Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood 1

By Barindranath Chaki

Sri Aurobindo was the last Avatar in a human body.

That is what The Mother has said.

She has also said that Sri Aurobindo would return, but NOT in a human body — NOT in a body born as a human being or of a human being. And His return may even be as late as five hundred years from his departure.
I have said earlier also that according to The Mother, Sri Aurobindo was an emanation of the Supreme. He was / is an Avatar of The Supreme. He came to transcend the Overmind consciousness and to cause the Descent of The Supramental Consciousness. He is beyond the Overmental Godheads.
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the trinity — three aspects of the Supreme. Just to represent one of them would mean that Sri Aurobindo’s coming was partial. His process is synthetic and integral. He thus represented the Supreme integrally and entirely. And He came here on earth to manifest the Supramental Consciousness, not to repeat the Overmind Consciousness.

Let us see what Sri Aurobindo speaks of two other Avatars, two other great Spiritual Personalities:

What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His universal Personality. And what was Vivekananda? A radiant glance from the eye of Shiva; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.

Similarly Sri Aurobindo, too, manifested the Supreme Divine in all His aspects, entirely, integrally behind Him. And His purpose was a completely new Thing: to transcend the human consciousness on earth towards a New Creation.

Sri Aurobindo totally revolutionized the spiritual world, the spiritual traditions, the spiritual manifestations. The Transformation They have intended to bring in beyond the spiritual Transformation — it is the Supramental Transformation. He and The Mother have done something which nobody else have ever thought or attempted. So it is not a wise thing to shut up Sri Aurobindo and The Mother into some old systems. We cannot forcefully ask Sri Aurobindo to remain limited in an old concept of Dashavatara of Vishnu.

The Mother has said:
One who truly follows the path given by Sri Aurobindo, as soon as he begins to have the experience of this path, will find it impossible to confine his consciousness to the worship of any god or goddess or even of all of them together.

Our purpose is to go ahead towards the Supramental Becoming and Progress. We are not here to confine ourselves to the old tradition, which is not correctly the Vedic tradition, but a tradition which grew much later than the Vedic period. We do not find all the Ten Avatars being mentioned in the Vedas.

Further, it may be repeatedly mentioned what Sri Aurobindo said about the last three Avatars:

Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development – Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete positively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposing Asura forces.

These are the Words from Sri Aurobindo — and therefore these words make up one of the most confirmed proof that Sri Aurobindo himself is NOT among the Ten Avatars. Indeed, He is beyond the Ten Avatars.

If the Words from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother are not presenting confirmed and solid proofs, then what else can? Words and books and chronicles from a person, who says that she follows Them but refutes and ignores what They have said and also presents them in a way that suits her, has no meaning and cannot stand against the Words of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother.

OOOOO

On 8th December 1950, after the departure of Sri Aurobindo, The Mother said:

When I asked Him (December 8, 1950) to resuscitate his body, He clearly answered: “I left this body purposely. I will not take it back. I shall manifest again in the first supramental body built in the supramental way.

Can anyone say that this message of The Mother has no strength in it as an evidence of the Fact that Sri Aurobindo IS not reborn in a human body, after His departure on the 5th December?

About the Return of Sri Aurobindo The Mother has further said as follows:

“The return of Sri Aurobindo very soon is not likely. His going was connected with world conditions. If world-conditions had been such as could so soon change and be suitable for his presence amongst us, his going itself would have been unnecessary.

“Also, the return cannot be in a startling miraculous manner. That would not be consistent with Sri Aurobindo’s method and our work. A more probable way of return would be: the present occasional visions of Sri Aurobindo which some people see — the almost material appearance he now makes to some people at certain times — may increase; the manifestation may be more frequent and more general, until one day a permanent reappearance takes place.

“One cannot fix the precise time of his return. It may even be five hundred years later. I can’t say anything, since the knowledge has not come to me. I only say things when I get them. This much I have said: Sri Aurobindo will be the first to have the supramental body.

“People keep asking me: ‘When Sri Aurobindo comes back in a supramental body, will he need to eat or drink or do other usual things?’ All these questions are silly.’

“Sri Aurobindo’s leaving the body makes no essential difference. Sri Aurobindo is after all a certain consciousness, the divine consciousness, and this consciousness was there even before the earth came. The question of his ‘absence’ has little meaning.

“A world war may destroy the civilization, but it won’t destroy the Divine’s work. Sri Aurobindo once told me that he had so arranged things that nothing would interfere with his work.” [Mother India, December 1974]

OOOOO

A handful of quotes from Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, I repeatedly say, is definitely more powerful and convincing that any endeavour to misrepresent facts regarding Sri Aurobindo and His Avatarhood or Return. To a true and sincere follower, there is nothing more convincing and forceful except what They have said. Today I have laid down, more clearly, more about Sri Aurobindo’s Avatarhood and Return, what all Their true followers throughout the World DO definitely accept what The Mother and Sri Aurobindo have said in these matters.

In presenting these sayings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, in saying that Sri Aurobindo is the Avatar of the Supreme, but not the Avatar of a particular aspect of the Supreme, in saying that Sri Aurobindo will never return in Human body, I have quoted authentic and forceful and highly convincing sayings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

I also hold that Sri Aurobindo has not been reborn as a human being of a human mother in a supramental body.
And I have no vested interest in this matter. I only serve the Truth.

And I am not pretending to be a follower of Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo and The Mother know the best what I am, and many of Their followers also know me. By using these words, none can stop me from telling the Truth, as said by The Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

I refer to these points as these things are said about me by Lori Tompkins, a follower of Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, in one of her articles in Circumsolatious**, in a very aggressively attacking way, challenging what I have written in an article of mine, Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood, published on in All Choice and Sulekha* and in Savitri Era Open Forum of Tushar Mohapatra.

In Sri Aurobindo and Avatarhood, I have said, in short, that Sri Aurobindo need not be one of Dasavatara of Vishnu. Because, He has never said so; The Mother, too, has never said so.

Though He is not less in that level and in fact higher. Indeed, I said, following The Mother, that He is the Avatar of the Supreme. And I also said that Vishnu is only an aspect of the Supreme.

Barindranath Chaki
22-10-2009

Simultaneously published in ASPIRATION, All Choice and Sulekha.

Links of the articles referred to :

*http://barinchaki.sulekha.com/blog/post/2008/06/sri-aurobindo-and-avatar-hood.htm

**http://circumsolatious.blogspot.com/2009/10/sri-aurobindo-lotus-and-avatar.html