The Doctrine Of Incarnation
- by Hari Prasad Shastri
>
> Krishna says in the Gita: 'O Arjuna, I am born in this world again
> and again'. And Arjuna asks: 'How am I to know this?' Krishna
> replies: 'O Arjuna, I know all the lives, thou knowest them not, I
> know them all and I will continue to come. Whenever virtue is on the
> decline and evil in the ascendant, in order to restore the balance
> of virtue I take birth again and again'.
>
> Who is this 'I' who takes birth? It is the Lord omniscient and
> omnipresent, called Ishwara, God the Father. It is He who is saying
> so. Brahman, the infinite, immortal, absolute, has no death and no
> birth, but He has a second phase by means of which we explain the
> world — Ishwara, the personal God, and it is He who says 'I am born
> again and again'.
>
Dear devotees of the Great Adi Shakti,
i consider this article to be one of the most, if not the most
important and enlightening of knowledge since my 1993 self-
realization. It contains the deepest and profound of knowledge unlike
anything i have read before as it encompasses so much of what i have
learned from Shri Mataji, the Holy Scriptures and Incarnations.
There is another reason it has touched me so. Just last week i
was again trying to understand Shri Krishna viz a viz Brahman. In my
heart Brahman was beyond everything but Shri Krishna incarnation
caused some tension. What i understand is that anything that
incarnates has to be part of Shakti, the creative aspect of Brahman,
as has been all incarnations. But i wanted to be sure. Now i know for
certain that"Brahman, the infinite, immortal, absolute, has no death
and no birth, but He has a second phase by means of which we explain
the world — Ishwara, the personal God, and it is He who says 'I am
born again and again'.”The incarnation of Shri Krishna makes perfect
sense now.
Yesterday i was discussing religion and spirituality with my brother-
in-law who had come down. i told him that in all my years prior to
self-realization i grasped1% of the Truth. Then from 1993-2007 i
realized another 1%, and that i am confident of realizing at maximum
about 4-5% of the Truth in my remaining years. i am just like an ant
trying to understand the universe.
And talking about the universe, just yesterday i saw an excellent
National Geography documentary. Since i know that the universe
expanded from something smaller than the nucleus of an atom i just
watched in rapt silence at its mind-boggling size, unfathomable
complexity, and present-day acceleration in expansion ............ a
process that has continued since billions of years ago!
All one can do is to spend the remaining years in Silence. That is
the only way to grasp Hari Prasad Shastri's"Doctrine of Incarnation.”
If there are any who can understand this truth, the fundamental,
basic and rock-bottom truth, that is, the identity of the localized
spirit in man with the supreme and absolute spirit, he needs no
prayers and no rituals, nothing except a Guru. And when the Guru
without is the incarnation of the Great Adi Shakti within, one and
the same, then know you have an unprecedented opportunity to attain
Brahman. You need no external prayers, rituals or images to merge and
be one with Brahman. Tat Twam Asi - there is no greater or more
important truth than _realizing_ it over the years through Silence!
It will take time.
Shri Krishna is also part and parcel of Brahman ....... just like
Jesus, Rama, Buddha, Nanak, Muhammad, Moses and others. For me
probably this is the last doubt that had to be cleared by the
Primordial Guru. There seems to be nothing left to be answered.
Jai Shri Ganapathy,
jagbir
THE DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION
(From Self-Knowledge SUMMER 2002)
by Hari Prasad Shastri
To understand the doctrine of the Bhagavad Gita, it is necessary to
understand the doctrine of incarnation. Not re-incarnation, but
incarnation, and when we have understood the doctrine of incarnation
we shall also understand the true meaning of Christianity, Judaism
and other great religions. On several occasions Shri Krishna mentions
his incarnation. At one place He says, 'When virtue begins to decline
and righteousness predominates, then, O Arjuna, I am born to protect
the righteous and punish the wicked'. Now it is on this theme that I
venture to address you in some detail.
At the back of all phenomena there is one existence which is eternal,
immortal and without a second. This is the truth which we can never
afford to forget. We have to remember it all the time, and if there
is any doctrine which conflicts with this truth, it is to be taken as
a preliminary doctrine and not as truth of the highest type. The
highest truth is that there is nothing but God, who is consciousness
absolute, without any attributes, above all subject-object
relationship, the one existence, consciousness and truth, or bliss;
He alone exists and nothing else. There are not two existences, not
two ultimate principles, but only one ultimate principle. This is the
highest truth and there is no truth beyond this truth. When the mind
realizes this truth then it becomes no-mind, that is, it becomes God.
When the mind has become God, then the final problem of life has been
solved, then all the knots of the heart have been pierced, all doubts
have been dissolved and one great inundation of light floods the
soul. This is the background to the philosophy of religions and of
the Gita in particular.
When we postulate a philosophical doctrine, it should provide an
answer to the questions: What is truth? What is the world? The duty
of philosophy is to understand the world, and if a philosophy is not
able to afford a complete and satisfactory explanation of it, then
there is something wanting in it. Even the crudest of religions gives
some explanation as to the origin of the world, as to its purpose,
its maintenance and its final destiny. Man is included in the world.
When people have understood what man is, they will have understood
what the world really is, and when they have understood what the
world is they will also understand what man is.
Apart from man, the world consists of time, space and the law of
cause and effect. All the categories of Aristotle are included in
these three. God, or Truth, is not to be sought in this world, but He
is to be sought in the element which is more than the world, which
existed before the creation of the world and which will continue to
prevail when the solar systems have collapsed and have become dirt
and dust, when the earth and all the satellites of the solar luminary
have been reduced to nothingness; even then the Father in Heaven will
continue to rule as He rules today.
This is the basis of philosophy, a belief in the non-dual principle.
It is not only a matter of faith, but by cogent logical and
discursive reasoning this doctrine can be established. It does not
fight shy of scepticism, materialism and other systems of pseudo-
philosophy. Therefore, my friends, this is the rock- bottom truth on
which we have to stand. If there are any who can understand this
truth, the fundamental, basic and rock-bottom truth, that is, the
identity of the localized spirit in man with the supreme and absolute
spirit, he needs no prayers and no rituals, nothing except a Guru.
When we find this hard to understand, to realize, then we need the
subsidiary doctrine, and not otherwise. You will say why? Because
when our mind is tranquillized and purified of all desires, good and
evil, both, and is completely detached from anything in the world, be
it a husband, a kingdom or a country, it is then and only then that
the infinite spirit reflects itself in the intelligence and the
intelligence is borne up and the finite is absorbed in the infinite.
This is the holy doctrine, the basis of the yogic teachings and the
basis of each and every great religion.
Man consists of the body, the mind and the divine ray which is called
the monad. St Paul has said that man is a triple alliance of body,
mind and spirit, and this is the same doctrine which is explained in
the Gita.
Take the case of Christ, or of Rama and Krishna. They did not evolve,
they were never ignorant but came independent of any reason: the
divine ray descended, created that particular body, created that
particular mind and dwelt in it, all-perfect in knowledge, in
morality and in power, and this is what we call a permanent
Incarnation of God.
It is believed that the body of Christ was not like our body; it was
the divine body, it was the divine mind, and the spirit in Him was
ever enlightened. We hope to be enlightened one day by His grace, but
He was ever enlightened and He descended directly from the primordial
source of consciousness. A man today is bound but he will one day be
freed by his own exertion. An Incarnation is never bound and He is
not freed by his own exertion. He is perfect in every possible way
and there is no sin in Him, and He is not influenced by any of His
actions. This is called Incarnation.
Krishna says in the Gita: 'O Arjuna, I am born in this world again
and again'. And Arjuna asks: 'How am I to know this?' Krishna
replies: 'O Arjuna, I know all the lives, thou knowest them not, I
know them all and I will continue to come. Whenever virtue is on the
decline and evil in the ascendant, in order to restore the balance of
virtue I take birth again and again'.
Who is this 'I' who takes birth? It is the Lord omniscient and
omnipresent, called Ishwara, God the Father. It is He who is saying
so. Brahman, the infinite, immortal, absolute, has no death and no
birth, but He has a second phase by means of which we explain the
world — Ishwara, the personal God, and it is He who says 'I am born
again and again'.
This is an explanation of the verse: 'He who knows my body and my
actions to be divine, he goes beyond this world into the realm of
light'. It is an act of supreme sacrifice on the part of the divine
to appear as man. People remember only one sacrifice, the sacrifice
which Christ made on the Cross, but that was the last sacrifice.
There was a sacrifice greater than that: it was the eternal,
immutable, infinite, incarnating in the body.
A yogi serves God. What is the meaning of service of God? First,
doing good deeds without any selfishness and offering their results
to God. Man has not accomplished the purpose of life unless he has
done good to other creatures unselfishly and offered that good to God
to be utilized as He likes. Secondly, control of the mind. Thirdly,
tranquillization and enrichment of the mind by means of knowledge of
the holy truth, by prayers and devotion, by higher contemplation and
by acquiring that state of indisturbability of the mind that,
whatever may happen, it is never puzzled, never in doubt.
The first essential of life is service of God. Service of God does
not consist in going to Church once a week with polished shoes and a
Spring hat, but it is the mind which has to be dyed in the colour of
divinity, to imitate the attributes of the avatar, to imitate his
fortitude, his forgiveness, his refusal to censure anybody. If I were
to describe Christ in one sentence I would say, 'He is a praying
being'. Therefore it is essential that every man should be a praying
man, in order to go beyond this life of darkness and death.
Then, worship of God and Guru. There is no salvation without the
worship and loving associationship of the Guru. The Guru is one who
has received the mandate to teach from a direct line of teachers; who
has verified through his own experience the truth which he is giving,
who has boundless patience, forgiveness and compassion for all beings
of the world. He is the door through which the soul enters into God,
and those who do not enter through this gate will find it most
difficult to receive the grace of God. It is not that by worshipping
Guru you worship God, but that God will speak to you first through
the scriptures, then through the teacher, then through your own heart
directly. This is the mystical process.
Just as a piece of iron when brought into the proximity of fire
receives the fire and grows hot, so when man through rigid self-
control, meditation, abstraction and withdrawal, brings his mind
closer and closer to God within, it begins to get the warmth of God,
and that warmth is called other-worldliness. St John of the Cross
mentions it. It comes and goes. Why? Because it depends upon us. If
we withdraw a ball of iron from the fire for a little while, it will
begin to cool off. If we forget God and our main duty in the world we
will suffer relapses in spirituality.
Whatever we do we have to do every day and solemnly. I am a scholar,
but if I do not study for a month I find that that element in me
which I call scholarly will diminish. Unless a musician practises
every day, he will lose his art. How do we expect that by thinking of
God for ten or fifteen minutes a day we will acquire any great
proficiency? Those who are devoted to God and Guru, who devote every
minute of their life to the remembrance of the Lord, to the practice
of virtue, to the study of the holy truth and who are devoted
compassionately to others, they are the people who will see God face
to face in this very life. If you know how to focus the mind
unselfishly, some aspects of God will be revealed to you through it.
Therefore it is our duty to imitate the Incarnation and live as
Christ lived. If any of you have not got The Imitation of Christ, I
ask you to get that book and read it with fervour. There is some
magic in it, and when you read it you feel, at least for the time
being, athis is reality, this is peace, this is truth. Let me live
according to it'.
Let us every day try to imitate Christ in his fervent love for his
Father in Heaven and in his indifference to temporal objects. To
serve Him means to carry on his mission. Christ lived only for one
thing and that was to relieve the ills of humanity. How do people
live now? They become healers, they become augmenters of their own
illnesses. It is by acquiring his knowledge and distributing it to
others, by inviting the attention of the people towards the Lord and
his avatars that we serve Him. Finally, we meditate on Him.
The universal life — your life, my life, Napoleon's life, the life of
St Francis, the life of Christ — are all one. All life is one, and
therefore if you harm anybody you are harming yourself, whether you
know it or not. The most important doctrine is the doctrine of
universal life. All life is divine and it all belongs to God. He has
given life to us on trust so that we may purify it and finally offer
it as a sacrifice to Him — that is the purpose of life.
What is the meaning of purity of life? Life should be kept on a
sattvic (righteous and harmonious) plane. If you keep it on a sattvic
plane you will receive inspiration. If you do not keep your life
pure, inspiration will be short-lived. The inspiration of Aristotle
still lives because there is not a better man than Aristotle in Greek
history. Such also was Goethe in modern times. He has put the world
under an obligation for thousands of years; people have not yet
realized the greatness in this man, but one day they will realize it.
Perpetual loving meditation on an avatar is the highest aspect of
life. Progress in life means progress in virtue, in tranquillizing
the mind, in devotion to God, in meditation and so forth. The great
mistake which the Christians have made is that they think Christ is
the only avatar of God. Do they really believe that in the eighteen
million years of the life of man he has been left by God without a
guide. In what respect was Moses not an avatar of God?
When one has meditated on an avatar, then one will be able to
meditate on the attributeless, on the abstract, on the absolute; but
for the highest good of man, meditation on an avatar is essential and
it also shows results very soon. Therefore it is necessary that we
should worship an avatar. 'O Arjuna, he who knows my birth and
actions as divine, he goes beyond this life'. 'What sayest thou that
I am?' athou art Christ, the Saviour'. athou knowest'.
It is in order to concentrate his mind that a Buddhist contemplates
an image of Buddha. It is only a matter of concentration. Now the
question comes: Christ left the world, Krishna left the world, Rama
left the world. What is the use of worshipping them now and thinking
of them? There is a sect which says: 'I will not worship anything
which dies'. What dies? Nothing dies in the world. Christ and Buddha
are here today. They may not be within sight, but their rays are here
now, and if you piously attune yourselves to those rays you will get
the same benefit as those who lived in their time and who talked with
them. Electricity was present in nature in ancient times. In the same
way, God always lived, and so all the avatars are here, and when your
heart is attuned to them you know them. They are here today. It is a
fact, my friends, that many people do see Jesus today, as they do see
Krishna and Rama: there is no room for agnosticism or scepticism
here. This point can be argued on the highest basis of philosophy,
but when you have seen an avatar, you know that your heart is highly
purified. Surrender your soul to be tuned and played upon by the
avatar, like a flute, and then you will hear the music, atat Twam
Asi' (That thou art) issuing from it.
THE DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION
www.self-knowledge.org/archives/incarnation.htm
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