{"id":1391,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1391"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:30","slug":"18-the-process-of-avatarhood-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\/18-the-process-of-avatarhood-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-18_The Process of Avatarhood.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n


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

\nThe Process of
\nAvatarhood<\/font><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nW<\/font><\/span><\/b>E SEE<\/font> that the
\nmystery of the divine Incarnation in man, the assumption by the Godhead of the
\nhuman type and the human nature, is in the view of the Gita only the other side
\nof the eternal mystery of human birth itself which is always in its essence,
\nthough not in its phenomenal appearance, even such a miraculous assumption. The
\neternal and universal self of every human being is God; even his personal self
\nis a part of the Godhead, mamaivāmśah<\/i>, \u2013 not a fraction or
\nfragment, surely, since we cannot think of God as broken up into little pieces,
\nbut a partial consciousness of the one Consciousness, a partial power of the one
\nPower, a partial enjoyment of world-being by the one and universal Delight of
\nbeing, and therefore in manifestation or, as we say, in Nature a limited and
\nfinite being of the one infinite and illimitable Being. The stamp of that
\nlimitation is an ignorance by which he forgets, not only the Godhead from which
\nhe came forth, but the Godhead which is always within him, there living in the
\nsecret heart of his own nature, there burning like a veiled Fire on the inner
\naltar in his own temple-house of human consciousness. <\/p>\n

\nHe is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the
\nseal of that Nature, Prakriti, Maya, by which he has been put forth into
\nmanifestation out of God’s eternal being; she has minted him like a coin out of
\nthe precious metal of the divine substance, but overlaid with a strong coating
\nof the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of
\nanimal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at
\nfirst indistinguishable and always with difficulty decipherable, not to be
\nreally discovered except by that initiation into the mystery of our own being
\nwhich distinguishes a Godward from an earthward humanity. In the Avatar, the
\ndivinely-born Man, the real
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 149<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 substance
\nshines through the coating; the mark of the seal is there only for form, the
\nvision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life is that of the
\nsecret Godhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed human nature; the
\nsign of the Godhead, an inner soul-sign, not outward, not physical, stands out
\nlegible for all to read who care to see or who can see; for the Asuric nature is
\nalways blind to these things, it sees the body and not the soul, the external
\nbeing and not the internal, the mask and not the Person. In the ordinary human
\nbirth the Nature-aspect of the universal Divine assuming humanity prevails; in
\nthe incarnation the God-aspect of the same phenomenon takes its place. In the
\none he allows the human nature to take possession of his partial being and to
\ndominate it; in the other he takes possession of his partial type of being and
\nits nature and divinely dominates it. Not by evolution or ascent like the
\nordinary man, the Gita seems to tell us, not by a growing into the divine birth,
\nbut by a direct descent into the stuff of humanity and a taking up of its
\nmoulds. <\/p>\n

\nBut it is to assist that ascent or evolution the descent is made or accepted;
\nthat the Gita makes very clear. It is, we might say, to exemplify the
\npossibility of the Divine manifest in the human being, so that man may see what
\nthat is and take courage to grow into it. It is also to leave the influence of
\nthat manifestation vibrating in the earth-nature and the soul of that
\nmanifestation presiding over its upward endeavour. It is to give a spiritual
\nmould of divine manhood into which the seeking soul of the human being can cast
\nitself. It is to give a dharma, a religion, \u2013 not a mere creed, but a method of
\ninner and outer living, \u2013 a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can
\ngrow towards divinity. It is too, since this growth, this ascent is no mere
\nisolated and individual phenomenon, but like all in the divine world-activities
\na collective business, a work and the work for the race, to assist the human
\nmarch, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the
\ndownward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the
\ngreat dharma of the Godward law in man’s nature, to prepare even, however far
\noff, the kingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection, sādhūunām<\/i>, and the
\n
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 150<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 overthrow
\nof those who fight for the continuance of the evil and the darkness. All these
\nare recognised objects of the descent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his
\nwork that the mass of men seek to distinguish him and for that that they are
\nready to worship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external
\nAvatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner
\nGodhead making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and
\ncorporeality so that they can grow into unity with that and be possessed by it.
\nThe divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in
\nexternal humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal
\nAvatar within in our own inner humanity. That which has been done in the outer
\nhuman life of earth, may be repeated in the inner life of all human beings. <\/p>\n

\nThis is the object of the incarnation, but what is the method? First, we have
\nthe rational or minimising view of Avatarhood which sees in it only an
\nextraordinary manifestation of the diviner qualities moral, intellectual and
\ndynamic by which average humanity is exceeded. In this idea there is a certain
\ntruth. The Avatar is at the same time the Vibhuti. This Krishna
\nwho in his divine inner being is the Godhead in a human form, is in his outer
\nhuman being the leader of his age, the great man of the Vrishnis. This is from
\nthe point of view of the Nature, not of the soul. The Divine manifests himself
\nthrough infinite qualities of his nature and the intensity of the manifestation
\nis measured by their power and their achievement. The vibhūti<\/i> of the Divine is therefore, impersonally, the manifest power
\nof his quality, it is his outflowing, in whatever form, of Knowledge, Energy,
\nLove, Strength and the rest; personally, it is the mental form and the animate
\nbeing in whom this power is achieved and does its great works. A pre-eminence in
\nthis inner and outer achievement, a greater power of divine quality, an
\neffective energy is always the sign. The human vibhūti<\/i> is the hero of the race’s struggle towards divine
\nachievement, the hero in the Carlylean sense of heroism, a power of God in man.
\n\u201cI am Vasudeva (Krishna) among the Vrishnis,\u201d says the
\nLord in the Gita, \u201cDhananjaya (Arjuna) among the Pandavas, Vyasa among the
\nsages, the seer-poet Ushanas among the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 151<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 seer-poets,\u201d
\nthe first in each category, the greatest of each group, the most powerfully
\nrepresentative of the qualities and works in which its characteristic soul-power
\nmanifests itself. This heightening of the powers of the being is a very
\nnecessary step in the progress of the divine manifestation. Every great man who
\nrises above our average level, raises by that very fact our common humanity; he
\nis a living assurance of our divine possibilities, a promise of the Godhead, a
\nglow of the divine Light and a breath of the divine Power. <\/p>\n

\nIt is this truth which lies behind the natural human tendency to the deification
\nof great minds and heroic characters; it comes out clearly enough in the Indian
\nhabit of mind which easily sees a partial (amśa<\/i>)
\nAvatar in great saints, teachers, founders, or most significantly in the belief
\nof southern Vaishnavas that some of their saints were incarnations of the
\nsymbolic living weapons of Vishnu, \u2013 for that is what all great spirits are,
\nliving powers and weapons of the Divine in the upward march and battle. This
\nidea is innate and inevitable in any mystic or spiritual view of life which does
\nnot draw an inexorable line between the being and nature of the Divine and our
\nhuman being and nature; it is the sense of the divine in humanity. But still the
\nVibhuti is not the Avatar; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas would be Avatars as
\nwell as Krishna, even if in a less degree of the power of
\nAvatarhood. The divine quality is not enough; there must be the inner
\nconsciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human nature by his divine
\npresence. The heightening of the power of the qualities is part of the becoming,
\nbhūtagrāma<\/i>, an ascent in the ordinary manifestation; in the Avatar there is
\nthe special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and
\nuniversal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, ātmānam<\/i> srjāmi<\/i>, and
\nconscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature. <\/p>\n

\nThere is an intermediary idea, a more mystical view of Avatarhood which supposes
\nthat a human soul calls down this descent into himself and is either possessed
\nby the divine consciousness or becomes an effective reflection or channel of it.
\nThis view rests upon certain truths of spiritual experience. The divine birth in
\nman, his ascent, is itself a growing of the
\n <\/p>\n

\nPage 152<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 human
\ninto the divine consciousness, and in its intensest culmination is a losing of
\nthe separate self in that. The soul merges its individuality in an infinite and
\nuniversal being or loses it in the heights of a transcendent being; it becomes
\none with the Self, the Brahman, the Divine or, as it is sometimes more
\nabsolutely put, becomes the one Self, the Brahman, the Divine. The Gita itself
\nspeaks of the soul becoming the Brahman,
\nbrahmabhūta<\/i>, and of its thereby dwelling in the Lord, in Krishna, but it
\ndoes not, it must be marked, speak of it as becoming the Lord or the
\nPurushottama, though it does declare that the Jiva himself is always Ishwara,
\nthe partial being of the Lord,
\nmamaivāmśah<\/i>. For this greatest union,
\nthis highest becoming is still part of the ascent; while it is the divine birth
\nto which every Jiva arrives, it is not the descent of the Godhead, not
\nAvatarhood, but at most Buddhahood according to the doctrine of the Buddhists,
\nit is the soul awakened from its present mundane individuality into an infinite
\nsuperconsciousness. That need not carry with it either the inner consciousness
\nor the characteristic action of the Avatar. <\/p>\n

\nOn the other hand, this entering into the divine consciousness may be attended
\nby a reflex action of the Divine entering or coming forward into the human parts
\nof our being, pouring himself into the nature, the activity, the mentality, the
\ncorporeality even of the man; and that may well be at least a partial
\nAvatarhood. The Lord stands in the heart, says the Gita, \u2013 by which it means of
\ncourse the heart of the subtle being, the nodus of the emotions, sensations,
\nmental consciousness, where the individual Purusha also is seated, \u2013 but he
\nstands there veiled, enveloped by his Maya. But above, on a plane within us but
\nnow superconscient to us, called heaven by the ancient mystics, the Lord and the
\nJiva stand together revealed as of one essence of being, the Father and the Son
\nof certain symbolisms, the Divine Being and the divine Man who comes forth from
\nHim born of the higher divine Nature,\u00b9 <\/span>
\nthe virgin Mother, parā prakrti,
\n <\/span>parā māyā<\/i>, into the lower or<\/i><\/p>\n


\n <\/span><\/p>\n


\n\u00b9<\/span>In the Buddhist legend the
\nname of the mother of Buddha makes the symbolism clear; in the Christian the
\nsymbol seems to have been attached by a familiar mythopoeic process to the
\nactual human mother of Jesus of Nazareth.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 153<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 human
\nnature. This seems to be the inner doctrine of the Christian incarnation; in its
\nTrinity the Father is above in this inner Heaven; the Son or supreme Prakriti
\nbecome Jiva of the Gita descends as the divine Man upon earth, in the mortal
\nbody; the Holy Spirit, pure Self, Brahmic consciousness is that which makes them
\none and that also in which they communicate; for we hear of the Holy Spirit
\ndescending upon Jesus and it is the same descent which brings down the powers of
\nthe higher consciousness into the simple humanity of the Apostles. <\/p>\n

\nBut also the higher divine consciousness of the Purushottama may itself descend
\ninto the humanity and that of the Jiva disappear into it. This is said by his
\ncontemporaries to have happened in the occasional transfigurations of Chaitanya
\nwhen he who in his normal consciousness was only the lover and devotee of the
\nLord and rejected all deification, became in these abnormal moments the Lord
\nhimself and so spoke and acted, with all the outflooding light and love and
\npower of the divine Presence. Supposing this to be the normal condition, the
\nhuman receptacle to be constantly no more than a vessel of this divine Presence
\nand divine Consciousness, we should have the Avatar according to this
\nintermediary idea of the incarnation. That easily recommends itself as possible
\nto our human notions; for if the human being can elevate his nature so as to
\nfeel a unity with the being of the Divine and himself a mere channel of its
\nconsciousness, light, power, love, his own will and personality lost in that
\nwill and that being, \u2013 and this is a recognised spiritual status, \u2013 then there
\nis no inherent impossibility of the reflex action of that Will, Being, Power,
\nLove, Light, Consciousness occupying the whole personality of the human Jiva.
\nAnd this would not be merely an ascent of our humanity into the divine birth and
\nthe divine nature, but a descent of the divine Purusha into humanity, an Avatar. <\/p>\n

\nThe Gita, however, goes much farther. It speaks clearly of the Lord himself
\nbeing born; Krishna speaks of his many births that are past and makes it clear
\nby his language that it is not merely the receptive human being but the Divine
\nof whom he makes this affirmation, because he uses the very language of the <\/p>\n

\nPage 154<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 Creator,
\nthe same language which he will employ when he has to describe his creation of
\nthe world. \u201cAlthough I am the unborn Lord of creatures, I create (loose forth)
\nmy self by my Maya,\u201d presiding over the actions of my Prakriti. Here there is no
\nquestion of the Lord and the human Jiva or of the Father and the Son, the divine
\nMan, but only of the Lord and his Prakriti. The Divine descends by his own
\nPrakriti into birth in its human form and type and brings into it the divine
\nConsciousness and the divine Power, though consenting, though willing to act in
\nthe form, type, mould of humanity, and he governs its actions in the body as the
\nindwelling and over-dwelling Soul,
\nadhisthāya<\/i>. From above he governs always, indeed, for so he governs all
\nnature, the human included; from within also he governs all nature, always, but
\nhidden; the difference here is that he is manifest, that the nature is conscious
\nof the divine Presence as the Lord, the Inhabitant, and it is not by his secret
\nwill from above, \u201cthe will of the Father which is in heaven,\u201d but by his quite
\ndirect and apparent will that he moves the nature. And here there seems to be no
\nroom for the human intermediary; for it is by resort to his own nature, prakrtim svām<\/i>, and not the special
\nnature of the Jiva that the Lord of all existence thus takes upon himself the
\nhuman birth. <\/p>\n

\nThis doctrine is a hard saying, a difficult thing for the human reason to
\naccept; and for an obvious reason, because of the evident humanity of the
\nAvatar. The Avatar is always a dual phenomenon of divinity and humanity; the
\nDivine takes upon himself the human nature with all its outward limitations and
\nmakes them the circumstances, means, instruments of the divine consciousness and
\nthe divine power, a vessel of the divine birth and the divine works. But so
\nsurely it must be, since otherwise the object of the Avatar’s descent is not
\nfulfilled; for that object is precisely to show that the human birth with all
\nits limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the divine birth and
\ndivine works, precisely to show that the human type of consciousness can be
\ncompatible with the divine essence of consciousness made manifest, can be
\nconverted into its vessel, drawn into nearer conformity with it by a change of
\nits mould and a heightening of its powers of light and love and strength and
\npurity; and to show <\/p>\n

\nPage 155<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 also
\nhow it can be done. If the Avatar were to act in an entirely supernormal
\nfashion, this object would not be fulfilled. A merely supernormal or miraculous
\nAvatar would be a meaningless absurdity; not that there need be an entire
\nabsence of the use of supernormal powers such as Christ’s so-called miracles of
\nhealing, for the use of supernormal powers is quite a possibility of human
\nnature; but there need not be that at all, nor in any case is it the root of the
\nmatter, nor would it at all do if the life were nothing else but a display of
\nsupernormal fireworks. The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but
\nas the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a divine humanity. Even
\nhuman sorrow and physical suffering he must assume and use so as to show, first,
\nhow that suffering may be a means of redemption, \u2013 as did Christ, \u2013 secondly, to
\nshow how, having been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can
\nalso be overcome in the same nature, \u2013 as did Buddha. The rationalist who would
\nhave cried to Christ, \u201cIf thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross,\u201d or
\npoints out sagely that the Avatar was not divine because he died and died too by
\ndisease, \u2013 as a dog dieth, \u2013 knows not what he is saying: for he has missed the
\nroot of the whole matter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come
\nbefore there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be
\nassumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and the extent of
\nthe overcoming, whether internal only or external also, depends upon the stage
\nof the human advance; it must not be done by a non-human miracle. <\/p>\n

\nThe question then arises, and it is the sole real difficulty, for here the
\nintellect falters and stumbles over its own limits, how is this human mind and
\nbody assumed? For they were not created suddenly and all of a piece, but by some
\nkind of evolution, physical or spiritual or both. No doubt, the descent of the
\nAvatar, like the divine birth from the other side, is essentially a spiritual
\nphenomenon, as is shown by the Gita’s
\nātmānam<\/i>
\nsrjāmi<\/i>, it is a soul-birth; but still
\nthere is here an attendant physical birth. How then were this human mind and
\nbody of the Avatar created? If we suppose that the body is always created by the
\nhereditary evolution, by inconscient Nature and its immanent Life-spirit without
\nthe intervention of the individual soul, the matter becomes <\/p>\n

\nPage 156<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 simple.
\nA physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure
\nor great heredity and the descending Godhead takes possession of it. But the
\nGita in this very passage applies the doctrine of reincarnation, boldly enough,
\nto the Avatar himself, and in the usual theory of reincarnation the
\nreincarnating soul by its past spiritual and psychological evolution itself
\ndetermines and in a way prepares its own mental and physical body. The soul
\nprepares its own body, the body is not prepared for it without any reference to
\nthe soul. Are we then to suppose an eternal or continual Avatar himself
\nevolving, we might say, his own fit mental and physical body according to the
\nneeds and pace of the human evolution and so appearing from age to age, yuge
\nyuge<\/i>? In some such spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of
\nVishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf
\nman-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured
\nman, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in
\ntime, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna, \u2013 for the last
\nAvatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began, \u2013 he fulfils in power
\nthe great struggle which the previous Avatars prepared in all its
\npotentialities. It is a difficult assumption to our modern mentality, but the
\nlanguage of the Gita seems to demand it. Or, since the Gita does not expressly
\nsolve the problem, we may solve it in some other way of our own, as that the
\nbody is prepared by the Jiva but assumed from birth by the Godhead or that it is
\nprepared by one of the four Manus, catvāro
\nmanavah<\/i>, of the Gita, the spiritual Fathers of every human mind and body.
\nThis is going far into the mystic field from which the modern reason is still
\naverse; but once we admit Avatarhood, we have already entered into it and, once
\nentered, may as well tread in it with firm footsteps. <\/p>\n

\nThere the Gita’s doctrine of Avatarhood stands. We have had to advert to it at
\nlength in this aspect of its method, as we did to the question of its
\npossibility, because it is necessary to look at it and face the difficulties
\nwhich the reasoning mind of man is likely to offer to it. It is true that the
\nphysical Avatarhood does not fill a large space in the Gita, but still it does
\noccupy a definite place in the chain of its teachings and is implied in the
\nwhole <\/p>\n

\nPage 157<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

 scheme,
\nthe very framework being the Avatar leading the
\nvibhūti<\/i>, the man who has risen to the greatest heights of mere manhood, to
\nthe divine birth and divine works. No doubt, too, the inner descent of the
\nGodhead to raise the human soul into himself is the main thing, \u2013 it is the
\ninner Christ, Krishna
\nor Buddha that matters. But just as the outer life is of immense importance for
\nthe inner development, so the external Avatarhood is of no mean importance for
\nthis great spiritual manifestation. The consummation in the mental and physical
\nsymbol assists the growth of the inner reality; afterwards the inner reality
\nexpresses itself with greater power in a more perfect symbolisation of itself
\nthrough the outer life. Between these two, spiritual reality and mental and
\nphysical expression, acting and returning upon each other constantly the
\nmanifestation of the Divine in humanity has elected to move always in the cycles
\nof its concealment and its revelation. <\/p>\n

\nPage 158<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SIXTEEN The Process of Avatarhood   WE SEE that the mystery of the divine Incarnation in man, the assumption by the Godhead of the human…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","wpcat-31-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}