Sri Sathya Sai Baba

SWAMI ON AVATAR

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. 

When the Avatar appears in human form, we find that He exhibits human consciousness along with Divine Consciousness. Ordinary people cannot grasp the Divine Consciousness of the Avatar. 

God appears to be an ordinary human being to the limited intelligence of lay people because of the co-existence of the Divine and the human aspects of the Consciousness exhibited by Him. Man's perception is limited to the level of human consciousness. 

Therefore, human comprehension is restricted by the limits of human consciousness. But the sages of yore were able to cognize the Formless God in the visible Form because they had imbued themselves with Divine Consciousness. Thus, according to their levels, different people regard an Avatar as a mere human being or the Cosmic Reality.

- Sri Sathya Sai Baba