In answer to the question, “Why do the teachings of Avatars vary?”
Baba replied:
The same One Divine Element had to give different teachings to the different attitudes of the people in different times and in different circumstances. One forbade the drinking of wine, another, smoking. A third advised the worship of a personal God, another advocated impersonal worship. One instituted the worship of God through the medium of different elements of Nature. So, according to the times and circumstances, every Avatar left behind Him a different teaching.
For example: There are about twenty to twenty-five patients in a hospital. Those complaining of thirst in the morning are prescribed tea or coffee. Those with the same complaint, at noon, are given lemon-water; in the evening, buttermilk; and at night, hot milk. The physician is the same, the complaint is the same. But the one complaint — of thirst — is satisfied in different ways according to different conditions, at different times.
In the same way, God is One; but His manifestations at different times to satisfy man’s thirst for Truth ordains different ways and remedies.
-The Awakener Magazine, Vol 10, No. 2, P39