has led to
misconception. You may remember that the late learned T. Subba Rao in
the lectures that he gave on the _Bhagavad-Gita_ put to you a certain
view of the Avatara, that it was a descent of I'shvara--or, as he said,
using the theosophical term, the Logos, which is only the Greek name for
I'shvara--a descent of I'shvara, uniting Himself with a human soul. With
all respect for the profound learning of the lamented pandit, I cannot
but think that that is only a partial definition. Probably he did not at
that time desire, had not very possibly the time, to deal with case
after case, having so wide a field to cover in the small number of
lectures that he gave, and he therefore chose out one form, as we may
say, of self-revelation, leaving untouched the others, which now in
dealing with the subject by itself we have full time to study. Let me
then begin as it were at the beginning, and then give you certain
authorities which may make the view easier to accept; let me state
without any kind of attempt to veil or evade, what is really an Avatara.
Fundamentally He is the result of evolution. In far past Kalpas, in
worlds other than this, nay, in universes earlier than our own, those
who were to be Avataras climbed slowly, step by step, the vast ladder of
evolution, climbing from mineral to plant, from plant to animal, from
animal to man, from man to Jivanmukta, from Jivanmukta higher and higher
yet, up the mighty hierarchy that stretches beyond Those who have
liberated Themselves from the bonds of humanity; until at last, thus
climbing, They cast off not only all the limits of the separated Ego,
not only burst asunder the limitations of the separated Self, but
entered I'shvara Himself and expanded into the all-consciousness of the
Lord, becoming one in knowledge as they had ever been one in essence
with that eternal Life from which originally they came forth, living in
that life, centres without circumferences, living centres, one with the
Supreme. There stretches behind such a One the endless chain of birth
after birth, of manifestation after manifestation. During the stage in
which He was human, during the long climbing up of the ladder of
humanity, there were two special characteristics that marked out the
future Avatara from the ranks of men. One his absolute bhakti, his
devotion to the Supreme; for only those who are bhaktas and who to their
bhakti have wed gnyana, or knowledge, can reach this goal; for by
devotion,