A strong Descent leaped down. A Might, a Flame,
A Beauty half-visible with deathless eyes,
A violent Ecstasy, a Sweetness dire,
Enveloped him with its stupendous limbs
And penetrated nerve and heart and brain
That thrilled and fainted with the epiphany:
His nature shuddered in the Unknown’s grasp.
In a moment shorter than death, longer than Time,
By a Power more ruthless than Love, happier than Heaven,
Taken sovereignly into eternal arms,
Haled and coerced by a stark absolute bliss,
In a whirlwind circuit of delight and force
Hurried into unimaginable depths,
Upborne into immeasurable heights,
It was torn out from its mortality
And underwent a new and bourneless change.
An Omniscient knowing without sight or thought,
An indecipherable Omnipotence,
A mystic Form that could contain the worlds,
Yet make one human breast its passionate shrine,
Drew him out of his seeking loneliness
Into the magnitudes of God’s embrace. [Savitri: 81]
Until one day Sri Krishna who had hitherto guided the steps of Sri Aurobindo from the time he was in the Alipore jail, fused his personality with him. The Avatar of the past merged with the Avatar of the future on the 24th November 1926 handing over the charge of the coming age to Sri Aurobindo as the Avatar whose advent marked the transition of an Age. Sri Aurobindo became the last in the series of Avatar or the Divine descent in humanity. It was given to him to usher a new and diviner age.
It is said that the gods come to participate in the Divine Work when the Avatar comes to earth. It is a special moment for them as well. Some of them tie to a human body and act as an outside influence. Seldom do we see one of them incarnating in a developed human being. To do so would mean to limit their field and force of action due to the gross limitations imposed by the human body. Yet the history of spiritual evolution upon earth has documented such instances of incarnation of the gods and the Asura’s alike. Indian mystic lore is full of such instances because of the developed psychic sense in India. In the Western context too such things have happened but mostly gone unnoticed. This time too the gods (as well as the titans) were drawn by the new advent of the Divine. They started influencing some of the sadhaks which resulted in brilliant experiences and sudden uplifts in their consciousness. Miraculous though these influxes from the higher realms seemed, they were could not transform humanity. The reason is this that our present nature as it stands today has been forged by the workings of the Titans and the gods. Our limits are the limits set by them as determined by the Cosmic Divine and the conditions of the work. The gods cannot cross that bar. It is only the Divine who can cross the bar and open the gates for further ascension and the evolution of new possibilities. This is exactly what the work of the Avatar is. Each Avatar carries the mantle of the Evolutionary Force one step further. To take the last few Avatars, Sri Rama came to bring into the animal and Asuric humanity largely driven by the Vital, the reign of an Illumined reason. Sri Krishna opened the doors to go beyond the mind into a larger spiritual freedom. Christ came to humanise a crude barbaric humanity by the power of love. But the world was still waiting for the one advent, the Avatar of the Future who would open the doors for humanity to go beyond itself, beyond even the gods, beyond his religions and dogmas and creeds and sects into the utter freedom, unity and infinity of God. That moment had arrived and the Mother asked the gods if they would incarnate and help as they have always done. They agreed to help, each in his own way. The story of the Mother and Sri Aurobindo with regard to their personal relation with the gods and the work they came to do is itself a fascinating tale. But for now the Mother asked them if they were ready to incarnate since many of them were pressing upon the consciousness and inner being of the disciples to manifest their powers as instruments of their action. Help and influence they would but incarnate they would not, except Sri Krishna, who is both the Godhead of the Anandmaya plane, the Ananda aspect of the One and who took a human body as the Avatar to lead the march of mankind to the Overmind possibility. He accepted to fuse with Sri Aurobindo’s body to take the work one step forward. It meant that all that any human being could ever realise so far was realised by Sri Aurobindo. Sri Krishna had placed the crown of the coming age on Sri Aurobindo passing the mantle of the new age to him.
What happened on the 24th November 1926 can be described as follows. The Overmind is the line where the finite world parts from the infinite, the temporal time bound hemisphere of existence parts from the eternal hemisphere that alone can make our life whole. The gods of the Overmind stand at the borders. Stepping beyond they are integrated in the One Eternal and Infinite Divine as part and parcel of His undivided Unity. They have been brought out of this Unity by the Divine Mother, Shakti, who lends something of Her Consciousness, something of Her Glory and Power so that they may function according to the place assigned to them in the cosmic management. There She is revealed to them as the Mother of Infinite Radiances who brought them forth from the Unknowable. In fact She is the heart of the Unknowable, the bridge between the Supreme Absolute and this world of relativities. At first She beings out the four Absolute Gods each an aspect of the Sachchidanand, One and infinite Existence, One and infinite Consciousness, One and infinite Force (implicit in Consciousness), One and infinite Delight. It is out of this delight, for multiplying this delight through a manifold unity that creation came to be. If we take One true and pure Existent as the passive masculine principal whereas Consciousness-Force as the dynamic feminine principal then we can take Delight as their offspring born of their perpetual union. It is this delight that runs as the sap of creation. It is this Delight whose Godhead is Krishna whose permanent abode is in the Anandloka or the world of infinite Bliss. It is this Godhead of Delight that took the form of Sri Krishna, the Anandmaya, as the poorna Avatar (full Divine Manifestation) of Вwapara Yuga (the age of bronze). It is this Krishna, the Avatar of Dwapara who had opened the doors for the Overmind evolution of humanity. It is this Krishna. It is this Krishna whose playfield is this creation and he came to teach us how to play this game of games meant for delight. It is this Krishna who came to teach mankind how to be free while leading a perfectly normal life and to discover delight in everything. But the world was not ready for the dance of Radha and Krishna. It threw up before him the challenge of the Kurukshetra the great Bharata war that determined the destiny of the Indian nation. He withdrew from earthly scene yet leaving it tremulous with streams of delight born out of God love and Divine Works based on the highest Knowledge. For nearly 4000 years plus the world waited for his return. He returned with the advent of Sri Aurobindo who took up Sri Krishna’s work and started laying the strong foundation of Truth on which alone can Love and Delight have a free play. It is this Krishna who prepared Sri Aurobindo to take the world further and when the time was ripe descended and fused with him on the 24th November 1926.
