Aspects of Sri Aurobindo

Supramental Avatar And Physical Transformation

A LETTER

You have put me a number of important questions arising from what I wrote to you on the Agenda and the Divine's Will.¹ I must not delay to answer them to the best of my ability.

(1) "How far limited in their workings are the Avatars who have brought down the Supramental World into this lower triple universe?"

I suppose you mean Avatars who came with the mission of establishing the Supermind in mind, life and matter on the earth. For, surely the Supramental World has not yet been brought down. Some Light, Force and Consciousness of it manifested in the subtle-physical on February 29, 1956 and the Supermind was at work in both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, but there was no substantial establishment of it in the stuff of their bodies. The process of transforming the cellular consciousness was going on in the Mother but there seemed to have been no definitive supramentalisation of the physical stuff. The difficulty lay in the fact that these Avatars had assumed human nature with all its fundamental difficulties, the human constitution as evolved in the course of millennia, for then alone whatever change they would achieve in themselves would be meaningful for us, be a hope and a promise for our transformation. The limits accepted were immense. The Supermind's power too was great and its extraordinary action went on constantly, but except at certain times it was not exercised in an apparently miraculous manner. I say "was not" rather than "could not be" — and this brings me to your second question.

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(2)"Are the 'luminous interventions', which you have mentioned in your last letter, law-bound or do they have their own laws not to be understood by intelligence or in mental terms? Nolini Kanta Gupta, just after the Mother's passing away, said in his message that 'further was not possible'. Not possible even if Grace intervenes?"

The Supramental Avatars come from the Transcendent — that is, from beyond the cosmic law. So they cannot be cosmically law-bound. They obey cosmic laws for their own reasons but they are free and omni-capable. When I showed to the Mother soon after December 5, 1950 a short write-up, for the readers of Mother India, on Sri Aurobindo's departure from his body, she picked out the phrase: "the mortal remains of Sri Aurobindo" — and said: "You cannot say this. There was nothing mortal about Sri Aurobindo. He did not die of physical causes. He had complete control over his body." This was a staggering eye-opener. Although I had instinctively felt the same way, the direct explicitness of the Mother's statements was like a lightning flash. It amounts to saying that neither Sri Aurobindo nor the Mother would be compelled to leave the body. If physical maladies came about and if they were responsible for the deaths of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, everything happened by their consent and for a purpose of their own. Nolini's message I take to have been worded from what we may call the absolute point of view: since nothing further was done, it was the Divine's Will that it should not be possible. Perhaps "possible" is an inadequate term and one could have said: "further was not chosen." Here enters your third question.

(3)"Is there any concrete explanation why the new process of 'mutation' culminating in complete divinisation of the body was, as Nolini later declared and as you agreed, 'postponed' when originally the Mother as well as Sri Aurobindo had been sure of it? Of course, I know the answer

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is sometimes given along lines indicated by Sri Aurobindo once: what if the apparent failure suits the Divine's plan better in the long run? But to me this is a mystifying answer, just consoling rather than concrete."

I think we have to look at the situation from two angles. There is the Avatar's transcendent self and there is his or her cosmically manifested or embodied self. The Avatar acts by being in touch with the Supreme Truth above and with the evolutionary conditions and needs below. In his embodied state he may not act with full knowledge of that Truth: whatever is required for his action is held by him in his consciousness. At any moment his own transcendent being, which is ever-free and whose ever-freedom is essentially present also in his cosmically incarnate form, may send a command running counter to what was decided to be necessary before. As you know, the Mother said in effect: "Somewhere it has been decided whether this body is going to be supramentalised or not, but this body is not yet given to know the decision." I am convinced that when the Mother came to know the decision of her own highest self, she let the accepted physical troubles take their course and lead her to leave her body. Why the Transcendent reversed the trend we had been taught to affirm is hardly possible to gauge fully. All we can say is that somehow it was for a greater future benefit to the Divine Mother's beloved children. Your fourth question seems to fumble towards an idea of this benefit, but, according to me, too hastily.

(4) "Why has the Mother to reappear on earth — as you envision — in order to supramentalise the human body? Is not the Divine free to complete her mission through any other body she may choose, a body which we are not aware of at the moment and which may not be known for a prescribed period?"

You do not appear to realise the tremendous pre-requi-

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sites. Sri Aurobindo² tells us: "The psychic and spiritual trans-formation must come first, only afterwards would it be practical or useful to discuss the supramentalisation of the whole being down to the body." Again, we learn from him:³ "One has first of all to supramentalise sufficiently the mind and vital and physical consciousness generally — afterwards one can think of supramentalisation of the body." Who is capable of the full preparation? I have not come across anyone who can sufficiently represent the Mother or Sri Aurobindo. But that is precisely what is wanted. Is there any sadhak with their oceanic knowledge, their light of intuition, their infinite peace, their occult force, their profound immediate understanding, their vast impartiality and compassion?

Moreover, has not Sri Aurobindo clearly outlined for his followers the necessity of the Guru's physical nearness to enable them to do the Integral Yoga, observing to the full all the conditions laid down for it? Here are a few words of his:

"In this discipline, the inspiration of the Master, and in the difficult stages his control and his presence are indispensable — for it would be impossible otherwise to go through it without much stumbling and error which would prevent all chance of success."⁴

"The guidance of one who is himself by identity or represents the Divine is in this difficult endeavour imperative and indispensable."⁵

Q. — "Is there any special effect of physical nearness to the Mother?

A. — It is indispensable for the fullness of the sadhana on the physical plane. Transformation of the physical and external being is not possible otherwise."⁶

The refrain in the three passages is the word "indispensable", referring to the physical presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother or of at least one of them as the sole condition for the disciple's doing the Integral Yoga with the hope of complete success in overcoming all obstacles:

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that is, of going right up to the body's total transformation, which will fulfil the Integral Yoga.

The central reason is that the Supramental Force which alone can effect the fulfilment cannot be brought into suffi-cient action without an Avatar of the Supermind being in our midst.

Certainly we can go a long way — even in bodily changes — by our self-dedication to the subtle presence of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and by drawing upon the power they have established on the earth in general and in the Ashram in particular, but I am afraid the logic of their revelations can conduct us only to one conclusion: the Mother has first to come back in whatever manner and stand before us physically transformed before we can reach the last stage of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga of Supramental Descent and Transformation.

29.5.1982

Notes and References

1."Two Clarifications", Mother India, July 1982

2.On Yoga II, Tome One (Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, 1958), p. 101.

3.Ibid.

4.Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother (1953), p. 253.

5.Ibid., p. 523.

6.Ibid., p. 566.

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