Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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THE PROCESS OF AVATARHOOD in the other (lie takes possession of his partial type of being and 'its nature and divinely dominates it Not by evolution or ascent like the ordinary man, the Gita seems to tell us, not by a growing into the divine birth, but by a direct descent into the stuff of humanity and a taking up of its moulds.
(But it is to assist that ascent^ or evolution the descent is made or accepted ; that the Gita makes very clear. It is, we might say, to exemplify the pos^bility of the Divine manifest in the human being, so that man may see what that is and take courage to grow into it% It is also to leave the influence of that manifestation vibrating in the earth* nature and the soul of that manifestation presiding over its upward endeavour, ^t is to give a_ ..spiritual mould of divine manhood into which the seeking soul of the human being can cast itself. It is to. give a dharma, a religion — not a mere creed, but a method of inner and outer living, — a way, a rule and law of self-moulding by which he can grow towards divini^?" It is too, since this growth, this ascent is no There isolated and individual phenomenon, but like all in the divine world- activities a collective business, a work and the work for the race, to assist the human inarch, to hold it together in its great crises, to break the forces of the downward gravitation when they grow too insistent, to uphold or restore the great dharma^of the Godward law in man’s nature, to prepare even, however fir off, the kingdom of Go(|^ the victory of the seekers of light and perfection, sddhundm, and the overthrow of those who fight for the con- tinuance of the evil and the darkness. these are recognised obje<^sj)^rfie descent of the Avatar, and it is usually by his work rfiat the mass of men seek to distinguish him and for that that they are ready to worship him. It is only the spiritual who see that this external Avatarhood is a sign, in the symbol of a human life, of the eternal inner God- head) making himself manifest in the field of their own human mentality and corporeality so that they can ^ow into unity with that and be possessed by it. frhe dwine manifestation of a Christ, Kr ishna , Buddha in externaF humanity has for its inner truth the same manifestation of the eternal Avatsi ^thin in bur own inner hurni^ity. That which has been done in the outer human life of earth, may' Be repeated in thc_ inner life of all human being^ frh is is the object of Ae incarnation, but^what is the_meAod? First, we have the rational or minimising view of Avatarhood which sees in it only an extraordinary manifestation of Ae diviner qualities moral, intellertual and dynamic by which average humanity is exceeded. In this idea there is a certain truA. The Avatar is at the same time t^ Yibhuti^ This JKrishna who in his divine inner being is the Godhead in a human form, is ip. his outer human being Ae leader of his age, the great man of the Vrishnis. This is from the point of view of the Nature, not of the soul. The Divine manifests himself through infinite qualities of his nature and Ae intensity of the manifestation is
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