The Embodiment of the Conscious Divine Exceeds the Ability of the Habitual Mind to Understand and Judge the Event

The Western mind-set, based in analysis and categorization, works to fragment and divide everything into discreet and distinct classifications and categories. Therefore, when it sees any element of Nature, or any being in existence, it wants to treat it as a separate and separated existence. It is a case of “not seeing the forest for the trees”.

The Eastern mind-set recognises the oneness and integrated nature of all that exists, and thus,, while it is able to identify the ‘parts’, it also sees that they are not independent and that they are elements of the ‘whole’.

When the Divine, in the process of moving its evolutionary cycle forward, puts forth a being who is either consciously, or even unconsciously, directly carrying out the Will of the Divine, that being represents the Divine while at the same time being embodied in an exte
al form, including a human form when it is so required. The Western mind would separate the embodiment from the Divine, while the Eastern mind sees the unity of the Divine and the earthly vessel that manifests the Divine Force for purposes of the larger cycle that is playing out.

It then becomes clear that the habitual viewpoint and standpoint of the mental-vital being cannot possibly either fully understand or judge the actions of this conscious instrument of the Divine. The next stage of evolution may far exceed the limits of the current stage, and will thereby elicit different responses and different forms of action than what the customs of the time may dictate. Change does not occur within the strict framework of the past experience, but requires a breaking out beyond boundaries that defy classification and judgment by the habitual mind.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “I put forward two propositions which appear to me indispensable unless we are to reverse all spiritual knowledge in favour of modern European ideas about things: first, the Divine Manifestation, even when it manifests in mental and human ways, has behind it a consciousness greater than the mind and not bound by the petty mental and moral conventions of this very ignorant human race — so that to impose these standards on the Divine is to try to do what is irrational and impossible. Secondly, this Divine Consciousness behind the apparent personality is conce
ed with only two things in a fundamental way — the truth above and here below the Lila and the purpose of the inca
ation or manifestation, and it does what is necessary for that in the way its greater than human consciousness sees to be the necessary and intended way.”

Sri Aurobindo, Integral Yoga: Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching and Method of Practice, Chapter 12, Other Aspects of Sri Aurobindo’s Teaching and Method of Practice, The Avatar and the Vibhuti, pp. 347-349