“Dattatreya is unique. But then, his father was a Rishi. Each Rishi offers his own experience to the world by sending down his essence to be bom as a prophet or a saint, to guide and teach. When things on Earth come to such a pass that the continued existence of the Rishis’ Lila seems threat ened, a Rishi will send down an emanation of himself to guide the errant sheep back to the fold, as Jesus tried to do. As Lord Krishna says in the Gita, ‘Whenever righteousness declines and unrighteousness increases I then take birth in the world, to protect the just, destroy the wicked, and re-estab lish righteousness.’ Krishna, Rama and Jesus were all amshas (fragments, fractions) of Rishis. They were very different from you and me; they were avataras, embodiments of divinity.
“Avatara literally means ‘downward-crossing’; an avatara crosses back from perfection into imperfection, solely because He loves us and wants to help us out. The Rishis are beyond our limitations of time and space until they choose to live on Earth, and then they make themselves subject to some of the rules which regulate us. They allow Mahakala to rule them while they remain with us, and permit the Law of Karma to direct their activities. This is why the saints and prophets always live lives of misery; they are trying, by taking on our limitations, to show us how to live. They make examples of themselves so that we can learn from their examples.
“When one day the Baby Krishna got tired of being treated as a child by His foster mother Yashoda Ma, who could only see His body and had no idea of who He was, He opened His mouth and showed her the entire uni verse within it. He could do this because His Kundalini was able to self identify with the entire universe. She naturally became speechless in amaze ment.
“Then Krishna realized that the play would never be the same if she was allowed to remember His real nature. After all, she and everyone else who was close to Him were celestial beings who had taken birth for the express
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purpose of taking part in His Lila. Krishna decided it was more fun to play with His beloved devotee on a relatively equal footing rather than to have her remain awe-struck all the time, so He made her forget what she had seen, and she lapsed back into her normal role of being His mother.
“Jesus likewise could have enlightened His parents instantaneously, but then they would have been so fearful of offending Him that they could never have treated Him as their son any longer, and what fun would that have been? A play is really enjoyable only when the actors and actresses com pletely self-identify with their parts.
“Any emanation of any Rishi is an avatara. Because Jesus was the emana tion of a Rishi we can also call Him an avatara. Each avatara is the projection of a particular Rishi, who appears as that avatara all during that kalpa. That role is his prerogative, his personal play, his birthright, you might say. No other Rishi will even attempt to take over his role. There are as many stars in space as there are grains of sand in the sea, so each Rishi can play as he likes on so many different planets. And they do play in many places, and in many different ways, according to the roles assigned to them.
“There have been many avataras of Vishnu, the Preserver, all of which were impelled by different Rishis, each of whom provided a different flavor to the emanation. Dattatreya is one of Vishnu’s avataras. Ordinarily, though, when people talk about avataras they mean the Ten Avataras of Vishnu, a particular group of ten emanations Who came to support and protect the earth. In each cycle of four Yugas the same Ten Avataras of Vishnu appear. Do you know why there are Ten Avataras? 1 + 0 = 1, the only One-Him, capital H, the Preserver of the cosmos. But there are eleven Rudras (Lords of Death): 1 + 1 = 2, duality, since it is because of the Rudras, who end our limited human play, that the world exists.
“In Satya Yuga, when the first avataras appear, mankind is very much in tune with Nature. Everyone communicates telepathically, and they know things by intuition. In Satya Yuga people are spiritually very good, very advanced, but because they don’t bother about material things they are technologically imperfect. And because they rely so much on Nature to take care of them they are more like animals than they are like the people of Kali Yuga. An animal has to rely on God; there is no other way for it to survive.
“Little by little, as the human intellect develops, people begin to think that they can improve on Nature. This is the origin of society and civiliza tion. Still, though, they are very much in tune with Nature during Treta and Dvapara Yugas. It is only in our era, Kali Yuga, that we forget all about Nature and try to do everything on our own, and you can see the results all
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around us.
“Someone whose mind is subtle will see that the concept of the Ten Ava taras has similarities with Darwin’s theory of evolution. In fact these avataras represent stages in man’s mental evolution during the cycle of the Four Yugas. Look at the Ten Avataras. The first is Matsya, the fish, who swims in the ocean—the ocean of jnana, which is perfect, undivided consciousness. Then comes Kurma, the tortoise, who is amphibious. The tortoise can live both in the ocean, the field of consciousness, and on land, the field of indi vidual activity. Next comes Varaha, the boar, who lives only on land, but can swim when necessary. Do you remember the name of our current Kalpa?”
“The White Boar Kalpa.”
“Boars are much more closely related to humans than are fish and tor toises. Why do you think cannibals call human flesh ‘long pig? And why do doctors use some of the pig’s body tissues for organ grafting? But there is more to it than the merely physical; we’ll come to that.
“After Varaha comes Narasimha, the Man-Lion, Who has the body of a man (nara) and the head of an animal, the lion (simha). He represents a tran sitional stage between the animal/primitive and human/rational natures. Narasimha is ferocity personified when He appears to save his beloved dev otee Prahlada, who alone is able to pacify Him.
“Next we come to Vamana, who is a perfectly formed man, but is not of full stature; He is a dwarf. Vamana = va + mana, which indicates esoteri cally that the future evolutionary value (va) of the human race is mental prowess (mana); likewise the word vanara (monkey) indicates that after evo lution (va) a monkey has the potential to become a human (nara). The Vamana Avatara is unique in that Vishnu in all His other Avataras gives something to the universe, while as Vamana He begs the cosmos back from the Asura King Bali who had conquered it. This begging was the foundation of the Krishna Avatara.”
“How did that work?"
“That I will explain to you-eventually. Parashurama, who comes next, is a man of full stature, but He is very wild and primitive. His is a life of blood shed; He kills all the warriors in the world many times over until He is van quished by Ramachandra, the perfect man Who comes next in the line of avataras. Ramachandra, who is usually known simply as Rama, was the ideal king, a perfect example of equanimity whose life everyone can profit ably imitate even though He lived a million or more years ago.
“Although perfect, Rama is still subject to certain limitations; some dual ity is still present. He represents endurance; His personal life was miserable,
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but He never lost control of Himself. His Shakti, His wife Sita, was external to Him; He even ‘loses’ Sita for some time, or rather, He fell under the delu sion that He had lost her. Rama’s limitations were primarily due to the absence of two of the Three Gunas: He existed in Sattva alone, and had no Rajas or Tamas at all.
“After Rama comes Krishna, the totally perfect man. Krishna was beyond all limitations except death. He embraced all the Three Gunas and then went beyond them. Krishna’s Maya, His Shakti, is a part of Himself; the whole play is combined in one being. Both Nature and man reach their highest perfection in Krishna. There is no one else in any universe, past, present or future, who can be compared to Krishna. Even the Rishis marvel at His play.
“After Krishna leaves the earth Kali Yuga begins. Then comes Buddha. Bud dhi means discrimination, and Lord Buddha represents the perfection of discrimination, though He is devoid of aesthetic experience. He is a man whose logical faculties are fully developed, but Who is trying to do without Maya altogether because of the many temptations of Maya, which increase in strength as Kali Yuga develops. He is not willing to live in the world and enjoy it; He wants out of the world. Lord Buddha is called the Compassion ate One because even though He is no longer in the world He longs to help others who are trapped in the cycle of birth and death to escape also.
“The last Avatara is Kalki, who is yet to come. Kalki is actually the wrong word; it should be Nishkalanka, ’the One without any stain of any kind.’ When Kali Yuga is at its worst He will appear and will destroy all but a hand ful of people. Then He will change the consciousnesses of those whom He allows to live so that they will remember something of their true selves, and Satya Yuga will begin all over again.”
“So this whole business of yugas and avataras is basically one long loop of evolution from the extreme of intuitive consciousness to the extreme of intellectual consciousness, and then back again?”
“More or less.” “And it just keeps going on, over and over?”
“Yes, it does, but it is more like a spiral than a circle, since the events of one cycle act as a foundation for the events of the next. There is a continu ous progression. Now, this idea of the Ten Avataras as reflections of the evo lution of human consciousness is just the beginning; every concept should have many layers of meaning. The Ten Avataras also reflect individual spiri tual evolution.
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“You know, our ancient seers were not the simpletons that some modern historians make them out to be; they just didn’t tell everything they knew. They believed in keeping the highest knowledge secret, because they knew that it would be dangerous in the hands of those who cannot digest it. If you drink a large glassful of ghee you will have a good nice purge unless you are used to it or are taking medicines which can digest it for you. Similarly, if you overimbibe knowledge you will not be able to retain it. It will all flow out of you unless you have had plenty of practice in digesting knowledge, or your guru predigests it for you.
“So I look at the ancient texts in a very different way than the historians do. For example, when the texts say that it is good to drink cow’s milk, I read ‘milk’ to mean the ‘milk’ of sense perceptions, because ‘go’ means. both ‘sense organ’ and ‘cow.’ To ‘drink milk’then means to retain these per ceptions inside, within the mind.”
“But it also means actual cow’s milk, doesn’t it? You always say that if you can digest it cow’s milk has a better effect on the mind than does the milk of other animals.”
“It is better, no doubt; that is another layer of meaning of this saying. But I don’t like to harp on the physical, because in Kali Yuga everyone is too attached to the physical anyway.
“When this milk of sense perceptions is mixed with the starter culture of discrimination and it is left for some time the yogurt of cultured intellect is prepared. But still it is not finished. This yogurt must be churned by con stant discipline until the result is the butter of jnana, spiritual wisdom. This is still raw, however, because it is only theoretical knowledge. Only when this butter is boiled by the fires of intense longing will ghee be formed. This is the real ghee, the ghee mentioned in our tradition as ‘ghrtam ayuh, ghr tam vishnor tejah’ (‘ghee is life, ghee is Vishnu’s effulgence’) because then you see Narayana everywhere. Like pure cow’s ghee this knowledge is golden in color, the gold of truth. And yes, cow’s ghee is the best fat to eat if you want to be healthy, but this is not an advertisement for cow’s ghee!
“The doctrine of the Ten Avataras also has an internal meaning. Look again at the Avataras; the first is Matsya, the Fish. The Fish is bom to save the Seven Rishis from a deluge, like the biblical flood. He also retrieves the Vedas from an asura who had stolen them and taken them to the bottom of the ocean. The ocean is the ocean of the body; the bottom of the ocean relates to the Muladhara Chakra. And do you remember Panchamakara?”
“So the Fish does his work via the breath somehow?” “Correct. Next comes Kurma, the Tortoise. Have you studied pulse diag
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nosis in your Ayurvedic college?”
“A little bit." Vimalananda never bothered with taking anyone’s pulse; he would always take his own pulse and then tell the person what was wrong with them. No one taught that sort of pulse diagnosis in my college.
“Have you heard of the ’tortoise’ at the navel?”
Then I remembered; the plexus of nadis at the navel is sometimes called a “tortoise” because it is said to look like a turtle, with large nadis appended at roughly the positions where the turtle’s legs, head and tail would be.
“Now think about this story: The devas and the asuras had agreed to cooperate to churn the ocean of milk in order to obtain the treasures hidden within. They used Mount Mandara as the churning rod and the serpent Vasuki as the churning rope. Forget for now the celestial events that this rep resents; think instead of the fact that this churning of the ocean happens inside every sadhaka. The devas and the asuras are your good thoughts and your bad thoughts, respectively. The mountain represents your spine and spinal cord. Ordinarily the spinal cord is a chain which binds you down to the world, just as the causal body is a chain of karmas which binds you down to rebirth. The spinal cord binds you down because it causes you to project your consciousness out into your body. I don’t need to remind you of the significance of the serpent.
“At first attempt, nothing happens, because the mountain is too heavy and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Then Vishnu incarnates as the Tor toise, and with the rod resting on His back the churning proceeds. What would you guess is the meaning of this event?”
“I think it suggests that you have to have a firm base when you try to use Kundalini to churn your being, because otherwise your attention will keep slipping down into the mundane again. The churning is done with prana, I take it, since the Tortoise is involved.”
“Good guess. The process of enlightenment is chemical, with certain hor mones and other glandular secretions being created when these processes occur. The ‘churning of the ocean’ is also a neurochemical process, during which so many internal treasures are produced, one of which is Amrita, the glandular secretion which is the nectar of immortality.
“The first thing which happens, however, when you churn your con sciousness is that you separate it from the poison of the samsara, the ocean of manifested existence. This emerges as the Halahala poison, which Shiva consumes in order to keep it from descending any further than your throat. When you become a sadhaka you must keep the outside world outside, and cultivate interiority; otherwise you will be poisoned. You must stop identify
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ing with the samsara; otherwise how will you be able to get any perspective on it? As long as the Serpent Power sleeps at the base of the spine She iden tifies Herself with the poison of the limited individual personality. When She awakens, She realizes She is by nature unlimited and free and She relin quishes the poison, which must then be dealt with. And there is no one in the universe like Shiva when it comes to dealing with poison.
“After the poison the treasures began to emerge: the wish-fulfilling cow, the celestial horse, the celestial elephant, the celestial tree, a celestial jewel, the apsarases—
“Since the apsarases are really special nadis, could all these treasures be
nadis?”
“They could be; but don’t jump to conclusions. Then came the goddess Lakshmi, which Vishnu took for Himself, followed by the goddess of liquor, which the asuras took for themselves, since Vishnu had taken Lakshmi. Finally Dhanvantari, the god of physicians, emerged; in his hand was the pot of nectar.
“Now, the agreement had been that the devas and the asuras would evenly divide this nectar, but since Vishnu decided that the asuras could not be trusted with it He took the form of Mohini, the Enchantress, and it was agreed that She would distribute the Amrita. The asuras were so over whelmed with lust when they looked at Mohini that they overlooked the fact that Vishnu was doling out the Amrita only to the devas. When the spell was broken they suddenly realized their mistake, but it was too late; all the nectar was gone. A great battle ensued, but because the devas had been invigorated by the Amrita the asuras were defeated.
“Internally the same sort of struggle occurs when Amrita is produced. All the selfish aspects of your personality want their share, but your spirit, your Indwelling Ruler, deludes them until they fight back and, weakened by your practices, are destroyed. Unfortunately, like the asuras, they eventually revive and return to fight another day. This is why sadhana is so important.”
“The asuras come back to life?”
“Yes, but that is another story. Now we come to the Boar, Who emerged from one of the Creator’s nostrils. His job was to dive deep into the ocean and retrieve the earth, who had been kidnaped by the asura Hiranyaksha. So the Boar is also tightly bound up with prana and with the earth. Earth Her self was created when she emerged from one of the nostrils of Brahma, the Creator, which suggests that Earth must also have some connection with prana. This is not surprising; the earth is Mother Nature, the ultimate root of all life which lives on Her. But how exactly is She connected with prana?
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You may try to reason it out for years and years and yet you will never dis cover it. It is beyond the process of reason.”
“Inside the body, though, the implications seem fairly obvious,” I said. “After the body is revivified with Amrita and the prana is well controlled, the Indwelling Ruler can dive down to the Muladhara Chakra, the seat of the Earth Element, and bring Kundalini out from under the waters of the ocean of manifestation so that She can start Her return journey to Her Beloved. Is this close?”
“Very close. Next comes the Man-Lion. Narasimha saved Prahlada by kill ing his father Hiranyakashipu, who was king of the asuras. Hiranyakashipu, who had conquered the cosmos in a rage after the Boar had killed his brother Hiranyaksha, demanded that Prahlada should worship him alone. But right from his birth Prahlada, who was a spiritual type born into a family of materialists, was a dedicated devotee of Vishnu. Even when his father threatened to kill him several times, Prahlada’s faith never wavered. His very name suggests this; prahlada means “especially joyous.’
“Prahlada’s devotion to Vishnu increased his power of discrimination tre mendously, which helped him survive. For example, once his father ordered him to embrace a red-hot pillar. When Prahlada inspected it closely he saw ants walking on it, and realized that his father had only made it appear to be red-hot using the magical powers which all asuras possess innately. He then fearlessly embraced the pillar. But when his father really did lose his temper and was really ready to kill his son, Vishnu in the form of the Man-Lion stepped in and saved his devotee Prahlada.”
A brief pause.
“You know, you can go on for years and years reading all the holy books, and unless someone tells you or you suddenly develop insight of your own, you will never understand any of their real meaning. Narasimha puts Hiran yakashipu on His lap, disembowels him with His claws, and garlands Him self triumphantly with his entrails. This is what the books say, and most people take this story at face value and leave it at that.
“But a person with subtle intelligence will wonder how many people have ever been so fortunate to have been taken on the Lord’s lap. The answer is very, very few. So even though he died in the process, Hiranyakashipu must have been tremendously blessed by the Man-Lion. Hiranyakashipu had per formed tremendous austerities, and in his arrogance tried to rival Vishnu Himself. His envy and hatred of Vishnu were so intense that he remembered Him almost constantly, and this drew Vishnu to him, to save him by slaying him. We call this virodha bhakti (perverse devotion).
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“Why did Narasimha rip open Hiranyakashipu’s belly? Because of the Manipura Chakra. Another name for Shiva is ‘Hara,’ ‘The Snatcher.’ When Mahakala snatches the Jathara Agni from the body life ceases, since your tis sues lose their ability to feed themselves, and you die-or at least the mun dane ‘you’ dies. If you have already converted Jathara Agni into Bhuta Agni, however, there is nothing for Hara to snatch, and you are immortal.
“So Narasimha split Hiranyakashipu’s belly and awakened his Manipura Chakra, causing all the Jathara Agni, all the physical digestive fire, to be con verted into Bhuta Agni, the spiritual fire, the fire of life. After such a conver sion there is no need to eat at all; you can digest whatever prana comes your way. This is real freedom, or at least one aspect of it. It is freedom enough to make one into a Siddha, an immortal being, which is what Narasimha did to Hiranyakashipu.
“This is the meaning of the entrail necklace that the Man-Lion wears: He has removed all the Jathara Agni, which is contained in the guts, from the asura’s body, and forcibly prevented Apana from moving downward any longer. Vishnu transmuted Hiranyakashipu’s violent anger and hatred toward Him into an intense spiritual fire. The Man-Lion can do for you, too, if you are ready for it.
“Narasimha, Who is the embodiment of Fire, was not born; He emerged suddenly from a pillar in Hiranyakashipu’s palace. This ‘pillar’ was of course the spinal cord. Sadhakas who are filled with false, demonic ego get disem boweled by the Fire Element as Kundalini awakens; the Man-Lion creates forcible purification, often at the expense of life itself. But to His devotees like Prahlada Narasimha offers His protection, and preserves their lives when they reach this stage.”
Vimalananda fell silent here, and so I prodded him: “What about Vamana, and the other avataras?”
“A little at a time, Robby. There is so much to know, but you must digest what you learn if it is to be of any use to you. And we have only scratched the surface of these stories; there are so many things left to consider. Right now, though, we have something better to do: to sing the sweet name of God!”
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YA
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Skulls & Skull Cups
WY
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