Swami on His Avatar

Dear All,

On this most auspicious day when the absolute consciousness, the Brahman, chose to crystalize Himself and descend on the earth as Sathya Sai, let us hear what Swami had to say on His avatar himself.

The following scan is by his 'official biographer' and close devotee, N. Kasturi, who summed up the extent of SB's claims of Godhead:-

About the meaning of the word Avatar, Swami says,

The word Avatar means descent. It is not coming down from the peak of a mountain or the top storey of a tall building. It is a descent from the state of the Atma to the level of the body.

There is nothing infra-dig about the descent, as Bhagavan points out. He says,

No blemish attaches to the Divine as a result of the descent. There is no diminution in Divine power either. Let us say there is a child playing on the ground. If the mother feels it is beneath her dignity to bend, and tells the child to leap into her arms, the child cannot do so.

The mother does not ask the child to do such an impossible thing. Instead, full of love, the mother stoops and lovingly picks up the child. Likewise, the Lord incarnates assuming a human form to bless and rescue those who cannot rise to the level of the Divine. Incarnation is an act of benediction.

What about the name ‘Sai Baba’ of the present Poorna Avatar? Swami has this to say:

The name ‘Sai Baba’ means ‘Divine Mother and Divine Father’. Like a mother, I will be tender and soft and give you happiness, and like a father, I will punish you when needed. Through these methods I shall take you to a high level.

Why does God incarnate? No doubt Krishna has already outlined the reasons, but Swami goes deeper into the subject. He says,

To elevate man to the level of Supreme Consciousness, God has to incarnate as man. God has to speak to man in his own style and language. He has to teach mankind the methods that it can adopt and practice. Birds and beasts need no Divine incarnation to guide them for they have no inclination to stray away from their respective duties. Man alone forgets the goal of life.

In other words, God comes to play the role of a teacher and a Guru. As Swami elaborates,

The essential quality of an Avatar is to teach you to make good and proper use of your thought, word and deed. Depending on the conditions and the environment in the country, the Avatar will teach and show the right use of the Divine faculties gifted to man.

In earlier incarnations, the Lord physically annihilated the evil. What about this time? Swami has the answer:

In this Kali Age, the wicked have to be reformed and reconstructed through Love and Compassion. That is why this Avatar has come unarmed. The Avatar has come with the Message of Love.

Swami continues:

My objective is to establish unity in mankind, to reveal the aspect of the Divinity latent in man, and that God must be the only goal in life. It is also My duty to make you realize the kind of relationship that should exist between fellow human beings.

This is something very important, and all of us would do well to remember it. The first item on the agenda of this Avatar is to make each and every one of us realise our intrinsic Divine nature. Swami goes on to add,

There is considerable change in human outlook that I have to bring about. No one can stop Me or deter Me from fulfilling these tasks for which I have come, namely the establishment of the one unchanging Truth. In this task, you have a part to play.

Because the Avatar has a human form, man thinks (mistakenly of course) that the Avatar too is just another human being. In this context, Swami points out that,

When Narayana (Supreme God) takes the form of a man and wants to help humanity, He will act like a man. Just because God comes in human form, it is no excuse for man to be indifferent. He must realise that all the Poorna Avatars are incarnations of the same Formless, Eternal, Supreme Consciousness and the Cosmic, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient God.

Swami conveys this idea in the following manner. He says:

Here is a quote from a remarkable discourse given by Bhagavan during the Summer Course in 1974. This Discourse appears as Chapter 16 of Part II of the Proceedings and is entitled: WHO IS SAI BABA? In this, Bhagavan says:

Inherent beauty and attractiveness are obvious in His playing and in His singing. These are the aspects of Shiva Shakti that is immanent in Him. How is it possible for anyone to understand Sathya Sai merely from His external Form?

One very important characteristic of an Avatar is that He is totally selfless. Divinity knows no selfishness. God is ever compassionate, ever ready to sacrifice, and is totally free from desires. As Baba puts it,

There is no desire in Sai. Where is the space for desire in Sai? Everything is already Mine! Sai does not think. My will is instantly realized. Whatever it may be, it immediately appears.

To put it all simply, no one can understand the Avatar and His actions. As Baba once declared,

If Balarama (the brother of Krishna) himself could not understand Me, how can you?!

Indeed. So it is a futile exercise to try to understand Bhagavan and analyse His actions. Instead, one must concentrate on His teachings, absorb them, and follow them. We must appreciate that God has come on earth as man for an exalted purpose. We must not, even if it be unknowingly, trivialise the Divine Mission by asking Swami for trinkets. Swami of course does not mind. He gives us all that we ask for, even if they are useless. Why does He do so? Swami Himself has given the answer. He says,

I readily give you what you want, so that one day you may want what I have come to give you.

And what is it that He is so eager to give us? The very same thing that He gave to Arjuna five thousand and odd years ago on the battle field - the Knowledge of the Universal Self or Atmavidya. That is what the Avatar has come to give us and that really is what we must seek earnestly from Him. And once we have that, our lives too, just like the Avatar’s, will transform into a saga of perennial bliss.

LOVE.