From that we may fitly turn to the more special question, "What is an Avatâra?" 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 how 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 Rao in the lectures that he gave on the Bhagavad-Gîtâ put to you a certain view of the Avatâra, that it was a descent of I´shvara – or, as he said, using the theosophical term, the Logos, which is only the Greek name for I´shvara – a descent of I´shvara, 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 Avatâra. 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 Avatâras 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 Jîvanmukta, from Jîvanmukta 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 I´shvara 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 Avatâra 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 gnyâna, or knowledge, can reach this goal; for by devotion, says Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, can a man "enter into My being." And the need of the devotion for the future Avatâra is this: he must keep the centre that he has built even in the life of I´shvara, 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 I'shvara, 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 I´shvara 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 I´shvara 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;"1 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 Avatâra 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 Avatâra coming as God to man.
Now on this view of the nature of an Avatâra 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 Smṛiti 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 Vedânta, Shrî Râmânujâchârya, in his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gîtâ– a priceless work which men of every school might read and profit by – dealing with the phrase in which Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa declares that He has had
