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SECTION NINETEEN
GREAT MEN AND AVATARS
Greatness
BY greatness is meant an exceptional capacity of one kind or another.
24-4-1936 Mistake of Depreciating Great Men
PEOPLE have begun to try to prove that great men were not great, which is a very big mistake. If greatness is not appreciated by men, the world will become mean, small, dull, narrow and tamasic.
Greatness in Yoga and in the Universal Order
OBVIOUSLY, outer greatness is not the aim of Yoga. But that is no reason why one should not recognise the part played by greatness in the order of the universe or the place of great men of action, great poets and artists, etc. Page-633
IT is the power in them (the great men) that is great and that power comes from the Divine—by their actions and greatness they help the world and aid the cosmic purpose. It does not matter whether they have ego or not —they are not doing Yoga.
The Divine and the Outer Greatness
WHY should the Divine not care for the outer greatness? He cares for everything in the universe. All greatness is the Vibhuti of the Divine, says the Gita.
15-4-1936 Importance of Energy and Capacity to the Divine
IT is not only the very very big people who are of importance to the Divine. All energy, strong capacity, power of effectuation are of importance. Page-634 Defects of Great Men and their Help in God's Work
ARE you in a position to make a judgment as to what will or will not help God's work? You seem to have very elementary ideas in this matter. What is your idea of divinisation—to be a virtuous man, a good husband, son, father, a good citizen, etc. In that case, I myself am undivine, for I have never been these things. Men like X or Y would then be the great Transformed Divine Men. But do you really believe that men like Napoleon, Caesar, Shakespeare were not great men and did nothing for the world or for the cosmic purpose? that God was deterred from using them for His purpose because they had defects of character and vices? What an absurd idea!
The Divine and the Vices of Great Men
WHY should the Divine care for the vices of great men? Is he a policeman? So long as one is in the ordinary nature, one has capacities and defects, virtues and vices. When one goes beyond, there are no virtues and vices,—for these things do not belong to the Divine Nature. Page-635 Vice and Virtue and Darkness and Light
VICE and virtue have nothing to do with darkness or light, truth and falsehood. The spiritual man rises above vice and virtue, he does not rise above truth and light, unless you mean by truth and light, human truth and mental light. They have to be transcended, just as virtue and vice have to be transcended.
20-4-1936
VICES are simply an overflow of energy in irregulated channels.
(1)
GREAT men have more energy (mental, vital, physical, all kinds of energy) and the energy comes out in what men call vices as well as in what men call virtues. Page-636 (2)
Men with great capacities or a powerful mind or a powerful vital have very often more glaring defects of character than ordinary men or at least the defects of the latter do not show so much, being like themselves, smaller in scale.
(3)
Yes, certainly. Many great men even have often very great vices and many of them. Great men are not usually model characters.
17-4-1936 (1)
As for Napoleon, Caesar and Shakespeare, not one of them was a virtuous man, but they were great men, and that was your contention that only virtuous men are great men and those who have Page-637 vices are not great, which is an absurd contention. All of them went after women—two were ambitious. Napoleon was most arrogant and violent.
(2)
How do you say that? Shakespeare, Napoleon and
Caesar were full of the idea of their own greatness.
(3)
Most great men know perfectly well that they are great.
GREAT or dazzling or small in their field, ambition is ambition and it is necessary for most for an energetic action. What is the use of calling a thing a vice when it is small and glorifying it when it is big?
1-5-1936 Page-638
WHEN vanity is there on a big scale, it usually works like that. The man feels the energy in all he does, and mistakes the energy for high accomplishment. It is a common error. The high accomplishment is in only one or two fields.
IT is a vanity, but it is not humbug, unless he does not believe in it. If he does not believe in it, it is humbug, but it is not vanity.
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 embody some power of the Divine and is enabled by it to act with great Page-639 force in the world, but that is all that is necessary to make him a Vibhuti: the power may be very great, but the consciousness is not that of an inborn or indwelling Divinity. This is the distinction we can gather from the Gita which is the main authority on this subject. If we follow this distinction, we can confidently say from what is related of them that Rama and Krishna can be accepted as Avatars; Buddha figures as such although with a more impersonal consciousness of the Power within him. Ramakrishna voiced the same consciousness when he spoke of Him who was Rama and who was Krishna being within him. But Chaitanya's case is peculiar; for according to the accounts he ordinarily felt and declared himself a bhakta of Krishna and nothing more, but in great moments he manifested Krishna, grew luminous in mind and body and was Krishna himself and spoke and acted as the Lord. His contemporaries saw in him an Avatar of Krishna, a manifestation of the Divine Love. Shankara and Vivekananda were certainly Vibhutis; they cannot be reckoned as more, though as Vibhutis they were very great.
24-1-1950 Page-640
HE (Ramakrishna) never wrote an autobiography —what he said was in conversation with his disciples and others. He was certainly quite as much an Avatar as Christ or Chaitanya.
13-11-1936 (1)
ALL that is wrong. The Avatar takes upon himself the nature of humanity in his instrumental parts, though the consciousness acting behind is divine.
23-7-1936 (2)
That (the Divine Consciousness acting from behind) does not prevent the Avatar from acting as men act and using the movements of Nature for his life and work. Page-641
WHAT do you mean by lust? Avatars can be married and have children and that is not possible without sex; they can have friendships, enmities, family feelings, etc. etc.,—these are vital things. I think you are under the impression that an Avatar must be a saint or a Yogi.
24-7-1936 The Limited Human Reason and the Way of the Infinite
IT is true that it is impossible for the limited human reason to judge the way or purpose of the Divine, —which is the way of the Infinite dealing with the finite.
15-12-1932 Page-642 The Meaning of the Divine Manifestation
SURELY for the earth consciousness the very fact that the Divine manifests himself is the greatest of all splendours. Consider the obscurity here and what it would be if the Divine did not directly intervene and the Light of Lights did not break out of the obscurity—for that is the meaning of the manifestation.
11-3-1937 Page-643 |