Let us meditate upon these lines from Savitri:
His was a spirit that stooped from larger spheres
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, CWSA, Vol. 33, pp. 22-23
Into our province of ephemeral sight,
A colonist from immortality.
A pointing beam on earth’s uncertain roads,
His birth held up a symbol and a sign;
His human self like a translucent cloak
Covered the All-Wise who leads the unseeing world.
Affiliated to cosmic Space and Time
And paying here God’s debt to earth and man
A greater sonship was his divine right.
Although consenting to mortal ignorance,
His knowledge shared the Light ineffable.
A strength of the original Permanence
Entangled in the moment and its flow,
He kept the vision of the Vasts behind:
A power was in him from the Unknowable.
[…]
His soul lived as eternity’s delegate,
His mind was like a fire assailing heaven,
His will a hunter in the trails of light.
An ocean impulse lifted every breath;
Each action left the footprints of a god,
Each moment was a beat of puissant wings.
This is how Sri Aurobindo speaks of the coming of Aswapati, the Lord of Tapasya. Aswapati represents the concentrated energy of spiritual endeavour that helps us to rise from the mortal to the immortal planes. He is the Avatar who carries the world’s desire to the transcendental Shakti and compel her birth here in mortality. (“A world’s desire compelled her mortal birth”). Only Savitri, the incarnation of the Creatrix Supreme, can lift this creation to the Light, Joy, Truth and eternal Life. She will carry along Satyavan, the aspiring soul who carries the divine truth of Being within itself but has descended into the grip of death and ignorance.
This tale is essentially a symbolic Vedic myth, says Sri Aurobindo.
It has been elevated to the spiritual biography of the Twin Avatar of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in Savitri. The Avatarhood of Aswapati, Savitri’s father in the epic, is identified with Sri Aurobindo’s. Speaking of it as a “decisive action direct from the Supreme”, the Mother reveals that Sri Aurobindo came to tell the world of “the beauty of the future that must be realised”. Each action of this “eternity’s delegate” and a “colonist from immortality” would leave the “footprints of a god.”
The stupendous work of Sri Aurobindo is to open the way for the future of the earth. It is meant for the creation of a new world built on Truth. In a letter to a disciple, Sri Aurobindo once wrote:
The traditions of the past are very great in their own place,—in the past; but I do not see why we should merely repeat them and not go farther. In the spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth the great past ought to be followed by a greater future.
~ CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 480
This is part of a very long letter.
Here Sri Aurobindo patiently describes what is radically different about his Supramental Yoga, especially from the Yogas of Sri Ramakrishna, Chaitanya and others. He writes that what he was seeking — “the solution, the reconciliation” could not be found in these past Vaishnava-Tantric traditions.
Elaborating further he says, “the union [with the Mother] has indeed to be realised in the inner psycho-spiritual experience first, because without that nothing sound or lasting can be done; but also there must be a realisation of the Divine in the outer consciousness and life, in the vital and physical planes on their own essential lines.” (ibid., pp. 477-478). And for this, what is absolutely necessary is a vital and physical transformation.
Sri Aurobindo then gives a detailed explanation of Sri Ramakrishna’s spiritual realisation. And describes how that too falls short of the sublimest and highest reconciliation Sri Aurobindo was seeking. This was the reconciliation between the world of spirit and the world of matter, between heaven and earth. Or as he says in the same letter, “a successful meeting of the Divine and the sadhak on the physical plane.”
Sri Aurobindo reveals further,
Krishna did great things and was very clearly a manifestation of the Divine. But I remember a passage of the Mahabharata in which he complains of the unquiet life his followers and adorers gave him, their constant demands, reproaches, their throwing of their unregenerate vital nature upon him. And in the Gita he speaks of this human world as a transient and sorrowful affair and, in spite of his gospel of divine action, seems almost to admit that to leave it is after all the last solution!
~ ibid., p. 480
Sri Aurobindo would have none of this ‘leaving the world’ as the last solution.
The world had already suffered tremendously at the hands of of movements such as Colonialism, Fascism, Nazism, World Wars, Communism, economic barbarism – all signs of declining dharma and harmony. Sri Aurobindo at this moment speaks of the coming of the New Age, an inner, spiritual unity of the world, a New Creation. His radical solution to end the suffering and usher in a new dharma is to bring the divine life on the earth.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of making the world itself a heaven! This is the work of an Avatar, the one who shows the humanity a path to a new dharma based on a new consciousness. But first, the next mighty step – the param padam – that Sri Aurobindo takes himself is to ascend to and then bring down in matter the next plane of consciousness – the Supermind.
Sri Aurobindo speaks of the Supermind as an eternal reality of the divine Being and the divine Nature. He explains that it is in its very essence “a truth-consciousness”. It is a “consciousness always free from the Ignorance which is the foundation of our present natural or evolutionary existence and from which nature in us is trying to arrive at self-knowledge and world-knowledge and a right consciousness and the right use of our existence in the universe” (CWSA, Vol. 13, p. 558).
Only this Supramental Truth-consciousness is capable of creating a new world.
Sri Aurobindo also emphasises that this Supramental is NOT a new version of the Vedantic featureless and incommunicable Parabrahman.
The supramental is not grand, aloof, cold and austere; it is not something opposed to or inconsistent with a full vital and physical manifestation; on the contrary, it carries in it the only possibility of the full fullness of the vital force and the physical life on earth. It is because it is so, because it was so revealed to me and for no other reason that I have followed after it and persevered till I came into contact with it and was able to draw down some power of it and its influence.
~ CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 482
Why was Sri Aurobindo following after the Supramental?
For what did he persevere so intensely, suffered so much, fully aware of “the difficulties of the physical embodiment and the divine realisation on the physical plane” (p. 480)? He himself replies,
I am concerned with the earth and not with worlds beyond for their own sake; it is a terrestrial realisation that I seek and not a flight to distant summits.
~ Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 29, p. 482
For the ultimate terrestrial realisation, that of transformation of earthly life into the divine life, Sri Aurobindo came down on earth. But as Amal Kiran describes so beautifully, Sri Aurobindo represented at the same time descending Godhead and ascending Manhood. He was a spiritual pioneer, the first invoker and realiser of the Supermind which holds the original Truth, the perfect model of every term of the cosmic evolutionary travail.
READ:
The Mother on Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric Work
His Avataric Yoga was the means for the bringing forth of the New Consciousness, assuring a New Age.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother both explain that the principle of Supermind was already involved deep in the cavern of the Inconsience. But it needed the Mighty Yogic Push for it to spring forth into the universal play. The descent of the Supramental or Truth Consciousness would ensure the full truth of life, the full truth of consciousness in Matter.
In fact, a supermind is already here but it is involved, concealed behind this manifest mind, life and Matter and not yet acting overtly or in its own power: if it acts, it is through these inferior powers and modified by their characters and so not yet recognisable.
It is only by the approach and arrival of the descending Supermind that it can be liberated upon earth and reveal itself in the action of our material, vital and mental parts so that these lower powers can become portions of a total divinised activity of our whole being: it is that that will bring to us a completely realised divinity or the divine life.
~ Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 13, p. 560
The World as Progressive Manifestation of the Truth
A colossal work such as this — to ensure the descent of the Supermind so as to liberate and activate the concealed principle — is possible only when the Avatar reveals first that this World, this Life is neither an illusion or a passing phase. Rather, it is created by the Divine for a progressive manifestation of the Truth, of the Divine Will. The world is essentially Divine-in-becoming, because at the center of it is the Divine.
The Mother explains,
…Sri Aurobindo says that if the Divine were not at the centre of everything, He could never manifest in the world; it is the same thing when he says that essentially, in its origin and deepest structure, the creation is divine, the world is divine; and that is why this divinity will be able to manifest one day, become tangible, express itself fully in place of all that veils and deforms it at present.
Up to now, all that has manifested of this divinity is the world as we know it; but the manifestation is boundless, and after this mental world as we know it, of which the apex and prototype is man, another reality will manifest, which Sri Aurobindo calls the Supermind, for it is in fact the next step after the mind; so, seen from the world as it is, it will naturally be “supramental”, that is, something above the mind.
And he also says that it will truly be the changing of one world into another, for so far the whole creation belonged to what he calls “the lower hemisphere” as we know it, which is governed by Ignorance and based upon the Inconscient, whereas the other one will be a complete reversal, the sudden appearance of something which will belong to quite a different world, and which instead of being based on Ignorance will be based upon Truth. That is why it will truly be a new world.
~ CWM, Vol. 9, pp. 157-158
Sri Aurobindo has brought to us the assurance of the New World.
This is why the Mother speaks of him as the “Future advancing towards its realisation” (CWM, Vol. 13, p. 5). He is the Avatar of the Future who boldly declares that in the spiritual development of the consciousness upon earth “the great past ought to be followed by a greater future”. Not only that, he has also given world the assurance of a divine future.
This work of bringing down the Supermind and launching a new creation based on Truth was truly the work of Twin Avatars – the Two who are One, Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. In one of the “Evening Talks” Sri Aurobindo spoke of the inner, truer nature of collaboration that was necessary in order for their Supramental Yoga which has transformation, and not escape from the world and life, as its object. He said,
The function of the Shakti is something special. In my own case it was a necessary condition for the work that I had to do. If I had had to do my own transformation only or give a new yoga or a new ideal to a select few people who came into personal contact with me I could have done that without having any Shakti.
But, for the work that I had to do, it was necessary that the two sides must come together. By the coming together of [the Mother] and me certain conditions are created which make it easy for you to do the transformation.
~ published in Mother India, April 1970
The ‘Avatar’ Issue
In August 2022, for the 150th birthday of Sri Aurobindo, we did a special issue of Renaissance on the theme – ‘Sri Aurobindo, the Eternal Presence‘. And ‘Sri Aurobindo, the Rishi‘ was the theme for the August 2023 issue. As the most natural progression, we now take up the theme ‘Sri Aurobindo, the Avatar’ for this special issue celebrating the 152nd birthday of Sri Aurobindo.
We have curated some highly insightful features in this issue. We begin by a 2-part feature titled Avatarhood in ‘Essays on the Gita‘. This brings together a few selections from Sri Aurobindo’s comprehensive volume where he gives in-depth and profound explanation of the concept of Avatarhood. What is especially noteworthy is the explanation that the Avatar comes to bring nearer the kingdom of heaven on earth in the collectivity as well as to build the kingdom of heaven within in the individual human soul.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are ONE consciousness.
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother affirmed this repeatedly in various correspondences and talks. They worked together as One consciousness to bring down the Supramental Consciousness on the Earth. So, when it comes to speaking about the true significance of this Avataric Work, only the Mother can speak about it with perfect certitude and clarity. We highlight two passages from the Mother in the feature titled The Mother on Sri Aurobindo’s Avataric Work.
New on Renaissance Spotify:
The Mother on Avatar
In February 2011, Georges van Vrekhem delivered a highly engaging and well-researched talk in Auroville, titled ‘The Kalki Avatar’. It is now included in the book Preparing for the Miraculous: Eleven Talks at Auroville (2011, pp. 235-266). We feature the talk in 5 parts under the title Sri Aurobindo and the Kalki Avatar. The reader can thus appreciate each section of the author’s explanation.
Sri Aurobindo, the Maharishi has also given us a marvellous body of literature.
His written works which include correspondences and talks with the disciples cover practically all aspects of human and divine life. Revealing the Dharma for our age and for the future, he brought back for the humanity the deeper spirit and truth of the Vedas. Sri Aurobindo expressed the deepest and the highest spiritual truths in a manner suitable for the modern mentality. But he did that without diluting, reducing or simplifying anything for the sake of a lazy reader. His words came from a plane beyond ‘thought’.
Many of his written works give us a glimpse into his and the Mother’s tremendous Yogic work for the earth-consciousness. They reveal for us the Sunlit path we must tread on if we aspire to be a squirrel-like collaborator in their Divine Work. His books are a Force-in-Action; each word is imbued with his supreme consciousness and force. These are also forms of the godly footprints of the Avatar Sri Aurobindo.
The feature titled Being in the Ashram and Reading Sri Aurobindo’s Books highlights an excerpt from Mona Sarkar’s book Blessings of the Grace: Conversations with the Mother. This entry is dated May 21, 1951. It highlights Mother’s explanation on how one can experience an immense multi-faceted development by reading Sri Aurobindo’s books.
Other offerings include Sri Aurobindo, the Avatar of Supramental Humour by Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo: The Avatar and Lover of Humanity by Charan Singh Kedarkhandi, and Towards an Everlasting “Yes” by Narendra Murty.
As always, we offer this work at the lotus feet of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
In gratitude,
Beloo Mehra (for Renaissance Editorial Team)
