From Amoeba To Star

Man's raison d'etre is not of this earth, but neither is it in some beyond. Just as the great stars, the novas of the past, the mother suns, had to prepare the elements of his body, so his future also belongs to the spaces of the suns. And it is this great destiny, which is the key to his psychology.

Western man seems to believe that man's behavioural foundations can be found in his animal past. Thus the first independent introspection revealed something, which had been carefully hidden - his libido, his aggressiveness, his egoism, the whole ferocity of his being a male or a female planetary mammal. All this was barely hidden under a thin varnish of 19th century civilization. But this examination was not deep enough. The roots of the tree of life, which are also those of humanity, are not to be found in some primeval swamp. They are in the same stars, which call him today

It is true that this planet has given man asylum, has clothed him with a body, fed him, and permitted him a long evolution, an indefatigable selection to fashion that body slowly into a future home fit for a cosmic spirit. But man, which the psychology of the 19th century examined was a phantom without existence, a passing shadow in a never-ending line of evolution. What one could see was an agglomeration of nervous circuits, of conditioned reflexes, of urges and drives and appetites which nature had evolved, on the one side. Not seen, battling on the other side was a whole heavenly host forcing nature to admit new faculties, more and more unnecessary to his biological life but required for his cosmic aim, his stellar future.

On one side his animal desires and needs, ferocious and aggressive, on the other a luminous will trying to impose that far-away divine image - tenuous, constant, and finally always victorious. On one side the weakness of a body submitting to fatigue, to sickness and to death, and on the other the insistence of an immortal force always renewed, always young. On one side a consciousness limited to his physical body and its needs, hardly awakened to anything else, and on the other side an intense awareness, a consciousness of the whole, of the whole universe. On one side the little sexual and alimentary pleasures of an animal digestive tube, and on the other the cosmic joy in its cosmic play, and the love which moves the stars. On one side the biological sexual impulse which nature put into him to recreate bodies, again and again, so that the past may endure, and on the other the desire of the gods to create new bodies in which the future can incarnate.

The meeting of two great movements in man - his own longing for the heights, for superior levels of consciousness, and the answering descent from those heights towards that which was yearning from below- the psychology of the future will have to take into account. It will also distinguish the three psychological types: those who have become fossilised and accept life as it is, those who aspire to their hidden immortality, and those other few who have descended from their immortality to live a life among men.

Finally, in the midst of all these forces from below and above, we may ask ourselves: where is man? There is none. There is only a battlefield. Either, if his central consciousness, his major will unites with the forces of his past: an animal; or, if it unites and identifies with the forces of his future, the evolutionary forces calling him to his great destiny: a god. It is exactly this which, more or less obscurely or not well understood, the great religions of the past wanted to say.

The psychology of the future will recognize the right values of these contradictory tendencies in man and help him to overcome the adverse forces on one side and to mobilize on the other the forces in him which want to fashion him into an image of God

   
Health care 

Care should be taken of the body certainly, the care that is needed for its good condition, rest, sleep, proper food, sufficient exercise; what is not good is too much preoccupation with it, anxiety, despondency in the illness, etc., for these things only favour the prolongation of ill-health or weakness.

-  The Mother

There is an outer technology of machine and equipment that has been instrumental in making human life a little more comfortable. A lot of time, money and energy continue to be invested the world over in inventing and perfecting more such technology for the future use of mankind. The development has been stupendous and one has come a long way from Mendel’s laws of inheritance, right up to gene-mapping and gene-manipulation.

But is that all?

Or is this the only possible direction of development? Is it development at all or does each advancement only bring, as its kickback, a biological amputation?

Our less medicated ancestors perhaps meditated better upon the deeper mystery of life. The universe was throbbing for them with a wonderful Presence. Technology has robbed us of the wonder and the marvel, replacing it with gadgetry that is often complex and stifling, — an imprisonment and enslavement we have learnt to dubiously call ease and comfort, whilst real peace and ease have become even more elusive! There seems to be an assumption that the human body and its laws are fixed and unalterable, except through external manipulation. This assumption is as fallacious as the one that earlier scientists had made about a static universe. The universe grows and evolves and so does the human body. The pressure of evolution is not yet over. Man is not the last word in Nature. And this excessive reliance on gadgets and machines in supporting the distressed human body may well work against the evolutionary force. It may even lull the body’s own powers to heal.

For there is a healing force within. And there is a technology woven into the inner fabric of our lives. This inner technology we must wake up and govern the outer if we are to master life and conquer death. With outer technology there is always a limit and encumbrance.But the potential of inner technology is practically limitless.

Great wonders have been done mastering the technology devised by man. Greater wonders await us by mastering the technology concealed in man.