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 Parashurâma; a strange Avatâra you may think, and a partial Avatâra, 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 Brâhmaṇa; and the two women exchanged the food, and that meant to bring forth a Kshattriya son was taken by the woman with the Brâhmaṇa 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 Brâhmaṇa 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 Brâhmaṇa 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 Parashurâma was still in the body, a greater Avatâra came forth to show what a Kshattriya king should be. The Kshattriyas abusing their place and their power were swept away by Parashurâma, 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 Râma 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 Visvâmitra, in order to protect the Yogî's sacrifice; a boy, almost a child, but able to drive away, as you remember, the Râkshasas that interfered with the sacrifice, and then He and His beloved brother Lakshmana and the Yogî went on to the court of king Janaka. And there, at the court, was a great bow, a bow which had belonged to Mahâdeva Himself. To bend and string that bow was the task for the man who would wed Sîtâ, 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 Shrî, Lakshmî, the consort of Viṣhṇu? Who should wed Her save the Avatâra of Viṣhṇu Himself? So the mighty bow remained unstrung, for who might string it until the boy Râma 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 Sîtâ, 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 Mahâdeva'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 Mahâdeva, Parashurâma 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 Viṣhṇu 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? Râma 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 Brâhmaṇa; shall He draw an arrow against that form? As the two Râmas stand face to face, the energy of the elder, it is written, passes into the younger; the energy of Viṣhṇu, 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 Râma would not shoot it forth lest harm should come, until He had pacified His antagonist; then feeling that energy pass, Parashurâma bows before Râma, diviner than Himself, hails Him as the Supreme Lord of the worlds, bends in reverence before Him, and then goes away. That Avatâra was over, although the form in which the energy had dwelt yet persisted. That is why I said it was a lesser Avatâra. 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 Râma 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 Râma lasting ten thousand years in the Dvapara Yuga, the Yuga at the close of which Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa came.

Then comes the Mighty One, Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa Himself, of whom I speak not to-day; we will try to study that Avatâra 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 Avatâra 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 Viṣhṇu, came to lead astray those who did not believe the Vedas, came to spread confusion upon earth. Viṣhṇu 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 Avatâra in order to mislead.

But there is another point to put about this Avatâra, 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 Avatâra. 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 Avatâra, though, you may say, the result truly is the same. But in the case of the Avatâra, the evolving births are in previous kalpas, and the Avatâra 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´ryâvarta, 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´ryâvarta, 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 Mahâdeva, Shrî Shankarâchârya, in order that by His teaching He might give, in the Advaita Vedânta, 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´ryâvarta, 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 Avatâra; 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 Shrî Shankarâchârya on whom was the power of Mahâdeva was born but a few years after the passing away of the Buddha, as the records of the Dwârakâ 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 Avatâra, 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 Purâṇa. 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 Brâhmaṇa, 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 Brâhmaṇa in each race is the ideal Teacher; and we learn that when the Kalki Avatâra 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 Purâṇa to be Moru; and the name of the ideal Brâhmaṇa 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.

Those of you who have read something of the wondrous story of the past will know that the choosing out of the new Race, the evolving of it, the making of a new Root Race, is a thing that takes centuries, millenniums, sometimes hundreds of thousands of years; and that the two who are to be its King and Priest, the Manu and the Brâhmaṇa, are at Their work throughout the centuries, choosing the men who may be the seeds of the new Race. In the womb of the fourth Race a choice was made out of which the fifth was born; isolated in the Gobi desert, for enormous periods of time, that chosen family was trained, educated, reared, till its Manu incarnated in it, and its Teacher also incarnated in it, and the first A´ryan family was led forth to settle in A´ryâvarta. Now in the womb of the fifth Race, the sixth Race is a choosing, and the King and the Teacher of the sixth Race are already at Their mighty and beneficent work. They are choosing one by one, trying and testing, those who shall form the nucleus of the sixth Race; They are taking soul by soul, subjecting each to many a test, to many an ordeal, to see if there be the strength out of which a new Race can spring; and in fulness of time when Their work is ready, then will come the Kalki Avatâra, to sweep away the darkness, to send the Kali Yuga into the past, to proclaim the birth of the new Satya Yuga, with a new and more spiritual Race, that is to live therein. Then will He call out the chosen, the King Moru and the Brâhmaṇa Devapi, and give into Their hands the Race that now They are building, the Race to inhabit a fairer world, to carry onwards the evolution of humanity.

Fourth Lecture.

The austerer glories of Mahâdeva, the Lord of the burning ground, attract more the hearts of those who are weary of the world and who see the futility of worldly attractions; but Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa is the God of the household, the God of family life, the God whose manifestations attract in every phase of His Self-revelation; He is human to the very core; born in humanity, as He has said, He acts as a man. As a child, He is a real child, full of playfulness, of fun, of winsome grace. Growing up into boyhood, into manhood, He exercises the same human fascination over the hearts of men, of women, and of children; the God in whose presence there is always joy, the God in whose presence there is continual laughter and music. When we think of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa we seem to hear the ripple of the river, the rustling of the leaves in the forest, the lowing of the kine in the pasture, the laughter of happy children playing round their parents' knees. He is so fundamentally the God who is human in everything; who bends in human sympathy over the cradle of the babe, who sympathises with the play of the youth, who is the friend of the lover, the blesser of the bridegroom and the bride, who smiles on the young mother when her first-born lies in her arms—everywhere the God of love and of human happiness; what wonder that His winsome grace has fascinated the hearts of men!

We are to study Him, then, this morning. Now an Avatâra—I say this to clear away some preliminary difficulties—an Avatâra has two great aspects to the world. First, He is a historical fact. Do not let that be forgotten. When you are reading the story of the great Ones, you are reading history and not fable. But it is more than history; the Avatâras acts out on the stage of the world a mighty drama. He is, as it were, a player on the world's stage, and He plays a definite drama, and that drama is an exposition of spiritual truth. And though the facts are facts of history, they are also an allegory under which great spiritual truths are conveyed to the minds and to the hearts of men. If you think of it only as an allegory, you miss an aspect of the truth; if you think of it only as a history you miss an aspect of the truth. The history of an Avatâra is an exposition of spiritual verities; but though the drama be a real one, it is a drama with an object, a drama with distinct outlines laid down, as it were, by the author, and the Avatâra plays His part on the stage at the same time as He is living out His life as man in the history of the world. That must be remembered, otherwise some of the great lessons of the Avatâra will be misread.

Then He comes into the world surrounded by many who have been with Him in former births, surrounded by celestial beings, born as men, and by a vast body of beings of the opposing side born also as men. I am speaking specially of the Avatâra of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, but this is true of any other human Avatâra as well. They are not born into the world alone; They are born with a great circle round Them of friends, and a great host before them of apparent foes, incarnated as human beings, to work out the world-drama that is being played.

This is most of all, perhaps, apparent in the case of the One whom we are now studying. Because of the extremely complicated nature of the Avatâra of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, and the vast range that He covered as regards His manifestations of complex human life, in order to render the vast subject a little more manageable, I have divided this drama, as it were, into its separate acts. I am using for a moment the language of the stage, for I think it will make my meaning rather more clear. That is, in dealing with His life, I have taken its stages which are clearly marked out, and in each of these we shall see one great type of the teaching which the world is meant to learn from the playing of this drama before the eyes of men. To some extent the stages correspond with marked periods in the life, and to some extent they overlap each other; but by having them clearly in our minds we shall be able, I think, to grasp better the whole object of the Avatâra—we shall have as it were compartments in the mind in which the different types of teaching may be placed.

First then He comes to show forth to the world a great Object of bhakti, and the love of God to His bhakta, or devotee. That is the aim of the first act of the great drama—to stand forth as the Object of devotion, and to show forth the love with which God regards His devotees. We have there a marked stage in the life of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa.

Then the second act of the drama may be said to be His character as the destroyer of the opposing forces that retard evolution, and that runs through the whole of His life.

The third act is that of the statesman, the wise, politic, and intellectual actor on the world's stage of history, the guiding force of the nation by His wondrous policy and intelligence, standing forth not as king but rather as statesman.

Then we have Him as friend, the human friend, especially of the Pâṇḍavas and of Arjuna.

The next act is that of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa as Teacher, the world-teacher, not the teacher of one race alone.

Then we see Him in the strange and wondrous aspect of the Searcher of the hearts of men, the trier and tester of human nature.

Finally, we may regard Him in His manifestation as the Supreme, the all-pervading life of the universe, who looks on nothing as outside Himself, who embraces in His arms evil and good, darkness and light, nothing alien to Himself.

Into these seven acts, as it were, the life-history may be divided, and each of them might serve as the study of a life-time instead of our compressing them into the lecture of a morning. We will, however, take them in turn, however inadequately; for the hints I give can be worked out by you in detail according to the constitution of your own minds. One aspect will attract one man, another aspect will attract another; all the aspects are worthy of study, all are provocative of devotion. But most of all, with regard to devotion, is the earliest stage of His life inspiring and full of benediction, those early years of the Lord as infant, as child, as young boy, when He is dwelling in Vraja, in the forest of Brindâban, when He is living with the cowherds and their wives and their children, the marvellous child who stole the hearts of men. It is noticeable—and if it had been remembered many a blasphemy would not have been uttered—that Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa chose to show Himself as the great object of devotion, as the lover of the devotee, in the form of a child, not in that of a man.

Come then with me to the time of His birth, remembering that before that birth took place upon earth, the deities had been to Viṣhṇu in the higher regions, and had asked Him to interfere in order that earth might be lightened of her load, that the oppression of the incarnate Daityas might be stayed; and then Viṣhṇu said to the Gods: Go ye and incarnate yourselves in portions among men, go ye and take birth amid humanity. Great Ṛishis also took birth in the place where Viṣhṇu Himself was to be born, so that ere He came, the surroundings of the drama were, as it were, made in the place of His coming, and those that we speak of as the cowherds of Vraja, Nanda and those around Him, the Gopîs and all the inhabitants of that wondrously blessed spot, were, we are told, "God-like persons"; nay more, they were "the Protectors of the worlds" who were born as men for the progress of the world. But that means that the Gods themselves had come down and taken birth as men; and when you think of all that took place throughout the wonderful childhood of the Lîlâ[10] of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, you must remember that those who played that act of the drama were the ordinary men, no ordinary women; they were the Protectors of the worlds incarnated as cowherds round Him. And the Gopîs, the graceful wives of the shepherds, they were the Ṛishis of ancient days, who by devotion to Viṣhṇu had gained the blessing of being incarnated as Gopîs, in order that they might surround His childhood, and pour out their love at the tiny feet of the boy they saw as boy, of the God they worshipped as supreme.

When all these preparations were made for the coming of the child, the child was born. I am not dwelling on all the well-known incidents that surrounded His birth, the prophecy that the destroyer of Kamsa was to be born, the futile shutting up in the dungeon, the chaining with irons, and all the other follies with which the earthly tyrant strove to make impossible of accomplishment the decree of the Supreme. You all know how his plans came to nothing, as the mounds of sand raised by the hands of children are swept into a level plain when one wave of the sea ripples over the playground of the child. He was born, born in His four-armed form, shining out for the moment in the dungeon, which before His birth had been irradiated by Him through His mother's body, who was said to be like an alabaster vase—so pure was she—with a flame within it. For the Lord Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa was within her womb, herself the alabaster vase which was as a lamp containing Him, the world's light, so that the glory illuminated the darkness of the dungeon where she lay. At His birth he came as Viṣhṇu, for the moment showing Himself with all the signs of the Deity on Him, with the discus, with the conch, with the shrivatsa on His breast, with all the recognised emblems of the Lord. But that form quickly vanished, and only the human child lay before His parents' eyes. And the father, you remember, taking Him up, passed through the great locked doors and all the rest of it, and carried Him in safety into his brother's house, where He was to dwell in the place prepared for His coming.

As a babe He showed forth the power that was in Him, as we shall see, when we come, to the second stage, the destroyer of the forces of evil. But for the moment only watch Him as He plays in his foster mother's house, as He gambols with children of His own age. And as He is growing into a boy, able to go alone, He begins wandering through the fields and through the forest, and the notes of His wondrous flute are heard in all the groves and over all the plains. The child, a child of five—only five years of age when He wandered with His magic flute in His hands, charming the hearts of all that heard; so that the boys left tending the cattle and followed the music of the flute; the women left their household tasks and followed where the flute was playing; the men ceased their labours that they might feast their ears on the music of the flute. Nay, not only the men, the women and the children, but the cows, it is said, stopped their grazing to listen as the notes fell on their ears, and the calves ceased suckling as the music came to them on the wind, and the river rippled up that it might hear the better, and the trees bowed down their branches that they might not lose a note, and the birds no longer sang lest their music should make discord in the melody, as the wondrous child wandered over the country, and the music of heaven flowed from His magic flute.

And thus He lived and played and sported, and the hearts of all the cowherds and of their wives and daughters went out to that marvellous child. And He played with them and loved them, and they would take Him up and place His baby feet on their bosoms, and would sing to Him as the Lord of all, the Supreme, the mighty One. They recognised the Deity in the child that played round their homes, and many lessons He taught them, this child, amid His gambols and His pranks—lessons that still teach the world, and that those who know most understand best.

Let me take one instance which ignorant lips have used most in order to insult, to try to defame the majesty that they do not understand. But let me say this: that I believe that in most cases where these bitter insults are uttered, they are uttered by people who have never really read the story, and who have heard only bits of it and have supplied the rest out of their own imaginations. I therefore take a particular incident which I have heard most spoken of with bitterness as a proof of the frightful immorality of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa.

While the child of six was one day wandering along, as He would, a number of the Gopîs were bathing nude in the river, having cast aside their cloths—as they should not have done, that being against the law and showing carelessness of womanly modesty. Leaving their garments on the bank they had plunged into the river. The child of six saw this with the eye of insight, and He gathered up their cloths and climbed up a tree near by, carrying them with Him, and threw them round His own shoulders and waited to see what would chance. The water was bitterly cold and the Gopîs were shivering; but they did not like to come out of it before the clear steady eyes of the child. And He called them to come and get the garments they had thrown off; and as they hesitated, the baby lips told them that they had sinned against God by immodestly casting aside the garments that should have been worn, and must therefore expiate their sin by coming and taking from His hands that which they had cast aside. They came and worshipped, and He gave them back their robes. An immoral story, with a child of six as the central figure! It is spoken of as though he were a full grown man, insulting the modesty of women. The Gopîs were Ṛishis, and the Lord, the Supreme, as a babe is teaching them a lesson. But there is more than that; there is a profound occult lesson below the story—a story repeated over and over again in different forms—and it is this: that when the soul is approaching the supreme Lord at one great stage of initiation, it has to pass through a great ordeal; stripped of everything on which it has hitherto relied, stripped of everything that is not of its inner Self, deprived of all external aid, of all external protection, of all external covering, the soul itself, in its own inherent life, must stand naked and alone with nothing to rely on, save the life of the Self within it. If it flinches before the ordeal, if it clings to anything to which hitherto it has looked for help, if in that supreme hour it cries out for friend or helper, nay even for the Guru himself, the soul fails in that ordeal. Naked and alone it must go forth, with absolutely none to aid it save the divinity within itself. And it is that nakedness of the soul as it approaches the supreme goal, that is told of in that story of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, the child, and the Gopîs, the nakedness of life before the One who gave it. You find many another similar allegory. When the Lord comes in the Kalki, the tenth, Avatâra, He fights on the battlefield and is overcome. He uses all His weapons; every weapon fails Him; and it is not till He casts every weapon aside and fights with His naked hands, that He conquers. Exactly the same idea. Intellect, everything, fails the naked soul before God.[11]

If I have taken up this story specially, out of hundreds of stories, to dwell upon, it is because it is one of the points of attack, and because you who are Hindus by birth ought to know enough of the inner truths of your own religion not to stand silent and ashamed when attacks are made, but should speak with knowledge and thus prevent such blasphemies.

Then we learn more details of His play with the Gopîs as a child of seven: how He wandered into the forest and disappeared and all went after Him seeking Him; how they tried to imitate His own play, in order to fill up the void that was left by His absence. The child of seven, that He was at this time, disappeared for a while, but came back to those who loved Him, as God ever does with His bhaktas. And then takes place that wondrous dance, the Râsa[12] of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, part of His Lîlâ, when He multiplied Himself so that every pair of Gopîs found Him standing between them; amid the ring of women the child was there between each pair of them, giving a hand to each; and so the mystic dance was danced. This is another of these points of attack which are made by ignorant minds. What but an unclean mind can see aught that is impure in the child dancing there as lover and beloved? It is as though He looked forward down the ages, and saw what later would be said, and it is as though He kept the child form in the Lîlâ, in order that He might breathe harmlessly into men's blind unclean hearts the lesson that He would fain give. And what was the lesson? One other incident I remind you of, before I draw the lesson from the whole of this stage of His life. He sent for food, He who is the Feeder of the worlds, and some of His Brâhmaṇas refused to give it, and sent away the boys who came to ask for food for Him; and when the men refused, He sent them back to the women, to see if they too would refuse the food their husbands had declined to give. And the women—who have ever loved the Lord—caught up the food from every part of their houses where they could find it and went out, crowds of them, bearing food for Him, leaving house, and husband, and household duties. And all tried to stop them, but they would not be stopped; and brothers and husbands and friends tried to hold them back, but no, they must go to Him, to their Lover, Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa; He must not be hungry, the child of their love. And so they went and gave Him food and He ate. But they say: They left their husbands! they left their homes! how wrong to leave husbands and homes and follow after Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa! The implication always is that their love was purely physical love, as though that were possible with a child of seven. I know that words of physical love are used, and I know it is said in a curious translation that "they came under the spell of Cupid." It matters not for the words, let us look at the facts. There is not a religion in the world that has not taught that when the Supreme calls, all else must be cast aside. I have seen Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa contrasted with Jesus of Nazareth to the detriment of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, and a contrast is drawn between the purity of the one and the impurity of the other; the proof given was that the husbands were left while the wives went to play with and wait on the Lord. But I have read words that came from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth; "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundred fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." (Matt. x. 37, and xix. 29.) And again, yet more strongly: "If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke xiv. 26.) That is exactly the same idea. When Jesus calls, husband and wife, father and mother, must be forsaken, and the reward will be eternal life. Why is that right when done for Jesus, which is wrong when done for Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa?

It is not only that you find the same teaching in both religions; but in every other religion of the world the terms of physical love are used to describe the relation between the soul and God. Take the "Song of Solomon." If you take the Christian Bible and read the margin you will see "The Love of Christ for His Church"; and if from the margin you look down the column, you will find the most passionate of love songs, a description of the exquisite female form in all the details of its attractive beauty; the cry of the lover to the beloved to come to him that they might take their fill of love. "Christ and His Church" is supposed to make it all right, and I am content that it should be so. I have no word to say against the "Song of Solomon," nor any complaint against its gorgeous and luxuriant imagery; but I refuse to take from the Hebrew as pure, what I am to refuse from the Hindu as impure. I ask that all may be judged by the same standard, and that if one be condemned the same condemnation may be levelled against the other. So also in the songs of the Sûfîs, the mystics of the faith of Islâm, woman's love is ever used as the best symbol of love between the soul and God. In all ages the love between husband and wife has been the symbol of union between the Supreme and His devotees; the closest of all earthly ties, the most intimate of all earthly unions, the merging of heart and body of twain into one—where will you find a better image of the merging of the soul in its God? Ever has the object of devotion been symbolised as the lover or husband, ever the devotee as wife or mistress. This symbology is universal, because it is fundamentally true. The absolute surrender of the wife to the husband is the type upon earth of the absolute surrender of the soul to God. That is the justification of the Râsa of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa; that is the explanation of the story of His life in Vraja.

I have dwelt specially on this, my brothers, you all know why. Let us pass from it, remembering that till the nineteenth century this story provoked only devotion not ribaldry, and it is only with the coming in of the grosser type of western thought that you have these ideas put into the Bhâgavad-Purâṇa. I would to God that the Ṛishis had taken away the Shrîmad Bhâgavata from a race that is unworthy to have it; that as They have already withdrawn the greater part of the Vedas, the greater part of the ancient books, they would take away also this story of the love of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, until men are pure enough to read it without blasphemy and clean enough to read it without ideas of sexuality.

Pass from this to the next great stage, that of the Destroyer of evil, shortly, very shortly. From the time when as a babe but a few weeks old He sucked to death the Râkshasî, Pûtana; from the time He entered the great cave made by the demon, and expanding Himself shivered the whole into fragments; from the time He trampled on the head of the serpent Kalia so that it might not poison the water needed for the drinking of the people; until He left Vraja to meet Kamsa, we find Him ever chasing away every form of evil that came within the limits of His abode. We are told that when He had left Vraja and stood in the tournament field of Kamsa with His brother, His brother and Himself were mere boys, in the tender delicate bodies of youths. After the whole of the Lîlâ was over They were still children, when They went forth to fight. From that time onwards He met, one after another, the great incarnations of evil and crushed them with His resistless strength: we need not dwell on these stories, for they fill His life.

We come to the third stage of Statesman, a marvellously interesting feature in His life—the tact, the delicacy, the foresight, the skill in always putting the man opposed to Him in the wrong, and so winning His way and carrying others with Him. As you know, this part of His life is played out especially in connection with the Pâṇḍavas. He is the one who in every difficulty steps forward as ambassador; it is He who goes with Arjuna and Bhîma to slay the giant king Jarasandha, who was going to make a human sacrifice to Mahâdeva, a sacrifice that was put a stop to as blasphemous; it was He who went with them in order that the conflict might take place without transgressing the strictest rules of Kshattriya morality. Follow Him as He and Arjuna and his brother enter into the city of the king. They will not come by the open gate, that is the pathway of the friend. They break down a portion of the wall as a sign that they come as foes. They will not go undecorated; and challenged why they wore flowers and sandal, the answer is that they come for the celebration of a triumph, the fulfilling of a vow. Offered food, the answer of the great ambassador is that they will not take food then, that they will meet the king later and explain their purpose. When the time arrives He tells him in the most courteous but the clearest language that all these acts have been performed that he may know that they had come not as friends but as foes to challenge him to battle. So again when the question arises, after the thirteen years of exile, how shall the land be won back without struggle, without fight, you see Him standing in the assembly of Pâṇḍavas and their friends with the wisest counsel how perchance war may be averted; you see Him offering to go as ambassador that all the magic of His golden tongue may be used for the preservation of peace; you see Him going as ambassador and avoiding all the pavilions raised by the order of Duryodhana, that He may not take from one who is a foe a courtesy that might bind him as a friend. So when he pays the call on Duryodhana that courtesy demands, never failing in the perfect duty of the ambassador, fulfilling every demand of politeness, He will not touch the food that would make a bond between Himself and the one against whom He had come to struggle. See how the only food that He will take is the food of the King's brother, for that alone, He says, "is clean and worthy to be eaten by me." See how in the assembly of hostile kings He tries to pacify and tries to please. See how He apologises with the gentlest humility; how to the great king, the blind king, He speaks in the name of the Pâṇḍavas as suppliant, not as outraged and indignant foe. See how with soft words He tries to turn away words of wrath, and uses every device of oratory to win their hearts and convince their judgments. See how later again, when the battle of Kurukshetra is over, when all the sons of the blind king are slain, see how He goes once more as ambassador to meet the childless father and, still bitterer, the childless mother, that the first anger may break itself on Him, and His words may charm away the wrath and soothe the grief of the bereft. See how later on He still guides and advises till all the work is done, till His task is accomplished and His end is drawing near. A statesman of marvellous ability; a politician of keenest tact and insight; as though to say to men of the world that when they are acting as men of the world they should be careful of righteousness, but also careful of discretion and of skill, that there is nothing alien to the truth of religion in the skill of the tongue and in the use of the keen intelligence of the brain.

Then pass on again from Him as Statesman to His character as Friend. Would that I had time to dwell on it, and paint you some of the fair pictures of His relations with the family He loved so well, from the day when, standing in the midst of the self-choice of Kṛiṣhṇa, the fair future wife of the Pâṇḍavas, He saw for the first time in that human incarnation Arjuna, His beloved of old. Think what it must have been, when the eyes of the two young men met, with memories in the one pair of the close friendship of the past, and the drawing of the other by the tie of those many births to the ancient friend whom he knew not. From that day when they first meet in this life onwards, how constant His friendship, how ceaseless His protection, how careful His thought to guard their honour and their lives; and yet how wise; at every point where His presence would have frustrated the object of His coming, He goes away. He is not present at the great game of dice, for that was necessary for the working out of the divine purpose; He was away. Had He been there, He must needs have interfered; had He been there, He could not have left His friends unaided. He remained away, until Draupadî cried in her agony for help when her modesty was threatened; then he came with Dharma and clothed her with garments as they were dragged from her; but then the game was over, the dice were cast, and destiny had gone on its appointed road.

How strange to watch that working! One object followed without change, without hesitation: but every means used that might give people an opportunity of escaping if only they would. He came to bring about that battle on Kurukshetra. He came, as we shall see in a moment, in order to carry out that one object in preparation for the centuries that stretched in front; but in the carrying of it out, He would give every chance to men who were entangled in that evil by their own past, so that if one of them would answer to His pleading he might come over to the side of light against the forces of darkness. He never wavered in His object; yet He never left unused one means that man could use to prevent that object taking place. A lesson full of significance! The will of the Supreme must be done, but the doing of that will is no excuse for any individual man who does not carry out the law to the fullest of his power. Although the will must be carried out, everything should be done that righteousness permits and that compassion suggests in order that men may choose light rather than darkness, and that only the resolutely obstinate may at last be, whelmed in the ruin that falls upon the land.

As Teacher—need I speak of Him as teacher who gave the Bhagavad-Gîtâ between the contending armies on Kurukshetra? Teacher not of Arjuna alone, not of India alone, but of every human heart which can listen to spiritual instruction, and understand a little of the profound wisdom there clothed in the words of man. Remember a later saying: "I, O Arjuna, am the Teacher and the mind is my pupil;" the mind of every man who is willing to be taught; the mind of every one who is ready to be instructed. Never does the spiritual teacher withhold knowledge because he grudges the giving. He is hampered in the giving by the want of receptivity in those to whom his message is addressed. Ill do men judge the divine heart of the great Teachers, or the faint reflection of that love in the mouth of Their messengers, when they think that knowledge is withheld because it is a precious possession to be grudgingly dealt out, that has to be given in as small a share as possible. It is not the withholding of the teacher but the closing of the heart of the hearer; not the hesitation of the teacher but the want of the ear that hears; not the dearth of teachers but the dearth of pupils who are willing and ready to be taught. I hear men say: "Why not an Avatâra now, or if not an Avatâra, why do not the great Ṛishis come forward to speak Their golden wisdom in the ears of men? Why do They desert us? Why do They leave us? Why should this world in this age not have the wisdom as They gave it of old?" The answer is that They are waiting, waiting, waiting, with tireless patience, in order to find some one willing to be taught, and when one human heart opens itself out and says: "O Lord, teach me," then the teaching comes down in a stream of divine energy and floods the heart. And if you have not the teaching, it is because your hearts are locked with the key of gold, with the key of fame, with the key of power, and with the key of desire for the enjoyments of this world. While those keys lock your hearts, the teachers of wisdom cannot enter in; but unlock the heart and throw away the key, and you will find yourselves flooded with a wisdom which is ever waiting to come in.

As Searcher of hearts—Ah! here again He is so difficult to understand, this Lord of Mâyâ, this Master of illusion. He tests the hearts of His beloved, not so much the world at large. To them is the teaching that shall guide them aright. For Arjuna, for Bhîma, for Yudhiṣhṭhira, for them the keener touch, the sharper trial, in order to see if within the heart one grain of evil still remains, that will prevent their union with Himself. For what does he seek? That they shall be His very own, that they shall enter into His being. But they cannot enter therein while one seed of evil remains in their hearts. They cannot enter therein while one sin is left in their nature. And so in tenderness and not in anger, in wisest love and not with a desire to mislead, the Lord of Love tries the hearts of His beloved, so that any evil that is in them may be wrung out by the grip that He places on them. Two or three occasions of it I remember. I may mention perhaps a couple of them to show you the method of the trial. The battle of Kurukshetra had been raging many a day; thousands and tens of thousands of the dead lay scattered on that terrible field, and every day when the sun rose Bhîshma came forth, generalissimo of the army of the Kurus, carrying before him everything, save where Arjuna barred his way; but Arjuna could not be everywhere; he was called away, with the horses guided by the Charioteer Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa sweeping across the field like a whirlwind, carrying victory in their course; and where the Charioteer and Arjuna were not there Bhîshma had his way. The hearts of the Pâṇḍavas sank low within them, and at last one night under their tents, resting ere the next day's struggle, the bitter despondency of King Yudhiṣhṭhira broke out in words, and he declared that until Bhîshma was slain nothing could be done. Then came the test from the lips of the searcher of hearts. "Behold, I will go forth and slay him on the morrow." Would Yudhiṣhṭhira consent? A promise stood in his way. You may remember that when Duryodhana and Arjuna went to Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa who lay sleeping, the question arose as to what each should take. Alone, unarmed, Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa would go with one, He would not fight; a mighty battalion of troops He would give to the other. Arjuna chose the unarmed Kṛiṣhṇa; Duryodhana, the mighty army ready to fight; so the word of the Avatâra was pledged that He would not fight. Unarmed He went into the battle, clad in his yellow silken robe, and only with the whip of the charioteer in His hand; twice, in order to stimulate Arjuna into combat, He had sprung down from the chariot and gone forth with His whip in His hand as though He would attack Bhîshma and slay him where he fought. Each time Arjuna stopped Him, reminding Him of His words. Now came the trial for the blameless King, as he is often called; should Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa break His word to give him victory? He stood firm. "Thy promise is given," was his answer; "that promise may not be broken." He passed the trial; he stood the test. But still one weakness was left in that noble heart; one underlying weakness that threatened to keep him away from his Lord. The lack of power to stand absolutely alone in the moment of trial, the ever clinging to some one stronger than himself, in order that his own decision might be upheld. That last weakness had to be burnt out as by fire. In a critical moment of the battle the word came that the success of Droṇa was carrying everything before him; that Droṇa was resistless and that the only way to slay him was to spread the report that his son was dead, and then he would no longer fight. Bhîma slew an elephant of the same name as Droṇa's son, and he said in the hearing of Droṇa: "Ashvatthâma is dead." But Droṇa would not believe unless King Yudhiṣhṭhira said so. Then the test came. Will he tell a practical lie but a nominal truth, in order to win the battle? He refused; not for his brother's pleadings would he do it. Would he stand firm by truth quite alone when all he revered seemed to be on the other side? The great One said: "Say that Ashvatthâma is slain." Ought he to have done it because He, Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, bade him? Ought he to have told the lie because the revered One counselled it? Ah no! neither for the voice of God nor man, may the human soul do a thing which he knows to be against God and His law; and alone he must stand in the universe, rather than sin against right. And when the lie was told under cover of that excuse, Yudhiṣhṭhira doing what he wished in his heart under cover of the command from one he revered, then he fell, his chariot descended to the ground, and suffering and misery followed him from that day till the day of his ending, until in the face of the King of the celestials he stood alone, holding the duty of protection even to a dog higher than divine command and joy of heaven. And then he showed that the lesson had worked out in his purification, and that the heart was clean from the slightest taint of weakness. Oh, but men say, Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa counselled the telling of a lie! My brothers, can you not see beneath the illusion? What is there in this world that the Supreme does not do? There is no life but His, no Self but His, nothing save His life through all His universe; and every act is His act, when you go back to the ultimates. He had warned them of that truth. "I" He said, "am the gambling of the cheat," as well as the chants of the Veda. Strange lesson, and hard to learn, and yet true. For at every stage of evolution there is a lesson to be learnt. He teaches all the lessons; at each point of growth the next step is to be taken, and very often that step is the experiencing of evil, in order that suffering may burn the desire for evil out of the very heart. And just as the knife of the surgeon is different from the knife of the murderer, although both may pierce the human flesh, the one cutting to cure, the other to slay; so is the sharp knife of the Supreme, when by experience of evil and consequent pain He purifies the man, different, because the motive is other than the doing of evil to gratify passion, the stepping aside from righteousness in order to please the lower nature.

Last of all He shows himself as the Supreme; there is the Vaiṣhṇava form, the universal form, the form that contains the universe. But still more is the Supreme seen in the profound wisdom of the teaching, in the steadfastness of His walk through life. Does it sound strange to say that God is seen more in the latter than the former, that the outer form that contains the universe is less divine than the perfect steadfast nature, swerving neither to the right hand nor the left? Read that life again with this thought in your mind, of one purpose followed to its end no matter what forces might play on the other side, and its greatness may appear.

What did He come to do? He came to give the last lesson to the Kshattriya caste of India, and to open India to the world. Many lessons had been given to that great caste. We know that twenty-one times they had been cut off, and yet re-established. We know that Shrî Râma had shown the perfect life of Kshattriya, as an example that they might follow. They would not learn the lesson, either by destruction or by love. They would not follow the example either from fear or from admiration. Then their hour struck on the bell of Heaven, the knell of the Kshattriya caste. He came to sweep away that caste and to leave only scattered remnants of it, dotted over the Indian soil. It had been the sword of India, the iron wall that ringed her round. He came to shiver that wall into pieces, and to break the sword that it might not strike again. It had been used to oppress instead of to protect. It had been used for tyranny instead of for justice. Therefore he who gave it brake it, till men should learn by suffering what they would not learn by precept. And on the field of Kuru, the Kshattriya caste fought its last great battle; none were left of all that mighty host save a handful, when the fighting was over. Never has the caste recovered from Kurukshetra. It has not utterly disappeared. In some districts we find families belonging to it; but you know well enough that as a caste in most parts of modern India, you are hard put to find it. Why in the great counsels of the world's welfare was this done? Not only to teach a lesson for all time to kings and rulers, that if they would not govern aright they should not govern at all; but also to lay India open to the world.

How strange that sounds! To lay her open to invasion? He who loved her to lay her open to conquest? He who had consecrated her, He who had hallowed her plains and forests by His treading, and whose voice had rung through her land? Aye, for He judges not as man judges, and He sees the end from the beginning. India as she was of old, kept isolated from all the world, was so kept that she might have the treasure of spiritual knowledge poured into her and make a vessel for the containing. But when you fill the vessel, you do not then put that vessel high away on a shelf, and leave men thirsting for the liquid that it contains. The mighty One filled His Indian vessel with the water of spiritual knowledge, and at last the time came when that water should be poured out for the quenching of the thirst of the world, and should not be left only for the quenching of the thirst of a single nation, for the use of a single people. Therefore the Lover of men came, in order that the water of life might be poured out; He broke down the wall, so that the foreigner might overstep her borders. The Greeks swept in, the Mussulmâns swept in, invasion after invasion, invasion after invasion, until the conquerors who now rule India were the latest in time. Do you see in that only decay, only misery, only that India is under a curse? Ah no, my brothers! That which seems a curse for the time is for the world's healing and the world's blessing; and India may well suffer for a time in order that the world may be redeemed.

What does it mean? I am not speaking politically, but from the standpoint of a spiritual student, who is trying to understand how the evolution of the race goes on. The people who last conquered India, who now rule her as governors, are the people whose language is the most widely spread of all the languages of the world, and it is likely to become the world's language. It belongs not only to that little island of Britain, it belongs also to the great continent of America, to the great continent of Australia. It has spread from land to land, until that one tongue is the tongue most widely understood amongst all the peoples of the world. Other nations are beginning to learn it, because business and trade and even diplomacy are beginning to be carried on in that English speech. What wonder then that the Supreme should send to India this nation whose language is becoming the world-language, and lay her open to be held as part of that world-wide empire, in order that her Scriptures, translated into the most widely spoken language, may help the whole human family and purify and spiritualise the hearts of all His sons.

There is the deepest object of His coming, to prepare the spiritualisation of the world. It is not enough that one nation shall be spiritual; it is not enough that one country shall have wisdom; it is not enough that one land, however mighty and however beloved—and do not I love India as few of you love her?—it is not enough that she should have the gold of spiritual truth, and the rest of the world be paupers begging for a coin. No; far better that for a time she should sink in the scale of nations, in order that what she cannot do for herself may be done by divine agencies that are ever guiding the evolution of the world. Thus what from outside looks as conquest and subjection, to the eye of the spirit looks as the opening of the spiritual temple, so that all the nations may come in and learn.

Only that leaves to you a duty, a responsibility. I hear so much, I have spoken so often, of the descendants of Ṛishis and of the blood of the Ṛishis in your veins. True, but not enough. If you are again to be what Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa means you to be in His eternal counsels, the Brâhmaṇa of nations, the teacher of divine truth, the mouth through which the Gods speak in the ears of men, then the Indian nation must purify itself, then the Indian nation must spiritualise itself. Shall your Scriptures spiritualise the whole world while you remain unspiritual? Shall the wisdom of the Ṛishis go out to Mlechchas in every part of the world, and they learn and profit by it, while you, the physical descendants of the Ṛishis, know not your own literature and love it even less than you know? That is the great lesson with which I would fain close. So true is this, that, in order to gain teachers of the Brahmavidyâ which belongs to this land by right of birth, the great Ṛishis have had to send some of their children to other lands in order that they may come back to teach your own religion amidst your people. Shall it not be that this shame shall come to an end? Shall it not be that there are some among you that shall lead again the old spiritual life, and follow and love the Lord? Shall it not be, not only here and there, but at last that the whole nation shall show the power of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa in His life incarnated amongst you, which would really be greater than any special Avatâra? May we not hope and pray that His Avatâra shall be the nation that incarnates His knowledge, His love, His universal brotherliness to every man that treads the soil of earth? Away with the walls of separation, with the disdain and contempt and hatred that divide Indian from Indian, and India from the rest of the world. Let our motto from this time forward be the motto of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa, that as He meets men on any road, so we will walk beside them on any road as well, for all roads are His. There is no road which He does not tread, and if we follow the Beloved who leads us, we must walk as He walks.

Peace to all beings.

THE