dies ; hence the necessity of a divine consciousness manifesting in the mind and soul of humanity. Where indeed, the change is mainly intellectual and practical the intervention of the Avatar is not needed ; there is a great uplifting of consciousness, a great manifestation of power in which men are for the time being exalted above their normal selves, and this surge of conscious- ness and power finds its wave-crests in certain except- ional individuals, wvibkiitis, whose action leading the general action is sufficient for the change intended. The Reformation in Europe and the French Revolution were crises of this character ; they were not great spiritual events, but intellectual and practical changes, one in religious, the other in social and political ideas, forms and motives, and the modification of the general consciousness brought about was a mental and dynamic, but not a spiritual modification. But when the crisis has a spiritual seed or intention, then a complete or a partial manifestation of the God-consciousness in a human mind and soul comes as its originator or leader, That is the Avatar.
The outward action of the Avatar is described in the Gita as the restoration of the Dharma ; when from age to age the Dharma fades, languishes, loses force and its opposite arises, strong and oppressive, then the Avatar comes and raises it again to power ; and as then things in idea are always represented by things in action and by human beings who obey their impulsion,his mis- sion is, in its most human and outward terms, to relieve the seekers of the Dharma who are oppressed by the reign of the reactionary darkness and to destroy the wrongdoers who seek to maintain the denial of the
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