Avatâras by Annie Besant (top 10 most read books in the world .TXT) 📖

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.

[Footnote 10: Play.]

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]

[Footnote 11: So in the _Imitation of Christ_, the work of an occultist, it is written that we must "naked follow the naked Jesus."]

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