Sri Aurobindo sometimes favors war and violence as a means of the realization of the end. The end does not justify the means, so long as it is physical, vital or mental or a mixture of two or more of these, since it will lead to universal conflict of the individual ends.
But the spiritual end justifies all means, as the spiritual good, whether it is that of an individual or of a nation, does not conflict with the spiritual good of other individuals and nations.
The contraries of the physical, mental and vital levels become complementariness on the spiritual level. No moral principle, according to Sri Aurobindo, is an end in itself but each is a means to the spiritual good.
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Thus Sri Aurobindo has based his moral philosophy on psychological and spiritual truths. Struggle is the law of Nature and so far as man is a part of Nature, he cannot avoid it.
But as man is also more than Nature, he works through the laws peculiar to him, through cooperation, association and love Sri Aurobindo synthesizes both Naturalism and Idealism when he says “Strife and destruction are not all.
There is the saving principle of association and mutual help as well as the force of dissociation and mutual strife; a power of love no less than a power of egoistic self-assertion; an impulse to sacrifice ourselves for others as well as the impulse to sacrifice others to ourselves.
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But when we see how these have actually worker we should not be tempted to gloss over or ignore the power of their opposites.”” Once man attains the spiritual consciousness, the dualism of means and end disappears.
His acts, even if violent, directly flow from divine consciousness. It is a mere pious wish to think that God is love alone, since the opposite also cannot be outside Him. Evolution is impossible without struggle, so long as it does not transcend the mind.
In the present stage of the world, even violence and war are sometimes not only justified but morally necessary. It is a spiritual necessity before which morality must bow its head and acquiesce, as morality itself is a mere means to the spiritual ideal of social development.