The Avatar final with Gupta Ji on 22.01.2013.pmd

Transcription

1
THE AVATAR – SRI AUROBINDO
or
... SAMBHAWAMI YUGE-YUGE
Sambhawami Yuge-Yuge
2
3
THE AVATAR – SRI AUROBINDO
or
... SAMBHAWAMI YUGE-YUGE
Dwarika Prasad Gupta
Foreword
By
Georges Van Vrekhem
Introduction
By
Dr. Alok Pandey
SRI AUROBINDO SOCIETY
RAJASTHAN STATE COMMITTEE
JAIPUR
4
First Edition: 2012
© Dwarika Prasad Gupta
Published by: Sri Aurobindo Society
Rajasthan State Committee
Jaipur, Rajasthan
Price : Rs. 300/-
Our acknowledgement to Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust,
Pondicherry for permission to use extracts from the Works
of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Type set & Cover design: Hemlata Subodh
Printed at : Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Puducherry
Printed in India
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Contents
Acknowledgement
...
8
Foreword by Georges Van Vrekhem
...
9
Preface
...
11
Introduction by Dr. Alok Pandey
...
17
...
25
...
49
3. The Avatar of the Gita
...
69
4. Early Avatars
... 117
5. Buddha Avatar
... 150
6. Kalki: The Avatar — Sri Aurobindo
... 161
7. The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo
... 247
8. The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo
... 289
Conclusion
... 345
Chapters
1. The Wonder that was India
2. What is Avatar ?
What is the Purpose and Work of an Avatar
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Acknowledgement
First of all, I owe my deep gratitude to Amal Kiran (K.D.
Sethna), a legendary figure in the annals of Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, who endorsed my views on Avatarhood of Sri
Aurobindo identifying him with Kalki, the last of the ten
Avatars of Hindu mythology, that form the basis of this book.
I also express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Alok Pandey, who
kindly wrote the Introduction of this book. I am equally
indebted to Georges Van Vrekhem from Auroville, the
distinguished author of the internationally famous book
'Beyond Man' for writing the Foreword confirming my faith
in the dual Avatarhood of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother,
the Two-in-One.
Further, I owe my immense and deep gratitude to Shri
Amod Kumar, the Chairman of the Rajasthan State Committee of Sri Aurobindo Society as also Shri Lakshmi Narayan
for their magnanimous help, guidance and yeoman's service, but for that this book would have never seen the light
of day . I am also grateful to Ashalata Dash for her kind
help to establish contact with Amal Kiran for his blessings
and a message to "let it circulate more and more."
I am obliged to my children Bhagawat and Vinita for
their affectionate persuasion as also for creating necessary
conditions enabling me to attempt this work. I can't forget
to thank Mrs. Chetna Verma for taking pains to improve
the language of the text by her editorial touch. Lastly, I
express my sincere thanks to Hemlata and Subodh for
painstakingly and patiently doing the typesetting and cover
design inspite of many revisions and sometimes even slow
pace from my side.
Author
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Foreword
The followers of Sri Aurobindo consider him to have been
an Avatar, and many of them accept the Mother as an
incarnation of Mahashakti, the Great Mother. This raises
the question: If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were Avatars,
or an Avatar, what or which Avatars or Avatar were they?
Strange to say, more than sixty years after Sri Aurobindo
left his body this question has remained unanswered.
There can be no doubt that Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother — the Two-in-One — were the Kalki Avatar. The
crucial importance of their mission and realisation for the
evolution in general and humanity in particular, to progress
from the lower to the higher hemisphere of existence, and
thereby to lay the foundations of the supramental world in
Matter, is the typical task of Shri Kalki.
Two elements have prevented from seeing or accepting
this. The first is the description of the Kalki Avatar in the
Puranas, when even the concept of Supermind was
unknown. The second element is that the supramental
being will be without or beyond the difference of the
genders, which in the present evolutionary context
necessitated the Avatar of the Supermind still to consist of
an apparently male and female being, but intimately united
in the Two-in-One.
Having come to this rather evident conclusion and
having made it public, I was glad to find support for it
from an authority like Amal Kiran, a.k.a K.D. Sethna. In
one of his books he had already mooted the opinion that
Sri Aurobindo was the Kalki Avatar. On a letter in which
Dwarika Prasad Gupta summarised the arguments
elaborated in the present book, Amal Kiran wrote in the
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year 2000: "You are quite right", and "Sri Aurobindo is
definitely Kalki, the last all-fulfilling human Avatar",
signing both statements with his name. (He wrote "human"
because, once the work intended by Shri Kalki is
accomplished, a new kind of evolution, super-human, will
have started.)
I write these words for the book by D.P. Gupta with
pleasure because it will contribute to a better appreciation
of the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, and of their
real Identity.
Georges Van Vrekhem
(The author of the famous book 'Beyond Man')1
12.02.2012
Auroville- 605101, Tamilnadu, India
1. Georges Van Vrekhem, a Belgian Fleming, has been living in
Auroville since 1978. His seminal book Beyond Man – The Life and
Works of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, widely appreciated world
over, has meanwhile been published in six languages. He also wrote
The Mother – The Story of Her Life and Hitler and His God, a historical
study of background of the Hitler phenomenon and its relevance for
the work of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
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PREFACE
Sri Aurobindo is already widely known world over as a
multifaceted genius, an original new age evolutionistthinker and philosopher, the greatest seer and mystic of
the modern times, a prophetic poet with a futuristic style
and substance adding a new dimension of spiritual sense
to the modern continental Poetry and above all, an explorer
of a new plane of consciousness higher than the mind, the
Supramental. But having gone thoroughly through his
writings and revelations one feels that he is still something
greater, something much more. He bewilders and stuns
his rational readers by his sharp logical analysis leading
them through many lanes and corridors to a vast clearing
of synthesis, where all apparent opposites happily meet in
a harmonious unison and all rationality is inundated in
the sea of suprarationality. His extraordinary approach
even to the most trivial things, core-deep comprehension
of problems here in life and there after life, far-reaching
vision, his adventure into infinite consciousness, his
explanations into the secrets of Spirit and Matter, all these
are so much beyond the ordinary human compass that
these can be done only by some extraterrestrial being, by
some supernatural power, a divine power. The Mother,
who was his divine collaborator, was first to recognise and
declare him as an Avatar of the Supreme Divine in the
human mould, “a decisive action direct from the Supreme,”
followed later by their devotees and followers.
In the critical studies of Sri Aurobindo’s life and works
most authors have highlighted his sui generis intellectual
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acumen of a thinker and philosopher, poetic genius, his
aspect of seer and yogi and his vision of divine life on earth;
the aspect of his Avatarhood remains veiled or side-lined.
But the present work is meant to highlight his Avatarhood,
his Divine personality as the main aspect of his life; all other
aspects, spiritual or intellectual, are bound to accrue from
his divinity.
But if he is an Avatar, does he fall in line with the ten
Avatars as described by Hindu mythology? Or is he an
Ansha Avatar like Ramakrishna, Chaitanya or Christ? I
was keen to know. I therefore wrote to a senior sadhak
and leading spokesman of Sri Aurobindo, Shri Amal Kiran
(Shri K.D.Sethna) about a decade ago with a request to
kindly clarify and throw light on this. My letter is
reproduced here:
Shri Amal Kiran
Editor, ‘ The Mother India’
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Pondicherry
Sir,
You have been not only an associate of Sri Aurobindo
for a long time but also dived deep into his philosophy and
yoga and poetry under his guidance. You are the best
enlightened mind to kindly comment on my view and faith
as stated below:
Sri Aurobindo has explained quite at length the principle
of Avatarhood in his ‘Essays on the Gita,’ besides, in many
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of his letters written to his disciples on the topic. In the
light of these, I feel, he himself falls in line with the chain
of ten Avatars filling the gap of the last one — Kalki, on
the basis of the following main points:
1. Sri Aurobindo came to announce the next step in the
evolutionary process with exhaustive details of a new life
— the life divine, substantiating with his personal
experience. According to him this is what an Avatar
descends for.
2. A new Avatar comes at the time of an evolutionary
crisis when man’s all expressed energies give in and he
does not know where to go further. Sri Aurobindo also
has come on the earth, when she is on the brink of total
deluge.
3. Kalki is supposed to come in the end of ghor Kaliyuga or
dark age. This is the end of Kaliyuga according to prophesies
of many saints and Sri Aurobindo’s himself. He is very
much on time with us.
4. Kalki is supposed to come on a white horse which is a
figurative expression for purity. Sri Aurobindo has used
‘white’ word quite often in his epic Savitri and purity is
the buzz word of his Sadhana. The Supermind may stand
for the irresistable sword of Kalki.
5. Kalki means tomorrow. Sri Aurobindo too talks of the
next step in the evolution, the man of tomorrow.
6. The Kalki Avatar is the last in the chain of ten Avatars.
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But why last? Because the next superior being succeeding
the present man will be the superman, embodying the
divine mind and divine power in himself with the capacity
to manifest still higher powers of the Divine. The Superman
will be a moving god on the earth. Hence no need of another
Avatar. This scheme must have been envisaged by early
seers. That is why they did not see any Avatar after the
Kalki.
7. Kalki is supposed to destroy the Asuras for good. This
fits only in the scheme of the Integral yoga of Sri Aurobindo,
as he has come to transform them. The greatest Asura —
Death is transformed in Savitri. Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga is
meant to bring about, ultimately, the divine life upon earth,
without disease, old age and death, the tabernacles of
Asuras.
8. Besides, both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have given
indirect hints on several occasions of their avatarhood in
their writings and talks while replying direct questions of
disciples on this.
9. Sri Aurobindo’s symbol itself is self-explanatory: The
lotus in the centre, the symbol of an Avatar is none other
than ‘Aravind’ himself.
To me, no other spiritual figure fulfills the attributes of
Kalki except Sri Aurobindo. I shall be grateful if you kindly
enlighten me on the matter with your personal views.
13
With kind regards,
Affectionately
Dwarika Prasad
After reading my letter he wrote his kind remarks on
the letter itself which is given below:
You are quite right.
Amal
Sri Aurobindo is definitely
Kalki, the last all-fulfilling
Human Avatar.
Amal
I felt very happy and satisfied to read his wonderful remarks
and I wished, if some enlightened and worthy soul could
write exclusively on the aspect of Sri Aurobindo’s
Avatarhood, highlighting his Avataric works and great
tapasya, who, in the Mother’s words, “hast worked,
struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much”, ...
“who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all
for us,” and not a critical and intellectual study of his
humanity which he put on to come closer to us in order to
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chart out and show a new path to us, a new Dharma to
follow when we are totally at a loss and unable to escape
from our own self-created ruin.
The inspiring remarks of Shri Amal Kiran and loving
and insistent persuasion of my son Bhagawat to develop
my points into a larger frame-work, were the main source
of encouragement to attempt this work, which is still
nothing more than a babyish babbling. But in spite of all
that, without the Grace of the Mother and the Master and
their constant guidance, it was impossible for me to write
a single line about them, for neither I have had the art of
penmanship nor the genuine competence of language and
learning. I therefore with all my heart and head prostrate
to the Divine Master and the Divine Mother in gratitude
and offer this humble attempt to their divine lotus-feet.
04 April 2010
Dwarika Prasad
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Introduction
Sri Aurobindo’s multi-faceted genius has attracted and will
continue to attract many a scholar, philosopher and
thinker. Students of poetry and philosophy, history and
humanities, social sciences and psychology, education and
literature continue to find in his writings fresh inspiration
and penetrating insight into the complexities and
profundities of human life as well as a deeper
understanding of the world-march. Now where does one
find such a complete and comprehensive vision and
synthesis of human nature and world-nature? The breathtaking vision that unfolds through his writings that run
into 36 volumes of nearly 500 pages each is simply
stupendous. Not only in its sheer mass, but the style and
substance, the depth, the wideness, the range of subject
from the Vedas to the future poetry, the luminosity and
the sonority of his rhythmic speech capture and recreate
for the reader something of the first delight of creation,
like the primal sound and the first Word that stirs in the
heart of all existence. His writings are indeed of a mantric
nature.
But Sri Aurobindo is not only a seer of Truth and a
giver of Light to the world in all its aspects and movements,
the Jagadguru; He is also a dynamic force and action. He
was the prime mover of Indian Independence struggle, announcing the ideal of Purna Swaraj for the first time, laying down the lines of action as well as awakening the need
for an organized action towards the freedom struggle. Later,
he also put his Force completely behind the Allied Powers
against Germany and other Axis Powers in the second
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World War.
Finally, as the prophet of the Life Divine and the poet
of a Future Dawn, Savitri, he worked silently in
Pondicherry, his chosen seat of Tapasya, to prepare for
the ushering of a greater spiritual Age for earth and man.
Such an extraordinary and wonderful personality has
naturally attracted many a seeker and scholar alike. Much
has been written and will continue to be written on Sri
Aurobindo, — his life, his poetry, his role in the freedom
struggle, his views on a united India and a united world,
his vision of a future age and the Life Divine, his central
theme of an evolutionary transformation, his work as the
Guide and Master of the Integral Yoga and of course his
greatest gift to earth and men, — Savitri. Each of these is a
complex and fascinating subject whose study is richly rewarding though, given the very nature of the issues, not
an easy one. The themes are not only complex but many of
the Ideas that have been sown by Sri Aurobindo in the
human soil through the written word are rather new and
indicate a departure from the conventional lines of thought
to which the human mind has been so far accustomed,
and in which it finds itself comfortably or uneasily entrenched and cocooned.
But there is another approach that one can take,
another route, — direct, spontaneous, simple, — so to say,
cutting through all the complex layers of the mind and the
difficulties that “words” generate, one can go straight
through the heart. Then, with the luminous eye of “faith”
or the surer vision of the soul, we can see the Mystery of
Mysteries, — the Being or the Person who hides behind
the persona of a many-sided divinely human personality
19
Introduction
of the Avatara. The Gita, indeed calls it, the deepest or the
highest of secrets, — rahasyam hyetad uttamam1. It is a secret because the mind is baffled by the very thought and
conception of the Formless, the Infinite, the Eternal, the
Transcendent Absolute assuming a finite form and name,
descending into the ambiguous fields of Time, subjecting
himself to causality and conditions of the mysterious earthly
play. Yet, seen from another angle, is this not in a way
already a fact of creation? Is not creation itself an act of
the Divine limiting and concealing Himself behind the mask
of His myriad forces and millions of processes that work
out the perpetual phenomenal play. Nay, even nearer still,
are we, the struggling ego-bound individuals ourselves, not
a portion of the Eternal Divine, mamaivânsa, descended
here unhappy and sublime ? While all these can be valid
support for the conception of an Avatara, literally meaning the (Divine) Descent, the word has a still deeper sense
than the above-noted Vedantic conception. The Avatara
is a special descent, other than the general descent of the
Divine Consciousness into creation or in the individual Jiva
supporting his upward evolution. The human evolving towards his inherent, latent or potential divinity does not
become an Avatara when he so arrives at the fullness of
his destined spiritual evolution. He still is the Jivakoti, of
Sri Ramakrishna. But the Avatara does not need to evolve
for He is the Perfect One, the Divine Consciousness, yet
He descends into the play to carry on the burden of human evolution, setting before man the divinely human example, opening for earth the path towards the next great
evolutionary ascent, leading the march of mankind out of
a state of collective crisis through a hidden door now
1. ®ú½þºªÉ¨ÉÂ ½ÂþªÉäiÉnÂù =kÉ¨É¨ÉÂ
20
opened by Him, into a freer, larger, happier world and
Age. This is a collective work for earth and men. It is not
the great but temporary work of a spiritual Master in a
limited human circle, a work that ends with the lifetime of
the Master or the discontinuation of his spiritual lineage.
The Avatara is more of a spiritual legacy that the earth
inherits as a gift from the Divine. His is not an ignorant
bondage of the Jiva to the Prakriti, not even the conscious
return of a Jivanmukta, a spiritual Master who comes to
help; but a conscious embodiment, a deliberate act of taking up the burden of terrestrial nature. Even if not a single
being recognized the Avatara, He would still do the work
He comes to do. And when He departs from the field of
our muddy and limited vision, He leaves His fragrance in
the earth atmosphere, a seal and stamp of the Godhead
upon earthly life, a signature of hope, tathâstu, in the dim
heart of fallen things. Not only this, something of Him remains in the earth; as a Godhead presiding over the next
cycle of evolution that He comes to initiate; as a Force moving men and events towards the far-off foreseen event now
brought near by His divine touch; as a Presence and a Power
in the heart of an awakened humanity heeding to His call;
as a sacred Influence moulding all things to a diviner shape.
*
Blessed are they who hear the call and leap out of the
limited frames of life fixed in mechanical grooves of past
habit. The Avatara is the reconnoitrer and the forerunner
of the future. It needs great inner courage and faith to follow the call and walk in His footsteps along the path carved
out by His blazing life. It is not given to everyone to
21
Introduction
recognise the Divine Avatara behind the human embodiment, especially during the Avatara’s lifetime. First of all,
the Avatara keeps Himself hidden behind the veils, often
pushing men and events from within while looking human, even helpless at times, on the surface and outside.
Just as no amount of study of the waves can tell us the
depth and width of the ocean, so also no amount of analysis of the data of outer life can reveal to us the measure of
the Divinity that an Avatara consciously conceals, revealing only that much which is necessary for work. It is rather
the nature of His work that hints and suggests or points
towards the Avatara hidden in the human guise. This work,
as revealed to us in the Gita is a fourfold one, — to uplift
and restore Dharma out from the clutch and grip of
Adharma; to relieve, rescue and liberate the good; to destroy the forces of darkness, disorders and the doers of
evil deeds, and, finally, the establishment of a new and
divine way of being, the spirit of Time, Yuga-dharma.
Revealing the secret of the Avatara, the Mother and Sri
Aurobindo help us with their luminous words:
If you rise high enough, you find yourself at the heart of all
things. And what is manifest in this heart can manifest in all
things. That is the great secret, the secret of the divine incarnation in an individual form, because in the normal course of things
what manifests at the centre is realised in the external form
only with the awakening and the response of the will in the
individual form. Whereas if the central Will is represented constantly and permanently in an individual being, this individual
being can serve as an intermediary between this Will and all
beings, and will for them. Everything this individual being perceives and offers in his consciousness to the supreme Will is
22
answered as if it came from each individual being. And if for
any reason the individual elements have a more or less conscious and voluntary relation with that representative being,
their relation increases the efficacy, the effectiveness of the representative individual; and thus the supreme Action can act in
Matter in a much more concrete and permanent manner. That
is the reason for these descents of consciousness — which we
may describe as “polarised”, for they always come to earth
with a definite purpose and for a special realisation, with a mission — a mission which is decided upon, determined before the
incarnation. These are the great stages of the supreme incarnations on earth. 1
Who else but the Avatara can reveal to us with such
clarity and detail, this highest of secrets? Yet, so far no one
has attempted to bring out fully this aspect of Sri
Aurobindo. The reason is partly in a certain tendency of
the modern mind to shy away from issues and ideas that
may appear to the unchaste as simply a matter of personal
belief. But as we shall see through the pages of this book,
an Avatara is neither merely a matter of belief nor an intellectual conception. He is a spiritual and material fact like
our solid earth and the drifting universe. But partly the
reason for this reticence also lies in the fact that unlike many
modern New Age Gurus, the Mother and Sri Aurobindo
discouraged all propaganda that goes behind the making
of a religious cult or a spiritual sect. Yet, there is a third
position one can take that is neither sectarian or propagandist, nor a shying away from certain truths simply because they are too vast and profound to be grasped by the
crude physical mind of man. After all, the Gita does declare it boldly. And who can say that the Gita is merely a
1. CWM Vol. 10, p. 73-74
Introduction
23
religious scripture written for a select group of “Hindus”?
It is, like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bible, a universal
scripture meant for all. So too the doctrine of Avatarahood
is a truth that is universally applicable and men can surely
benefit from it. After all, stated simply, it means that the
Divine does not govern this world in absentia, seated above;
nor is He impervious and indifferent to our suffering and
pain. Rather He descends into the earthly play, and in its
critical and crucial moments assumes the burden and the
difficulty of the human race to steer it through the crisis
and lead it towards a greater and happier Age. We are, in
short, not abandoned. This gives a new hope and enthusiasm for the terrestrial task; a new ideal and example for
the world to follow. I am sure Shri Dwarika Prasad Gupta’s
efforts to bring out this side of Sri Aurobindo — the Supramental Avatara, will inspire many to take the lead and
follow the Divine example. It is a labour of love and an
offering of gratitude from the author of the book. But it is
written in a form suited to the modern intellect, thus satisfying both, — the head and the heart. Let us invoke the
spirit of Savitri to put its seal of sanction upon it.;
The Absolute, the Perfect, the Immune,
One who is in us as our secret self,
Our mask of imperfection has assumed,
He has made this tenement of flesh his own,
His image in the human measure cast
That to his divine measure we might rise;
Then in a figure of divinity
The Maker shall recast us and impose
A plan of godhead on the mortal’s mould
Lifting our finite minds to his infinite,
Touching the moment with eternity.
This transfiguration is earth’s due to heaven:
A mutual debt binds man to the Supreme:
His nature we must put on as he put ours;
We are sons of God and must be even as he:
His human portion, we must grow divine.
Our life is a paradox with God for key.1
21-02-2011
Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Pondicherry
1. Savitri CWSA 33: p.67
24
25
Chapter 1
The Wonder that was India
Our country — India — is one of the most ancient races of
the world. She has a distinct and a great civilization unique
in its character. She was, no doubt, under the shadow of
obscurity and oblivion for a brief span of time during which
not only she suffered at the hands of alien masters but also
she was badly misunderstood and criticized by many
Western critics. But the night has passed and a new dawn
shines on her countenance. Slowly and slowly she is
revealing herself to the world at large through those who
are living souls with subtle visions. A well known Western
scholar and writer on Tantric philosophy, Sir John
Woodroffe not only pooh-poohed and pulled his sleeves
against the European critics of the rich heritage of Indian
culture but gone farther to say that its destruction, as
threatened by the attack of European modernism, would
be the destruction of the whole mankind. Woodroffe’s was
one of the finest intellects of the Western world in his time
who recognised and admired the genius of India in myriad
aspects of life, viz. philosophy, religion, poetry, painting,
sculpture, astronomy, mathematics, Vedas, Upanishads,
Mahabharat and Ramayan. Her rise in his view was sine
qua non for the progress of the entire humanity. Along with
him stand a galaxy of finest minds of Europe like Julian
Huxlay, Romand Rolland, Sister Nivedita, Dr. Jyotirpriya,
Dr. Annie Besant, Madame Blavatsky and Col. Alcot
Andrews who are all charmed by the sweet fragrance of
Indian vision and knowledge of things and its depths and
subtleties, and the finest flowers of human culture like the
Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Ramayana and the
26
Mahabharata. Remarked Will Durant in his book on India
much before her independence :
“Nothing should more deeply shame the modern
student than the recency and inadequacy of his
acquaintance with India. Here is a vast peninsula of nearly
two million square miles, two-thirds as large as the United
States and twenty times the size of her master, Great
Britain, 32 crore souls, more than in all North and South
America combined or one-fifth of the population of the
earth, an impressive continuity of development and
civilization from Mohenjo-daro 2900 B.C. or earlier to
Gandhi, Raman and Tagore; faiths compassing every stage
from barbarous idolatry to the most subtle and spiritual
pantheism; philosophers playing a thousand variations on
one monistic theme from the Upanishads, eight centuries
before Christ to Shankara, eight centuries after him;
scientists developing astronomy three thousands years ago
and winning Nobel Prizes in our own time; a democratic
constitution of untraceable antiquity in the villages, and
wise and beneficent rulers like Ashoka and Akbar in the
capitals, minstrels singing great epics almost as old as
Homer, and poets holding world audiences today; artists
raising gigantic temples for Hindu Gods from Tibet to
Ceylon and from Combodia to Java, or carving perfect
palaces by the score for Moghal kings and queens — this is
India that patient scholarship is now opening up, like a
new intellectual continent to that Western mind which only
yesterday thought civilization an exclusively European
thing.”1
And now more than sixty years after the political
freedom, broken though, the dawn of Indian renaissance
yawns much clearer on the horizon of history. Its sublimity
and subtlety and rhythmic depths in arts, music, dance
1. The Story of Civilization, Vol.I, p.391
27
are contagiously charming the human psyche in every nook
and corner of the globe. There is a rousing curiosity to know
the Himalyan mystics and their secrets of Yoga and to hear
the songs of streams of Ganga and Sindhu. As if spell-bound
by a new wave, flocks and flocks of Westerners of all agegroups are thronging the hermitages and ashrams of Indian
saints and yogis in search of inner peace and the true
meaning of life and existence disenchanted by their blind
materialism and self-indulgence of life. And they have even
discovered a new sense and sweetness in names of Indian
people and places. “In no other country are the place names
so fascinating,” remarked an Italian, who could pronounce
with surprising accuracy ‘Bhubaneshwar,’ ‘Brindavan,’
‘Amritsar’, ‘Bhadrachalam’ and ‘Srinager’ to Manoj Das,
who refers to him in his editorial ‘On the tides of Time’ of
the Monthly ‘Heritage’ of May ’87.
The warmth in which Swami Vivekanand was received
by American people at Chicago and the way the
theosophical movement swept like wild fire the European
mind, we can say that a new psychic flame was born on
the dark desert of the West. The growing appetite for Indian
arts and antiques, Indian music and dance, and yoga and
spirituality are the testimonies of the puissance and power
of their urge.
The finest flowers of France - the Richards - a wellknown writer and poet - Paul Richard and Mirra Richard
who joined a great mystic Sri Aurobindo were more than
Indians and dedicated their lives to promote the spiritual
ideals of the land for human progress. Mirra Richard later
came to be known as co-founding guru and guide and the
adorable ‘Mother’ of Sri Aurobindo Ashram (at
Pondicherry, India) which served as a window for the
synthetic knowledge of ancient India to the continental
28
world. A great many seekers of the Western world have
since joined the Ashram fascinated by the spiritual ideals,
abandoning and denying the dominance of the rationalistic
and utilitarian culture of their land, finding its inadequacy
and impotence in search of real raison d'etre of their
existence on the earth. Pavitra and Satprem were among
those who by their personal examples have changed the
silhouette of thought-patterns of the social and intellectual
fabrics of the continental world.
An outstanding Scientist from the University of
California Dr. Fritjof Capra’s finding of parallels between
some of the fundamental aspects of modern Physics and
Indian mysticism in his book — Tao of Physics — are indeed
most striking. He is himself surprised to note that what is
known as the latest of the modern Physics today was
realised by the Indian Tantrics some ten thousand years ago.
What the modern Physicists are revealing as their striking
marvels now, were experienced by direct identification of
the ancient seers and expressed in mantras and symbols as
early as the first dawn of civilization beyond the gaze of
modern history. The dance of Siva, he reveals, is nothing
but the dancing universe — the ceaseless flow of energy
going through an infinite variety of patterns that melt into
one another. Similarly the theory of antiparticle was first
known to the Indian Tantric Yogis as the principle of Maya
dating back thousands of years in the prehistoric era.
Buddhists have conceived, says D. T. Suzuki, an object
as an event and not as a thing or substance. What Buddhists
have realised through their mystical experience of Nature
some 2500 years ago has now been discovered through the
experiments and mathematical theories of modern Science.
Brahma Sutra — a magnum opus of mystic experiences of
ancient rishis of India is now being referred as a reference
29
book for inventions and experiments in the field of modern
Physics by German scientists.
The Indian mysticism is resurrecting indeed. But this
wisdom is not the monopoly of India. It was the essence of
all ancient civilizations that sprang and flourished on earth
— the Chinese, the Japanese, the Greek, the Babylonian;
but whereas the life-streams of all others were parched,
the stream of Indian civilization is incessantly flowing with
ever fresh blood of living experiences of a train of seers
from its early dawn in the Vedic period until yesterday —
the time of Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Raman Maharshi
and Sri Aurobindo. It is the only living culture on the earth.
India was no doubt in stupor, in spiritual coma, for a
brief span and she hung between life and death with a
thin cord in the beginning of the century. When she was
facing a fatal blizzard — a tornado of European materialism
at the time, had warned Sri Aurobindo:
“India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but
not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the
clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save
her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose, — for
the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”2
India is still waging a cultural war as against the blind
materialism and the culture of utilitarian commerce.
“Either India will be rationalised”, expressed Sri Aurobindo
his apprehension with hope, “and industrialised out of all
recognition and she will be no longer India or else she will
be the leader in a new world-phase, aid by her example
and cultural infiltration the new tendencies of the West
and spiritualise the human race. That is the one radical
and poignant question at issue. Will the spiritual motive
which India represents prevail on Europe and create there
new forms congenial to the West, or will European
2. The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL 14:7
30
rationalism and commercialism put an end for ever to the
Indian type of culture?”3
The present crisis of the world, the threat to very survival
of the humanity is the gift of the prevalent rational culture
of the civilized world which had come with a promise to
sail our ship to the shore of a paradise. But, instead, it has
landed us on the brink of a holocaust. But still we cling to
the sinking ship. Although the political consciousness of
the world is not so far drawn to the potential of Indian
culture, yet there is a marked curiosity among the men,
women and children world over to know more and more
of Indian culture.
But what is Indian culture ? Indian culture is as vast as
the infinite sky, embracing in its bosom an endless
panorama of brilliant suns and moons, galaxies and
constellations and mysteries of Voids and Black Holes. It
comprises infinite ways to see and experience the Infinite
and its myriad manifestations, all contrary to one another.
It is most exciting and thrilling on one side and the most
baffling and stupefying to the intellect and the rational mind
on the other, which is duped by the masks veiling the Truth
behind.
India is the most ancient and unique land on earth and
her uniqueness lies mainly in her spirituality, God-love,
mysticism and the knowledge of the Spirit, the ultimate
truth of Existence. “India has been preeminently the land
of the Dharma and the Shastra. She searched for the inner
truth and law of each human or cosmic activity, its dharma;
that found, she laboured to cast into elaborate form and
detailed law of arrangement its application in fact and rule
of life. Her first period was luminous with the discovery of
the Spirit; her second completed the discovery of the
Dharma; her third elaborated into detail the first simpler
3. Ibid : 11
31
formulation of the Shastra; but none was exclusive, the three
elements are always present.4
Spirituality is indeed the master-key of the Indian mind;
the sense of the Infinite is native to it.
The richness of her spirituality also has a unique
character. Her knowledge was so vast and limitless and so
all-embracing that all kinds of creed, dogma, system, religion
flourished here without any conflict and found an amicable
place in her immensity from the dawn of her civilization
and culture.
Although her genius can be seen in many fields of life,
yet “Its real key-note is the tendency of spiritual realisation,
not cast at all into any white monotone, but many-faceted,
many-coloured, as supple in its adaptability as it is intense
in its highest pitches. The note of spirituality is dominant,
initial, constant, always recurrent; it is the support of all
the rest. The first age of India's greatness was a spiritual
age when she sought passionately for the truth of existence
through the intuitive mind and through an inner experience
and interpretation both of the psychic and the physical
existence. The stamp put on her by that beginning she has
never lost, but rather always enriched it with fresh spiritual
experience and discovery at each step of the national life.
Even in her hour of decline it was the one thing she could
never lose.”5
She followed no limited creed or a time-made or humanfounded religion or dharma in a limited sense. She followed
the eternal law – Sanatana Dharma, beyond Time and
Space. It is so antique, so ancient that history cannot trace
it. It was not founded by any individual prophet, messenger,
4. The Renaissance in India by Sri Aurobindo: CWSA 20:9-10
5. Ibid p.13
32
Avatar or Vibhuti, as if it was given by God himself, by the
Eternal, by the Infinite, true to all times; that is why it is
called the Eternal Law – the Sanatan Dharma. It is so
universal that it is applicable to any part of the world, any
civilization and culture. “Her traces are found in the sands
of Mesopotamia, her religions conquer China and Japan
and spread westward as far as Palestine and Alexandria,
and the figures of the Upanishads and the sayings of the
Buddhists are reechoed on the lips of Christ.”6
We find such a great and wonderful synthesis in her
spiritual knowledge that nothing can escape from the
comprehensive and integral scope of her spiritual
knowledge. She has followed the doctrine of Formless and
Impersonal Brahman, Nirakar, Nirgun on one hand and
worshipped the same Supreme Existence as the Personal
Divine, as the highest Being in the form of Shiva, Vishnu,
and the Divine Mother. There are Shaivites, Vaishnavites,
and Shaktas all living together without any friction or
contradiction. There are bhaktas of Rama, Krishna, Buddha
who are the Avatars of the highest Godhead, Vishnu. There
are Jnanis, there are Karmayogins, there are ascetics,
tapasvis, and what not; all of them follow their inner nature
to attain to their truth, the self of all selves according to
their disposition and nature and development of their being.
Gita says:
;s ;Fkk eka izi|Urs rkaLrFkSo HktkE;ge~ *
Eke oRekZuqorZUrs euq";k% ikFkZ loZ'k% **
;r% izo`fÙkHkwZrkuka ;su loZfena rre~ *
LodeZ.kk reH;P;Z flf/na foUnfr ekuo%7 **
I accept men to my love according to how they approach
6. Ibid p.8
7. Gita IV-11 & XVIII-46
33
me. He from whom all beings originate and by whom all this is
pervaded, by worshipping Him by his own work, a man attains
perfection.
All possible approaches, paths, methods and systems
to attain the highest truth of existence and life have
flourished on this land side by side without any difficulties.
Even the most mundane, the lowest human nature, which
is seemingly just opposite to the reality of Existence or the
truth of the Divine could be made a means and a dynamic
means to ascend the absolute height according to Tantra,
for according to Ishopanishad this manifestation, this world,
this universe, the creation is nothing but the Lord himself,
his own emanation, his own body, the expansion of the
Timeless in Time. The life here was such a great synthesis
that there was nothing left outside of it, according to the
Indian perception.
bZ'kkokL;fena lo± ;fRdap txR;ka VÉMÉiÉÂ
8
All this is for habitation by the Lord, whatsoever is individual
universe of movement in the universal motion.
It is for this reason that India has maintained
incomparable tolerance with the alien religions which were
not born on her soil, but came with the foreign invaders in
later times such as mainly Islam and Christianity which
too flourished here without any opposition or resistance.
The bedrocks of spiritual culture and knowledge of
ancient India were mainly the Vedas, the Upanishads,
Ramayana and Mahabharata. The four Vedas are: Rik,
Yajur, Sama and Atharva. The Rik Veda, first among them,
is a collection of hymns for use at sacrifices prevalent those
days, but at once hidden behind them was an esoteric sense
8. Ishopanishad : 1st sloka
34
of truth of Existence clothed in words and symbols.
According to Sri Aurobindo : “In its esoteric as well as its
exoteric significance, it is the Book of Works, of the inner
and outer sacrifice; it is the spirit's hymn of battle and victory
as it discovers and climbs to planes of thought and
experience inaccessible to the natural or animal man, man's
praise of the divine Light, Power and Grace at work in the
mortal.” 9
Upanishads, which are mainly eleven, as a whole, are
called Veda-anta or the end portion of the Vedas and are
the overt expressions of the mysterious and symbolic speech
of the Vedas, which was not within the comprehension of
non-initiates or the common men. Of all the Upanishads,
“Isha Upanishad is the gospel of a divine life in the world
and a statement of the conditions under which it is possible,
and the spirit of its living”, writes Sri Aurobindo in one of
the commentaries of Isha Upanishad. Sri Aurobindo had
a special interest in this Upanishad and commented on it a
number of times. This is the smallest Upanishad containing
only 18 verses on which Sri Aurobindo's commentaries run
into about six hundred pages. It is this Upanishad in which
he found the secret of the life divine on earth, which is the
main theme of his philosophy and because of this that he
towers over all the thinkers, philosophers and even Avatars.
These two spiritual texts highly rich in contents were
meant only for the advanced seekers and initiates, beyond
the reach of the general masses. But the two great epics –
Ramayana and Mahabharata “contain an early heroic story
and a transmutation of many primitive elements, their form
belongs to a period of highly developed intellectual, ethical
and social culture, is enriched with a body of mature thought
9. Sri Aurobindo "On the Veda" (1956) p.12
35
and uplifted by a ripe nobility and refined gravity of ethical
tone and therefore these poems are quite different from
primitive edda and saga and greater in breadth of view
and substance and height of motive – I do not speak now
of aesthetic quality and poetic perfection – than the Homeric
poems, while at the same time there is still an early breath,
a direct and straightforward vigour, a freshness and
greatness and pulse of life, a simplicity of strength and
beauty that makes of them quite another kind than the
elaborately constructed literary epics of Virgil or Milton,
Firdausi or Kalidasa….
“The work of these epics was to popularise high
philosophic and ethical idea and cultural practice; it was
to throw out prominently and with a seizing relief and effect
in a frame of great poetry and on a background of poetic
story and around significant personalities that became to
the people abiding national memories and representative
figures all that was best in the soul and thought or true to
the life or real to the creative imagination and ideal mind
or characteristic and illuminative of the social, ethical,
political and religious culture of India. All these things were
brought together and disposed with artistic power and a
telling effect in a poetic body given to traditions half
legendary, half historic but cherished henceforth as deepest
and most living truth and as a part of their religion by the
people. Thus framed the Mahabharata and Ramayana,
whether in the original Sanskrit or rewritten in the regional
tongues, brought to the masses by Kathakas, — rhapsodists,
reciters and exegetes, — became and remained one of the
chief instruments of popular education and culture,
moulded the thought, character, aesthetic and religious
36
mind of the people and gave even to the illiterate some
sufficient tincture of philosophy, ethics, social and political
ideas, aesthetic emotion, poetry, fiction and romance”.10
These two epics in fact became popular as
Dharmashastras, as holy books and the impact of these epics
on the mind of the people was so great that they have been
described as the Bible of the Indian People.
The stories of these two epics move round the two
legendary Divine heroes – Rama and Krishna who are
revered and worshipped as Avatars of the Supreme
Godhead – Vishnu, according to the Vishnu Purana.
Again, the concept of Avatarhood is another very
unique characteristic of Indian Culture. Through the
lives of Avatars, the light seeps down to the lowest stratum
of the collectivity in a very natural way, for, living ideals
and the practical guidance are available before the
humanity in the form of the life of Avatars, who come down
among us to show the right path. That is why the evolution
of collective consciousness has always gone up faster
through the descents of Avatars than through any other
means. Divine has been coming down among us to lead
the evolution as a protagonist, a precursor, a forerunner
whenever there was a crisis, major blockage or opposition
in the march of evolution of consciousness. Avatars come
down to our level to raise our consciousness to some degree
towards their own height.
Lord Krishna himself has declared this truth to Arjuna
when the battle of Kurukshetra was just to begin and
Arjuna, invaded by pity, a sense of sorrow and sin,
abandoned his weapons and refused to fight :
10. The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL 14:286
37
;nk;nkfg /keZL; XykfuHkZofr Hkkjr *
vH;qRFkkue/keZL; rnkRekua l`tkE;ge~ **
ifj=kk.kk; lk/kwuka fouk'kk; p nq"d`rke~ *
/keZ laLFkkiukFkkZ; laHkokfe ;qxs & ;qxs11 **
“Whenever there is a fading of the Dharma and the uprising
of unrighteousness, O Bharata, then I loose myself forth into
birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the
evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right, the Dharma, I am
born from age to age.”
But is the upholding of Dharma the only object of the
descent of the Avatar? Sri Aurobindo, who is himself the
supramental Avatar, goes deeper into the Rahasyam
Uttamam of the intent of Avatarhood and unveils a new
aspect of it :
"For there are two aspects of the divine birth; one is a
descent, the birth of God in humanity, the Godhead
manifesting itself in human form and nature, the eternal
Avatar; the other is an ascent, the birth of man into the
Godhead, man rising into the divine nature and
consciousness, madbhâvam âgatah; it is the being born anew
in a second birth of the soul. It is that new birth which
Avatarhood and the upholding of the Dharma are intended
to serve." 12
There have been many descents of the Supreme Being,
whenever there were crises in the evolution of earth's
consciousness, but according to our Shastras, mainly Vishnu
Purana, ten Avatars are supposed to be the main or popular
ones. We shall briefly take account of nine past Avatars
and focus on the Kalki Avatar – the Avatar of Tomorrow
11. Gita IV : 7-8
12. "Bhagawad Gita" edited by P.P. Khetan 1992: p.99
38
whom we have identified with Sri Aurobindo, the greatest
of all thinkers and yogis, the prophet of Life Divine on the
earth and the Master of a new comprehensive yoga – Purna
or Integral Yoga.
The story of Avatars begins from the beginnings of this
creation itself. The first Avatar of the Lord takes place in
the form of Matsya – a fish when he descended to save the
seed of life from a great deluge, a Mahapralaya. It should
be noted that life first springs in water out of inert matter
which is the first appearance of involved consciousness.
The second Avatar came down in the form of a tortoise –
the Kachchapa on whose base or back was placed the
Mandrachal mountain as a Mathani to churn the Ocean.
Who else can perform this feat except the Divine? The
tortoise can survive both in water as well as on land. The
third Avatar came down as a boar – the Varaha Avatar –
the first life to survive on land, independent of water and
the third step in the evolutionary process of life on earth.
The Lord as Varaha Avatar brought out the earth
submerged in the water after the Deluge. The next was
half animal-half man – the Narasimha Avatar who burst
out of a dead pillar and delivered his beloved bhakta Prahlad
from the clutches of his demon father Hiranya Kashyap.
The next in the series was a dwarf man not fully developed
– the Vamana Avatar “… the human portion of the
traditional sequence – the Divine incarnation in the
primitive human stage. Then Parasurama – Rama of the
axe, the Divine in the kinetic or vitalistic phase of humanity;
then Rama, son of Dasaratha, the Divine as the mental man,
the embodiment of Dharma, the perfect moral
consciousness,” who for the first time introduced and
39
established a culture of ideals in human psychological makeup and conduct. He was not only a sui generis warrior,
which was the need of the hour, but also an ideal son, an
ideal king, an ideal husband and lover, an ideal brother,
friend and what not. He was the first progenitor and
founder of a model society and kingdom – Ram Rajya —
textured with the warp and woof of love and harmony.
He is rightly called the Maryada Purushottama, pinnacle
of a high moral character. He brought down the Divine
light in the human mind and man began to think in terms
of a model man in every field in that higher light. For the
first time human mind was enlightened by the descent of
this Avatar. A great milestone in the march of evolutionary
progress of life was indeed achieved. It is noteworthy how
the Supreme Godhead is making a progressive series of
incarnations and gradually leading the evolution further
and further towards his self-fulfilment in Time. And again
Krishna, the Divine 'Overman' who brings down the Divine
light to the deeper region of man, the cavern of his heart.
He comes as the apostle of divine love and beauty and bliss
and charms everyone with his enchanting divine flute and
compels the human heart to wake up to divine emotion
and love and ananda. For the first time divine light enters
into the dark region of human heart and it begins to throb
with bhakhi for the Divine. Before Krishna's advent bhakti
was unknown to man and all divine knowledge was
attained till then by intuition or the discipline of Sankhya
or by tapas. The bliss of bhakti or devotion and love for the
Lord was unknown to the human heart. It was dark and
gloomy. It was untouched by the Divine light. For the first
time the common folks of humanity tasted the nectar of
40
bhakti through the love of gopis of Brindavan for Krishna.
And it reached its consummation through Arjuna – who
represents the intelligent humanity when he at last
surrenders himself to the Lord of Gita and accepts the secret
of secrets of bhakti uttered by the Lord himself :
eUeuk Hko en~HkDrks e|kth eka ueLdq# *
ekesoS";fl lR;a rs izfrtkus fiz;kssùfl es **
loZ /keZkUifjR;T; ekesda 'kj.ka ozt *
vga Rok loZikisH;ks eks{kf;";kfe ek 'kqp%13 **
Become My-minded, My lover and adorer, a sacrificer to
Me, bow thyself to Me; to Me thou shalt come, this is My pledge
and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me. Abandon all
Dharmas and take refuge in Me alone. I will deliver thee from
all sin and evil, do not grieve.
Bhakti gave a new dimension and a sweet and sublime
character to human life. This is how evolution marched on
towards greater and greater perfection. Divine light was
brought down to the mind by the descent of Rama Avatar.
And man's heart was illumined by the touch of divine love
and beauty of Krishna Avatar. But yet the all was not done,
all the intent of Nature and Spirit was not worked out.
With the development of mental faculty sprang a new
offshoot of intellect, which began to question everything,
reason out and rationalize all that was revealed by and
founded on intuition and faith through seers and sages of
Vedas and Upanishads. The first principle of Vedic
knowledge is Sat, Being, Pure Existence, Reality. This
creation has a fundamental reality, forever the same, eternal,
13. Gita XVIII : 65-66
41
changeless behind the constant flux of ever-changing
appearance. Everything may pass away but the changeless
THAT abides forever. This is the Vedic truth. There is a
faculty or a plane of consciousness which does not accept
any truth blindly, merely on faith or intuition unless it stands
to reason or logic. Scepticism too can be a means or an
instrument to reach the right knowledge, the truthknowledge. The age of reason had to come for the integral
perfection of the manifestation. Even this faculty must taste
the supreme bliss and ananda. Divine must pass through
this ordeal of scepticism of the Rationalist or there is no
Divine. Divine can deny himself to prove his existence. How
can anyone deny a thing unless it is there? Else there is
nothing to deny.
To do this formidable task, therefore, Lord comes down
as Buddha Avatar, who looked at things from the other
side of the Existence, from below, from the world's suffering,
a rational, analytical or scientific approach to things.
Whereas Vedic rishis experienced that Existence was born
of Delight and moved from delight to delight and culminates
in the Supreme Delight, for Buddha misery and sorrow
were the hall-marks of the creation. For Buddha there was
no God and no Vedas. He advised his followers to discover
and find out their own truth, not to depend on the
knowledge of the past, of purve pitarah. He found that man
suffered because of his own desire. So, he did a very severe
penance in order to find ways and means to eradicate desire
from man's consciousness, urged by a deep compassion for
the humanity. And he reached a region of permanent poise,
which was a great Nothing, a limitless Void or Nihil or
Asat free from all problems. This was too an aspect of the
42
Infinite, Nirgun Brahman, silent qualityless Eternal, NonBeing. Sri Aurobindo too experienced this void as described
in his great epic Savitri :
In that absolute stillness bare and formidable
There was glimpsed an all-negating Void Supreme
That claimed its mystic Nihil's sovereign right
To cancel Nature and deny the soul.
Even the nude sense of self grew pale and thin:
Impersonal, signless, featureless, void of forms
A blank pure consciousness had replaced the mind.14
Although Buddha opened a new gateway to get rid of
human suffering, disease and death by trekking through
an unchartered route of hard askesis of an ascetic life, it
was not in tune with the totality of life practised by Vedic
culture, for Buddhism idolized the monastic life, which
subsequently drew the best of the talents of the nation, the
cream, the able-bodied and able-minded to its ascetic fold
in the form of Bikkhus and the rest of the society was left
with ignorant folks comprised of women, sick and old men.
According to Sri Aurobindo this was a negative approach
to the Supreme and this imbalance will be set right by Kalki
by bringing the Transcendent's power and thereby setting
up a new earth order, a terrestrial heaven, the next goal of
manifestation, the consummation of the present cycle, which
is at once the intention and will of the Divine and the scheme
of the Nature.
It should be marked that Sri Aurobindo sets a greater
goal before the humanity, the goal of divine life on the earth
negating all suffering, even death, which is reflected in the
following lines:
14. Savitri, CWSA 34:545
43
O Sun-Word, thou shalt raise the earth-soul to Light
And bring down God into the lives of men;
Earth shall be my work-chamber and my house,
My garden of life to plant a seed divine.
When all thy work in human time is done
The mind of earth shall be a home of light,
The life of earth a tree growing towards heaven,
The body of earth a tabernacle of God.15
Although Buddha's path was world-negating, yet his
contribution of 'man's rationality and man's humanity' was
a great Avataric work which has not only unveiled a new
face of the Absolute, but also made the life of earth more
profound and more perfect, without which search of the
aspiring soul for the ultimate truth would have remained
incomplete.
The last fort of the Inconscient, the tabernacle of all
falsehood, our physical sheath was yet to be conquered,
the most formidable work of enlightening the fathomless
pit of darkness, the 'unlit temple of Night' that is our body,
was yet to be accomplished before the earth could claim
the heavenly light. Although the light has touched the mind,
although the light has seeped into the heart, yet nothing
has changed to the divine satisfaction. True, nothing is really
changed unless all is changed.
If we have a dispassionate look at the man's world, we
find it very distressing and disappointing and shocked to
see what a mess he has made of it. On the top of it with so
much of imperfection in his nature with which he has made
a hell of this world, he claims to be the crown of the
15. Ibid : 699
44
creation. He has at last virtually reached a colossal land's
end of his path, his great doom. From the animal stage to a
modern man, humanity, no doubt, has come a pretty long
way. He has mastered the outer Nature to a great extent,
measured the distance and size of stars, mapped out the
universe and fathomed the depth of oceans. Out of the
secrets of Nature he has fabricated innumerable objects for
his comfort, but his own soul is unknown to him.
Man was never so entangled in such an intricate
impasse before as today. At such a point of crisis has come
to his rescue not only a great Thinker and Kavi – who is
seer and creator at once in the Vedic sense, but also a
harbinger of a greater Force of Divine – rather the greatest
- the Supramental power which alone can deliver humanity
from the present entanglement. It is Sri Aurobindo who
has given us the vision of Life Divine, a new hope and also
a new Shastra of his Integral Yoga to realise this hope into
reality. It is he who tells us that man is only a transitional
being, not the last product of the Nature's factory. Man
has to excel himself and join hands with Nature in moulding
and transforming him into a super humanity in order to
survive or he must be ready to be extinct. He unfolds the
plan of Nature :
“The animal is a living laboratory in which Nature
has, it is said, worked out man. Man himself may well be
a thinking and living laboratory in whom and with whose
conscious co-operation she wills to work out the superman,
the god. Or shall we not say, rather, to manifest God? For if
evolution is the progressive manifestation by Nature of that
which slept or worked in her, involved, it is also the overt
realisation of that which she secretly is. We cannot, then,
45
bid her pause at a given stage of her evolution, nor have
we the right to condemn with the religionist as perverse
and presumptuous or with the rationalist as a disease or
hallucination any intention she may evince or effort she
may make to go beyond. If it be true that Spirit is involved
in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the
manifestation of the divine in himself and the realisation of
God within and without are the highest and most legitimate
aim possible to man upon earth”.16
We can aptly think that after the attainment of either
the Buddhistic Nirvana or the Nirvana of Upanishads –
the release or liberation of the soul from the bondage of
Nature which is promised by the Lord himself in Gita,17
what else is left to be attained, or what new has to be sought
after. We can jolly well bask in the sun-shine of the past
spiritual glories and realisation and follow the beaten tracks
of our forefathers, purve pitarah. But let us not forget, every
new Avatar comes with a new agenda, to set a higher goal
and scale a new height of consciousness, to lead the
humanity to the next milestone. Sri Aurobindo speaks of a
life divine on earth, supramentalisation of human species,
advent of a new race of superman either by transformation
of the present humanity or by direct descent of a new man.
Moksha is too early to rejoice. Let's listen to him :
“O soul, it is too early to rejoice !
Thou hast reached the boundless silence of the Self,
Thou hast leaped into a glad divine abyss;
But where hast thou thrown Self's mission and Self's
power?
On what dead bank on the Eternal's road?
One was within thee who was self and world,
16. The Life Divine CWSA 21, p. 6 17. +½Æþ i´ÉÉ ºÉ´ÉÇ {ÉÉ{Éä¨ªÉÉä ¨ÉÉäIÉÊªÉ¹ªÉÉÊ¨É ¨ÉÉ ¶ÉÖSÉ:
46
What hast thou done for his purpose in the stars?
Escape brings not the victory and the crown!
Something thou camest to do from the Unknown,
But nothing is finished and the world goes on
Because only half God's cosmic work is done.
Only the everlasting No has neared
And stared into thy eyes and killed thy heart:
But where is the Lover's everlasting Yes,
And immortality in the secret heart,
The voice that chants to the creator Fire,
The symbolled OM, the great assenting Word,
The bridge between the rapture and the calm,
The passion and the beauty of the Bride,
The chamber where the glorious enemies kiss,
The smile that saves, the golden peak of things?
That too is Truth at the mystic fount of Life.18
Sri Aurobindo clearly sets a very high goal of divine life on
earth which, he has already said is the next possibility in
man waiting to manifest and the hour is now.
About the Buddhistic Nirvana he has pointed out that it is
not the last word of God.
A high and blank negation is not all,
A huge extinction is not God's last word,
Life's ultimate sense, the close of being's course,
The meaning of this great mysterious world.19
In the progressive march of evolution Infinity will unfold
infinitely. Even the Vedantic Moksha is only the radiant
step towards the infinite manifestation in human time.
18. Savitri, CWSA 33:310-11
19. Ibid p.311
47
To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God's desire.20
According to Vishnu Purana and Bhavishya Purana,
the appearance of the last Avatar — Kalki — will take place
towards the end of Kaliyuga – the dark age when the world
will face the worst predicament and mankind will be just
about to collapse. He will then not only save humanity but
also usher in a new age, a golden age of a new cycle. Sri
Aurobindo appears before us in an hour of transition and
not only speaks to us to transcend ourselves into new
humanity — the humanity of tomorrow — but also he brings
down the mightiest power of the Supreme Lord — the
Supermind — which has the conqueror's sword — the
unfailing power of total transformation of mankind, the
transformation of mind, life and even the body. Thus we
find that Sri Aurobindo has not only a clear vision of a new
world surpassing the present one, but also has the necessary
force and will of the Supreme with him. He and his
executrix power whom we adore as the Mother, both are
already working out on the subtle physical plane the advent
of the new world, which is very clear in a message of the
Mother given a few years back when she was present
among us in her physical body :
The world is preparing for a big change. Will you help ?
This collaboration, our consent is a must on our part without
which work may be delayed or work may be risky. In case
of a critical surgery, a patient not only must give his consent,
but fully co-operate with the doctor and allow him do his
duty; else there is a danger to the patient's life. Similarly the
20. Ibid p.312
48
readiness to change ourselves is the necessary condition for our
transformation into a new being, a new species or a new race.
The Mother, Sri Aurobindo's collaborator and his
creative power, was first to identify him as the Supramental
Incarnation, the Avatar of the Supreme to have come down
to prepare the future humanity. After her, it is K.D.Sethna,
the only living21 centurian disciple and a great authoritative
spokesman of Sri Aurobindo's philosophy and yoga, who
identifies Kalki Avatar with Sri Aurobindo.
In the coming pages we shall try to establish the
Avatarhood of Sri Aurobindo as Kalki on the basis of
materials from his life and works, inner as well as outer,
which is the main purpose of this thesis. His many-faceted
genius has been already universally recognized, no doubt,
but yet he is too new and recent to be accepted as the
supreme Divine Avatar, especially by the intelligentia of
East or West, for, the rational temperament all over is the
same, albeit he is the champion and forerunner in every
field and the divinity behind his human mask gleams
brilliantly wherever he has shown his presence even for a
short while. His life and work have been covered by many
brilliant biographers but most of them have highlighted his
genius as of an extraordinary human personality only,
whereas first and foremost, he must be adored as an Avatar,
for he alone fulfils all the attributes of the Divine Incarnation
among the plethora of great leaders of men and nations in
the modern age. It is then only we shall have the devotion
and will to follow him in our thoughts, feelings and actions
and become like him: ¨Éx¨ÉxÉÉ ¦É´É ¦ÉnÂù ¦ÉHòÉä, which is the very
raison d'être of the descent of an Avatar, to uplift humanity
to his divine level and make the earth like his heaven.
21. Since deceased.
49
Chapter 2
What is Avatar ?
What is the purpose and work of an Avatar?
;nk ;nk fg /keZL; XykfuHkZofr Hkkjr *
vH;qRFkkue/keZL; rnkRekua l`tkE;ge~ **
ifj=kk.kk; lk/kwuka fouk'kk; p nq"Ñrke~ *
/keZ laLFkkiukFkkZ; lEHkokfe ;qxs ;qxs **
1
vukfnRokfUuxqZ.kRokRijekRek;eO;; % *
'kjhjLFkksùfi dkSUrs; u djksfr u fyI;rs **
2
Coercing my godhead I have come down
Here on the sordid earth,
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
Twixt the gates of death and birth.3
The word Avatar is commonly used in Indian parlance
and every native Indian, educated or not educated, every
peasant or labourer, rich or poor understands its meaning
and concept very clearly. The word Avatar literally means
coming down, descent of a higher power or consciousness
into a form or a body. The Avatar is a religious as well as
spiritual reality especially in Indian context, for, here there
is little difference between these two terms. India's religion
is Sanatan Dharma, an eternal law, not Hindu religion as
1. Gita IV-7/8
2. Ibid XIII-31
3. Collected Poems by Sri Aurobindo CWSA 2 : 534
50
understood in general, for, this word has no root in our
Indian scriptures and perhaps it was used by foreign
invaders to identify our land being associated with Indus
river in Punjab. In fact, India's religion is basically spiritual
and universal and very little credal and ritualistic, for, one
is free to link oneself with the Supreme Godhead with or
without any set religious belief, by following inner
disciplines. The popular concept of ten Avatars, which is
typically an Indian concept and reality, rather, made its
meaning still clearer and tangible to everyone, no matter
he/she hails from any part of this country and speaks any
tongue. The word Avatar is common to all languages of
India since it is originally derived from Sanskrit which is
the mother of all Indian languages.
The English equivalent 'Incarnation' is not the exact
substitute of Avatar, although it is often used in that sense,
for, it sometimes may not express the subtle shades and
connotations of Avatar. Only in Indian context the
Supreme Divine has been coming down and taking a body
from time to time to lead the evolution of terrestrial life on
the upward journey of progress; such supreme descents
are popularly known as Avatars. There have been many
such Avatars, important ones are twenty four, out of them
ten Avatars are main and popular ones for the present
evolutionary cycle. The final Avatar of these ten is known
as Kalki, meaning thereby the Avatar of tomorrow or the
Avatar of Kaliyuga, the Dark Age, the age of Ignorance,
that is the present age which we are passing through.
It is very surprising that these ten Avatars take account
of the creation right from its very beginnings for, the first
one was the Matsya Avatar in the form of a Fish which
51
What is Avatar ?
was also the first living creature in the creation. The second
was the Kachchhap Avatar in the form of a Tortoise which
can survive in water and on land as well, a more evolved
living being. The third was the Varaha Avatar in the form
of a Boar, capable to survive on land independent of water.
The fourth was Nrisimha Avatar in the form of half animalhalf man, a pre-stage of human existence. Then the
Vamana Avatar in the form of a Dwarf - not a fully
developed man; succeeding him was Parashurama Avatar
the violent axeman followed by Rama Avatar, quiet and
humble but the greatest warrior of his times and the role
model of highest standard of character in all possible human
relationships. The eighth one was the Krishna Avatar, the
great new Law-giver and reconciler, the Avatar of the Gita
and the Divine Superman. Then the Divine comes as an
Apostle of Non-violence and peace, the Buddha Avatar,
the Avatar of Absolute Silent Brahman. The final Avatar,
the Kalki comes between the end of Kaliyuga and the dawn
of the New Satyuga, the Golden Age as the Harbinger of a
terrestrial heaven, a new earth-order, who has been
identified with Sri Aurobindo, the Master of the Integral
Yoga and the visionary of Life Divine on earth, of whom
we shall discuss in length in the forthcoming pages.
The series of successive Avatars, one after the other,
and the parallel landmarks of evolutionary process in
Nature are so striking. This procession of Avatars, Sri
Aurobindo therefore calls a parable of Evolution.
52
What is Avatar ?
Then what is Avatar or Divine Incarnation? The
'Avatar' is a Sanskrit word which means “a descent, a
coming down of the Divine below the line which divides
the divine from the human world or status” 4, according
to Sri Aurobindo. He further simplifies it, “An incarnation
is the Divine consciousness and Being manifesting through
the body.”5
As we all know, our life is not a cake-walk. It is full of
strife and struggle. It is like a nightmare. It is a catastrophe.
It becomes further complicated and tangled when our
personal interests and selfish nature clash with those of
others. We become the prey to our own destructive nature
– hatred, jealousy, violence, ill will, killing and carnage.
Our petty individual clashes often end in demoniac world
wars. The constructive progress of man is marred by his
own destructive nature. Why does it happen? Why can't
we live in peace, love and harmony with our neighbours
and neighbouring cities and countries? And put all our
energy and dynamism to progress happily and rapidly in
all our faculties and fields? But we don't. This is our
problem. In the final analysis we find that we are helplessly
forced to act according to our ego, our surface nature, which
is not our true self or the true person. Here is the need of
someone who could guide us how to get rid of the slavery
to nature and become her master and how to live in love
and harmony with everyone around without any
impediment, and grow and progress smoothly and rapidly.
All theologies and religions accept that there is a supreme
reality above all our realities of the Life and the Universe.
4. Avatarhood (AIM) p.67
5. Ibid p.2
53
What is Avatar ?
That supreme reality is infinite, eternal and absolute. It is
that reality we call God, Allah or Brahman. It is self-existent,
self-aware and self-delighted.It is omniscient and
omnipresent and omnipotent. It is this supreme power that
has created or manifested this phenomenal universe and
the world in which we live. This power is at once
impersonal and also a personal Being.
The One, who has created us and this universe, the One
who has given us life and also its nature, only he will be
concerned with our problem, our predicament and its
solution. He then comes among us, lives like us, behaves
like us and takes upon Himself our pains and problems
and quietly suggests and solves those problems setting ideal
examples for us. Externally He appears as ordinary as we
are, but from behind the veil of ordinary personality there
gleams His divinity, its power and puissant nature. Him
we call the Avatar or the Vibhuti.
The following poem 'A God's Labour' by Sri Aurobindo
vividly depicts the work of an Avatar of the Immortal Spirit
descended into the mortal humanity:
Ignorant, labouring, human grown,
Twixt the gates of death and birth.
I have been digging deep and long
Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river's song,
A home for the deathless fire.
54
What is the difference between an Avatar and a Vibhuti?
Sri Aurobindo explains: “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”6. A Vibhuti is supposed to have some
power of the Divine which enables him to act with great
force in the world.
The Avatar manifests in humanity in the event of a great
crisis in the history when a great material change needs to
be effected and for which a great divine Force is needed;
but when only intellectual and practical changes or
modifications of the general consciousness are required, then
those can be brought about by certain exceptional
individuals, who are called Vibhutis.
But can we say that since the universe and all existence is
the manifestation of the Supreme Being as He is the only
existence as Vedanta says: Ishavasyamidam sarvam yatkincha
jagatyam jagat, every soul or every human being is a descent
of the infinite into finiteness of name and form? No, because
in the ordinary human birth consciousness is shrouded
partly or wholly by ignorance of self in the finite. It is not a
conscious birth of the Divine. It is the spark of the Divine,
the soul which descends into the nature and gradually
develops out of ignorance into self-knowledge. “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
6. Avatarhood (AIM) p.8
55
What is Avatar ?
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.” 7
In the Gita this is more directly expressed by Lord
Incarnate Sri Krishna himself when he says, “Whenever
there is the fading of Dharma and the uprising of
unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth
tadatmanam srijamyaham.”8 Therefore an Avatar is a direct
manifestation of the Supreme Godhead.
About the Avatar Sri Aurobindo elaborates more
precisely: “But when the divine Consciousness and Power
taking upon itself the human form and the human mode of
action, possesses it not only by powers and magnitudes, by
degrees and outward faces of itself but out of its eternal
self-knowledge, when the Unborn knows itself and acts in
the frame of the mental being and the appearance of birth,
that is the height of the conditioned manifestation; it is the
full and conscious descent of the Godhead, it is the
Avatara.” 9
An Avatar although is the direct manifestation of the
Supreme Godhead, the Infinite and Eternal, yet he reveals
only those powers and capacities that are needed at the
time he comes, according to the measure of crises of either
events or consciousness which necessitates the divine
intervention and also according to the capacity of the
moulds, so far evolved to receive and assimilate. He does
not come as a magician or conjurer to display his
supernatural feats of his divine glories. He comes as an
example of an ideal human, he even takes on human sorrow
and suffering to show how with fortitude one can bear it
7. Essays on the Gita CWSA 19:159 8. Ibid p.146 9. Ibid p.14
56
as also change the difficulty into opportunity for further
progress. Rama, Ramakrishna and Christ are the best
examples of this.
But how can the formless, the Infinite take the finite
form? How can the Timeless and Unborn be born in Time?
Is it possible? There is a school of thought which can raise
this doubt even in India. The modern rationalist in the West
will of course outright set aside this idea as a dogma or a
superstition. Even the Vedas do not foster the concept of
Saguna Brahman, or the Avatar of the personal God,
although the Upanishad and the Gita both agree that there
is nothing in the existence which is not the Divine or “Every
creature is the disguised Narayana.”10
bZ'oj% loZHkwrkuka äís'ksùtqZu fr"Bfr *
But the Gita in particular, which is closer to our life, for, it
deals with the practical problem of Man, the actual crisis
of within and without, in the life of an individual as well as
in the collectivity, in the nation, gives us such an authentic
knowledge which is appealing to both head and heart of
man. The greatest thing about the Gita is that its knowledge
is spoken directly by the Lord of the Universe, the Eternal
and the Unborn Lord Sri Krishna himself, not revealed or
heard or experienced by sages and seers living in the forests
far from the clamour and commotion of life.
And yet, among the followers of the Gita some sceptic minds
can claim that Gita itself contradicts the possibility of
physical Avatarhood when it declares that “In him, take
refuge in every way of thy being and by his grace thou
shalt come to the supreme peace and the eternal status.”11
10. Ibid p.151
57
What is Avatar ?
Here “In him” means “In the Lord, who is seated in the
heart of all existences (Ishwarah Sarvabhutanam). When
the Lord is already seated in every heart to lead and guide
the soul in the evolution, the external divine birth seems
redundant and may not be necessary. Sri Aurobindo, who
is himself an eternal Avatar in the modern times dispels
the doubt: “No doubt, too, the inner descent of the Godhead
to raise the human soul into himself is the main thing, — it
is the inner Christ, Krishna or Buddha that matters. But
just as the outer life is of immense importance for the inner
development, so the external Avatarhood is of no mean
importance for this great spiritual manifestation. The
consummation in the mental and physical symbol assists
the growth of the inner reality; afterwards the inner reality
expresses itself with greater power in a more perfect
symbolisation of itself through the outer life. Between these
two, spiritual reality and mental and physical expression,
acting and returning upon each other constantly the manifestation of the Divine in humanity has elected to move always
in the cycles of its concealment and its revelation.” 12
Sri Aurobindo himself raises this question in the Essays
on the Gita and answers it too: “This secret working of the
Lord hidden in the heart from the egoistic nature–
consciousness through which he works, is God's universal
method with creatures. Why then should we suppose that
in any form he comes forward into the frontal, the
phenomenal consciousness for a more direct and
consciously divine action? Obviously, if at all, then to break
the veil between himself and humanity which man limited
in his own nature could never lift.” 13
The Gita is in many ways the most unique and reliable
11. Ibid p.541
12. Ibid p.167
13. Ibid pp.153-154
58
book of knowledge and spiritual reality. First, this is the
only knowledge which comes directly from the mouth of
the Lord, Second, it is not a result of askesis or spiritual
sadhana practised in a peaceful hermitage away from the
struggles and tumult of life, rather it comes out in a natural
way out of a peculiar and dreadful circumstance in the life
of a great hero of his times, in a monstrous battlefield unlike
other spiritual treasures. Third, it is not an independent
work by itself but only an episode in a great ancient and
immortal epic history – Mahabharata. Fourth, it is a timeless and eternal cosmic drama enacted in Time by two
cosmic players Nara and Narayana. And last but not the
least, it is a great synthesis of all knowledge of yoga and a
summation of all previous scriptures, in a nutshell and its
message is applicable in all ages and countries. Therefore,
the Gita is the self-evident document of Avatarhood and if
the Gita confirms the Divine example, then there should
not be any scope of scepticism or doubt about it.
Purpose And Work Of An Avatar
Then what is the purpose of an Avatar? And what is
the work of an Avatar? The purpose and work of an Avatar
are symbolically cited in general by the Avatar of the Gita
himself:
Ikfj=kk.kk; lk/kwuka fouk'kk; p nq"Ñrke~ *
/keZ laLFkkiukFkkZ; laHkokfe ;qxs&;qxs 14 **
The Avatar in the Gita says that whenever there is fading
of Dharma and uprising of unrighteousness, He, the Lord
of the universe, the Supreme Godhead incarnates in a
14. Gita IV-8
59
What is Avatar ?
human body to restore the Dharma, to deliver the good
and destroy the wicked. The unrighteousness and injustice
of the wicked Kauravas, of course, had become so
unbearable for the good-natured and truthful Pandavas
that Divine was compelled to take a human body to set
right the imbalance. The same principle was applicable
when the Lord comes as Rama to destroy unrighteous
Ravana and protect the good and holy men, the seekers,
the saints and sages. This is the general purpose of Divine
descent and the work of Avatar which mainly refers to the
outward action. These outward actions indicate that those
were the times of crisis and it was beyond the capacity of
men to control the situation by themselves. On such
occasions the Divine descends as an Avatar with his
necessary divine power to face the crisis. But is it all for
which the Avatar takes the Divine birth? If it is that much
then Buddha and Christ should be out of the ambit of an
Avatar for they did not destroy the evil doers and deliver
the good and the pious. Instead they brought to all a new
message and concept of higher and purer mode of living,
points out Sri Aurobindo.
It will not be inapt to remind the readers that Sri
Aurobindo had totally identified himself with Sri Krishna
of the Gita, became one with him and his consciousness,
“who is the transcendent Godhead, Paramatma,
Parabrahman, Purushottama, the Cosmic Deity, the Master
of the Universe, Vasudeva, who is all, the Immanent in the
heart of all creatures or the Godhead who was incarnate at
Brindavan and Dwaraka and Kurukshetra and who was
the guide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity.
60
All that is not to me something philosophical or mental but
a matter of daily and hourly realisation and intimate to the
stuff of my consciousness.”15
Not only this, we all know that Sri Aurobindo realised
in 1926 the Overmind or the Krishna-consciousness in his
physical also when a great spiritual impediment in the way
of supramental realisation was overcome.
It is because of this height of realisation he goes much
deeper than the previous scholarly interpreters to find out
the true kernel of the Gita's teachings hidden behind the
words as well as behind the outer events. He says that
Avatar does not come only to interfere in the outer events,
but he has a deeper purpose to serve. “Always we see in
the history of the divine incarnation the double work and
inevitably, because the Avatar takes up the workings of
God in human life, the way of the divine Will and Wisdom
in the world, and that always fulfils itself externally as well
as internally, by inner progress in the soul and by an outer
change in the life.
“The Avatar may descend as a great spiritual teacher
and saviour, the Christ, the Buddha, but always his work
leads, after he has finished his earthly manifestation, to a
profound and powerful change not only in the ethical, but
in the social and outward life and ideals of the race. He
may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of the
divine life, the divine personality and power in its
characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical
and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or
Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul
of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the
spiritual rebirth. ...
15. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, p.458
61
What is Avatar ?
“Avatarhood is a fact of divine life and consciousness which
may realise itself in an outward action, but must persist,
when that action is over and has done its work, in a spiritual
influence; or may realise itself in a spiritual influence and
teaching, but must then have its permanent effect, even
when the new religion or discipline is exhausted, in the
thought, temperament and outward life of mankind.”16
He could also see through the double purpose of the
divine birth in the human, an intrinsic object hidden behind
the outer action of the Avatar – ParitrDnDya sDdhunDm
vinDshDya cha dushkritDm, dharma sansthDpanDrthDya
sambhavDmi yugé-yugé – that is the birth of man out of the
Godhead, “man rising into the divine nature and
consciousness”, which is the kernel and the real object of
Avatarhood and yet as he rightly says, it can be missed by
cursory readers and the pedantic commentators as well.
“If there were not the rising of man into the Godhead to be
helped by the descent of God into humanity, Avatarhood
for the sake of the Dharma would be an otiose phenomenon,
since mere Right, mere justice or standards of virtue can
always be upheld by the divine omnipotence through its
ordinary means, by great men or great movements, by the
life and work of sages and kings and religious teachers,
without any actual incarnation. The Avatar comes as the
manifestation of the divine nature in the human nature,
the apocalypse of its Christhood, Krishnahood,
Buddhahood, in order that the human nature may, by
moulding its principle, thought, feeling, action, being on
the lines of that Christhood, Krishnahood, Buddhahood,
transfigure itself into the divine.The Law, the Dharma,
which the Avatar establishes, is given for that purpose
16. Essays on the Gita CWSA 19:170-171
62
chiefly; the Christ, Krishna, Buddha stands in its centre as
the gate, he makes through himself the way men shall
follow. That is why each Incarnation holds before men his
own example and declares of himself that he is the way
and the gate; he declares too the oneness of his humanity
with the divine being, declares that the Son of Man and the
Father above from whom he has descended are one, that
Krishna in the human body, mD nuIim tanum DIritam, and
the supreme Lord and Friend of all creatures are but two
revelations of the same divine Purushottama, revealed there
in his own being, revealed here in the type of humanity.”17
“The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above
this lower nature and to show what are the divine works,
free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of
the divine light, the divine power and the divine love. He
comes as the divine personality which shall fill the
consciousness of the human being and replace the limited
egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego
into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality.
He comes as the divine power and love which calls men to
itself so that they may take refuge in that and no longer in
the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their
human fear, wrath and passion and liberated from all this
unquiet and suffering may live in the calm and bliss of the
Divine.”18
The human nature is uplifted to the divine nature and
Man's soul gains full efflorescence into the divinity. As the
Gita says:
tUe deZ p es fnO;esoa ;ks osfÙk rÙor% *
R;DRok nsga iqutZUe uSfr ekesfr lksùtqZu **
17. Ibid pp. 148-149 18. Ibid pp. 175-176
63
What is Avatar ?
´ÉÒiÉ®úÉMÉ¦ÉªÉGòÉävÉÉ ¨Éx¨ÉªÉÉ ¨ÉÉ¨ÉÖ{ÉÉÊ¸ÉiÉÉ:*
¤É½þ´ÉÉä YÉÉxÉiÉ{ÉºÉÉ {ÉÚiÉÉ ¨ÉnÂù¦ÉÉ´É¨ÉÂ +ÉMÉiÉÉ:19**
Sri Aurobindo in his epic 'Savitri' also has expressed the
same spirit.
The Absolute, the Perfect, the Immune,
One who is in us as our secret self,
Our mask of imperfection has assumed,
He has made this tenement of flesh his own,
His image in the human measure cast
That to his divine measure we might rise,
Then in a figure of divinity
The Maker shall recast us and impose
A plan of godhead on the mortal's mould
Lifting our finite minds to his infinite,
Touching the moment with eternity.
His human portion, we must grow divine. 20
Even the Dharma which Sri Krishna wanted to establish
as an Avatar was not confined to the conventional meaning
behind the word. Sri Aurobindo, who had attained to
Krishna Consciousness, again reveals the enlarged and full
intent what was truly meant by restoration of Dharma.
“Dharma in the Indian conception”, says Sri Aurobindo,
“is not merely the good, the right, morality and justice,
19. Gita IV - 9-10
20. Savitri CWSA 33:67
64
ethics; it is the whole government of all the relations of man
with other beings, with Nature, with God, considered from
the point of view of a divine principle working itself out in
forms and laws of action, forms of the inner and the outer
life, orderings of relations of every kind in the world...
“... Dharma is all that helps us to grow into the divine purity,
largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love, good,
unity, beauty and against it stands its shadow and denial,
all that resists its growth and has not undergone its law, all
that has not yielded up and does not will to yield up its
secret of divine values, but presents a front of perversion
and contradiction, of impurity, narrowness, bondage,
darkness, weakness, vileness, discord and suffering and
division, and the hideous and the crude, all that man has
to leave behind in his progress. This is the adharma, not
dharma, which strives with and seeks to overcome the
dharma, to draw backward and downward, the
reactionary force which makes for evil, ignorance and
darkness. Between the two there is perpetual battle and
struggle, oscillation of victory and defeat in which
sometimes the upward and sometimes the downward forces
prevail. This has been typified in the Vedic image of the
struggle between the divine and the Titanic powers, the
sons of the Light and the undivided Infinity and the children
of the Darkness and Division, ....
“It is these things that condition and determine the work
of the Avatar.”21
As Sri Aurobindo says, there are three necessary
elements of the Avataric work, Dharma being the first of
them. The Avatar gives a new Dharma, a new law of selfdiscipline, a new rule of action which enables the follower
21. Essays on the Gita CWSA 19: 171-173
What is Avatar ?
65
to reveal the divine nature in his life. The second element is
companionship or union or the Sangha of those who are
united around the teaching of the Avatar. The last element
is the Avatar himself.
In the Gita the Avatar gives the new Dharma of triune
path, which sums up all previous teachings of scriptures
including the essence of Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas.
It is a great synthesis of Yoga of Works, Knowledge and
Love. Earlier to the Gita the path of works was limited to
the rites of Vedic Sacrifice and even that was not open to
all Varnas. But in the Gita the Sacrifice is widened and
universalised; all works, if offered selflessly to the Lord,
become sacred, a Sacrifice, Yajna to the Lord. It is no more
sectarian, it is catholic, applicable to all times and all men.
deZ.;sokf/kdkjLrs ek Qys"kq dnkpu A
ek deZQygsrqHkwZekZ rs laxksùLRodeZf.k AA
22
The works must be done as an offering, as a Sacrifice to
Lord without motive, without claiming its fruits and yet
there should be no slackness to activity.
;ksxLFk dq# dekZf.k laxa R;DRok /ku×t; A
fl)~;fl)~;ks% leks HkwRok leRoa ;ksx mP;rs AA
23
By works done without attachment, with perfect equality
with all beings, with all that we see and experience, we
become one with the Divine, for, the Divine too is equal to
all things and to all beings. The external Vedic rite is
replaced here by the inner oblation, our aspiration towards
22. Gita II - 47
23. Ibid II - 48
66
the source of its energies.
The Lord goes on saying that by doing works free from
attachment one can attain to perfection like King Janaka
and others. He even gives his own example saying that he
does not need to work in all the three worlds nor has he to
gain anything by works; yet he is engaged in works so that
people do not sink into inertia and destruction.
And then the seeker has to know that his true self is not
the actual doer, it is only the sakshi and anumanta, it is the
modes of Nature which do the works through the
instrumentality of his ego in every individual. Once one
experiences this truth, the soul is free from the sense of action
and hence from the bondage of works even while doing
the action. This is the true spirit of the path of the works.
And the sacrifice of works must be substantiated and
enlightened by the sacrifice of knowledge of God, the
Eternal, the Infinite who is one in all his several principles,
his innumerable visages, forces, forms, his million universal
faces everywhere, timelessly and in Time. And both the
sacrifices of works and knowledge must be fulfilled in the
sacrifice of devotion, the way of Bhakti, love and adoration
to the Lord: Whatever is offered with love and devotion,
'Patram, pushpam, phalam, toyam yo me bhaktyâ
prayachchhati' to the Lord, is acceptable to him. Not only
outer objects and activities but even our thoughts, feelings,
aspirations also can be made a means of sacrifice with love
and devotion to the Lord of the souls and the world.
“First, by the renunciation of desire”, sums up Sri
Aurobindo, “and a perfect equality works have to be done
as a sacrifice by man as the doer, a sacrifice to a diety who
is the supreme and only Self though by him not yet realised
67
What is Avatar ?
in his own being. This is the initial step. Secondly, not only
the desire of the fruit, but the claim to be the doer of works
has to be renounced in the realisation of the Self as the
equal, the inactive, the immutable principle and of all works
as simply the operation of universal Force, of the NatureSoul, Prakriti, the unequal, active, mutable power. Lastly
the supreme Self has to be seen as the supreme Purusha
governing this Prakriti, of whom the soul in Nature is a
partial manifestation, by whom all works are directed, in a
perfect transcendence, through Nature. To Him love and
adoration and the sacrifice of works have to be offered; the
whole being has to be surrendered to Him and the whole
consciousness raised up to dwell in this divine consciousness
so that the human soul may share in His divine
transcendence of Nature and of His works and act in a
perfect spiritual liberty.
“The first step is Karmayoga, the selfless sacrifice of
works, and here the Gita's insistence is on action. The
second is Jnanayoga, the self-realisation and knowledge of
the true nature of the self and the world; and here the
insistence is on knowledge; but the sacrifice of works
continues and the path of Works becomes one with but
does not disappear into the path of Knowledge. The last
step is Bhaktiyoga, adoration and seeking of the supreme
Self as the Divine Being, and here the insistence is on
devotion; but the knowledge is not subordinated, only
raised, vitalised and fulfilled, and still the sacrifice of works
continues; the double path becomes the triune way of
knowledge, works and devotion. And the fruit of the
sacrifice, the one fruit still placed before the seeker, is
attained, union with the divine Being and oneness with
68
the supreme divine Nature.”24
Here we see that the triune way, the Dharma placed by
the Avatar of the Gita, the Purushottama who is above His
creation, all the Purushas, Mutable and Immutable,
culminates in Bhakti Yoga the sacrifice of Love and
devotion. And the highest pinnacle of Bhakti Yoga is
reached in the supreme word, the secret of secrets when
the Lord reveals his last mantra of the highest attainment,
the most secret message of the Ishwara as follows :
eUeuk Hko en~HkDrks e|kth eke ueLdq# A
ekeSoS";fl lR;a rs izfrtkus fiz;ksùfl es AA
loZ /kekZUifjR;T; ekesda 'kj.k ozt A
vga Rok loZikisH;ks eks{kf;";kfe ek 'kqp% 25 AA
"Become My minded, devoted to Me, to Me do sacrifice
and adoration; infallibly, thou shalt come to Me, for dear
to Me art thou. Abandoning all laws of conduct seek refuge
in Me alone. I will release thee from all sin; do not grieve.”26
The second element of Avataric work is companionship,
the Sangha of Buddhism, the Bhaktas, the community of
followers, Arjunas. Here the Sangha is the whole humanity.
Lord is addressing this Dharma to the whole mankind, the
Arjuna of collective humanity.
The third element is the Avatar himself, here in the Gita who
is Sri Krishna, the embodiment of the supreme Lord,
Purushottama, Brahman, Sachchidananda, the Eternal, the
Infinite or the unknowable That of the Upanishads, who has
promised to come down in the times of crises in human progress
of evolution from age to age, sambhavami yuge - yuge.
24. Essays on the Gita CWSA 19: 37-38 25. Gita XVIII pp. 65-66
26. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, p. XXII
69
Chapter 3
The Avatar of the Gita
vtkss·fi lUuO;;kRek Hkwrkukeh'ojks·fi lu~ A
izÑfra Lokef/k"Bk; lEHkokE;kRe ek;;k AA 1
Among all the ten recognized and accepted Avatars,
we find only the Avatar of the Gita divulging the secret of
his Avatarhood, but albeit in the battlefield, in total secrecy
in a personal and private conversation with Arjuna. It was
perhaps because of very critical situation that the Avatar
was obliged to speak out the secret of secrets, that is, his
being the embodiment of the Supreme Godhead. Arjuna
was a close friend of the Avatar and also a close relation of
his. But he was not aware of Krishna's divine birth. This is
a great secret in fact and no Avatar reveals his divinity
even to his close friends and kins. He comes down on earth
incognito in a human birth and puts on the ignorant human
nature, so that he can live like a normal man, takes upon
himself the difficulties and problems and pains and
sufferings like any common man and presents the solution
to the riddle of life by his personal example, so that the
humanity through the example before it can rise to the status
of the Avatar. If Avatars disclose their identity, their lila
will be spoiled, for, humanity will tend to think that only
Avatars could achieve difficult things because of their being
Divine and it will not strive to rise above humanity, whereas
the Divine comes as man to lead him to his own height.
Dasharath did not know that his son Rama was an Avatar
of Vishnu, the Supreme Godhead. But Vasishtha and
1. Gita IV-6
70
Vishwamitra had fully known not only of his
Avatarhood, but also the mission for which he had to
come down. Seers and sages always had the knowledge of
the divine plan by their inner vision. If Sri Krishna were
not to disclose his divine identity and give his secret and
supreme knowledge of the Existence, its purpose, its goal
and how to attain it, Arjuna would have not fought the
battle, and subsequently the scenario would have been
totally different. The purpose of the Avatarhood would have
been vain and the Asuric Forces represented by Kauravas
would have had clean sweep in the battle. It is in this
circumstance that the Divine Avatar was obliged to reveal
his secret to Arjuna in order to persuade him to fight, for,
he was the chosen instrument for the mission of the Avatar
and also a Vibhuti, the eternal comrade of Purushottama,
Nara-Narayana. He had a mission to fulfil and so it had to
be done.
When we look at the chain of ten successive Avatars
more deeply, we find that they represent the natural and
gradual steps of evolution of consciousness in Nature.
Before Sri Krishna appears on the scene, humanity had
already learnt the lesson of ideals in the mind, the ideals of
sattvic mental culture had settled in the consciousness of
the masses, the earth nature had accepted it, the primitive
mind had been touched by the Light. But the heart, the
lower region, the region of vitality and kinetic energy was
still crude, full of darkness. We can say, mental faculty had
tasted the nectar of the divine Light and the Intelligence
begun to understand the meaning of life more clearly but
the general conduct was on decline, for the pattern of
behaviour, conduct and character is always decided by the
71
dictates of the vital, the faculty of the force, the life impulse
– hatred and jealousy, passion and desire inspite of
disapproval of the thinking ideal mind; it rather makes the
mind its accomplice in its decision and action. Thousands
of years had elapsed since the descent of Ram Avatar. It
was the time for the Light to come down in the dark region
of life and heart which must be enlightened and uplifted.
The Divine must come down to pull the evolution up. It
was the time for the next and new Avatar to bring down
new elements in the manifestation towards its
perfection.Asuric Forces were already gathering around to
halt the car of juggernaut of evolution. A massive
concentration of darkness opposing the Light was then at
Mathura. The Divine decided to burst up like a blaze of
light right in its citadel.
Human Birth of the Lord
The unborn Lord took the human birth as Sri Krishna
in the darkest hour of the midnight of Ashtami tithi of the
dark half of Bhadrapad symbolising the sovereignty of
Falsehood at its pinnacle. Sri Krishna not only demolished
all the fortifications of Kansa, the titan king of Mathura by
killing him, but also added a new element in the
manifestation – Bhakti, love and adoration to the Lord,
divine emotion which was missing as a natural trait in the
nature of humanity.
Sri Krishna was not only the embodiment of Divine
Knowledge and Power but also the idol of divine beauty
and charm, divine ananda and joy, and divine love and
adoration. There was such a magic spell in his divine beauty
that whosoever, men or women, young or old, human or
72
animal, saw him was captivated and fell in love with him.
His sweet nature and innocent traits further enslaved
everyone to him. His divine power and protective strength
compelled all around to surrender their heart and head
and all what they had and what they were. And above all
this, the divine music of his flute — who could escape from
the intoxication of the spell of divine love and ananda it
produced ! Brindavan lost its everything but gained its soul.
And thus Bhakti was born in the human heart and nature,
which was the prelude to the Yoga of the Gita, the triune
path, which again, was a new landmark in the march of
human evolution, as Sri Krishna would reveal later to
Arjuna in the battle-field of Kurukshetra.
Birth of Love and Bhakti
The Bal-lila of Sri Krishna in Brindavan created a new
wave of Indian religious tradition, rather hewed a new cult,
a new devotional religion, a new path to the Divine which
was easier and shortcut, for there was earlier only
meditation, arduous tapasya and puja and sacrifice to know
and realise the truth of God. It was a great milestone in the
course of evolution of the consciousness of humanity. It
may be noted that Bhakti was introduced to humanity
through the simple-hearted gopis and gopas of Brindavan
whose hearts were pure and transparent. As we grow in
our mind and intelligence, our heart gets veiled by ignorance
due to our divisive ego-sense and we become incapable to
feel and see the divinity in things and beings. But since
Bhakti was already injected in the earth-nature, thousands
of years before, we can now see it today efflorescing even
in the spiritual deserts of the West in the form of Krishna
73
Consciousness Movement. Love is the lever to raise up the
soul from the animality or half animal-half man stage. It is
the love which not only lifts us up from the lower level but
also widens us in the larger orbit. "Love is the greatest
gravitational power, bridges the gulf between Matter and
Consciousness, heals the dimensional divides between the
physical, cellular and psychological and in that healing
transforms the deterministic and fatalistic nature of egoistic
man." 2
Love binds and also liberates. Love is the ultimate Unity.
“Love is a passion”, says Sri Aurobindo, "and it seeks
for two things, eternity and intensity, and in the relation of
the Lover and Beloved the seeking for eternity and for
intensity is instictive and self-born. Love is a seeking for
mutual possession, and it is here that the demand for mutual
possession becomes absolute. Passing beyond desire of
possession which means a difference, it is a seeking for
oneness, and it is here that the idea of oneness, of two souls
merging into each other and becoming one finds the acme
of its longing and the utterness of its satisfaction. Love,
too, is a yearning for beauty, and it is here that the yearning
is eternally satisfied in the vision and the touch and the joy
of the All-beautiful. Love is a child and a seeker of Delight,
and it is here that it finds the highest possible ecstasy both
of the heart-consciousness and of every fibre of the being.
Moreover, this relation is that which as between human
being and human being, demands the most and, even while
reaching the greatest intensities, is still the least satisfied,
because only in the Divine can it find its real and its utter
satisfaction. Therefore it is here most that the turning of
human emotion Godwards finds its full meaning and
2. An Evolutionary Agenda for the third millennium p.68
74
discovers all the truth of which love is the human symbol,
all its essential instincts divinised, raised, satisfied in the
bliss from which our life was born and towards which by
oneness it returns in the Ananda of the divine existence
where love is absolute, eternal and unalloyed.”3
This was the first Avataric work of Sri Krishna that he
did while he was still a child as a darling friend of gopis
and gopas and all others young or old in Vraja, in his foster
mother's house, playing pranks, wandering with his
wonderous magic flute in his hand, through fields, groves
and plains charming the hearts of all. When he played his
flute, gopas forgot to tend their kine, gopis left their chores,
cattle stopped grazing, suckling calves left sucking milk,
birds no longer sang their own notes and even the ripples
of the river calmed down to listen to his music; such was
the spell of the magic of his flute. This was the Love, a new
Dharma, a new law for which he had descended, dharma
samsthâpanarthâya, and along with this he kept doing away
with all the host of evil-incarnates, Vinâshâya cha
dushkritam, sent by their Titan King Kansa to thwart the
divine work.
This divine love reached its acme when Krishna did
Raslila with the gopis, wherein each gopi found her own
Krishna, partaking of dance with her. This is the history no
doubt yet it is an allegory of a spiritual truth. Gopis are the
pure souls and Raslila is nothing but the festivity and delight
of the union of the human soul with the Supreme Divine
soul which is the goal of the birth of the human soul.
It is also said that rishis of yore who had attained
impersonal union with the Immutable but known not the
joy of union with the personal God were born as gopis of
3. Synthesis of Yoga CWSA 24: 569-570
75
Brindavan to experience the delight and bliss of union with
the Supreme Divine person. The Divine is infinite and has
infinite ways to express himself. It is a great mystery and
unsolvable maze for the mind and its reasoning. The Divine
can be known and experienced only by identity, by
becoming Divine, becoming Tat, Tadrupa or by Sâdrishya or
Sâyujya and not by mental analysis and reasoning.
The path of love or the path of emotional relationship,
the self-giving to the Divine is not found only in Indian
religion. Every religion has its esoteric or inner spiritual
discipline. When the call of the Lord comes, the awakened
human soul must leave all human relations to unite with
the Lord. “He that loveth father or mother more than me,
is not worthy of me; or he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me. ... And everyone that hath
forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters or father or mother
or wife or children or lands for my name's sake, shall receive
a hundred-fold and shall inherit everlasting life”, says Jesus
of Nazarath.4
So also we find Sufi mystics of Islam faith although
having deviated from the mainstream, follow the path of
lover and beloved relationship with their Allah, for, the
passionate seeker of God whose soul is pure, ripe and ready,
finds this path more as a shortcut because of its intensity
than the normal exoteric path of external rituals. The path
of love and bhakti has no fixed external rituals except the
burning passion of the heart to meet the Divine lover.
Having played the first act of his Avataric Lila and sown
the seed of love and devotion and adoration to the Divine
in the fecund soil of Vraja, Divine Krishna still in his teens
moved to Mathura where he played the second act of his
4. Matt. 10.37 & 19.29
76
divine drama, along with Balaram, where we do find him
not only as a mighty warrior but also the idol of a model
statecraft. He did away with Kansa and founded the
Kingdom of truth and righteousness, re-enthroning the
noble king Ugrasen, the father of Kansa under his care and
protection. To avenge the death of his son-in-law Jarasandh
attacked Mathura not once but seventeen times and was
each time repelled. When he attacked for the eighteenth
time Sri Krishna left Mathura and shifted to Dwaraka thus
ensuring the safety of thousands of the innocent lives on
both sides who were otherwise being killed everytime in
the fight just for the egoistic satisfaction of the Asura.
After the home was set right at Mathura, the Avatar's
gaze turned to the greater focal point where the great divine
battle, devâsur sangrâm between the devas and asuras was
to be waged on human ground and its war clouds were
already beginning to hover on the sky of Hastinapur empire,
where, on one side were Pandavas, human representatives
of Gods, the Truth, the Dharma, the good and the
righteousness, Divine values and virtues and, on the other
were Kauravas, incarnations of evils and falsehood and
unrighteousness who were bent upon eradicating all purity
and goodness, all truth and right from the land. There we
can see how the Avatar plays a model statesman and shows
a high standard of political acumen within the human
parameters, guarding always the Pandavas against the
cunning intrigues of the evil-minded Kauravas and leading
all of them towards the great finale, the consummation,
the epoch-making message of the Gita, which will serve as
the only Mantra of release and liberation later in Kaliyuga,
the last phase of the cycle which will follow thereafter.
77
Why will it be the only Mantra, because, first, this contains
the quintessence of all previous scriptures including Vedas,
Upanishads and Puranas summed up by the Lord himself
and secondly the men of Kaliyuga will lack the capacity,
force and tejas to restore and follow the lost ancient
Knowledge and Shastras.
It was not that he was waiting for the crucial hour of
the battle to give his message. He tried to mediate between
the opposing forces and did his best and demanded even
the minimum as the emissary of treaty on behalf of the
Pandavas, but the sons of Darkness were too blind and
heedless to the Divine's words.
At last approached the fateful hour of the appointed
event which will declare the end of one epoch and the dawn
of the next and the last in the cycle. It was the divine war
against the undivine forces led by the Divine himself, for, it
was he who held the reins of the war in his own hands as
the charioteer of Arjuna. Sri Krishna was openly on the
side of Pandavas, yet Duryodhana had the audacity to
approach Sri Krishna to help his side : Sri Krishna did not
disappoint him and offered his entire army to him.
Indeed, even the enemies of the Divine are instruments
of his work. But he himself will side with Arjuna although
he will not participate in the battle — this was his promise.
If he were to participate, who could have faced the Divine?
Were not all already dead and passed into the mouth of
Death as shown later to Arjuna in his Supreme divine form,
the Viswa rupa of his Supreme Cosmic Being?
;Fkk unhuka cg´ÉÉä%Ecqosxk% leqæesokfHkeq[kk æofUr A
rFkk rokeh ujyksdohjk% fo'kfUr oD=kk.;fHkfoToyfUr AA
78
;Fkk iznhIra Toyua iraxk% fo'kfUr uk'kk; le`)osxk% A
rFkSo uk'kk; fo'kfUr yksdLrokfi oD=kkf.k le`)osxk% AA
5
As the many torrents of rivers race towards the ocean, so
are these heroes of the world of men entering into Thy many
mouths of flame.
As the moths enter into the kindled flame with increasing
speed to perish, so are these people entering with increasing
speed into thy mouths to perish.
Arjuna was confident that his victory was assured for
yatah Krishnah tatah vijayah. But lo! As the moment Arjuna
saw Bhishma and Drona on the enemy side whom he was
supposed to kill for gaining victory and kingdom, he became
nervous and emotional. Must he kill his god-like revered
pitamah and his guru? His conscience, his judicious inner
being refused to undertake the terrible and monstrous and
cruel and inhuman task of killing his reverend elders and
his own kins just for material gain and comfort. He decided
not to participate in the battle and forgo his right to the
kingdom.
The Message of the Gita
Sri Krishna, the human Divine seized upon this
opportunity to give the world through Arjuna the immortal
message of the Gita, a new path of life, a new way of
integral living, a confluence of three currents, Love and
Karma and Knowledge, never before revealed or taught or
practised. In the name of Karma as kartavyam was the Vedic
rite, the sacrifice, ritual offering to the gods through Agni.
All other Karmas were bondage. To the path of Knowledge
Karma was an obstruction, a bondage, hence rejected and
5. Gita XI -28-29
79
renounced. Love, Beauty, Charm, Adoration, Self-giving
as a divine path were out of decency and decorum, outside
the boundaries of maryâda, propriety of conduct. So Bhakti
was nowhere, for Bhakti based its stand only on love and
beauty. But it was in the air, it had just been freshly brought
down to the earth of Vraja in the hearts of gopis of
Brindavan, in the hearts of Radha and Rukmini and
Satyabhama and other spouses of the Divine. Puja was
there, archana and prayers were there in our religious and
spiritual traditions, but Love and Beauty and Self-giving,
Surrender to the lover was yet foreign to the hitherto
established spiritual moulds.
The new Avatar always gives a new mould to
humanity, since evolution keeps marching ahead and old
moulds become obsolete, unable to contain new elements
needed to evolve further. The mould of ideals set by Rama
was no longer considered the highest ideal for the next
evolutionary step. Rama was advised to go for another
marriage after Sita was exiled as required for the completion
of Ashwamedha Yajna, but he refused as it was against
the ideal of the time. But Sri Krishna, the same Divine
Being gave another mould which could accommodate a
larger principle, a diviner element and a more sublime truth
of Love which pushed the evolution nearer to the divine
goal. Man has been given head and intelligence to enjoy
the Divine knowledge through its instrumentality, heart
and feeling to taste the Divine Bliss through love and beauty.
This was the last Avataric work that Krishna had to do at
this hour, for which he left his infinity and eternity and
consented to descend in the finite form and time, so that
the human soul could ascend his height and reach nearer
80
to the Divine perfection in all parts of his being — mind,
heart, life and body and become one with the Supreme in
all his movements — thinking, feeling, willing and acting.
This goal of Supreme Liberation was set to be presented to
the humanity through Arjuna, the human representative
of the Divine, Nara-Narayana by the Avatar of the Gita,
which demands total surrender of all the parts of the being
to the Supreme — ‘Let nothing of myself be left behind in our
union mystic and unutterable’.
Gita is a gospel of practical life. Life is to be faced by all
of us whether we face it with pleasure or with pain, with a
smile or with tears, but face we must. But better to master
it, be the master of life and not its slave. Nor should we
shirk or escape from it. Gita teaches us to become the master
of life, the lord of life. Therefore when Arjuna refuses to
fight and kill his revered elders like Bhishma Pitamah and
Dronacharya and other close relations just for the sake of
his enjoyment, Krishna persuades Arjuna to fight on many
grounds. First he suggests a practical solution. Arjuna must
fight because it is the dharma, swabhava, nature of the
fighting clan to fight at the hour of necessity, to protect the
good, the right, the just, to uphold the ideal of the Kshatriya,
to uphold the glorious tradition of the Aryan heroes,
shirking from which he will fall into blasphemy and
inglorious ditch, akirtikaram. Krishna first strives to evoke
his heroic spirit and gives him a sharp rebuke :
EÖòiÉºi´ÉÉ Eò¶¨É±ÉÊ¨ÉnÆù Ê´É¹É¨Éä ºÉ¨ÉÖ{ÉÎºlÉiÉ¨ÉÂ A
+xÉÉªÉÇVÉÖ¹]õ¨Éº´ÉMªÉÇ¨ÉÂ +EòÒÌiÉEò®ú¨ÉÂ +VÉÖxÇ É AA
Whence has come to thee this dejection, O Arjuna, in this hour
81
of difficulty and peril ? It is not cherished by Aryan men; it
leads neither to heaven nor to glory.6
C±Éè¤ªÉÆ ¨ÉÉ º¨É MÉ¨É: {ÉÉlÉÇ xÉèiÉiÉÂ i´ÉÊªÉ ={É{ÉtiÉä *
IÉÖpùÆ ¾þnùªÉnùÉ¤è ÉÇ±ªÉÆ iªÉCi´ÉÉ =ÊkÉ¹`ö {É®ÆúiÉ{É **
Yield not to impotence, O Partha; it is not worthy of thee. Shake
off this paltry faint heartedness and arise O Parantapa.7
But Arjuna is not like the pure and simple hearted gopis
and gopas that he will immediately accept Krishna’s words.
He is a prince with a sharp and intelligent mind welleducated and well brought-up in an ideal and rich Aryan
tradition and culture. He has already had some
preconceived notions and concepts of things. He knows
the significance of respect and honour given to elders and
gurus. But this is the truth of the old mould. There is a
higher truth and higher value which transcends and breaks
all the past moulds and values. In the march of evolution
we always have to pass over the old things and go ahead
and meet new ones. That is progress. Arjuna is not easily
convinced. He questions like a rational man. How can he
kill his own clan and kinsmen for his selfish motive? His
heart revolts, although in his mind he knows it will be
cowardice to run from the battle. He has knowledge of so
many things. He thinks something else and feels something
else. He is bewildered and unable to decide for himself what
exactly he must do. So he asks Krishna to guide and
enlighten him : Ê¶É¹ªÉºiÉä%½Æþ ¶ÉÉÊvÉ ¨ÉÉÆ i´ÉÉÆ |É{ÉzÉ¨ÉÂ “ I am thy disciple and
seek refuge in thee; enlighten me.” Then Krishna takes
another stand, a more subtle, appealing to his intelligence
and philosophical and sensitive mind. He says, an
7. Ibid : 17
82
enlightened one does not mourn either for the living or for
the dead, for it is the body which is dead, the soul is not
killed and remains the same and is born again and again
in a new body. The soul can neither be slain, nor burnt,
nor drowned nor evaporated. It is eternal and all pervadingnitya, sarvagatah, sanâtanah.8
xÉèxÉÆ ÊUôxnùÎxiÉ ¶ÉºjÉÉÊhÉ xÉèxÉÆ nù½þÊiÉ {ÉÉ´ÉEò: *
xÉ SÉèxÉÆ C±ÉänùªÉxiªÉÉ{ÉÉä xÉ ¶ÉÉä¹ÉªÉÊiÉ ¨ÉÉ¯ûiÉ: ** 9
Having answered thus to Arjuna’s fear and sin of killing
his own kinsmen for his own enjoyments — º´ÉVÉxÉÆ Ê½þ EòlÉÆ
½þi´ÉÉ ºÉÖÊJÉxÉ: ºªÉÉ¨É ¨ÉÉvÉ´É — Krishna comes back to his old
plea again, telling him to fight for right as a dharma of the
Kshatriya, for if he does not follow his dharma, the law of
his swabhava, then he will be commiting sin of negligence
of his natural duty. And if he fights as his duty —
Kartavyam Karma — he does not lose anything. Even if he
is killed in the battle he will get not only glorious death but
enjoy the heaven there; and if he is victorious, he will enjoy
the earth here; in either case he is not a loser.
But Arjuna’s grief and sorrow, his melancholy and
dejection is soul-deep. It is not merely emotional and mental
sorrow. It is much deeper and demands a deeper solution.
He is not a coward and weak. He is the greatest hero of his
time as also possesses an enlightened mind. He is not a
man to be moved so easily. He also has a sensitive and
loving heart. He represents the highest character and
nobility of the Aryan race which is known for might and
courage and fearlessness, but also for compassion, love and
tenderness. He was really touched to his deepest core for
8. Ibid p.27
9. Gita II - 23
83
the first time by imagining the horror of war and its
slaughter and massacre — a devil’s drama of heartless act.
The Divine knows it and he is himself not satisfied with
the solution he has given so far. Even if Arjuna is satisfied
at the moment and he fights with a stoic feeling of mental
equality, and later in the middle of the formidable fight
when he faces still harder realities of battle, crying and
moaning of wounded and dying people, dead bodies and
limbs of his dear and near ones besmeared with blood all
around, his heart would shrink again and sink in deeper
depression and that will be the worst condition. The Divine
therefore wanted to give a perfect solution to the problem
and that would be not less than the highest, the most perfect,
the spiritual solution.
Arjuna must fight with the highest knowledge of his
self and the self of all, he must know the complete truth of
his being and the beings of the universe. He must know
not only the secret of life and death in the manifest world,
but the secret of immortal and eternal life of the unmanifest
too. He must come up to his divine level. He must not fight
as the ego, but as the free soul — above the ego and his
lower nature as the instrument of God, nothing less than
this. That is why he begins to initiate him in the spiritual
solution; the Divine soul gives the divine answer to the
human soul Arjuna’s problem, which makes the whole of
Gita’s gospel.
Nishkama Karma
Arjuna is told that while fighting if he can rise above
the feeling of grief and happiness, loss and gain, winning
and losing the war, he would not incur sin. This is also
84
rising above the desire of fruits of action. One can be
engaged in action, action of duty, yet it can be done
without desiring for its fruits Nishkâma Karma.
Eò¨ÉÇhªÉä´ÉÉÊvÉEòÉ®úºiÉä ¨ÉÉ ¡ò±Éä¹ÉÖ EònùÉSÉxÉ
¨ÉÉ Eò¨ÉÇ¡ò±É½äþiÉÖ¦ÉÚ¨Ç ÉÉÇ iÉä ºÉÆMÉÉä%ºi´ÉEò¨ÉÇÊhÉ 10
Going still deeper, the Divine teacher reveals that the
soul- the dweller in the body — the true self is simply
witness, not the doer; action is done by the three modes of
Nature - the maya of Trigunamayee Prakriti - sattva, rajas
and tamas.
Having thus abandoned the fruit of the action and even
freed from the sense of oneself as the doer of work, one
should indulge in works in a state of union or Yoga with
the supreme Self, which ultimately makes us equal in failure
and success; for the Supreme Power is equal to all things
and by virtue of his equanimity it can act with an absolute
wisdom according to the truth of each thing and of every
creature.
ªÉÉäMÉºlÉ EÖò¯û Eò¨ÉÉÇÊhÉ ºÉÆMÉÆ iªÉCi´ÉÉ vÉxÉÆVÉªÉ *
ÊºÉrùªÉÊºÉrÂùªÉÉä: ºÉ¨ÉÉä ¦ÉÚi´ÉÉ ºÉ¨Éi´ÉÆ ªÉÉäMÉ =SªÉiÉä **
11
This is how the sages whose intelligence is united with
the Divine by doing nishkâma karma - renouncing the fruit
of action are liberated from the bondage of birth and attain
to peace of Brâhmi Sthiti, the great immersion of their souls
into the infinite Existence. Such great self-mastering sages
live in conscious and awakened state while all creatures
remain unconscious in the night of ignorance. And the
10. Gita II - 47
11. Ibid II - 48
85
ignorance in which all creatures are awake is darkness to
the sages who see.
ªÉÉ ÊxÉ¶ÉÉ ºÉ´ÉÇ¦ÉÚiÉÉxÉÉÆ iÉºªÉÉÆ VÉÉMÉÌiÉ ºÉÆªÉ¨ÉÒ *
ªÉºªÉÉÆ VÉÉOÉÊiÉ ¦ÉÚiÉÉÊxÉ ºÉÉ ÊxÉ¶ÉÉ {É¶ªÉiÉÉä ¨ÉÖxÉä: **
12
Now the Divine is giving a very deeper reason for
Arjuna to fight; the Yoga of works is here substantiated by
the Yoga of knowledge and intelligence.
Sri Krishna goes on explaining to Arjuna the importance
of works in the Yoga, although one could attain to the
Highest status by the Yoga of Intelligence alone. But works
are very essential in the journey of life and body which
cannot be effected without action. More over action is not
done by the true self but by the Nature. The true self is only
the witness and neutral, sâkshi and anumantâ; having
attained to that status the self or the soul is not involved in
the action of the Nature and becomes free from the sense
of doing of the action and thus free from the desire,
nishkâma even while doing action and enjoys the highest
spiritual delight. It is not the works or action that one should
abstain from, but from the attachment to the works and
fruits of the works.
If the works are offered to the Lord and if you do works
without being involved in them and affected by them
watching over the entire action as if done by the modes of
Nature, then you cease to be the doer and subsequently
you attain to the condition of actionlessness - Naishkarmya
- which is the true meaning of being actionless. You enjoy
the same peace and poise and serenity as that of a Jnani
and yet you do not run away from the action. And Sri
12. Gita II - 69
86
Krishna, emphasising the significance of action in life, says
that none can remain even for a moment without doing
work, for everyone is helplessly forced to do action by the
three qualities of Nature, because even the maintenance of
the physical life cannot be effected without action.
xÉ Ê½þ EòÎ¶SÉiÉÂ IÉhÉ¨ÉÊ{É VÉÉiÉÖ ÊiÉ¹`öÊiÉ +Eò¨ÉÇEòÞ iÉÂ *
EòÉªÉÇiÉä ½ÂþªÉ´É¶É: Eò¨ÉÇ ºÉ´ÉÇ: |ÉEÞòÊiÉVÉèMÉÖhÇ Éè: **
....
¶É®úÒ®úªÉÉjÉÉ%Ê{É SÉ iÉä xÉ |ÉÊºÉrÂùªÉänùEò¨ÉÇhÉ:13
Sri Aurobindo beautifully explains the Lord’s stand of
the attitude in works in the light of knowledge : “For
knowledge does not mean renunciation of works, it means
equality and non-attachment to desire and the objects of
sense; and it means the poise of the intelligent will in the
Soul free and high-uplifted above the lower instrumentation
of Prakriti and controlling the works of the mind and the
senses and body in the power of self-knowledge and the
pure objectless self-delight of spiritual realisation...
Buddhiyoga is fulfilled by Karma Yoga; the Yoga of the selfliberating intelligent will finds its full meaning by the Yoga
of desireless works. Thus the Gita founds its teaching of
the necessity of desireless works, nishkâma karma, and unites
the subjective practice of the Sankhyas — rejecting their
merely physical rule — with the practice of Yoga.” 14
Lord goes on convincing Arjuna to do his duty which
however demoniac it may appear on the surface, giving
many pleas. Arjuna is a hero and leader of his time. It is
13. Gita III - 5,8 14. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp. 65-66
87
his duty to act in a manner that peoples are held together
and also are high standards of action maintained, for the
peoples always follow their leaders. By giving his own
example the Lord says that being the Supreme Lord of all
the three worlds he is not to gain anything, yet he is always
engaged in action. For if he does not work people will follow
him and sink into inertia and death for which he will be
responsible.
xÉ ¨Éä {ÉÉlÉÉÇÎºiÉ EòiÉÇ´ªÉÆ ÊjÉ¹ÉÖ ±ÉÉäEòä ¹ÉÖ ËEòSÉxÉ *
xÉÉxÉ´ÉÉ{iÉ¨É´ÉÉ{iÉ´ªÉÆ ´ÉiÉÇ B´É SÉ Eò¨ÉÇÊhÉ **15
Then one should not act under the pressure of impulse
of senses and desire, for the desire is the root of all sorrow
and suffering. We must put an end to the cause of desire
and follow the will of the soul which is the real motive
power of the life. “But the real motive power of the life of
the soul is will; desire is only a deformation of will in the
dominant bodily life and physical mind. The essential turn
of the soul to possession and enjoyment of the world
consists in a will to delight, and the enjoyment of the
satisfaction of craving is only a vital and physical
degradation of the will to delight. It is essential that we
should distinguish between pure will and desire, between
the inner will to delight and the outer lust and craving of
the mind and body,” explains Sri Aurobindo.16
Now the Lord openly declares that He is the Lord of
all existences and he has come down as an Avatar in the
human birth and the eternal knowledge which was being
given to Arjuna by him now, had been handed over to the
Sun-God, Vivasvan and from Him to Manu, the progenitor
15. Gita III - 22
88
of men and so on and so forth, but it was lost to the world
in the great gap of Time. It has been revived again for
Arjuna by the embodied Divine. He also discloses the
purpose and the work for which he descended on to the
earth, which we have already covered in detail in the
previous chapter.
The Lord time and again emphasises the need to act
desirelessly without attachment to work and its fruit as a
sacrifice to the Supreme Lord Purushottama who is the
Lord of Nature and the Lord of all existences, above both
Kshara and Akshara Purushas. He also gives a new and
broad, vast and comprehensive, all embracing definition
of sacrifice, the vedic Yajna saying that there can be many
forms of sacrifice or self-giving. Some can offer as sacrifice
their material possessions, some their self-discipline, some
their yoga and some their study and knowledge. “This
world is not for him who doeth not sacrifice, how then
any other world, O Best of the Kurus ?” 17
xÉÉªÉÆ ±ÉÉäEòÉä%ºiªÉªÉYÉºªÉ EÖòiÉÉä%xªÉ: EÖò¯ûºÉkÉ¨É *18
Not only that, the entire process of Yajna or sacrifice is
nothing less than for the Divine or Brahman himself.
¥ÉÀÉ{ÉÇhÉÆ ¥ÉÀ ½þÊ´É¥ÉÇÀÉMxÉÉè ¥ÉÀhÉÉ ½ÖþiÉ¨ÉÂ
¥ÉÀè´É iÉäxÉ MÉxiÉ´ªÉÆ ¥ÉÀEò¨ÉÇºÉ¨ÉÉÊvÉxÉÉ 19
The action of giving Arpanam is Brahman. Havi - what
is offered is Brahman, one who offers is Brahman and the
17. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, p.131 18. Gita IV-31
19. Gita IV-24
89
fire into which it is offered is Brahman. And whatever is to
be attained by Samadhi is also the Brahman - action.
“The universal energy into which the action is poured
is the Divine; the consecrated energy of the giving is the
Divine; whatever is offered is only some form of the Divine;
the giver of the offering is the Divine himself in man; the
action, the work, the sacrifice is itself the Divine in
movement, in activity; the goal to be reached by sacrifice is
the Divine. For the man who has this knowledge and lives
and acts in it, there can be no binding works, no personal
and egoistically appropriated action; there is only the divine
Purusha acting by the divine Prakriti in His own being,
offering everything into the fire of His self-conscious cosmic
energy, while the knowledge and the possession of His
divine existence and consciousness by the soul unified with
Him is the goal of all this God-directed movement and
activity. To know that and to live and act in this unifying
consciousness is to be free.” 20
And above all, Arjuna is warned, one must not have
doubts, which must be cut asunder by knowledge because
the soul of doubts is bound to be ruined - Sanshayâtmâ
Vinashyati.
This is how the Lord first tried to inspire Arjuna to fulfil
his God-ordained duty by initiating him in the disciplines
of Equality, Renunciation of all desire and its fruits, action
done as a sacrifice to the Supreme Lord of our nature and
of all nature and lastly in Faith - which was a kind of new
reconciliation of Sankhya, the yoga of knowledge and
Karmayoga, the yoga of works which to the ordinary mind
looked different but in reality they were one.
20. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp 128-129
90
ºÉÉÆJªÉªÉÉäMÉÉè {ÉÞlÉM¤ÉÉ±ÉÉ: |É´ÉnùÎxiÉ xÉ {ÉÎhb÷iÉÉ: *
BEò¨É{ªÉÉÎºlÉiÉ: ºÉ¨ªÉMÉÖ¦ÉªÉÉäÌ´ÉxnùiÉä ¡ò±É¨ÉÂ **
Children speak of Sankhya and Yoga as different, not the
wise; if a man applies himself integrally to one, he gets the fruit
of both. 21
Here it should be noted that traditionally two separate
rather opposing disciplines are integrated together and by
this integration both get fulfilled in each other. This was a
new and unique approach given to Arjuna and this was
done by the Lord and Master of the yoga and the Master
of the creation itself. This is the uniqueness and the
originality of the Gita. The yoga of the Gita is gradually
moving to a greater synthesis in which towards the end
another great discipline is going to merge; that we shall
see later.
Further, while the Lord continues his discourse, he
enlarges the scope of the word Nirvana. Traditionally it
meant extinction of the soul in the Brahman, which is
timeless and immanent in the external universe and
Absolute but silent and actionless. But this Nirvana is not
compatible with action in the world. His later statement
makes it clear that the Nirvana that he means is to have
the self-knowledge and self-mastery delivered from desire
and wrath and to live in Brahman. And still it is more clear
when he says that he, who knows me i.e. Purushottama as
the Enjoyer of sacrifice and Tapasya, the mighty Lord of
all the worlds, the friend of all creatures, attains to the
peace of Nirvana.
21. Ibid p.139
91
¦ÉÉäHòÉ®ÆúªÉYÉ iÉ{ÉºÉÉÆ ºÉ´ÉÇ±ÉÉäEò¨É½äþ·É®ú¨ÉÂ *
ºÉÖ¾nÆù ºÉ´ÉÇ¦ÉÚiÉÉxÉÉÆ YÉÉi´ÉÉ ¨ÉÉÆ ¶ÉÉÎxiÉ¨ÉÞSUôÊiÉ **
22
“This Nirvana is clearly compatible with world
consciousness and with action in the world. For the sages
who possess it are conscious of and in intimate relation by
works with the Divine in the mutable universe; they are
occupied with the good of all creatures, Sarvabhutahite...
This action in the world is not inconsistent with living in
Brahman, it is rather its inevitable condition and outward
result, because the Brahman in whom we find Nirvana,
the spiritual consciousness in which we lose the separative
ego-consciousness, is not only within us but within all these
existences, exists not only above and apart from all these
universal happenings, but pervades them, contains them
and is extended in them.”23
But it is not all that easy to have instant self-knowledge,
desirelessness, feeling of impersonality and bliss, freedom
from the modes of Nature. Mind is so restless; so are the
impulses of the vital nature. The Lord knows it. That is
why he immediately brings in another system of yoga
without naming it as a means of controlling the movements
of the restless mind by prânayâma which, if practised
seriously, can produce very quick results. He says: "Holding
the body, head and neck erect, motionless, the vision drawn
in and fixed between the eye-brows, not regarding the
regions, the mind kept calm and free from fear and the
vow of Brahamcharya observed, the whole controlled
22. Gita V - 29
23. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp 154-155
92
mentality turned to Me, he must sit firm in Yoga, wholly
given up to Me. Thus always putting himself in yoga by
control of his mind the yogin attains to the supreme peace
of Nirvana which has its foundation in Me." 24
To know the Divine and live in the Divine and to attain
to Union with the Divine is not possible unless mind, which
is restless by nature, is withdrawn into tranquillity and
fixed in the Self.
The Divine Teacher time and again comes back to his
previous points and keeps reminding Arjuna that it is
necessary to be equal and undisturbed and quiet under all
circumstances and do the works as offering or sacrifice to
the Lord of existences without any personal desire for its
fruits. Only such a divine worker is worthy of Nirvana or
attains to the status of Brahman.
The Divine Teacher wants to give his disciple in brief
the entire knowledge of the Supreme and His manifestation
— the essential knowledge, Jnanam and the comprehensive
knowledge, Vijnanam by knowing which nothing is left to
be known. He has already told him about the working of
the divided and phenomenal Nature, trigunamayee maya.
Now he says that there is a Supreme Divine Nature, Para
Prakriti which upholds the phenomenal world and
becomes the jiva, the individual soul in the world, that is
his own aspect, his own infinite consciousness, that is why
he says that he is the cause of the birth and the dissolution
of the world and there is nothing else Supreme beyond
him. His infinite consciousness - his Para Prakriti ‘manifests
also as the essence of all quality’ of phenomenal Nature.
24. Ibid p.163
93
He is taste in the Waters, and the light of Sun and Moon,
Pranava in the Vedas, sound in ether and manhood in men.
He is not only the essence of the entire phenomenal
existence, but also the eternal seed of all existences created
by the lower Nature.
¤ÉÒVÉÆ ¨ÉÉÆ ºÉ´ÉÇ¦ÉÚiÉÉxÉÉÆ Ê´ÉÊrù {ÉÉlÉÇ ºÉxÉÉiÉxÉ¨ÉÂ *25
Three Gunas
“The lower nature of the three Gunas which creates so
false a view of things and imparts to them an inferior
character is a Maya, a power of illusion, by which it is not
meant that it is all non-existent or deals with unrealities,
but that it bewilders our knowledge, creates false values,
envelops us in ego, mentality, sense, physicality, limited
intelligence and there conceals from us the supreme truth
of our existence. This illusive Maya hides from us the
Divine that we are, the infinite and imperishable spirit... If
we could see that, that Divine is the real truth of our
existence, all else also would change to our vision, assume
its character and our life and action acquire the divine
values and move in the law of the divine nature.”26
Then how to get rid of the shackles of the lower nature?
Sri Aurobindo again gives the clue :
“The degraded powers and values of the inferior Prakriti
derive from the absolute powers and values of the supreme
Shakti and must go back to them to find their own source
and truth and the essential law of their operation and
movement. So too the soul or jiva involved here in the
25. Gita VII - 10
94
shackled, poor and inferior play of the phenomenal
qualities, if he would escape from it and be divine and
perfect, must by resort to the pure action of his essential
quality of Swabhava go back to that higher law of his own
being in which he can discover the will, the power, dynamic
principle, the highest working of his divine nature.27
We have seen till now how Arjuna, the chosen divine
instrument and Vibhuti, is being led towards the perfect
perfection for which only knowledge of self and his
manifestation, equality, detachment from desire and its
fruits, knowledge of the phenomenal and the Supreme
Nature are not enough. He has understood the truth of
works along with knowledge, the truth of action with
spiritual reality; now he knows only in outlines immobile
silence of the Immutable along with the secret of the eternal
play of the pragmatic energy of Nature. But now something
more is demanded of him by the Lord, without which
knowledge and works are incomplete. The intelligence, the
tool of knowledge may be subjected by dullness and
drudgery and the body, the tool of the works may go
mechanical if they are not supported by the lubricant of
love and devotion or bhakti, because it is this sacrifice of
love which gives the invincible force and passion to the
knowledge and action. That is why the Lord wants him to
offer all — knowledge and works and love and adoration
to him who is the Lord of the existence, the supreme Being,
Purushottama, who is even above the Immutable and says
that among all his bhaktas or lovers - distressed ones (Arta),
world seekers (Arthârthi), seekers of knowledge (Jijnâsu)
27. Ibid p. 188
95
and knowers (Jnâni), the last one — the knowers are dearest
to him. Love, indeed, an all embracing devotion to the
Divine and surrender to him gives a sure base, an absolute
foundation to the knowledge and action and make them
perfect and integral. Therefore the Lord, introducing love
and bhakti just in passing, says to Arjuna : “At all times
remember Me and fight;... without doubt thou shalt come
to Me.”28
Now the Lord unveils the most secret knowledge, the
king-knowledge-râjavidyâ, the king secret, râjaguhyam to
Arjuna and says that if it is accepted by souls with faith,
they return to Him, released from evil and deluded mind,
devoid of faith and true consciousness who blinded by their
ego become a prey to the Asuric nature and return a
fruitless cycle of ordinary mortal living. “The supreme
secret, is the mystery of the transcendent Godhead who is
all and everywhere, yet so much greater and other than
the universe and all its forms that nothing here contains
him, nothing expresses him really, and no language which
is borrowed from the appearances of things in space and
time and their relations can suggest the truth of his
unimaginable being. The consequent law of our perfection
is an adoration by our whole nature and its self-surrender
to its divine source and possessor.”29
¨ÉªÉÉ iÉiÉÊ¨ÉnÆù ºÉ´ÉÈ VÉMÉnù´ªÉHò¨ÉÚÌiÉxÉÉ *
¨ÉiºlÉÉÊxÉ ºÉ´ÉÇ¦ÉÚiÉÉÊxÉ xÉ SÉÉ½Æþ iÉä¹´É´ÉÎºlÉiÉ: **30
28. Ibid p.214
29. Ibid p.225
30. Gita IX-4
96
He goes on revealing his infinite divine nature that all
existences are situated in the ineffable mystery of His being
and His Self is the creater and support of all existences but
He is not situated in them. And those who know this secret
turn to Him, bow down before Him and ever in yoga they
worship Him with adoration.The Lord, by telling about
His ineffable glories to His beloved disciple, is not only
preparing him to offer his inmost love and adoration to
Him but also making him psychologically ready to
experience the vision of the supreme mystery - His divine
form and body - rupamaishwaram. “The vision of God brings
infallibly the adoration and passionate seeking of the Divine
— a passion for the Divine in his self-existent being but
also for the Divine in ourselves and for the Divine in all
that is.... True knowledge is to know with the inner being,
and when the inner being is touched by the light, then it
arises to embrace that which is seen, it yearns to possess, it
struggles to shape that in itself and itself to it, it labours to
become one with the glory of its vision.”31
He is Father and Mother and sustainer of this world
and the Rik, Sama and Yajur Vedas. He is the path and
the goal, the Lord and Witness-consciousness, the abode
and the refuge and the friend of all, the origin, the
foundation and the dissolution and seed imperishable of
all. By taking refuge in Him even unripe souls who never
aspired and made any effort for spiritual realisation also
attain to the highest goal. Therefore “O Arjuna,” says the
Lord, “become My minded, My lover and adorer, a
31. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp. 233-234
97
sacrificer to Me, bow thyself to Me, thus united with Me in
the Self thou shalt come unto Me, having Me thy supreme
goal.”32
We find that the emphasis is always on love, adoration,
bhakti and surrender to the supreme Lord who has
incarnated in Krishna, the supreme teacher of Arjuna and
the world, who is also seated in the heart of everyone in
the world.
Arjuna has accepted and understood the knowledge
that the divine Teacher imparted to him and he is taking
joy in the revelation of that knowledge and his mind and
heart seem to be released from the grief and gloom of his
perplexity. He wants to hear more and more of the divine
glory of the Lord. He has already known that all this
phenomenal Nature and the world are the becoming of
the sole Being of the Lord. He is equally present in the saint
and the sinner, he has understood. But still he wants to
hear more of the self-manifestations of his sovereign powers
in the world. To satisfy the seeking of Arjuna, the Lord
happily goes on enumerating his becomings so that no
doubt is left in Arjuna’s mind to baffle him again.
The Lord says, he is the Godhead Vishnu among the
Adityas, Shiva among the Rudras, Indra among the Gods,
Prahlad among the Daityas, Brihaspati among the priests,
Skanda among the war-gods, Marichi among the Maruts,
so on and so forth . Not only he is manifest as pre-eminent
powers in Gods, but also in all things and beings. He is also
the Himalaya among the immovables, uchchaishrava among
the horses and airawata among the elephants. He is
32. Ibid p.254
98
kamadhenu among the cows and Vasuki among serpents,
and Ashwattha among the plants and trees. He is even Death
and the source of life. In a nutshell he is the beginning, the
middle and the end of all things.
¨ÉÞiªÉÖ: ºÉ´ÉÇ½þ®ú¶SÉÉ½þ¨ÉÖnùÂ¦É´É¶SÉ ¦ÉÊ´É¹ªÉiÉÉ¨ÉÂ *
EòÒÌiÉ: ¸ÉÒ´ÉÉÇCSÉ xÉÉ®úÒhÉÉÆ º¨ÉÞÊiÉ¨ÉævÉÉ vÉÞÊiÉ: IÉ¨ÉÉ **33
The Gita is a Book of complete and comprehensive
knowledge of all manifest and unmanifest truth. This single
Book of knowledge can deliver the entire humanity from
its ignorance and lead to immortality, the eternal life.
Now having heard from the Lord the highest spiritual
secret of existence that all is He and all the infinite
appearance is nothing but the Lord himself in disguise,
Arjuna’s doubt and confusion, the cause of his refusal to
act, have melted away. And yet this knowledge is not the
subjective experience of his soul. The subjective experience
is a very significant part of the total knowledge, without
which the knowledge cannot be complete.
Since the Gita is the Book of Jnana and Vijnana - the
complete knowledge, the practical experience must follow
the theoretical knowledge. That is why Arjuna is inspired
to see and feel in action what he has heard till now. He
therefore expresses his desire to see the Lord of all the
Nature and universe in action as the True-Spirit and the
Godhead in the cosmic form.
33. Gita X - 34
99
Vishwarupa
The Lord was preparing Arjuna, his chosen instrument,
till now for this supreme hour for, he knew that without
the subjective experience of the World-Spirit vision Arjuna’s
ignorance would not be cleared completely and even an
iota of doubt lurking in any part of his being might overturn
the situation. And as Arjuna desired, the Lord obliged him
to show his universal divine form. Since, Arjuna could not
see the divine form with his physical eyes, the Lord blessed
him with the eyes divine and said, “Behold, O Partha, my
hundreds and thousands of divine forms, various in kind,
various in shape and hue.”
{É¶ªÉ ¨Éä {ÉÉlÉÇ °ü{ÉÉÊhÉ ¶ÉiÉ¶ÉÉä%lÉ ºÉ½þ»É¶É: *
xÉÉxÉÉÊ´ÉvÉÉÊxÉ Ênù´ªÉÉÊxÉ xÉÉxÉÉ´ÉhÉÉÇEÞòiÉÒÊxÉ SÉ **34
And lo ! what Arjuna beheld was unbelievably a huge
and tremendous form, without beginning and end, of
destruction and fierceness with many mouths of burning
fire, blazing forth the light of a thousand suns and
devouring all the worlds including all the great warriors
and heroes of both sides of the battle which was yet to be
fought. Arjuna, overwhelmed by this astounding figure
began to tremble and, unable to withstand, prayed to the
Lord to assume his graceful divine face. Now Arjuna has
experienced within his soul all that the Lord had told him
so far about the supreme Divine, the highest Godhead and
His workings, His manifestations, the power of His Nature
- all the mutable, Immutable and the Purushottama.
Arjuna’s heart and soul and all his being is satisfied and
convinced that his charioteer is no ordinary human soul,
34. Gita XI - 5
100
but the supreme Godhead himself guiding not only his
destiny, but the destiny of his whole creation. Arjuna
therefore prays to Him offering his salutations to Him from
every side :
i´É¨ÉÉÊnùnùä´É: {ÉÖ¯û¹É: {ÉÖ®úÉhÉºi´É¨ÉºªÉ Ê´É·ÉºªÉ {É®Æú ÊxÉvÉÉxÉ¨ÉÂ *
´ÉäkÉÉ%ÊºÉ ´ÉätÆ SÉ {É®Æú SÉ vÉÉ¨É i´ÉªÉÉ iÉiÉÆ Ê´É·É¨ÉxÉxiÉ °ü{É **35
Thou art the original Godhead, ancient Soul and the supreme
resting place of this world; Thou art the knower and that which
is to be known and the highest status; O infinite in form, by
Thee was extended the universe.
Having shown to Arjuna his cosmic figure, the Blessed
Lord resumes his gracious form and returns to his yoga of
love and bhakti giving the highest significance to it and
says that it is rare and difficult to see this cosmic figure of
the Lord; even the gods ever long to have a vision of this
Form. No shastra, no tapasya or sacrifice or charity can
enable a man to see this Divine form, but only he who loves
the Lord, adores the Lord alone in all things, can see and
know and become one with the supreme Lord.
“For to the soul,” explains Sri Aurobindo, “that wholly
gives itself to him, God also gives himself altogether. Only
the one who offers his whole nature, finds the Self. Only
the one who can give everything, enjoys the Divine All
everywhere. Only a supreme self-abandonment attains to
the Supreme. Only the sublimation by sacrifice of all that
we are, can enable us to embody the Highest and live here
in the immanent consciousness of the transcendent Spirit...,
the One who is at once our immanent Self, the environing
35. Gita XI - 38
101
constituent All, the Supreme Reality beyond this or any
manifestation and, secretly, all these together, concealed
everywhere, the immanent Transcendence.”36
Arjuna now not only loves and adores the supreme
Lover but after having known him by his own inner
experience as the supreme origin and end of all the
manifestation, the Lord of the entire Universe, he has also
surrendered to him. He has now become the bhakta of the
Lord. But still he knows not the perfect way of bhakti. The
Lord has not yet revealed the supreme word of love and
surrender to him, which is consummation of the yoga of
the Gita.
Arjuna’s mind is even now left with some doubts. He
has been told in passing about the Immutable Akshara
Purusha, who is the Unmanifest, the Ineffable, the
Omnipresent, the Immobile, the Intangible, Absolute,
eternally silent and impersonal and actionless, who never
puts on any form and enters into no relation with the
universe, yet he is sought after by the seekers of knowledge.
On the other hand he is also always being told to seek the
supreme Lord himself, the Purushottama, who is none
other than his human friend and lover and his charioteer.
Arjuna wants to know who among the seekers of both
have the greater knowledge of yoga. The blessed Lord now
explains the clear distinction between the two aspects of
the same supreme Godhead.
The seekers of both the aspects of the Eternal Reality
attain to Me, says the Lord, but in the words of Sri
Aurobindo, “This negating knowledge approaches the
Eternal by one side only of the truth and that side the most
102
difficult to reach and follow for the embodied soul in
Nature, duhkham dehavadbhir avâpyate; it proceeds by a
highly specialised, even an unnecessarily arduous way,
narrow and difficult to tread as a razor’s edge.” 37
On the contrary, in the way of the Gita, seeking after
the Purushottama and meditating on him, we see and meet
none else except Vasudeva at every point, in all forms and
faces, in all circumstances and we arrive at once through
all Nature to the Lord of Nature, and through all beings to
the Soul of all beings.
“But more powerful still is the giving up of the fruit of
one’s works, because that immediately destroys all causes
of disturbance and brings and preserves automatically an
inner calm and peace, and calm and peace are the
foundation on which all else becomes perfect and secure
in possession by the tranquil spirit. Then the consciousness
can be at ease, happily fix itself in the Divine and rise
undisturbed to perfection. Then too knowledge, will and
devotion can lift to their pinnacles from a firm soil of solid
calm into the ether of Eternity.
“What then will be the divine nature, what will be the
greater state of consciousness and being of the Bhakta who
has followed this way and turned to the adoration of the
Eternal ? The Gita in a number of verses rings the changes
on its first insistent demand, on equality, on desirelessness,
on freedom of spirit. This is to be the base always, - and
that was why so much stress was laid on it in the beginning.
And in that equality Bhakti, the love and adoration of the
Purushottama, must rear the spirit towards some greatest
37. Ibid p.308
103
highest perfection of which this calm equality will be the
wide foundation.”38
Arjuna is interested to know more and more of the
supreme power, His many aspects, His supreme nature and
His manifestations in detail. Since the Lord does not linger
long on the same point and immediately proceeds to
another in order to remove Arjuna’s doubt and confusion,
many things remain unclear in his mind. He wants to know
clearly now about Prakriti and Purusha, about the
distinction of Purushottama and the Immutable and
Mutable Purushas - Kshara, Akshara and Uttama Purusha,
whose references were already given in passing but they
were not fully expressed.
The entire range of the lower nature comprising the
individual physical body and the universal body and their
nature, mentality and action with their deformations pleasure and pain, liking and disliking is the field - the
Kshetra. And when the soul identified with Nature and
thereby subjected to her mechanical working, takes the
poise of a witness and stands apart and withdraws itself
from the working of Nature in life, mind and body and
thus becomes detached and free from it and later gradually
takes the poise of the upholder and is identified with Active
Brahman Purushottama, his joy of cosmic being, accepts
its complete function as the Lord and controller of the action
and active enjoyer, then it is the knower of the field.
And if one knows the field - the Kshetra and the knower
of the field - Kshetrajna, he knows the true knowledge.
38. Ibid p.313
104
“The Being seated in the hearts of all is the supreme
Self, Paramatman, the supreme Soul, the mighty Lord of
Nature, who watches her action, sanctions her operations,
upholds all she does, commands her manifold creation,
enjoys with his universal delight this play of her figures of
his own being. This is the self-knowledge to which we have
to accustom our mentality before we can truly know
ourselves, as an eternal portion of the Eternal,”39 says Sri
Aurobindo.
The one who knows the working of the Nature with
her qualities and the supreme Lord, the witness, the
sanctioner, the sustainer and enjoyer, and supreme Self,
he truly knows. Whatever is present in the existence,
moving and unmoving all that is born from the union
between the field and the knower of the field. The supreme
Lord is seated equally in all beings, unperishing within the
perishing. All actions are done by the Nature, the power
of the Purusha and the Self is not the doer; whoever knows
all this knowledge of the Nature and the Self, the field and
the knower of the field, attains to the highest status of
Brahman.
“The spirit within,” sums up Sri Aurobindo, “when
we turn to it, illumines the entire field of Nature with its
own truth in all the splendour of its rays. In the light of
that sun of knowledge the eye of knowledge opens in us
and we live in that truth and no longer in the ignorance.
Then we perceive that our limitation to our present mental
and physical nature was an error of the darkness, then we
are liberated from the law of the lower Prakriti, the law of
39. Ibid p.331
105
the mind and body, then we attain to the supreme nature
of the spirit. That splendid and lofty change is the last, the
divine and infinite becoming, the putting off of mortal
nature, the putting on of an immortal existence.”40
Next, the Blessed Lord declares the highest knowledge
of the Nature’s working knowing which the sages have
attained to the highest perfection. It is in continuation of
the knowledge of the field and of the knower of the field
explained to Arjuna by the Lord. The Lord says that the
soul, the eternal portion of the Supreme, trapped in the
mesh of the three gunas or modes of universal Nature in
the world, must rise above the gunas in order to get back
to his self-knowledge of the eternal status of Brahman.
Sattwa binds the soul in the body by attachment to
happiness and knowledge. Rajas binds the soul by
attachment to action and desire and its satisfaction. Tamas
binds a man by attachment to inertia, indolence, incapacity,
negligence and sleep. It is opposite to Sattwa and Rajas.
These three qualities are present in every human being and
none is completely free from any of them. By predominance
of one or the other of the qualities can a man be said to be
Sattwic or Rajastic or Tamasic in his nature. As long as we
are bound by the three gunas of Nature, it is impossible to
attain to highest perfection or the liberation of the soul in
Brahamic status. In order to rise above the gunas, the
embodied soul first must watch the actions of the Nature
in oneself as a witness indifferently and impartially. First,
it should be free from the lower Prakriti and not involved
in its coils. All the gunas of Nature will have their rounds,
40. Ibid pp. 334-335
106
but the soul should stand unperturbed and untouched.
This is the attainment of actionless peace of the
Impersonality of Brahamic status - of Akshara Purusha. But
there is a higher spiritual experience which is more perfect,
attaining to which, the soul can rise above the gunas of
lower Nature to the Active Brahman, Pravritti, and enjoy
an absolute delight which is untouched by Sattwic, Rajasic
and Tamasic characteristics. That is by dwelling in the being
and power of the Purushottama.
Kshara and Akshara Brahman
Now the Lord dwells on another great knowledge of
the supreme Self. Apparently there are two powers —
Kshara — the Mutable Self — the cosmic Nature in all
existences — the active power in the manifestation, and
the Akshara — the Immutable Self in relation to the elements
and the action of cosmic Nature — the Kutastha, seated
high.
uùÉÊ´É¨ÉÉè {ÉÖ¯û¹ÉÉè ±ÉÉäEòä IÉ®ú¶SÉÉIÉ®ú B´É SÉ *
IÉ®ú: ºÉ´ÉÉÇÊhÉ ¦ÉÚiÉÉÊxÉ EÚò]õºlÉÉä%IÉ®ú =SªÉiÉä **
41
The Kshara is active and the Akshara is inactive,
watching the action of the Kshara as a silent witness,
unperturbed, as symbolised in Upanishads by two birds
perching on the same branch of a tree — one is eating the
fruit of the tree and the other one simply watching it and
itslef not indulging in it. The Akshara, beyond the soul
manifest in Nature and bound up with its action, is the
41. Gita XV - 16
107
silent all-pervading, self-existent and Impersonal being,
and actionless witnessing Self. These two poises of the Self
are contrary to each other. But there is another, the Uttama
Purusha, the supreme Self, beyond the Kshara and Akshara
which reconciles the contradiction of the above two
purushas.
“He supports at once the spirit of mutable things that
is all these existences, Ksharah sarvâni bhutâni, and the
immutable spirit that stands above them in his
imperturbable immobility of eternal silence and calm. And
it is by the force of the Divine in them that the mind and
heart and will of man are so powerfully drawn in different
directions by these two spirits as if by opposing and
incompatible attractions, one insistent to annul the other.
But the Divine is neither wholly the Kshara, nor wholly the
Akshara. He is greater than the immutable self and he is
much greater than the Soul of mutable things. If he is
capable of being both at once, it is because he is other than
they, anyah, the Purushattama above all cosmos and yet
extended in the world and extended in the Veda, in selfknowledge and in cosmic experience.”42
ªÉº¨ÉÉiIÉ®ú¨ÉiÉÒiÉÉä%½þ¨ÉIÉ®úÉnùÊ{É SÉÉäkÉ¨É: *
+iÉÉä%Îº¨É ±ÉÉäEòä ´Éänùä SÉ |ÉÊlÉiÉ: {ÉÖ¯û¹ÉÉäkÉ¨É: **43
Since I am beyond the Kshara and greater and higher even
than the Akshara, I am proclaimed as the Purushottama in the
Veda and in the world.
The principle of Purushottama here is so necessary and
compatible without which the whole doctrine of Gita and
42. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan , 1992 p.364
43. Gita XV - 18
108
the Avatarhood and the Yoga of works and Bhakti would
collapse and the soul of Kshara Purusha will disappear into
the impersonality and everlasting peace of the Akshara
Brahman, the Immutable Eternal.
“The idea of the Purushottama has been prepared,
alluded to, adumbrated, assumed even from the beginning,
but it is only now in the fifteenth chapter that it is expressly
stated and the distinction illuminated by a name. And it is
instructive to see how it is immediately approached and
developed. To ascend into the divine nature, we have been
told, one must first fix oneself in a perfect spiritual equality
and rise above the lower nature of the three Gunas. Thus
transcending the lower Prakriti we fix ourselves in the
impersonality, the imperturbable superiority to all action,
the purity from all definition and limitation by quality which
is one side of the manifested nature of the Purushottama,
his manifestation as the eternity and unity of the self, the
Akshara. But there is also an ineffable eternal multiplicity
of the Purushottama, a highest, truest truth behind the
primal mystery of soul manifestation. The Infinite has an
eternal power, an unbeginning and unending action of his
divine Nature, and in that action the miracle of soul
personality emerges from a play of apparently impersonal
forces, prakritir jivabhuta. This is possible because
personality too is a character of the Divine and finds in the
Infinite its highest spiritual truth and meaning. But the
Person in the Infinite is not the egoistic, separative, oblivious
personality of the lower Prakriti; it is something exalted,
universal and transcendent, immortal and divine. That
mystery of the supreme Person is the secret of love and
devotion. The spiritual person, Purusha, the eternal soul in
109
us offers itself and all it has and is to the eternal Divine, the
supreme Person and Godhead of whom it is a portion,
amsha. The completeness of knowledge finds itself in this
self-offering, this uplifting of our personal nature by love
and adoration to the ineffable Master of our personality
and its acts; the sacrifice of works receives by it its
consummation and perfect sanction. It is then, through
these things that the soul of man fulfils itself most completely
in this other and dynamic secret, this other great and
intimate aspect of the divine nature and possesses by that
fulfilment the foundation of immortality, the supreme
felicity and the eternal Dharma. And having so stated this
double requisite, equality in the one self, adoration of the
one Lord, at first separately as if they were two different
ways of arriving at the Brahmic status, brahma-bhuyâya —
one taking the form of quietistic sannyasa, the other a form
of divine love and divine action, — the Gita proceeds now
to unite the personal and the impersonal in the
Purushottama and to difine their relations. For the object
of the Gita is to get rid of exclusions and separative
exaggerations and fuse these two sides of knowledge and
spiritual experiences into a single and perfect way to the
supreme perfection.”44
The Lord is unfolding secret after secret to Arjuna to
equip him with supreme knowledge, so that he could know
the immortal Dharma and fully elevated and transformed
to the higher spiritual nature, act according to law proper
to the infinite purity and power of a divine being. Arjuna
has been given the knowledge of the three Gunas of the
Nature and how to be above them, trigunâtita, and the
knowledge of the three Purushas. Now he is being given
44. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp. 354-355
110
knowledge of the ancient distinction of Devas and
Danavas, the Gods and the Titans. Our ancient seers saw
two great cosmic powers or beings perpetually at war with
each other behind the phenomenon of life and the world
called Devas and Danavas. They are represented by two
classes of human beings. Representing the powers of Devas
are those who have a dominant force of sattwic nature
turned towards God-knowledge, self-control, beneficence,
selflessness, leading them to liberation and those, who have
a dominant force of rajasic nature turned towards egoistic
greatness, satisfaction of desire, the indulgence of their
strong will and personality which they seek to impose on
the world for their own vanity and its gratification, are
representatives of Danavas or Asuras and their action leads
them towards bondage.
Men born with Deva-nature are truthful, pure of nature,
straightforward, harmless, forgiving, compassionate,
modest, selfless, peaceful and they promote the divine work
in the world. Those born with the nature of Asuras are
hypocrite, arrogant, conceited, ignorant, harsh and cruel,
diabolic, devoid of purity, truth and right conduct. They
are evil doers and haters of the Divine and stand in the
way of the divine work. They take a long time to realise
their ignorance and to turn towards light.
The Lord assures Arjuna that he is born and endowed
with Deva-nature and he need not “grieve with the thought
that by acceptance of battle and slaughter he will be
yielding to the impulses of the Asuras.”
The knowledge of the Gita is approaching the secret of
secrets, the greatest Dharma, the will of the Lord, to fulfil
which all other dharmas must be abandoned. But before
111
that Arjuna’s heart and mind must become the channelmind and heart of the Lord and his will replaced by the
Divine will. Therefore Arjuna wants to be very clear on all
the doubtful points and desires to know how is the act of
faith related to the Gunas of the Nature, and whether the
devotion behind the act can come under the categories of
Sattwa, Rajas or Tamas.
“Yes,” reveals the Lord, “Sattwic men offer sacrifice to
the Gods, the Rajasic to the Yakshas and the Rakshasas,
the Tamasic to the ghosts.” Not only the faith is governed
by the principle of gunas, but also works and food are of
three kinds — Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Even askesis
or the discipline or tapa which are threefold — tapa of the
body, speech and the mind, is also governed by the principle
of three gunas. The tapa with no desire is Sattwic, the tapa
performed for ostentation and with selfish motive is Rajasic
and tapa done to hurt others is Tamasic. The sacrifice of
giving gift too can be Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic
according to the quality of faith behind it.
Finally the Blessed Lord throws light on the distinction
of Sannyasa and Tyaga in reply to the last question of
Arjuna, before he concludes this supreme divine
knowledge with the secret of secrets which is the
consummation of the yoga of triple path of the Gita.
“According to the shastras of ancient wisdom,” says the
Lord, “Sannyasa is the giving up of those works which are
prompted by desire and the abandonment of the fruits of
all works is called Tyaga.” This implies that Tyaga is to
give up not the works but the fruits of the works, one must
do the Kartavyam Karma, pleasant or unpleasant without
desire of fruits, which the Master within demands of us.
“There has to be a renunciation of the false idea of ourselves
112
as the doer; for in reality it is the universal Shakti that works
through our personality and our ego. The spiritual
transference of all our works to the Master and his Shakti
is the real Sannyasa in the teaching of the Gita.”45
Even knowledge too falls in the categories of gunas.
The knowledge of the imperishable Being seen in all
existences is Sattwic. The knowlege which sees the
multiplicity of things only in their separateness in all these
existences is Rajastic. The knowledge which clings to a part
and claims to be the whole is the Tamasic knowledge.
In between the Lord kept restating and reminding
Arjuna that he must act according to his inborn swabhava,
own law of works though in itself faulty, than an alien
law well carried out, for one does not incur sin when one
does the work regulated by one’s own self-nature. “If in
thy egoism, thou thinkest, I will not fight, then vain is this
thy resolve; thy nature shall appoint thee to thy work.”
The Lord, briefly dwelling upon the significance of
swadharmas based on individual inborn nature and
varnashrama based on three gunas moves towards the
supreme secret.
SÉäiÉºÉÉ ºÉ´ÉÇ Eò¨ÉÉÇÊhÉ ¨ÉÊªÉ ºÉÆxªÉºªÉ ¨Éi{É®ú: *
¤ÉÖÊrùªÉÉäMÉ¨ÉÖ{ÉÉÊ¸ÉiªÉ ¨ÉÎSSÉkÉ: ºÉiÉiÉÆ ¦É´É **46
Devoting all thyself to Me, giving up in thy conscious mind
all thy actions unto Me, resorting to Yoga of the will and
intelligence, be always one in heart and consciousness with Me.47
And this Me, the Lord reveals, who is your comrade
and charioteer and lover is also seated in the heart of all
existences and turns them round and round as if mounted
on a machine by his Mâyâ. It is in Him that you have to
45. Ibid p.399
46. Gita XIII-57
113
take refuge in every way of thy being and by His grace
thou shall come to the supreme peace and the eternal status.
And it seems that the Lord has spoken his last secret word,
for in the end, like a good teacher, he advises him to reflect
on his words and do as he feels like.
<ÊiÉ iÉä YÉÉxÉ¨ÉÉJªÉÉiÉÆ MÉÖ½þÂªÉÉnÂù MÉÖ½þÂªÉiÉ®Æú ¨ÉªÉÉ *
Ê´É¨ÉÞ¶ªÉèiÉnù¶Éä¹ÉähÉ ªÉlÉäSUôÊºÉ iÉlÉÉ EÖò¯û **48
Arjuna is the rare chosen human instrument who has
to give physical effect to the divine will and divine plan of
pushing humanity upward; so the Divine takes every care
to ensure that his instrument will surely execute His will,
and yet he has left it open to the instrument: yathechchhasi
tatha kuru.
The Last Secret
But the last secret he has yet to reveal - sarvaguhyatam
bhuyah shrinu me paramam vachah, to ensure fully that his
chosen and beloved soul no longer falls again in dejection
and fear of sin of slaughter by inspiring him to surrender
to the Lord and fight giving him the assurance that the
Lord will deliver him from all sin and evil. The last, the
closing supreme word of the Gita expressing the highest
mystery is spoken in two brief, direct and simple slokas
and these are left without farther comment to sink into the
mind and reveal their own fullness of meaning in the soul’s
experience. We feel as they are being uttered that it was
this for which the soul of the disciple was being prepared
all the time and the rest was only an enlightening and enabling
discipline and doctrine.
48. Ibid Gita XVIII-63
114
¨Éx¨ÉxÉÉ ¦É´É ¨ÉnÂù¦ÉHòÉä ¨ÉtÉVÉÒ ¨ÉÉÆ xÉ¨ÉºEÖò¯û
¨ÉÉ¨Éä´Éè¹ªÉÊºÉ ºÉiªÉÆ iÉä |ÉÊiÉVÉÉxÉä Ê|ÉªÉÉä%ÊºÉ ¨Éä
ºÉ´ÉÇ vÉ¨ÉÉÇx{ÉÊ®úiªÉVªÉ ¨ÉÉ¨ÉäEòÆ ¶É®úhÉÆ µÉVÉ
+½Æþ i´ÉÉ ºÉ´ÉÇ{ÉÉ{Éä¦ªÉÉä ¨ÉÉäIÉÊªÉ¹ÉÂªÉÉÊ¨É ¨ÉÉ ¶ÉÖSÉ:49
Become My-minded, my lover and adorer, a sacrificer to
Me, bow thyself to Me; to Me thou shalt come. This is my pledge
and promise to thee, for dear art thou to Me.
Abandon all Dharmas and take refuge in Me alone. I will
deliver thee from all sin and evil, do not grieve.
“The Gita throughout has been insisting on a great and
well-built discipline of Yoga, a large and clearly traced
philosophical system, on the Swabhava and Swadharma,
on the sattwic law of life as leading out of itself by a selfexceeding exaltation to a free spiritual Dharma of immortal
existence utterly wide in its spaces and high-lifted beyond
the limitation of even this highest Guna, on many rules
and means and injunctions and conditions of perfection,
and now suddenly it seems to break out of its own structure
and says to the human soul, ‘Abandon all Dharmas, give
thyself to the Divine alone, to the supreme Godhead above
and around and within thee: that is all that thou needst,
that is the truest and greatest way, that is the real
deliverance.’ The master of the worlds in the form of the
divine Charioteer and Teacher of Kurukshetra has revealed
to man the magnificent realities of God and Self and Spirit
and the nature of the complex world and the relation of
man’s mind and life and heart and senses to the Spirit and
the victorious means by which through his own spiritual
self-discipline and effort he can rise out of mortality into
immortality and out of his limited mental into his infinite
spiritual existence. And now speaking as the Spirit and
49. Gita XVIII - 65-66
115
Godhead in man and in all things he says to him, ‘All this
personal effort and self discipline will not in the end be
needed, all following and limitation of rule and Dharma
can at last be thrown away as hampering encumtbrances
if thou canst make a complete surrender to Me, depend
alone on the Spirit and Godhead within thee and all things
and trust to his sole guidance. Turn all thy mind to Me and
fill it with thought of Me and My presence. Turn all thy
heart to Me, make thy every action, whatever it be, a
sacrifice and offering to Me. That done, leave Me to do My
will with thy life and soul and action; do not be grieved or
perplexed by My dealings with thy mind and heart and
life and works or troubled because they do not seem to
follow the laws and Dharmas man imposes on himself to
guide his limited will and intelligence. My ways are the
ways of a perfect wisdom and power and love that knows
all things and combines all its movements in view of a
perfect eventual result; for it is refining and weaving
together the many threads of an integral perfection. I am
here with thee in thy chariot of battle revealed as the Master
of existence within and without thee and I repeat the
absolute assurance, the infallible promise that I will lead
thee to Myself through and beyond all sorrow and evil.
Whatever difficulties and perplexities arise, be sure of this
that I am leading thee to a complete divine life in the
universal and an immortal existence in the transcendent
Spirit.”50
The last two verses are the crown of the Gita’s yoga
where the total emphasis is laid on surrender to the
supreme Lord, the Purushottama, and this becomes the
only Dharma of the seeker of Yoga. Only this Dharma,
50. Bhagavad Gita edited by P.P. Khetan 1992, pp.442-43
116
which is beyond all Dharmas of Swabhava or Nature, can
deliver the soul instantly from the clutch of Gunas and lift
to the Brahmic status, where Divine can work out his own
will and new-shape the human material into a divinie
substance fit for the divine life. Surrender is the crux, the
decisive and essential point of not only the yoga of Bhakti
and Love, but also of the whole of the Gita’s message.
Surrender is the seed of transformation of man into Divine,
of earthly mortal life into heavenly divine life, of life of ego
and ignorance into the life of truth and light.
117
Chapter 4
Early Avatars
Matsya
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It is a sheer miracle how the ancient Aryan seers and
mystics maintained the record of cosmic history of birth
and growth of universes, ministry of Gods, accounts of
Events in terrestrial and extra-terrestrial worlds, on earth
as well as in Heaven from the dawn of the first awakening
Ray till the time to come upto the end of the cycle. The
Divine descents or the Avatar of the formless and
Imporsonal Absolute in form and as personal Godhead on
the earth is one of them.
It is indeed the prerogative and privilege of the soul of
India, at least in the present creation or kalpa, to be able to
trace the occult secrets of Divine workings, and chart out
the plans of not only the cosmic Gods, but also the intention
and will of the transcendental supreme Godhead and the
supreme Nature with regard to the life on earth through
the inner vision of her great seers and sages. It is still more
miraculous to note how the entire body of super knowledge
and wisdom is intact and being treasured in the ancient
language of Sanskrit till today despite our fall in the gulf of
our cultural decadence and darkness. Not only that, those
records of vast spiritual knowledge which are stored in
our scriptures are even so fresh in a few awakened souls of
1. Srimad Bhagawatam 8.24.61
118
our country, the saints and sages of the present times, for,
this chain of holy and realised souls was never broken in
India in spite of a prolonged night of darkness, her slavery
and downfall of morals and values. In fact, it is they, those
rare great souls, mahatmas, saints, bhaktas and spiritual
gurus like Chaitanya, Ramakrishna, Vivekananda in
Bengal, Tukaram, Jnaneshwar, Namdev in Maharastra,
Tulsi, Kabir, Mirabai, Dayananda and the ten gurus of the
Sikh religion, who sustained and saved the cultural and
spiritual treasure of the race. The rest, the majority even
the best minds, were blown off by the Western typhoons
and whirlwinds of blind materialism and matter-of-fact
approach towards life and world.
The absolute Reality is infinite and hence its
manifestation is also infinite. It is beyond the comprehension
of the narrow and limited mind to understand the ways of
the Absolute Reality. The infinite knowledge of the ways
of the Supreme is like an ocean which has no shores and
which is the confluence of innumerable streams of spiritual
reality. One of the streams of which is the reality of Avatars
— the descents of the Divine Light and Force on earth as
and when she called the Grace in her distress and the Grace
answered to the call. Our scriptures say that such descents
are twenty-four when the supreme Divine descended to
lead the march of evolution on the earth. These Avatars
are as follows :
1. Sri Sanaka, 2. Varaha, 3. Narad, 4. Nara Narayan,
5. Kapil, 6. Dattatreya, 7. Yajna, 8. Rishabhadev, 9. Prithu,
10. Matsya, 11. Kurma, 12. Dhanvantari, 13. Mohini, 14.
Nrisingh, 15. Vamana, 16. Hayagriva, 17. Sri Hari, 18.
Parashuram, 19. Vyas, 20. Hans, 21. Rama, 22. Sri Krishna,
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Early Avatars
23. Buddha, 24. Kalki. But out of these, ten Avatars are
said to be direct actions of the Supreme in the major crises
in the life of earth which are, we can say, important
milestones in the upward journey of earth-evolution. They
are Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Nrisingh, Vamana,
Parashurama, Rama, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki.
Those who are familiar with the religious and spiritual
background of India know that the Supreme Being has been
depicted by Puranas as the three fold powers : Brahma as
the creator of the worlds, Vishnu as the preserver and Shiva
as destroyer. This Trinity is none other than the one supreme
Reality, Eternal and Infinite, the Brahman of Vedas and
the Purushottama of the Gita.The story of Matsya Avatar
accroding to Bhagavad Purana goes like this: At the end of
his day (which is equivalent to one kalpa of the earth) when
Brahma went to sleep followed by general destruction in
all the worlds, the strong demon Hayagriva came near him
and stole the Vedas which flowed from his lips. This
occasioned the incarnation of God in the form of a fish, a
matsya, because for the preservation of herds, Brahmanas,
genii and virtuous men — of vedas, of law and of precious
things, the Lord of the Universe assumes many bodily
forms; but though he pervades, like the air, a variety of
beings, yet he is himself unvaried since he has no qualities
subject to change. When Hari, the preserver of the universe
discovered this mischief of the Danava, he took the shape
of a minute fish. Then a holy king, Satyavrata, ruled over
the land. He was one day offering tarpan holding water in
his palms after his bath in the river when suddenly he
noticed a tiny fish moving in it. The king immediately
dropped it back into the river lest it felt uneasy in the
120
shallow water in his palm. But strangely, he heard the fish
address in a piteous voice, “O Benevolent Monarch, how
canst thou, who showest affection to the weak and
oppressed, leave me in the river water where I am too frail
to defend myself from the giants of my own kind who will
swallow me in no time? The king, having heard his
suppliant appeal decided to protect him out of his benignity
and took him home in his kamandalu and kept in a big jar
full with water. But this fish outgrew the vase over night
and addressed the king again, "I am very miserable in this
narrow cell, O king, can you make for me a large mansion
where I may breathe freely in the open?” The king was
generous enough to keep him in a big pool, but not even
an hour had passed that the fish covered the entire area of
the pool and demanded again a larger space of a big and
deep lake to enable him to swim at large. But when this
vast bulk of water was also unable to match the fastgrowing size of the fish, the king cast him into the sea
where, he thought, would he feel definitely at home for he
would not exceed beyond its shore. At last, the king was
satisfied having provided the fish with a natural home
appropriate to his bulk, wide enough to move freely. But
"O great one,” the king heard again, “the ocean is too
dangerous for me, for, the horned sharks, the monsters of
the sea will never leave me alive to enjoy my freedom here.”
Thus repeatedly deluded by the gentle words of the unusual
fish, the king spoke to him: “Who art thou that beguilest
me in that assumed shape? Never before have I seen or
heard so prodigious an inhabitant of the waters who like
thee filled up in a single day a lake a hundred Yojanas in
circumference. Surely thou art Sri Hari who appears before
121
Early Avatars
me and bears the form of natives of the deep in compassion
to thy creatures. My salutations and praises to thee, O the
Lord of the creation, preservation and destruction. Thou
art the soul and only refuge of thy devotees who piously
seek thee. All thy delusive descents in this world give
existence to thy various beings. Yet I am anxious to know
for what cause hast thou assumed this form?
“The Lord of the universe, intending to preserve him
from the sea of destruction caused by the depravity of the
age, thus told him how he was to act : ‘In seven days from
the present time, O thou tamer of enemies ! the three worlds
will be plunged in an ocean of death; but, in the midst of
the destroying waves, a large vessel sent by me for thy use
shall stand before thee. Then thou shalt take all medicinal
herbs, all the varieties of seeds, and accompanied by seven
seers, encircled by pairs of brute animals, thou shalt enter
the spacious ark, and continue in it secure from the flood,
on one immense ocean without light, except the radiance
of thy holy companions. When the ship shall be agitated
by an impetuous wind, thou shalt fasten it with a large sea
serpent Vasuki on my horn; for I will be near thee, drawing
the vessel, with thee and thy attendants. I will remain on
the ocean, O chief of men, until the night of Brahma shall
be completely ended. Thou shalt then know my true
greatness, rightly named the Supreme Godhead; by my
favour all thy questions shall be answered, and thy mind
abundantly instructed.’
“Hari, having thus directed the monarch, disappeared;
and Satyavrata humbly waited for the time which the ruler
of our senses had appointed. The pious king having
scattered towards the east the pointed blades of the grass
122
kusha, and turning his face towards the north, sat
meditating on the feet of the God who had borne the form
of a fish. The sea, overwhelming its shores, deluged the
whole earth, and it was soon perceived to be augmented
by showers from immense clouds. He, still meditating on
the command of Bhagavat, saw the vessel advancing, and
entered it with the chiefs of Brahmins, having carried into
it the medicinal plants, and conformed to the directions of
Hari. The saints thus addessed him: ‘O king, meditate on
Kesava, who will surely deliver us from this danger, and
grant us prosperity.’ The God being invoked by the
monarch, appeared again distinctly on the vast ocean in
the form of a fish, blazing like gold, extending a million of
yojanas, with one stupendous horn on which the king, as
he had been before commanded by Hari, tied the ship with
a cable made of a vast serpent, and, happy in his
preservation, stood praising the destroyer of Madhu.
When the monarch had finished his hymn, the primeval
male, Bhagavat, who watched for his safety on the greater
expanse of water, spake aloud to his own divine essence,
pronouncing a sacred Purana (the ‘Matsya Purana’), which
contained the rules of the Sankhya philosophy; but it was
an infinite mystery to be concealed within the breast of
Satyavrata who, sitting in the vessel with the saints, heard
the principle of Soul, the Eternal Being, proclaimed by the
preserving power. Then Hari, rising together with Brahma
from the destructive deluge, which was now abated, slew
the demon Hayagriva, and recovered the sacred knowledge
— Vedas.”2 The king Satyavrata then, by the grace of the
Lord, was invested with the office of Manu, the progenitor
of men in the present Kalpa.
2. Hindu Mythology by W.J. Wilkins pp.140-41
123
Early Avatars
Kurma
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The story of early Avatars reads like a fairy tale. Yes, a
fairy tale, but a tale that tells the truth. When you read the
Puranas you consistently get the facts on the higher plane
described in terms of the lower, that seems unintelligible
and incomprehensible. Then you have what is called an
allegory, that is, a reality which looks like a fancy down
here, but is a deeper truth than the illusion of physical
matter and is nearer to the reality of things than the things
which you call objective and real. If you follow that line of
thought at all, you will read the Puranas with more
intelligence and certainly with more reverence than some
of the modern Hindus are apt to show and you will begin
to understand that when another vision is opened, one sees
things differently from the way that one sees them on the
physical plane. That which seems impossible on the physical
is what is really seen when you pass beyond the physical
limitations.
It may be noted that all Vedic and Puranic Rishis
described things as they saw on the higher planes or heard
in their inner chambers. That is why Rishis are called seers,
drashta who saw the truth and the Vedic knowledge is
called Shruti. We have appearances described which
seemed very strange in the lower world; we have facts
asserted which raise very much of a challenge in modern
days.
124
When we read in Puranas of strange forms and
marvellous appearances, when we read accounts of
creatures that seem unlike anything that we have ever heard
of or dreamed of, the modern mind with its somewhat
narrow limitations, is apt to revolt against the accounts
that are given. The modern mind, trained within the limits
of the science of observation, is necessarily circumscribed
within those limits, and those limits are of an exceedingly
narrow description, when measured by the sight that goes
back kalpa after kalpa and that knows that the mind of
the Supreme is not limited to the manifestations of a few
hundred thousands of years, but goes back million after
million, hundreds of millions.
The varieties of form, the enormous differences of types,
the marvellous kinds of creatures which have come out of
that creative imagination transcend in actuality all that
man's mind can dream of. The very wildest images that
man can make fall short of the realities that actually existed
in the past kalpas through which the universe has gone.
Moreover, apart from the geological and historial gaps
in material space and time, there are gaps of subtler planes
of consciousness far far above our physical and vital and
mental consciousness, where things originate, realities take
subtle forms and clash with each other and much later
they are brought into play on the material ground. These
occult and spiritual phenomena are beyond the reach of
thinking mind, however intelligent it may be; only the stilled
mind of yogis can have access to those mystic worlds and
know the realities through their heightened consciousness
by identity. It is because of this reason that when the
western pundits with their reasoning and smattering minds
125
Early Avatars
try to grasp the esoteric wisdom of the East, especially the
weltanschauung of ancient India, they return from the
mystic closed doors and find nothing more than 'the
babblings of a race in its infancy.' When we go through the
first three Avatars we find the Divine descending as a fish,
the Matsya Avatar and then second time as a tortoise, the
Kurma Avatar, the third as a boar, the Varaha Avatar.
Three animal forms! How strange wonders the modern
graduate! How strange that the Supreme should take the
forms of these lower animals - a fish, a tortoise, a boar!
Far far back, much before our present creation a time
came when a vast change was impending; one of the
changes called a pralaya is. It was necessary that the seeds
of life be carried over that pralaya to the next manvantara.
And the Lord came, to rescue as Matsya Avatar. Then we
find, tracing it onward, that this great age passes and the
world begins to rise out of the waters. The first life on earth
has already come as a fish. The next great type is to be
fitted either for land or for water; for the next stage of the
earth shows the waters draining gradually away, and the
land appearing. The creature that is the marked
characteristic of the age must exist partially on land and
partially in water. Here again there must be the
manifestation of the type of life this time of what we call
the reptile type. The tortoise is chosen as the typical creature
and while the tortoise typifies the type to be evolved, reptiles,
amphibians, other similar creatures swarm over the earth,
becoming more and more land-based in their character as
the proportion of land to water increases.
So, the second type favoured by Nature was the form
of a tortoise which was assumed by the Lord in the
126
Kachchhap Avatar. And the occasion? The occasion was
the frustration of gods, caused by a curse of Durvasa Rishi,
a great seer but short-tempered. "Your glory and power
will wane away O, Indra," cursed the Rishi, "powerful
Danavas will soon capture the Heaven". Indra ran to
Brahma, the first of the Trinity, the Creator, along with a
host of other gods and implored to him to rescue them from
the impending predicament. Brahma, as he himself could
do nothing in this matter, took them to Vishnu, the supreme
Godhead and entreated Him to help the gods. Having heard
the plea of Gods, Hari thus spoke:
"I will restore your strength, but you have to act as I
enjoin. Let all the Gods and Asuras cast all sorts of medicinal
herbs into the sea of milk, Kshirasagar, and together churn
the ocean for ambrosia. My full aid will be with you without
which you may not perform the task.
"To secure the assistance of your opponents, Asuras,
you must be at peace with them and agree to give them an
equal share of the outcome of your combined labour— the
Amrita, by drinking which they shall become immortal. I
shall take care that the Asuras, who are the enemies of the
gods, shall not partake of the precious draught and only
share in the labour". Gods did the needful as enjoined by
the Lord.
Indra along with other gods approached the king of
the titans— Bali and succeeded in securing their assistance
in the churning of ocean and share the ambrosia. The king's
army chiefs too readily agreed. They both, gods and titans,
threw all the herbs of the earth in the ocean as ordained
and uprooted the Mandara mountain to make it the
churning rod or the Mathani.
127
Early Avatars
Lord Hari himself assumed the form of a mighty tortoise
to serve as a pivot for Mandara mountain as it revolved.
The serpent Vasuki was engaged as a churning rope.
Holding the rope Devas on the tail side of the serpent and
Danavas on the head began to churn the ocean of milk.
The Lord himself was sustaining all of them - gods and
danavas and the serpent king Vasuki in their mighty toil.
Many divine marvels were churned out of this mighty
labour of gods and demons which included Kamadhenu the all fulfilling divine cow, Airawata - the mighty divine
elephant of white colour, Uchchaishrava - the white divine
horse, Kaustubha mani, Kalpavriksha which fulfills all
desires, Moon, Kadali tree, Lakshmi - the supreme Mother
and divine spouse of the Lord Vishnu. Halahal, the poison
and Apsaras too were the products of the
Samudramanthan. The cherished divine Ambrosia AMRITA was last to appear held in the hands of
Dhanvantari - who was given the office of the physician
of Gods later on, as also considered as one of the partial
Avatars of Vishnu.
How was the distribution of the Amrita tackled evading
the share of Asuras is another story and the Lord had to
appear as Mohini - his another partial Avatar - with a
bewitching and tantalizing beauty to make the Asuras
bewildered, confused and confounded.
128
Varaha
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Then lotus-eyed Mahavarahah lifted the earth on his tusks
and emerged out from beneath the lower world - Rasatala - like
a colossal blue mountain.
Then comes the third incarnation of the supreme Lord
that is no less mind-boggling when he appears as a boar, a
Varaha. It is to be noted that this particular form of the
Lord was at once the necessity to solve the crisis of that
time and the type required to evolve in the gradual
progression of the march of Evolution.
According to Indian mythology, which gives us the
most authoritative accounts of the Avatars, Brahma, the
creator of the universe says to the first Swayambhuva Manu
and his spouse Shatarupa to perpetuate the creation on
earth. But where is the earth?
One of the two mightiest titans - Hiranaksha was so
powerful that even gods trembled at the mere mention of
his name and so none could face him. All gods went into
hiding for their safety. The titan then took the earth into
the lowest world - the Rasatala - the deepest bottom of the
ocean and began to beat the tides of waters with his mace
in the frenzy of fun to appease his bellicosity and challenged
Varuna - the lord of waters with his war cry. Varuna
avoiding to fight with him, humbly advised the Asura to
129
Early Avatars
meet Sri Hari, who alone could match his might and satisfy
his itch for battle.
Where will my creation flourish if earth is not there?
The creator of the universe then went into concentration
and prayed to the supreme Lord. It is then that from the
nostril of the supreme Being issued forth a white infant
boar. As the creator Brahma looked at it in dismay, the
infant instantly became as large as an elephant and soon
grew as enormous as a mountain. According to the
accounts of Vayu Purana the boar was ten yojanas in
breadth and a thousand yojanas in height; his colour was
like a dark cloud and his roar like thunder. His bulk was
vast as a mountain; his tusks were white, sharp, and fearful;
fire flashed from his eyes like lightning and he was radiant
as the sun. His shoulders were round, fat and large; he
strode along like a powerful lion; his haunches were fat,
his loins slender and his body smooth and beautiful.
The Varaha who was none other than the Lord himself
the form of massive boar plunged into the waters and found
the earth in the lowest bottom, Rasatala. The earth
recognized the Lord and prayed and bowing with devout
adoration, addressed him in a hymn of great beauty in
which she reminds him that she sprang from him and is
dependent upon him as in fact are all things. Being thus
praised, the auspicious supporter of the world emitted a
low murmuring sound, like the chanting of the Sama-Veda,
and the mighty boar, whose eyes were like lotus, whose
body was vast as the Nilachala and of the dark colour of
the lotus leaves, uplifted upon his ample tusks the earth
from its lowest regions. He was then seen by the demon
Hiranaksha who was already searching for Sri Hari as
130
suggested by Lord Varuna. He at once identified him and
challenged him for fight and chased him holding his mace
in his hand.
After the earth was settled on an appropriate base and
site on the summit of waters so that it could be made
habitable for created things, Varaha turned to the demon
and fought with him and slew him.
Hiranaksha and Hiranyakashipu were two great
demons born as twins to Diti, wife of Rishi Kashyap. These
demons were none others than the gate-keepers of Lord
Vishnu's abode — Jaya and Vijaya. They had refused
Sanakadi Rishis to enter the Lord's presence, who in turn
enraged, cursed them to be born as Daityas. As a
consequence of the curse, Jaya and Vijaya were born as
Hiranaksha and Hiranyakashipu.
Nrisimha
In the story of the Varaha Avatar we have read that
the mighty demon Hiranaksha was killed by the Varaha
Avatar. He had a twin brother Hiranyakashipu who was
equally mighty and a terror for gods. He had done a severe
penance for several thousands of years and was granted a
boon by Brahma that he would not be slain by any weapon,
or by any god, man or animal; nor in the sky or on earth or
in the lower world, not outside nor inside the palace, nor
during day or night, meaning thereby that he should not be
killed by any power whatsoever and at no time and thus
become immortal and invincible.
Demons always have been wanting immortality as the result
of their severe penance, but since immortality could not be
131
Early Avatars
granted directly as the law of Nature would not permit it, they
used to ask their boon in such a way that their wish could not
be refused. But the supreme Lord, always handled the
situation in a befitting manner and foiled all their tricks
and cunning and ultimately all demons were done away with.
Hiranyakashipu too thought that he had tricked his
deity, Brahma, and by his boon he had become deathless.
This idea of high headedness made him mad with power.
Gods were defeated and lost their world, Heaven to him.
He became the sole sovereign master of all the three worlds
and began all kinds of atrocities against gods and holy men.
He had a son, Prahlad, who was a great devotee of Lord
Vishnu, the supreme Godhead. He had always on his lips
the sacred name of the Lord and his image in his heart.
Lord Vishnu was the most hated adversary of the demon,
for the demon himself wanted to be worshipped by all gods
and men as the supreme Lord in all the three worlds. But
here his son himself was defying his authority and always
sang the praise of the Lord. The demon tried to persuade
him personally as also through tutors to sing his glory and
worship him i. e. the demon alone, for he himself claimed
to be the supreme Lord of all the universes and verily, after
he had usurped the sovereignty of Indra, the lord of gods,
all the gods - Surya, Vayu, Agni, Varuna, Soma, Yama,
Gandharvas obeyed his commands and eulogized him as
their supremo. But Prahlad listened to none except the call
of his soul where dwelt Hari, the Almighty Lord, who was
also immanent everywhere. The demon father, enraged and
inflated with pride, commanded his Daityas to kill him as
he could not tolerate his enemy's devout in his own house
and family. To him his son was a blot on the race which
132
must be cleansed forthwith. The demon's attendants
rushed up to kill him with swords and other weapons but
nothing worked on him. Prahlad kept singing the name of
the Lord calmly and fearlessly. And this became the shield
against all dangers. He was then trampled by elephants,
bitten by poisonous serpents, cast down from the mountain
peaks, flung into the sea but Prahlad survived the entire
crisis by chanting and meditating on the Lord's name.
"Throw him into the fire. It will surely consume him." cried
the demon father. But lo! Fire too could not burn a hair.
Puzzled, he asked his son by what magic he was able to
protect himself. "The omnipotent and omnipresent Lord
Vishnu wards off all evils cast on his devotee. There is no
magic in it and His protective hands are available to
everyone who has trust in His Grace," calmly replied
Prahlad.
"Is your God present in this pillar?" cried the demon
pointing out to one of the pillars of his court. He decided to
kill him with his own hands. He therefore, brandishing
his sword at him, jumped from his throne and shouted,
"Let your God save you now if he is everywhere." And lo!
he then heard a terrifying big bang as if the sky had split
which made everyone present in the court tremble. Perplexed
and struck by fear, he looked around and saw a terrible,
ferocious and mysterious figure half lion and half man burst
out from the pillar. It was neither a god, nor a man nor an
animal. His eyes were like burning balls of fire. His gaping
mouth looked like a cave, his tongue like a sharp sword.
His hairy head was as high as sky. His breast was broad and
waist thin. He had hundreds of hands with sharp dagger-like
nails. His white hairs were shining like rays of the moon.
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The demon had already had his devil's due and his end
had now approached. The giant divine figure clutched him
by his paws as a cat catches a rat and dragged him to the
entrance of the court and laid him on his thigh. "Recollect
your boon," a roaring voice came, " I am not a god, nor a
man or an animal. The sun is setting, so it is not day nor
night. You are lying an my lap which is neither sky nor the
earth. This place is a door-way, neither outside nor inside.
My paws will kill you which are no weapons." The demon
was killed by his sharp nails and hurled on the ground.
After the demon was slain, Prahlad was coronated as
the king of Daityas by the Lord himself and he ruled the
earth thereafter for many thousands of years as an ideal
king.
Vamana
There is an interesting story related to the Vamana
Avatar which runs as below:
It is said that the demon king Bali was a gambler in one
of his previous births. One day he received some money by
gambling which he spent to buy a garland of flowers for
his beloved and rushed to offer it to her. In a hurry he
dashed against a boulder and fell down unconscious. After
a while he regained consciousness, but he could not get up
and walk. He felt that he would no longer survive and
was going to die soon. "What to do with the garland, now
it can't reach my darling?" he thought. He then recollected
what he had heard from a saint before that anything
offered to Shiva selflessly was auspicious and brought good
fortune. "Even if it is not auspicious, let me offer it to Shiva,
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after all it is going to be a waste for I can't offer it to my
sweet heart." Having thought thus he offered the garland
to Shiva and died.
He was brought to the Lord of death, the Yamaraj.
"Look into his account of Karma," said the Yamaraj to his
book keeper.
"He has been a sinner for ages," said the recording
angel.
"Any righteous deed, any punyam in his life?" Yamaraj
enquired again.
"Just now, before his death he offered a garland of
flowers to Shiva which he bought by the money he earned
in gambling for his beloved. But as he fell down on his way
and was about to die, he offered it to Shiva. That is the
only punyam in his life if it is a punyam," the angel said.
The Yamaraj mused for a while and said to the gambler,
"Well, what would you like to go through first - to enjoy
the fruit of your punyam or to suffer the fruit of your sin?"
The gambler thought for a while and said, "Suffering hell
will be endless, for my sins are endless; so let me enjoy my
punyam first, if there is any punyam earned by me."
"Although your punyam is very meagre but great. You
are made Indra, the king of Heaven for two hours. Then
you can go to Hell for ever." The Yama gave his verdict.
The gambler soon was seated on the throne of Heaven.
The nymphs came to entertain him. Gandharvas began to
sing his glory. Narad, the celestial sage, who was also
present there laughed sarcastically.
"Why do you laugh? This is impudence in Indra's
court?" chipped in the gambler.
Narad tried to avoid the matter, "No, no, there is
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nothing."
"You must tell me the reason, why did you laugh?"
insisted the gambler politely.
"Your life-story," replied Narad, "reminds me of a sloka
which means that one must do virtuous acts whether one
believes in after-life-worlds or not. The believer does not
lose anything by this but the non-believer is done with.
This sloka applies very much to your life, for, one single
punyam done without any motive has enthroned you in
Heaven, although, for very short time."
The gambler understood the cue and import of giving.
He immediately called Brahmins and gave away all the
heavenly objects — Chintamani, Nandanvan, Airawat
elephant, Kamdhenu etc. to them. In this process two hours
passed.
Indra came and asked, "Where is my Airawat?" - - - "where is my - Kamdhenu?"
The gambler has given them away to Brahmins.
Indra went toYamaraj but he was reprimanded by him
and told, "Now he will not go to Hell. By offering a mere
garland without devotion he earned the kingdom of
Heaven. Now he has ritually offered the Heaven to
Brahmins. He will therefore rule the Heaven only." It was
he who became Daityaraj Bali, the king of Titans.
Raja Bali, although he was a demon, was a great giver.
He respected Rishis and Brahmins and gave them whatever
they asked for. By virtue of his generosity and nobility and
the sacrifice performed by Brahmins of the race of Bhrigu
he became so powerful that he conquered all the three
worlds. He became invincible by gods. The incarnation of
Vamana was undertaken by the Lord to recover the Heaven
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for the gods. Having lost the kingdom of Heaven and
thereby their share of sacrifices to the demons, gods were
perturbed. They approached their Mother Aditi, who in
turn did a great penance to please Lord Vishnu. Vishnu,
pleased with her penance, promisea to come as her son
and deliver gods from their deprivation from office, even if
he had to beg, for, Bali was so pious and powerful that
there was no ground on which he could be vanquished.
Lord Vishnu then assumes the form of a dwarf Brahmin
and sets out to fulfil his mission. He reaches the spot where
Raja Bali was performing a great sacrifice and giving away
to Brahmins according to their wishes. Whatever suppliants
wanted from him he bestowed on them. Bhrigus were the
priests of the sacrifice while all other great Rishis and sages
were also present. The demon king welcomed the dwarf
Brahmin, washed his feet and promised to give him
whatever pleased him - cows, gold, embellished house,
food and drink, Brahmin's daughter, flourishing villages,
horses, elephants, carriages, land - - - - . The dwarf Brahmin
praised the greatness of the forefathers of the king Virochana, Prahlad, Hiranaksha and Hiranyakashipu and
that of their worthy successor, the king Bali himself. The
king pleased with him, said, "please command, O son of
Brahmin, what can I do for you."
The dwarf concludes his speech with the semblance of
moderation as follows: I ask from thee a small portion of
ground, three paces measured step by step, I desire no more
from thee. A wise man incurs no sin when he asks only as
much as he needs." The king, though astonished at the
smallness of the request takes a vessel of water in his hand
and is about to give confirmation of his word ritually by
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Early Avatars
samkalp. His preceptor, Sukracharya, the priest of the
demons, saw through the Vamana Brahmin, the play of
Vishnu to trick the king and advised him to break his word
and said that the Vamana Brahmin was no other than
Vishnu himself who had come to cheat him of his wealth
and power in favour of gods. But the king, in spite of his
guru's warning, was rather happy to know this and
thought the fact that the Lord himself had come to ask for
something from him was a great privilege and it was
fortunate of him to serve the Lord with whatsoever pleased
him. And the king with great joy gave his ritual consent to
give three paces of land to him. The Vamana's pigmy form,
after samkalp, becomes a giant and massive figure and
measured the earth and the heaven by two strides and the
third step yet to be measured. "Asura, three paces of ground
were promised to me by Thee; with two paces the entire
earth and heaven have been covered; find a place for the
third," said Vamana.
Bali offers his head for the third pace of Vishnu, who
presses his foot to send the king to the patala, the lower
world.
Bali was a daitya all right, but nevertheless he was a
benign and benevolent ruler, a great giver, favourably
inclined to Brahmins and Rishis, and so mighty that even
gods were not able to vanquish him. Why then had the
Lord come to humble him down. The entire religious
scripture has a mystic, spiritual and universal message
concealed and codified in allegories. The way the story of
king Bali runs, we hardly find anything negative in him.
And if there is anything which is not to be tolerable or so
monstrous, why is he not done away with altogether? His
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greatness is simply subdued, his ego is humbled down and
the higher region is liberated from the black shadow of
egoism. Indeed, it is ego that is the Asura, form and degree
may vary. Therefore the work of Vamana Avatar is to
restore the higher kingdom of gods to them from the
clutches of the demons, the forces of the vital region, the
seat of the Ego.
Parashurama
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This has been an absolute truth from time immemorial.
Statecraft and rule of kingdom has been the prerogative
of the Kshatriyas who were strong, powerful, fearless,
courageous, and valiant and protectors and saviours of the
weak and the holy. They were heroes of high morals, and
model kings. It was the tradition of the Aryan culture of
yore in India. But since they enjoyed absolute power,
sometimes they were subjected to moral degeneration and
degradation and fall from their ideal. We find many
examples of this nature in our ancient history, one of which
is being cited here as it is relevant to the present story of
Parashurama Avatar of the Supreme Being.
Once in ancient times there ruled a king named
Sahasrarjuna who was the son of Kritavirya of Haihaya
dynasty. Once he, along with his retinue and regiment
visited the Ashram of Jamadagni Rishi who was one of the
great galaxy of seven seers of the Veda. The Rishi had a
heavenly cow - all fulfilling Kamdhenu Savatsa whom he
had earned by virtue of his great tapas. The Rishi prayed
to the Kamdhenu to look after the royal guests, feed them
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Early Avatars
to their heart's content and take care of their proper comfort
and rest. The king was impressed by the wonderful banquet
and the luxurious arrangement of rest for such a large
number of his team in the simple and austere hutments of
the Rishi's ashram in the forest. When he came to know
that all that was produced by the divine cow - Kamdhenu,
he could not resist the temptation to take away the celestial
cow along with him. He therefore requested his host, the
Rishi to part with the heavenly Kamadhenu. But the Rishi
humbly refused the king's demand and said, "She is the
mother and soul of the Ashram. It is she who supplies us
all sacrificial needs and materials for all kinds of religious
rituals as also takes care of our celestial visitors. How can I
think of parting with her."
The king Sahasrarjuna, by virtue of a severe penance,
had obtained a boon from his deity Dattatreya to have a
thousand arms and not to be slain by any one except the
Divine. Drunk with power and pride, he therefore not only
expanded his empire ruthlessly, crushing the neighbourly
small fiefs, but also became arrogant, atrocious and
absolutely blind to all norms of decency and decorum. It is
then no wonder that he took away the Rishi's Kamadhenu
by force to his capital, let alone to say a word of gratitude
to the Rishi for his generous hospitality. The king's men,
boors and brutes, drove away the cow mercilessly while
she looked back piteously mooing at the Rishi who stood
stony, dumbstruck and helpless at the pitiless act of the
king and his men. Although his power of penance was far
more mighty than the haughty king, the great Rishis
characteristically always keep calm and unperturbed,
condone and forgive even the most evil ones.
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But his youngest son Parashurama was different. He
was the living image of both Brahmatej and Kshatratej,
the glory of the Brahminic wisdom and the force of a
Kshatriya. He combined both propensities in his nature tapas and battle. As a son of a Rishi and Brahmin he
mastered all Vedas and scriptures — Shaastra vidya as also
the science of weapons, Astra-vidya, under the tutelage of
Maharshi Kashyap. He also performed a great penance
and pleased the great God Shiva who granted him many
invincible divine astras.
He had a very impressive and awesome personality —
a tall and perfect body with an axe on one shoulder and a
bow on the other like a warrior, with matted hair on his
haloed countenance and clad in valkalavastra like an
ascetic, a tapasvin, fair complexioned stout body like a flame
of fire — shining like a brilliant sun.
When on his return from the forest, he learnt of the
unfortunate incident from his mother, he was furious and
immediately ran to give a chase to the king and bring back
his sacred Kamadhenu.
The king had not yet reached his capital, Mahishmatipuri when Parashurama checked and challenged him for
battle.
"Kill the Brahmin. He has come to take away the cow."
The king, haughty and blind to the reality, commanded
his men. This was the state of disregard to which the
superior status of the Brahmins, the knowers of Brahman,
Rishis that was once highest in the society was reduced
and degenerated in course of time. But the king had to pay
a very heavy price for his unworthy acts and words. Not
only the king's men and regiments were killed, but also the
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Early Avatars
king himself lost his life at the hands of Parashurama, the
Incarnate Divine. Having freed the cow, his Kamadhenu,
he returned to his father's hermitage.
To avenge the death of their father, sons of
Sahasrarjuna, attacked the ashram of Rishi Jamadagni,
when Parashurama and his brothers were not present
there, and chopped up the head of the meditating Rishi
and ran away with it. The Rishi's wife Renuka helplessly
lamented and beat her breast in heart-rending grief. This
was the height of arrogance and atrocity against the
innocent holy hermits and the Rishis who were engaged in
tapas only for the public welfare - lokakalyana without
any motive. When Parashurama returned to the Ashram
and came to know the tragedy, he immediately rushed with
his bow and axe to Mahishmatipuri. Kshatriyas were
supposed to love and take care of their subjects. Instead,
they had become worse than asuras. They must be taught
a lesson. Therefore Parashurama not only killed all the
thousand sons of the brute king, but killed all the kshatriyas
of the land and not once, but twenty one times, to ensure
that no progeny survived any more.
This was the Divine wrath to set right the imbalance
created by the asuric conduct of the kshatriya kings. The
right equilibrium was later firmly founded by another genre
of kshatriya kings led by Rama who was again none other
than the Incarnate Divine. `
Rama
Rama is the seventh Avatar of the Supreme Godhead.
Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, wreaks havoc on earth,
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peace takes flight and darkness shrouds the land as his
atrocities grow with each passing day. The mother earth
cries out in supplication to the Heaven to deliver her from
the tyranny of the demons. In answer to her prayers the
Lord decides to descend on the earth in the form of Rama
and put an end to the evil. He not only came to kill Ravana,
but also to show how a man can stick to the path of
righteousness in the face of all adversity. A hero and warrior
like no other, Rama towers above over not only kings or
demons of his time in prowess, but also sages and seers in
wisdom despite his tender age. And all his actions are not
for the self but for his people and the humanity at large.
The spell-binding story of Sri Rama Avatar has been
very vividly depicted in the Sanskrit epic 'Ramayana' by
Valmiki - a great sage and poet of ancient India. This
unique literary marvel surpasses all the great poetic
creations of the world in its characterization, vision and
cosmic sweep. It is at once a legend and a cultural history
which stands as a great landmark in the terrestrial
evolution of mankind on earth. The story of Rama Avatar
is so popular in India, so much infused in the fabric of
Indian life that all kinds of people, from pundit to the
peasant, from king to pauper, never get tired of singing
the glory of Rama and act his life-story on their festive
occasions. It is indeed the warp and woof of the national
culture of our country.
Rama descended on earth in Treta Yuga, according to
the Indian classification of kâla from the point of view of
evolutionary progress in the human nature. He marks the
end of one stage of civilization, the civilization of animal
and asuric nature, and the beginning of a sane and
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Early Avatars
enlightened culture, the culture of sattwic and ideal mind
— Rama Rajya.
He manifests a wonderful reconciliation of two
opposing natures in his character — humility, unassuming
temperament, calm and endurance, and matchless
valiance, invincible force and victor's power. He comes as
the greatest warrior of his time, for he had to deal with the
titanic forces which were opposing the new light to
descend, and establish itself in the earthly play.
He was of course a prophet and harbinger of a new
way of life, but not a Rishi or sage or saint, but a prince,
although he was the saviour of sages and seers.
Born as the eldest son of king Dasharath of Ayodhya,
he is taken away while still young by Rishi Vishwamitra to
his hermitage for the protection of sacrifices and religious
performance of Rishis against the rakshasas. Two demons
— Maricha and Subahu were commanded by Ravana —
the titan king of Lanka, to prevent the completion of
sacrifices being performed by Rishis. He was accompanied
by his faithful and beloved brother Lakshmana on the way
to the hermitage. Vishwamitra bestows on Rama various
arms and powers to make him more powerful and
unparalleled in might.
The task of completion of yajnas undistursed under
the watchful eyes of the duo, the sage addresses Rama thus:
My joy, o prince, is now complete
Thou hast obeyed my will
Perfect before, this calm retreat
Is now more perfect still.3
Next, Rama and Lakshmana are persuaded to
accompany the hermit to Mithila, the capital of king Janaka,
3. Griffithi's Ramayan p.125
144
to attend the swayamvar ceremony of his daughter - Sita's
marriage - as also to see the wonderful bow of Lord Shiva
under the possession of the king. On the way Rama, by his
divine touch, liberates Ahalya, the wife of Gautama Rishi
who had been turned into a stone by the curse hurled by
her husband, for ages.
Rama and Lakshmana along with the sage reach
Mithila. They are introduced to the king Janaka. The
ceremony begins. The heavenly bow is brought on to the
stage and the king announces that whoever shall bend the
bow and pull the string, to him will go his daughter, Sita.
All the suitors, kings and princes, desirous of winning Sita's
hand failed to move the bow even by an inch, let alone to
bend and string it.
Then disappointed Janaka invites Rama who takes it
up easily in his hand and as he was to pull the string, it
snapped in two, to the wonder of the beholders. Rama thus
becomes the successful suitor of Sita and messengers are
dispatched to Ayodhya to invite his father to the wedding
ceremony. His two brothers - Bharata and Shatrughna also
join and along with Rama's marriage with Sita, his three
brothers are also wedded to the other three daughters of
king Janaka. Then they return home and live in happiness.
After some time, when the eldest Rama was to be
coronated, Rama's step-mother, the mother of Bharata,
Kaikeyi, who was envious of Rama's enthronement and
willing to enthrone her own son instead, forced the king
Dasharath to fulfill the vow given to her on an occasion of
great danger when she alone had stood by him. And the
vow shall be fulfilled only if Rama was sent to live a hermit's
life in the forest for fourteen years and her own son Bharata
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Early Avatars
installed as king.
Rama, as an image of humility and ideal son, follows
his step-mother's command and departs without any
murmur. His faithful wife Sita and ideal brother
Lakshmana insist on accompanying him. Thus all three
left the capital amidst the tears of the whole city. The
helpless king Dasharatha quietly suffers and at last
succumbs to his unbearable grief a short time after their
departure.
The three met with many adventures in the forest while
they lived like ascetics. On the way Rama and Lakshmana
killed a great giant named Viradha, who wanted to run
away with Sita. Then he kills a big battalion of 14 thousand
soldiers of Ravana under the captaincy of Khara and
Dushana who, enraged, came to kill Rama, Lakshmana
and Sita soon after Ravana's sister Shurpanakha's nose was
mutilated by Lakshmana. This is followed by Sita's
abduction by Ravana to avenge the insult to his sister,
Shurpanakha, with the help of Maricha. Maricha was
reluctant to help Ravana in his malicious plan of
kidnapping Sita, but forced and threatened by him, agreed
to take the form of a golden deer to entice Sita. Sita, attracted
by it, insisted that Rama catch it for her. Rama follows the
deer, Lakshmana stays back to take care of Sita. Rama
shoots the deer and while dying it cried in the voice of
Rama, "Ha Sita! Ha Lakshmana"! Lakshmana leaves Sita
alone and rushes towards Rama to see if something was
wrong with him. Ravana, who was hiding near, seized
the opportunity to carry off the defenceless Sita and took
his in her chariot to his palace in Lanka.
Rama and Lakshmana, when they returned home and
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did not see Sita there, sank in sorrow and grief and tried in
vain to find her in the forest.
At last, with the help of Jatayu, Hanuman, Sugriva,
Jambavant, etc. they were able to trace the whereabouts of
Sita. But to bring her back from the clutches of the mighty
demon Ravana across a sea of a hundred yojanas was
almost impossible. On the advice of Hanuman Rama agrees
to restore the kingdom of the monkey king Sugriva from
his brute brother Vali on the condition that Sugriva would
help him to get back Sita from Lanka. Rama then kills Vali
and Sugriva is made the king of Vanaras.
With the help of Sugriva and his army of powerful
monkeys at last the sea is bridged and a mighty army of
monkeys attacked the fortification of Lanka. There was a
fierce battle between the Danavas and the Vanaras.
Ravana's brother Vibhishana was a godly person and was
not happy with Ravana because of his immoral act of
kidnapping Sita. He therefore joined Rama's side and
helped him fight the war with Ravana. This was a fierce
battle between demoniac forces and the divine powers.
Ravana was no ordinary demon. He was the mightiest force
in all the three worlds. Gods had already been vanquished
by him. He never cared for mere beasts and men. That is
why he was cock sure that he will win the war and the
monkeys' army of Rama and Lakshmana will serve as a
good banquet for his rakshasas.
There were many moments of ups and downs. Many a
time Rama and Lakshmana were wounded and fell
unconscious by the furious assaults of mighty danavas and
monkeys in thousands were eaten up by them. There were
times when Rama's army lost the hope to win. But at last
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Early Avatars
Ravana along with his mighty chiefs was killed by Rama
and Lakshmana. Sita was restored and all the three happily
go back home to Ayodhya since the period of the exile
was about to end. At this point the drama ends in comedy.
But the drama continues. A time comes in Rama's life when
Sita was exiled at the behest of one of his subjects who had
to be satisfied at all costs in a model kingdom, Rama Rajya,
which was one of the obligations to be fulfilled as an ideal
king.
But these are the background created for the Avataric
works for which the supreme Godhead came down as
Rama on earth. He came down to give a push to the
evolutionary wheel. Man had emerged out of beasts, but
the rein of his life was still in the hands of animal vitality.
The mental morality was still a far cry. It was still a jungle
raj. He comes to manifest the power of the higher mind
which can tame both forces — the titans and the beasts.
He sets ideals in all possible relations — an ideal son, an
ideal brother, an ideal lover and husband, and ideal friend
and finally an ideal king and warrior, and, for all this he
sacrificed all his personal wills, comforts and conveniences.
He came down purely to work out the Divine will as the
Divine man to play the hero in the cosmic drama of the
Divine.
Sri Aurobindo's remarks on Rama Avatar are worth
reading for he himself is the incarnation of the Divine
knowledge and power and he has looked at Rama's life
from that divine height:
"His business was to destroy Ravana and to establish
the Rama Rajya — in other words, to fix for the future the
possibility of an order proper to the sattwic civilized human
148
being who governs his life by the reason, the finer emotions,
morality, or at least moral ideals, such as truth, obedience,
cooperation and harmony, the sense of domestic and public
order, — to establish this in a world still occupied by
anarchic forces, the animal-mind and the powers of the
vital Ego making its own satisfaction the rule of life, in
other words, the Vanara and Rakshasa. This is the meaning
of Rama and his life-work and it is according as he fulfilled
it or not that must be judged as Avatar or no Avatar. It
was not his business to play the comedy of the chivalrous
kshatriya with the formidable brute beast that was Vali, it
was his business to kill him and get the Animal under his
control. It was his business to be not necessarily a perfect,
but a largely representative sattwic man, a faithful husband
and a lover, a loving and obedient son, a tender and perfect
brother, father, friend— he is friend of all kinds of people,
friend of the outcast Guhaka, friend of the animal leaders,
Sugriva, Hanuman, friend of the vulture Jatayu, friend of
even Rakshasa Vibhishana. All he was in a brilliant, striking
but, above all, spontaneous and inevitable way, - - - - but
with a certain harmonious completeness. But most of all, it
was his business to typify and establish the things on which
the social idea and its stability depend, truth and honour,
the sense of Dharma, public spirit and the sense of order.
To the first, to the truth and honour much more than to
his filial love and obedience to his father — though to that
also — he sacrificed his personal rights as the elect of the
king and the assembly, and fourteen of the best years of
his life and went into exile in the forests. To his public spirit
and his sense of public order, the great and supreme civic
virtue in the eyes of the ancient Indians, Greeks, Romans,
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Early Avatars
for at that time the maintenance of the ordered community,
not the separate development and satisfaction of the
individual, was the pressing need of the human evolution,
he sacrificed his own happiness and domestic life and the
happiness of Sita. In that he was at one with the moral
sense of all the antique races…… Finally, it was Rama's
business to make the world safe for the ideal of the sattwic
human being by destroying the sovereignty of Ravana, the
Rakshasa menace. All this he did with such a divine afflatus
in his personality and action that his figure has been
stamped for more than two millenniums on the mind of
Indian culture, and what he stood for has dominated the
reason and idealizing mind of man in all countries, and in
spite of the constant revolt of human vital, is likely to
continue to do so until a greater ideal arises. "4
4. Avatarhood AIM (Aug-Sept) 1998 pp.51-53
150
Chapter 5
Buddha Avatar
"Buddhism came as a blaze of lightning across the sky of
India's tradition; it was almost a fiery writing on the wall.
Buddhism opposed and denied some of the very
fundamental principles upon which the old world rested,
it was perhaps the greatest iconoclastic movement ever
thrown up by the human consciousness. First of all, it
denied the tradition itself; it did not recognize the authority
and sanctity of the pûrve pitarah, the ancient fathers, nor
their revealed knowledge, the Veda. Buddhism enjoined
the priority and supremacy of the individual's own
consciousness, own effort and own realisation. 'Be thou
thy own light, work out thy own salvation. —'that was
the injunction given. Not to take anything for granted not even God or Brahman — but to judge and see for
yourself where and what is the truth. It was the first
protestant reaction recorded in human history." This is how
Shri Nolinikant Gupta wraps up the Buddhism, in his
article, 'The Mission of Buddhism' compiled in the 2nd
volume of his Collected Works.
Yes, indeed, Buddha was born and brought up in India
and in the Hindu tradition but developed an independent
view of things, his own weltanschauung, which was even
contrary in many respects to his own traditional family
culture, founded as an independent doctrine and religion
called Buddhism separate from the Hindu scriptures and
yet, he was not only enfolded by Hindus and their
scriptures but also accepted as one of the incarnations of
their supreme deity.
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Buddha Avatar
Buddha is regarded as the ninth Avatar of the Supreme
Godhead, the Lord Vishnu of the Hindus, although he
himself never believed in God or Gods or even in the
individual soul which is the indwelling God in all the
creatures of the world according to the Gita: <Ç·É®ú : ºÉ´ÉÇ¦ÉÚiÉÉxÉÉÆ
¾þqùä¶Éä%VÉÖxÇ É ÊiÉ¹`öÊiÉ *
But one thing was remarkable in him; he was all
compassion and love for suffering humanity and this urge
was so strong that he felt he could stake anything and
everything of his life to save humanity from the curse of
suffering and pain, dukkham, of life. He was all the time
lost sitting pensive and melancholy right from his
childhood. He was a handsome and brilliant prince of
Kapilavastu, a kingdom of the Shakya dynasty in the valley
of Himalayas near Nepal, son of king Shuddhodana who
ruled there nearly two thousand and five hundred years
ago. When he grew young he still sat wrapped in solitude
instead of going out for hunting or other prince-like sports
or partaking of joys of royalty. Worried parents hoped for
some change in his nature if he was married. But in vain.
When he was married and also became father of a child,
he was still steeped in the world of thought, meditating
and musing. He was 29 then. It was about that time that
four simple and common events, which in everyone's life
and perhaps everyday, happen unnoticed, stormed his
mind and soul and brought about a most uncommon
change in his life. It was a great turning point in this career.
One day on his outing he happened to see on the path
quite an old man passing by, fully ripe of age, with
corrugated skin all over, sunken cheeks and eyes and no
teeth, stooped, tottering on his stick and about to fall down
152
with no one arround to support. He was dumb struck at
this pitiable sight. His heart melted. He had never seen such
a pathetic scene before. He was full of compassion for him.
He stopped the coach and wanted to know from the
coachman what this creature was and why and how he
met this fate.
"This is the lot of man to grow old, from childhood to
youth and from youth to old age and when he is too old to
walk he looks like that. There is nothing unusual about it,
and nothing to be surprised at," replied the coachman very
coolly. "Let's return home and not move further," Buddha
said, who was on his way to his royal pleasure-park. He
was surprised how people can enjoy amidst these miseries
of life. There is no permanence in anything. The world, the
life is nothing but pain and sorrow.
The second day he happened to see a sick man whose
lustre of youth was robbed by his disease which left him so
grotty and grotesque unlike a human creature. Again the
prince was struck and he wanted to know if he was really
a human being or something else. The coachman again
explained that sickness too was the fate of man like the old
age andcould not escape it. The prince, Siddhartha as he
was called, again was perturbed and wished to return to
the palace and reflect on it.
The third day likewise he happened to see a dead man,
around whom his relatives and kinsmen were crying and
beating their breasts. The prince learnt from his coachman
that the deadman will no more return to life for death, the
end of life or the end of everything was inevitable and
sooner or later all living beings must end in nothingness.
The next day he met a young mendicant, clad in ochre
153
Buddha Avatar
robe and a begging bowl in his hand, with calm and
peaceful countenance. He learnt from the coachman that
he was a wise man given to search for and seek the higher
purpose of life, free from the burden of the common life,
trying to go above the mirage of desire and the wild-goosechase to satisfy it. He keeps a begging bowl and is happy
and content to eat whatever he gets from the house-holders.
The prince took his cue from the mendicant and decided
to go in search of the cause of human misery and the way
to get rid of it for the humanity. It is said that the prince
confided in his father and told him the work he was
intending to do and for which he felt a pressing call from
his heart. Before the king could discuss the matter with his
ministers and his queen, the prince suddenly one day at
midnight called his coachman and asked him to leave him
(the prince) on the border of his kingdom. Thus he left the
palace in the darkness of midnight in search of light for
the suffering world.
A monument still stands on the site, where Siddhartha,
the prince bade his adieu to the old world of ignorance
and entered a life of search for a light, on the way to
Kushinagar, a place now in ruins, situated about 50 miles
from Gorakhpur in Utter Pradesh .
Buddha first went to Vaishali and became a disciple of
a Brahmin guru of 300 disciples, but soon he found that it
was not what he was looking for. He thence went to Rajagrih, the capital city of Magadh and found another guru
there, who too could not satisfy his urge. Ultimately he
decided to undergo a penance and severe austerity to find
the knowledge of the Truth and he went into the forests
near a village Uruvila along with other five fellow seekers.
154
After subjecting his body and mind to hard disciplines of
tapasya for 6 years, he came to conclusion that asceticism
was not the right road to abiding peace of mind and
deliverance from sorrow and pain of life; rather it was a
snare. He left that practice too and broke his long fast and
sat in meditation under a peepal tree near Gaya city on the
bank of river Niranjana with a determined will that he
would not get up until the realisation of the knowledge
which will deliver him from the trap of life and its curses.
It is said that under that very tree he realised the supreme
consciousness which he called enlightenment after a
prolonged and severe battle with Mara and its armies, the
forces of Kama, the originator of all desires and pains and
sufferings and death. In his meditation after the victory
over the dark forces he reached a world of light, peace and
calm and utter bliss. Nothing existed beyond that. There
was no desire there, nor the consequences of desire. There
was no suffering and pain, no old age, no disease and death
there. He did not see any God there. It was a great void,
infinite vacancy — a fathomless zero, absolute absence of
existence — Asat. When he woke up, he was at peace, free
from all problems of life and the world. The tree became
famous as the Bodhi Tree and the place was known later
as Bodh Gaya.
He formulated his great experiences later into doctrines
and began to share them with people as a mendicant, a
travelling monk, in the form of sermons which became
famous as four Arya Satyas viz., 1. There is suffering in
life. 2. There is a reason for it and that is Desire 3. There is
a solution to it. 4. and the solution is the eight-fold path —
Ashta Marga — which includes eight disciplines such as
155
Buddha Avatar
samyak drishti, samyak samkalp, samyak vak, samyak
karma, samyak ajivika, samyak vyayama, samyak smriti,
and samyak Samadhi. If the seeker followed these
disciplines, he would be delivered from the snare of life
and he will reach the absolute freedom from dukkham of
life which he called Nirvana — a status of consciousness
where there is perfect bliss and peace. After he realised
this knowledge, he claimed to be the Enlightened One or
the Buddha.
His doctrines became famous as Buddhism — a separate
new religion cut off from the main tradition of India which
was then based on the Veda and Upanishad — a revealed
knowledge by many Rishis of yore. There was no personal
religion at that time in India like Christianity or Islam
founded by any particular Avatar or prophet but the entire
tradition was known as Sanatana Dharma — the Eternal
Law, which was catholic and universal in character and
was meant for the entire mankind. It was not founded by
any particular individual at any particular point of time in
history. Nor was it called Hindu Religion by the natives of
the soil. It was of late that the Aryan culture and tradition
of India was identified by outsiders as Hinduism. The word
Hindu may be derived from Indus river and the Indus
valley civilization.
Whatever it is, Buddhism caught momentum during
the life-time of Buddha itself. He was invited by the king of
Magadh, Bimbisara, to his capital city Rajagriha for his
lectures, followed by invitation by the king of Kosala, Raja
Prasenjit. Since the Buddha himself hailed from a royal
family and he was a charming, intelligent and brilliant
speaker who spoke with strong conviction, about things
156
perceptible and palpable, with realistic approach, within
the range of common man's experience, he received a wide
response both from the commonalty and the royalty. His
ideas were also patronized by the kings. But yet the most
important reason for the instant success of Buddhism was
the fading spirit of Vedic practice and general deterioration
in the character of Brahmins, the priests, the leaders of the
society and their fraudulent behaviour who, in the name
of God and gods and the sacrificial rites of the Veda, were
cheating the society. It is for this reason that the Buddha
denied the authority of the Veda and suggested each one
to work out one's own salvation and to be one's own light,
not to take anything for granted — not even God — but to
judge and see for oneself where and what is the truth. There
was already brewing and boiling in the air a general
dissatisfaction against the hypocricy in the name of the
old tradition. They found their own voice in the words of
the Buddha. The essence of spirituality had evaporated from
the sanctum sanctorum of the Vedic altars; only the outer
vestiges were being continued.
Moreover, the approach of the Buddha was so realistic,
humanistic and rationalistic that it straightaway appealed
to the heart of every one. Who does not suffer in life? Who
is not forced to drink the cup of pain, disease and death?
But why? What is the reason? Everybody would like to
know. And every one would like to be free from it. The
Buddha's words touched the most vulnerable point, the
vital spot of the human conscience and it was heard by
people with great interest.
Casteism was another curse prevalent in the
contemporary society which was the ugliest deformation
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Buddha Avatar
of the great system of varnashram of the Aryan cult.
Buddhism denied even this and favoured only two classes
— Bhikkus and House-holders — no brahmin and kshatriya
and no vaishya and shudra. No one is high and no one is low.
He also denied God in the name of whom the society
was being exploited under various garbs, casteism being
one of them. Therefore even God was exiled from the
Buddhist tenet. The concept of soul, the divine spark and
its rebirth from life to life to carry forward the evolution of
the central consciousness towards the Supreme Being of
Sachchidananda was out of question. The Buddha says: if
you take off the elements that constitute the creation of
man one by one, nothing is left in the end. Man is only an
assemblage of separate elements. There is nothing behind
them or within them that is permanent and holding them
together. When names and forms go, at the end there is
only dissolution, pure and simple, Nothing, Nihil, an infinite
zero or Asat. But "Nothing can arise from Nothing,"
comments Sri Aurobindo, "nothingness is a creation of our
mind; where it cannot see or conceive, where its object is
something beyond its grasp, too much beyond to give even
the sense of a vague intangible, then it cries out, 'Here there
is nothing'. Out of its own incapacity it has created the
conception of a zero. But what in truth is this zero? It is an
incalculable Infinite."1
Sri Aurobindo again remarks: "it is agreed even by the
philosophies of the Nihil, Tao or Zero (Sunya) that the NonExistence of which they speak is a Naught in which all is
and from which all comes. Tao, Nihil, or Zero is not different
from the Absolute or the Supreme Brahman of Vedanta; it
is only another way of describing or naming it." 2
1. Essays Divine and Human CWSA 12:197 2. Ibid p.200
158
Nor does Sri Aurobindo agree to Buddhist philosophy
of 'Sarva Dukkha', all life and world is suffering and pain,
because for him all is delight, the world is born out of delight
and goes to delight for "no man could even have the
strength to draw in his breath and throw it out again if
there were not this heaven of Bliss embracing our existence
as ether embraces our bodies, nourishing us with its eternal
substance and strength and supporting the life and the
activity."3
In spite of contrary views, Sri Aurobindo accepts the
Buddha as the Divine Incarnation for he shot up directly
to the Absolute the Abode of supreme Peace and Light and
Knowledge from where there is no returning to birth. But
yet, he adds, "Buddha tried to shoot from mind to Nirvana
in the Supreme just as Shankara did in another way after
him. Both agree in overleaping the other stages and trying
to get at a nameless and featureless Absolute. Krishna on
the other hand was leading by the normal course of
evolution. The next normal step is not a featureless Absolute
but the Supermind. I consider that in trying to overshoot,
Buddha like Shankara made a mistake, calling away the
dynamic side of the liberation. Therefore there has to be a
correction by Kalki,"4
And if Buddha is the Avatar, Divine Incarnation in
human body, what were his Avataric works!
It is undoubtedly true that he did not follow the beaten
tracks of his preceding Avatars, and yet reached the
Supreme Truth. The Supreme Truth is infinite and
infinite are the ways to realise it. He charted a new route
to reach the Truth, the route of the human way. He
looked at the world, the suffering humanity, not from the
3. Ibid p.215 4. Avatarhood (AIM) Aug-Sept 1998 p.45
159
Buddha Avatar
ivory tower of a realised soul or a divine person who has
attained to an equanimity, a poised state of samata towards
pleasure and pain, or health and sickness or life and death,
but as a common man who too himself can be a victim of
the common problems of the common man. He looked at
humanity from the eye of the humanity. And instead of
seeking the solution of the ills of common men through the
old paths, he rationalized the problem, pondered over it,
tried many methods, sacrificed all his life to find a new
solution, and came out with a new formula of a middle
path. He discovered on his way four Arya Satyas and an
eight -fold path. Thus we can say that humanity — which
is nothing but his love and compassion for humanity and
rationality are his two new and great contributions to the
world.
"Such an age of Reason," writes Nolinikanta Gupta,
"and Ratiocination and pure brain power was ushered in
by Buddha in India, and almost contemporaneously by
Socrates in Greece and Confucius in China. The
rationale, that is to say, the scientific or analytical attitude
to things appeared in the human consciousness for the
first time in its fullness and almost exclusive sway.
Neither the Vedas nor the Upanishads know of logic as
an instrument — a necessary instrument — for knowledge
and expression. The old world method was, as I said,
intuitive, experiential, empirical, dogmatic. Also the
atmosphere of that world, the stress of the consciousness
was theocratic; what the new world brought in was what
is called humanistic."5 His compassion and love for the
suffering humanity was so deep that, it is said, when his
soul heard the human cry while ascending the Nirvanic
5. Collected Works of Nolinikanta Gupta Vol.2 p.281
160
status, he refused to go there and decided to stay back on
the earth to help and guide men to escape the misery till
the entire humanity was liberated.
161
Chapter 6
Kalki:
The Avatar: Sri Aurobindo
1. 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.
15.08.1964
—The Mother
*
2. The symbol of Sri Aurobindo: The descending triangle
represents Sat-Chit-Ananda.
The ascending triangle represents the aspiring answer from
Matter under the form of life, light and love.
The junction of both — the central square — is the perfect
manifestation having at its centre the Avatar of the Supreme —
the lotus.
The water, inside the square, represents multiplicity, the
creation.
—The Mother
*
3. Since the beginning of earth history, Sri Aurobindo has always
presided over the great earthly transformations, under one form
or another.
—The Mother
*
4. (Q: You spoke of Sri Aurobindo's birth as 'eternal' in the
history of the universe. What exactly was meant by 'eternal'.?)
The sentence can be understood in four different ways on four
ascending planes of consciousness:
a) Physically, the consequences of the birth will be of eternal
importance in the world.
b) Mentally, it is a birth that will be eternally remembered in
162
the universal history.
c) Psychically, a birth that recurs for ever from age to age upon
earth.
d) Spiritually, the birth of the Eternal upon earth.
*
5. In the eternity of becoming each Avatar is only the announcer,
the forerunner of a more perfect future 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.
21.2.1957
— The Mother
*
6. Sri Aurobindo came to tell us: "One need not leave the earth
to find the truth, one need not leave the life to find his soul, one
need not abandon the world or have only limited beliefs to enter
into relation with the Divine. The Divine is everywhere, in
everything and if He is hidden, it is because we do not take the
trouble to discover Him."
— The Mother
*
7. 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.
— The Mother
*
163
The Avatar : Sri Aurobindo
8. Sri Aurobindo does not belong to the past nor to history. Sri
Aurobindo is the future advancing towards its realisation.
2.4.1967
— The Mother
*
9. 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 Mother
*
10. 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. Sri
Aurobindo has given that assurance.
27.11. 1971
— The Mother
*
11. 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.
20.6.1972
— The Mother
*
12. Q: I have a strong feeling that you are the Divine Incarnation.
Am I right?
(This question was asked by a disciple to Sri Aurobindo)
Answer: Follow your faith - it is not likely to mislead you.
— Sri Aurobindo
*
The last Avatar among the ten prominent ones according
to the Puranas — the Indian Mythological accounts, is referred
164
to as Kalki, meaning thereby, the Avatar of tomorrow or
the Avatar of Kaliyuga, who is supposed to appear towards
the termination of our present age. The Vishnu Purana
paints a graphic picture of the dismal state of affairs
prevailing before the birth of the last Avatar. Towards the
end of Kaliyuga there will be total eclipse of moral and
spiritual values —Truthfulness, honesty, sincerity, gratitude
will disappear from the nature of men and women, for these
virtues will have no value for them. The satisfaction of desire
will be the sole business of life. Human relationship will be
based not on the obligation of duty and love, but on the
selfish motive. Falsehood will be the triumphal arc,
cunningness the sole wisdom. Property will decide the rank,
dishonesty will be the universal means of subsistence. Vedas,
the true knowledge, will be lost and Veda-knowers will be
considered fools. Violence and anarchy will be the order of
the day. Rulers will be criminals and breakers of law. Thus
in Kali age shall decay flourish until the human race
approaches annihilation.
Vishnu Purana further says that it is at that time that
Kalki will descend on earth and take birth in the family of
Vishnuyasha, an eminent brahmin of Sambhal village as
Kalki endowed with eight superhuman traits. By his
irresistable might he will destroy all the iniquitous people
and establish righteousness upon earth and the minds of
those who live at the end of Kali age shall be awakened
and be made pure as crystal. The men who are changed in
virtue of that particular time shall be the seeds of human
beings who will give birth to a new race who shall follow
the laws of the Krita Yuga, the age of Truth and Purity.
Kalki will be riding a white horse with a sword in his
165
hand. He is the purifier of the present degenerate age and
the restorer of purity and goodness.
We are already living quite nigh to the end of the world.
Our present civilisation would have been finished during
the second great war itself but for the intervention of some
unknown power, for Hitler was the great Asura Incarnate
who was bent upon to destroy the world. There was again
the possibility of third great war and had it taken place as
expected a few years back, humanity would have been
completely extinct. But this too was evaded against all
rational explanations by some inexplicable power. The
unexpected fall of Russia gave a new lease of life to
humanity. But still, we are surviving only under the threat
of an imminent catastrophe, the sword of Damocles, arising
from the mutual distrust, hate and intolerance among the
nations of the world. It is not that Hindu scriptures alone
speak of destruction of the world and of change to a new
way of life. Prophet Mohammed, it is said, also had foreseen
'qayamat' after 1400 years from his time and the coming of
a new messiah. According to Chritianity there will come a
Doomsday and Christ will appear again to fulfil his promise
to found the paradise on earth. The language is different,
but the spirit is the same.
The famous science fiction writer H.G. Wells observed
the trend of science and the propensities of human nature
and guessed that the world will come to an end one day
very soon. In his novel 'Shape of Things to Come', he
imagines that a fast killing epidemic will sweep the world,
those who survive will create a new world. A thinker and
writer, Aldous Huxley foresees emergence of a 'Brave New
World' from the ashes of the atomic war.
166
There is no doubt that at present everybody feels that
the danger of imminent annihilation is waylaying and
waiting for the least chance to spring at the world. But
somehow it has not come about till now. It seems that there
is some power struggling to save us against some destructive
and demoniac force that wants to wash off life from the
face of the earth. There is a constant battle between the
Divine and the Demon in the occult or spiritual world, the
manifestation of which we sometimes watch on the material
plane in the form of a large- scale massacre. And yet many
of us can feel genuinely that we have deformed the world
to such an extent and created such an incurable global crisis
that a massive operation, a thorough amputation if not total
replacement, is inevitable. The German philosopher
Nietzsche wants to bring down the kingdom of Heaven by
violence. He does not care for Good, it is the Great that
moves him. According to Nietzsche, an ideal man is he who
fights always - the champion of strength, of greatness, of
mightiness. The way of the cross, the path of love and
charity and pity does not lead to the kingdom of Heaven
according to him. His solution of all the ills of the world is
'superman' of his brand who is typified in Hitler.
A scientist christian Teilhard de Chardin arrives at the
vision of Omega by his 'ultra-physics' and then argues that
at the human level of evolution Omega may be expected to
communicate with us through religious messages and, for
full effect, incarnate as the divine Super-Person in
humanity. Such a special act would give a great push to
the work of world-unification, the gathering together of
personal centres by a Super-Centre. The incarnate divinity
is thus a step and a stage in the progressive history of a
167
universal soul of Evolution, remarks K. D. Sethna in one of
his essays: "The true Teilhard and the essential Sri
Aurobindo."
Dr. Beatrice Bruteau's remarks in a penetrating article,
"Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin on the problem of
Action", are worth noting: "Teilhard visualizes evolutionary
fulfilment in a sort of 'super-organism' where the sovereign
centre which he calls Christ-Omega constitutes the
converging point for a multitude of personal centres
enjoying a 'differentiating union' of love with it. When the
peak of development is attained, there will be a breakthrough outside Time and Space by the very excess of
unification and co-reflection of the numerous personal
consciousnesses. There will be a final 'critical point' of
evolution at which mankind, its convergence complete, will
detach itself from this planet and join the transcendent
Christ-Omega. At this point we may feel that somehow we
have come full circle and that the finite, material, spatiotemporal world, whose value we are trying to justify, has
quietly slipped through our fingers, leaving us with our
supreme value again attached only to the spiritual realm."
According to him "the world travails, not to bring forth
from within itself some supreme reality, but to find its
consummation through a union with a pre-existent Being.
And he was obliged in the end to abandon the world of
space, time and matter for another world beyond." 1
According to Bruteau, while Teilhard's vision of the
world evolving towards a single collective state of "superhumanity" with a "super consciousness" does undoubtedly
contain powerful sources of motivation for action in the
world, especially for those who share his theological
1. Aspects of Sri Aurobindo by K.D. Sethna p.34
168
presuppositions, it does not thoroughly succeed in justifying
the world and satisfactorily solving the problem of action
in the space-time frame-work.2
Teilhard in his book "The Phenomenon of Man" has
considered many possibilities of evolution and reached this
conclusion that the evolution is on its march towards the
perfect consciousness. But alas! that perfection is beyond
this world.
Sri Aurobindo's contemporary philosopher of Germany
Martin Heidegger in his work "Being and Time" speaks of
evolution and transformation of man into an authentic Being
which can save the world from the present crisis. A. B.
Naess who writes in the New Encyclopaedia Britannica
(1975), has distinguished the nature of Heidegger's Being
from the psychological means by which it is to be attained.
Those means are dreadful and dark; yet they conduct us to
a differnt state, one of radiant happiness. Naess tells us: "---'knowing joy --- is a door to the Eternal' --- Being is
associated with 'Light' and with 'the joyful'--- Being 'calls
the time;' 'to think Being' is to arrive at one's (true) home.3
Heidegger is a critic of technological society and of the
role of science, but also averse to common religion and the
expressions of traditional theology. But there is a great deal
of mysticism at the back of his thinking — very near to the
great formula of the Upanishads — Absolute and Eternal
yet he may not be aware of his co-relation with the great
thoughts of Indian philosophy. Perhaps it is for this reason
that the writer of "The Radical Thinkers" finds reading Sri
Aurobindo's works, which are based on the Vedas and
Upanishads, very helpful to understand Heidegger's and
vice versa.
2. Ibid p.35
3. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (1975) Vol.8, p.740
169
There is another philosopher, and poet Iqbal who also
speaks the language of evolution of super humanity and
believes that man's future lies in surpassing himself —
beyond his mind and intellect, perhaps through the heart
into the soul. He had foreseen that Reason was leading the
present civilisation to the brink of destruction which he
expressed in his poetic tone thus:
Thy culture will kill herself
by her own dagger
Whoever shall perch on a weak bough
will fall and stagger
According to Iqbal, man becomes perfect only when he
becomes God. His destiny is to supersede himself and be a
Nayabe-Ilahi — a spiritual man, be so great that not man
should merge in God, rather God shall merge in him.
Khudhi ko kar buland itna
Ki har takdeer ke pahale
Khuda bande se poochhe
Bataa, teree razaa kya hai?
Anyway, it is definitely being felt by all the thinkers
of the world that our civilization is under seige and
humanity is facing an ever greatest crisis at present. But no
one is able to diagnose the malady and present a solution.
One of the greatest poets of the world and a Nobelist
Rabindranath Tagore was upset to see the Doomsday lie in
wait and worried to save the world, he begs the Buddha to
be reborn so that the world may regain its sense and love
may be restored to its rightful place:
170
The world today is wild with the delirium of hatred,
The conflicts are cruel and unceasing is anguish,
Crooked are its paths, tangled its bonds of greed.
All creatures are crying for a new birth of thine
O Thou of boundless life,
Save them, rouse thine eternal voice of hope,
Let Love's lotus with its inexhaustible treasure of honey
Open its petals in thy light.
O Serene, O Free, in thine immeasurable mercy and goodness,
Wipe away all dark stains from the heart of this earth.
The great Indian poet feels that one more Avatar of the
Buddha alone can save the hatred and war-torn world.
Thinkers like T.S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley had felt the
impending global crisis under the leadership of the Duo,
Messrs Reason and Science. One Mr. Oswald Spangler in
his 'Decline of the West' has categorically hinted and pointed
the finger at Science for endangering the future of Man.
Mahatma Gandhi, a social and political visionary and the
architect of Indian independence, had seen through the
menace of the Western Frankenstein of Reason and
Technology and advocated the promotion of handicrafts
and hand-made things for our needs.
But these are false glimmers of the valley of the mind,
intellectual speculations, which neither identify the malady
nor present the right solution for it. These are mere flickerings
of twilights and star-fed nights of mental reasonings. Sri
Aurobindo, who was a seer in the mould of Vedic rishis,
who could see the future of the earthly manifestation and
171
who, although ironically was brought up in the most
impressionable period of his life in the West, has called the
Western civilization of Science a sinking ship and warned
India against following its legacy and advised to develop
her own system in all the spheres of life based on her glorious
past.
Not only to India that he shows the right path, but he
brings a message for the whole humanity and the entire
earth. Not only he indentifies the reasons of the present
problems, the current impasse throttling the way to further
progress of mankind, but he also points out the errors
committed in the past leading to the present crisis. The
reason he says is that the total Truth of existence and life
was never sought for the mankind and partitioned truths
guided the destiny of man. The mystic meaning of the birth
of the universe always eduded us. The Finite and Infinity
were never tuned. The unity of Spirit and Matter ever
remained shrouded. Shankara and Buddha in the past
proclaimed their gospels as the last word of God or Truth.
For Shankara the world did not exist and for Buddha life
was only duhkham, whereas Sri Aurobindo looks at the
creation from the last peak of Unity — the single Truth —
unpartitioned and total. For him Spirit and Matter are one,
two poises of a single Reality. The world is the extension of
God, hence both are true. Nothing is illusion or unreality. Nor
the life is suffering, because hidden below it is Delight, which
we have to discover. That is why he knows the malady of
man and its solution as well.
This apparent gulf between the Spirit and Matter has
created two antagonistic blocks in the world life — East
and West, spiritual and material, resulting in numerous
172
impediments in the way of Human Unity and higher
harmonies of earthly life and nature. Sri Aurobindo has
bridged the gulf of the Spirit and Matter and hence
reconciled the difference between East and West too.
Sri Aurobindo because of this totality of his vision,
knowledge and experience, is identified as an Avatar —
the last Avatar, Kalki, and accomplisher and fulfiller of the
goal of creation. An Avatar always comes with a new
element unknown to the present life, but compatible to the
new goal that he sets for the humanity, to take forward the
march of evolution of Consciousness towards higher heights.
He was a treasurer of superhuman dreams. A divine
knowledge poured down into his mind and life and he
became one with the mind of God. On a height he stood
that looked towards greater heights from where he saw a
glorious future of Man. He gave us a new hope:
A death bound littleness is not all we are:
- - - - - -- Still have we parts that grow towards the light,
Yet are there luminous tracts and heavens serene
And Eldorados of splendour and ecstasy.4
He found that not only the present science with its dim
glimmers is inadequate to lead mankind to its proper
destiny, but even our ancient seers, purve pitarah, missed
to see the lingering 'yet unseen the glorious sun,' which
could bring the everlasting day in the earth's life.
"Our early approaches to the Infinite
Are sunrise splendours on a marvellous verge
While lingers yet unseen the glorious sun.
What now we see is a shadow of what must come.
173
The earth's uplook to a remote Unknown
Is a preface only of the epic climb
Of human soul from its flat earthly state
To the discovery of a greater self
And the far gleam of an eternal Light.5
Not only he had realised the individual divine and the
Personal God in his body, but went up to the Supreme Truth
beyond the cosmic Godhead, identified with the Absolute,
the Transcendental — Sat, Chit and Ananda, in all its
aspects — silent and dynamic, Impersonal and Personal,
and because of this all the secret plan of the Supreme Nature
was unveiled to him.
There is a plan in the Mother's deep world-whim,
A purpose in her vast and random game.
This ever she meant since the first dawn of life,
This constant will she covered with her sport,
To evoke a person in the impersonal Void,
With the Truth-Light strike earth's massive roots of trance,
Wake a dumb self in the inconscient depths
And raise a lost power from its python sleep
That the eyes of the Timeless might look out from Time
And the world manifest the unveiled Divine.
For this he left his white infinity
And laid on the spirit the burden of the flesh,
That Godhead's seed might flower in mindless Space.6
He in fact surveyed the whole drama of the Cosmos,
the play of manifestation right from the great plunge of the
supreme — Sat, Chit, Ananda into their opposites — Matter,
5. I bid 6. Ibid pp.72-73
174
Inconscience and Suffering and still greater sacrifice of the
supreme Mother — the Para Prakriti — into the pitch
darkness of Ignorance to the reverse ascending journey of
Evolution, to the origin, upto the point of faltering and
fumbling Mind and even beyond Mind moving with snail's
pace; and found that something very crucial that the earlier
trackers had missed with the result the true goal of the
manifestation was not attained. It is he that unveils the
total agenda of the Absolute and the true will of God behind
this manifestation. He says that the route of the
evolutionary march of Consciousness does not go to the
extinction of the soul beyond this world into the Impersonal
Existence or Sat nor to the Nihil or Asat, but to the fulfilment
of life here on earth, full of light and love and force of God
culminating in a Life Divine. The something very crucial
missed by the earlier path-finders was, according to Sri
Aurobindo, the supramental world of the Supernal Light
without any trace of ignorance, which has the capacity to
transform the earthly life into a divine life absolutely free
from falsehood, division and strife, malice and hatred, pain
and sorrow and even desease, decay and death.
He seized upon this world of new Supernal Light —
the Supermind as he calls it, unknown to the world hitherto
and brought it down on earth to effectuate the necessary
change of Consciousness of Man in due course, leading to
the new goal and ideal of mankind — the Life Divine on
earch, set by him. It is for the first time that such a high
ideal and aim of human life has been presented to man:
"The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the
Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man's
real business in the world and justification of his existence,
175
without which he would be only an insect crawling among
other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water
which has managed to form itself amid the appalling
immensities of the physical universe."7
How will this divine Light work in the world? By
propaganda? By sermons? By social and religious customs?
By a law of force or by the cult of mutts and viharas?
The force of the Supramental Light is already
permeating and seeping in our life without our awareness
of it and affecting slowly and steadily our inner fabrics of
life, and moulding our inner nature into a deviner kind. He
has foreseen the process of working of the Light as is clear
from his super epic Savitri:
When darkness deepens strangling the earth's breast
And man's corporeal mind is the only lamp,
As a thief in the night shall be the covert tread
Of one who steps unseen into his house.
A Voice ill-heard shall speak, the soul obey.
A Power into mind's inner chamber steal,
A charm and sweetness open Life's closed doors
And beauty conquer the resisting world,
The Truth-Light capture Nature by surprise,
A stealth of God compel the heart to bliss
And earth grow unexpectedly divine.
In Matter shall be lit the spirit's glow,
In body and body kindled the sacred birth;
Night shall awake to the anthem of the stars,
The days become a happy pilgrim march,
Our will a force of the Eternal's power,
And thought the rays of a spiritual sun.
A few shall see what none yet understands;
7. The Life Divine CWSA21:48
176
God shall grow up while the wise men talk and sleep;
For man shall not know the coming till its hour
And belief shall be not till the work is done.8
Sri Aurobindo is a divine dreamer. He dreams in his poem
'A God's Labour' to bring down the heaven on earth :
"I have gathered my dreams in a silver air
Between the gold and the blue
And wrapped them softly and left them there,
My jewelled dreams of you.
"I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of Infinity."9
He dreams to bring sunrise splendours and everlasting
day in the pitch darkness of midnight. The present condition
of the world is no less than this.
Is he then a day-dreamer? A lotus-eater? He was indeed
made "of the stuff that dreamers are made of, but dreamers
who will act their dream, indifferent to the means." This is
the impression of a British journalist, Henry Nevinson, who
had interviewed him during his political days. And how
true it was! When he knew and saw the possibility of
bringing down a new power of the Divine, capable of
transforming the life an earth which he termed as
'Supermind', he worked day and night in concentration in
his cave of tapasya in Pondicherry, careless of victory or
death, in the spirit of do or die to see that it works out in
9. CWSA 2:534
177
the end, all alone, against all odds, disbelief and lack of
faith among the men around him, like an adventurer into
the Unknown, in search of immortality for the mortals
where no human feet have ever trodden. In one of his
poems 'The Infinite Adventure' a vivid picture of his inner
journey is how beautifully drawn:
"On the waters of a nameless Infinite
My skiff is launched; I have left the human shore.
All fades behind me and I see before
The unknown abyss and one pale pointing light.
........
Beyond, the invisible height no soul has trod.10
A total transformation of Man into Superman, a new
race of gods, is like planting a branch of Heaven, the abode
of immortal gods on the mortal earth! Indeed it is too great
an ambition for a man, an earthly man! But was he a mere
earthly man? He was in fact 'a colonist from immortality',
a Divine man, the Eternal in human body who came down
to shape the lives of men and show that ‘one soul's ambition
can lift up the race.’
The Mother was the first to indentify the Avatar in him
when she met him in 1914 on 29th March, in Pondicherry,
then a French colony, during her first visit to India, while
Sri Aurobindo was still living like a political fugitive from
British India along with some of his revolutionary friends
and pursuing his self-developed Yoga which he calls an
Integral Yoga, with a new objective of Integral
transformation of man both on individual as well collective
level. The ultimate aim of his Integral Yoga, as he had in
his mind, was to create a new race of supermen or demigods
10. CWSA 2:606
178
out of the present half-man and half-animal humanity. His
revolutionary friends who joined him later had revered him
as their national leader as also as a great yogi and genius
with vast knowledge of this world and the other worlds,
but not yet an Avatar.
The Mother, then called Mirra Alfassa, who hailed from
France, was a great mystic and occultist herself and also
an adept in Buddhist Yoga and the Yoga of the Gita. She
was taking lessons when in France in mysticism in her vision
from many teachers, of one of whom she believed to be an
Asian and whom she used to call Krishna in her vision.
She felt drawn intuitively to come to India to meet any
Yogi of this land for she had known and heard quite a lot
of India's past spiritual glory and richness. The Mother's
husband, Paul Richard who had accompanied her had
already met Sri Aurobindo during his first visit to this
French Colony and was very much impressed by his vast
intellectual and spiritual knowledge. But for the Mother
this was the first meeting with Sri Aurobindo, which to her
surprise and soul's content proved so fateful and a decisive
turning point of her life. As she looked into the eyes of Sri
Aurobindo and his entire get-up, lo! without any exchange
of words she recognised him as 'Krishna' of her vision. And
she knew instantaneously that her whole life was missioned
to work here with him for the transformation of the world
and mankind. And she stayed on first time nearly for a
year and second time for ever. Rest is history — a
supramental history. The Mother records her impression
of Sri Aurobindo in her diary of the next day dated 30th
March 1914 as follows:
"It matters little that there are thousands of beings
179
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." 11
When she met Sri Aurobindo, he had already realised
the highest truth in toto, the supreme status of
Sachchidananda of the Upanishads, the Transcendental
Brahman and Maya of the Vedas, and the Purushottama
of the Gita and the Purusha and Prakriti of Sankhya and
the supreme Mother — the Adya Shakti of the Tantra. He
had gone through all the planes of consciousness,
experienced their nature and limitations up to the world of
the Supermind — the highest supernal light and had
possessed the key to the paradox of life. He had known
much more than anybody in the world including even the
past seers and sages of ancient cultures of the earth, but he
was not known beyond Pondicherry as what he really was,
except as a 'dangerous revolutionary' for the British rulers.
Avatars have been often dangerous for the rulers! Was
Christ not dangerous for the ruler of the land? And Krishna
for Kansa? Had Sri Aurobindo not migrated to French
Pondicherry on his inner command, the world would have
been doomed.
He had known so much — the past, present and future
of the world and still scaling heights after heights. He had
charted the route of an undreamed divine life. He had
painted a picture of man who could equate with a god. No
body knew him truly; when the Mother came, She set the
ball rolling. A magazine in English and French 'The Arya'
was started and Sri Aurobindo began to serialise many
11. Prayers and Meditations CWM 1:113
180
essays simultaneously with well - formulated ideas of a new
path under different headings, all single-handed which at
last were to become his major works — the Life Divine, the
Synthesis of Yoga, the Secret of Veda, Essays on the Gita,
the Human Cycle, etc., explaining the why and how of the
new creation on the earth and what lay ahead beyond the
Man, the real raison d'etre of the universe and the future
agenda of the creative Nature.
A wide God-knowledge poured down from above,
A new world-knowledge broadened from within:
------The human in him paced with the divine;
- - - - - - -He drew the energies that transmute an age.
Immeasurable by the common look,
He made great dreams a mould for coming things
And cast his deeds like bronze to front the years.
His walk through Time outstripped the human stride.
Lonely his days and splendid like the sun's.12
Only the Mother had recognised his soul, known the
fathomless depth and immeasurable height of his being and
his knowledge of all the worlds, visible or invisible. Nearly
a year after her first visit in 1914 she had to go back in 1915
but after her second visit in 1920 she stayed for ever with
Sri Aurobindo and worked with him as a spiritual
collaborator in fulfilment of his mission of founding a divine
life, a life of truth, on earth. In fact she found in his mission
a reflection of her own dream and vision which she had so
fondly cherished and nourished from her childhood and
12. Savitri, CWSA 33:44-45
181
she was feeling all alone in her work.
Much before she met Sri Aurobindo in India her diary
record dated 15 June 1913 has an echo of futility of worldnegating realisation of the Impersonal God without caring
for the ignorant life and world — which is the highest ideal
of the Mayavadins, and of the significance of the
transfiguration of the whole earth — the only sublime work
of God which she willed to accomplish. Her diary note runs
as follows:
“Even he who might have attained a perfect
contemplation in silence and solitude would have arrived
at it only by withdrawing from his body, by disregarding
it; and so the substance of which the body is constituted
would remain as impure, as imperfect as before, since he
would have left it to itself; and by a misguided mysticism
through the lure of supraphysical splendours, the egoistic
desire to unite with Thee for his own personal satisfaction,
he would have turned his back upon the very reason of his
earthly existence, he would have refused like a coward to
accomplish his mission — the redemption and purification
of Matter. To know that a part of our being is perfectly
pure, to commune with this purity, to identified with it,
can be useful only if this knowledge is later used to hasten
the transfiguration of the earth, to accomplish Thy sublime
work.” 13
How identical were their missions — Transformation
of Matter, the body and the whole earthly life. This was
the cry of the earth and the Mother gave words identified
with the earth consciousness. And the Lord answered to
the cry in the form of his descent on earth as Sri Aurobindo.
Has not the Mother said later categorically? “Sri Aurobindo
13. Prayers and Meditations CWM 1:20
182
is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to
announce the manifestation of a new race and a new
world: the Supramental....
“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.”14
But when the Mother discovered the divine prodigy in
Sri Aurobindo, the world knew nothing of him, not even
the small group of his revolutionary friends who were less
than a dozen living with him. Although they inwardly
looked up to him as a guru besides the prophet of
nationalism and the leader of the Revolution, but yet this
was not always reflected in their outer behaviour. Their
belongings were in a mess, actions haphazard and they
lived disorderly according to the accounts given by one of
the group living with him — Nolini Kant Gupta, in his
Reminiscences.
When the Mother joined Sri Aurobindo after her second
coming, things became different. She took complete charge
of the management of the Guru’s household. She not only
taught the members of the house to keep their materials in
proper order, neat and tidy and to use their things with
care, but also taught them by her manner and speech and
action how one can be a ‘disciple’ of the ‘guru’ to recieve
his grace. And above all, the Mother installed Sri Aurobindo
in his right place, to begin with, on his high pedestal of
Master and Lord of Yoga.
14. CWM 13: 19, 21
183
Sri Aurobindo already by that time had packed his
bag with the ‘catch of Infinite’ as he wrote to his brother
Barindra with a sense of confidence of power and purpose
and yet so humble that he wouldn’t mind nor would he
say anything to his ‘friends and comrades’ of his
revolutionary days, unless they asked some questions or
they wanted him to answer some of his queries which
included a plethora of subjects from national politics to
metaphysics, yoga and mysticism. They were hardly aware
that they were made a part by the Providence of a sceneset of a stage to bring down a new power of God — the
Supramental, as love and bhakti was brought down by
Krishna on the set of Brindavan’s gopas and gopis. On one
of his birthdays he revealed what he was busy with on the
spiritual plane:
“I am at present engaged in bringing the Supermind
into the physical consciousness down even to the submaterial...
One feels as if 'digging the earth' as the Veda says. It is
literally digging from Supermind above to Supermind
below...” 15
He unveils this experience in his famous poem ‘A God’s
Labour’:
I have been digging deep and long
Mid a horror of filth and mire
A bed for the golden river’s song,
A home for the deathless fire.
I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began.16
15. Sri Aurobindo by Dr. K.R.S. Iyengar p.542
16. CWSA 2:534
184
Sri Aurobindo’s symbol itself reveals his Avatarhood.
The Mother has explained it as follows:
The descending triangle represents Sat-Chit-Ananda. The
ascending triangle represents the aspiring answer from matter
under the form of life, light and love.
The junction of both — the central square — is the perfect
manifestation having at its centre the Avatar of the Supreme
— the lotus.
The water inside the square represents the multiplicity, the
creation.17
The lotus in the centre — the Avatar — is none other
than Sri Aurobindo whose very name is lotus or Aravind
in Sanskrit. In his Yoga the Spirit and the Matter join each
other creating a new and perfect manifestation — the
Supramental, around him.
On 21st February 1957 the Mother gave the following
message, which defines also the function of the Avatar:
In the eternity of becoming, each Avatar is only the
announcer, the forerunner of a more perfect realisation.
But yet men have always the tendency to deify the Avatar
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.18
Did Sri Aurobindo ever reveal his Avatarhood himself
to his disciples as Sri Krishna did to Arjuna?
He was definitely asked by his disciples a direct question
whether he was an Avatar of the Divine. A disciple wrote
17. CWM 13:29
18. Ibid p.22
185
to him: I have a strong faith that you are the Divine
Incarnation. Am I right.?
Sri Aurobindo’s answer was not a direct 'yes' but
indirect 'yes'. He said:
“Follow your faith — it is not likely to mislead you.”19
Almost the same question was posed by another disciple
in more detail. The question was:
“We believe that both you and the Mother are Avatars.
But is it only in this life that both of you have shown your
divinity? It is said that you and she have been on the earth
constantly since its creation. What were you doing during
your previous lives.?
“Carrying on the evolution,” pat came his brief answer.
He kept silent on the first part of the question which meant
his endorsement of the disciple’s belief, that he and the
Mothe were Avatars. We find many such pointers and
indirect hints that suggest his Avatarhood. If he is the
Avatar then does he fall in line with our famous ten Avatars
of Puranas and fill the gap of the last Kalki, the Saviour,
whom the world awaits so anxiously? Sri Aurobindo
speaking on ten Avatars as a parable of the Evolution gives
again a clear-cut hint of his being Kalki — the last Avatar:
“Avatarhood would have little meaning if it were not
connected with the evolution. The Hindu procession of the
ten Avatars is itself, as it were, a parable of evolution. First
the Fish Avatar, then the amphibious animal between land
and water, then the land animal, then man-lion Avatar,
bridging man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and
undeveloped and physical but containing in himself the
godhead and taking possession of existence, then the
rajasic, sattwic, nirguna Avatars leading the human
19. Avatarhood (AIM) Aug-Sept. 1998 p.76
186
development from the Vital rajasic to the sattwic mental
man and again the Overmental superman. Krishna,
Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of
the spiritual development — Krishna opens the possibility
of Overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme
liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning
upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to
correct this by bringing the kindgom of the Divine upon
earth destroying the opposing Asura forces. The
progression is striking and unmistakable. ...The next normal
step is not a featureless Absolute but the Supermind. I
consider that in trying to overshoot, Buddha like Shankara
made a mistake calling away the dynamic side of the
liberation. Therefore, there has to be a correction by
Kalki.” 20
It clearly means that Kalki is he who will bring down
the kingdom of the Divine manifesting the power of the
Supermind— which is being done by Sri Aurobindo and
his Shakti, the Mother jointly. It is although an indirect
hint but as clear as a direct concurrence.
An Avatar comes as a teacher of mankind, a world
teacher and not only carries the evolution a step further by
introducing a new element in the process of evolution, by
adding a new rung in the ladder but also simplifies the
difficult ascent for man by testing all methods and setting
his own personal example before man in a human way.
“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, way to cleave through
20. Ibid : 44-45
187
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.”21
More than their words speak their works of their
Avatarhood. Their thoughts always run ahead of the times,
their actions exceed the human pace, their ideals far greater
for the humans to reach. Thousands of years have elapsed
when Lord Rama gave us the ideals of sattwic Mind — a
mantra of a happy Rama Rajya but before not many of us
could realise those ideals, God was in a hurry to come down
to give us a new homework through Krishna, ideals of
Overmind, the triple Yoga of the Gita. And we have hardly
begun to follow the true message of the Gita even after
millenniums, that He comes down again to start a new
chapter of his Book — the supramental manifesto without
our fully imbibing the previous lessons. Is God a tyrant
school teacher who is in a great hurry to finish his course
book caring not a whit for the pace of the poor class? If
one or two students of the class have grasped the teacher’s
point, he moves to the next lesson. He does not care to
reach the last child— the laggards. Shall Man ever catch
God? But this is how perhaps we can learn to run faster,
awaken to the soul, break the fetters of the lower nature
and follow the foot steps of God and ultimately become
21. Ibid :79
188
what we really are and work out His writ — the life divine
on earth. The Divine comes down as man, puts on his
ignorance, so that man can pace with the Divine. When
the Divine descends, he takes upon himself the burden of
humanity in order to exceed it — he becomes human in
order to show humanity how to become Divine. He comes
as man so that man can become Divine. And to become
Divine not only beyond Time and Space but here on earth
in life, mind and body. This is the goal he has set before us,
because this is what he found and discovered as the intent
of the Supreme Creator; the complete transfiguration of
man into Divine must be the secret behind the ceaseless
working of the Nature:
His human portion, we must grow divine.22
Whenever we are apt to think that we have come to
the end of the journey and there is nothing to gain better
and higher, the Avatar comes down to show the higher
cliffs. When man began to think that he has done all that
he can do and now he is the crown of Nature, Sri Aurobindo
revealed to us the Nature's ‘Hidden plan’However long Night’s hour, I will not dream
That the small ego and the person’s mask
Are all that God reveals in our life-scheme,
The last result of Nature’s cosmic task.23
22. Savitri p.67
23. Collected Poems : Hidden Plan CWSA 2:602
189
When half the humanity is trapped either in the ‘Maya’
of Shankara or the ‘suffering’ of Buddha and the other half
drowned in the mire of blind materialism and none knows
what is beyond the present fate of man or whether Mind is
the finished product of the creative energy of the Almighty,
the new Avatar tells us that the Evolution is a progressive
game of the Infinite and something higher awaits beyond
our struggle and pain:
All is not finished in the unseen decree;
A Mind beyond our mind demands our ken.
A life of unimagined harmony
Awaits, concealed, the grasp of unborn men.
-----Earth was a cradle for the arriving god
And man but a half-dark half-luminous sign
Of the transition of the veiled Divine
From Matter’s sleep and the tormented load24
Man is a transitional being, not the finished product of
the divine factory of Nature. At the end of the dark tunnel
of the present crisis, beyond our struggle and our pain
awaits at the higher peak of destiny a world of bliss and
knowledge and immortality. Sri Aurobindo has come down
not only to show the path, but also to hew the route by his
personal example. This is a new goal, a new task, a new
route unknown to humanity which no human genius and
might, however great can perform it.
If we look at the life of Sri Aurobindo even casually we
find him so extraordinary, so prodigious in every field
wherever he showed his presence. In politics he added a
24. Ibid : Evolution 2 & 1: pp 595, 594
190
new element — spiritual politics — a nation is not a
geographical body alone, she has a soul — she is a goddess,
a collective mighty power of millions of individual souls.
In the field of language and literature he mastered all
classical languages of the world — Greek, Latin, German,
Italian, French, Sanskrit and what not. In poetry he went
beyond Homer, Gothe, Milton, and Shakespeare, Valmiki,
Kalidas, even Vyasa and gave a new touch — a divine
touch, supramental touch, touch of immortality and gave
us samples of a new genre of future classics like the Life
Divine and Savitri for example, yet to evolve in times to
come. In philosophy and Yoga he excelled all past and
present thinkers and seers and discovered a new pinnacle
of knowledge and power by his tapas and charted a new
route or system called Integral Yoga to attain to that. He
was a multifacted genius no doubt, but was he only a
genius? He was a philosopher and Yogi par excellence. He
was a poet and writer and linguist sui generis. But is it
only that he was? He was even much more.
“For whatever his philosophical grasp, Sri Aurobindo
is not just a thinker, and whatever his power and wealth
of expression he is not just a literary man. He is infact not
just a man at all and really to read him one must be willing
at least in some part of the nature, to transcend the human
bounds. Sri Aurobindo is Divine Truth: the latest and
greatest of the Avatars, come to take and help the world
forward in the largest step of its evolution, and to divinize
the very earth....
“He brings in a flood of spiritual light and flows with a
tireless wealth of spiritual inspiration, and even the most learned
and acute literary scholars are not yet equipped for this.
191
“Sri Aurobindo as yet, for all but a very few, is too large
to see and too much to believe.”
This is what a biographer of Sri Aurobindo, Jesse Roarke
of U. S. A. writes in the preface of the book.
We often get confused to distinguish between the genius
and the Avatar and we happen to call the Avatar a genius,
and the genius an Avatar. Sri Aurobindo himself has
differentiated between the two and given the clue to
identity the Avatar among the genius.
“In order to establish genius in the human system,
Nature is compelled to disturb and partially break the
normality of that system, because she is introducing into it
an element that is alien as it is superior to the type which it
enriches. Genius is not the perfect evolution of that new
and divine element; it is only a beginning or at the highest
an approximation in certain directions. It works fitfully
and uncertainly in the midst of an enormous mass of
somewhat disordered human mentality, vital nervosity,
physical animality. The thing itself is divine, it is only the
undivine mould in which it works that is to a lesser or
greater extent broken and ploughed up by the
unassimilated force that works in it. Sometimes there is an
element in the divine intruder which lays its hand on the
mould and sustains, so that it does not break at all nor is
flawed; or if there is a disturbance, it is slight and negligible.
Such an element there was in Caesar, in Shakespeare, in
Goethe. Sometimes also a force appears to which we can
no longer apply the description of genius without being
hopelessly inadequate in our terminology. Then those who
have eyes to see, bow down and confess the Avatar. For it
is often the work of the Avatar to typify already, partly or
192
on the whole, what Nature has not yet effected in the mass
or even in the individual, so that his passing may stamp it
on the material ether in which we live.”25
A genius has a new force of divine but his mould is
human, egoistic and undivine and hence he pursues his
own mentality, vitality and physicality, he has his own
egoistic drive, whereas an Avatar is above humanity, above
his personal needs, desires and ambitions, and yet he acts
in a human way.
An Avatar comes down to show the path to the world
as a guide and works out a new formula for others to enable
them to walk on his footprints and not for the sake of his
own moksha or salvation, which he does not need since he
is not born as an ascending soul, but has descended from
above, already Perfect and Absolute. “For my Yoga is done
not for myself who need nothing and do not need salvation
or anything else, but precisely for the earth-consciousness,
to open a way to the earth-consciousness to change. Has
the Divine need to come down to prove that he can do this
or that or has he any personal need of doing it?”26 Once
Sri Aurobindo wrote this in reply to a question from
Nirodbaran.
Has Krishna, the Avatar of the Gita, too not said the
same thing to Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra:
“I have no work whatsoever, O Partha, that I need to
do in all the three worlds; I have nothing that I have not
gained and have yet to gain and I abide verily in the paths
of action.”27
25. Essays Divine and Human p.126
26. Avatarhood (AIM) Aug-Sept. 1998 p.12
27. Gita III-22
193
We need to have an inner eye to see the Avatar, the
reason is too blind to be able to see the Avatar hidden in
the genius. Once we recognise the Avatar, we bow down
to him and accept his guidance, mould our life on his type
and become like him — sadrishya, sadharmya and thus the
purpose of his descent, the will of the Divine is served. We
move one step ahead, climb a rung higher and the evolution
goes up. Sri Aurobindo too came among us as the Avatar
of the Supreme to take us from Mind to Supermind and
from humanity to super-humanity.
To effect this great leap — the preparation of the work
was started from the time of Krishna and by Krishna
himself. And it is he who has come down again to continue
and complete the work. Has he not been guiding and
preparing the new Avatar — Sri Aurobindo from childhood
of his life? It is he who communed to him in the jail, taught
him the true meaning of the Vedas, helped him do all
extraordinary feats and descended in his body to prepare
him for the higher ascents. "Sri Krishna has shown me the
true meaning of the Vedas, not only so but he has shown
me a new Science of Philology showing the process and
origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be
formed.....28
Sri Aurobindo again confesses that "I also did not do it
all by myself if you mean by myself the Aurobindo that
was. He did it with the help of Krishna and the Divine
Shakti.- - - - -"29
It is he who wrote the preface of the Integral Yoga —
the perfect Yoga of Sri Aurobindo — in the battle field of
28. Autobiographical Notes by Sri Aurobindo CWSA 36:.178
29. Avatarhood (AIM) Aug-Sept. 1998, p.18
194
Kurukshetra, combining all paths into one royal path
leading to total transformation of Man on the appointed
time. It was he who sent his emissary in the form of Christ
to scout for the readiness of human mentality, its receptivity
to imbibe the power of Love. The divine work continued
ceaselessly, and when the Hour of God has struck, he is
here again in the mould of Sri Aurobindo leading humanity
to the finale of supermanhood, the complete reversal of
the earth nature into the divine kind.
Kalki is referred to as the Avatar of tomorrow or the
Avatar of the Kaliyuga, the last phase of the circle, who
will be the Avatar of the complete force of the supreme
Divine and he will not only wind-up the ongoing Age —
Kaliyuga or bring it to a conclusion but also usher in too
the new Age of Truth, Age of new and perfect creation,
Satyayuga, the first of another round on the higher spiral
of consciousness ever rising to still greater perfections. In
our Puranas Kalki is described as descending on a white
horse with a sword in his hand who will root out the Asuras
for ever.
It is strange that there is a passage in the Bible
(Revelation 6:2) corresponding to Kalki:
"And I saw, and behold, a white horse and he who sits on it
had a bow; and a crown was given to him and he went forth
conquering and to conquer."
The Mother referring to this says in The Mother's Agenda
on page 52 of Vol-6 that "that there would be, in fact, a
new Christ, who correspends to that of the Hindus.
Kalki?
“Yes, Kalki. The description is very similar."
Sri Aurobindo's Aphorism No 169 says:
195
Christ came into the world to purify, not to fulfil. He
himself foreknew the failure of his mission, and the necessity
of his return with the sword of God into a world that had
rejected him.
The Mother was asked: 'What is the sword of God?' The
Mother said: 'It was the irresistible 'Power' (The Mother's
Agenda: 11.10.69)
Whether it is Christ who has returned as Kalki or it
was the vision of Christ that some higher power than him
will descend who will conquer the demons of Falsehood
and create a new earth, it is immaterial. What matters is
that God comes down with his full or partial power
according to the degree of change that he intends to effect
or according to the severity of the crisis that he has to tackle.
The present crisis difinitely demands the intervention of a
greater power than all that has come in the past:
A greater power must come, a larger light.
Although Light grows on earth and Night recedes,
Yet till the evil is slain in its own home
And Light invades the world's inconscient base
And perished has the adversary Force,
He still must labour on, his work half done.30
And if Sri Aurobindo is Kalki, as he himself has hinted
at and also confirmed by his devotees and followers like
K. D. Sethna, otherwise known as Amal Kiran (a name
given to him by Sri Aurobindo himself) who is a radiant
multifaceted genius and a great devotee and spokesman of
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga and editor of Mother India, writes in
his book "Our Light and Delight:"...Kalki who will come to
30. Savitri CWSA 34: 448-449
196
set right the balance by bringing the Transcendent's power
to base on the Transcendent's peace a new earth-order, a
terrestrial heaven. In this tale of evolutionary humanity we
would identify Kalki with Sri Aurobindo, the Master of the
Integral Yoga, the Yoga not only of liberation but also of
the perfect divine dynamism, the Supermind, the alltransformative Truth-Consciousness manifesting as
superman." Then what is and where is his white horse as
well as his sword!
We are familiar with the symbolism of the Veda as
revealed by Sri Aurobindo in his book The Secret of the Veda.
Our scriptures speak in the language of symbols. A horse is
spoken of, for example, for force and a cow for light. Here
the white horse of Kalki is the immaculate Purity, the purity
of Sachchidanand or the Supermind, absolutely free from
the Ignorance, the dazzling light of sun without any spot
of shadow and the Supermind itself is the invincible Power,
irresistible by even the greatest Asura, the lord of the Death,
the lord of the Night.
The aim of the Integral Yoga, as we all know is the divine
life in a divine body with supramentalised mind and life in
a supramentalised body — a body without death and both
of them, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were working out
this goal in their own bodies. When Sri Aurobindo decided
to leave his body in 1950, it was a strategic step to hasten
the descent of the supramental force for he thought he could
be more effective on the subtle-physical plane to tackle and
manoeuvre the opposing forces than on the physical. Sri
Aurobindo said to the Mother some time in April 1950 that
one of them might have to go in the interests of their work.
The Mother immediately offered to do so. Sri Aurobindo
197
turned down the proposal and added that if necessary he
would go.31
The reason seems to be obvious. He was busy bringing
down the supramental force in the earth's subtle-physical
plane; then only it would bring or effectuate the work of
transformation of the earth-nature. But perhaps opposition
of the earth-nature was strong and fierce.
In the texture of our bound humanity
He felt the stark resistence huge and dumb
Of our inconscient and unseeing base,
The stubborn mute rejection in life's depths,
The ignorant No in the origin of things.32
And the ensuing fight with the opposing forces was terrific:
In menacing tracts, in tortured solitudes
Companionless he roamed through desolate ways
Where the red Wolf waits by fordless stream
And Death's black eagles scream to the precipice,
And met the hounds of bale who hunt men's hearts
Baying across the veldts of Destiny,
In footless battlefields of the Abyss
Fought shadowy combats in mute eyeless depths,
Assaults of Hell endured and Titan strokes
And bore the fierce inner wounds that are slow to heal.33
It is because he wanted to fight them on the subtler
plane that he decided to withdraw and he did succeed, for
six years after his departure we were told of the descent of
the Supramental Light and Force on the earth on 29TH Feb
1956, brought by the Mother. It was the meditation time in
31. Our Light and Delight p.39
32. CWSA 33:317
33. Ibid : 230
198
the evening in the playground on that day when this great
spiritual Event occured. The Mother has called this the Day
of the Lord. The same day the Mother gave the following
message:
"This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and
material, was there present amongst you. I had a form of
living gold, bigger than the universe, and I was facing a
huge and massive golden door which separated the world
from the Divine.
"As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single
movement of consciousness, that 'the time has come' and
lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck
one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was
shattered to pieces.
"Then the supramental Light and Force and
Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an
uninterrupted flow."34
The supramental Light was brought down in his
instrumental being — his mind, his heart and his body long
back, but the transformation of the body up to the cells
was not possible until it manifested and permeated the earth
atmosphere which was done now by the Mother. The
descent of supramental Light in him which has the golden
colour is hinted in his poem 'The Golden Light':
Thy golden Light came down into my brain
And the grey rooms of mind sun-touched became
A bright reply to Wisdom's occult plane,
A calm illumination and a flame.
Thy golden Light came down into my throat,
And all my speech is now a tune divine,
34.CWM, Vol.15, p.102
199
A paeansong of Thee my single note;
My words are drunk with the Immortal's wine.
Thy golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.
Thy golden Light came down into my feet;
My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat.35
But the transformation of the body was yet to be done,
without which the transformation of the being would not
be integral and total, for this is the object and goal of the
Integral Yoga. This mighty end was yet to come. Sri
Aurobindo, it is said, at the time of leaving his body passed
on all his supramental Light in to the body of the Mother,
so that she could complete the half-done work — the total
transformation of her body that is to immortalise the body
by changing her cells. Death was not in the Mother's
programme and she was very seriously busy with the
creation of a supramental body especially with deeper
concentration after 1958 when she confined herself only to
her room, stopping all other engagements. What will the
supramental body be like?
"The supramental body," explains the Mother, "which
has to be brought into being here has four main attributes:
lightness, adaptiability, plasticity and luminosity. When the
physical body is thoroughly divinised, it will feel as if it
were always walking on air, there will be no heaviness or
tamas or unconsciousness in it. There will also be no end to
its power of adaptiability: in whatever conditions it is placed
35.CWSA 2:605
200
it will immediately be equal to the demands made upon it
because its full consciousness will drive out all that inertia
and incapacity which usually make Matter a drag on the
Spirit. Supramental plasticity will enable it to stand the
attack of every hostile force which strives to pierce it: it will
present no dull resistance to the attack but will be, on the
contrary, so pliant as to nullify the force by giving way to it
to pass off. Thus it suffers no harmful consequences and
the most deadly attacks will leave it unscathed. Lastly, it
will be turned into the stuff of light, each cell will radiate
the supramental glory. Not only those who are developed
enough to have their subtle sight open but the ordinary
man too will be able to perceive this luminosity. It will be
an evident fact to each and all, a permanent proof of the
transformation which will convince even the most
sceptical."36
The physical transformation implies that all organs of
the body will be replaced by the centres of conscious energy
which will be moved by a conscious will and directed by
movements coming from above. It means that there will be
no stomach, no heart, no lungs but in their place will be a
whole set of vibrations. It is highly spiritual — technological
work which will take a minimum of three hundred years
to reach a minimum perfction according to Sri Aurobindo.
But there are" he envisages," many objections that may be
raised. It may be said that it would be impossible for the
body to change unless something changes in the
surroundings also. What would be your relation with other
objects if you have changed so much? With other beings
also? It seems necessary that a whole set of things changes,
at least in relative proportions, so that one can exist, continue
36. CWM Vol. 3, pp. 175-176
201
to exist. This then brings much complication, for it is no
longer one individual consciousness that has to do the work,
it becomes a collective consciousness. And so it is much
more difficult still."37
So, perhaps, the Mother also knew that in her body
also like Sri Aurobindo's the physical transformation might
remain incomplete. She was consciously replacing her body
cells by the concentration of supramental Light and force
into centres of conscious energy, but perhaps her body,
although collaborating with her will, could not stand the
painful process of thorough divinisation, for it after all was
the representative of our earth, which is not fully ready for
this grand revolution.
In 1972 she said, "It is becoming terrible. It is like a
pressure, a frightful pressure to bring about the desired
progress. I feel it in myself for my body. But my body is not
afraid, it says: 'Very well; if I am to end, it is the end.'
Every minute it is like that: the true thing or the end. The
body knows that this is the way for the supramental body
to be formed. It must be wholly under the influence of the
Divine. ..."38
The Mother's transcendental self perhaps did not
disclose the fate of the body, its preordained destiny
whether it will complete the mission or 'follow the old
ordinary process of undoing itself and remaking itself.
In Amal Kiran's (K D Sethna) words the possibility of
having to follow this process became an actuality on 17
November 1973. "But," he remarkably remarks, "this is a
way of speaking from the ordinary outer point of view.
The Avatar of the Supermind cannot be said to be
compelled to any course by a necessity of Nature. Whatever
37. CWM 5:62
38. Bulletin April 1972 p.73
202
course is adopted is freely accepted: the Supramental
Consciousness belongs to the Transcendence and is above
all cosmic conditions even when it elects to work under
them. What determines its future is its own transcendent
Knowledge and Will. A moment must have come of such
Knowledge and Will in the first week of December 1950 to
Sri Aurobindo and the instrumental being, put in front for
world-action, obeyed. A period of crisis must have preceded
this moment... we see a similar crisis in the Mother’s
Sadhana.” 39
But according to her talk in the Bulletin of August 1972,
her subtle physical body was ready — “a body altogether
new, sexless... very white... very slim... pretty. Truly a
harmonious form." But the technique for materialising the
new body was unknown for this was unknown in the past
and hence never attempted. And three hundred years’ time
was not given to the body.
Since the grand finale — the mighty task of
supramentalisation of the physical body is half-done, will
the Master of Yoga and the Mother come back to
accomplish their work to the finis? The Mother asked Sri
Aurobindo soon after his departure to resuscitate, he clearly
answered: “I have left this body purposely. I will not take
it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body
built in the supramental way.”40
Even soon after the withdrawal of the Mother
Nolinikant Gupta gave a somewhat similar message on
17.11.73, which was distributed on 29. 11. 73 in the
Ashram.
39. Our Light and Delight by K.D. Sethna pp. 219-20
40. CWM Vol. 13:9
203
Sweet Mother,
Your physical body belonged to the old creation because
you wanted to be one with your children. You wanted this
body to uphold the New Body you were building upon it,
and it gave you the service you asked of it. You will come
with your New Body.
Your children’s, the world’s call and aspiration, love
and consecration are laid at your feet in gratitude.
Will Sri Aurobindo and the Mother come back?
In earlier pages we have seen the remarks of Sri Aurobindo
that unless something in the surroundings changes at least
in relative proportions, one individual cannot bring a total
change. It has to be a collective work for a collective
evolution. If it was to change only his body, he would have
done it long ago. “Sri Aurobindo has given up his body in
an act of supreme unselfishness, renouncing the realisation
in his own body to hasten the hour of the collective
realisation. Surely if the earth were more responsive, this
would not have been necessary.”41
"The lack of receptivity” she further elaborates, “of the
earth and men is mostly responsible for the decision Sri
Aurobindo has taken regarding his body. But one thing is
certain: what has happened on the physical plane affects
in no way the truth of his teaching. All that he has said is
perfectly true and remains so. Time and the course of events
will prove it abundantly.”42
Sri Aurobindo had realised the highest Truth of
Existence, known the secret sense of earth evolution, that
is, the full development of Divine consciousness here on
earth, and he was carving the way to realise it for the earth
41. CWM Vol.13 p.9 42. Ibid p.7
204
and not for himself as he writes: “I have no intention of
achieving the Supermind for myself only — I am not doing
anything for myself, as I have no personal need of anything,
neither of salvation (Moksha) nor supramentalisation. If I
am seeking after supramentalisation, it is because it is a
thing that has to be done for the earth-consciousness and
if it is not done in myself, it cannot be done in others. My
supramentalisation is only a key for opening the gates of
the supramental to the earth-consciousness; done for its
own sake, it would be perfectly futile. ...”43
However, he could not complete the desired work, the
supramentalisation of the body, because he did not receive
the necassary collaboration from the collective humanity,
but his work was continued by the Mother and there was
hope that the work will be accomplished by her. But this
could not be done during her life-time also, obviously for
the same reason — the lack of receptivity of the earth and
men. But yet, their work continues; may be, it is not visible
on the surface to the inattentive viewers. We should not be
blinded by the appearances on the surface. Sri Aurobindo’s
withdrawal from his body was only a strategic shifting of
the disposition of his field of action for a continuation of
his work with an intenser concentration for a swifter victory
and the same is true in the case of the Mother’s withdrawal.
Even now, from behind the surface scene of the material
consciousness both of them are preparing for that
transformation and when the conditions are ready they
shall arrive on earth in new bodies. The change of
consciousness and its preparation is just like the formation
of the chicken in the egg. Till the last moment of sudden
appearance of the chicken no movement, no change is
43. Sri Aurobindo on Himself SABCL 26:144
205
visible on the surface of the shell and it appears to be dead.
But inside the shell a great and secret process of Nature,
the process of life-formation quietly goes an hidden from
our surface sight. For a long time we may have an
impression that nothing is happening. But as soon as life is
ready inside, the chicken is completely formed ready to
come out, its simple pecking in the shell is enough to break
the barriers to come out in another world, quite different
from the dark existence within the egg. And if we try haste
to bring the chicken before it is ready, it is death for it.
It is clear that the humanity is not yet ready for the
final victory of the perfect divine life and the transformation
of the body. And if it is forced to come down before we are
prepared for it, it may be risky rather than redemptive. In
spite of the unpreparedness on the part of humanity,
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have not given up their work
and are preparing from behind the veil out of their
profound compassion and concern for the destiny of the
earth and man. The manifestation of the supramental Light
on earth which took place in 1956 is working in the earthnature silently and acclimatizing it slowly and steadily in
response to its aspiration for the Light and Force. The
Power, the Love, the Ananda which will come with the
advent of the new man, as the Mother says, will be so
formidable that anything which is not that will simply
disappear. The supreme divine Ananda which is
indispensible for the full supramentalisation on earth will
destroy all that tries to resist its transforming action in the
world. The Mother has said:
“...the state of consciousness of this ecstasy would be
dangerous in the present condition of the world. Because
206
that has reactions that are almost absolute — I see that this
state of ecstasy has a formidable power. But I insist on the
word formidable, in the sense that it is intolerant or
intolerable — rather intolerable — for all that is not alike.
It is the same thing or almost the same (not quite the same
but almost) as the supreme divine Love; the vibration of
this ecstasy or ravishment is just a small beginning of the
vibration of the divine Love, and that is absolutely, yes there
is no other word, intolerant in the sense that it does not
admit the presence of anything that is contrary to it.
“Then that would have naturally frightful results for
the ordinary consciousness. I see it quite well, because
sometimes this power comes — this power comes and you
have the impression that everything is going to burst.
Because it can tolerate nothing but union, it can tolerate
nothing but the response that accepts, nothing but what
receives and accepts. And it is not an arbitrary will, it is of
the very fact of its existence which is all-powerful, "all
powerful," not in the sense in which all-powerful is
understood, but a true all power. That is to say it exists
entirely, totally, exclusively. It contains all, but what is
contrary to its vibration is compelled to change, naturally
because nothing can disappear. And then this change is
immediate, brutal so to say, absolute, in the world as it is,
is a catastrophe.”44
Why is the world not ready when the supramental Light
and Force is working in the earth-nature, because one
condition is still unfulfilled. The highest power and principle
has been brought down from above by Sri Aurobindo,
but the same principle- the highest from below has yet to
44. Bulletin, Nov. 1963 pp.67-68
207
join and intersect it. It is then only a new creation, the
square of perfect creation will emerge.
At present Sri Aurobindo and the Mother both are
working on the subtle-physical plane to establish a direct
link between the descending supermind and the ascending
supermind involved in Matter. Once this link is established
world-conditions will suddenly change as if like a miracle,
for the dawn is always close when the night is darkest. It
will happen at the culmination of the ongoing process of
supramental manifestation by gradual degrees for the
manifestation of its fullest power all at once firstly will not
be received and assimilated by earth-nature and secondly
it will create disbalance and harmful effects in the world.
It is therefore in the interest of the safe sailing of the earthship that God goes slow and steady. "Sri Aurobindo is
constantly in the subtle physical, very active there,” says
the Mother and the same is true for the Mother too. Both
of them are working incessantly for the goal they have
shown to us. Sri Aurobindo had promised to the Mother
that although he had left the body, he would stay with us
until his work is achieved. “In unmistakable terms Thou
hast promised that all of Thyself would remain here and
not leave the earth atmosphere until earth is transformed.
Grant that we may be worthy of this marvellous Presence
and that henceforth everything in us be concentrated on
the one will to be more and more perfectly consecrated to
the fulfilment of Thy sublime Work.”45
Moreover, immediately after leaving his physical body
Sri Aurobindo communicated to the Mother that he ‘shall
manifest again in the first supramental body built in the
supramental way.’
45. CWM, Vol 13:6
208
It is therefore by all means their second coming is
assured for the accomplishment of their half-done work
which will mark their full Avatarhood in a new and
luminous matter, the true matter culminating in a new
creation.
First Effects
But the first noticeable effects will be increase in general
confusion, violence, destruction and possibility of a
catastrophe because of the intense struggle between the two
forces — forces of Falsehood, Ignorance and Darkness, the
old principles which have lost their authority but still
wanting to hold on and the forces of the Truth, Knowledge
and Light, the new principles which have infused into
Matter new consciousness and power to possess and change
the old rules of life. The result of this conflict will be a change
of consciousness, first among the most receptive and then
in a greater number of people and later in the general
conditions of collective life. But this turn will be different
from the spiritual life of the past — not the peace of detached
life from all worldly things, a flight from life, an escape
from the struggle and battle, but rather this will usher in a
new aspect of spirituality, a new aspect of divine grace and
a new aspect of progress and life propelling humanity to a
new realisation, opening the doors of a new world, not
only possible for the choson few to benefit from but
gradually influencing the rest of mankind and creating
conditions for the emergence of the new humanity and the
subsequent appearance or second coming of the
supramental Avatars — Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as
supramental beings.
209
A new creation from the old shall rise,
A Knowledge inarticulate find speech,
Beauty suppressed burst into paradise bloom,
Pleasure and pain dive into absolute bliss.
A tongueless oracle shall speak at last,
The Superconscient conscious grow on earth,
The Eternal's wonders join the dance of Time.46
The Integral Avatar
Sri Aurobindo is the full and perfect manifestion of the
whole Truth — the highest of the Absolute, so far known
or identified by human experience either in awakened state
of consciousness or in the ecstasy of samadhi. That highest
Truth has been identified by our ancient seers as
Sachchidananda - Sat, Chit, Ananda, the triplicity of the
higher hemisphere. This Truth is at once Existence,
Consciousness and Bliss as a single Truth with three aspects.
But Its poises are many; It is Sat and Asat, consciousness
and unconsciousness and Bliss and pain. It is
Transcendental, Universal and Individual too. It is the silent
and inactive witness as well as dynamic and active. It is a
Personal Entity, Saguna and Impersonal, Nirguna as well.
Its various poises have been experienced in parts till now
by different sages, seers and manifested in the world by
many Avatars. For Shankaracharya he is Nirguna,
Impersonal, the only Truth and the world is illusion. For
Buddha He is Asat, Nihil, a Void, Shunyam, the only escape
from the torture of life of disease and death. For Krishna
He is Bliss and Love, Eternal Ananda out of which He has
created this world and life. Sri Aurobindo has experienced
210
all these aspects and poises of the Supreme in his single
consciousness, integrating all His moods and all His levels
in his single person as an Integral Avatar.
Sri Aurobindo incarnated in his instrumental being not
only the silent Brahman, the absolute witness PurushaAkshara Brahman of the Gita, but also the active and
dynamic aspect of the Supreme, Sachchidanand,
Purushottama of the Gita, for he manifested the dynamic
consciousness — force, the creative power of
Sachchidanand, the supermind in the earth-nature which
will gradually change the texture of life on earth and create
a new humanity, a different species other than the present
man — a new step in the evolutionary scale of Nature. He
is at once the Divine delegate and human protagonist, for
he took the garb of human nature and underwent human
suffering and pain and passed through the gates of birth
and death to lead humanity towards the consummation of
the evolutionary goal of Nature.
Buddha and Shankara realised the partial Truth of the
Divine by dichotomy — separating one reality from another
— absolute Peace and Misery of life, Brahman and Maya
and gave half, incomplete solution of the riddle of life and
world whereas the solution of Sri Aurobindo is total and
absolute. For him God and our Life are one reality and to
discover it our sole business. Thus we do not lose anything
either God nor life. 'To fulfil God in life is man's manhood.'
A high and black negation is not all,
A huge extinction is not God's last word,
Life's ultimate sense, the close of being's course,
The meaning of this greet mysterious world.
Here to fulfil himself was God's desire. 47
47. Savitri pp. 311-12
211
He incarnates unpartitioned Truth and the complete Being
with all poises, the whole and integral Reality of the
manifested and unmanifested world. That is why he looks
at the existence as one reality — the expression of one Spirit
— Spirit and Matter are one. There is no second.
Ekamevâdwitiyam. He discovered this truth of Vedas in
himself which had been lost for us, and we were groping
in the dark to know the secrets in vain but yet luckily we
could keep the text intact, uncorrupted, unmutilated by
the ravages of time. When the Rishis who had heard this
knowledge and seen it in their inner silences disappeared
and our souls strayed or slept, doors of those secrets were
closed. Our smattering pendantry did not unlock those
closed chambers of Light. Yaska and Sayana could not peck
beyond the shells of karmakanda and were content with the
husks of the inner kernel. Similiarly failed Western pundits
like Max Muller to know and find treasures of Veda hidden
behind the 'babblings' of the early race. In such a backdrop Sri Aurobindo comes before us and reveals the secret
of the Veda, its true meaning which is hidden under the
double meaning of rituals of sacrifice — the Yajna, prevalent
those days as a religio-spiritual tradition in the Aryan
culture. He has delivered the Vedas- the mantra of creation
of Brahma, the creator, from the Rasatala of the oblivion. It
is this treasure of knowledge which gives the secret of
creation and of what is beyond creation, the total knowledge
of God and His manifestation, essential knowledge and
comprehensive knowledge by knowing which nothing
remains to be known.
Sri Aurobindo's Yoga, known as an Integral Yoga, is
212
also complete and total, for it takes care of the full growth
of all three propensities of human nature — will, knowledge
and love by realising the supreme Truth through each one
of them simultaneously, whereas other Yogas are satisfied
with taking them up separately and partially - Jnana Yoga
insists on knowledge, Karma Yoga on will and work and
Bhakti Yoga on love and devotion. The Integral Yoga aims
at integral realisation — Sayujya, Sadharmya and Salokya,
all three realisations in one go. Sri Aurobindo has therefore
synthesized all the prevalent systems of Yoga by taking their
essence in a single perfect whole of the Integral Yoga. "Will,
knowledge and love," he says, "are three divine powers in
human nature and the life of man, and they point to the
three paths by which the human soul rises to the divine.
The integrality of them, the union of man with God in all
the three, must therefore, as we have seen, be the foundation
of an Integral Yoga."48
His Integral Yoga is therefore a complete formula of
transformation of man into divine superman. "An integral
union of the individual's being with the Divine Being is the
condition of a perfect spiritual life. Turn then altogether
towards the Divine; make one with him by knowledge, love
and works all your nature. Turn utterly towards him and
give up ungrudgingly into his hands your mind and your
heart and your will, all your consciousness and even your
very senses and body. Let your consciousness be sovereignly
moulded by him into a flawless mould of his divine
consciousness. Let your heart become a lucid or flaming
heart of the Divine. Let your will be an impeccable action
of his will. Let your very sense and body be the rapturous
sensation and body of the Divine. Adore and sacrifice to
48. The Synthesis of Yoga CWSA 24:545
213
him with all you are; remember him in every thought and
feeling, every impulsion and act. Persevere until all these
things are wholly his and he has taken up even in most
common and outward things as in the inmost sacred
chamber of your spirit his constant transmuting presence."49
His philosophy, his thoughts, ideas, his approach
towards life and world and beyond, all are strung like pearls
on a thread of single Truth that all is Brahman- Sarvam
Khalu idam Brahma. It is one supreme Power which
expresses itself in all three poises — The Transcendental,
the Cosmic and the Individual. And he has realised and
manifested the unity of all these principles in his single being.
He integrates in his being all seemingly divergent
principles so marvellously: Reason with faith, spirituality
with intellectuality, Renunciation with enjoymentTenatyaktena bhunjhitha, Spirit with Matter, this worldiness
with other-worldiness. His words are at once a poetic
creation, philosophical discourse, metaphysical revelation
and prophetic utterance. His personal life is a matchless
example of a vast integration which excludes nothing,
includes all.
He completes the half-done works of all past seers and
prophets and even Avatars. He complements Buddha and
Shankara who gave us only lop-sided view of the Reality.
He complements even Krishna who started the movement
of comprehensive and integral solution of life to be
concluded only by his successor-the future Avatar that Sri
Aurobindo is.
He integrates as also completes the works of Vedic
Rishis. They had the knowledge of the supermind and
attempted to attain that individually, but they did not try
49. Essays on the Gita CWSA 19:590
214
to realise it for the world. "...they did not bring it down and
make it a permanent part of the earth-consciousness. Even
there are verses of the Upanishad in which it is hinted that
it is impossible to pass through the gates of Sun (the symbol
of the Supermind) and yet retain an earthly body. It was
because of this failure that the spiritual effort of India
culminated in Mayavada."50
He also completes the half-done work by Religions. They
promised to bring down the kingdom of God on earth but
failed to do so, because their approach was not integral.
Christ banked upon Love alone and Mohammad on Force.
Sri Aurobindo's aphorism no. 171 says:
"When all is said, Love and Force together can save the
world eventually, but not Love only or Force only. Therefore
Christ had to look forward to a second advent and
Mohamed's religion, where it is not stagnant, looks forward
through the Imams to a Mahdi."
The Mother, commenting on the above, said: Love alone
as preached by Christ failed to transform man. Force alone
preached by Mohamed did not transform man, far from it.
That is why the consciousness which is at work to
transform mankind unites Force with Love, and the One
who must realise this transformation will come on earth
with the power of Divine Love.51
Sri Aurobindo promises to come with the integrated
force of the Divine in his immortal epic Savitri:
One day I will return, a bringer of strength,
And make thee drink from the Eternal's cup;
His streams of Force shall triumph in thy limbs
And Wisdom's calm control thy passionate heart.
Thy love shall be the bond of human kind,
50. The Riddle of this World 2009:pp 1-2
51. CWM, Vol. 10:261
215
Compassion the bright key of Nature's acts:
Misery shall pass abolished from the earth;
The world shall be freed from the anger of the Beast,
From the cruelty of the Titan and his pain.
There shall be peace and joy for ever more.52
Sri Aurobindo's integral philosophy is a confluence of
three streams of nationalism, internationalism and
universalism. He is at once a nationalist, internationalist
and universalist. He is on the one hand a passionate patriot
to the extent of madness — 'what will the son do when he
sees a rakshasa sitting on the breast of his mother and
sucking her blood? Will he quietly have his meal or will he
rush to deliver his mother from that grasp?' he once wrote
to his wife in the context of the slavery of India, on the
other, a great advocate of the ideal of human unity. On
one side he does not tire singing the glory of the spiritual
genius of India, on the other he is all praise for the Western
world for its scientific, rational and intellectual contribution
to humanity. But he understands the limitations of both
and sees the salvation of mankind in meeting of both —
the East and the West.
"The West has put its faith in its science and machinery
and it is being destroyed by its science and crushed under
its mechanical burden. It has not understood that a spiritual
change is necessary for the accomplishment of its ideals.
The East has the secret of that spiritual change, but it has
too long turned its eyes away from the earth. The time has
now come to heal the division and to unite life and the
spirit." 53 But the true human unity cannot come by an
external association of interests, by superficial means and
the mechanism of the ego, but by living in the Spirit which
52. Savitri CWSA 34:507-08 53. SABCL vol-14 pp.329-330
216
lives in each and every object of the universe and which is
the cause of the very existence of the cosmos. Once we
transcend our limited egoistic self and discover the Self in
all, the true fraternity, true equality and true liberty will be
the natural flowering of that unity of the Spirit.
Sri Aurobindo's being itself is integrated with so many
personalities, holding at once so many offices that one gets
bewildered as to how to address him in one syllable. He is a
great intellectual and thinker. He thinks deeply,
intellectually, originally of so many things simultaneously
— of the individual, of the collectivity, of the countries and
continents, of the world — their past, present and future.
He is a philosopher par excellence, his philosophy is very
deep and new. He is a Rishi, Yogi and Tapasvi. He hears
the divine words, sees the divine vision. He is a great creative
and visionary poet of a new and future genre casting out
of himself vibrant and flaming characters throughout like
Savitri, Ashwapati and Yama in his immortal epic.
He is a creative writer churning out classics of
metaphysics, Yoga, philosophy, social sciences and what
not. He is a politician and patriot of a new brand setting
new trends, new ideas, new gospels, new doctrines
everywhere. He is a lover, lover of man and God. He is so
many in one personality. But is he a person, a personality?
He did not do anything for his personal self. All he did, he
did impersonally. He was throughout his life impersonal.
Indeed, he was a great Impersonality, he was 'the AvatarSri Aurobindo, the emanation of the One, the Supreme.'
217
ADITI – The Divine Mother
And the Mother! The Mother is none other than Sri
Aurobindo himself. Both are one Being, one Consciousness
and one Bliss in the upper hemisphere; in the lower creation,
the Supreme Being manifests in two embodiments as
Purusha and Prakriti or Brahman and Maya — the
Creative force of the Brahman and not the Illusion as
interpreted by Shankaracharya — or Ishwar and His
Shakti, for the nature of work they intend to accomplish in
the world, demands this duality.
The Two who are one are the secret of all power,
The Two who are one are the might and right in things.54
These two embodiments of the one Reality may appear on
earth in two different situations, different countries or
different cultures, but soon they join each other for they
are conscious even in the their instrumental consciousness,
of their avataric common mission that they have to fulfil.
‘The Mother and I are one but in two bodies’, said Sri
Aurobindo. 55 And what the Mother said about Sri
Aurobindo is a fact of even deeper unity:
‘Wthout him, I exist not;
without me, he is unmanifest.56
Sri Aurobindo is the Avatar of the Supreme Being — Sat;
and the Mother of the Chit-Shakti of that Being, his
consciousness-force which has no independent existence.
Sachchidanand came down or emanated as Sri Aurobindo
54. Savitri CWSA 33:63 55. Sri Aurobindo on Himself P.457
56. CWM 13:.32
218
and the Mother with a specific purpose of fulfilling the
work of transformation of human nature into divine nature,
complete divinisation of man into God.
Every Avatar comes to fulfil a particular mission
according to the need of the time in which they appear.
Rama came to establish the rule of the ideal mind in the
earth nature to lift humanity from the lower regions of vital
rule. Krishna came to lift humanity to a still higher world
of overmind, a world of modified living with Bhakti, Jnana
and Karma. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother have come to
bring down a higher force of the Divine – Supermind as
termed by Sri Aurobindo, which is referred to in the
Upanishad as Vijnana and in the Veda as Rita-Chit.
The Incarnate dual Power shall open God’s door,
Eternal Supermind touch earthly Time.
The superman shall wake in mortal man
And manifest the hidden demi-god
Or grow into the God-Light and God-Force
Revealing the secret deity in the cave.57
Supermind is the world of the dynamic powers of
Sachchidananda, highest godhead who is the cause of this
entire cosmic existence. It is His Consciousness involved in
our existence, in our material manifestation, which is
unfolding progressively and gradually and moving towards
the source. This upward ascent or movement is supported
by descents of corresponding powers from above. The
powers so far descended on earth have prepared humanity
up to the present status, but now unable to take it further,
as such man is held up in the tangle of stagnation. It is the
57. CWSA 34:705
219
Divine only who incarnates or descends in the body suited
to the nature of the work, presenting almost a prototype
and bringing or manifesting only the power that is
necessary to pull the creation up one step higher. These
descents are called Avatars in common parlance in our
country. It is how Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have
descended as Supramental Avatars to bring down the
higher principle or power of the Divine called Supermind
which has the capacity to change the human nature into
divine nature.
Both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother from the beginning
of their life were preoccupied with this very task — how
to change man into the divine kind. It is a tremendous task
almost impossible like bringing the heaven or kingdom of
God on earth. Science or the mental reasoning will brush it
aside as a superstition beause it is a truth beyond the Mind.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother came at such a time when
the world was divided into two blocks – East and West.
The East was trapped in the mist of religious dogmas and
superstitions and the truth of the spirit was lost in externals.
The West was searching for the truth of existence or life
with the dim lamp of mental conjectures and speculations.
Both science and religion were groping for everlasting bliss,
immortality and light. But whereas science was searching
for its hieroglyph in the embryo or organism of the body,
in the outer phenomenon, religion was shut up in the
temples, mosques and the churches. They had to be told of
the secret, the new reality, the new ideal which is beyond
the grasp of both religion and science. The Mother prepared
the background in the West — in France which was centre
of cultural flowering in the Western World. Sri Aurobindo
220
created a new wave, a new spiritual wave in India, the
centre of refinement and aesthetics in the East, from the
arena of national politics which gave a ready-made stage
for him to announce a new reality — a spiritual politics —
India is not a mere geography for which we want liberty
but our Mother, our goddess who is being outraged by
others, it is her deliverance that we seek — it was the
prelude as if, — perhaps, first outpour of spiritual force
streamed forth from the Gangotri of ‘Vande Mataram’
which wrote the preface to the Supramental Manifestation,
Transformation, New Race, Kingdom of God, Life Divine
on earth.
Supramental Aim
It was a new ideal, a new approach to life, spirituality
blended with materialism — a formula of divine life in
divine body that he envisaged and kept before us.
“It is indeed as a result of our evolution that we arrive
at the possibility of this transformation. As Nature has
evolved beyond Matter and manifested Life, beyond Life
and manifested Mind, so she must evolve beyond Mind
and manifest a consciousness and power of our existence
free from the imperfection and limitation of our mental
existence, a supramental or truth-consciousness, and able
to develop the power and perfection of the spirit. Here a
slow and tardy change need no longer be the law or manner
of our evolution; it will be only so to a greater or less extent
so long as a mental ignorance clings and hampers our
ascent; but once we have grown into the truthconsciousness, its power of spiritual truth of being will
determine all. Into that truth we shall be freed and it will
221
transform mind and life and body. Light and bliss and
beauty and a perfection of the spontaneous right action of
all the being are there as native powers of the supramental
truth – consciousness and these will in their very nature
transform mind and life and body even here upon earth
into a manifestation of the truth-conscious spirit. ... All may
not open to the fullness of its light and power, but whatever
does open must to that extent undergo the change. ...
''... A divine life in a material world implies
necessarily a union of the two ends of existence, the spiritual
summit and the material base. The soul with the basis of
its life established in Matter ascends to the heights of the
Spirit but does not cast away its base, it joins the heights
and the depths together. The Spirit descends into Matter
and the material world with all its lights and glories and
powers and with them fills and transforms life in the
material world so that it becomes more and more divine.'' 58
The Mother in France was changing the direction
of the wind of intellectualism towards an inner search and
a deeper reality via occultism, mysticism, art and music.
She was a great musician, great artist, occultist and mystic.
From her childhood she was conscious of her spiritual
mission as Sri Aurobindo was that she would fulfil in future
to change the destiny of mankind and earth.
The General Aim
A paper read by her on 7th May 1912 to a small group of
seekers "l’Idèe", founded by her which used to meet
regularly in Paris with the aim of self-knowledge and selfmastery, gives a similar agenda she had in mind to work
58.CWSA : 536-37; 521-22
222
out for a new ideal on earth:
The general aim to be attained is the advent of a progressing
universal harmony.
The means for attaining this aim, in regard to the earth, is
the realisation of human unity through the awakening in all
and the manifestation by all of the inner Divinity which is one.
In other words, — to create unity by founding the Kingdom
of God which is within us all.
This, therefore, is the most useful work to be done:
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
For each individually, to be conscious in himself of
the Divine Presence and to identify himself with it.
To individualise the states of being that were never
till now conscious in man and, by that, to put the
earth in connection with one or more of the fountains
of universal force that are still sealed to it.
To speak again to the world the eternal word under
a new form adapted to its present mentality.
It will be synthesis of all human knowledge.
Collectively, to establish an ideal society in a
propitious spot for the flowering of the new race,
the race of the Sons of God.
*
The terrestrial transformation and harmonisation can be brought
about by two processes which, though opposite in appearance,
must combine — must act upon each other and complete each
other:
1. Individual transformation, an inner development
leading to the union with the Divine Presence.
2. Social transformation, the establishment of an
environment favourable to the flowering and growth of
the individual.
223
Since the environment reacts upon the individual and on
the other hand, the value of the environment depends upon the
value of the individual the two works should proceed side by
side. But this can be done only through division of labour, and
that necessitates the formation of a group, hierarchised, if
possible.
The action of the members of the group should be threefold:
1. To realise in oneself the ideal to be attained: to become a
perfect earthly representative of the first manifestation of the
Unthinkable in all its modes, attributes and qualities.
2. To preach this ideal by word, but, above all, by example, so
as to find out all those who are ready to realise it in their turn
and to become also announcers of liberation.
3. To found a typic society or reorganise those that already
exist.
*
For each individual also there is a twofold labour to be done,
simultaneously, each side of it helping and completing the other.
1. An inner development, a progressive union with the Divine
Light, sole condition in which man can be always in harmony
with the great stream of universal life.
2. An external action which everyone has to choose according
to his capacities and personal preferences. He must find his
own place, the place which he alone can occupy in the general
concert, and he must give himself entirely to it, not forgetting
that he is playing only one note in the terrestrial symphony
224
and yet his note is indispensable to the harmony of the whole,
and its value depends upon its justness.59
This is a kind of blueprint of divine life envisaged by Sri
Aurobindo or the Magna Carta of spiritual liberty and
divine rights as it were. How identical were their
experiences and consciousnesses! Even wordings are the
same — Transformation, New Race, Kingdom of God,
Human Unity, Individualisation of the states of being i.e.
the formation of the psychic being etc. And mind you, it
was on 7 th May 1912, the Mother had not yet seen Sri
Aurobindo till then.
She had many unusual experiences in her vision in her
teens the significance of which she might not have fully
understood then, but later on as she grew in age she knew
who she was and why she had been sent on earth.
One of the visions which she recorded in her Prayers
and Meditations and which continued every night almost
for a year was that in her sleep she used to go up out of
her body very high above and see herself clad in a
magnificent golden robe longer than herself which stretched
spreading out around her. Then all kinds of unhappy people
– men, women, children, sick, would gather under the robe
praying for help. The robe, in answer to their prayers,
would extend towards them and let them touch itself. As
soon as they touched it, they felt comforted, healed and
happy and went back to their bodies happier and stronger.
How this vision came true when she came to India and
was given the charge of the Ashram in 1926 after Sri
Aurobindo stopped meeting people to pursue the deeper
sadhana. What in her vision she did in the subtle plane
59. CWM 2 : 47-48
225
here in India, she is still doing on the physical plane helping,
healing, comforting thousands of people who come crying
and weeping everyday to her Samadhi and go back smiling
with gratitude. The golden robe is still spread as the aura
of the Samadhi around it and it is so palpable and tangible
that anyone even not knowing who the Mother is feels its
touch and gets consoled and comforted by it.
This single experience of hers is enough to indicate that
she was Divine and she came with a definite purpose of
doing the Divine work on earth. And after her meeting
with Sri Aurobindo in 1914, it became further clear and
confirmed what exactly the nature of the mission was and
how and where she had to do it.
When she was asked once when and how she became
conscious of her mission and how she met Sri Aurobindo,
she answered in the following words:
“For the knowledge of the mission, it is difficult to say
when it came to me. It is as though I were born with it,
and following the growth of the mind and brain, the
precision and completeness of this consciousness grew also.
“Between 11 and 13 a series of psychic and spiritual
experiences revealed to me not only the existence of God
but man’s possibility of uniting with Him, of realising Him
integrally in consciousness and action, of manifesting Him
upon earth in a life divine. This, along with a practical
discipline for its fulfilment, was given to me during my
body’s sleep by several teachers, some of whom I met
afterwards on the physical plane.
“Later on, as the interior and exterior development
proceeded, the spiritual and psychic relation with one of
these beings became more and more clear and frequent;
226
and although I knew little of the Indian philosophies and
religions at that time I was led to call him Krishna, and
henceforth I was aware that it was with him (whom I knew
I should meet on earth one day) that the divine work was
to be done.
“In the year 1910 my husband came alone to
Pondicherry where, under very interesting and peculiar
circumstances, he made the acquaintance of Sri
Aurobindo. Since then we both strongly wished to return
to India – the country which I had always cherished as my
true mother–country. And in 1914 this joy was granted to
us.
“As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo, I recognised in him
the well-known being whom I used to call Krishna. ... And
this is enough to explain why I am fully convinced that my
place and my work are near him, in India.”60
That was the momentous hour when she recognised in
him the all-consummating Avatar of the Supreme Lord and
Sri Aurobindo found in her his counterpart, his
consciousness force, Chit-Shakti, the Supreme Mother,
Aditi, Para Prakriti, who would give practical shape to his
yoga and inaugurate a new chapter in the earth-history.
Before she first met Sri Aurobindo on the 29th March
1914, she had already had to her credit many
accomplishments, attainments and realisations besides her
spiritual visions. She was a versatile genius, multi-faceted
prodigy, adept in many fields of knowledge like Sri
Aurobindo.
She studied Art in a famous Art Studio of Paris, the
Academie Julian, for four years from the age of 15 to 19
and became a painter of eminence. Her few works were
60. CWM Vol.13: 38-39
227
exhibited along with the famous artists of that period at
the Salon de la Societé national des Beaux-Arts. She drew
her own sketch and also Sri Aurobindo’s before meeting
with him based on her vision and whom she called Krishna.
Later in the Ashram she drew sketches of many sadhaks.
She came in contact with leading artists of the period
when she was pursuing Art such as Auguste Rodin and
Matisse and Cezanne and Gustav Moreau. She married at
the age of 19, in the year 1897 a notable artist, Henri
Morisset, who was working with her in a studio.
She was a born musician, a great musician. She learnt
music very early. She was very fond of classical symphonies
like Beethoven’s. Whenever she heard good music played
by good and expert hands, she went into trance and had
spiritual experiences of vastness and bliss. Even at an early
age, 14 or 15, she used to thrill the listeners by her organ
music.
Her music is very famous and popular in the Ashram
and among the devotees all over the world. She used to
play organ music in the Ashram at midnight on the 31st of
December ushering in the New Year and later at 6 o’clock
in the morning on the first of January.
Once, she was playing the piano in her room at Tlemcen,
Théon’s place in Algeria, she recollects, and when she
finished playing, she found to her utter surprise a big toad,
outside her window, overjoyed and thrilled, swelling and
deflating. Even lower creatures felt the power of her music.
She had entry even to the subtle world of music the
source from where music originates. According to her
“between the border of the lower hemisphere and the
higher hemisphere there is a world of creation. When you
228
enter there, you find that it consists of a series of zones.
Each zone has a number of layers. The first zone is of
material form, perfect form. Inspirations, proddings from
that zone of form are responsible for great works of
sculpture, architecture, painting. It is a world of forms.
Next is the zone of music. That is the origin of all inspired
music; all great composers, whether they are aware of it or
not, are inspired from that plane. First there are musical
waves. Vibratory waves without sound, gradually they
take the shape of sounds.”61
The Mother used to hear those vast waves of music
and sometimes her hands would give expression to them
without her physical awareness of what she was playing.
She would get up only when the waves subsided. Music is
the first embodiment of consciousness as joy, she remarks.
With these two accomplishments she could have been
the greatest or one of the greatest artists and musicians of
the world. But she was not seeking a career of outer life –
money, comforts, name and fame and family life. She was
seeking her soul. She was having many inner experiences,
but she was not able to understand the significance of those
things. She wanted to know what these visions meant to
her life. It was then she chanced upon to read Gita as
suggested by one Indian, Gyan Chakravarty, who also told
her: ‘read this, but regard Lord Krishna as the Indweller.’
The Mother says that within one month her work was done.
Later she came across a book by Vivekananda on Rajayoga
— a compilation of his lectures, which further helped to
make things or phenomena of her inner life clear to her.
Her central quest was to find her inner self, the supreme
discovery, which she realised within a few months. Then
61. An Early Chapter of the Mother's Life by M.P. Pandit p.88
229
she was about 20 or 22. As soon as she attained union
with her psychic principle, she felt the sense of eternity
and immortality and all fear of death disappeared.
She was also a great occultist. She was gifted with the
natural talent of clairaudience and clairvoyance. She could
hear and see the things of the subtle worlds and also deal
with them. She even participated in planchettes, automatic
writings, mediums, seances, but only for fun, because she
was very advanced occultist already and knew the
limitations and unreliabilities of these practices.
“By the beginning of this century the Mother had seen
on the borderland between form and formlessness, high
above, a kind of idealised form which was neither male
nor female, but which Sri Aurobindo characterised as the
prototype of the supramental form. In this connection
Mother makes an interesting observation. As she has
described in a number of visions when she went down to
the nethermost regions of existence, she had seen a divine
form with the head resting on arms, reclining. And what
was special about it was that when Mother looked at that
form, it opened its eyes wide. Mother explains it as the
beginning of a fully awakened manifestation. She found a
certain resemblance between this from in the inconscient
and the other form on the border of formlessness, with this
difference that the colour of the form below was diamond
white, whereas the one on the top of the world of form
was one of golden glory. This was the difference. But all
these happened before she met Theon or Sri Aurobindo.
She had already seen and known those two ends of
existence supporting and overseeing this manifestation." 62
After all these experiences by the end of 1905, the
62. Ibid p.120
230
Mother came in touch with two Masters of occultism – M.
Theon and his wife Madame Alma Theon, who lived, in
Tlemcen in Algeria in a suburban set-up on a hill. She went
to Tlemcen to meet these masters to learn more of occultism
from them. During her stay at Tlemcen she learnt the art
of going effortlessly to the Supraphysical planes, the science
of materialising and dematerialising and to differentiate
between the various smells, to differentiate the suble smells,
colours, lights, their source and action. The Mother found
that Madame Theon was a greater adept in occultism and
she could leave her body twelve times, each time assuming
a more subtle form till she arrived at the border of the
domain of form. The Mother learnt this technique and this
process from her. Madame Theon noticed 12 pearls in a
formation over the Mother’s head and told her its
significance. ‘This means you are That and only That can
have this formation.’ Madame Theon also told the Mother
that there were always two angels around her. All these
go to prove that the Mother was from the beginning of her
life the supreme Mother, Supreme’s Consciousness-Force
and as her instrumental personality grew she became
conscious of her true identity.
When she joined Sri Aurobindo for good in Pondicherry
after her second visit, and later was given the charge of
the Ashram, Sri Aurobindo declared her true personality:
“The One whom we adore as the Mother is the Divine
Consciousnes-Force that dominates all existence, one and
yet so many sided that to follow her movement is impossible
even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast
intelligence.”63
63. The Mother by Sri Aurobindo 14th Edition : pp27-28
231
He further elaborates Mother’s powers and
personalities.:
“Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading
Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her
guidance of this Universe and in her dealings with the
terrestrial play. One is her personality of calm wideness
and comprehending wisdom and tranquil benignity and
inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing
majesty and all-ruling greatness. Another embodies her
power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her
warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous
swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and
sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and
harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle
opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace.
The fourth is equipped with her close and profound
capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work
and quiet and exact perfection in all things. Wisdom,
Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes
and it is these powers that they bring with them into the
world, manifest in a human disguise in their Vibhutis and
shall found in the divine degree of their ascension in those
who can open their earthly nature to the direct living
influence of the Mother. To the four we give the four great
names, Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi,
Mahasaraswati.” 64
The Mother too has confessed before her children of
the Ashram the fact of her being the Divine, of which she
was sure even before she came to Pondicherry. She wrote
on 24 May 1951:
64. Ibid pp. 37-38
232
“There is only one thing of which I am absolutely sure,
and that is who I am. Sri Aurobindo also knew it and
declared it. Even the doubts of the whole of humanity would
change nothing to this fact.
“But another fact is not so certain — it is the usefulness
of my being here in a body, doing the work I am doing. It is
not out of any personal urge that I am doing it. Sri
Aurobindo told me to do it and that is why I do it as a
sacred duty in obedience to the dictates of the Supreme.
“Time will reveal how far earth has benefitted through
" 65
it.
France, Algeria and even Japan periods were the
preparatory phases to finally come to India, the country of
her soul, where she was destined to fulfil her mission, the
mission of changing the world into a new kind, hitherto
unheard of by any prophet, Avatar or Nabi of the past.
The first time she came to India in 1914 and returned nearly
a year after; the second time she arrived here on 24th April
1920 and since then she never left Pondicherry till her last
breath and worked day and night for the physical
realisation of Sri Aurobindo’s yoga of supramentalisation
of the earth-life.
Once the Mother came finally to Pondicherry on 24th
April 1920, she never looked back again and completely
surrendered herself – whatever she had and she was – at
the feet of the Master of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo, who was for
her, her Lord and her Divine and carried on his yoga of
transformation till the last breath of her life. Although she
was equal to Sri Aurobindo in sadhana and realisations,
she often took the position of a humble disciple of Sri
Aurobindo and spoke of carrying out his work and message
65. CWM .13:47
233
to the world to the last drop of her body. But for Sri
Aurobindo, she was indispensable and without her cooperation, as he thought, his work would not have been
possible. “It is the Mother who showed the way to a
practical form, without her no organised manifestation
would have been possible.” 66 Not only this,
Sri Aurobindo goes much farther to compliment the Mother
to say, “But when I came to Pondicherry, there was no
help from within, and I was seeking for some illumination
from an outside thing or person. Then Mirra came, and,
had she not come here, I would have been still fumbling.
...“ "This is", remarks Shri K.D. Sethna in his book Our
Light and Delight, "the most sweeping as well as startling
compliment to the Mother, charged with a humility possible
only to a supreme instrument of the Divine such as Sri
Aurobindo.”
The Mother was destined to join Sri Aurobindo in his
great task of initiating a new divine element, a new Dharma
in the Nature and collaborate with him, in the work of
Supramentalisation of man, for such tremendous changes
to bring about, Divine has always been coming with his
Shakti. To establish the higher mental ideals Rama came
with his Shakti Sita and Sri Krishna for bringing down the
ideal of Bhakti, a higher emotion in the heart, brought his
Shakti Radha with him. The work of manifesting divine
life or supramentalisation of earth-nature is a greater
transition than all previous steps of evolution; hence it was
necessary for the Divine to come down with his Shakti. Sri
Aurobindo himself explains:
“The function of the Shakti is something special. In my
own case it was a necessary condition for the work that I
66. Our Light and Delight by K.D. Sethna, p.6
234
had to do. If I had to do only my own transformation or
give a new yoga or a new ideal to a select few people who
came into personal contact with me I could have done that
without having any Shakti. But, for the work that I had to
do, it was necessary that the two sides must come together.
By coming together of Mirra and me certain conditions are
created which make it easy for you to do the
transformation. You can take advantage of these conditions.
But it is not necessary that everybody should have a Shakti
just because in my case it was necessary. You cannot
generalise like that from one case. It is not a question of
great or small. It is a question of your being less complex
than I am. If you had to do all the things that I have done
you would never be able to do it. And before you can have
a Shakti you must first of all deserve a Shakti. The first
condition is that you must be master of all the movements
of Kama, lust. There are many other things. One thing is
that there must be complete union on every plane of inner
consciousness.”67
Both have to play in fact complementary roles in the
transformation of the complex human nature. Man houses
in his being both principles – Purusha and Prakriti and it is
by working on both the principles that the desired result
can be effectuated. “The work of the two together alone
brings down the Supramental Truth into the physical plane.
A.G. acts directly on the mental and on the vital being
through the illumined mind, he represents the Purusha
element whose strength is predominantly in illumined
knowledge (intuition, supramental or spiritual) and the
power that acts in this knowledge, while the psychic being
supports this action and helps to tranform the physical and
67. Ibid p.4
235
vital planes. Mirra acts directly on the psychic and on the
emotional vital and physical being through the illumined
psychic consciousness while the illumined intuitions of the
supramental being give her the necessary knowledge to
act on the right lines and at the right moment. Her force
representing the Shakti element is directly psychic, vital,
physical and her spiritual knowledge is predominantly
practical in its nature.”68
Indeed, as the Mother was the Divine Shakti, she came
into action as soon as she joined the small house of Sri
Aurobindo, the nucleus of the future Sri Aurobindo
Ashram. She set the house in order and by her sweet
personal example, radiated an atmosphere of respect and
reverence for the Guru and God, because it was she who
first recognised the Divine in Sri Aurobindo and introduced
him as such to those around for whom Sri Aurobindo was
just a leader of the national movement and at the most, a
yogi from North – the Uttara yogi for both the inmates of
the house with a few revolutionaries as well as visitors
comprising patriots and spiritual seekers. No one had even
an iota of feeling that they were living or meeting with
God. With the coming of the Mother, Sri Aurobindo’s
sadhana became more intense and deep and some concrete
results were in the offing. Sri Aurobindo, obviously was
working hard to pull down the Supermind, which is very
clear from his letter to his younger brother Barin in April
1920:
“Without reaching the Supramental it is impossible to
know the ultimate secret of the world. The riddle of the
world cannot be solved without it.
68. Ibid p.5
236
“But its attainment is not easy. After fifteen years I am
just now rising to the lowest of the three layers of the
Supermind and trying to draw up all my movements into
it. But when the Siddhi is complete, then there is no doubt
that the Divine will give the siddhi of the Supermind to
others through me with very little effort. Then my real
work will begin. I am not in a hurry to accomplish my
work”. 69
Gradually the number of seekers began to swell and
by 1926 it reached 24. There were regular meditations and
talks and personal guidance from the Master and even the
Mother who had already attained the status of ‘The
Mother’ from just ‘Mirra’ through the lips of Sri Aurobindo
in some inspired moment. Sri Aurobindo seemed to be
withdrawing himself slowly and putting forth the Mother
to guide others in their inner Sadhana also along with the
responsibility of the outer organisation of the House of the
Guru, which she was already doing of her own. And after
the momentous day, the 24th Nov. 1926, his Siddhi Day,
Sri Aurobindo openly announced that henceforth the
Mother will take care not only of the material needs of the
inmates or sadhakas, but also be their spiritual guide and
guru and he himself will be available only through the
Mother. From that day Sri Aurobindo retired to devote his
entire time exclusively to the inner sadhana.
The 24th of November 1926 was a great day in the life
of Sri Aurobindo and his sadhana. This is also the day when
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram formally came into existence
and the Mother was given the charge of spiritual and
material care of the Ashram. This was the day when a
great milestone was reached in the journey of Sri
69. The Mother by Wilfred pp.34-35
237
Aurobindo’s sadhana. A great height of consciousness
known as ‘Overmind’ which is below the Supermind but
the highest of all the planes of the Mind, descended in his
body without which the Supramental descent could not
have been possible. Sri Aurobindo himself has explained
the significance of the Day which the Mother has called
the ‘Victory Day’:
“The 24th November 1926 was the descent of Krishna
into the physical. Krishna is not the Supramental Light.
The descent of Krishna would mean the descent of the
Overmind Godhead preparing, though not itself actually,
the descent of Supermind and Ananda. Krishna is the
Anandamaya; he supports the evolution through the
Overmind leading it towards his Ananda.”70
From that day the household of the Guru, Sri
Aurobindo, became ‘Sri Aurobindo Ashram’ with the welldefined objective “to create a centre of spiritual life which
shall serve as a means of bringing down the higher
consciousness and making it a power not merely for
‘salvation’ but for a divine life upon earth.” Sri Aurobindo
wrote this to the Maharani of Baroda in 1930 and added:
“It is with this object that I have withdrawn from public
life and founded this Ashram in Pondicherry...” 71 The
Mother began to look into every detail of the Ashram life
including the spiritual progress of the sadhaks. To keep in
touch with sadhaks for their spiritual needs, she began the
Morning Pranam and Soup Distribution, through which
she transmitted her force to their inner beings. The number
of seekers began to swell and along with them activities of
the Ashram too increased, where sadhaks were given some
work as a part of yogic discipline, Karma Yoga. Activities
70. Ibid p.36
71. Images of Her Life p.16
238
started with the essential services such as Building Service,
Atelier, Garden Service, Bakery, Dining Room and went
on increasing with the passage of time. With the coming of
the children due to second world war a school and a hostel
for them became necessary. On 2nd December 1943 a school
was opened and subsequently a Physical Education
Department also came into existence. All the ashramites,
young and old, were supposed to participate in all the
physial education programmes. The Mother herself also
was taking classes. More buildings came up for classes, play
grounds, hostels, etc. and naturally more activities which
the Mother was personally organising and guiding in
minute details.
The Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s eyes were
everywhere from the transcendental plane on to the earth,
on to the country, and to the Ashram activities, to every
individual’s need — outer and inner. They were striving
jointly to prepare the ground to woo the Supermind,
watching the war clouds hovering over the world, the
possibility and prospects of Indian Independence and also
diggingout the nut-hard gross material of the heart and
mind of everyone who happened to be in touch with them
either personally or through letters, insiders or outsiders.
They were to hasten the descent of the Supermind, tackle
the Hitlers, liberate India and see to every sadhak’s spiritual
growth. Everything was progressing.
The destructive march of Hitlers was halted. India
became independent. But the conditions on earth for the
Supramental manifestation were not yet ready. The Master
changed his strategy; he decided to leave his physical body
in 1950 to work more effectively from his subtle physical
239
plane. The strategy worked and the Mother announced
the supramental manifestation on earth on 29th Feb 1956.
“This evening the Divine Presence, concrete and material,
was present amongst you. I had a form of living gold, bigger
than the universe, and I was facing a huge and massive
golden door which separated the world from the Divine.
"As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single
movement of consciousness, that "the time has come" and
lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck
one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was
shattered to pieces."
"Then the supramental Light and Force and
Consciousness rushed down upon the earth in an
uninterrupted flow.”72
This was the Hour for which the Mother and Sri
Aurobindo were waiting. This was the Day for the
Supramental Godhead to descend on earth. The Mother
called this day, the Day of the Lord or the Golden Day, the
Day of the Supreme Victory. This was promised to the earth
and was done by the supreme executrix, the Divine Mother.
She concluded the announcement as follows:
Lord, Thou hast willed, and I execute:
A new light breaks upon the earth,
A new world is born.
The things that were promised are fulfilled.73
But she was left alone on the physical, although Sri
Aurobindo was all the time in her and acting through her.
Now the task of transformation of body, the last victory
over Matter, fell solely on her head. She did it to her best
until the last moment, as long as her body cooperated or
72. CWM Vol. 13, p.52
73. CWM Vol. 15, p.190
240
endured the pressure. Her inmortal body of subtle physical
material was ready but it could not fuse as per the plan so
far with the gross-physical envelope, whose cells had been
fast opening up to the Supermind’s luminous force. Lately
the Supermind itself had once possessed the Mother’s most
external consciousness for a few seconds. Her physical
being was proceeding rapidly to absorb the causal body’s
influence, but the shock of the master-power was also
immense and the physical being came on more than one
occasion to the verge of literally dying so as to make room
for the new life. In spite of all dangers she never stopped
her fight for transformation. But she declared too that the
final Will of the Supreme had not yet been disclosed to the
body – whether her fight would be directly crowned with
success or the fighting instrument would have to be given
up in order to serve the Lord who always knows best how
to accomplish his work. Evidently, the Divine Will was
found by her to go against a direct triumph. Without a
moment’s hesitation she exercised the Supramental Avatar’s
right consciously to decide her own departure. She took
her station in the waiting causal body, in which during
the last few months of tranced inner withdrawal she must
have stayed continually. Staying there, while still keeping
her physical sheath alive, she must have assimilated the
essence of the latter’s achievement into the causal body
and thus rendered that body denser and brought its subtle
substance nearer to gross matter. Now, in place of matter
becoming supramentalised in the Mother, the Supermind
stands ready to be materailised as the Mother.74
Although the real work has not fully been done, the
seed of supramentalisation has been sown in the Matter,
74. Amal Kiran, Mother India Feb.2004 p.116
241
in the life of the earth and partial transformation of the
individual bodies of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother — the
representatives of the gross matter of the earth. As to why
Sri Aurobindo decided unexpectedly to leave his body
untransformed has been explained by the Mother time and
again. “The lack of receptivity of the earth and men is
mostly responsible for the decision Sri Aurobindo has taken
regading his body. ... Surely if the earth were more
responsive, this would not have been necessary." 75 Was
the Mother’s withdrawal too Aurobindonian? This
question stared at us on one more catastrophic day. On
17th November 1973 !
It all depends on the preparedness of humanity. The
Avatars have done their work and now it is up to us how
and when we profit ourselves. The Divine waits at our door
for us to wake up, open our eyes and welcome Him. Sooner
the better.
Not only the inner force and light are ready in the subtle
physical world, but also samples of new ideals, the
prototypes of the future have been given to us. How should
an individual act in the collectivity, what should be the
structure of the future society and humanity? The future
moulds of every acivity have been forged. People from the
world, the world of money and wealth, are aghast to see
that people more intelligent than them work here without
taking money. How come? Talented teachers, highly
educated teachers and professors of Universities of the
outside world where exhorbitant fee structures and high
and pompous degrees matter more than knowledge, ask
us how it is possible to educate without money, text book
and degree and examination? And those who study the
75. CWM Vol.13 pp 7 & 9
242
structure of the Ashram a little more deeply, are wonderstruck to see the topless management of the Ashram
without any hierarchy. It is anarchy they exclaim! Yes, it is
divine anarchy. Things should go all right automatically
like an automatic machine, a perfect machine. Everyone
should be guided from within, the indwelling god. This is
the miracle the Mother has created. And very few are aware
of it or thought of it. But they are all part of it.
The activities of the Ashram are not for the sake of
action. They are to find out our soul. They are the part of
the Integral Yoga of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. She
opened the school not to prepare the children to earn and
amass money, to eat, drink and be merry. The children
are getting a new education, a new knowledge, first to know
their Self and then to become later children of the new
race, the race of the super-humanity by training their mind,
life and body and soul to be fit to grow as superman.
The Ashram is a place of integral growth of the
individual – growth of all the faculties one has – mind,
heart, body. To take care of the material things is a part of
the spiritual life of the Ashram. It is a training ground of
divinisation of the total life where everything of life is
uplifted to the level of the soul and Divine.
The Ashram has grown enormously as a living centre
of all activities of life under the care of the Mother. It has a
printing press, industries, farms, handmade paper factory,
guest houses, perfumery section, weaving and marbling
departments, workshops, clinics, agricultural activities and
what not. It is a world by itself where all actions are prayers
to the Divine. It is a prototype of a new world, the seed of
the future world, the supramental world.
243
The one major extension of the ideals of the Ashram or
of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo is Auroville — an
experimental city to realise human unity in the world,
which, in the present scenario of strife, difference and
division all over, looks almost impossible. Yet the unity is a
basic principle inherent in all of us; after all, we have
become many out of One only. But we have to discover it
and it is being discovered in all earnestness by those who
have opted to live in Auroville – a city in making near
Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu State.
Auroville is the manifestation of the Mother’s dream –
a place which no nation could claim as its own, a place
where the needs of the Spirit and the concern for progress
would take precedence over the satisfaction of desires and
passions. It is also in consonance with Sri Aurobindo’s wish
to realise human unity as a prerequisite for the
supramentalisation of the world, as mentioned in his
message issued on the Indepenence day of India, 15th of
August 1947.
“Auroville wants,” explained the Mother “to be a
universal town where men and women of all countries are
able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all
creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of
Aurovile is to realise human unity.”76
The following charter of Auroville given in French by
the Mother and read out by her at its inauguration 28th
Feb. 1968 is a simple statement of the aims and hopes of
tomorrow’s world:
"Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville
belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville
one must be the willing servitor of the Divine
76. CWM Vol.13 : 188
244
Consciousness. Auroville will be the place of an unending
education, of constant progress, and a youth that never
ages. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past
and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from
without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring
towards future realisations. Auroville will be a site of
material and spirital researches for a living embodiment of
an actual human unity." 77
She came down from above into our struggling world
and created new moulds of life for the suffering mortal
race. She opened our eyes to a new light and gave us the
key to open the gate of bliss in the heart of grief. Her life
was indeed a golden bridge between earth and heaven. Sri
Aurobindo’s lines in Savitri befittingly tell the immortal
saga of her glorious life:
A priestess of immaculate ecstasies
Inspired and ruled from Truth’s revealing vault
Moves in some prophet cavern of the gods,
A heart of silence in the hands of joy
Inhabited with rich creative beats
A body like a parable of dawn
That seemed a niche for veiled divinity
Or golden temple-door to things beyond.
Immortal rhythms swayed in her time–born steps;
Her look, her smile awoke celestial sense
Even in earth-stuff, and their intense delight
Poured a supernal beauty on men’s lives.
A wide self-giving was her native act;
A magnanimity as of sea or sky
Enveloped with its greatness all that came
77. Ibid pp.193-94
245
And gave a sense as of a greatened world:
Her kindly care was a sweet temperate sun,
Her high passion a blue heaven’s equipoise.
As might a soul fly like a hunted bird,
Escaping with tired wings from a world of storms,
And a quiet reach like a remembered breast,
In a haven of safety and splendid soft repose
One could drink life back in streams of honey-fire,
Recover the lost habit of happiness,
Feel her bright nature’s glorious ambience,
And preen joy in her warmth and colour’s rule.
A deep of compassion, a hushed sanctuary,
Her inward help unbarred a gate in heaven;
Love in her was wider than the universe,
The whole world could take refuge in her single heart.
The great unsatisfied godhead here could dwell:
Vacant of the dwarf self’s imprisoned air,
Her mood could harbour his sublimer breath
Spiritual that can make all things divine.
For even her gulfs were secrecies of light.
At once she was the stillness and the word,
A continent of self-diffusing peace,
An ocean of untrembling virgin fire;
The strength, the silence of the gods were hers.
In her he found a vastness like his own,
His high warm subtle ether he refound
And moved in her as in his natural home.
In her he met his own eternity.78
78. Savitri CWSA 33: 15-16
246
Chapter 7
The Integral Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo
India is the most wonderful land on the earth. As the earth
is the only chosen planet in the whole cosmos for the progressive evolution of life and consciousness, so India is the
only country on the earth chosen for the exploration of the
Truth, for seeking the Spirit, for finding the highest knowledge and the secret of Existence. It is a land of great seers
and sages, saviours and prophets, Deliverers and even
Avatars. And all of them have explored the Truth of Life
and Existence in their own ways, based on their own experiences and presented them before the world.
Perspective
Some have said that there is a supreme power called
God who rules the world by rod and punishes evil with hell
and rewards the good with heaven. Therefore we should
always avoid bad actions to escape the sufferings of hell
and be good to others to ensure the bliss of heaven after
death. Some say there is no God at all, the world is not real
either; it is a fluke and a passing phase. It is a flux of things
changing from moment to moment and nothing is permanent here. Man is a stream of moving thoughts and changing impressions goaded by never-ending urge-of desire,
which is also the mother of suffering. With the cessation of
it, everything lapses into a void, a big zero, Shunyam. We
should therefore try to be free from desire in life so that we
may merge our existence in the bliss of Shunyam i.e. called
Nirvana and never return to life of suffering. Yet, there is
247
another view, which still dominates in the mind of the
masses of this country. There is a Supreme Reality, infinite
and eternal, ever unborn and the Absolute. He is second to
none. He alone is true. The world, the manifestation though
appears to exist but it is non-existent in reality. As the rope
in insufficient light gives the impression of a snake, so is
this world, in the state of ignorance, without the light of
knowledge appears to be true. It is in fact like a dream,
which eludes the waking state. According to this view of
truth life in the world is an illusion or Maya and sooner we
get out of it, and realise the truth of the Self and attain
liberation or moksha, the better.
Both views - the advocates of Nirvana and Moksha look down upon life in the world and concentrate on the
practice of certain fixed disciplines, which have necessitated the organization of monastic life, recoiling from
material life. The monastic life thus having come into
being is recognized in general in India as also in the West
as spiritual life vis a vis the material life.
This kind of ‘spiritual life’, which is being dubbed by
the materialist thinkers as escapism, was not the original
spiritual way of life of the Aryan Culture during the
periods of the Vedas and Upanishads and even the
periods of two great epics. There were great rishis who
were highly advanced seers and sages, great spiritual
giants, but they were all house-holders. There were
Ashramas of course which were great seats of learning,
where knowledge from gnosis to polity and archery to wargame was imparted. But no monasteries and no monastic
life. Somehow this monastic life, evolved much later than
the Vedic periods, became synonymical to Indian spiri-
248
tual life for the outside world. Even in India, since Vedic
culture was lost into oblivion monastic life prevailed and
exercised a great influence over the psyche of the masses.
Since the goal of monastic life was much loftier, mystic
and other-worldly, it fascinated the youth of all classes and
category and almost all able-minded and able-bodied youth
were drawn to monastic life and became indifferent to the
problems of the society and the country. The result was
unfortunate. We could not defend our boundaries against
foreign invasions and we suffered slavery to barbaric alien
ruler and their incondite cultures.
Integral View
However, there is another view of existence and life
which appears to be more holistic, integral and more perfect. Sri Aurobindo, the greatest thinker, seer and Rishi of
the modern age, has given us a new philosophy of
existence, life on the earth and its goal and destiny on the
lines of revelations of Vedic rishis. The entire knowledge of
Brahman, the Supreme Reality, the Absolute, the Infinite
and Eternal and His Manifestation, its purpose was revealed
to him without any deliberate intention and effort on his
part. Even before he started Yoga, he met or experienced
three goddesses of the Veda - Ila, Saraswati and Sarama the energies of Revelation, Inspiration and Intuition, in his
vision, of whom he was unable to make any head and tail
then. When he began Yoga, all knowledge was revealed
to him just as the Vedic knowledge was revealed to Vedic
rishis of yore. Later on when he studied Vedas all his
experiences and knowledge were corroborated by those
of the Vedic seers and also he knew the meaning
249
and significance of the said three goddesses or powers of
the Vedas.
According to the view of Sri Aurobindo, “An Omnipresent Reality is the truth of all life and existence whether
absolute or relative, whether corporeal or incorporeal,
whether animate or inanimate, whether intelligent or unintelligent; and in all its infinitely varying and even constantly opposed self-expressions, from the contradictions
nearest to our ordinary experience to those remotest antinomies which lose themselves on the verges of the Ineffable, the Reality is one and not a sum or concourse. From
that all variations begin, in that all variations consist, to
that all variations return. All affirmations are denied only
to lead to a wider affirmation of the same Reality. All
antinomies confront each other in order to recognize one
Truth in their opposed aspects and embrace by the
way of conflict their mutual Unity. Brahman is the Alpha and the Omega. Brahman is the One besides whom
there is nothing else existent.”1
“The teaching of Sri Aurobindo starts from that of the
ancient sages of India that behind the appearances of the
Universe there is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness,
a Self of all things, one and eternal. All things are united in
that One Self and Spirit but divided by a certain separativity
of consciousness, an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life and body. It is possible by a certain
psychological discipline to remove this veil of separative
consciousness and become aware of the true Self, the Divinity within us and all.
“Sri Aurobindo’s teaching states that this one Being
and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is
1. The Life Divine CWSA 21:38
250
the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having
appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and
at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater
and greater perfection. Life is the first step of this release of
consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does
not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something
greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the
development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant
power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it becomes possible for life to manifest perfection.” 2
According to Sri Aurobindo’s experience not only God
is real but the world is also real. The world is not unreal or
illusion or Maya as it is believed. It is the Brahman, the
Supreme Reality, the Supreme Being which has gone
abroad into manifestation, into the Becoming, it is the One
that has become Many.
“Existence is not a fluke, a random creation by no body,
a thing that unaccountably happened to be. It carries in
itself the Word of God, it is full of a hidden Divine Presence. Existence is not a blind machine that somehow came
and started a set ignoble motion without object or sense or
purpose. Existence is a truth of things unfolding by a
gradual process of manifestation, an evolution of its own
involved Reality. Existence is not an illusion, a Maya that
had no reason, no business to exist, could not exist, does
not exist but only seems to be. A mighty Reality manifests
in itself this marvellous universe.” 3
2. The Integral Yoga (Compilation) Lotus Light Publication USA: p.3
3. Essays Divine and Human by Sri Aurobindo, pp. 228-29
251
It is not all. Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy based on his
inner experience goes much beyond the seers of the Vedas
and Upanishads. According to him Man is not the final
creation of the Creative Energy of the Supreme, for he is
not yet as perfect as the Divine, whereas the intent of the
Divine behind his manifestation is to bring down his own
Spirit’s perfection in his material manifestation as well.‘Here
to fulfil Himself was God’s desire.’ He has experienced a
level of consciousness between the lower and the higher
hemisphere i.e., between the lower plane consisting of matter, life, mind and the higher plane consisting of Anand,
Chit and Sat which he identifies as Maharloka – an intermediate world of consciousness, by realising which the
material life on the earth can be transformed, perfected
and divinised and thus a divine life could be made possible. Once this possibility is effectuated, the face of the
present humanity will be absolutely new. There will be perfect harmony on the earth, human unity and love and harmony will be natural. There will be no ignorance and falsehood.
There will be all over the rule of perfect Light, Love and Truth.
We find that in the positive philosophy of Sri Aurobindo,
neither there is a problem of pain nor the problem of Illusion. For him “the world lives in and by Ananda. From
Ananda, says the Veda, we were born, by Ananda we live, to
Ananda we return.” Not for him the existence is unreality.
But how did he come to conclude such a perfect idea
or philosophy? We can have a glance at his life and see
how such a high and perfect philosophy he could visualise
or realise or did he really seize upon the kingdom of the
secret Spirit and Nature or was he himself the Divine who
came down in the garb of man to lead and guide us to our
hidden destiny or to the highest truth which we were
252
secretly seeking by groping in the dark for millenniums?
A new star is born
Sri Aurobindo passed the I.C.S examination with flying colours and was a great scholar of English literature
besides being conversant with many European languages,
such as Greek, Latin, Italian and French. He lived in England for his education for fourteen years from the age of
7 to 21 — the most impressionable period of life. He
studied European and Greek history very extensively. But
till the age of 21 he was completely ignorant of any Indian
language and the culture of his motherland. So much so
that he was averse to any religion and even an atheist and
agnostic for sometime, then how come suddenly he became
a great thinker and philosopher and the great exponent of
the ultimate truth and reality which is affirmed later on
the authority of Vedas and Upanishads?. It is true that he
did not show any sign of interest in mysticism or spirituality or even philosophy. After he returned from England he
joined the Baroda state service where he acquainted himself with Indian culture and languages, and the political
situation of the country under the British rule. Among all
these the movement for freedom of the country struck him
most. His heart was caught almost in a frenzy for the freedom of the motherland. He left the job of Baroda State and
plunged fully in the freedom movement. He writes in a
letter to his wife about the kind of love he cherished for the
country: “....other people look upon the country as an inert piece of matter, a stretch of fields and meadows, forests
and rivers. To me she is the Mother. I adore Her. What
will the son do when he sees a rakshasa sitting on the breast
253
of his mother and sucking her blood? Will he quietly have
his meal or will he rush to deliver his mother from that
grasp?” In the same breath he writes further: “I know I
have the strength to redeem this fallen race. It is not physical strength, it is the strength of knowledge. The power of
Kshatriya is not the only power. There is also the power of
Brahman, the power founded upon knowledge. This feeling is not new, I was born with it and it is in my marrow.
God has sent me to this world to accomplish this great
mission. When I was fourteen, the seed began to sprout; at
eighteen the foundation became firm and unshakable.”4
This is for the first time we perceive an avataric tone
in his utterance. The instrument becomes conscious of the
mission of the Divine, ‘The secret Spirit and Nature housed in
me’. The clarity about his mission of raising the race
becomes more crystallized when we see another piece what
he wrote in Bhawani Mandir booklet : “ It is not a piece of
earth, nor a figure of speech, nor a fiction of my mind. It is
a mighty Shakti, composed of the Shaktis of all the millions
of units that make up the nation, just as Bhavani Mahisha
Mardini sprang into being from the Shaktis of all the
millions of gods assembled in one mass of force and welded
into unity. The Shakti we call India, Bhawani Bharati, is
the living unity of the Shaktis of three hundred millions of
people; but she is inactive, imprisoned in the magic circle
of tamas, the self-indulgent inertia and ignorance of her
sons.” The part of the letter to his wife Mrinalini Devi cited
above had talked of Sri Aurobindo’s third madness. The
other two madnesses we are still to know, which are as
follows:
4. Sri Aurobindo for All Ages by Nirod Baran p.53
254
“I have three madnesses. The first is this, I firmly believe that the accomplishments, talent, education and
means that God has given me, are all His. Whatever is essential and needed for the maintenance of the family has
alone a claim upon me; the rest must be returned to God. If
I spend everything for comfort or luxury, then I am a thief...
The second madness which has recently seized hold of me
is: I must somehow see God… if He exists, there must be
ways to perceive His presence, to meet Him. However arduous the way, I am determined to follow that path. In
one month I have felt that the Hindu religion has not told
lies — the signs and hints it has given have become a part
of my experience.”5
These three madnesses are sufficient for one to understand his entire outlook towards life and his
weltanschauung. This was all going on around 1905. His
first love was the country, not God and he began Yoga
only to attain some power for the liberation of the country.
He writes in another revealing letter: “I learnt that Yoga
gives power and I thought why the devil should I not get
the power and use it to liberate my country… It was the
time of country first, humanity afterwards and the rest
nowhere.” It was something from behind which got the
idea accepted by the mind; mine was a side-door entry to
the spiritual life.6
And when he decided to take up Yoga not for moksha
or realisation of God, he made this prayer to God of whom
he was not very sure if He existed at all, as his language
indicates:
“If you do exist, you know my mind, you know I do
not care for liberation; what others want has no attraction
5. Ibid p.53 6. Ibid p.49
255
for me. I want power so that I may raise this country and
serve my dear countrymen.” 7
We have seen and heard of many patriots, nationalists, many martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the sake of
their motherlands throughout the world but none of them
had this kind of unusual and extraordinary zeal, intense
fervour, devotion, adoration and intensity of love for the
motherland. They never looked at the country from the
eye of the soul as Sri Aurobindo did. Although they gave
their lives, yet it was only for the sake of the geographical
boundary, the material entity, at the most for their sacred
motherland or Punyabhumi whereas for Sri Aurobindo
India, apart from the physical structure, the body, the mass
of the earth, has a living soul. She is a spiritual being as we
all are. Sri Aurobindo adds a new meaning to patriotism,
a new dimension to our love for the country.
It is for this reason that all his political thoughts which
he expressed in the editorials of Bande Mataram wore a
new colour, the colour of spirituality; it was a spiritual
politics. In May 1907, he writes: “ In this grave crisis of our
destinies let not our people lose their fortitude or suffer
stupefaction and depression to seize upon and unnerve
their souls. The fight in which we are engaged is not like
the wars of old in which when the king or the leader fell,
the army fled. The king whom we follow to the wars today, is our own Motherland, the sacred and imperishable;
the leader of our onward march is the Almighty Himself,
that element within and without us whom sword cannot
slay, nor water drown, nor fire burn, nor exile divide from
us, nor a prison confine.”8
7. Ibid p.49
8. India's Rebirth p.22
256
And in June 1907 :
“What India needs especially at this moment is the aggressive virtues, the spirit of soaring idealism, bold creation,
fearless resistance, courageous attack; of the passive tamasic
spirit of inertia we have already too much. We need to
cultivate another training and temperament, another habit
of mind. We would apply to the present situation the vigorous motto of Danton, that what we need, what we
should learn above all things is to dare and again to dare
and still to dare.”9
Towards the Unknown
And when he took to Yoga, the Yoga in very traditional sense, the elementary form of Yoga, he discovered
that the Yoga itself was in need to break its boundaries. He
practised Pranayama but he was not satisfied with the
result. Except some improvement in health he could not
lay hold of any power that he was looking for. Even he
tried silence of mind with the help of the Maharashtrian
Yogi Vishnu Bhasker Lele and he realised it within three
days. In his own words, “Lele asked me to silence the mind
and throw away the thoughts if they came. I did it in three
days — and the result was that the whole being became
quiet and in several days I got the Nirvanic experience
which remained with me for a long time. I could not have
got out of it even if I had wanted to. Even afterwards, this
experience remained in the background in the midst of all
activities.”10
This experience, to quote him, — ‘a series of tremendously powerful experiences and radical changes of consciousness’ — came as a surprise to Lele for he had never
9. Ibid p.23
257
expected that highly Yogic and rare experience by a mere
vacant mind of Sri Aurobindo, for, it had far exceeded his
own. Even Sri Aurobindo himself was amazed, for it was
contrary to his own preconceived ideas based on his
Western education which affirms material reality, as also
on his passionate love for the country for which he had
staked his life and career. The Nirvanic experiences, he says,
‘made me see with a stupendous intensity the world as a
cinematographic play of vacant forms in the impersonal
universality of the Absolute Brahman.’ This experience was
described by him much later in his poem ‘Nirvana’ :
All is abolished but the mute Alone.
The mind from thought released, the heart from grief
Grow inexistent now beyond belief;
There is no I, no Nature, known-unknown.
The city, a shadow picture without tone,
Floats, quivers unreal; forms without relief
Flow, a cinema’s vacant shapes; like a reef
Foundering in shoreless gulfs the world is done.
Only the illimitable Permanent
Is here. A Peace stupendous, featureless, still,
Replaces all, what once I, in It
A silent unnamed emptiness content
Either to fade in the Unknowable
Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.
This is considered the highest and the last spiritual
realisation in the realm of Yoga for which a Sadhak has to
undergo severe penance and tapasya for many long years
and even through many births and such realised Yogis,
258
having once scaled the high snowy peak of the permanent
Bliss, never turn back to the world of struggle and suffering. But for Sri Aurobindo this was the beginning of his
Yoga.
It is because of this that he was always hesitant to
follow the path of old spirituality. He never liked to escape
from the life and always thought of changing the fabric of
the present life, if it was not perfect. He was different and
he never liked to enjoy the Supreme Bliss all alone. He
therefore put this Nirvanic experience on one side and again
threw himself into the storm of action, the action of
shaking the sleeping country, waking the millions of his
brothers and sisters from their swoon and sloth by his fiery
speeches and writings.
Sri Aurobindo, although his writings spit fire and force,
was simple, unassuming and unegoistic in his appearance.
There was something in him which made him different
from other great men. People all around him who were
established leaders of the time like Bipin Chandra Pal,
Lokmanya Tilak, Rabindranath Tagore, admired his
genius and cherished a sense of adoration for him, although
he was the youngest among them as also a new entrant in
the freedom movement of the country.
“Rabindranath, O Aurobindo, bows to Thee”, wrote
Rabindranath in his Bengali poem entitled ‘Namaskar’ offering his salutation to him.
“O friend, my country’s friend, O voice
incarnate, free,
Of India’s soul! No soft renown doth crown thy lot,
Nor pelf or careless comfort is for thee; Thou’st sought
259
No petty bounty, petty dole; the beggar’s bowl
Thou never hast held aloft. In watchfulness thy soul
Hast thou ever held for bondless full perfection’s birth
For which, all night and day, the god in man on earth
Doth strive and strain austerely…” 11
How prophetic and true proved his words in course of
time. The Avatarhood was in the making in him then.
Rabindranath Tagore had the eye of a Rishi which could
recognize the inner godhead blossoming out. Suddenly Sri
Aurobindo shot up into fame and became a national leader
because of the Alipore Bomb Case and was interviewed by
a special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian of London, Henry Nevinson, who recorded his impressions of him
as follows:
“Intent dark eyes looked from his thin, clear-cut face
with a gravity that seemed immovable… grave with
intensity, careless of fate or opinion and one of the most
silent men I have known, he was of the stuff that dreamers
are made of, but dreamers who will act their dream,
indifferent to the means.” 12
And indeed, he was not only mad in his love for the
country and God, he was a great dreamer too. He speaks
of his five dreams in his message released on the occasion
of the Independence Day of the country. We shall discuss
them later. In the meantime we shall cite one more prophesy by C. R. Das who was the defending Counsel of Sri
Aurobindo in the Alipore Bomb Case.
On the day of the final judgement, while on one side
security arrangement of the court-room was very tight and
11. Ibid p.70 12. Ibid p.71
260
the atmosphere very tense since policemen with fixed bayonets stood on guard to take care of any eventuality from
the side of the accused whose fate hung in the balance, on
the other side, some of the accused were absorbed in reading the novels of Bankim Chandra, RajYoga of
Vivekananda or the Gita and Puranas. Sri Aurobindo too
was sitting quietly detached and self-absorbed, who was
the chief culprit in the eyes of the British Govt. and whom
the prosecution was anxious to convict more than any body
else. The final speech for the defence by C. R. Das continued for eight days and towards the close of the speech what
he said became prophetic to the letter and an exemplary
classic piece of advocacy charged with mantric force. He
ended his speech with the following inspired words:
“My appeal to you therefore is that a man like this
who is being charged with the offences imputed to him
stands not only before the bar in this Court but stands before the bar of the High Court of History. And my appeal
to you is this: That long after this controversy is hushed in
silence, long after this turmoil, this agitation ceases, long
after he is dead and gone, he will be looked upon as the
poet of patriotism, as the prophet of nationalism and the
lover of humanity. Long after he is dead and gone, his words
will be echoed and re-echoed not only in India, but across
distant seas and lands. Therefore I say that the man in his
position is not only standing before the bar of this court
but before the bar of the High court of History.”13
And how true it has proved to the letter! Today indeed, after he has left the material scene, he shines like a
brilliant sun of a new hope in the firmament of the cloudy
future of mankind. Today his philosophy of divine life on
13. Ibid p.97
261
the earth gives us the hope of a fresh lease of our existence
on this very planet, for which he quietly did severe tapasya
in the cave of Pondicherry without proclaiming anything,
without hoping for anything from humanity. If we read
his writings carefully and a little deeply, we are wonderstruck how he could do such a Herculean task all alone —
the task of charting out absolutely a new route from our
own low terrain to the mountain top, the terra-incognita
of the supramental world and so silently and noiselessly
that the world did not know of him. Even today, six
decades after his physical departure we have hardly begun
to know him.
The Mother, his collaborator and his Shakti, Mirra
Alfassa, who joined him in his adventure, the adventure
of a new creation, was the first to call him an Avatar, the
incarnation of the Supreme, who in his infinite grace is
wanting to uplift the human race and change it into a divine kind for which He came down to show the path in
the human body of Sri Aurobindo. Her epitaph inscribed
on Sri Aurobindo’s Samadhi is an eye-opener; this explains
the magnitude of his work which he did so secretly and
silently, behind the veil of obscurity hiding from the public
gaze. “To Thee who hast been the material envelope of
our Master, to Thee our infinite gratitude. Before Thee who
has done so much for us, who has worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, before Thee who hast
willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us, before Thee we bow down and implore that we may never
forget, even for a moment, all we owe to Thee.”
We are digressing now and then or perhaps pausing
and musing for a while while we retrace the route of his
journey from the humanity to Divinity, how slowly and
262
slowly he left his human slough and gradually revealed
his true Being of divinity, the full grandeur of his inner
sunlight. He writes in his poem ‘Transformation’:
I am no more a vassal of the flesh,
A slave to Nature and her leaden rule;
I am caught no more in the senses’ narrow mesh.
My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,
My body is God’s happy living tool,
My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.
We have not yet arrived at the cliff of his life. We were
just admiring the dazzling snowy peak in the view which
our eyes can’t help glancing over from far off, a distance
we have yet to traverse. We are still in his political days.
His one year of solitude in jail during the Alipore Bomb
Case proved a great turning point in his life. He went to
the jail as an accused of sedition, along with many like
him, some of them were real criminals — but he returned
from there a changed person as if by an alchemy, a Yogi
and Divine man.
It was a different experience from the earlier one of
the Nirvanic silence, and in a very different situation. Sri
Aurobindo’s house was suddenly raided by police men one
fine morning and he was arrested along with many other
revolutionaries. All the accused were charged with
organising a gang for the purpose of waging war against
the Govt. by criminal force, a grave offence under IPC. Since
he was suspected by the Police to be the leader of the group
of revolutionaries, he was confined in a solitary cell in the
most inhuman conditions.
His cell was 9 feet long and 5 feet wide without a win-
263
dow and in front stood strong iron bars. That small cell
was to serve as a place for all human functions, i.e., eating,
sleeping and attending to Nature’s calls. He was provided
with a blanket, a plate and a bowl, which was also multipurpose. In Sri Aurobindo’s own words, “my dear bowl
was multi-purpose, free from all caste-restrictions, beyond
all discriminations; in my cell it helped in the act of ablution, later with the same bowl I rinsed my mouth and
bathed, a little later when I had to take my food, the lentil
soup or vegetable was poured into the same container. I
drank water out of it and washed my mouth.” In such
inhuman and horrible conditions as he says, — “but since
my faith in divine mercy was strong, I had to suffer only
for the first few days; thereafter — the mind had risen
above these sufferings and grown incapable of feeling any
hardship.” All this that he suffered was without any fault
of his.
But was it all that happened in his one-year prisonlife? His prison life in Alipore began on May 5, 1908 and
he was released on May 6 next year. Much water had flown
under the bridge during this one year and his inner life
was completely changed. He observes philosophically in
his ‘Kara Kahini’:
“Friday, May 1, 1908… I did not know that it would
mean the end of a chapter in my life and that there stretched
before me a year’s imprisonment during which all my human relations would cease, that for a whole year I would
have to live, beyond the pale of society, live like an animal
in a cage. And when I would re-enter the world of activity, it would not be the old familiar Aurobindo Ghosh…I
have spoken of a year’s imprisonment. It would have been
264
more appropriate to speak of a year’s living in an Ashram
or a hermitage… The only result of the wrath of the British
Government was that I found God.” 14
His one year’s prison life as he rightly observes, was a
life of hermitage, a life of austere penance and severe spiritual disciplines. The prison became his cave of tapasya.
His old ideas and views changed. Before he was sent to jail
he never cared for spiritual gains. Even a Himalayan
realisation like Nirvana was set aside for the love of his
motherland. The motherland was over and above all interests. Nay, he had equally cherished madness for God. If
there is God, he must find Him and meet Him face to face.
And indeed he found Him, but at a very queer place. Was
Krishna not born in jail? Sri Aurobindo’s Krishna too was
born in his prison-life. But at what cost? God is a jealous
lover. He can’t tolerate any other love, you must want the
Divine and Divine alone. Sri Aurobindo too had to pay
compensation, quid pro quo for it and forgo and forget the
movement for the freedom of the motherland. He was told
that it was not his business; it was the business of God to
see to it and liberate her at the ordained time. He must do
what the Divine wanted him to do, the work that had been
planned for him, to raise not only a nation, to liberate not
only a country, but to raise and liberate the whole earthlife, the humanity at large. And we all know what happened after he returned from the jail; hardly could he stay
for a year and on 4th April 1910 he arrived at Pondicherry
under the ‘Adesh’ of God. The rest is a great and vibrant
history, history of the foundation of a great future of the
earth, the future of man.
14. Ibid p.92
265
But what was the actual change in his inner life and in
his consciousness, which compelled him to abandon his
mission in the thick of the movement? He has revealed all
this in his Uttarpara Speech which makes it very clear that
Sri Aurobindo was no longer the same self that he was
before the prison life. He was made aware of a higher mission and a higher divine task that awaited. He speaks of
his experiences how they happened in the following words:
Krishna everywhere
“When I was arrested and hurried to the Lal Bazar
hajat I was shaken in faith for a while, for I could not look
into the heart of His intention. Therefore I faltered for a
moment and cried out in my heart to Him, ‘What is this
that has happened to me? I believed that I had a mission to
work for the people of my country and until that work
was done, I should have Thy protection. Why then am I
here and on such a charge?’ A day passed and a second
day and a third, when a voice came to me from within,
'wait and see’. Then I grew calm and waited,…. I remembered then that a month or more before my arrest, a call
had come to me to put aside all activity, to go into seclusion and to look into myself so that I might enter into closer
communion with Him. I was weak and could not accept
the call. My work was very dear to me and in the pride of
my heart I thought that unless I was there, it would suffer
or even fail and cease; therefore I would not leave it. It
seemed to me that He spoke to me again and said, ‘The
bonds that you had not the strength to break, I have broken for you, because it is not my will nor was it ever my
intention that that should continue. I have had another
thing for you to do and it is for that I have brought you
266
here, to teach you what you could not learn for yourself
and to train you for my work.’ Then he placed the Gita in
my hands. His strength entered into me... I was not only to
understand intellectually but to realise what Sri Krishna
demanded of Arjuna and what He demands of those who
aspire to do His work.” 15
Not only the doors of his auditory faculty were flung
open which made him hear divine words, but also his visual faculty had a new sight which made him see the divine visions. He began to see Sri Krishna everywhere —
”I looked at the jail that secluded me from men and it was
no longer by its high walls that I was imprisoned; no, it
was Vasudeva who surrounded me. I walked under the
branches of the tree in front of my cell but it was not the
tree, I knew it was Vasudeva, it was Sri Krishna whom I
saw standing there and holding over me his shade. I looked
at the bars of my cell, the very grating that did duty for a
door and again I saw Vasudeva. It was Narayana who
was guarding and standing sentry over me. Or I lay on the
course blankets that were given me for a couch and felt
the arms of Sri Krishna around me; the arms of my Friend
and Lover. This was the first use of the deeper vision He
gave me.” 16
"When the case opened in the Lower Court and he
was brought before the Magistrate, he heard again the inner voice:
“When you were cast into jail, did not your heart fail
and did you not cry out to me, where is Thy protection?
Look now... at the Prosecuting Counsel.” Sri Aurobindo
looked at them and found that it was Sri Krishna, his lover
and friend, was sitting there and smiling. He heard His
15. Uttarpara Speech by Sri Aurobindo 3rd impression, pp. 7-9
16. Ibid : 11-12
267
voice again, “Now do you fear? I am in all men and I overrule their actions and their words. My protection is still
with you and you shall not fear. This case which is brought
against you leave it in my hand. It was not for you. It is not
for the trial that I brought you here but for something else.
The case itself is only a means for my work and nothing
more. … I am guiding, therefore fear not. Turn to your
own work for which I have brought you to jail and when
you come out, remember never to fear, never to hesitate.
Remember that it is I who am doing this, not you nor any
other. Therefore whatever clouds may come, whatever dangers and sufferings, whatever difficulties, whatever impossibilities, there is nothing impossible, nothing difficult. I am
in the nation and its uprising and I am Vasudeva, I am
Narayana, and what I will, shall be, not what others will.
What I choose to bring about, no human power can stay.” 17
This was a great realisation indeed which he accomplished within one year. This is supposed to be rather greatest siddhi – Vasudeva-sarvamite or Sarvam khalvidam Brahma
— to see the Divine everywhere in every object is the consummation of the spiritual practice for Yogis. But not for
Sri Aurobindo who was assigned a greater mission — a
rather impossible mission which needed him perhaps to
go still farther, ‘where none have gone’ and attain still greater
realisations till thou reach the grim foundation stone and knock
at the keyless gate. But for the time being this realisation
was the second great milestone in his spiritual adverture,
the first being the Nirvanic silence which he achieved within
a fortnight.
A wide God-knowledge poured down from above,
17. Ibid pp 13-17
268
A new world-knowledge broadened from within: ...
The human in him paced with the divine;18
...And on the Adesh of his inner voice he left British
India, touched the shores of Pondicherry on 4th April 1910
to pursue his Yoga unhindered and to march on his forward journey and accomplish the ordained task for which
he was called down on to the earth, which he was now
very much made aware of. He had no more any personal
will — the will of the instrumental personality. He offered
his will to be His will, the will of the Lord Sri Krishna,
Vasudeva, who was sitting in his heart and steering the
chariot of his life, who was every moment whispering to
his soul :
Thou hast come down into a struggling world
To aid a blind and suffering mortal race,
To open to Light the eyes that could not see,
To bring down bliss into the heart of grief,
To make thy life a bridge twixt earth and heaven;
19
The Divine, it is true, always comes down to help us rise
above the life of ignorance and grief to his level and for
this He lives among us like ordinary mortals in such a way
that we can hardly identify their avataric personality.
When Rama wept for Sita like very ordinary mad lover in
his exile, our ordinary mental perception would hardly
accept him as the Divine Incarnation. But that is the way
of the Divine. If he comes like a thaumaturgist and solves
all difficult problems and accomplishes even impossible
things in a trice and if he does not suffer pains like ordinary mortals, we shall never be inspired to attempt diffi18. Savitri CWSA 33:44
19. Ibid CWSA 34:536
269
cult things and never know how to suffer with patience
and fortitude.
He who would save the world must share its pain.
If he knows not grief, how shall he find grief’s cure?
If far he walks above mortality’s head,
How shall the mortal reach that too high path?
If one of theirs they see scale heaven’s peaks,
Men then can hope to learn that titan climb.
God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.20
Perhaps this is the reason why Sri Aurobindo took up
the human sufferings on him right from his childhood when
he studied in England away from the parental care and
affection during the most tender period of his life and for
some time even “he had to spend many days on a few
slices of bread and butter, an occasional sandwich or two,
some cups of tea and a penny worth of sausage. During
winter they (Sri Aurobindo and brothers) could not afford
to have a fire in the room and Sri Aurobindo did not have
an overcoat to protect him from the cold.”21
And during all his political days how he lived a life of
poverty sleeping on the floor is well known to us. During
the period of Alipore Bomb Case trial his suffering reached
its climax. But he faced and went through all with divine
patience and fortitude without complaining and grumbling, without any feeling of bitterness and ill will against
any one.
Cave of Tapasya
But was his life in Pondicherry comfortable and safe?
20. Ibid p.537
270
And smooth without tumult? Perfectly calm and congenial enough to pursue the inner search which brought him
to this quiet and serene city, Pondicherry?
No doubt the city was not only calm and quiet but a
dead city according to the account of Nolini Da who adds,
“Sri Aurobindo has chosen a cemetery for his sadhana,
which had its full complement of ghouls.” They were the
bands of ruffians — known locally as ‘bandes’ in French
— who were on the pay rolls of politicians and officials to
work during compaigns for their elections according to
Nirodbaran. But this hardly mattered to Sri Aurobindo.
It was also found that in ancient times Pondicherry
was the seat of Vedic learning founded by the famous great
Rishi Agastya who had come to the South to spread the
Vedic culture. It was rather an auspicious coincidence because Sri Aurobindo too revived Vedic knowledge and
experience on this soil. Its ancient name Vedapuri was thus
confirmed by Sri Aurobindo.
Except for some time when Sri Aurobindo was on surveillance by British Police after they came to know his
whereabouts, there was nothing much which could disturb him in his sadhana. Moreover neither was he a problem to the French Govt. nor the French Govt to him. And
the very fact that he lived here uninterrupted till he left his
body in 1950 is proof of his right choice of place for his
work. And also it was a Divine will, for he came here on
Divine command which could not be changed by any human will or power. He came here to seek refuge - a safe
place for his work, which was not his personal work but
the work of the Divine for the humanity at large, and he
did find his refuge here. At the same time History will give
271
another verdict. The way Sri Aurobindo’s work has been
recognized globally, and the impact of his Yoga and Philosophy is changing the face of humanity and will continue to change in future, the way slowly and gradually
Pondicherry is growing into a spiritual capital of the world,
History’s verdict will be otherwise, that it is Sri Aurobindo
who has given refuge to Pondicherry and embraced and
blessed it and not Pondicherry to Sri Aurobindo.
Whatever it is, it is true that it is here, at this place that
Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga and Philosophy reached its full efflorescence and consummation, which is by no means like
any other Yoga and Philosophy only to be studied and researched academically in the universities and to decorate
the shelves of the world-libraries. His Yoga and Philosophy is packed with epoch-making Force, the Supramental
Force which will change the destiny of Man and the Earth
and a day will come when the entire globe will turn to
Pondicherry for guidance and the healing touch from the
ring of power that Pondicherry has preserved safely in her
bosom. Pondicherry has indeed become a blessed city — a
city of God due to Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s Grace
and Force.
But can we really know what exactly Sri Aurobindo
did during his long sojourn in Pondicherry? He was in fact
after impossible things. He was hewing a passage to an
immortal life for mortal men, to a divine life for the half
animal - half man, which is to the mind an absurdity, irrational, reductio ad absurdum. But his spiritual experiences
which just poured into him — that all Existence is nothing
but Brahman — Sarvam khalvidam Brahma — and that all
evolution is nothing but the return journey of the Spirit
272
from Matter progressively from Plant, Life, Mind and higher
layers of Mind, clearly indicated to him that Man is destined to realise his highest self sooner or later which is the
hidden Godhead in him - the Immortal and Eternal. It was
very much logical to his supramental sense which he had
acquired within first few years of his stay in Pondicherry.
But indications were given to him as early as his days in
Alipore prison. He knew since then that his life henceforth
would be an adventure into Unknown, for his work would
be the first ever attempt of its kind — to break the iron law
of Nature. And he was all alone in this journey of adventure, but he invites courageous spirits to join him, if any
body really could:
With wind and the weather round me
Up to the hill and the moorland I go.
Who will come with me? Who will climb with me?
Wade through the brook and tramp through the snow?
Not in the petty circle of cities
Cramped by your doors and your walls I dwell;
Over me God is blue in the welkin,
Against me the wind and the storm rebel.
I sport with solitude here in my regions,
Of misadventure have made me a friend.
Who would live largely? Who would live freely?
Here to the wind-swept uplands ascend.
I am the lord of tempest and mountain
I am the Spirit of freedom and pride.
Stark must he be and a kinsman to danger
Who shares my kingdom and walks at my side.22
22. Collected Poems : Invitation : CWSA 2:201
273
First Sri Aurobindo saw and realised by his inner experiences the inevitability of this radical transformation of
human nature and consciousness into the divine nature
and consciousness and then plunged into it with a spirit of
do or die, for he knew that it was a new path — a new
Yoga — calling down a new force which will be certainly
opposed by established powers already ruling the earth
nature, which would mean facing insurmountable odds.
“There even I do not know the result. I have received
only an indication from within that it is going to be. Yet I
myself do not know the end of my adventure. Very few in
the past have followed this Yoga and none has conquered the
material plane. That is why it is an adventure into the Unknown.…
“I have made my watch word: Victory or death.” 23
Sri Aurobindo speaks of divine life, God, spirituality,
spiritual society, spiritualized humanity and world. Is he
or was he leading humanity towards monastic or ascetic
life? This is what is meant by spiritual life in India or elsewhere until he himself clarified it in a reply to a letter written to him in October 1914.
“...You sent a message about an ‘Aurobindo Math’
which seemed to show you have caught the contagion
which rages in Bengal. You must understand that my mission is not to create maths, ascetics and Sannyasins; but to
call back the souls of the strong to the Lila of Krishna &
Kali. That is my teaching, as you can see from the Review
(Arya), and my name must never be connected with monastic forms or the monastic ideal. Every ascetic movement
since the time of Buddha has left India weaker and for a
very obvious reason. Renunciation of life is one thing, to
23. Evening Talks by A.B. Purani pp 35&42
274
make life itself, national, individual, world-life greater and
more divine is another. You can not enforce one ideal on
the country without weakening the other. You cannot take
away the best souls from life and yet leave life stronger
and greater. Renunciation of ego, acceptance of God in life
is the Yoga I teach, — no other renunciation.”24
A God’s Labour
His was the Yoga for the world, for the whole humanity, for the radical change in the human nature itself and
since it was not done before, not even attempted, it was
far difficult, for he felt a great resistance in the earth atmosphere to the Truth descending, which he was bringing
down. He was lifting the whole earth nature to the new
light. “I am not doing an isolated Yoga. … If I wanted my
own liberation and perfection, my Yoga would have been
finished long ago.” 25
The first four years from 1910 to 1914 were a very
silent period of his Yoga and a period of intense sadhana
during which he studied the Vedas very deeply , not to
gain knowledge from them but to corroborate his experiences, that he had had so far.
“When Sri Aurobindo turned to Veda seriously,” explains Kireet Bhai in detail, in his book ‘Philosophy and
Yoga of Sri Aurobindo', “for the first time after coming to
Pondicherry, he had already had three great realisations
of his Yoga. By that time he had the realisation of the
Brahmic Nirvana, under the guidance of the
Maharashtrian Yogi called Lele. He had further realisation
of the universal Vasudeva — Sri Krishna — in the Alipore
24. Autobiographical Notes CWSA 36: 221-22
275
jail. And he had already in the Alipore jail also heard the
voice of Vivekananda for fifteen days uninterruptedly
where Sri Aurobindo was given the knowledge of the planes
between the Mind and Supermind. It was after this background that Sri Aurobindo had numerous experiences to
which he had not a clue, either in Western Psychology that
is modern Psychology or ancient Psychology or anywhere.
But these experiences were rising in his consciousness; as
he says himself, he had particularly the experiences of what
the Veda calls Ila, Saraswati, Sarama, "Dakshina". These
are four female energies described in the Veda and, without knowing this Sri Aurobindo had already had the experience of these energies. What were these powers, which
were rising in his own consciousness on their own? And
then when he happened to read the Veda, with this background, he directly contacted and understood and found
a confirmation of his own experiences in the Veda. This
was the way in which the key of the Veda was found. It
was found by his own personal experiences which
preceeded his understanding of the Veda. It is not as if
these experiences came to him after reading the Veda and
finding them in the Veda. It is not as if he found the confirmation later in his own experiences. It is the other way
round. He already had the experiences of these highest
powers of consciousness and he found a clue to them in
the Rig Veda. It is said in the Veda that only the Seer can
understand the words of the Seer. This is the Vedic expression itself, Ninya Vachamsi, that is, sacred words, Kavaye
Nivachanani, are revealed only to the Kavi, to the Poet, to
the Seer. (In the Vedic parlance Kavi is a Seer). And this is
confirmed in the case of Sri Aurobindo; the secret meaning of the Veda was revealed only to the Seer, to Sri
276
Aurobindo. (Veda has been studied by many scholars in
the past and the present, but so far as the secret meaning
of the Veda is concerned, it is not known to them. Even the
greatest among them Sayana and Yaska groped in the dark
and landed only to be smatterers). Sri Auronindo studied
the Veda in depth. In depth: to cover such a huge mass of
Vedic knowledge, within two or three years is really something like a Herculian labour! And he accomplished it
within a short time as if he dived into the Veda, collected
all the treasures within a short time, brought the jewels
and diamonds out and then began to express and put them
before the mankind. This was in 1914. That is to say, in
1910 he came to Pondicherry and by 1914, within four
years, he had attained such a mastery of the secret meaning of the Veda that he began to write a series of articles
under the title ‘The Secret of the Veda’ (in his magazine
‘Arya’). If one reads ‘The Secret of the Veda’ one can see a
masterly interpretation; it is a masterly interpretation because Sri Aurobindo found the proof of his own interpretation in the Veda itself. It is by internal evidence that he shows
that the interpretation he has given follows clearly and obviously, luminously from the Vedic verses themselves.” 26
He by this time must have scaled still higher heights of
realisations in his being, which gave him clarity to formulate and systematise his integral Philosophy and Yoga for
mankind to follow and practise. Sri Aurobindo’s life,
especially after settling in Pondicherry, like all mystics and
yogis, was not lived on the surface, hence shrouded in the
mist of mysteries, hardly to be known or understood by
common men of intellect. Yet through his writings, espe26. The Philosophy and Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and other Essays by
Kireet Joshi pp. 49-51
277
cially his poems, we can try to catch certain glimpses of
important landmarks of his inner journey, though we can
never know or realise the difficulty and gravity of the
journey he went through.
He had already attained to cosmic consciousness while
he identified himself with Sri Krishna in the jail — a great
realisation the experience of which is expressed in his poem
‘Cosmic Consciousness’ —
I have wrapped the wide world in my wider self
And Time and Space my spirit’s seeing are.
I am the god and demon, ghost and elf,
I am the wind’s speed and the blazing star.
………
The world’s joy thrilling runs through me, I bear
The sorrow of millions in my lonely breast.! 27
But perhaps that was not enough to re-create Man into
God and change Matter’s night into the glorious everlasting day. He must go to the last gate of the Infinity and find
the key to Immortality for man. He must go still beyond on
‘The Infinite Adventure’ —
On the waters of a nameless Infinite
My skiff is launched; I have left the human shore.
All fades behind me and I see before
The unknown abyss and one pale pointing light
......................
Beyond, the invisible height no soul has trod. 28
The Avatar gives a new Dharma
It seems that during these four years or by the time
27. Collected Poems CWSA 2:603
28. Ibid p.606
278
the Mother came to see him in 1914, he had reached the
highest Truth for himself what possibly man could know
of the Truth, what the ancient rishis of the Veda had attained, rather, he went beyond them as indicated in his
following lines:
“The Vedic Rishis never attained to the Supermind for
the earth or perhaps did not even make the attempt. They
tried to rise individually to the supremental plane, but they
did not bring it down and make it a permanent part of the
earth-consciousness. Even there are verses of the
Upanishad in which it is hinted that it is impossible to pass
through the gates of the Sun (the symbol of the Supermind)
and yet retain an earthly body. It was because of this failure that the spiritual effort of India culminated in
Mayavada. Our Yoga is a double movement of ascent and
descent; one rises to higher and higher levels of consciousness, but at the same time one brings down their power
not only into mind and life, but in the end even into the
body. And the highest of these levels, the one at which it
aims is the Supermind. Only when that can be brought
down is a divine transformation possible in the
earth-consciousness.”29
It is clear that the total change or the total reversal of
human nature into divine nature resulting in a divine life
on earth was not attempted by the rishis in the past, because perhaps the secret or the key to this they could not
lay hands on. Also it should be noted that the double movement of ascent and descent is a new theory and practice
and a speciality of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga alone, because of
which only transformation of human nature was envisaged possible by him. Without the descent of the realised
29. Sri Aurobindo : The Riddle of the World, 1969 Edn. p.2
279
powers into the instrumental nature — mind — life and
body - the divine life is not possible. The old Yogas could
not tap the Supermind which is the dynamic divine Truth
of Sachchidananda and which alone can transform the
human life into the divine life; but they “go straight from
mind to the absolute Divine, regard all dynamic existence
as Ignorance, Illusion or Lila.” This is the fundamental difference between the old Yogas and the Yoga of
Sri Aurobindo. Also the old Yogas have no descent theory;
they just go up to the highest and stay there and leave the
wordly instruments — mind, life and body — ignorant,
unchanged and undivinised as before, for either they are
Illusion or Lila according to them.
By 1914, Sri Aurobindo had formulated all his experiences in clear-cut and well organized compartments of
thoughts and ideas which were serialized in the ‘Arya’
monthly magazine forming his major works like The Life
Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, The Secret of Veda, The Ideal of
Human Unity and The Human Cycle — all diverse fields of
life but with one under-current as the central theme of
translating the unity of the Spirit in all its material manifestations. Out of all his works The Life Divine gives us the
main philosophy which he formulated later based on his
spiritual experiences of the ascending planes after planes
of consciousness throughout his arduous inner adventurous journey up to the Infinite, whereas his The Synthesis of
Yoga is the route mapped out step by step to the Integral
knowledge and union with the Divine — the key to realise
divine life on earth.
Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of The Life Divine is not
the product of his metaphysical thinking out or purely his
intellectual speculation, or a guess work of his genius like
280
the philosophers of the West — Hegel or Bradley. Sri
Aurobindo is a philosopher with a difference, doubled up
as a Yogi, the discoverer of the Truth, who has given us a
practical way of reaching the supreme state of consciousness. His philosophy is an intellectual expression of the
Truth of what he experienced in his consciousness by identity, through his inner will and aspiration, spiritual
illumination and intuition, self-giving and surrender with
a consequent transformation of mind, life and body.
His Philosophy is at once his Yoga and his Teaching
and all three integrative in nature, because his philosophy
accepts all, excludes nothing. For him One and Many, Spirit
and Matter, God and World, Brahman and Maya are two
poises of a single Truth.
His Philosophy and Yoga and entire Teaching are based
on his concept of evolution which is radically different from
the Western theory of evolution of form by Darwin. In Sri
Aurobindo’s theory of evolution it is the consciousness
which evolves, which begins gradually right from
inconscient matter where consciousness is veiled or in a
sleeping state, because according to Sri Aurobindo All life
here is a stage or a circumstance in an unfolding progressive evolution of a Sprit that has involved itself in Matter
and is labouring to manifest itself in that reluctant substance. This is the whole secret of earthly existence. …
Evolution in its essence is not the development of a more
and more organised body or a more and more efficient life
— these are only its machinery and outward circumstance.
Evolution is the strife of a Consciousness somnambulised
in Matter to wake and be free and find and possess itself
and all its possibilities to the very utmost and widest, to
the very last and highest. Evolution is the emancipation of
281
a self-revealing Soul secret in Form and Force, the slow
becoming of a Godhead, the growth of a Spirit.”30
He further explains: “A Consciousness, a Being, a
Power, a Joy was here from the beginning darkly imprisoned in this apparent denial of itself, this original night,
this obscurity and nescience of material Nature. That which
is and was for ever, free, perfect, eternal and infinite, That
which all is, That which we call God, Brahman, Spirit, has
here shut itself up in its own self-created opposite. The
Omniscient has plunged itself into Nescience, the All Conscious into Inconscience, the All-wise into perpetual
Ignorance. The Omnipotent has formulated itself in a vast
cosmic self-driven Inertia that by disintegration creates; the
Infinite is self-expressed here in a boundless fragmentation; the All-Blissful has put on a huge insensibility out of
which it struggles by pain and hunger and desire and
sorrow. …This gradual becoming of the Divine out of its
own phenomenal opposite is the meaning and purpose of
the terrestrial evolution. …
“Nature laboured for innumerable millions of years to
create a material universe of flaming suns and systems; for
lesser but still interminable series of millions she stooped to
make this earth a habitable planet. For all that incalculable
time she was or seemed busy only with the evolution of
Matter; life and mind were kept secret in an apparent nonexistence. But the time came when life could manifest, a
vibration in the metal, a growing and seeking, a drawing
in and a feeling outward in the plant, an instinctive force
and sense, a nexus of joy and pain and hunger and emotion and fear and struggle in the animal, — a first organised
consciousness, the beginning of the long-planned miracle.
30. The Hour of God 2009: 111-12
282
Thence forward she was busy no more exclusively with
matter for its own sake, but most with palpitant plasmic
matter useful for the expression of life; the evolution of life
was now her one intent purpose. And slowly too mind
manifested in life, and intensely feeling, a crude thinking
and planning vital mind in the animal, but in man the full
organisation and apparatus, the developing if yet
imperfect mental being, the Manu, the thinking, devising,
aspiring, already self-conscient creature. And from that
time onward the growth of mind rather than any radical
change of life became her shining preoccupation, her wonderful wager. Body appeared to evolve no more; life itself
evolved little or only so much in its cycles as would serve
to express Mind heightening and widening itself in the
living body; an unseen internal evolution was now Nature’s
great passion and purpose. ...
“But Mind is not all: for beyond mind is a greater consciousness; there is a supermind and spirit. As Nature
laboured in the animal, the vital being, till she could manifest out of him man, the Manu, the thinker, so she is
labouring in man, the mental being till she can
manifest out of him a spiritual and supramental godhead,
the truth-conscious Seer, the knower by identity, the embodied Transcendental and Universal in the individual nature.
“From the clod and metal to the plant, from the
plant to the animal, from the animal to man, so much has
she completed of her journey; a huge stretch or a stupendous leap still remains before her. As from matter to life,
from life to mind, so now she must pass from mind to
supermind, from man to superman; this is the gulf that
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she has to bridge, the supreme miracle that she has to perform before she can rest from her struggle and discontent
and stand in the radiance of that supreme consciousness,
glorified, transmuted, satisfied with her labour.” 31
And then supermanhood which will be totally
divinised will be the next stage after the present humanity
— a stage of divine life on the earth and evolution may not
stop even then, for vistas of new possibilities will always
be there of endless unfoldment of the Infinite.
Sri Aurobindo’s Philosophy of the Life Divine answers
many doubts and solves all the problems of Existence, for
it is the philosophy of complete affirmation of the world as
also perceives the reality behind all the systems of philosophy. It only denies the denial of both — that of the materialist and ascetic. His philosophy reconciles both — the
reality of Matter and the reality of Spirit in the integral
harmony of the concept of Supermind which is his exclusive discovery.
His philosophy may be summed up in brief as follows:
1. All existence is the existence of the One, Eternal and
Infinite — Ekamevâdvitiyam — one without a second, and
there can be nothing else at any time or anywhere.
2. This world is as real as God. The world is not Maya or
Illusion, for it is the manifestation of That, the sole Reality,
God. What we see as the Many, is the multiplicity of the
One. It is our misreading of our ignorant mind that we see
the world as illusion.
3. The world was created by That, the sole Reality which
is Sachchidananda — at once Truth, Consciousness and
31. Ibid pp. 111-16
284
Bliss — for His Delight. Delight is hidden in the nature of
things of His creation, which we have to discover in our
life. Ignorance is the only suffering, there is no other
suffering.
4. Man is a transitional being and not the finished product of Nature as it is generally accepted. Man can transcend his present nature and become a super nature, a
superman, a divine man, a perfect man through an accelerated process of Nature by Yoga, because that divinity is
already involved in the nature of things and slowly moving towards its fulfillment is a natural way. “Every state of
existence has some force in it which drives it to transcend
itself. Matter moves towards becoming life, Life travels towards becoming Mind, Mind aspires towards becoming
ideal Truth, Truth rises towards becoming divine and infinite Spirit. The reason is that every symbol, being a partial
expression of God, reaches out to and seeks to become its
own entire reality; it aspires to become its real self by transcending its apparent self.”32
5. There is a plane of consciousness called Supermind
which is the link between the Lower Hemisphere of Consciousness — Matter, Life and Mind and the Higher Hemisphere of consciousness — Sat, Chit, Anand, which, if
brought down in the lower hemisphere, can transform the
present ignorant life on the earth into a divine life, the life
of Truth. This power was not tapped and brought down
in the earth atmosphere in the past, although it was known
and attained by some yogis individually, but no route was
charted for the collective effort in general, which has since
been done by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother jointly. It is
32. Essays Divine and Human by Sri Aurobindo CWSA 12:115
285
because of this that divine life — a life of spiritualized mind,
life and body, is possible to be realised on earth, the result
of which Sri Aurobindo has presaged and outlined in his
epic Savitri as follows:
The Truth shall be the leader of their lives,
Truth shall dictate their thought and speech and act,
They shall feel themselves lifted nearer to the sky,
As if a little lower than the gods.
For knowledge shall pour down in radiant streams
And even darkened mind quiver with new life
And kindle and burn with the Ideal’s fire
And turn to escape from mortal ignorance.
The frontiers of the Ignorance shall recede,
More and more souls shall enter into light,
Minds lit, inspired, the occult summoner hear
And lives blaze with a sudden inner flame
And hearts grow enamoured of divine delight
And human wills tune to the divine will,
These separate selves the Spirit’s oneness feel,
These senses of heavenly sense grow capable,
The flesh and nerves of a strange ethereal joy
And mortal bodies of immortality.
A divine force shall flow through tissue and cell
And take the charge of breath and speech and act
And all the thoughts shall be a glow of suns
And every feeling a celestial thrill.
.....
Thus shall the earth open to divinity
And common natures feel the wide uplift,
Illumine common acts with the Spirit’s ray
And meet the deity in common things.
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Nature shall live to manifest secret God,
The Spirit shall take up the human play,
This earthly life become the life divine.33
6. Once the life divine becomes possible to be realised on
earth, first in a few individuals and later in a group comprised of those realised individuals, then a Gnostic or spiritualized society will be possible on the earth and a new
humanity or super-humanity will be born.
7. Human Unity based on the unity of soul will be then a
natural consequence and the world will progress without
any egoistic strife or competition based on hatred and jealousy in the peaceful atmosphere of love and harmony
among the nations, towards greater realisations.
8. According to Sri Aurobindo a nation is not just a geographical entity or an extent of inert mass of land, rivers
and mountains, but a living soul; a deity, a spiritual being
behind her material body as every human being has a soul;
a divine portion and power is always present, dormant or
active behind this physical structure.
9. The destiny of human life and the goal of Sri Aurobindo’s
Yoga is not Moksha or Nirvana in the Beyond, but the Divine Life on the earth.
All his philosophy and his intellectual concepts are formulated on the basis of his spiritual experiences which
were the result of his total identification with the Supreme Reality — Sachchidananda, the Absolute,
Parabrahman, Purushottama in all His poises and moods
— a total and integral realisation indeed, achieved for
the first time in the human body and it is this that entitles
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him to be the Avatar of the Supreme, the last in the series,
Kalki, the fulfiller of the task Divine, heralding a new cycle
of a spiritual age with a new humanity, the divinised humanity, the Satya Yuga of a new cycle.
288
Chapter 8
The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo
It is time for the decomposition and destruction of old
values, old patterns of life, life of Mind, because Mind has
exhausted its capacities, but yet failed to organize life in
harmonious and orderly way. And at last it has pushed
the world to the brink of a great precipice. Therefore a
greater power than the Mind has to take up the rein of life
on earth if there is a real purpose and meaning of it and if
it has to survive. So far life and existence appeared to be a
riddle, a purposeless struggle, but now with the advent of
Sri Aurobindo, the world knows the meaning of its existence.
No more existence seemed an aimless fall,
Extinction was no more the sole release.
The hidden Word was found, the long-sought clue,
Revealed was the meaning of our spirit’s birth,
Condemned to an imperfect body and mind,
In the inconscience of material things
And the indignity of mortal life.
.....
To free the self is but one radiant pace;
Here to fulfil himself was God’s desire.1
And indeed the Supermind, which is a greater power
than the Mind has been brought down by Sri Aurobindo
and the Divine Mother, his spiritual collaborator and
1. Savitri, CWSA 33: 313, 312
289
Shakti, his executrix force, and it is already working in the
earth atmosphere and slowly and steadily influencing the
forces in favour of a new and better change and fulfilment
of the new goal.
Supermind
Then what is Supermind? ‘Supermind’ is Sri
Aurobindo’s own word and he has used it in a particular
sense to denote a specific power of the Divine or to be more
precise, a particular level of consciousness of the Supreme
Power or Sachchidananda.
In fact the principles of consciousness which is the basic power of awareness and fundamental factor of Existence or Creation or the Manifestation, have been roughly
divided in seven planes representing the seven worlds of
the Vedic Conception.
The Spirit which is pure Existence – SAT, pure Consciousness – CHIT, pure delight – ANANDA, has three
terms, but is really one, a triune Being – Sachchidanand.
These three highest principles of the Spirit have their own
highest worlds – Satya loka – the world of true existence,
Tapo loka – the world of energy of self- conscience and the
Janaloka – the world of creative delight. These are the
worlds of the higher creation – Parardha. In these worlds
Consciousness is One without any shadow of obscurity,
multiplicity or division.
There are also worlds of lower creation – Aparardha –
Bhurloka, Bhuvarloka and Swarloka, which we can call
Matter, Life and Mind. All these three worlds are the
result of the separative or divisive Consciousness – Avidya,
hence are not as triune but as triple. The Bhurloka is the
material world formed by the involvement or becoming of
the pure Existence – Sat, which has extended itself as an
apparent inconscient substance, that is gross Matter. The
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Bhuvarloka is a world of Consciousness in which the dynamic Life force with sensation has emerged from the domination of gross Matter. The Swarloka is the world of that
formation of Consciousness in which Mind liberates itself
from subjection to both material hold and Life- impulse
and becomes dominant and determines its own forms. In
all these three lower worlds Consciousness is separated
from the absolute Truth – first completely lost in the thick
darkness of Matter and gradually returns to the original
Truth and its light and force.
Between these two hemispheres there is one more principle of Consciousness which the Vedic seers have called
Maharloka, which links both the creations of higher and
lower worlds. It is this plane or the world of awareness
that Sri Aurobindo has called Supermind.
According to Sri Aurobindo the Supermind is a plane
of “...full Truth-Consciousness of the Divine Nature in
which there can be no place for the principle of division
and ignorance; it is always a full light and knowledge superior to all mental substance or mental movement. Between the Supermind and the human mind are a number
of ranges, planes or layers of consciousness – one can regard it in various ways – in which the element or substance
of mind and consequently its movements also become more
and more illumined and powerful and wide. The overmind
is the highest of these ranges; it is full of lights and powers;
but from the point of view of what is above it, it is the line
of the soul’s turning away from the complete and indivisible knowledge and its descent towards the Ignorance. For
although it draws from the Truth, it is here that begins the
separation of aspects of the Truth, the forces and their
working out as if they were independent truths and this is
a process that ends, as one descends to ordinary Mind,
Life and Matter, in a complete division, fragmentation,
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separation from the individual Truth above. There is no
longer the essential, total, perfectly harmonising and unifying knowledge, or rather knowledge for ever harmonious because for ever one, which is the character of
supermind. In the supermind, mental divisions and oppositions cease, the problems created by our dividing and fragmenting mind disappear and Truth is seen as a luminous
whole. In the overmind there is not yet the actual fall into
Ignorance, but the first step is taken which will make the
fall inevitable.” 2
It is the power of Supermind, according to Sri
Aurobindo, that will change and transform the present
ignorant and painful life into the divine life and fulfil God’s
desire. What is God’s desire? Not the extinction, nor the
eternal peace in the Sachchidananda. If it is so, Existence
remains an unsolved enigma. The Eternal was there
already in supreme peace. There was no need of its
manifestation in Time and Space. But if we accept Sri
Aurobindo’s formula – that God wants to come down in
His manifestation with the same splendour and grandeur,
with the same immaculate purity and power, the same
Omnipotence and Omnipresence without diminution, then
the manifestation is justified. Because what we notice at
present is that “the essential mark of the descent of the
Consciousness from its highest grade in the Supreme Spirit
is the constant diminution of the power of Sachchidananda,
the intensity of its force, force of Being, force of Consciousness, force of Bliss. The intensity of all these three in the
supreme status is ineffable; in the Supermind the intensity
of consciousness is ever luminous and undiminished; in
Overmind it is already diminished and diffuse; the highest
intensity of mind is a poor thing in comparison with the
splendour of overmind and so it goes diminishing till it
2. Sri Aurobindo : The Integral Yoga, 1993, p.65
292
reaches an apparent zero which we call Inconscience.”3
So far we have been told by the old Masters that liberation or Moksha of the soul from the lower Nature is the
ultimate aim of the journey of life in the world. But according to Sri Aurobindo this liberation is only the condition of the life divine – To free the self is but one radiant pace.
It may be noted that it is to prepare for the descent of
this new power of Supermind that Sri Aurobindo was commanded by Sri Krishna in 1910 to leave all his personal
interests and go into solitude in Pondicherry and work it
out to clear the way for the next step in the evolution of
Consciousness, from humanity to super humanity – a new
race and reveal the ancient knowledge of Veda to the world
which contains the basis of a new spiritual culture and
harmonious universal life. And after an arduous tapas Sri
Aurobindo was able to bring down the Overmind – that is
Srikrishna’s Consciousness into his own body which
cleared the passage for the Supermind to come down. But
despite his arduous tapasya it was not made possible during his life time owing to the tremendous resistance of the
humanity. To hasten the descent of Supermind he therefore changed the strategy and decided to leave his body
and work from the subtle physical plane which could be
more effective. And at last in the face of all odds and the
earth’s resistance the Mother was able to bring down the
Supermind on the 29th February 1956 six years after the
physical departure of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo gives
some hints of the work he was entrusted in a letter to Shri
Motilal Roy in 1912:
My future sadhan is for life, practical knowledge and
shakti, — not the essential knowledge or shakti in itself
which I have got already — but knowledge and shakti es3. Essays Divine and Human by Sri Aurobindo CWSA : 12, p.216
293
tablished in the same physical self and directed to my work
in life. I am now getting a clearer idea of that work and I
may as well impart something of that idea to you; since
you look to me as the centre, you should know what is
likely to radiate out of that centre.
1. To reexplain the Sanatana Dharma to the human
intellect in all its parts, from a new standpoint. This work
is already beginning, and three parts of it are being clearly
worked out. Sri Krishna has shown me true meaning of
the Vedas, not only so but he has shown me a new Science of philology showing the process and origins of human speech so that a new Nirukta can be formed and the
new interpretation of the Veda based upon it. He has also
shown me the meaning of all in the Upanishads that is not
understood either by Indians or Europeans. I have therefore to reexplain the whole Vedanta and Veda in such a
way that it will be seen how all religion arises out of it and
is one everywhere. In this way, it will be proved that India
is the centre of the religious life of the world and its destined saviour through the Sanatana Dharma.
2. On the basis of Vedic knowledge to establish a
Yogic Sadhana which will not only liberate the soul, but
prepare a perfect humanity and help in the restoration of
the Satyayuga. That work has to begin now but it will not
be complete till the end of the Kali.
3. India being a centre, to work for her restoration to
her proper place in the world; but this restoration must be
effected as a part of the above work and by means of Yoga
applied to human means and instruments, not otherwise.
4. A perfect humanity being intended society will have
to be remodelled so as to be fit to contain that perfection. 4
It is clear from the letter that he was contemplating to
create a new humanity, a perfect humanity and divising a
4. Autobiographical Notes, CWSA : pp. 177-78
294
new system of Sadhana to achieve that goal, the seed of
which was already there in the eternal knowledge of the
Veda and Upanishad which were seen and heard by the
ancient seers of India but they never attempted to realise it
for the world and bring down on earth.
Once Sri Aurobindo realised the Supermind in himself
and experienced its full potency, he set for the humanity a
new goal – not the Nirvana of extinction or the Nirvana in
Brahman – but the transformation of the terrestrial nature
into divine nature and the life on earth divine and immortal, in other words planting Heaven on earth. This goal
was never conceived before, not even by Gita. This possibility was envisaged by him in his inner vision for which
he worked further to make it concrete, did the needful to
bring down the supramental force for working out this
possibility. And now the possibility has become a certainty
– an inevitable step of Nature in the march of the
evolutionary journey of consciousness towards the supreme
origin. After Man to Superman.
It is natural that the old formula of Nirvana or
Moksha, the old systems of Yoga and past disciplines of
religion will not help us any more. For they were meant
for the old goals, Mukti or escape into the Beyond. Therefore a new path for the new goal was necessitated. Sri
Aurobindo has hence given us a new formula – a new path
– a new system of yoga – to pursue the new goal. It is the
Integral Yoga – the Yoga of Perfection – Purna Yoga, because the goal too is integral and perfect, and the means
ought to be equally integral and perfect.
We have been till now apt to divide our life as worldly
and non–worldly, material and spiritual or family–
life and monastic life, may be perhaps due to the
Buddhist teaching or due to the Philosophy of Mayavada.
But in Vedic culture we do not find such a division. All life
295
was the field of inner expression and progressive perfection. Sri Aurobindo goes to the source of the Veda and
finds the life and world a play of one Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient Power and Being who is at once
Transcendental, Cosmic and Individual. His life is an example of this wonderful harmonious unity and integrality
which is quite apparent right from his early life. For him
there was nothing worldly or spiritual. For him each event
was a blend of Spirit and Matter, inner and outer, spiritual
and material, as he recounts in one of his letters as follows:
"My own life and my own yoga have always been, since
my coming to India, both this-worldly and other-worldly
without any exclusiveness on either side. All human
interests are, I suppose, this-worldly and most of them have
entered into my mental field and some, like politics, into
my life, but at the same time, since I set foot on the Indian
soil on the Apollo Bunder in Bombay, I began to have spiritual experiences, but these were not divorced from this
world but had an inner and infinite bearing on it, such as
feeling of the Infinite pervading material space and the
Immanent inhabiting material objects and bodies. At the
same time I found myself entering supraphysical worlds
and planes with influences and an effect from them upon
the material plane, so I could make no sharp divorce or
irreconcilable opposition between what I have called the
two ends of existence and all that lies between them. For
me all is Brahman and I find the Divine everywhere. Every
one has the right to throw away this-worldiness and choose
other-worldiness only, and if he finds peace by that choice
he is greatly blessed. I, personally, have not found it
necessary to do this in order to have peace. In my yoga
also I found myself moved to include both worlds in my
purview – the spiritual and the material – and to try to
establish the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Power
296
in men’s hearts and earthly life, not for a personal salvation only but for a life divine here. This seems to me as
spiritual an aim as any and the fact of this life taking up
earthly pursuits and earthly things into its scope cannot, I
believe, tarnish its spirituality or alter its Indian character.
This at least has always been my view and experience of
the reality and nature of the world and things and the Divine: it seemed to me as nearly as possible the integral truth
about them and I have therefore spoken of the pursuit of it
as the integral yoga."5
Integral Aim
We have already many systems of Yoga in India which
are well–formulated and scientific and in their nature, they
all are an attempt to arrive at the union with the Supreme
Being, Consciousness and Bliss, although their processes
are different. Hathayoga selects the body and the vital functioning as its instruments of perfection and realisation.
Rajayoga selects the mind, whereas Karma Yoga, Bhakti
Yoga and Jnana Yoga use the will-power, the heart or
emotion and the buddhi or intellect respectively as their
levers. All these schools follow the Vedantic methods of
Yoga where Purusha is the Lord. There is another system
called Tantra, which still exists in India, in which the Shakti
is the sole effective force of all attainment. Whereas in all
other schools of Yoga cited above the presiding Lord is the
Purusha, the conscious Soul, in Tantra Yoga Sadhana it is
the Prakriti, the Energy, the Nature-soul that is worshipped
as the presiding deity, who surprisingly in the Vedantic
conception is the deception-creating Maya, the power of
Illusion, according to Mayavadins.
Sri Aurobindo has integrated both methods – Tantric
5. Letters on Yoga, SABCL 22: 121-22
297
and Vedantic in his Integral Yoga where he accepts both
as equally important and necessary for the working out of
his integral objectives. Purusha is Sat, the Being of Conscious Self-existence, pure and infinite, Chit is the power
of his Consciousness. Both are one Being when they are at
rest, Chit-Shakti being absorbed in Sat, in the bliss of conscious self-Existence. But when there is action and creation
and becoming, the Energy, the creative Force is poured out
and that becomes the manifest Nature, the Universe, apparently undivine, seeking to fulfil her own infinite potential in existence through ascending ladders of body, life
and mind. It is the self-fulfilment of the Purusha through
his Energy, the Nature whose movement is two-fold –
higher and lower from the practical point of view. Yoga is
nothing but the journey from the lower to the higher, of
the Nature-soul, the jiva, to its origin. The ordinary Yoga
aims at the escape from the world to God, but Sri
Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga aims at nothing short of total
transformation of mind, life and body into divine substance,
which is a new goal never conceived hitherto by any system of Yoga. Also it is not only individual transformation
which this Yoga aims at; this realisation must be achieved
at the collective level – a new society, a new race of
divinized humanity must come into being to usher in a
new Age.
Not only this, Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga also insists on the integral realisation of the Divine on all the possible levels, whereas other systems may be satisfied on any
one level of the realisations. He says that the realisation is
integral and perfect only when it can be attained on all
three levels – transcendental, cosmic and individual. “If I
realise the Divine as that, not my personal self, which yet
moves secretly all my personal being and which I can bring
forward out of the veil, or if I build up the image of that
298
Godhead in my members, it is a realisation but limited one.
If it is the Cosmic Godhead that I realise, losing in it all
personal self, that is a very wide realisation, but I become a
mere channel of the universal Power and there is no personal or divinely individual consummation for me. If I shoot
up to the transcendental realisation only, I lose both myself and the world in the transcendental Absolute. If, on
the other hand, my aim is none of these things by itself, but
to realise and also to manifest the Divine in the world,
bringing down for the purpose a yet unmanifested Power
– such as the Superminds – a harmonisation of all the
three becomes imperative. I have to bring it down, and
from where shall I bring it down – since it is not yet manifested in the cosmic formula – if not from the unmanifest
Transcendence, which I must reach and realise? I have to
bring it into the cosmic formula, and if so, I must realise
the cosmic Divine and become conscious of the cosmic self
and the cosmic forces. But I have to embody it here, —
otherwise it is left as an influence only and not a thing
fixed in the physical world and it is through the Divine in
the individual alone that this can be done."6
Even the liberation must be total for the total result and
the fulfilment of the total goal that the Integral Yoga aims
to arrive at. The specialized Yogas attain to different kinds
of liberation at the end in respect of the ultimate fruition of
life. Jnana Yoga’s highest attainment is the identification
of the individual being in all its parts with the Divine,
Sayujya–mukti, which is possible even while in the body.
Bhakti Yoga’s highest liberation is the dwelling eternally
in the status of Sachchidananda, Salokya-Mukti. Karma
Yoga’s highest liberation is the attainment of
dynamic self-law of the Lord, that is to say, the acquisition
of divine nature by transformation of the lower nature,
6.Sri Aurobindo, The Riddle of the World 2006: p.51
299
Sadharmya-Mukti. Integral Yoga includes all these liberations in its objective by reconciling and harmonizing the
apparent difference that seems to exist between Knowledge, Love and Works.
It has already been reconciled in the Gita. “He must
know with the knowledge of the supreme Self and Brahman; he must turn his love and adoration to the supreme
Person; he must subject his will and works to the supreme
Lord of cosmos. Then he passes from the lower to the divine Nature. ...
“This integral turning of the soul Godwards bases royally the Gita’s synthesis of knowledge and works and devotion. To know God thus integrally is to know him as
One in the self and in all manifestation and beyond all manifestation, — and all this unitedly and at once. And yet even
so to know him is not enough unless it is accompanied by
an intense uplifting of the heart and soul Godwards, unless it kindles a one-pointed and at the same time all-embracing love, adoration, aspiration. Indeed the knowledge
which is not companioned by an aspiration and vivified
by an uplifting is no true knowledge, for it can be only an
intellectual seeing and a barren cognitive endeavour. The
vision of God brings infallibly the adoration and passionate seeking of the Divine, — a passion for the Divine in his
self-existent being, but also for the Divine in ourselves and
for the Divine in all that is.To know with the intellect is
simply to understand and may be an effective starting point,
— or, too, it may not be, and it will not be if there is no
sincerity in the knowledge, no urge towards inner
realisation in the will, no power upon the soul, no call in
the spirit: for that would mean that the brain has externally understood, but inwardly the soul has seen nothing.
True knowledge is to know with the inner being, and when
the inner being is touched by the light, then it arises to
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embrace that which is seen, it yearns to possess, it struggles
to shape that in itself and itself to it. ... Here that which is
known is not an externalized object, but the divine Purusha,
self and lord of all that we are. An all-seizing delight in
him and a deep and moved love and adoration of him must
be the inevitable result and is the very soul of this knowledge. And this adoration is no isolated seeking of the heart,
but an offering of the whole existence. Therefore it must
take also the form of a sacrifice; there is a giving of all our
works to the Ishwara, there is a surrender of all our active
inward and outward nature to the Godhead of our adoration in its every subjective and in its every objective movement. All our subjective workings move in him and they
seek him, the Lord and Self, as the source and goal of their
power and endeavour. All our objective workings move
out towards him in the world and make him their object,
initiate a service of God in the world of which the controlling power is the Divinity within us in whom we are one
self with the universe and its creatures. For both world
and self, Nature and the soul in her are enlightened by the
consciousness of the One, are inner and outer bodies of the
transcendent Purushottama. So comes a synthesis of mind
and heart and will in the one self and spirit and with it the
synthesis of knowledge, love and works in this integral
union, this embracing God–realisation, this divine Yoga.”7
And since this Yoga is the Yoga of transformation of
the whole being of the individual, it includes also the perfection of the mind and body which are the highest results
of Raj Yoga and Hatha Yoga.
Thus we find that Integral Yoga takes the spirit and
central principles of all the systems and schools which lead
us towards one supreme experience – ‘to know, be and
possess the Divine’ which is the one thing needful and
which includes all the rest.
7. Essays on the Gita, CWSA19: 323-25
301
As we know that this Integral Yoga that he has given
us takes care of the radical transformation of the whole
mankind, the human race, not only of a few select individuals, though in the beginning it will begin with a few
elect ones who will be ready and open to receive the supramental light and force and willingly collaborate and
offer all parts of their being for the needed transmutation.
“Nor would the integrality to which we aspire be real or
even possible, if it were confined to the individual. Since
our divine perfection embraces the realisation of ourselves
in being, in life and in love through others as well as
through ourselves, the extension of our liberty and of its
results in others would be the inevitable outcome as well
as the broadest utility of our liberation and perfection. And
the constant and inherent attempt of such an extension
would be towards its increasing and ultimately complete
generalisation in mankind.”8
Whereas all old Yogas have Mukti as their ideal, Integral Yoga, which is not only world–affirming but also cherishes the ideal of a divine life on earth, does not reject the
ideal of Bhukti – enjoyment and fulfilment of material life
– Tenatyakten bhunjitha – enjoyment with renunciation as
mentioned in the Ishopanishad, which is the rule of divine
life. India has suffered because she neglected material life,
and the West suffered because they neglected the spirit.
Integral Yoga fulfil both.
Integral Yoga in fact fulfils and complements all world
religions and world movements because all of them have
been dreaming and aspiring in one way or the other for
the kingdom of God on earth, City of God, Heaven on earth,
universal brotherhood, one humanity, one world-family,
world unity, equality-liberty and fraternity, but they have
not yet succeeded. It is the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo
8. Synthesis of Yoga CWSA 23:49
302
which will fulfil this ultimate hope of man.
‘‘The divinising of the normal material life of man and
of his great secular attempt of mental and moral self-culture in the individual and the race by this integralisation
of a widely perfect spiritual existence would thus be the
crown alike of our individual and of our common effort.
Such a consummation being no other than the kingdom of
heaven within reproduced in the kingdom of heaven without, would be also the true fulfilment of the great dream
cherished in different terms by the world’s religions.” 9
A New Path
Thus we find that the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo is
a new path, although the essentials of old systems have
been harmoniously integrated with it. What are the novelties of this Yoga, Sri Aurobindo himself has stated in one
of his letters to a disciple:
It is new as compared with the old yogas:
1. Because it aims not at a departure out of world and
life into Heaven or Nirvana, but at a change of life and
existence, not as something subordinate or incidental,
but as a distinct and central object. If there is a descent
in other yogas, yet it is only an incident on the way or
resulting from the ascent – the ascent is the real thing.
Here the ascent is the first step, but it is a means for the
descent. It is the descent of the new consciousness attained by the ascent that is the stamp and seal of the
sadhana. Even the Tantra and Vaishnavism end in the
release from life; here the object is the divine fulfilment
of life.
2. Because the object sought after is not an individual
achievement of divine realisation for the sake of the
9. Ibid : 49-50
303
individual, but something to be gained for the earthconsciousness here, a cosmic, not solely a supra-cosmic
achievement. The thing to be gained also is the bringing in of a Power of Consciousness (the supramental)
not yet organised or active directly in earth-nature, even
in the spiritual life, but yet to be organised and made
directly active.
3. Because a method has been preconized for achieving this purpose which is as total and integral as the
aim set before it, viz., the total and integral change of
the consciousness and nature, taking up old methods
but only as a part action and present aid to others that
are distinctive. I have not found this method (as a whole)
or anything like it professed or realised in the old Yogas.
If I had, I should not have wasted my time in hewing
out a road and in thirty years of search and inner creation when I could have hastened home safely to my
goal in and easy canter over paths already blazed out,
laid down, perfectly mapped macadamised, made secure and public. Our yoga is not a retreading of old
walks, but a spiritual adventure.”10
Method of Integral Yoga
Now what is the method of the Integral Yoga?
We have seen that the method of Hatha Yoga physical,
of the Raja Yoga psycho-physical, of the Jnana Yoga
intellectual, of the Bhakti Yoga emotional and of the Karma
Yoga that of dynamic will. All the traditional Yogas are
specialized systems; hence their methods are also specialized. Integral Yoga not only has absorbed the essentials of
old Yogas but added much more, something very vast and
total, embracing all life in its fold where nothing of the life
10. Letters on Yoga, SABCL 22: 100-01
304
is left out. Since its goal is to transform the whole nature of
life, mind and body, its method too should be as vast as the
world and as integral as its goal. “In the first place it [the
Integral Yoga] does not act according to a fixed system
and succession as in the specialised methods of Yoga, but
with a sort of free, scattered and yet gradually intensive
and purposeful working determined by the temperament
of the individual in whom it operates, the helpful materials which his nature offers and the obstacles which it presents to purification and perfection. In a sense, therefore,
each man in this path has his own method of Yoga. Yet
are there certain broad lines of working common to all
which enable us to construct not indeed a routine system
but yet some kind of Shastra or scientific method of the
synthetic Yoga.”11
This Yoga accepts our nature as it is, in whatever way
it has been organized by Nature according to our past
Karmas, without rejecting anything, for it believes that the
supreme artisan will seize upon the crude material and
fashion it into the desired divine nature, for “the divine
Power in us uses all life as the means of this integral Yoga.
Every experience and outer contact with our world —
environment, however trifling or however disastrous, is
used for the work, and every inner experience, even to the
most repellent suffering or the most humiliating fall, becomes a step on the path to perfection.” 12 The same method
is used by the Nature since she too seeks to manifest the
highest in itself, but it is obscure and slow and subconscious. She has taken millions of years to develop the bodily
and nervous mentality and presently engaged in promoting and perfecting pure mental mentality which is not yet
achieved and tends to move still further towards the di11. Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA 23: 46-47
12. Ibid p.47
305
vine mentality which is hidden within her. Whereas the
Nature, which is nothing but unconscious Yoga, takes millions of years, the Conscious Yoga by the Concentration of
dispersed movements can reach the same result in a much
shorter span of time. Integral Yoga employs the same integral method of Nature but with self-awareness and onepointed concentrated efforts.
As we find in Nature that it is the involved Divinity in
her that seeks to evolve to its original divine perfection, so
in Integral Yoga too it is the Divine who can accomplish
this perfection, but the soul in the Nature has to allow the
divine force to act and do the needful. ‘The ego person in
us cannot transform itself by its own force or will or knowledge or by any virtue of its own into the nature of the Divine; all it can do is to fit itself for the transformation and
make more and more its surrender to that which it seeks to
become.’ In order to effect the spiritual transformation of
all the parts of the being in the individual, not a mere illumining modification of our nature or not a mere union with
the Divine, we must call in the Divine Shakti, for she alone
has the needed force to effect the miraculous work that is
the goal of our Yoga.
In fact in this Yoga it is the Divine, the master of Yoga
who is at once the sadhak and Sadhana as also its goal, for
this Yoga cannot be done by the force of ego in man. But
before the Divine Shakti takes up this work of Yoga in the
individual soul, it is necessary to come out of the clutches
of lower nature and hand over the charge of Yoga to the
higher force of Divine Nature. To come out of the lower
nature Sri Aurobindo suggests three simple but difficult
steps or methods:
306
Aspiration
Before we call in the Divine Shakti, we must ensure
that we want it and want it whole-heartedly. It must be
the necessity of the entire being; it must be the integral
choice of mind, life and even the body. There must be a
decision of the mind and the will, seized on by the heart’s
burning aspiration. The mere intellectual seeking of something higher beyond is not enough. Therefore our aspiration must be unmixed, constant and vigilant, supported
by the will of the mind, longing of the heart, the demand
of the physical consciousness and above all, the yearning
of the soul, our inmost being, the true self in man. The aspiration for the Divine light, knowledge and force must be
for the sake of the Divine not for the egoistic satisfaction
of the longing of the vital in ego or its hankering after name
and fame, power and position, which are characteristics
of ambition. It is necessary to distinguish aspiration which
is the self–articulation of the psychic entity, from ambition
and desire, which proceeds from Avidya, the ignorance.
The aspiration should be like a calm and steady flame, intense but without impatience. It must have a support of
assurance and faith in the Divine wisdom and force.
Rejection
True and intense aspiration for the divine life implies
the rejection of all the movements which contradict and
oppose it, for the opposing movements too are dwelling
within us, in our lower nature. The mind tends to make
ideas, opinions, thought–constructions and habits incessantly and is ever occupied and never quiet for a moment,
307
leaving no room for higher knowledge to pour in. Similarly, desires, petty pleasures, cravings, passions, pride,
lust, greed, envy, anger, attachments keep our dynamic
nature of life-impulse, our vital part, so much entangled
with their narrow and selfish demands that the true power
and joy from above are unable to descend in that incondite
and incongruous conditions. The body too has its own nature and consciousness which tends to be obstinate, stupid, lazy and sluggish, inert and inactive, unwilling to
change, doubting and opposes and obstructs all that is new
to its nature.
That is why the aspiration has to be not only incessant,
steady but also vigilant and alert and whatever opposes
its upward movement and checks its Godward flight, must
be outright forcefully rejected, so that all these three instruments of the Being are made quiet and calm and in
perfect silence Divine Shakti could enter and begin her
work, the sadhana of the individual soul.
Surrender
But the Divine does not impose itself on the soul manifest in nature; the consent, the readiness and self-giving of
the entire being is the imperative condition for the Divine
Shakti to take up the individual's sadhana of Integral Yoga,
the Yoga of the divine transformation and divine life. Hence,
the integral surrender, surrender of the mind, life force and
the physical nature to the Divine Shakti must be voluntarily and willingly made. And it must be the happy and joyous assent of a strong soul, not of a weak and helpless mind
and will. It is then only that the Divine Shakti will take up
308
the sadhana and she becomes herself the sadhak, sadhana
and sadhya, the goal, in the individual soul. But as long as
the soul is trapped in the lower nature, the above triple
labour –Aspiration, Rejection and complete self-giving on
the part of the sadhak of the Integral Yoga is imperative.
“In proportion as the surrender and self-consecration
progress, the Sadhaka becomes conscious of the Divine
Shakti doing the Sadhana, pouring into him more and more
of herself, founding in him the freedom and perfection of
the Divine Nature. The more this conscious process replaces
his own effort, the more rapid and true becomes his
progress. But it cannot completely replace the necessity of
personal effort until the surrender and consecration are
pure and complete from top to bottom.”13
But surrender must be real and dynamic and true
surrender should not he confused with tamasic surrender
which refuses to fulfil the conditions and calls “on God to
do everything and save one all the trouble and struggles.”
It “is a deception and does not lead to freedom and perfection”, warns Sri Aurobindo.
13. The Mother, 2002: p.8
309
Object of the Integral Yoga
Then what is the object of Integral Yoga?
"The object of the yoga is to enter into and be possessed
by the Divine Presence and Consciousness, to love the
Divine for the Divine's sake alone, to be turned in our nature
into the nature of the Divine, and in our will and works
and life to be the instrument of the Divine. Its object is not
to be a great yogi or a Superman (although that may come)
or to grab at the Divine for the sake of the ego's power,
pride or pleasure. It is not for Moksha, though liberation
comes by it and all else may come, but these must not be
our objects. The Divine alone is our object.
"...The aim of this yoga is, first, to enter into the divine
consciousness by merging into it the separative ego
(incidentally, in doing so one finds one's true individual
self which is not the limited, vain and selfish human ego
but a portion of the Divine) and, secondly, to bring down
the supramental consciousness on earth to transform mind,
life and body. All else can be only a result of these two
aims, not the primary object of the yoga."1
Sri Aurobindo observed that till now only partial truth
of Life and Existence had been realised by a few individuals
and the world was left ignorant of even that partial truth.
Those who thought that they had reached the summit of
the absolute Reality, supposed the world to be either unreal
or full of misery, either illusion, non-existent or if it existed,
it was just sorrow and suffering. It was therefore the only
course left for them was to escape from it in the supreme
status beyond the life of the world.
Sri Aurobindo had a different experience of the world
and the reality beyond the world. He found that the world
1. The Integral Yoga (Compilation) Lotus Light - Publications, 1993,
p.10
310
is Brahman or God and as real as Brahman or God. The
Omnipotent wisdom has created the world- Prajna Prasrita
Purani. And it is possible to establish the perfect truth and
perfect bliss of God in the world-existence, because God
here 'sees all things with the eye of truth and enjoys all
things with the sense of unalloyed freedom'-Tenatyaktena
bhunjitha.
"Perfection has to be worked out, harmony has to be
accomplished. Imperfection, limitation, death, grief,
ignorance, matter are only the first terms of the formula —
unintelligible till we have worked out the wider terms and
reinterpreted the formulary; they are the initial discords of
the musician's tuning. Out of imperfection we have to
construct perfection, out of limitation to discover infinity,
out of death to find immortality, out of grief to recover divine
bliss, out of ignorance to rescue divine self-knowledge, out
of matter to reveal Spirit. To work out this end for ourselves
and for humanity is the object of our Yogic practice."2
Sri Aurobindo, we have observed, was not a mere Yogi
in a traditional sense, that is to say, he did not do Yoga to
gain other-worldly realisation. There was no division in his
mind such as something like this-worldly or that-worldly.
He loved life in totality. He was interested in everything life
and world are constituted of and which can make life and
world perfect and beautiful and divine — satyam, shivam,
sundaram. When he observed that all past efforts made for
the perfection of life here in the world failed and no further
attempt was in the offing, he decided to work it out himself.
But was he not ordained by the Divine, the Lord himself,
the Avatar of the Gita to do this task? To complete the work
which was perhaps begun by the Lord in the Gita but
remained half-done? But the base was given on which the
colossal edifice of the Integral Yoga was founded by Sri
2. Essays Divine and Human by Sri Aurobindo SABCL 12: 103
311
Aurobindo who first worked under the guidance of the
Avatar of the Gita and later he himself rose to become the
Supramental Avatar. When he realised all the aspects of
the supreme Reality — Sachchidananda — and at all the
levels from individual Divine to the Transcendental, he
found that it was possible to bring down the perfection of
the highest truth in the world nature through the
instrumentality of the Divine dynamis of the Supermind
which is exclusively his discovery. And ultimately he was
able to formulate integral system which he called an
Integral Yoga, with the objective of total transformation of
the earth-nature into divine nature. Whereas the other Yogas
have for their aim partial realisations — either departure
into some supra-cosmic reality or some limited perfection
in the world, the object of Integral Yoga is "a complete Godrealisation, a complete self-realisation, a complete fulfulment
of our being and Consciousness, a complete transformation
of our nature — and this implies a complete perfection of
life here and not only a return to an eternal perfection
elsewhere." 3
From Mind to Supermind
The Integral Yoga is also called the Supramental Yoga
because it can be accomplished only by the Supramental
Power, the power of the Supermind. All human Yogas are
done by the Power of Mind, for man is a mental being in a
living body. It can only reflect some light of the divine Truth
but can not wholly seize and embody it, but the Supermind
is an eternal dynamic Truth-Consciousness beyond mind
and "at its highest reach the divine Gnosis, the WisdomPower-Light-Bliss of God by which the Divine knows and
upholds and governs and enjoys the universe."4
3. Ibid p.375
4. Ibid p.384
312
The change that is effected by the transition from Mind
to Supermind is not only a revolution in knowledge or in
our Power for knowledge. If it is to be complete and stable,
it must be a divine transformation of our will too, our
emotions, our sensations, all our power of life and its forces,
in the end even of the very substance and functioning of
our body.
The golden Light came down into my heart
Smiting my life with Thy eternity;
Now has it grown a temple where Thou art
And all its passions point towards only Thee.
The golden Light came down into my feet;
My earth is now Thy playfield and Thy seat.5
"Then only can it be said that the Supermind is there
upon earth, rooted in its very earth-substance and embodied
in a new race of divinized creatures."6
The Integral Yoga and the Divine Mother
The metamorphosis or the complete divinization of the entire
human nature into Supreme Truth-Consciousness that Sri
Aurobindo has set as a goal of Integral Yoga is such a
complex, intricate and uphill task, which has never been
attempted before Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, that it
cannot be carried out to its end by human effort alone or
by only the force of mind, life and body or any human
psychological process without the full aid and support of
the Supreme Shakti. "Man", says Sri Aurobindo, "cannot
by his effort make himself more than man, but he can call
down the divine Truth and its Power to work in him. A
5. The Golden Light: Collected Poems: CWSA 2:606
6. Essays Divine and Human, by Sri Aurobindo CWSA 12: 384
313
descent of the Divine Nature can alone divinize the human
receptacle. Self-Surrender to a supreme transmuting Power
is the key-word of this Yoga."7
Gita too speaks of surrender as the only Dharma for
the seeker of the triple Yoga but that surrender is to the
Purushottama, the supreme Purusha, the Lord himself. The
supreme Mother is mentioned as Para Prakriti through
whom worlds are created by the supreme Lord. The object
of the Gita is to draw back from nature and have the
supreme realisation beyond it, not here in the world. That
is why the Ishwara aspect of the Divine is more
pronounced. In Integral Yoga the object is to possess and
transform the world-nature and realise the Supreme
through it as in Tantra; therefore this Yoga insists more on
the aspect of the Divine Mother, the creative force of the
Divine, Para Prakriti and surrender to Her is essential for
the fulfillment of the object of this Yoga.
"In regard to the Purushottama the Divine Mother is
the supreme divine Consciousness and Power above the
worlds, Adya Shakti; she carries the Supreme in herself
and manifests the Divine in the worlds through the Akshara
and Kshara. In regard to the Akshara she is the same Para
Shakti holding the Purusha immobile in herself and also
herself immobile in him at the back of all creation. In regard
to the Kshara she is the mobile cosmic Energy manifesting
all beings and forces." 8
It is to this supreme Shakti or the Divine Mother that
the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo demands surrender with
pure, candid and perfect faith and sincerity. "To walk
through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster,
only two things are needed, two that go always together
— the Grace of the Divine Mother and on your side an
7. Ibid p.383
8. Letters on Yoga, SABCL 22:72
314
inner state made up of faith, sincerity and surrender." He
further says that our sincerity and surrender must be
genuine and entire without demand, without condition,
without reservation so that all in us "shall belong to the
Divine Mother and nothing be left to the ego or given to
any other Power."9
"The more complete your faith, sincerity and surrender,
the more will grace and protection be with you. And when
the grace and protection of the Divine Mother are with
you, what is there that can touch you or whom need you
fear? A little of it even will carry you through all difficulties,
obstacles and dangers; surrounded by its full presence you
can go securely on your way because it is hers, careless of
all menace, unaffected by any hostility however powerful,
whether from this world or from worlds invisible. Its touch
can turn difficulties into opportunities, failure into success
and weakness into unfaltering strength. 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."10
Sri Aurobindo time and again reminds us that in this
Yoga our all works, all thoughts, all movements of life must
be an offering and sacrifice to the Supreme Shakti, "... your
only object in action shall be to serve, to receive, to fulfil, to
become a manifesting instrument of the Divine Shakti in
her works. You must grow in the divine consciousness till
there is no difference between your will and hers, no motive
except her impusion in you, no action that is not her
conscious action in you and through you."11
Our surrender to her implies that we do every thing for
her alone without any demand, free from any egoistic
9. The Mother by Sri Aurobindo 2002:9-10
10. Ibid, p.10
11. Ibid, p.15
315
motive as a selfless worker. Our only reward will be the
pleasure of the Divine Mother and our progression in divine
consciousness, the joy of divine service and our inner
growth.
"But a time will come when you will feel more and more
that you are the instrument and not the worker. For first
by the force of your devotion your contact with the Divine
Mother will become so intimate that at all times you will
have only to concentrate and to put everything into her
hands to have her guidance, her direct command or impulse,
the sure indication of the thing to be done and the way to
do it and the result. And afterwards you will realise that
the divine Shakti not only inspires and guides, but initiates
and carries out your works; all your movements are
originated by her, all your powers are hers, mind, life and
body are conscious and joyful instruments of her action,
means for her play, moulds for her manifestation in the
physical universe. There can be no more happy condition
than this union and dependence; for this step carries you
back beyond the border-line from the life of stress and
suffering in the ignorance into the truth of your spiritual
being, into its deep peace and its intense Ananda."12
When our surrender is complete and our faith, sincerity
and aspiration absolute, the Mother carries the soul up to
her Supramental plane, the goal of the journey and the
consummation of this Yoga. "The last stage of this perfection
will come when you are completely identified with the
Divine Mother and feel yourself to be no longer another
and separate being, instrument, servant or worker but truly
a child and eternal portion of her consciousness and force.
Always she will be in you and you in her; it will be your
constant, simple and natural experience that all your
12. Ibid : 16-17
316
thought and seeing and action, your very breathing or
moving come from her and are hers. You will know and
see and feel that you are a person and power formed by
her out of herself, put out from her for the play and yet
always safe in her, being of her being, consciousness of her
consciousness, force of her force, Ananda of her Ananda.
When this condition is entire and her supramental energies
can freely move you, then you will be perfect in divine
works; knowledge, will, action will become sure, simple,
luminous, spontaneous, flawless, an outflow from the
Supreme, a divine movement of the Eternal."13
But what is Divine Shakti or who is the Divine Mother
who presides over the future process of transformation of
nature which is the main feature of the Integral Yoga given
by Sri Aurobindo? He has himself explained in detail the
position and status of the Divine Mother in relation to the
Absolute Power, Brahman or Sachchidananda or God and
her role in the manifestation in his magnum opus, The Life
Divine, as also in his epoch-making, legend and symbolepic Savitri.
"An absolute, eternal and infinite Self-existence, Selfawareness, Self-delight of being that secretly supports and
pervades the universe even while it is also beyond it, is,
then, the first truth of spiritual experience. But this truth of
being has at once an impersonal and a personal aspect; it is
not only Existence, it is the one Being absolute, eternal and
infinite. As there are three fundamental aspects in which
we meet this Reality, — Self, Conscious Being or Spirit and
God, the Divine Being, or to use the Indian terms, the
absolute and omnipresent Reality, Brahman, manifest to
us as Atman, Purusha, Ishwara, — so too its power of
Consciousness appears to us in three aspects; it is the self13. Ibid p.17-18
317
force of that consciousness conceptively creative of all
things, Maya; it is Prakriti, Nature or Force made
dynamically executive, working out all things under the
witnessing eye of the Conscious Being, the Self or Spirit; it
is the conscious Power of the Divine Being, Shakti, which
is both conceptively creative and dynamically executive of
all the divine workings. These three aspects and their powers
base and comprise the whole of existence and all Nature
and taken together as a single whole, they reconcile the
apparent disparateness and incompatibility of the
supracosmic Transcendence, the cosmic universality and
the separativeness of our individual existence; the Absolute,
cosmic Nature and ourselves are linked in oneness by this
triune aspect of the one Reality".14
In other words the Divine Mother is the Consciousness
and Force of the Divine, the Supreme triune Godhead, Sat,
Chit, Ananda. Therefore she is also Supreme and the
Creator of all the universe and the Mother of all things —
animate or inanimate.
An energy of the triune Infinite,
In a measureless Reality she dwelt,
A rapture and a being and a force,
A linked and myriad-motioned plenitude,
A virgin unity, a luminious spouse,
Housing a multitudinous embrace
To marry all in God's immense delight,
Bearing the eternity of every spirit,
Bearing the burden of universal love,
A wonderful mother of unnumbered souls.15
...
At the head she stands of birth and toil and fate,
In their slow round the cycles turn to her call;
14. The Life Divine, CWSA 21: 339-340
15. Savitri, CWSA 34: p.695
318
Alone her hands can change Time's dragon base.
Hers is the mystery the Night conceals;
The spirit's alchemist energy is hers;
She is the golden bridge, the wonderful fire.
The luminous heart of the Unknown is she
A power of silence in the depths of God;
She is the Force, the inevitable Word,
The magnet of our difficult ascent,
The Sun from which we kindle all our suns,
The Light that leans from the unrealised Vasts,
The joy that beckons from the impossible,
The Might of all that never yet came down.
All Nature dumbly calls to her alone
To heal with her feet the aching throb of life
And break the seals on the dim soul of man
And kindle her fire in the closed heart of things.16
As Sri Aurobindo embodied the Supreme Being and
came down to give us a perfect formula of divine life on
earth, the Integral Yoga, so, along with him manifested his
Consciousness-force, Chit-Shakti as his spiritual
collaborator, the Divine Mother, Mirra Alfasa, to lead the
aspiring souls and effectuate that great transition from
human to god-man. With their advent in the human body
in the last century a new dawn of hope, a new future of
man and building of a rainbow bridge from earth to heaven
has begun. It is to that Spirit's alchemist energy, the
wonderful fire, that we have to sacrifice all our mortal being
so that she can forge us in her own immortal stuff. It is in
reference to her that Sri Aurobindo said that "The Mother's
consciousness and mine are the same, the one Divine
consciousness in two, because that is necessary for the play.
Nothing can be done without her knowledge and force,
16. Savitri, CWSA 33: p.314
319
without her consciousness — if anybody really feels her
consciousness, he should know that I am there behind it
and if he feels me it is the same with hers."17
The Mother was born in France and came to India to
see Sri Aurobindo for the first time on 29th March 1914.
Before she knew Sri Aurobindo, she was doing sadhana
independently but followed the same lines as of Sri
Aurobindo. "When they met, they helped each other in
perfecting the Sadhana. What is known as Sri Aurobindo's
Yoga is the joint creation of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother;
they are now completely identified — the Sadhana in the
Ashram [Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry] and all
arrangement is done directly by the Mother, Sri Aurobindo
supports her from behind. All who come here for practising
Yoga have to surrender themselves to the Mother who helps
them always and builds up their spiritual life."18
The Mother, as stated above, met Sri Aurobindo for the
first time in 1914 and stayed in Pondicherry for eleven
months and they worked together. But she had to return to
France owing to the outbreak of the first Great War in 1915.
She returned to Sri Aurobindo in 1920 on 24th April and
stayed with him permanently to collaborate with him in
developing his Integral Yoga for ushering in a new spiritual
age and creating a new humanity. The disciples of Sri
Aurobindo mistook her as one of them, come to learn Yoga
from Sri Aurobindo. In answer to this misgiving Sri
Aurobindo wrote, in 1941 the following:
"The Mother is not a disciple of Sri Aurobindo. She has
had the same realisation and experience as myself.
"The Mother's sadhana started when she was very
young. When she was twelve or thirteen, every evening
many teachers came to her and taught her various spiritual
17. The Mother and the Integral Yoga, 2002: p. 13-14
18. Ibid, p.15-16
320
disciplines. Among them was a dark, Asiatic figure. When
we first met, she immediately recognised me as the dark
Asiatic figure whom she used to see a long time ago. That
she should come here and work with me for a common
goal was, as it were, a divine dispensation.
"The Mother was an adept in the Buddhist yoga and
the yoga of the Gita even before she came to India. Her
Yoga was moving towards a grand synthesis. After this, it
was natural that she should come here. She has helped
and is helping to give a concrete form to my yoga: This
would not have been possible without her cooperation.
"One of the two great steps in this yoga is to take refuge
in the Mother." (When asked what the other great step is,
Sri Aurobindo replied, 'Aspiration of the sadhak for the
divine life.') 19
In 1926, on 24 November, Sri Aurobindo attained to a
great siddhi in his Yoga which the Mother calls the 'Victory
Day'. On this day Sri Krishna descended in his physical
body. His descent means the descent of the Overmind God
which will prepare the descent of the Supermind. On this
day Sri Aurobindo announced that henceforth the Mother
would directly guide the sadhaks of Integral Yoga living in
the Ashram or outside and also be responsible for the outer
organization of the Ashram. Since then it is she, the Mother,
the Divine Mother incarnate, who has been directly guiding,
directing and leading the sadhana of her children who have
aspired, consented and offered themselves in her hands to
prepare them, through all the vicissitudes and perils, for
the divine life which is the goal of Integral Yoga. Even after
she left her physical sheath, it is she who is always present
among us and doing sadhana in each of us according to
our nature and the capacity of self-giving, faith, sincerity,
19. Ibid : p.16
321
self-opening and receptivity and self-surrender.
Sri Aurobindo writes about the powers of the Mother
and her ways of workings in his small but power-packed
book 'The Mother':
"The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine
Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet
so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible
even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast
intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of
the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something
of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments
and the more seizable because more defined and limited
temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom
she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
"There are three ways of being of the Mother of which
you can become aware when you enter into touch of
oneness with the Conscious Force that upholds us and the
universe. Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she
stands above the worlds and links the creation to the ever
unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic
Mahashakti, she creates all these beings and contains and
enters, supports and conducts all these million processes
and forces. Individual, she embodies the power of these
two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and
near to us and mediates between the human personality
and the divine Nature."
As the Transcendent Power she carries in her the
everlasting Sachchidanand, the dual consciousness of
Ishwar-Ishwari and the dual principle of Purusha-Prakriti.
As the universal Mother she works out the will of her
transcendental Consciousness in the triple world of
ignorance and stands in an intermediate plane between
the Supramental Light and the lower world of Matter, Life
and Mind in order to lift them back into the infinity of the
322
Spirit. "...In her deep and great love for her children she
has consented to put on herself the cloak of this obscurity,
condescended to bear the attacks and torturing influences
of the powers of the Darkness and the Falsehood, borne to
pass through the portals of the birth, that is a death, taken
upon herself the pangs and sorrows and sufferings of the
creation, since it seemed that thus alone could it be lifted to
the Light and Joy and Truth and eternal Life. This is the
great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha,
but much more deeply the holocaust of Prakriti, the sacrifice
of the Divine Mother."20
The Mother as Mahashakti is also the mediator between
the Supramental creation and the lower triple creation of
Mind, Life and Matter, whose presence and power alone
and not any human endeavour and tapasya can hasten
the Supramental change in the earth-consciousness which
will bring and complete the last phase of divine perfection
and fulfil the aim of Integral Yoga.
Process of Integral Perfection
It is for the first time in the history of human
consciousness that a total perfection of human existence,
an integral change in the human nature, nothing short of
divine perfection, is being envisaged and demanded by the
Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo. It is not that perfection
was not sought and attempted in the past. Man as a thinking
being is capable to grow towards progressive perfection
and conceive some kind of ideal standard of it and pursue
and achieve it. Progress has been achieved so far in the
field of mental or emotional life or faculty, but it did not
transcend the boundary of Ignorance and Ego and
humanity remained as imprisoned in the dark dungeon of
20.The Mother, by Sri Aurobindo pp 29& 36-37
323
its littleness as before. Even in the field of religion and
spirituality when the desirable perfection of an ideal
humanity could not be achieved, the world was condemned
either as an illusion or a nightmare and any change in the
earth-nature was dubbed as impossible as straightening a
dog's tail. It is in this perspective that a single man dreamt
and hoped
I had hoped to build a rainbow bridge
Marrying the soil to the sky
And sow in this dancing planet midge
The moods of infinity.
(A God's Labour by Sri Aurobindo)
It is Sri Aurobindo, the Master and Lord of Integral Yoga
who not only 'hoped to build a rainbow bridge' but also
Ignorant, labouring, human grown
Twixt the gates of death and birth.
......
I have laboured and suffered in Matter's night
To bring the fire to man;
But the hate of hell and human spite
Are my meed since the world began.
(A God's Labour by Sri Aurobindo)
Sri Aurobindo's life was A God's Labour for 'Bringing
the fires of the splendour of God into the human abyss.'
He explored virgin lands, chartered the unknown
terrains and unrealised kingdom of mysteries of God and
seized upon it to bring it down for man on earth so that
man need not escape from life into Beyond and can realise
324
the Divine perfection here in the life of the world.
He knew that he was up to such an daunting thing —
which was never thought of and tried before, not even by
Vedic seers, and the Gita too had given no hint of it. Moksha
or liberation of the soul into unknown has been the alpha
and omega until now.
And if one amongst us wants to bring or toils to
bring a new hope, our darker part, the demon within resists
the 'Sacred Light' and kills the deliverer. Was Christ not
crucified? Thank God, Sri Aurobindo could manage to
escape from the gallows. Even Sri Krishna the Avatar had
to slip from the prison of Kansa.
Anyway, inspite of all past failures to bring heaven on
earth Sri Aurobindo did not accept defeat and accepted
the challenge. The divine perfection which he set as the
goal of his Integral Yoga was nothing less than bringing
heaven on earth. He underwent severe tapasya in the cave
of Pondicherry and said "I have pierced the void, where
thought was born. I have walked in the bottomless pit."; and at
last he was able to bring the Light that he was seeking and
that was capable to bring a radical change in earthly life.
Heaven's fire is lit in the breast of the earth
And the undying suns here burn;
Through a wonder cleft in the bounds of birth
The incarnate spirits yearn
....
A little more and the new life's doors
Shall be carved in silver light
With its aureate roof and mosaic floors
In a great world bare and bright 21
If we follow the formulae of his Yoga of perfection or
Yoga of transformation strictly, sincerely with faith in and
21. Collected Poems : A God's Labour CWSA 2: 537-38
325
surrender to the Divine Mother, then the result or the goal
is achieved in three successive steps: First comes the Psychic
transformation in the individual nature. Second is the
Spiritual transformation and the third last is the
Supramental transformation.
1. Psychic Transformation
Our personality is primarily made of mind, life and body,
instruments through which the true person, the soul, which
is at present hidden in us behind the instruments, evolves.
This inner entity hidden behind the heart is called the
psychic being or soul according to Sri Aurobindo. It is in
direct touch with the divine Truth and has the direct
knowledge of right and wrong, true and false, good and
evil. This is our true self, and not the surface personality of
mind, life and body which we wrongly call ourselves.
"It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and
nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our
experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame.
This spiritual stuff is immaculate and luminous and, because
it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately, intimately, directly
aware of truth of being and truth of nature; it is deeply
conscious of truth and good and beauty because truth and
good and beauty are akin to its own native character, forms
of something that is inherent in its own substance. It is
aware also of all that contradicts these things, of all that
deviates from its own native character, of falsehood and
evil and the ugly and the unseem; but it does not become
these things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites
of itself which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation
of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent being
in us puts forth and uses mind, life and body as its
instruments, undergoes the envelopment of their conditions,
but it is other and greater than its members."22
22. Life Divine, CWSA 22: p.924-925
326
The natural traits of the psychic being are love, bhakti,
self-giving, truth and it always remains open to the divine
Shakti and surrendered to the Divine Mother like a true
child. As long as it is veiled, hidden, dormant, our life is a
play of ignorance of the mind, vital and body entangled in
the lower nature. The psychic being remains only a silent
witness without interfering in the working of the mind, the
vital and the physical although it upholds them, like a
constitutional head "who allows his ministers to rule for
him, delegates to them his emspire, secretly assents to their
decisions and only now and then puts in a word which
they can at any moment override and act otherwise." When
it comes to the front of our being, it begins to control the
movements of its ministers and from a mere silent witness
becomes the true monarch. The first thing to be done is to
bring the psychic being forward and let it take the reign of
life, the play of mental, vital and physical activities. This
can be done by constant aspiration and purification of the
heart. By coming forward of psychic being is meant that its
presence is felt in the daily working consciousness, its
influence fills, dominates, transforms the mental and vital
and physical movements. We become aware of our soul,
feel the psychic being to be our true being. The mind, vital
and physical begin to be only instruments of the inmost
and the true person within us.
When the psychic change or transformation takes place
in us, then the inner mind, inner vital and inner physical
open to psychic influence and in turn they guide and
influence their surface counterparts. This is how the psychic,
by coming forward, begins to govern the mind, life and
body turning them all towards the Divine. Consequently
the whole lower being opens to the spiritual truth. This
psychic realisation or the psychicisation "means the change
327
of the lower nature bringing right vision into the mind, right
impulse and feeling into the vital, right movement and habit
into the physical — all turned towards the Divine, all based
on love, adoration, bhakti — finally, the vision and sense of
the Mother everywhere in all as well as in the heart, her
Force working in the being, faith, consecration,
surrender."23
2. Spiritual Transformation
The psychic change is the result of an opening inwards
of the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical to the inmost
part of us that is the Psychic; but the spiritual change comes
by opening upwards to what is above the mind, to the
higher spiritual levels. Both openings are indispensable for
the fruits of sadhana of the Integral Yoga, for the real Self
is not on surface but deep within and high above. The highest spiritual Self is above the bodily existence in the subtle
body and has two aspects, one is static, a condition of wide
peace, freedom, silence and unaffected by any action or
experience, impartially supporting them but not seeming
to originate them, standing back detached, udasina. “The
other aspect is dynamic and that is experienced as a
cosmic Self or Spirit which not only supports but originates
and contains the whole cosmic action.... this world and all
other worlds, the supraphysical as well as the physical
ranges of the universe. Moreover, we feel the Self as one in
all; but also we feel it as above all, transcendent, surpassing all individual birth or cosmic existence. ...To get into
the transcendent self above all makes us capable of transcending altogether even cosmic consciousness and action
– it can be the way to that complete liberation from the
23. Integral Yoga(Compilation) Lotus Light Publications, 1993: p.209
328
world-existence which is called also extinction, laya, moksha,
nirvâna.” 24
“The spiritual change is the established descent of the
peace, light, knowledge, power, bliss from above, the
awareness of the Self and the Divine and of a higher cosmic consciousness and the change of the whole
consciousness to that,”25
When the peace is established, the higher Force descends first into the head, then into the heart, navel and
other vital centres and into the Muladhara and below and
liberates their inner centers as also works for their perfection. It acts upon the whole nature integrating and harmonizing its contradicting elements and establishes a new
rhythm in it. The more the psychic centre is open and active and the more love and bhakti and samarpana grow in
the heart, the more effective will be the force descending,
from above. “For the heart opens to the psychic being and
mind centres open to the higher consciousness and the
nexus between the psychic being and the higher consciousness is the principal means of the siddhi.”26
The peace, force, light, knowledge, purity, Ananda etc.
which descend in the being belong to any of the higher
planes from Higher Mind to Over Mind and transform the
instrumental Nature to be fit for the work of the Cosmic
Divine. But this spiritual transformation is not complete
and perfect, because all planes, below the Supermind are
subject to limitations in the working of the effective
Knowledge, Power and the Truth. It is only the Supermind
or the Supramental force and light which is the full Truth
Consciousness that can divinize the earth nature — mind,
life and body, and all becomes supramentalised in the
24. Ibid p.214
25. Ibid, p. 209
26. Ibid p.216
329
divine Gnostic Consciousness as a part of the dharma of
the nature, not as a personal Yoga-siddhi.
3. Supramental Transformation
First is the psychic transformation; we realise the Divine through the consciousness of our inmost being, the
Psychic entity. In Spiritual transformation we are merged
in the Divine in the Cosmic Consciousness. In the Supramental transformation we are supramentalised in the divine gnostic consciousness. It is only in the last change that
the complete transformation of the mind, life and body as
envisaged by Sri Aurobindo as the goal of Integral Yoga
will be possible. The other higher powers including the
highest of the Mind which Sri Aurobindo calls Overmind,
when brought down in the manifestation gradually lose
their potency and suffer a diminution of their dynamic capacity. Between the Supermind and the human mind there
are several planes of consciousness. As we go upwards
above the mind into Higher mind, Illumined mind, Intuitive mind and the Overmind which tops the ladder of the
lower hemisphere, there grows gradually more wideness,
more light, more power of the spirit. But this range upto
Overmind is still not completely free from the net of Ignorance.
Division and fragmentation begins from the Overmind
and gradually going downwards the unity of the Truth
disappear completely into inconscient Matter.
Supermind is the intermediate power between the
lower hemisphere of Mind, Life and Matter and the higher
hemisphere of Sat, Chit, and Ananda. It is the dynamic
creative power of Sachchidananda, full of Truth-consciousness of the Divine Nature in which there can be no place
for the principle of division and ignorance and is always a
330
full light and knowledge superior to all mental substance
or mental movement. If it descends into the lower world, it
can transform the lower nature into its own higher nature. But the conditions for its descent have to be fully fulfilled.
The descent of the Supermind can take place only if
the Psychic and the Spiritual transformations are complete
and consequently, on the one hand, the psychic entity, the
soul manifests itself as the central being, takes up its function as a guide and ruler of the nature; every nook and
corner of the nature, every movement, thought, sensation,
motive, action-reaction, desire, habit is lighted up by its
light, the whole consciousness is delivered from the darkness of ignorance and all kinds of impurities; and on the
other hand, if the being opens above to the cosmic
consciousness, to a vision of an Infinity, an eternal
presence or an infinite Existence, an infinity of
consciousness, an infinity of bliss — a boundless Self,
a boundless Light, a boundless Power, a boundless Ecstasy;
the mind rises into a higher plane of pure self, silent,
tranquil, illimitable and experiences the contact of a divine
Love or Beauty or the atmosphere of a wider and greater
and luminous Knowledge and if there is an urge to keep
these experiences for ever, yearning for a permanent ascension from the lower into the higher consciousness and
effectual permanent descent of the higher into the lower
nature.
“Only the supermind can thus descend without losing
its full power of action; for its action is always intrinsic
and automatic, its will and knowledge identical and the
result commensurate: its nature is a self-achieving Truthconsciousness and, if it limits itself or its working, it is by
choice and intention, not by compulsion; in the limits it
chooses its action and the results of its action are harmoni-
331
ous and inevitable. Again, overmind is, like mind, a dividing principle, and its characteristic operation is to work
out in an independent formation a selected harmony; its
global action enables it indeed to create a harmony whole
and perfect in itself or to unite or fuse its harmonies together, to synthesise; but, labouring under the restrictions
of mind, life and matter, it is obliged to do by sections and
their joinings. Its tendency of totality is hampered by its
selective tendency which is accentuated by the nature of
the mental and life material in which it is working here;
what it can achieve is separate limited spiritual creations
each perfect in itself, but not the integral knowledge and
its manifestation. For this reason and because of the diminishing of its native light and power it is unable to do
fully what is needed and has to call in a greater power, the
supramental force, to liberate and fulfil it. As the psychic
change has to call in the spiritual to complete it, so the first
spiritual change has to call in the supramental
transformation to complete it. For all these steps forward
are, like those before them, transitional; the whole radical
change in the evolution from a basis of Ignorance to a basis of Knowledge can only come by the intervention of the
supramental Power and its direct action in earth-existence.
“This then must be the nature of the third and final
transformation which finishes the passage of the soul
through the Ignorance and bases its consciousness, its life,
its power and form of manifestation on a complete and
completely effective self-knowledge. The Truth-consciousness, finding evolutionary Nature ready, has to descend
into her and enable her to liberate the supramental principle within her; so must be created the supramental and
spiritual being as the first unveiled manifestation of the
truth of the Self and Spirit in the material universe.”27
27. The Life Divine, CWSA 22: 951-52
332
Essential Prerequisites of the Integral Yoga
A call from within
Yoga is not everybody’s cup of tea. It is the most difficult path of all to follow and yet more precarious to go
through to the end. It is still thousand times more difficult
in the case of Integral Yoga, the latest of all, for it has integrated the essence of all the specialized systems of the past
and made it one integral whole, a most perfect system and
the goal set by it is also nothing short of highest perfection,
the perfection of the Divine within the limitations of the
human mould. This path of Integral Yoga can be likened
to an adventure in the unknown, for it is a journey of spiritual transformation from man to Divine, from mortal to
Immortal, from ignorance to supreme Knowledge, from
Matter to Spirit; joining the two extremes of the one eternal Truth.
“...the way is long, arduous, dangerous, difficult. At
every step is an ambush, at every turn a pitfall. A thousand seen or unseen enemies will start up against thee,
terrible in subtlety against thy ignorance, formidable in
power against thy weakness. And when with pain thou
hast destroyed them, other thousands will surge up to take
their place. Hell will vomit its hordes to oppose thee and
enring and wound and menace.... Each step forward is a
battle. There are precipitous descents; there are unending
ascensions and ever higher peaks upon peaks to conquer.
Each plateau climbed is but a stage on the way and reveals
endless heights beyond it. Each victory thou thinkest the
last triumphant struggle proves to be but the prelude to a
hundred fierce and perilous battles . . .” 28 This is the law of
the way.
28. The Hour of God, 2009: pp 5-6
333
But at the end of battle for the victor reward is fabulous, the unimaginable glory of God; the medal of life divine and immortality of Heaven waits at the end of the
tunnel.
This is the path for the strong and the chosen ones.
This is the path for those whose evolutionary nature is
ready for a new adventure. And yet there must be a call
for it, a need for it and the soul must answer. One must be
sure that it is not the lure of the ego or the fancy of the
mind or the temptation of the vital for miraculous power,
but the true call of the soul. It is then only that one can
sustain the zeal and will to overcome all the ordeals and
tests and pass through all the perils and dangers of the
path of the razor’s edge that Yoga is; if the call is not real
and sanction of the soul is not obtained, then the entire
struggle will end in a poor fiasco or even in a fatal disaster,
because “The outer instruments of mortal man have no
force to carry him through the severe ardours of this spiritual journey and Titanic inner battle or to meet its terrible
or obstinate ordeals or nerve him to face and overcome its
subtle and formidable dangers. Only his spirit’s august and
steadfast will and the quenchless fire of his soul’s invincible ardour are sufficient for this difficult transformation
and this high improbable endeavour.”29
Faith and Will
Faith is a precursor of truth or a hidden knowledge of
truth, a certain feeling without any proof, of the forthcoming result or happening or experience. “It is a glimpse of a
truth which the mind has not yet seized as knowledge.”30
It is on faith that the world moves. It is by faith that all
great actions are inspired, and it is the faith that leads all
29. Ibid p.5
30. Integral Yoga, (Compilation), Lotus Light Publications, 1993: p.110
334
great thinkers, discoverers, inventors and adventurers to
search for and proceed towards unknown truths and places
inspite of repeated failures and disappointments. It is a
great force behind all great deeds and even miracles. Faith
is a kind of assurance and an intuitive prescience or
preknowledge of something to come, it is a hope of certainty and a great source of encouragement and strength
for taking up any adventure.
It is for this reason that it is an essential prerequisite if
one has decided to take up Yoga and especially, the Integral Yoga. In the process of Yoga many occasions will come
when one finds darkness all around and all roads sieged.
And all hope of victory or even of survival gives in. But if
one does not lose faith and can hold onto it steadfastly, its
power will work miraculously and all opposition will
vanish.
For this Yoga, says Sri Aurobindo, “It is this faith that
you need to develop — a faith which is in accordance with
reason and common sense-that if the Divine exists and has
called you to the Path, (as is evident), then there must be a
Divine Guidance behind and through and in spite of all
difficulties you will arrive. Not to listen to the hostile voices
that suggest failure or to the voices of impatient, vital haste
that echo them, not to believe that because great difficulties are there, there can be no success or that because the
Divine has not yet shown himself he will never show himself, but to take the position that everyone takes when he
fixes his mind on a great and difficult goal, ‘I will go on till
I succeed— all difficulties notwithstanding.’ To which the
believer in the Divine adds, ‘The Divine exists, my following after the Divine cannot fail. I will go on through everything till I find him'."31
31. Ibid pp. 111-12
335
If this faith is not there, it is impossible to pursue this
Yoga. Without the strength of faith a single whiff will blow
you off your feet from the path; you will stumble with a
single jolt and even ordinary difficulties and failures will
chase you away from the battle.
It is therefore that a strong faith is not only required
in the beginning of Yoga, but also it has to be held fast till
the end of the battle, till the victory is won.
And if faith is supported by will, even the
impossible can be accomplished. Will is a strong positive
force which dictates the right action and removes the
obstacles in the way. Without a will nothing can be
achieved. True will is not the impulse, desire or ambition
of Prana, but the energy or power of the Consciousness,
controlling the lower nature. Its presence in the being is a
sure sign of upward progress towards the goal. As long as
the surrender is not complete and the sadhana has not been
taken up entirely by the Divine Shakti, will is necessary to
support the faith to go on until the end of the journey.
Samata or Samatwam Yoga Uchyate
“Fixed in Yoga do thy actions, having abandoned attachment, having become equal in failure and success, O
Dhananjaya, for it is equality that is meant by Yoga.”32
Indeed, Equality is Yoga that is union with our true
self, who is one “with all beings, one too with that which
expresses itself in them and in all that we see and experience. This equality and this oneness are the indispensable
twin foundation we must lay down for a divine being, a
divine consciousness, a divine action.. . . . . The supreme
power, the one Eternal and Infinite is equal to all things
and to all beings, and because it is equal, it can act with an
absolute wisdom according to the truth of its works and
32.Gita Edited ny P.P. Khetan, 1992 : p.48
336
its force and according to the truth of each thing and of
every creature.”33
To be equal and calm within under all circumstances
and not to be moved either by pleasure or pain, joy or grief,
honour or insult, or ups and downs and vicissitudes of life
is samata or equality which is a great support and the chief
source of strength to the sadhak of Integral Yoga. It helps
to make the mind and vital keep quiet and silent and enhances the sadhak’s power of endurance and forbearance.
It helps the sadhak always to act and speak out of a calm
inner poise of the soul and master the vital desires, pride,
anger and other unspiritual movements which come in the
way of Yoga.
Not only that, “it helps to have an equal view of men
and their nature and acts and their forces that move them;
it helps one to see the truth about them by pushing away
from the mind all personal feeling in one’s seeing and judgment and even all the mental bias,” which cause many
misunderstandings, misjudgments and even untoward
happenings. Without a firm foundation of samata, sadhana
cannot progress smoothly. Although it is one of the many
essential disciplines of Integral Yoga, according to Gita it is
by itself a Yoga — samatwam yoga uchyate.
Complete Samata takes a long time to be established
and it is not possible unless inner surrender to the Divine is
complete and consequently spiritual calm and peace from
above have descended. Till then one must exert one’s mental will and must persist and persevere to cultivate the quality of Samata in one’s nature as far as possible.
33. Ibid
337
Purification of Instruments
If our goal is a perfect perfection of our whole being,
we must purify all the instruments of the being — the mind,
heart, the soul of vital desire, the life in the body, which
are the seats of impurity, the capital impediment in the
ascension to the highest Truth which is our goal. Purity
can be of two types. One purity may be a negative whiteness, a freedom from sin gained by a constant inhibition
against wrong action or feeling or idea, a passive purity,
stilling of the vibrant mind and restless vital which leads
to a profound peace, because the spirit appears in all the
eternal purity of its immaculate essence. But this is negative purity. Another purity can be attained not by inhibition but by perfect action founded on perfect bliss of the
being, the purity of the soul’s instrumental as well as the
Spirit’s essential nature, purity of the mind, heart, life and
body which have to do the divine work in a divine way,
but presently not doing divinely since at present they are
the seats of impurity, and that is why their purification is
the first thing required if the divine perfection demanded
by Integral Yoga is to be fulfilled. The seeker of Integral
Yoga must have this discernment that it is not the negative, prohibitory, passive or quietistic purity that he seeks
but a positive, affirmative, active purity is the object of his
seeking. “A divine quietism discovers the immaculate eternity of the Spirit, a divine kinetism adds to it the right pure
undeviating action of the soul, mind and body.” 34
Our goal is a divine perfection of man here in the world
with mind, life and body which are the instruments of the
soul descended in the Nature. But we find that the mental,
vital and the physical nature of man is not adequate, and
pure enough to be fully spiritualized or divinized. The inadequacy and impurity of human nature arise from the
consequent struggle, want of knowledge, want of harmony
34. The Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA 24: 643-44
338
and want of oneness as a result of separative ego-sense
and fall in ignorance. Mind, heart, the soul of desire, the
life in the body are the seats of impurity.
Our physical nature is subjected to inertia, tamas, stupidity, narrowness and limitation, and inability to progress,
doubt, dullness, dryness, constant forgetfulness of the spiritual experiences. It is difficult to eliminate them by battles
with them, because they are the part of universal Nature
reflected in the individual. They can be eliminated by more
and more surrender to the Divine Shakti and aspiration
and prayer for her divine peace, light, power and presence. This is how the physical nature can be purified and
subsequently transformed into divine nature.
The vital is a very important part of the human personality for it is the seat of energy, power, zeal, dynamism
and without its support nothing worthwhile can be accomplished in life. But it is also the seat of desire, lust, ambition, anger, violence, greed, sex, etc. If it is allowed to go
its own way, it becomes our master and gradually leads us
to destruction. If it is tamed and controlled, it is a wonderful instrument. It is a good instrument but a bad master,
says Sri Aurobindo. The greatest deformation that the vital contributes to our being is desire, which “is the root of
all sorrow, disappointment, affliction, for though it has a
feverish joy of pursuit and satisfaction, yet because it is
always a straining of the being, it carries into its pursuit
and its getting a labour, hunger, struggle, a rapid subjection to fatigue, a sense of limitation, dissatisfaction and
early disappointment with all its gains, a ceaseless morbid
stimulation, trouble, disquiet, ashanti. To get rid of desire
is the one firm indispensable purification of the psychical
prana, — for so we can replace the soul of desire with its
pervading immiscence in all our instruments by a mental
soul of calm delight and its clear and limpid possession of
339
ourselves and world and Nature which is the crystal basis
of the mental life and its perfection.”35
Generally it is understood that desire is the mainspring
of life and its satisfaction is the only enjoyment and motivating force of human living. And without it life will be
dry and dead. But in reality, behind the desire there is a
force of will which is the true motive power of the life of
the soul; desire is its deformation caused by the intervention of physical life and physical mind. “The essential turn
of the soul to possession and enjoyment of the world consists in a will to delight, and the enjoyment of the satisfaction of craving is only a vital and physical degradation of
the will to delight. It is essential that we should distinguish
between pure will and desire, between the inner will to delight and the outer lust and craving of the mind and body.”36
If we can’t make a clear distinction between the will to
delight and its degradation, we shall either turn to lifekilling asceticism and escapism or indulge in gross living
of satisfaction of all kinds of desire. Some may try a life of
ethical restraints permissible to the society. But Integral
Yoga seeks none of them but a perfect perfection, which
can be effected only by ridding the prana of desire and
reversing the ordinary poise of our nature and turn the
vital being into an obedient instrument of the soul by will
and intelligence, the buddhi, by a wise and reasoned selection of vital movements — attractions and repulsions, of
what is the pleasant and what is the good — Preyas and
Shreyas, for, pleasant is often wrong and the good is always right. But buddhi in us itself is an imperfect instrument only half-enlightened and subject to impure action,
for it is not yet the highest truth but only an intermediary.
The more it is free and detached from the lower suggestions, the nearer it moves towards the discovery of a self35. Ibid : 656-57
36. The Synthesis of Yoga, CWSA: 24: p.658
340
existent pure light and delight, knowledge and intuition
which illumines all the workings of the sense and reason.
“This complete detachment, impossible without an entire
self-government, equality, calm, sama, samatâ, sânti is the
surest step towards the purification of the buddhi. A calm,
equal and detached mind can alone reflect the peace or
base the action of the liberated spirit.”37
The mind, even the thought -mind, the intelligence and
will in man is also subjected to its inferior instruments. It is
influenced by the senses, instincts, desires, emotions and
the commands of the life-cravings, because of attachments
with its lower ranges. The intelligence must purify itself of
its attachments and exceed its limits and control the lower
mind and raise all its actions into the planes of nobler will
and knowledge and set over them a law of right impulse,
right desire, right emotion and right action. Since the mind,
the reasoning and thought-mind, the intelligence, the
budhhi is the most developed instrument so far in man,
and it is because of this alone that he is considered to be
superior to animals or plants, if it is well purified and perfected, it can respond and open up to intuitions, inspirations and revelations of the higher Truth and be the main
force for effectuation and action of the Truth. In the highest stage of its development the intelligence aspires to seize
upon the universal truth and even beyond, but its natural
propensity is more towards knowledge than towards will
to act. “...for action it is dependent on the aid of the pragmatic mind and therefore man tends in action to fall away
from the purity of the Truth his highest knowledge holds
into a mixed, inferior, inconstant and impure effectuation.”
Therefore even his “highest Buddhi does not work in man
in its own purity; it is assailed by the defects of the lower
mentality, continually clouded by it, distorted, veiled, and
37. Ibid p.669
341
prevented or lamed in its own proper action.”38
However, it finally finds that the Truth has infinite aspects and to seize upon them is beyond the capacity of its
intellectual forms, for it is still in the shadow of Ignorance,
far away from the brilliance of shining knowledge of the
Spirit. Nature first enlarges the bounds of our surface
knowledge i. e., the Ignorance; later it attempts to abolish
the Ignorance and discover the soul and through this be
united with God and with all existence. The evolutionary
Nature aims to achieve initially in man a the radical
transformation of the whole nature of man into the Divine
nature. This spiritual change, the first approach of mind
to Spirit, begins when the purified mind is influenced by
the soul, the inmost being and climbs the first rung of the
ladder of Spiritual Mind — the Higher Mind and later
gradually adventuring to the Illumined and Intuitive minds
as if building a bridge to reach the last station on the peak,
the Gnosis — the Truth-mind. But it is a rare adventure.
What happens generally is: “Mind, even at its highest stages
far beyond our present mentality, acts yet in its nature by
division; it takes the aspects of the Eternal and treats each
aspect as if it were the whole truth of the Eternal Being
and can find in each its own perfect fulfilment. Even it
erects them into opposites and creates a whole range of
these opposites, the Silence of the Divine and the divine
Dynamis, the immobile Brahman aloof from existence,
without qualities, and the active Brahman with qualities
[Nirguna and Saguna], Lord of existence, Being and Becoming, the Divine Person and an impersonal pure Existence; it can then cut itself away from the one and plunge
itself into the other as the sole abiding Truth of existence. It
can regard the Person as the sole Reality or the Impersonal
38. Ibid, p.671
342
as alone true; it can regard the Lover as only a means of
expression of eternal Love or Love as only the self-expression of the Lover; it can see beings as only personal powers
of an impersonal Existence or impersonal existence as only
a state of the one Being, the Infinite Person. Its spiritual
achievement, its road of passage towards the supreme aim
will follow these dividing lines.”39
But the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo goes far beyond
this movement of spiritual Mind into still higher regions of
supreme unity in the experience of the Supermind, the pure
Truth-consciousness where these opposites disappear in
the rich totality of an integral realisation of the eternal
Being which can take up the task of transmutation of the
instruments for a divine life upon the earth.
39. The Life Divine, SABCL 18: 228-29
343
Conclusion
The Reality of Existence, its beginning and end, its
growth and evolution, its rise and fall, its ebb and flow, its
back and forth movements, its eternal recurrence and lastly
the purpose behind all that cannot be known unless we
go to its source, beyond its finite forms — “a beginningless
and endless eternity and infinity in which divisible Time
and Space manage to subsist. ... Nothing in the world can
be known by itself but only by that which is beyond it.
That being known all else is comprehended.”
1
But to know that Beyond, our present instrument of
knowledge, the leader of our life-journey on earth — our
mind — is inadequate. Its basic means of knowledge —
inference and conjecture — have utterly erred in finding
the truth of nature of things and consequently our life,
misguided by this hazed and myopic leader, if not blind,
has strayed far from the truth.
Our ancient forefathers, the seers and sages of yore were
the knowers of the Veda, the eternal knowledge, the
supreme Reality, the source of all forms and phenomena,
the root of the Ashwattha tree of cosmic existence which
is above in the Infinite. They had possessed the key to open
the gates of the infinite in the stillness of mind by identity,
by being one with the One - sâdrishya and sâdharmya and
sâlokya. They seized upon the secrets of creation, the vast
1. Essays Divine and Human, by Sri Aurobindo P.150
344
and endless spectacular phenomena of Nature by tapas,
concentration of consciousness in the inner chambers of
their souls and knew that “all existence is the existence of
the one Eternal and Infinite ekamevadvitiyam — the one
without a second and there can be nothing else at any time
or anywhere. Even existence in Time is that, even the finite
is that; for the finite is only a circumstance of the Infinite
and Time is only a phase of Eternity. What we call undivine
is that, for it is only a disguise of the omnipresent Divinity.”2
They knew too the purport of all this play with forms
of the Formless in the eternity of Time and in the infinity of
the finite. That supreme Knowledge is still intact in our
holy scriptures — Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas —
Shruti, the knowledge which was heard by our ancient seers
and Smriti which was passed by memory from one
generation to another upto the modern age. Whereas the
knowledge of Shruti — Vedas and Upanishads — is
intelligible only to the initiates, serious seekers of Truth,
the knowledge of Smriti or Puranas is meant for all common
people, simplified in symbolic stories intelligible to everyone,
which explain the same esoteric secrets of the worlds, the
birth of Matter out of Spirit, the impenetrable darkness of
Inconscience, the birth of Dawn and Light, birth of species
on earth of all forms followed by Deluge, Pralaya, repeating
the same drama several times through ever-swaying battles
between the forces of Light and Darkness, devas and
2. Ibid, pp.191-192
Conclusion
345
dânavas, a prodigal destruction and construction and a
labouring forward in ever-progressing zigzag routes
passing through which Nature has been advancing to her
secret consummation — Light, Truth and Immortality;
Tamaso mâ jyotirgamaya
Aâsato mâ Sadgamaya
Mrityormâ Amritâm gamaya.
The earlist aspiration of the human race is perhaps also
the last.
There must have existed, therefore many ancient
civilisations on earth of great antiquity, developed or
undeveloped, remnants of which either have entirely
perished or still buried, hidden from the gaze of speculating
material science, perhaps for a more advanced science to
explore in future.
According to the accounts of the Puranas “there is the
Kalpa of a thousand ages with its term of fourteen
manvantaras dividing a sub-cycle of a hundred Chaturyugas;
there is the dharma, the well-harmonised law of being,
perfect in the golden period of the Satya, impaired
progressively in bronze Treta and copper Dwapara,
collapsing in the iron Kali only to open the way by its
disintegration to the manifestation in the next Satya of the
old law, truth or natural principle of existence arranged in
a new harmony. There is throughout this zigzag, this
rhythm of rise and fall and rise again brought about by the
struggle of upward, downward and stationary forces. There
346
are the alternate triumphs of deva and daitya, helping god
and opposing or too violently forward-striving Titan; —
the dharmasyaglâni and abhyutthânam adharmasya, when
harmony is denied and discord established, and then the
Avatar and the dharmasya sansthapanam, eternal Light and
Force descending, restoring, effecting a new temporary
adjustment of the world’s ways to the truth of things and
of man.”3
These symbols suggest progression and regression
alternately of evolution of consciousness, completing one
term in a circle and again repeating another, but on a
higher scale, in a spiral movement ever rising up by
subsuming the sum and substance of the previous term
towards the final goal in the eternity of Time. That is why
we find many srishtis and many pralayas in the past and
behind each new creation there is an intervention of the
Divine in the form of Avatars without which the upward
journey of consciousness in Nature would have been
impossible. The Puranas suggest the animal forms
symbolizing the undeveloped consciousness before the
appearance of the developed conscious form of man.
According to Sri Aurobindo, the series of ten Avatars
depicted in Puranas is nothing but a parable of evolution
wherein we can “trace the growth of our evolution from
the fish through the animal, the man-animal and the
developed human being to the different stages of our present
3. Ibid, pp. 402-403
Conclusion
347
incomplete evolution. But the ancient Hindu, it is clear,
envisaged this progression as an enormous secular
movement covering more ages than we can easily count.
… It is this great secular movement in cycles, perpetually
self-repeating, yet perpetually progressing, which is imaged
and set forth in the symbols of the Puranas.”4
They had foreseen thousands of years ago the
degeneration or the backward movement of man’s
consciousness in the Kaliyuga, the last age of the present
chaturyuga, as the lower movements of Nature always tend
to pull down the higher movements, and also the necessity
of a new Avatar who would not only set right the
imbalance, but also create the conditions to begin a new
era of a golden Age in a new cycle of chaturyuga with the
emergence of a new race, a new humanity which will live
in perfect harmony with the highest Truth and supreme
Reality.
How strange but true are their predictions which were
recorded thousands of years ago in many of the Puranas,
mainly in Vishnu Purana, Bhagavat Purana, Padma Purana
and Kalki Purana? They all speak of a new age of purity
and a new race of divine truth after the termination of
Kaliyuga, which is exactly the aim of Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga
and towards the realisation of which he devoted his whole
life and is still busy in his subtle physical world to change
the consciousness and thereby the conditions of the earth
4. Ibid pp. 403-404
348
by the force of Supermind to bring down the divine life
here in the world.
It is in this context that Sri Aurobindo has been
portrayed as an Avatar and identified with Kalki of the
Purana, for he is the only one in our present times whose
all thoughts, all movements, all actions, all his approaches
towards life in the world and beyond and towards the
highest Reality - Sat, Chit, Anand, his vision of a new
human race and his new method of Yoga effectuating a
divine life on earth and, above all, his rare Himalayan
realisations, integrated with all poises and aspects of
Purushottama, the Supreme Master of the universe — the
Being and the Non-Being and that, Tat Sat, that transcends
both, coincide with the attributes of Kalki assigned by
Puranas which have already been discussed in the previous
chapters and it is in this background that this work has
been attempted. His main Avataric achievements — the
discovery and subsequent conquest of a new realm of Divine
power, the Supermind and a new system of the Integral
Yoga of Supramental transformation have been discussed
in detail in the last two chapters.
Indeed, the Gita declares that the birth and works of
an Avatara are Divine in nature. One may add, keeping in
mind the example of Sri Aurobindo, that even the 'passing
away' of the Avatara is a Divine act that has its own effect
and influence upon earth. Rama had secured an earth safe
from the Asura and opened the way for the animal nature
of man towards a greater sattwic mental ideal. Buddha
Conclusion
349
broke the redundant formulas of hard and rigid orthodoxy
paving the way for a living more consistent with dharma
than with mere rituals. Christ took away the burden of
evil from man and humanised its consciousness with the
fragrance of love and compassion. Sri Krishna ensured that
the arrogant and waning clans of boastful, egoistic
Kshatriya type were destroyed and a more refined race of
humanity secured the idea of a nation-soul. The work that
lay before Sri Aurobindo was of a greater magnitude. On
the one side, the powers of Imperialism, Fascism, a violent
form of communism, materialism threatened the future of
humanity. On the other, the urge towards human unity,
internationalism, and a spiritualisation of mankind was
pressing for admittance as a valid need of humanity.
Amidst the tumult and turmoil of the previous century, Sri
Aurobindo secured these for man through the pages of the
Arya; the New Idea was being sown in the human
consciousness. At the same time, his silent occult force was
acting against the powers of division, darkness and
hegemony of the Asura.
Yet, one last step remained. It was to secure the decisive
evolutionary leap for man. Sri Aurobindo sacrificed his
personal realisation to secure this boon for earth. Absorbing
in his being the dark resistances and strongholds of the
Inconscient, he plunged into the very abyss, called Death,
and emerged a victor. For soon after he left his body, the
Supramental Light descended into matter and stayed in
his body for 111 hours. Was it death or was it a conquest
350
over death? Man may never know unless he has the eye of
faith or is blessed like Arjuna with the Divine Vision.
Nevertheless, soon after this preparatory or a pre-emptive
victory, the Supramental consciousness descended as a
permanent part of the earth’s atmosphere on the 29th Feb.
1956. The Mother declared:
"A New world is born."
Since then the world is being shaped more and more
under the pressure of the Supramental Light and Truth. In
the nineteen sixties man witnessed an entry into the Space
Age, a sudden world-wide interest in the inner exploratory
journey called Yoga; and, the start of a psychological
revolution in human nature whose farther end is still
concealed to our sight.
As the Mother declared : “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
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.5
5. CWM : Vol. 13, p.22

The Avatar final with Gupta Ji on 22.01.2013.pmd

Transcription

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