God is inscrutable and mysterious for the most part. What then to say of the Incarnation, that is, the appearance of God as a specific person in history?! Perhaps the mystery of the Avatar, the Incarnation of God is one of the deepest mysteries of religion and it is by no means unique to Christianity. Long before the Christ, we find in the Bhagavad Gita the following, which represents the first articulation of the notion of Divine Incarnations by Sri Krishna, one of the first Incarnations to leave us with a teaching:
यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत |
अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् || 7||
yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛijāmyaham
Whenever there is a disturbance in Dharma, and an increase in Adharma, I incarnate on this Earth, O Arjuna!
The idea here is that if an Incarnation comes to teach us the right way, then the Incarnation most likely most come more than once and give us the teaching in different ways each time suited to that particular culture with its unique needs and problems.
Naturally, since Hindus are already familiar with Rama and Krishna as Incarnations, it's easy for them to accept Buddha and Jesus as Incarnations too. But hang on a moment. What makes an Incarnation an Incarnation? What stops a person from, in their very valid guru bhakti (devotion to their personal teacher), attributing "avatar-hood" to their respective teachers if indeed there are many avatars?
In this lecture, we attempt to triangulate on the profound mystery of the Avatar from a non-dual point of view. How can a truly non-dual philosophy which holds that God is Consciousness (i.e You) and as such is non-different from the world accommodate an Avatar doctrine? In the course of doing that , we take a tour down the annals of history to pick out a few key teachings from a few avatars to implement in our own spiritual lives. The central thrust of this lecture is that the most important thing about an Avatar is not necessarily the avatar but the message!
Merry Christmas!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
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