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five of them manifested at the present time. That is His special work.
Then He meditates, and forms--as thoughts--come forth. There His
manifest work may be said to end, though He maintains ever the life of
the atom. As far as the active work of the kosmos is concerned, He gives
way to the next of the great forces that is to work, the force of
Vishnu. His work is to gather together that matter that has been
built, shaped, prepared, vivified, and build it into definite forms
after the creative ideas brought forth by the meditation of Brahma. He
gives to matter a binding force; He gives to it those energies that hold
form together. No form exists without Him, whether it be moving or
unmoving. How often does Shri Krishna, speaking as the supreme
Vishnu, lay stress on this fact. He is the life in every form;
without it the form could not exist, without it it would go back to its
primeval elements and no longer live as form. He is the all-pervading
life; the "Supporter of the Universe" is one of His names. Mahadeva has
a different function in the universe; especially is He the great Yogi;
especially is He the great Teacher, the Mahaguru; He is sometimes called
Jagatguru, the Teacher of the world. Over and over again--to take a
comparatively modern example, as the _Gurugita_--we find Him as Teacher,
to whom Parvati goes asking for instruction as to the nature of the
Guru. He it is who defines the Guru's work, He it is who inspires the
Guru's teaching. Every Guru on earth is a reflection of Mahadeva, and it
is His life which he is commissioned to give out to the world. Yogi,
immersed in contemplation, taking the ascetic form always--that marks
out His functions. For the symbols by which the mighty Ones are shown in
the teachings are not meaningless, but are replete with the deepest
meaning. And when you see Him represented as the eternal Yogi, with the
cord in His hand, sitting as an ascetic in contemplation, it means that
He is the supreme ideal of the ascetic life, and that men who come
especially under His influence must pass out of home, out of family, out
of the normal ties of evolution, and give themselves to a life of
asceticism, to a life of renunciation, to share, however feebly, in that
mighty yoga by which the universe is kept alive.

He then manifests not as Avatara, but such manifestations come from Him
who is the God, the Spirit, of evolution, who evolves all forms. That is
why from Vishnu all these Avataras c