THE WORK OF CIVILIZATION
Throughout
this book the contrast between culture and civilization has been stressed. Yet
it should also have become clear that all cultures are carrier-waves for the
vast, planetary, all-human process of civilization. Culture operates
fundamentally at the level of life; civilization at the level of mind. Archaic
cultures were almost entirely the product of a human type of biospheric activity
in which mind played the devoted servant role. With the extensive and precisely
controlled use of fire, a new type of culture developed. The focus of mental
activity gradually shifted away from a state of total subservience to biological
and emotional needs. As the mind sought, at first hesitantly, then more
deliberately,
to free itself and to operate at its own level, internal conflicts began to
develop.
After
the sixth century B.C. a new stress was placed on the Mind of Reason and
intellectual processes structured by logic. The Greek culture came to extol
internal consistency in a type of rationalistic thinking rooted no longer in
biology or personal psychology, but derived from universally valid principles of
abstraction, generalization and classification. Later on, as minds long
oppressed by dogmatic religion discovered in physical matter a most convenient
field for the analytical activity of the mind, our Western culture, reaching its
maturity, glorified the empirical and rationalistic methodology of modem
science. This Faustian culture has been so pervaded with the restless spirit of
civilization that it became utterly fascinated by research, invention, change at
all cost, and even by a policy of planned obsolescence for its ever- multiplying
products, a striking homage to the death instinct developing when the organic
life-impulse begins definitely to deteriorate.
To
clearly understand the character of the forms which the process of civilization
takes as it affects the character and the development of culture-wholes, we have
to realize that the patterns controlling biocultural activities are essentially
static; they have a high degree of inertia, thus of resistance to change. Tribal
life has a basic solidity that matches the massive strength of
mountains, the ponderousness of earth, the unvarying ascent of redwoods and
pines - a regular, unchanging kind of coherency and consistency. Cultural
inertia manifests as the stubborn will to retain, on the basis of genetic
exclusivism and in a specific land-area, a collective structure befitting a more
or less definite group of people. We have also to realize that at the level of
spirit a similar type of resistance to change operates; only there instead of
"solidity" we should speak of "solidarity."
The
term spirit has a variety of meanings. When I speak of the realm
of spirit, differentiated from that of mind and of matter, I speak of a level of
existential activity. not of some abstraction without form or substance. A
cosmic cycle begins with a release of spirit. What
is released operates as power, form, and substance. Similarly a vegetable seed
is a mass of substance having a definite outer form and an internal structure -
the potentiality of the future plant - and is animated by an at least latent
power of life ready to operate according to a generic plan. The seed must
protect itself from anything that could destroy its integrity or induce from the
outside a mutation; the seed has inertia. So does the alpha stage
of a cyclic process. It must retain its identity, unchanging and inviolate, so
that at the end of the cycle it may become the glowing center around which the omega
stage of the process will crystallize, as the symbolic perfect Diamond of
fulfilled being; the Occult Brotherhood of which the Theosophist speaks; the
Church triumphant (or Communion of the Saints) of the Catholic doctrine.
The
"realm of spirit" is both alpha and omega;
but it can also reflect itself at the middle-stage of human evolution (the mu
stage) in the Avatar who, as Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita, comes
to restate the original dharma of this particular cycle of
existence. Whoever exemplifies in his consciousness and inner being that
original dharma (or seed-truth) lives in a state of solidarity with all those
who have been and are in the same condition. "Solidarity" comes from
the Greek word meaning companion. A true "Companion of the Spirit" is
protected by the solidarity of each and all participants in the divine
Companionship or Communion in the realm of spirit.
There
is a profound difference between earth solidity and spirit-solidarity;
but in a sense, at both levels an intense resistance to change operates. H. P.
Blavatsky spoke of "inertia of spirit." At the tribal biospheric
level, blood is the potent symbol of psychosocial solidity; at the level of
spirit-activity, light is the symbol of solidarity - for light
operates as a wave, even if, when that wave encounters matter, it can be seen
operating as a myriad of particles.
In
the preceding chapter I stated that mind, as it stands "in the middle"
charged with the task of relating spirit to matter, can easily become so
entranced by either matter or spirit that it forgets, and thus fails in its
function of mediator and integrator. In that statement the term mind is meant to
refer to the whole realm of mental activity; but there is also a kind of mind
which, operating at the level of matter, is entirely subservient to the power of
life. This life-serving mind is not the autonomous mind that can be a steady
intermediary between spirit and matter. The mediator-mind must be impervious to
the fascination which life-energies can exert upon it. It is the mind of
the civilizer, of the individual who has reached at least a basic degree
of independence from the biopsychic and psychosocial patterns - the paradigms
and taboos - of the culture in which he or she was born and educated.
What
differentiates "civilization man" from "culture man" is the
actual development of the form of the civilizer's mind. This mind bases his
thinking processes on fundamental principles and universal or archetypal truths.
From these principles and truths civilization-man deduces the framework he needs
for consistent and integrating thinking. On the other hand, culture-man
stresses inductive procedures, for his mind is solidly, and often
ineradicably rooted in facts of everyday experience. Both deduction and
induction are valid for civilization-man, because he stands in-between
spirit-born principles and matterborn sensations; his task is to correlate and
integrate both. But - and this is a crucial point - the mind of the true
civilizer is always open to the fecundation of the spirit; Spirit in him
takes the initiative.
If
his senses provide him with raw materials with which he has to deal in his
life-work as an individual person, he seeks first of all to orient his
consciousness toward the realm of spirit. He allows the revelatory power
of spirit (what Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind) to take form within his mind.
That form could be an image or vision, a voice seemingly speaking inaudible
words, or an irresistible impulse to act in response to whatever the situation
requires; but if it is any of these, it should also carry the
"signature" of the spirit within, otherwise what takes place would
have to be considered a "psychic message," a reflection of
spirit, not a fecundation by spirit. The clarity, purity, and
reliability of a "reflection" depends entirely upon the quality of the
reflecting surface; and in most cases this surface is usually only the type of
mind operating mainly, if not solely, in the realm of matter. This is the realm
where we usually find at work a personality not yet liberated from the pull of
bio-psychological energies and from the pressures exerted by an ego whose
inertia is matched only by its possessiveness and its passion for exclusive
power.
What
therefore differentiates civilization-man from culture-man is the nature,
character, and operation of their minds. The mind of culture-man is
"solid" but bound by the resistance to change of instinctual or
traditional modes of biosocial activity, unless it is challenged by external
forces and intertribal relationships. On the contrary, the mind of
civilization-man is essentially dynamic, eager for transformative experiences,
usually restless and at times scattered by a multiplicity of envisioned
possibilities. In the civilizer's mind potentiality constantly (or at least
periodically) presses upon actualized mental formations, impelling them to open
themselves to the as-yet-unknown. This pressure manifests as the capacity for creative
ideation.
This
word, ideation, today is little used, but it is an essential symbol for the
creative process of transformation of the human mind that so easily becomes set
and enamored of his own past creations. This mental narcissism is responsible
for the formation of schools of thought, set patterns of behavior, artistic cenacles
or coteries, and indeed organized religions. Culture seizes the new ideas
civilizaton creates and erects them into systems and truths endowed with
permanent value. The civilizer "plays with" ideas; this is the lila
(or Play) of the creator. His mind experiences ideas; while usually
culture-man merely thinks. The civilizer's mind "sees";
the culture-man's mind cogitates and endlessly argues pros and cons. To see and
experience at the level where ideas are spontaneously arising formations of
"mindstuff" requires inner freedom; the inertia of both the realm of
spirit and the world of matter has to be overcome. The typical civilizer often
is convinced that everything is possible, that he can produce miracles. This
conviction differs from the belief of the God - trusting devotee (or mystic) who
has an emotional faith that "with God everything is
possible" because the inherently creative civilizer, in whose consciousness
the fiery realizaton of a "mission" burns, experiences his
individuality as an Act of God through his person. He is the possibility
of creation of everything, but actually only of the things that are needed
for the accomplishment of his mission. To him the spiritual life can be defined
as thinking only the necessary thoughts, feeling only the necessary feelings,
performing only the necessary deeds. He is that necessity. He is ONE in
operation; but ONE is simply the everlasting, ever present, and protean
answer to every need for integration. Where every duality exists ONE is
at work; and all existence is duality.
This
is what is meant in Mahayana Buddhism by the Bodhisattva's pledge of renouncing
the final liberation of nirvana until "every sentient creature"
reaches that liberated state. As long as anything exists, there is the bondage
of duality - of spirit and matter. The Bodhisattva refuses to identify himself
totally and irrevocably with spirit, for if he did so a mind of absolute
materiality would inevitably have to balance his identification, and an at least
relatively unresolvable dualism would be created opposing pure matter to pure
spirit. The Bodhisattva refuses identification with pure spirit, but he accepts
being an ever-open, ever-ready channel for the integrative operation of ONE.
He is, however, no longer a particular individual, because he has
become the archetypal Individual.
It
has been said that the Buddha, having experienced the reality of nirvana,
"returned" to teach mankind the truth that could liberate. But what
returned was not Gautama, but Buddhahood in the form that had been built by an
individual who had been given the name of Gautama. Even at levels of lesser
perfection the civilizer nevertheless always is his work. To
separate him from his work is to reduce him to the condition of culture-man, to
make of him a worshipable personage, a "reverent." It is to force him
into the framework of an ego, when the only framework that really befits him is
the archetypal structure of the work he performed in answer to a collective
need. He had first to experience that need within his culture-bound
consciousness in order to be able to identify himself with the answer ONE
is providing to that need; but if he is a true civilizer he has become totally
and irrevocably that answer. He is no longer a culture-bound individual person;
he is a person through whom the Individual, ONE,
freely operates. He is the process of civilization at work in a particular
place and at a particular time. Upon all he touches he bestows the potentiality
of self-transformation; and this bestowal implies as well, for whomever has been
touched, the responsibility of actualizing the revealed
potentiality in the world of persons and cultural relationships.
It
should be a conscious, deliberate, and unswerving response; and such a response
demands courage and the mobilization of will. It demands action, clear and well
focused action. And there can be action at other levels than that of muscular
physical activity, even though all activity - even that of thinking - involves
physical and to some extent muscular processes. The civilizer is a man of
action. He is a "warrior" even though his weapons may be only ideas
and art-forms, plus the contagion of faith and vision he may focus upon those he
attracts by the light and warmth of the fire of ONE burning within his
compassionate mind. He is the true Noble Man ever ready to fulfill his function
and his responsibility to whomever is attracted to his realm of consciousness
and the charismatic emanation of his being - because he is that
function, whatever the character of the function may be.
The
function of the civilizer may have any character, because an answer must be as
varied as the needs of the many types of human beings in the world of culture.
Always, however, it implies piercing through the conditions
characterizing either the biopsychological or the psychosocial realms of human
existence. Such a breakthrough demands both a lucid mind and a well-tempered and
effective will. Will alone cannot produce the needed results, because it is only
an instrument. It is like a sword; it will cut or pierce only in the direction
given by the hand holding it and the mind controlling the hand. A hand
uncontrolled by an enlightened mind and obeying only the impulses of emotions,
however inspiring and beautiful these may be, cannot be a true civilizer's hand.
It will fail even if it calls upon what men call "love" to overcome
the will of ego-dominated and ruthless individuals who represent the shadow
aspect of civilization and are always ready to materialize the vision of the
light-radiating civilizer and confuse or seduce his followers.
The
enlightened mind is the mind that fully and irrevocably accepts the function of
agent of ONE, the universal power of integration. It pierces through
duality by accepting the inevitability of opposite polarities, the chiaroscuro
of existence. It uses light and dark to produce forms into which it instills the
quintessence of meaning whence arises the revelation of purpose. But meaning and
purpose can take an expressible and operative form only if realized within an
all-encompassing frame of reference. The essential function of the civilizer is
to present such a frame of reference in relation to which the individual person
may discover where he or she stands. Such a discovery may then
lead to a significant and effective realization of who is
standing, and for what purpose, thus, why there is at that place a
being, rather than nothing.
Thus,
as we conclude this volume, we return to the questions with which it began:
Where do we stand, now, in relation to our culture? Who are we, and why are we
here standing - or perhaps reclining in doped semi-slumber, dreaming of the
beyond of existence and of illusory nirvanas?
It
is our relation to our culture that will define for us our concept of
civilization, whether we see civilization as a Spenglerian nightmare, or as the
New Jerusalem, the Holy City, in which the perfectly formed Mind finds a cosmic
and hieratic manifestation. As is our understanding, so will be our acts - and
thoughts are potentialities of action.
If
we accept the ordinary way of life characterizing the megalopolis as the only
possibility of determining our individual responses to human existence and
interpersonal relationships within the deteriorating field of our culture-whole,
we will inevitably open ourselves wholly, even if reluctantly, to the poisons of
city-living; slowly or rapidly we will die from them, divorced from the reality
of spirit, even if lulled to comfortable dying by the drugs of success or of
religious respectability and naive faith. On the other hand, if we react
emotionally and blindly against megalopolitan values we have come to hate, we
may escape from their miasmas only to see our individuality dissolve into
various types of return to Mother Nature, or fall asleep while holding the
illusory hope that some day we shall be reawakened by some new "second
Coming" leading us to a Promised Land of milk and honey. History, past and
present, should make us wise about Promised Lands and what happens in them, but
it is easier to bounce along unconcernedly and refuse to know the past!
We
can nevertheless so clearly understand the state of our culture, and realize the
potentiality of development and action inherent in our living, now and at the
very place where we are standing, that we may see ourselves as agents through
whom a vaster rhythm of existence could and would operate if we were not merely
open and ready, but, what is more, steady in our willingness to let it
operate. This vaster rhythm is the planetary all-human process of
civilization. The existence of such a process does not deny or impair the
validity of culture, any more than mind denies the validity of life. Culture is,
I repeat, the carrier-wave of civilization; and life establishes the foundation
upon which mind is able to operate in human beings.
At
every level and in every mode of existence, mind is formative power. But the
forms created by mind may be filled by the binding and dark energies of life or
illumined by spirit. Human relationships may operate according to the
biological, organic and tribal order, or they may unfold their potentialities of
harmony and meaning according to the companionate order. Mind may give form to
the pure unitive activity of spirit, or to the compulsive drives of
instinct-driven and emotionally blind human beings. The creative artist may
attune his or her power of visualization and intonation to the universal rhythms
of the Music of the Spheres; or as servant of men who at any particular time
constitute the ruling aristocracy of the culture-whole, he may be satisfied to
produce the repetitive forms glorifying the particular style of the century or
even the fast changing fashion of the year - and by so doing acquire fame and in
some cases wealth.
To face at all times two basic alternatives is man's inherent destiny. Because of this, human life (when it ceases to be totally and unconsciously controlled by biological energies playing their fateful drama of birth, growth, copulation, and death) is a life of crises that can be resolved only by consciously meeting them and making of them catharses leading to creative transformation and reorganization at a higher - because more encompassing-level of consciousness, meaning, and purpose. Through crises courageously accepted and lucidly understood within the framework of some larger process, culture-man proves his creative stature to himself and to his world. He emerges as civilizer and myth-maker. His whole individualized being may become a poem celebrating Man's essential function as integrator and revealer of meaning.
Culture, Crises, and Creativity