Sri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo, both had a lighter as well as a serious side. Sri Krishna had his own difficult moments. We often forget that the ever-smiling Avatar wore the mask of Death on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. When asked by Arjuna, His friend of the Ages as to who He really is, the Avatar replied, Kalosmi bhava, I am Time, the Destroyer. He added I am here to destroy these people. We see something similar in Sri Aurobindo during the Revolutionary period and the Two World Wars. But His smiling side, full of deepest compassion and love comes out in His personal correspondence with disciples, notably Nirodbaran and Dilip Kumar Roy. In fact it is not so much serious and light but impersonal and personal side of the Divine that we see manifest in these two Avatars of whom there is no parallel in the world’s spiritual and material history. Sri Aurobindo of course is exceptional not only in terms of the spiritual work but also the material work in the outer fields that he has done for earth and men. I do not know of any other figure in history who would have done so much in a single lifetime.
Yet as I said there is in him as in Sri Krishna an impersonal side that relates to their universal action. But equally both have a deeply personal side which we find in their stories with disciples and devotees. The gopas and gopis are prototypes of those who have given themselves to the Divine unconditionally and hence receive His Grace too in a similar vein. It would however not be the same if just about anybody went to either Sri Krishna or Sri Aurobindo and started chatting as a friend. In all likelihood he may not even be able to come near. Not all are ready to befriend the Divine. It means to be free of all bondages, social and otherwise as the gopas and gopis were. Or else to be filled with love and the spirit of service towards him. Or else one must have fought alongside him the battle of the ages for Truth and Light and Freedom for all mankind. Whatever be the stories of ease with which one is told one can approach Sri Krishna he is known for much caprice and it is not at all easy to please him because he is a perfectionist and leads humanity on and through the evolutionary process. Shiva, on the other hand is easy to please and quick to destroy.
Sri Aurobindo had in him something of both. Like Sri Krishna he fought the battle of the worlds and called some of those who were with him in previous lives for the same work. On the other hand he drank the plosion draught of earth with the compassionate benevolence of Shiva which is what we see sometimes reflected in His divine countenance. it is not seriousness but compassion, a compassion that knows that the world is not ready, that man is not ready or even willing and yet He knows that he must labour on to make earth and man ready for the greater Truth. Sri Krishna’s work was less strenuous so to say. He came when Dwapara was transiting into kaliyuga. Accordingly he gave to man the great gospel of the Gita as well as released the streams of bhakti that will sustain and hold man through the long and dark passage. Sri Aurobindo, on the other hand came to carry man out of the darkness of Kaliyuga and lead mankind to a new Satyuga, a work that needed a much greater and strenuous tapasya especially given man’s state of complete denial, doubt and distrust in things Divine in the present dark ages of mankind. Hence the slight difference that you note.
