The Tension of the Current State of Human Existence

Everywhere we turn we see mounting crises. The news reports are dire. Climate disasters are increasing, we are poisoned daily by toxic substances in our food, water and the very air we breathe. On a day-to-day level, we are struggling in a world that seems to be impossible to understand, with change that is impacting every aspect of our lives. New technologies come along that need to be mastered simply to survive. We find it harder to maintain a balance in our lives and we struggle to understand how to make ends meet and at the same time, pursue our personal goals and aspirations.

We see wars breaking out, we see mass migrations and our media are constantly instill fear in us with the warnings of imminent disaster. We have developed weapons of such magnitude that we can destroy our planet many times over. Researchers have developed a “doomsday” clock and it is set ever closer to midnight.

Clearly we have reached a point of extreme tension where we stand on the brink of a precipice and we are pressured to find a way out. Many give up and turn to dissipation, drugs and alcohol, mindless entertainment or simple avoidance. Yet these solutions are simply attempts to cope with the issues, not solve them.

Those who recognise and try to solve these problems are caught in gridlock as the proposed solutions come into conflict between different groups of stakeholders. Our economic and political solutions simply are either not working or cannot be implemented. The interlocking crises limit our options as a ‘fix’ in one direction seems to have unintended consequences in another.

All of this points to a method of Nature that creates an ultimate contradiction or conflict in order to push towards a new form of progress. The proverb ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ reminds us that what we are seeing is not simply an existential threat, but also an opportunity.

We have the opportunity to abandon old ways of seeing and acting. We have the opportunity to leave behind the framing of our situation that prevents us from seeing the solutions. We have the opportunity to step outside of our narrow approach to things and begin to see and respond from a new, higher level of consciousness.

We see the signs around us. A photograph taken from outer space looking back at the earth provided us a clue. We are all part of an incredible, interactive, interdependent environment. We are symbiotic to the other species on the planet and we cannot simply continue our old ways of conquering and destroying when in fact, those old ways are harbingers of our own extinction. It is time tor a leap into the future, through the development of a new vision, a new understanding, a new consciousness.

The Mother observes: “One thing seems obvious, humanity has reached a certain state of general tension — tension in effort, in action, even in daily life — with such an excessive hyperactivity, so widespread a trepidation, that mankind as a whole seems to have come to a point where it must either break through the resistance and emerge into a new consciousness or else fall back into an abyss of darkness and inertia.”

“This tension is so complete and so widespread that something obviously has to break. It cannot go on in this way. We may take it as a sure sign of the infusion into matter of a new principle of force, consciousness, power, which by its very pressure is producing this acute state. Outwardly, we could expect the old methods used by Nature when she wants to bring about an upheaval; but there is a new characteristic, which of course is only visible in an elite, but even this elite is fairly widespread — it is not localised at one point, at one place in the world; we find traces of it in all countries, all over the world: the will to find a new, higher, progressive solution, an effort to rise towards a vaster, more comprehensive perfection.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Hidden Forces of Life, Ch.6 Hidden Worlds and Evolutionary Forces, pp.152-153