Why does God incarnate?

We love the avatars of God, but, really, how much do we understand why they happen?

An avatar is a particular coalescing of the all pervasive spirit/soul called Brahman (for the non-dualist), or Vishnu or Shiva or Shakti (Devi) (for the dualist as per whether they believe whether Vishnu or Shiva or Devi to be the supreme expression of a personal godhead)

An avatar is said to be called into Being by the heartfelt cries of agony of the sadhus, the pious among us. The sadhus plead for an incarnation or manifestation to take place because of the grave danger mankind has placed itself into.

And then the avatar happens: a set of parents are selected, the form of the avatar enters the womb of the mother, the birthing of the avatar happens. The rest is what we read about in the scriptures – about Rama, Krishna and other major avatars, as well as the minor avatars. (Please note: an avatar is the descent of spirit into matter, while an enlightened godman is the raising of a human into the realm of the spirit.)

For the avatar, this descent into matter cannot be a good thing. Pure spirit confines itself into flesh, becoming subject to its limitations and its inherent problems. Granted, the avatar comes with a particularly divine set of his tools of trade – omniscience, great doses of power and prowess and an understanding of things beyond the ken of man. But, he is ‘born’, and he ‘dies’ and is assailed by all those things we mere humans are assailed by, except he appears to handle them with aplomb and dignity, while we weep and wail our fate.

We who benefit from the avatar’s descent cannot imagine the pain of this descent, although some of more enlightened among us have tried to put them in words for our benefit.

These beautiful lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem A God’s Labour gives a hint to the predicament of an avatar:

He who would bring the heavens here

Must descend himself into clay

And the burden of earthly nature bear

And tread the dolorous way.

We generally give praise for an avatar taking ‘birth’ among us and feel ever so grateful that we have breathed the same air as Him. But we give little, if any, thought to what the avatar would be going through – and we are not talking about any apparent distress caused by physical ailment.

Day in, day out the Avatar has to endure a body of flesh, fluid and frailties – eating, excreting, keeping it clean, stop it from dropping dead. He, the pure spirit, has to encompass that spirit in a limited form called as body and suffer the indignities of that same body.

There is another beautiful telling of a devotee of Krishna who wanted to kill Draupadi, Arjun and several others who were close to Krishna. After reading the Mahabharata, he sat sharpening a wicked looking knife and when asked why he was doing it so intently, he answered he wanted to seek out Arjuna, Draupadi and others and kill them.

He said he wanted to kill them because they had caused so much pain to his Lord: Arjuna for making a charioteer out of Krishna and forcing him into the battlefield in that lowly role and Draupadi for calling on Krishna and forcing him to provide great lengths of cloth to cover her when she was being stripped naked in the court.

He goes on to tell of the other ‘indignities’ other people had heaped on Krishna and how he would hunt them down and kill them.

At first reading this appears to be the ravings of sentimental fool, especially since he was from an era in which Krishna, Arjuna and others were long-gone. But the sentiments behind the raving is something to think about. Here was a man who felt deeply for the Avatar, who felt that we should have treated Him as something very precious, to be treasured and loved, and not taken advantage of, which is what he believed Arjuna and Draupadi had done. And he felt these sentiments as if Krishna, Arjuna and Draupadi existed for him at that time – not as if they were just tales in a book.

We take it for granted that the avatar is happy to be with us and we take for granted that He will ‘be there for us’. We hardly think of the great sacrifice undertaken in the ‘birthing’ of an avatar – the taking of a form on Mrityu Loka – the world of death; the limiting of the spirit into a vessel of matter and the bombardment of negativity that he has to suffer during his sojourn on Earth.

Yes, the avatar’s physical form is put together to take on this negativity. Ramakrishna Paramhansa is said to have taken on the negative forces (illness, mental and physical) of those who came to him, so much so that he was a physical wreck by the time he passed away. Shirdi Sai Baba was took on boils, burns, wounds and sickness from those he chose to save, as did Satya Sai Baba.

Again these lines from A God’s Labour (the full poem can be found here http://intyoga.online.fr/labour.htm):

Coercing my godhead I have come down

Here on the sordid earth,

Ignorant, labouring, human grown

Twixt the gates of death and birth.

I have been digging deep and long

Mid a horror of filth and mire

A bed for the golden river’s song,

A home for the deathless fire.

I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night

To bring the fire to man;

But the hate of hell and human spite

Are my meed since the world began.

Given that we have the law of karma governing the universe, is there a need for God to incarnate on Earth? The above gives us a hint of why an incarnation takes place.

An avatar is a catalyst of change – each time one comes, the world changes significantly. We, who only read about their exploits, take in only a fraction of the full scope of their doings. We are privy only to their recorded exploits.

• Rama took up a war of attrition that devastated a whole civilisation. And Ravan is now a household name equated with wickedness, pride and arrogance, and the futility of great learning without understanding and compassion.
• Krishna brought about a fratricidal war that decimated entire clans, including his own. His exploits range from killing his own uncle to turning his cousins against each other that sees the end of the Dwapar Yuga, and the beginning of the least benevolent of all yugas for mankind (yet, a yuga which is said to be the best placed for as higher understanding of godhead).
• Parashurama cut down the ranks of the kshatriyas 21 times to cool his vengeance. Sometimes he is seen as an example of the wrath of the Brahmin caste – of what they are capable of if they are not treated with respect and awe. It is a tale of the curbing of unbridled arrogance and malpractices associated with the ruling classes.
• The other avatars undertook epic battles against opponents of great courage and strength, sometimes in battles that ranged over time and space, other times using wit to outwit (to stop Bali’s expansion plans into other realms), others battled for the human soul because of their compassion for humans.

Every one of the exploits of our avatars are told from the point of view of a human being – from the point of view of people who reacted with the avatars. There is no standalone narration by the avatars themselves, including the Gita, which is retelling by a third party of a direct conversation between Krishna and Arjuna.

Simply put, our scriptures, especially the bhagavads, the Puranas, are largely someone’s take on a series of incidents that they saw, heard about or were directly involved in with regards to a particular avatar. It is as Sri Aurobindo says of our understanding: “A fragment of Truth is his widest scope”.

And I pose the question once again: Do we really know why God incarnates among us?

If what Rama, Krishna and Parashurama did was the mission of those avatars – then huge chunks of mankind died as a result. And to what end, just to save (or avenge) a few human beings beloved of the avatar?

Let’s look at the last stanza from set of lines from Sri Aurobindo’s poem listed above:

I have laboured and suffered in Matter’s night

To bring the fire to man;

But the hate of hell and human spite

Are my meed since the world began.

Let’s replace ‘hell’ with Patala – the underworld of our mythology. While we think of patala as the infernal regions, Narada is said to have said that it rivalled and beat Indralok in beauty, and it abound with every kind of luxury and sensual gratification.

So, Patala, far from being a place of darkness and drear, was a place of light and beauty, a place of sense gratification, love for luxury, hedonism, self-indulgence, intemperance, and decadence.

Since the world began, God has been incarnating because he hates hell – all the things associated with the above-listed negative elements that make our character. And human spite – when we hurt others for the sake of seeing them squirm or suffer – is not something God likes.

So, instead of saying: “Whenever evil rears its head, and wickedness prevails, God incarnates to punish evil doers,” would it be more appropriate to say “Whenever hedonism increases, and decadence prevails, God incarnates to pull the rug from under our feet?”

God incarnating is a saving mission, but executed in a painful way. Its purpose is to

take us back to godhead, to divinity - kicking and scratching, if need be.

For man’s mind is the dupe of his animal self;

Hoping its lusts to win,

He harbours within him a grisly Elf

Enamoured of sorrow and sin.

The grey Elf shudders from heaven’s flame

And from all things glad and pure;

Only by pleasure and passion and pain

His drama can endure.

God incarnates to remind us of our origins, our divinity – ‘To bring the fire to man’. We, in our human folly, believe he incarnates to give us happiness and wealth as we pursue our pleasurable lives on Earth. And we worship avatars to that end – begging and pleading for a long life to enjoy our fruits, families and fumblings. So far from the truth.

The Truth of truths men fear and deny,

The Light of lights they refuse;

To ignorant gods they lift their cry

Or a demon altar choose.

Maybe it is time to put aside our kindergarten approach to our avatars. Let’s not raise a ‘demon altar’ and hope a few minutes of obeisance is enough to sway God into our way of thinking; let’s not ‘lift our cries to ignorant gods” and then complain you

have not been heard; let’s not refuse, and fear and deny, what our scriptures have proclaimed for eons – God is Truth, and in Truth lies the real victory.

Instead, seek the ‘Truth of truths’, the Light of lights. Dive deep into your beliefs, and sometime, challenge them, so as to be privy to the truth they hide among their superfluity. The teachings of our ancients may appear superfluous at first attempt but that is only because they have been dumbed down by those who would use them to their own ends.

Do not let tradition, or traditionalists, hold you from finding the Truth. Do not let culture bind you to the mire. Expand your mind and see the beauty of the philosophy that has endured millennia, that has endured every kind of influx and still remains true to this day.

Notes

Avatars of Shiva

One lists has the following as the 11 avatars of Shiva

1 KAPAALI

2 PINGAL

3 BHEEM

4 VEERUPAAKSH

5 VILOHIT

6 SHAASTA

7 AJPAAD

8 AHIBURDHANYA

9 SHAMBHU

10 CHAND

11 BHAV

Others put 28 avatars for Shiva

Although Puranic scriptures contain occasional references to avatars of Shiva, the idea is not universally accepted in Saivism. As an avatar requires residence in a womb, Shiva as ayonija (not of a womb) cannot manifest himself as an avatar.

The Linga Purana speaks of twenty-eight forms of Shiva which are sometimes seen as avatars. In the Shiva Purana there is a distinctly Saivite version of a traditional avatar myth: Shiva brings forth Virabhadra, one of his terrifying forms, in order to calm Narasimha, an avatar of Vishnu. When that fails, Shiva manifests as the human-lion-bird Sharabha. The story concludes with Narasimha becoming a devotee of Shiva after being bound by Sharabha.[47] However, Vaishnava followers including Dvaita scholars, such as Vijayindra Tirtha (1539–95) refute this Shaivite view of Narasimha based on their reading of Sattvika Puranas and Sruti texts.[48] The monkey-god Hanuman who helped Rama – the Vishnu avatar is considered by some to be the eleventh avatar of Rudra (Shiva). Some regional deities like Khandoba are also believed by some to be avatars of Shiva. Other stated avatars of Shiva, according to some sources, are 8th century non-dualist Vedanta philosopher (Advaita Vedanta) Adi Shankara. He was named "Shankara" after Lord Shiva and is considered by some to have

been an incarnation of the god and Virabhadra who was born when Shiva grabbed a lock of his matted hair and dashed it to the ground. Virabhadra then destroyed Daksha's yajna (fire sacrifice) and severed his head as per Shiva's instructions.

In Dasam Granth, Guru Gobind Singh have mentioned two avtars of Rudra: Dattatreya Avtar and Parasnath Avtar.

Avatars of Devi

Avatars are also observed in Shaktism, the sect dedicated to the worship of the Goddess (Devi), but they do not have universal acceptance in the sect. The Devi Bhagavata Purana describes the descent of Devi avatars to punish the wicked and defend the righteous—much as the Bhagavata Purana does with the avatars of Vishnu. Like Vishnu, his consort Lakshmi incarnates as Sita and Radha – the consorts of Rama and Krishna avatars. Nilakantha, an 18th century commentator on the Devi Bhagavata Purana – which includes the Devi Gita – says that various avatars of the Goddess includes Shakambhari and even the masculine Krishna and Rama – generally thought to be Vishnu's avatars. Lakshmi and Saraswati are also goddesses worshipped as Devi avatars.

PATALA. [Source: Dowson's Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology] The infernal regions, inhabited by Nagas (serpents), Daityas, Danavas, Yakshas, and others. They are seven in number, and their names, according to the Vishna Purana, are Atala, Vitala, Nitala, Gabhastimat, Mahatala, Sutala, and Patala, but these name vary in different authorities. The Padma Purana gives the names of the seven regions and their respective rulers as follow: -- (1.) Atala, subject to Mahamaya; (2.) Vitala, ruled by a form of Siva called Hatakeswara; (3.) Sutala, ruled by Bali ; (4.) Talatala, ruled by Maya; (5.) Mahatala, where reside the great serpents; (6.) Rasatala, where the Daityas and Danavas dwell; (7.) Patala, the lowermost, in which Vasuki reigns over the chief Nagas or snake-gods. In the Siva Purana there are eight: Patala, Tala, Atala, Vitala, Tala, Vidhipatala, Sarkarabhumi, and Vijaya. The sage Narada paid a visit to these regions, and on his return to the skies gave a glowing account of them, declaring them to be far more delightful than Indra's heaven, and abounding with every kind of luxury and sensual gratification.

What kind of times did the Ramayana exist in?

Science, at its worst, is a rigid institution, unwilling to consider anything outside the venue of acceptable orthodoxy, which brings about stagnation in learning and quenches the fires of research; at its best, however, during those times its willing to acknowledge it has still much to learn about our world, science can be a beacon of enlightenment. - J Allan Danelek


Modern human have been around for over 100,000 years. Science would have us believe that in the first 90,000 years humans foraged like animals, hunting and gathering things to survive on, made rudimentary tools and did nothing much else.

And that it is only in the past 10,000 years that we, as a species, have been able to grow our food and to domestic animals - for food, as beasts of burden, as labour-saving devices and for companionship.

Science wants us to desperately to believe myths like mankind was stuck in the Stone Age for most of its 100,000 years on the earth; that our so-called ape-like ancestors had to develop at ‘its own pace’ to bring about the modern man; that finally we grew a brain good enough to be considered a human only the past 4000 years or so.

Why is this so? Only because science is unable to go beyond that 10,000 year mark. It is a matter of technicality. 10,000 BCE or thereabouts a major planetary event took place that has confounded science since it began a mere 150 years ago.

A mini Ice Age, called the Pleistocene Age, ended at that time, thought to be sometime between 10,000 BCE to 9600 BCE, with latter figure finding more favour with the scientists. In this mini-Ice Age much of present-day North America and Europe were under a cover of thick ice. Very little else is known of this age, although the bank of knowledge is steadily growing larger.

The breakdown of the topography of the earth during that Ice Age (below) is from writer J. Allan Danelek, who I believe has got closest ever by anyone in understanding events that happened pre-10,000 BCE, including scientists. The quote at the start of this article is also Danelek’s.

Says Danelek (edited for style only):
* The topography of the earth would have been different – the Baltic, the North Seas and the water around the British Isles would be dry land;

* The region around the Bahamas and Florida would be dry land. The Bering Strait would not exist – there would be a land bridge joining the two continents and it would provide easy access from Asia into the Americas;

* The south western Pacific and the Indian Ocean would have been much different than today – think of a massive section of land stretching from India to the shores of Australia, which would contain in itself the present day island nations of Java, Sumatra, Indonesia, and the numerous islands there.

* Keeping in mind the topography, this land mass would have broad fertile plains often for thousands of miles in area, criss-crossed by broad rivers. It would be a tropical paradise of about five hundred miles wide and two thousand miles long – about the size of western Europe.

* The Yellow Sea and parts of the East China Sea would be the extended coastline of China, with present day Taiwan and Hainan just mountain ranges in this landmass.


* Following the end of the ice age, the peaks of these plains would survive the flooding by becoming the isolated islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, etc.
Philippines would have been as large as Madagascar, while Papua New Guinea and Australia would be one landmass, separated by a small sea from mainland Indonesia. Japan would be linked to the Korean Peninsula by a land bridge.

* India’s western coastline would have extended further into the sea by a hundred miles. And the Persian Gulf would not have existed – it would have been a delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

* The rest of the planet was ice-locked –only the area between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer was warm.

* A third of North America and half of Europe were buried under a thick layer of ice. The same situation was in Patagonia in South America. Three of the seven continents were inhabitable. Central and South America were one huge rainforest with some agriculture being undertaken.

The reason I chose to use Danelek’s analysis of the topography of earth during the Ice Age is because he has come closest to what we as Hindus believe – civilisations come in cycles and that we have had many civilisations other than what we are in the present. Danelek is a proponent of a global civilisation existing pre-10,000 BCE which was wiped out in the global catastrophe that took place when the Ice Age ended.

If we believe in what science would have us believe than we, as Hindus, would have to believe that Lord Rama, the glory of Ayodhya and high science environment of Ravana’s Lanka did not exist. For the story (history) of Rama is set some 20,000 years before the story of Krishna. And, according to science, civilisation could not have existed in that time.

The Ramayana (meaning the Journeys of Rama) tells of two civilisations in contention - that of Ayodhya and Lanka. It is as much Ravana’s story as it is Rama’s, for Ravana represents what many of us can relate to in modern life – a superpower nation based on high technology, arrogant in the face of everything because of its superiority in arms and finance.

It is said that Ravana, the powerful great administrator and Emperor, ruled over seven continents from Lanka. They were the modern South America, Southern Europe; the Himalayas including the Hindukush mountain range and continents up to Madagascar.

The kingdom of Ayodhya is said to have extended from present day India well in South East Asia, including the Indochina peninsula and probably beyond. Many believe it was not just a city but an empire. These two close neighbours contended constantly - with legends saying that it was Dashratha’s martial superiority that kept Ravana from launching an all-out war of supremacy in the region.

One particular legend has Ravana sending a message asking Ayodhya to kowtow to the superiority of Lanka, to become his vassal or be besieged. Dashratha replied by shooting a missile to Lanka that permanently sealed the main gates of the city, demonstrating what faced Ravana if he ever chose to attack. Ravana stayed put, biding his time to get back at Dashratha.

Of course, over the course of time, the missile became an arrow shot by a bow, leading to much incredulity in modern times as to whether this could have happened.

Let’s look at Ravana’s Lanka to show what kind of technology existed at that time, if only through conjecture.

According to some scholars, Ravana’s capital, Lanka had 25 Palaces and over 400,000 streets and it was a continent south of India of which the present day Sri Lanka is the only remnant. (We have to keep in mind there are several versions of the Ramayana, both in India and in South Asia as well as in South East Asia.)

In most versions, Lanka is described as a huge continent, a mega world power with Ravana having dominion over a large part of the earth including Africa and Western Europe (that which was not under ice). Flying vehicles abound (including Ravana’s personal Pushpak Vimana) and weapons of mass destruction were common enough and were readily demonstrated during wars of conquest and when Rama besieged the city.

The final battle/s of the Ramayana are epic, any way you look at it. On the face of lack of evidence of weapons of high technology being used in the Ramayana – evidence that disappeared in the deluge that first covered/washed away everything and which, after subsiding, still left massive chucks of land under water – translators chose to make it easier on their readers by replacing missiles with bows and arrows (the weapons that existed in the time after the deluge). A whole host of replacements must have taken place because it is hard to get your head around the anomaly of bows and arrows, spears and swords having the devastating result that is described in the Ramayana. For that matter, in the Mahabharata, too.

To counter this anomaly, translator talked in their interpretations of weapons which took on destructive powers after its powers were evoked/unleashed through a mantra. Just as a nuclear device will need a very complicated series of processes for its activation and detonation, so do the weapons of the Ramayana need a complicated process to be activated – now we just think of them as mantras that evoke supernatural powers in handheld weapons.

Vishwamitra is said to have taught these mantras, these activation codes to Rama and Lakshmana during their sojourn with him in his ashram. We are asked to suspend our beliefs in accepting that these mantras unleashed massive destruction from a puny bow and arrow. Now that we moderns are aware of nuclear devices and weapons of mass destruction, maybe it is time to accept that the Rama civilisation may well have had weapon as advanced and maybe more advanced than this civilisation?

There is some justification for this belief that a forgotten race of man attained not only the knowledge that we have so recently won, but also a power that is not yet ours. Apart from our ‘myths and legends’ other cultures also talk of gods with extraordinary abilities. Most of them have been supplanted by other, ‘more believable’ beliefs but not so with Hinduism.

There are many books in India that talk of the superhuman exploits of the ‘gods’, of extraordinary vehicles and vessels they used, of the weapons with destructive powers similar to our weapons of mass destructions. (see notes below of a description of the weapons’ effect and compare with what nuclear weapons nowadays can do).

Some scholars believe the story of the Ramayana is the actual history of a people living in a time of great technological advancement. Passed down through generations despite the catastrophe of a near-wipe out of the human species, the story has taken particular and peculiar turns in its narration depending on regional and cultural influences over the centuries/millennia.

The basic construct of this ‘history’, though, remains constant - the contention between Ayodhya and Lanka. Ayodhya was no slouch in the ways of the empire: Rama concluded the Ashwamedha yagna (the empire-building process after he is crowned king). If he was just a tribal chief, as western interpretations would have us believe, how is it is that his story so widespread in Asia? And why do each of the cultures that revere him as god choose to do so as someone who belonged to them (not an outsider) – a person who lived among them in ancient times, who interacted with them and left behind a legacy that they, as people of Rama’s descent, still hold true to this day?

Rama must have been an iconic figure in his time to command such love, respect and reverence throughout South Asia – from India to Thailand to Cambodia.

So, did the disaster of global proportion circa 9600 BCE wipe out all evidence of such a civilisation?

Not really. Mysterious ancient ruins keep turning up – from the lofty Andes (a seaport high in the mountains) to beneath fathoms of water in Japan (the 8000-year-old Yonaguni-Jima which has pyramids).

Ruins of underwater cities dot the coasts of India, Japan and Taiwan and more ruins are being found around Bimini Atoll in the Bahamas (these ruins have fluted columns!).

Dating of water marks around the base of the great pyramid bring up time frames several thousands years prior to the circa 3000 BCE that is generally accepted by mainstream science. Some readings are coming back with dates going back to 10,000 BC – a time when mainstream science says homo sapiens had not even domesticated animals or learnt to cultivate grains.

Why are all these ruins popping out now, and what do they tell us of our past – our true past?

Notes:

Some underwater cities:

Havana, Cuba: A team of scientists continues to explore megalithic ruins found in the Yucatan Channel near Cuba. They have found evidence of an extensive urban environment stretching for miles along the ocean shore. Some believe that the civilization that inhabited these predates all known ancient American cultures.

Bay of Cambay, India: A few years back divers discovered the remains of a vast 9500 year old city. This submerged ruin has intact architecture and human remains. More significantly, this find predates all finds in the area by over 5,000 years, forcing historians to re-evaluate their understanding of the history of civilazation in the region. The find has been termed Dwarka, or the ‘Golden City,’ after an ancient city-in-the sea said to belong to the Hindu god Krishna.

Yonaguni-Jima: Discovered by a dive tour guide some t20 years ago, controversies have arisen around a mysterious pyramids found off the coast of Japan. These structures seem to have been carved right out of bedrock in a teraforming process using tools previously thought unavailable to ancient cultures of the region.

Description of weapons of mass destruction in the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha:
"Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana (fast aircraft)
hurled a single projectile charged with the power
of the Universe. An incandescent column of
smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with
all its splendor.

It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic
messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race
of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable.
Hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause,
and the birds turned white.

...After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected...
...to escape from this fire the soldiers threw
themselves in streams to wash themselves and their
equipment."
- The Mahabharata


"(It was a weapon) so powerful that it could destroy the earth
in an instant. A great soaring sound in smoke and flames:
And on its sits death..."
- The Ramayana

"Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued
forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy...
A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts.
All points of the compass were lost in darkness.
Fierce wind began to blow upward, showering dust and gravel.

Birds croaked madly... the very elements seemed disturbed.
The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this
weapon.
Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy...
over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died.
From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained
continuously and fiercely.
- The Mahabharata