The Idea and the Collective Consciousness

The fertilizing power and function of the idea in/on the collective mind.
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A rational mind do often have not the possibility to grasp into the function of the idea and of the thinker, the writer, which normally results to be a  box of resonance for actual changes, or even a kind of visionary of the future direction of the cultural development of the society, and we have to refer here to the -main- cultural stream and not that deep less parody of it in later post-industrial  so called "culture", which, meaningless in itself, is quite a revealing factor  of psychological order that we cant afford here to analyze.

The main stream we refer to was that represented by the ideas of existentialism and the new humanism appearing in Europe during 1700 which was the base for the cultural and social revolutions.

At the same time that people started to be critically conscious of its dependence on governing powers heavily discriminative, the writer and the thinker were attracted by the same subject, and literature become mainly related with that, by the pen of writers of the caliber of F. Dostoyevsky in Russia, or later in France with Sartre, whose works where proscribed and condemned to the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" by the catholic Church...
This social and literary effervescence bent the cultural stream from an idealistic and romantic view towards a more realistic one, sensible to the social  and human problem, which was in itself the very ground of modern realism, either social, political or literary and artistic, which shacked the very foundation of the previous social order promoting all the revolutions which followed.

An important point here is to consider that "history is wrote by the winner", and evidently those remarks are not necessarily shared by the opinion and general view of history of the later cultural-political stream which only superficially grasped in the whole value and unpreventable consequence  of the appearance of that new vision into society, and else, even if they understood it, they would rather keep it silenced in their own interest.
Because the  undisputed fact is, that it continued and  continues even now to manifest itself in the society with alternate consequences, but as the whirls of an ever expanding spiral of awareness of the general consciousness.

Even the pacifist and beatnik social phenomenon of early´60thies which later had a deep cultural influence all over the planet in certain aspects of its values as in the case of music, was the actual ferment into society of  a less evident sensibility to social, environmental, and spiritual aspects of human existence, of which the beatnik was the forerunner; the existentialism and humanitarianism was its base, and though invisible, it penetrated in the thought of even larger segments of the population becoming now a first clear result of that subliminal growth, which is represented in the citizen´s movements all over the world  and such wide spreading interest in a more balanced life when not a true search for a spiritual meaning to life.

IIIpart -Russia in the Vision

This psychological  intercourse we are considering of groups with wider groups and the connection they have with collective consciousness (that we can observe in akashic memories or subtle vision of things),  is also true in the relation of the individual with that general consciousness for the natural link he has with it.

We have seen as, the single will of the nation is an outstanding result, and yet the very embryo of the change was in the thoughts of the thinker and in the vision of the visionary which gave words to the need of the times, and when the man of action met with the thinker it spread into an action of larger repercussions.
The function of the -idea- was of fundamental importance for Sri Aurobindo, which mentioned it in different works, the following is from "The Human Cycle":

" There are even historians who deny or put aside as of a very subsidiary importance the working of the idea and the influence of the thinker in the development of human institutions. The French Revolution, it is thought, would have happened just as it did and when it did, by economic necessity, even if Rousseau and Voltaire had never written and the eighteenth century philosophic movement in the world of thought had never worked out its bold and radical speculations".

"The proletariat among us is sunk in ignorance and overwhelmed with distress! exclaimed Sri Aurobindo soon after disembarking in India. It was not metaphysical questions that preoccupied him, but questions of action. To act: we are in the world to act. But what action? And above all, what method of action would be the most effective? This very practical concern would remain with Sri Aurobindo from his very first days in India right up to his highest yogic realizations".
 (from Satprem,  "The Adventure of Consciousness") http://integral-yoga2.narod.ru/IntegralYoga/Satprem/Adventure_of_Consciousness/Satprem.Adventure_of_Consciousness.eng.htm
The fact that Sri Aurobindo gave so much importance to the psychological aspect and relation between thinker/mass, is because he was quite aware of its own function.
In fact, is historically known was he himself which acted as a revulsive into the Indian consciousness of the time by promoting the very first independent movement which later reached with Gandhi its purpose.
Such an extraordinary influence on a whole nation by the thoughts of a man and a handful of followers serves to illustrate how things works.
They acted as a resonance of the latent will of the people, their writings attracted larger groups till it was constituted a movement of national importance which influenced historically the destiny of the nation by taking back their legitimate right to an autonomous life without any intervention from outer powers (in this case the Royal Crown).

(all the following are excerpts from Sri Aurobindo´s work "Ideals and Progress")

"When ideals enlarge themselves, when they become forceful, widely recognized, when different ideals enter into the field, clash and communicate their thought and force to each other, then the race rises to its great periods of activity and creation. And it is when the ideal arisen, vehement, energetic, refuses to be debarred from possession and throws itself with all the gigantic force of the higher planes of existence on this reluctant and rebellious stuff of life and matter to conquer it that we have the great eras which change the world by carrying out the potentialities of several centuries in the action of a few decades.
The union of the great idealist with the great executive personality who receives and obeys the idea is always the sign of a coming realization which will be more or less deep and extensive in proportion as they are united or as the executive man seizes more or less profoundly and completely the idea he serves and is able to make permanent in force what the other has impressed upon the consciousness of his age".

"Not only is the upheaval and fertilizing of the general consciousness by the thinker and the idealist essential to the practical realization of great changes, but in the realization itself the idealist who will not compromise is an indispensable element"...

"But he true idealist is not the servant of the letter or the form; it is the idea which he loves and the spirit behind the idea which he serves".

"Man approaches nearer his perfection when he combines in himself the idealist and the pragmatist... such were Napoleon and Alexander. Napoleon with his violent prejudice against ideologist and dreamers was himself a colossal dreamer, an incurable if unconscious ideologist; his teeming brain was the cause of his gigantic force and accomplishment. The immense if shapeless ideas of Alexander threw themselves into the form of conquests, cities, cultures; they broke down the barriers of Greek and Asiatic prejudice and narrow self-imprisonment and created an age of civilization and soul-interchange".

"But these great personalities do not contain in themselves the combination which humanity most needs; not the man of action driven by ideas, the pragmatist stirred by a half-conscious exaltation from the idealistic, almost the mystic side of his nature, but the seer who is able to execute his vision is the higher term of human power and knowledge "...

"And times there are, ages of stupendous effort and initiative when the gods seem no longer satisfied with this tardy and fragmentary working, when the ideal breaks constantly through the dull walls of the material practical life, incalculable forces clash in its field, innumerable ideas meet and wrestle in the arena of the world and through the constant storm and flash, agitation of force and agitation of light the possibility of the victoriously fulfilled ideal, the hope of the Messiah, the expectation of the Avatar takes possession of the hearts and thoughts of men. Such an age seems now to be coming upon the world. But whether that hope and expectation and possibility are to come to anything depends upon whether men prepare their souls for the advent and rise in the effort of their faith, life and thought to the height and purity of a clearly-grasped ideal. The Messiah or Avatar is nothing but this, the divine Seer-Will descending upon the human consciousness to reveal to it the divine meaning behind our half-blind action and to give along with the vision the exalted will that is faithful and performs and the ideal force that executes according to the vision.

Sri Aurobindo: "Ideals and Progress".
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So that whomever think and act along those lines is linking himself with this psychological general atmosphere at whatever degree of that influence.
The subtle world teach of the influence the individual has on the general consciousness as much the reverse. It shows the subtle mechanisms through which it becomes possible.
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Thought-forms

today is not a mystery anymore that -thought is energy-, as science has created devices moved by that energy, and seems progressing towards farther discovering.
Thought is energy and it create and leaves subtle patterns in the mental atmosphere.
This is how the thoughts of the thinker  reaches the masses activating them, giving words to their very subliminal need which is there potentially but needs of the intellectual fire of the thinker to be set afire.
Sri A. and Mother clearly stated that a thought travels around the globe, (around the mental general consciousness).
Depending on its frequency it may deeper, or less deep, influence that mental environment.

Collective Consciousness

We are not here to discuss the sex of the angels. We try to lend information which we -sense- useful but of which there isn't a lot of literature about, because it is -the Collective Consciousness- a growing phenomena which at this -very- moment is internally preparing a fuller manifestation of itself outwardly. A new and unrecorded phenomena, so our effort is to consider it objectively, without any doctrinal prism, as much as a scientific investigation would be held.
The fact here, is that it is based a lot on inner perception, and it has a reason to be so because after all, collective consciousness itself is growing towards inner perception.
But we cannot say there is not any outer, visible progressive manifestation at all and all is inner, because it is not true. The facts are there even on a material level, if we look at them.
We need to have some leading coordinates, and we have to assume the concept of evolution as "evolution of consciousness". We have to assume too that evolution is a dynamical thing which is affecting us at this very moment, and it has not reached already its happy conclusion. I'm only conveying on this point the opinion and knowledge of Sri Aurobindo and Mother themselves.

In the mechanic of things, an individuality cannot start a reconnaissance of collective consciousness till it has reached at least a certain degree of reconnaissance of himself. The degree enough to see that there is a relation between individual and collective consciousness, an invisible, even subtle relation, but not totally unobservable as to affirm it do not exists, in fact, all single consciousness is linked in a mass of collective consciousness, but it goes on unperceived, subliminal, as the flow on information would be so conspicuous to completely saturate our mind.
Even senses acts many time in this way, sublimating parts of the whole perception so to not overcharge the brain. Or else the brain filters the amount of information.

In its first collective experiences the individual base them on emotional links, as the familiar, and is in the family where first is experienced some degree of collective consciousness. Which evolves and enlarges in time including a group of individuals which share common language and a series of other factor which sums up to a national identity or identification. The individual, all the individuals, create this kind of collective soul which is the national identity. This is what historically has happened, from family to clan, to city and nation, the consciousness has grown into a self perception of belonging to a wider self. And the planet has reached a point where nations are, with more or less success,
collective bodies of consciousness, it is not difficult anymore for the individual, to identify itself with a wider national self. So at the moment what we have are those collectivity called nations already formed and an indisputable tendency to create even wider collective groups as the groups of nations. those movements from individuality to collective are not decision taken on the surface.

The consciousness answers to its own purpose and by its own natural laws which are not dictated by the mind but to which the individual is compelled to answer, whether consciously or unconsciously.
And so the societies and nations they grow compelled by that same purpose. The point of the situation seems to be that collective consciousness is growing at present in a wider perception of itself as a -body-, not just a national body or an association of nations but at a larger scale, a planetary one.
The  sum of the consciousness on earth is acquiring perception of itself as a collectivity, which bents it to act as a single will.

This plural will at work we are just witnessing with the Arab Spring, and such other citizen's movements all around the world, which are creating a sense of self-consciousness even out and above the nations themselves, and we see it for the reciprocal support they lend themselves and for the similarity of their requirements. We can really say that humanity is growing into levels of awareness of itself.
And most of it is a subliminal process of which we do not have always a direct and immediate evidence, but needs to be deduced and willingly observe if we want to see it in spite of the seemingly confused direction of modern society.
None could discuss that this growing collective consciousness is at the same time a growth into a more ethical collectivity. In fact this is just what the citizens are asking to the political class. So that this growth into collectivity is a growth into ethical principles in the social, economical and environmental relations.
An awakening to a planetary way of thinking, it is not the nation anymore, or the group of nations, but the  whole planet.
In this, we have unfortunately to admit that the citizens are far more ahead  then the politician.