Fourth Lecture.
My brothers, there are themes so lofty that tongue of Deva would not suffice to do full justice to that which they enclose, and when we think of the music of Shrî Kṛiṣhṇa's flute, all human music seems as discord amidst its strains. Nevertheless since bhakti grows by thought and word, it is not amiss that we should come near a subject so sacred; only in dealing with it we must needs feel our incompetency, we must needs regret our limitations, we must needs wish for greater power of expression than we can have down here. For, perhaps, amid all the divine manifestations that have glorified the world, there is none which has aroused a wider, tenderer feeling than the Avatâra which we are to study this morning.
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.