Sri Krishna, like all the Avatars, is an incarnation of the Divine. But each Avatar takes a certain station in the ladder of consciousness for his work. Humanity at the time of Sri Krishna was yet struggling with its rajoguna and the conflict was between the Asuric turn of the Rajoguna and the Daivi turn, that is to say between a Rajo-tamasic and a Rajo-sattwic way of life. Sri Krishna taught mankind to rise above the gunas and act in the freedom of the soul with the sole purpose of fulfilling the Divine Will in mankind, lokasangrahartha. He does not explicitly state what is that Divine consummation towards which humanity is moving. He gives to man a wide and mighty path synthesising Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta, placing before man the ideal of Jivanmukta through a constant dwelling in God.
Great and mighty though the teaching and the path shown by Sri Krishna is, it stops short at the Supramental. We can almost say that Sri Krishna knocks at the gates of the Supermind but does not open it for various reasons, the foremost being the inadequate preparation of humanity. The Supermind integrates not only Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta but also the Tantra. It integrates the material life and the spiritual not only through arriving at an inner liberation but also transformation of nature, of human nature into the Divine Supernature hinted at in the Gita. The Divine Mother is hinted at but not developed in thought and practise. The Gita is at best a wonderful preparation for the supermind but not the supramental yoga itself.
There are three things that differentiate the Yoga of the Gita from the Supramental Yoga.
The reliance and surrender to the Divine Mother. The spiritual logic implicit in this is that the Ishwara aspect helps creation and humanity shift one step upwards as the Avatar takes a higher station with reference to humanity. He calls and draws humanity towards him. The Divine Mother is the Shakti aspect and is required for the change of consciousness that facilitates the shift. Here the change is too radical, a total divine transformation, not only of human nature but also of the instruments devised and evolved by the material nature so far to express new and higher Divine possibilities.
The goal of this yoga is not inner liberation alone but the supramental transformation.
The Gita helps us transcend the gunas, trigunatita, whereas the supramental yoga takes us to the transformation of the gunas itself, – tamas into Divine Peace, rajas into Divine Consciousness and Force, sattwa into Divine Illumination and knowledge.
The Gita looks at the world as God’s lila, the Divine Play whereas the Supramental Yoga looks at the world play as the progressive manifestation of the Divine.
There are other differences also but these are some of the main differentiating features between the Gita and the supramental yoga.
