Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Himself and the Ashram

The Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo. Volume 35

Sadhana in Pondicherry
1930s

“A Far Greater Truth” [1]

In a letter dated November 1928, you speak of “a far greater Truth than any yet realised on the earth”. Does this mean that the realisation of the Divine which this world is witnessing at present in the person of Sri Aurobindo eclipses the Light of all the previous Divine Descents of which humanity is aware? Or, is it to be construed as meaning that Sri Aurobindo does not call himself the Avatar but the Divine, having realised the Divine on earth?

“A far greater Truth” has nothing to do with Avatarhood or anything of the kind. I meant by it the descent of the supramental Consciousness upon earth; all truths below the supramental (even that of the highest spiritual on the mental plane, which is the highest that has yet manifested) are either partial or relative or otherwise deficient and unable to transform the earthly life, they can only at most modify and influence it. The supermind is the last Truth-consciousness of which the ancient seers spoke; there have been glimpses of it till now, sometimes an indirect influence or pressure, but it has not been brought down into the consciousness of the earth and fixed there. To bring it down is the aim of our Yoga.

25 April 1930