Conservative Bias and Progressive Action

There is a conservative bias in earthly existence that seeks to preserve established ways of life as a means of providing an element of stability. This principle helps to avoid the chaotic implications of unrestricted change, thereby providing a basis and a certain amount of certainty. This conservative bias is enshrined in the functional methodology of each being, as well as in the very formation of physical matter and the relation of the elements of matter to one another at the atomic level. In living beings it is distilled out both as the functional organization of the being, but also in higher level activities governed by instinct and habit. It is enshrined in the laws of motion such that “a body at rest tends to stay at rest”, and thus, an input of energy is required to set anything in motion. Similarly, a body in motion will have a certain momentum and continue that motion until the energy decays or the resistance increases. In a vacuum, such as in outer space, where there is virtually no resistance, bodies in motion will tend to stay in motion until impacted by an external body which can influence that motion, which leads us to the centripetal force drawing the earth toward the sun, and offset by the centrifugal force of the earth’s own motion offsetting that gravitational pull.

All of this is intended to set forth the basic conditions under which Matter and Life operate in our world, and the need, therefore, for an extraordinary input of new energy to effectuate real change in the existing order of things. The more complete or radical the change required, up to a complete transformation of the currently dominant mode of existence, the more focused energy must be applied. This is essentially an operation of a conservative principle maintaining a balance of the status quo, and a progressive force which attempts to bring about change, progress, transformation, however it may be viewed or described.

We see with the evolution of consciousness that each succeeding principle brings with it new powers that impact the formerly evolved principles, and which operate under different rules of action. This embeds in the manifestation a mechanism to bring about dramatic change while still ensuring that chaos does not ensue from too fast or too untethered new line of action. At a certain point it becomes obvious that the status quo is actually harmful and needs to be changed, and at this type of inflection point, the powers of change are concentrated and begin to move things in a new direction, guided by a new principle of understanding and action.

In the current world situation we see a status quo that is literally destroying life on the planet through what scientists are calling the “sixth planetary die off” of species. We are beset by over-use of resources, excess of waste and pollution and increasing levels of toxicity in the air, the land and the water, and by an unprecedented human impact on climate change which is having catastrophic effect on all life on the planet. In this circumstance the conservative principle is acting as an obstruction to the needed change, while at the same time a next principle of consciousness, termed by Sri Aurobindo the ‘supramental consciousness’ is bringing with it new powers to move the change process along. It is this power that represents the hope that we can overcome the overwhelming impact of past decisions and actions.

The Mother notes: “There is a consciousness in the cells: it is what we call the ‘body consciousness’ and it is wholly bound up with the body. This consciousness has much difficulty in changing, because it is under the influence of the collective suggestion which is absolutely opposed to the transformation. So one has to struggle with this collective suggestion, not only with the collective suggestion of the present, but with the collective suggestion which belongs to the earth-consciousness as a whole, the terrestrial human consciousness which goes back to the earliest formation of man. That has to be overcome before the cells can be spontaneously aware of the Truth, of the Eternity of matter.”

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“Of course, until now, those who have achieved this conscious transformation, who are aware of the eternal and infinite life within themselves, in the depths of their being, must, in order to preserve this consciousness, constantly refer back to their inner experience, return to their inner contemplation, live in a sort of more or less constant meditation. And when they come out of meditation, their outer nature is pretty much what it was before, and their way of thinking and reacting is not very different — unless they give up action altogether. But in that case the inner realisation, this transformation of the consciousness, is helpful only for the person who has achieved it, but it doesn’t change the condition of matter or earthly life in the least.”

“For this transformation to succeed, all human beings — even all living beings as well as their material environment — must be transformed. Otherwise things will remain as they are: an individual experience cannot change terrestrial life. This is the essential difference between the old idea of transformation — that is, the becoming conscious with the psychic being and the inner life — and transformation as we conceive it and speak of it. Not only an individual or a group of individuals or even all individuals, but life, the overall consciousness of this more or less developed material life, have to be transformed. Without such a transformation we shall have the same misery, the same calamities and the same atrocities in the world. A few individuals will escape from it by their psychic development, but the general mass will remain the same state of misery.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 22-23