"Supramental Consciousness and Human Evolution"
The other physical change, she said, will be in the human body. The form of the human body will undergo a change and the nature of that change, she said, was the distinction between the male and the female form, which would become less. The human body itself would become more androgynous and this will be seen, most and first, in those who develop the body-consciousness, such as gymnasts and athletes.
Interestingly, when you observe the Olympics, it’s difficult to make out whether a sportsperson is a man or a woman, especially when it comes to the gymnasts and athletes. The very focus of their concentration on the physical consciousness, to make it more aware, is the only way you can excel in whatever skill you develop physically. To make it more aware provides a space on which the Supramental can act more directly, and then of course, everything changes from there.
Perhaps, as part of those changes, we could also anticipate an extension of the physical biological lifespan, which in fact has happened. Though modern science will take credit for it saying, “Oh! We have made available better nutrition and better medication.” But I’m not too sure if that is entirely true, because very often, we find an increase of ill-health where new medications are introduced. Whereas, the more indigenous tribes of different parts of the earth already seem to have had a superior health to begin with, and yet there is generally an increase in lifespan. Of course, this will be seen more in spaces where the body-consciousness has been developed consciously and there is an opening to the Higher Consciousness deliberately. So, the Ashram and Auroville, are two spaces where you find people living much longer, on an average, than elsewhere in the world.
About this change of physical form, I will share with you an interesting study that has taken place in the Ashram’s physical records. We have records, going back 50 years - of all the students and their medical checkups, their height, weight and other vital statistics. These were recently put on the computer and we drew out statistical measurements.
What we find is that, over the last three decades, the average height of both boys and girls is growing, but the difference between the two averages is narrowing. So, you have an average of boys going up, an average of girls going up. There are two slopes, but the slope of both is narrowing and getting closer to each other. It’s an interesting observation.
How is it happening? Well, that’s part of that working.
There is also an interesting observation that was shared by people who have been on the earth longer than I have. The observation is that the newborn babies currently are different - physically. Thirty or forty years ago, it used to be that the babies were born bald, fists closed and eyes closed, sleeping much more. In the last twenty years, it so happens that we find far more babies born with hair, hands open, eyes open immediately after birth, and even attempting to communicate in some way.
This shows that evolution is squeezing part of the development after birth back into the womb. Now, in the womb, you already see the entire biological evolution of life represented within those nine months, starting from a form which is a single-celled creature to something that appears like a tadpole, then appears like a fish, then appears like a frog, then appears like a…whatever stage it is… baby monkey and then eventually, the human form.
But the things which took place after birth are also being pushed back into the womb. Everything indicates an acceleration of human evolution physically. These changes are the most dramatic because they indicate most objectively. Less dramatic - but equally important - since they are subjective, are the psychological changes which have been taking place.
The transition from one age to another is described as having a pralaya, a ‛destructive phase’, that’s the term used in Sanskrit. Pralaya is the destruction between two ages. If the kali Yuga is ending now and the new cycle of the new satya Yuga is to start, the transition point also involves destruction.
There is an interview of Sri Aurobindo, dated 1907, which appeared in a Madras newspaper. The full text of which has never been printed, I don’t know why. Perhaps because it is the only time he seems to have made a prophecy with dates. In it, he said, or he is quoted as saying, that 1907 marks the end of the kali Yuga, the first five thousand years of the kali and the beginning of the transition for the new satya Yuga.
Then, there is a text that is very prophetic. You must keep in mind it is in 1907. Nobody could imagine what would happen next. He uses words like, “The high will become low and the low will become high. The oppressed and the depressed will be elevated, and in the midst of all these changes, India will become free” and so on. These are indicative of what he already foresaw. You can see that “the low becoming high”: what Communism did in the subsequent decade and the various other changes, could not have been anticipated earlier.
But what we are seeing is this huge churning taking place in the mass of humanity. Even a reversal of priorities, capacities and authorities is part of that transition. Chaotic at first…but in the chaos there is often the greatest opportunity for change. When things are rigidly structured, there is very little chance for change. So, it is almost as if a transition through chaos is inevitable…destructive.
