Avatar Tattva
The Field of the Incarnations of God
"What is God? God is not a man. God is a quality."
- Bhagavan
Incarnation of Shakti
The vibrationless Brahman and all the vibratory planes of Maya coexist in the same place. Our bodies and minds can coexist in the same place as they are of different vibrations. The finest vibration is called Shakti, literally ‘Power,’ and is the originating point from which all the grosser vibrations are projected. It is the vanishing point of Maya when it disappears into the Brahman, and is partly Brahman and partly Maya, just as the vanishing point of the road is both within and not within the road. In the case of an avatar, that Shakti, also called Bhagavan in the omnipresent aspect, freezes directly into a human mind. The Shakti, the Omnipotent, is now incarnate, contained within a human being.
Shakti
Shakti is the Brahman, Pure Consciousness, with the slightest touch of Maya, making that passive Consciousness into the purest Intelligence. In deep meditation, it will be seen that intelligence only exists when there is vibration, the duality of Maya. The less vibration there is, the purer the intelligence. When there is no vibration in the pure Brahmic state of nirvikalpa samadhi, there is only Brahman, which is passive Consciousness. If there is a mover, an intelligence, there is Maya.
Avatar
An avatar is a mind built to contain the Shakti to enter it. A normal mind could not contain that Shakti. If a spiritually under-developed person were suddenly put into samadhi, the mind would be put under a huge amount of stress, and could collapse, as it is not prepared for such a realisation. If Shakti suddenly descended into the mind of a non-avatar, that mind would explode. Bhagavan is an avatar and even he had a lot of discomfort over a long period of time after the descent of Shakti into him.
The creation of an avatar
An avatar comes into being when the Shakti dreams it into creation. All Maya, the whole universe, is the dream of Shakti, the projection of its vibration. Shakti either dreams a new avatar mind into existence from scratch, or takes an already existing mind and strengthens it. Gautama Buddha was an example of the second, as he recalled a number of past lives.
Mahabhava and the incarnate Bhagavan
The mahabhava realisation is the entrance of Shakti into the mind of an avatar, whereupon the avatar becomes an incarnate Bhagavan. This realisation takes place if the meditator remains at the point just before nirvikalpa samadhi, in which he would merge completely into the non-dual Infinite. This point is the connecting point between Brahman and Maya, the place of greatest power, as here one has a foot in both of them.
A needle is falling through the air, and falls into the water. When the needle is in the air, it is in savikalpa samadhi, still in the realm of Maya. When it is in the water, however, it has transcended Maya, and is in nirvikalpa samadhi. Nevertheless, with great skill, it is possible to place the needle on the surface of the water, whereupon it will float. Now, it is neither in the water, nor in the air, but has a foot in both. So it is in mahabhava.
It is too difficult for normal sages to place the needle on the water, so they fall straight down into nirvikalpa samadhi. It is necessary to be made of the right stuff. In a science museum, there is a tall, cylindrical glass container, containing many layers of different coloured liquids. Due to their different natures they never mix, but remain separate. If you want to put some more liquid into it that will remain at the level of the green band of liquid, you have to put green liquid into the container, and it will fall through the bands above, and come to rest in the green band alone. This cannot be achieved with any other liquid. In the same way, the mahabhava level is the nature of the avatar, so only such a one will come to rest at that point.
Degrees of manifestation of Godhood
Within the mind of an avatar, either a portion of the Shakti may manifest, or the whole Shakti. Most avatars have been part-manifestations of Shakti. Only Krishna has been recorded as being a full manifestation, Bhagavan himself. Now Bhagavan has also achieved the full manifestation of Bhagavan.
The re-establishment of spirituality
One reason why Shakti dreams avatars into existence is for the re-establishment of spirituality when materialism reigns. The universe exists so that the Brahman, covered in ignorance as the embodied souls, may achieve the glory and joy of realising once again its true divine nature. If no souls are achieving enlightenment, the whole point of the universe is taken away. In most countries, the pattern is not obvious as there is too little spirituality, but if we look at the example of India, the foundation stone of which has always been spirituality, we see that spiritual history is cyclical. There is a time of deep materialism, then comes a saint who founds a new era of wisdom and love. That new golden age degrades over time into dark materialism again, then another saint appears and revitalises the dharma, the movement towards realisation.
The comings and goings of avatars
Shakti is a place of flux between Brahman and Maya, like H2O at 0ºC is in a place of flux between water and ice. However, if the temperature is lowered by a fraction of a degree, all the H2O will become ice, and remain so until the temperature returns to 0ºC. In the same way, when spirituality is being overwhelmed by materialism, the Shakti freezes into an embodied soul, and leaves when the balance has been redressed.
The cycles of History
When history is seen from a distant viewpoint, it will be observed that eras, or ‘yugas’ in Sanskrit, can be analysed into four different classes, depending on the strength of spirituality in them. We start off in a Satya Yuga (Golden Age), then follows a Tretya Yuga (Silver Age), then a Dwapara Yuga (Bronze Age), then a Kali Yuga (Iron age). At the end of Kali Yuga, a huge change takes place, and we enter another Golden Age. We are currently coming towards the end of a Kali Yuga.
Yugavatars and yuga-medial avatars
However, there are fluctuations in spirituality on the downward arc. The end of each yuga and beginning of the next one coincide with a great low point and the founding of a new spiritual civilisation. To do this, at the end of each yuga, incarnates an avatar, called the yugavatar, as opposed to yuga-medial avatars, who appear in the middle of yugas. Rama was the yugavatar of the Silver Age, and Krishna the yugavatar of the Bronze Age.
Kali Yuga
There are also fluctuations of spirituality within yugas. Within Kali Yuga, we have seen the yuga-medial avatars of Buddha 2500 years ago, Chaitanya Deva 500 years ago, and Ramakrishna, who went into mahasamadhi in 1886, all of whom revitalised spirituality significantly when it was gravely threatened. There have also been non-avatars, such as Shankaracharya 1200 years ago, who have also managed to found a period of spirituality in India. The yugavatar of Kali Yuga is predicted and named as Kalki in the Bhagavatam, one of the Puranas, the ancient mythologies composed partially in previous yugas. The Bhagavatam was written long before the coming of Buddha, but his coming is also mentioned. Kalki is not the avatar’s name, but simply means ‘the one that comes in Kali’.
Kali Yuga is described in the Puranas. It says that in Kali, even the desire for realisation disappears. If we look at people today, very few are looking for realisation, even in India. Most do not even know that there is such a thing, and never seem to think about spiritual subjects.
The Divine Sport
The avatars also come so that Ishwara may experience the highest possible bliss, love and achievement on the grossest, karmic plane through both the avatar and the devotees. On planes of a finer vibration, where there is more manifestation of bliss and love, the contrast with the highest is lesser than it is on this plane, and in an epoch of great materialism, the contrast is higher still. The descent of that Supreme Power to this, the grossest, and only plane on which people realise themselves, and the subsequent rapid and deep spiritualisation of devotees and transformation of the world on the historico-spiritual level, is the greatest conceivable event in existence.
Is Bhagavan an avatar?
The ultimate answer to this question, just as to any spiritual question, can only come through realisation, having spent time with Bhagavan. That inner voice will tell you everything once you have gone beyond mind into the silence of samadhi. Only then will Self-Knowledge manifest within you, and the intuitive recognition of Bhagavan be achieved. My mind has been astonished to find that Bhagavan is indeed an avatar. Before that, he, his devotees and philosophy may be observed, analysed and tested. If it is true, then this is the news of greatest significance for thousands of years. There is no time to lose.
“God has come. The world will tremble.”
There are numerous further texts about avatar tattva in the letters and Bhagavan's speeches.