more than ever driven by greed, held by fear, swept by anger. The strong dominate the weak, the rich oppress the poor. Large masses of people are exploited for the benefit of the few who are in power. The individual, who finds no peace or rest, seeks to forget himself in excitement. Immorality increases, crime flourishes, religion is ridiculed. Corruption spreads throughout the social order. Class and national hatreds are aroused and fostered. Wars break out. Humanity grows desperate. There seems to be no possibility of stemming the tide of destruction.

At this moment the Avatar appears. Being the total manifestation of GOD in human form, he is like a gauge against which man can measure what he is and what he may become. He trues the standard of human values by interpreting them in terms of divinely human life. He is interested in everything, but not concerned about anything. The slightest mishap may command his sympathy; the greatest tragedy will not upset him. He is beyond the alternations of pain and pleasure, desire and satisfaction, rest and struggle, life and death. To him, they are equally illusions which he has transcended, but by which others are bound, and from which he has come to free them. He uses every circumstance as a means to lead others toward Realization.

In those who contact him he awakens a love that consumes all selfish desires in the flame of the one desire to serve him. Those who consecrate their lives to him gradually become identified with him in consciousness. Little by little their humanity is absorbed into his divinity, and they become freed.

Those who are closest to him are known as his circle. Every Sadguru has an intimate circle of twelve disciples, who, in point of realization, are made equal to the Sadguru himself, though they differ from him in function and authority. In Avataric periods, The Avatar has a circle of one hundred and twenty disciples, all of whom experience realization, and work for the liberation of others. Their work is not only for contemporary humanity, but for posterity as well. The unfoldment of life and consciousness for the whole Avataric cycle, which has been mapped out in the creative world before the Avatar took form, is endorsed and fixed in the formative and material worlds during the Avatar's life on earth.

The Avatar awakens contemporary humanity to a realization of its true spiritual nature, gives liberation to those who are ready, and quickens the life of the spirit in his time. For posterity is left the stimulating power of