{"id":1384,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1384"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:27","slug":"19-the-divine-birth-and-divine-works-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13\/19-the-divine-birth-and-divine-works-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-19_The Divine Birth and Divine Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

\nSEVENTEEN<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/font>The Divine Birth and Divine Works<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

T<\/font>HE
\nWORK<\/font> for
\nwhich the Avatar descends has like his birth a double sense and a double form.
\nIt has an outward side of the divine force acting upon the external world in
\norder to maintain there and to reshape the divine law by which the Godward effort
\nof humanity is kept from decisive retrogression and instead decisively carried
\nforward in spite of the rule of action and reaction, the rhythm of advance and
\nrelapse by which Nature proceeds. It has an inward side of the divine force of
\nthe Godward consciousness acting upon the soul of the individual and the soul
\nof the race, so that it may receive new forms of revelation of the Divine in
\nman and may be sustained, renewed and enriched in its power of upward
\nself-unfolding. The Avatar does not descend merely for a great outward action,
\nas the pragmatic sense in humanity is too often tempted to suppose. Action and
\nevent have no value in themselves, but only take their value from the force
\nwhich they represent and the idea which they symbolise and which the force is
\nthere to serve. <\/p>\n

The crisis in
\nwhich the Avatar appears, though apparent to the outward eye only as a crisis
\nof events and great material changes, is always in its source and real meaning
\na crisis in the consciousness of humanity when it has to undergo some grand
\nmodification and effect some new development. For this action of change a
\ndivine force is needed; but the force varies always according to the power of
\nconsciousness which it embodies; hence the necessity of a divine consciousness manifesting
\nin the mind and soul of humanity. Where, indeed, the change is mainly
\nintellectual and practical, the intervention of the Avatar is not needed; there
\nis a great uplifting of consciousness, a great manifestation of power in which
\nmen are for the time being exalted above their normal selves, and this surge of
\nconsciousness and power finds its wave-crests in certain exceptional
\nindividuals, <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 159<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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Vibhutis, whose action leading
\nthe general action is sufficient for the change intended. The Reformation in Europe
\nand the French Revolution were crises of this character; they were not great
\nspiritual events, but intellectual and practical changes, one in religious, the
\nother in social and political ideas, forms and motives, and the modification of
\nthe general consciousness brought about was a mental and dynamic, but not a
\nspiritual modification. But when the crisis has a spiritual seed or intention,
\nthen a complete or a partial manifestation of the God-consciousness in a human
\nmind and soul comes as its originator or leader. That is the Avatar. <\/p>\n

The outward
\naction of the Avatar is described in the Gita as the restoration of the Dharma;
\nwhen from age to age the Dharma fades, languishes, loses force and its opposite
\narises, strong and oppressive, then the Avatar comes and raises it again to
\npower; and as these things in idea are always represented by things in action
\nand by human beings who obey their impulsion, his mission is, in its most human
\nand outward terms, to relieve the seekers of the Dharma who are oppressed by the
\nreign of the reactionary darkness and to destroy the wrong-doers who seek to
\nmaintain the denial of the Dharma. But the language used can easily be given a
\npoor and insufficient connotation which would deprive Avatarhood of all its
\nspiritual depth of meaning. Dharma is a word which has an ethical and
\npractical, a natural and philosophical and a religious and spiritual
\nsignificance, and it may be used in any of these senses exclusive of the
\nothers, in a purely ethical, a purely philosophical or a purely religious
\nsense. Ethically it means the law of righteousness, the moral rule of conduct,
\nor in a still more outward and practical significance social and political
\njustice, or even simply the observation of the social law. If used in this
\nsense we shall have to understand that when unrighteousness, injustice and
\noppression prevail, the Avatar descends o deliver the good and destroy the
\nwicked, to break down injustice and oppression and restore the ethical balance
\nof mankind. <\/p>\n

Thus the popular
\nand mythical account of the Krishna avatar is that the unrighteousness of the
\nKurus as incarnated in Duryodhana and his brothers became so great a burden to
\nthe<\/p>\n

\nPage 160<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 earth that she had to call upon
\nGod to descend and lighten her load; accordingly Vishnu incarnated as Krishna,
\ndelivered the oppressed Pandavas and destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar
\naccount is given of the descent of the previous Vishnu avatars, of Rama to
\ndestroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Parashurama to destroy the
\nunrighteous license of the military and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the
\ndwarf Vamana to destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely
\npractical, ethical or social and political mission of the Avatar which is thus
\nthrown into popular and mythical form, does not give a right account of the
\nphenomenon of Avatarhood. It does not cover its spiritual sense, and if this
\noutward utility were all, we should have to exclude Buddha and\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Christ whose mission was not at all to
\ndestroy evil-doers and deliver the good, but to bring to all men a new
\nspiritual message and a new law of divine growth and spiritual realisation. On
\nthe other hand, if we give to the word dharma only its religious sense, in
\nwhich it means a law of religious and spiritual life, we shall indeed get to
\nthe kernel of the matter, but we shall be in danger of excluding a most
\nimportant part of the work done by the Avatar. Always we see in the history of
\nthe divine incarnations the double work, and inevitably, because the Avatar
\ntakes up the workings of God in human life, the way of the divine Will and
\nWisdom in the world, and that always fulfils itself externally as well as
\ninternally, by inner progress in the soul and by an outer change in the life.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The Avatar may
\ndescend as a great spiritual teacher and saviour, the Christ, the Buddha, but
\nalways his work leads, after he has finished his earthly manifestation, to a
\nprofound and powerful change not only in the ethical, but in the social and
\noutward life and ideals of the race. He may, on the other hand, descend as an
\nincarnation of the divine life, the divine personality and power in its
\ncharacteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political,
\nas is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent
\nbecomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the
\nspiritual rebirth. It is indeed curious to note that the permanent, vital,
\nuniversal effect of Buddhism and Christianity has been the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 161<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 force of their ethical, social
\nand practical ideals and their influence even on the men and the ages which
\nhave rejected their religious and spiritual beliefs, forms and\u00a0 <\/span>disciplines; later Hinduism which rejected
\nBuddha, his sangha<\/i> and his dharma<\/i>, bears the ineffaceable imprint
\nof the social and ethical influence of Buddhism and its effect on the ideas and
\nthe life of the race, while in modern Europe, Christian only in name,
\nhumanitarianism is the translation into the ethical and social sphere and the
\naspiration to liberty, equality and fraternity the translation into the social
\nand political sphere of the spiritual truths of Christianity, the latter
\nespecially being effected by men who aggressively rejected the Christian
\nreligion and spiritual discipline and by an age which in its intellectual
\neffort of emancipation tried to get rid of Christianity as a creed. On the
\nother hand the life of Rama and Krishna belongs to the prehistoric past which
\nhas come down only in poetry and legend and may even be regarded as myths; but
\nit is quite immaterial whether we regard them as myths or historical facts,
\nbecause their permanent truth and value lie in their persistence as a spiritual
\nform, presence, influence in the inner consciousness of the race and the life
\nof the human soul. Avatarhood is a fact of divine life and consciousness which
\nmay realise itself in an outward action, but must persist, when that action is
\nover and has done its work, in a spiritual influence; or may realise itself in
\na spiritual influence and teaching, but must then have its permanent effect,
\neven when the new religion or discipline is exhausted, in the thought,
\ntemperament and outward life of mankind. <\/p>\n

We must then, in
\norder to understand the Gita’s description of the work of the Avatar, take the
\nidea of the Dharma in its fullest, deepest and largest conception, as the inner
\nand the outer law by which the divine Will and Wisdom work out the spiritual
\nevolution of mankind and its circumstances and results in the life of the race.
\nDharma in the Indian conception is not merely the good, the right, morality and
\njustice, ethics; it is the whole government of all the relations of man with
\nother beings, with Nature, with God, considered from the point of view of a divine
\nprinciple working itself out in forms and laws of action, forms of the inner
\nand the outer life, orderings of relations of every <\/p>\n

\nPage 162<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 kind in the world. Dharma\u00b9 <\/span>is both that which we hold to and
\nthat which holds together our inner and outer activities. In its primary sense
\nit means a fundamental law of our nature which secretly conditions all our
\nactivities, and in this sense each being, type, species, individual, group has
\nits own dharma. Secondly, there is the divine nature which has to develop and
\nmanifest in us, and in this sense dharma is the law of the inner workings by
\nwhich that grows in our being. Thirdly, there is the law by which we govern our
\noutgoing thought and action and our relations with each other so as to help
\nbest both our own growth and that of the human race towards the divine ideal. <\/p>\n

Dharma is
\ngenerally spoken of as something eternal and unchanging, and so it is in the
\nfundamental principle, in the ideal, but in its forms it is continually
\nchanging and evolving, because man does not already possess the ideal or live
\nin it, but aspires more or less perfectly towards it, is growing towards its
\nknowledge and practice. And in this growth Dharma is all that helps us to grow
\ninto the divine purity, largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love,
\ngood, unity, beauty, and\u00a0 <\/span>against it
\nstands its shadow and denial, all that resists its growth and has not undergone
\nits law, all that has not yielded up and does not will to yield up its secret
\nof divine values, but presents a front of perversion and contradiction, of
\nimpurity, narrowness, bondage, darkness, weakness, vileness, discord and
\nsuffering and division, and the hideous and the crude, all that man has to
\nleave behind in his progress. This is the adharma<\/i>,
\nnot-Dharma, which strives with and seeks to overcome the Dharma, to draw
\nbackward and downward, the reactionary force which makes for evil, ignorance
\nand darkness. Between the two there is perpetual battle and struggle,
\noscillation of victory and defeat in which sometimes the upward and sometimes
\nthe downward forces prevail. This has been typified in the Vedic image of the
\nstruggle between the divine and the Titanic powers, the sons of the Light and
\nthe undivided Infinity and the children of the Darkness and Division, in Zoroastrianism
\nby Ahuramazda and Ahriman, and in later religions in the contest between God
\nand his angels and Satan or Iblis and his demons for the possession of human
\nlife and the human soul.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>The word means \u201cholding\u201d
\nfrom the root dhr<\/i>, to hold.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 163<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>It
\nis these things that condition and determine the work of the Avatar. In the
\nBuddhistic formula the disciple takes refuge from all that opposes his
\nliberation in three powers, the dharma<\/i>,
\nthe sangha<\/i>, the Buddha. So in
\nChristianity we have the law of Christian living, the Church and the Christ.
\nThese three are always the necessary elements of the work of the Avatar. He
\ngives a dharma, a law of self-discipline by which to grow out of the lower into
\nthe higher life and which necessarily includes a rule of action and of
\nrelations with our fellowmen and other beings, endeavour in the eightfold path
\nor the law of faith, love and purity or any other such revelation of the nature
\nof the divine in life. Then because every tendency in man has its collective as
\nwell as its individual aspect, because those who follow one way are naturally
\ndrawn together into spiritual companionship and unity, he establishes the sangha<\/i>, the fellowship and union of
\nthose whom his personality and his teaching unite. In Vaishnavism there is the
\nsame trio, bhāgavata<\/i>, bhakta<\/i>, bhagavān<\/i>, \u2013 the bhāgavata<\/i>,
\nwhich is the law of the Vaishnava dispensation of adoration and love, the bhakta<\/i> representing the fellowship of
\nthose in whom that law is manifest, bhagavāan<\/i>,
\nthe divine Lover and Beloved in whose being and nature the divine law of love
\nis founded and fulfils itself. The Avatar represents this third element, the
\ndivine personality, nature and being who is the soul of the Dharma and the sangha<\/i>, informs them with himself, keeps
\nthem living and draws men towards the felicity and the liberation. <\/p>\n

In the teaching
\nof the Gita, which is more catholic and complex than other specialised
\nteachings and disciplines, these things assume a larger meaning. For the unity
\nhere is the all-embracing Vedantic unity by which the soul sees all in itself
\nand itself in all and makes itself one with all beings. The Dharma is therefore
\nthe taking up of all human relations into a higher divine meaning; starting
\nfrom the established ethical, social and religious rule which binds together
\nthe whole community in which the God-seeker lives, it lifts it up by informing
\nit with the Brahmic consciousness; the law it gives is the law of oneness, of
\nequality, of liberated, desireless, God-governed action, of God-knowledge and
\nself-knowledge enlightening and drawing to itself all the<\/p>\n

\nPage 164<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 nature and all the action,
\ndrawing it towards divine being and divine consciousness, and of God-love as
\nthe supreme power and crown of the knowledge and the action. The idea of
\ncompanionship and mutual aid in God-love and God-seeking which is at the basis
\nof the idea of the sangha<\/i> or divine
\nfellowship, is brought in when the Gita speaks of the seeking of God through
\nlove and adoration, but the real sangha<\/i>
\nof this teaching is all humanity. The whole world is moving towards this
\ndharma, each man according to his capacity, \u2013 \u201cit is my path that men follow in
\nevery way,\u201d \u2013 and the God-seeker, making himself one with all, making their joy
\nand sorrow and all their life his own, the liberated made already one self with
\nall beings, lives in the life of humanity, lives for the one Self in humanity,
\nfor God in all beings, acts for lokasamgraha<\/i>,
\nfor the maintaining of all in their Dharma and the Dharma, for the maintenance
\nof their growth in all its stages and in all its paths towards the Divine. For
\nthe Avatar here, though he is manifest in the name and form of Krishna,
\nlays no exclusive stress on this one form of his human birth, but on that which
\nit represents, the Divine, the Purushottama, of whom all Avatars are the human
\nbirths, of whom all forms and names of the Godhead worshipped by men are the
\nfigures. The way declared by Krishna here is indeed
\nannounced as the way by which man can reach the real knowledge and the real
\nliberation, but it is one that is inclusive of all paths and not exclusive. For
\nthe Divine takes up into his universality all Avatars and all teachings and all
\ndharmas. <\/p>\n

The Gita lays
\nstress upon the struggle of which the world is the theatre, in its two aspects,
\nthe inner struggle and the outer battle. In the inner struggle the enemies are
\nwithin, in the individual, and the slaying of desire, ignorance, egoism is the
\nvictory. But there is an outer struggle between the powers of the Dharma and
\nthe Adharma in the human collectivity. The former is supported by the divine,
\nthe godlike nature in man, and by those who represent it or strive to realise
\nit in human life, the latter by the Titanic or demoniac, the Asuric and
\nRakshasic nature whose head is a violent egoism, and by those who represent and
\nstrive to satisfy it. This is the war of the Gods and Titans, the symbol of
\nwhich the old Indian literature is full, the struggle of <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 165<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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 the Mahabharata of which Krishna
\nis the central figure being often represented in that image; the Pandavas who
\nfight for the establishment of the kingdom of the Dharma, are\u00a0<\/span>the sons of the Gods, their powers in human
\nform, their adversaries are incarnations of the Titanic powers, they are
\nAsuras. This outer struggle too the Avatar comes to aid, directly or
\nindirectly, to destroy the reign of the Asuras, the evil-doers, and in them
\ndepress the power they represent and to restore the oppressed ideals of the
\nDharma. He comes to bring nearer the kingdom of heaven on earth in the
\ncollectivity as well as to build the kingdom of heaven within in the individual
\nhuman soul. <\/p>\n

The inner fruit of the Avatar’s
\ncoming is gained by those who learn from it the true nature of the divine birth
\nand the divine works and who, growing full of him in their consciousness and
\ntaking refuge in him with their whole being, manmayā mām upāśritāh, <\/i>purified by
\nthe realising force of their knowledge and delivered from the lower nature,
\nattain to the divine being and divine nature, madbhāvam<\/i>. The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man
\nabove this lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free,
\nunegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light, the
\ndivine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which
\nshall fill the consciousness of the human being and replace the limited egoistic
\npersonality, so that it shall be liberated out of ego into infinity and
\nuniversality, out of birth into immortality. He comes as the divine power and
\nlove which calls men to itself, so that they may take refuge in that and no
\nlonger in the insufficiency of their human wills and the strife of their human
\nfear, wrath and passion, and liberated from all this unquiet and suffering may
\nlive in the calm and bliss of the Divine.\u00b9
\n<\/span>Nor does it matter essentially in what form and name or putting forward
\nwhat aspect of the Divine he comes; for in all ways, varying with their nature,
\nmen are following the path set to them by the Divine which will in the end lead
\nthem to him and the aspect of him which suits<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>janma
\nkarma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah,\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0
\n<\/span>tyaktvā deham punarjanma naiti mām eti so’rjuna. <\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0
\n<\/span>vītarāgabhayakrodhā manmayā mām
\nupāśritāh,\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0
\n<\/span>bahavo j\u00f1ānatapasā pūtā madbhāvam
\nāgatāh.<\/i> <\/i> <\/p>\n

\nPage 166<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

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  their nature is that which they
\ncan best follow when he comes to lead them; in whatever way men accept, love
\nand take joy in God, in that way God accepts, loves and takes joy in man. Ye yathā mām prapadyante tāms
\ntathaiva bhajāmyaham.<\/i> <\/p>\n

 Page 167<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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