{"id":3649,"date":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=3649"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:50:11","slug":"17-the-divine-birth-and-divine-works-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\/17-the-divine-birth-and-divine-works-vol-essays-on-the-gita-1950-edn","title":{"rendered":"-17_The Divine Birth and Divine Works.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\nTHE DIVINE BIRTH AND DIVINE WORKS <\/font>
\n<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nT<\/font>HE<\/font>
\nWORK<\/font> for which the Avatar descends has like his birth a double
\nsense and a double form. It has an outward side of the divine force
\nacting upon the external world in order to maintain there and to reshape the divine law by which the Godward effort of humanity is
\nkept from decisive retrogression and instead decisively carried forward
\nin spite of the rule of action and reaction, the rhythm of advance and
\nrelapse by which Nature proceeds. It has an inward side of the divine
\nforce of the Godward consciousness acting upon the soul of the individual and the soul of the race, so that it may receive new forms
\nof revelation of the Divine in man and may be sustained, renewed
\nand enriched in its power of upward self-unfolding. The Avatar does
\nnot descend merely for a great outward action, as the pragmatic
\nsense in humanity is too often tempted to suppose. Action and event
\nhave no value in themselves, but only take their value from the force
\nwhich they represent and the idea which they symbolise and which the force is there to serve.
\n<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe crisis in which the Avatar appears, though apparent to <\/b>the outward eye only as a crisis of events and great material changes, is
\nalways in its source and real meaning a crisis in the consciousness of
\nhumanity when it has to undergo some grand modification and effect
\nsome new development. For this action of change a divine force is
\nneeded; but the force varies always according to the power of consciousness which it embodies; hence the necessity of a divine consciousness manifesting in the mind and soul of humanity. Where,
\nindeed, the change is mainly intellectual and practical, the intervention of the Avatar is not needed; there is a great uplifting of consciousness, a great manifestation of power in which men are for the time
\nbeing exalted above their normal selves, and this surge of consciousness and power finds its wave-crests in certain exceptional individuals,
\nvibhūtis,<\/i> whose action leading the general action is sufficient for the
\nchange intended. The Reformation in Europe and the French Revolution <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-150<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwere crises of this character; they were not great spiritual
\nevents, but intellectual and practical changes, one in religious, the
\nother in social and political ideas, forms and motives, and the modification of the general consciousness brought about was a mental and
\ndynamic, but not a spiritual modification. But when the crisis has a
\nspiritual seed or intention, then a complete or a partial manifestation
\nof the God-consciousness in a human mind and soul comes as its
\noriginator or leader. That is the Avatar. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThe outward action of the Avatar is described in the Gita as
\n<\/b>the
\n<\/b>restoration of the Dharma; when from age to age the Dharma fades,
\nlanguishes, loses force and its opposite arises, strong and oppressive,
\nthen the Avatar comes and raises it again to power; and as then
\nthings in idea are always represented by things in action and by human beings who obey their impulsion, his mission is, in its most
\nhuman and outward terms, to relieve the seekers of the Dharma who
\nare oppressed by the reign of the reactionary darkness and to destroy
\nthe wrongdoers who seek to maintain the denial of the Dharma. But
\nthe language used can easily be given a poor and insufficient connotation which would deprive Avatarhood of all its spiritual depth of
\nmeaning. Dharma is a word which has an ethical and practical, a
\nnatural and philosophical and a religious and spiritual significance,
\nand it may be used in any of these senses exclusive of the others, in
\na purely ethical, a purely philosophical or a purely religious sense.
\nEthically it means the law of righteousness, the moral rule of conduct,
\nor in a still more outward and practical significance social and political
\njustice, or even simply the observation of the social law. If used in
\nthis sense we shall have to understand that when unrighteousness,
\ninjustice and oppression prevail, the Avatar descends to deliver the
\ngood and destroy the wicked, to break down injustice and oppression
\nand restore the ethical balance of mankind. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nThus the popular and mythical account of the Krishna avatar is
\nthat the unrighteousness of the Kurus as incarnated in Duryodhana
\nand his brothers became so great a burden to the earth that she had
\nto call upon God to descend and lighten her load; accordingly Vishnu
\nincarnated as Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar account is given of the descent
\nof the previous Vishnu avatars, of Rama to destroy the unrighteous
\noppression of Ravana, of Parashurama to destroy the unrighteous license of the military and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the dwarf <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-151<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nVamana to destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely
\npractical, ethical or social and political mission of die Avatar which
\nis thus thrown into popular and mythical form, does not give a right
\naccount of the phenomenon of Avatarhood. It does not cover its
\nspiritual sense, and if this outward utility were all, we should have
\nto exclude Buddha and Christ whose mission was not at all to destroy evildoers and deliver the good, but to bring to all men a new
\nspiritual message and a new law of divine growth and spiritual realisation. On the other hand, if we give to the word dharma only its
\nreligious sense, in which it means a law of religious and spiritual
\nlife, we shall indeed get to the kernel of the matter, but we shall be
\nin danger of excluding a most important part of the work done by the
\nAvatar. Always we see in the history of the divine incarnations the
\ndouble work, and inevitably, because the Avatar takes up the workings of God in human life, the way of the divine Will and Wisdom
\nin the world, and that always fulfills itself externally as well as internally, by an inner progress in the soul and by an outer change in the life. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Avatar may descend as a great spiritual teacher and saviour, the Christ, the Buddha, but always his work leads, after he has
\nfinished his earthly manifestation, to a profound and powerful change
\nnot only in the ethical, but in the social and outward life and ideals
\nof the race. He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of
\nthe divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic
\naction, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this
\ndescent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the
\ninner living and the spiritual rebirth. It is indeed curious to note that
\nthe permanent, vital, universal effect of Buddhism and Christianity
\nhas been the force of their ethical, social and practical ideals and
\ntheir influence even on the men and the ages which have rejected
\ntheir religious and spiritual beliefs, forms and disciplines; later Hinduism which rejected Buddha, his samgha,<\/i> and his
\ndharma,<\/i> bears the
\nineffaceable imprint of the social and ethical influence of Buddhism
\nand its effect on the ideas and the life of the race, while in modern
\nEurope, Christian only in name, humanitarianism is the translation
\ninto the ethical and social sphere and the aspiration to liberty, equality
\nand fraternity the translation into the social and political sphere of
\nthe spiritual truths of Christianity, the latter especially being effected <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-152<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nby men who aggressively rejected the Christian religion and spiritual
\ndiscipline and by an age which in its intellectual effort of emancipation tried to get rid of Christianity as a creed. On the other hand,
\nthe life of Rama and Krishna belongs to the prehistoric past which
\nhas come down only in poetry and legend and may even be regarded
\nas myths; but it is quite immaterial whether we regard them as myths
\nor historical facts, because their permanent truth and value lie in
\ntheir persistence as a spiritual form, presence, influence in the inner
\nconsciousness of the race and the life of the human soul. Avatarhood is a fact of divine life and consciousness which may realise itself
\nin an outward action, but must persist, when that action is over and
\nhas done its work, in a spiritual influence; or may realise itself in a
\nspiritual influence and teaching, but must then have its permanent
\neffect, even when the new religion or discipline is exhausted, in the
\nthought, temperament and outward life of mankind. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nWe must then, in order to understand the Gita’s description of
\nthe work of the Avatar, take the idea of the Dharma in its fullest,
\ndeepest and largest conception, as the inner and the outer law by
\nwhich the divine Will and Wisdom work out the spiritual evolution
\nof mankind and its circumstances and results in the life of the race.
\n, Dharma in the Indian conception is not merely the good, the right,
\nmorality and justice, ethics; it is the whole government of all the
\nrelations of man with other beings, with Nature, with God, considered from the point of view of a divine principle working itself
\nout in forms and laws of action, forms of the inner and the outer life,
\norderings of relations of every kind in the world. Dharma1<\/sup> is both
\nthat which we hold to and that which holds together our inner and
\nouter activities. In its primary sense it means a fundamental law of
\nour nature which secretly conditions all our activities, and in this
\nsense each being, type, species, individual, group has its own dharma.
\nSecondly, there is the divine nature which has to develop and manifest in us, and in this sense dharma is the law of the inner workings
\nby which that grows in our being. Thirdly, there is the law by which
\nWe govern our outgoing thought and action and our relations with
\neach other so as to help best both our own growth and that of the
\nhuman race towards the divine ideal. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nDharma is generally spoken of as something eternal and unchanging, and so it is in the fundamental principle, in the ideal, but in its <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n <\/p>\n

\n
\n1<\/sup> The word means "holding" from the
\nroot dhr,<\/i> to hold. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-153<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nforms it is continually changing and evolving, because man does not
\nalready possess the ideal or live in it, but aspires more or less perfectly towards it, is growing towards its knowledge and practice. And
\nin this growth dharma is all that helps us to grow into the divine
\npurity, largeness, light, freedom, power, strength, joy, love, good,
\nunity, beauty, and against it stands its shadow and denial, all that
\nresists its growth and has not undergone its law, all that has not
\nyielded up and does not will to yield up its secret of divine values, but
\npresents a front of perversion and contradiction, of impurity, narrow^
\nness, bondage, darkness, weakness, vileness, discord and suffering and
\ndivision, and the hideous and the crude, all that man has to leave
\nbehind in his progress. This is the adharma,<\/i> not-dharma, which
\nstrives with and seeks to overcome the dharma, to draw backward and
\ndownward, the reactionary force which makes for evil, ignorance and
\ndarkness. Between the two there is perpetual battle and struggle, oscillation of victory and defeat in which sometimes the upward and
\nsometimes the downward forces prevail. This has been typified in the
\nVedic image of the struggle between the Divine and the Titanic
\npowers, the sons of the Light and the undivided Infinity and the
\nchildren of the Darkness and Division, in Zoroastrianism by Ahuramazda and Ahriman, and in later religions in the contest between
\nGod and his angels and Satan or Iblis and his demons for the possession of human life and the human soul. <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIt is these things that condition and determine the work of the
\nAvatar. In the Buddhistic formula the disciple takes refuge from all
\nthat opposes his liberation in three powers, the dharma,<\/i> the samgha,
\n<\/i>the Buddha. So in Christianity we have the law of Christian living,
\nthe Church and the Christ. These three are always the necessary
\nelements of the work of the Avatar. He gives a dharma, a law of
\nself-discipline by which to grow out of the lower into the higher life
\nand which necessarily includes a rule of action and of relations with
\nour fellowmen and other beings, endeavour in the eightfold path or
\nthe law of faith, love and purity or any other such revelation of the
\nnature of the divine in life. Then because every tendency in man has
\nits collective as well as its individual aspect, because those who follow one way are naturally drawn together into spiritual companionship and unity, he establishes the samgha,<\/i> the fellowship and union
\nof those whom his personality and his teaching unite. In Vaishnavism there is the same trio,
\nbhāgavat, bhakta, bhagavān,\u2014the bhāgavat,<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-154<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nwhich is the law of the Vaishnava dispensation of adoration and
\nlove, the bhakta<\/i> representing the fellowship of those in whom that
\nlaw is manifest, bhagavān,<\/i> the divine Lover and Beloved in whose
\nbeing and nature the divine law of love is founded and fulfils itself.
\nThe Avatar represents this third element, the divine personality, nature and being who is the soul of the dharma and the samgha,<\/i> informs them with himself, keeps them living and draws men towards
\nthe felicity and the liberation, <\/font><\/p>\n

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

\n
\nIn the teaching of the Gita, which is more catholic and complex
\nthan other specialised teachings and disciplines, these things assume
\na larger meaning. For the unity here is the all-embracing Vedantic
\nunity by which the soul sees all in itself and itself in all and makes
\nitself one with all beings. The dharma is therefore the taking up of
\nall human relations into a higher divine meaning; starting from the
\nestablished ethical, social and religious rule which binds together the
\nwhole community in which the God-seeker lives, it lifts it up by informing it with the Brahmic consciousness; the law it gives is the
\nlaw of oneness, of equality, of liberated, desireless, God-governed action, of God-knowledge and self-knowledge enlightening and drawing
\nto itself all the nature and all the action, drawing it towards divine
\nbeing and divine consciousness, and of God-love as the supreme power
\nand crown of the knowledge and the action. The idea of companionship and mutual aid in God-love and God-seeking which is at the
\nbasis of the idea of the samgha<\/i> or divine fellowship, is brought in
\nwhen the Gita speaks of the seeking of God through love and adoration, but the real samgha<\/i> of this teaching is all humanity. The whole
\nworld is moving towards this dharma, each man according to his
\ncapacity,\u2014"it is My path that men follow in every way,"\u2014and the
\nGod-seeker, making himself one with all, making their joy and sorrow and all their life his own, the liberated made already one self
\nwith all beings, lives in the life of humanity, lives for the one Self
\nin humanity, for God in all beings, acts for lokasamgraha,<\/i> for the
\nmaintaining of all in their dharma and the Dharma, for the maintenance of their growth in all its stages and in all its paths towards
\nthe Divine. For the Avatar here, though he is manifest in the name
\nand form of Krishna, lays no exclusive stress on this one form of his
\nhuman birth, but on that which it represents, the Divine, the Purushottama, of whom all Avatars are the human births, of whom all
\nforms and names of the Godhead worshipped by men are the figures. <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-155<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nThe way declared by Krishna here is indeed announced as the way
\nby which man can reach the real knowledge and the real liberation,
\nbut it is one that is inclusive of all paths and not exclusive. For the
\nDivine takes up into his universality all Avatars and all teachings and all dharmas. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe Gita lays stress upon the struggle of which the
\nworld is the theatre, in its two aspects, the inner struggle and the outer battle. In
\nthe inner struggle the enemies are within, in the individual, and the
\nslaying of desire, ignorance, egoism is the victory. But there is an
\nouter struggle between the powers of the Dharma and the Adharma
\nin the human collectivity. The former is supported by the divine, the
\ngodlike nature in man, and by those who represent it or strive to
\nrealise it in human life, the latter by the Titanic or demoniac, the
\nAsuric and Rakshasic nature whose head is a violent egoism, and by
\nthose who represent and strive to satisfy it. This is the war of the
\nGods and Titans, the symbol of which the old Indian literature is full,
\nthe struggle of the Mahabharata of which Krishna is the central figure
\nbeing often represented in that image; the Pandavas who fight for the
\nestablishment of the kingdom of the Dharma, are the sons of the
\nGods, their powers in human form, their adversaries are incarnations
\nof the Titanic powers, they are Asuras. This outer struggle too the
\nAvatar comes to aid, directly or indirectly, to destroy the reign of the
\nAsuras, the evildoers, and in them depress the power they represent
\nand to restore the oppressed ideals of the Dharma. He comes to bring
\nnearer the kingdom of heaven on earth in the collectivity as well as
\nto build the kingdom of heaven within in the individual human soul. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nThe inner fruit of the Avatar’s coming is gained by those who
\nlearn from it the true nature of the divine birth and the divine works
\nand who, growing full of him in their consciousness and taking
\nrefuge in him with their whole being, manmayā. mām upāśritāh,<\/i> purified by the realising force of their knowledge and delivered from the
\nlower nature, attain to the divine being and divine nature, madbhāvam.<\/i> The Avatar comes to reveal the divine nature in man above
\nthis lower nature and to show what are the divine works, free, unegoistic, disinterested, impersonal, universal, full of the divine light,
\nthe divine power and the divine love. He comes as the divine personality which shall fill the consciousness of the human being and
\nreplace the limited egoistic personality, so that it shall be liberated
\nout of ego into infinity and universality, out of birth into immortality. <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-156<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nHe comes as the divine power and love which calls men to itself, so
\nthat they may take refuge in that and no longer in the insufficiency
\nof their human wills and the strife of their human fear, wrath and
\npassion, and liberated from all this unquiet and suffering may live
\nin the calm and bliss of the Divine.2<\/sup> Nor does it matter essentially in
\nwhat form and name or putting forward what aspect of the Divine he
\ncomes; for in all ways, varying with their nature, men are following
\nthe path set to them by the Divine which will in the end lead them
\nto him and the aspect of him which suits their nature is that which
\nthey can best follow when he comes to lead them; in whatever way
\nmen accept, love and take joy in God, in that way God accepts, loves
\nand takes joy in man. Ye yathā mām prapadyante tāms tathaiva bhajāmyaham.<\/i> <\/font>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n2<\/sup> janma karma ca me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah.<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n tyaktvā dehorn punarjanma naiti mām<\/i> eti so’rjuna.<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n vītarāgabhayakrodhā manmayā mām upāśritāh,<\/i><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n bhavo j\u00f1ānatapasā pūtū madbhāvam
\nāgatāh.<\/i> <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\nPage-157<\/font><\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XVII   THE DIVINE BIRTH AND DIVINE WORKS   THE WORK for which the Avatar descends has like his birth a double sense and a…<\/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-3649","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\/3649","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=3649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}