The Son of God and the Son of Man

by Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1991)

When we ask for better things and expect what is generally considered as betterment in our lives, there is a mysterious element operating which manifests itself in every moment of time without our clearly knowing as to how it operates. There is no occasion when we would not be expecting things to be better. But if things become better, it does not mean that we shall be satisfied with that state of affairs because even in that condition of our expected betterment of things, we feel an impulsion from within to ask for a further betterment. There is always an expectation for what exceeds the present condition of things.

What are we actually asking for when we demand that things should be better? Is it clear to the mind of anyone what exactly we want when we say things should be better? Do we mean that all the walls should be plated with gold, and when it rains only honey should fall from the skies, or the river Ganga should flow with milk? Or do we expect the whole earth to be covered with velvet, or that there should be only level ground with no ups and downs? What is our idea of betterment? If merely these fantastic wishes were to be granted, that would not be a satisfying situation in our life. Honey and milk, level ground, velvet and gold and silver perhaps do not constitute what we call a better state of affairs. There would be something that we would be expecting, more than all these abundances that heaven may bestow upon us. This is a serious matter on which everyone should concentrate in an impartial manner.

We are not satisfied with anything because of the fact that we are going to be satisfied with something else. How is it possible for us to be dissatisfied with a thing if what can be called satisfying is not clear to our minds? This is an eluding factor which slips from our minds every moment, even if it insists on presenting itself in our lives. There is something compelling its presence in our lives, and yet forbidding our understanding of what it is that is working in this manner.

An impossible-to-resist impulse within is also something which we can never grasp in our hands. Our betterment does not actually mean a state of physical transmutation that we are expecting in the world. I briefly mentioned the possible abundances and material prosperities that we may be having in our minds, yet we shall not be satisfied because there are primary aspects which elude the grasp of understanding, namely, the impossibility to possess the wealth of the world for a long time, and at the same time the impossibility to even conceive the very fact of what we call possession. Neither is it possible to possess a thing really, nor is it possible to continue the apparent possession for a long time. The objects possessed will vanish, and the possessor also will vanish. Notwithstanding this peculiar phenomenon in life, there is an expectation of a betterment in life. What we are, therefore, eager to achieve as a glorifying, satisfying state of affairs does not seem to be what is visible to our eyes and what is connected with our physical, social existence. Our asking is mysterious, as I mentioned, because this impulsion can be regarded only as a mystery that passeth understanding.

Often this superabundant, overwhelming impulse within is called a religious consciousness. We have to guardedly use the word 'religion' when we speak in this fashion because we have many religions in the world, and every denominational asking for an ideal that cannot be visibly found in this world may go by the name of religion. All religions ask for that which is not in this world. In this way, religion has managed to remain a transcendent element, a superior form of a betterment of the values of life, a thing which cannot be seen at all anywhere. There is nothing in this world which we can call the best. The world does not contain anything which can be regarded as the best because there is always something better than even the best thing in the world. Even if something better than the best is not visible to our eyes, we are compelled to conceive something which is more than the sun and the moon and the stars, and all the values that we can imagine with the knowledge of our encyclopaedias.

Here is the principle of the religious consciousness, as they call it; we may call it the God of religion. This God, this ideal of religious awakening, does not seem to be confined to anything that is seen with the eyes, and does not seem to be capable of limitation even to conceivable phenomena. Thus, the God of religion is an intriguing demand perpetually arising from the hearts of all beings, not merely human beings. Every living being is expecting a betterment of its condition: survival in the most befitting manner for the longest period of time, abundance in every possible way, in every conceivable manner.

All this is suggestive of the fact that the soul's asking in the form of a God of religion is not to be had in this world. It cannot be attained under the conditions prevailing in the material world. Yet, there is this asking, a demand for that which we cannot have. Is this not an apparently self-contradictory asking? We are asking for an abundance, a fulfilment and a perfection which we cannot have, and nobody has had in the history of mankind. Are we being tantalised? Is it a carrot that is hung before our nose which moves as we move forward, tempting us, giving us promises which can never be fulfilled? Here we are in this world which is acting as a medium to manifest this asking from within our own selves, but it remains as a medium alone, as a medium of reflecting what we are expecting, but never permitting us to achieve what we are actually asking through that medium.

What is our fate, then? We want to somehow or other bring into our present life a concrete form of manifestation of that thing which is otherwise intriguing, eluding, mystifying and transcendent. This compulsive descending of an otherwise impossible perfection into our practical day-to-day existence is an Incarnation, a physically embodied form of that which can never be found in any physical embodiment. This is the Avatara. The condensation into a formation of a character capable of comprehension by the human mind under the condition it is placed at any given moment of time is God descending. We can visualise only a descended God in the sense of that Ideal which, notwithstanding its being above us, is also with us and can walk with us, and can be our friend, philosopher and guide. Here is a real mystery, which is the blending together of a totally transcendent superhuman principle enlivening and working through the medium of a human personality.

In Indian cultural lore, the doctrine of Incarnation does not necessarily limit the descent to human beings only. God can descend in any other form also, but mostly the belief is that an Incarnation is a human embodiment of a superhuman ideal. The highest of the higher makes itself felt by an immanence of its presence through an embodiment which is like a human being. Mystics call this transmutation of the Infinite entering into the human form as God encasing Himself in the fleshy encasement of the human personality, who then acts like a human being, thinks like a human being, and can understand the predicament of human beings, who can thus cooperate with human beings, assist and even redeem them, without itself being a human being. This nonhuman or superhuman element operating through the medium of a human personality—with its head towering in the heavens and its feet planted on the earth, as we may say—is the coming together of God and world, divinity and mortality shaking hands in a fraternal embrace.

All this is mostly a phenomenon beyond human comprehension. We mystify, mythologise and bring this phenomenon into historical situations and, at the same time, limit it to geographical, ethnic and cultural patterns so that it may become more and more familiar to our weaker senses of perception. Religion becomes more and more concrete, material, social, economic, even political, when human thought descends into the lowest categories of perception and the great ideal, which is pressing itself forward in everyone's life, is made to appear as the answer to the call of man in his particular given state or condition.

We know very well that we are not always in one mood, in one state of mind, and our requirement is not always one thing. Every day our requirements may change, and we would require a God to answer to that particular call in that condition of our mental mood or psychological condition. Nevertheless, such a tricky phenomenon is possible. The power of this unimaginable Universal impulsion to manifest itself in any form whatsoever, at any moment, is the solace of our life. Though our moods may change, it can answer every one of them. God's response to our human call is not a mathematically precise, stereotyped, procrustean bed of utter limitation that He will come only in this way and not in any other way. The word 'Infinite' implies the capacity of that structure to adjust itself to modes of every kind in the process of evolution, so that we can contact God in any state of our minds, at any moment, in any mood, whether we are laughing or weeping, whether we are jubilant or in a state of despair and depression, whether we are rich or poor, whether we are wanted or not wanted. Whatever be the state of our mind and our lives in the world, with that it can adjust itself. Under every condition this call can be listened to. It has an ear which can listen to any music, any sound, any cry, and any asking.

This is why in such proclamations of religious gospels such as the Bhagavadgita, for instance, we are given the assurance that at any critical moment of time God can descend into action. The timeless does not take time to act. This is the way in which the Infinite acts through the finite. God does not take time to come because timelessness has no time in it, so it is not a question of tomorrow or the next moment. It is here and now. Instantaneity is the nature of its action.

That being the case, it is the greatest solace for us in our lives. We are never without a friend. We are never discarded. We are never without succour. There is a perpetual eye gazing at us, an eternal vision ready to come to our aid. No father, no mother can equal this tender care. Such is the manner in which the God of true religious consciousness descends into action as an Avatara.

Today, at this moment of Christmas Eve, we bring to our memories one of such descents—God made flesh, as people generally say, but not becoming flesh, only manifesting through the formation which is called flesh, the tabernacle of human nature. The purified consciousness is called Christ, the anointed one, as they say—that is, the consecrated ideal, the mahaprasada of Ultimate Divinity in its tremendous compassion and eternal loving care coming unsolicited to our aid when our cry arises from the deepest recesses of our hearts.

Actually, we need not ask God to come to us, because God is aware of our needs. The intensity of the manifestation depends upon the intensity of our asking, as the taste of a dish depends upon the intensity of the appetite or hunger. If the call is from the whole of man, then the Son of Man descends. It is not one man's calling; it is Man as such demanding the coming of that redeeming element. Jesus the Christ is sometimes designated as the Son of Man, and sometimes as the Son of God. Both these nomenclatures are characteristic of a blend of two features in an Incarnation, namely, the total mankind embodied in that Incarnation, and also the total God embosomed in that formation. The total God manifesting Himself in the totality of mankind's aspiration is the explanation of this dual nomenclature of Christ being the Son of God and the Son of Man at the same time.

At this holy moment we invoke, from the deepest recesses of our being, the coming of God into perpetual action in this world today for the highest manifestation of values that we regard as the great betterment of human conditions, so that what we consider as peace, abundance and prosperity may prevail everywhere. May we await that moment of God coming.