Avatar Asking For Trouble

Anyone who gets out of bed, combs their hair, and walks out the door, is asking for trouble. Adi Da

"The Logos passes out of eternity into time for no other purpose than to assist the beings, whose bodily form he takes, to pass out of time into eternity. If the Avatar’s appearance upon the stage of history is enormously important, this is due to the fact that by his teaching he points out, and by his being a channel of grace and divine power he actually is, the means by which human beings may transcend the limitations of history. . . . That men and women may be thus instructed and helped, the godhead assumes the form of an ordinary human being, who has to earn deliverance and enlightenment in the way that is prescribed by the divine Nature of Things—namely, by charity, by a total dying to self and a total, one-pointed awareness. Thus enlightened, the Avatar can reveal the way of enlightenment to others and help them actually to become what they already potentially are. . . . And, of course, the eternity which transforms us into Ourselves is not the experience of mere persistence after bodily death. There will be no experience of timeless Reality then, unless there is the same or a similar knowledge within the world of time and matter. By precept and example, the Avatar teaches that this transforming knowledge is possible, that all sentient beings are called to it, and that, sooner or later, in one way or another, all must finally come to it."

-- Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

"I think that every single incarnation is a divine incarnation. I know nothing nor do I care to know about avatars. I think “avatar” is an idea. And the idea is separative. It assumes that there are divine incarnations as opposed to what? Other people that aren’t divine? How can that possibly be? Because one person has realized it and another hasn’t? If somebody hasn’t discovered their true nature it doesn’t make them one iota less divine.

Some people may come into their incarnation never having forgotten their true nature; if someone wants to call that person an avatar, fine. But when we think that avatars have some sort of “more essential divinity,” we’re back in the world of separation, duality, and mind-made divisions that aren’t really there. If someone is born in full remembrance of who they are, good for them.. But that doesn’t mean they have more divinity than a heroin addict in the gutter. The heroin addict doesn’t know that they’re divine —that’s the difference. It’s a relative difference, not an essential difference.

And that’s what I love about the Jesus story. He got made into an avatar and the God-man and all this stuff after he died, but his way of moving in the world was very ordinary. He was a very outspoken critic of the various ways that us human beings create divisions and then take advantage of those divisions. That’s why I say that enlightenment doesn’t raise you, it actually lowers you because you see the reality of all beings. Not just your beings, but all beings. Otherwise it’s just an enlightened ego that thinks it’s better than, more spiritual, or whatever. It shows you that all ultimately on the same playing field. We’re the same stuff. In that absolute sense, we are all of profound equality. To me, the enlightened view is the ultimate form of democracy."

-- Adyashanti