Preparing for the Superman

“Preparing for the Miraculous” is a collection of speeches by Georges Van Vrekhem, a follower of Sri Aurobindo and his spiritual co-worker and heir Mirra Alfassa (known as the Mother). The speeches were delivered at Auroville, “The City of Dawn”, an intentional community in southern India founded by the Mother.

Aurobindo's worldview, while nominally based on Hinduism, was actually closer to Theosophy and Anthroposophy. There are also similarities with Hermetism and Gnosticism. It was based on an evolutionary perspective, according to which Spirit slowly evolves through matter, eventually divinizing it. Humanity is really a transitional form between animals and the Superman, a god-like being made of matter made imperishable by a spiritual force known as the Supermind. Of course, this evolutionism has little to do with scientific Darwinism. In Aurobindo's perspective, evolution comes about by supernatural, “involutionary” forces from above. A kind of Great Chain of Being eternally exists above the material world, which is the result of a fall. However, Spirit descends into matter in order to uplift it. This is done through a succession of avatars. Vrekhem argues that Aurobindo and the Mother were a twin avatar!

Aurobindo's and the Mother's descent into our world is regarded as a kind of sacrifice. They attempted to divinize matter through a process called Integral Yoga, which is never described in detail. The process was resisted at every step by fallen spirit-beings called Asuras, who even started World War II to stop human evolution! Aurobindo's death in 1950 is said to have been a voluntary descent into the nethermost recesses of matter, where he finally succeeded in overcoming the resistance of the evil forces. The Supermind therefore descended on Earth in 1956. As for the Mother, Vrekhem claims that she managed to create an imperishable human body for herself, out of subtle matter invisible to the naked eye. Her death in 1973 was really just a changing of bodies. The parallels with the Gnostic redeemer myth, Hermetic alchemy and Christian resurrection of the body should be obvious. Note also the similarity with the Christian idea of “the harrowing of hell”. It's interesting to note that Aurobindo believed in the necessity of sacrifice in order to transform matter from within, another similarity with Christianity and also with Anthroposophy, where the Christ incarnates as Jesus and sacrifices himself to further Earth's spiritual-cosmic evolution.

Vrekhem also mentions Aurobindo's more provocative ideas. He regarded the mission of Jesus and the Buddha as partial failures, and decided to succeed where they had failed. Aurobindo also had a distinctly “Heraclitean” perspective on war and violence, seeing it as a positive force for transformation. Aurobindo's theodicy was essentially that since everything is God, everything that happens is really for the best, if seen from a higher vantage point. Indeed, the chaotic events of the 20th century (and presumably the 21st century) are really the birth pangs of a new and higher civilization. Sometimes, Vrekhem's claims border the outlandish, as when he says that the Mother's occult powers explain near-death experiences! Apparently, it's thanks to the Mother that deceased people can go straight to the heavenly realms, without passing the infernal lower astral regions on the way… (Even more extreme claims are made in another work by the same author, “Beyond the Human Species”.)

“Preparing the Miraculous” could be read as a “teaser trailer” to Aurobindo's own writings, or to Vrekhem's “Beyond the Human Species”. There is also a sequel, “The New Spirituality”, but it mostly repeats the same points made in this book, and is therefore of lesser interest.