AVATARS.
What is an Avatar? The name in Sanksrit means to cross down, so that could mean all Jivas, or individual entities. However it usually refers to a Karana Janma or a person who takes birth, even though they karmically don't need to.
The Universal Consciousness or 'God' doesn't take birth actually per se, but is ever the witness of this play of Maya. So many entities rise up to eventually become vehicles, as the Avatars of Visnu.
It appears that this concept operates at different levels from Amsa-Avatars or partial avatars, to Avatars and finally to PurnaAvatar or Fully Divine Avatars,like Krishna.
Like the Buddhist concept of a Bhodisattava, a Jiva puts off Liberation or Moksha and wills another life, to come back and help humanity.
This willing is of course is a thought hence an Ego-Mind is preserved, otherwise there would be no rebirth or anything to take rebirth.
However there is nothing to prevent such an advanced being from taking Moksha and surrendering the ego anytime in the Avatara, from birth onwards. At his time the Avatar would become a PurnaAvatar or JivanMukta, a surrendered ego and fully merged in the Universal Consciousness. So it follows that a PurnaAvatar at birth took Moksha at that time. Becoming a Jivanmukta with a Prarabda Karma to perform during the lifetime.
The signs of a Mukta are usually, being an embodiment of Love, and having no desires/attachments, as this requires a Jiva Ego-Mind. Other than that it takes a Mukta to recognise another one.
A Jiva who follows the Bhakti path, and doesn�t desire to lose its identity, would rise to a level of consciousness just short of Moksha called the Brahmaloka. At MahaPralaya or Great Dissolution of the Universe this Jiva would merge into Moksha.'Being' is mind and mind is unreal. Anything that can be positively described is mind, and part of Saguna concept. That is why I use Nir Guna a lot for it doesn't decribe it negates/neti neti. Negates all the hare's horns, and anything else that the mind produces. Advaita isn't about all being one in illusion, that is just a step. A-Dvaita is that there is no way of describing any duality therefore no Saguna concept,or Devas, Avatar or whatever ultimately. Even when the sages talk of sat-cit- ananda they are not talking of Nir Guna for the description is positive a quality as Ramana would say. Before this creation, and as we know pralayas and mahapralayas make many endless creations, there was Saguna Brahaman with all subsumed into itself in potentiality but there was still 'mind' there to enable the new creation. Nir Guna can only be beyond all this indicating it never happened at all.
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***********************************************************************Translation by V. V. Raman, University of Rochester Not even nothing existed then No air yet, nor a heaven. Who encased and kept it where? Was water in the darkness there? Neither deathlessness nor decay No, nor the rhythm of night and day: The self-existent, with breath sans air: That, and that alone was there. Darkness was in darkness found Like light-less water all around. One emerged, with nothing on It was from heat that this was born. Into it, Desire, its way did find: The primordial seed born of mind. Sages know deep in the heart: What exists is kin to what does not. Across the void the cord was thrown, The place of every thing was known. Seed-sowers and powers now came by, Impulse below and force on high. Who really knows, and who can swear, How creation came, when or where! Even gods came after creation's day, Who really knows, who can truly say When and how did creation start? Did He do it? Or did He not? Only He, up there, knows, maybe; Or perhaps, not even He. I interpret the last couple of lines, as relevant to my point that when the Sages talked of Sat-Cit-Ananda before creation, they were in fact talking of Saguna Brahman concept, in potentiality like prakriti.Therefore Saguna 'knows' and Nir guna concept doesn't 'know'. As I previously stated there is no beginning to Saguna, but there is an end for it never happened. I don't have the references here but I do remember quotes from Sages saying that it all disappears of dropping the body and realisation/Moksha............................................................................
Buddha and Jesus etc ostensibly came to 'save' humanity but they came really only to encourage the minute number of people that had decided to take som kind of spiritual path out of here. Humanity will never change as long as the dog's hind leg is bent. Jesus said 'the poor you will always have with you', indicating society will never become a 'golden age'. Who listened to Jesus, who listened to Buddha, did they change the world? No for it is unchangeable. A golden age in one part of the word is a world of degradation and cruelty in another. The best can be said is that there are cycles. People are looking for avatars and saviours, but never give anything up. Massacres keep happening, from Genghis Khan and the Mongols, down to the Russians, Chinese and Japanese. I think it is a toss up between Stalin and the Chinese on who killed the most of their own people. I think the Chinese win with over 50 million and counting. Yet we enlightened people in the west enable them with our greed. In the end result one has to understand that the earth for humans is not a heaven plane but a patala or hell plane, and there is as much chance of changing human nature as there is in going to an astral patala or lower astral hell plane and changing the beings there. All these so called avatars and gurus, maitreyas, babas, messiahs etc achieve nothing materially, although some of the genuine ones help the spiritual seekers to a certain extent. The only solution is to change oneself and leave, become enlightened realised that is the only way out permanently. The only balance achieved on this planet was by nature and the animals which has been destroyed by astral beings in animal bodies called humans. There is no God or Sakti that interferes,any more than electricity tells a vaccuum cleaner what to do: If there is any interference at all it would come from the planetary deity shaking things up like a dog shakes off its fleas. So wake up...Who am I? and get out, golden ages etc etc are an illuion of an ego wishing to live in an heaven on earth.........Tony. ..
All this is within the projection of Maya, of course. For nothing ever took birth or is reincarnated--------'Who am'?
