"Today I received a
question about a phrase I used on the fourteenth
of August, the eve of Sri Aurobindo's birthday.
And this question seemed interesting to me
because it was about one of those rather cryptic
phrases, that are almost ambiguous through
simplification, and which was intended to be like
that so that each one might understand it
according to his own plane of consciousness. I
have already spoken to you several times of this
possibility of understanding the same words on
different planes; and these words were
intentionally expressed with a simplification, a
deliberate vagueness, precisely so that they
would serve as a vehicle for the complexity of
meaning they had to express.
This meaning is a little
different on the different planes, but it is
complementary, and it is only really complete
when one is able to understand it on all these
planes at once. True understanding is a
simultaneous understanding in which all the
meanings are perceived, grasped, understood at
the same time; but to express them, as we have a
very poor language at our disposal, we are
obliged to say them one after another, with many
words and many explanations.... That's what I am
going to do now.
The question is about the
phrase in which I spoke of the birth of Sri
Aurobindo-it was on the eve of his birthday-and I
called it an "eternal birth". I am
asked what I meant by "eternal".
Of course, if the words are
taken literally, and "eternal birth"
doesn't signify much. But I am going to explain
to you how there can be-and in fact is-a physical
explanation or understanding, a mental
understanding, a psychic understanding and a
spiritual understanding.
Physically, it means that the
consequences of this birth will last as long as
the Earth. The consequences of Sri Aurobindo's
birth will be felt throughout the entire
existence of the Earth. And so I called it "eternal",
a little poetically. Mentally, it is a birth the
memory of which will last eternally. Through the
ages Sri Aurobindo's birth will be remembered,
with all the consequences it has had.
Psychically, it is a birth
which will recur eternally, from age to age, in
all history of the universe. This birth is a
manifestation which takes place periodically,
from age to age, in the history of the Earth.
That is, the birth itself is renewed, repeated,
reproduced, bringing every time perhaps something
more-something more complete and more perfect-but
it is the same movement of descent, of
manifestation, of birth in an earthly body.
And finally, from the purely
spiritual point of view, it could be said that it
is the birth of the Eternal on Earth. For each
time the Avatar takes a physical form it is the
birth of the Eternal himself on Earth.
All that, contained in two
words: "eternal birth".
