Annie Besant

“ 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. ”

“ Our President has truly said that in all the faiths of the world there is belief in such manifestations, and that ancient maxim as to truth—that which is as the hall mark on the silver showing that the metal is pure—that ancient maxim is here valid, that whatever has been believed everywhere, whatever has been believed at every time, and by every one, that is true, that is reality. Religions quarrel over many details; men dispute over many propositions; but where human heart and human voice speak a single word, there you have the mark of truth, there you have the sign of spiritual reality. ”

“ A profound truth, a truth that few in modern times recognise. Every type in the universe, in its own place, is good; every type in the universe, in its own place, is necessary. There is no life save His life; how then could any type come into existence apart from the universal life, bereft whereof nothing can exist?
We speak of good forms and evil, and rightly, as regards our own evolution. But from the wider standpoint of the kosmos, good and evil are relative terms, and everything is very good in the sight of the Supreme who lives in every one. ”

“ Remember that though all powers are His, all forces His, Râkshasa 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 Râkshasa is His as much as Deva, therefore you shall go on their side and walk along their path. ”

“ Here Bali is made the symbol of all living things.
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? ”

“ Fame and power, wealth and science—all that is in this world below is as nothing beside the grandeur of the Eternal Self in the universe and in man, one in all His manifold manifestations, marvellous and beautiful in every form that He puts forth. And this year, of all the manifestations of the Supreme, we are going to dare to study the holiest of the holiest, those manifestations of God in the world in which He shows Himself as divine, coming to [8] help the world that He has made, shining forth in His essential nature, the form but a thin film which scarce veils the Divinity from our eyes. ”

“ 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, [115] with the key of fame, with the key of power, and with the key of desire for the enjoyments of this world. ”

“ How would you choose good if you knew not evil? How would you recognise the light if there were no darkness? How would you move if there were no resistance? The forces that are called dark, the forces of the Râkshasas, of the Asuras, of all that seem to be working against I ́shvara—these are the forces that call out the inner strength of the Self in man, by struggling with which the forces of A ́tmâ within the man are developed, and without which he would remain in Pralaya for evermore. It is a perfectly stagnant pool where there is no motion, and there you get corruption and not life. ”

“ Once in the court of Dhritarâshṭra, when the madly foolish Duryodhana talked about imprisoning within cell-walls the universal Lord whom the universe cannot confine; and to show the wild folly of the arrogant prince, out in the court before every eye He shone forth as Lord of all, filling earth and sky with His glory, and all forms human and divine, superhuman and subhuman, were seen gathered round Him in the life from which they spring. ”

“ Himself by His own will to show out what husband should be to wife, how could He in the forest, when Sîtâ had been reft away by Râvana, have shown the grief, have uttered the piteous lamentations, which have drawn tears from thousands of eyes, as He calls on plants and on trees, on animals and birds, on Gods and men, to tell Him where His wife, His other self, the life of His life, had gone? How could he have taught men what wife should be to husband's heart unless He had limited Himself? The consciously Omnipresent Deity could not seek and search for His beloved who had disappeared. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The evolution of force can only be made by struggle, by combat, by effort, by exercise, and inasmuch as I ́shvara is building men and not babies, He must draw out men's forces by pulling against their strength, making them struggle in order to attain, and so vivifying into outer manifestation the life that otherwise would remain enfolded in itself. In the seed the life is hidden, but it will not grow if you leave the seed alone. ”

“ For as there is nought in the universe without His love and life, so there is no beauty that is not His beauty, that is not a ray of the illimitable splendour, one little beam from the unfailing source of life. ”

“ Over and over again—to take a comparatively modern example, as the Gurugîtâ—we find Him as Teacher, to whom Pârvati goes asking for instruction as to the nature of the Guru. He it is who defines the Guru's work, He it is who inspires the Guru's teaching. Every Guru on earth is a reflection of Mahâdeva, and it is His life which he is commissioned to give out to the world. Yogî, immersed in contemplation, taking the ascetic form always—that marks out His functions. For the symbols by which the mighty Ones are shown in the teachings are not meaningless, but are replete with the deepest meaning. ”

“ The prophet—coming forth from time to time with the divine word hot as fire on his lips—speaks out the ancient truth and illuminates tradition. But they who cling to the words of tradition are apt to be blinded by the light of the fire and to call out "heretic" against the one who speaks the truth that they have lost. Therefore, in religion after religion, when some great teacher has arisen, there have been opposition, clamour, rejection, because the truth he spoke was too mighty to be narrowed within the limits of half-blinded men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And so we find that if we would learn we must limit ourselves—nay, we must try to expand ourselves—to the limits of our own system. Why? I have met people who have not really any grasp of this little world, this grain of dust in which they live, who cannot be content unless you answer questions about the One Existence, the Para-Brahma, whom sages revere in silence, not daring to speak even with illuminated mind that knows nirvânic life and has expanded to nirvânic consciousness. The more ignorant the man, the more he thinks he can grasp. ”

“ Have you ever been drawn away for a moment into higher, more peaceful realms, when you have come across something of beauty, of art, of the wonders of science, of the grandeur of philosophy? Have you for a time lost sight of the pettinesses of earth, of trivial troubles, of small worries and annoyances, and felt yourself lifted into a calmer region, into a light that is not the light of common earth? ”

“ As life has evolved, one force after another has come out, and in man there begins to come out the central life, for the time has arrived for the evolution of the sovereign power of will, the self-initiated motion which is part of the life of the Supreme. Do not misunderstand me—for the subject is a subtle one; there is only one will in the universe, the will of I ́shvara, and all must conform itself to that will, all is conditioned by that will, all must move according to that will, and that will marks out the straight line of evolution. ”

“ The Self is in you and in me, as much as the Self is in I ́shvara, that One, eternal, unchanging, undecaying, whereof every manifested existence is but one ray of glory. Thus it is true, that which is taught in the Yoga Vâsiṣhṭha; true it is that even the greatest, before whom we bow in worship, has climbed [21] in ages past all human reckoning to be one with the Supreme, and, ever there, to manifest Himself as God to the world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How shall the earth be brought up from the waters which have overwhelmed it? Now once again the great Helper is needed, the God, the Protector of Evolution. Then in the form of a mighty Boar, whose form filled the heaven, plunging down into the waters that He alone could separate, the Great One descends. He brings up the earth from the lower region where it was lying awaiting His coming; and the land rises up again from below the surface of the flood, and the vast Lemurian continent is the earth of that far-off age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And do you know, my brothers, that only in proportion as His spirit enters into us, can we in our little measure be helpers in the universe of which He is the one life; until we, in all our doings and speakings, place ourselves within the one we want to help and not outside him, feeling as he feels, thinking as he thinks, knowing for the time as he knows, with all his limitations, although there may be further knowledge beyond, we cannot truly help; that is the condition of all true help given by man to man, as it is the only condition of the help which is given to man by God Himself. ”

“ When Dharma,—righteousness, law—decays, when Adharma—unrighteousness, lawlessness—is exalted, then I Myself come forth: for the protection of the good, for the destruction of the evil, for the establishing firmly of Dharma, I am born from age to age. ”

“ These, then, are the two great characteristics of the man who is to become the special manifestation of God—bhakti, love to the One in whom he is to merge, and love to those whose very life is the life of God. Only as these come forth in the man is he on the path that leads him to be—in future universes, in far, far future kalpas—an Avatâra coming as God to man. ”

“ And the need of the devotion for the future Avatâra is this: he must keep the centre that he has built even in the life of I ́shvara, so that he may be able to draw the circumference once again round that centre, in order that he may come forth as a manifestation of I'shvara, one with Him in knowledge, one with Him in power, the very Supreme Himself in earthly life; he must hence have the power of limiting himself to form, for no form can exist in the universe save as there is a centre within it round which that form is drawn. ”

“ So in turn that sun, round which our sun is circling, is planet to a yet mightier sun, and each set of systems in its turn circles round a more central sun, and so on—we know not how far may stretch the chain that to us is illimitable; for who is able to plumb the depths and heights of space, or to find a manifested circumference which takes in all universes! Nay, we say that they are infinite in number, and that there is no end to the manifestations of the one Life. ”

“ 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. ”