g to which He clung, by taking away from Him the wife
whom He loved as His very Self, by placing her in the spot where all the
forces of evil were gathered together, so making one head for
destruction, which the arrow of Shri Rama might destroy. Then the mighty
battle, then the struggle with all the forces of his great nature, that
the law might be obeyed to the uttermost, duly fulfilled to the last
grain, the debt paid that was owed; and then--ah then! the shaft of the
Beloved, then the arrow of Shri Rama that struck off the head from the
seeming enemy, from the real devotee. And from the corpse of the
Rakshasa that fell upon the field near Lanka, the devotee went up to
Goloka[8] to sit at the feet of the Beloved, and rest for awhile till
the third incarnation had to be lived out.

[Footnote 8: A name for one of the heavens.]

Such then are some of the reasons by, the ways in which the coming of
the Avatara is brought about. And my last word to you, my brothers,
to-day is but a sentence, in order to avoid the possibility of a mistake
to which our diving into these depths of thought may possibly give rise.
Remember that though all powers are His, all forces His, Rakshasa as
much as Deva, Asura as much as Sura; remember that for your evolution
you must be on the side of good, and struggle to the utmost against
evil. Do not let the thoughts I have put lead you into a bog, into a pit
of hell, in which you may for the time perish, that because evil is
relative, because it exists by the one will, because Rakshasa is His as
much as Deva, therefore you shall go on their side and walk along their
path. It is not so. If you yield to ambition, if you yield to pride, if
you set yourselves against the will of I'shvara, if you struggle for the
separated self, if in yourselves now you identify yourself with the past
in which you have dwelt instead of with the future towards which you
should be directing your steps, then, if your Karma be at a certain
stage, you pass into the ranks of those who work as enemies, because you
have chosen that fate for yourself, at the promptings of the lower
nature. Then with bitter inner pain--even if with complete
submission--accepting the Karma, but with profound sorrow, you shall
have to work out your own will against the will of the Beloved, and feel
the anguish of the rending that separates the inner from the outer life.
The will of I'shvara for you is evolution; these forces are made to
help your