classes ::: George_Van_Vrekhem, Integral_Yoga, chapter,
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Instances, Classes, See Also, Object in Names
Definitions, . Quotes . - . Chapters .


object:1.11 - The Kalki Avatar
book classPreparing for the Miraculous
author class:George Van Vrekhem
subject class:Integral Yoga
class:chapter


God must be born on earth and be as man
That man being human may grow even as God.
Sri Aurobindo 1
A
ccording to the Hindu tradition, the evolution of life
and consciousness on Earth has been supported by a
succession of Avatars: the Fish, the Tortoise, the Boar, the
Man-Lion, the Dwarf, Rama-with-the-Ax, Rama, Krishna,
the Buddha, and the last one, Kalki, who according to the
tradition is still to come.
1
Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 537.236
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Question: If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were Ava-
tars, or an Avatar, what or which Avatars or Avatar were
they?
1. Avatar
Sri Aurobindo has given clear definitions of the Avatar
and Vibhuti on many occasions. For instance: There are
two sides of the phenomenon of Avatarhood, the Divine
Consciousness and the instrumental personality. The Di-
vine Consciousness is omnipotent but it has put forth the
instrumental personality in Nature under the conditions of
Nature and it uses it according to the rules of the game
though also sometimes to change the rules of the game. 2
An Avatar, roughly speaking, is one who is conscious
of the presence and power of the Divine born in him or
descended into him and governing from within his will
and life and action; he feels identified inwardly with this
divine power and presence. A Vibhuti is supposed to em-
body some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act
with great force in the world, but that is all that is neces-
sary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great,
but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling
Divinity. 3
In the phenomenon of Avatarhood there is a Conscious
ness behind, at first veiled or sometimes perhaps half-veiled,
which is that of the Godhead and a frontal consciousness,
human or apparently human or at any rate with all the ap-
pearance of terrestriality, which is the instrumental person-
ality. 4
2 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 408.
3 Id., pp. 406-407.
4 Id., p. 420.the kalki avatar
237
In the effort to understand and explain the phenom-
enon of the Avatar the accent has been laid by some on his
divinity, by others on his humanity, and by many more
on something in between, covering the whole range from
divine to human. Although the Avatar is often thought to
be a specifically Hindu concept, the most extensive docu-
mentation about the various interpretations of the Avatar-
phenomenon is to be found in Christianity. (In Essays on the
Gita, Sri Aurobindo repeatedly names as Avatars Krishna,
Buddha and Christ.) In Christianity its founder is seen
mostly unawares as an Avatar, for Christ is at the same
time the Son of God and the Son of Man. The fundamental
difference with Hinduism is that in Christianity Christ is
held to be the only Avatar, the one and only Redeemer of a
fallen humanity. From a human teacher and miracle worker
the theologians gradually exalted him into a divine being,
one in essence with God the Father, therefore omniscient
and omnipotent, capable of doing anything also while in
the human body. A similar belief exists in some forms of
Hinduism about its divine incarnations.
Sri Aurobindo countered such notions quite forcefully.
The Avatar does not come as a thaumaturgic magician, but
as the divine leader of humanity and the exemplar of a di-
vine humanity. 5 Certain conditions have been established
for the game and so long as those conditions remain un-
changed things are not done ... 6 As the Mother said: The
true divine power has organized the world according to a
certain plan, and in that plan was not included that things
would happen in an illogical [i.e. random] way; otherwise
from the very beginning the world would have been illogi-
cal and it is not. 7
5 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 165.
6 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 411.
7 The Mother: Questions and Answers 1950, p. 80.238
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An Avatar or Vibhuti have the knowledge that is nec-
essary for their work, they need not have more, wrote Sri
Aurobindo. There was absolutely no reason why Buddha
should know what was going on in Rome. An Avatar even
does not manifest all the Divine omniscience and omnipo-
tence; he has not come for any such unnecessary display;
all that is behind him but not in the front of the conscious-
ness. 8 My own idea of the matter is that the Avatars life
and actions are not miracles. If they were, his existence
would be perfectly useless, a mere superfluous freak of Na-
ture. He accepts the terrestrial conditions, he uses means,
he shows the way to humanity as well as helps it. 9
We know whatever we have to know for our work,
said Sri Aurobindo to the disciples gathered around him af-
ter the accident with his leg. 10 And to a disciple who wrote:
We consider you omniscient, he answered with a touch
of irony: You do not expect me, surely, to know how many
fishes the fishermen of Pondicherry have caught, or how
much money they have made of it? [On another occasion he
chose as an example of his ignorance what Lloyd George, a
famous British politician at the time, had had for breakfast.]
Because [the Divine] chooses to limit or determine his ac-
tion by conditions, it does not make him less omnipotent.
His self-limitation is itself an act of omnipotence. 11
Another topic in the 3rd and 4th century theological
controversies was the constitution of Christ, the God-Man.
The standpoint, for instance, of the heretic sect of the
Sabellians, was that Christ was fully and effectively God,
also when in his human body, and that consequently, being
God, he could not suffer.
8 Sri Aurobindo: op. cit., p. 410.
9 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 149.
10 Nirodbaran: Talks with Sri Aurobindo, vol. I, p. 41.
11 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 411.the kalki avatar
239
The same point was made in the 1930s to Sri Aurobindo,
who had to state: The Divine when he takes on the burden
of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely, and without
any conjuring tricks or pretence. 12 X seems to say that
there is no way and no possibility of following [the exam-
ple of the Avatar], that the struggles and sufferings of the
Avatar are unreal and all humbug there is no possibility of
struggle for one who represents the Divine. Such a concep-
tion makes nonsense of the whole idea of Avatarhood; there
is then no reason in it, no necessity in it, no meaning in it.
The Divine being all-powerful can lift people up without
bothering to come down to earth. It is only if it is part of the
world-arrangement that he should take upon himself the
burden of humanity and open the Way that Avatarhood has
any meaning. 13
If the Avatars are shams, they have no value for others
nor any true effect, Avatarhood becomes perfectly irrational
and unreal and meaningless. The Divine does not need to
suffer or struggle for himself; if he takes on these things it
is in order to bear the world-burden and help the world
and men; and if the sufferings and struggles are to be of
any help, they must be real. A sham or falsehood cannot
help. They must be as real as the struggles and sufferings
of men themselves the Divine bears them and at the same
time shows the way out of them. Otherwise his assump-
tion of human nature has no meaning and no utility and no
value. What is the use of admitting Avatarhood if you take
all the meaning out of it? 14 If an Avatar did only seem to
take upon himself the struggles and sufferings of mankind
all I have done or the Mother has done is a mere sham
sufferings, struggles, conquests, defeats, the Way formed,
12 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 154.
13 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, pp. 408-409.
14 Id., pp. 411-412.240
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the Way followed, the call to others to follow, everything
it was all make-believe since I was the Divine and nothing
could touch me and none follow me. 15
An Avatar, according to Sri Aurobindo, is never in fact
merely a prophet, he is a realizer, and establisher ... of some-
thing essential and radical needed for the terrestrial evolution
which is the evolution of the embodied spirit through suc-
cessive stages towards the Divine. 16 For my yoga is done
not for myself who need nothing and do not need salvation
or anything else, but precisely for the earth consciousness, to
open a way for the earth consciousness to change. 17
The crisis in which the Avatar appears, though ap-
parent to the outward eye only as a crisis of events and
great material changes, is always in its source and real
meaning a crisis in the consciousness of humanity when it
has to undergo some grand modification and effect some
new development. For this action of change a divine force
is needed ... It should be kept in mind that the real stuff
of things is the Spirit, and that therefore everything exists
and changes within the Spirit, also what we, human be-
ings, perceive as material. When the crisis has a spiritual
seed or intention, then a complete or partial manifestation
of the God-consciousness in a human mind and soul comes
as its originator or leader. That is the Avatar. 18
The Avatar is not bound to do extraordinary actions,
but he is bound to give his acts or his work or what he is
15 Nirodbaran: Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, p. 165.

This is a decisive argument against the thesis that Christ did not
die on the cross, as it is against the opinion that Christ, being God, did
not suffer on the cross. If his suffering was not real, his avataric mission
made no sense.
16 Sri Aurobindo: op. cit., p. 415.
17 Nirodbaran: op. cit., p. 143.
18 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 169.the kalki avatar
241
any of these or all a significance and an effective power
that are part of something essential to be done in the his-
tory of the earth and its races. 19
2. The world-arrangement
We have seen that Sri Aurobindo said: Certain condi-
tions have been established for the game. He also spoke
about the rules of the game, the world-arrangement
and the arrangement of the omnipotent Divine in Nature.
And he said: All is possible, but all is not licit except by
a recognizable process. 20 To realize what is the (cosmic)
game, the process or world-arrangement, is of immense
importance; it is essential to understand Sri Aurobindos
worldview and his avataric mission.
The ancient understandings of the cosmos all saw its
development in time, and therefore the history of humani-
ty, as cyclic. There is a continuous, eternal succession of the
four ages or yugas: Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron, gradually
degenerating towards the critical point where all is taken
back into its origin (pralaya) and then started again in the
same order. Lord Vishnu mounted on a white horse, with
a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet will come to end
the present Kali Yuga and inaugurate a reign of universal
goodness, peace and prosperity, he will renovate the crea-
tion with an era of purity or Krita Yuga. The four yugas
will then proceed in the same order once again, with simi-
lar characteristics, and this process will repeat itself till the
final dissolution or Mahapralaya. (V. Ashok) 21
Sri Aurobindo accepts the essence of the meaning of
the cycles and the cycles as such, but in a progressive way,
19 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 414.
20 Nirodbaran: op. cit., p. 133.
21 V. Ashok: Dasavatar The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu, p. 292.242
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for the cycles of our evolution move towards a divine re-
sult. 22 We thank to his erudition and spiritual knowledge
the coherent, majestic picture of the cosmic manifestation
in which fit the partially valid schemes of the religions and
mythologies of the past.
The Brahman is twofold: silent, completely absorbed in
himself, and active, manifesting himself in a splendour of
worlds and beings, for reasons that transcend our under-
standing and in Hinduism are called his Lila. This effusion
of worlds, from the highest formations of Sat-Chit-Ananda
down to the lowest of the lower vital, has been explored by
Sri Aurobindo and described by him in The Book of the
Traveller of the Worlds, in his epic Savitri. As this endless
scale of worlds is, each of them, the expression of Existence
and Consciousness, it is also the expression of Ananda, and
all their beings enjoy therefore perfect satisfaction and hap-
piness as they are, even those of the lower vital which to us
become demonic. Sri Aurobindo has called those worlds
typal because, not possessed of the urge to change, they
are non-evolutionary.
However, the characteristics and possibilities of Brahman
are infinite, which means that there also eternally existed the
possibility of the Divine seeing himself as his own opposite
in his negative aspects. As in the Divine seeing means being,
immediately Consciousness turned into inconscience, Truth
into falsehood, Light into darkness, Bliss into suffering, Life
into death. The Great Mother, who is the executive or mani-
festing Power of the one Divine, and who therefore was re-
sponsible for this tragic reversal, saw what was happening,
and turning to the Supreme she prayed for the remedy and
the cure of the evil that had been done. Then she was giv-
en the command to precipitate her Consciousness into this
22 Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, p. 65.the kalki avatar
243
inconscience, her Love into this suffering, and her Truth
into this falsehood. And a greater consciousness, a more to-
tal love, a more perfect truth than what had been emanated
at first, plunged, so to say, into the horror of Matter in order
to awaken in it Consciousness, Love and Truth, and to be-
gin the movement of redemption, which was to bring the
material universe back to its supreme origin. 23
The movement of redemption is none other than
what we call evolution, the slow upward climb on the
ladder established as the manifestation of the Divine, and
which Sri Aurobindo called involution. What in present-
day science and common thought is seen as an exclusively
material process, is by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother put in
its complete, spiritual context. Thanks to them humanity is
becoming aware of what is really at stake in the universe:
the regaining of the divinity which was at the beginning
and which will be at the end the divine adventure of con-
sciousness and joy.
During one of her occult explorations with Thon at
Tlemcen, the Mother saw in a cave deep under water a re-
clining divine figure. In fact, this is the origin of all Avatars.
He is, so to say, the first universal Avatar who, gradually,
has assumed more and more conscious bodies and finally
manifested in a kind of recognized line of Beings who have
descended directly from the Supreme to perfect this work
of preparing the universe so that, through a conscious pro-
gression, it may become ready to receive and manifest the
supramental Light in its entirety. 24 In other words, the di-
vine figure which the Mother saw at the base of the material
universe was a personification of the divine Love making
the upward climb possible, and to this end incarnating in
23 The Mother: Questions and Answers 1957-1958, p. 208.
24 The Mothers Agenda, 1961, p. 417.244
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Avatars when the realization of a new level of conscious-
ness became necessary.
We find this confirmed in Sri Aurobindo. Are we then
to suppose an eternal or continual Avatar himself evolving,
we might say, his own mental and physical body according
to the needs and the pace of the human evolution and so
appearing from age to age, yuge yuge? In some such spirit
some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first
in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf
man-soul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe,
the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened
spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but fi-
nal in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna, for
the last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna
began, he fulfils in power the great struggle which the
previous Avatars prepared in all its potentialities. 25
And again: The Hindu procession of the ten Avatars
is itself, as it were, a parable of evolution. First the Fish
Avatar, then the amphibian animal between land and water,
then the land animal, then the Man-Lion Avatar, bridging
man and animal, then man as dwarf, small and undevel-
oped and physical but containing in himself the godhead
and taking possession of existence, then the rajasic, sattwic,
nirguna Avatars, leading the human development from the
vital rajasic to the sattwic mental man and again the over-
mental superman. Krishna, Buddha and Kalki depict the
last three stages, the stages of the spiritual development
Krishna opens the possibility of overmind, Buddha tries to
shoot beyond to the supreme liberation but that liberation
is still negative, not returning upon earth to complete posi-
tively the evolution; Kalki is to correct this by bringing the
Kingdom of the Divine upon earth, destroying the opposite
25 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 166.the kalki avatar
245
Asura forces. The progression is striking and unmistak-
able. 26
Considering the origin of the Avatars, as above narrated
by the Mother and confirmed by Sri Aurobindo, one could
argue that the whole of the manifestation is the Avatar of the
Divine, who is present in the atom, the cell, the animal. This
is still more valid for the human being, who has in him a
soul that is a spark of the Divine growing into a completely
developed psychic being, and of whom the Upanishad says:
tat tvam asi. When a child asked the Mother: Mother, are
you God? she answered instantly: Yes, my child, and so
are you. Sri Aurobindo wrote in Essays on the Gita: The
divine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in exter-
nal humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation
of the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity. 27
And he wrote in a letter: If [the Avatar] has something be-
hind him which emerges always out of the coverings, it is
the same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that is
behind others and it is to awaken that that he is there. 28
But, obviously, there is also an enormous difference be-
tween the human and the divine, which Sri Aurobindo ex-
plains as follows. Now it is notable that with a slight but
important variation of language the Gita describes in the
same way both the action of the Divine in bringing about
the ordinary birth of creatures and his action in his birth as
the Avatar. ... In both cases Maya is the means of the crea-
tion or manifestation, but in the divine birth the Avatar is
conscious, and in the ordinary, multiple birth the Avatar
is not conscious ... [The Avatar] is the manifestation from
above of that which we have to develop from below; it is
26 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 402.
27 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 160.
28 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 412.246
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the descent of God into that divine birth of the human being
into which we mortal creatures must climb; it is the attract-
ing divine example given by God to man in the very type
and form and perfected model of our human existence. 29
The something essential in the history of the earth and
its races can only be done by the Avatar if he takes upon
him the burden of humanity. Hence the superhuman tapasya
and suffering for which some Avatars are exemplary, and
which is so often misinterpreted (as we have seen before).
For if the Avatar is God, how can he suffer? The double na-
ture of the Avatar, at the same time consciously divine and
fully human, is indeed a great mystery, as great as the mys-
tery of the manifestation. It is, as Sri Aurobindo wrote in
The Riddle of this World, a suprarational fact our mind cannot
grasp and which therefore has led to endless speculation
and controversy in East and West. Sri Aurobindos testimo-
ny to this point is quite clear and deeply moving.
When the Divine descends, he takes upon himself the
burden of humanity in order to exceed it he becomes hu-
man in order to show humanity how to become Divine.
Anyone who wants to change earth-nature must first ac-
cept it in order to change it. 30 I have borne any attack
which human beings have borne, otherwise I would be un-
able to assure anybody This too can be conquered. At least
I would have no right to say so. ... The Divine when he takes
on the burden of terrestrial nature, takes it fully, sincerely
and without any conjuring tricks or pretence. 31 No, it is
not with the Empyrean that I am busy: I wish it were. It is
rather with the opposite of things; it is in the Abyss that I
29 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, pp. 157, passim.
30 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 153.
31 Id., p. 154.the kalki avatar
247
have to plunge to build a bridge between the two. But that
too is necessary for my work and one has to face it. 32
It is only divine Love which can bear the burden I have
to bear, that all have to bear who have sacrificed everything
else to the one aim of uplifting the earth out of its dark-
ness towards the Divine. 33 Anyone who wants to change
earth-nature must first accept it in order to change it. To
quote from an unpublished poem of my own:
He who would bring the heavens here
Must descend himself into clay
And the burden of earthly nature bear
And tread the dolorous way. 34
(Sri Aurobindo is quoting here for the first time a quat-
rain from that marvellous poem of his A Gods Labour,
which could also be called The Avatars Song.)
Some of the Mothers suffering during her last years is
abundantly illustrated in The Mothers Agenda, and partly
still alive in the memory of the persons who were physi-
cally near to her or to whom it was given to approach her
at the time.
In Savitri, the Avatars epic, there are many lines evok-
ing the burden he has to bear. For instance:
Mortality bears ill the eternals touch ...
It sullies with its mire heavens messengers ...
It meets the sons of God with death and pain. ...
The cross their payment for the crown they gave ...
He who would save the race must share its pain ...
Heavens riches they bring, their sufferings count the price ...
32 Id., p. 153.
33 Id., p. 152.
34 Id., p. 153.248
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The Eternal suffers in a human form ...
The Creator bears the law of pain and death ... 35
3. Sri Aurobindo: Avatar
The avatarhood of Sri Aurobindo has been put in doubt
on several occasions. There seem to be two reasons for this,
the first being that the claim to avatarhood by pseudo-spir-
itual persons has indeed become very cheap. As the discern-
ment between spirituality, guruship and occult powers is
generally vague among those who search for solace or spir-
itual theatrics, the word avatar has, and justly so, become
suspect among the sceptically-minded. The second reason,
especially among Westerners, is that the word Avatar is
put on a par with the word God, and that this God is
still commonly seen as the bearded autocrat in nightdress
above the clouds or seated on a throne in heaven.
Did Sri Aurobindo never say himself that he was an
Avatar? An outright affirmation would, in the first place,
have been contradictory with his delicate, tactful character.
In the second place, Avatars in general do not seem to pro-
claim their avatarhood. Why should the Avatar proclaim
himself except on rare occasions to an Arjuna or to a few
bhaktas or disciples? It is for others to find out what he is;
though he does not deny when others speak of him as That,
he is not always saying and perhaps never may say or only
in moments like that of the Gita, I am He. 36 Besides, the
persons who have any specific idea about the mission of the
Avatar and the world-crisis in which he incarnates, are rare
exceptions. This may be is the reason why Sri Aurobindo
wrote that the Avatars were generally recognized as such
only by a few, while to the others they were quite human,
even though perhaps extraordinary, persons.
35 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, pp. 7 and 445, passim.
36 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 418.the kalki avatar
249
It is a question between the Divine and myself
whether it is the Divine Will or not, whether I am sent to
bring that down or open the way for its descent or at least
make it more possible or not, wrote Sri Aurobindo. Let all
men jeer at me if they will or all Hell fall upon me if it will
for my presumption I go on till I conquer or perish. This
is the spirit in which I seek the Supermind, not hunting for
greatness for myself or others. 37 When a disciple wrote to
him: I have a strong faith that you are the Divine incarna-
tion. Am I right? Sri Aurobindo answered: Follow your
faith it is not likely to mislead you. 38
Surely, Sri Aurobindo has declared many times that he
was an Avatar, not in plain words but in ways which can
leave no doubt about the meaning of his statements. A few
examples will have to do. I have said Follow my path,
the way I have discovered for you through my own efforts
and example. ... I have opened the way, now you with the
Divine help can follow it. What kind of way or path did
he mean? It was ... the path I opened, as Christ, Krishna,
Buddha, Chaitanya, etc., opened theirs. 39
My experience is the centre and condition of all the
rest, by which he meant the supramental realization on
Earth. If I am seeking after supramentalization, it is be-
cause it is a thing that has to be done for the earth-con-
sciousness and if it is not done in myself, it cannot be done
in others. My supramentalization is only the key for open-
ing the gates of the supramental to the earth-consciousness;
done for its own sake, it would be perfectly futile. 40
37 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 144.
38 Id., p. 151.
39 Nirodbaran: Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo, pp. 166 and 172.
40 Sri Aurobindo: op. cit., pp. 147 and 145.250
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Nagin Doshi, at the time a young disciple, wrote to Sri
Aurobindo: We believe that you and the Mother are Ava-
tars. But is it only in this life that both of you have shown
your divinity? It is said that both you and she have been on
the earth constantly since its creation. What were you do-
ing during the previous lives? Sri Aurobindos answer, la-
conic but so full of meaning: Carrying on the evolution. 41
These words bring to mind what he wrote about Sri Krish-
na: As for the lives in between the Avatar lives, it must
be remembered that Krishna speaks of many lives in the
past, not only a few supreme ones, and secondly that while
he speaks of himself as the Divine, in one passage he de-
scribes himself as a Vibhuti, vrishninam vasudevah. We may
therefore fairly assume that in many lives he manifested as
the Vibhuti veiling the fuller Divine Consciousness. If we
admit that the object of Avatarhood is to lead the evolution,
this is quite reasonable, the Divine appearing as Avatar in
the great transitional stages and as Vibhutis to aid the less-
er transitions. 42
The Mothers consciousness and mine are the same,
wrote Sri Aurobindo, the one Divine Consciousness in
two, because that is necessary for the play. 43 He wrote
Divine Consciousness with capital letters. And there is
for example the following statement of which we cannot
even sound the depth: It is only divine Love which can
bear the burden I have to bear, that all have to bear who
have sacrificed everything else to the one aim of uplifting
earth out of its darkness towards the Divine. 44
In the last years of the Entretiens (Questions and Answers),
the Mother explained the significance of Sri Aurobindos
41
42
43
44
Id., p. 447.
Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 402.
Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 456.
Id., p. 152.the kalki avatar
251
birth on the various levels of existence. Physically, she said,
the consequences of his birth will last as long as the Earth;
mentally, it is a birth the memory of which will last eter-
nally; psychically, it is a birth which will recur eternally,
from age to age, in the history of the universe; spiritually, it
is the birth of the Eternal on Earth. 45
Sri Aurobindo warrior
Usually the Avatars seem to be contemporaneous with
great, world-changing wars in which they play a crucial
role. This is easily understandable if one remembers that
the intervention of the Avatar is needed at a time of world
crisis a crisis in the consciousness of humanity when it
has to undergo some grand modification and effect some
new development and that, under the conditions of the
evolution up to now, such a kind of crisis generally express-
es itself physically in conflicts which we call war.
In Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo wrote: Vishnu, in-
carnated as Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and
destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar account is given
of the descent of the previous Vishnu Avatars, of Rama
to destroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Par-
ashurama to destroy the unrighteous license of the military
and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the dwarf Vamana to
destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely
practical, ethical or social and political mission of the Avatar
which is thus thrown in popular and mythical form, does
not give a right account of the phenomenon of Avatarhood.
It does not cover the spiritual sense, and if this outward util-
ity were all, we should have to exclude Buddha and Christ
whose mission was not at all to destroy evil-doers and deliv-
er the good, but to bring to all men a new spiritual message
45 The Mother: Questions and Answers 1957-1958, pp. 274.252
ele v e n talks
and a new law of divine growth and spiritual realisation.
... Always we see in the history of the divine incarnations
the double work, and inevitably, because the Avatar takes
up the workings of God in human life, the way of the di-
vine Will and Wisdom in the world, and that always fulfils
itself externally as well as internally, by inner progress in
the soul and by an outer change in the life ... The Avatar
may descend as a great spiritual teacher and saviour, the
Christ, the Buddha, but always his work leads, after he has
finished his earthly manifestation, to a profound and pow-
erful change not only in the ethical, but in the social and
outward life and ideals of the race. 46
(Even the mission of Christ, the Prince of Peace, has
led to a superabundance of internal and quite physical
struggles in Christianity, and to the Crusades and the Wars
of Religion. Christs own words as quoted in the gospel of
Matthew should not be forgotten: Do not suppose that I
have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring
peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against
his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-
law against her mother-in-law. A mans enemies will be the
members of his own household. Matth. 10: 34-36)
Sri Aurobindo is generally seen as in the photos of
Henri Cartier-Bresson: the old wise man seated unmoved
and unmovably in his big chair, Nirodbarans Golden Pu-
rusha. But if this is the sole aspect of Sri Aurobindo, or the
sole one taken into consideration by so many of his perhaps
too ethereally-minded disciples, when or where did he do
the avataric work about which he wrote, for instance, in his
correspondence with Nirodbaran, in his letters, poems and
Savitri? When and where did he wage his battles against
the assailing Titan kings? It is obviously a distortion to see
46 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 161.the kalki avatar
253
Sri Aurobindo only as the inexhaustible source of Love and
Peace, which he was and is for anyone turning towards him,
and not as the great warrior who had to fight, together with
the Mother, the decisive battles for the new world. Of these
battles the three 20th century wars the First and Second
World War and the so-called Cold War (actually one war in
three parts) were partial externalizations.
My life has been a battle from its early years and is still
a battle; the fact that I wage it now from a room upstairs
and by spiritual means as well as others that are external
makes no difference, wrote Sri Aurobindo in the middle of
the 1930s, 47 when dark clouds gathered over the world and
he himself was soon to be attacked in his physical person.
... Each enemy slain revives,
Each battle for ever is fought and refought
Through vistas of fruitless lives.
My gaping wounds are a thousand and one
And the Titan kings assail,
But I cannot rest till my task is done
And wrought the eternal will. 48
In Savitri, his spiritual autobiography and testament, we
find reports of his avataric battles on many pages, such as:
But though to the outward eye no sign appears
And peace is given to our torn human hearts,
The struggle is there and paid the unseen price;
The fire, the strife, the wrestle are within. ...
A million wounds gape in his secret heart. ...
Antagonist forces crowd across his path;
A siege, a combat is his inner life. ...
47 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, p. 153.
48 Sri Aurobindo: Collected Poems, p. 100.254
ele v e n talks
His large identity and all-harbouring love
Shall bring the cosmic anguish into his depths ... 49
4. The Mother Avatar
Outspoken or not, the avatarhood of the Mother has
been much more controversial than that of Sri Aurobindo.
From the beginning there were comments on the fact that Sri
Aurobindo had taken her (and Dorothy Hodgson) into his
house, and the presence as well as the person of that French
lady were often put into question. After all, she had been
married twice, wore perfume and make-up, and moved in
mysterious ways. Besides, who had ever heard of a female
Avatar, and a foreign, French female to boot?
In the letters of which his booklet The Mother is com-
posed, Sri Aurobindo describes the Mothers three essen-
tial aspects: the transcendent Mother, the universal cosmic
Mother, and the human Mother in the yoga. A disciple
asked him: Do you not refer to the Mother (our Mother)
in your book The Mother? Sri Aurobindo answered with
one word: Yes. Then the disciple asked: Is she not the
individual Divine Mother who has embodied the power
of these two vast ways of her existence? Sri Aurobindo
answered again with one word: Yes. And he explained:
The Divine puts on an appearance of humanity, assumes
the outward human nature in order to tread the path and
show it to human beings, but does not cease to be the Di-
vine. It is a manifestation that takes place, a manifestation
of a growing divine consciousness, not human turning into
divine. The Mother was inwardly above the human even in
childhood 50 when she was living in Paris.
49 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 446, passim.
50 Sri Aurobindo: The Mother, pp. 47 and 48.the kalki avatar
255
Let us choose two snap-shots, two aspects of the Moth-
er from the rich literature. During her experience of the
supramental ship, in 1958, she was suddenly interrupted
and called back into her physical body by somebody in her
room, and at that instant she had a brief glimpse of herself.
My upper part, particularly the head, was only a silhou-
ette of which the contents were white with an orange fringe.
Going down towards the feet, the colour became more like
that of the people on the ship, that is to say orange; going
upwards, it was more translucent and white, with less red.
The head was only a contour with a brilliant sun in it. Rays
of light radiated from it, which were actions of the will. 51
This was the cosmic Mother during a phase of the ongoing
supramentalization of the manifestation.
She also described herself on that all-important mo-
ment of the supramental manifestation, 29 February 1956.
Late on that day she noted down: This evening the Di-
vine Presence, concrete and material, was there present
amongst you [her audience at the Playground and perhaps
the Ashram in general]. I had a form of living gold, big-
ger than the universe, and I was facing a huge and mas-
sive golden door which separated the world from the Di-
vine. As I looked at the door, I knew and willed, in a single
movement of consciousness, that the time has come, and
lifting with both hands a mighty golden hammer I struck
one blow, one single blow on the door and the door was
shattered to pieces. Then the supramental Light and Force
and Consciousness rushed down upon earth in an uninter-
rupted flow. 52
About the Divine Mother, i.e. about herself, the Mother
said: She has descended onto Earth to participate in their
51 The Mother: Entretiens 1957-58, p. 272.
52 Words of the Mother, vol. I, pp. 50-51.256
ele v e n talks
nature [i.e. the nature of the humans]. For if she did not par-
ticipate in their nature, she could not lead them farther ...
But she does not forget: she has adopted their conscious-
ness but she remains in relation with her own, her supreme
consciousness ... If she did not adopt their consciousness, if
she did not suffer their pain, she would not be able to help
them. Hers is not a suffering because of ignorance, it is a
suffering because of identity. It is because she has accepted
to have the same vibrations as they have, in order to be able
to enter into contact with them and to pull them out of the
state they are in. If she did not enter into contact with them,
they would not even perceive her, or no one would be able
to bear her radiance ... 53
It is also interesting to compare the following passage
from a conversation in the Agenda (27 June 1962) with Sri
Aurobindos statement Carrying on the evolution. One
day I have said that in the history of the Earth, wherever
the Consciousness could manifest, I was there that was a
fact. It was like in the story of Savitri: always there, always
there, always there, in this man, in that woman. At certain
times there were four emanations simultaneously ... at the
time of the Italian and of the French Renaissance. At an-
other moment also, the time of Christ ... This time, as soon
as I started practising yoga, all have come together. This is
how I remembered them.
The Mother warrior
In the Ashram the Mother was usually addressed as
Sweet Mother, but everybody knew that some of her em-
anations or individualized personalities, among them Kali
or Durga, were great warriors. She carried above her eye
the scar of an occult battle. And did Sri Aurobindo not call
53 The Mother: Questions and Answers 1953, pp. 387-388.the kalki avatar
257
the Second World War the Mothers War? Of Mahakali,
Sri Aurobindo wrote: There is in her an overwhelming in-
tensity, a mighty passion of force to achieve, a divine vio-
lence rushing to shatter every limit and obstacle. All her di-
vinity leaps out in a splendour of tempestuous action; she
is there for swiftness, for the immediately effective process,
the rapid and direct stroke, the frontal assault that carries
everything before it. Terrible is her face to the Asura, dan-
gerous and ruthless her mood against the haters of the Di-
vine; for she is the Warrior of the Worlds who never shrinks
from the battle. 54
In the Agenda of 1962 there is a telling part of a conver-
sation where the Mother describes one of her vital beings,
ltre blanc avec la hallebarde, the white being with the hal-
berd. (A halberd is a weapon consisting of a long shaft with
an axe blade and a pick, topped by a spearhead. In this case
the weapon evidently represents a power or powers.) On
23 June the Mother narrated one of her experiences. All at
once I had become, or I saw, a tall being completely white,
with a kind of halberd in his hand and the expression of
an iron will ... It was something like a great transforming
power in the vital.
Four days later she returned to this experience: It was
one of my aspects of being who was present there, like that
who manifested itself like that. Its a part of my vital be-
ing, or rather of my innumerable vital beings (for there are
quite a lot). And it is the one who is particularly interest-
ed in things concerning the Earth. ... But this one [the tall
white being] is not a being of human origin, he has not been
formed in a human life. It is a being that has incarnated
he has already incarnated and he was one of those who
have presided over the present formation of [the Mothers]
54 Sri Aurobindo: On the Mother, p. 28.258
ele v e n talks
being. But, as I said, I saw him: he was a-sexual, by which
I mean that he was neither female nor male. And he repre-
sents all what is intrepid in the vital, with a calm but abso-
lute power.
Not only do these words give us a glimpse, like so much
else of what the Mother has communicated, of the complex-
ity, the astonishing variety and the mind-boggling creativ-
ity of the worlds behind the faade of our material exist-
ence, they also provide us with some notion of the multiple
and glorious personalities of the Mother who was at one
time sitting there in that simple chair on the second storey
of the Ashram building, bent in the back and subject to the
symptoms of old age.
The great World-Mother now in her arose ...
A flaming warrior from the eternal peaks
Empowered to force the door denied and closed
Smote from Deaths visage its dumb absolute
And burst the bounds of consciousness and Time. 55
5. The complete Avatar
There are the Two who are One and play in many
worlds ... This whole wide world is only he and she ...
wrote Sri Aurobindo in Savitri. 56 The Two-in-One at the ori-
gin of the Manifestation were not only known in the Indian
tradition, they were also part of the wisdom traditions else-
where in the world. There was the Absolute, self-existent
and self-sufficient in its eternal existence, sometimes called
the Silent Brahman; but there was also the duality in the Ac-
tive Brahman, the self-manifesting Divine, of Ishwara and
Shakti, Purusha and Prakriti. A Gnostic text from the second
55 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, p. 21.
56 Id., pp. 61 and 63.the kalki avatar
259
century CE has the Great Mother say in words which echo
the Vedic scriptures:
It is I who am the offspring of what gave birth to me
[what gave birth to her being the One];
And it is I who am the Mother
[the Great Mother, the one original transcendent Shakti];
It is I who am the wife
[Shakti to Ishwara, in human metaphorical language];
It is I who am the virgin
[for ever the untouchable Origin of all] ... etc.
Until now, and throughout the course of the evolu-
tion of life on Earth, the Avatars have always been of the
male gender, and a female Avatar may seem rather unor-
thodox, especially to people familiar of old with the line of
male Avatars. It is however obvious that one gender does
not represent the full human constitution and condition,
nor does it take into account the divine sexless Archetype
which supports the evolution and directs it towards its
goal. 57 The time has come to draw the full conclusions from
certain well-known formulations by Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother.
Sri Aurobindo wrote: The Mother and I are one but in
two bodies. The Mothers consciousness and mine are the
same, the one Divine Consciousness in two, because that
is necessary for the play. ... If anybody really feels her con-
sciousness, he should know that I am there behind it and
if he feels me it is the same with hers. Whatever one gets
from the Mother, comes from myself also there is no dif-
ference. The Mother and myself stand for the same Power
in two forms. 58
57 See talk 1: Adam Kadmon and the Evolution.
58 Sri Aurobindo: On Himself, pp. 456-457, passim.260
ele v e n talks
The Mother wrote: Without him, I exist not; without
me, he is not manifest. 59 (Cf. Sri Aurobindo: There is one
force only, the Mothers force or, if you like to put it like
that, the Mother is Sri Aurobindos Force.) Sri Aurobindo
and I are always one and the same consciousness, one and
the same person. 60 When in your heart and thought you
will make no difference between Sri Aurobindo and me,
when to think of Sri Aurobindo will be to think of me and to
think of me will mean to think of Sri Aurobindo inevitably,
when to see one will mean inevitably to see the other, like
one and the same Person then you will know that you be-
gin to open to the supramental force and consciousness. 61
And at one time she unified in writing both their names in
the mantric formula mothersriaurobindo is my refuge. 62
All this is of crucial importance because the mission of
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was to effect the transition of
our human world to a new, supramental world, to the life
divine. The supramental being will be a-sexual, sexuality
having been a means of Nature to render the evolution of
life possible. This is the reason why the Avatar of the Su-
permind, transcending the evolutionary sexuality, had to be
male/female in one, while still, because of the evolutionary
necessity, incarnated in two bodies. The Mothers remark
about the white warrior with the halberd, a figure of her own
vital, also refers to this: He was a-sexual, by which I mean
that he was neither female nor male. And those familiar
with her work in the Ashram will no doubt remember how,
in the youth of the Ashram School, she worked to create a
mentality surpassing the common sexual attitudes in order
to prepare them for the transition to an asexual species.
59 Words of the Mother, vol. I, p. 32.
60 The Mothers Agenda, vol. I, p. 121.
61 Words of the Mother, vol. I, p. 32.
62 Ibidem.the kalki avatar
261
Sri Aurobindo and the Mother were one being, one Av-
atar. They were:
... the deathless Two-in-One,
A single being in two bodies clasped,
A diarchy of two united souls.
In a new act of the drama of the world
The united Two began a greater age.
An hour began, the matrix of new Time. 63
6. The Kalki Avatar
In Hinduism, the Kalki Avatar is thought of as the last
of the succession of Avatars, who will come at the end of
the present Kali Yuga. The victor of the last, decisive bat-
tle with the hostile forces, he will ride on a white (winged)
horse and brandish a sword or scimitar. He will vanquish
Yama, or Death, and resolve all opposites as well as over-
come darkness. He will be the divine man, at one with in-
finite divinity.
Sri Aurobindo wrote, however: Too much importance
need not be attached to the details about Kalki they are
rather symbolic than an attempt to prophesy details of future
history. What is expressed is something that has to come,
but it is symbolically indicated, no more. 64 The description
of the Avatars dates from the Puranas, in other words from
a traditional view that saw the evolution of the cosmos as
cyclic. As mentioned before, the Aurobindonian conception
of the cosmic evolution is cyclic but progressive. Although the
evolutionary development can be traced back to the ancient
Hindu scriptures, as did Sri Aurobindo, the general thinking
and imagining did not take evolution into account, and one
63 Sri Aurobindo: Savitri, pp. 293, 411, 399.
64 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 403.262
ele v e n talks
may say that the supramental transformation of the human
species into divine beings was not a part of the traditional
vision.
In his book Dasavatara The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu,
V. Ashok, for instance, writes: Lord Vishnu mounted on
a white horse, with a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet
will come to end the present Kali Yuga and inaugurate a
reign of universal goodness, peace and prosperity, reno-
vate the creation with an era of purity, a Krita Yuga. The
four Yugas will then proceed in the same order once again,
with similar characteristics, and this process will repeat it-
self till the final dissolution or Mahapralaya. ... At this na-
dir in human existence a divine Being, who comprehends
all things and is the beginning and the end, shall descend
upon the earth. He will be born in the family of Vishnu-
yasas, an eminent brahmin of Sambal village, as Kalki. He
will be endowed with eight superhuman faculties. He will
destroy the mlechchas, thieves and all those whose minds
are set on wickedness. He will then re-establish righteous-
ness on earth, and the minds of the good people who sur-
vive at the end of Kali Yuga will be awakened and be made
as clear as crystal. These men, who are changed in virtue of
that particular time, shall be those who will give birth to a
race which shall follow: the Krita Aga or Age of Purity. 65
Sri Aurobindo has closely related the Kalki Avatar
with the Krishna Avatar. Krishna is the Anandamaya; he
supports the evolution through the overmind leading it to-
wards Ananda. 66 ... The last Avatar, Kalki, only accom-
plishes the work Krishna began he fulfils in power the
great struggle which the previous Avatars prepared in all
its potentialities ... 67
65 V. Ashok: op. cit., pp. 292 and 294.
66 Id., p. 405.
67 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 166.the kalki avatar
263
Krishna opened the possibility of overmind with its
two sides of realization, static and dynamic. Buddha tried to
shoot from mind to Nirvana in the Supreme, just as Shanka-
ra did in another way after him. Both agree in overleaping
the other stages and trying to get at a nameless and feature-
less Absolute. Krishna on the other hand was leading by the
normal course of evolution. The next normal step is not a
featureless Absolute, but the supermind. I consider that in
trying to overshoot, Buddha like Shankara made a mistake,
calling away the dynamic side of the liberation. Therefore
there has to be a correction by Kalki. 68
No system indeed by its own force can bring about the
change that humanity really needs; for that can only come
by its growth into the firmly realized possibilities of its own
higher nature, and this growth depends on an inner and
not an outer change. But outer changes may at least prepare
favourable conditions for that most real amelioration or
on the contrary they may lead to such conditions that the
sword of Kalki can alone purify the earth from the burden of
an obstinately Asuric humanity. The choice lies with the race
itself; for as it sows, so shall it reap the fruit of its Karma. 69
Mothersriaurobindo: the Kalki Avatar
Here the time has come to repeat our question at the
beginning: According to the Hindu tradition, the evolution
of life and consciousness on Earth has been supported by
a succession of Avatars. If Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
were Avatars, or an Avatar, what or which Avatars or Ava-
tar were they?
The reason that this question has to be put now, sixty
years after Sri Aurobindo left his body and thirty-seven years
after the Mother left hers, may have been the misleading
68 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, pp. 402-403.
69 Sri Aurobindo: The Human Cycle, pp. 661-662.264
ele v e n talks
picture of the Kalki Avatar as upheld by tradition: a male
warrior on a white horse with a sword. 70 The reality seems
to be quite different, although it agrees in every detail with
the world as it has evolved since ancient times. Divinization,
i.e. supramentalization of humanity in a material Earth, re-
quires a more complete representation of the human being,
it requires the complete male/female Avatar. Sri Aurobindo
and the Mother, two great warriors in one, waged the last
battles against the hostile forces, some of which we know
about (e.g. the twentieth century wars), most of which we
are ignorant of, as we are ignorant of the totality of their be-
ing and action. Their all-important mission as the last Ava-
tar was to lay the foundations of a new, supramental world,
in which evolution itself will evolve. (In 1956, after the
supramental manifestation, the Mother cried out, almost
chanted: A new world is born, born, born!)
Most important, and rarely referred to, was the role
Shri Krishna played in Sri Aurobindos avataric realiza-
tion, 71 thereby demonstrating Sri Aurobindos statement:
The last Avatar, Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krish-
na began. Shri Krishna was the guide of Sri Aurobindos
yoga, as well in Alipore Jail, when studying the Gita and
putting it into practice, as in Pondicherry, where it was
from Shri Krishna that he received the detailed programme
of his yoga. The Thoughts and Aphorisms and The Record of
Yoga bear witness to this. In 1926 Shri Krishna descended
into Sri Aurobindos body. 72 This means that from 1926 till
70 In persons knowledgeable about Christianity, this image will bring
to mind the figure of the Messiah in the biblical book of Revelation, writ-
ten by John of Patmos. The Mother herself pointed out the similarity:
Saint John has said that there would be a new earth that, moreover,
there would be a new Christ who corresponds with the one of the Hin-
dus. Yes, Kalki. The description is quite similar.
71 See talk 2: The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought.
72 See again talk 2: The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought.the kalki avatar
265
1950 Shri Krishna was incarnated on Earth, without any-
body being aware of it. (This may, moreover, be the reason
that the light or aura of Shri Krishna and Sri Aurobindo is
the same light blue light.)
About the historical Krishna, king of the Vrishnis, Sri
Aurobindo wrote: I suppose very few recognized him as
an Avatar certainly it was not at all a general recognition.
Among the few those nearest to him do not seem to have
counted it was less prominent people like Vidura etc. ...
Those who were with Krishna were in all appearance men
like other men. They spoke and acted with each other as men
with men and were not thought of by those around them as
gods. Krishna himself was known by most as a man only
a few worshipped him as the Divine. 73 The same could
now be said about Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, who are
hardly known outside the circles of their followers, and, if
known, not recognized for what they were and did for
what they are and are doing.
Krishna, like Christ and the other Avatars, has only
gradually grown into a recognized incarnation of the Di-
vine. It would actually be better to say a generally recog-
nized incarnation of the Divine, given the ease with which
chelas see their guru, sometimes rightly, as a realized being
which they declare, unrightly, to be an Avatar. The task of
the Avatar is always out of the ordinary, relevant for the
whole of humanity, and revolutionary, initiating a radical
new element in the spiritual evolution of life on Earth.
In 1957 the Mother said: The spaces which separate
these various incarnations [of the Avatars] seem to have be-
come shorter and shorter, as if, for as much as Matter be-
came more and more ready, the action could accelerate and
73 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 406.266
ele v e n talks
become more and more rapid in its movement, more and
more conscious too, more and more efficacious and deci-
sive. 74
The dazzling pace at which Mother Earth and her hu-
man offspring are changing, in ways unprecedented in
history, is a sure sign that something huge is happening,
equivalent to the coming about of a new world, which could
only be effected by the spiritual and material action of the
ultimate Avatar, Shri Kalki.
74 The Mother: Questions and Answers 1957-1958, pp. 333-334.




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