{"id":3626,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3626"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:02","slug":"16-the-process-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\/16-the-process-of-avatarhood-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-16_The Process of Avatarhood.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n
\nTHE PROCESS OF AVATARHOOD <\/font><\/b>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nW<\/font>E<\/font>
\nSEE<\/font> that the mystery of the divine Incarnation in man, the
\nassumption by the Godhead of the human type and the human nature, is in the view of the Gita only the other side of the eternal mystery of
\nhuman birth itself which is always in its essence, though not in its
\nphenomenal appearance, even such a miraculous assumption. The eternal and universal self of every human being is God; even his
\npersonal self is a part of the Godhead, mamaivāmśa.,\u2014<\/i>not a fraction
\nor fragment, surely, since we cannot think of God as broken up into
\nlittle pieces, but a partial consciousness of the one Consciousness,
\na partial power of the one Power, a partial enjoyment of world-being
\nby the one and universal Delight of being, and therefore in manifestation or, as we say, in Nature a limited and finite being of the one
\ninfinite and illimitable Being. The stamp of that limitation is an
\nignorance by which he forgets, not only the Godhead from which he
\ncame forth, but the Godhead which is always within him, there
\nliving in the secret heart of his own nature, there burning like a
\nveiled Fire on the inner altar in his own temple-house of human  consciousness.
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nHe is ignorant because there is upon the eyes of his soul and all  its organs the seal of that Nature, Prakriti, Maya, by which he has
\nbeen put forth into manifestation out of God’s eternal being; she
\nhas minted him like a coin out of the precious metal of the divine
\nsubstance, but overlaid with a strong coating of the alloy of her
\n, phenomenal qualities, stamped with her own stamp and mark of animal humanity, and although the secret sign of the Godhead is there,
\nit is at first indistinguishable and always with difficulty decipherable,
\nnot to be really discovered except by that initiation into the mystery
\nof our own being which distinguishes a Godward from an earthward
\nhumanity. In the Avatar, the divinely-born Man, the real substance
\nshines through the coating; the mark of the seal is there only for form,
\nthe vision is that of the secret Godhead, the power of the life is that <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\nof the secret Godhead, and it breaks through the seals of the assumed
\nhuman nature; the sign of the Godhead, an inner soul-sign, not outward, not physical, stands out legible for all to read who care to see
\nor who can see; for the Asuric nature is always blind to these things, ‘
\nit sees the body and not the soul, the external being and not the
\ninternal, the mask and not the Person. In the ordinary human birth
\nthe Nature-aspect of the universal Divine assuming humanity prevails; in the incarnation the God-aspect of the same phenomenon takes
\nits place. In the one he allows the human nature to take possession
\nof his partial being and to dominate it; in the other he takes possession
\nof his partial type of being and its nature and divinely dominates it.
\nNot by evolution or ascent like the ordinary man, the Gita seems
\nto tell us, not by a growing into the divine birth, but by a direct
\ndescent into the stuff of humanity and a taking up of its moulds.
\nBut it is to assist that ascent or evolution the descent is made or
\naccepted; that the Gita makes very clear. It is, we might say, to exemplify the possibility of the Divine manifest in the human being,
\nso that man may see what that is and take courage to grow into it.
\nIt is also to leave the influence of that manifestation vibrating in the
\nearth-nature and the soul of that manifestation presiding over its upward endeavour. It is to give a spiritual mould of divine manhood
\ninto which the seeking soul of the human being can cast itself. It
\nis to give a dharma, a religion\u2014not a mere creed, but a method of
\ninner and outer living,\u2014a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by
\nwhich he can grow towards divinity. It is too, since this growth, this
\nascent is no mere isolated and individual phenomenon, but like all
\nin the divine world-activities a collective business, a work and the
\nwork for the race, to assist the human march, to hold it together in
\nits great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when
\nthey grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great dharma of the
\nGodward law in man’s nature, to prepare even, however far off, the
\nkingdom of God, the victory of the seekers of light and perfection,
\nsādhūnām,<\/i> and the overthrow of those who fight for the continuance
\nof the evil and the darkness. All these are recognised objects of the
\ndescent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his work that the mass of
\nmen seek to distinguish him and for that that they are ready to
\nworship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external Avatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner
\nGodhead making himself manifest in the field of their own human <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\nmentality and corporeality so that they can grow into unity with that
\nand be possessed by it. The divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna,
\nBuddha in external humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity.
\nThat which has been done in the outer human life of earth, may be
\nrepeated in the inner life of all human beings. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis is the object of the incarnation, but what is the method? First,
\nwe have the rational or minimising view of Avatarhood which sees
\nin it only an extraordinary manifestation of the diviner qualities
\nmoral, intellectual and dynamic by which average humanity is exceeded. In this idea there is a certain truth. The Avatar is at the
\nsame time the Vibhuti. This Krishna who in his divine inner being
\nis the Godhead in a human form, is in his outer human being the
\nleader of his age, the great man of the Vrishnis. This is from the
\npoint of view of the Nature, not of the soul. The Divine manifests
\nhimself through infinite qualities of his nature and the intensity of
\nthe manifestation is measured by their power and their achievement.
\nThe vibhūti<\/i> of the Divine is therefore, impersonally, the manifest
\npower of his quality, it is his outflowing, in whatever form, of Knowledge, Energy, Love, Strength and the rest; personally, it is the mental
\nform and the animate being in whom this power is achieved and does
\nits great works. A pre-eminence in this inner and outer achievement,
\na greater power of divine quality, an effective energy is always the
\nsign. The human vibhuti<\/i> is the hero of the race’s struggle towards
\ndivine achievement, the hero in the Carlylean sense of heroism, a
\npower of God in man. "I am Vasudeva (Krishna) among the Vrishnis," says the Lord in the Gita, "Dhananjaya (Arjuna) among the
\nPandavas, Vyasa among the sages, the seer-poet Ushanas among
\nthe seer-poets," the first in each category, the greatest of each group,
\nthe most powerfully representative of the qualities and works in
\nwhich its characteristic soul-power manifests itself. This heightening
\nof the powers of the being is a very necessary step in the progress of
\nthe divine manifestation. Every great man who rises above our average
\nlevel, raises by that very fact our common humanity; he is a living
\nassurance of our divine possibilities, a promise of the Godhead, a glow
\nof the divine Light and a breath of the divine Power. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is this truth which lies behind the natural human tendency to
\nthe deification of great minds and heroic characters; it comes out
\nclearly enough in the Indian habit of mind which easily sees a partial <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\n(amśa) Avatar in great saints, teachers, founders, or most significantly
\nin the belief of southern Vaishnavas that some of their saints were
\nincarnations of the symbolic living weapons of Vishnu,\u2014for that is
\nwhat all great spirits are, living powers and weapons of the Divine in
\nthe upward march and battle. This idea is innate and inevitable in
\nany mystic or spiritual view of life which does not draw an inexorable
\nline between the being and nature of the Divine and our human
\nbeing and nature; it is the sense of the divine in humanity. But still
\nthe Vibhuti is not the Avatar; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas
\nwould be Avatars as well as Krishna, even if in a less degree of the
\npower of Avatarhood. The divine quality is not enough; there must be
\nthe inner consciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human
\nnature by his divine presence. The heightening of the power of the
\nqualities is part of the becoming, bhūtagrāma,<\/i> an ascent in the ordinary manifestation; in the Avatar there is the special manifestation,
\nthe divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead
\ndescended into a form of individual humanity, ātmānam srjāmi,<\/i> and
\nconscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThere is an intermediary idea, a more mystical view of Avatarhood
\nwhich supposes that a human soul calls down this descent into himself and is either possessed by the divine consciousness or becomes
\nan effective reflection or channel of it. This view rests upon certain
\ntruths of spiritual experience. The divine birth in man, his ascent,
\nis itself a growing of the human into the divine consciousness, and in
\nits intensest culmination is a losing of the separate self in that. The
\nsoul merges its individuality in an infinite and universal being or
\nloses it in the heights of a transcendent being; it becomes one with
\nthe Self, the Brahman, the Divine or, as it is sometimes more absolutely put, becomes the one Self, the Brahman, the Divine. The Gita
\nitself speaks of the soul becoming the Brahman, brahmabhūta,<\/i> and
\nof its thereby dwelling in the Lord, in Krishna, but it does not, it
\nmust be marked, speak of it as becoming the Lord or the Purushottama, though it does declare that the Jiva himself is always Ishwara,
\nthe partial being of the Lord, mamaivāmśah.<\/i> For this greatest union,
\nthis highest becoming is still part of the ascent; while it is the divine
\nbirth to which every Jiva arrives, it is not the descent of the Godhead,
\nnot Avatarhood, but at most Buddhahood according to the doctrine of
\nthe Buddhists, it is the soul awakened from its present mundane individuality into an infinite superconsciousness. That need not carry <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\nwith it either the inner consciousness or the characteristic action o\u00a3
\nthe Avatar. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nOn the other hand, this entering into the divine consciousness may
\nbe attended by a reflex action of the Divine entering or coming forward into the human parts of our being, pouring himself into the
\nnature, the activity, the mentality, the corporeality even of the man; and that may well be at least a partial Avatarhood. The Lord stands
\nin the heart, says the Gita,\u2014by which it means of course the heart of
\nthe subtle being, the nodus of the emotions, sensations, mental consciousness, where the individual Purusha also is seated,\u2014but he stands
\nthere veiled, enveloped by his Maya. But above, on a plane within
\nus but now superconscient to us, called heaven by the ancient mystics,
\nthe Lord and the Jiva stand together revealed as of one essence of
\nbeing, the Father and the Son of certain symbolisms, the Divine
\nBeing and the divine Man who comes forth from Him born of the
\nhigher divine Nature,1 the virgin Mother, parā prakrti, parā māya,
\n<\/i>into the lower or human nature. This seems to be the inner doctrine
\nof the Christian incarnation; in its Trinity the Father is above in this
\ninner Heaven; the Son or supreme Prakriti become Jiva of the Gita
\ndescends as the divine Man upon earth, in the mortal body; the Holy
\nSpirit, pure Self, Brahmic consciousness is that which makes them
\none and that also in which they communicate; for we hear of the
\nHoly Spirit descending upon Jesus and it is the same descent which
\nbrings down the powers of the higher consciousness into the simple
\nhumanity of the Apostles. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nBut also the higher divine consciousness of the Purushottama may
\nitself descend into the humanity and that of the Jiva disappear into
\nit. This is said by his contemporaries to have happened in the occasional transfigurations of Chaitanya when he who in his normal consciousness was only the lover and devotee of the Lord and rejected all
\ndeification, became in these abnormal moments the Lord himself and
\nso spoke and acted, with all the outflooding light and love and power
\nof the divine Presence. Supposing this to be the normal condition,
\nthe human receptacle to be constantly no more than a vessel of this
\ndivine Presence and divine Consciousness, we should have the Avatar
\naccording to this intermediary idea of the incarnation. That easily <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup>In the Buddhist legend the name of the mother of Buddha makes the symbolism clear; in the Christian the symbol seems to have been attached by a
\nfamiliar mythopoeic process to the actual human mother of Jesus of Nazareth.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nrecommends itself as possible to our human notions; for it the human
\nbeing can elevate his nature so as to feel a unity with the being of
\nthe Divine and himself a mere channel of its consciousness, light,
\npower, love, his own will and personality lost in that will and that
\nbeing,\u2014and this is a recognised spiritual status,\u2014then there is no inherent impossibility of the reflex action of that Will, Being, Power,
\nLove, Light, Consciousness occupying the whole personality of the
\nhuman Jiva. And this would not be merely an ascent of our humanity
\ninto the divine birth and the divine nature, but a descent of the
\ndivine Purusha into humanity, an Avatar. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe Gita, however, goes much farther. It speaks clearly of the
\nLord himself being born; Krishna speaks of his many births that are
\npast and makes it clear by his language that it is not merely the receptive human being but the Divine of whom he makes this affirmation, because he uses the very language of the Creator, the same
\nlanguage which he will employ when he has to describe his creation
\nof the world. "Although I am the unborn Lord of creatures, I create
\n(loose forth) my self<\/i> by my Maya," presiding over the actions of my
\nPrakriti. Here there is no question of the Lord and the human Jiva or
\nof the Father and the Son, the divine Man, but only of the Lord and
\nhis Prakriti. The Divine descends by his own Prakriti into birth in
\nits human form and type and brings into it the divine Consciousness
\nand the divine Power, though consenting, though willing to act in
\nthe form, type, mould of humanity, and he governs its actions in the
\nbody as the indwelling and overdwelling Soul, adhisthāya.<\/i> From
\nabove he governs always, indeed, for so he governs all nature, the
\nhuman included; from within also he governs all nature, always, but
\nhidden; the difference here is that he is manifest, that the nature is
\nconscious of the divine Presence as the Lord, the Inhabitant, and it
\nis not by his secret will from above, "the will of the Father which is
\nin heaven," but by his quite direct and apparent will that he moves
\nthe nature. And here there seems to be no room for the human intermediary; for it is by resort to his own nature,
\nprakrtim svām,<\/i> and not
\nthe special nature of the Jiva that the Lord of all existence thus takes
\nupon himself the human birth. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThis doctrine is a hard saying, a difficult thing for the human
\nreason to accept; and for an obvious reason, because of the evident
\nhumanity of the Avatar. The Avatar is always a dual phenomenon
\nof divinity and humanity; the Divine takes upon himself the human <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\n
\nnature with all its outward limitations and makes them the circumstances, means, instruments of the divine consciousness and the divine
\npower, a vessel of the divine birth and the divine works. But so surely
\nit must be, since otherwise the object of the Avatar’s descent is not
\nfulfilled; for that object is precisely to show that the human birth with
\nall its limitations can be made such a means and instrument of the
\ndivine birth and divine works, precisely to show that the human type
\nof consciousness can be compatible with the divine essence of consciousness made manifest, can be converted into its vessel, drawn into
\nnearer conformity with it by a change of its mould and a heightening
\nof its powers of light and love and strength and purity; and to show
\nalso how it can be done. If the Avatar were to act in an entirely
\nsupernormal fashion, this object would not be fulfilled. A merely
\nsupernormal or miraculous Avatar would be a meaningless absurdity;
\nnot that there need be an entire absence of the use of supernormal
\npowers such as Christ’s so-called miracles of healing, for the use o\u00a3
\nsupernormal powers is quite a possibility of human nature; but there
\nneed not be that at all, nor in any case is it the root of the matter,
\nnor would it at all do if the life were nothing else but a display of
\nsupernormal fireworks. The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic
\nmagician, but as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of
\na divine humanity. Even human sorrow and physical suffering he
\nmust assume and use so as to show, first, how that suffering may be
\na means of redemption,\u2014as did Christ,\u2014secondly, to show how,
\nhaving been assumed by the divine soul in the human nature, it can
\nalso be overcome in the same nature,\u2014as did Buddha. The rationalist
\nwho would have cried to Christ, "If thou art the Son of God, come
\ndown from the cross," or points out sagely that the Avatar was not
\ndivine because he died and died too by disease,\u2014as a dog dieth,\u2014
\nknows not what he is saying: for he has missed the root of the whole
\nmatter. Even, the Avatar of sorrow and suffering must come before
\n_ there can be the Avatar of divine joy; the human limitation must be
\nassumed in order to show how it can be overcome; and the way and
\nthe extent of the overcoming, whether internal only or external also,
\ndepends upon the stage of the human advance; it must not be done by
\na nonhuman miracle. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe question then arises, and it is the sole real difficulty, for here
\nthe intellect falters and stumbles over its own limits, how is this
\nhuman mind and body assumed? For they were not created suddenly <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

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

\n

\nand all of a piece, but by some kind of evolution, physical or spiritual
\nor both. No doubt, the descent of the Avatar, like the divine birth
\nfrom the other side, is essentially a spiritual phenomenon, as is shown
\nby the Gita’s ātmānam srjāmi,<\/i> it is a soul-birth; but still there is here
\nan attendant physical birth. How then were this human mind and
\nbody of the Avatar created? If we suppose that the body is always
\ncreated by the hereditary evolution, by inconscient Nature and its
\nimmanent Life-spirit without the intervention of the individual soul,
\nthe matter becomes simple. A physical and mental body is prepared
\nfit for the divine incarnation by a pure or great heredity and the
\ndescending Godhead takes possession of it. But the Gita in this very
\npassage applies the doctrine of reincarnation, boldly enough, to the
\nAvatar himself, and in the usual theory of reincarnation the reincarnating soul by its past spiritual and psychological evolution itself
\ndetermines and in a way prepares its own mental and physical body.
\nThe soul prepares its own body, the body is not prepared for it without any reference to the soul. Are we then to suppose an eternal or
\ncontinual Avatar himself evolving, we might say, his own fit mental
\nand physical body according to the needs and pace of the human
\nevolution and so appearing from age to age, yuge yuge?<\/i> In some
\nsuch spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first
\nin animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinelynatured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha,
\nand, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine
\nmanhood, Krishna,\u2014for the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the
\nwork Krishna began,\u2014he fulfils in power the great struggle which the
\nprevious Avatars prepared in all its potentialities. It is a difficult assumption to our modern mentality, but the language of the Gita seems
\nto demand it. Or, since the Gita does not expressly solve the problem,
\nwe may solve it in some other way of our own, as that the body is
\nprepared by the Jiva but assumed from birth by the Godhead or that
\nit is prepared by one of the four Manus, catvāro manavah,<\/i> of the
\nGita, the spiritual Fathers of every human mind and body. This is
\ngoing far into the mystic field from which the modern reason is still
\naverse; but once we admit Avatarhood, we have already entered into
\nit and, once entered, may as well tread in it with firm footsteps. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThere the Gita’s doctrine of Avatarhood stands. We have had to
\nadvert to it at length in this aspect of its method, as we did to the <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-148<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nquestion of its possibility, because it is necessary to look at it and face
\nthe difficulties which the reasoning mind of roan is likely to offer to
\nit. It is true that the physical Avatarhood does not fill a large space
\nin the Gita, but still it does occupy a definite place in the chain of its
\nteachings and is implied in the whole scheme, the very framework
\nbeing the Avatar leading the vibhūti,<\/i> the man who has risen to the
\ngreatest heights of mere manhood, to the divine birth and divine
\nworks. No doubt, too, the inner descent of the Godhead to raise the
\nhuman soul into himself is the main thing,\u2014it is the inner Christ,
\nKrishna or Buddha that matters. But just as the outer life is of immense importance for the inner development, so the external Avatarhood is of no mean importance for this great spiritual manifestation.
\nThe consummation in the mental and physical symbol assists the
\ngrowth of the inner reality; afterwards the inner reality expresses itself
\nwith greater power in a more perfect symbolisation of itself through
\nthe outer life. Between these two, spiritual reality and mental and
\nphysical expression, acting and returning upon each other constantly
\nthe manifestation of the Divine in humanity has elected to move
\nalways in the cycles of its concealment and its revelation. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-149<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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