Legitimizing Destructive Madness - a Futile Means of Establishing Security

 
If you want to do yoga, you must get rid of fear.
Yoga and fear do not go together. 
- Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga.

'The nations of the world legitimize that destructive madness of the arms race by saying it's a way to prevent destruction through fear – that's futile. As an argument, it's futile, but that's the way they think. It's part of that same thirst or need for Security: nothing can be achieved except in peace, nothing can be arrived at except in peace, nothing can be realized except in peace – we need peace, individually, collectively, globally. So let's make horrifying weapons of destruction so that men will be so frightened that nothing will happen – how childish!'

- The Mother (taken from the entry below)

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27 March 1963
The Mother's Agenda

Once I told you about an experience I had, I told you that every time a divine manifestation occurs (what is called an Avatar), there's always a particular "angle of quest," in the sense of an intense NEED urging men along the road of evolution towards the Goal, the Transformation, and each avatar saw from a particular angle, believing it to be THE Goal.  When I had that experience, I saw it was the need for Immortality that drove the Vedic Rishis. It came back to me yesterday, and I noted it down: (The Mother reads a handwritten note)

The Vedic Rishis thirsted for Immortality,
Buddha wanted Permanence....

Then I looked, wondering, "And what was Christ's path?"... Basically, he always said, "Love thy neighbor," in other words brotherhood (but that's a modern translation). For him, the idea was compassion, charity (the Christians say it's the "law of Love," but we're not yet there – that will come much later). So I wrote:

Jesus preached Compassion....

Then I thought: now, Sri Aurobindo, it's quite clear; for him, the goal was Perfection. Perfection not in the sense of a summit but of an all-inclusive totality in which everything is represented, has a place. And I saw that this Perfection would come – must come – in stages. He announced something the realization of which will stretch over thousands of years. So it must come in stages. And I saw that what I find essential, indispensable (everything is there, everything finds a place, yet there is a kind of anguish – not a personal anguish but a terrestrial anguish), is Security. A need for Security – whatever you attempt, whatever you seek, even Love, even Perfection, it needs Security. Nothing can be achieved with the feeling that all opposing forces can come and sweep everything away. We must find the point where nothing can be touched or destroyed or halted. Therefore, it's Security, the very essence of Security. So I wrote:

Sri Aurobindo promised Perfection
and to attain it, the first requisite,
what men need today,
is Security.

All the global trends that result in "peace movements" of one kind or another, are nothing but this: they are expressions of the quest for Security. My own experience is a supersecurity, which can be really found only in union with the Supreme – nothing, nothing, nothing in the world can give you security, except this: union, identification with the Supreme. That's what I told you: as long as Sri Aurobindo was here in his body, I had a sense of perfect Security – extraordinary, extraordinary! Nothing, nothing could make a dent in it – nothing. So his departure was like ... like a smashing of that experience.  In truth, from the supreme point of view, that may have been the cause of his departure.... Though it seems to me a very small cause for a very big event.... But since in the experience that Security was taking root more and more, more and more firmly, and was spreading ...  Probably the time had not come. I don't know. As I said, from a universal and everlasting (I can't say "eternal"), everlasting point of view, it's a small cause for a big effect.... We could say it was probably ONE of the causes that made his departure necessary.

Consequently, according to the experience of these last few days, the quest for Security is but a first step towards Perfection. He came to announce (I put "promise" deliberately), to PROMISE Perfection, but between that promise and its realization, there are many steps; and in my experience, this is the first step: the quest for Security. And it corresponds fairly well to the global state of mind.

(silence)

The nations of the world legitimize that destructive madness of the arms race by saying it's a way to prevent destruction through fear – that's futile. As an argument, it's futile, but that's the way they think. It's part of that same thirst or need for Security: nothing can be achieved except in peace, nothing can be arrived at except in peace, nothing can be realized except in peace – we need peace, individually, collectively, globally. So let's make horrifying weapons of destruction so that men will be so frightened that nothing will happen – how childish! But that's the current state of mind. It is still one of those ... in English they say device, a ploy (it's not a "ploy," it's a means – between ploy and means) to urge the human race on towards its evolutionary goal. And for that, we must catch hold of the Divine: it's a means of catching hold of the Divine. For there is nothing – nothing, nothing exists from the point of view of Security, except the Supreme. If we ARE the Supreme, that is to say, the supreme Consciousness, supreme Power, supreme Existence, then there is Security – outside of that, there is none. Because everything is in perpetual motion. What exists at "one moment in time," as Sri Aurobindo says (time is an unbroken succession of "moments"), what exists at a given moment no longer exists the next, so there's no security. It's the same experience, seen from another angle, as that of Buddha, who said there was no "permanence." And basically, the Rishis saw only from the angle of human existence, that's why they were after Immortality. It all boils down to the same thing.