Preparing for the Miraculous

106 eleven talksthreatens freedom and security. No one knows the exactsolution to this dilemma,” he writes in The Future of Life.“During the twentieth century more people were added tothe world than in all previous human history. ... We and therest of life cannot afford another hundred years like that. ...It should be obvious to anyone not in a euphoric deliriumthat whatever humanity does or does not do, Earth’s capacityto support our species is approaching the limit.” 16To conclude with James Lovelock: “The ultimate causeof the problem is that there are too many people – six orseven times too many people – on Earth today.” This raisesthe mega-question: if there is a meaning in it all, if the evolutionhas a goal, if the Curve is more than a curse, what isit that is happening and makes us look for an explanation ofan Earth changing into one habitat for a unified humanity?Is the Earth special?According to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, the Earthis a very special body in the universe. Speaking to theAshram students in 1953, the Mother made this quite clear:“In the immensity of the astronomical skies, earth is a thingabsolutely without interest and without importance, butfrom the occult and spiritual points of view the Earth is theconcentrated symbol of the universe. ... For the convenienceand necessity of the work, the whole universe has been concentratedand condensed symbolically in a grain of sandwhich is called the Earth. And therefore it is the symbol ofall – all that is to be changed, all that is to be transformed,all that is to be converted is here. This means that if oneconcentrates on this work and does it here, all the rest willfollow automatically.” By the “work” she meant the effortof conscious spiritual evolution.16 Edward Wilson: op.cit., pp. 28-33, passim.