Our human organism is not a disembodied spirit in some ethereal heaven, but an embodied Soul in a material world. Most of the spiritual traditions of the past viewed this material reality of our body and the material world as an illusion and a snare which has to be cast off or abandoned for realizing the freedom of the Soul. But a more integral spiritual vision views this material reality as an expression of the Spirit. If this higher vision is accepted, what then is the spiritual significance, purpose and destiny of Matter; matter in our own body and the terrestrial matter as a whole? In this series of articles we examine this question in the light of an integral spiritual vision. It will be an exploration of the future possibilities which lie ahead for the evolution of Matter in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision and the Mother’s experiences in her own body.
This will be a sequel to our earlier series “Future of the Human Potential” in which we explored some of the unmanifest potentials of human consciousness which may unfold in the future. In this series we will examine some of the higher potentials hidden in Matter which may be revealed during the future evolution of our planet, giving birth to an entirely new science of Matter.
The End of Death
There is another important aspect of body’s destiny which has intrigued the seeking and thinking mind of humanity since the dawn of human civilization: conquest of Death and material immortality. The modern scientific and rational mind, with its customary sceptical denial of everything beyond its understanding, and the traditional spiritual mind, with its partial experience and intuition, scoffed and dismissed this ideal as an illusion and a chimera. But a more daring spiritual intuition, like that of the alchemists in East and West, recognized the theoretical possibility of the ideal, though the right practical method for realizing the ideal was not found. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother perceived the ideal not only as theoretically feasible but also as a practically realizable achievement, which is in harmony with the evolutionary logic and destiny of Nature. And the Mother, the spiritual collaborator of Sri Aurobindo, made the great attempt in her own body. This subject is too complex to be dealt with in the single section of an article. Here, we will indicate briefly the rationale behind the possibility as it is perceived by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Death, according to the Mother, is not an eternal law but only a millennial habit of Nature. Death happens because our body is not able to keep pace with the progressive evolutionary needs of our inner being. When the inner being, especially the spiritual self in us, finds that the body in which it is housed is no longer responding adequately to its need for progress, and it can no longer progress further in this present body, it discards the body and continues its evolutionary journey in a different body in the next birth. But if our bodily substance becomes sufficiently conscious, plastic and flexible to respond continually to the progressive inner needs of the soul, then there is no need for death. In the future, when the body is fully spiritualised it will participate in the immortal consciousness of the Spirit and feel itself as immortal; it will also acquire the capacity to respond perfectly to the progressive inner needs of the Spirit and transcend death.
