Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)

Gita speaks of the doe^ of violent Asuric austerities troubling the God within or of the sin of those who demise' the Divine lodged Jn the human body or of "the same Godhead destroying oiir ignorance , by the blazing lamp^f knowledge. It is then the eternal Avatar, “^irtiod in liian, the divine Con- piousness alway ^^reseiit in tEe'^Human being who mamfete^in^^visibk form speaks .to. the-Jhiiman soul in the Gita, illumines the meaning of life and the secret of divine action and gives it the light of the divine knowledge and guidance and the assuring and fortifyii^ word of the Master of jexistence in the hour when it comes face to face with the painful mystery of the world! This is what the Indian religious consciousness seeks to make near to itself in whatever form, whether in the symbolic human image it enshrines in its temples or in the worship of its Avatars or in the devotion to the human Guru through whom the voice of the one world-Teacher makes itself heard. Through these it strives to awaken to that inner v(^e, unveil that form of the Formless and stand face to face with that manifest divme Power, Love and Knowledge. I Secondly, there is the typical, almost the jym- bolic significance oL^^^ human Krishna who stanHs BHiind the great action of the Mafi^^ not as its hero, but as. its seCTet cendre and hidden gui(^. T hat actio n isThe action of a Whole world

THE DIVINE TEACHER

2^ nationsysome of whom have come as helpers of an effort and result by which they do not personally profit, and tq^ these^he is a leader, some as its oppo- nents and to them he also is an opponent, the baffler of their designs and their slayer and he seems even to some of them an instigator of all evil and destroyer of their old order and familiar world and secure conventions of virtue and good ; some are represen- tatives of that which has to be fulfilled and to them he is counseller, helper, friend. Where the action pursues its natural course or the doers of the work have to suffer at the hands of its enemies and undergo the ordeals which prepare them for mastery, the Avatar is unseen or appears only for occasional com- fort and aid, but at every orisis his hand is felt, yet in such a way that all imagine themselves to be tEe protagonists and even Arjuna, his nearest friend and chief instrument,, does not pefcmve that he K aff lmtrumenl^ and has to confess at last that all the while^he did not really know his divine Friend. He has received counsel from his w isdom, help from his powefrhas loved and been loved, has even adored wihout understanding his divine na ture ; but he has been guided like all others throu^ his own egoism and the counsel, help and direction have been given in the language and received J^. the thoughts of the Ignorance. / Until the moment when all has been pushed to tHF~feifiBle issue of the struggle on the field of Kurukshepra and the Avatar stan^ at last, still noLag Jgljter, but as the charioteer in the battle- car which carries the cicsfiny of the fight, he has not