The tower of Babylon in reverse
In the last 10 000 years humanity has made an enormous development from the state of caveman towards a being that is able to conquer space and understand consciously the behind of divine creation.
An evolution towards superman and super-mind, the next higher being that is not yet walking on planet earth, but since Sri Aurobindo elaborated the concept of integral Yoga there is a possibility and a way for all human beings to go towards their better tomorrow.
Our task is noting less, than build the tower of Babylon in rivers, the city of harmony and human unity. Auroville sees itself as this model city for mankind. A laboratory space, a campus of permanent learning ,a place to integrate all races, genders, religions and ideologies ,financial concepts and traditions by a holistic and integral lifestyle and scientific approach that unifies all living beings.The real global village, a unified humanity in unlimited diversity.
But how to get there? As we still live in the ancient tower of Babylon, the disharmony and confusion. In the darkKaliyuga where intolerant limiting religions and ideologies, wars, hunger,crisis, diseases, environment destruction, pollution and unequaldistribution of wealth make daily life a nightmare . One world is full of struggle to survive the next day or even the next moment.
I will try to show, howintegral yoga can bring us towards a better life in a better city and at the end to a better life in a better integral world.
Let’s start with Jean Gebsers concept of human society,to better understand why we are now in deep disasters then I will try to outline the way out of this situation for humanity.
The archaic age
At the beginning the human being was in avery innocent but also veryunconsciousstate of mind. The evolutionary development of the living, from the virus over mono-cellular organism up to the complex human body has taken several billions of years and is in his details still not totally unveiled by science. Buttoday, we also can say that our state is certainly not the final and there are better things to come.
In the period between 100 000 and 10000 years the homo sapiens sapiens has developed the shape and quality we still see our days.
What made the archaic men different from us and what of the archaic men is still in us and needs to be integrated?
The archaic man had no dimension, no perspective he was before time, before space (because he had no conscious notions of them).
His being, hischaracter and his possibilities were in an innocent unconscious wholeness but not consciously accessible for his archaic mindset. We can compare this situation with deep sleep,where I am fully alive but unable to act consciously. TheAustralianaborigines call this period dreamtime and many tribal people still identify themselves with this circumstance. Thisstate of mind is cosmos oriented and knows only what the forefather have orallytransmitted, there is no written history but there must have been a naturally grown sagginess that humanity as a whole should not loose. Because this sagginess is a direct, not reflected,innocent relatedness to nature as a whole, it relates us to our origin.
If we loose this relatedness, we become rootless and father development is not possible.
So tribal people in there archaic mindset are not just primitive and to be converted into modern men, but by respected as valuable part of our collective memory and resource of unconventional long forgotten perfect solutions for numberless problems, a longforgotten ways to human perfection and happiness.
The magic age
The magic age sees the human being growing out of his unconscious innocence towards a magic understanding of nature. The point of departure, the first dimension is born. There is not yet a perspective or a space or time, there is still unity with nature, but the outside and the inside are no longer one ,I feel my inner force and can take influence on the outer world, with spells I can control my mystic environment, I can hunt with a weapon can defend myself against lions and tigers ,I can plant and keep animals for eggs, milk and dung around me, they are my companions in life I will care for them and not eat them, I will care for the plants and look that they have the best lifeconditions.Agriculture and a more secure way of surviving then the collecting and hunting of the archaic age is born.
The knowledge of the magic age can be seen as the humus where the human been can put its root and drain its nourishment.Our green mind has to keep trace of this period of development in India known as Bharath.So also the magic age has to come back to our consciousness if we want to be integral human beings. The magic age is also home of our emotions towards our own body and towards our environment. Our consciousness is still asleep but our vital instincts, impulsions and feelings start to manifest in social circumstances, families, clans,tribes and villages and maybe the first cities.
Our way of acting is still not rational but magic we work with spells to ban the forces of nature .But some of us became so good in it that humanity still remembers them as big magicians like Merlin for example.
So the magic age needs to be honored in such a way that all its qualitybecomesaccessible to the future development again.
Mythic Age
With the mythic age, around 5000 BC, starts what we call high cultures or civilization. This development happens mainly in cities with rich agricultural environment around big rivers like the Nile (Egypt), Euferat and Tigrus (Mesapotania), the Indus and the Yung Tze (in china).The characteristic for this world is the use of written language, knowledge of mathematics, the ability to keep accounts and complex philosophies and religions.
Developed cultures start to build up empires of larger geographic extension using sophisticated arms technology to conquer and oppress less developed populations. The general, the king, the emperor but also the simple soldiers acting as a hero are the living symbols of this period of humanity. Parallel to the military power, a spiritual power based on a complex religious philosophy and represented by priests creates a dualistic base of society. The less developed population and mostly also the peasants in the country side become slaves exploited by an educated ruling class of priests, officers, noblemen and politic administrators. The environment like plants, animals, and landscape are object of exploitation and over exploitation and the biggest part of humanity has to live under an unacceptable circumstance of repression inhuman life conditions.
The environment suffers in such a way that many of these early civilizations vanish by starvation, resulting from over exploiting the soil, and the people. Many wrongdevelopments of the mythic age have still not been solved and are a big burden for the modern and post modern society.
The mythic age lifted the human race towards the second dimension, symbolized by the line of the circle still space less and without perspective, ambivalent and equi-related to nature. In this period, man discovered his soul, imagination, his feeling and his dreams and creativethought. All the mix of gods, hero’s, kings and emperor still populate our ferry tales. The highest development of this age was the Roman, The Greek, the Chinese, the Indian and the Celtic classical period,that are at the origin of all the important, books in the heritage of mankind.
“Vedas, Baghavad Geetha, the Bible, the Koran, Tora, Illias and Odyssey, TaoTeking, Upanishads, the writings of Buddha, Zoraster and many others tried to give the human race spiritual orientation that still reaches us as an influence into our post- modern times. We could see the mystic age as a semi-conscious dream where we are able to act but not yet able to really handle reality. We imagine, we feel, we see, we formulate but our influence on reality is not fully conscious, we are limited by polarity and hierarchy and artificial social laws.
The Modern or Mental age
The modern or Mental age starts in the 15th Century BC with the renaissance movement, new science and technology try to overcome the religious hierarchy, artificial constructs of philosophy and ancient laws. Man moves to the third dimension is able to draw perspective pictures, his consciousness is wakening, he starts catching the 0uter and inner reality through will, reflection, abstraction. He discovers time and space, the laws of duality. His eyes and his brain get related, he is able to see and measure to distinguish, cause and effects to predict the close future, to handle the world through machines,computers. Lately he starts to conquer the movement towards the stars with Aeroplanes and spaceships. His word become individualistic and ego oriented. Somehow a social detachment from nature takes place, isolated and finally depressed in the middle of infinity of possibilities that he cannot handle. He losses the control over himself and his environment, his orientation and he is not able with his rational mind to consciously bring order in the chaos he himself has created. At this point, he starts to put into question, he results of the modern age and tries to go a step higher towards the supra-mental to become super man.
Integral holistic or green age
The holistic age is the age to come that maybe has just started at the end of the 20th century. Its a step to the fourth dimension, its a perspective freed from time and space, symbolized by a unlimited transparent sphere. It sees things from all sides in an integral way without a cause, without a reason, world become transparent, multivalent, present, free,the immaterialistic man goes beyond ideology, religion, hierarchy into an unlimited freedom symbolized by the three aims of the French revolution ( Liberty, Equality and Fraternity). Total integration means to be one with god and nature, no more country, no more nation, no more religion, no more rules and regulation but full responsibility in absolute consciousness for the inner and outer world. The Indigo child is the first generation with this life perspective. So it is up to us now to build the cradle for these indigo children to become integral, holistic superman.
Auroville - The tower of Babylon in rivers
As we have seen, nature has gone through a long way of evolution, the four ages ( Archaic, Magic, Mystic & Modern) have brought us to a new point of departure may be starting on the barricades of the revolution from 1968. Man goes beyond all that has guided his life until now, he becomes a fully awake and conscious being, taking responsibility for himself, his society and his environment. To go this way, we have to take three important steps. 1. To Honor the Past, 2. Manage the Present, and 3. Consciously create the future.
1. Honor the Past
To honor the past means, take into consideration the heritage of mankind through the ages, give importance to the efforts of our forefathers, keep the advantage of their achievements but also see and overcome their mistakes while pardoning them because they could not do any better during their lifetime by lack of means or lack of consciousness, or limited historical circumstances. Research on the question, what we want to integrate of the past into our present and future is the first question of new world history science. We have to document what ever has been there, what are the consequences of old ideologies and philosophies and if there is any reason for these thoughts to still be there in the future. This integral holistic and systematic filtration of events, ideologies, build heritage, social structures and regulations will lead us to the precondition for new form of education called “free progressing”. Here the child learns how to handle his present in a conscious and responsible way.
2. Manage the Present
If now the present we want to rebuild the tower of Babylonrivers, we first have to eliminate the six main forms of human dependence.
- The mind control by religion
Traditional religions by their concepts of sin have the tendency to create inner fear, guilt feelings and psychological obsessions resulting in imbalanced sexuality, complex of inferiority and confused mindset.
- Control by mass media
Modern mass media like TV, Newspapers and Radio give a wrong impression to the public about the reality of the societies. Intended or unconscious misinformation creates confusion, wrong reality concepts, immature minds and unbalanced acting of people.
- Ideological control by the schooling system
Authoritarian and hierarchic forms of education, overcharged with rules and regulation, teaching plans and pre-casted pictures of the world destroyed the free mind and intuition of the children and stand in the way of their ability to become self conscious and world conscious, free acting members of the society. Traditional learning methods have to be replaced by free progressing and open research. Every child has to become self responsible for his learning process.
- Control by the financial system
The present financial system , the banks and private industries has failed to create the circumstances for a world of beauty, good and truth so it has to be completely abolished and replaced by a free exchange of credits amongst conscious responsible individual citizens.
- The control by laws, Courts and punishments
Since the mythic age, the human race has tried to find justice by laws, courts and punishments. But this attempt has totally failed. Crime, corruption and asocial behavior are prevalent in the modern society and new means have to be found for the green age to organize social life and society on a different basis of virtual trusts, compassion, deep comprehension and equal rights for all members of the society.
- Control over energy and resources.
Energy and resources are common goods of humanity and cannot belong to particular persons, power groups or nations. A system of sharing on equal basis of all resources on earth like lands, minerals, houses, foodand environment must be created as the new fundament of the tower of Babylonrivers.
Only if all these six precondition are fulfilled, we can start in the present to build the tower of Babylonrivers as an expression of human unity in all its diversities. Equality, liberty and fraternity are the brick stones of the new building and have to be laid by free minded conscious and well educated independent people. Not one stone of the old tower will remain in its place if this shift of paradigm takes place.
3. Consciously create the future
So if we want to consciously create the future of mankind, we have to overcome the limitations of the archaic, magic, mythic and modern ages. The green age of integral thinking, holistic acting and unlimited possibilities cannot be handled by the physical body, the mental concept, the psychic and emotional ways of solving problems of the past. The future society needs a spiritual being based on intuitive mind, over mind, super-mind. The future super-mind would be beyond ego, beyond lower vital and lower physical body, a psychic being, an unlimited soul consciously able to handle and control life with inner and outer discipline.Manage body, mind and soul and align them to the divine consciousness.The inner and the outer part will be inequality, harmony and balance and able to act in a conscious and responsible way guided and synchronization with the divine plan. This new creature of after or superman will be able to develop integrated visions for a society without rules and regulations or belonging. Financial systems, educational systems, people will live in a world of unity, free from religious or political ideology, confirm with John Lenon’s song “Imagine”
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
The Green city
The real green city needs a new vision, a new concept and a new generation of indigo children who have grown up under different circumstances. In the last 40 years, Auroville has tried to create these preconditions for a new mankind. So at the end, we have to look where we have reached at this point.