As far as the second coming of Christ or of the Buddha, and Sri Krishna himself is concerned (all have said it one way or the other), I see that precisely fulfilled in Sri Aurobindo. The judgment day is literally the final fate of earth and humanity that has so far progressed only through successive pralayas. Whether Christ intended that he and the new world will come soon or later was obviously left to interpretation. Saint Paul particularly was full of an evangelistic fervour and hence he might have put it as round the corner. As far as I have read, I don’t think Christ gave a date. His statement about the second coming can be seen in a similar sense as Sri Krishna’s sambhavami yuge yuge. At least that is how I look at it and in which case the prophesy has been indeed fulfilled. The disillusionment is probably either due to human impatience and haste as well as perhaps because people have wrong expectations about the second coming as well as the New World. We romanticise that the second coming will be similar to the first one, leading to the revival of the old world around the Messiah. We imagine the New World and the Kingdom of God a sublimated human idealism. But such a second coming will be useless if we accept the idea of evolution behind the Divine Impulsion in creation. It is quite likely that even if the Messiah came and went people would not recognise him. That is how I understand the advent of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and human inability to recognise the Avatar. In itself this does not matter as it has been the fate of all Avataras during their lifetime. All that I wish to say is that Sri Aurobindo is indeed the fulfilment of the promise made by Christ and Sri Krishna.
Of course Sri Krishna never gave any date though if we see Sri Aurobindo’s experiences, it is evidently the second coming of Sri Krishna. His references to Christ are obvious and quite often one feels in him aspects of Christ and Buddha. Similarly when we see the Mother’s experiences we can see that she had contact with Buddha, Krishna as well as Christ.
The Mother in fact notes this in one of Her conversations.
‘When you had this experience of February 3, 1958 [the supramental ship], the vision of your usual consciousness, which is nevertheless a Truth Consciousness, no longer seemed true to you at all. Did you see things you had never before seen, or did you see things in another way?
Yes, one enters into another world.
This consciousness here is true in relation to this world as it is, but the other … is something else entirely. An adjustment is needed for the two to touch, otherwise one jumps from one to the other. And that serves no purpose. A progressive passage has to be built between the two. This means that a whole number of rungs of consciousness are missing. This consciousness here must consciously connect with that consciousness there, which means a multitude of stairs passing from one to the other. Then we will be able to rise up progressively, and the whole will arise.
Its action will be somewhat similar to what is described in the Last Judgment, which is an entirely symbolic expression of something that makes us discern between what belongs to the world of falsehood which is destined to disappear and what belongs to this same world of ignorance and inertia but is transformable. One will go to one side and the other to the other side. All that is transformable will be permeated more and more with this new substance and this new consciousness to such an extent that it will rise towards it and serve as a link between the two but all that belongs incorrigibly to falsehood and ignorance will disappear. This was also prophesied in the Gita: among what we call the hostile or anti-divine forces, those capable of being transformed will be uplifted and go off towards the new consciousness, whereas all that is irrevocably in darkness or belongs to an evil will shall be destroyed and vanish from the Universe. And a whole part of humanity that has responded to these forces rather too … zealously will certainly vanish with them. And this is what was expressed in this concept of the Last Judgment.’
And Sri Aurobindo
‘….He rises now; for God has taken birth.
The revolutions that pervade the world
Are faint beginnings and the discus hurled
Of Vishnu speeds down to enring the earth.
The old shall perish; it shall pass away,
Expunged, annihilated, blotted out;
And all the iron bands that ring about
Man’s wide expansion shall at last give way.
Freedom, God, Immortality; the three
Are one and shall be realised at length,
Love, Wisdom, Justice, Joy and utter Strength
Gather into a pure felicity.
It comes at last, the day foreseen of old,
What John in Patmos saw, what Shelley dreamed,
Vision and vain imagination deemed,
The City of Delight, the Age of Gold.
The Iron Age is ended. Only now
The last fierce spasm of the dying past
Shall shake the nations, and when that has passed,
Earth washed of ills shall raise a fairer brow.
This is man’s progress; for the Iron Age
Prepares the Age of Gold. What we call sin,
Is but man’s leavings as from deep within
The Pilot guides him in his pilgrimage.’
The aforesaid logic applies now to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s work and promise except that unlike the previous Avatars they have left nothing to human imagination and fancy including the time span. The Mother is categorical that the supramental race, the New Creation is likely to take a thousand years or so. It is doubtful if the average humanity will be able to see the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. It will be initially accessible to a few and will progressively increase just as the manifestations of Christ and Sri Krishna increased with passage of time. Some will recognise and be part of the New Creation early on, already are, others will follow suit in growing numbers until the critical tipping point is reached whence the New Creation will precipitate fully and the New Manifestation will be self evident to all.
Of course doubt and disillusionment is part of human nature for reasons noted above. Yet logically if one has to choose between trusting one’s own limited mind that is completely blind to even the next moment and Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s vision and promise, the choice will be obvious. And perhaps if we chose the latter and step out of our conditioning we are likely to see the manifestation of the New World more often, even be a part of it, and consciously collaborate in hastening its working.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
