Divine Realisation and the Uplifting and Perfection of Life in the World

The ancient sages of India, as we see in some of the texts that have come down to us through the course of time, understood the balance between the internal and the exte
al, between individual liberation and a balanced activity in the world. They recognised the individual role as part of the divine manifestation and embraced it. The Isha Upanishad makes this clear in its short compass. The Taittiriya Upanishad goes to great lengths to ensure that the seeker does not abandon the material world. The Bhagavad Gita also embraces the idea of undertaking an active life while obtaining liberation through rejection of desire for the results of actions. The Mahabharata, the Ramayana and various of the Puranas emphasize this through their depictions of the lives of individuals who remained householders, who occupied positions of power and responsibility in some cases, yet who were clearly liberated souls. The story of Milarepa, the great yogi of Tibet, introduces us to his Guru, Marpa, who was himself a householder with a family.

For some period of time, this balance was lost and a single seeking for liberation through abandonment of the outer life became the operative principle. This led to a period in Indian history that very much disregarded the exte
al life in favor of the life of the renunciate, the anchorite, the sadhu.

In every field of human life we see that certain individuals focus on a specific line of development and some become pre-eminent in that field. We honor those individuals for their achievement, in whatever field they happen to excel. Thus, we can honor those who have made the commitment to individual liberation as their sole focus and goal in life. It is a difficult road, yet they have chosen to take this path and reach a fulfillment.

This does not, however, reduce the value or the importance of achieving a balance between the inner development and the outer life. Sri Aurobindo has explained this in his magnum opus The Life Divine, where he begins by describing the human aspiration, then takes up the two major opposing options for exclusive concentration, the materialist and the ascetic, and reconciles them in his affirmation of a sole, omnipresent Reality. As he works through the issues of addressing the human aspiration, it is important to note that the final chapter of the work is dedicated to achievement of a divine life on earth. This implies taking up all the powers of man, physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual and uplifting, transforming and integrating them into a balance and a harmonious working out of this divine life on earth.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Divinisation itself does not mean the destruction of the human elements; it means taking them up, showing them the way to their own perfection, raising them by purification and perfection to their full power and Ananda and that means raising of the whole of earthly life to its full power and Ananda.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on the Path, pg. 152