Preparing for the Miraculous

the kalki avatar 245Asura forces. The progression is striking and unmistakable.”26Considering the origin of the Avatars, as above narratedby the Mother and confirmed by Sri Aurobindo, one couldargue that the whole of the manifestation is the Avatar of theDivine, who is present in the atom, the cell, the animal. Thisis still more valid for the human being, who has in him asoul that is a spark of the Divine growing into a completelydeveloped psychic being, and of whom the Upanishad says:tat tvam asi. When a child asked the Mother: “Mother, areyou God?” she answered instantly: “Yes, my child, and soare you.” Sri Aurobindo wrote in Essays on the Gita: “Thedivine manifestation of a Christ, Krishna, Buddha in externalhumanity has for its inner truth the same manifestationof the eternal Avatar within in our own inner humanity.” 27And he wrote in a letter: “If [the Avatar] has something behindhim which emerges always out of the coverings, it isthe same thing in essence, even if greater in degree, that isbehind others – and it is to awaken that that he is there.” 28But, obviously, there is also an enormous difference betweenthe human and the divine, which Sri Aurobindo explainsas follows. “Now it is notable that with a slight butimportant variation of language the Gita describes in thesame way both the action of the Divine in bringing aboutthe ordinary birth of creatures and his action in his birth asthe Avatar. ... In both cases Maya is the means of the creationor manifestation,” but in the divine birth the Avatar isconscious, and in the ordinary, multiple birth the “Avatar”is not conscious ... “[The Avatar] is the manifestation fromabove of that which we have to develop from below; it is26 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 402.27 Sri Aurobindo: Essays on the Gita, p. 160.28 Sri Aurobindo: Letters on Yoga, p. 412.