스리 오로빈도와 수운 최제우의 신인간과 주체형성의 길 = Sri Aurobindo and Suun Choe Je-u on the New Human and the Formation of Subjectivity

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study explores an alternative conception of the “new human” by contrasting technological post-humanism with a paradigm grounded in inner transformation and spiritual evolution. Rather than treating the human as an entity to be biologically enhanced or computationally upgraded, the paper argues that a genuine civilizational transition requires a qualitative transformation of consciousness. To develop this argument, it compares the thought of Sri Aurobindo and Choe Je-u(Suun), founder of Donghak, both of whom diagnosed the crisis of modernity not as a problem of institutions or external systems but as a crisis of the human being itself—of immature consciousness in Aurobindo’s terms and of the self-centered mind cut off from Heaven(各自爲心) in Suun’s terms. Despite belonging to different cultural and historical contexts, both thinkers regard the human as an evolutionary being capable of transcending its present limits and awakening to its inherent divinity.
The study first examines Aurobindo’s “spiritual evolutionism,” focusing on the role of the psychic being as the inner guide that leads consciousness upward toward supramental consciousness, the state in which the divine truth becomes embodied in human life. It then analyzes Suun’s conception of sicheonju(侍天主) and susimjeonggi(修心正氣) as a path of subject-formation beginning with the embodied experience of the indwelling divine(naeyusinryeong, 內有神靈) and the cosmic vital force(oe-yu-gihwa, 外 有氣化), culminating in mansaji(萬事知), the state of complete harmonization with gi(至氣). Through this comparison, the paper shows that Aurobindo presents a future-oriented model of the supramental human, while Suun articulates a recovery-based model of the Heaven-bearing human—but both converge on a vision of the human as a being who realizes divine consciousness within earthly life.
Ultimately, the paper proposes that their new-human discourses offer valuable resources for a “spiritual anthropology” that can supplement and critique contemporary techno-centric post-humanism. For both thinkers, a new civilization does not emerge from institutional reforms or technological advances alone, but from the appearance of a transformed subject who embodies Heaven or the supramental truth. Their thought thus provides an alternative framework for rethinking civilizational change—one that seeks the harmon ious co-presence of humanity, nature, and the divine, and envisions the “new human” as the essential agent of that transformation.