A heart stood in the way of the driving wheels

 Across the awful march no eye can see,

Barring its dreadful route no will can change,

She faced the engines of the universe;

A heart stood in the way of the driving wheels:

Its giant workings paused in front of a mind,

Its stark conventions met the flame of a soul.

A magic leverage suddenly is caught

That moves the veiled Ineffable’s timeless will:

A prayer, a master act, a king idea

Can link man’s strength to a transcendent Force.

Then miracle is made the common rule,

One mighty deed can change the course of things;

A lonely thought becomes omnipotent.

Savitri faced the 'engines of the universe': the mechanical laws of material physics that are propelling the universe unendingly. Like the engines of a gigantic locomotive that keep it marching onwards on its predetermined route, these Laws of Nature are carrying us frightfully forward on a journey whose destination we cannot see with our naked yet we cannot say 'no' to them. Savitri's stood confronting these driving engines with a Divine love and fire of her Heart. The gaint wheels were made to halt or pause by the sheer power of her Mind. The harsh conventions of daily routine were opposed by the flame of her soul full of Divine Will and Power. A lever that performs seemingly impossible tasks of timeless Divine Will was held by Savitri. When a sincere prayer, or a master act, or a grand idea links common man's limited strength to a supernatural force then, like the magic of a lever, even a so-called miracle becomes an everyday act. Just a single miraculous deed like this can change the whole course of destiny and a lonely thought becomes all-powerful influencing and determining the future. 

Doctrine of an Avatar in Theosohy

The lines 'Then miracle is made the common rule, One mighty deed can change the course of things;' of Sri Aurobindo, impel us to compare teachings on the Avatars in Theosophy termed as 'The Doctrine of Avatars (Eastern Teaching)' or 'The Doctrine of the Coming One (Western Teaching)':

'An Avatar is one Who has a peculiar capacity (besides a self-initiated task and a preordained destiny) to transmit energy or divine power. This is necessarily a deep mystery and was demonstrated in a peculiar manner and in relation to cosmic energy by the Christ Who - for the first time in planetary history, as far as we know - transmitted the divine energy of love directly to our planet and in a most definite sense to humanity. Always too these Avatars or divine Messengers are linked with the concept of some subjective spiritual Order or Hierarchy of spiritual Lives, Who are concerned with the developing welfare of humanity. All we really know is that, down the ages, great and divine Representatives of God embody divine purpose, and affect the entire world in such a manner that Their names and Their influence are known and felt thousands of years after They no longer walk among men. Again and again, They have come and have left a changed world and some new world religion behind Them; we know also that prophecy and faith have ever held out to mankind the promise of Their coming again amongst us in an hour of need. These statements are statements of fact, historically proven. Beyond this we know relatively few details.

The word "Avatar" is a Sanskrit word, meaning literally "coming down from far away." Ava (as prefix to verbs and verbal nouns) expresses the idea of "off, away, down." Avataram, (comparative) farther away. The root AV seems at all times to denote the idea of Protection from above, and is used in compounds, in words referring to protections by kings or rulers; in regard to the gods, it means accepted favorably when a sacrifice is offered. With the result that the root word can be said to mean "Coming down with the approval of the higher source from which it came and with benefit to the place at which it arrives." (From Monier-Williams Sanskrit Dictionary.)

All the world Avatars or Saviors, however, express two basic incentives: the need of God to contact humanity and to have relationship with men and the need of humanity for divine contact, help and understanding. Subject to those incentives, all true Avatars are therefore divine Intermediaries. They can act in this fashion because They have completely divorced Themselves from every limitation, from all sense of selfhood and separativeness and are no longer - by ordinary human standards - the dramatic center of Their lives, as are most of us. When They have reached that stage of spiritual decentralization, They Themselves can then become events in the life of our planet; toward Them every eye can look and all men can be affected. Therefore, an Avatar or a Christ comes forth for two reasons: one, the inscrutable and unknown Cause prompts Him so to do, and the other is the demand or the invocation of humanity itself. An Avatar is consequently a spiritual event, coming to us to bring about great changes or major restorations, to inaugurate a new civilization or to restore the "ancient landmarks" and lead man nearer to the divine. They have been defined as "extraordinary men Who from time to time appear to change the face of the world and inaugurate a new era in the destinies of humanity." They come in times of crisis; They frequently create crises in order to bring to an end the old and the undesirable and make way for new and more suitable forms for the evolving life of God Immanent in Nature. They come when evil is rampant. For this reason, if for no other, an Avatar may be looked for today. The necessary stage is set for the reappearance of the Christ.

Avatars are of all degrees and kinds; some of them are of great planetary importance because They express whole cycles of future development within Themselves and strike the note and give the teaching which will bring in a new age and a new civilization; They embody great truths towards which the masses of men must work and which still constitute an objective to the greatest minds of the age, even though as yet unrealized. Certain Avatars also express in Themselves the sumtotal, of human achievement and of racial perfection, and thus become the "ideal men" of the ages. Others, greater still, are permitted to be the custodians of some divine principle or some divine quality which needs fresh presentation and expression upon Earth; this They can be because They have achieved perfection and have attained to the highest possible initiations. They have the gift of being these embodied spiritual qualities, and because They have in fullness expressed such a specific principle or quality They can act as channels for its transmission from the center of all spiritual Life. This is the basis for the doctrine of Avatars or Divine Messengers.

Such an one was the Christ; He was twice an Avatar because He not only struck the keynote of the new age (over two thousand years ago) but He also, in some mysterious and incomprehensible manner, embodied in Himself the divine Principle of Love; He was the first to reveal to men the true nature of God. The invocative cry of humanity (the second of the incentives producing a divine Emergence) is potent in effect because the souls of men, particularly in concerted action, have, in them something which is akin to the divine nature of the Avatar. We are all Gods, all the children of the One Father, as the latest of the Avatars, the Christ, has told us. It is that divine center in every human heart which, when awakened into activity, can call forth response from the high Place where the Coming One awaits His hour of appearance. It is only the united demand of humanity, its "massed intent," which can precipitate the descent (as it is called) of an Avatar."

- Djwal Khul and Alice Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ.