{"id":2637,"date":"2013-07-13T01:42:55","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2637"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:42:55","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:42:55","slug":"44-the-avatar-and-the-vibhuti-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/28-letters-on-yoga-i\/44-the-avatar-and-the-vibhuti-vol-28-letters-on-yoga-i","title":{"rendered":"-44_The Avatar and the Vibhuti.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n\tSection Two <\/font><\/b> <\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Avatar and the Vibhuti
\n  
\n <\/font>  <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n\tChapter One
\n<\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Meaning and Purpose
\n<\/font>
\n<\/b> <\/p>\n


\nof Avatarhood
\n<\/font>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\n

\n

\n\tThe Avatar or Incarnation
\n<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\n\t <\/p>\n

Surely for the earth consciousness it is so [the very fact that the<\/i> Divine manifests himself is the greatest of all splendours<\/i>]. Consider the obscurity here and what it would be if the Divine did not directly intervene and the Light of Lights did not break out
\nof the obscurity \u2014for that is the meaning of the manifestation. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

An Incarnation is the Divine Consciousness and Being manifesting through a physical body. It is possible from any plane. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

It is the omnipresent cosmic Divine who supports the action of
\nthe universe; if there is an Incarnation, it does not in the least diminish the cosmic Presence and the cosmic action in the three
\nor thirty million universes. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The descending Power chooses its own place, body, time for the manifestation; something of that is foreseen by those who have
\nvision but not the whole. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

An Avatar is supposed to be from birth. Each soul at its birth takes from the cosmic mind, life and matter to shape a new
\nexternal personality for himself. What prevents the Divine from doing the same? What is continued from birth to birth is the
\ninner being. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n

Each being in a new birth prepares a new mind, life and body
\n\u2014otherwise John Smith would always be John Smith and would
\nhave no chance of being Piyush Kanti Ghose. Of course inside there are old personalities contributing to the new lila
\n\u2014but
\nI am speaking of the new visible personality, the outer man, mental, vital, physical. It is the psychic being that keeps the link
\nfrom birth to birth and makes all the manifestations of the same person. It is therefore to be expected that the Avatar should
\ntake on a new personality each time, a personality suited for the new times, work, surroundings. In my own view of things,
\nhowever, the new personality has a series of non-Avatar births behind him, births in which the intermediate evolution has been
\nfollowed and assisted from age to age. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

If they [the difficulties and struggles of the Avatar<\/i>] are shams, they have no value for others or for any true effect. If they
\nhave no value for others or for any true effect, they are perfectly irrational and unreal and meaningless. The Divine does not need
\nto suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world and men; and
\nif the sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot help. They must be as real
\nas the struggles and sufferings of men themselves \u2014the Divine bears them and at the same time shows the way out of them.
\nOtherwise his assumption of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no value. It is strange that you cannot understand
\nor refuse to admit so simple and crucial a point. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take all the meaning out of it? <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Divine and Human Sides of the Avatar
\n\t<\/a> <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the
\nDivine Consciousness behind and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth
\nthe instrumental personality in Nature, under the conditions of Nature, and it uses it according to the rules of the game <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

-though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatarhood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it.
\nIf it is a coherent part of the arrangement of the omnipresent Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

As for the Divine and human, that also is a mind-made difficulty.
\nThe Divine is there in the human, and the human fulfilling and exceeding its highest aspirations and tendencies becomes the
\nDivine. That is what your silly X <\/i>could not understand \u2014that when the Divine descends, he takes upon himself the burden of
\nhumanity in order to exceed it \u2014he becomes human in order to show humanity how to become Divine. But that cannot be if
\nthere is only a weakling without any divine Presence within or divine Force behind him
\n\t\u2014he has to be strong in order to put his
\nstrength into all who are willing to receive it. There is therefore in him a double element
\n\t\u2014human in front, divine behind \u2014
\nand it is that which gives the impression of unfathomableness of which X
\n<\/i>complained. If you look upon the human alone,
\nlooking with the external eye only and are not willing or ready to see anything else, you will see a human being only
\n\t\u2014if you
\nlook for the Divine, you will find the Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The Avatar is not supposed to act in a non-human way
\n\u2014he takes up human action and uses human methods with the human
\nconsciousness in front and the Divine behind. If he did not his taking a human body would have no meaning and would be of
\nno use to anybody. He could just as well have stayed above and done things from there. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

What do you mean by lust? Avatars can be married and have
\nchildren and that is not possible without sex; they can have friendships, enmities, family feelings etc. etc.
\n\t\u2014these are vital
\nthings. I think you are under the impression that an Avatar must be a saint or a Yogi. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n

One can be the head of a spiritual organisation or the Messiah of a religion or an Avatar without in this life reaching the
\nSupermind and beyond. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tHuman Judgments of the Divine
\n\t<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is true that it is impossible for the limited human reason to judge the way or purpose of the Divine, which is the way of the
\nInfinite dealing with the finite. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

It is not by your mind that you can hope to understand the Divine and its action, but by the growth of the true and divine
\nconsciousness within you. If the Divine were to unveil and reveal itself in all its glory, the mind might feel a Presence, but it would
\nnot understand its action or its nature. It is in the measure of your own realisation and by the birth and growth of that
\ngreater consciousness in yourself that you will see the Divine and understand its action even behind its terrestrial disguises. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Men’s way of doing things is a mental convention; they see things
\nand do things with the mind and what they want is a mental and human perfection. When they think of a manifestation of
\nDivinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing the ordinary human things
\n\t\u2014an extraordinary business
\nfaculty, political, poetic or artistic faculty, an accurate memory, not making any mental mistakes, not undergoing any defeat or
\nfailure. Or else they think of things which they call superhuman like the people who expected me not to eat food at all or wanted
\nme to know and tell them what will be the value of the cotton shares in Bombay from day to day, or like those who think great
\nYogis are those who sleep on nails or eat them. All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine. <\/p>\n

At that rate Rama would be undivine because he followed the Mayamriga as if it were a natural deer and Krishna would
\nbe undivine because he was forced by Jarasandha to take refuge   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

in distant Dwaraka. These human ideas are false. <\/p>\n

The Divinity acts according to another consciousness
\n\t\u2014the
\nconsciousness of the Truth above and the Lila below and it acts according to the need of the Lila, not according to men’s ideas
\nof what it should or should not do. This is the first thing one must grasp, otherwise one can understand nothing about the
\nmanifestation of the Divine. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I do not know why you should be suddenly bewildered by what I wrote1
\n\u2014it is nothing new and we have been saying it since
\na whole eternity. I wrote this short answer in reference to a question which supposed that certain “perfections” must be demanded of the Divine Manifestation which seemed to me quite irrelevant to the reality. I put forward two propositions which
\nappear to me indisputable unless we are to revise all spiritual knowledge in favour of modern European ideas about things. <\/p>\n

First, the Divine Manifestation even when it manifests in mental and human ways has behind it a consciousness greater
\nthan the mind and not bound by the petty mental and moral conventions of this very ignorant human race
\n\u2014so that to impose
\nthese standards on the Divine is to try to do what is irrational and impossible. Secondly, this Divine Consciousness behind the
\napparent personality is concerned with only two things in a fundamental way \u2014the Truth above and here below the Lila
\nand the purpose of the incarnation or manifestation and it does what is necessary for that in the way its greater than human
\nconsciousness sees to be the necessary and intended way. I shall try if I can develop that when I write about it
\n\u2014perhaps I shall
\ntake your remarks about Rama and Krishna as the starting-point \u2014but that I shall see hereafter. <\/p>\n

But I do not understand how all that can prevent me from answering mental questions. On my own showing, if it is necessary for the divine purpose, it has to be done. Ramakrishna himself whom you quote for the futility of asking questions <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t1 See the letter beginning “I would not describe” on pages 416 \u00ad 17. \u2014Ed.<\/i>
\n\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n

answered thousands of questions, I believe. But the answers must be such as Ramakrishna gave and such as I try to give,
\nanswers from a higher spiritual experience, from a deeper source of knowledge and not lucubrations of the logical intellect trying
\nto coordinate its ignorance; still less can they be a placing of the Divine or the Divine Truth before the judgment of the intellect to
\nbe condemned or acquitted by that authority \u2014for the authority here has no sufficient jurisdiction or competence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t
\n\tThe Work of the Avatar<\/b>
\n\t<\/a> <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way
\nfor humanity to a higher consciousness \u2014if nobody can follow the Way, then either our conception of the thing, which is also
\nthat of Christ and Krishna and Buddha, is all wrong or the whole life and action of the Avatar is quite futile.
\nX <\/i>seems to
\nsay that there is no way and no possibility of following, that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are unreal and all humbug,
\n\t\u2014there is no possibility of struggle for one who represents the Divine. Such a conception makes nonsense of the whole idea of
\nAvatarhood \u2014there is then no reason in it, no necessity for it, no meaning in it. The Divine being all-powerful can lift people
\nup without bothering to come down on earth. It is only if it is part of the world-arrangement that he should take upon himself
\nthe burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatarhood has any meaning. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

If the Divine were not in essence omnipotent, he could not be omnipotent anywhere \u2014whether in the supramental or anywhere else. Because he chooses to limit or determine his action by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent. His self-limitation is itself an act of omnipotence. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Why the immortal Hell should the Divine be tied down to succeed in all his operations? What if failure suits him better and   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

serves better the ultimate purpose? What if the gentleman in question had to be given his chance as Duryodhan was given his
\nchance when Krishna went to him as ambassador in a last effort to avoid the massacre of Kurukshetra? What rigid primitive
\nnotions are these about the Divine! And what about my explanation of how the Divine acts through the Avatar?2 It seems all
\nto have gone into water. <\/p>\n

By the way about the ass becoming an elephant
\n\t\u2014what I
\nmeant to say was that the only reason why it can’t be done is because there is no recognisable process for it. But if a process can
\nbe discovered whether by a scientist (let us say transformation or redistribution of the said ass’s atoms or molecules
\n\t\u2014or what
\nnot) or by an occultist or by a Yogi, then there is no reason why it should not be done. In other words certain conditions have
\nbeen established for the game and so long as those conditions remain unchanged certain things are not done
\n\t\u2014so we say they
\nare impossible, can’t be done. If the conditions are changed, then the same things are done or at least become licit
\n\t\u2014allowable,
\nlegal, according to the so-called laws of Nature, \u2014and then we say they can be done. The Divine also acts according to the
\nconditions of the game. He may change them, but he has to change them first, not proceed while maintaining the conditions
\nto act by a series of miracles. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

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

If the existence of the Divinity is of no practical effect, what
\nis the use of a theoretical admission? The manifestation of the <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t2 The “explanation” Sri Aurobindo refers to here is probably the one presented in<\/i>
\nEssays on the Gita, First Series, Chapters XV to XVII. \u2014Ed.<\/i> <\/font>  <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\n

\n

Divinity in the Avatar is of help to man because it helps him to discover his own divinity, find the way to realise it. If the difference is so great that the humanity by its very nature prevents all possibility of following the way opened by the Avatar, it merely
\nmeans that there is no divinity in man that can respond to the Divinity in the Avatar. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

I repeat, the Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial
\nnature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. If he has something behind him which emerges
\nalways out of the coverings, it is the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that there is behind others
\n\t\u2014and it is to
\nawaken that that he is there. <\/p>\n

The psychic being does the same for all who are intended
\nfor the spiritual way \u2014men need not be extraordinary beings to follow Yoga. That is the mistake you are making
\n\t\u2014to harp on
\ngreatness as if only the great can be spiritual. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

An
\nAvatar or Vibhuti have the knowledge that is necessary for their work, they need
\nnot have more. There was absolutely no reason why Buddha should know what was
\ngoing on in Rome. An Avatar even does not manifest all the Divine omniscience
\nand omnipotence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display; all that is
\nbehind him but not in the front of his consciousness. As for the Vibhuti, the
\nVibhuti need not even know that he is a power of the Divine. Some Vibhutis, like
\nJulius Caesar for instance, have been atheists. Buddha himself did not believe
\nin a personal God, only in some impersonal and indescribable Permanent. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Avatar: Historicity and Symbols
\n\t<\/a>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Then as to the Avatar and the symbols. There is, it seems to me, a cardinal error in the modern insistence on the biographical and
\nhistorical, that is to say, the external factuality of the Avatar,
\n <\/p>\n

\n

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\n

the incidents of his outward life. What matters is the spiritual
\nReality, the Power, the Influence that came with him or that he brought down by his action and his existence. First of all what
\nmatters in a spiritual man’s life is not what he did or what he was outside to the view of the men of his time (that is what
\nhistoricity or biography comes to, does it not?) but what he was and did within; it is only that that gives any value to his outer life
\nat all. It is the inner life that gives to the outer any power it may have, and the inner life of a spiritual man is something vast and
\nfull and, at least in the great figures, so crowded and teeming with significant things that no biographer or historian could
\never hope to seize it all or tell it. Whatever is significant in the outward life is so because it is a symbol of what has been realised
\nwithin himself and one may go on and say that the inner life also is only significant as an expression, a living representation
\nof the movement of the Divinity behind it. That is why we need not enquire whether the stories about Krishna were transcripts,
\nhowever loose, of his acts on earth or are symbol-representations of what Krishna was and is for men, of the Divinity expressing
\nitself in the figure of Krishna. Buddha’s renunciation, his temptation by Mara, his enlightenment under the Bo-Tree are such
\nsymbols, so too the virgin birth, the temptation in the desert, the crucifixion of Christ are such symbols true by what they signify,
\neven if they are not scrupulously recorded historical events. The outward facts as related of Christ or Buddha come to not much
\nmore than what has happened in many other lives \u2014what is it that gives Buddha or Christ their enormous place in the spiritual
\nworld? It was because something manifested through them that was more than any outward event or any teaching. The verifiable
\nhistoricity gives us very little of that, yet it is that only that matters. So it seems to me that Krishnaprem
\n\t\t\tis fundamentally right in what he says of the symbols. To the
\n\t\t\tphysical mind only the words and facts and acts of a man matter; to
\n\t\t\tthe inner mind it is the spiritual happenings in him that matter.
\n\t\t\tEven the teachings of Christ and Buddha are spiritually true not as
\n\t\t\tmere mental teachings but as the expression of spiritual states or
\n\t\t\thappenings in them which by their life on earth they made possible
\n\t\t\t(or at <\/p>\n

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\n

any rate more dynamically potential) in others. Also evidently sectarian walls are a mistake, an accretion, a mental limiting of
\nthe Truth which may serve a mental, but not a spiritual purpose. The Avatar, the Guru have no meaning if they do not stand for
\nthe Eternal; it is that that makes them what they are for the worshipper or the disciple. <\/p>\n

It is also a fact that nobody can give you any spiritual revelation which does not come from something in one’s own true
\nSelf, it is always the Divine who reveals himself and the Divine is within you; so He who reveals must be felt in your own heart.
\nYour query here simply suggests that this is a truth which can be misinterpreted or misused, but so can every spiritual truth if it
\nis taken hold of in the wrong way \u2014and the human mind has a great penchant for taking Truth by the wrong end and arriving
\nat falsehood. All statements about these things are, after all, mental statements and at the mercy of any mind that interprets
\nthem. There is a snag in every such statement created not by the Truth that it expresses but by the mind’s interpretation. The
\nsnag here (what you call the slip) lies not in the statement itself which is quite correct, but in the deflected sense in which it may
\nbe taken by ignorant or self-sufficient minds enamoured of their ego. Many have put forward the “own self” gospel without
\ntaking the trouble to see whether it is the true Self, have pitted the ignorance of their “own self”
\n\u2014in fact, their ego \u2014against
\nthe knowledge of the Guru or made their ego or something that flattered and fostered it the Ishta Devata. The snag in the
\nworship of Guru or Avatar is a sectarian bias which insists on the Representative or the Manifestation but loses sight of the
\nManifested; the snag in the emphasis on the other side is the ignoring of the need or belittling of the value of the Representative or Manifestation and the substitution not of the true Self one in all but of one’s “own self” as the guide and light. How
\nmany have done that here and lost the way through the pull of the magnified ego which is one of the great perils on the way!
\nHowever that does not lessen the truth of the things said by Krishnaprem \u2014only in looking at the many sides of Truth one
\nmust put each thing in its place in the harmony of the All which <\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

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\n

is for us the expression of the Supreme. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

The answer to the question [whether the Krishna of Brindavan<\/i> and the stories of his lila are literally true or merely symbols of<\/i>
\ndeep spiritual realities<\/i>] depends on what value one attaches to spiritual experience and to mystic and occult experience, that is
\nto say, to the data of other planes of consciousness than the physical, as also on the nature of the relations between the cosmic
\nconsciousness and the individual and collective consciousness of man. From the point of view of spiritual and occult Truth,
\nwhat takes shape in the consciousness of man is a reflection and particular kind of formation, in a difficult medium, of things
\nmuch greater in their light, power and beauty or in their force and range which come to it from the cosmic consciousness of
\nwhich man is a limited and, in his present state of evolution, a still ignorant part. All this explanation about the genius of the
\nrace, of the consciousness of a nation creating the Gods and their forms is a very partial, somewhat superficial and in itself
\na misleading truth. Man’s mind is not an original creator, it is an intermediary; to start creating it must receive an initiating
\n“inspiration”, a transmission or a suggestion from the cosmic consciousness, and with that it does what it can. God is, but
\nman’s conceptions of God are reflections in his own mentality, sometimes of the Divine, sometimes of other Beings and Powers
\nand they are what his mentality can make of the suggestions that come to him, generally very partial and imperfect so long
\nas they are still mental, so long as he has not arrived at a higher and truer, a spiritual or mystic knowledge. The Gods already
\nexist, they are not created by man even though he does seem to conceive them in his own image; fundamentally, he formulates
\nas best he can what truth about them he receives from the cosmic Reality. An artist or a bhakta may have a vision of the Gods and
\nit may get stabilised and generalised in the consciousness of the race and in
\nthat sense it may be true that man gives their forms to the Gods; but he does
\nnot invent these forms, he records what he sees; the forms that he gives are
\ngiven to him. In the<\/p>\n

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\n

\n

“conventional” form of Krishna men have embodied what they could see of his eternal beauty and what they have seen may
\nbe true as well as beautiful, it conveys something of the form, but it is fairly certain that if there is an eternal form of that
\neternal beauty it is a thousand times more beautiful than what man had as yet been able to see of it. Mother India is not a
\npiece of earth; she is a Power, a Godhead, for all nations have such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it
\nin being. Such Beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to a higher plane,
\nare part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they
\nexercise their influence. It is natural for man who only sees his own consciousness individual, national or racial at work and
\ndoes not see what works upon it and shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic and greater behind
\nit. The Krishna consciousness is a reality, but if there were no Krishna, there could be no Krishna consciousness: except in arbitrary metaphysical abstractions there can be no consciousness without a Being who is conscious. It is the person who gives
\nvalue and reality to the personality, he expresses himself in it and is not constituted by it. Krishna is a being, a person and it
\nis as the Divine Person that we meet him, hear his voice, speak with him and feel his presence. To speak of the consciousness
\nof Krishna as something separate from Krishna is an error of the mind, which is always separating the inseparable and which
\nalso tends to regard the impersonal, because it is abstract, as greater, more real and more enduring than the person. Such
\ndivisions may be useful to the mind for its own purposes, but it is not the real truth; in the real truth the being or person and its
\nimpersonality or state of being are one reality. <\/p>\n

The historicity of Krishna is of less spiritual importance
\nand is not essential, but it has still a considerable value. It does not seem to me that there can be any reasonable doubt that
\nKrishna the man was not a legend or a poetic invention but actually existed upon earth and played a part in the Indian past.
\nTwo facts emerge clearly, that he was regarded as an important   <\/p>\n

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spiritual figure, one whose spiritual illumination was recorded in one of the Upanishads, and that he was traditionally regarded
\nas a divine man, one worshipped after his death as a deity; this is apart from the story in the Mahabharata and the Puranas.
\nThere is no reason to suppose that the connection of his name with the development of the Bhagavata religion, an important
\ncurrent in the stream of Indian spirituality, was founded on a mere legend or poetic invention. The Mahabharata is a poem
\nand not history, but it is clearly a poem founded on a great historical event, traditionally preserved in memory; some of the
\nfigures connected with it, Dhritarashtra, Parikshit, for instance, certainly existed and the story of the part played by Krishna as
\nleader, warrior and statesman can be accepted as probable in itself and to all appearance founded on a tradition which can be
\ngiven a historical value and has not the air of a myth or a sheer poetical invention. That is as much as can be positively said from
\nthe point of view of the theoretical reason as to the historical figure of the man Krishna; but in my view there is much more
\nthan that in it and I have always regarded the incarnation as a fact and accepted the historicity of Krishna as I accept the
\nhistoricity of Christ. <\/p>\n

The story of Brindavan is another matter; it does not enter
\ninto the main story of the Mahabharata and has a Puranic origin and it could be maintained that it was intended all along to
\nhave a symbolic character. At one time I accepted that explanation, but I had to abandon it afterwards; there is nothing
\nin the Puranas that betrays any such intention. It seems to me that it is related as something that actually occurred or occurs
\nsomewhere; the Gopis are to them realities and not symbols. It was for them at the least an occult truth, and occult and
\nsymbolic are not the same thing; the symbol may be only a significant mental construction or only a fanciful invention, but
\nthe occult is a reality which is actual somewhere, behind the material scene as it were and can have its truth for the terrestrial
\nlife and its influence upon it, may even embody itself there. The lila of the Gopis seems to be conceived as something which is
\nalways going on in a divine Gokul and which projected itself in   <\/p>\n

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an earthly Brindavan and can always be realised and its meaning made actual in the soul. It is to be presumed that the writers of
\nthe Puranas took it as having been actually projected on earth in the life of the incarnate Krishna and it has always been so
\naccepted by the religious mind of India. <\/p>\n

These questions and the speculations to which they have
\ngiven rise have no indispensable connection with the spiritual life. There what matters is the contact with Krishna and the
\ngrowth towards the Krishna consciousness, the presence, the spiritual relation, the union in the soul and, till that is reached,
\nthe aspiration, the growth in bhakti and whatever illumination one can get on the way. To one who has had these things, lived
\nin the presence, heard the voice, known Krishna as Friend or Lover, Guide, Teacher, Master or, still more, has had his whole
\nconsciousness changed by the contact, or felt the presence within him, all such questions have only an outer and superficial inter
\nest. So also, to one who has had contact with the inner Brindavan and the lila of the Gopis, made the surrender and undergone the
\nspell of the joy and the beauty or even only turned to the sound of the flute, the rest hardly matters. But from another point of view,
\nif one can accept the historical reality of the incarnation, there is this great spiritual gain that one has a
\npoint d’appui <\/i>for a more
\nconcrete realisation in the conviction that once at least the Divine has visibly touched the earth, made the complete manifestation
\npossible, made it possible for the divine supernature to descend into this evolving but still very imperfect terrestrial nature. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

What he [Krishnaprem<\/i>] says3
\n\t\u2014the central thing \u2014is very correct as always, the position of all who have any notion of spirituality, though the religionists seem to find it difficult to get to it.
\nBut though Christ and Krishna are the same, they are the same in difference; that is indeed the utility of so many manifestations <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t  3 In his letter to the correspondent, Krishnaprem observed that “Christ and Krishna are<\/i>
\nthe same.” He also said: “Why is Christianity tottering? Primarily because the Christians<\/i>
\nhave pinned their faith on historical events and a historical person.” \u2014Ed.<\/i>
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instead of there being only one as these missionaries would have it. But is it really because the historical Christ has been made
\ntoo much the foundation-stone of the faith that Christianity is failing? It may be something inadequate in the religion itself
\n\u2014
\nperhaps in religion itself; for all religions are a little off-colour now. The need of a larger opening of the soul into the Light
\nis being felt, an opening through which the expanding human mind and heart can follow. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Avatar and the Vibhuti <\/a> <\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Avatar is necessary when a special work is to be done and
\nin crises of the evolution. The Avatar is a special manifestation, while for the rest of the time it is the Divine working within the
\nordinary human limits as a Vibhuti. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into
\nhim and governing from within his will and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this divine power and presence.
\nA Vibhuti is supposed to embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great force in the world but
\nthat is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great but the consciousness is not that of an inborn
\nor indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita which is the main authority on this subject. If
\nwe follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as
\nAvatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him; Ramakrishna
\nvoiced the same consciousness when he spoke of him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya’s
\ncase is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself a bhakta of Krishna and nothing more,
\nbut in great moments he manifested Krishna, grew luminous in mind and body and was Krishna himself and spoke and
\n   <\/p>\n

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acted as the Lord. His contemporaries saw in him an Avatar of Krishna, a manifestation of the divine love. Shankara and
\nVivekananda were certainly Vibhutis; they cannot be reckoned as more, though as Vibhutis they were very great. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

It was not my intention to question in any degree Chaitanya’s position as an Avatar of Krishna and the divine love. That character of the manifestation appears very clearly from all the accounts
\nabout him and even, if what is related about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts
\nof the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Ramakrishna, the
\nmanifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of
\nthe details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded from day to day by so competent an observer as Mahendranath
\nGupta. I would not care to enter into any comparison as between these two great spiritual personalities; both exercised an
\nextraordinary influence and did something supreme in their own sphere.
\n   <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

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Section Two   The Avatar and the Vibhuti       Chapter One   The Meaning and Purpose of Avatarhood   The Avatar or Incarnation…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-28-letters-on-yoga-i","wpcat-53-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637","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=2637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}