practitioners of Tantra, for thousands of years. Aurobindo himself can be counted as an example of this tradition, although technically he was not a Tantric.
One comparison that could be made of Aurobindo's model would be with the Western philosophical idea of the noosphere, as developed by authors such as Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and the French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (7). The noosphere is conceived of as a layer of thought-energy which envelops the planet in a similar manner as our atmosphere does, but in an immaterial sense. Scientists have identified many energetic layers which surround and envelop the earth (even though we may not be able to directly perceive them), including the bio-magnetic layer produced by the earth's core, layers of radio waves, sound, light, gravity, the Van Allen belt of charged plasma, and many other forms of radiation (8). Some people have taken seriously the idea that the mental substance of human thought might form a “layer” of energy which could theoretically be tapped into and accessed. The “Akashic record” is one such concept found in the literature of the occult (9). Research from the Global Consciousness Project carried on by the Institute of Noetic Sciences has tried to suggest a method for study of the collective information patterns within the whole of human consciousness. A statement on their website reads:
The Global Consciousness Project, also called the EGG Project, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites around the world. The archive contains more than 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second. Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We predict structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. When millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network data show meaningful departures from expectation. This is a powerful finding based in solid science.This makes sense in terms of Aurobindo's cosmology: we could consider that these siddhi powers are an aspect of the latent, yet omni-present foundation of the “supermind” or “supermental intellect” which Aurobindo describes as the trajectory of human consciousness towards a teleological end of ultimate psychic unification (6). Perhaps the ability of telepathy would be a consequential result of the “descent of the Overmind” that Aurobindo described. If Aurobindo's premise is true, and our individual minds are immersed in some kind of larger, more integrated, more informed, “supermind” of which we are individualized manifestations, and this “supermind” is actively creating and influencing us towards an end of psychic unity, we might conclude that eventually the siddhi powers could become a natural and everyday part of human life. The most important of these, within the context of Aurobindo's argument for psychic unity and self-governance, are the siddhis associated with telepathy and the sharing or extension of mental functions between minds: prakamya and vyapti.
What is telepathy? In Telepathy and Clairvoyance: Views of Some Little Investigated Capabilities of ManDutch professor W.H.C. Tenhaeff, former Director of the Parapsychological Institute of the State University of Utrecht writes that telepathy is “the receipt in one's mind of thoughts that emanate from the consciousness of another person” (Tenhaeff, 1957, 23). According to Roger Luckhust's book, The Invention of Telepathy, (Oxford University Press, 2002) the term “telepathy” was coined in December 1882 in the first volume of the house journal of psychical research: 'we venture to introduce the words Telaesthesia and Telepathy to cover all cases of impression received at a distance.' My first chapter tracked the preconditions for the emergence of this object within the perturbations of scientized modernity in the 1870's, working with the insight that 'the place of knowledge lays down the conditions for the appearance of the objects of science, for their validation as real, and for the terms on which they are knowable'. (Luckhurst, 2002, 60).
To construct a more modern definition for “telepathy” as it has come to be understood we might say something like “mental impression, cognition, and information exchange at a distance, sometimes between two or more individual minds.” However, as Aurobindo noted, there had already been a philosophical system for describing this type of “psychic action at a distance” for centuries before the term was coined by scientists in 1882: thesiddhis had long since been noticed, and well documented within the religious and mystical literature of Hinduism. Westerners scientists like Frederic Myers who were interested in telepathy and similar evidences of extra-sensory perception and psychic ability, were studying phenomena which had already been fairly well understood, and even mastered by advanced practitioners of Tantra, for thousands of years. Aurobindo himself can be counted as an example of this tradition, although technically he was not a Tantric.
One comparison that could be made of Aurobindo's model would be with the Western philosophical idea of the noosphere, as developed by authors such as Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky and the French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (7). The noosphere is conceived of as a layer of thought-energy which envelops the planet in a similar manner as our atmosphere does, but in an immaterial sense. Scientists have identified many energetic layers which surround and envelop the earth (even though we may not be able to directly perceive them), including the bio-magnetic layer produced by the earth's core, layers of radio waves, sound, light, gravity, the Van Allen belt of charged plasma, and many other forms of radiation (8). Some people have taken seriously the idea that the mental substance of human thought might form a “layer” of energy which could theoretically be tapped into and accessed. The “Akashic record” is one such concept found in the literature of the occult (9). Research from the Global Consciousness Project carried on by the Institute of Noetic Sciences has tried to suggest a method for study of the collective information patterns within the whole of human consciousness. A statement on their website reads:
Their idea is that important global events which imprint the collective psyche could be correlated with statistical shifts in random number generators. Eventually they hope to be able to read this data and even develop it as a predictive tool.
One could argue that the Internet, particularly in the form of recent social networking websites, is already functioning as a crude pseudo-telepathic superstructure of human thought and information exchange. José Argüelles discusses this possibility in his book Time and the Technosphere. Argüelles argues that the technosphere, meaning the Internet and the externalized technological communications network, may be a pre-cursor to the development of an organically and biologically integrated telepathic network which would link all of the minds on the planet together into a single planetary consciousness or perhaps a diverse, multi-faceted group consciousness (10). Observing how the technological evolution of computing has made incredible, almost unthinkable, leaps and bounds in the past fifty years, we could imagine that in the next two hundred years there will be some amazing developments in information technology. The trend in information technology seems to be the development of an increasing personal intimacy and information exchange between geographically distanced groups of people, using the machines as the interface, and an increasing trend to embed our personalities and habits within the external technological infrastructure of the Internet through social networks, etc. The end result, which may already be partially visible, seems to be the establishment of a collective personality based on the information, perceptions, and input of individuals—all mediated by technologies which are becoming increasingly integrated to be compatible with the biological system of the human body.
In modern science there is still an ongoing and heated debate amongst scientists as to the validity of such psychic powers, or psi, as the psychic energy is sometimes called. The institutions of science have unfortunately been extremely squeamish about approaching these kinds of phenomena. The reason is probably because the necessary conclusions of the truth of psychic phenomena, particularly things like telepathy and clairvoyance, would directly undermine the established materialist view which is the fundamental and indispensable foothold and basis of modern science. For scientists to include psychic phenomena into the conventional view of what human is, they would need to rewrite much of the known science relating to human mental functioning to include the reality that the human spirit is somehow able to transcend the boundaries of the material world in a way which is still, on the whole, not comprehensible by current science.
However there are examples of intrepid scientists who have dared to breach this experimental ground. Some scientists such as Dr. Dean Radin and Dr. Charles Tart, have dedicated their careers to ask some of these questions, and studying the effects of psi in a laboratory setting (11). There has also been considerable interest in psychic abilities within the studies of the governmental intelligence agencies such as the CIA, which has conducted numerous projects to study psychic ability, and use trained psychics to carry out various tasks related to intelligence gathering (12). The “paranormal” as it is called is an area of science which seems to frighten and disconcert many mainstream scientists, but in the future it could become a promising area of scientific study. As Sir Cyril Burt writes in the preface toThe Mind Readers: Some Recent Experiments in Telepathy,
I suspect that once this field of study is finally reviewed by mainstream science in a reasonable and sensible way, much new data about the experience of psychic phenomena and the immaterial components of human consciousness might be learned. Until then, phenomena like telepathy are relegated to fringe science and the pages of religious and mystical literature such as the tradition of Sri Aurobindo. Yet if we consider this assertion that some individuals can develop means of communication that is more internalized, more deeply originated and deeply felt, than verbal communication—as Frederick Myers, Dean Radin, Charles Tart, Teilhard de Chardin, and Aurobindo Ghose have suggested—what would be the conclusions of this? If this ability could be trained and developed into a global communications network, what implications might there be for future forms of political and social organization?
I can imagine a world in which children are taught from birth and encouraged to develop their psychic and spiritual powers, in terms of dreaming, telepathy, etc. If these educational programs were successful perhaps a basic commonality of thought and mental substance could be achieved, maybe similar to Aurobindo's concept of the “supermind” directly manifest and utilized as the primary means of communication. Writing and texts would become secondary to the direct experience of telepathic transmission. Within this mental superstructure, true Democracy, i.e. self-governance, could be more easily achieved. The general organization might function like this: autonomous communes, telepathically linked, which define for themselves their own rules and behaviors, without any nation states, or religions, to dictate the norms of behavior and social communication. This would be similar to Aurobindo's concept of a future “loose world-union” or “confederacy” of states. This might be along the lines of Marshall McLuhan's concept of the “global village” which he saw as a possible future of social organization (13). Howard Bloom's book The Global Brain might also describe what this kind of social organization could resemble (14). This form of organization might also resemble Gandhi's idea for India's ideal form of government, resembling the tribal village councils of olden times (15).
I can imagine a kind of telepathic council of all citizens of a “global village” or autonomous communes, where they would gather to make decisions, based not only on materialistic rationalization and logic, but also emotional empathy and deep, experiential understanding of others and their needs. This would be an implicitly ethical system, based on intuitive ethics which would be debated and formulated by each “global village” or autonomous commune separately. If someone broke the ethical rules there would not be a system of punitive and psychologically damaging prison or physical punishment, but rather an expulsion and social ostracization similar to the village councils described by Gandhi. In effect, the social punishment would be that if you can't get along with your peers, you have to find another place to live and another group of people who you can get along with. This form of social punishment might prove to be more effective than the currently disappointing failure of punishment “rehabilitation” which is the methodology employed by the current U.S. prison system. Basing a society on cooperation and inclusiveness rather than competition and social hierarchies could be helpful in solving some of our modern problems.
For real-life examples of how this form of society could actually play out, we can look at existing communes such as Auroville, and how they are organized and function. To get a sense of the ideals of the township of Auroville we can examine their charter, presented by Auroville founder Mirra Alfassa, also known as “The Mother,” with whom Aurobindo lived in his ashram. This charter, given at the inauguration of Auroville in 1968, consists of four main points:
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity (Auroville.org).
Auroville, also called the “City of Dawn” is designed in a manner that is fitting of Aurobindo's personality: its rules are permissive, open, tolerant, but the dedication to spiritual work and community building is strong, following the example of Karma yoga. There is a strict application process and several levels of residence or membership within the community, entailing different privileges and responsibilities. Leadership roles are shared amongst different people at different times. The population is remarkably diverse, with more than 2,000 permanent residents coming from over 40 countries (16).
A section of the Auroville website titled “Toward a Human Unity” applies Aurobindo's philosophical views to the modern circumstances of Auroville. They describe a new “truth-consciousness” which will evolve human society toward a “spiritual age of humanity.”
While Auroville and Aurobindo's vision are worthwhile ideals, the commune may have not always lived up to the concept of “a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.” Auroville is a functional and vibrant commune, but it is still far from the vision of a telepathic utopia.
Aurobindo himself realized that this process of “descent of the supramental force” was actually a gradual and slow process which was not likely to manifest in terms of an overnight revolution. Rather, over a period of time, the higher consciousness would form and crystallize itself within matter, and transform it. This became increasingly clear as Aurobindo became older. Peter Heehs writes in his biography,
Sri Aurobindo's task, as he visualized it, was to prepare a 'step forward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make.' For a while he thought that he could accomplish the task in a relatively short time. Asked towards the end of 1932 whether the supermind would descend 'within a decade,' he replied, 'I don't know about the date—dates are things that one ought not to fix too rigidly; but I certainly hope we won't have to wait for a decade! Let us be more sanguine and put the beginning of the decade and not the end as the era of the Descent. It is more likely then to make haste.' He remained generally sanguine for a year or two more. In November 1933, after noting that 'the supramental has not descended into the body or into Matter,' he added: 'it is only at the point where such a descent has become not only possible but inevitable.' And ten months later: 'The supramental Force is descending, but it has not yet taken possession of the body or of matter—there is much resistance to that. It is the supramentalised Overmind Force that has already touched, and this may at any time change into or give place to the supramental in its own native power.' But by the end of 1934 it was becoming clear that the process would take much longer than anticipated. 'The descent of the Supermind is a long process,' he wrote that October, 'or at least a process with a long preparation, and one can only say that the work is going on sometimes with a strong pressure for completion, sometimes retarded by the things that rise from below and have to be dealt with before further progress can be made' (Heehs, 364).
And this task has yet to be completed. Aurobindo's teleological model is describing a deeply recurring pattern in reality which could be described as “spiritual evolution.” Not only the evolution of the individual, but the evolution of the whole planet and the structure of human consciousness. Will this evolution involve a further individualization of consciousness, or the shift towards a more cooperative, shared consciousness that could be mediated through telepathy? Time will tell, but certainly efforts such as Auroville and other communes are fledgling attempts at the kind of shared consciousness or “spiritual religion of humanity” described in the writings of the modern mystic Sri Aurobindo.
Notes
1. Wall Street Journal online. “The Obama Justice Department Adopts the George W. Bush Administration's Legal Stance on Presidential Powers.” March 7th, 2009. Web.
2. New York Times online. “Supreme Court Blocks Ban on Corporate Political Spending.” January 21st, 2010. Web.
3. Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford Press, 2002.
4. Federal Reserve Bank online. “TARP Program Information.” Web. April 20th, 2010.
5. Heehs, Peter. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Columbia University Press (2008) 242.
6. McDermott, Robert A., ed. The Essential Aurobindo. New York: Schocken Books Inc. (1973) 203.
7. For information about Vernadsky see Samson, Paul R.; Pitt, David C. The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society, and Change. London: Routledge (1999). For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin see Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man (1955) New York: Harper Perennial 2008.
8. National Geophysical Data Center online. “More Information about Geomagnetic Fields.”
9. De Purucker, G. Occult Glossary: A Compendium of Oriental and Theosophical Terms. London: Theosophical University Press (1933) 4.
10. Argüelles, José. Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company (2002).
11. Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. New York: HarperOne (1997). Tart, Charles T. “Physiological Correlates of Psi Cognition.” International Journal of Parapsychology (1963) Vol. 5, 375-386.
12. Puthoff, H.E. “CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute.” Journal of Scientific Exploration (1996) Vol. 10, 63-76.
13. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press (1962).
14. Bloom, Howard. Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. New York: Wiley (2001).
15. Chakrabarty, Bidyut. Social and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. London: Routledge (2005).
16. Wikipedia online. “Auroville.” Web. May 3rd, 2010.
1. Wall Street Journal online. “The Obama Justice Department Adopts the George W. Bush Administration's Legal Stance on Presidential Powers.” March 7th, 2009. Web.
2. New York Times online. “Supreme Court Blocks Ban on Corporate Political Spending.” January 21st, 2010. Web.
3. Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford Press, 2002.
4. Federal Reserve Bank online. “TARP Program Information.” Web. April 20th, 2010.
5. Heehs, Peter. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Columbia University Press (2008) 242.
6. McDermott, Robert A., ed. The Essential Aurobindo. New York: Schocken Books Inc. (1973) 203.
7. For information about Vernadsky see Samson, Paul R.; Pitt, David C. The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: Global Environment, Society, and Change. London: Routledge (1999). For Pierre Teilhard de Chardin see Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man (1955) New York: Harper Perennial 2008.
8. National Geophysical Data Center online. “More Information about Geomagnetic Fields.”
9. De Purucker, G. Occult Glossary: A Compendium of Oriental and Theosophical Terms. London: Theosophical University Press (1933) 4.
10. Argüelles, José. Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company (2002).
11. Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. New York: HarperOne (1997). Tart, Charles T. “Physiological Correlates of Psi Cognition.” International Journal of Parapsychology (1963) Vol. 5, 375-386.
12. Puthoff, H.E. “CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing Program at Stanford Research Institute.” Journal of Scientific Exploration (1996) Vol. 10, 63-76.
13. McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press (1962).
14. Bloom, Howard. Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. New York: Wiley (2001).
15. Chakrabarty, Bidyut. Social and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi. London: Routledge (2005).
16. Wikipedia online. “Auroville.”
Bloom, Howard. Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. New York: Wiley (2001).
Heehs, Peter. The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
Heehs, Peter, ed. The Essential Writings of Sri Aurobindo. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Luckhurst, Roger. The Invention of Telepathy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
McLuhan, Marshall. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press (1962).
McDermott, Robert A., ed. The Essential Aurobindo. New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1973.
Radin, Dean. The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena. New York: HarperOne (1997).
Soal, S.G., Bowden, H.T. The Mind Readers: Some Recent Experiments in Telepathy. New York: Doubleday, 1960.
Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Phenomenon of Man (1955) New York: Harper Perennial 2008.
Tenhaeff, W.H.C. Telepathy and Clairvoyance: Views of Some Little Investigated Capabilities of Man (1957). Charles C. Thomas Publisher. Springfield, Illinois, 1972.
Photo: Auroville, an "experimental" township in Viluppuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, India near Puducherry in South India, used under Creative Commons license courtesy of mckaysavage.
