{"id":1682,"date":"2013-07-13T01:36:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=1682"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:36:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:36:30","slug":"36-the-question-of-avatarhood-vol-35-letters-on-himself-and-the-ashram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/35-letters-on-himself-and-the-ashram\/36-the-question-of-avatarhood-vol-35-letters-on-himself-and-the-ashram","title":{"rendered":"-36_The Question of Avatarhood.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nThe Question of Avatarhood <\/font><\/b> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Guru and the Avatar
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAbout the question of the Avatar, I do not think it is useful to press in the matter. It has become very much the tendency,
\nespecially in Bengal, to regard the Guru as the Avatar. To every disciple the Guru is the Divine, but in a special sense
\n\u2014  for
\nthe Guru is supposed to live in the divine consciousness, to have attained union and when he gives to the disciple, it is the
\nDivine that gives and what he gives is the consciousness of the Divine who is within the Guru. But that and Avatarhood are two
\ndifferent things. It is mostly in East Bengal recently that those have come who were acclaimed as Avatars; those who came had
\neach of them the idea of a work to be done for the world and the sense of a Divine Power working through them, which shows
\nthat there was a pressure for manifestation there and something came in each case, for something of the Divine Power always
\ncomes when it is called, but it does not look as if there was anywhere the complete descent. It is this that may have created
\nthe idea that the Avatar was born there. It has always been said of the Advent that is to come now that there would be many
\nin whom it would seem that it had come, but the real Avatar would work behind a veil until the destined hour came.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI do not gather from what is quoted as said by your Guru that he claimed to be the Avatar. It seems to me that he claimed
\nto be a Power preparing the way for the work of the Divine Mother and even to indicate that all that he meant would be
\nmanifested not only by his own followers but by other groups <\/span>
\nসম্প্রদায়<\/font><\/span>, consisting evidently of those who had not had him
\nfor Guru but had some other Head and Teacher. This is also
\nconfirmed by the saying that some other one than his disciples might be the means of his <\/span>
\nপ্রকাশ<\/font> <\/span> \u2014  that is to say, would be the means of carrying on his work and aiding the manifestation of
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>399<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

the Mother. If this meant proclaiming him as the Avatar, I do not see how it can agree with the other saying that after his leaving
\nhis body the Avatar would come to the Asram he had created.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI do not quite know what is meant by
\nayoni-sambhava. <\/i>An
\nincarnation is always through a human mother, though there have been one or two cases in which a virgin birth has been
\nproclaimed (Christ, Buddha). The only other meaning \u2014  unless we suppose an unprecedented miracle
\n\u2014  might be a descent such
\nas sometimes happens, the Godhead manifesting in somebody who at birth was a Vibhuti, not at once the full incarnation.
\nBut in the absence of a clear statement from your Guru himself, these are only speculations.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI have written this much as an answer to your question, but I doubt whether it is necessary or advisable to write anything of
\nit to your friends. They have their own feeling about the matter; it seems to me better not to challenge or disturb it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n25 August 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nElsewhere people try to find out various qualities in their Guru to prove him an Avatar; here some try to find out reasons to
\ndisprove even the possibility. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is a modern Asram, that’s why!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n14 November 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Avatar and Human Ideas of Space
\n<\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHow can the Divine, who is the All or Omnipresent, containing the Infinite, incarnate in the small space of a human body?
\nI believe it is because this seems impossible to the mind that the Arya Samajists do not accept the possibility of incarnation.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe objection is founded on human three-dimensional ideas of Space and division in spaces, which are again founded upon
\nthe limited nature of the human senses. To some beings space is one-dimensional, to others two-dimensional, to others three
\ndimensional \u2014  but there are other dimensions also. It is well recognised in metaphysics that the Infinite can be in a point and
\nnot only in extension of space \u2014  just as there is an eternity of  
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>400<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\textension in Time but also an Eternity which is independent of Time so that it can be felt in the moment
\n\u2014  one has not to think
\nof millions and millions of years in order to realise it. So too the rigid distinction of One against Many, a One that cannot
\nbe many or of an All that is made up by addition and not self-existent are crude mental notions of the outer finite mind that
\ncannot be applied to the Infinite. If the All were of this material and unspiritual character, tied down to a primary arithmetic
\nand geometry, the realisation of the universe in oneself, of the all in each and each in all, of the universe in the Bindu would be
\nimpossible. Your Arya Samajists are evidently innocent of the elements of metaphysical thinking or they would not make such
\nobjections. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n1 April 1936
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhen the Divine descends here as an incarnation, does not
\nthat very act mould his infinity into a limited finite? How then does he still continue to rule over the universe?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tDo you imagine that the Divine is at any time not everywhere in the universe or beyond it? or that he is living at one point in
\nspace and governing the rest from it, as Mussolini governs the Italian Empire from Rome?
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n11 May 1937 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Avatar and the Vibhuti
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIs it true that the Avatar is the full manifestation of the Divine Vibhuti?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIf you consider it from the earth’s point of view. But it may be truer to say that the Avatar holds himself back and manifests as
\na Vibhuti in many lives till the time comes for his manifesting as the Avatar.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n27 September 1933 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Avatar and Human Birth
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDoes an Avatar create a new mind, life and body from the cosmos for himself, or take hold of some liberated human
\nbeing and use his outer personality for his manifestation?   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>401<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

That would be a possession, not an Avatar. An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the
\ncosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new external personality for himself. What prevents the Divine from doing the same?
\nWhat is continued from birth to birth is the inner being. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n18 December 1935
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Avatar and the Earth Consciousness
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe are a little puzzled when you give your own example to
\nprove your arguments and defend your views, because that really proves nothing. I need not explain why: what Avatars
\ncan achieve is not possible for ordinary mortals like us. So if you had a sudden “opening” to the appreciation of painting,
\nor if you freed your mind from all thoughts in three days, or transformed your nature, it is a very poor consolation for
\nus. Then again, when you state that you developed something that was not originally there in your nature, can it not be said
\n˙ <\/i>  that it was already there in your divya amśa<\/i>?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI do not know what the devil you mean. My sadhana is not a freak or a monstrosity or a miracle done outside the laws of
\nNature and the conditions of life and consciousness on earth. If I could do these things or if they could happen in my Yoga,
\nit means that they can be done and that therefore these developments and transformations are possible in the terrestrial
\nconsciousness.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere are many who admit that faculties which are latent can
\nbe developed, but they maintain that things which are not there in latency cannot be made manifest. My belief is that
\neven that could be done. Still, I don’t think that I could be turned into, say, an artist or a musician!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tHow do you know that you can’t?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAs for your statement, “All is possible” \u2014  e.g. “an ass may be
\nchanged into an elephant, but it is not done”1<\/font><\/sup> \u2014  people say it is a pointless statement.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1 See the letter of 7 February 1935 on page 488. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>402<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\t[Underlining “but it is not done”:<\/i>] You had said it can’t be done or somebody had said it.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAbout your changing “cowards into heroes” [p. 488<\/i>], they put forward the same latency theory.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tHow do they prove their theory \u2014  when they don’t know what is or what is not latent? In such conditions the theory can neither
\nbe proved nor refuted. To say “O, it was latent” when a thing apparently impossible is done, is a mere
\npost factum <\/i>explanation
\nwhich amounts to an evasion of the difficulty.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThey state very strongly that a paid Ashram worker, like
\nMuthu, for example, cannot be changed into a Ramakrishna . . .
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWell, Ramakrishna himself was an ignorant, unlettered rustic according to the story.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nor into a Yogi for that matter, even by the Divine. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIf he were, they would say “O, it was latent in him.”
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOne can’t say categorically and absolutely that the Divine is omnipotent, because there are different planes from which he
\nworks. It is when he acts from the supramental level that his Power is omnipotent.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIf the Divine were not in essence omnipotent, he could not be omnipotent anywhere
\n\u2014  whether in the supramental or any
\nwhere else. Because he chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent. His self
\nlimitation is itself an act of omnipotence.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe fact that X <\/i>was not changed by the mental-spiritual force
\nput on him proves that. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt does not prove it for a moment. It simply proves that the
\nomnipotent unconditioned supramental force was not put out there \u2014  any more than it was when Christ was put on the cross
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>403<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

or when after healing thousands he failed to heal in a certain district (I forget the name) because people had no faith (faith
\nbeing one of the conditions imposed on his work) or when Krishna after fighting eighteen battles with Jarasandha failed
\nto prevail against him and had to run away from Mathura.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhy the immortal Hell should the Divine be tied down to
\nsucceed in all his operations? What if failure suits him better and serves better the ultimate purpose? What if the gentleman
\nin question had to be given his chance as Duryodhan was given his chance when Krishna went to him as ambassador in a last
\neffort to avoid the massacre of Kurukshetra? What rigid primitive notions are these about the Divine! And what about my
\nexplanation of how the Divine acts through the Avatar?2<\/font><\/sup> It seems all to have gone into water.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBy the way about the ass becoming an elephant \u2014  what I meant to say was that the only reason why it can’t be done is be
\ncause there is no recognizable process for it. But if a process can be discovered whether by a scientist (let us say transformation
\nor redistribution of the said ass’s atoms or molecules \u2014  or what not) or by an occultist or by a Yogi, then there is no reason why
\nit should not be done. In other words certain conditions have been established for the game and so long as those conditions
\nremain unchanged certain things are not done \u2014  so we say they are impossible, can’t be done. If the conditions are changed, then
\nthe same things are done or at least become licit \u2014  allowable, legal, according to the so-called laws of Nature,
\n\u2014  and then we
\nsay they can be done. The Divine also acts according to the conditions of the game. He may change them, but he has to
\nchange them first, not proceed while maintaining the conditions to act by a series of miracles.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n9 February 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nYou say that since “these things” have been possible in you, they are possible in the terrestrial consciousness [p. 402<\/i>]. Quite
\ntrue; but have they been done?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n2 The “explanation” Sri Aurobindo refers to here is probably the one presented in<\/i>
\nEssays on the Gita, First Series, Chapters XV to XVII. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>404<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tThe question was not whether it had been done but whether it could be done.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHas any sweeper or street-beggar been changed into a Buddha or a Chaitanya?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe street-beggar is a side issue. The question was whether new faculties not at all manifested in the personality up to now in this
\nlife could appear, even suddenly appear, by force of Yoga. I say they can and I gave my own case as proof.3 I could have given
\nothers also. The question involved is also this \u2014  is a man bound to the
\ncharacter and qualities he has come with into this life \u2014
\ncan he not become a new man by Yoga? That also I have proved in my sadhana, it can be done. When you say that I could do this
\nonly in my case because I am an Avatar (!) and it is impossible in any other case, you reduce my sadhana to an absurdity and
\nAvatarhood also to an absurdity. For my Yoga is done not for myself who need nothing and do not need salvation or anything
\nelse, but precisely for the earth consciousness, to open a way to the earth consciousness to change. Has the Divine need to
\ncome down to prove that he can do this or that or has he any personal need of doing it? Your argument proves that I am not
\nan Avatar but only a big human person. It may well be so as a matter of fact, but you start your argument from the other basis.
\nBesides, even if I am only a big human person, what I achieve shows that that achievement is possible for humanity. Whether
\nany street-beggar can do it or has done it, is a side issue. It is sufficient if others who have not the economic misfortune of
\nbeing street-beggars can do it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe see in the whole history of humanity only one Christ, one
\nBuddha, one Krishna, one Sri Aurobindo and one Mother. Has there been any breaking of this rule? Since it has not been
\ndone, it can’t be done. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat a wonderful argument! Since it has not been done, it
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n3 See the letter of 7 February 1935 on page 488. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>405<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

cannot be done! At that rate the whole history of the earth must have stopped long before the protoplasm. When it was a mass
\nof gases, no life had been born, ergo life could not be born \u2014 when only life was there, mind was not born, so mind could
\nnot be born. Since mind is there but nothing beyond, as there is no supermind manifested in anybody, so supermind can never
\nbe born. Sobhanallah! Glory, glory, glory to the human reason!! Luckily the Divine or the Cosmic Spirit or Nature or whoever is
\nthere cares a damn for the human reason. He or she or it does what he or she or it has to do, whether it can or cannot be done.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nCan a Muthu or a sadhak ever be a Sri Aurobindo, even if he is supramentalised?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat need has he to be a Sri Aurobindo? He can be a supramentalised Muthu!
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf anybody comes and says “Why not?” I would answer, “You had better rub some Madhyam Narayan oil4<\/font><\/sup> on your head.”
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI have no objection to that. Plenty of the middle Narayan is needed in this Asram. This part of your argument is perfectly
\ncorrect \u2014  but it is also perfectly irrelevant.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou are looked on by us here, and by many outside, as a full
\nmanifestation of the Divine. The sadhaks here at best are misty sparks of the Divine.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe psychic being is more than a spark at this stage of its evolution. It is a flame. Even if the flame is covered by mist or smoke,
\nthe mist or smoke can be dissipated. To do that and to open to the higher consciousness is what is wanted, not to become a Sri
\nAurobindo or equal to the Mother.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nSo to say that parts can be equal to the whole is geometrically
\nand logically impossible.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n4 An Ayurvedic oil used in the treatment of insanity. The literal meaning of
\n<\/i>madhyam
\nis “middle”. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>406<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nBut if we are the Divine, what is the harm of evolving into a portion of the Divine, living in the divine Consciousness even if
\nin a lesser degree? No middle Narayan will then be needed for anybody’s head.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOnce when X <\/i>had said she wanted to be like the Mother you thundered saying, “How can it be? That is an ambition!” Do
\nyou say now it’s possible? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tCertainly not, it is not intended and I never said that she could
\nas a practical matter.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAll this is really too much for me. Please give a more direct
\nanswer \u2014  is it possible or not? Can a Muthu be changed into a being as great as an Avatar? If he can be, I have nothing
\nfurther to say; if not, there is a limit to the omnipotence of the Divine.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tNot at all. You are always making the same elementary baby stumble. It is not because the Divine cannot manifest his great
\nness anywhere, but because it is not in the conditions of the game, because he has chosen to manifest his centrality in a
\nparticular line that it is practically impossible.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nNext point: it is hoped that the sadhaks will be supramentalised. Since it is a state surpassing the Overmind, am I to deduce that the sadhaks would be greater than Krishna, who
\nwas the Avatar of the Overmind level? Logically it follows, but looking at others and at myself, I wonder if such a theory
\nwill be practically realised. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is all this obsession of greater or less? In our Yoga we do
\nnot strive after greatness. <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nPast history does not seem to prove it. In Krishna’s time no
\ndisciple of his was a greater spiritual figure than the preceding Avatar Rama, even though Krishna was an Avatar of a higher
\nplane. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is not a question of Sri Krishna’s disciples, but of the earth
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>407<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

consciousness \u2014  Rama was a mental man, there is no touch of the overmind consciousness (direct) in anything he said or did,
\nbut what he did was done with the greatness of the Avatar. But there have since been men who did live in touch with the planes
\nabove mind \u2014  higher mind, illumined mind, Intuition. There is no question of asking whether they were “greater” than Rama;
\nthey might have been less “great”, but they were able to live from a new plane of consciousness. And Krishna’s opening the
\novermind certainly made it possible for the attempt at bringing Supermind to the earth to be made.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI would not mind your fury in revenge if only you would crush me with a convincing assault. I hoped to close the chapter on
\n“Divine Omnipotence” with this last letter, but you keep me hoping with that promise of yours to write at length some day.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t“Peace, peace, O fiery furious spirit! calm thyself and be at rest.” Your fury or furiousness is wasted because your point
\nis perfectly irrelevant to the central question on which all this breath (or rather ink) is being spent. Muthu and the sadhaks
\nwho want to equal or distance or replace the Mother and myself and so need very badly Middle Narayan oil
\n\u2014  there have been
\nseveral \u2014  have appeared only as meaningless foam and froth on the excited crest of the dispute. I fear you have not grasped
\nthe internalities and modalities and causalities of my high and subtle reasoning. It is not surprising as you are down down in
\nthe troughs of the rigidly logically illogical human reason while I am floating on the heights amid the infinite plasticities of the
\novermind and the lightninglike subtleties and swiftnesses of the intuition. There! what do you think of that? However!!
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nMore seriously, I have not stated that any Muthu has equalled Ramakrishna and I quite admit that Muthu here
\nin<\/i>
\nipsa persona <\/i>has no chance of performing that feat. I have not said that anyone here can be Sri Aurobindo or the Mother
\n\u2014  I have explained what I meant when I objected to your explaining away my sadhana as a perfectly useless piece of
\nAvatarian fireworks. So in my comment on the Muthu logic, I simply pointed out that it was bad logic
\n\u2014  that someone
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>408<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nquite ignorant and low in the social scale can manifest a great spirituality and even a great spiritual knowledge. I hope you
\nare not bourgeois enough to deny that or to contend that the Divine or the spiritual can only manifest in somebody who
\nhas some money in his pockets or some University education in his pate? For the rest as I myself have been pointing out
\nall the time there is a difference between essential truth and
\nconditional truth, paramārtha <\/i>and vyāvahārika<\/i>, the latter being relative and conditional and mutable. In mathematics one works
\nout problems in infinite and in unreal numbers which exist nowhere on earth and yet are extremely important and can help
\nscientific reasoning and scientific discovery and achievement. The question of a Muthu becoming a Ramakrishna, i.e. a great
\nspiritual man may look to you like being an exercise in unreal numbers or magnitudes because it exceeds the actual observable
\nfacts in the case of this <\/i>Muthu who very evidently is not going to be a great spiritual man
\n\u2014  but we were arguing the matter
\nof essential principle. I was pointing out that in the essentiality all things are possible
\n\u2014  so you ought not to say the Divine
\ncan<\/i>
\nnot do this or that. But at the same time I was pointing out too that the Divine is not bound to show his omnipotence without
\nrhyme or reason when he is working by his own will under conditions. For by arguing that the Divine cannot, that he is
\nimpotent, that he cannot do what has never yet been done etc., you deny the possibility of changing conditions, of evolution,
\nof the realisation of the unrealised, of the action of the Divine Power, of Divine Grace, and reduce all to a matter of rigid and
\nunalterable status quo<\/i>, which is an insolent defiance to both fact and reason (!) and suprareason. See now?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAbout myself and the Mother, \u2014  there are people who say, “If the supramental is to come down, it can come down in
\neveryone, why then in them first? Why should we not get it before they do? Why through them, not direct?” It sounds very
\nrational, very logical, very arguable. The difficulty is that this reasoning ignores the conditions, foolishly assumes that one
\ncan get the supramental down into oneself without having the least knowledge of what the supramental is and so supposes an
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>409<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

upside-down miracle \u2014  everybody who tries it is bound to land himself in a most horrible cropper
\n\u2014  as all have done hitherto
\nwho tried it. It is like thinking one need not follow the Guide, but can reach up to the top of the mountain from the narrow
\npath one is following on the edge of a precipice by simply leaping into the air. The result is inevitable.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAbout greater and less, one point. Is Captain John Higgins of S.S. Mauretania a greater man than Christopher Columbus
\nbecause he can reach America without trouble in a few days? Is a university graduate in philosophy greater than Plato because
\nhe can reason about problems and systems which had never even occurred to Plato? No, only humanity has acquired greater
\nscientific power which any good navigator can use or a wider intellectual knowledge which anyone with a philosophic training can use. You will say greater scientific power and wider knowledge is not a change of consciousness. Very well, but
\nthere are Rama and Ramakrishna. Rama spoke always from the thinking intelligence, the common property of developed
\nmen; Ramakrishna spoke constantly from a swift and luminous spiritual intuition. Can you tell me which is the greater? the
\nAvatar recognised by all India? or the saint and Yogi recognised as an Avatar only by his disciples and some others who follow
\nthem? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n10 February 1935
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI did not mean that anyone here could replace or equal myself
\nand the Mother, much less the persons you name \u2014  or the actual Muthu equal the actual Ramakrishna. But certainly it is possible
\nfor X and Y and Z (I won’t repeat the names) to change, to throw off their present perversities or limitations and come nearer to
\nus than they are now \u2014  if they have the sincere will and make the endeavour. I have explained my meaning to
\nX<\/i>5 \u2014  so I do
\nnot repeat it here. Of course in my writing to X<\/i>, there is a certain note of persiflage and humorous insistence of which you
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n5 The disciple to whom the letters of 9 and 10 February 1935 on pages 402 \u00ad 10 were<\/i>
\nwritten. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>
\n  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>410<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nmust take account if you want to get the exact measure of my reasoning and its significance.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n10 February 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI would like to know something about my “bad logic” [p.<\/i> 408<\/i>] before I write anything further to you.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tHelps to finding out your bad logic. I give instances expressed or implied in your reasonings.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nBad logic No 1. Because things have not been, therefore they can never be.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n”       ”       ”    2. Because Sri Aurobindo is an Avatar, his sadhana can have no meaning for humanity.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n”      ”      ”     3. What happens in Sri Aurobindo’s sadhana cannot happen in anybody else’s sadhana (i.e. neither descent,
\nnor realisation, nor transformation, nor any intuitions, nor budding of new powers or faculties)
\n\u2014  because Sri Aurobindo is an
\nAvatar and the sadhaks are not. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n”       ”     
\n”     4. A street-beggar cannot have any spirituality or at least not so much as,
\nlet us say, a University graduate \u2014
\nbecause, well, one does not know why the hell not. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n”       ”      ”     5. (and last because of want of space) Because I [the recipient<\/i>] am a doctor, I can’t see a joke when it is there.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n11 February 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAbout your personal example. You speak of the evolution theory to prove that “it can be done”, though the domain I
\ntouched upon was only the spiritual. If the scientists say that man has not been able to create living things up to now, and
\ntherefore he will not be able to do so in the future \u2014  that it “can’t be done”, what will be your answer?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI have brought in the evolution theory or rather fact of evolution, to disprove your argument that because a thing has not been
\ndone, it is thereby proved that it could not be done. I don’t understand your argument. If a scientist says that, he is using
\nbad logic. I have never said it can’t be done. I dare say some day   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>411<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

in the right conditions the creation of life will become possible.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAnd if similarly I say that a Tom, Dick or Harry cannot be a
\nRam, Krishna or Sri Aurobindo, what reply will you give? My point is that Avatars are born not made.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThey may not be Ram or Krishna or Sri Aurobindo, but they may become a spiritualised super-Tom, super-Dick or super-Harry. I
\nhave answered about the Avatar.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI have never said that you are only a big human person. On the
\ncontrary, you are not, and hence nobody can be like you. Nevertheless, I don’t quite follow what you mean when you state
\nthat whatever you achieve is possible for humanity to achieve, your attainments opening the way for others to follow.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is singular that you cannot understand such a simple thing. I had no urge towards spirituality in me, I developed spirituality.
\nI was incapable of understanding metaphysics, I developed into a philosopher. I had no eye for painting
\n\u2014  I developed it by
\nYoga. I transformed my nature from what it was to what it was not. I did it by a special manner, not by a miracle and I did it to
\nshow what could be done and how it could be done. I did not do it out of any personal necessity of my own or by a miracle
\nwithout any process. I say that if it is not so, then my Yoga is useless and my life was a mistake
\n\u2014  a mere absurd freak of
\nNature without meaning or consequence. You all seem to think it a great compliment to me to say that what I have done has
\nno validity for anybody except myself \u2014  it is the most damaging criticism on my work that could be made.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf a man has transformed his nature, he couldn’t have done it all by himself, as you have done.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI also did not do it all by myself, if you mean by myself the Aurobindo that was. He did it by the help of Krishna and the
\nDivine Shakti. I had help from human sources also.  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>412<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nI should say that Avatars are like well-fitted, well-equipped Rolls-Royce machines.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAll sufficient to themselves \u2014  perfect and complete from the beginning, hey? Just roll, royce and ripple!
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThey do have plenty of difficulties on their journey, but just because they
\nare like Rolls-Royces they can surmount them \u2014
\nwhilst the rest of humanity are either like loose and disjointed machines or else wagons to be dragged along by Avatars and
\ngreat spiritual personages. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tGreat Scott! What a penal servitude for the great personages and
\nthe Avatars! And where are they leading them? All that rubbish into Paradise? How is that any more possible than creating a capacity where there was none? If the disjointed machines cannot be jointed, isn’t it more economical to leave them where they
\nare, in the lumber-shed? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI don’t know about Avatars. Practically what I know is that I
\nhad not all the powers necessary when I started, I had to develop them by yoga, at least many of them which were not in existence
\nin me when I began, and those which were I had to train to a higher degree. My own idea of the matter is that the Avatar’s
\nlife and action are not miracles and if they were, his existence would be perfectly useless, a mere superfluous freak of Nature.
\nHe accepts the terrestrial conditions, he uses means, he shows the way to humanity as well as helps it. Otherwise what is the
\nuse of him and why is he here?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI was not always in the overmind, if you please. I had to
\nclimb there from the mental and vital level.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nReally, Sir, you have put into my mouth what I never mentioned or even intended to.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tYou may not have mentioned it but it was implied in your logic
\nwithout your knowing that it was implied. Logic has its own consequences which are not apparent to the logiciser. It is like
\na move in chess by which you intend to overcome the opponent but it leads, logically, to consequences which you didn’t
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>413<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

intend and ends in your own checkmate. You can’t invalidate the consequences by saying that you didn’t intend them.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nLet me remind you of what I wrote about the Avatar. There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine
\nConsciousness behind and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth the
\ninstrumental personality in Nature, under the conditions of Nature, and it uses it according to the rules of the game
\n\u2014  though
\nalso sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatarhood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it. If it is a
\ncoherent part of the arrangement of the omnipotent Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAs for the Muthu affair, that was only a joke as ought to have been clear to you at once. Nobody has any intention of
\nmaking Muthu a saint or an Avatar. But that is only because the Divine is not going to play the fool, not because he is impotent.
\nMuthu’s only business in life is to prepare himself for something better hereafter and exhaust some of his lowest tendencies in the
\nmeantime. That is not the question \u2014  the question is whether as a general rule rigid and unalterable man is bound down to his
\noutward nature as it appears to be built at the moment and the Divine cannot or will not under any circumstances change it or
\ndevelop something new in it, something not yet “evident”, not yet manifested, or is there a chance for human beings becoming
\n  . <\/i>   <\/i>
\n  <\/i>   .<\/i>
\nmore like the Divine, sādrśyamukti<\/i>, sādharmyam āgatāh<\/i>? If not, there is no use in anybody doing this Yoga; let the Krishnas
\nand Ramakrishnas rocket about gloriously and uselessly in the empty Inane and the rest wriggle about for ever in the clutch of
\nthe eternal Devil. For that is the logical conclusion of the whole matter.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n13 February 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nI am afraid you are making me admit something I never wrote, neither implied nor intended in what I wrote. However, I shall
\nconsult your Essays on the Gita <\/i>to see what your Avatar says about the Avatar.
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>414<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nCan you not understand that it was the natural logical result of the statements made on either side about the unbridgeable
\ndistance between the Man Divine and the human being moving in the darkness towards the Divine? If you admit the utility of
\nmy sadhana, the controversy ceases. But so long as you declare that what I have done in my sadhana has no connection with
\nwhat can be done, I shall go on beating you. (What the Avatar says in the Essays
\n<\/i>is only an explanation of the Gita; it is not
\na full statement of the issue. But still if you read three or four chapters there, you will get some idea of the general principles.)
\nFor the rest I propose that all discussion be postponed till after the 21st (not immediately after). This will give time for you to
\nclear your ideas and for me to pursue my “Avataric” sadhana (not for myself, but for this confounded and too confounded
\nearth race). <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n14 February 1935
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nYou say, if I understand you right, that since the inner being is
\nopen to the universal, anything can manifest through it even if it is not there latent; you further add that it is impossible to say
\nwhat will or will not manifest once the universal acts upon it. But is this impossible for Yogis also? For example, can’t you
\nsay whether a man has a capacity for Yoga or for something else? Do you simply gamble when you accept someone?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI have never said anything about how I choose people. I was answering the argument that what has not been or is not in
\nmanifestation, cannot be. That was very clearly put in the discussion \u2014  that the Divine cannot manifest what is not yet there
\n\u2014  even He is impotent to do that. He can only manifest what is either already manifest or else latent in the field (person) he
\nis working on. I say no \u2014  he can bring in new things. He can bring it in from the universal or he can bring it down from
\nthe transcendent. For in the Divine cosmic and transcendent all things are. Whether He will do so or not in a particular
\ncase is quite another matter. My argument was directed towards dissipating this “can’t, can’t” with which people try to stop all
\npossibility of progress. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n15 February 1935
\n  
\n<\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>415<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nThe Avatar and Terrestrial Conditions
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI am sending with this note a typewritten MS on the Avatar.
\nPlease write an exhaustive reply, but in ink. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOn the back the rational and logical result of your arguments. I
\nshall write certain irrational answers on your MS \u2014  in ink.6<\/font><\/sup>
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nYou have won all along the line. Who could resist such
\na lava-torrent of logic? Slightly mixed, but still! You have convinced me (1st) that there never was nor could be an Avatar,
\n(2) that all the so-called Avatars were chimerical fools and failures, (3) that there is no Divinity or divine element in man,
\n(4) that I have never had any true difficulties or struggles, and that if I had any, it was all my fun (as K. S. said of my new
\nmetres that they were only Mr. Ghose’s fun), (5) that if ever there was or will be a real Avatar, I am not he
\n\u2014  but that I knew
\nbefore, (6) that all I have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham \u2014  sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way
\nfound, the Way followed, the call to others to follow, everything \u2014  it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing
\ncould touch me and none follow me. That is truly a discovery, a downright knock-out which leaves me convinced, convicted,
\namazed, gasping. I won’t go on, there is no space; but there are a score of other luminous convictions that your logic has forced
\non me. But what to do next? You have put me in a terrible fix and I see no way out of it. For if the Way, the Yoga is merely
\nsham, fun and chimera \u2014  then? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n6 March 1935
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhen did I say that you are not an Avatar? On the contrary I
\nwrote to you that you are an Avatar.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n6 Sri Aurobindo wrote these two sentences on the front side of a small sheet of paper<\/i>
\nsent by the correspondent, above the correspondent’s comments. On the back of the<\/i>
\nsame sheet Sri Aurobindo wrote the paragraph that follows. This paragraph is a brief<\/i>
\nreply to questions posed by the correspondent in his “typewritten MS”. Sri Aurobindo<\/i>
\nreturned the small sheet containing his paragraph-long reply to the correspondent on 6<\/i>
\nMarch 1935. This became the basis of the questions and answers of 7 March that are<\/i>
\nreproduced on pages 416 \u00ad 19. Sri Aurobindo also wrote long and detailed replies to the<\/i>
\nquestions on the “typewritten MS”; they are reproduced on pages 420 \u00ad 29. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>416<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tYou don’t say, but if your theory or description of the Avatar is right, I am not one. I am proceeding on the necessary consequences of your logic.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI did say that the difficulties and struggles of the Avatar are all
\nshams, put on, so to say. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIf they are shams, they have no value for others or for any true
\neffect. If they have no value for others or for any true effect, they are perfectly irrational and unreal and meaningless. The
\nDivine does not need to suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help
\nthe world and men; and if these sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot
\nhelp. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings of men themselves \u2014  the Divine bears them and at the same time shows
\nthe way out of them. Otherwise his assumption of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no value. It is strange that
\nyou cannot understand or refuse to admit so simple and crucial a point. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take all
\nthe meaning out of it?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI never said that there could be no Avatars nor that they are
\nfailures. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tGood Lord! You said most emphatically that they were all failures and that is why the Divine had to come back again and again \u2014  to “atone for his failures”.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nIf your argument is that the life, actions, struggles of the Avatar (e.g. Rama’s, Krishna’s) are unreal because the Divine is
\nthere and knows it is all a Maya, in man also there is a self, a spirit that is immortal, untouched, divine, you can say that
\nman’s sufferings and ignorance are only put on, shams, unreal. But if man feels them as real and if the Avatar feels his work and
\ndifficulties to be serious and real?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI don’t think I said that there is no divinity in man. In the
\nquotation I gave from the Gita it is said that man is made out   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>417<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nof the divine substance but has a thick coating on him.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf the existence of the Divinity is of no practical effect, what is the
\nuse of a theoretical admission? The manifestation of the Divinity in the Avatar is of help to man because it helps him to discover
\nhis own divinity, find the way to realise it. If the difference is so great that the humanity by its very nature prevents all possibility
\nof following the way opened by the Avatar, it merely means that there is no divinity in man that can respond to the divinity in
\nthe Avatar.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nYou make a flourish of reasonings and do not see the consequence of your reasonings. It is no use saying “I believe this or that” and then reasoning in a way which leads logically to the
\nvery negation of what you believe.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nI admitted that Avatars have many difficulties, but because
\nthey know, as Mother did, that they are Avatars, because the “real substance” shines through the alloy in all that they do,
\nthey have a fixed faith and conviction that they will never fail. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tYou think then that in me (I do not bring in the Mother) there
\nwas never any doubt or despair, no attacks of that kind. I have borne every attack which human beings have borne, otherwise I would be unable to assure anybody “This too can be conquered.” At least I would have no right to say so. Your
\npsychology is terribly rigid. I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and
\nwithout any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is the
\nsame thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that there is behind others
\n\u2014  and it is to awaken that that he is there.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe psychic being does the same for all who are intended for the spiritual way
\n\u2014  men need not be extraordinary beings to
\nfollow Yoga. That is the mistake you are making \u2014  to harp on greatness as if only the great can be spiritual.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nRegarding the divinity in man \u2014  what is the use of this divinity if it is coated layer after layer with Maya? How many can
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>418<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\treally become conscious of it? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tExactly! Why admit any divinity then at all, if their humanity
\nis an insuperable bar to any following in the Way pointed out by the Avatar? That was your contention that humanity and
\ndivinity are irreconcilable opposite things, that it is no use the Avatar
\nasking others (except Arjuna) to follow in his Path \u2014
\nthey, being human, cannot do it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou had defeats, struggles, but had at the same time the spirit
\nof absolute surrender, faith which we find shining through Mother’s prayers as well. Did you not leave your great work
\nfor the country at one word of Krishna? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tLots of people leave things at the word of a human being like
\nGandhi, they do not need the word of Krishna.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nDoes the average man have this faith, etc.? If he has not,
\nbut has instead struggles, sufferings etc., picture what his condition would be!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIf absolute <\/i>surrender, faith etc. from the beginning were essential for Yoga then nobody could do it. I myself could not have done
\nit if such a condition had been demanded of me.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThis is only to refute the points you found implied or explicit
\nin my letters. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tLet me make it clear that in all I wrote I was not writing to
\nprove that I am an Avatar! You are busy in your reasonings with the personal question, I am busy in mine with the general
\none. I am seeking to manifest something of the Divine that I am conscious of and feel
\n\u2014  I care a damn whether that constitutes
\nme an Avatar or something else. That is not a question which concerns me. By manifestation of course I mean the bringing out
\nand spreading of that Consciousness so that others also may feel and enter into it and live in it.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n7 March 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>419<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nI am eagerly waiting to see what you say in reply to X<\/i>‘s questions of tonight.7<\/font><\/sup> Often I have wondered why you made your
\ncases equal to ours. Did you ever suffer from desires, passions, ignorance, attachment etc. as we do?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWe have had sufferings and struggles to which yours are mere child’s play, \u2014  I have not made our cases equal to yours. I have
\nsaid that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness
\n\u2014  if nobody can follow the
\nWay, then either our conception of the thing, which is that of Christ and Krishna and Buddha also, is all wrong or the whole
\nlife and action of the Avatar is quite futile. X <\/i>seems to say that there is no Way and no possibility of following, that the struggles
\nand sufferings of the Avatar are unreal and all humbug, \u2014  there is no possibility of struggle for one who represents the Divine.
\nSuch an idea makes nonsense of the whole idea of Avatarhood \u2014 there is no reason in it, no necessity for it, no meaning in it. The
\nDivine being all-powerful can lift people up without bothering to come down on earth. It is only if it is part of the world
\narrangement that he should take upon himself the burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatarhood has any meaning.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n7 March 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nFollowing the Leader and Guide
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAt last I reopen the controversy.8<\/font><\/sup> I have read your Essays on<\/i> the Gita<\/i>,
\nSynthesis of Yoga<\/i>, letters on Rama, and though I
\nam wiser, my original and fundamental difficulty remains as unsolved as ever. What is so simple to you, as everything is,
\nappears mighty complex and abstruse to my dense intellect. So no alternative but to submit to a fresh beating. . . .
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nWhat your view comes to, put in a syllogism, is this: Since I have done it and I am an Avatar, so every other blessed
\ncreature can do it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n7 The reference is to the series of questions in the letter of 7 March 1935 on pages<\/i>
\n416 \u00ad 19. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n8 This is the beginning of the correspondent’s “typewritten MS”, which he submitted to<\/i>
\nSri Aurobindo on 6 March 1935. Sri Aurobindo wrote detailed answers to the questions<\/i>
\non the manuscript but never returned it. It was discovered among his papers after his<\/i>
\npassing. \u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>420<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis is idiotic. I have said “Follow my path, the way I have discovered for you through my own efforts and example. Trans
\nform your nature from the animal to the spiritual, grow into a higher divine consciousness. All this you can do by your own
\naspiration and by the force of the Divine Shakti.” That, if you please, is not the utterance of a madman or an imbecile. I have
\nsaid, “I have opened the Way; now you with the Divine help can follow it.” I have not said “Find the way for yourself as I did.”
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIn the Essays on the Gita <\/i>you say man “is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all its organs the seal
\nof . . . Nature, Prakriti, Maya . . . ; she has minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine substance, but
\noverlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal
\nhumanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there, it is at first indistinguishable. . . .”9<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tDoes it follow that the coating cannot be dissolved nor the mark effaced? Then stamp the stamp of the chimaera on all
\nefforts at spirituality and catalogue as asses and fools all who have attempted to rise beyond the human animal
\n\u2014  all who have
\ntried to follow the path of the Christ, the Buddha; stigmatise as folly Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, the way of the Jinas, Christ himself
\nand Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, and any other pathfinder and seeker.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nOn the other hand you write that in “the Avatar, the
\ndivinely-born Man, the real substance shines through the coating; the
\nmark of the seal is there only for form, the vision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life is that of the secret God
\nhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed human nature . . .” [Essays on the Gita<\/i>, pp. 158 \u00ad 59].
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tDoes it follow that the breaking through had not to be done or was a mere trifling impediment? The power of the form can be
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n9 Essays on the Gita, volume 19 of <\/i>T<\/font>HE<\/font> C<\/font>OMPLETE<\/font> W<\/font>ORKS OF<\/font> S<\/font>RI<\/font> A<\/font>UROBINDO<\/font>,<\/i>
\np. 158.<\/i>
\n  
\n422<\/i> <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>421<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

exceedingly great as every thinker and observer of life can tell you.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAfter this you say that the object of the Avatar’s descent is “precisely to show that the human birth with all its limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the divine birth and divine works. . . . Even human sorrow and physical
\nsuffering he must assume and use so as to show . . . how that suffering may be a means of redemption . . .” [Essays<\/i>, pp.
\n164 \u00ad 65]. Well, Sir, it will have no go with me, my heart won’t leap up at such a divine possibility, such a dream of Paradise!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tYour heart not leaping up does not make my statement a falsehood, a non sequitur or a chimaera.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMy fellow-brothers may venture to reach there through such a thin hanging bridge but if they do, I am afraid, it will be into
\na fool’s Paradise. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe fool being myself, eh? For it is my Paradise and it is I who
\ncall them to it.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe difficulties you face, the dangers you overcome, the struggles you embrace would seem to be mere shams.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t[Underlining “mere shams”:<\/i>] Truly then what a humbug and
\ncharlatan I have been, making much of sham struggles and dangers \u2014  or, in the alternative, since I took them for realities, what
\na self-blinded imbecile!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nMother knew she was an Avatar at a very early age.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAt what age? But I shall say nothing about the Mother \u2014  I cannot bring her into such arguments, only myself.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nShe was thus able to follow the path of travails through volcanoes and earthquakes. But if she says to me, “You can also
\ndo it,” I will cry out, “Forbear, Mother, forbear.” <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tNobody asks you to go through volcanoes and earthquakes or
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>422<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tto proceed unhelped. You are simply asked to follow the Leader and Guide with the Divine help and with courage, in the face of
\nwhatever difficulties come. <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nIf I knew I were an Avatar (pardon my bold hypothesis) do you
\nthink I would cry or wail for fear of any amount of crashes and collisions or would it matter if I began with a nature with
\nnot a grain of spirituality in me? I would jump from peak to peak in somersaults, go down the abysses, rise up the steeps
\nwithout fear of mortal consequences since I would know that I was the Divine.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWould you? I wish you had been in my place then! You would have been a hundred times more fit than myself, if you could
\nreally have done that. And how easily things would have been done! While I did them and am still doing them with enormous
\ndifficulty because I lead and have to make the path so that others may follow with less difficulty.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere could be no death or failure for me. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Divine in the body is not subject to death or failure? Yet all
\nthose claimed to be Avatars have died \u2014  some by violence, some by cancer, some of indigestion etc. etc. You yourself say that they
\nwere all failures. How do you reconcile these self-contradictory arguments?
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nYou say, “A physical and mental body is prepared fit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the
\ndescending Godhead takes possession of it” [Essays<\/i>, p. 166]. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tLike my heredity? It was “pure”? But of course I am not a divine
\nincarnation. Only why put all that upon one whom it does not fit?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nTo his beloved children created in his own image he says with gusto, I send you through this hell of a cycle of rebirths. Don’t
\nlose heart, poor boys, if you groan under the weight of your sins and those of your ancestors to boot. I will come down
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>423<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nand take hold of a pure heredity with no coating around me and say unto you \u2014  come and follow my example.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWho gave this message? It is your own invention. The Divine does not come down in that way. It is a silly imagination of yours
\nthat you are trying to foist on the truth of things. The Divine also comes down into the cycle of rebirths, makes the great
\nholocaust, endures shame and obloquy, torture and crucifixion, the burden of human nature, sex and passion and sorrow and
\nsuffering, manifests many births before he reveals the Avatar. And when he does reveal it? Well, read the lives of the Avatars
\nand try to understand and see.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nNobody ever said there was no coating \u2014  that is your invention.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nNot a very inspiring message, Sir!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tNo, of course not \u2014  but it is yours, not any Avatar’s.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nJatakas tell us that in every life small or great, Buddha’s frontal
\nconsciousness was always above the level of others. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tJatakas are legends. <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nRamakrishna and Chaitanya began yoga in their cradle, it seems.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tDid they? I know nothing about it; but if they told you that! Anyhow one died by drowning and the other of a cancer.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI don’t know if Avatars ever play the part of the rogue or the eternal sinner in any life.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t[Underlining “rogue or the eternal sinner”<\/i>:] Krishna was a rogue and a sinner even in his Avatar life, if tales are true! Don’t you
\nthink so?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nNow about your absence of urge towards spirituality. Even
\nthough that sounds like a story, pray tell us how you could  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>424<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tfree your mind from all thoughts in 7 days or be established in Brahmic consciousness in a few days.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t3 if you please. You are terribly inaccurate in your statements. It was simply through the Divine Grace, because it had been done
\nby thousands before me throughout the centuries and millenniums, and the Divine did not want me to waste time over that;
\nother things in the Yoga were not so damned easy!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAnd even apart from spirituality, what of your waiting for the
\ngallows for your country’s sake with perfect equanimity? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t[Underlining “perfect equanimity”<\/i>:] Who told you that? I was
\nperfectly sure of release. But even so plenty of ordinary men did it before me.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat of your profoundly bold assertion that you would free the country by a Force that was under your feet?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tNever said that, surely. Under my feet?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat of your brilliant career? If one has the essential principle, what does it matter if one has no urge towards spirituality?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tMy career was much less brilliant than many others’. They ought
\nto have progressed then farther in Yoga than myself, e.g. Mussolini, Lenin, Tilak, Brajendranath Seal, the admirable Crichton,
\nGandhi, Tagore, Roosevelt, Lloyd George etc. etc. All Avatars or all full of the essential principle!
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThe inner consciousness is there. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAll that does not apply to me alone. There are hundreds of
\nothers. The inner consciousness is not so rare a phenomenon as all that.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThere are some people, I hear, who are to all external appearance debauchees or moral insolvents but whose psychic is
\nmuch developed or “can be touched”.   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>425<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

That gives away the whole case. For mark that I have never asked the whole
\nhuman race to follow me to the supramental \u2014
\nthat is your invention, not mine.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\nStill you go on saying that what you have done is possible for
\nme and not for Arjunas only to whom alone Krishna seems to have addressed the Gita.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat a waste of words and energy! Yet Krishna said “even Chandalas can follow my way.”
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI prophesy that your message will reverberate in the rarefied atmosphere evoking a loud rebellious echo from human hearts.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI admit that you have successfully proved that I am an imbecile.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut if you say, “I come to raise you bodily by my divine
\nOmnipotence, not by my example,” I shake hands. If you insist that I follow your example, it would be as well to insist
\non my leaving you bag and baggage at once. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAll this is a purely personal argument concerning yourself. Up
\nto now you were making general assertions \u2014  so was I. I was concerned with the possibility of people following the Path I
\nhad opened, as Christ, Krishna, Buddha, Chaitanya etc. opened theirs. You were declaring that no human being could follow
\nand that my life was perfectly useless as an example \u2014  like the lives of the Avatars. Path, life, example all useless
\n\u2014  even
\nPower useless because all have been failures. These are general questions. Whether X or Y is able or willing to follow the path
\nor depends on divine Omnipotence only is a personal question. Even if X or Y does so, he has no right to pass a general decree
\nof impossibility against others.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nThere are some who claim that they are here and remain here
\nby their soul’s call. But I am not one of those fortunate ones. Where they hear the soul’s call, I hear the calls of a thousand
\ndevils and if it were not for your love \u2014  well, no, \u2014  for your Power (which I firmly believe in), I would end up myself by
\n  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>426<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nbeing one of those devils. I hope you will believe that this is not a conceited statement.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is very conceited. To be a devil needs a considerable personal capacity or else a great openness to the Beyond. If you had said,
\nI can only be an ordinary human being, that might be modest.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe don’t mean to give you a compliment when we say these
\nthings. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOf course not. It is the reverse of complimentary, since you
\nprove me to be an ignorant and mistaken fellow of an Avatar, who merely wastes his time doing things which are of no earthly
\nuse to any human being \u2014  except perhaps Arjuna who is not here.
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nNo, we say that the Sun is a thing apart, not to be measured
\n by any human standards.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Sun’s rays are of use to somebody \u2014  you say all my acts and life and laborious opening of the Way I thought I had made for
\nspiritual realisation, are of no use to anybody \u2014  since nobody is strong enough to follow the path, only the Avatar can do it.
\nPoor lonely ineffective fellow of an Avatar!
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWe respect him, adore him, lay ourselves bare to his Light, but
\nwe do not follow him. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWho is this we? Editorial “we”?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nLet me point out one or two facts, in a perfectly serious spirit.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t(1) It has always been supposed by spiritual people that divine perfection, similitude to the Divine,
\n\tsādrśya<\/i>, sādharmyam<\/i>, is part
\nof the Mukti. Christ said “Be ye perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect”
\n\u2014  the very Divine himself, mind you, not a mere
\nAvatar or luminous projection from him. His followers strive to`
\nbe Christlike. Thomas a Kempis, meditating and striving, wrote a book on the Imitation of Christ. Francis of Assisi and many
\n   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>427<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

others arrived at Christlikeness. [Krishna in] the Gita insists on
\nsādharmyam<\/i>, gives himself as an example, and tells Arjuna that many before him from ancient times reached to it. Buddha in
\nteaching karunā<\/i>, the eightfold path, the rejection of sanskaras,
\ngave it as an ideal to all true followers of his path, thus placing before them not only his own path but his own example. All this
\nis trash and humbug? Christ and Buddha were fools? Myself even a bigger fool? It is not a question of greatness
\n\u2014  it is a
\nquestion of acquiring a certain consciousness to which the way is laid open. It is not a question of acquiring cosmic omniscience
\nand omnipotence, but of reaching the essential divine consciousness with all its
\nspiritual <\/i>consequences, peace, light, equality,
\nstrength, Ananda etc. etc. If you say that that cannot be done, you deny all possibility of spiritual perfection, transformation
\nor any true Yoga. All that anyone can do is to be helpless and wait for the divine Omnipotence to do something or other. The
\nwhole spiritual past of man becomes a fantastic insanity, with the Avatars as the chief lunatics. That is the materialist point
\nof view, but I am unable to envisage it as a basis for sadhana. That example is not all, is true; I have not said it is; there is
\nInfluence, there is spiritual help \u2014  but the truth of the Way and the Example cannot be belittled in this scornful fashion.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

(2) You make nothing of the Divine in man. If there is no divinity in man, then there is no possibility of Avatarhood; also
\nspirituality can just as well pass away into silence \u2014  it has no foundation here. If the divinity is there in man, it can break
\nthrough its coatings. You admit that it can do it in debauchees and moral insolvents
\n\u2014  that it can manifest in ignorant and
\nuncultured men and women is a proved fact; the Gita itself declares that all
\nkinds <\/i>of men and women can follow its path.
\nWhether X or Y does or does not do so does not depend then on these things and it is no use trying to bar the path to people
\nbecause of either their ignorance or their immorality. To do so is to betray a bottomless ignorance of spiritual things. As to the
\npossibility of awakening the psychic being, on what intellectual grounds or by what fixed ethical or rational rules are you going
\nto fix that and declare “No entry here for you”? You cannot  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>428<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n\tgeneralise in the way you try to do by an intellectual reasoning. The mystery of the Spirit is too great for such a puny endeavour.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\nafter 6 March 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nFallibility of Avatars
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nHow is it that later Avatars often find fault with the actions and movements of their predecessors?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWho finds fault with whom? I have not found fault with any Avatar. To discern what they expressed and what they did not
\nexpress, is not to find fault.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAvatars are supposed to be infallible, they are supposed to
\nhave Knowledge directly from Above! <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is infallible? I invite your attention again to Rama and the
\nGolden Deer. The Avatar need have no theoretical “Knowledge” from above \u2014  he acts and thinks whatever the Divine within
\nhim intends that he should act and think for the work. Was everything that Ramakrishna said or thought infallible?
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n22 April 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Avatar and Humanity
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nEvery Avatar descended to relieve the world from falsehood, darkness, vice, etc. Also, everyone preached against them.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI am not concerned with what the Avatars did or are supposed to have done (though in that case Krishna seems to have done some
\nvery queer and undivine things). My business is with rising above the human consciousness and not with fulfilling limited human
\nideals; and I look at things from that standpoint. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n20 April 1936
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n

\nAvatars, unlike Vibhutis, do not need to satisfy their vital.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tWhy should they not?   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>429<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\nFor the Avatar’s vital has no cravings and desires as our vital has. He is above them. And if he seems to be satisfying them, it
\nis only to acquire experience and knowledge of the vital world. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tAll that is wrong. The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of
\nhumanity in his instrumental parts, though the consciousness acting behind is divine.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhen the Divine descends here (as the Avatar), he has to veil himself and deal with the world and its movements like an
\nordinary man of the cosmic product. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tExactly.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nBut behind he is perfectly conscious of what happens. The universal forces cannot make him their tool as they make us.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThat does not prevent the Avatar from acting as men act and using the movements of Nature for his life and work.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n23 July 1936 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nAvatars can of course be married and satisfy their vital movements. But do they really indulge them as ordinary people?
\nDon’t they even before they begin the practice of Yoga, remain conscious of their union with the Divine above even while
\nsatisfying their outer being? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThere is not necessarily any union above before the practice of
\nYoga. There is a connection of the consciousness with the veiled Divinity and an action out of that, but this is not dependent on
\nthe practice of Yoga. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n25 July 1936
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nThe Purpose of Past Avatars
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWhat could be the Divine’s purpose in leaving Arjuna in such
\na helpless condition after his withdrawal from the world? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tIt is said that it was done to break Arjuna’s pride so that he
\nmight see his strength was not his, but the Divine’s alone.  
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>430<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThroughout the history of human evolution we see that the Avatar brings light into the world. But when he retires, very
\nlittle of this light remains. There is no substantial change. Does the Divine will it to be so?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tYou have only to consider what the state of humanity would have been if Krishna and others had not come. They would
\nhave been still near to the beast with no openings on the heights of the spirit.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n20 October 1933 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRecognition of Past Avatars
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nWere the Avatars \u2014  the ten that have already come \u2014  known as Avatars in their own times?
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOnly to a few, according to the accounts. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n14 November 1935
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nSri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo
\n<\/b> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tI thought I had already told you that your turn towards Krishna
\nwas not an obstacle. In any case I affirm that positively in answer to your question. If we consider the large and indeed predominant part he played in my own sadhana, it would be strange if the part he has in your sadhana could be considered objectionable.
\nSectarianism is a matter of dogma, ritual etc., not of spiritual experience; the concentration on Krishna is a self-offering to the
\nista-deva<\/i>. If you reach Krishna you reach the Divine; if you can
\ngive yourself to him, you give yourself to me. Your inability to identify may be because you are laying too much stress on the
\nphysical aspects, consciously or unconsciously. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n18 June 1943
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nYou can’t expect me to argue about my own spiritual greatness
\nin comparison with Krishna’s. The question itself would be relevant only if there were two sectarian religions in opposition,
\nAurobindoism and Vaishnavism, each insisting on its own God’s greatness. That is not the case. And then what Krishna must I
\nchallenge, \u2014  the Krishna of the Gita who is the transcendent   <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>430<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n

Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the cosmic Deity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent
\nin the heart of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka and Kurukshetra and who was the
\nguide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity? All that is not to me something philosophical or mental but a matter
\nof daily and hourly realisation and intimate to the stuff of my consciousness. Then from what position can I adjudicate this
\ndispute? X <\/i>thinks I am superior in greatness, you think there can be nothing greater than Krishna; each is entitled to have his
\nown view or feeling, whether it is itself right or not. It can be left there; it can be no reason for your leaving the Asram.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n25 February 1945 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRecognising Divinity
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nAfter reading your answers, one part of me tries to justify itself and attribute to you the ordinary humanity.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOf course. Whatever does not say ditto to the human mind cannot be divine. That is the usual maxim of judgment. “The
\nDivine must do what I want and think as I think, judge as I judge and support my ideas, interests or feelings against others,
\notherwise how can he be Divine? For whatever I think, feel or want must be the TRUTH.” At least that seems to be the attitude
\nof most sadhaks in the Asram. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nShall man know of your divinity only after the supermind has descended?10<\/font><\/sup>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tThere is no necessity of the supermind for that. It is the inner consciousness that has to recognise
\n\u2014  it is impossible for the
\nouter mind to know it by its own reasonings.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n10 It is not clear from the context whether the correspondent’s “your” refers to Sri<\/i>
\nAurobindo or the Mother or both. The same is true of “you” in the next letter.
\n\u2014  Ed.<\/i>  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>432<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe Divine Incarnate?
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nI have a strong faith that you are the Divine Incarnate in
\nbhāgavatī tanu<\/i>. Am I right? <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tFollow your faith \u2014  it is not likely to mislead you.
\n\t<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n12 August 1935 <\/font> <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\nReticence about the Question of Divinity
\n<\/b>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\tOne thing. There is coming here in a day or two (perhaps tomorrow) a lady from Switzerland named Madame
\nX <\/i>who is a friend
\nor acquaintance of Y<\/i>‘s mother; she will put up in Boudie House, perhaps for a month, perhaps for a shorter or longer time. We
\nknow nothing of her and it is not yet sure whether her profession of seeking the spiritual Truth is really deep or genuine. Therefore
\ntill we are fixed about her, Mother wishes that she should not be taken in intimately into the Asram life or told anything about
\ninner matters of the Asram or spoken to about questions such as the divinity of the Mother or myself (for her we are simply
\nspiritual Teachers) or shown freely messages or letters. A certain reserve is necessary until she has been thoroughly tested. I write
\nthis in view of the possibility of your and other sadhaks meeting her and an acquaintance forming, so as to put you on your
\nguard. It is not a case like Z <\/i>or even the A<\/i>‘s. <\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\n9 December 1936
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n*<\/span><\/p>\n

\n    <\/span> <\/p>\n

\nDo you really think it necessary or advisable to publish an exegesis of this kind?11<\/font><\/sup> The last paragraphs are about things that concern only disciples or even only sadhaks of the Asram, it is
\nnot desirable to discuss them and publish to outsiders or the general public. What you write about my books would be considered as extravagant by most readers. Also we do not usually encourage sadhaks of the Asram to write about us as divine, though
\none or another may have done it \u2014  there is a certain reticence in this matter which is desirable in writing for the general public.
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\n11 This is Sri Aurobindo’s comment on an article that was submitted to him for approval.<\/i>
\n\u2014  Ed.<\/i>
\n  
\n  
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n 
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 <\/font>433<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Question of Avatarhood   The Guru and the Avatar   About the question of the Avatar, I do not think it is useful to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-35-letters-on-himself-and-the-ashram","wpcat-37-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682","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=1682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}