Sri Aurobindo came to Me

APPENDIX IV

Glossary

Sri Aurobindo had to employ, some English words in a somewhat new sense to explain certain experiences. These only need be included in
this glossary as they occur frequently in his letters quoted in this book:

Avatar:

"An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious of the Presence and power of the Divine born in him or descended into him and governing from within his will and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this Divine Power and presence."

A Vibhuti is supposed to embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great force in the world, but that is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita which is the main authority on this subject. If we follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as

Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him. Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna, being with him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself a bhakta of Krishna and nothing more, but in great moments he manifested Krishna, grew luminous in mind and body and was Krishna himself and spoke and acted as the Lord. His contemporaries saw in him an
Avatar of Krishna, a manifestation of the Divine Love.

Shankara and Vivekananda were certainly Vibhutis; they cannot be reckoned as more, though as Vibhutis they were great.

It was not my intention to question in any degree Chaitanya's position as an Avatar of Krishna and the Divine Love. That character

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of the manifestation appears very clearly from all the account about him and even, if what is related about the appearance of Krishna in him from time to time is accepted, these outbursts of the splendour of the Divine Being are among the most remarkable in the story of the Avatar. As for Sri Ramakrishna, the manifestation in him was not so intense but more many-sided and fortunately there can be no doubt about the authenticity of details of his talk and actions since they have been recorded from day to day by so competent an observer as M. I. would not care to enter into any comparison as between these two great spiritual personalities; both exercised an extraordinary influence and did something supreme in their own sphere.

"But also the higher divine consciousness of the Purushottama may itself descend into the humanity and that of the Jiva disappear into it. This is said by his contemporaries to have happened in the occasional transfigurations of Chaitanya when he who in his normal consciousness was only the lover and devotee of the Lord and rejected all deification, became in these abnormal moments the Lord himself and so spoke and acted, with all the out flooding light and love and power of the divine Presence."

Being:

The psychic being by which he means the Purusha in the heart which supports by its presence the action of the mind, life and body. It is the conscious form of the soul. "The psychic part of us," he writes in a letter, "is something that comes direct from the Divine and is in touch with divine possibilities that supports the lower triple manifestation of mind, life and body.... It grows in the consciousness by Godward experience, gaining strength every time there is a higher movement in us and, finally, by the accumulation of these deeper and higher movements, there is developed a psychic individuality which we call usually the psychic being." He has often used the adjective psychic to mean this higher movement. Sometimes he has used the psychic as an abbreviation omitting being.

The vital being by which he means the being behind life-force. He writes in one of his letters: "There are four parts of the vital being — first the mental vital which gives a mental expression by thought, speech or otherwise to the emotions, desires, passions, sensations and other movements of the vital being." Those who would know more

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about his classification must be referred to the first volume of his Letters! We need be concerned here only with his definition of two more of these.

The higher vital by which the means "that larger movement of the conscious life-force which is concerned with creation, with power and force and conquest, with giving and self-giving... throwing itself out in the wider movements of life, responsive to the greater objects of Nature

The lower vital by which he implies "the pettier movements of action and desire" such as "all physical sensations, hungers, cravings, satisfactions ... lust, greed of all kinds, vanity, small ambitions, petty anger, envy, jealousy" etc.

Bhakti: devotion

Bhava: the idea behind, associations

Gurubhai: bother disciple

Mayavdd: the doctrine that life is a maya, illusion

Sadhaka: a spiritual aspirant

Sadhana: practice of discipline for God-realizations

Swabhava: the bhava or nature native; the law of one's being

Tapasya: Sri Aurobindo often uses the Greek word askesis: it means spiritual effort with the last stress on protected austerities.

Prayopaveshana: to fast unto death till the boon sought is granted.