This follows on from my post in Healing about karma.
Vishnu is the Great God of Protection, Enhancement, Beauty, and Guardian of the Universe. When you wish to help another, that is Vishnu. Christ is Vishnu, Muhammad is Vishnu, Krishna is Vishnu. he is the God of the Good - all that seeks Nourishment and Perfection. He is in fact the Perfection of Manifestation. Thus he is a bit of dull chap - personally, being a Shavite at heart, I have always found Vishnu somewhat like a school prefect - the School Captain in fact .... type of person I always tried to avoid. Poopy and conventional. But nonetheless, I know he is an archetype that has enormous influence on who I am in this life, and what I seek to accomplish before I die.
OK, so I am a follower of Shiva, the guy who meditates on corpses in the cremation ground with long matted hair smoking ganga. Yum! That’s my stuff!
But do you know that Shiva thinks of nothing but Vishnu - he so loves Vishnu, that he has forsaken all material wealth and beauty - everything, he has given to Vishnu, and he sits with absolutely nothing - no clothes, no possessions, he sits in eternal meditation of absolute silence. But his great love is Vishnu.
Now, this post incorporates Buddha. You should know something of the historical events. Lets distinguish first Hinduism from Braminism. First let me clarify Braminism. You must know not everyone agrees on this spelling distinction, but I can say Julie in her research found this to be the most common standard. Also know the ‘Hindu’ is an English term to help them describe what they found - slim chance! Most orthodox refer to the Indian religion as Vedic - of the Vedas which were written by the Rishis, long ago.
Brahma: a god, the God of Creation. Very little is said or followed in India about him - I think there is only one temple to Brahma alone in all India - could be wrong there, but enough to say his worship is ultra minimal.
Brahman: the ultimate - Nagual, the entire or all, in its essence of unknowable - no way possible to comprehend - beyond all - in Hinduism it is called ‘without attributes’.
Brahmin: the priest, the cast that sits on the top of the social ladder. Those who control the Hindu religion and all its ceremonies.
The common historical version (not accepted by all) was that the brahmins came with the Aryan invasion, from Persia long ago. They then dominated early Indian Hindu world. Along came Buddha, who (long after his death) with the help of Ashoka (an historical character that is well worth researching) became the dominant religion in India - well esp northern India, and all the way from a vast centre in Afghanistan to Japan. The brahmins fought back, and largely due to the profound influence of Shankara, Hinduism regained control of India. This is why you will see all over India the image of a lion on top of an elephant - the Lion is Hinduism and the Elephant is Buddhism, so these images represent the domination if Buddhism by the brahmins - in Cambodia and South-East Asia - eg Anchor Wat - the brahmins cut off all the heads of the buddhas when they regained control.
On a philosophical level, Hinduism resolved its differences with Buddhism, as there was always a very close relationship, and Buddha was the reformer, just like Christ with Judaism. But more, Shankara’s belief system was basically Buddhist - Advaita Vedanta. The ultimate rejection of Maya as the only path to enlightenment.
Now, to my main topic. After they had digested and resolved Buddha, Hindu philosophical view incorporated him into their Grand Scheme, as an avatar of Vishnu, which no doubt he was - being a bringer of enlightenment to humanity. So in the following you will see his place, and what an interesting place that is!
The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu.
Hinduism talks in vast cycles, each one made up of three Yugas (aligned to the three Gunas). You will have heard that we are now in Kali Yuga. In each grand cycle, Vishnu incarnates in his ten variations. (I should point out that actually it’s the Rishis who incarnate as an avatar of Vishnu - nothing is simple in Hinduism.) Each incarnation has an esoteric meaning - and I’ll give a very brief account of that.
1. Matsya, the Fish. Lives completely in the ocean - the physical body with its senses, the pure identification with the physical life.
2. Kurma, the Tortoise. Lives in the sea and on the land. The navel. Emerging from physical identification to awareness of it’s possibilities out of the ocean of the senses.
3. Varaha, the Boar. Pigs are the one of the closest of animals to humans. Who dived deep into the ocean and retrieved the earth - the breath and awareness.
4. Narasimha, the Man-Lion. Half human half animal. This avatar rips out your physical identification and transforms it into spiritual identification - Narasimha is the one who presides over your true spiritual awakening.
5. Vamana, the dwarf. The human of not-full-stature. Symbolising the evolution to the future of humanity in its full mental-spiritual capacity.
6. Parashurama. The wild and primitive man who conquers the world with brute force.
7. Ramachandra - Rama. The perfect human. But with limitations - his shakti (Sita) is split off from him.
8. Krishna. Totally perfect human beyond all limitations. Nature and humanity reach their peak of perfection. None before or after can compare (like the Toltec race).
9. Buddha. After Krishna, Kali Yuga begins, and thus comes the Avatar of Discrimination, Buddha. This is the point I want to emphasise. Buddha represents to the Hindus, the perfection of the mental faculty - the perception of discrimination and discernment. But he is without the juice of the aesthetic. His enlightenment comes through rejection of the world.
10. Kalki, the last avatar. With Kalki, Kali Yuga ends, and a new cycle, a new Kalpa begins - we are currently in the White Boar Kalpa. He will destroy and save - those he saves he will gift some glimmer of their true selves.
I want to draw your attention to these last two avatars, as they speak of the situation/timing we are in. All these avatar are both representations of the outer evolution of human consciousness, plus of the inner evolution of our own journey on the Path.
There is something very different going on in the world of those aligned to the impulse of Spirit. Buddhism represents the previous solution - plus the preliminary stage. This is where we set aside the world, and devote ourselves exclusively to the achievement of our ultimate goal - especially with meditation in ultimate silence. There is no escape from this. It has to be done. But it is also only one last step. We still have to encompass the world of Maya, in its full manifestation of its inner truth and reality.
I have a friend who is serious with her meditation, and surrounds herself with statues of Buddha, and yet she confesses a deep resistance to Buddhism, because she says she is an artist. She longs for the flow of life and the juices of the world in all its beauty. Buddhism is asking her to turn her back on her heart, she feels.
Now Buddhists would see this very differently, but I want to use this Hindu arrangement to explain something about me and Kalki.... next.