{"id":3612,"date":"2013-07-13T01:49:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3612"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:49:58","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:49:58","slug":"15-the-possibility-and-purpose-of-avatarhood-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/02-other-editions\/essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn\/15-the-possibility-and-purpose-of-avatarhood-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-15_The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

\n
\nXV<\/font><\/b><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nTHE POSSIBILITY AND PURPOSE
\nOF AVATARHOOD <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nI<\/font>N<\/font><\/b> SPEAKING<\/font> of this Yoga in which action and knowledge become
\none, the Yoga of the sacrifice o\u00a3 works with knowledge, in which
\nworks are fulfilled in knowledge, knowledge supports, changes and
\nenlightens works, and both are offered to the Purushottama, the supreme Divinity who becomes manifest within us as Narayana, Lord
\nof all our being and action seated secret in our hearts for ever, who
\nbecomes manifest even in the human form as the Avatar, the divine
\nbirth taking possession of our humanity, Krishna has declared in
\npassing that this was the ancient and original Yoga which he gave
\nto Vivasvan, the Sun-God, Vivasvan gave it to Manu, the father of
\nmen, Manu gave it to Ikshvaku, head of the Solar line, and so it
\ncame down from royal sage to royal sage till it was lost in the great
\nlapse of Time and is now renewed for Arjuna, because he is the lover
\nand devotee, friend and comrade of the Avatar. For this, he says, is
\nthe highest secret,\u2014thus claiming for it a superiority to all other forms
\nof Yoga, because those others lead to the impersonal Brahman or to a
\npersonal Deity, to a liberation in actionless knowledge or a liberation
\nin absorbed beatitude, but this gives the highest secret and the whole
\nsecret; it brings us to divine peace and divine works, to divine knowledge, action and ecstasy unified in a perfect freedom; it unites into
\nitself all the Yogic paths as the highest being of the Divine reconciles
\nand makes one in itself all the different and even contrary powers and
\nprinciples of its manifested being. Therefore this Yoga of the Gita
\nis not, as some contend, only the Karmayoga, one and the lowest,
\naccording to them, of the three paths, but a highest Yoga synthetic
\nand integral directing Godward all the powers of our being. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nArjuna takes the declaration about the transmission of the Yoga
\nin its most physical sense,\u2014there is another significance in which it
\ncan be taken,\u2014and asks how the Sun-God, one of the first-born of
\nbeings, ancestor of the Solar dynasty, can have received the Yoga from <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-130<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe man Krishna who is only now born into the world. Krishna does
\nnot reply, as we might have expected him to have done, that it was
\nas the Divine who is the source of all knowledge that he gave the
\nWord to the Deva who is his form of knowledge, giver of all inner
\nand outer light,\u2014 Vhargo savitur devasya yo no dhiyah pracodayāt;<\/i> he accepts instead the opportunity which Arjuna gives him of declaring his concealed Godhead, a declaration for which he had prepared when he gave himself as the divine example for the worker
\nwho is not bound by his works, but which he has not yet quite
\nexplicitly made. He now openly announces himself as the incarnate
\nGodhead, the Avatar. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWe have had occasion already, when speaking of the divine
\nTeacher, to state briefly the doctrine of Avatarhood as it appears to us
\nin the light of Vedanta, the light in which the Gita presents it to
\nus. We must now look a little more closely at this Avatarhood and
\nat the significance of the divine Birth of which it is the outward
\nexpression; for that is a link of considerable importance in the integral
\nteaching of the Gita. And we may first translate the words of the
\nTeacher himself in which the nature and purpose of Avatarhood are
\ngiven summarily and remind ourselves also of other passages or references which bear upon it. "Many are my lives that are past, and
\nthine also, 0 Arjuna; all of them I know, but thou knowest not, 0
\nscourge of the foe. Though I am the unborn, though I am imperishable in my self-existence, though I am the Lord of all existences, yet
\nI stand upon my own Nature and I come into birth by my self-Maya.
\nFor whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising
\nof unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the
\nenthroning of the Right I am born from age to age. He who knoweth
\nthus in its right principles my divine birth and my divine work, when
\nhe abandons his body, comes not to rebirth, he comes to Me, 0 Arjuna.
\nDelivered from liking and fear and wrath, full of me, taking refuge
\nin me, many purified by austerity of knowledge have arrived at my
\nnature of being (madbhāvam,<\/i> the divine nature of the Purushottama).
\nAs men approach Me, so I accept them to my love (bhajāmi);<\/i> men
\nfollow in every way my path, 0 son of Pritha." <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut most men, the Gita goes on to say, desiring the fulfilment of
\ntheir works, sacrifice to the gods, to various forms and personalities
\nof the one Godhead, because the fulfilment (siddhi)<\/i> that is born of <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-131<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nworks,\u2014of works without knowledge,\u2014is very swift and easy in the
\nhuman world; it belongs indeed to that world alone. The other, the
\ndivine self-fulfilment in man by the sacrifice with knowledge to
\nthe supreme Godhead, is much more difficult; its results belong to a
\nhigher plane of existence and they are less easily grasped. Men therefore have to follow the fourfold law of their nature and works and
\non this plane of mundane action they seek the Godhead through
\nhis various qualities. But, says Krishna, though I am the doer of the
\nfourfold works and creator of its fourfold law, yet I must be known
\nalso as the non-doer, the imperishable, the immutable Self. "Works
\naffect Me not, nor have I desire for the fruit of works;" for God is
\nthe impersonal beyond this egoistic personality and this strife of the
\nmodes of Nature, and as the Purushottama also, the impersonal
\nPersonality, he possesses this supreme freedom even in works. Therefore the doer of divine works even while following the fourfold law
\nhas to know and live in that which is beyond, in the impersonal Self
\nand so in the supreme Godhead. "He who thus knows Me is not
\nbound by his works. So knowing was work done by the men of old
\nwho sought liberation; do therefore, thou also, work of that more ancient kind done by ancient men." <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe second portion of these passages which has here been given
\nin substance, explains the nature of divine works, divyam karma,<\/i> with
\nthe principle of which we have had to deal in the last essay; the
\nfirst, which has been fully translated, explains the way of the divine
\nbirth, divyam janma,<\/i> the Avatarhood. But we have to remark carefully that the upholding of Dharma in the world is not the only
\nobject of the descent of the Avatar, that great mystery of the Divine
\nmanifest in humanity; for the upholding of the Dharma is not an all-sufficient object in itself, not the supreme possible aim for the manifestation of a Christ, a Krishna, a Buddha, but is only the general
\ncondition of a higher aim and a more supreme and divine utility.
\nFor there are two aspects of the divine birth; one is a descent, the
\nbirth of God in humanity, the Godhead manifesting itself in the
\nhuman form and nature, the eternal Avatar; the other is an ascent,
\nthe birth of man into the Godhead, man rising into the divine nature
\nand consciousness, madbhāvam āgatdh;<\/i> it is the being born anew in
\na second birth of the soul. It is that new birth which Avatarhood and
\nthe upholding of the Dharma are intended to serve. This double
\naspect in the Gita’s doctrine of Avatarhood is apt to be missed by <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-132<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nthe cursory reader satisfied, as most are, with catching a superficial
\nview of its profound teachings, and it is missed too by the formal
\ncommentator petrified in the rigidity of the schools. Yet it is necessary, surely, to the whole meaning of the doctrine. Otherwise the
\nAvatar idea would be only a dogma, a popular superstition, or an
\nimaginative or mystic deification of historical or legendary supermen,
\nnot what the Gita makes all its teaching, a deep philosophical and
\nreligious truth and an essential part of or step to the supreme mystery
\nof all, rahasyam uttamam.<\/i> <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt there were not this rising of man into the Godhead to be helped
\nby the descent of God into humanity, Avatarhood for the sake of
\nthe Dharma would be an otiose phenomenon, since mere Right, mere
\njustice or standards of virtue can always be upheld by the divine
\nomnipotence through its ordinary means, by great men or great
\nmovements, by the life and work of sages and kings and religious
\nteachers, without any actual incarnation. The Avatar comes as the
\nmanifestation of the divine nature in the human nature, the apocalypse of its Christhood, Krishnahood, Buddhahood, in order that the
\nhuman nature may by moulding its principle, thought, feeling, action,
\nbeing on the lines of that Christhood, Krishnahood, Buddhahood
\ntransfigure itself into the divine. The law, the Dharma which the
\nAvatar establishes is given for that purpose chiefly; the Christ,
\nKrishna, Buddha stands in its centre as the gate, he makes through
\nhimself the way men shall follow. That is why each Incarnation holds
\nbefore men his own example and declares of himself that he is the
\nway and the gate; he declares too the oneness of his humanity with
\nthe divine being, declares that the Son of Man and the Father above
\nfrom whom he has descended are one, that Krishna in the human
\nbody, mānusīm tanum āśritam,<\/i> and the supreme Lord and Friend of
\nall creatures are but two revelations of the same divine Purushottama,
\nrevealed there in his own being, revealed here in the type of humanity. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThat the Gita contains as its kernel this second and real object of
\nthe Avatarhood, is evident even from this passage by itself rightly
\nconsidered; but it becomes much clearer if we take it, not by itself,
\n\u2014always the wrong way to deal with the texts of the Gita,\u2014but in
\nits right close connection with other passages and with the whole
\nteaching. We have to remember and take together its doctrine of the
\none Self in all, of the Godhead seated in the heart of every creature, <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-133<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nits teaching about the relations between the Creator and his creation,
\nits strongly emphasised idea of the vibhūti,\u2014<\/i> noting too the language
\nin which the Teacher gives his own divine example of selfless works
\nwhich applies equally to the human Krishna and the divine Lord of
\nthe worlds, and giving their due weight to such passages as that in
\nthe ninth chapter, "Deluded minds despise Me lodged in the human \u00bb
\nbody because they know not My supreme nature of being, Lord of
\nall existences"; and we have to read in the light of these ideas this
\npassage we find before us and its declaration that by the knowledge
\nof his divine birth and divine works man comes to the Divine and
\nby becoming full of him and even as he and taking refuge in him
\nthey arrive at his nature and status of being, maddbhāvam.<\/i> For then
\nwe shall understand the divine birth and its object, not as an isolated
\nand miraculous phenomenon, but in its proper place in the whole
\nscheme of the world-manifestation; without that we cannot arrive at
\nits divine mystery, but shall either scout it altogether or accept it
\nignorantly and, it may be, superstitiously or fall into the petty and
\nsuperficial ideas of the modern mind about it by which it loses all its
\ninner and helpful significance. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor to the modern mind Avatarhood is one of the most difficult
\nto accept or to understand of all the ideas that are streaming in from
\nthe East upon the rationalised human consciousness. It is apt to take
\nit at the best for a mere figure for some high manifestation of human
\npower, character, genius, great work done for the world or in the
\nworld, and at the worst to regard it as a superstition,\u2014to the heathen
\na foolishness and to the Greeks a stumbling-block. The materialist,
\nnecessarily, cannot even look at it, since he does not believe in God; to the rationalist or the Deist it is a folly and a thing of derision; to
\nthe thoroughgoing dualist who sees an unbridgeable gulf between
\nthe human and the divine nature, it sounds like a blasphemy. The
\nrationalist objects that if God exists, he is extra-cosmic or supracosmic and does not intervene in the affairs of the world, but allows
\nthem to be governed by a fixed machinery of law,\u2014he is, in fact, a
\nsort of far-off constitutional monarch or spiritual King Log, at the
\nbest an indifferent inactive Spirit behind the activity of Nature, like
\nsome generalised or abstract witness Purusha of the Sankhyas; he is
\npure Spirit and cannot put on a body, infinite and cannot be finite as
\nthe human being is finite, the ever unborn creator and cannot be the
\ncreature born into the world,\u2014these things are impossible even to his <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-134<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nabsolute omnipotence. To these objections the thoroughgoing dualist
\nwould add that God is in his person, his role and his nature different
\nand separate from man; the perfect cannot put on human imperfection; the unborn personal God cannot be born as a human personality; the Ruler of the worlds cannot be limited in a nature-bound
\nhuman action and in a perishable human body. These objections, so
\nformidable at first sight to the reason, seem to have been present
\nto the mind of the Teacher in the Gita when he says that although
\nthe Divine is unborn, imperishable in his self-existence, the Lord of
\nall beings, yet he assumes birth by a supreme resort to the action of
\nhis Nature and by force of his self-Maya; that he whom the deluded
\ndespise because lodged in a human body, is verily in his supreme
\nbeing the Lord of all; that he is in the action of the divine consciousness the creator of the fourfold Law and the doer of the works of the
\nworld and at the same time in the silence of the divine consciousness
\nthe impartial witness of the works of his own Nature,\u2014for he is always, beyond both the silence and the action, the supreme Purushottama. And the Gita is able to meet all these oppositions and
\n<\/b>to
\n<\/b>reconcile all these contraries because it starts from the Vedantic view
\nof existence, of God and the universe. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor in the Vedantic view of things all these apparently formidable
\nobjections are null and void from the beginning. The idea of the
\nAvatar is not indeed indispensable to its scheme, but it comes in
\nnaturally into it as a perfectly rational and logical conception. For
\nall here is God, is the Spirit or self-existence, is Brahman, ekamevādvitīyam,\u2014<\/i> there is nothing else, nothing other and different from it
\nand there can be nothing else, can be nothing other and different
\nfrom it; Nature is and can be nothing else than a power of the divine
\nconsciousness; all beings are and can be nothing else than inner and
\nouter, subjective and objective soul-forms and bodily forms of the
\ndivine being which exist in or result from the power of its consciousness. Far from the Infinite being unable to take on finiteness, the
\nwhole universe is nothing else but that; we can see, look as we may,
\nnothing else at all in the whole wide world we inhabit. Far from
\nthe Spirit being incapable of form or disdaining to connect itself
\nwith form of matter or mind and to assume a limited nature or
\na body, all here is nothing but that, the world exists only by that
\nconnection, that assumption. Far from the world being a mechanism of law with no soul or spirit intervening in the movement <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-135<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nof its forces or the action of its minds and bodies,\u2014only some original indifferent Spirit passively existing somewhere outside or above
\nit,\u2014the whole world and every particle of it is on the contrary
\nnothing but the divine force in action and that divine force determines
\nand governs its every movement, inhabits its every form, possesses
\nhere every soul and mind; all is in God and in him moves and has its
\nbeing, in all he is, acts and displays his being; every creature is the disguised Narayana. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nFar from the unborn being unable to assume birth, all beings are even in their individuality unborn spirits, eternal without beginning
\nor end, and in their essential existence and the universality all are
\nthe one unborn Spirit of whom birth and death are only a phenomenon of the assumption and change of forms. The assumption of imperfection by the perfect is the whole mystic phenomenon of the
\nuniverse; but the imperfection appears in the form and action of the
\nmind or body assumed, subsists in the phenomenon,\u2014in that which
\nassumes it there is no imperfection, even as in the Sun which illumines all there is no defect of light or of vision, but only in the
\ncapacities of the individual organ of vision. Nor does God rule the
\nworld from some remote heaven, but by his intimate omnipresence; each finite working of force is an act of infinite Force and not of
\na limited separate self-existent energy labouring in its own underived
\nstrength; in every finite working of will and knowledge we can discover, supporting it, an act of the infinite all-will and all-knowledge.
\nGod’s rule is not an absentee, foreign and external government; he
\ngoverns all because he exceeds all, but also because he dwells within
\nall movements and is their absolute soul and spirit. Therefore none of
\nthe objections opposed by our reason to the possibility of Avatarhood can stand in their principle; for the principle is a vain division
\nmade by the intellectual reason which the whole phenomenon and
\nthe whole reality of the world are busy every movement contradicting and disproving. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nBut still, apart from the possibility, there is the question of the actual divine working,\u2014whether actually the divine consciousness
\ndoes appear coming forward from beyond the veil to act at all directly in the phenomenal, the finite, the mental and material, the
\nlimited, the imperfect. The finite is indeed nothing but a definition,
\na face-value of the Infinite’s self-representations to its own variations
\nof consciousness; the real value of each finite phenomenon is an in<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-136<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nfinite in its self-existence, whatever it may be in the action of its
\nphenomenal nature, its temporal self-representation. The man is not,
\nwhen we look closely, himself alone, a rigidly separate self-existent
\nindividual, but humanity in a mind and body of itself; and humanity
\ntoo is no rigidly separate self-existent species or genus, it is the All-existence, the universal Godhead figuring itself in the type of humanity; there it works out certain possibilities, develops, evolves, as
\nwe now say, certain powers of its manifestations. What it evolves,
\nis itself, is the Spirit. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nFor what we mean by Spirit is self-existent being with an infinite
\npower of consciousness and unconditioned delight in its being; it is
\neither that or nothing, or at least nothing which has anything to do
\nwith man and the world or with which, therefore, man or the world
\nhas anything to do. Matter, body is only a massed motion of force of
\nconscious being employed as a starting-point for the variable relations
\nof consciousness working through its power of sense; nor is Matter
\nanywhere really void of consciousness, for even in the atom, the cell
\nthere is, as is now made abundantly clear in spite of itself by modern
\nScience, a power of will, an intelligence at work; but that power is
\nthe power of will and intelligence of the Self, Spirit or Godhead
\nwithin it, it is not the separate, self-derived will or idea of the mechanical cell or atom. This universal will and intelligence, involved,
\ndevelops its powers from form to form, and on earth at least it is in
\nman that it draws nearest to the full divine and there first becomes,
\neven in the outward intelligence in the form, obscurely conscious of
\nits divinity. But still there too there is a limitation, there is that imperfection of the manifestation which prevents the lower forms from
\nhaving the self-knowledge of their identity with the Divine. For in
\neach limited being the limitation of the phenomenal action is accompanied by a limitation also of the phenomenal consciousness
\nwhich defines the nature of the being and makes the inner difference
\nbetween creature and creature. The Divine works behind indeed and
\ngoverns its special manifestation through this outer and imperfect
\nconsciousness and will, but is itself secret in the cavern, guhāyām,
\n<\/i>as the Veda puts it, or as the Gita expresses it, "In the heart of all
\nexistences the Lord abides turning all existences as if mounted on a
\nmachine by Maya." This secret working of the Lord hidden in the
\nheart from the egoistic nature-consciousness through which he works,
\nis God’s universal method with creatures. Why then should we suppose <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nthat in any form he comes forward into the frontal, the phenomenal consciousness for a more direct and consciously divine action?
\nObviously, if at all, then to break the veil between himself and
\nhumanity which man limited in his own nature could never lift.
\nThe Gita explains the ordinary imperfect action of the creature
\nby its subjection to the mechanism of Prakriti and its limitation by
\nthe self-representations of Maya. These two terms are only complementary aspects of one and the same effective force of divine consciousness. Maya is not essentially illusion,\u2014the element or appearance of illusion only enters in by the ignorance of the lower Prakriti,
\nMaya of the three modes of Nature,\u2014it is the divine consciousness .,
\nin its power of various self-representation of its being, while Prakriti
\nis the effective force of that consciousness which operates to work out
\neach such self-representation according to its own law and fundamental idea, svabhāva<\/i> and svadharma,<\/i> in its own proper quality
\nand particular force of working, guna-karma.<\/i> "Leaning\u2014pressing
\ndown upon my own Nature (Prakriti) I create (loose forth into
\nvarious being) all this multitude of existences, all helplessly subject to
\nthe control of Nature." Those who know not the Divine lodged in
\nthe human body, are ignorant of it because they are grossly subject to
\nthis mechanism of Prakriti, helplessly subject to its mental limitations
\nand acquiescent in them, and dwell in an Asuric nature that deludes
\nwith desire and bewilders with egoism the will and the intelligence,
\nmohinīm prakrtim āśritāh.<\/i> For the Purushottama within is not readily
\nmanifest to any and every being; he conceals himself in a thick cloud
\nof darkness or a bright cloud of light, utterly he envelops and wraps
\nhimself in his Yogamaya.1 "All this world" says the Gita "because it
\nis bewildered by the three states of being determined by the modes o\u00a3
\nNature, fails to recognise me; for this my divine Maya of the modes
\nof Nature is hard to get beyond; those cross beyond it who approach
\nMe; but those who dwell in the Asuric nature of being, have their
\nknowledge reft from them by Maya." In other words, there is the
\ninherent consciousness of the divine in all, for in all the Divine dwells; but he dwells there covered by his Maya and the essential self-knowledge of beings is reft from them, turned into the error of egoism by
\nthe action of Maya, the action of the mechanism of Prakriti. Still by
\ndrawing back from the mechanism of Nature to her inner and secret
\nMaster man can become conscious of the indwelling Divinity.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n1<\/sup> nāham prakāśah, sarvasya yogamāyā-samāvrtah.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\nNow it is notable that with a slight but important variation of language the Gita describes in the same way both the action of the
\nDivine in bringing about the ordinary birth of creatures and his action in his birth as the Avatar. "Leaning upon my own Nature,
\nprkrtim svām avastabhya,"<\/i> it will say later "I loose forth variously,
\nvisrjāmi,<\/i> this multitude of creatures helplessly subject owing to the
\ncontrol of Prakriti, avaśam prakrter vaśāt."<\/i> "Standing upon my own
\nNature," it says here, "I am born by my self-Maya, -prakrtim svām
\nadhisthāya . . . ātmamāyaya,<\/i> I loose forth myself, ātmānam srjāmi."
\n<\/i>The action implied in the word avastabhya<\/i> is a forceful downward
\npressure by which the object controlled is overcome, oppressed,
\nblocked or limited in its movement or working and becomes helplessly
\nsubject to the controlling power, avaśam vaśāt;<\/i> Nature in this action
\nbecomes mechanical and its multitude of creatures are held helpless
\nin the mechanism, not lords of their own action. On the contrary
\nthe action implied in the word adhisthāya<\/i> is a dwelling in, but also
\na standing upon and over the Nature, a conscious control and government by the indwelling Godhead, adhisthātrī devoid,<\/i> in which the
\nPurusha is not helplessly driven by the Prakriti through ignorance,
\nbut rather the Prakriti is full of the light and the will of the Purusha.
\nTherefore in the normal birth that which is loosed forth,\u2014created, as
\nwe say,\u2014is the multitude of creatures or becomings, bhūtagrāmam;<\/i> in the divine birth that which is loosed forth, self-created, is the self-conscious self-existent being,
\nātamānam;<\/i> for the Vedantic distinction
\nbetween ātmā and bhūtāni<\/i> is that which is made in European philosophy between the Being and its becomings. In both cases Maya
\nis the means of the creation or manifestation, but in the divine birth
\nit is by self-Maya, ātmamāyaya,<\/i> not the involution in the lower Maya
\nof the ignorance, but the conscious action of the self-existent Godhead in its phenomenal self-representation, well aware of its operation and its purpose,\u2014that which the Gita calls elsewhere Yogamaya.
\nIn the ordinary birth Yogamaya is used by the Divine to envelop
\nand conceal itself from the lower consciousness, so it becomes for
\nus the means of the ignorance, avidyā-māyā;<\/i> but it is by this same
\nYogamaya that self-knowledge also is made manifest in the return
\nof our consciousness to the Divine, it is the means of the knowledge,
\nvidyāmāyā;<\/i> and in the divine birth it so operates\u2014as the knowledge
\ncontrolling and enlightening the works which are ordinarily done
\nin the Ignorance. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nThe language of the Gita shows therefore that the divine birth is
\nthat of the conscious Godhead in our humanity and essentially the
\nopposite of the ordinary birth even though the same means are used,
\nbecause it is not the birth into the Ignorance, but the birth of the
\nknowledge, not a physical phenomenon, but a soul-birth. It is the
\nSoul’s coming into birth as the self-existent Being controlling consciously its becoming and not lost to self-knowledge in the cloud of
\nthe ignorance. It is the Soul born into the body as Lord of Nature,
\nstanding above and operating in her freely by its will, not entangled
\nand helplessly driven round and round in the mechanism; for it works
\nin the knowledge and not, as most do, in the ignorance. It is the
\nsecret Soul in all coming forward from its governing secrecy behind
\nthe veil to possess wholly in a human type, but as the Divine, the
\nbirth which ordinarily it possesses only from behind the veil as the
\nIshwara while the outward consciousness in front of the veil is rather
\npossessed than in possession because there it is a partially conscious
\nbeing, the Jiva lost to self-knowledge and bound in its works through
\na phenomenal subjection to Nature. The Avatar2<\/sup> therefore is a direct
\nmanifestation in humanity by Krishna the divine Soul of that divine
\ncondition of being to which Arjuna, the human soul, the type of a
\nhighest human being, a Vibhuti, is called upon by the Teacher to
\narise, and to which he can only arise by climbing out of the ignorance and limitation of his ordinary humanity. It is the manifestation
\nfrom above of that which we have to develop from below; it is the
\ndescent of God into that divine birth of the human being into which
\nwe mortal creatures must climb; it is the attracting divine example
\ngiven by God to man in the very type and form and perfected model
\nof our human existence. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n2<\/sup> The word Avatara means a descent; it is a coming down or the Divine below
\nthe line which divides the divine from the human world or status.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-140<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XV   THE POSSIBILITY AND PURPOSE OF AVATARHOOD   IN SPEAKING of this Yoga in which action and knowledge become one, the Yoga of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","wpcat-90-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612","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=3612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}