The word ‘Avatar’ appears only twice in The Life Divine. In either case the context is different—it is not vis-à-vis Avatar as an Incarnation of the Divine. This absence of the concept of Divine Incarnation in Sri Aurobindo's very major work cannot be taken as he not recognising the necessity of Avatarhood in the evolutionary process. We have also another interesting situation: the word ‘Grace’ does not appear even once in The Life Divine. But in Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga the fruit of realization without the Divine Grace is inconceivable. In this connection, let us first read a couple of passages from his little masterpiece, The Mother:
There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavor,—a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and—a supreme Grace from above that answers.
For the grace of the Divine Mother is the sanction of the Supreme and now or tomorrow its effect is sure, a thing decreed, inevitable and irresistible.
The supramental change is the thing decreed and inevitable in the evolution of the earth-consciousness; for its upward ascent is not ended and mind is not its last summit. But the change may arrive, take form and endure, there is needed the call from below with a will to recognise and not deny the Light when it comes, and there is needed the sanction of the Supreme from above. The power that mediates between the sanction and the call is the presence and power of the Divine Mother. The Mother's power and not any human endeavour and tapasya can alone rend the lid and tear the covering and shape the vessel and bring down into this world of obscurity and falsehood and death and suffering Truth and Light and Life divine and the immortal's Ananda.
What this situation, of the absence of 'Grace' and 'Avatar' in its deeper
occult connotation, means is that, Sri Aurobindo is more than his works, prose
or poetry, including perhaps his Savitri. And didn’t he say, apropos of
his Arya-writing, that had he continued it, not for seven but seventy
years, still his knowledge would not have been exhausted? In The Life Divine
he has taken a certain stand to present a certain point of view for a certain
type of the soul-need, which does not make it sole or absolute or exclusive in
every sense. This is true in other works also. The question is, of one’s
perceptions, perceptions which can be different for different individuals and
in different contexts. When this is recognised, there should not be any
necessity of thrusting one viewpoint on the other, which will be fallacious,
fundamentalist, un-Aurobindonian. Eschewing it is broadening, even globalising,
one’s consciousness for a greater spiritual progress.
Let us read quickly a few passages from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s
writings.
Sri Aurobindo on Himself
There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine Consciousness and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth the instrumental personality in Nature under the conditions of Nature and it uses it according to the rules of the game—though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatarhood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it. If it is a coherent part of the arrangement of the omnipotent Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it.
***
Let me make it clear that in all I wrote I was not writing to prove that I am
an Avatar! You are busy with your reasonings with the personal question, I am
busy with more with the general one. I am seeking to manifest something of the
Divine that I am conscious of and feel—I care a damn whether that constitutes
me an Avatar or something else. That is not a question which concerns me. By
manifestation, of course, I mean the bringing out and spreading of that
Consciousness so that others also may feel and enter into it and live in it. (8
March 1935)
***
I have a strong faith that you are the Divine Incarnation. Am I right?
Follow your faith—it is not unlikely to mislead you.
[This is the closest he can be said to have admitted he being an Avatar. There
are a couple of other corroborative suggestions.]
The Mother on Sri Aurobindo
[From a meditation written on the day after the Mother first met Sri Aurobindo]
It matters little that there are thousands of beings plunged in the densest ignorance, He whom we saw yesterday is on earth; his presence is enough to prove that a day will come when darkness shall be transformed into light, and Thy reign shall be indeed established upon earth. O Lord, Divine Builder of this marvel, my heart overflows with joy and gratitude when I think of it, and my hope has no bounds. My adoration is beyond all words, my reverence is silent. (30 March 1914)
***
What Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history is not a teaching, not
even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from the Supreme. (14
February 1961)
***
What Sri Aurobindo represents in the history of the earth’s spiritual progress
is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a mighty action straight from
the Supreme. (15 August 1964)
***
He has come to bid the earth to prepare for its luminous future. (15 August
1964)
***
Sri Aurobindo has brought to the world the assurance of a divine future.
***
Sri Aurobindo has come on earth not to bring a teaching or a creed in
competition with previous creeds or teachings, but to show the way to overpass
the past and to open concretely the route towards an imminent and inevitable
future. (22 February 1967)
***
Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history.
Sri Aurobindo is the Future advancing towards its realisation.
Thus we must shelter the eternal youth required for a speedy advance, in order not to become laggards on the way.
(2 April 1967)
***
Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of the beauty of the future that must be
realised. He came to give not a hope but a certitude of the splendour towards
which the world moves. The world is not an unfortunate accident, it is a marvel
which moves towards its expression. The world needs the certitude of the beauty
of the future. And Sri Aurobindo has given that assurance. (27 November 1971)
***
The red lotus is the flower of Sri Aurobindo, but specially for his centenary
we shall choose the blue lotus, which is the colour of his physical aura, to
symbolise the centenary of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth. (21
December 1971)
***
Sri Aurobindo came upon earth to announce the manifestation of the supramental
world and not merely did he announce this manifestation but embodied also in
part the supramental force and showed by example what one must do to prepare
oneself for manifesting it. The best thing we can do is to study all that he
has told us and endeavour to follow his example and prepare ourselves for the
new manifestation. This gives life its real sense and will help us to overcome
all obstacles. Let us live for the new creation and we shall grow stronger and
stronger by remaining young and progressive. (30 January 1972)
***
Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the
manifestation of a new race and a new world: the Supramental. Let us prepare
for it in all sincerity and eagerness. (20 June 1972)
***
Sri Aurobindo came on earth from the Supreme to announce the manifestation of a
new race and the new world, the Supramental. Let us prepare for it in all
sincerity and eagerness. (15 August 1972)
***
Man is the creation of yesterday. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the creation
of tomorrow: the coming of the supramental being. (15 August 1972)
***
Sri Aurobindo incarnated in a human body the supramental consciousness and has
not only revealed to us the nature of the path to follow and the method of
following it so as to arrive at the goal, but has also by his own personal
realisation given us the example; he has provided us with the proof that the
thing can be done and the time is now to do it.
***
In the eternity of becoming, each Avatar is only the announcer, the forerunner
of a more perfect realisation. And yet men have always the tendency to deify
the Avatar of the past in opposition to the Avatar of the future. Now again Sri
Aurobindo has come announcing to the world the realisation of tomorrow; and
again his message meets with the same opposition as of all those who preceded
him. But tomorrow will prove the truth of what he revealed and his work will be
done. (21 February 1957)
***
You must understand that what Sri Aurobindo represents in the world’s history,
is not a teaching, not even a revelation; it is a decisive action direct from
the Supreme. And I am just trying to fulfil that action. (1961)
***
What is the Divine?
The Divine is what you adore in Sri Aurobindo.
(28 March 1932)
***
[Mother designated the red lotus as the flower of Sri Aurobindo and the white
lotus as her own. 2 February 1930]
Red lotus—symbol of the manifestation of the Supreme upon earth.
White lotus—symbol of the Divine Consciousness.
***
Under the painting of a red lotus by Champaklal, Sri Aurobindo wrote: Avatar.
Knowing that Red Lotus represents Sri Aurobindo—White Lotus represents Aditi,
the Mother—we have here a private disclosure made by Sri Aurobindo.
Perception of Avatarhood is an individual matter, and that perception might be governed by the cultural, historical, philosophical, religious, even temporal, or spiritual factors. But there is also a hope that these factors can be set aside when one comes in contact with the inner or higher reality which, and nothing else, should indeed count for an individual. If this is done then we keep all danger away from us, rather all danger is kept away from us.
In this context, let us make another observation here. In the April 2007 issue
of Auroville Today we have the
following statement, a statement which rather stuns one greatly: “…there's a
danger that an over-reliance on the psychic being and surrender to the Divine,
as it is practised … can devolve into passivity.” We must say that there can
never be over-reliance on the psychic being and surrender to the Divine. Wasn’t
that the Mantra of the Mother, particularly “What Thou Willest, What Thou
Willest” when she was busy with the cellular transformation? If somewhere, and
sometimes,—and it is immaterial where that somewhere could be and when that
sometimes was or will be,—it is not practised ‘properly’ it cannot be the fault
of the principle, of the occult and spiritual truth that is there behind it.
People in their too confident a manner of intellectualsing things are generally
in a hurry and mix up emotions and sentiments of the vital with the psychic
perceptions; surrender to the Divine is something altogether different. There is no cure for that, and perhaps one should just ignore such
statements. Instead, let us read the following from Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita:
In the Avatar, the divinely-born Man, the
real substance shines through the coating; the mark of the seal is there
only for form, the vision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life
is that of the secret Godhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed
human nature; the sign of the Godhead, an inner soul-sign, not outward, not
physical, stands out legible for all to read who care to see or who can see;
for the Asuric nature is always blind to these things, it sees the body and not
the soul, the external being and not the internal, the mask and not the Person.
In the ordinary human birth the Nature-aspect of the universal Divine assuming
humanity prevails; in the incarnation the God-aspect of the same phenomenon
takes its place. In the one he allows the human nature to take possession of
his partial being and to dominate it; in the other he takes possession of his
partial type of being and its nature and divinely dominates it. Not by
evolution or ascent like the ordinary man, the Gita seems to tell us, not by a
growing into the divine birth, but by a direct descent into the stuff of
humanity and a taking up of its moulds.
Champaklal
paints Two Lotuses and writes
I wanted to offer something to the Mother. And I got the idea of painting two lotuses, one white and the other red.
Curiously, I received two beautiful lotuses and took up the painting. But
due to other work I could not finish them in a day. These too, like my other
paintings, I did during my lunch time as it gave me great joy. It took
some days before I could finish them little by little. Naturally it would
have been better if the colouring could have been done in one sitting.
However the result was not bad and it was with great joy that I took the
paintings to Mother on my birthday on 2 February 1940.
She received them very well indeed and exclaimed: "Oh! Very pretty! Very
pretty!" She wondered how I could get time to do them. She
took them in both hands and with a broad smile said: "I give them to you,
Champaklal! Take them, they are for you. They are very pretty. You keep
them."
I did not answer and did not take them. And she repeated:
"Take them, Champaklal, I give them to you as my present."
C: "Bur Mother! I have done them for you."
Seeing the state of my mind she found a way out. She gave another broad
smile and said softly, almost in a whisper: "Champaklal, I will take them
to Sri Aurobindo and I will ask him to write on them."
I said: "Mother! Are you taking them to Sri Aurobindo? If so, it
would be very nice if you ask him to write the significance. Mother! Sri
Aurobindo will write on the white lotus and you will write on the red
one."
When Mother brought them to Sri Aurobindo I was there. She showed them to
him and said: "See, how nice they are! Today is Champaklal's birthday; he
has done these paintings for me. If you write the significance on them I will give
them to him. He wants you to write on the white lotus and I on the red."
The Avatar: title to the red lotus given and written by the Mother; Aditi: title given to the white lotus and written by Sri Aurobindo.
Then Mother told me not to show the lotuses to anybody.
But you know that, after many years, blocks were made out of these paintings and printed for distribution. Do not ask me why I was told not to show them to anybody at one time as later things were changed. Obviously circumstances changed and the Mother never stood rigidly by what she said on an earlier occasion under different conditions. There are so many instances of this kind.
http://www.savitrithelightofthesupreme.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/8/4344112.html
The divine
birth from the fire of sacrifice
The birth of Rama in the Ramayana, far back in the Vedic Age, is related to the Yajna his father had carried out according to the custom of the day. King Dasharatha of the Ikshwaku line was issueless and that had caused him worry. The illustrious line was threatened to get terminated and that would have set off havoc everywhere; the maintenance of a respectable and conscientious social order was an aspect of the righteous ruling and the king had a certain responsibility, an obligation towards it. In the efficacy of the Vedic Yajna he could, he knew, discharge it and accordingly he decided to resort to it. Dasharatha consulted the great rishis of the land and under their guidance performed the difficult aśwamedha yajna, the Horse Sacrifice. Rishyashringa was the Rishi-in-Charge for the conduct of the sacrifice. On a spacious tract on the northern bank of the River Sharayu was constructed the eagle-shaped fire-altar, the bird with bright and beautiful wings, suparņā, of lovely plumage in the gracefulness of whose flight arrives success. All the details of the Yajna were fully organised.
In the meanwhile the Gods of Heaven approached Brahma, complaining how they
were subdued by Ravana the Asura who had received from him the boon of immunity
from their hands. In his extreme arrogance, the Asura menaced all the worlds
and there was the breakdown of the Law of the Truth. Brahma assured the Gods
that soon Vishnu himself would take birth as an Avatar and deal with the Asura.
It was also mentioned that he would take birth as an Avatar when the king would
perform the putrakāmeşţhi yajňa, the Yajna by which the desire to have a
son is fulfilled.
The Yajna was coming to its triumphant conclusion, when the fire seemed to burn
with an extraordinary glow. A being of transcendental majesty and splendour
arose out of it, ready to bestow a boon on the worshipper who had instituted
the wonderful sacrifice. In the course of time was born the Avatar. The desire
of the world and the desire of the Gods compelled the mortal birth of Vishnu.
He came as Rama.
The traditional story of Savitri is along these Vedic lines. Aswapati was issueless and he resorted to the 18-year Savitri-Yajna. Goddess Savitri granted him a boon, that she will take birth as his daughter. Aswapati was carrying with him the “world’s desire” and it is in response to it the Goddess takes the “mortal birth”. (Savitri, p. 22)
A world’s desire compelled her mortal birth.
Such was his persuasion, and the Goddess did oblige him. The ground for her birth was prepared by him. Unless this yājnic-yogic foundation is established she does not come. In the case of Aswapati there was yet something more. He had already created a new world in the House of the Spirit with the intention of bringing it down upon earth. But that is the task of the divine Shakti alone, she the Power of Manifestation. He offers his yājnic sacrifices to her and pleads to come down, come down to remove the obstacle that stands in the way of the new creation appearing upon the earth. It is the obstacle of Death, born of the inconscient Void, in fact the Shadow of the Void, and Savitri has to remove it. Savitri’s birth is in that sense functional, in the realization of what Aswapati had willed and established. The imperative was, to bring down the new creation and her specific task to clear the way for that to happen.
http://www.savitrithelightofthesupreme.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/6/4341567.html
Dasharatha has successfully completed the difficult aśwamedha yajna, the Horse Sacrifice, and the six seasons have rolled out. It is now the ninth day of the Chaitra month (April-May); the presiding deity of the day is Aditi, and the ruling star Punarvasu. The asterism is in the ascendant, and five of the nine planets are at their highest position. When it is noon, Kausalya, the eldest queen of Dasharatha, gives birth to a son, named Rama who has all the divine attributes in him. He has lotus-red eyes, long arms, and has roseate lips, and his voice is that of a drumbeat; he is the delight of the Ikshwaku line, and is adored not only by the people of the kingdom but also by the great beings of all the worlds, and the gods. Indeed, Rama is the very embodiment of Vishnu himself. The birth of the Avatar has taken place.
We have in St Matthew:
On the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as
his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was
found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph, her husband, being a holy man,
and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away
privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord
appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to
take unto thee Mary the wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for
he shall save his people from their sins… Behold, a virgin shall be with child,
and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being
interpreted is, God with us… Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judæa in
the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east of
It seems that there was an intense aspiration invoking the divine birth;
possibly, the three wise men must have invoked it. It was so in the case of
Rama, and so too should have been in the case of Jesus Christ. Ramakrishna, it
is said, saw the coming of Vivekananda. Great supernatural events occurred
prior to the arrival. Was there something of the kind in the case of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother? Who knows? But there must have been, and there is no
doubt about it. Great forces gather up when the Divine is poised to take such a
birth. Or is it that the modern mind, the modern age draws a thick veil over
the intuitive faculty of ours and prevents seeing such signs?
As one aspect of the coming of the Avatar, there is the question as to how the
Avatar prepares his physical body. Sri Aurobindo writes in the Essays on the
Gita that, the evolving Avatar himself “prepares his own fit mental and
physical body according to the needs and pace of the human evolution and so
appearing from age to age, yugé-yugé.” It is the birth of the
conscious Godhead in our humanity, a soul-birth.
In the Purusha Sukta there is a celebration of the great sacrifice by which the
order of the worlds was established. All is founded in the Sacrifice and
therefore Sacrifice is the best means of achieving whatever has to be achieved,
says the splendid ancient scripture. Thus it is in the Sacrifice of the
Purusha, the Holocaust of the primal Being, the Yajna of the Great Person, that
the incomparable deed was carried out. In it the Gods, the Rishis and the
Sadhyas, the accomplished celestial beings, offered the Cosmic Being himself as
an oblation to the Mystic Fire. This was the Sarvahuta Yajna, Offering of the
All, made by them. Its jubilation in the Rig Veda is a forceful triumph-song of
the Creator poised for Cosmic Action,—“a profound composition.”
About Yajna or Sacrifice, Sri Aurobindo writes: “The law of sacrifice is the
common divine action that was thrown out into the world in its beginning as a
symbol of the solidarity of the universe. It is by the attraction of this law
that a divinising principle, a saving power descends to limit and correct and
gradually to eliminate the errors of an egoistic and self-divided creation.
This descent, this sacrifice of the Purusha, the Divine Soul submitting itself
to Force and Matter so that it may inform and illuminate them, is the seed of
redemption of this world of Inconscience and Ignorance. ‘For with sacrifice as
their companion,’ says the Gita, ‘the All-Father created these peoples.’ ” In
the Gita we have: “Brahman is the giving, Brahman is the food-offering, by
Brahman it is offered into the Brahman-fire, Brahman is that which is to be
attained by samādhi in Brahman-action.”
By the Yajna did the Gods perform the Yajna, Sacrifice in the sacrifice as a
sacrifice, and in it were established the first associated Ordinances of the
Truth; thus in their excellence and in their glory did in them the Gods ascend
to heaven, there where they were the earlier Gods and the Achievers, the
Claimers of the Truth everywhere.
http://www.savitrithelightofthesupreme.org/blog/_archives/2009/10/7/4342519.html
The Avatar on
the Battlefield
Sri Krishna blowing his Conch Pānchajanya
The infinite Godhead in whom are all the wonders of
existence, armed for battle, glorious with divine ornaments of beauty, robed in
heavenly raiment of deity, lovely with garlands of divine flowers, fragrant
with divine perfumes—such is the light of this body of God as if a thousand
suns had risen at once in heaven.
It is the vision of the One in the many, the Many in the One,—and all are the One. It is this vision that to the eye of the divine Yoga liberates, justifies, explains all that is and was and shall be. Once seen and held, it lays the shining axe of God at the root of all doubts and perplexities and annihilates all denials and oppositions. It is the vision that reconciles and unifies. … The supreme Form is then made visible. It is that of the infinite Godhead whose faces are everywhere and in whom are all the wonders of existence, who multiplies unendingly all the many marvellous revelations of his being, a world-wide Divinity seeing with innumerable eyes, speaking from innumerable mouths, armed for battle with numberless divine uplifted weapons, glorious with divine ornaments of beauty, robed in heavenly raiment of deity, lovely with garlands of divine flowers, fragrant with divine perfumes. Such is the light of this body of God as if a thousand suns had risen at once in heaven. The whole world multitudinously divided and yet unified is visible in the body of the God of Gods. Arjuna sees him, God magnificent and beautiful and terrible, the Lord of souls who has manifested in the glory and greatness of his spirit this wild and monstrous and orderly and wonderful and sweet and terrible world, and overcome with marvel and joy and fear he bows down and adores with words of awe and with clasped hands the tremendous vision. “I see” he cries “all the gods in thy body, O God, and different companies of beings, Brahma the creating lord seated in the Lotus, and the Rishis and the race of the divine Serpents. I see numberless arms and bellies and eyes and faces, I see thy infinite forms on every side, but I see not thy end nor thy middle nor thy beginning, O Lord of the universe, O Form universal. I see thee crowned and with thy mace and thy discus, hard to discern because thou art a luminous mass of energy on all sides of me, an encompassing blaze, a sun-bright fire-bright Immeasurable. Thou art the supreme Immutable whom we have to know, thou art the high foundation and abode of the universe, thou art the imperishable guardian of the eternal laws, thou art the sempiternal soul of existence.” [Essays on the Gita]
