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

There the Gita's doctrine of Avatarhood stands. We have had to advert to it at length in this aspect of its method, as we did to the question of its possibility, because it is necessary to look at it and face the difficulties which the reasoning mind of man is likely to offer to it. It is true that the physical Avata rhood does not fill a larg e space in the G ita^ but “stTll itidoes occilpy a definite place in the chain of its teachings and is implied in the whole scheme, the very framework being t he Av atar leadin g t he vibhdti^ t he ma n^ who has ris en to the Neatest h eights of mere manhc^d, the divine birth and divine works. No doubt, too, TEejmef de^nT^-ffie Godhead to raise the human soul into himsd TT s the mm u Tfiin g,— It is the inner THE PROCESS OF AVATARHOOD

Christ, Krishna or Buddha that matters. But just as the outer life is of immense importance for the inner development, so the external Avatarhood is of no mean importance for this great spiritual manifestation. The consummation in the mental and physical symbol assists the growth of the inner reality afterwards the inner reality expresses itself with greater power in a more perfect symbolisation of itself through the outer life. Between these two, spiritual reality and mental and physical expression, acting and returning upon each other constantly the manifestation of the Divine in humanity has elected to move always in the cycles oT its concealment and its revelation.

The work for which the Avatar descends Jhas like Hii birth A-jlonhle .jense and a double form. It has an outward side of the divine force acting upon the external world in order to maintain there and to reshape the divine law by which the Godward effort of humanity is kept from decisive retrogressioS and instead decisively carried forward in spite of the rule of action and reaction, the rhythm of advance and relapse by which Nature proceeds, (it has an inward side of the divine force of the Godward consciousness acting upon the s6ul of the individual and the soul of the race, so that it may receive new forms of reve latmn of the Divine in man and may be sustainedi^ renewed and enriched in its power of upward self-unfolding. The Avatar does jiot descend m^rely jor _a .great outward action, as the pragmatic sense in humanity is too often tempted to suppose! Action and event have no value in themselves,*^ but only take their value from the force which they represent and the idea which they symtolise and which the force is there to serve. ^he^^is in which the Avatar appez^ though apparent to thie outward eye only as a crisis of events and great material changes, ^s always in its source THE DIVINE BIRTH AND DIVINE WORKS