Preparing for the Miraculous

112 eleven talksthe god.” 19 As the incorporation of the mental consciousnessin the scale of evolution led to the formation of Homosapiens, so a higher consciousness, called “supermind” bySri Aurobindo, is necessary to form the new, higher speciesin the scale.The yogic effort of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother consistedin preparing humanity and the Earth for the descentof this higher consciousness. The literature and testimoniesthey have left behind provide anybody interested with aconcrete, detailed idea of that lofty and difficult ambition,for which Sri Aurobindo had to descent voluntarily intodeath. Six years later, in 1956, the Mother announced thefirst manifestation of the Supermind in the Earth atmosphere,equivalent to the beginning of a new stage in theterrestrial evolution, of a new world. 20The effects of this manifestation were immediate, forinstance in the phenomenon called “the Sixties”: the decadeof the New Age movement, the student revolts of ’68,and the Velvet Revolution of the same year in Prague. Therewas also the technological acceleration resulting in the globalspread of television, the space technology of Sputnik,Apollo 11 and the nuclear rockets, the computer, and anincreasing miniaturization of things technological. The desegregationmovement in the US gave equal rights to all.The the colonial countries of “the third world” became independent.The common impulse behind all these phenomena wasthe need of “unity for the human race by an inner oneness,”without which, according to Sri Aurobindo, the new worldwould not be possible. For “all mankind may be regarded19 Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, p. 4.20 See talk 8: “Sri Aurobindo’s Descent into Death”.