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Theosophy House
Avataras
by
Annie Besant
Four Lectures Delivered at the
Twenty-fourth Anniversary Meeting
of the Theosophical Society at Adyar Madras, December 1899.
The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
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Lectures
What is an Avatara
The Source of and Need for Avataras
Some Special Avataras
Shri
FIRST
LECTURE
What is an Avatara
Brothers:
Every time that we come here together to study the fundamental truths of all religions,
I cannot but feel how vast is the subject, how small the expounder, how mighty
the horizon that opens before our thoughts, how narrow the words which strive
to sketch it for your eyes. Year after year we meet, time after time we strive
to fathom some of those great mysteries of life, of the Self, which form the
only subject really worthy of the profoundest thought of man. All else is
passing; all else is transient; all else is but the toy of a moment Fame and
power, wealth and science all that is in this world below is as nothing
beside the grandeur of the Eternal Self in the universe and in man, one in all
His manifold manifestations, marvellous and beautiful in every form that He
puts forth. And this year, of all the manifestations of the Supreme, we are
going to dare to study the holiest of the holiest, those manifestations of God
in the world in which He shows Himself as divine, coming to help the world that
He has made, shining forth in His essential nature, the form but a thin film
which scarce veils the Divinity from our eyes. How then shall we venture to
approach it, how shall we dare to study it, save with deepest reverence, with
profoundest humility; for if there needs for the study of His works patience,
reverence and humbleness of heart, what when we study Him whose works but
partially reveal Him, when we try to understand what is meant by an Avatara,
what is the meaning, what the purpose of such a revelation?
Our
President has truly said that in all the faiths of the world there is belief in
such manifestations, and that ancient maxim as to truth that which is as the
hall mark on the silver showing that the metal is pure that ancient maxim is
here valid, that whatever has been believed everywhere, whatever has been
believed at every time, and by every one, that is true, that is reality.
Religions quarrel over many details; men dispute over many propositions; but
where human heart and human voice speak a single word, there you have the mark
of truth, there you have the sign of spiritual reality. But in dealing with the
subject one difficulty faces us, faces you as hearers, faces myself as speaker.
In every religion in modern times truth is shorn of her full proportions; the
intellect alone cannot grasp the many aspects of the one truth. So we have
school after school, philosophy after philosophy, each one showing an aspect of
truth, and ignoring, or even denying, the other aspects which are equally true.
Nor is this all; as the age in which we are passes on from century to century,
from millennium to millennium, knowledge becomes dimmer, spiritual insight
becomes rarer, those who repeat far out-number those who know; and those who
speak with clear vision of the spiritual verity are lost amidst the crowds, who
only hold traditions whose origin they fail to understand. The priest and the
prophet, to use two well-known words, have ever in later times come into
conflict one with the other. The priest carries on the traditions of antiquity;
too often he has lost the knowledge that made them real. The prophet coming
forth from time to time with the divine word hot as fire on his lips speaks
out the ancient truth and illuminates tradition. But they who cling to the
words of tradition are apt to be blinded by the light of the fire and to call out
"heretic" against the one who speaks the truth that they have lost
Therefore, in religion after religion, when some great teacher has arisen,
there have been opposition, clamour, rejection, because the truth he spoke was
too mighty to be narrowed within the limits of half-blinded men. And in such a
subject as we are to study to-day, certain grooves have been made, certain ruts
as it were, in which the human mind is running, and I know that in laying
before you the occult truth, I must needs, at some points, come into clash with
details of a tradition that is rather repeated by memory than either understood
or the truths beneath it grasped. Pardon me then, my brothers, if in a speech
on this great topic I should sometimes come athwart some of the dividing lines
of different schools of Hindu thought; I may not, I dare not, narrow the truth
I have learnt, to suit the limitations that have grown up by the ignorance of
ages, nor make that which is the spiritual verity conform to the empty
traditions that are left in the faiths of the world. By the duty laid upon me
by the Master that I serve, by the truth that He has bidden me speak in the
ears of men of all the faiths that are in this modern world; by these I must
tell you what is true, no matter whether or not you agree with it for the
moment; for the truth that is spoken wins submission afterwards, if not at the
moment; and any one who speaks of the Rishis of antiquity must speak the truths
that they taught in their days, and not repeat the mere commonplaces of
commentators of modern times and the petty orthodoxies that ring us in on every
side and divide man from man.
I
propose in order to simplify this great subject to divide it under certain
heads. I propose first to remind you of the two great divisions recognised by
all who have thought on the subject; then to take up especially, for this
morning, the question "What is an Avatara?" To-morrow we shall put
and strive to answer, partly at least, the question, "Who is the source of
Avataras?" Then later we shall take up special Avataras both of the kosmos
and of human races. Thus I hope to place before you a clear, definite
succession of ideas on this great subject, not asking you to believe them
because I speak them, not asking you to accept them because I utter them. Your
reason is the bar to which every truth must come which is true for you; and you
err deeply, almost fatally, if you let the voice of authority impose itself
where you do not answer to the speaking. Every truth is only true to you as you
see it. and as it illuminates the mind; and truth however true is not yet truth
for you, unless your heart opens out to receive it, as the flower opens out its
heart to receive the rays of the morning sun.
First,
then, let us take a statement that men of every religion will accept Divine
manifestations of a special kind take place from time to time as the need
arises for their appearance; and these special manifestations are marked out
from the universal manifestation of God in His kosmos; for never forget that in
the lowest creature that crawls the earth Ishvara is present as in the highest
Deva. But there are certain special manifestations marked out from this general
self-revelation in the kosmos, and it is these special manifestations which are
called forth by special needs. Two words especially have been used in Hinduism,
marking a certain distinction in the nature of the manifestation one the word
"Avatara", the other the word "A'vesha." Only for a moment
need we stop on the meaning of the words, important to us because the literal
meaning of the words points to the fundamental difference between the two. The
word "Avatara", as you know, has as its root "tri", passing
over, and with the prefix which is added, the "ava", you get the idea
of descent, one who descends. That is the literal meaning of the word. The
other word has as its root "vish", permeating, penetrating,
pervading, and you have there the thought of something which is permeated or
penetrated. So that while in the one case, Avatara, there is the thought of a
descent from above, from Ishvara to man or animal; in the other, there is
rather the idea of an entity already existing who is influenced, permeated,
pervaded by the divine power, specially illuminated as it were. And thus we
have a kind of intermediate step, if one may say so, between the divine
manifestation in the Avatara and in the kosmos the partial divine
manifestation in one who is permeated by the influence of the Supreme, or of
some other being who practically dominates the individual, the Ego who is thus
permeated.
Now
what are the occasions which lead to these great manifestations? None can speak
with mightier authority on this point than He who came Himself as an Avatara
just before the beginning of our own age, the Divine Lord Shri Krishna Himself.
Turn to that marvellous poem, the Bhagavad-Gita, to the fourth Adhyaya, Shlokas
7 and 8; there He tells us what draws Him forth to birth into His world in the
manifested form of the Supreme :
"When
Dharma, righteousness, law decays, when Adharma unrighteousness,
lawlessness is exalted, then I Myself come forth: for the protection of the
good, for the destruction of the evil, for the establishing firmly of Dharma, I
am born from age to age". That is what He tells us of the coming forth of
the Avatara. That is, the needs of His world call upon Him to manifest Himself
in His divine power; and we know from other of His sayings that in addition to
those which deal with the human needs, there are certain kosmic necessities
which in the earlier ages of the world's story called forth special
manifestations. When in the great wheel of evolution another turn round has to
be given, when some new form, new type of life is coming forth, then also the
Supreme reveals Himself, embodying the type which thus He initiates in His
kosmos, and in this way turning that everlasting wheel which He comes forth as
Ishvara to turn. Such then, speaking quite generally, the meaning of the word,
and the object of the coming.
From
that we may fitly turn to the more special question, "What is an
Avatara?" And it is here that I must ask your close attention, nay, your
patient consideration, where points that to some extent may be unfamiliar are
laid before you; for as I said, it is the occult view of the truth which I am
going to partially unveil, and those who have not thus studied truth need to
think carefully ere they reject, need to consider long ere they refuse. We
shall see as we try to answer the question bow far the great authorities help
us to understand, and how far the lack of knowledge in reading those
authorities has led to misconception. You may remember that the late learned T.
Subba Row in the lectures that he gave on the Bhagavad-Gita put to you a
certain view of the Avatara, that it was a descent of Ishvara or, as he said,
using the theosophical term, the Logos, which is only the Greek name for
Ishvara a descent of Ishvara, uniting Himself with a human soul. With all
respect for the profound learning of the lamented pandit, I cannot but think
that that is only a partial definition. Probably he did not at that time
desire, had not very possibly the time, to deal with case after case, having so
wide a field to cover in the small number of lectures that he gave, and he
therefore chose out one form, as we may say, of self-revelation, leaving
untouched the others, which now in dealing with the subject by itself we have
full time to study. Let me then begin as it were at the beginning, and then
give you certain authorities which may make the view easier to accept; let me
state without any kind of attempt to veil or evade, what is really an Avatara.
Fundamentally He is the result of evolution. In far past Kalpas, in worlds
other than this, nay, in universes earlier than our own, those who were to be
Avataras climbed slowly, step by step, the vast ladder of evolution, climbing
from mineral to plant, from plant to animal, from animal to man, from man to
Jivanmukta, from Jivanmukta higher and higher yet, up the mighty hierarchy that
stretches beyond Those who have liberated Themselves from the bonds of
humanity; until at last, thus climbing, They cast off not only all the limits
of the separated Ego, not only burst asunder the limitations of the separated
Self, but entered Ishvara Himself and expanded into the all-consciousness of
the Lord, becoming one in knowledge as they had ever been one in essence with
that eternal Life from which originally they came forth, living in that life,
centres without circumferences, living centres, one with the Supreme. There stretches
behind such a One the endless chain of birth after birth, of manifestation
after manifestation. During the stage in which He was human, during the long
climbing up of the ladder of humanity, there were two special characteristics
that marked out the future Avatara from the ranks of men. One his absolute
bhakti, his devotion to the Supreme; for only those who are bhaktas and who to
their bhakti have wed gnyana, or knowledge, can reach this goal; for by
devotion, says Shri Krishna, can a man "enter into My being." And the
need of the devotion for the future Avatara is this: he must keep the centre
that he has built even in the life of Ishvara, so that he may be able to draw
the circumference once again round that centre, in order that he may come forth
as a manifestation of Ishvara, one with Him in knowledge, one with Him in
power, the very Supreme Himself in earthly life; he must hence have the power
of limiting himself to form, for no form can exist in the universe save as
there is a centre within it round which that form is drawn. He must be so
devoted as to be willing to remain for the service of the universe while
Ishvara Himself abides in it, to share the continual sacrifice made by Him, the
sacrifice whereby the universe lives. But not devotion alone marks this great
One who is climbing his divine path. He must also be, as Ishvara is, a lover of
humanity. Unless within him there burns the flame of love for men nay, men,
do I say? it is too narrow unless within him burns the flame of love for everything
that exists, moving and unmoving, in this universe of God, he will not be able
to come forth as the Supreme whose life and love are in everything that He has
brought forth out of His eternal and inexhaustible life. "There is
nothing", says the Beloved, "moving or unmoving, that may exist
bereft of me;" [Bhagavad-Gita, x. 39 ] and unless the man can work that
into his nature, unless he can love everything that is, not only the beautiful
but the ugly, not only the good but the evil, not only the attractive but the
repellent, unless in every form he sees the Self, he cannot climb the steep
path the Avatara must tread.
These,
then, are the two great characteristics of the man who is to become the special
manifestation of God bhakti, love to the One in whom he is to merge, and love
to those whose very life is the life of God. Only as these come forth in the
man is he on the path that leads him to be in future universes, in far, far
future kalpas an Avatara coming as God to man.
Now
on this view of the nature of an Avatara difficulties, I know, arise; but they
are difficulties that arise from a partial view, and then from that view having
been merely accepted, as a rule, on the authority of some great name, instead
of on the thinking out and thorough understanding of it by the man who repeats
the shibboleth of his own sect or school. The view once taken, every text in
Shruti or Smriti that goes against that view is twisted out of its natural
meaning, in order to be made to agree with the idea which already dominates the
mind. That is the difficulty with every religion; a man acquires his view by
tradition, by habit, by birth, by public opinion, by the surroundings of his
own time and of his own day. He finds in the scriptures which belong to no
time, to no day, to no one age, and to no one people, but are expressions of
the eternal Veda he finds in them many texts that do not fit into the narrow
framework that he has made; and because he too often cares for the framework
more than for the truth, he manipulates the text until he can make it fit in,
in some dislocated fashion; and the ingenuity of the commentator too often
appears in the skill with which he can make words appear to mean what they do
not mean in their grammatical and obvious sense. Thus, men of every school,
under the mighty names of men who knew the truth but who could only give such
portion of truth as they deemed man at the time was able to receive use their
names to buttress up mistaken interpretations, and thus walls are continually
built up to block the advancing life of man.
Now
let me take one example from one of the greatest names, one who knew the truth
he spoke, but also, like every teacher, had to remember that while he was man,
those to whom he spoke were children that could not grasp truth with virile
understanding. That great teacher, founder of one of the three schools of the
Vedanta, Shri Ramanujacharya, in his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita a
priceless work which men of every school might read and profit by dealing with
the phrase in which Shri Krishna declares that He has had "bahuni
janmani" "many births", points out how vast the variety of those
births had been. Then, confining himself to His manifestations as Ishvara
that is after He had attained to the Supreme he says quite truly that He was
born by His own will; not by karma that compelled Him, not by any force outside
Him that coerced Him, but by His own will He came forth as Ishvara and
incarnated in one form or another. But there is nothing said there of the
innumerable steps traversed by the mighty One ere yet He merged Himself in the
Supreme. Those are left on one side, unmentioned, unnoticed, because what the
writer had in his view was to present to the hearts of men a great Object for
adoration, who might gradually lift them upwards and upwards until the Self
should blossom in them in turn. No word is said of the previous kalpas, of the
universes stretching backward into the illimitable past He speaks of His birth
as Deva, as Naga, as Gandharva, as those many shapes that He has taken by His
own will. As you know, or as you may learn if you turn to Shrimad-Bhagavata,
there is a much longer list of manifestations than the ten usually called
Avataras. There are given one after another the forms which seem strange to the
superficial reader when connected in modern thought with the Supreme. But we
find light thrown on the question by some other words of the great Lord; and we
also find in one famous book, full of occult hints though not with much
explanation of the hints given the Yoga Vasishtha, a clear definite statement
that the deities, as Mahadeva, Vishnu and Brahma, have all climbed upward to
the mighty posts They hold. [Part II., Chapter ii., Shlokas 14, 15, 16 ] And
that may well be so, if you think of it; there is nothing derogatory to Them in
the thought; for there is but one Existence, the eternal fount of all that
comes forth as separated, whether separated in the universe as Ishvara, or
separated in the copy of the universe in man; there is but One without a
second; there is no life but His, no independence but His, no self-existence
but His, and from Him Gods and men and all take their root and exist for ever
in and by His one eternal life. Different stages of manifestation, but the One
Self in all the different stages, the One living in all; and if it be true, as
true it is, that the Self in man is "unborn, constant, eternal,
ancient", it is because the Self in man is one with the One Self-existent,
and Ishvara Himself is only the mightiest manifestation of that One who knows
no second near Himself. Says an English poet:
Closer
is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
The
Self is in you and in me, as much as the Self is in Ishvara, that One, eternal,
unchanging, un-decaying, whereof every manifested existence is but one ray of
glory. Thus it is true, that which is taught in the Yoga Vasishtha; true it is
that even the greatest, before whom we bow in worship, has climbed in ages past
all human reckoning to be one with the Supreme, and, ever there, to manifest
Himself as God to the world.
But
now we come to a distinction that we find made, and it is a real one. We read
of a Purnavatara, a full, complete, Avatara. What is the meaning of that word
"full" as applied to the Avatara? The name is given, as we know, to
Shri Krishna. He is marked out specially by that name. Truly the word
"purna" cannot apply to the Illimitable, the Infinite; He may not be
shown forth in any form; the eye may never behold Him; only the spirit that is
Himself can know the One. What is meant by it is that, so far as is possible
within the limits of form, the manifestation of the formless appears, so far as
is possible it came forth in that great One who came for the helping of the
world. This may assist you to grasp the distinction. Where the manifestation is
that of a Purnavatara, then at any moment of time, at His own will, by Yoga or
otherwise, He can transcend every limit of the form in which He binds Himself
by His own will, and shine forth as the Lord of the Universe, within whom all
the Universe is contained. Think for a moment once more of Shri Krishna, who
teaches us so much on this. Turn to that great storehouse of spiritual wisdom,
the Mahabharata, to the Ashvamedha Parva which contains the Anugita, and you will
find that Arjuna after the great battle, forgetting the teaching that was given
him on Kurukshetra, asked his Teacher to repeat that teaching once again. And
Shri Krishna, rebuking him for the fickleness of his mind and stating that He
was much displeased that such knowledge should by fickleness have been
forgotten, uttered these remarkable words: "It is not possible for me to
state it in full in that way. I discoursed to thee on the Supreme Brahman,
having concentrated myself in Yoga." And then He goes on to give out the
essence of that teaching, but not in the same sublime form as we have it in the
Bhagavad-Gita. That is one thing that shows you what is meant by a Purnavatara;
in a condition of Yoga, into which He throws Himself at will, He knows Himself as
Lord of everything, as the Supreme on whom the Universe is built. Nay more;
thrice at least I am not sure if there may have been more cases, but if so I
cannot at the moment remember them thrice at least during His life as Shri
Krishna He shows himself forth as Ishvara, the Supreme. Once in the court of
Dhritarashtra, when the madly foolish Duryodhana talked about imprisoning
within cell-walls the universal Lord whom the universe cannot confine; and to
show the wild folly of the arrogant prince, out in the court before every eye
He shone forth as Lord of all, filling earth and sky with His glory, and all
forms human and divine, superhuman and subhuman, were seen gathered round Him
in the life from which they spring. Then on Kurukshetra to Arjuna, His beloved
disciple, to whom He gave the divine vision that he might see Him in His
Vaishnava form, the form of Vishnu, the Supreme Upholder of the Universe. And
later, on his way back to Dvaraka, meeting with Utanka, He and the sage came to
a misunderstanding, and the sage was preparing to curse the Lord; to save him
from the folly of uttering a curse against the Supreme, as a child might throw
a tiny pebble against a rock of immemorial age, He shone out before the eyes of
him who was really His bhakta, and showed him the great Vaishnava form, that of
the Supreme. What do those manifestations show? that at will He can show
himself forth as Lord of all, casting aside the limits of human form in which
men live; casting aside the appearance so familiar to those around Him, He
could reveal himself as the mighty One, Ishvara who is the life of all. There
is the mark of a Purnavatara; always within His grasp, at will, is the power to
show Himself forth as Ishvara.
But
why the thought may arise in your minds are not all Avataras of this kind,
since all are verily of the Supreme Lord? The answer is that by His own will,
by his own Maya, He veils Himself within the limits which serve the creatures
whom He has come to help. Ah, how different He is, this Mighty One, from you
and me! When we are talking to some one who knows a little less than ourselves,
we talk out all we know to show our knowledge, expanding ourselves as much as
we can so as to astonish and make marvel the one to whom we speak; that is
because we are so small that we fear our greatness will not be recognised
unless we make ourselves as large as we can to astonish, if possible to
terrify; but when He comes who is really great, who is mightier than anything
which He produces, He makes Himself small in order to help those whom He loves.
And do you know, my brothers, that only in proportion as His spirit enters into
us, can we in our little measure be helpers in the universe of which He is the
one life; until we, in all our doings and speakings, place ourselves within the
one we want to help and not outside him, feeling as he feels, thinking as he
thinks, knowing for the time as he knows, with all his limitations, although
there may be further knowledge beyond, we cannot truly help; that is the
condition of all true help given by man to man, as it is the only condition of
the help which is given to man by God Himself.
And
so in other Avataras, He limits Himself for men's sake. Take the great king,
Shri Rama. What did he come to show? The ideal kshattriya, in every relation of
the kshattriya life; as son perfect as son alike to loving father and to
jealous and for the time unkind step-mother. For you may remember that when the
father's wife who was not His own mother bade him go forth to the forest on the
very eve of His coronation as heir, His gentle answer was: "Mother, I
go". Perfect as son. Perfect as husband; if He had not limited Himself by
His own will to show out what husband should be to wife, how could He in the
forest, when Sita had been reft away by Ravana, have shown the grief, have
uttered the piteous lamentations, which have drawn tears from thousands of
eyes, as He calls on plants and on trees, on animals and birds, on Gods and
men, to tell Him where His wife, His other self, the life of His life, had
gone? How could he have taught men what wife should be to husband's heart
unless He had limited Himself? The consciously Omnipresent Deity could not seek
and search for His beloved who had disappeared. And then as king; as perfect
king as He was perfect son and husband. When the welfare of His subjects was
concerned, when the safety of the realm was to be thought of, when He
remembered that He as king stood for God and must be perfect in the eyes of His
subjects, so that they might give the obedience and the loyalty, which men can
only give to one whom they know as greater than themselves, then even His wife
was put aside; then the test of the fire for Sita, the unsullied and the
suffering; then She must pass through it to show that no sin or pollution had
come upon Her by the foul touch of Ravana, the Rakshasa; then the demand that
ere husband's heart that had been riven might again clasp the wife. She must
come forth pure as woman; and all this, because He was king as well as husband,
and on the throne the people honoured as divine there must only be purity,
spotless as driven snow. Those limitations were needed in order that a perfect
example might be given to man, and man might learn to climb by reproducing
virtues, made small in order that his small grasp might hold them.
We
come to the second great class of manifestations, that to which I alluded in
the beginning as covered by the wide term Avesha. In that case it is not that a
man in past universes has climbed upward and has become one with Ishvara; but
it is that a man has climbed so far as to become so great, so perfect in his
manhood, and so full of love and devotion to God and man, that God is able to
permeate him with a portion of His own influence, His own power, His own
knowledge, and send him forth into the world as a superhuman manifestation of
Himself. The individual Ego remains; that is the great distinction. The man is
there, though the power that is acting is the manifested God. Therefore the
manifestation will be coloured by the special characteristics of the one over
whom this overshadowing is made; and you will be able to trace in the thoughts
of this inspired teacher, the characteristics of the race, of the individual,
of the form of knowledge which belongs to that man in the incarnation in which
the great overshadowing takes place. That is the fundamental difference.
But
here we find that we come at once to endless grades, endless varieties, and
down the ladder of lesser and lesser evolution we may tread, step by step,
until we come to the lower grades that we call inspiration. In a case of Avesha
it generally continues through a great portion of the life, the latter portion,
as a rule, and it is comparatively seldom withdrawn. Inspiration, as generally
understood, is a more partial thing, more temporary. Divine power comes down.
illuminates and irradiates the man for the moment, and he speaks for the time
with authority, with knowledge, which in his normal state he will be unable
probably to compass. Such are the prophets who have illuminated the world age
after age; such were in ancient days the brahmanas who were the mouth of God.
Then truly the distinction was not that I spoke of between priest and prophet;
both were joined in the one illumination, and the teaching of the priest and the
preaching of the prophet ran on the same lines and gave forth the same great
truths. But in later times the distinction arose by the failure of the
priesthood, when the priest turned aside for money, for fame, for power, for
all the things with which only younger souls ought to concern themselves
human toys with which human babies play, and do wisely in so playing, for they
grow by them. Then the priests became formal, the prophets became more and more
rare, until the great fact of inspiration was thrown back wholly into the past,
as though God or man had altered, man no longer divine in his nature, God no
longer willing to speak words in the ears of men. But inspiration is a fact in
all its stages; and it goes far farther than some of you may think. The
inspiration of the prophets, spiritually mighty and convincing, is needed, and
they come to the world to give a new impulse to spiritual truth. But there is a
general inspiration that any one may share who strives to show out the divine
life from which no son of man is excluded, for every son of man is sun of God.
Have you ever been drawn away for a moment into higher, more peaceful realms,
when you have come across something of beauty, of art, of the wonders of
science, of the grandeur of philosophy? Have you for a time lost sight of the
pettinesses of earth, of trivial troubles, of small worries and annoyances, and
felt yourself lifted into a calmer region, into a light that is not the light
of common earth? Have you ever stood before some wondrous picture wherein the
palette of the painter has been taxed to light the canvas with all the hues of
beauteous colour that art can give to human sight? Or have you seen in some
wondrous sculpture, the gracious living curves that the chisel has freed from
the roughness of the marble? Or have you listened while the diviner spell of
music has lifted you, step by step, till you seem to hear the Gandharvas
singing and almost the divine flute is being played and echoing in the lower
world? Or have you stood on the mountain peak with the snows around you, and
felt the grandeur of the unmoving nature that shows out God as well as the
human spirit? Ah, if you have known any of these peaceful spots in life's
desert, then you know how all-pervading is inspiration; how wondrous the beauty
and the power of God shown forth in man and in the world; then you know, if you
never knew it before, the truth of that great proclamation of Shri Krishna the
Beloved: "Whatever is royal, good, beautiful, and mighty, understand thou
that to go forth from My Splendour"; [ Bhagavad-Gita, x. 41] all is the
reflection of that tejas [Splendour, radiance ] which is His and His alone. For
as there is nought in the universe without His love and life, so there is no
beauty that is not His beauty, that is not a ray of the illimitable splendour,
one little beam from the unfailing source of life.
SECOND LECTURE
The Source of and Need for Avataras
Brothers:
You will remember that yesterday, in dividing the subject under different
heads, I put down certain questions which we would take in order. We dealt
yesterday with the question: "What is an Avatara?" The second
question that we are to try to answer, "What is the source of
Avataras?" is a question that leads us deep into the mysteries of the
kosmos, and needs at least an outline of kosmic growth and evolution in order
to give an intelligible answer. I hope to-day to be able also to deal with the
succeeding question, "How does the need for Avataras arise?" This
will leave us for to-morrow the subject of the special Avataras, and I shall
endeavour, if possible, during to-morrow's discourse, to touch on nine of the
Avataras out of the ten recognised as standing out from all other
manifestations of the Supreme. Then, if I am able to accomplish that task, we
shall still have one morning left, and that I propose to give entirely to the
study of the greatest of the Avataras, the Lord Shri Krishna Himself,
endeavouring, if possible, to mark out the great characteristics of His life
and His work, and, it may be, to meet and answer some of the objections of the
ignorant which, especially in these later days, have been levelled against Him
by those who understand nothing of His nature, nothing of the mighty work He
came to accomplish in the world.
Now
we are to begin to-day by seeking an answer to the question, "What is the
source of Avataras?" and it is likely that I am going to take a line of
thought somewhat unfamiliar, carrying us, as it does, outside the ordinary
lines of our study which deals more with the evolution of man, of the spiritual
nature within him. It carries us to those far off times, almost
incomprehensible to us, when our universe was coming into manifestation, when
its very foundations, as it were, were being laid. In answering the question,
however, the mere answer is simple. It is recognised in all religions admitting
divine incarnations and they include the great religions of the world it is
admitted that the source of Avataras, the source of the Divine incarnations, is
the second or middle manifestation of the sacred Triad. It matters not whether
with Hindus we speak of the Trimurti, or whether with Christians we speak of
the Trinity, the fundamental idea is one and the same. Taking first for a
moment the Christian symbology, you will find that every Christian tells you
that the one divine incarnation acknowledged in Christianity for in
Christianity they believe in one special incarnation only you will find in
the Christian nomenclature the divine incarnation or Avatara is that of the second
person of the Trinity. No Christian will tell you that there has ever been an
incarnation of God the Father, the primeval Source of life. They will never
tell you that there has been an incarnation of the third Person of the Trinity,
the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Wisdom, of creative Intelligence, who built up
the world-materials. But they will always say that it was the second Person,
the Son, who took human form, who appeared under the likeness of humanity, who
was manifested as man for helping the salvation of the world. And if you
analyse what is meant by that phrase, what, to the mind of the Christian, is
conveyed by the thought of the second Person of the Trinity for remember in
dealing with a religion that is not yours you should seek for the thought not
the form, you should look at the idea not at the label, for the thoughts are
universal while the forms divide, the ideas are identical while the labels are
marks of separation if you seek for the underlying thought you will find it
is this: the sign of the second Person of the Trinity is duality; also, He is
the underlying life of the world; by His power the worlds were made, and are
sustained, supported, and protected. You will find that while the Spirit of
Wisdom is spoken of as bringing order out of disorder, kosmos out of chaos,
that it is by the manifested Word of God, or the second Person of the Trinity,
it is by Him that all forms are builded up in this world, and it is specially
in His image that man is made. So also when we turn to what will be more
familiar to the vast majority of you, the symbology of Hinduism, you will find
that all Avataras have their source in Vishnu, in Him who pervades the
universe, as the very name Vishnu implies, who is the Supporter, the Protector,
the pervading, all-permeating Life by which the universe is held together, and
by which it is sustained. Taking the names of the Trimurti so familiar to us
all not the philosophical names Sat, Chit, Ananda, those names which in
philosophy show the attributes of the Supreme Brahman taking the concrete
idea, we have Mahadeva or Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma: three names, just as in
the other religion we have three names; but the same fact comes out, that it is
the middle or central one of the Three who is the source of Avataras. There has
never been a direct Avatara of Mahadeva, of Shiva Himself. Appearances? Yes.
Manifestations? Yes. Coming in form for a special purpose served by that form?
Oh yes. Take the Mahabharata, and you find Him appearing in the form of the
hunter, the Kirata, and testing the intuition of Arjuna, and struggling with
him to test his strength, his courage, and finally his devotion to Himself. But
that is a mere form taken for a purpose and cast aside the moment the purpose
is served; almost, we may say, a mere illusion, produced to serve a special
purpose and then thrown away as having completed that which it was intended to
perform. Over and over again you find such appearances of Mahadeva. You may
remember one most beautiful story, in which He appears in the form of a
Chandala [An outcaste, equivalent to a scavenger ] at the gateway of His own
city of Kashi, when one who was especially overshadowed by a manifestation of
Himself, Shri Shankaracharya, was coming with his disciples to the sacred city;
veiling Himself in the form of an outcaste for to Him all forms are the same,
the human differences are but as the grains of sand which vanish before the
majesty of His greatness He rolled Himself in the dust before the gateway, so
that the great teacher could not walk across without touching Him, and he
called to the Chandala to make way in order that the brahmana might go on
unpolluted by the touch of the outcaste; then the Lord, speaking through the
form He had chosen, rebuked the very one whom His power overshadowed, asking
him questions which he could not answer and thus abasing his pride and teaching
him humility. Such forms truly He has taken, but these are not what we can call
Avataras; mere passing forms, not manifestations upon earth where a life is
lived and a great drama is played out So with Brahma; He also has appeared from
time to time, has manifested Himself for some special purpose; but there is no
Avatara of Brahma, which we can speak of by that very definite and well
understood term.
Now
for this fact there must be some reason. Why is it that we do not find the
source of Avataras alike in all these great divine manifestations? Why do they
come from only one aspect and that the aspect of Vishnu? I need not remind you
that there is but one Self, and that these names we use are the names of the
aspects that are manifested by the Supreme; we must not separate them so much
as to lose sight of the underlying unity. For remember how, when a worshipper
of Vishnu had a feeling in his heart against a worshipper of Mahadeva, as he
bowed before the image of Hari, the face of the image divided itself in half,
and Shiva or Hara appeared on one side and Vishnu or Hari appeared on the
other, and the two, smiling as one face on the bigoted worshipper, told him
that Mahadeva and Vishnu were but one. But in Their functions a division
arises; They manifest along different lines, as it were, in the kosmos and for
the helping of man; not for Him but for us, do these lines of apparent
separateness arise.
Looking
thus at it, we shall be able to find the answer to our question, not only who
is the source of Avataras, but why Vishnu is the source. And it is here that I
come to the unfamiliar part where I shall have to ask for your special
attention as regards the building of the universe. Now I am using the word
"universe", in the sense of our solar system. There are many other
systems, each of them complete in itself, and, therefore, rightly spoken of as
a kosmos, a universe. But each of these systems in its turn is part of a
mightier system, and our sun, the centre of our own system, though it be in
very truth the manifested physical body of Ishwara Himself, is not the only
sun. If you look through the vast fields of space, myriads of suns are there,
each one the centre of its own system, of its own universe; and our sun,
supreme to us, is but, as it were, a planet in a vaster system, its orbit
curved round a sun greater than itself. So in turn that sun, round which our
sun is circling, is planet to a yet mightier sun, and each set of systems in
its turn circles round a more central sun, and so on we know not how far may
stretch the chain that to us is illimitable: for who is able to plumb the
depths and heights of space, or to find a manifested circumference which takes
in all universes! Nay, we say that they are infinite in number, and that there
is no end to the manifestations of the one Life.
Now
that is true physically. Look at the physical universe with the eye of spirit,
and you see in it a picture of the spiritual universe. A great word was spoken
by one of the Masters or Rishis, whom in this Society we honour and whose
teachings we follow. Speaking to one of His disciples, or pupils, He rebuked
him, because, He said in words never to be forgotten by those who have read
them: "You always look at the things of the spirit with the eyes of the
flesh. What you ought to do is to look at the things of the flesh with the eyes
of the spirit". Now, what does that mean? It means that instead of trying
to degrade the spiritual and to limit it within the narrow bounds of the
physical, and to say of the spiritual that it cannot be because the human brain
is unable clearly to grasp it, we ought to look at the physical universe with a
deeper insight and see in it the image, the shadow, the reflection of the
spiritual world, and learn the spiritual verities by studying the images that
exist of them in the physical world around us. The physical world is easier to
grasp. Do not think the spiritual is modelled on the physical; the physical is
fundamentally modelled on the spiritual, and if you look at the physical with
the eye of spirit, then you find that it is the image of the higher, and then
you are able to grasp the higher truth by studying the faint reflections that
you see in the world around you. That is what I ask you to do now. Just as you
have your sun and suns, many universes, each one part of a system mightier than
itself, so in the spiritual universe there is hierarchy beyond hierarchy of
spiritual intelligences who are as the suns of the spiritual world. Our
physical system has at its centre the great spiritual Intelligence manifested
as a Trinity, the Ishvara of that system. Then beyond Him there is a mightier
Ishvara, round whom Those who are on the level of the Ishvara of our system
circle, looking to Him as Their central life. And beyond Him yet another, and
beyond Him others and others yet, until as the physical universes are beyond
our thinking, the spiritual hierarchy stretches also beyond our thought, and,
dazzled and blinded by the splendour, we sink back to earth, as Arjuna was
blinded when the Vaishnava form shone forth on him, and we cry: "Oh! show
us again Thy more limited form that we may know it and live by it We are not
yet ready for the mightier manifestations. We are blinded, not helped, by such
blaze of divine splendour."
And
so we find that if we would learn we must limit ourselves nay, we must try to
expand ourselves to the limits of our own system. Why? I have met people who
have not really any grasp of this little world, this grain of dust in which
they live, who cannot be content unless you answer questions about the One
Existence, the Para-Brahma, whom sages revere in silence, not daring to speak
even with illuminated mind that knows nirvanic life and has expanded to
nirvanic consciousness. The more ignorant the man, the more he thinks he can
grasp. The less he understands, the more he resents being told that there are
some things beyond the grasp of his intellect, existences so mighty that he cannot
even dream of the lowest of the attributes that mark them out. And for myself,
who know myself ignorant, who know that many an age must pass ere I shall be
able to think of dealing with these profounder problems, I sometimes gauge the
ignorance of the questioner by the questions that he asks as to the ultimate
existences, and when he wants to know what he calls the primary origin, I know
that he has not even grasped the one-thousandth part of the origin out of which
he himself has sprung. Therefore, I say to you frankly that these mighty Ones
whom we worship are the Gods of our system; beyond them there stretch mightier
Ones yet, whom, perhaps, myriads of kalpas hence, we may begin to understand
and worship.
Let
us then confine ourselves to our own system and be glad if we can catch some
ray of the glory that illumines it Vishnu has His own functions, as also have
Brahma and Mahadeva. The first work in this system is done by the third of the
sacred great Ones of the Trimurti, Brahma, as you all know, for you have read
that there came forth the creative Intelligence as the third of the divine
manifestations. I care not what is the symbology you take; perchance that of
the Vishnu Purana will be most familiar, wherein the unmanifested Vishnu is
beneath the water, standing as the first of the Trimurti, then the Lotus,
standing as the second, and the opened Lotus showing Brahma, the third, the
creative Mind. You may remember that the work of creation began with His
activity. When we study from the occult standpoint in what that activity
consisted, we find it consisted in impregnating with His own life the matter of
the solar system; that He gave His own life to build up form after form of
atom, to make the great divisions in the kosmos; that He formed, one after another,
the five kinds of matter. Working by His mind He is sometimes spoken of as
Mahat, the great One, Intelligence He formed Tattvas one after another.
Tattvas, you may remember from last year, are the foundations of the atoms, and
there are five of them manifested at the present time. That is His special
work. Then He meditates, and forms as thoughts come forth. There His
manifest work may be said to end, though He maintains ever the life of the
atom. As far as the active work of the kosmos is concerned, He gives way to the
next of the great forces that is to work, the force of Vishnu. His work is to
gather together that matter that has been built, shaped, prepared, vivified,
and build it into definite forms after the creative ideas brought forth by the
meditation of Brahma. He gives to matter a binding force; He gives to it those
energies that hold form together. No form exists without Him, whether it be
moving or unmoving. How often does Shri Krishna, speaking as the supreme
Vishnu, lay stress on this fact He is the life in every form; without it the
form could not exist, without it it would go back to its primeval elements and
no longer live as form. He is the all-pervading life; the "Supporter of
the Universe" is one of His names. Mahadeva has a different function in
the universe; especially is He the great Yogi; especially is He the great
Teacher, the Mahaguru; He is sometimes called Jagatguru, the Teacher of the
world. Over and over again to take a comparatively modern example, as the
Gurugita we find Him as Teacher, to whom Parvati goes asking for instruction
as to the nature of the Guru. He it is who defines the Guru's work, He it is
who inspires the Guru's teaching. Every Guru on earth is a reflection of
Mahadeva, and it is His life which he is commissioned to give out to the world.
Yogi, immersed in contemplation, taking the ascetic form always that marks
out His functions. For the symbols by which the mighty Ones are shown in the
teachings are not meaningless, but are replete with the deepest meaning. And
when you see Him represented as the eternal Yogi, with the cord in His hand,
sitting as an ascetic in contemplation, it means that He is the supreme ideal
of the ascetic life, and that men who come especially under His influence must pass
out of home, out of family, out of the normal ties of evolution, and give
themselves to a life of asceticism, to a life of renunciation, to share,
however feebly, in that mighty yoga by which the universe is kept alive.
He
then manifests not as Avatara, but such manifestations come from Him who is the
God, the Spirit, of evolution, who evolves all forms. That is why from Vishnu
all these Avataras come. For it is He who by His infinite love dwells in every
form that He has made; with patience that nothing can exhaust, with love that
nothing can tire, with quiet, calm endurance which no folly of man can shake
from its eternal peace. He lives in every form, moulding it as it will bear the
moulding, shaping it as it yields itself to His impulse, binding Himself,
limiting Himself in order that His universe may grow, Lord of eternal life and
bliss, dwelling in every form. If you grasp this, it is not difficult to say
why from Him alone the Avataras come. Who else should take form save the One
who gives form? Who else should work with this unending love save He, who,
while the universe exists, binds Himself that the universe may live and
ultimately share His freedom? He is bound that the universe may be free. Who
else then should come forth when special need arises?
And
He gives the great types. Let me remind you of the Shrimad-Bhagavata, where in
an early chapter of the first Book, the 3rd chapter, a very long list is given
of the forms that Vishnu took, not only the great Avataras, but also a large
number of others. It is said He appeared as
There
He gives the law of these appearances: "When, O son of Pritha, I live in
the order of the deities, then I act in every respect as a deity. When I live
in the order of the Gandharvas, then I act in every respect as a Gandharva.
When I live in the order of the Nagas, I act as a Naga. When I live in the
order of the Yakshas, or that of the Rakshasas, I act after the manner of that
order. Born now in the order of humanity, I must act as a human being." A
profound truth, a truth that few in modern times recognise. Every type in the
universe, in its own place, is good; every type in the universe, in its own
place, is necessary. There is no life save His life; how then could any type
come into existence apart from the universal life, bereft whereof nothing can
exist?
We
speak of good forms and evil, and rightly, as regards our own evolution. But
from the wider standpoint of the kosmos, good and evil are relative terms, and
everything is very good in the sight of the Supreme who lives in every one. How
can a type come into existence in which He cannot live? How can anything live
and move, save as it has its being in Him? Each type has its work; each type
has its place; the type of the Rakshasa as much as the type of the Deva, of the
Asura as much as of the Sura. Let me give you one curious little simple
example, which yet has a certain graphic force. You have a pole you want to
move, and that pole is on a pivot, like the mountain which churned the ocean, a
pole with its two ends, positive and negative we will call them. The positive
end, we will say, is pushed in the direction of the river (the river flowing
beyond one end of the hall at Adyar). The negative pole is pushed in what
direction? In the opposite. And those who are pushing it have their faces
turned in the opposite direction. One man looks at the river, the other man has
his back to it, looking in the opposite direction. But the pole turns in the one
direction although they push in opposite directions. They are working round the
same circle, and the pole goes faster because it is pushed from its two ends.
There is the picture of our universe. The positive force you call the Deva or
Sura; his face is turned, it seems, to God. The negative force you call the
Rakshasa or Asura; his face, it seems, is turned away from God. Ah no! God is
everywhere, in every point of the circle round which they tread; and they tread
His circle and do His will and no otherwise; and all at length find rest and
peace in Him.
Therefore
Shri Krishna Himself can incarnate in the form of Rakshasa, and when in that
form He will act as Rakshasa and not as Deva, doing that part of the divine
work with the same perfection as He does the other, which men in their limited
vision call the good. A great truth hard to grasp. I shall have to return to it
presently in speaking of Ravana, one of the mightiest types of, perhaps the
greatest of, all the Rakshasas. And we shall see, if we can follow, how the
profound truth works out But remember, if in the minds of some of you there is
some hesitation in accepting this, that the words that I read are not mine, but
those of the Lord who spoke of His own embodying; He has left on record for
your teaching, that He has embodied Himself in the form of Rakshasa and has
acted after the manner of that order.
Leaving
that for a moment, there is one other point I must take, ere speaking of the
need for Avataras. and it is this: when the great central Deities have
manifested, then there come forth from Them seven Deities of what we may call
the second order. In Theosophy,
they are spoken of as the planetary Logoi, to distinguish them from the great
solar Logoi, the central Life. Each of These has to do with one of the seven
sacred planets, and with the chain of worlds connected with that planet. Our
world is one of the links in this chain, and you and I pass round this chain in
successive incarnations in the great stages of life. The world our present
world is the midway globe of one such chain. One Logos of the secondary order
presides over the evolution of this chain of worlds. He shows out three
aspects, reflections of the great Logoi who are at the centre of the system.
You have read perhaps of the seven-leaved lotus, the Saptaparnapadma; looked at
with the higher sight, gazed at with the open vision of the seer, that mighty
group of creative and directing Beings looks like the lotus with its seven leaves
and the great Ones are at the heart of the lotus. It is as though you could see
a vast lotus-flower spread out in space, the tips of the seven leaves being the
mighty Intelligences presiding over the evolution of the chains of worlds. That
lotus symbol is no mere symbol but a high reality, as seen in that wondrous
world wherefrom the symbol has been taken by the sages. And because the great
Rishis of old saw with the open eye of knowledge, saw the lotus-flower spread
in space, they took it as the symbol of kosmos, the lotus with its seven
leaves, each one a mighty Deva presiding over a separate line of evolution. We
are primarily concerned with our own planetary Deva and through Him with the
great Devas of the solar system.
Now
my reason for mentioning this is to explain one word that has puzzled many
students. Mahavishnu, the great Vishnu, why that particular epithet? What does
it mean when that phrase is used? It means the great solar Logos, Vishnu in His
essential nature: but there is a reflection of His glory, a reflection of His
power, of His love, in more immediate connection with ourselves and our own
world. He is His representative, as a viceroy may represent the king. Some of
the Avataras we shall find came forth from Mahavishnu through the planetary
Logos, who is concerned with our evolution and the evolution of the world. But
the Purnavatara that I spoke of yesterday comes forth directly from Mahavishnu,
with no intermediary between Himself and the world that He comes to help. Here
is another distinction between the Purnavatara and those more limited ones,
that I could not mention yesterday, because the words used would, at that
stage, have been unintelligible. We shall find to-morrow, when we come to deal
with the Avataras Matsya, Kurma, and so on, that these special Avataras,
connected with the evolution of certain types in the world, while indirectly
from Mahavishnu, come through the mediation of His mighty representative for
our own chain, the wondrous Intelligence that conveys His love and ministers
His will, and is the channel of His all-pervading and supporting power. When we
come to study Shri Krishna we shall find that there is no intermediary. He
stands as the Supreme Himself. And while in the other cases there is the
Presence that may be recognised as an intermediary, it is absent in the case of
the great Lord of Life.
Leaving
that for further elaboration then to-morrow, let us try to answer the next
question, "How arises this need for Avataras?" because in the minds
of some, quite naturally, a difficulty does arise. The difficulty that many
thoughtful people feel may be formulated thus: "Surely the whole plan of
the world is in the mind of the Logos from the beginning, and surely we cannot
suppose that He is working like a human workman, not thoroughly understanding
that at which He aims. He must be the architect as well as the builder; He must
make the plan as well as carry it out He is not like the mason who puts a stone
in the wall where he is told, and knows nothing of the architecture of the
building to which he is contributing. He is the master-builder, the great
architect of the universe, and everything in the plan of that universe must be
in His mind ere ever the universe began. But if that be so and we cannot
think otherwise how is it that the need for special intervention arises? Does
not the fact of special intervention imply some unforeseen difficulty that has
arisen? If there must be a kind of interference with the working out of the
plan, does that not look as if in the original plan some force was left out of
account, some difficulty had not been seen, something had arisen for which
preparation had not been made? If it be not so, why the need for interference,
which looks as though it were brought about to meet an unforeseen event?"
A natural, reasonable, and perfectly fair question. Let us try to answer it. I
do not believe in shirking difficulties; it is better to look them in the face,
and see if an answer be possible.
Now
the answer comes along three different lines. There are three great classes of
facts, each of which contributes to the necessity; and each, foreseen by the
Logos, is definitely prepared for as needing a particular manifestation.
The
first of these lines arises from what I may perhaps call the nature of things.
I remarked at the beginning of this lecture on the fact that our universe, our
system, is part of a greater whole, not separate, not independent, not primary,
in comparatively a low scale in the universe, our sun a planet in a vaster
system. Now what does that imply? As regards matter, Prakriti, it implies that
our system is builded out of matter already existing, out of matter already
gifted with certain properties, out of matter that spreads through all space,
and from which every Logos takes His materials, modifying it according to His
own plan and according to His own will. When we speak of Mulaprakriti, the root
of matter, we do not mean that it exists as the matter we know. No philosopher,
no thinker would dream of saying that that which spreads throughout space is
identical with the matter of our very elementary solar system. It is the root
of matter, that of which all forms of matter are merely modifications. What
does that imply? It implies that our great Lord, who brought our solar system
into existence, is taking matter which already has certain properties given to
it by One yet mightier than Himself. In that matter three gunas exist in
equilibrium, and it is the breath of the Logos that throws them out of
equilibrium, and causes the motion by which our system is brought into
existence. There must be a throwing out of equilibrium, for equilibrium means
Pralaya, where there is not motion, nor any manifestation of life and form.
When life and form come forth, equilibrium must have been disturbed, and motion
must be liberated by which the world shall be built But the moment you grasp
that truth you see that there must be certain limitations by virtue of the very
material in which the Deity is working for the making of the system. It is true
that when out of His system, when not conditioned and confined and limited by
it, as He is by His most gracious will, it is true that He would be the Lord of
that matter by virtue of His union with the mightier Life beyond; but when for
the building of the world He limits Himself within His Maya, then He must work
within the conditions of those materials that limit His activity, as we are
told over and over again.
Now
when in the ceaseless interplay of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, Tamas has the
ascendancy, aided and, as it were, worked by Rajas, so that they predominate
over Sattva in the foreseen evolution, when the two combining overpower the
third, when the force of Rajas and the inertia and stubbornness of Tamas,
binding themselves together, check the action, the harmony, the pleasure-giving
qualities of Sattva, then comes one of the conditions in which the Lord comes
forth to restore that which had been disturbed of the balanced interworking of
the three gunas, and to make again such balance between them as shall enable
evolution to go forward smoothly and not be checked in its progress. He
re-establishes the balance of power which gives orderly motion, the order
having been disturbed by the co-operation of the two in contradistinction to
the third. In these fundamental attributes of matter, the three gunas lies the
first reason of the need for Avataras.
The
second need has to do with man himself, and now we come back in both the second
and the third to that question of good and evil, of which I have already
spoken, Ishvara, when He came to deal with the evolution of man with all
reverence I say it had a harder task to perform than in the evolution of the
lower forms of life. On them the law is imposed and they must obey its impulse.
On the mineral the law is compulsory; every mineral moves according to the law,
without interposing any impulse from itself to work against the will of the
One. In the vegetable world the law is imposed, and every plant grows in
orderly method according to the law within it, developing steadily and in the
fashion of its order, interposing no impulse of its own. Nay, in the animal
world save perhaps when we come to its highest members the law is still a
force overpowering everything else, sweeping everything before it, carrying along
all living things. A wheel turning on the road might carry with it on its axle
the fly that happened to have settled there; it does not interpose any obstacle
to the turning of the wheel. If the fly comes on to the circumference of the
wheel and opposes itself to its motion, it is crushed without the slightest
jarring of the wheel that rolls on, and the form goes out of existence, and the
life takes other shapes.
So
is the wheel of law in the three lower kingdoms. But with man it is not so. In
man Ishvara sets himself to produce an image of Himself, which is not the case
in the lower kingdoms. As life has evolved, one force after another has come
out, and in man there begins to come out the central life, for the time has
arrived for the evolution of the sovereign power of will, the self-initiated
motion which is part of the life of the Supreme. Do not misunderstand me for
the subject is a subtle one; there is only one will in the universe, the will
of Ishvara, and all must conform itself to that will, all is conditioned by
that will, all must move according to that will, and that will marks out the
straight line of evolution. There may be swerving neither to the right hand nor
to the left There is one will only which in its aspect to us is free, but inasmuch
as our life is the life of Ishvara Himself, inasmuch as there is but one Self
and that Self is yours and mine as much as His for He has given us His very
Self to be our Self and our life there must evolve at one stage of this
wondrous evolution that royal power of will which is seen in Him. And from the
Atma within us, which is Himself in us, there flows forth the sovereign will
into the sheaths in which the Atma is as it were held. Now what happens is
this: force goes out through the sheaths and gives them some of its own nature,
and each sheath begins to set up a reflection of the will on its own account,
and you get the "I" of the body which wants to go this way, and the
"I" of passion or emotion which wants to go that way, and the
"I" of the mind which wants to go a third way, and none of these ways
is the way of the Atma, the Supreme. These are the illusory wills of man, and
there is one way in which you may distinguish them from the true will. Each of
them is determined in its direction by external attraction; the man's body
wants to move in a particular way because something attracts it, or something
else repels it: it moves to what it likes, to what is congenial to it. it moves
away from that which it dislikes, from that from which it feels itself
repelled. But that motion of the body is but motion determined by the Ishvara
outside, as it were, rather than by the Ishvara within, by the kosmos around
and not by the Self within, which has not yet achieved its mastery of the
kosmos. So with the emotions or passions: they are drawn this way or that by
the objects of the senses, and the "senses move after their appropriate
objects"; it is not the "I", the Self, which moves. And so also
with the mind. "The mind is fickle and restless, O Krishna, it seems as
hard to curb as the wind", and the mind lets the senses run after objects
as a horse that has broken its reins flies away with the unskilled driver. All
these forces are set up; and there is one more thing to remember. These forces
reinforce the rajasic guna and help to bring about that predominance of which I
spoke; all these reckless desires that are not according to the one will are
yet necessary in order that the will may evolve and in order to train and
develop the man.
Do
you say why? How would you learn right if you knew not wrong? How would you
choose good if you knew not evil? How would you recognise the light if there
were no darkness? How would you move if there were no resistance? The forces
that are called dark, the forces of the Rakshasas, of the Asuras, of all that
seem to be working against Ishvara these are the forces that call out the
inner strength of the Self in man, by struggling with which the forces of Atma
within the man are developed, and without which he would remain in Pralaya for
evermore. It is a perfectly stagnant pool where there is no motion, and there
you get corruption and not life. The evolution of force can only be made by
struggle, by combat, by effort, by exercise, and inasmuch as Ishvara is
building men and not babies, He must draw out men's forces by pulling against
their strength, making them struggle in order to attain, and so vivifying into
outer manifestation the life that otherwise would remain enfolded in itself. In
the seed the life is hidden, but it will not grow, if you leave the seed alone.
Place it on this table here, and come back a century hence, and, if you find
it, it will be a seed still and nothing more. So also is the Atma in man ere
evolution and struggle have begun. Plant your seed in the ground, so that the
forces in the ground press on it, and the rays of the sun from outside make
vibrations that work on it, and the water from the rain comes through the soil
into it and forces it to swell then the seed begins to grow; but as it begins
to grow it finds the earth around. How shall it grow but by pushing at it and
so bringing out the energies of life that are within it? And against the
opposition of the ground the roots strike down, and against the opposition of
the ground the growing point mounts upward, and by the opposition of the ground
the forces are evolved that make the seed grow, and the little plant appears
above the soil. Then the wind comes and blows and tries to drag it away, and,
in order that it may live and not perish, it strikes its roots deeper and gives
itself a better hold against the battering force of the wind, and so the tree
grows against the forces which try to tear it out And if these forces were not,
there would have been no growth of the root And so with the root of Ishvara,
the life within us; were everything around us smooth and easy, we would remain
supine, lethargic, indifferent It is the whip of pain, of suffering, of
disappointment, that drives us onward and brings out the forces of our internal
life which otherwise would remain undeveloped. Would you have a man grow? Then
don't throw him on a couch with pillows on every side, and bring his meals and
put them into his mouth, so that he moves not limb nor exercises mind. Throw
him on a desert, where there is no food nor water to be found; let the sun beat
down on his head, the wind blow against him; let his mind be made to think how
to meet the necessities of the body, and the man grows into a man and not a
log. That is why there are forces which you call evil. In this universe there
is no evil; all is good that comes to us from Ishvara, but it sometimes comes
in the guise of evil that, by opposing it, we may draw out our strength. Then
we begin to understand that these forces are necessary, and that they are
within the plan of Ishvara. They test evolution, they strengthen evolution, so
that it does not take the next step onward till it has strength enough to hold
its own, one step made firm by opposition before the next is taken. But when,
by the conflicting wills of men, the forces that work for retardation, to keep
a man back till he is able to overcome them and go on, when they are so
reinforced by men's unruly wishes that they are beginning, as it were, to
threaten progress, then ere that check takes place, there is reinforcement from
the other side: the presence of the Avatara of the forces that threaten
evolution calls forth the presence of the Avatara that leads to the progress of
humanity.
We
come to the third cause. The Avatara does not come forth without a call. The
earth, it is said, is very heavy with its load of evil, "Save us, O
supreme Lord", the Devas come and cry. In answer to that cry the Lord
comes forth. But what is this that I spoke of purposely by a strange phrase to
catch your attention, that I spoke of as an Avatara of evil? By the will of the
one Supreme, there is one incarnated in form who gathers up together the forces
that make for retardation, in order that, thus gathered together, they may be
destroyed by the opposing force of good, and thus the balance may be
re-established and evolution go on along its appointed road. Devas work for
joy, the reward of Heaven. Svarga is their home, and they serve the Supreme for
the joys that there they have. Rakshasas also serve Him, first for rule on
earth, and power to grasp and hold and enjoy as they will in this lower world.
Both sides serve for reward, and are moved by the things that please.
And
in order, as our time is drawing to a close, that I may take one great example
to show how these work, let me take the mighty one, Ravana of Lanka, that we
may give a concrete form to a rather difficult and abstruse thought. Ravana, as
you all know, was the mighty intelligence, the Rakshasa, who called forth the
coming of Shri Rama. But look back into the past, and what was he? Keeper of
Vishnu's heaven, door-keeper of the mighty Lord, devotee, bhakta, absolutely
devoted to the Lord. Look at his past, and where do you find a bhakta of
Mahadeva more absolute in devotion than the one who came forth later as Ravana?
It was he who cast his head into the fire in order that Mahadeva might be
served. It is he in whose name have been written some of the most exquisite
stotras, breathing the spirit of completest devotion; in one of them, you may
remember and you could scarcely carry devotion to a further point it is in
the mouth of Ravana words are put appealing to Mahadeva, and describing Him as
surrounded by forms the most repellent and undesirable, surrounded on every
side by pisachas and bhutas, [Goblins and elementals ] which to us seem but the
embodiment of the dark shadows of the burning ghat, forms from which all beauty
is withdrawn. He cries out in a passion of love:
Better
wear pisacha-form, so we
Evermore are near and wait on Thee.
How
did he then come to be the ravisher of Sita and the enemy of God?
You
know how through lack of intuition, through lack of power to recognise the
meaning of an order, following the words not the spirit, following the outside
not the inner, he refused to open the door of heaven when Sanat Kumara came and
demanded entrance. In order that that which was lacking might be filled, in
order that that which was wanting might be earned, that which was called a
curse was pronounced, a curse which was the natural reaction from the mistake.
He was asked: "Will you have seven incarnations friendly to Vishnu, or
three in which you will be His enemy and oppose Him?" And because he was a
true bhakta, and because every moment of absence, from his Lord meant to him
hell of torture, he chose three of enmity, which would let him go back sooner
to the Feet of the Beloved, rather than the seven of happiness, of
friendliness. Better a short time of utter enmity than a longer remaining away
with apparent happiness. It was love not hatred that made him choose the form
of a Rakshasa rather than the form of a Rishi. There is the first note of
explanation.
Then,
coming into the form of Rakshasa, he must do his duty as Rakshasa. This was no
weak man to be swayed by momentary thought, by transient objects. He had all the
learning of the Vedas. With him, it was said, passed away Vedic learning, with
him it disappeared from earth. He knew his duty. What was his duty? To put
forward every force which was in his mighty nature in order to check evolution,
and so call out every force in man which could be called out by opposing energy
which had to be overcome; to gather round him all the forces which were
opposing evolution; to make himself king of the whole, centre and law-giver to
every force that was setting itself against the will of the Lord; to gather
them together as it were into one head, to call them together into one arm; so
that when their apparent triumph made the cry of the earth go up to Vishnu, the
answer might come in Rama's Avatara and they be destroyed, that the life-wave
might go on.
Nobly
he did the work, thoroughly he discharged his duty. It is said that even sages
are confused about Dharma, and truly it is subtle and hard to grasp in its
entirety, though the fragment the plain man sees be simple enough. His Dharma
was the Dharma of a Rakshasa, to lead the whole forces of evil against One whom
in his inner soul, then clouded, he loved. When Shri Rama came, when He was
wandering in the forest, how could he sting Him into leaving the life of His
life. His beloved Sita, and into coming out into the world to do His work? By
taking away from Him the one thing to which He clung, by taking away from Him
the wife whom He loved as His very Self, by placing her in the spot where all
the forces of evil were gathered together, so making one head for destruction,
which the arrow of Shri Rama might destroy. Then the mighty battle, then the
struggle with all the forces of his great nature, that the law might be obeyed
to the uttermost, duly fulfilled to the last grain, the debt paid that was
owed; and then ah then! the shaft of the Beloved, then the arrow of Shri Rama
that struck off the head from the seeming enemy, from the real devotee. And
from the corpse of the Rakshasa that fell upon the field near Lanka, the
devotee went up to Goloka [A name for one of the heavens.] to sit at the feet
of the Beloved, and rest for awhile till the third incarnation had to be lived
out.
Such
then are some of the reasons by, the ways in which the coming of the Avatara is
brought about And my last word to you, my brothers, to-day is but a sentence,
in order to avoid the possibility of a mistake to which our diving into these
depths of thought may possibly give rise. Remember that though all powers are
His, all forces His, Rakshasa as much as Deva, Asura as much as Sura; remember
that for your evolution you must be on the side of good, and struggle to the
utmost against evil. Do not let the thoughts I have put lead you into a bog,
into a pit of hell, in which you may for the time perish, that because evil is
relative, because it exists by the one will, because Rakshasa is His as much as
Deva, therefore you shall go on their side and walk along their path. It is not
so. If you yield to ambition, if you yield to pride, if you set yourselves against
the will of Ishvara, if you struggle for the separated self, if in yourselves
now you identify yourself with the past in which you have dwelt instead of with
the future towards which you should be directing your steps, then, if your
Karma be at a certain stage, you pass into the ranks of those who work as
enemies, because you have chosen that fate for yourself, at the promptings of
the lower nature. Then with bitter inner pain even if with complete
submission accepting the Karma, but with profound sorrow, you shall have to
work out your own will against the will of the Beloved, and feel the anguish of
the rending that separates the inner from the outer life. The will of Ishvara
for you is evolution; these forces are made to help your evolution but only
if you strive against them. If you yield to them, then they carry you away. You
do not then call out your own strength, but only strengthen them. Therefore, O
Arjuna, stand up and fight. Do not be supine; do not yield yourself to the
forces; they are there to call out your energies by opposition and you must not
sink down on the floor of the chariot And my last word is the word of Shri
Krishna to Arjuna: "Take up your bow, stand up and fight"
Some
Special Avataras
The
subject this morning, my brothers, is in some ways an easy and in other ways a
difficult one; easy, inasmuch as the stories of the Avataras can be readily
told and readily grasped; difficult, inasmuch as the meaning that underlies
these manifestations may possibly be in some ways unfamiliar, may not have been
thoroughly thought out by individual hearers. And I must begin with a general
word as to these special Avataras. You may remember that I said that the whole
universe may be regarded as the Avatara of the Supreme, the Self-revelation of
Ishvara. But we are not dealing with that general Self-revelation; nor are we
even considering the very many revelations that have taken place from time to
time, marked out by special characteristics; for we have seen by referring to
one or two of the old writings that many lists are given of the comings of the
Lord, and we are to-day concerned with only some of those, those that are
accepted specially as Avataras.
Now
on one point I confess myself puzzled at the outset, and I do not know whether
in your exoteric literature light is thrown upon the point as to how these ten
were singled out, who was the person who chose them out of a longer list, on
what authority that list was proclaimed. On that point I must simply state the
question, leaving it unanswered. It may be a matter familiar to those who have
made researches into the exoteric literature. It is not a point of quite
sufficient importance for the moment to spend on it time and trouble, in what
we may call the occult way of research. I leave that then aside, for there is
one reason why some of these stand out in a way which is clear and definite.
They mark stages in the evolution of the world. They mark new departures in the
growth of the developing life, and whether it was that fact which underlay the
exoteric choice I am unable to say; but certainly that fact by itself is
sufficient to justify the special distinction which is made.
There
is one other general point to consider. Accounts of these Avataras are found in
the Puranas; allusions to them, to one or other of them, are found in other of
the ancient writings, but the moment you come to very much detail you must turn
to the Puranic accounts; as you are aware, sages, in giving those Puranas, very
often described things as they are seen on the higher planes, giving the
description of the underlying truth of facts and events; you have appearances
described which sound very strange in the lower world; you have facts asserted
which raise very much of challenge in modern days. When you read in the Puranas
of strange forms and marvellous appearances, when you read accounts of
creatures that seem unlike anything that you have ever heard of or dreamed of
elsewhere, the modern mind, with its somewhat narrow limitations, is apt to
revolt against the accounts that are given; the modern mind, trained within the
limits of the science of observation, is necessarily circumscribed within those
limits and those limits are of an exceedingly narrow description; they are
limits which belong only to modern time, modern to men, in the true sense of
the word, though geological researches stretch of course far back into what we
call in this nineteenth century the night of time. But you must remember that
the moment geology goes beyond the historic period, which is a mere moment in
the history of the world, it has more of guesses than of facts, more of
theories than of proofs. If you take half a dozen modern geologists and ask
each of them in turn for the date of the period of which records remain in the
small number of fossils collected, you will find that almost every man gives a
different date, and that they deal with differences of millions of years as
though they were only seconds or minutes of ours. So that you will have to
remember in what science can tell you of the world, however accurate it may be
within its limits, that these limits are exceedingly narrow, narrow I mean when
measured by the sight that goes back kalpa after kalpa, and that knows that the
mind of the Supreme is not limited to the manifestations of a few hundred
thousands of years, but goes back million after million, hundreds of millions
after hundreds of millions, and that the varieties of form, the enormous
differences of types, the marvellous kinds of creatures which have come out of
that creative imagination, transcend in actuality all that man's mind can dream
of, and that the very wildest images that man can make fall far short of the
realities that actually existed in the past kalpas through which the universe
has gone. That word of warning is necessary, and also the warning that on the
higher planes things look very different from what they look down here. You
have here a reflection only of part of those higher forms of existence. Space
there has more dimensions than it has on the physical plane, and each dimension
of space adds a new fundamental variety to form; if to illustrate this I may
use a simile I have often used, it may perhaps convey to you a little idea of
what I mean. Two similes I will take each throwing a little light on a very
difficult subject Suppose that a picture is presented to you of a solid form;
the picture, being made by pen or pencil on a sheet of paper, must show on the
sheet, which is practically of two dimensions a plane surface a three
dimensional form; so that if you want to represent a solid object, a vase, you
must draw it flat, and you can only represent the solidity of that vase by
resorting to certain devices of light and shade, to the artificial device which
is called perspective, in order to make an illusory semblance of the third
dimension. There on the plane surface you get a solid appearance, and the eye
is deceived into thinking it sees a solid when really it is looking at a flat
surface. Now as a matter of fact if you show a picture to a savage, an
undeveloped savage, or to a very young child, they will not see a solid but
only a flat They will not recognise the picture as being the picture of a solid
object they have seen in the world round them; they will not see that that
artificial representation is meant to show a familiar solid, and it passes by
them without making any impression on the mind; only the education of the eye
enables you to see on a flat surface the picture of a solid form. Now, by an
effort of the imagination, can you think of a solid as being the representation
of a form in one dimension more, shown by a kind of perspective? Then you may
get a vague idea of what is meant when we speak of a further dimension in
space. As the picture is to the vase, so is the vase to a higher object of
which that vase itself is a reflection. So again if you think, say, of the
lotus flower I spoke of yesterday, as having just the tips of its leaves above
water, each tip would appear as a separate object. If you know the whole you
know that they are all parts of one object; but coming over the surface of the
water you will see tips only, one for each leaf of the seven-leaved lotus. So
is every globe in space an apparently separate object, while in reality it is
not separated at all, but part of a whole that exists in a space of more
dimensions; and the separateness is mere illusion due to the limitations of our
faculties.
Now
I have made this introduction in order to show you that when you read the Puranas
you consistently get the fact on the higher plane described in terms of the
lower, with the result that it seems unintelligible, seems incomprehensible;
then you have what is called an allegory, that is, a reality which looks like a
fancy down here, but is a deeper truth than the illusion of physical matter,
and is nearer to the reality of things than the things which you call objective
and real. If you follow that line of thought at all you will read the Puranas
with more intelligence and certainly with more reverence than some of the
modern Hindus are apt to show in the reading, and you will begin to understand
that when another vision is opened one sees things differently from the way
that one sees them on the physical plane, and that that which seems impossible
on the physical is what is really seen when you pass beyond the physical
limitations.
From
the Puranas then the stories come.
Let
me take the first three Avataras apart from the remainder, for a reason that
you will readily understand as we go through them. We take the Avatara which is
spoken of as that of Matsya or the fish; that which is spoken of as that of
Kurma or the tortoise; that which is spoken of as that of Varaha, or the boar.
Three animal forms; how strange! thinks the modern graduate. How strange that
the Supreme should take the forms of these lower animals, a fish, a tortoise, a
boar! What childish folly! "The babbling of a race in its infancy",
it is said by the pandits of the Western world. Do not be so sure. Why this
wonderful conceit as to the human form? Why should you and I be the only worthy
vessels of the Deity that have come out of the illimitable Mind in the course
of ages? What is there in this particular shape of head, arms, and trunk which
shall make it the only worthy vessel to serve as a manifestation of the supreme
Ishvara? I know of nothing so wonderful in the mere outer form that should make
that shape alone worthy to represent some of the aspects of the Highest. And
may it not be that from His standpoint those great differences that we see
between ourselves and those which we call the lower forms of life may be almost
imperceptible, since He transcends them all? A little child sees an immense
difference between himself of perhaps two and a half feet high and a baby only
a foot and a half high, and thinks himself a man compared with that tiny form
rolling on the ground and unable to walk. But to the grown man there is not so
much difference between the length of the two, and one seems very much like the
other. While we are very small we see great differences between ourselves and
others; but on the mountain top the hovel and the palace do not differ so very
much in height. They all look like anthills, very much of the same size. And so
from the standpoint of Ishvara, in the vast hierarchies from the mineral to the
loftiest Deva, the distinctions are but as ant-hills in comparison with
Himself, and one form or another is equally worthy, so that it suits His
purpose, and manifests His will.
Now
for the Matsya Avatara; the story you will all know: when the great Manu,
Vaivasvata Manu, the Root Manu, as we call Him that is, a Manu not of one
race only, but of a whole vast round of kosmic evolution, presiding over the
seven globes that are linked for the evolution of the world that mighty Manu,
sitting one day immersed in contemplation, sees a tiny fish gasping for water;
and moved by compassion, as all great ones are, He takes up the little fish and
puts it in a bowl, and the fish grows till it fills the bowl; and He placed it
in a water vessel and it grew to the size of the vessel; then He took it out of
that vessel and put it into a bigger one; afterwards into a tank, a pond, a
river, the sea, and still the marvellous fish grew and grew and grew. The time
came when a vast change was impending; one of those changes called a minor
pralaya, and it was necessary that the seeds of life should be carried over
that pralaya to the next manvantara. That would be a minor pralaya and a minor
manvantara. What does that mean? It means a passage of the seeds of life from
one globe to another; from what we call the globe preceding our own to our own
earth. It is the function of the Root Manu, with the help and the guidance of
the planetary Logos, to transfer the seeds of life from one globe to the next,
so as to plant them in a new soil where further growth is possible. As waters
rose, waters of matter submerging the globe which was passing into pralaya, an
ark, a vessel appeared; into this vessel stepped the great Rishi with others, and
the seeds of life were carried by Them, and as They go forth upon the waters a
mighty fish appears and to the horn of that fish the vessel is fastened by a
rope, and it conveys the whole safely to the solid ground where the Manu
rebegins His work. A story! yes, but a story that tells a truth; for looking at
it as it takes place in the history of the world, we see the vast surging ocean
of matter, we see the Root Manu and the great Initiates with Him gathering up
the seeds of life from the world whose work is over, carrying them under the
guidance and with the help of the planetary Vishnu to the new globe where new
impulse is to be given to the life; and the reason why the fish form was chosen
was simply because in the building up again of the world, it was at first
covered with water, and only that form of life was originally possible, so far
as denser physical life was concerned.
You
have in that first stage what the geologists call the Silurian Age, the age of
fishes, when the great divine manifestation was of all these forms of life. The
Purana rightly starts in the previous Kalpa, rightly starts the manifestations
with the manifestation in the form of the fish. Not so very ridiculous after
all, you see, when read by knowledge instead of by ignorance; a truth, as the
Puranas are full of truth, if they were only read with intelligence and not
with prejudice.
But
some of you may say that there is confusion about these first Avataras; in
several accounts we find that the Boar stands the first; that is true, but the
key of it is this; the Boar Avatara initiated that evolution which was followed
unbrokenly by the human; whereas the other two bring in great stages, each of
which is regarded as a separate kalpa; and if you look into the Vishnu Purana
you will find there the key; for when that begins to relate the incarnation of
the Boar, there is just a sentence thrown in, that the Matsya and Kurma
Avataras belong to previous kalpas.
Now
if we take the theosophical nomenclature, we find each of these kalpas covers
what we call a Root Race, and you may remember that the first Root Race of
humanity had not human form at all but was simply a floating mass able to live
in the waters which then covered the earth, and only showing the ordinary
protoplasmic motions connected with such a type of life and possible at that
stage of its evolution. It was a seed of form rather than a form itself; it was
the seed planted by the Manu in the waters of the earth, that out of that
humanity might evolve. But the general course of physical evolution passed
through the stage of the fish; and geology there gives a true fact, though it
does not understand, naturally, the hidden meaning; while the Purana gives you
the reality of the manifestation, and the deeper truth that underlies the stages
of the evolving world.
Then
we find, tracing it onward, that this great age passes, and the world begins to
rise out of the waters. How then shall types be brought forth in order that
evolution may go on? The next great type is to be fitted either for land or for
water; for the next stage of the earth shows the waters draining gradually
away, and the land appearing, and the creatures that are the marked
characteristic of the age must exist partially on land and partially in water.
Here again there must be manifestation of the type of life, this time of what
we call the reptile type; the tortoise is chosen as the typical creature, and
while the tortoise typifies the type to be evolved, reptiles, amphibious
creatures of every description, swarm over the earth, becoming more and more
land-like in their character as the proportion of land to water increases.
There is meanwhile going on, in the "imperishable sacred land", a
preparation for further evolution. There is one part of the globe that changes
not, that from the beginning has been, and will last while the globe is
lasting; it is called the "imperishable land." And there the great
Rishis gather, and thence they ever come forth for the helping of man; that is
the imperishable sacred land, sometimes called the "sacred pole of the
earth." Pole itself exists not on the physical plane but on the higher,
and its reflection coming downwards makes, as it were, one spot which never
changes, but is ever guarded from the profane tread of ordinary men. There took
place a most instructive phenomenon. The type of the evolution then preceding,
the Tortoise, the Logos in that form, makes Himself the base of the revolving
axis of evolution. That is typified by Mandara, the mountain which, placed on
the tortoise, is made to revolve by the hosts of Suras and Asuras, one pulling
at the head of the serpent, and the other at the tail the positive and
negative forces that I spoke of yesterday. So the churning begins in matter,
evolving types of life. The type is ever evolved before the lower
manifestation, the type appears before the copies of it are born in the lower
world. And how often have the students of the great Teachers themselves seen
the very thing occur; the churning of the waters of matter giving forth all the
types of the many sorts and species that are generated in the lower world;
these are the archetypes, as we call them, of classes and creatures, always
produced in preparation for the forward stretch of evolution. There came forth
one by one the archetypes, the elephant, the horse, the woman, and so on, one
after another, showing the track along which evolution was to go. And first of
all, Amrita, nectar of immortality, comes forth, symbol of the one life which
passes through every form and that life appears above the waters the taking
of which is necessary in order that every form may live.
We
cannot delay on details; I can only trace hastily the outline, showing you how
real is the truth that underlies the story, and as that gradually goes on and
the types are ready, there comes the whelming of the world under the waters,
and the great continents vanish for a time.
Then
comes the third Avatara, the Varaha. No earth is to be seen; the waters of the
flood have overwhelmed it. The types that are to be produced on earth are
waiting in the higher region for place on which to manifest. How shall the
earth be brought up from the waters which have overwhelmed it? Now once again
the great Helper is needed, the God, the Protector of Evolution. Then in the
form of a mighty Boar, whose form filled the heaven, plunging down into the
waters that He alone could separate, the Great One descends. He brings up the
earth from the lower region where it was lying awaiting His coming; and the
land rises up again from below the surface of the flood, and the vast Lemurian
continent is the earth of that far-off age. Here science has a word to say,
rightly enough, that on the Lemurian continent were developed many types of
life, and there the mammals first made their appearance. Quite so; that was
exactly what the sages taught thousands upon thousands of years ago; that when
the Boar, the great type of the mammal, plunged into the waters to bring up the
earth, then was started the mammalian evolution, and the continent thus rescued
from the waters was crowded with the forms of the mammalian kingdom. Just as
the Fish had typified the Silurian epoch, just as the Tortoise had started on
its way the great amphibian evolution, so did the Boar, that typical mammal,
start the mammalian evolution, and we come to the Lemurian continent with its
wonderful variety of forms of mammalian life. Not so very ignorant after all,
you see, the ancient writings! For men are only re-discovering to-day what has
been in the hands of the followers of the Rishis for thousands, tens of
thousands of years.
Then
we come to a strange incarnation on this Lemurian continent: frightful
conflicts existed; we are nearing what in the theosophical nomenclature is the
middle of the third Race, and man as man will shortly appear with all the
characteristics of his nature. He is not yet quite come to birth; strange forms
are seen, half human and half animal, wholly monstrous; terrible struggles
arise between these monstrous forms born from the slime as it is said from
the remains of former creations and the newer and higher life in which the
future evolution is enshrined. These forms are represented in the Puranas as
those of the race of Daityas, who ruled the earth, who struggled against the
Deva manifestations, who conquered the Devas from time to time, who subjected
them, who ruled over earth and heaven alike, bringing every thing under their
sway. You may read in the splendid stanzas of the Book of Dzyan, as given us by
H. P. B., hints of that mighty struggle of which the Puranas are so full, a
struggle which was as real as any struggle of later days, an absolute
historical fact that many of us have seen. We are instructed over and over
again of a frightful conflict of forms, the forms of the past, monstrous in
their strength and in their outline, against whom the Sons of Light were
battling, against whom the great Lords of the Flame came down. One of these
conflicts, the greatest of all, is given in the story of the Avatara known as
that of Narasimha the Man-Lion. You know the story; what Hindu does not know
the story of Prahlada? In him we have typified the dawning spirituality which
is to show in the higher races of Daityas as they pass on into definite human
evolution, and their form gives way that sexual man may be born. I need not
dwell on that familiar story of the devotee of Vishnu; how his Daitya father
strove to kill him because the name of Hari was ever on his lips; how he strove
to slay him, with a sword, and the sword fell broken from the neck of the
child; how then he tried to poison him, and Vishnu appeared and ate first of
the poisoned rice, so that the boy might eat it with the name of Hari on his
lips; how his father strove to slay him by the furious elephant, by the fang of
the serpent, by throwing him over a precipice, and by crushing him under a
stone. But ever the cry of "Hari, Hari", brought deliverance, for in
the elephant, in the fang of the serpent, in the precipice, and in the stone,
Hari was ever present, and his devotee was safe in that presence: how finally
when 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
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
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. (
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
But
the proclamation was not made primarily for
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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
PEACE TO
ALL BEINGS
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Links
to Free Online Theosophy
Study
Resources; Courses, Writings,
The main criteria for the inclusion of
links on this site is that they have some
relationship (however tenuous) to Theosophy
and are lightweight, amusing or entertaining.
Topics include Quantum Theory and Socks,
Dick Dastardly and Legendary Blues Singers.
A selection of articles on Reincarnation
Provided in response to the large
number of enquiries we receive at
Cardiff Theosophical Society on this subject
The
Voice of the Silence Website
This is for
everyone, you dont have to live
in Wales to
make good use of this Website
No
Aardvarks were harmed in the
Within the British Isles, The Adyar Based Theosophical
Society is the largest
Theosophy body with around 200 memebrs and has Groups in;
Bangor*Basingstoke*Billericay*Birmingham*Blackburn*Bolton*Bournemouth
Bradford*Bristol*Camberley*Cardiff*Chester*Conwy*Coventry*Dundee*Edinburgh
Folkstone*Glasgow*Grimsby*Inverness*Isle of
Man*Lancaster*Leeds*Leicester
Letchworth*London*Manchester*Merseyside*Middlesborough*Newcastle upon
Tyne
North Devon*Northampton*Northern Ireland*Norwich*Nottingham
Perth*Republic of Ireland*Sidmouth*Southport*Sussex*Swansea*Torbay
Tunbridge Wells*Wallasey*Warrington*Wembley*Winchester*Worthing
The Spiritual Home of Urban Theosophy
The Earth Base for Evolutionary Theosophy
A
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D
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WXYZ
Complete Theosophical Glossary in Plain Text Format
1.22MB
Quick Explanations with Links to More Detailed Info
What is Theosophy ? Theosophy Defined (More Detail)
Three Fundamental Propositions Key Concepts of Theosophy
Cosmogenesis Anthropogenesis Root Races
Ascended Masters After Death States
The Seven Principles of Man Karma
Reincarnation Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Colonel Henry Steel Olcott William Quan Judge
The Start of the Theosophical
Society
History of the Theosophical
Society
Theosophical Society Presidents
History of the Theosophical
Society in Wales
The Three Objectives of the Theosophical
Society
Explanation of the Theosophical
Society Emblem
The Theosophical Order of
Service (TOS)
Glossaries of Theosophical Terms
An Outstanding Introduction to Theosophy
By a student of Katherine Tingley
Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man? Body and Soul
Body, Soul and Spirit Reincarnation Karma
What Theosophy Is From the Absolute to Man
The Formation of a Solar System The Evolution of Life
The Constitution of Man After Death Reincarnation
The Purpose of Life The Planetary Chains
The Result of Theosophical Study
An Outline of Theosophy
Charles Webster Leadbeater
Theosophy - What it is How is it Known? The Method of Observation
General Principles The Three Great Truths The Deity
Advantage Gained from this
Knowledge The Divine Scheme
The Constitution of Man The True Man Reincarnation
The Wider Outlook Death Mans Past and Future
Cause and Effect What Theosophy does for us
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Try these if you are looking
for a local
Theosophy Group or Centre
UK Listing of Theosophical Groups
Please tell us about your UK Theosophy Group
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into categories and
presented according to relevance of website.
Web Directory
- Add Link - Submit Article - Online Store - Forum
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General pages about Wales, Welsh History
and The History of Theosophy in Wales
Wales is a
Principality within the United Kingdom and has an eastern
border with
England. The land area is just over 8,000 square miles.
Snowdon in North
Wales is the highest mountain at 3,650 feet.
The coastline is
almost 750 miles long. The population of Wales
as at the 2001 census is 2,946,200.
________________
Bangor
Conwy & Swansea Lodges are members
of
the Welsh Regional Association (Formed 1993).
Theosophy
Cardiff separated from the Welsh Regional Association in March 2008 and is
now a stand alone group
affiliated to
the Adyar Theosophical Society.
High
Drama & Worldwide Confusion
as
Theosophy Cardiff Separates from the
Welsh
Regional Association (formed 1993)
Cardiff
Theosophical Society in Wales
206 Newport Road,
Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL