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Avatâras Four lectures delivered at the twenty-fourth anniversary meeting of the Theosophical Society at Adyar, Madras, December, 1899

Annie Besant

Top 10 Best Quotes

“How would you learn right if you knew not wrong? 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?”

“You always look at the things of the spirit with the eyes of the flesh. What you ought to do is to look at the things of the flesh with the eyes of the spirit.”

“Were everything around us smooth and easy, we would remain supine, lethargic, indifferent. It is the whip of pain, of suffering, of disappointment, that drives us onward and brings out the forces of our internal life which otherwise would remain undeveloped.”

“Veiling Himself in the form of an outcaste—for to Him all forms are the same, the human differences are but as the grains of sand which vanish before the majesty of His greatness.”

“The word “Avatâra,” as you know, has as its root “tri,” passing over, and with the prefix which is added, the “ava,” you get the idea of descent, one who descends. That is the literal meaning of the word.”

“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.”

“The more ignorant the man, the more he thinks he can grasp. The less he understands, the more he resents being told that there are some things beyond the grasp of his intellect, existences so mighty that he cannot even dream of the lowest of the attributes that mark them out.”

“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.”

“The Lord comes forth to restore that which had been disturbed of the balanced interworking of the three gunas and to make again such balance between them as shall enable evolution to go forward smoothly and not be checked in its progress.”

“That is why there are forces which you call evil. In this universe there is no evil; all is good that comes to us from I´shvara, but it sometimes comes in the guise of evil that, by opposing it, we may draw out our strength.”

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