88) Krishna- Editorial for Sri Aurobindo's Action April 2024, Unedited (Art by Pallavi Subhash)
“As soon as I saw Sri Aurobindo I recognised in him the well knownbeing whom I used to call Krishna.... And this is enough to explain why I amfully convinced that my place and my work are near him, in India” CWM 13:39
Krishna, in the psychic realms, interacted and played a veryinfluential role in the Mother’s sadhana as she treaded further ahead on thepath in the quest of her interior and exterior development. This was at a time when she had, in her ownwords, shared that she knew little about Indian philosophies and religions. In1914, when she saw Sri Aurobindo for the first time in person, she found theKrishna, who was guiding her all along. In the darkest moments in the Aliporejail, Sri Aurobindo got the spiritual experience where he saw Krishna in thewall and the sentry, in the prisoners and prison bars; in the courtroom in thejudge and in the prosecution and also in the audience that had come to attendthe 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 afterseveral births of Tapasya, can truly experience the omniscience of Krishna ineverything. (vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ). Not only wasKrishna’s Abhaya hasta behind Sri Aurobindo, his descent into the very physicalbody of Sri Aurobindo took place on 24th November 1926. The gods coming andgoing out of bodies is something that is well known and documented in ourSanatan tradition; but this descent was different and it was no incarnationeither. As the mother described it, it was Krishna consenting to fix himself inthe body of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother saw, with her inner eyes; Krishna joininghimself to Sri Aurobindo. The Mother laughingly recollected to discipleSatprem, how Sri Aurobindo had remarked rather stoically when she rushed to hisroom to tell him what she saw, - “‘Yes, I know!’ ……. ‘That’s fine; I havedecided to retire to my room, and you will take charge of the people. You takecharge.”
Even before the descent of 1926; which though was not itself thesupramental manifestation, but an important means to it, Sri Aurobindo hadwritten to Barin about the necessity of the supramental manifestation and howit is imperative to recognize and realize the central idea of the Gita-
If we cannot rise above, to the supramental level, that is, it ishardly possible to know the world's final secret and the problem it raisesremains unsolved. There, the ignorance which creates a duality of oppositionbetween 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 theeternal Play of God, the eternal manifestation of the Self. Then it becomespossible 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 andunderstanding, the supermind and the Ananda - these are the spirit's fivelevels. The higher man rises on this ascent the nearer he comes to the state ofthat highest perfection open to his spiritual evolution. Rising to theSupermind, it becomes easy to rise to the Ananda. — SriAurobindo, (CWSA 35:432)
This ignorance that Sri Aurobindo points out is the root of theproblem that denies us of the experience of Ananda. It creates a divide in ourunderstanding and consequentially adversely affects our life experience aswell. Every divide that we create, takes us one step away from the path of Yogaand 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. Whenthe oneness is realized, all divisions and discord disappear and one begins torespect and even at times represent the omnipresent divinity.
You can’t expect me to argue about my own spiritual greatness incomparison with Krishna’s. The question itself would be relevant only if therewere two sectarian religions in opposition, Aurobindoism and Vaishnavism, eachinsisting on its own God’s greatness. That is not the case. And then whatKrishna must I challenge, —the Krishna of the Gita who is thetranscendent Godhead, Paramatma, Parabrahma, Purushottama, the cosmicDeity, master of the universe, Vasudeva who is all, the immanent in the heartof all creatures, or the Godhead who was incarnate at Brindavan and Dwarka andKurukshetra 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 dailyand hourly realisation and intimate to the stuff of my consciousness. Then fromwhat position can I adjudicate this dispute? X thinks I am superiorin greatness, you think there can be nothing greater than Krishna; each isentitled to have his own view or feeling, whether it is itself right or not.
— Sri Aurobindo, (CWSA 35:432)
