Demigod
In Greek Mythology
In Greek mythology, a serious error was made by most ancient authors about the meaning of the term ‘demigod’ (ΗΜΙΘΕΟΣ), namely that demigod is born from the union between a god and a mortal. The term was then used more generally for famous heroes without a genealogical meaning.
To understand its true meaning, we must rely on the poets Homer and Hesiod.
In the Iliad (XII, 23), the term appears only once, when the poet refers to the warriors who died at Troy, ‘the race of demi-gods’, without specifying which side they were fighting on.
In yoga, the Trojan War represents the point when the seeker, having achieved liberation of the Spirit, i.e., having realised the liberation from the ego and desires, and his unity with the Divine in Spirit, proceeds to the great reversal of Yoga in order to begin what Sri Aurobindo calls ’the liberation of Nature’ which is to lead to the supramental transformation. This liberation of the Spirit is half of the work of realising a divine life in a divinised body. Hence the term ‘demigod’.
Homer thus mentions in the Iliad the achievements made by the dead warriors in the context of this first liberation of the Spirit.
This term is not found in the Odyssey.
The poet Hesiod uses it only once when he describes, as a result of a gradual obscuring of Truth over time, the fourth ‘god-like race of hero-men who are called demi-gods’ (Works and Days, 159-160).
He suggests that there was a time when there were many more spiritual seekers than in his time, around the 8th century BCE, who had attained the oneness in spirit with the Divine and were faced with the question: what should be the direction of human evolution now? In the continuation of the ancient yoga or in a radical reversal involving the abandonment of all previous forms?
These demigod hero-men had fought before Thebes at the seven gates: they therefore represent the yoga - practices and abilities - which had carried out a purification and opening of the seven chakras or centres of force/consciousness.
Subsequently, Hesiod tells us, they fought against the Trojans to recover Helen: they symbolise what in the adventurer of consciousness was in favour of the reversal of yoga, since the divinisation of bodily matter appeared to them as the right direction of the evolution.
As Homer tells us through Zeus, Hera, and Sarpedon voices, demigod cannot attain absolute immortality: that is indeed reserved for those who have accomplished the supramental transformation. The consciousness of immortality in the spirit is only half-immortality.
Although he was loved by Zeus, son of Cronos, among all,
Fate struck him down, and the cruel wrath of Hera
— Iliad XVIII, 117-119
In Savitri
Eleven mentions.
Apart he lived in his mind’s solitude,
A demigod shaping the lives of men:
One soul’s ambition lifted up the race;
— Book 1 Canto 3
He aspired and housed the nascent demigod.
— Book 7 Canto 2
The heroes and the demigods are few
To whom the close immortal voices speak
And to their acts the heavenly clan are near.
(…)
The superman shall wake in mortal man
And manifest the hidden demigod
— Book 11
In Savitri, a demigod is unambiguously someone who has achieved liberation in the Spirit in the sense that Sri Aurobindo understands it, i.e. union with the Divine in the Spirit.
It is a step towards the realisation of the Superman, the intermediate between the present mental man and the future supramental man.
At this stage, only half of man is divinised, the half in spirit. This enables the second transformation, the spiritual transformation, to be completed. The reception of what is coming from the higher planes of consciousness is directly from the supramental and no longer through the psychic.
It is only the liberation of Nature or supramental transformation that will allow the total divinisation of man.