The purpose of Avatarhood

My heart feels an undivided reverence for all the Masters of all times and whether feminine or masculine in their physical appearance, whom I had the privilege of knowing or reading  their teaching. 
All of them have a place in my heart, and I treasure the pearls of wisdom of their teaching as coming from God Itself.
This undivided reverence, which is spontaneous, builts a synthetic approach to the universal Teaching.
Of none of them I could say "I'm his disciple", and yet my heart is filled with reverence  for each of them as they each were my Masters.
My mind, my soul and the whole of my being refuse to say that "this Master is greater than the other", my personal appreciation is out of place here, they each are a perfil of the One Divine in a human shape and came to realize their part each adding of their own to the immortal Teaching.
 They together bring and present the manyfold teaching appeared in the epochs, each at his moment is the right Master,  even the beggar, the unholy or a shining star. 
They all create a synthetic Truth which is the synthetic Truth of the Kalki Avatar, the Avatar of Synthesis.

 A message of synthesis needs to be exactly that, a unifying principle where nothing and no one is excluded.  
The last and greatest teaching of the Kalki Avatar after reuniting all the different paths, would not only be that of the confirmed doctrines, religions and yogas but the path of the carpenter or the shoemaker or the housewife as all paths conducting to the only God, because nothing else than this  movement can be possible and is realized- either knowingly or unknowingly- as each soul is called to fulfil the purpose of its existence of knowing the God who created it and  knowing the very purpose of the existence of the human being on earth that every life is but a step in that direction, making the approach ever greater and wider, all-embracing and all inclusive. 

That would be the proclamation of the Avatar within everybody.

The ultimate creation of the Kalki Avatar would be the proclamation of the Avatar in every individual and each individual a path and an ascent towards the Divine. 
It is not only the synthesis of the religions or the yogas and all the spiritual paths, but the realization that even ordinary life and mundane occupations are the path the Avatar chose to create a greater and all-embracing synthesis, leading the march that the humanity has to follow to become each individual the Avatar. 

The everlasting promise of the Avatar is not just liberation, but the inner realization that only being an Avatar the humanity as a whole will be an immortal race fulfilling the very purpose of our existence here and the reason why this planet and this life was created. 

 

In writings and conversations Sri Aurobindo has convincingly affirmed that an avatar would be of no use as an example for the human march if it were since the beginning conscious of his own power.

In fact -he continues-  an avatar conscious of his divine purpose would undergo the hard human trail with a considerable advantage on his human fellows, an avatar has to toil, suffer and hope like a human being.

Sri Aurobindo in answering disciples´s questions about Avatarhood:

 My own idea of the matter is that the Avatar's life and actions are not miracles, and if they were, his existence would be perfectly useless, a mere superfluous freak of Nature. He accepts the terrestrial conditions, he uses means, he shows the way to humanity as well as helps it. Otherwise what is the use of him and why is he here?

 There are two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine Consciousness behind and the instrumental personality. The Divine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forward the instrumental personality in Nature, under the conditions of Nature, and it uses it according to the rules of the game – though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. If Avatarhood is only a flashing miracle, then I have no use for it. If it is a coherent part of the arrangement of the omnipresent³ Divine in Nature, then I can understand and accept it.

I have said that the Avatar is one who comes to open the Way for humanity to a higher consciousness – if nobody can follow the Way, then either our conception of the thing, which is also that of Christ and Krishna and Buddha also, is all wrong or the whole life and action of the Avatar is quite futile. X seems to say that there is no way and no possibility of following, that the struggles and sufferings of the Avatar are unreal and all humbug, – there is no possibility of struggle for one who represents the Divine. Such a conception makes nonsense of the whole idea of Avatarhood; there is then no reason in it, no necessity in it, no meaning in it. The Divine being all-powerful can lift people up without bothering to come down on earth. It is only if it is a part of the world-arrangement that he should take upon himself the burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatarhood has any meaning.

The Avatar is not supposed to act in a non-human way – he takes up human action and uses human methods with the human consciousness in front and the Divine behind. If he did not his taking a human body would have no meaning and would be of no use to anybody. He could just as well have stayed above and done things from there.

 An Avatar even does not manifest all the Divine omniscience and omnipotence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display; all that is behind him but not in the front of his consciousness.
 As for the Vibhuti, the Vibhuti need not even know that he is a power of the Divine.

 When they think of a manifestation of Divinity, they think it must be an extraordinary perfection in doing ordinary human things – an extraordinary business faculty, political, poetic or artistic faculty, an accurate memory, not making mistakes, not undergoing any defeat or failure. Or else they think of things which they call superhuman like not eating food or telling cotton-futures or sleeping on nails or eating them. All that has nothing to do with manifesting the Divine... These human ideas are false.The Divinity acts according to another consciousness, the consciousness of the Truth above and the Lila below and It acts according to the need of the Lila, not according to man's ideas of what It should or should not do. This is the first thing one must grasp, otherwise one can understand nothing about the manifestation of the Divine.

The Divine does not need to suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world and men; and if the sufferings and struggles are to be of any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot help. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings of men themselves – the Divine bears them and at the same time shows the way out of them. Otherwise his assumption of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no value. It is strange that you cannot understand or refuse to admit so simple and crucial a point. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take all the meaning out of it?

 The Divine when he takes on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely and without any conjuring tricks or pretence.

The Avatar is not bound to do extraordinary actions, but he is bound to give his acts or his work or what he is – any of these or all – a significance and an effective power that are part of something essential to be done in the history of the earth and its races.

An Avatar is not at all bound to be a spiritual prophet – he is never in fact merely a prophet, he is a realiser, an establisher – not of outward things only, though he does realise something in the outward also, but, as I have said, of something essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution which is the evolution of the embodied spirit through successive stages towards the Divine.

 Ramakrishna's earlier period was that of one seeking God, not aware from the first of his identity.

Why should the Avatar proclaim himself except on rare occasions to an Arjuna or to a few bhaktas or disciples? It is for others to find out what he is; though he does not deny when others speak of him as That, he is not always saying and perhaps never may say or only in moments like that of the Gita, “I am He”.

THE VISION. RELATED FACTS II

During my experiment I was able to remain conscious in "conscious sleep" and as a result of it I was conscious too about my consciousness being an independent and autonomous center of perception that I called at that moment a "mental body", in other words, I made contact with the subtle physical, and as for my own experience at least, that mental body was at the same time or could wear a subtler body when in need of it.

It was in this subtler body that I often met Sri Aurobindo, but I'm convinced that the Master did a lot to help me, and after all "He came to me" unexpectedly, I was not thoroughly able to control my subtler experiences, it was a new set of experiences and I had not even idea that I could or would meet Sri Aurobindo.

In the course of my experiment I realized that sometimes there would be some kind of superimposed perception of the subtler body during the wake condition, it was not necessary anymore to have the physical body sleeping in order to feel the subtle body, but subtler perceptions would happen rather suddenly and unexpected with a previous quite condition of mind, a meditative attitude.

In the course of time this subtler perception grew steadily, it was possible living in the material realm having a subtler perception of it. I used to think of Sri Aurobindo as an "anchorage", whenever I focused my consciousness on the Master I was able to enter into a subtler perception of reality. I often used this means to understand the how and why my personal relation with the Master, and this subtler perception led me to remember how and when I met and served as a disciple at His feet.

In "Atem´s Notebooks" I present several akashic registers, in Number 2 and 3 I describe a Pharaoh. That Pharaoh was Sri Aurobindo in a previous life, and you may notice how concerned He was in trying to awake the real cult into the common people. My subtler perception explained me that I was (the soul in me was) the therapist which shows in both akashic registers: at that time a fervent disciple of the great Pharaoh.

While recalling to my memory my previous lives at His service, I realized I was again one of his disciples during Middle Age in Europe.

At that moment the Master was known as Stephen Harding, a saint hermit which is considered the founder of the Cisterciensis Order. But his greater work remains unknown and undervalued.

The facts are worth a closer look.

Stephan was a celtic soul, much like Bernard de Clairvaux, one of his disciple. Though Stephan was a monk of the official christian church, as a Celt he was grown up with the idea of a merciful Mother of the Universe, generous and caring with Her creatures. This belief was deeply rooted in Stephan´s soul, and was antithetical to a God depicted by the church at that time as a vengeful and angry masculine god. A divinity which everybody had to fear rather than love. 

Through Bernard de Clairvaux (his main disciple) Stephen was able to insert the cult to the Merciful Mother into Christianity contra posed to the cult to the vengeful god. 

Suddenly the cult to the Merciful Mother spread all over Europe, but the person at the root of this cult was the humble saint Stephen Harding.

When the Pharaoh asked what to do in order to awaken the real cult into the plain mind of his people, his next purpose as Stephen Harding was to awaken the real cult (the cult to the Supreme Mother) in Occident.

 He was back in Orient, and as Sri Aurobindo he awakened there the real cult to the Mother, so that both Occident and Orient received the message to awaken to the reality of the universal  Mother. In fact, the whole of Sri Aurobindo teaching is centered on the existence of a divine universal Mother, which is the Mother of Yoga.

The very center of Auroville is the Matrimandir, the Temple of the Mother. So is the divine Mother the center of Sri Aurobindo's teachings.

In this way, the ancient Pharaoh united both Occident and Orient under a same cult, it was the natural unfolding of the purpose of the Pharaoh wishing to establish the real cult on earth. And the real cult could only be one: the cult to the divine Mother.

The ancient therapist was born again as Bernard de Clairvaux, again at the service of his Master.

Bernard was not only a server of his Master, but a server of the divine Mother too.

He came back on earth at Her service in an indian body known as Ramakrishna, a very known disciple of the divine Mother. Ramakrishna´s work about the unification of religions is well known to get into it here.

The divine Mother said to Ramakrishna that he would reborn again in Europe towards the middle of the XX century. Ramakrishna himself revealed it to his closer disciples, and his words were registered.

But how strange! Could the divine Mother and Sri Ramakrishna be both wrong on that point?

Nobody has ever heard Ramakrishna be here again, in Europe, in the XX century.

If that happened, this time he probably came unnoticed, doing his work at Her service but completely unknown. At the same time he would hold memories of being one of the long term Sri Aurobindo´s disciples and surely get in touch again with his Master.

This same person will reborn in Italy again, and will erect the first Ziggurat of the Modern Era.

These are not mental speculations, are soul truths which I pass onto you. It is my work to lift a bit the veil, and it is my work because in several lives I've been working and dealing with the faculty of Vision, a Vision which is amplified by the contact with Sri Aurobindo´s Consciousness. It is this training which allowed me to receive, hold and transmit the Vision which is at the base of this blog. When you open your door to subtle perception there is not any need anymore to trust me, you will know it all by yourself. You may surely meet Sri Aurobindo in the subtle physical, but to do that you need your own perception of your subtle body. Later on you will not need any longer to actually "see" Him, whenever you get in touch with "that consciousness" you will be with Him.

 

  

       

Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo

                                         Sri Paramahansa Ramakrishna 1836-1886

"I have practiced all religions -Hinduism, Islam, Christianity- and I have also followed the paths of different Hindu sects. I have found that it is the same God toward whom all are directing their steps, though along different paths".
                                                                                                (Sri Ramakrishna)


Sri Aurobindo spoke with respect of Sri Ramakrishna :

..."in the life of Ramakrishna Paramhans, we see a colossal spiritual capacity...Its object was...to exemplify in the great and decisive experience of a master-soul the truth, now most necessary to humanity, towards which a world long divided into jarring sects and schools is with difficulty labouring, that all sects are forms and fragments of a single integral truth and all disciplines labour in their different ways towards one supreme experience".

"This is the work Sri Ramakrishna came to begin and all the development of the previous two thousand years and more since Buddha appeared, has been a preparation for the harmonisation of spiritual teaching and experience by the Avatar of Dakshineshwar".  ( n.d.r. Sri Aurobindo is referring to Ramakrishna, he considered Ramakrisha an Avatar)

..."A new era dates from his birth, an era in which people will be lifted for a while into communion with God and spirituality become the dominant note of human life".  
..."A new day is about to break, so glorious that even the last of the avatars(n.d.r. Sri Ramakrishna)  cannot be sufficient to explain it, although without him it would not have come"...
 ..."It is such a synthesis embracing all life and action in its scope that the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Vivekananda have been preparing".

                                                   Swami Vivekananda 1863-1902,
                                                                   most direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna 

The holy Mother Sharada Devi  -- the wife of Sri Ramakrishna --  had a vision after the passing away of the Master, in which she saw the form of Sri Ramakrishna entering into the body of Vivekananda, signifying that the Master would thenceforth work in and through his chief disciple.  

Sri Aurobindo was very much influenced by the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda.

Swami Vivekananda, which had already passed away by then  came to him in a subtle body and gave him some important spiritual instruction.

                                   "It is a fact that I was hearing constantly the voice of Vivekananda speaking to me for a fortnight in the jail in my solitary meditation and felt his presence".

Sri Aurobindo also received messages from Sri Ramakrishna, as his diary entry shows, which indicates that received some guidance from him after beginning his Yoga.

The words of the second message are lost, but it was a "direction to form the higher being in the lower self" coupled with a promise to speak once more when the sadhana was nearing its close. 

 

This is the third message (18 Oct 1912)

"Make complete sannyasa of Karma.

Make complete sannyasa of thought.

Make complete sannyasa of feeling.

This is my last utterence."

Sri Aurobindo´s vision and philosophy incorporates the earthly life into the spiritual life, restoring the teachings of Vedas and Upanishads to their pristine purity. He was critical of Shankara's philosophy of mayavada, Shankara had said that this world is an illusion and an error.

"World, said Sri Aurobindo,  is an integral aspect of God and not removed from God".    

    "It is the Upanishads themselves and not Shankara's writings, the text and not the commentary, that are the authoritative Scripture of the Vedantin. Shankar's, is only one synthesis and interpretation of the Upanishads. There have been others in the past, and there is no reason why there should not be a yet more perfect synthesis in the future".
(Vedanta literally translated means the end of the Vedas and it comprises Upanishads, Brahmasutras, Bhagavat Gita, Shrutis and Smritis).

Shankara's influence has been so overarching on the Indian system of thought that Vedanta is normally identified with him only, he was the propounder of the Nondualist school and emphasized what is called the nirguna aspect of the Reality, the Brahman which is formless, indeterminable and ineffable. He maintained that Brahman alone is real and that the world is unreal or mithya. But Ramanuja, an exponent of Visishtadwaita, which stressed the saguna aspect of the Brahman four hundred years after Shankara, focussed instead on the world, self and God and they were all real for him. This led to heated debates between the followers of the nirguna and the saguna facets of Brahman. 

Was Sri Aurobindo who reconcilied the opposed:

 "In a realistic Adwaita there is no need to regard the Saguna as a creation from the Nirguna or even secondary or subordinate to it, both are equal aspects of one Reality:  its position of silent status and rest (saguna) and its position of action and dynamic force (nirguna),   the relation between the Purusha and Shakti  exists between the poles of rest and action".

Sri Aurobindo while affirming his realization of the transcendental Brahman, refutes the idea of the world as an i1lusion and states that the seeker of an  Integral Truth not only

aspires 

for a static release in the Brahman but also 

strives 

for a transformation of life, mind and body, and for the conditions on earth. 

(This article is mainly work of another author of which I lost the name)