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 downward
makes, as it were, one spot which never changes, but is ever guarded
from the 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 mocking language: "Is
your Hari also in the pillar?" "Hari, Hari," cried the boy, and the
pillar burst asunder, and the mighty form came forth and slew the Daitya
that doubted, in order that he might learn the omnipresence of the
Supreme. A story? facts, not fiction; truth, not imagination; and if you
could look back to the time of those struggles, there would seem to you
nothing strange or abnormal in the story; for you would see it repeated
with less vividness in the smaller struggles where the Sons of the Fire
were purging and redeeming the earth, in order that the later human
evolution might take place.
We pass from those four Avataras, every one of which comes within what
is called the Satya Yuga of the earth--not of the race remember, not the
smaller cycle, but of the earth--the Satya Yuga of the earth as a whole,
when periods of time were of immense length, and when progress was
marvellously slow. Then we come to the next age, that which we call the
Treta Yuga, that which is, in the theosophical chronology--and I put the
two together in order that students may be able to work their way out in
detail--the middle of the third Root Race, when humanity receives the
light from above, and when man as man begins to evolve. How is that
evolution marked? By the coming of the Supreme in human form, as Vamana,
the Dwarf. The Dwarf? Yes; for man was as yet but dwarf in the truly
human stature, although vast in outer appearance; and He came as the
inner man, small, yet stronger than the outer form; against him was
Bali, the mighty, showing the outer form, while Vamana, the Dwarf,
showed the man that should be. And when Bali had offered a great
sacrifice, the Dwarf as a Brahmana came to beg.
It is curious this question of the caste of the Avataras. When we once
come to the human Avataras, They are mostly Kshattriyas, as you know,
but in two cases. They are Brahmanas, and this is one of them; for He
was going to beg, and Kshattriya might not beg. Only he to whom the
earth's wealth should be as nothing, who should have no store of wealth
to hold, to whom gold and earth should be as one, only he may go to beg.
He was an ancient Brahmana, not a modern Brahmana.
He came with begging bowl in hand, to beg of the king; for of what use
is sacrifice unless something be given at the sacrifice? Now Bali was a
pious ruler, on the side of the evolution that was passing away, and
gladly gave a boon. "Brahmana, take thy boon," said he. "Three steps
of earth alone I ask for," said the Dwarf. Of that little man surely
three steps would not cover much, and the great king with his world-wide
dominion might well give three steps of earth to the short and puny
Dwarf. But one step covered earth, and the next step covered sky. Where
could the third step be planted, where? so that the gift might be made
complete. Nothing was left for Bali to give save himself; nothing to
make his gift complete--and his word might not be broken--save his own
body. So, recognising the Lord of all, he threw himself before Him, and
the third step, planted on his body, fulfilled the promise of the king
and made him the ruler of the lower regions, of Patala. Such the story.
How full of significance. This inner man--so small at that stage but
really so mighty, who was to rule alike the earth and heaven--could for
his third step find no place to put his foot upon save his own lower
nature; he was to go forward and forward ever; that is hinted in the
third step that was taken. What a graphic picture of the evolution that
lay in front, the wondrous evolution that now was to begin.
And I may just remind you in passing that there is one word in the _Rig
Veda_, which refers to this very Avatara, that has been a source of
endless controversy and dispute as to its meaning; there it is said:
Through all this world strode Vishnu; thrice His foot He planted and
the whole
Was gathered in His footstep's dust. (I. xxii., 17.)[9]
[Footnote 9: See also I. cliv., which speaks of His three steps, within
which all living creatures have their habitation; the three steps are
said to be "the earth, the heavens, and all living creatures." Here Bali
is made the symbol of all living things.]
That too is one of the "babblings of child humanity." I know not what
figure the greatest man could use more poetical, more full of meaning,
more sublime in its imagery, than that the whole world was gathered in
the dust of the foot of the Supreme. For what is the world save the dust
of His footsteps, and how would it have any life save as His foot has
touched it?
So we pass, still treading onwards in the Treta Yuga, and we come to
another manifestation--that of Parashurama; a strange Avatara you may
think, and a partial Avatara, let me say, as we shall see when we come
to look at His life and read the words that are spoken of Him. The Yuga
had now gone far and the Kshattriya caste had risen and was ruling,
mighty in its power, great in its authority, the one warrior ruling
caste, and alas! abusing its power, as men will do when souls are still
being trained, and are young for their surroundings. The Kshattriya
caste abused its power, built up in order that it might rule; the duty
of the ruler, remember, is essentially protection: but these used their
power not to protect, but to plunder, not to help but to oppress. A
terrible lesson must be taught the ruling caste, in order that it might
learn, if possible, that the duty of ruling was to protect and support
and help, and not to tyrannise and plunder. The first great lesson was
given to the kings of the earth, the rulers of men, a lesson that had to
be repeated over and over again, and is not yet completely learnt. A
divine manifestation came in order that that lesson might be taught; and
the Teacher was not a Kshattriya save by mother. A strange story, that
story of the birth. Food given to two Kshattriya women, each of whom was
to bear a son, the husband of one of them a Brahmana; and the two
women exchanged the food, and that meant to bring forth a Kshattriya son
was taken by the woman with the Brahmana husband. An accident, men
would say; there are no accidents in a universe of law. The food which
was full of Kshattriya energy thus went into the Brahmana family, for
it would not have been fitting that a Kshattriya should destroy
Kshattriyas. The lesson would not thus have been so well taught to the
world. So that we have the strange phenomenon of the Brahmana coming
with an axe to slay the Kshattriya, and three times seven times that axe
was raised in slaughter, cutting the Kshattriya trunk off from the
surface of the earth.
But while Parashurama was still in the body, a greater Avatara came forth
to show what a Kshattriya king should be. The Kshattriyas abusing their
place and their power were swept away by Parashurama, and, ere He had left
the earth where the bitter lesson had been taught, the ideal Kshattriya
came down to teach, now by example, the lesson of what should be, after the
lesson of what should not be had been enforced. The boy Rama was born, on
whose exquisite story we have not time long to dwell, the ideal ruler, the
utterly perfect king. While a boy He went forth with the great teacher
Visvamitra, in order to protect the Yogi's sacrifice; a boy, almost a
child, but able to drive away, as you remember, the Rakshasas that
interfered with the sacrifice, and then He and His beloved brother
Lakshmana and the Yogi went on to the court of king Janaka. And there, at
the court, was a great bow, a bow which had belonged to Mahadeva Himself.
To bend and string that bow was the task for the man who would wed Sita,
the child of marvellous birth, the maiden who had sprung from the furrow as
the plough went through the earth, who had no physical father or physical
mother. Who should wed the peerless maiden, the incarnation of Shri,
Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu? Who should wed Her save the Avatara of
Vishnu Himself? So the mighty bow remained unstrung, for who might string
it until the boy Rama came? And He takes it up with boyish carelessness,
and bends it so strongly that it breaks in half, the crash echoing through
earth and sky. He weds Sita, the beautiful, and goes forth with Her, and
with His brother Lakshmana and his bride, and with His father who had come
to the bridal, and with a vast procession, wending their way back to their
own town Ayodhya. This breaking of Mahadeva's bow has rung through earth,
the crashing of the bow has shaken all the worlds, and all, both men and
Devas, know that the bow has been broken. Among the devotees of Mahadeva,
Parashurama hears the clang of the broken bow, the bow of the One He
worshipped; and proud with the might of His strength, still with the energy
of Vishnu in Him, He goes forth to meet this insolent boy, who had dared to
break the bow that no other arm could bend. He challenges Him, and handing
His own bow bids Him try what He can do with that. Can He shoot an arrow
from its string? Rama takes this offered bow, strings it, and sets an arrow
on the string. Then He stops, for in front of Him there is the body of a
Brahmana; shall He draw an arrow against that form? As the two Ramas stand
face to face, the energy of the elder, it is written, passes into the
younger; the energy of Vishnu, the energy of the Supreme, leaves the form
in which it had been dwelling and enters the higher manifestation of the
same divine life. The bow was stretched and the arrow waiting, but Rama
would not shoot it forth lest harm should come, until He had pacified His
antagonist; then feeling that energy pass, Parashurama bows before Rama,
diviner than Himself, hails Him as the Supreme Lord of the worlds, bends
in reverence before Him, and then goes away. That Avatara was over,
although the form in which the energy had dwelt yet persisted. That is why
I said it was a lesser Avatara. Where you have the form persisting when the
influence is withdrawn, you have the clear proof that there the incarnation
cannot be said to be complete; the passing from the one to the other is the
sign of the energy taken back by the Giver and put into a new vessel in
which new work is to be done.
The story of Rama you know; we need not follow it further in detail; we
spoke of it yesterday in its highest aspect as combating the forces of
evil and starting the world, as it were, anew. We find the great reign
of Rama lasting ten thousand years in the Dvapara Yuga, the Yuga at the
close of which Shri Krishna came.
Then comes the Mighty One, Shri Krishna Himself, of whom I
speak not to-day; we will try to study that Avatara to-morrow with such
insight and reverence as we may possess. Pass over that then for the
moment, leaving it for fuller study, and we come to the ninth Avatara as
it is called, that of the Lord Buddha. Now round this much controversy
has raged, and a theory exists current to some extent among the Hindus
that the Lord Buddha, though an incarnation of Vishnu, came to
lead astray those who did not believe the Vedas, came to spread
confusion upon earth. Vishnu is the Lord of order, not of
disorder; the Lord of love, not the Lord of hatred; the Lord of
compassion, who only slays to help the life onward when the form has
become an obstruction. And they blaspheme who speak of an incarnation of
the Supreme, as coming to mislead the world that He has made. Rightly
did your own learned pandit, T. Subba Row, speak of that theory with the
disdain born of knowledge; for no one who has a shadow of occult
learning, no one who knows anything of the inner realities of life,
could thus speak of that beautiful and gracious manifestation of the
Supreme, or dream that He could take the mighty form of an Avatara in
order to mislead.
But there is another point to put about this Avatara, on which, perhaps,
I may come into conflict with people on another side. For this is the
difficulty of keeping the middle path, the razor path which goes neither
to the left nor to the right, along which the great Gurus lead us. On
either side you find objection to the central teaching. The Lord Buddha,
in the ordinary sense of the word, was not what we have defined as an
Avatara. He was the first of our own humanity who climbed upwards to
that point, and there merged in the Logos and received full
illumination. His was not a body taken by the Logos for the purpose of
revealing Himself, but was the last in myriads of births through which
he had climbed to merge in I'shvara 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 A'ryan Race, the Hindu. By
birth after birth in India He had completed His course and took His
final body in A'ryavarta, to make the proclamation of the law to men.
But the proclamation was not made primarily for India. It was given in
India because India is the place whence the great religious revelations go
forth by the will of the Supreme. Therefore was He born in India, but His
law was specially meant for nations beyond the bounds of A'ryavarta, that
they might learn a pure morality, a noble ethic, disjoined--because of the
darkness of the age--from all the complicated teachings which we find in
connection with the subtle, metaphysical Hindu faith.
Hence you find in the teachings of the Lord Buddha two great divisions;
one a philosophy meant for the learned, then an ethic disjoined from the
philosophy, so far as the masses are concerned, noble and pure and
great, yet easy to be grasped. For the Lord knew that we were going into
an age of deeper and deeper materialism, that other nations were going
to arise, that India for a time was going to sink down for other nations
to rise above her in the scale of nations. Hence was it necessary to
give a teaching of morality fitted for a more materialistic age, so that
even if nations would not believe in the Gods they might still practise
morality and obey the teachings of the Lord. In order also that this
land might not suffer loss, in order that India itself might not lose
its subtle metaphysical teachings and the widespread belief among all
classes of people in the existence of the Gods and their part in the
affairs of men, the work of the great Lord Buddha was done. He left
morality built upon a basis that could not be shaken by any change of
faith, and, having done His work, passed away. Then was sent another
great One, overshadowed by the power of Mahadeva, Shri Shankaracharya,
in order that by His teaching He might give, in the Advaita Vedanta, the
philosophy which would do intellectually what morally the Buddha had
done, which intellectually would guard spirituality and allow a
materialistic age to break its teeth on the hard nut of a flawless
philosophy. Thus in India metaphysical religion triumphed, while the
teaching of the Blessed One passed from the Indian soil, to do its noble
work in lands other than the land of A'ryavarta, which must keep
unshaken its belief in the Gods, and where highest and lowest alike must
bow before their power. That is the real truth about this much disputed
question as to the teaching of the ninth Avatara; the fact was that His
teaching was not meant for His birthplace, but was meant for other
younger nations that were rising up around, who did not follow the
Vedas, but who yet needed instruction in the path of righteousness; not
to mislead them but to guide them, was His teaching given. But, as I
say, and as I repeat, what in it might have done harm in India had it
been left alone was prevented by the coming of the great Teacher of the
Advaita. You must remember, that His name has been worn by man after
man, through century after century; but the Shri Shankaracharya on whom
was the power of Mahadeva was born but a few years after the passing
away of the Buddha, as the records of the Dwaraka Math show
plainly--giving date after date backward, until they bring His birth
within 60 or 70 years of the passing away of the Buddha.
We come to the tenth Avatara, the future one, the Kalki. Of that but
little may be said; but one or two hints perchance may be given. With
His coming will dawn a brighter age; with His coming the Kali Yuga will
pass away; with His coming will also come a higher race of men. He will
come when there is born upon earth the sixth Root Race. There will then
be a great change in the world, a great manifestation of truth, of
occult truth, and when He comes then occultism will again be able to
show itself to the world by proofs that none will be able to challenge
or to deny; and He in His coming will give the rule over the sixth Root
Race to the two Kings, of whom you read in the _Kalki Purana_. As we
look back down the past stream of time we find over and over again two
great figures standing side by side--the ideal King and the ideal
Priest. They work together; the one rules, the other teaches; the one
governs the nation, the other instructs it. And such a pair of mighty
ones come down in every age for each and every Race. Each Race has its
own Teacher, the ideal Brahmana, called in the Buddhist language the
Bodhisattva, the learned, full of wisdom and truth. Each has also its
own ruler, the Manu. Those two we can trace in the past, in Their actual
incarnations; and we see Them in the third, the fourth, and fifth Races;
the Manu in each race is the ideal King, the Brahmana in each race is
the ideal Teacher; and we learn that when the Kalki Avatara shall come
He shall call from the sacred village of Shamballa--the village known to
the occultist though not to the profane--two Kings who have remained
throughout the age in order to help the world in its evolution. And the
name of the Manu who will be the King of the next Race, is said in the
_Purana_ to be Moru; and the name of the ideal Brahmana who will
be the Teacher of the next Race is said to be Devapi; and these two are
King and Teacher for the sixth Race that is to be born.