Swamiji’s Agenda

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Swamiji’s Agenda
Part 5

by Prof. P. N. Murthy

“He (the Avatar) gives a dharma, a law of self discipline by which to grow out of the lower into a higher life and which necessarily includes a rule of action and of relations with our fellowmen and other beings, endeavor in the eight fold path or the law of faith, love and purity or any such revelation of the nature of the Divine in life.  Then because every tendency in a man has its collective as well as its individual aspect, because those who follow one way are naturally drawn together into spiritual companionship and unity, he establishes a sangha [fellowship], the fellowship and union of those whom his personality and his teaching unite.  The Avatar represents the third element of the Divine personality, nature and being who is the soul of dharma and sangha, informs them with himself, keeps them living and draws people.”

Sri Aurobindo, Essays on Gita, p. 164

Avatarana means descent to the earth into the limits of human consciousness.  It is a descent from the consciousness levels which are available to man only after enormous effort, down to the body, the nature designed instrument.  As mentioned earlier, the Divine consciousness may descend into a body which can tolerate its power.  If such a body is not available, it can built one for itself and descend.  Uddhava and Suka Maharishi were supposed to have constructed bodies like this.  Otherwise, the womb of the woman which entertains this Divine consciousness must have the ability to build such a body.  Once when Lord Shiva experienced orgasmic ecstasy and the powerful semen was released, it became a problem to find a womb that could hold that semen.  They searched the whole cosmos for such a womb to deposit the semen.  Thus whenever a great power wants to descend into the earth consciousness, they search for a suitable womb.  For this the condition is that the owner of the womb should be a devotee of God, always with the thinking of God.

Once Sri Sathya Sai Baba was asked why he was born in such a remote hamlet like Puttaparti.  He said that they are great devotees of God and wanted his birth.  Swami also gave a similar reply when he was asked about his birth in Adivarapupeta.  “Several people desire good children.  Many do not look for unusual children.  Even if they desire, it is not possible unless they can bear the power of such a birth.  When Christ, Buddha and such people were born, it is said that a great light entered their mother’s womb.  Mary and Maya Devi were great ladies who spent their lives in the purest way possible always thinking of God and living in prayer.”

Is it always that God is descending into human consciousness?  Is there no possibility of man rising to be God?  Or is there no possibility that the Divine consciousness enters into well developed human body living always in prayer?  Swami Viswanand of Eternal Yoga Temple says that the latter is most often the case.  Many of the well known avatars are of this kind.  (It is well known that only after the sudden entrance of a great consciousness into his body did Sathya Sai declare that he is the incarnation of Shirdi Baba.)

Swami Viswananad defines avatar as one who in one birth and through intense tapas has crossed the earthly, solar and cosmic consciousness levels like a meteor.  He says that Lord Rama and Lord Krishna belong to this class.  To prepare for such a meteoric ascent into avatarhood, they took several thousands of births.  All the jataka stories of Buddha belong to this category of preparation.  If one examines the incidents in the life of Lord Rama from this point of view, many of them fall into place like a beautiful collage.

Agni giving payasam (kheer) and a ray of light entering the womb are similar actions.  It means that a great soul is being implanted into the womb.  Most of the Hindu rituals during the prenatal period are invocations to the gods to implant a good soul into the womb.  They are invitations to good souls to enter the womb.

Born like that, Sri Rama underwent education and spiritual initiation from early boyhood from Maharishi Vasishtha (one of Swamiji’s incarnations).  Yoga Vasishtha is a record of such initiating discourses.  At the age of sixteen, Vishwamitra gave him all his yogic powers.  Then the great Parasurama gave his powers.  These are nothing but initiations into higher levels of consciousness.  Then one can think that the fourteen years spent by Rama in Dandaka Forest gave enough time for intense tapas.  Swami confirms some of these observations.  During his stay in the forest Sri Rama met several maharishis.  When he met Maharishi Atri, he says, “Rama, I have stayed on earth this long only for you.”  Saying this, he gives all his powers to Rama.  This has helped Rama to fulfill his mission as well as rise into high levels of consciousness.  Referring to this Shiva Balayogi Maharaj says, “Maharishis give powers to avatars.  They do the tapas and give the resulting power to those who require it for human good.  I am a maharishi.”

According to Swami Viswanand, after these fourteen years of stay in forest where he performed great tapas, he became a cosmic yogi.  The initiation for this was given, apparently as Mhow in Madhya Pradesh.  Then Sri Rama became a permanent avatar, attained later the status of a Great Cosmic Lord, and he is still in continuous and eternal yoga and tapas.

Sadhana is endless and eternal in time.  Sri Aurobindo says that there are many higher levels above supramental.

Similarly one can examine Sri Krishna’s life also.  Then one finds that Krishna is a great Yogi, a maharishi more than anything else.  The other incidents and legends go into the background.

Once Sri Ramakrishna said, “What was Rama, what was Krishna is Sri Ramakrishna.”  The meaning of this can be that Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Rama, and Sri Krishna belong to the same aspect of the Divine.  Sri Ramakrishna is a Paramahansa.  This shows that to be a maharishi is the main characteristic any Divine aspect.  In the case of Sri Rama and Sri Krishna (according to Swami Viswanand) aspects of great rishis descended into the human world and through enormous, gigantic effort of askesis, attained individuality and remained in the cosmic government as permanent personalities and powers.  These avatars are still continuing in their tapas.  We know that Lord Shiva is shown always in the posture of tapas.

One can deduce from all this that what we call god is a high level of consciousness.  It is for this reason, perhaps, that in Vedic mantras, always the Divine is referred as Brahman, the manifest, unmanifest Parabrahman.  In this way those who attained these very high levels of Divine consciousness will evidently be in constant tapas.  There are many instances for this including the Great Lord Shiva.  Devarishi Narada is known to all as always singing the praises of Lord Narayana.

Sri Ramakrishna refers to one of his great Divine experiences in the following way:

I was shooting into the Divine world. Suddenly I noticed a great Divine light.  I stopped.  A maharishi, our Nara Maharishi, was in deep tapas.  I embraced him and said, ‘You must come with me.’  He opened his eyes and nodded assent.  He is our Vivekananda.”

When Swamiji was asked why they are always in tapas, he said, “Firstly for themselves.  Secondly for this creation.  For this creation to sustain, one needs great shakti.  To acquire this shakti, the only way is tapas.”  Where is this shakti?  “The unmanifest Parabrahman is infinite.  This shakti generates in that.”  Swami also is always in tapas.  Even though he appears to be talking to us his subtle body is performing tapas.  He once told me when I had been quiet for a while, “Come on, talk.  If none of you talk, I will slip into samadhi.”

Even though they are immersed in tapas, maharishis have to come down as avatars into the world very often to guide this world in person into the right path.  We are even now worshipping many such avatars who have come and gone.  “Are they even now residing close to the earth?”

When this question was put, Swami replied, “Each such avatar or what you call god or maharishi leave several millions of subtle powers of theirs while they are on the earth.  Their tapas shakti remains on the earth as a subtle force.  You can worship them only when such subtle force is present.  They do not come down specially for you.  The subtle forces fulfill your desires and requests.  Now these forces are unable to operate. T he reason is the lack of real bhakti.”

There is another angle to the characteristics of avatars. Sri Aurobindo elaborates on this.  We are told that the ten avatars of Sri Mahavishnu are essentially to save the world from the titans (rakshasas).  The evolutionists treat them as describing stages in the evolution of the world.  Sri Aurobindo reinforces this interpretation in a way.  He says that this creation is emerging and evolving out of the unconscious stage by stage.  These avatars come and establish the right consciousness in the earth.

 

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