At the time of Buddha, the people of India were deep into materialism. In order to demonstrate that their conception of value was wrong and that they were victims of the goddess of illusion, or maya, Buddha renounced his wife, his family and the riches of the world in order to establish his teachings on renunciation.
At the time of Muhammad, the Arab tribesmen were very sensuous, and it was not considered bad or illegal to live with several wives. If Muhammad had not married like Jesus and had advocated celibacy, or if he had imposed absolute continence, it would have produced inevitably dangerous reactions. Few people would have followed his teachings and fewer still would have been attracted to such an ideal. Muhammad had six wives, but he had no physical contact with them.
At the time of Jesus, arrogance, imperiousness, pride and cruelty were the characteristics of people. Nevertheless, they possessed a conception of justice in regard to women and marriage; therefore, it was not necessary, as it was in Arabia, to make marriage an example. Jesus lived the life of humility, simplicity, and poverty, and he endured suffering in order to direct human beings toward the purest ideal — Beloved God.
The Avatars incarnate in this world at different times and their teachings have therefore to be adapted to the mentality of their epoch. At times, the Avatar bases his teaching on the search for the personal God, and at other times, on the search for the impersonal God.
It may be compared to a hospital, where the sick complain of thirst at different times. The doctor will prescribe tea or coffee in the morning to those who complain in the morning, water or fruit juice in the afternoon, buttermilk in the evening and hot milk before sleep. The doctor is the same and the complaint is the same, but the thirst is quenched in different ways according to the different conditions at different times.
God, manifesting as the Avatar in different periods of time, quenches the thirst of man in different ways. All human beings, either consciously or unconsciously, have the same thirst for Truth.
Baba continued, explaining about his own working:
There are three principal ways in which I work: individually, collectively (with crowds for the masses), and universally. When I work individually, it is with persons who are with me, or persons who are away from me, or persons who are connected with me. In some cases, I work through their material downfall; in some, through their material welfare. In some cases, I deliberately bring about material downfall, but I always have their spiritual upliftment at heart in the background. In some cases, I use them as "mediums" to efface their own mayavic qualities, for their own salvation, and that's where I am misunderstood. But I don't mind it. I know why I do it. That is sufficient; because when to the extreme, love and hatred both have the same results.