The Inevitable Emergence of New Powers of Consciousness Is Difficult for the Mind of Man to Envision

We live in a time of incredible feats of technological progress. Digital technologies, quantum computing, wireless transmission of energy, solar power, airplane flights, space flight, landing on the moon, instant communications of audio and video content world-wide are things we tend to take for granted. Just 50 or 100 years ago, however, many of these technological wonders were considered to be fanciful or the stuff of science fiction. These technologies are evidence of the power of imagination and the power of persistent organization of mental force to understand and harness the powers of Nature.

We can observe that there is an ascending power of consciousness as we move up the evolutionary scale, such that the power of the logical reasoning intellect and powers such as imagination, intuition, creative vision have developed within mankind to a markedly higher degree than anything we can witness in the plant or animal kingdom.

We can also observe that certain phenomena, that have historically been limited to a very rare group of individuals, such as clairaudience, clairvoyance, intuition, creativity, spiritual and psychic powers of vision, understanding and action, are becoming somewhat more widespread and, at the same time, are slowly gaining more acceptance in the scientific and intellectual community. Institutes have set up studies and confirmed that certain powers are indeed both real and able to be developed, which heretofore were treated with considerable skepticism. While there is still a considerable amount of doubt and confusion with regard to some of these powers, in many cases due to misunderstandings perpetuated in the popular media, or due to a considerable amount of fraud surrounding some of these powers being active in specific individuals, there is no doubt an increasing awareness of both the reality and the potential benefits of developing these powers.

Medical science in particular has begun to recognise that the power of thought can be harnessed to control computer input. Prosthetic limbs can be controlled by thought as well.

Many people are now beginning to understand that even the dramatic development of technology in our external lives is the result of the unleashing of powers that have developed within. Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein both testified to the fact that their creativity and insights were not based solely in the accepted logical step-wise process of the intellect, but relied instead on creative vision and inspiration. They, among others, are recognising that the evolution of consciousness is not completed and that, naturally, new powers will manifest as this process continues.

Just as 100 years ago, people could not imagine the possibility of humanity traveling to the moon, landing and returning, (other than in fanciful science fiction stories), so also we must note that developing powers of consciousness are not easily imagined by the vast mass of humanity that can only see and accept what is manifest right before their eyes. Few are those who can envision the actual trajectory of the development of consciousness and thereby see where this development is taking us in the future.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “An evolution of innate and latent but as yet unevolved powers of consciousness is not considered admissible by the modern mind, because these exceed our present formulation of Nature and, to our ignorant preconceptions founded on a limited experience, they seem to belong to the supernatural, to the miraculous and occult; for they surpass the known action of material Energy which is now ordinarily accepted as the sole cause and mode of things and the sole instrumentation of the World-Force. A human working of marvels, by the conscious being discovering and developing an instrumentation of material forces overpassing anything that Nature has herself organised, is accepted as a natural fact and an almost unlimited prospect of our existence; an awakening, a discovery an instrumentation of powers of consciousness and of spiritual, mental and life forces overpassing anything that Nature or man has yet organised is not admitted as possible. But there would be nothing supernatural or miraculous in such an evolution, except in so far as it would be a super-nature or superior nature to that of animal or plant or material objects. Our mind and its powers, our use of reason, our mental intuition and insight, speech, possibilities of philosophical, scientific, aesthetic discovery of the truths and potencies of being and a control of its forces are an evolution that has taken place: yet it would seem impossible if we took our stand on the limited animal consciousness and its capacities; for there is nothing there to warrant so prodigious a progression. But still there are vague initial manifestations, rudimentary elements or arrested possibilities in the animal wo which our reason and intelligence with their extraordinary developments stand as an unimaginable journey from a poor and unpromising point of departure. The rudiments of spiritual powers belong to gnostic Supernature are similarly there even in our ordinary composition, but only occasionally and sparsely active. It is not irrational to suppose that at this much higher stage of the evolution a similar but greater progression starting from these rudimentary beginnings might lead to another immense development and departure.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Powers Within, Chapter I Latent Powers, pp.3-4