Avatar
An Avatar.Global Resource
Avatar
An Avatar (Sanskrit:अवतार) is an individual who has attained Perfection, who can thus maintain a strong and persistent Connection, and who has devoted their life to helping the world Heal and Connect.
Syncretic Terms
Avatar > Bodhicitta, Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva Vow, Divine Messengers, Holy Ones, Messiah, Qutb, Samyaksambuddha, Saoshyant, Tathagata, Tirthankaras
Historical Avatars
Avatars > Jesus Christ, Kalki, Mahavrata, Muhammad, Rishabhanatha, Rumi, Saptarishis, Swami Vivekananda
Notes
Most successful spiritual traditions have an avatar (or two) at their root. As Abraham Maslow noted:
The very beginning, the intrinsic core, the essence, the universal nucleus of every known high religion… has been the private, lonely, personal illumination, revelation, or ecstasy of some acutely sensitive prophet or seer. The high religions call themselves revealed religions and each of them tends to rest its validity, its function, and its right to exist on the codification and the communication of this original mystic experience or revelation from the lonely prophet to the mass of human beings in general.[1]
In Hinduism, an Avatar (from the Sanskrit avatara or "descent") is the descent of a specific and powerful identity into a Physical Unit for the purpose of correcting the direction of humanity and preventing a Descent into Darkness. In Hinduism, an avatar is commonly seen to be an incarnation of [Vishnu]] that has descend into the body to correct conditions and return Dharma to the world. IN Buddhism,
"The perfect one who reveals the face of God to the world is not the Divine Being in human form, but the human being whose person has become a manifestation of the Divine Attributes by his own personality having been consumed in the fire of the love of God."[2]
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