Theosophy - Avataras by Annie Besant
AVATARAS
by
Annie Besant
Four
Lectures Delivered at the Twenty-fourth Anniversary Meeting
of the Theosophical Society at Adyar Madras, December 1899.
Contents:
What is an Avatara
The Source of and Need for Avataras
Some Special Avataras
Shri Krishna
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 Nara and Narayana;
it is said He appeared as Kapila; He took female forms, and so on,
a whole long list being given of the shapes that He assumed. And,
turning from that to a very illuminative passage in the Mahabharata,
we find Him in the form of Shri Krishna explaining a profound truth
to Arjuna.
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"
THIRD LECTURE
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 the father, challenging
the omnipresence of the Deity, pointed to the stone pillar and said
in mucking language: "Is your Hari also in the pillar?"
"Hari, Hari," cried the boy, and the pillar burst asunder,
and the mighty form came forth and slew the Daitya that doubted, in
order that he might learn the omnipresence of the Supreme. A story?
facts, not fiction; truth, not imagination; and if you could look
back to the time of those struggles, there would seem to you nothing
strange or abnormal in the story; for you would see it repeated with
less vividness in the smaller struggles where the Sons of the Fire
were purging and redeeming the earth, in order that the later human
evolution might take place.
We pass from those four
Avataras, every one of which comes within what is called the Satya
Yuga of the earth — not of the race remember, not the smaller
cycle, but of the earth — the Satya Yuga of the earth as a whole,
when periods of time were of immense length, and when progress was
marvellously slow. Then we come to the next age, that which we call
the Treta Yuga, that which is, in the theosophical chronology —
and I put the two together in order that students may be able to work
their way out in detail — the middle of the third Root Race,
when humanity receives the light from above, and when man as man begins
to evolve. How is that evolution marked? By the coming of the Supreme
in human form, as Vamana, the Dwarf. The Dwarf? Yes; for man was as
yet but dwarf in the truly human stature, although vast in outer appearance;
and He came as the inner man, small, yet stronger than the outer form;
against him was Bali, the mighty, showing the outer form, while Vamana,
the Dwarf, showed the man that should be. And when Bali had offered
a great sacrifice, the Dwarf as a brahmana came to beg.
It is curious this question
of the caste of the Avataras. When we once come to the human Avataras,
They are mostly kshattriyas, as you know, but in two cases They are
brahmanas, and this is one of them; for He was going to beg, and kshattriya
might not beg. Only he to whom the earth's wealth should be as nothing,
who should have no store of wealth to hold, to whom gold and earth
should be as one, only he may go to beg. He was an ancient brahmana,
not a modern brahmana.
He came with begging bowl
in hand, to beg of the king; for of what use is sacrifice unless something
be given at the sacrifice? Now Bali was a pious ruler, on the side
of the evolution that was passing away, and gladly gave a boon. "Brahmana,
take thy boon", said he. "Three steps of earth alone I ask
for", said the Dwarf. Of that little man surely three steps would
not cover much, and the great king with his world-wide dominion might
well give three steps of earth to the short and puny Dwarf. But one
step covered earth, and the next step covered sky. Where could the
third step be planted, where? so that the gift might be made complete.
Nothing was left for Bali to give save himself; nothing to make his
gift complete - and his word might not be broken — save his
own body. So, recognising the Lord of all, he threw himself before
Him, and the third step, planted on his body, fulfilled the promise
of the king and made him the ruler of the lower regions, of Patala.
Such the story. How full of significance. This inner man - so small
at that stage but really so mighty, who was to rule alike the earth
and heaven - could for his third step find no place to put his foot
upon save his own lower nature; he was to go forward and forward ever;
that is hinted in the third step that was taken. What a graphic picture
of the evolution that lay in front, the wondrous evolution that now
was to begin.
And I may just remind you
in passing that there is one word in the Rig Veda, which refers to
this very Avatara, that has been a source of endless controversy and
dispute as to its meaning; there it is said:
Through all this world
strode Vishnu; thrice His foot He planted and the whole Was gathered
in His footstep's dust. (I. xxii, 17) [
See also I. cliv., which speaks of His three steps, within which all
living creatures have their habitation; the three steps are said to
be "the earth, the heavens, and all living creatures." Here
Bali is made the symbol of all living things.]
That too is one of the
"babblings of child humanity." I know not what figure the
greatest man could use more poetical, more full of meaning, more sublime
in its imagery, than that the whole world was gathered in the dust
of the foot of the Supreme. For what is the world save the dust of
His footsteps, and how would it have any life save as His foot has
touched it?
So we pass, still treading
onwards in the Treta Yuga, and we come to another manifestation —
that of Parashurama; a strange Avatara you may think, and a partial
Avatara, let me say, as we shall see when we come to look at His life
and read the words that are spoken of Him. The Yuga had now gone far
and the kshattriya caste had risen and was ruling, mighty in its power,
great in its authority, the one warrior ruling caste, and alas! abusing
its power, as men will do when souls are still being trained, and
are young for their surroundings. The kshattriya caste abused its
power, built up in order that it might rule; the duty of the ruler,
remember, is essentially protection: but these used their power not
to protect, but to plunder, not to help but to oppress. A terrible
lesson must be taught the ruling caste, in order that it might learn,
if possible, that the duty of ruling was to protect and support and
help, and not to tyrannise and plunder. The first great lesson was
given to the kings of the earth, the rulers of men, a lesson that
had to be repeated over and over again, and is not yet completely
learnt. A divine manifestation came in order that that lesson might
be taught; and the Teacher was not a kshattriya save by mother. A
strange story, that story of the birth. Food given to two kshattriya
women, each of whom was to bear a son, the husband of one of them
a brahmana; and the two women exchanged the food, and that meant to
bring forth a kshattriya son was taken by the woman with the brahmana
husband. An accident, men would say; there are no accidents in a universe
of law. The food which was full of kshattriya energy thus went into
the brahmana family, for it would not have been fitting that a kshattriya
should destroy kshattriyas. The lesson would not thus have been so
well taught to the world. So that we have the strange phenomenon of
the brahmana coming with an axe to slay the kshattriya, and three
times seven times that axe was raised in slaughter, cutting the kshattriya
trunk off from the surface of the earth. But while Parashurama was
still in the body, a greater Avatara came forth to show what a kshattriya
king should be. The kshattriyas abusing their place and their power
were swept away by Parashurama, and, ere He had left the earth where
the bitter lesson had been taught, the ideal kshattriya came down
to teach, now by example, the lesson of what should be, after the
lesson of what should not be had been enforced. The boy Rama was born,
on whose exquisite story we have not time long to dwell, the ideal
ruler, the utterly perfect king. While a boy He went forth with the
great teacher Visvamitra, in order to protect the Yogi's sacrifice;
a boy, almost a child, but able to drive away, as you remember, the
Rakshasas that interfered with the sacrifice, and then He and His
beloved brother Lakshmana and the Yogi went on to the court of king
Janaka. And there, at the court, was a great bow, a bow which had
belonged to Mahadeva Himself. To bend and string that bow was the
task for the man who would wed Sita, the child of marvellous birth,
the maiden who had sprung from the furrow as the plough went through
the earth, who had no physical father or physical mother. Who should
wed the peerless maiden, the incarnation of Shri, Lakshmi, the consort
of Vishnu? Who should wed Her save the Avatara of Vishnu Himself?
So the mighty bow remained unstrung, for who might string it until
the boy Rama came? And He takes it up with boyish carelessness, and
bends it so strongly that it breaks in half, the crash echoing through
earth and sky. He weds Sita, the beautiful, and goes forth with Her,
and with His brother Lakshmana and his bride, and with His father
who had come to the bridal, and with a vast procession, wending their
way back to their own town Ayodhya. This breaking of Mahadeva's bow
has rung through earth, the crashing of the bow has shaken all the
worlds, and all, both men and Devas, know that the bow has been broken.
Among the devotees of Mahadeva, Parashurama hears the clang of the
broken bow, the bow of the One He worshipped; and proud with the might
of His strength, still with the energy of Vishnu in Him, He goes forth
to meet this insolent boy, who had dared to break the bow that no
other arm could bend. He challenges Him, and handing His own bow bids
Him try what He can do with that Can He shoot an arrow from its string?
Rama takes this offered bow, strings it, and sets an arrow on the
string. Then He stops, for in front of Him there is the body of a
brahmana; shall He draw an arrow against that form? As the two Ramas
stand face to face, the energy of the elder, it is written, passes
into the younger; the energy of Vishnu, the energy of the Supreme,
leaves the form in which it had been dwelling and enters the higher
manifestation of the same divine life. The bow was stretched and the
arrow waiting, but Rama would not shoot it forth lest harm should
come, until He had pacified His antagonist; then feeling that energy
pass, Parashurama bows before Rama, diviner than Himself, hails Him
as the Supreme Lord of the worlds, bends in reverence before Him,
and then goes away. That Avatara was over, although the form in which
the energy had dwelt yet persisted. That is why I said it was a lesser
Avatara. Where you have the form persisting when the influence is
withdrawn, you have the clear proof that there the incarnation cannot
be said to be complete; the passing from the one to the other is the
sign of the energy taken back by the Giver and put into a new vessel
in which new work is to be done.
The story of Rama you know;
we need not follow it further in detail; we spoke of it yesterday
in its highest aspect as combating the forces of evil and starting
the world, as it were, anew. We find the great reign of Rama lasting
ten thousand years in the Dvapara Yuga, the Yuga at the close of which
Shri Krishna came.
Then comes the Mighty One,
Shri Krishna Himself, of whom I speak not to-day; we will try to study
that Avatara to-morrow with such insight and reverence as we may possess.
Pass over that then for the moment, leaving it for fuller study, and
we come to the ninth Avatara as it is called, that of the Lord Buddha.
Now round this much controversy has raged, and a theory exists current
to some extent among the Hindus that the Lord Buddha, though an incarnation
of Vishnu, came to lead astray those who did not believe the Vedas,
came to spread confusion upon earth. Vishnu is the Lord of order,
not of disorder; the Lord of love, not the Lord of hatred; the Lord
of compassion, who only slays to help the life onward when the form
has become an obstruction. And they blaspheme who speak of an incarnation
of the Supreme, as coming to mislead the world that He has made. Rightly
did your own learned pandit, T. Subba Row, speak of that theory with
the disdain born of knowledge; for no one who has a shadow of occult
learning, no one who knows anything of the inner realities of life,
could thus speak of that beautiful and gracious manifestation of the
Supreme, or dream that He could take the mighty form of an Avatara
in order to mislead.
But there is another point
to put about this Avatara, on which, perhaps, I may come into conflict
with people on another side. For this is the difficulty of keeping
the middle path, the razor path which goes neither to the left nor
to the right, along which the great Gurus lead us. On either side
you find objection to the central teaching. The Lord Buddha, in the
ordinary sense of the word, was not what we have defined as an Avatara.
He was the first of our own humanity who climbed upwards to that point,
and there merged in the Logos and received full illumination. His
was not a body taken by the Logos for the purpose of revealing Himself,
but was the last in myriads of births through which he had climbed
to merge in Ishvara at last That is not what is normally spoken of
as an Avatara, though, you may say, the result truly is the same.
But in the case of the Avatara, the evolving births are in previous
kalpas, and the Avatara comes after the man has merged in the Logos,
and the body is taken for the purpose of revelation. But he who became
Gautama Buddha had climbed though birth after birth in our own kalpa,
as well as in the kalpas that went before; and he was incarnated many
a time when the great Fourth Race dwelt in mighty Atlantis, and rose
onward to take the office of the Buddha; for the Buddha is the title
of an office, not of a particular man. Finally by his own struggles,
the very first of our race, he was able to reach that great function
in the world. What is the function? That of the Teacher of Gods and
men. The previous Buddhas had been Buddhas who came from another planet
Humanity had not lived long enough here to evolve its own son to that
height. Gautama Buddha was human born. He had evolved through the
Fourth Race into this first family of the Aryan Race, the Hindu. By
birth after birth in India He had completed His course and took His
final body in Aryavarta, to make the proclamation of the law to men.
But the proclamation was
not made primarily for India. It was given in India because India
is the place whence the great religious revelations go forth by the
will of the Supreme. Therefore was He born in India, but His law was
specially meant for nations beyond the bounds of Aryavarta, that they
might learn a pure morality, a noble ethic, disjoined — because
of the darkness of the age — from all the complicated teachings
which we find in connection with the subtle, metaphysical Hindu faith.
Hence you find in the teachings
of the Lord Buddha two great divisions; one a philosophy meant for
the learned, then an ethic disjoined from the philosophy, so far as
the masses are concerned, noble and pure and great, yet easy to be
grasped. For the Lord knew that we were going into an age of deeper
and deeper materialism, that other nations were going to arise, that
India for a time was going to sink down for other nations to rise
above her in the scale of nations. Hence was it necessary to give
a teaching of morality fitted for a more materialistic age, so that
even if nations would not believe in the Gods they might still practise
morality and obey the teachings of the Lord. In order also that this
land might not suffer loss, in order that India itself might not lose
its subtle metaphysical teachings and the widespread belief among
all classes of people in the existence of the Gods and their part
in the affairs of men, the work of the great Lord Buddha was done.
He left morality built upon a basis that could not be shaken by any
change of faith, and, having done His work, passed away. Then was
sent another great One, overshadowed by the power of Mahadeva, Shri
Shankaracharya, in order that by His teaching He might give, in the
Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy which would do intellectually what
morally the Buddha had done, which intellectually would guard spirituality
and allow a materialistic age to break its teeth on the hard nut of
a flawless philosophy. Thus in India metaphysical religion triumphed,
while the teaching of the Blessed One passed from the Indian soil,
to do its noble work in lands other than the land of Aryavarta, which
must keep unshaken its belief in the Gods, and where highest and lowest
alike must bow before their power. That is the real truth about this
much disputed question as to the teaching of the ninth Avatara; the
fact was that His teaching was not meant for His birthplace, but was
meant for other younger nations that were rising up around, who did
not follow the Vedas, but who yet needed instruction in the path of
righteousness; not to mislead them but to guide them, was His teaching
given. But, as I say, and as I repeat, what in it might have done
harm in India had it been left alone was prevented by the coming of
the great Teacher of the Advaita. You must remember, that His name
has been worn by man after man, through century after century; but
the Shri Shankaracharya on whom was the power of Mahadeva was born
but a few years after the passing away of the Buddha, as the records
of the Dwaraka Math show plainly - giving date after date backward,
until they bring His birth within 60 or 70 years of the passing away
of the Buddha.
We come to the tenth Avatara,
the future one, the Kalki. Of that but little may be said; but one
or two hints perchance may be given. With His coming will dawn a brighter
age; with His coming the Kali Yuga will pass away; with His coming
will also come a higher race of men. He will come when there is born
upon earth the sixth Root Race. There will then be a great change
in the world, a great manifestation of truth, of occult truth, and
when He comes then occultism will again be able to show itself to
the world by proofs that none will be able to challenge or to deny;
and He in His coming will give the rule over the sixth Root Race to
the two Kings, of whom you read in the Kalki Purana. As we look back
down the past stream of time we find over and over again two great
figures standing side by side — the ideal King and the ideal
Priest. They work together; the one rules, the other teaches; the
one governs the nation, the other instructs it And such a pair of
mighty ones come down in every age for each and every Race. Each Race
has its own Teacher, the ideal brahmana, called in the Buddhist language
the Bodhisattva, the learned, full of wisdom and truth. Each has also
its own ruler, the Manu. Those two we can trace in the past, in Their
actual incarnations; and we see Them in the third, the fourth, and
fifth Races; the Manu in each race is the ideal King, the Brahmana
in each race is the ideal Teacher; and we learn that when the Kalki
Avatara shall come He shall call from the sacred village of Shamballa
— the village known to the occultist though not to the profane
— two Kings who have remained throughout the age in order to
help the world in its evolution. And the name of the Manu who will
be the King of the next Race, is said in the Purana to be Moru; and
the name of the ideal brahmana who will be the Teacher of the next
Race is said to be Devapi; and these two are King and Teacher for
the sixth Race that is to be born.
Those of you who have read
something of the wondrous story of the past will know that the choosing
out of the new Race, the evolving of it, the making of a new Root
Race, is a thing that takes centuries, milleniums, sometimes hundreds
of thousands of years; and that the two who are to be its King and
Priest, the Manu and the Brahmana, are at Their work throughout the
centuries, choosing the men who may be the seeds of the new Race.
In the womb of the fourth Race a choice was made out of which the
fifth was born; isolated in the Gobi desert, for enormous periods
of time, that chosen family was trained, educated, reared, till its
Manu incarnated in it, and its Teacher also incarnated in it, and
the first Aryan family was led forth to settle in Aryavarta. Now in
the womb of the fifth Race, the sixth Race is a choosing, and the
King and the Teacher of the sixth Race are already at Their mighty
and beneficent work. They are choosing one by one, trying and testing,
those who shall form the nucleus of the sixth Race; They are taking
soul by soul, subjecting each to many a test, to many an ordeal, to
see if there be the strength out of which a new Race can spring; and
in fulness of time when Their work is ready, then will come the Kalki
Avatara, to sweep away the darkness, to send the Kali Yuga into the
past, to proclaim the birth of the new Satya Yuga, with a new and
more spiritual Race, that is to live therein. Then will He call out
the chosen, the King Moru and the Brahmana Devapi, and give into Their
hands the Race that now They are building, the Race to inhabit a fairer
world, to carry onwards the evolution of humanity.
FOURTH LECTURE
Shri
Krishna
My brothers, there are
themes so lofty that tongue of Deva would not suffice to do full justice
to that which they enclose, and when we think of the music of Shri
Krishna's flute, all human music seems as discord amidst its strains.
Nevertheless since bhakti grows by thought and word, it is not amiss
that we should come near a subject so sacred; only in dealing with
it we must needs feel our incompetency, we must needs regret our limitations,
we must needs wish for greater power of expression than we can have
down here. For, perhaps, amid all the divine manifestations that have
glorified the world, there is none which has aroused a wider, tenderer
feeling than the Avatara which we are to study this morning.
The austerer glories of
Mahadeva, the Lord of the burning ground, attract more the hearts
of those who are weary of the world and who see the futility of worldly
attractions; but Shri Krishna is the God of the household, the God
of family life, the God whose manifestations attract in every phase
of His Self-revelation; He is human to the very core; born in humanity,
as He has said, He acts as a man. As a child, He is a real child,
full of playfulness, of fun, of winsome grace. Growing up into boyhood,
into manhood, He exercises the same human fascination over the hearts
of men, of women, and of children; the God in whose presence there
is always joy, the God in whose presence there is continual laughter
and music. When we think of Shri Krishna we seem to hear the ripple
of the river, the rustling of the leaves in the forest, the lowing
of the kine in the pasture, the laughter of happy children playing
round their parents' knees. He is so fundamentally the God who is
human in everything; who bends in human sympathy over the cradle of
the babe, who sympathises with the play of the youth, who is the friend
of the lover, the blesser of the bridegroom and the bride, who smiles
on the young mother when her first-born lies in her arms — everywhere
the God of love and of human happiness; what wonder that His winsome
grace has fascinated the hearts of men!
We are to study Him, then,
this morning. Now an Avatara — I say this to clear away some
preliminary difficulties — an Avatara has two great aspects
to the world. First, He is a historical fact Do not let that be forgotten.
When you are reading the story of the great Ones, you are reading
history and not fable. But it is more than history; the Avataras acts
out on the stage of the world a mighty drama. He is, as it were, a
player on the world's of Shri Krishna, and the vast range that He
covered as regards His manifestations of complex human life, in order
to render the vast subject a little more manageable, I have divided
this drama, as it were, into its separate acts. I am using for a moment
the language of the stage, for I think it will make my meaning rather
more clear. That is, in dealing with His life, I have taken its stages
which are clearly marked out, and in each of these we shall see one
great type of the teaching which the world is meant to learn from
the playing of this drama before the eyes of men. To some extent the
stages correspond with marked periods in the life, and to some extent
they overlap each other; but by having them clearly in our minds we
shall be able, I think, to grasp better the whole object of the Avatara
— we shall have as it were compartments in the mind in which
the different types of teaching may be placed.
First then He comes to
show forth to the world a great Object of bhakti, and the love of
God to His bhakta, or devotee. That is the aim of the first act of
the great drama — to stand forth as the Object of devotion,
and to show forth the love with which God regards His devotees. We
have there a marked stage in the life of Shri Krishna.
Then the second act of
the drama may be said to be His character as the destroyer of the
opposing forces that retard evolution, and that runs through the whole
of His life.
The third act is that of
the statesman, the wise, politic, and intellectual actor on the world's
stage of history, the guiding force of the nation by His wondrous
policy and intelligence, standing forth not as king but rather as
statesman.
Then we have Him as friend,
the human friend, especially of the Pandavas and of Arjuna.
The next act is that of
Shri Krishna as Teacher, the world-teacher, not the teacher of one
race alone.
Then we see Him in the
strange and wondrous aspect of the Searcher of the hearts of men,
the trier and tester of human nature.
Finally, we may regard
Him in His manifestation as the Supreme, the all-pervading life of
the universe, who looks on nothing as outside Himself, who embraces
in His arms evil and good, darkness and light, nothing alien to Himself.
Into these seven acts,
as it were, the life-history may be divided, and each of them might
serve as the study of a life-time instead of our compressing them
into the lecture of a morning. We will, however, take them in turn,
however inadequately; for the hints I give can be worked out by you
in detail according to the constitution of your own minds. One aspect
will attract one man, another aspect will attract another; all the
aspects are worthy of study, all are provocative of devotion. But
most of all, with regard to devotion, is the earliest stage of His
life inspiring and full of benediction, those early years of the Lord
as infant, as child, as young boy, when He is dwelling in Vraja, in
the forest of Brindaban, when He is living with the cowherds and their
wives and their children, the marvellous child who stole the hearts
of men. It is noticeable — and if it had been remembered many
a blasphemy would not have been uttered — that Shri Krishna
chose to show Himself as the great object of devotion, as the lover
of the devotee, in the form of a child, not in that of a man.
Come then with me to the
time of His birth, remembering that before that birth took place upon
earth, the deities had been to Vishnu in the higher regions, and had
asked Him to interfere in order that earth might be lightened of her
load, that the oppression of the incarnate Daityas might be stayed;
and then Vishnu said to the Gods: Go ye and incarnate yourselves in
portions among men, go ye and take birth amid humanity. Great Rishis
also took birth in the place where Vishnu Himself was to be born,
so that ere He came, the surroundings of the drama were, as it were,
made in the place of His coming, and those that we speak of as the
cowherds of Vraja, Nanda and those around Him, the Gopis and all the
inhabitants of that wondrously blessed spot, were, we are told, "God-like
persons"; nay more, they were "the Protectors of the worlds"
who were born as men for the progress of the world. But that means
that the Gods themselves had come down and taken birth as men; and
when you think of all that took place throughout the wonderful childhood
of the Lila [Play ] of Shri Krishna, you must remember that those
who played that act of the drama were no ordinary men, no ordinary
women; they were the Protectors of the worlds incarnated as cowherds
round Him. And the Gopis, the graceful wives of the shepherds, they
were the Rishis of ancient days, who by devotion to Vishnu had gained
the blessing of being incarnated as Gopis, in order that they might
surround His childhood, and pour out their love at the tiny feet of
the boy they saw as boy, of the God they worshipped as supreme.
When all these preparations
were made for the coming of the child, the child was born. I am not
dwelling on all the well-known incidents that surrounded His birth,
the prophecy that the destroyer of Kansa was to be born, the futile
shutting up in the dungeon, the chaining with irons, and all the other
follies with which the earthly tyrant strove to make impossible of
accomplishment the decree of the Supreme. You all know how his plans
came to nothing, as the mounds of sand raised by the hands of children
are swept into a level plain when one wave of the sea ripples over
the playground of the child. He was born, born in His four-armed form,
shining out for the moment in the dungeon, which before His birth
had been irradiated by Him through His mother's body, who was said
to be like an alabaster vase — so pure was she — with
a flame within it. For the Lord Shri Krishna was within her womb,
herself the alabaster vase which was as a lamp containing Him, the
world's light, so that the glory illuminated the darkness of the dungeon
where she lay. At His birth he came as Vishnu, for the moment showing
Himself with all the signs of the Deity on Him, with the discus, with
the conch, with the shrivatsa on His breast, with all the recognised
emblems of the Lord. But that form quickly vanished, and only the
human child lay before His parents' eyes. And the father, you remember,
taking Him up, passed through the great locked doors and all the rest
of it, and carried Him in safety into his brother's house, where He
was to dwell in the place prepared for His coming.
As a babe He showed forth
the power that was in Him, as we shall see, when we come to the second
stage, the destroyer of the forces of evil. But for the moment only
watch Him as He plays in his foster mother's house, as He gambols
with children of His own age. And as He is growing into a boy, able
to go alone, He begins wandering through the fields and through the
forest, and the notes of His wondrous flute are heard in all the groves
and over all the plains. The child, a child of five — only five
years of age when He wandered with His magic flute in His hands, charming
the hearts of all that heard; so that the boys left tending the cattle
and followed the music of the flute; the women left their household
tasks and followed where the flute was playing; the men ceased their
labours that they might feast their ears on the music of the flute.
Nay, not only the men, the women and the children, but the cows, it
is said, stopped their grazing to listen as the notes fell on their
ears, and the calves ceased suckling as the music came to them on
the wind, and the river rippled up that it might hear the better,
and the trees bowed down their branches that they might not lose a
note, and the birds no longer sang lest their music should make discord
in the melody, as the wondrous child wandered over the country, and
the music of heaven flowed from His magic flute.
And thus He lived and played
and sported, and the hearts of all the cowherds and of their wives
and daughters went out to that marvellous child. And He played with
them and loved them, and they would take Him up and place His baby
feet on their bosoms, and would sing to Him as the Lord of all, the
Supreme, the mighty One. They recognised the Deity in the child that
played round their homes, and many lessons He taught them, this child,
amid His gambols and His pranks — lessons that still teach the
world, and that those who know most understand best.
Let me take one instance
which ignorant lips have used most in order to insult, to try to defame
the majesty that they do not understand. But let me say this: that
I believe that in most cases where these bitter insults are uttered,
they are uttered by people who have never really read the story, and
who have heard only bits of it and have supplied the rest out of their
own imaginations. I therefore take a particular incident which I have
heard most spoken of with bitterness as a proof of the frightful immorality
of Shri Krishna.
While the child of six
was one day wandering along, as He would, a number of the Gopis were
bathing nude in the river, having cast aside their cloths —
as they should not have done, that being against the law and showing
carelessness of womanly modesty. Leaving their garments on the bank
they had plunged into the river. The child of six saw this with the
eye of insight, and He gathered up their cloths and climbed up a tree
near by, carrying them with Him, and threw them round His own shoulders
and waited to see what would chance. The water was bitterly cold and
the Gopis were shivering; but they did not like to come out of it
before the clear steady eyes of the child. And He called them to come
and get the garments they had thrown off; and as they hesitated, the
baby lips told them that they had sinned against God by immodestly
casting aside the garments that should have been worn, and must therefore
expiate their sin by coming and taking from His hands that which they
had cast aside. They came and worshipped, and He gave them back their
robes. An immoral story, with a child of six as the central figure!
It is spoken of as though he were a full grown man, insulting the
modesty of women. The Gopis were Rishis, and the Lord, the Supreme,
as a babe is teaching them a lesson. But there is more than that;
there is a profound occult lesson below the story — a story
repeated over and over again in different forms — and it is
this: that when the soul is approaching the supreme Lord at one great
stage of initiation, it has to pass through a great ordeal; stripped
of everything on which it has hitherto relied, stripped of everything
that is not of its inner Self, deprived of all external aid, of all
external protection, of all external covering, the soul itself, in
its own inherent life, must stand naked and alone with nothing to
rely on, save the life of the Self within it If it flinches before
the ordeal, if it clings to anything to which hitherto it has looked
for help, if in that supreme hour it cries out for friend or helper,
nay even for the Guru himself, the soul fails in that ordeal. Naked
and alone it must go forth, with absolutely none to aid it save the
divinity within itself. And it is that nakedness of the soul as it
approaches the supreme goal, that is told of in that story of Shri
Krishna, the child, and the Gopis, the nakedness of life before the
One who gave it You find many another similar allegory. When the Lord
comes in the Kalki, the tenth, Avatara, He fights on the battlefield
and is overcome. He uses all His weapons; every weapon fails Him;
and it is not till He casts every weapon aside and fights with His
naked hands, that He conquers. Exactly the same idea. Intellect, everything,
fails the naked soul before God.[ So in the "Imitation of Christ",
the work of an occultist, it is written that we must "naked follow
the naked Jesus." ]
If I have taken up this
story specially, out of hundreds of stories, to dwell upon, it is
because it is one of the points of attack, and because you who are
Hindus by birth ought to know enough of the inner truths of your own
religion not to stand silent and ashamed when attacks are made, but
should speak with knowledge and thus prevent such blasphemies.
Then we learn more details
of His play with the Gopis as a child of seven: how He wandered into
the forest and disappeared and all went after Him seeking Him; how
they tried to imitate His own play, in order to fill up the void that
was left by His absence. The child of seven, that He was at this time,
disappeared for a while, but came back to those who loved Him, as
God ever does with His bhaktas. And then takes place that wondrous
dance, the Rasa [Dance ] of Shri Krishna, part of His Lila, when He
multiplied Himself so that every pair of Gopis found Him standing
between them; amid the ring of women the child was there between each
pair of them, giving a hand to each; and so the mystic dance was danced.
This is another of these points of attack which are made by ignorant
minds. What but an unclean mind can see aught that is impure in the
child dancing there as lover and beloved? It is as though He looked
forward down the ages, and saw what later would be said, and it is
as though He kept the child form in the Lila, in order that He might
breathe harmlessly into men's blind unclean hearts the lesson that
He would fain give. And what was the lesson? One other incident I
remind you of, before I draw the lesson from the whole of this stage
of His life. He sent for food. He who is the Feeder of the worlds,
and some of His brahmanas refused to give it, and sent away the boys
who came to ask for food for Him; and when the men refused. He sent
them back to the women, to see if they too would refuse the food their
husbands had declined to give. And the women — who have ever
loved the Lord — caught up the food from every part of their
houses where they could find it and went out, crowds of them, bearing
food for Him, leaving house, and husband, and household duties. And
all tried to stop them, but they would not be stopped; and brothers
and husbands and friends tried to hold them back, but no, they must
go to Him, to their Lover, Shri Krishna; He must not be hungry, the
child of their love. And so they went and gave Him food and He ate.
But they say: They left their husbands! they left their homes! how
wrong to leave husbands and homes and follow after Shri Krishna! The
implication always is that their love was purely physical love, as
though that were possible with a child of seven. I know that words
of physical love are used, and I know it is said in a curious translation
that "they came under the spell of Cupid." It matters not
for the words, let us look at the facts. There is not a religion in
the world that has not taught that when the Supreme calls, all else
must be cast aside. I have seen Shri Krishna contrasted with Jesus
of Nazareth to the detriment of Shri Krishna, and a contrast is drawn
between the purity of the one and the impurity of the other; the proof
given was that the husbands were left while the wives went to play
with and wait on the Lord. But I have read words that came from the
lips of Jesus of Nazareth; "He that loveth father or mother more
than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me." "And every one that hath forsaken
houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or
children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold,
and shall inherit everlasting life." (Matt x. 37, and xix. 29.)
And again, yet more strongly: "If any man come to me and hate
not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren,
and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
(Luke xiv. 26.) That is exactly the same idea. When Jesus calls, husband
and wife, father and mother, must be forsaken, and the reward will
be eternal life. Why is that right when done for Jesus, which is wrong
when done for Shri Krishna?
It is not only that you
find the same teaching in both religions; but in every other religion
of the world the terms of physical love are used to describe the relation
between the soul and God. Take the "Song of Solomon". If
you take the Christian Bible and read the margin you will see "The
Love of Christ for His Church"; and if from the margin you look
down the column, you will find the most passionate of love songs,
a description of the exquisite female form in all the details of its
attractive beauty; the cry of the lover to the beloved to come to
him that they might take their fill of love. "Christ and His
Church" is supposed to make it all right, and I am content that
it should be so. I have no word to say against the "Song of Solomon",
nor any complaint against its gorgeous and luxuriant imagery; but
I refuse to take from the Hebrew as pure, what I am to refuse from
the Hindu as impure. I ask that all may be judged by the same standard,
and that if one be condemned the same condemnation may be levelled
against the other. So also in the songs of the Sufis, the mystics
of the faith of Islam, woman's love is ever used as the best symbol
of love between the soul and God. In all ages the love between husband
and wife has been the symbol of union between the Supreme and His
devotees; the closest of all earthly ties, the most intimate of all
earthly unions, the merging of heart and body of twain into one —
where will you find a better image of the merging of the soul in its
God? Ever has the object of devotion been symbolised as the lover
or husband, ever the devotee as wife or mistress. This symbology is
universal, because it is fundamentally true. The absolute surrender
of the wife to the husband is the type upon earth of the absolute
surrender of the soul to God. That is the justification of the Rasa
of Shri Krishna; that is the explanation of the story of His life
in Vraja.
I have dwelt specially
on this, my brothers, you all know why. Let us pass from it, remembering
that till the nineteenth century this story provoked only devotion
not ribaldry, and it is only with the coming in of the grosser type
of western thought that you have these ideas put into the Bhagavad-Purana.
I would to God that the Rishis had taken away the Shrimad Bhagavata
from a race that is unworthy to have it; that as They have already
withdrawn the greater part of the Vedas, the greater part of the ancient
books, they would take away also this story of the love of Shri Krishna,
until men are pure enough to read it without blasphemy and clean enough
to read it without ideas of sexuality.
Pass from this to the next
great stage, that of the Destroyer of evil, shortly, very shortly.
From the time when as a babe but a few weeks old He sucked to death
the Rakshasi, Putana; from the time He entered the great cave made
by the demon, and expanding Himself shivered the whole into fragments;
from the time He trampled on the head of the serpent Kaliya so that
it might not poison the water needed for the drinking of the people;
until He left Vraja to meet Kansa, we find Him ever chasing away every
form of evil that came within the limits of His abode. We are told
that when He had left Vraja and stood in the tournament field of Kansa
with His brother, His brother and Himself were mere boys, in the tender
delicate bodies of youths. After the whole of the Lila was over They
were still children, when They went forth to fight. From that time
onwards He met, one after another, the great incarnations of evil
and crushed them with His resistless strength: we need not dwell on
these stories, for they fill His life.
We come to the third stage
of Statesman, a marvellously interesting feature in His life —
the tact, the delicacy, the foresight, the skill in always putting
the man opposed to Him in the wrong, and so winning His way and carrying
others with Him. As you know, this part of His life is played out
especially in connection with the Pandavas. He is the one who in every
difficulty steps forward as ambassador; it is He who goes with Arjuna
and Bhima to slay the giant king Jarasandha, who was going to make
a human sacrifice to Mahadeva, a sacrifice that was put a stop to
as blasphemous; it was He who went with them in order that the conflict
might take place without transgressing the strictest rules of kshattriya
morality. Follow Him as He and Arjuna and his brother enter into the
city of the king. They will not come by the open gate, that is the
pathway of the friend. They break down a portion of the wall as a
sign that they come as foes. They will not go undecorated; and challenged
why they wore flowers and sandal the answer is that they come for
the celebration of a triumph, the fulfilling of a vow. Offered food,
the answer of the great ambassador is that they will not take food
then, that they will meet the king later and explain their purpose.
When the time arrives He tells him in the most courteous but the clearest
language that all these acts have been performed that he may know
that they had come not as friends but as foes to challenge him to
battle. So again when the question arises, after the thirteen years
of exile, how shall the land be won back without struggle, without
fight, you see Him standing in the assembly of Pandavas and their
friends with the wisest counsel how perchance war may be averted;
you see Him offering to go as ambassador that all the magic of His
golden tongue may be used for the preservation of peace; you see Him
going as ambassador and avoiding all the pavilions raised by the order
of Duryodhana, that He may not take from one who is a foe a courtesy
that might bind him as a friend. So when he pays the call on Duryodhana
that courtesy demands, never failing in the perfect duty of the ambassador,
fulfilling every demand of politeness, He will not touch the food
that would make a bond between Himself and the one against whom He
had come to struggle. See how the only food that He will take is the
food of the King's brother, for that alone. He says, "is clean
and worthy to be eaten by me." See how in the assembly of hostile
kings He tries to pacify and tries to please. See how He apologises
with the gentlest humility; how to the great king, the blind king,
He speaks in the name of the Pandavas as suppliant, not as outraged
and indignant foe. See how with soft words He tries to turn away words
of wrath, and uses every device of oratory to win their hearts and
convince their judgments. See how later again, when the battle of
Kurukshetra is over, when all the sons of the blind king are slain,
see how He goes once more as ambassador to meet the childless father
and, still bitterer, the childless mother, that the first anger may
break itself on Him, and His words may charm away the wrath and soothe
the grief of the bereft. See how later on He still guides and advises
till all the work is done, till His task is accomplished and His end
is drawing near. A statesman of marvellous ability; a politician of
keenest tact and insight; as though to say to men of the world that
when they are acting as men of the world they should be careful of
righteousness, but also careful of discretion and of skill, that there
is nothing alien to the truth of religion in the skill of the tongue
and in the use of the keen intelligence of the brain.
Then pass on again from
Him as Statesman to His character as Friend. Would that I had time
to dwell on it, and paint you some of the fair pictures of His relations
with the family He loved so well, from the day when, standing in the
midst of the self-choice of Krishna, the fair future wife of the Pandavas,
He saw for the first time in that human incarnation Arjuna, His beloved
of old. Think what it must have been, when the eyes of the two young
men met, with memories in the one pair of the close friendship of
the past, and the drawing of the other by the tie of those many births
to the ancient friend whom he knew not. From that day when they first
meet in this life onwards, how constant His friendship, how ceaseless
His protection, how careful His thought to guard their honour and
their lives; and yet how wise; at every point where His presence would
have frustrated the object of His coming, He goes away. He is not
present at the great game of dice, for that was necessary for the
working out of the divine purpose; He was away. Had He been there,
He must needs have interfered; had He been there, He could not have
left His friends unaided. He remained away, until Draupadi cried in
her agony for help when her modesty was threatened; then he came with
Dharma and clothed her with garments as they were dragged from her;
but then the game was over, the dice were cast, and destiny had gone
on its appointed road.
How strange to watch that
working! One object followed without change, without hesitation: but
every means used that might give people an opportunity of escaping
if only they would. He came to bring about that battle on Kurukshetra.
He came, as we shall see in a moment, in order to carry out that one
object in preparation for the centuries that stretched in front; but
in the carrying of it out, He would give every chance to men who were
entangled in that evil by their own past, so that if one of them would
answer to His pleading he might come over to the side of light against
the forces of darkness. He never wavered in His object; yet He never
left unused one means that man could use to prevent that object taking
place. A lesson full of significance! The will of the Supreme must
be done, but the doing of that will is no excuse for any individual
man who does not carry out the law to the fullest of his power. Although
the will must be carried out, everything should be done that righteousness
permits and that compassion suggests in order that men may choose
light rather than darkness, and that only the resolutely obstinate
may at last be whelmed in the ruin that falls upon the land.
As Teacher — need
I speak of Him as teacher who gave the Bhagavad-Gita between the contending
armies on Kurukshetra? Teacher not of Arjuna alone, not of India alone,
but of every human heart which can listen to spiritual instruction,
and understand a little of the profound wisdom there clothed in the
words of man. Remember a later saying: "I, O Arjuna, am the Teacher
and the mind is my pupil"; the mind of every man who is willing
to be taught; the mind of every one who is ready to be instructed.
Never does the spiritual teacher withhold knowledge because he grudges
the giving. He is hampered in the giving by the want of receptivity
in those to whom his message is addressed. Ill do men judge the divine
heart of the great Teachers, or the faint reflection of that love
in the mouth of Their messengers, when they think that knowledge is
withheld because it is a precious possession to be grudgingly dealt
out, that has to be given in as small a share as possible. It is not
the withholding of the teacher but the closing of the heart of the
hearer; not the hesitation of the teacher but the want of the ear
that hears; not the dearth of teachers but the dearth of pupils who
are willing and ready to be taught. I hear men say: "Why not
an Avatara now, or if not an Avatara, why do not the great Rishis
come forward to speak Their golden wisdom in the ears of men? Why
do They desert us? Why do They leave us? Why should this world in
this age not have the wisdom as They gave it of old?" The answer
is that They are waiting, waiting, waiting, with tireless patience,
in order to find some one willing to be taught, and when one human
heart opens itself out and says: "O Lord, teach me", then
the teaching comes down in a stream of divine energy and floods the
heart And if you have not the teaching, it is because your hearts
are locked with the key of gold, with the key of fame, with the key
of power, and with the key of desire for the enjoyments of this world.
While those keys lock your hearts, the teachers of wisdom cannot enter
in; but unlock the heart and throw away the key, and you will find
yourselves flooded with a wisdom which is ever waiting to come in.
As Searcher of hearts —
Ah! here again He is so difficult to understand, this Lord of Maya,
this Master of illusion. He tests the hearts of His beloved, not so
much the world at large. To them is the teaching that shall guide
them aright. For Arjuna, for Bhima, for Yudhishthira, for them the
keener touch, the sharper trial, in order to see if within the heart
one grain of evil still remains, that will prevent their union with
Himself. For what does he seek? That they shall be His very own, that
they shall enter into His being. But they cannot enter therein while
one seed of evil remains in their hearts. They cannot enter therein
while one sin is left in their nature. And so in tenderness and not
in anger, in wisest love and not with a desire to mislead, the Lord
of Love tries the hearts of His beloved, so that any evil that is
in them may be wrung out by the grip that He places on them. Two or
three occasions of it I remember. I may mention perhaps a couple of
them to show you the method of the trial. The battle of Kurukshetra
had been raging many a day; thousands and tens of thousands of the
dead lay scattered on that terrible field, and every day when the
sun rose Bhishma came forth, generalissimo of the army of the Kurus,
carrying before him everything, save where Arjuna barred his way;
but Arjuna could not be everywhere; he was called away, with the horses
guided by the Charioteer Shri Krishna sweeping across the field like
a whirlwind, carrying victory in their course; and where the Charioteer
and Arjuna were not there Bhishma had his way. The hearts of the Pandavas
sank low within them, and at last one night under their tents, resting
ere the next day's struggle, the bitter despondency of King Yudhishthira
broke out in words, and he declared that until Bhishma was slain nothing
could be done. Then came the test from the lips of the searcher of
hearts. "Behold, I will go forth and slay him on the morrow."
Would Yudhishthira consent? A promise stood in his way. You may remember
that when Duryodhana and Arjuna went to Shri Krishna who lay sleeping,
the question arose as to what each should take. Alone, unarmed, Shri
Krishna would go with one, He would not fight; a mighty battalion
of troops He would give to the other. Arjuna chose the unarmed Krishna;
Duryodhana, the mighty army ready to fight; so the word of the Avatara
was pledged that He would not fight. Unarmed He went into the battle,
clad in his yellow silken robe, and only with the whip of the charioteer
in His hand; twice, in order to stimulate Arjuna into combat, He had
sprung down from the chariot and gone forth with His whip in His hand
as though He would attack Bhishma and slay him where he fought Each
time Arjuna stopped Him, reminding Him of His words. Now came the
trial for the blameless King, as he is often called; should Shri Krishna
break His word to give him victory? He stood firm. "Thy promise
is given", was his answer; "that promise may not be broken."
He passed the trial; he stood the test But still one weakness was
left in that noble heart; one underlying weakness that threatened
to keep him away from his Lord. The lack of power to stand absolutely
alone in the moment of trial, the ever clinging to some one stronger
than himself, in order that his own decision might be upheld. That
last weakness had to be burnt out as by fire. In a critical moment
of the battle the word came that the success of Drona was carrying
everything before him; that Drona was resistless and that the only
way to slay him was to spread the report that his son was dead, and
then he would no longer fight Bhima slew an elephant of the same name
as Drona's son, and he said in the hearing of Drona: "Ashvatthama
is dead." But Drona would not believe unless King Yudhishthira
said so. Then the test came. Will he tell a practical lie but a nominal
truth, in order to win the battle? He refused; not for his brother's
pleadings would he do it Would he stand firm by truth quite alone
when all he revered seemed to be on the other side? The great One
said: "Say that Ashvatthama is slain". Ought he to have
done it because He, Shri Krishna, bade him? Ought he to have told
the lie because the revered One counselled it? Ah no! neither for
the voice of God nor man, may the human soul do a thing which he knows
to be against God and His law; and alone he must stand in the universe,
rather than sin against right And when the lie was told under cover
of that excuse, Yudhishthira doing what he wished in his heart under
cover of the command from one he revered, then he fell, his chariot
descended to the ground, and suffering and misery followed him from
that day till the day of his ending, until in the face of the King
of the celestials he stood alone, holding the duty of protection even
to a dog higher than divine command and joy of heaven. And then he
showed that the lesson had worked out in his purification, and that
the heart was clean from the slightest taint of weakness. Oh, but
men say, Shri Krishna counselled the telling of a lie! My brothers,
can you not see beneath the illusion? What is there in this world
that the Supreme does not do? There is no life but His, no Self but
His, nothing save His life through all His universe; and every act
is His act, when you go back to the ultimates. He had warned them
of that truth. "I" He said, "am the gambling of the
cheat", as well as the chants of the Veda. Strange lesson, and
hard to learn, and yet true. For at every stage of evolution there
is a lesson to be learnt He teaches all the lessons; at each point
of growth the next step is to be taken, and very often that step is
the experiencing of evil, in order that suffering may burn the desire
for evil out of the very heart. And just as the knife of the surgeon
is different from the knife of the murderer, although both may pierce
the human flesh, the one cutting to cure, the other to slay; so is
the sharp knife of the Supreme, when by experience of evil and consequent
pain He purifies the man, different, because the motive is other than
the doing of evil to gratify passion, the stepping aside from righteousness
in order to please the lower nature.
Last of all He shows himself
as the Supreme; there is the Vaishnava form, the universal form, the
form that contains the universe. But still more is the Supreme seen
in the profound wisdom of the teaching, in the steadfastness of His
walk through life. Does it sound strange to say that God is seen more
in the latter than the former, that the outer form that contains the
universe is less divine than the perfect steadfast nature, swerving
neither to the right hand nor the left? Read that life again with
this thought in your mind, of one purpose followed to its end no matter
what forces might play on the other side, and its greatness may appear.
What did He come to do?
He came to give the last lesson to the kshattriya caste of India,
and to open India to the world. Many lessons had been given to that
great caste. We know that twenty-one times they had been cut off,
and yet re-established. We know that Shri Rama had shown the perfect
life of kshattriya, as an example that they might follow. They would
not learn the lesson, either by destruction or by love. They would
not follow the example either from fear or from admiration. Then their
hour struck on the bell of Heaven, the knell of the kshattriya caste.
He came to sweep away that caste and to leave only scattered remnants
of it, dotted over the Indian soil. It had been the sword of India,
the iron wall that ringed her round. He came to shiver that wall into
pieces, and to break the sword that it might not strike again. It
had been used to oppress instead of to protect It had been used for
tyranny instead of for justice. Therefore he who gave it brake it,
till men should learn by suffering what they would not learn by precept
And on the field of Kuru, the kshattriya caste fought its last great
battle; none were left of all that mighty host save a handful, when
the fighting was over. Never has the caste recovered from Kurukshetra.
It has not utterly disappeared. In some districts we find families
belonging to it; but you know well enough that as a caste in most
parts of modern India, you are hard put to find it Why in the great
counsels of the world's welfare was this done? Not only to teach a
lesson for all time to kings and rulers, that if they would not govern
aright they should not govern at all; but also to lay India open to
the world.
How strange that sounds
I To lay her open to invasion? He who loved her to lay her open to
conquest? He who had consecrated her, He who had hallowed her plains
and forests by His treading, and whose voice had rung through her
land? Aye, for He judges not as man judges, and He sees the end from
the beginning. India as she was of old, kept isolated from all the
world, was so kept that she might have the treasure of spiritual knowledge
poured into her and make a vessel for the containing. But when you
fill the vessel, you do not then put that vessel high away on a shelf,
and leave men thirsting for the liquid that it contains. The mighty
One filled His Indian vessel with the water of spiritual knowledge,
and at last the time came when that water should be poured out for
the quenching of the thirst of the world, and should not be left only
for the quenching of the thirst of a single nation, for the use of
a single people. Therefore the Lover of men came, in order that the
water of life might be poured out; He broke down the wall, so that
the foreigner might overstep her borders. The Greeks swept in, the
Mussulmans swept in, invasion after invasion, invasion after invasion,
until the conquerors who now rule India were the latest in time. Do
you see in that only decay, only misery, only that India is under
a curse? Ah no, my brothers! That which seems a curse for the time
is for the world's healing and the world's blessing; and India may
well suffer for a time in order that the world may be redeemed.
What does it mean? I am
not speaking politically, but from the standpoint of a spiritual student,
who is trying to understand how the evolution of the race goes on.
The people who last conquered India, who now rule her as governors,
are the people whose language is the most widely spread of all the
languages of the world, and it is likely to become the world's language.
It belongs not only to that little island of Britain, it belongs also
to the great continent of America, to the great continent of Australia.
It has spread from land to land, until that one tongue is the tongue
most widely understood amongst all the peoples of the world. Other
nations are beginning to learn it, because business and trade and
even diplomacy are beginning to be carried on in that English speech.
What wonder then that the Supreme should send to India this nation
whose language is becoming the world-language, and lay her open to
be held as part of that world-wide empire, in order that her Scriptures,
translated into the most widely spoken language, may help the whole
human family and purify and spiritualise the hearts of all His sons.
There is the deepest object
of His coming, to prepare the spiritualisation of the world. It is
not enough that one nation shall be spiritual; it is not enough that
one country shall have wisdom; it is not enough that one land, however
mighty and however beloved — and do not I love India as few
of you love her? — it is not enough that she should have the
gold of spiritual truth, and the rest of the world be paupers begging
for a coin. No; far better that for a time she should sink in the
scale of nations, in order that what she cannot do for herself may
be done by divine agencies that are ever guiding the evolution of
the world. Thus what from outside looks as conquest and subjection,
to the eye of the spirit looks as the opening of the spiritual temple,
so that all the nations may come in and learn.
Only that leaves to you
a duty, a responsibility. I hear so much. I have spoken so often,
of the descendants of Rishis and of the blood of the Rishis in your
veins. True, but not enough. If you are again to be what Shri Krishna
means you to be in His eternal counsels, the brahmana of nations,
the teacher of divine truth, the mouth through which the Gods speak
in the ears of men, then the Indian nation must purify itself, then
the Indian nation must spiritualise itself. Shall your Scriptures
spiritualise the whole world while you remain unspiritual? Shall the
wisdom of the Rishis go out to Mlechchas in every part of the world,
and they learn and profit by it, while you, the physical descendants
of the Rishis, know not your own literature and love it even less
than you know? That is the great lesson with which I would fain close.
So true is this, that, in order to gain teachers of the Brahmavidya,
which belongs to this land by right of birth, the great Rishis have
had to send some of their children to other lands in order that they
may come back to teach your own religion amidst your people. Shall
it not be that this shame shall come to an end? Shall it not be that
there are some among you that shall lead again the old spiritual life,
and follow and love the Lord? Shall it not be, not only here and there,
but at last that the whole nation shall show the power of Shri Krishna
in His life incarnated amongst you, which would really be greater
than any special Avatara? May we not hope and pray that His Avatara
shall be the nation that incarnates His knowledge, His love, His universal
brotherliness to every man that treads the soil of earth? Away with
the walls of separation, with the disdain and contempt and hatred
that divide Indian from Indian, and India from the rest of the world.
Let our motto from this time forward be the motto of Shri Krishna,
that as He meets men on any road, so we will walk beside them on any
road as well, for all roads are His. There is no road which He does
not tread, and if we follow the Beloved who leads us, we must walk
as He walks.
PEACE
TO ALL BEINGS
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