Preparing for the Miraculous

144 eleven talksthoughts, feelings, etc., that rise to the surface and these hetakes for his own. Really they come from outside in mindwaves, vital waves, waves of feeling and sensation, etc.,which take particular form in him and rise to the surfaceafter they have got inside.” 32 (Sri Aurobindo)So what is a human being? Present-day scientific materialismassures us that “there is no reason to single outthe human line [in the evolution] as special, except for ourchauvinistic interest in it. ... There is no way in which wecan claim to be ‘better’ than Aegyptopithecus [an earlymonkey] or the Miocene apes, only different. They werewell adapted to the world in which they lived, and we arewell suited to the world in which we live.” 33 (Mary andJohn Gribbin)The great Persian mystical poet, Rumi, saw the humanotherwise – but that was still in what the West callsits “Dark Ages:”First man appeared in the class of inorganic things,Next he passed therefrom into that of plants.For ages he lived as one of the plants,Remembering naught of his inorganic state so different;And when he passed from the vegetative to the animal stateHe had no remembrance of his state as a plant ...Again, the great Creator, as you know,Drew man out of the animal into the human state.Thus man passed from one order of nature to another,Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now.Of his first souls he has now no remembrance,And he will be again changed from his present soul ... 3432 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 313.33 Mary and John Gribbin: Being Human, p. 119.34 Translation E.H. Winfield, 1898.