Essays on the Gita, First Series (Arya Publishing House, 1922)
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and real meaning a. crisis in the consciousne^ss of humanitj^ when it has to undergo some grand modi- fication and effect some new development. Fot this action of change a divine force is neededj but the force varies a lways according to the _9 l co ns- ciousness, w hich it embodies r hence the necessity of a divine consciousness manifesting in the mind” and soul of humanity. Where, indeed, the change is mainly intellectual and practical, the intervention of the Avatar is not needed ; there is a great uplifting of consciousness, a great manifestation of power in which men are for the time being exaltfed above their normal selves, and this surge of consciousness and power finds its wave-crests in ceruin exceptional indivW^ls, vibhiitis,. whose action leading the ^neral action is' sufficient for the change intende<jj The Reformation in Europe and the French Revo- lution were crises of this character ; they were not great spiritual events, but intellectual and practical changes, one in religious, the other in social and political ideas, forms and motives, and the modi- fication of the general consciousness brought about was a mentaKand dynamic, but not a spiritual modification, ^ut w^n^he crisis has a spiritiml seed or intention, then a^compk^ or a pardal manifestation of the God-consciousness in a hunijan mind and soui comes as originator or leader. ThaT is th^ Aya^“
^ (The outward ac tion of the Avatar i^ described in the Gita as the r estor ation of th^Dharma ; when from age to age the Dharma fades, languisELes, loses force and its opposite arises, strong and oppressive then the Avatar comes and raises it again to power and as then things in idea are always represented by things in action and by human beings who obey their impulsion, his mission is, in its most human and outward terms, to relieve the seekers of the Dharma who are oppressed by the reign of the reactionary darkness and to destroy the wrongdoers who seek to maintain the denial of the Dharma. But the language used can easily be given a poor and insufficient connotation which would deprive ^vatarhood of all its spiritual depth of meaning. Dh arma is a w ord which has an ^hical and practical, a natural and philosopKical and a religious and spiritual wgnificance, iiad it may be used in any of these sensed exclusTve of the others, in a purely ethical, a purely philosophical or a purely religious sense. Ethkally it means the law of righteousness, the moral rule of conduct, or a still more outward and practical significance serial and politicaljustice, or even simply the observation of the social law. If used in this sense we shall have to understand that when unrighteousness, injustice and oppression prevail, the Avatar descends ^^eHxer„the good and destroy the wicked, to break down injustice
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