{"id":1413,"date":"2013-07-13T01:34:38","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1413"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:34:38","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:34:38","slug":"17-the-possibility-and-purpose-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\/17-the-possibility-and-purpose-of-avatarhood-vol-13-essays-on-the-gita-volume-13","title":{"rendered":"-17_The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

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

\n <\/font>The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\nI<\/font><\/b>N
\nSPEAKING<\/font> of this Yoga in which action and knowledge become one, the Yoga of the
\nsacrifice of works with knowledge, in which works are fulfilled in knowledge,
\nknowledge supports, changes and enlightens works, and both are offered to the Purushottama,
\nthe supreme Divinity who becomes manifest within us as Narayana, Lord of all
\nour being and action seated secret in our hearts for ever, who becomes manifest
\neven in the human form as the Avatar, the divine birth taking possession of our
\nhumanity, Krishna has declared in passing that this was the ancient and
\noriginal Yoga which he gave to Vivasvan, the Sun-God, Vivasvan gave it to Manu,
\nthe father of men, Manu gave it to Ikshvaku, head of the Solar line, and so it
\ncame down from royal sage to royal sage till it was lost in the great lapse of
\nTime and is now renewed for Arjuna, because he is the lover and devotee, friend
\nand comrade of the Avatar. For this, he says, is the highest secret, \u2013 thus claiming
\nfor it a superiority to all other forms of Yoga, because those others lead to
\nthe impersonal Brahman or to a personal Deity, to a liberation in actionless
\nknowledge or a liberation in absorbed beatitude, but this gives the highest
\nsecret and the whole secret; it brings us to divine peace and divine works, to
\ndivine knowledge, action and ecstasy unified in a perfect freedom; it unites
\ninto itself all the Yogic paths as the highest being of the Divine reconciles
\nand makes one in itself all the\u00a0 <\/span>different
\nand even contrary powers and principles of its manifested being. Therefore this
\nYoga of the Gita is not, as some contend, only the Karmayoga, one and the
\nlowest, according to them, of the three paths, but a highest Yoga synthetic and
\nintegral directing Godward all the powers of our being.<\/p>\n

Arjuna takes the declaration about
\nthe transmission of the <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 137<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 Yoga in its most physical sense,
\n\u2013 there is another significance in which it can be taken, \u2013 and asks how the
\nSun-God, one of the first-born of beings, ancestor of the Solar dynasty, can
\nhave received the Yoga from the man Krishna who is only now born into the
\nworld. Krishna does not reply, as we might have expected him to have done, that
\nit was as the Divine who is the source of all knowledge that he gave the Word
\nto the Deva who is his form of knowledge, giver of all inner and outer light, \u2013
\nbhargah savitur devasya yo no dhiyah
\npracodayāt<\/i>; he accepts instead the opportunity which Arjuna gives him
\nof declaring his concealed Godhead, a declaration for which he had prepared
\nwhen he gave himself as the divine example for the worker who is not bound by his
\nworks, but which he has not yet quite explicitly made. He now openly announces
\nhimself as the incarnate Godhead, the Avatar.<\/p>\n

We have had
\noccasion already, when speaking of the divine Teacher, to state briefly the
\ndoctrine of Avatarhood as it appears to us in the light of Vedanta, the light
\nin which the Gita presents it to us. We must now look a little more closely at this
\nAvatarhood and at the significance of the divine Birth of which it is the
\noutward expression; for that is a link of considerable importance in the
\nintegral teaching of the Gita. And we may first translate the words of the
\nTeacher himself in which the nature and purpose of Avatarhood are given
\nsummarily and remind ourselves also of other passages or references which bear
\nupon it. \u201cMany are my lives that are past, and thine also, O Arjuna; all of
\nthem I know, but thou knowest not, O scourge of the foe. Though I am the
\nunborn, though I am imperishable in my self-existence, though I am the Lord of
\nall existences, yet I stand upon my own Nature and I come into birth by my
\nself-Maya. For whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of
\nunrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of
\nthe good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the
\nRight I am born from age to age. He who knoweth thus in its right principles my
\ndivine birth and my divine work, when he abandons his body, comes not to
\nrebirth, he comes to Me, O Arjuna. Delivered from liking and fear and wrath,
\nfull of me, taking refuge in me, many purified by austerity of knowledge <\/p>\n

\nPage 138<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 have arrived at my nature of
\nbeing (madbhāvam<\/i>, the divine
\nnature of the Purushottama). As men approach me, so I accept them to my love (bhajāmi<\/i>); men follow in every way
\nmy path, O son of Pritha.\u201d <\/p>\n

But most men,
\nthe Gita goes on to say, desiring the fulfilment of their works, sacrifice to
\nthe gods, to various forms and personalities of the one Godhead, because the
\nfulfilment (siddhi<\/i>) that is born of
\nworks, \u2013 of works without knowledge, \u2013 is very swift and easy in the human
\nworld; it belongs indeed to that world alone. The other, the divine
\nself-fulfilment in man by the sacrifice with knowledge to the supreme Godhead,
\nis much more difficult; its results belong to a higher plane of existence and
\nthey are less easily grasped. Men therefore have to follow the fourfold law of
\ntheir nature and works and on this plane of mundane action they seek the
\nGodhead through his various qualities. But, says Krishna,
\nthough I am the doer of the fourfold works and creator of its fourfold law, yet
\nI must be known also as the non-doer, the imperishable, the immutable Self.
\n\u201cWorks affect me not, nor have I desire for the fruit of works;\u201d for God is the
\nimpersonal beyond this egoistic personality and this strife of the modes of
\nNature, and as the Purushottama also, the impersonal Personality, he possesses this
\nsupreme freedom even in works. Therefore the doer of divine works even while
\nfollowing the fourfold law has to know and live in that which is beyond, in the
\nimpersonal Self and so in the supreme Godhead. \u201cHe who thus knows me is not bound
\nby his works. So knowing was work done by the men of old who sought liberation;
\ndo therefore, thou also, work of that more ancient kind done by ancient men.\u201d <\/p>\n

The second portion
\nof these passages which has here been given in substance, explains the nature
\nof divine works, divyam karma<\/i>, with
\nthe principle of which we have had to deal in the last essay; the first, which
\nhas been fully translated, explains the way of the divine birth, divyam janma<\/i>, the Avatarhood. But we
\nhave to remark carefully that the upholding of Dharma in the world is not the
\nonly object of the descent of the Avatar, that great mystery of the Divine
\nmanifest in humanity; for the upholding of the Dharma is not an all-sufficient
\nobject in itself, not the supreme possible aim for the manifestation of a
\nChrist, a Krishna, a <\/p>\n

\nPage 139<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 Buddha, but is only the general
\ncondition of a higher aim and a more supreme and divine utility. For there are
\ntwo aspects of the divine birth; one is a descent, the birth of God in
\nhumanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the human form and nature, the
\neternal Avatar; the other is an ascent, the birth of man into the Godhead, man
\nrising into the divine nature and consciousness, madbhāvam āgatah<\/i>; it is the being born anew in a
\nsecond birth of the soul. It is that new birth which Avatarhood and the
\nupholding of the Dharma are intended to serve. This double aspect in the Gita’s
\ndoctrine of Avatarhood is apt to be missed by the cursory reader satisfied, as
\nmost are, with catching a superficial view of its profound teachings, and it is
\nmissed too by the formal commentator petrified in the rigidity of the schools.
\nYet it is necessary, surely, to the whole meaning of the doctrine. Otherwise
\nthe Avatar idea would be only a dogma, a popular superstition, or an imaginative
\nor mystic deification of historical or legendary supermen, not what the Gita
\nmakes all its teaching, a deep philosophical and religious truth and an
\nessential part of or step to the supreme mystery of all, rahasyam uttamam. <\/i><\/p>\n

If there were
\nnot this rising of man into the Godhead to be helped by the descent of God into
\nhumanity, Avatarhood for the sake of the Dharma would be an otiose phenomenon,
\nsince mere Right, mere justice or standards of virtue can always be upheld by
\nthe divine omnipotence through its ordinary means, by great men or great
\nmovements, by the life and work of sages and kings and religious teachers,
\nwithout any actual incarnation. The Avatar comes as the manifestation of the
\ndivine nature in the human nature, the apocalypse of its Christhood,
\nKrishnahood, Buddhahood, in order that the human nature may by moulding its
\nprinciple, thought, feeling, action, being on the lines of that Christhood,
\nKrishnahood, Buddhahood transfigure itself into the divine. The law, the Dharma
\nwhich the Avatar establishes is given for that purpose chiefly; the Christ, Krishna,
\nBuddha stands in its centre as the gate, he makes through himself the way men
\nshall follow. That is why each Incarnation holds before men his own example and
\ndeclares of himself that he is the way and the gate; he declares too the
\noneness of his humanity with the divine being, declares that the Son of Man and
\nthe Father above <\/p>\n

\nPage 140<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 from whom he has descended are
\none, that Krishna in the human body, mānusīm tanum āśritam<\/i>,
\nand the supreme Lord and Friend of all creatures are but two revelations of the
\nsame divine Purushottama, revealed there in his own being, revealed here in the
\ntype of humanity. <\/p>\n

That the Gita
\ncontains as its kernel this second and real object of the Avatarhood, is
\nevident even from this passage by itself rightly considered; but it becomes
\nmuch clearer if we take it, not by itself, \u2013 always the wrong way to deal with
\nthe texts of the Gita, \u2013 but in its right close connection with other passages
\nand with the whole teaching. We have to remember and take together its doctrine
\nof the one Self in all, of the Godhead seated in the heart of every creature,
\nits teaching about the relations between the Creator and his creation, its
\nstrongly emphasised idea of the vibhūti<\/i>,
\n\u2013 noting too the language in which the Teacher gives his own divine example of
\nselfless works which applies equally to the human Krishna and the divine Lord
\nof the worlds, and giving their due weight to such passages as that in the
\nninth chapter, \u201cDeluded minds despise me lodged in the human body because they
\nknow not my supreme nature of being, Lord of all existences\u201d; and we have to read
\nin the light of these ideas this passage we find before us and its declaration
\nthat by the knowledge of his divine birth and divine works men come to the
\nDivine and by becoming full of him and even as he and taking refuge in him they
\narrive at his nature and status of being, madbhāvam<\/i>.
\nFor then we shall understand the divine birth and its object, not as an
\nisolated and miraculous phenomenon, but in its proper place in the whole scheme
\nof the world-manifestation; without that we cannot arrive at its divine
\nmystery, but shall either scout it altogether or accept it ignorantly and, it
\nmay be, superstitiously or fall into the petty and superficial ideas of the
\nmodern mind about it by which it loses all its inner and helpful significance. <\/p>\n

For to the
\nmodern mind Avatarhood is one of the most difficult to accept or to understand
\nof all the ideas that are streaming in from the East upon the rationalised
\nhuman consciousness. It is apt to take it at the best for a mere figure for
\nsome high manifestation of human power, character, genius, great work <\/p>\n

\nPage 141<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

done for the world or in the
\nworld, and at the worst to regard it as a superstition, \u2013 to the heathen a
\nfoolishness and to the Greeks a stumbling-block. The materialist, necessarily, cannot
\neven look at it, since he does not believe in God; to the rationalist or the
\nDeist it is a folly and a thing of derision; to the thoroughgoing dualist who
\nsees an unbridgeable gulf between the human and the divine nature, it sounds
\nlike a blasphemy. The rationalist objects that if God exists, he is extracosmic
\nor supracosmic and does not intervene in the affairs of the world, but allows
\nthem to be governed by a fixed machinery of law, \u2013 he is, in fact, a sort of
\nfar-off constitutional monarch or spiritual King Log, at the best an
\nindifferent inactive Spirit behind the activity of Nature, like some
\ngeneralised or abstract witness Purusha of the Sankhyas; he is pure Spirit and
\ncannot put on a body, infinite and cannot be finite as the human being is
\nfinite, the ever unborn creator and cannot be the creature born into the world,
\n\u2013 these things are impossible even to his absolute omnipotence. To these
\nobjections the thoroughgoing dualist would add that God is in his person, his
\nrole and his nature different and separate from man; the perfect cannot put on
\nhuman imperfection; the unborn personal God cannot be born as a human
\npersonality; the Ruler of the worlds cannot be limited in a nature-bound human
\naction and in a perishable human body. These objections, so formidable at first
\nsight to the reason, seem to have been present to the mind of the Teacher in
\nthe Gita when he says that although the Divine is unborn, imperishable in his
\nself-existence, the Lord of all beings, yet he assumes birth by a supreme
\nresort to the action of his Nature and by force of his self-Maya; that he whom the
\ndeluded despise because lodged in a human body, is verily in his supreme being
\nthe Lord of all; that he is in the action of the divine consciousness the
\ncreator of the fourfold Law and the doer of the works of the world and at the
\nsame time in the silence of the divine consciousness the impartial witness of
\nthe works of his own Nature, \u2013 for he is always, beyond both the silence and
\nthe action, the supreme Purushottama. And the Gita is able to meet all these
\noppositions and to reconcile all these contraries because it starts from the
\nVedantic view of existence, of God and the universe. <\/p>\n

\nPage 142<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

For in the
\nVedantic view of things all these apparently formidable objections are null and
\nvoid from the beginning. The idea of the Avatar is not indeed indispensable to
\nits scheme, but it comes in naturally into it as a perfectly rational and
\nlogical conception. For all here is God, is the Spirit or Self-existence, is Brahman, ekamevādvitīiyam<\/i>, \u2013 there
\nis nothing else, nothing other and different from it and there can be nothing
\nelse, can be nothing other and different from it; Nature is and can be nothing
\nelse than a power of the divine consciousness; all beings are and can be
\nnothing else than inner and outer, subjective and objective soul-forms and
\nbodily forms of the divine being which exist in or result from the power of its
\nconsciousness. Far from the Infinite being unable to take on finiteness, the
\nwhole universe is nothing else but that; we can see, look as we may, nothing else
\nat all in the whole wide world we inhabit. Far from the Spirit being incapable
\nof form or disdaining to connect itself with form of matter or mind and to
\nassume a limited nature or a body, all here is nothing but that, the world exists
\nonly by that connection, that assumption. Far from the world being a mechanism
\nof law with no soul or spirit intervening in the movement of its forces or the
\naction of its minds and bodies, \u2013 only some original indifferent Spirit passively
\nexisting somewhere outside or above it, \u2013 the whole world and every particle of
\nit is on the contrary nothing but the divine force in action and that divine
\nforce determines and governs its every movement, inhabits its every form, possesses
\nhere every soul and mind; all is in God and in him moves and has its being, in
\nall he is, acts and displays his being; every creature is the disguised
\nNarayana. <\/p>\n

Far from the
\nunborn being unable to assume birth, all beings are even in their individuality
\nunborn spirits, eternal without beginning or end, and in their essential
\nexistence and their universality all are the one unborn Spirit of whom birth
\nand death are only a phenomenon of the assumption and change of forms. The
\nassumption of imperfection by the perfect is the whole mystic phenomenon of the
\nuniverse; but the imperfection appears in the form and action of the mind or
\nbody assumed, subsists in the phenomenon, \u2013 in that which assumes it there is
\nno imperfection, even as in the Sun which illumines all there is no defect of <\/p>\n

\nPage 143<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 light or of vision, but only in
\nthe capacities of the individual organ of vision. Nor does God rule the world
\nfrom some remote heaven, but by his intimate omnipresence; each finite working
\nof force is an act of infinite Force and not of a limited separate self-existent
\nenergy labouring in its own underived strength; in every finite working of will
\nand knowledge we can discover, supporting it, an act of the infinite all-will and
\nall-knowledge. God’s rule is not an absentee, foreign and external government;
\nhe governs all because he exceeds all, but also because he dwells within all
\nmovements and is their absolute soul and spirit. Therefore none of the
\nobjections opposed by our reason to the possibility of Avatarhood can stand in
\ntheir principle; for the principle is a vain division made by the intellectual
\nreason which the whole phenomenon and the whole reality of the world are busy
\nevery moment contradicting and disproving. <\/p>\n

But still, apart
\nfrom the possibility, there is the question of the actual divine working, \u2013 whether
\nactually the divine consciousness does appear coming forward from beyond the
\nveil to act at all directly in the phenomenal, the finite, the mental and
\nmaterial, the limited, the imperfect. The finite is indeed nothing but a
\ndefinition, a face-value of the Infinite’s self-representations to its own
\nvariations of consciousness; the real value of each finite phenomenon is an
\ninfinite value, is indeed the very Infinite. Each being is infinite in its
\nself-existence, whatever it may be in the action of its phenomenal nature, its
\ntemporal self-representation. The man is not, when we look closely, himself
\nalone, a rigidly separate self-existent individual, but humanity in a mind and
\nbody of itself; and humanity too is no rigidly separate self-existent species
\nor genus, it is the All-existence, the universal Godhead figuring itself in the
\ntype of humanity; there it works out certain possibilities, develops, evolves,
\nas we now say, certain powers of its manifestations. What it evolves, is
\nitself, is the Spirit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>For what we mean by Spirit is self-existent
\nbeing with an infinite power of consciousness and unconditioned delight in its
\nbeing; it is either that or nothing, or at least nothing which has anything to
\ndo with man and the world or with which, therefore, man or the world has
\nanything to do. Matter, body is only a massed motion of force of conscious
\nbeing employed<\/p>\n

\nPage 144<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 as a starting-point for the
\nvariable relations of consciousness working through its power of sense; nor is
\nMatter anywhere really void of consciousness, for even in the atom, the cell
\nthere is, as is now made abundantly clear in spite of itself by modern Science,
\na power of will, an intelligence at work; but that power is the power of will
\nand intelligence of the Self, Spirit or Godhead within it, it is not the
\nseparate, self-derived will or idea of the mechanical cell or atom. This
\nuniversal will and intelligence, involved, develops its powers from form to
\nform, and on earth at least it is in man that it draws nearest to the full divine
\nand there first becomes, even in the outward intelligence in the form,
\nobscurely conscious of its divinity. But still there too there is a limitation,
\nthere is that imperfection of the manifestation which prevents the lower forms
\nfrom having the self-knowledge of their identity with the Divine. For in each
\nlimited being the limitation of the phenomenal action is accompanied by a
\nlimitation also of the phenomenal consciousness which defines the nature of the
\nbeing and makes the inner difference between creature and creature. The Divine
\nworks behind indeed and governs its special manifestation through this outer
\nand imperfect consciousness and will, but is itself secret in the cavern, guhāyām<\/i>, as the Veda puts it,
\nor as the Gita expresses it, \u201cIn the heart of all existences the Lord abides
\nturning all existences as if mounted on a machine by Maya.\u201d This secret working
\nof the Lord hidden in the heart from the egoistic nature-consciousness through
\nwhich he works, is God’s universal method with creatures. Why then should we
\nsuppose that in any form he comes forward into the frontal, the phenomenal
\nconsciousness for a more direct and consciously divine action? Obviously, if at
\nall, then to break the veil between himself and humanity which man limited in
\nhis own nature could never lift. <\/p>\n

The Gita
\nexplains the ordinary imperfect action of the creature by its subjection to the
\nmechanism of Prakriti and its limitation by the self-representations of Maya.
\nThese two terms are only complementary aspects of one and the same effective
\nforce of divine consciousness. Maya is not essentially illusion, \u2013 the element
\nor appearance of illusion only enters <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 145<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 in by the ignorance of the lower
\nPrakriti, Maya of the three modes of Nature, \u2013 it is the divine consciousness in
\nits power of various self-representation of its being, while Prakriti is the
\neffective force of that consciousness which operates to work out each such
\nself-representation according to its own law and fundamental idea, svabhāva<\/i> and svadharma<\/i>, in its own proper quality and particular force of
\nworking, guna-karma. <\/i>\u201cLeaning
\n\u2013 pressing down upon my own Nature (Prakriti) I create (loose forth into
\nvarious being) all this multitude of existences, all helplessly subject to the
\ncontrol of Nature.\u201d Those who know not the Divine lodged in the human body, are
\nignorant of it because they are grossly subject to this mechanism of Prakriti,
\nhelplessly subject to its mental limitations and acquiescent in them, and dwell
\nin an Asuric nature that deludes with desire and bewilders with egoism the will
\nand the intelligence, mohinīm<\/i> prakrtim śritāh<\/i>.
\nFor the Purushottama within is not readily manifest to any and every being; he
\nconceals himself in a thick cloud of darkness or a bright cloud of light,
\nutterly he envelops and wraps himself in his Yogamaya.\u00b9 <\/span>\u201cAll this world,\u201d says the Gita, \u201cbecause it is
\nbewildered by the three states of being determined by the modes of Nature, fails
\nto recognise me, for this my divine Maya of the modes of Nature is hard to get
\nbeyond; those cross beyond it who approach Me; but those who dwell in the
\nAsuric nature of being, have their knowledge reft from them by Maya.\u201d In other
\nwords, there is the inherent consciousness of the divine in all, for in all the
\nDivine dwells; but he dwells there covered by his Maya and the essential
\nself-knowledge of beings is reft from them, turned into the error of egoism by
\nthe action of Maya, the action of the mechanism of Prakriti. Still by drawing
\nback from the mechanism of Nature to her inner and secret Master man can become
\nconscious of the indwelling Divinity. <\/p>\n

Now it is
\nnotable that with a slight but important variation of language the Gita
\ndescribes in the same way both the action of the Divine in bringing about the
\nordinary birth of creatures and his action in his birth as the Avatar. \u201cLeaning
\nupon my own Nature, prakrtim
\nsvām avastabhya<\/i>,\u201d it will say later, \u201cI loose<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>nāham prakāśah sarvasya yogamāayā-samāvrtah.<\/span><\/i> <\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage 146<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

forth variously, visr<\/i>jāmi<\/i>, this multitude of creatures helplessly subject owing to
\nthe control of Prakriti, avaśam
\nprakrter vaśāt<\/i>.\u201d \u201cStanding upon my own Nature,\u201d it says
\nhere, \u201cI am born by my self-Maya, prakrtim
\nsvām adhisthāya\u2026 ātmamāyayā<\/i>, I
\nloose forth myself, ātmānam<\/i>
\nsr<\/i>jāmi<\/i>.\u201d The action implied in the word avastabhya<\/i> is a forceful downward pressure by which
\nthe object controlled is overcome, oppressed, blocked or limited in its
\nmovement or working and becomes helplessly subject to the controlling power, avaśam vaśāt<\/i>; Nature in
\nthis action becomes mechanical and its multitude of creatures are held helpless
\nin the mechanism, not lords of their own action. On the contrary the action
\nimplied in the word adhisthāya<\/i>
\nis a dwelling in, but also a standing upon and over the Nature, a conscious
\ncontrol and government by the indwelling Godhead, adhīsthātrī<\/i> devatā<\/i>, in which the Purusha is not helplessly driven by the
\nPrakriti through ignorance, but rather the Prakriti is full of the light and
\nthe will of the Purusha. Therefore in the normal birth that which is loosed
\nforth, \u2013 created, as we say, \u2013 is the multitude of creatures or becomings, bhūtagrāmam<\/i>; in the divine
\nbirth that which is loosed forth, self-created, is the self-conscious
\nself-existent being, ātmānam<\/i>;
\nfor the Vedantic distinction between ātmā<\/i>
\nand bhūtāni<\/i> is that which
\nis made in European philosophy between the Being and its becomings. In both
\ncases Maya is the means of the creation or manifestation, but in the divine
\nbirth it is by self-Maya, ātmamāyayā<\/i>,
\nnot the involution in the lower Maya of the ignorance, but the conscious action
\nof the self-existent Godhead in its phenomenal self-representation, well aware
\nof its operation and its purpose, \u2013 that which the Gita calls elsewhere
\nYogamaya. In the ordinary birth Yogamaya is used by the Divine to envelop and
\nconceal itself from the lower consciousness, so it becomes for us the means of
\nthe ignorance, avidyāmāyā<\/i>;
\nbut it is by this same Yogamaya that self-knowledge also is made manifest in
\nthe return of our consciousness to the Divine, it is the means of the
\nknowledge, vidyāmāyā<\/i>;
\nand in the divine birth it so operates \u2013 as the knowledge controlling and
\nenlightening the works which are ordinarily done in the Ignorance. <\/p>\n

The language of
\nthe Gita shows therefore that the divine <\/p>\n

\nPage 147<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

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

 birth is that of the conscious
\nGodhead in our humanity and essentially the opposite of the ordinary birth even
\nthough the same means are used, because it is not the birth into the Ignorance,
\nbut the birth of the knowledge, not a physical phenomenon, but a soul-birth. It
\nis the Soul’s coming into birth as the self-existent Being controlling
\nconsciously its becoming and not lost to self-knowledge in the cloud of the
\nignorance. It is the Soul born into the body as Lord of Nature, standing above
\nand operating in her freely by its will, not entangled and helplessly driven
\nround and round in the mechanism; for it works in the knowledge and not, as
\nmost do, in the ignorance. It is the secret Soul in all coming forward from its
\ngoverning secrecy behind the veil to possess wholly in a human type, but as the
\nDivine, the birth which ordinarily it possesses only from behind the veil as
\nthe Ishwara while the outward consciousness in front of the veil is rather
\npossessed than in possession because there it is a partially conscious being,
\nthe Jiva lost to self-knowledge and bound in its works through a phenomenal
\nsubjection to Nature. The Avatar\u00b9<\/span>
\ntherefore is a direct manifestation in humanity by Krishna the divine Soul of
\nthat divine condition of being to which Arjuna, the human soul, the type of a
\nhighest human being, a Vibhuti, is called upon by the Teacher to arise, and to
\nwhich he can only arise by climbing out of the ignorance and limitation of his
\nordinary humanity. It is the manifestation from above of that which we have to
\ndevelop from below; it is the descent of God into that divine birth of the
\nhuman being into which we mortal creatures must climb; it is the attracting
\ndivine example given by God to man in the very type and form and perfected
\nmodel of our human existence. <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\u00b9<\/span>The word Avatara means a descent; it is a coming down
\nof the Divine below the line which divides the divine from the human world or
\nstatus.<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nPage 148<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FIFTEEN  The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood   IN SPEAKING of this Yoga in which action and knowledge become one, the Yoga of the sacrifice…<\/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-1413","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\/1413","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=1413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}