The Writings of Annie Besant
Avataras
by
Annie Besant
Four Lectures Delivered at the
Twenty-fourth Anniversary Meeting
of the Theosophical Society at Adyar Madras, December 1899.
Lectures
What is an Avatara
The Source of and Need for Avataras
Some Special Avataras
Shri
FIRST
LECTURE
What is an Avatara
Brothers:
— Every time that we come here together to study the fundamental truths of all religions,
I cannot but feel how vast is the subject, how small the expounder, how mighty
the horizon that opens before our thoughts, how narrow the words which strive
to sketch it for your eyes. Year after year we meet,
time after time we strive to fathom some of those great mysteries of life, of
the Self, which form the only subject really worthy of the profoundest thought
of man. All else is passing; all else is transient; all else is but the toy of
a moment Fame and power, wealth and science — all that is in this world below
is as nothing beside the grandeur of the Eternal Self in the universe and in
man, one in all His manifold manifestations, marvellous and beautiful in every
form that He puts forth. And this year, of all the manifestations of the Supreme,
we are going to dare to study the holiest of the holiest, those manifestations
of God in the world in which He shows Himself as divine, coming to help the
world that He has made, shining forth in His essential nature, the form but a
thin film which scarce veils the Divinity from our eyes. How then shall we
venture to approach it, how shall we dare to study it, save with deepest
reverence, with profoundest humility; for if there needs for the study of His
works patience, reverence and humbleness of heart, what when we study Him whose
works but partially reveal Him, when we try to understand what is meant by an
Avatara, what is the meaning, what the purpose of such a revelation?
Our
President has truly said that in all the faiths of the world there is belief in
such manifestations, and that ancient maxim as to truth — that which is as the
hall mark on the silver showing that the metal is pure — that ancient maxim is
here valid, that whatever has been believed everywhere, whatever has been
believed at every time, and by every one, that is true, that is reality.
Religions quarrel over many details; men dispute over many propositions; but
where human heart and human voice speak a single word, there you have the mark
of truth, there you have the sign of spiritual reality. But in dealing with the
subject one difficulty faces us, faces you as hearers, faces
myself as speaker. In every religion in modern times truth is shorn of her full
proportions; the intellect alone cannot grasp the many aspects of the one truth.
So we have school after school, philosophy after philosophy, each one showing
an aspect of truth, and ignoring, or even denying, the other aspects which are
equally true. Nor is this all; as the age in which we are passes on from
century to century, from millennium to millennium, knowledge becomes dimmer,
spiritual insight becomes rarer, those who repeat far out-number those who
know; and those who speak with clear vision of the spiritual verity are lost
amidst the crowds, who only hold traditions whose origin they fail to
understand. The priest and the prophet, to use two well-known words, have ever
in later times come into conflict one with the other. The priest carries on the
traditions of antiquity; too often he has lost the knowledge that made them real.
The prophet — coming forth from time to time with the divine word hot as fire
on his lips — speaks out the ancient truth and illuminates tradition. But they
who cling to the words of tradition are apt to be blinded by the light of the
fire and to call out "heretic" against the one who speaks the truth
that they have lost Therefore, in religion after religion, when some great
teacher has arisen, there have been opposition, clamour, rejection, because the
truth he spoke was too mighty to be narrowed within the limits of half-blinded
men. And in such a subject as we are to study to-day, certain grooves have been
made, certain ruts as it were, in which the human mind is running, and I know
that in laying before you the occult truth, I must needs, at some points, come
into clash with details of a tradition that is rather repeated by memory than
either understood or the truths beneath it grasped. Pardon me then, my
brothers, if in a speech on this great topic I should sometimes come athwart
some of the dividing lines of different schools of Hindu thought; I may not, I
dare not, narrow the truth I have learnt, to suit the limitations that have
grown up by the ignorance of ages, nor make that which is the spiritual verity
conform to the empty traditions that are left in the faiths of the world. By
the duty laid upon me by the Master that I serve, by the truth that He has
bidden me speak in the ears of men of all the faiths that are in this modern
world; by these I must tell you what is true, no matter whether or not you
agree with it for the moment; for the truth that is spoken wins submission
afterwards, if not at the moment; and any one who speaks of the Rishis of
antiquity must speak the truths that they taught in their days, and not repeat
the mere commonplaces of commentators of modern times and the petty orthodoxies
that ring us in on every side and divide man from man.
I
propose in order to simplify this great subject to divide it under certain
heads. I propose first to remind you of the two great divisions recognised by
all who have thought on the subject; then to take up especially, for this
morning, the question "What is an Avatara?" To-morrow we shall put
and strive to answer, partly at least, the question, "Who is the source of
Avataras?" Then later we shall take up special Avataras both of the kosmos
and of human races. Thus I hope to place before you a clear, definite
succession of ideas on this great subject, not asking you to believe them
because I speak them, not asking you to accept them because I utter them. Your
reason is the bar to which every truth must come which is true for you; and you
err deeply, almost fatally, if you let the voice of authority impose itself
where you do not answer to the speaking. Every truth is only true to you as you
see it. and as it illuminates the mind; and truth however true is not yet truth
for you, unless your heart opens out to receive it, as the flower opens out its
heart to receive the rays of the morning sun.
First,
then, let us take a statement that men of every religion will accept Divine
manifestations of a special kind take place from time to time as the need
arises for their appearance; and these special manifestations are marked out
from the universal manifestation of God in His kosmos; for never forget that in
the lowest creature that crawls the earth Ishvara is present as in the highest
Deva. But there are certain special manifestations marked out from this general
self-revelation in the kosmos, and it is these special manifestations which are
called forth by special needs. Two words especially have been used in Hinduism,
marking a certain distinction in the nature of the manifestation — one the word
"Avatara", the other the word "A'vesha." Only for a moment
need we stop on the meaning of the words, important to us because the literal
meaning of the words points to the fundamental difference between the two. The
word "Avatara", as you know, has as its root "tri", passing
over, and with the prefix which is added, the "ava", you get the idea
of descent, one who descends. That is the literal meaning of the word. The
other word has as its root "vish", permeating, penetrating,
pervading, and you have there the thought of something which is permeated or
penetrated. So that while in the one case, Avatara, there is the thought of a
descent from above, from Ishvara to man or animal; in the other, there is
rather the idea of an entity already existing who is influenced, permeated,
pervaded by the divine power, specially illuminated as it were. And thus we
have a kind of intermediate step, if one may say so, between the divine
manifestation in the Avatara and in the kosmos — the partial divine
manifestation in one who is permeated by the influence of the Supreme, or of
some other being who practically dominates the individual, the Ego who is thus
permeated.
Now
what are the occasions which lead to these great manifestations? None can speak
with mightier authority on this point than He who came Himself as an Avatara
just before the beginning of our own age, the Divine Lord Shri Krishna Himself.
Turn to that marvellous poem, the Bhagavad-Gita, to the fourth Adhyaya, Shlokas
7 and 8; there He tells us what draws Him forth to birth into His world in the
manifested form of the Supreme :
"When
Dharma, — righteousness, law — decays, when Adharma — unrighteousness,
lawlessness — is exalted, then I Myself come forth: for the protection of the
good, for the destruction of the evil, for the establishing firmly of Dharma, I
am born from age to age". That is what He tells us of the coming forth of
the Avatara. That is, the needs of His world call upon Him to manifest Himself
in His divine power; and we know from other of His sayings that in addition to
those which deal with the human needs, there are certain kosmic necessities
which in the earlier ages of the world's story called forth special
manifestations. When in the great wheel of evolution another turn round has to
be given, when some new form, new type of life is coming forth, then also the
Supreme reveals Himself, embodying the type which thus He initiates in His
kosmos, and in this way turning that everlasting wheel which He comes forth as
Ishvara to turn. Such then, speaking quite generally, the
meaning of the word, and the object of the coming.
From
that we may fitly turn to the more special question, "What is an
Avatara?" And it is here that I must ask your close attention, nay, your
patient consideration, where points that to some extent may be unfamiliar are
laid before you; for as I said, it is the occult view of the truth which I am
going to partially unveil, and those who have not thus studied truth need to
think carefully ere they reject, need to consider long ere they refuse. We
shall see as we try to answer the question bow far the great authorities help
us to understand, and how far the lack of knowledge in reading those
authorities has led to misconception. You may remember that the late learned T.
Subba Row in the lectures that he gave on the Bhagavad-Gita put to you a
certain view of the Avatara, that it was a descent of Ishvara — or, as he said,
using the theosophical term, the Logos, which is only the Greek name for
Ishvara — a descent of Ishvara, uniting Himself with a human soul. With all
respect for the profound learning of the lamented pandit, I cannot but think
that that is only a partial definition. Probably he did not at that time
desire, had not very possibly the time, to deal with case after case, having so
wide a field to cover in the small number of lectures that he gave, and he
therefore chose out one form, as we may say, of self-revelation, leaving
untouched the others, which now in dealing with the subject by itself we have
full time to study. Let me then begin as it were at the beginning, and then
give you certain authorities which may make the view easier to accept; let me
state without any kind of attempt to veil or evade, what is really an Avatara.
Fundamentally He is the result of evolution. In far past Kalpas, in worlds
other than this, nay, in universes earlier than our own, those who were to be
Avataras climbed slowly, step by step, the vast ladder of evolution, climbing
from mineral to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to man, from man to
Jivanmukta, from Jivanmukta higher and higher yet, up the mighty hierarchy that
stretches beyond Those who have liberated Themselves from the bonds of
humanity; until at last, thus climbing, They cast off not only all the limits
of the separated Ego, not only burst asunder the limitations of the separated
Self, but entered Ishvara Himself and expanded into the all-consciousness of
the Lord, becoming one in knowledge as they had ever been one in essence with
that eternal Life from which originally they came forth, living in that life,
centres without circumferences, living centres, one with the Supreme. There stretches
behind such a One the endless chain of birth after birth, of manifestation
after manifestation. During the stage in which He was human, during the long
climbing up of the ladder of humanity, there were two special characteristics
that marked out the future Avatara from the ranks of men. One his absolute
bhakti, his devotion to the Supreme; for only those who are bhaktas and who to
their bhakti have wed gnyana, or knowledge, can reach this goal; for by
devotion, says Shri Krishna, can a man "enter into My being." And the
need of the devotion for the future Avatara is this: he must keep the centre
that he has built even in the life of Ishvara, so that he may be able to draw
the circumference once again round that centre, in order that he may come forth
as a manifestation of Ishvara, one with Him in knowledge, one with Him in
power, the very Supreme Himself in earthly life; he must hence have the power
of limiting himself to form, for no form can exist in the universe save as
there is a centre within it round which that form is drawn. He must be so
devoted as to be willing to remain for the service of the universe while
Ishvara Himself abides in it, to share the continual sacrifice made by Him, the
sacrifice whereby the universe lives. But not devotion alone marks this great
One who is climbing his divine path. He must also be, as Ishvara is, a lover of
humanity. Unless within him there burns the flame of love for men — nay, men,
do I say? it is too narrow — unless within him burns the flame of love for everything
that exists, moving and unmoving, in this universe of God, he will not be able
to come forth as the Supreme whose life and love are in everything that He has
brought forth out of His eternal and inexhaustible life. "There is
nothing", says the Beloved, "moving or unmoving, that may exist
bereft of me;" [Bhagavad-Gita, x. 39 ] and unless
the man can work that into his nature, unless he can love everything that is,
not only the beautiful but the ugly, not only the good but the evil, not only
the attractive but the repellent, unless in every form he sees the Self, he
cannot climb the steep path the Avatara must tread.
These,
then, are the two great characteristics of the man who is to become the special
manifestation of God — bhakti, love to the One in whom he is to merge, and love
to those whose very life is the life of God. Only as these come forth in the
man is he on the path that leads him to be — in future universes, in far, far
future kalpas — an Avatara coming as God to man.
Now
on this view of the nature of an Avatara difficulties, I know, arise; but they
are difficulties that arise from a partial view, and then from that view having
been merely accepted, as a rule, on the authority of some great name, instead
of on the thinking out and thorough understanding of it by the man who repeats
the shibboleth of his own sect or school. The view once taken, every text in
Shruti or Smriti that goes against that view is twisted out of its natural
meaning, in order to be made to agree with the idea which already dominates the
mind. That is the difficulty with every religion; a man acquires his view by
tradition, by habit, by birth, by public opinion, by the surroundings of his
own time and of his own day. He finds in the scriptures — which belong to no
time, to no day, to no one age, and to no one people, but are expressions of
the eternal Veda — he finds in them many texts that do not fit into the narrow
framework that he has made; and because he too often cares for the framework
more than for the truth, he manipulates the text until he can make it fit in,
in some dislocated fashion; and the ingenuity of the commentator too often
appears in the skill with which he can make words appear to mean what they do
not mean in their grammatical and obvious sense. Thus, men of every school,
under the mighty names of men who knew the truth — but who could only give such
portion of truth as they deemed man at the time was able to receive — use their
names to buttress up mistaken interpretations, and thus walls are continually
built up to block the advancing life of man.
Now
let me take one example from one of the greatest names, one who knew the truth
he spoke, but also, like every teacher, had to remember that while he was man,
those to whom he spoke were children that could not grasp truth with virile
understanding. That great teacher, founder of one of the three schools of the
Vedanta, Shri Ramanujacharya, in his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita — a
priceless work which men of every school might read and profit by — dealing with
the phrase in which Shri Krishna declares that He has had "bahuni
janmani" "many births", points out how vast the variety of those
births had been. Then, confining himself to His manifestations as Ishvara —
that is after He had attained to the Supreme — he says quite truly that He was
born by His own will; not by karma that compelled Him, not by any force outside
Him that coerced Him, but by His own will He came forth as Ishvara and
incarnated in one form or another. But there is nothing said there of the
innumerable steps traversed by the mighty One ere yet He merged Himself in the
Supreme. Those are left on one side, unmentioned, unnoticed, because what the
writer had in his view was to present to the hearts of men a great Object for
adoration, who might gradually lift them upwards and upwards until the Self
should blossom in them in turn. No word is said of the previous kalpas, of the
universes stretching backward into the illimitable past He speaks of His birth
as Deva, as Naga, as Gandharva, as those many shapes that He has taken by His
own will. As you know, or as you may learn if you turn to Shrimad-Bhagavata,
there is a much longer list of manifestations than the ten usually called
Avataras. There are given one after another the forms which seem strange to the
superficial reader when connected in modern thought with the Supreme. But we
find light thrown on the question by some other words of the great Lord; and we
also find in one famous book, full of occult hints — though not with much
explanation of the hints given — the Yoga Vasishtha, a clear definite statement
that the deities, as Mahadeva, Vishnu and Brahma, have all climbed upward to
the mighty posts They hold. [Part II., Chapter ii.,
Shlokas 14, 15, 16 ] And that may well be so, if you think of it; there is
nothing derogatory to Them in the thought; for there is but one Existence, the
eternal fount of all that comes forth as separated, whether separated in the
universe as Ishvara, or separated in the copy of the universe in man; there is
but One without a second; there is no life but His, no independence but His, no
self-existence but His, and from Him Gods and men and all take their root and
exist for ever in and by His one eternal life. Different stages of
manifestation, but the One Self in all the different stages, the One living in
all; and if it be true, as true it is, that the Self in man is "unborn,
constant, eternal, ancient", it is because the Self in man is one with the
One Self-existent, and Ishvara Himself is only the mightiest manifestation of
that One who knows no second near Himself. Says an English poet:
Closer
is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
The
Self is in you and in me, as much as the Self is in Ishvara, that One, eternal,
unchanging, un-decaying, whereof every manifested existence is but one ray of
glory. Thus it is true, that which is taught in the Yoga Vasishtha; true it is
that even the greatest, before whom we bow in worship, has climbed in ages past
all human reckoning to be one with the Supreme, and, ever there, to manifest
Himself as God to the world.
But
now we come to a distinction that we find made, and it is a real one. We read
of a Purnavatara, a full, complete, Avatara. What is the meaning of that word
"full" as applied to the Avatara? The name is given, as we know, to
Shri Krishna. He is marked out specially by that name.
Truly the word "purna" cannot apply to the Illimitable, the Infinite;
He may not be shown forth in any form; the eye may never behold Him; only the
spirit that is Himself can know the One. What is meant
by it is that, so far as is possible within the limits of form, the
manifestation of the formless appears, so far as is possible it came forth in
that great One who came for the helping of the world. This may assist you to
grasp the distinction. Where the manifestation is that of a Purnavatara, then
at any moment of time, at His own will, by Yoga or otherwise, He can transcend
every limit of the form in which He binds Himself by His own will, and shine
forth as the Lord of the Universe, within whom all the Universe is contained.
Think for a moment once more of Shri Krishna, who teaches us so much on this.
Turn to that great storehouse of spiritual wisdom, the Mahabharata, to the
Ashvamedha Parva which contains the Anugita, and you will find that Arjuna
after the great battle, forgetting the teaching that was given him on
Kurukshetra, asked his Teacher to repeat that teaching once again. And Shri
Krishna, rebuking him for the fickleness of his mind and stating that He was
much displeased that such knowledge should by fickleness have been forgotten,
uttered these remarkable words: "It is not possible for me to state it in
full in that way. I discoursed to thee on the Supreme Brahman, having
concentrated myself in Yoga." And then He goes on to give out the essence
of that teaching, but not in the same sublime form as we have it in the
Bhagavad-Gita. That is one thing that shows you what is meant by a Purnavatara;
in a condition of Yoga, into which He throws Himself at will, He knows Himself as
Lord of everything, as the Supreme on whom the Universe is built. Nay more;
thrice at least — I am not sure if there may have been more cases, but if so I
cannot at the moment remember them — thrice at least during His life as Shri
Krishna He shows himself forth as Ishvara, the Supreme. Once in the court of
Dhritarashtra, when the madly foolish Duryodhana talked about imprisoning
within cell-walls the universal Lord whom the universe cannot confine; and to
show the wild folly of the arrogant prince, out in the court before every eye
He shone forth as Lord of all, filling earth and sky with His glory, and all
forms human and divine, superhuman and subhuman, were seen gathered round Him
in the life from which they spring. Then on Kurukshetra to Arjuna, His beloved
disciple, to whom He gave the divine vision that he might see Him in His
Vaishnava form, the form of Vishnu, the Supreme Upholder of the Universe. And
later, on his way back to Dvaraka, meeting with Utanka, He and the sage came to
a misunderstanding, and the sage was preparing to curse the Lord; to save him
from the folly of uttering a curse against the Supreme, as a child might throw
a tiny pebble against a rock of immemorial age, He shone out before the eyes of
him who was really His bhakta, and showed him the great Vaishnava form, that of
the Supreme. What do those manifestations show? that at will He can show
himself forth as Lord of all, casting aside the limits of human form in which
men live; casting aside the appearance so familiar to those around Him, He
could reveal himself as the mighty One, Ishvara who is the life of all. There
is the mark of a Purnavatara; always within His grasp, at will, is the power to
show Himself forth as Ishvara.
But
why — the thought may arise in your minds — are not all Avataras of this kind,
since all are verily of the Supreme Lord? The answer is that by His own will,
by his own Maya, He veils Himself within the limits which serve the creatures whom He has come to help. Ah, how different He is, this
Mighty One, from you and me! When we are talking to some one who knows a little
less than ourselves, we talk out all we know to show our knowledge, expanding
ourselves as much as we can so as to astonish and make marvel the one to whom
we speak; that is because we are so small that we fear our greatness will not
be recognised unless we make ourselves as large as we can to astonish, if
possible to terrify; but when He comes who is really great, who is mightier
than anything which He produces, He makes Himself small in order to help those
whom He loves. And do you know, my brothers, that only in proportion as His
spirit enters into us, can we in our little measure be helpers in the universe
of which He is the one life; until we, in all our doings and speakings, place
ourselves within the one we want to help and not outside him, feeling as he
feels, thinking as he thinks, knowing for the time as he knows, with all his
limitations, although there may be further knowledge beyond, we cannot truly
help; that is the condition of all true help given by man to man, as it is the
only condition of the help which is given to man by God Himself.
And
so in other Avataras, He limits Himself for men's sake. Take the great king,
Shri Rama. What did he come to show? The ideal kshattriya, in
every relation of the kshattriya life; as son — perfect as son alike to loving
father and to jealous and for the time unkind step-mother. For you may
remember that when the father's wife who was not His own mother bade him go
forth to the forest on the very eve of His coronation as heir, His gentle
answer was: "Mother, I go". Perfect as son.
Perfect as husband; if He had not limited Himself by His own will to show out
what husband should be to wife, how could He in the forest, when Sita had been
reft away by Ravana, have shown the grief, have uttered the piteous
lamentations, which have drawn tears from thousands of eyes, as He calls on
plants and on trees, on animals and birds, on Gods and men, to tell Him where
His wife, His other self, the life of His life, had gone? How could he have
taught men what wife should be to husband's heart unless He had limited
Himself? The consciously Omnipresent Deity could not seek and search for His
beloved who had disappeared. And then as king; as perfect king as He was perfect
son and husband. When the welfare of His subjects was concerned, when the
safety of the realm was to be thought of, when He remembered that He as king
stood for God and must be perfect in the eyes of His subjects, so that they
might give the obedience and the loyalty, which men can only give to one whom
they know as greater than themselves, then even His wife was put aside; then
the test of the fire for Sita, the unsullied and the suffering; then She must
pass through it to show that no sin or pollution had come upon Her by the foul
touch of Ravana, the Rakshasa; then the demand that ere husband's heart that
had been riven might again clasp the wife. She must come forth pure as woman;
and all this, because He was king as well as husband, and on the throne the
people honoured as divine there must only be purity, spotless as driven snow.
Those limitations were needed in order that a perfect example might be given to
man, and man might learn to climb by reproducing virtues, made small in order
that his small grasp might hold them.
We
come to the second great class of manifestations, that to which I alluded in
the beginning as covered by the wide term Avesha. In that case it is not that a
man in past universes has climbed upward and has become one with Ishvara; but
it is that a man has climbed so far as to become so great, so perfect in his
manhood, and so full of love and devotion to God and man, that God is able to
permeate him with a portion of His own influence, His own power, His own
knowledge, and send him forth into the world as a superhuman manifestation of
Himself. The individual Ego remains; that is the great distinction. The man is
there, though the power that is acting is the manifested God. Therefore the
manifestation will be coloured by the special characteristics of the one over
whom this overshadowing is made; and you will be able to trace in the thoughts
of this inspired teacher, the characteristics of the race, of the individual,
of the form of knowledge which belongs to that man in the incarnation in which
the great overshadowing takes place. That is the fundamental difference.
But
here we find that we come at once to endless grades, endless varieties, and
down the ladder of lesser and lesser evolution we may tread, step by step,
until we come to the lower grades that we call inspiration. In a case of Avesha
it generally continues through a great portion of the life, the latter portion,
as a rule, and it is comparatively seldom withdrawn. Inspiration, as generally
understood, is a more partial thing, more temporary. Divine power comes down. illuminates and irradiates the man for the moment, and he
speaks for the time with authority, with knowledge, which in his normal state
he will be unable probably to compass. Such are the prophets who have illuminated
the world age after age; such were in ancient days the brahmanas who were the
mouth of God. Then truly the distinction was not that I spoke of between priest
and prophet; both were joined in the one illumination, and the teaching of the
priest and the preaching of the prophet ran on the same lines and gave forth
the same great truths. But in later times the distinction arose by the failure
of the priesthood, when the priest turned aside for money, for fame, for power,
for all the things with which only younger souls ought to concern themselves —
human toys with which human babies play, and do wisely in so playing, for they
grow by them. Then the priests became formal, the prophets became more and more
rare, until the great fact of inspiration was thrown back wholly into the past,
as though God or man had altered, man no longer divine in his nature, God no
longer willing to speak words in the ears of men. But inspiration is a fact in
all its stages; and it goes far farther than some of you may think. The
inspiration of the prophets, spiritually mighty and convincing, is needed, and
they come to the world to give a new impulse to spiritual truth. But there is a
general inspiration that any one may share who strives to show out the divine
life from which no son of man is excluded, for every son of man is sun of God.
Have you ever been drawn away for a moment into higher, more peaceful realms,
when you have come across something of beauty, of art, of the wonders of
science, of the grandeur of philosophy? Have you for a time lost sight of the
pettinesses of earth, of trivial troubles, of small worries and annoyances, and
felt yourself lifted into a calmer region, into a light that is not the light
of common earth? Have you ever stood before some wondrous picture wherein the
palette of the painter has been taxed to light the canvas with all the hues of
beauteous colour that art can give to human sight? Or have you seen in some
wondrous sculpture, the gracious living curves that the chisel has freed from
the roughness of the marble? Or have you listened while the diviner spell of
music has lifted you, step by step, till you seem to hear the Gandharvas
singing and almost the divine flute is being played and echoing in the lower
world? Or have you stood on the mountain peak with the snows around you, and
felt the grandeur of the unmoving nature that shows out God as well as the
human spirit? Ah, if you have known any of these peaceful spots in life's
desert, then you know how all-pervading is inspiration; how wondrous the beauty
and the power of God shown forth in man and in the world; then you know, if you
never knew it before, the truth of that great proclamation of Shri Krishna the
Beloved: "Whatever is royal, good, beautiful, and mighty, understand thou
that to go forth from My Splendour"; [ Bhagavad-Gita, x. 41] all is the
reflection of that tejas [Splendour, radiance ] which is His and His alone. For
as there is nought in the universe without His love and life, so there is no
beauty that is not His beauty, that is not a ray of the illimitable splendour,
one little beam from the unfailing source of life.
SECOND LECTURE
The Source of and Need for Avataras
Brothers:
— You will remember that yesterday, in dividing the
subject under different heads, I put down certain questions which we would take
in order. We dealt yesterday with the question: "What is an Avatara?"
The second question that we are to try to answer, "What is the source of
Avataras?" is a question that leads us deep into the mysteries of the
kosmos, and needs at least an outline of kosmic growth and evolution in order
to give an intelligible answer. I hope to-day to be able also to deal with the
succeeding question, "How does the need for Avataras arise?" This
will leave us for to-morrow the subject of the special Avataras, and I shall
endeavour, if possible, during to-morrow's discourse, to touch on nine of the
Avataras out of the ten recognised as standing out from all other
manifestations of the Supreme. Then, if I am able to accomplish that task, we
shall still have one morning left, and that I propose to give entirely to the
study of the greatest of the Avataras, the Lord Shri Krishna Himself,
endeavouring, if possible, to mark out the great characteristics of His life
and His work, and, it may be, to meet and answer some of the objections of the
ignorant which, especially in these later days, have been levelled against Him
by those who understand nothing of His nature, nothing of the mighty work He
came to accomplish in the world.
Now
we are to begin to-day by seeking an answer to the question, "What is the
source of Avataras?" and it is likely that I am going to take a line of
thought somewhat unfamiliar, carrying us, as it does, outside the ordinary
lines of our study which deals more with the evolution of man, of the spiritual
nature within him. It carries us to those far off times, almost
incomprehensible to us, when our universe was coming into manifestation, when
its very foundations, as it were, were being laid. In answering the question,
however, the mere answer is simple. It is recognised in all religions admitting
divine incarnations — and they include the great religions of the world — it is
admitted that the source of Avataras, the source of the Divine incarnations, is
the second or middle manifestation of the sacred Triad. It matters not whether
with Hindus we speak of the Trimurti, or whether with Christians we speak of
the Trinity, the fundamental idea is one and the same. Taking first for a
moment the Christian symbology, you will find that every Christian tells you
that the one divine incarnation acknowledged in Christianity — for in
Christianity they believe in one special incarnation only — you will find in
the Christian nomenclature the divine incarnation or Avatara is that of the second
person of the Trinity. No Christian will tell you that there has ever been an
incarnation of God the Father, the primeval Source of life. They will never
tell you that there has been an incarnation of the third Person of the Trinity,
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom, of creative
Intelligence, who built up the world-materials. But they will always say that
it was the second Person, the Son, who took human form, who appeared under the
likeness of humanity, who was manifested as man for helping the salvation of
the world. And if you analyse what is meant by that phrase, what, to the mind
of the Christian, is conveyed by the thought of the second Person of the
Trinity — for remember in dealing with a religion that is not yours you should
seek for the thought not the form, you should look at the idea not at the
label, for the thoughts are universal while the forms divide, the ideas are
identical while the labels are marks of separation — if you seek for the
underlying thought you will find it is this: the sign of the second Person of
the Trinity is duality; also, He is the underlying life of the world; by His
power the worlds were made, and are sustained, supported, and protected. You
will find that while the Spirit of Wisdom is spoken of as bringing order out of
disorder, kosmos out of chaos, that it is by the manifested Word of God, or the
second Person of the Trinity, it is by Him that all forms are builded up in
this world, and it is specially in His image that man is made. So also when we
turn to what will be more familiar to the vast majority of you, the symbology
of Hinduism, you will find that all Avataras have their source in Vishnu, in
Him who pervades the universe, as the very name Vishnu implies, who is the
Supporter, the Protector, the pervading, all-permeating Life by which the
universe is held together, and by which it is sustained. Taking the names of
the Trimurti so familiar to us all — not the philosophical names Sat, Chit,
Ananda, those names which in philosophy show the attributes of the Supreme
Brahman — taking the concrete idea, we have Mahadeva or Shiva, Vishnu, and
Brahma: three names, just as in the other religion we have three names; but the
same fact comes out, that it is the middle or central one of the Three who is
the source of Avataras. There has never been a direct Avatara of Mahadeva, of
Shiva Himself. Appearances? Yes. Manifestations?
Yes. Coming in form for a special purpose served by that form? Oh yes. Take the
Mahabharata, and you find Him appearing in the form of the hunter, the Kirata,
and testing the intuition of Arjuna, and struggling with him to test his
strength, his courage, and finally his devotion to Himself. But that is a mere
form taken for a purpose and cast aside the moment the purpose is served;
almost, we may say, a mere illusion, produced to serve a special purpose and
then thrown away as having completed that which it was intended to perform.
Over and over again you find such appearances of Mahadeva. You may remember one
most beautiful story, in which He appears in the form of a Chandala [An
outcaste, equivalent to a scavenger ] at the gateway of His own city of Kashi,
when one who was especially overshadowed by a manifestation of Himself, Shri
Shankaracharya, was coming with his disciples to the sacred city; veiling
Himself in the form of an outcaste — for to Him all forms are the same, the
human differences are but as the grains of sand which vanish before the majesty
of His greatness — He rolled Himself in the dust before the gateway, so that
the great teacher could not walk across without touching Him, and he called to
the Chandala to make way in order that the brahmana might go on unpolluted by
the touch of the outcaste; then the Lord, speaking through the form He had
chosen, rebuked the very one whom His power overshadowed, asking him questions
which he could not answer and thus abasing his pride and teaching him humility.
Such forms truly He has taken, but these are not what we can call Avataras;
mere passing forms, not manifestations upon earth where a life is lived and a
great drama is played out So with Brahma; He also has appeared from time to
time, has manifested Himself for some special purpose; but there is no Avatara
of Brahma, which we can speak of by that very definite and well understood
term.
Now
for this fact there must be some reason. Why is it that we do not find the
source of Avataras alike in all these great divine manifestations? Why do they
come from only one aspect and that the aspect of Vishnu? I need not remind you
that there is but one Self, and that these names we use are the names of the
aspects that are manifested by the Supreme; we must not separate them so much
as to lose sight of the underlying unity. For remember how, when a worshipper
of Vishnu had a feeling in his heart against a worshipper of Mahadeva, as he
bowed before the image of Hari, the face of the image divided itself in half,
and Shiva or Hara appeared on one side and Vishnu or Hari appeared on the
other, and the two, smiling as one face on the bigoted worshipper, told him
that Mahadeva and Vishnu were but one. But in Their functions a division
arises; They manifest along different lines, as it were, in the kosmos and for
the helping of man; not for Him but for us, do these lines of apparent
separateness arise.
Looking
thus at it, we shall be able to find the answer to our question, not only who
is the source of Avataras, but why Vishnu is the source. And it is here that I
come to the unfamiliar part where I shall have to ask for your special
attention as regards the building of the universe. Now I am using the word
"universe", in the sense of our solar system. There are many other
systems, each of them complete in itself, and, therefore, rightly spoken of as
a kosmos, a universe. But each of these systems in its turn is part of a
mightier system, and our sun, the centre of our own system, though it be in
very truth the manifested physical body of Ishwara Himself, is not the only
sun. If you look through the vast fields of space, myriads of suns are there,
each one the centre of its own system, of its own universe; and our sun,
supreme to us, is but, as it were, a planet in a vaster system, its orbit
curved round a sun greater than itself. So in turn that sun, round which our
sun is circling, is planet to a yet mightier sun, and each set of systems in
its turn circles round a more central sun, and so on — we know not how far may
stretch the chain that to us is illimitable: for who is able to plumb the
depths and heights of space, or to find a manifested circumference which takes
in all universes! Nay, we say that they are infinite in number, and that there
is no end to the manifestations of the one Life.
Now
that is true physically. Look at the physical universe with the eye of spirit, and
you see in it a picture of the spiritual universe. A great word was spoken by
one of the Masters or Rishis, whom in this Society we honour and whose
teachings we follow. Speaking to one of His disciples, or pupils, He rebuked
him, because, He said in words never to be forgotten by those who have read
them: "You always look at the things of the spirit with the eyes of the
flesh. What you ought to do is to look at the things of the flesh with the eyes
of the spirit". Now, what does that mean? It means that instead of trying
to degrade the spiritual and to limit it within the narrow bounds of the
physical, and to say of the spiritual that it cannot be because the human brain
is unable clearly to grasp it, we ought to look at the physical universe with a
deeper insight and see in it the image, the shadow, the reflection of the
spiritual world, and learn the spiritual verities by studying the images that
exist of them in the physical world around us. The physical world is easier to
grasp. Do not think the spiritual is modelled on the physical; the physical is
fundamentally modelled on the spiritual, and if you look at the physical with
the eye of spirit, then you find that it is the image of the higher, and then
you are able to grasp the higher truth by studying the faint reflections that
you see in the world around you. That is what I ask you to do now. Just as you
have your sun and suns, many universes, each one part of a system mightier than
itself, so in the spiritual universe there is hierarchy beyond hierarchy of
spiritual intelligences who are as the suns of the spiritual world. Our
physical system has at its centre the great spiritual Intelligence manifested
as a Trinity, the Ishvara of that system. Then beyond Him there is a mightier
Ishvara, round whom Those who are on the level of the
Ishvara of our system circle, looking to Him as Their central life. And beyond
Him yet another, and beyond Him others and others yet, until as the physical
universes are beyond our thinking, the spiritual hierarchy stretches also
beyond our thought, and, dazzled and blinded by the splendour, we sink back to
earth, as Arjuna was blinded when the Vaishnava form shone forth on him, and we
cry: "Oh! show us again Thy more limited form
that we may know it and live by it We are not yet ready for the mightier
manifestations. We are blinded, not helped, by such blaze of divine
splendour."
And
so we find that if we would learn we must limit ourselves — nay, we must try to
expand ourselves — to the limits of our own system. Why? I have met people who
have not really any grasp of this little world, this grain of dust in which
they live, who cannot be content unless you answer questions about the One
Existence, the Para-Brahma, whom sages revere in silence, not daring to speak
even with illuminated mind that knows nirvanic life and has expanded to
nirvanic consciousness. The more ignorant the man, the more he thinks he can
grasp. The less he understands, the more he resents being told that there are
some things beyond the grasp of his intellect, existences so mighty that he
cannot even dream of the lowest of the attributes that mark them out. And for
myself, who know myself ignorant, who know that many an age must pass ere I
shall be able to think of dealing with these profounder problems, I sometimes
gauge the ignorance of the questioner by the questions that he asks as to the
ultimate existences, and when he wants to know what he calls the primary
origin, I know that he has not even grasped the one-thousandth part of the
origin out of which he himself has sprung. Therefore, I say to you frankly that
these mighty Ones whom we worship are the Gods of our system; beyond them there
stretch mightier Ones yet, whom, perhaps, myriads of kalpas hence, we may begin
to understand and worship.
Let
us then confine ourselves to our own system and be glad if we can catch some
ray of the glory that illumines it Vishnu has His own functions, as also have
Brahma and Mahadeva. The first work in this system is done by the third of the
sacred great Ones of the Trimurti, Brahma, as you all know, for you have read
that there came forth the creative Intelligence as the third of the divine
manifestations. I care not what is the symbology you take; perchance that of
the Vishnu Purana will be most familiar, wherein the unmanifested Vishnu is
beneath the water, standing as the first of the Trimurti, then the Lotus,
standing as the second, and the opened Lotus showing Brahma, the third, the
creative Mind. You may remember that the work of creation began with His activity.
When we study from the occult standpoint in what that activity consisted, we
find it consisted in impregnating with His own life the matter of the solar
system; that He gave His own life to build up form after form of atom, to make
the great divisions in the kosmos; that He formed, one after another, the five
kinds of matter. Working by His mind — He is sometimes spoken of as Mahat, the
great One, Intelligence — He formed Tattvas one after another. Tattvas, you may
remember from last year, are the foundations of the atoms, and there are five
of them manifested at the present time. That is His special work. Then He
meditates, and forms — as thoughts — come forth. There His manifest work may be
said to end, though He maintains ever the life of the atom. As far as the
active work of the kosmos is concerned, He gives way to the next of the great
forces that is to work, the force of Vishnu. His work is to gather together
that matter that has been built, shaped, prepared, vivified, and build it into
definite forms after the creative ideas brought forth by the meditation of
Brahma. He gives to matter a binding force; He gives to it those energies that
hold form together. No form exists without Him, whether it be
moving or unmoving. How often does Shri Krishna, speaking as the supreme
Vishnu, lay stress on this fact He is the life in every form; without it the
form could not exist, without it it would go back to its primeval elements and
no longer live as form. He is the all-pervading life; the "Supporter of the
Universe" is one of His names. Mahadeva has a different
function in the universe; especially is He the great Yogi; especially is He the
great Teacher, the Mahaguru; He is sometimes called Jagatguru, the Teacher of
the world. Over and over again — to take a comparatively modern example,
as the Gurugita — we find Him as Teacher, to whom Parvati goes asking for
instruction as to the nature of the Guru. He it is who defines the Guru's work,
He it is who inspires the Guru's teaching. Every Guru on earth is a reflection
of Mahadeva, and it is His life which he is commissioned to give out to the
world. Yogi, immersed in contemplation, taking the ascetic form always — that
marks out His functions. For the symbols by which the mighty Ones are shown in
the teachings are not meaningless, but are replete with the deepest meaning.
And when you see Him represented as the eternal Yogi, with the cord in His
hand, sitting as an ascetic in contemplation, it means that He is the supreme
ideal of the ascetic life, and that men who come especially under His influence
must pass out of home, out of family, out of the normal ties of evolution, and
give themselves to a life of asceticism, to a life of renunciation, to share,
however feebly, in that mighty yoga by which the universe is kept alive.
He
then manifests not as Avatara, but such manifestations come from Him who is the
God, the Spirit, of evolution, who evolves all forms. That is why from Vishnu
all these Avataras come. For it is He who by His infinite love dwells in every
form that He has made; with patience that nothing can exhaust, with love that
nothing can tire, with quiet, calm endurance which no folly of man can shake
from its eternal peace. He lives in every form, moulding it as it will bear the
moulding, shaping it as it yields itself to His impulse, binding Himself,
limiting Himself in order that His universe may grow, Lord of eternal life and
bliss, dwelling in every form. If you grasp this, it is not difficult to say
why from Him alone the Avataras come. Who else should take form save the One
who gives form? Who else should work with this unending love save He, who,
while the universe exists, binds Himself that the universe may live and
ultimately share His freedom? He is bound that the universe may be free. Who
else then should come forth when special need arises?
And
He gives the great types. Let me remind you of the Shrimad-Bhagavata, where in
an early chapter of the first Book, the 3rd chapter, a very long list is given
of the forms that Vishnu took, not only the great Avataras, but also a large
number of others. It is said He appeared as
There
He gives the law of these appearances: "When, O son of Pritha, I live in
the order of the deities, then I act in every respect
as a deity. When I live in the order of the Gandharvas, then I act in every
respect as a Gandharva. When I live in the order of the Nagas, I act as a Naga.
When I live in the order of the Yakshas, or that of the Rakshasas, I act after
the manner of that order. Born now in the order of humanity, I must act as a
human being." A profound truth, a truth that few in
modern times recognise. Every type in the universe, in its own place, is
good; every type in the universe, in its own place, is necessary. There is no
life save His life; how then could any type come into existence apart from the
universal life, bereft whereof nothing can exist?
We
speak of good forms and evil, and rightly, as regards our own evolution. But
from the wider standpoint of the kosmos, good and evil are relative terms, and
everything is very good in the sight of the Supreme who lives in every one. How
can a type come into existence in which He cannot live? How can anything live
and move, save as it has its being in Him? Each type has its work; each type
has its place; the type of the Rakshasa as much as the type of the Deva, of the
Asura as much as of the Sura. Let me give you one curious little simple
example, which yet has a certain graphic force. You have a pole you want to
move, and that pole is on a pivot, like the mountain which churned the ocean, a
pole with its two ends, positive and negative we will call them. The positive
end, we will say, is pushed in the direction of the river (the river flowing
beyond one end of the hall at Adyar). The negative pole is pushed — in what
direction? In the opposite. And those who are pushing
it have their faces turned in the opposite direction. One man looks at the river, the other man has his back to it, looking in the
opposite direction. But the pole turns in the one direction although they push
in opposite directions. They are working round the same circle, and the pole
goes faster because it is pushed from its two ends. There is the picture of our
universe. The positive force you call the Deva or Sura; his face is turned, it
seems, to God. The negative force you call the Rakshasa or Asura; his face, it
seems, is turned away from God. Ah no! God is everywhere, in every point of the
circle round which they tread; and they tread His circle and do His will and no
otherwise; and all at length find rest and peace in Him.
Therefore
Shri Krishna Himself can incarnate in the form of Rakshasa, and when in that
form He will act as Rakshasa and not as Deva, doing that part of the divine
work with the same perfection as He does the other, which men in their limited
vision call the good. A great truth hard to grasp. I
shall have to return to it presently in speaking of Ravana, one of the
mightiest types of, perhaps the greatest of, all the Rakshasas. And we shall
see, if we can follow, how the profound truth works out But remember, if in the
minds of some of you there is some hesitation in accepting this, that the words
that I read are not mine, but those of the Lord who spoke of His own embodying;
He has left on record for your teaching, that He has embodied Himself in the
form of Rakshasa and has acted after the manner of that order.
Leaving
that for a moment, there is one other point I must take, ere speaking of the
need for Avataras. and it is this: when the great central
Deities have manifested, then there come forth from Them seven Deities of what
we may call the second order. In Theosophy, they are spoken
of as the planetary Logoi, to distinguish them from the great solar Logoi, the
central Life. Each of These has to do with one of the
seven sacred planets, and with the chain of worlds connected with that planet.
Our world is one of the links in this chain, and you and I pass round this
chain in successive incarnations in the great stages of life. The world — our
present world — is the midway globe of one such chain. One Logos of the
secondary order presides over the evolution of this chain of worlds. He shows
out three aspects, reflections of the great Logoi who are at the centre of the
system. You have read perhaps of the seven-leaved lotus, the Saptaparnapadma;
looked at with the higher sight, gazed at with the open vision of the seer,
that mighty group of creative and directing Beings looks like the lotus with its
seven leaves and the great Ones are at the heart of the lotus. It is as though
you could see a vast lotus-flower spread out in space, the tips of the seven
leaves being the mighty Intelligences presiding over the evolution of the
chains of worlds. That lotus symbol is no mere symbol but a high reality, as
seen in that wondrous world wherefrom the symbol has been taken by the sages.
And because the great Rishis of old saw with the open eye of knowledge, saw the
lotus-flower spread in space, they took it as the symbol of kosmos, the lotus
with its seven leaves, each one a mighty Deva presiding over a separate line of
evolution. We are primarily concerned with our own planetary Deva and through
Him with the great Devas of the solar system.
Now
my reason for mentioning this is to explain one word that has puzzled many
students. Mahavishnu, the great Vishnu, why that particular epithet? What does
it mean when that phrase is used? It means the great solar Logos, Vishnu in His
essential nature: but there is a reflection of His glory, a reflection of His
power, of His love, in more immediate connection with ourselves
and our own world. He is His representative, as a viceroy may represent the
king. Some of the Avataras we shall find came forth from Mahavishnu through the
planetary Logos, who is concerned with our evolution and the evolution of the
world. But the Purnavatara that I spoke of yesterday comes forth directly from
Mahavishnu, with no intermediary between Himself and the world that He comes to
help. Here is another distinction between the Purnavatara and those more
limited ones, that I could not mention yesterday,
because the words used would, at that stage, have been unintelligible. We shall
find to-morrow, when we come to deal with the Avataras Matsya, Kurma, and so
on, that these special Avataras, connected with the evolution of certain types
in the world, while indirectly from Mahavishnu, come through the mediation of
His mighty representative for our own chain, the wondrous Intelligence that
conveys His love and ministers His will, and is the channel of His
all-pervading and supporting power. When we come to study Shri Krishna we shall
find that there is no intermediary. He stands as the Supreme Himself. And while
in the other cases there is the Presence that may be recognised as an
intermediary, it is absent in the case of the great Lord of Life.
Leaving
that for further elaboration then to-morrow, let us try to answer the next
question, "How arises this need for Avataras?" because in the minds
of some, quite naturally, a difficulty does arise. The difficulty that many
thoughtful people feel may be formulated thus: "Surely the whole plan of
the world is in the mind of the Logos from the beginning, and surely we cannot
suppose that He is working like a human workman, not thoroughly understanding
that at which He aims. He must be the architect as well as the builder; He must
make the plan as well as carry it out He is not like the mason who puts a stone
in the wall where he is told, and knows nothing of the architecture of the
building to which he is contributing. He is the master-builder, the great
architect of the universe, and everything in the plan of that universe must be
in His mind ere ever the universe began. But if that be
so — and we cannot think otherwise — how is it that the need for special
intervention arises? Does not the fact of special intervention imply some
unforeseen difficulty that has arisen? If there must be a kind of interference
with the working out of the plan, does that not look as if in the original plan
some force was left out of account, some difficulty had not been seen,
something had arisen for which preparation had not been made? If it be not so, why the need for interference, which looks as
though it were brought about to meet an unforeseen event?" A natural, reasonable, and perfectly fair question. Let us
try to answer it. I do not believe in shirking difficulties; it is better to
look them in the face, and see if an answer be possible.
Now
the answer comes along three different lines. There are three great classes of
facts, each of which contributes to the necessity; and each, foreseen by the
Logos, is definitely prepared for as needing a particular manifestation.
The
first of these lines arises from what I may perhaps call the nature of things.
I remarked at the beginning of this lecture on the fact that our universe, our
system, is part of a greater whole, not separate, not independent, not primary,
in comparatively a low scale in the universe, our sun a planet in a vaster system.
Now what does that imply? As regards matter, Prakriti, it implies that our
system is builded out of matter already existing, out of matter already gifted
with certain properties, out of matter that spreads through all space, and from
which every Logos takes His materials, modifying it according to His own plan
and according to His own will. When we speak of Mulaprakriti, the root of
matter, we do not mean that it exists as the matter we know. No philosopher, no
thinker would dream of saying that that which spreads throughout space is
identical with the matter of our very elementary solar system. It is the root
of matter, that of which all forms of matter are merely modifications. What
does that imply? It implies that our great Lord, who brought our solar system
into existence, is taking matter which already has certain properties given to
it by One yet mightier than Himself. In that matter
three gunas exist in equilibrium, and it is the breath of the Logos that throws
them out of equilibrium, and causes the motion by which our system is brought
into existence. There must be a throwing out of equilibrium, for equilibrium
means Pralaya, where there is not motion, nor any manifestation of life and
form. When life and form come forth, equilibrium must have been disturbed, and
motion must be liberated by which the world shall be built But the moment you
grasp that truth you see that there must be certain limitations by virtue of
the very material in which the Deity is working for the making of the system.
It is true that when out of His system, when not conditioned and confined and
limited by it, as He is by His most gracious will, it is true that He would be
the Lord of that matter by virtue of His union with the mightier Life beyond;
but when for the building of the world He limits Himself within His Maya, then
He must work within the conditions of those materials that limit His activity,
as we are told over and over again.
Now
when in the ceaseless interplay of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, Tamas has the
ascendancy, aided and, as it were, worked by Rajas, so that they predominate
over Sattva in the foreseen evolution, when the two combining overpower the
third, when the force of Rajas and the inertia and stubbornness of Tamas,
binding themselves together, check the action, the harmony, the pleasure-giving
qualities of Sattva, then comes one of the conditions in which the Lord comes
forth to restore that which had been disturbed of the balanced interworking of
the three gunas, and to make again such balance between them as shall enable
evolution to go forward smoothly and not be checked in its progress. He
re-establishes the balance of power which gives orderly motion, the order
having been disturbed by the co-operation of the two in contradistinction to
the third. In these fundamental attributes of matter, the three gunas lies the first reason of the need for Avataras.
The
second need has to do with man himself, and now we come back in both the second
and the third to that question of good and evil, of which I have already
spoken, Ishvara, when He came to deal with the evolution of man — with all
reverence I say it — had a harder task to perform than in the evolution of the
lower forms of life. On them the law is imposed and they must obey its impulse.
On the mineral the law is compulsory; every mineral moves according to the law,
without interposing any impulse from itself to work against the will of the
One. In the vegetable world the law is imposed, and every plant grows in
orderly method according to the law within it, developing steadily and in the
fashion of its order, interposing no impulse of its own. Nay, in the animal
world — save perhaps when we come to its highest members — the law is still a
force overpowering everything else, sweeping everything before it, carrying
along all living things. A wheel turning on the road might carry with it on its
axle the fly that happened to have settled there; it does not interpose any
obstacle to the turning of the wheel. If the fly comes on to the circumference
of the wheel and opposes itself to its motion, it is crushed without the
slightest jarring of the wheel that rolls on, and the form goes out of
existence, and the life takes other shapes.
So
is the wheel of law in the three lower kingdoms. But with man it is not so. In
man Ishvara sets himself to produce an image of Himself,
which is not the case in the lower kingdoms. As life has evolved, one force
after another has come out, and in man there begins to come out the central
life, for the time has arrived for the evolution of the sovereign power of
will, the self-initiated motion which is part of the life of the Supreme. Do
not misunderstand me — for the subject is a subtle one; there is only one will
in the universe, the will of Ishvara, and all must conform itself to that will,
all is conditioned by that will, all must move according to that will, and that
will marks out the straight line of evolution. There may be swerving neither to
the right hand nor to the left There is one will only which in its aspect to us
is free, but inasmuch as our life is the life of Ishvara Himself, inasmuch as
there is but one Self and that Self is yours and mine as much as His — for He
has given us His very Self to be our Self and our life — there must evolve at
one stage of this wondrous evolution that royal power of will which is seen in
Him. And from the Atma within us, which is Himself in
us, there flows forth the sovereign will into the sheaths in which the Atma is
as it were held. Now what happens is this: force goes out through the sheaths
and gives them some of its own nature, and each sheath begins to set up a
reflection of the will on its own account, and you get the "I" of the
body which wants to go this way, and the "I" of passion or emotion
which wants to go that way, and the "I" of the mind which wants to go
a third way, and none of these ways is the way of the Atma, the Supreme. These
are the illusory wills of man, and there is one way in which you may
distinguish them from the true will. Each of them is determined in its direction
by external attraction; the man's body wants to move in a particular way
because something attracts it, or something else repels it: it moves to what it
likes, to what is congenial to it. it moves away from
that which it dislikes, from that from which it feels itself repelled. But that
motion of the body is but motion determined by the Ishvara outside, as it were,
rather than by the Ishvara within, by the kosmos around and not by the Self
within, which has not yet achieved its mastery of the kosmos. So with the
emotions or passions: they are drawn this way or that by the objects of the
senses, and the "senses move after their appropriate objects"; it is
not the "I", the Self, which moves. And so also
with the mind. "The mind is fickle and restless, O Krishna, it
seems as hard to curb as the wind", and the mind lets the senses run after
objects as a horse that has broken its reins flies away with the unskilled
driver. All these forces are set up; and there is one more thing to remember.
These forces reinforce the rajasic guna and help to bring about that
predominance of which I spoke; all these reckless desires that are not
according to the one will are yet necessary in order that the will may evolve
and in order to train and develop the man.
Do
you say why? How would you learn right if you knew not wrong? How would you
choose good if you knew not evil? How would you
recognise the light if there were no darkness? How would you move if there were
no resistance? The forces that are called dark, the forces of the Rakshasas, of
the Asuras, of all that seem to be working against Ishvara — these are the
forces that call out the inner strength of the Self in man, by struggling with
which the forces of Atma within the man are developed, and without which he
would remain in Pralaya for evermore. It is a perfectly stagnant pool where
there is no motion, and there you get corruption and not life. The evolution of
force can only be made by struggle, by combat, by effort, by exercise, and
inasmuch as Ishvara is building men and not babies, He must draw out men's
forces by pulling against their strength, making them struggle in order to
attain, and so vivifying into outer manifestation the life that otherwise would
remain enfolded in itself. In the seed the life is hidden, but it will not
grow, if you leave the seed alone. Place it on this table here, and come back a
century hence, and, if you find it, it will be a seed still and nothing more.
So also is the Atma in man ere evolution and struggle have begun. Plant your
seed in the ground, so that the forces in the ground press on it, and the rays
of the sun from outside make vibrations that work on it, and the water from the
rain comes through the soil into it and forces it to swell — then the seed
begins to grow; but as it begins to grow it finds the earth around. How shall
it grow but by pushing at it and so bringing out the energies of life that are
within it? And against the opposition of the ground the roots strike down, and
against the opposition of the ground the growing point mounts upward, and by
the opposition of the ground the forces are evolved that make the seed grow,
and the little plant appears above the soil. Then the wind comes and blows and
tries to drag it away, and, in order that it may live and not perish, it
strikes its roots deeper and gives itself a better hold against the battering
force of the wind, and so the tree grows against the forces which try to tear
it out And if these forces were not, there would have been no growth of the
root And so with the root of Ishvara, the life within us; were everything
around us smooth and easy, we would remain supine, lethargic, indifferent It is
the whip of pain, of suffering, of disappointment, that drives us onward and
brings out the forces of our internal life which otherwise would remain
undeveloped. Would you have a man grow? Then don't throw him on a couch with
pillows on every side, and bring his meals and put them into his mouth, so that
he moves not limb nor exercises mind. Throw him on a desert, where there is no
food nor water to be found; let the sun beat down on his head, the wind blow
against him; let his mind be made to think how to meet the necessities of the
body, and the man grows into a man and not a log. That is why there are forces
which you call evil. In this universe there is no evil; all is good that comes
to us from Ishvara, but it sometimes comes in the guise of evil that, by
opposing it, we may draw out our strength. Then we begin to understand that
these forces are necessary, and that they are within the plan of Ishvara. They
test evolution, they strengthen evolution, so that it does not take the next
step onward till it has strength enough to hold its own, one step made firm by
opposition before the next is taken. But when, by the conflicting wills of men,
the forces that work for retardation, to keep a man back till he is able to
overcome them and go on, when they are so reinforced by men's unruly wishes
that they are beginning, as it were, to threaten progress, then ere that check
takes place, there is reinforcement from the other side: the presence of the
Avatara of the forces that threaten evolution calls forth the presence of the
Avatara that leads to the progress of humanity.
We
come to the third cause. The Avatara does not come forth without a call. The
earth, it is said, is very heavy with its load of evil, "Save us, O
supreme Lord", the Devas come and cry. In answer to that cry the Lord
comes forth. But what is this that I spoke of purposely by a strange phrase to
catch your attention, that I spoke of as an Avatara of
evil? By the will of the one Supreme, there is one incarnated in form who
gathers up together the forces that make for retardation, in order that, thus
gathered together, they may be destroyed by the opposing force of good, and
thus the balance may be re-established and evolution go on along its appointed
road. Devas work for joy, the reward of Heaven. Svarga is their home, and they
serve the Supreme for the joys that there they have. Rakshasas
also serve Him, first for rule on earth, and power to grasp and hold and enjoy
as they will in this lower world. Both sides serve for reward, and are
moved by the things that please.
And
in order, as our time is drawing to a close, that I may take one great example
to show how these work, let me take the mighty one, Ravana of Lanka, that we
may give a concrete form to a rather difficult and abstruse thought. Ravana, as
you all know, was the mighty intelligence, the Rakshasa, who called forth the
coming of Shri Rama. But look back into the past, and what was he? Keeper of
Vishnu's heaven, door-keeper of the mighty Lord, devotee, bhakta, absolutely
devoted to the Lord. Look at his past, and where do you find a bhakta of
Mahadeva more absolute in devotion than the one who came forth later as Ravana?
It was he who cast his head into the fire in order that Mahadeva might be
served. It is he in whose name have been written some of the most exquisite
stotras, breathing the spirit of completest devotion; in one of them, you may
remember — and you could scarcely carry devotion to a further point — it is in
the mouth of Ravana words are put appealing to Mahadeva, and describing Him as
surrounded by forms the most repellent and undesirable, surrounded on every
side by pisachas and bhutas, [Goblins and elementals ] which to us seem but the
embodiment of the dark shadows of the burning ghat, forms from which all beauty
is withdrawn. He cries out in a passion of love:
Better
wear pisacha-form, so we
Evermore are near and wait on Thee.
How
did he then come to be the ravisher of Sita and the enemy of God?
You
know how through lack of intuition, through lack of power to recognise the
meaning of an order, following the words not the spirit, following the outside
not the inner, he refused to open the door of heaven when Sanat Kumara came and
demanded entrance. In order that that which was lacking might be filled, in
order that that which was wanting might be earned, that which was called a
curse was pronounced, a curse which was the natural reaction from the mistake.
He was asked: "Will you have seven incarnations friendly to Vishnu, or
three in which you will be His enemy and oppose Him?" And because he was a
true bhakta, and because every moment of absence, from his Lord meant to him
hell of torture, he chose three of enmity, which would let him go back sooner
to the Feet of the Beloved, rather than the seven of happiness, of
friendliness. Better a short time of utter enmity than a longer remaining away
with apparent happiness. It was love not hatred that made him choose the form
of a Rakshasa rather than the form of a Rishi. There is the first note of
explanation.
Then,
coming into the form of Rakshasa, he must do his duty as Rakshasa. This was no
weak man to be swayed by momentary thought, by transient objects. He had all
the learning of the Vedas. With him, it was said, passed away Vedic learning,
with him it disappeared from earth. He knew his duty. What was his duty? To put
forward every force which was in his mighty nature in order to check evolution,
and so call out every force in man which could be called out by opposing energy
which had to be overcome; to gather round him all the forces which were
opposing evolution; to make himself king of the whole, centre and law-giver to
every force that was setting itself against the will of the Lord; to gather
them together as it were into one head, to call them together into one arm; so
that when their apparent triumph made the cry of the earth go up to Vishnu, the
answer might come in Rama's Avatara and they be destroyed, that the life-wave
might go on.
Nobly
he did the work, thoroughly he discharged his duty. It is said that even sages
are confused about Dharma, and truly it is subtle and hard to grasp in its
entirety, though the fragment the plain man sees be simple enough. His Dharma
was the Dharma of a Rakshasa, to lead the whole forces of evil against One whom in his inner soul, then clouded, he loved. When
Shri Rama came, when He was wandering in the forest, how could he sting Him
into leaving the life of His life. His
beloved Sita, and into coming out into the world to do His work? By
taking away from Him the one thing to which He clung, by taking away from Him
the wife whom He loved as His very Self, by placing her in the spot where all
the forces of evil were gathered together, so making one head for destruction,
which the arrow of Shri Rama might destroy. Then the mighty battle, then the
struggle with all the forces of his great nature, that the law might be obeyed
to the uttermost, duly fulfilled to the last grain, the debt paid that was
owed; and then — ah then! the shaft of the Beloved,
then the arrow of Shri Rama that struck off the head from the seeming enemy,
from the real devotee. And from the corpse of the Rakshasa that fell upon the
field near Lanka, the devotee went up to Goloka [A name for one of the
heavens.] to sit at the feet of the Beloved, and rest for awhile till the third
incarnation had to be lived out.
Such
then are some of the reasons by, the ways in which the coming of the Avatara is
brought about And my last word to you, my brothers,
to-day is but a sentence, in order to avoid the possibility of a mistake to
which our diving into these depths of thought may possibly give rise. Remember
that though all powers are His, all forces His, Rakshasa as much as Deva, Asura
as much as Sura; remember that for your evolution you must be on the side of
good, and struggle to the utmost against evil. Do not let the thoughts I have
put lead you into a bog, into a pit of hell, in which you may for the time perish,
that because evil is relative, because it exists by the one will, because
Rakshasa is His as much as Deva, therefore you shall go on their side and walk
along their path. It is not so. If you yield to ambition, if you yield to
pride, if you set yourselves against the will of Ishvara, if you struggle for
the separated self, if in yourselves now you identify yourself with the past in
which you have dwelt instead of with the future towards which you should be
directing your steps, then, if your Karma be at a certain stage, you pass into
the ranks of those who work as enemies, because you have chosen that fate for
yourself, at the promptings of the lower nature. Then with bitter inner pain —
even if with complete submission — accepting the Karma, but with profound
sorrow, you shall have to work out your own will against the will of the
Beloved, and feel the anguish of the rending that separates the inner from the
outer life. The will of Ishvara for you is evolution; these forces are made to
help your evolution — but only if you strive against them. If you yield to
them, then they carry you away. You do not then call out your own strength, but
only strengthen them. Therefore, O Arjuna, stand up and fight. Do not be
supine; do not yield yourself to the forces; they are there to call out your
energies by opposition and you must not sink down on the floor of the chariot
And my last word is the word of Shri Krishna to Arjuna: "Take up your bow,
stand up and fight"
Some
Special Avataras
The
subject this morning, my brothers, is in some ways an easy and in other ways a
difficult one; easy, inasmuch as the stories of the Avataras can be readily
told and readily grasped; difficult, inasmuch as the meaning that underlies
these manifestations may possibly be in some ways unfamiliar, may not have been
thoroughly thought out by individual hearers. And I must begin with a general
word as to these special Avataras. You may remember that I said that the whole
universe may be regarded as the Avatara of the Supreme, the Self-revelation of
Ishvara. But we are not dealing with that general Self-revelation; nor are we
even considering the very many revelations that have taken place from time to
time, marked out by special characteristics; for we have seen by referring to
one or two of the old writings that many lists are given of the comings of the
Lord, and we are to-day concerned with only some of those, those that are
accepted specially as Avataras.
Now
on one point I confess myself puzzled at the outset, and I do not know whether
in your exoteric literature light is thrown upon the point as to how these ten
were singled out, who was the person who chose them out of a longer list, on
what authority that list was proclaimed. On that point I must simply state the
question, leaving it unanswered. It may be a matter familiar to those who have
made researches into the exoteric literature. It is not a point of quite
sufficient importance for the moment to spend on it time and trouble, in what
we may call the occult way of research. I leave that then aside, for there is
one reason why some of these stand out in a way which is clear and definite.
They mark stages in the evolution of the world. They mark new departures in the
growth of the developing life, and whether it was that fact which underlay the
exoteric choice I am unable to say; but certainly that fact by itself is
sufficient to justify the special distinction which is made.
There
is one other general point to consider. Accounts of these Avataras are found in
the Puranas; allusions to them, to one or other of them, are found in other of
the ancient writings, but the moment you come to very much detail you must turn
to the Puranic accounts; as you are aware, sages, in giving those Puranas, very
often described things as they are seen on the higher planes, giving the
description of the underlying truth of facts and events; you have appearances
described which sound very strange in the lower world; you have facts asserted
which raise very much of challenge in modern days. When you read in the Puranas
of strange forms and marvellous appearances, when you read accounts of
creatures that seem unlike anything that you have ever heard of or dreamed of
elsewhere, the modern mind, with its somewhat narrow limitations, is apt to
revolt against the accounts that are given; the modern mind, trained within the
limits of the science of observation, is necessarily circumscribed within those
limits and those limits are of an exceedingly narrow description; they are
limits which belong only to modern time, modern to men, in the true sense of
the word, though geological researches stretch of course far back into what we
call in this nineteenth century the night of time. But you must remember that
the moment geology goes beyond the historic period, which is a mere moment in
the history of the world, it has more of guesses than of facts, more of
theories than of proofs. If you take half a dozen modern geologists and ask
each of them in turn for the date of the period of which records remain in the
small number of fossils collected, you will find that almost every man gives a
different date, and that they deal with differences of millions of years as
though they were only seconds or minutes of ours. So that you will have to
remember in what science can tell you of the world, however accurate it may be
within its limits, that these limits are exceedingly narrow, narrow I mean when
measured by the sight that goes back kalpa after kalpa, and that knows that the
mind of the Supreme is not limited to the manifestations of a few hundred
thousands of years, but goes back million after million, hundreds of millions
after hundreds of millions, and that the varieties of form, the enormous
differences of types, the marvellous kinds of creatures which have come out of
that creative imagination, transcend in actuality all that man's mind can dream
of, and that the very wildest images that man can make fall far short of the
realities that actually existed in the past kalpas through which the universe
has gone. That word of warning is necessary, and also the warning that on the
higher planes things look very different from what they look down here. You
have here a reflection only of part of those higher forms of existence. Space
there has more dimensions than it has on the physical plane, and each dimension
of space adds a new fundamental variety to form; if to illustrate this I may
use a simile I have often used, it may perhaps convey to you a little idea of
what I mean. Two similes I will take each throwing a little light on a very
difficult subject Suppose that a picture is presented to you of a solid form;
the picture, being made by pen or pencil on a sheet of paper, must show on the
sheet, which is practically of two dimensions — a plane surface — a three
dimensional form; so that if you want to represent a solid object, a vase, you
must draw it flat, and you can only represent the solidity of that vase by
resorting to certain devices of light and shade, to the artificial device which
is called perspective, in order to make an illusory semblance of the third
dimension. There on the plane surface you get a solid appearance, and the eye
is deceived into thinking it sees a solid when really it is looking at a flat
surface. Now as a matter of fact if you show a picture to a savage, an
undeveloped savage, or to a very young child, they will not see a solid but
only a flat They will not recognise the picture as being the picture of a solid
object they have seen in the world round them; they will not see that that
artificial representation is meant to show a familiar solid, and it passes by
them without making any impression on the mind; only the education of the eye
enables you to see on a flat surface the picture of a solid form. Now, by an
effort of the imagination, can you think of a solid as being the representation
of a form in one dimension more, shown by a kind of perspective? Then you may
get a vague idea of what is meant when we speak of a further dimension in
space. As the picture is to the vase, so is the vase to a higher object of
which that vase itself is a reflection. So again if you think, say, of the
lotus flower I spoke of yesterday, as having just the tips of its leaves above
water, each tip would appear as a separate object. If you know the whole you
know that they are all parts of one object; but coming over the surface of the
water you will see tips only, one for each leaf of the seven-leaved lotus. So
is every globe in space an apparently separate object, while in reality it is
not separated at all, but part of a whole that exists in a space of more
dimensions; and the separateness is mere illusion due to the limitations of our
faculties.
Now
I have made this introduction in order to show you that when you read the
Puranas you consistently get the fact on the higher plane described in terms of
the lower, with the result that it seems unintelligible, seems
incomprehensible; then you have what is called an allegory, that is, a reality
which looks like a fancy down here, but is a deeper truth than the illusion of
physical matter, and is nearer to the reality of things than the things which
you call objective and real. If you follow that line of thought at all you will
read the Puranas with more intelligence and certainly with more reverence than
some of the modern Hindus are apt to show in the reading, and you will begin to
understand that when another vision is opened one sees things differently from
the way that one sees them on the physical plane, and that that which seems
impossible on the physical is what is really seen when you pass beyond the
physical limitations.
From
the Puranas then the stories come.
Let
me take the first three Avataras apart from the remainder, for a reason that
you will readily understand as we go through them. We take the Avatara which is
spoken of as that of Matsya or the fish; that which is spoken of as that of
Kurma or the tortoise; that which is spoken of as that of Varaha, or the boar.
Three animal forms; how strange! thinks the modern
graduate. How strange that the Supreme should take the forms of these lower
animals, a fish, a tortoise, a boar! What childish folly! "The babbling of
a race in its infancy", it is said by the pandits of the Western world. Do
not be so sure. Why this wonderful conceit as to the human form? Why should you
and I be the only worthy vessels of the Deity that have come out of the
illimitable Mind in the course of ages? What is there in this particular shape
of head, arms, and trunk which shall make it the only worthy vessel to serve as
a manifestation of the supreme Ishvara? I know of nothing so wonderful in the
mere outer form that should make that shape alone worthy to represent some of
the aspects of the Highest. And may it not be that from His standpoint those
great differences that we see between ourselves and those which we call the
lower forms of life may be almost imperceptible, since He transcends them all?
A little child sees an immense difference between himself of perhaps two and a
half feet high and a baby only a foot and a half high, and thinks himself a man
compared with that tiny form rolling on the ground and unable to walk. But to
the grown man there is not so much difference between the length of the two,
and one seems very much like the other. While we are very small we see great
differences between ourselves and others; but on the mountain top the hovel and
the palace do not differ so very much in height. They all look like anthills,
very much of the same size. And so from the standpoint of Ishvara, in the vast
hierarchies from the mineral to the loftiest Deva, the distinctions are but as
ant-hills in comparison with Himself, and one form or
another is equally worthy, so that it suits His purpose, and manifests His
will.
Now
for the Matsya Avatara; the story you will all know: when the great Manu,
Vaivasvata Manu, the Root Manu, as we call Him — that is, a Manu not of one
race only, but of a whole vast round of kosmic evolution, presiding over the
seven globes that are linked for the evolution of the world — that mighty Manu,
sitting one day immersed in contemplation, sees a tiny fish gasping for water;
and moved by compassion, as all great ones are, He takes up the little fish and
puts it in a bowl, and the fish grows till it fills the bowl; and He placed it
in a water vessel and it grew to the size of the vessel; then He took it out of
that vessel and put it into a bigger one; afterwards into a tank, a pond, a
river, the sea, and still the marvellous fish grew and grew and grew. The time
came when a vast change was impending; one of those changes called a minor
pralaya, and it was necessary that the seeds of life should be carried over
that pralaya to the next manvantara. That would be a minor pralaya and a minor
manvantara. What does that mean? It means a passage of the seeds of life from
one globe to another; from what we call the globe preceding our own to our own
earth. It is the function of the Root Manu, with the help and the guidance of
the planetary Logos, to transfer the seeds of life from one globe to the next,
so as to plant them in a new soil where further growth is possible. As waters
rose, waters of matter submerging the globe which was passing into pralaya, an
ark, a vessel appeared; into this vessel stepped the great Rishi with others,
and the seeds of life were carried by Them, and as They go forth upon the
waters a mighty fish appears and to the horn of that fish the vessel is
fastened by a rope, and it conveys the whole safely to the solid ground where
the Manu rebegins His work. A story! yes, but a story that tells a truth; for
looking at it as it takes place in the history of the world, we see the vast
surging ocean of matter, we see the Root Manu and the great Initiates with Him
gathering up the seeds of life from the world whose work is over, carrying them
under the guidance and with the help of the planetary Vishnu to the new globe
where new impulse is to be given to the life; and the reason why the fish form
was chosen was simply because in the building up again of the world, it was at
first covered with water, and only that form of life was originally possible,
so far as denser physical life was concerned.
You
have in that first stage what the geologists call the Silurian Age, the age of
fishes, when the great divine manifestation was of all these forms of life. The
Purana rightly starts in the previous Kalpa, rightly starts the manifestations
with the manifestation in the form of the fish. Not so very ridiculous after
all, you see, when read by knowledge instead of by ignorance; a truth, as the
Puranas are full of truth, if they were only read with intelligence and not
with prejudice.
But
some of you may say that there is confusion about these first Avataras; in
several accounts we find that the Boar stands the first; that is true, but the
key of it is this; the Boar Avatara initiated that evolution which was followed
unbrokenly by the human; whereas the other two bring in great stages, each of
which is regarded as a separate kalpa; and if you look into the Vishnu Purana
you will find there the key; for when that begins to relate the incarnation of
the Boar, there is just a sentence thrown in, that the Matsya and Kurma
Avataras belong to previous kalpas.
Now
if we take the theosophical nomenclature, we find each of these kalpas covers
what we call a Root Race, and you may remember that the first Root Race of
humanity had not human form at all but was simply a floating mass able to live
in the waters which then covered the earth, and only showing the ordinary
protoplasmic motions connected with such a type of life and possible at that
stage of its evolution. It was a seed of form rather than a form itself; it was
the seed planted by the Manu in the waters of the earth, that
out of that humanity might evolve. But the general course of physical evolution
passed through the stage of the fish; and geology there gives a true fact,
though it does not understand, naturally, the hidden meaning; while the Purana
gives you the reality of the manifestation, and the deeper truth that underlies
the stages of the evolving world.
Then
we find, tracing it onward, that this great age passes, and the world begins to
rise out of the waters. How then shall types be brought forth in order that
evolution may go on? The next great type is to be fitted either for land or for
water; for the next stage of the earth shows the waters draining gradually
away, and the land appearing, and the creatures that are the marked
characteristic of the age must exist partially on land and partially in water.
Here again there must be manifestation of the type of life, this time of what
we call the reptile type; the tortoise is chosen as the typical creature, and
while the tortoise typifies the type to be evolved, reptiles, amphibious
creatures of every description, swarm over the earth, becoming more and more land-like
in their character as the proportion of land to water increases. There is
meanwhile going on, in the "imperishable sacred land", a preparation
for further evolution. There is one part of the globe that changes not, that
from the beginning has been, and will last while the globe is lasting; it is
called the "imperishable land." And there the great Rishis gather, and thence they ever come forth for the helping of
man; that is the imperishable sacred land, sometimes called the "sacred
pole of the earth." Pole itself exists not on the physical plane but on
the higher, and its reflection coming downwards makes, as it were, one spot
which never changes, but is ever guarded from the profane tread of ordinary
men. There took place a most instructive phenomenon. The type of the evolution
then preceding, the Tortoise, the Logos in that form, makes Himself the base of
the revolving axis of evolution. That is typified by Mandara, the mountain
which, placed on the tortoise, is made to revolve by the hosts of Suras and
Asuras, one pulling at the head of the serpent, and the other at the tail — the
positive and negative forces that I spoke of yesterday. So the churning begins
in matter, evolving types of life. The type is ever evolved before the lower manifestation, the type appears before the copies of it are
born in the lower world. And how often have the students of the great Teachers
themselves seen the very thing occur; the churning of the waters of matter
giving forth all the types of the many sorts and species that are generated in
the lower world; these are the archetypes, as we call them, of classes and
creatures, always produced in preparation for the forward stretch of evolution.
There came forth one by one the archetypes, the elephant, the horse, the woman,
and so on, one after another, showing the track along which evolution was to
go. And first of all, Amrita, nectar of immortality, comes forth, symbol of the
one life which passes through every form — and that life appears above the
waters the taking of which is necessary in order that every form may live.
We
cannot delay on details; I can only trace hastily the outline, showing you how
real is the truth that underlies the story, and as that gradually goes on and
the types are ready, there comes the whelming of the world under the waters,
and the great continents vanish for a time.
Then
comes the third Avatara, the Varaha. No earth is to be
seen; the waters of the flood have overwhelmed it. The types that are to be
produced on earth are waiting in the higher region for place on which to
manifest. How shall the earth be brought up from the waters which have
overwhelmed it? Now once again the great Helper is needed, the God, the
Protector of Evolution. Then in the form of a mighty Boar, whose form filled
the heaven, plunging down into the waters that He alone could separate, the
Great One descends. He brings up the earth from the lower region where it was
lying awaiting His coming; and the land rises up again from below the surface
of the flood, and the vast Lemurian continent is the earth of that far-off age.
Here science has a word to say, rightly enough, that on the Lemurian continent
were developed many types of life, and there the mammals first made their
appearance. Quite so; that was exactly what the sages taught thousands upon
thousands of years ago; that when the Boar, the great type of the mammal,
plunged into the waters to bring up the earth, then was started the mammalian
evolution, and the continent thus rescued from the waters was crowded with the forms
of the mammalian kingdom. Just as the Fish had typified the Silurian epoch,
just as the Tortoise had started on its way the great amphibian evolution, so
did the Boar, that typical mammal, start the mammalian evolution, and we come
to the Lemurian continent with its wonderful variety of forms of mammalian
life. Not so very ignorant after all, you see, the ancient writings! For men
are only re-discovering to-day what has been in the hands of the followers of
the Rishis for thousands, tens of thousands of years.
Then we come to a strange incarnation on this Lemurian continent: frightful conflicts existed; we are nearing what in the theosophical nomenclature is the middle of the third Race, and man as man will shortly appear with all the characteristics of his nature. He is not yet quite come to birth; strange forms are seen, half human and half animal, wholly monstrous; terrible struggles arise between these monstrous forms born from the slime as it is said — from the remains of former creations — and the newer and higher life in which the future evolution is enshrined. These forms are represented in the Puranas as those of the race of Daityas, who ruled the earth, who struggled against the Deva manifestations, who conquered the Devas from time to time, who subjected them, who ruled over earth and heaven alike, bringing every thing under their sway. You may read in the splendid stanzas of the Book of Dzyan, as given us by H. P. B., hints of that mighty struggle of which the Puranas are so full, a struggle which was as real as any struggle of later days, an absolute historical fact that many of us have seen. We are instructed over and over again of a frightful conflict of forms, the forms of the past, monstrous in their strength and in their outline, against whom the Sons of Light were battling, against whom the great Lords of the Flame came down. One of these conflicts, the greatest of all, is given in the story of the Avatara known as that of Narasimha — the Man-Lion. You know the story; what Hindu does not know the story of Prahlada? In him we have typified the dawning spirituality which is to show in the higher races of Daityas as they pass on into definite human evolution, and their form gives way that sexual man may be born. I need not dwell on that familiar story of the devotee of Vishnu; how his Daitya father strove to kill him because the name of Hari was ever on his lips; how he strove to slay him, with a sword, and the sword fell broken from the neck of the child; how then he tried to poison him, and Vishnu appeared and ate first of the poisoned rice, so that the boy might eat it with the name of Hari on his lips; how his father strove to slay him by the furious elephant, by the fang of the serpent, by throwing him over a precipice, and by crushing him under a stone. But ever the cry of "Hari, Hari", brought deliverance, for in the elephant, in the fang of the serpent, in the precipice, and in the stone, Hari was ever present, and his devotee was safe in that presence: how finally when