Q: Since you and the Mother were on
earth constantly from the beginning what was the need for Avatars coming down
here one after another?
A: We were not on earth as Avatars.
[p. 448]
Q: You say that you both were not
on earth as Avatars. And yet you were carrying on the evolution. Since the
Divine Himself was on the earth carrying on the evolution, what was the
necessity for the coming down of the Avatars who are portions of Himself?
A: The Avatar is necessary when a
special work is to be done and in crises of the evolution. The Avatar is a
special manifestation while for the rest of the time it is the Divine working
within the ordinary human limits as a Vibhuti.
[25-9-1935—25-7-1936, p. 448]
Q: If you were on the earth all the
time it would mean that you were here when those great beings descended.
Whatever your external cloak, how could you hide your inner self—the true
divinity—from them? It could not have mattered whether you and any of them were
born in the same country or not. They ought to have discovered by their own
higher light that the Divine Consciousness from which they had descended was
already here in a physical form.
A: But why can't the inner self be
hidden from all in such lives? Your reasoning would only have some force if the
presence on earth then were as the Avatar but not if it was only as a Vibhuti.
[p. 446]
Q: You have asked, "Presence
where and in whom?" Why have you put those question-words? What exactly is
conveyed by them?
A: ...It is "presence" in
or behind some body and behind some outer personality. Also
"presence" in what part of the world? If the Mother were in
[p. 446]
Q: I did not mean that you or the
Mother needed to cast off your veil. It is those Great Men who should have
recognised you in spite of the veil.
A: One can be a great man without
knowing such things as that. Great Men or even great Vibhutis need not be
omniscient or know things which it was not useful for them to know.
[p. 446]
Q: You said, "But why can't
the inner self be hidden Leaders of Evolution from all in such lives?" I
fail to understand how anyone could hide one's inner self from Avatars and
Vibhutis.
A: An Avatar or Vibhuti have the
knowledge that is necessary for their work, they need not have more. There was
absolutely no reason why Buddha should know what was going on in
[p. 446-7]
Q: Still I can't understand one
thing: even though you did not cast off your veil, how could people like Buddha
or Christ not help casting off their veil (of ignorance) in order to recognise
you?
A: Why should they? The veil was
there necessary for their work. Why should it be thrown off? So if the Mother
was present in the life of Christ, she was there not as the Divine Manifestation
but as one altogether human. For her to be recognised as the Divine would have
created a tremendous disorder and frustrated the work Christ came to do by
breaking its proper limits.
[p. 447]
The Mystery of Incarnation
Q: The Mother has written: "In
our daily practices we are endeavouring to express the great mystery of Divine
Incarnation." What does it mean?
A: It means that we act as we do
because we take it as a fact that the Divine can manifest and is manifested in
human body.
[p. 448]
The Burden of Humanity
We have had sufferings and
struggles to which yours is a mere child's play; I have not made our cases
equal to yours. I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way
for humanity to a higher consciousness—if nobody can follow the Way, then
either our conception of the thing, which is also that of Christ and Krishna
and Buddha also, is all wrong or the whole life and action of the Avatar is
quite futile. X seems to say that there is no way and no possibility of
following, that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are unreal and all
humbug,—there is no possibility of struggle for one who represents the Divine.
Such a conception makes nonsense of the whole idea of Avatarhood; there is then
no reason in it, no necessity in it, no meaning in it. The Divine being
all-powerful can lift people up without bothering to come down on earth. It is
only if it is a part of the world-arrangement that he should take upon himself
the burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatarhood has any meaning.
[7-3-1935, p. 463]
You say that this way is too
difficult for you or the likes of you and it is only "Avatars" like
myself or the Mother that can do it. That is a strange misconception; for it
is, on the contrary, the easiest and simplest and most direct way and anyone
can do it, if he makes his mind and vital quiet, even those who have a tenth of
your capacity can do it. It is the other way of tension and strain and hard
endeavour that is difficult and needs a great force of Tapasya. As for the
Mother and myself, we have had to try all ways, follow all methods, to surmount
mountains of difficulties, a far heavier burden to bear than you or anybody
else in the Ashram or outside, far more difficult conditions, battles to fight,
wounds to endure, ways to cleave through impenetrable morass and desert and
forest, hostile masses to conquer—a work such as, I am certain, none else had
to do before us. For the Leader of the Way in a work like ours has not only to
bring down and represent and embody the Divine, but to represent too the
ascending element in humanity and to bear the burden of humanity to the full
and experience, not in a mere play or Lila but in grim earnest, all the
obstruction, difficulty, opposition, baffled and hampered and only slowly
victorious labour which are possible on the Path. But it is not necessary nor
tolerable that all that should be repeated over again to the full in the
experience of others. It is because we have the complete experience that we can
show a straighter and easier road to others—if they will only consent to take
it. It is because of our experience won at a tremendous price that we can urge
upon you and others, "Take the psychic attitude; follow the straight
sunlit path, with the Divine openly or secretly upbearing you—if secretly, he
will yet show himself in good time,—do not insist on the hard, hampered,
roundabout and difficult journey."
[5-5-1932, pp. 463-64]
I don't know about Avatars.
Practically what I know is that I had not all the powers necessary when I
started, I had to develop them by Yoga, at least many of them which were not
in existence in me when I began, and those which were I had to train to a
higher degree. My own idea of the matter is that the Avatar's life and actions
are not miracles. If they were, his existence would be perfectly useless, a
mere superfluous freak of Nature. He accepts the terrestrial conditions, he
uses means, he shows the way to humanity as well as helps it. Otherwise what is
the use of him and why is he here?
I was not always in the Overmind,
if you please. I had to climb there from the mental and vital level.
[13-2-1935, p. 149]
Let me remind you of what I wrote
about the Avatar. 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.
[13-2-1935, pp. 149-50]
Let me make it clear that in all I
wrote I was not writing to prove that I am an Avatar! You are busy in your
reasonings with the personal question, I am busy 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.
[8-3-1935, p. 150]
…of course, anyone who wants to
change earth-nature must first accept it in order to change it. To quote from
an unpublished poem [ξ] of my own:
He who would bring
the heavens here,
Must descend himself
into clay
And the burden of
earthly nature bear
And tread the
dolorous way.
[25-8-1935, p. 153]
[ξ] A God's Labour subsequently published in Poems Past and Present. See Collected Poems (Centenary
Edition, 1972), p. 99.