________________
INCARNATE TEACHERS AND INCARNATION. 55
Krishna in the Bhagavat,--and higher and nobler than all ordinary ones is another set of teachers in the world, the Avatáras of Isvara. They can transmit spirituality with a touch, even with a mere wish! The lowest and the most degraded characters become in one second saints at their command ! They are the Teachers of all teachers, the highest manifestations of God through man. We cannot see God except through them. We cannot help worshipping them and indeed, they are the only ones whom we are bound to worship.
No man can really see God except through these human manifestations. If we try to see God otherwise, we make for ourselves a hideous caricature of Him, and believe the caricature to be no worse than the original. There is a story of an ignoránt man who was asked to make an image of the God Siva, and who, after days of hard struggle, manufactured only the image of a
