In the context of the embodied
Guest within making no response two questions might arise. There is first a
difference between the Guest in the heart’s
Could that mean that the Psyche, the embodied Guest within, is not identically
the same Divine Agni in all? The only difference between individuals will be
the difference in the degree to which it has "come out" in each
person. That would be a glorious hope for us, that by following the glorious,
the transcendent example of Savitri given to us by Sri Aurobindo we too might
be able to push out the veil surrounding our psyche. In other words, can the
Yoga of Savitri given in Savitri also
be our Yoga, that it can be practised by any authentic seeker of the spirit? Is
the Book of Yoga meant only for Savitri and that it is not a prescription
for us all? Is it meant for any and every seeker-soul, each and every soul?
This cannot be, it is not so. In fact, it is Yoga distinctly meant for Savitri, Savitri
alone, and it cannot be for anyone else. This cannot be the Yoga even for
Aswapati. But then what is the use of the Book of Yoga for us, if it is meant specifically for Savitri? We shall take this question in another conext, when we come to the Book of Yoga. Savitri's Yoga is for the conquest of Death, the Yoga of the Conquest of Death.
It is true that the Divine Agni is
the same everywhere, the primordial Agni, the Fire in which all the other fires
are born; but the Agni of one individual is different from the Agni of another.
Each amśa is a different amśa though all the amśas come from one Source alone. Or else where would lie the
individuality of the individual? Not only that; the individual’s Agni is
different from the Avatar’s Agni—and that is wonderful indeed! In house and
house, damé-damé, there burns
a different fire. Because there is the Divine Fire that there are different
fires, a thousand spark-bursts of one solitary Spark. Otherwise manifestation
and multiplicity would be meaningless, pointless. That is the great richness of
the divine Agni. Mere difference in degree will not constitute individuality;
this we must recognise fully. The distinction is there between individual and
individual, and yet a vaster between we and the Avatar. If we have to go step
farther, then we can say that there is a distinction between Avatar and Avatar,
although they are all emanations of Vishnu himself.
Regarding Ishwarkoti and Jivakoti, the Divine category and the human category, let us read some
of the letters written by Sri Aurobindo.
(Letters on Yoga)
p. 59
I don't think I have written, but I
said once that souls which have passed into Nirvana may (not “must”) return to
complete the larger upward curve. I have written somewhere, I think, that for
this yoga (it might also be added, in the natural complete order of the
manifestation) the experience of Nirvana can only be a stage or passage to the
complete realisation. I have said also that there are many doors by which one
can pass into the realisation of the Absolute (Parabrahman), and Nirvana is one
of them, but by no means the only one. You may remember Ramakrishna's saying
that the Jivakoti can ascend the stairs, but not return, while the Ishwarakoti
can ascend and descend at will. If that is so, the Jivakoti might be those who describe
only the curve from Matter through Mind into the silent Brahman and the
Ishwarakoti those who get to the integral Reality and can therefore combine the
Ascent with the Descent and contain the “two ends” of existence in their single
being.
p. 71
The language of the Gita in many
matters seems sometimes contradictory because it admits two apparently opposite
truths and tries to reconcile them. It admits the ideal of departure from samsāra
into the Brahman as one possibility; also it affirms the possibility of living
free in the Divine (in Me, it says) and acting in the world as the Jivanmukta.
It is this latter kind of solution on which it lays the greatest emphasis. So
Ramakrishna put the “divine souls” (Ishwarakoti) who can descend the ladder as
well as ascend it higher than the Jivas (Jivakoti) who, once having ascended,
have not the strength to descend again for divine work. The full truth is in
the supramental consciousness and the power to work from there on life and
Matter.
p. 94
Ramakrishna himself never thought
of transformation or tried for it. All he wanted was bhakti for the Mother and
along with that he received whatever knowledge she gave him and did whatever
she made him do. He was intuitive and psychic from the beginning and only
became more and more so as he went on. There was no need in him for the
transformation which we seek; for although he spoke of the divine man
(Ishwarakoti) coming down the stairs as well as ascending, he had not the idea
of a new consciousness and a new race and the divine manifestation in the
earth-nature.
pp. 441-42
It is difficult to give a positive
answer to these questions, because no general rule can be laid down applicable
to all. The mind makes rigid rules or one rigid rule, but the Manifestation is
in reality very plastic and various and many-sided. My answers therefore must
not be taken as exhaustive of the subject or complete.
(1) He [the Jivanmukta] can go
wherever his aim was fixed, into a state of Nirvana or one of the divine worlds
and stay there or remain, wherever he may go, in contact with the
earth-movement and return to it if his will is to help that movement. This
[going direct from the world of the soul's present highest achievement to a
still higher world] is doubtful. If originally he is not a being of the
evolution but of some higher world, he would go back to that world. If he wants
to go higher, it is logical that he should return to the field of evolution so
long as he has not evolved the consciousness proper to that higher plane. The
orthodox idea that even the gods have to come to earth if they want salvation
may be applied to this ascension also. If he is originally an evolutionary
being (Ramakrishna's distinction of the Jivakoti and Ishwarakoti may be
extended to this also), he must proceed by the evolutionary path to either the
negative withdrawal through Nirvana or some positive divine fulfilment in the
increasing manifestation of Sachchidananda. As to the impossibility of return,
that is a knotty question. A divine being can always return—as Ramakrishna
said, the Ishwarakoti can at will ascend or descend the stair between Birth and
Immortality. For the others, it is probable that they may rest for a relative infinity
of time, śāśvatīh samāh, if that is
the will in them, but a return cannot be barred out unless they have reached
their highest possible status. No, that [return to the psychic world before a
new birth] is part of the evolutionary line only, not obligatory for divine
returns.
(2) An advanced psychic being may
mean here one who has arrived at the soul's freedom and is immersed in the
Divine—immersed does not mean abolished. Such a being does not sleep in the
psychic world, but may remain in his state of blissful immersion or come back
for some purpose. The word “descend” has various meanings according to the
context—I used it here in the sense of the psychic being coming down into the
human consciousness and body ready for it; that descent might be at the time of
birth or before or it may come down later and occupy the personality it has
prepared for itself. I do not quite understand what are these personalities
from above—it is the psychic being itself that takes up a body.
(3) No, the psychic being cannot
take up more than one body. There is only one psychic being for each human
being, but the beings of the higher planes, e.g., the Gods of the overmind can
manifest in more than one human body at a time by sending different emanations
into different bodies. These would be called Vibhutis of these Devatas.
(4)
These [the Guardians of the psychic world] are not human souls nor is this an
office to which they are appointed nor are they functionaries—these are beings
of the psychic plane pursuing their own natural activity in that plane. My word
“guardian” was simply a phrase meant to indicate by an image or metaphor the
nature of their action.