“As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well known
being whom I used to call Krishna.... And this is enough to explain why I am
fully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India” CWM 13:39
Krishna, in the psychic realms, interacted and played a very influential role in the Mother’s sadhana as she treaded further ahead on the path in the quest of her interior and exterior development. This was at a time when she had, in her own words, shared that she knew little about Indian philosophies and religions. In 1914, when she saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in person, she found the Krishna, who was guiding her all along. In the darkest moments in the Alipore jail, Sri Aurobindo got the spiritual experience where he saw Krishna in the wall and the sentry, in the prisoners and prison bars; in the courtroom in the judge and in the prosecution and also in the audience that had come to attend the trial; and the tide turned with that divine experience. In the Gita, Krishna himself states that only a rare and exalted soul that is purified after several births of Tapasya, can truly experience the omniscience of Krishna in everything. (vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ). Not only was Krishna’s Abhaya hasta behind Sri Aurobindo, his descent into the very physical body of Sri Aurobindo took place on 24th November 1926. The gods coming and going out of bodies is something that is well known and documented in our Sanatan tradition; but this descent was different and it was no incarnation either. As the mother described it, it was Krishna consenting to fix himself in the body of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother saw, with her inner eyes; Krishna joining himself to Sri Aurobindo. The Mother laughingly recollected to disciple Satprem, how Sri Aurobindo had remarked rather stoically when she rushed to his room to tell him what she saw, - “‘Yes, I know!’ ……. ‘That’s fine; I have decided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people. You take charge.”
Even before the descent of 1926; which though was not itself the
supramental manifestation, but an important means to it, Sri Aurobindo had
written to Barin about the necessity of the supramental manifestation and how
it is imperative to recognize and realize the central idea of the Gita-
If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it is
hardly possible to know the world's final secret and the problem it raises
remains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of opposition
between the Spirit and Matter, between truth of spirit and truth of life,
disappears. There one need no longer call the world Maya. The world is the
eternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomes
possible to fully know and fully realize God - to do what is said in the Gita,
"To know Me integrally." The physical body, the life, the mind and
understanding, the supermind and the Ananda - these are the spirit's five
levels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state of
that highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to the
Supermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. — Sri
Aurobindo, (CWSA 35:432)
This ignorance that Sri Aurobindo points out is the root of the
problem that denies us of the experience of Ananda. It creates a divide in our
understanding and consequentially adversely affects our life experience as
well. Every divide that we create, takes us one step away from the path of Yoga
and also the lord of our Integral Union, Yogeshwara Krishna. In the Gita,
Krishna describes the infinite branches of division (bahu-śākhā hy anantāś)
that plague the minds of those lost in their ignorant ego-based desires. When
the oneness is realized, all divisions and discord disappear and one begins to
respect and even at times represent the omnipresent divinity.
You can’t expect me to argue about my own spiritual greatness in
comparison with Krishna’s. The question itself would be relevant only if there
were two sectarian religions in opposition, Aurobindoism and Vaishnavism, each
insisting on its own God’s greatness. That is not the case. And then what
Krishna must I challenge, —the Krishna of the Gita who is the
transcendent Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the cosmic
Deity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent in the heart
of all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka and
Kurukshetra and who was the guide of my Yoga and with whom I realised identity?
All that is not to me something philosophical or mental but a matter of daily
and hourly realisation and intimate to the stuff of my consciousness. Then from
what position can I adjudicate this dispute? X thinks I am superior
in greatness, you think there can be nothing greater than Krishna; each is
entitled to have his own view or feeling, whether it is itself right or not.
— Sri Aurobindo, (CWSA 35:432)
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