The Avatāras After Kṛṣṇa

With Kṛṣṇa mankind thus developed respect for the love for and from the women at the one hand while the virtue and dharma in the yoga discipline with Him was followed at the other hand.  That was something good, but for what reason was the karmic load then after Him of such a weight that all His appearances then could only be channa or covered?

Teacher: "After Kṛṣṇa's appearance the Vedic culture had collapsed. There had been the great Mahābhārata war that had finished the old order and authority of the Vedic rule. All the striving for power and possessions made it impossible for the sages to inspire the rulers for general virtue and unity of consciousness. Political and societal conflicts became more prominent and the spiritual culture, out of self preservation, more or less sought its own way. It moved then being divided in her many branches in all kinds of separate schools of learning. Vyāsadeva, also called Bādarāyana, was the philosopher of this turning point who divided the Vedic knowledge in different arts whom he handed down to his many different disciples. He was one of the last of the great sages of the old days and was because of  His comprehension also called Bhagavān. He is thus also considered  Bhagavān, the Supreme Lord, as a kind of avatāra of the Vedic Knowledge. All that matters with Him is that we remember the Vedic civilization and discipline without fostering the illusion that it in this political age ever will grow into a general rule. But about Vyāsa as the One Lord of Philosophy, about Him as the channa avatāra there is dissent. He lived during the time Kṛṣṇa was present. Bādarāyana ('he walking the path of Badarikāśrama') would be an aggregate name for all kinds of sages who meditate in the Himalayas and, indeed, his followers did what he did and could also be addressed by that name. His probable age also raises doubts, for that must have been exceptionally high to have lived as a grandfather of the dynasty and brother of Bhīshma until shortly before the appearance of Śuka some generations later. This type of recurrence of the names of famous sages happens more often in the Vedic literature, so he might have been an incarnation of himself with a perfect memory. Nevertheless his works shows a remarkable consistency and unitary style. Because the citizens after the war could not keep to the old rules any longer, he e.g. wrote the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, the book we are speaking of right now, to reach the common man with the wisdom embodied in stories that could be remembered. In that sense he did constitute the authority of the Vedic knowledge for the entire society after Kṛṣṇa wherein the personal capacity of memory had diminished because of the societal strife and the war, so that everything had to be written down and got divided. The different books were with Viṣṇu preserved through aural traditions in different schools of disciplic succession, but the unity of the culture had been broken, not just the society had fallen apart, but also the teachings could not reach the lead of society in one piece any more.
The spiritual teachers of the Viṣṇu tradition, the Vaishnava ācāryas, have ever since also been called mahārājas, 'great kings' of the Vedic lore. In fact the lead in society in a spiritual sense had become separated from the care for the material interests of mankind. The no longer Vedically directed human being could not, nor can, in the modern time after Kṛṣṇa any longer be so particular with the duty in respect of the truth, marital faithfulness, the religiously sharing of the welfare and the nonviolence. The decay continued of those legs of the bull of dharma, the societal integrity of the so-called vidhi, the regulative principles of truth, purity, penance and compassion. The Parīkṣit politics of tolerance with the name of Kali indicated, pragmatics of obscure deceitful practices, free love, the lust to gamble and eat meat, became a standard for our present age, the time after Kṛṣṇa. That pragmatical approach characterizes the humaneness of our present world full of strife, that needs law books to grow thicker and thicker in order to still oversee and govern it all. In fact all the religions we now know, including Hinduism, are crumbles of, branches of partial revivals of the ancient Vedic order of unity in the respect of holy nobles and dharmic heroes like the Viṣṇu avatāras Kṛṣṇa and Rāma. Those examples and unity of Vedic knowing, acting and consciousness, served as the conscious and also unconscious intuitive inspiration for all kinds of rulers later on, saints, prophets, founding fathers, mystics, sages, philosophers and scholars, to motivate the common citizen for a religious, spiritual sense of duty and moral order. But this Humpty Dumpty of wisdom could in a societal sense never be entirely put back together again, we have Him as an integer godhead of control only more or less clearly envisioned still in subcultures of respect for covered channa manifestations of the Original Person of  Authority. Most of the religions and political parties foster the illusion that they can provide the formula of redemption for the necessary respect for the Person of the Complete Whole, but they, filognostically speaking, may all forget about that. The true lead of the Original Person can only still move in subsections of the culture without any general recognition. The political imposition of any such partial aspect of His Cultural Complete is thus completely out of the question. The preaching mission thus stays limited. Any person believes in the Supreme Person his own manner any way. We may be glad with the happiness we can find with Him in a successful meditation practice, for the rest we have to stay modest, otherwise we may forget about that also."

Seeker: "How did matters continue after Vyāsa? What forms were then assumed by the Person of All Virtue and Duty? He certainly must have tried to defend the dharma again and fight the evil, the injustice and ignorance?"

Teacher: "Certainly. I will try to describe some of the most important appearances of Him since Kṛṣṇa, but, I say this again and again, remember that there are many others who are simply not generally known and that about the ones we all do know there is no agreement of opinion because His full glory, His undisputed status, cannot manifest itself anymore just like that. The existing cultures of His Own Person He cannot suppress with a new one either. 

1) After Vyāsa there was his son who served as a model for the method of passing on this story. His name was Śukadeva, Śuka means parrot. He was the first so-called goswāmī or  'master of the senses' who passed on 'The Story of the Fortunate One', this Purāṇa, to a great group of sages of his time who had assembled at the bank of the Ganges around the fallen emperor Parīkchit who received instruction from Śuka about the Vedic culture and the devotion unto Kṛṣṇa. As for His appearance and aura he demonstrated a great resemblance with Kṛṣṇa and was as such recognized by the sages with whom he as a consequence enjoyed a natural authority despite his young years. One therefore could consider him  the first channa avatāra especially for passing on this knowledge about the Fortunate One (for this kind of avatāras we thus use no capital letters anymore). He was only sixteen years of age at the time. The correct passing on, one after the other, of the story of the Fortunate Person of especially Kṛṣṇa, one calls the paramparā in Sanskrit, usually translated with disciplic succession. The same way there are paramparās of the culture of Śiva and of Brahmā. Each constitutes a tradition of remembering an essential aspect of the Vedic knowledge. There are eighteen great Purāṇas known to serve all these traditions. Of central importance thereto is that the story is passed on the way it is, more or less like a parrot. And of course that ships with a discipline, a devotional culture with fixed rites, that is dovetailed with the words of that story. In de Viṣṇu tradition Śuka constituted the perfect example for the selfless, faithful to the text, passing on of His story without any further interpretation, irrespective the culture in question. But Vaishnavas do not recognize in Śuka a Viṣṇu avatāra, he is channa after all, even though the paramparā stresses greatly the importance of respecting the spiritual masters following in his footsteps like they are Kṛṣṇa in person.
I did my best for a good as-it-is translation at bhagavata.org, but from these inspirations can be derived that there is much to say about - or because of - the great story, this specific bible. Teachers of this tradition can dilate for hours at a row in a lecture about just a single verse of this book. Still this type of additions are only meant as illustrations. The first importance always is of course to get directly in touch, by means of this Purāṇa, with the Lord of Philosophers Vyāsa, to obtain knowledge about especially the original process of emancipating or progressing in the self-realization with Kṛṣṇa and with the Vedic culture he stands for. So too this book with inspirations must be considered strictly in relation to this original book. As for this it is not so much about discussing the modern culture of the person and its entire past history, but only to refer the modernity with her ego cultures to the common Vedic source of respect for the Eternal Person Above Time. So as not to get lost in the wilderness of the ego we need this giant tree of the history about the Person of All Avatāras. In fact there is no other authority or reference but the work of Vyāsa to assess this philosophizing and reasoning. All that is found in this book of inspirations then will be either in accordance with, or not at odds with, or else constitute an elucidation of that leading Viṣṇu Purāṇa (there are six of them).
The stories and the explanation, the culture and the disciplines belonging to that book whom we  also may call the Vedānta philosophy of bhakti yoga, determine greatly the ruling culture of the transference of its knowledge. But it is not stable, it moves in temporary cultures of sacrificing called yajñas, and changes depending the time and circumstance, as can be clearly noticed with my discourse in this book, that is not exactly of a traditional setup either. And so there are different traditions or so-called sampradāyas with most individual opinions about it and within their confines there are more different schools or maths found with each a somewhat different emphasis, style and discipline. I myself so emphasize the subjects of love, the individual and in association regularly meditating on both the names and the natural time of the sun and moon and pay less attention to the subjects of celibacy, the prayers and the rituals. But all ācāryas, 'spiritual masters of example', and the devotees of the Kṛṣṇa tradition, according to their own nature, follow in the footsteps of Śuka and constitute his representative. He is the original avatāra of the Person of the Traditions for this Hindu subculture. The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam as a story book about Kṛṣṇa constitutes the most important source. The entire Vaishnava subculture around this book yet again is, as is typical for this age of Kali, in being ruled by the channa-effect doubted in other more recent Hindu subcultures (e.g. the Arya Samaj), that state that the attention for this purānic wisdom is not the correct one because the original message of the pure meditation on brahman (God) would be only evident in the Vedas themselves. Vyāsa, the author of both series of scriptures, explicitly states though that the essence of Vedic knowledge is contained in this Purāṇa and that exactly the Purāṇas are the books meant  for the common people. The Vedas themselves are more for the priests (ṛtviks) and the pundits.

2) Humanity in this time and age is troubled by spiritual confusion. It is even so that the more one studies all kinds of matters, the more one so-called knows, the greater someone's confusion will be with all the books and the factual knowledge that time and again in bewildering terms tries to explain reality, without ever touching the essence of the person. Hunting for knowledge and control one ultimately wants to be the enjoyer and controller oneself in a wrong notion of emancipation estranged from to the original person. Modern man of the 21st century uses e.g. wireless connections to be in touch with each other via the ether with all kinds of electronic appliances, but of what use is that when one does not attain therewith the transcendence of the realization and association in the here and now of being personally present? Thus one only reinforces one's attachment and dependence in material relations. One cannot be truly alone or independent that way and thus also not really be together. Thus, in envy of the natural connectedness of the person, in fact, in a false standard concept of  time broken free from the place, keeping each other at a distance in stead of covering that distance,  the estrangement from each other and from nature only increases. In order to retrieve that essence of the unity of the conscious self of the Person in the Here and Now, the appliances must be shut down and the natural connectedness must be meditated, one's being al-one with and having the intuition of, that Primeval Person of All Connectedness. The problem of being present in the here and now in unity with the natural harmony, in an enlightened way free from material desires,  is not just a problem of our most modern time. It constitutes a classical theme. For that purpose He appeared about 450 B.C. in the world as the Buddha with a teaching deviating from the Vedically formulated truth of the unity in diversity of man in the material world. He declared the world to be an illusion and the self to be empty, to be sunyata or absent, or empty of, personal desires, ignorance and resentment. But the world only gives rise to illusions and is not empty of course but the person who cannot be denied. He spoke of emptiness only to ease the people away from their material pre-occupation and to cure them from their envious, and from their true self estranged, practices. The Buddha next to that was there, with his simplified yoga method, to remind the human beings of  this age of the fact that nonviolence and vegetarianism are a precondition for finding peace and harmony with all living beings in meditation. With a meat diet no enlightenment is possible, it constitutes a form of desire at odds with the principle of compassion with every living being. These days this strategy of the Buddha moves in disguise, or channa, in likewise diverse 'New Age' convictions. And his name is indeed not needed to ease the envious human being, with his false connectedness and violence against nature and her flora and fauna, away from his conditionings and estrangement. The Buddha became disputed when he as a channa avatāra took the karma upon him of the in the Vedas contested  philosophy of impersonality and emptiness. But when after sitting for a long time with him one discovers that the world is very real and that the other you love and even the one you hate, is just as well present in your own heart as you yourself are present in the heart of the other, then you, in the pure nonviolent state of consciousness of the Person of All Meditation and Compassion (who is also the Buddha), will understand that the meditation is only there to unite that double or multiple state of the self and to purify in the real personal position that one nonviolently occupies in opposition of a real material world.

3) In the Middle East after the fall of the Vedic culture around 3000 B.C. there was a pickup of civilization. With the Vedic order collapsing, the one of the roots of in particular the Jews came to flower. Great souls, so the Bible says in the book Genesis, 'sons of God' or brahmins, came from over the mountains to the land of the Euphrate and the Tigris and they mingled with the regional people of those days. That had a strong vitalizing effect on the local population, even though it brought along with it the shadow of a shorter life span. In contrast with the ancient times one did not age beyond a 100 years anymore from then on, so the story goes. The sons of founding father Abraham who because of signs and miracles believed in the father in heaven, the Person of All Fathers, whom they called Jaweh, populated in the course of the ages the regions, but they became, despite their belief, their faithfulness to the scriptures and prophets, with a lack of pure spiritual discipline, love, historical awareness, wisdom and science, estranged from each other. Kali-yuga offered no sufficient space for the authority of and respect for the uniting capacity of the sages, also not under the sons of Abraham. Therefore their culture developed insufficient muscle so that they were run over by in particular the Roman Empire. But the Romans themselves were often also in trouble because of the lack of integrity and the violence of their authority. Around the first century B.C. e.g. a great split had taken place of the by a duumvirate ruled Empire. That took place under the influence of time reforms in which the lunar calendar out of love for the example of the Egyptian culture of time and their princes named Cleopatra had been replaced by a solar calendar. Without realizing it the Romans had practically abolished their own culture in the form of the lunar calendar en thus found themselves in a cultural cramp of preservation with a murdered emperor named Caesar and a successor named Marc Anthony who, being betrayed in Egypt, committed suicide together with Cleopatra. Those days they had a brute but diplomatic style of governing that tolerated no infringement on their central authority, with them is was bow or burst. Thus one generally bowed to the violence of the Roman dictate.

The Jews from their traditions believed in the coming of an avatāra they called  the Messiah. This one would save them from their  suppressors and confirm their culture of honoring the Supreme Person of Jaweh. To liberate them from their suppressors, to be of sacrifice for the sake of human compassion, for the (adapted, eastern, historical) wisdom as a solution and for the confirmation of the Father in Heaven - and thus the heavenly order that actually on earth had to be respected with both the solar and the lunar calendars -, thereupon Jesus descended to earth as the son of a carpenter. Within the Jewish culture he grew up to become a gifted, idealistic young man, who liked to discuss about the matter of belief in Jaweh. After coming of age he left for India where he meditated with adherents of the Śiva sampradāya. There he found his destination as a preacher of the belief in Brahman or Jaweh, of the love and the consideration of meditative contemplation. He developed special talents called siddhis in the yoga with his Indian godbrothers, because of which he was capable  to reinforce his prophetic, to time and circumstance adapted, words for the Jews with omniscience, materializations and healing powers. He returned to Judea and began his mission around his thirtieth year. For a couple of years he was successful with his apostles and was called the Christ, the Redeemer or the Messiah. But he was betrayed and by the Romans in great social disagreement crucified for being an agitator. He was quickly, within a day, before sunset, taken from the cross at which he in a state of suspended animation almost had suffocated with a collapsed lung and a back ripped apart by flogging. After three days he was able to leave the tomb where he was put to rest. He showed himself to his disciples and delegated his mission of preaching compassion and respect for the Heavenly Father to them. After thus with his personal mission having reduced the karmic load of the Jewish people, the Romans and the world, he turned back to India where he grew old in Śrinagar where he finally was buried in the 'Meadow of Jesus'. The followers of his first period in India called themselves the Iśannis. His name in India was Iśa, or master, Lord. The Iśannis later united with the followers of apostle Thomas who had a mission in Goa. That mixture of old and new Christianity was labeled heretical by the Pope and was persecuted with the burning of their scriptures. But they still exist as a small subculture in India. This information is documented . This version of Jezus' mission in a channa avatāra appearance is most unknown en theologically highly debatable, but nevertheless it constitutes an ideal unification of historical verifiable truths, the Christian morality of mysticism, gnosis and self-realization, the Jewish theology and the Vedic Philosophy and is for that reason alone not only acceptable but most desired.

4) The Roman Empire fell down, not just because it had abolished her own order of time and thus  had undermined its own backbone of culture, but also because of lovelessly having been after its own material control and advantage of stealing for Rome. Vedically speaking it had been too much karma with its profit mind and too little dharma with its worship of gods and philosophical sophistication. The Roman philosophy of state and religion was in reality only there for the privileged ones and not for the slaves, was there only for the authoritarian, material grip on reality and that one-sidedness turned itself against them. The passion and ignorance as also the internal struggle that came along with it could not stand its ground with the goodness and the wisdom, the dedication and the love that by Christianity in the beginning  in a relatively pure way was propagated. The principle of goodness turned out to be a better doctrine. But when Christianity took over the rule in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, a religious dilemma was met. Politically one had democratically fallen down to a concept of time with linear weeks and poorly leaped so-called Julian years with which one had estranged from the authority of nature and thus of God in the form of Father Time. The papal authority had to bow for the pragmatical will of the people, there was little she could change about it and spoke - and still speaks in that context -, of the inevitable original sin proper to the culture of ignorant man. Also the other rules of the clergy like the sharing of possessions, sexual purity and nonviolence could only properly and sustainably be held up in monasteries. Christianity therefore started with the dark ages in which the classical political order of rule, the honor and the violent authority of the state of Rome could no longer manifest itself just like that. The rule of Roman authority was in the early middle ages in the beginning driven away by barbarians with a crescent moon on their head and forced in retreat to the Byzantine Eastern European clergical authority that ultimately by the Ottoman Empire was run over. The pope then returned to Rome.
In the seventh century A.D there was the rise of Islam. Islam was, and still is, a political movement with a religious Abrahamic foundation of regularly praying to Allah in accord with the position of the sun as His authority, going on pilgrimages, fasting with the regularity of the moon and the performance of good deeds etc. Because of the militant political nature of Islam religious directives could more easily be imposed, also upon other creeds, other religions and nations so that population groups could be fought and suppressed and the, by adherents, turning away from their religious practice also could be punished more easily. Sexual purity was by Islam tried to enforce more or less with obliging women to veil themselves or at least cover their hair to minimize the temptation of their beauty. The Islamic policy of time made all the difference, politically and spiritually, because that was the typical weakness of Christianity. It legitimated the religious foundation and constituted the right of existence of Islam as an independent religion, despite her Abrahamic character and her political grip and ambitions. Islam being directed against Christianity and Judaism tried as a better kind of monotheism to conquer Europe and drive away the Christians, but that failed. Allah of course could not repress Jaweh and the Christian version of God the Father. It is also not logical that the one service of God would drive away the other service to God, or Brahman Vedically spoken, even though it was and still is tried politically. In the beginning of the 21st century the political character of Islam in her factional struggle consequently turned out to undermine its own power. It is therefore justified that in modern politics one is convinced about the fact that religion and politics must stay a double track matter and that the democratic concept with a reformation has to protect itself against the false dominance of any of them. The religions on this planet will have to find their peaceful co-existence with the  Original Person of Peace  in their own historical cohesion. The Lord of All Religions is very well able to, and also must, coordinate his own boarders. That is not given to the dominance of either of them. He proves Himself  thereto time and again as the Supreme Person of Order so as to stress that anyone will have to stay modest in his contribution to that common interest and the respect for Him as the Original Personality.
De governing passion of Islam could in the Middle Ages thus not push aside the goodness and the intellect of Christianity that slowly evolved from the monasteries and the culture of the knights and their kings. De Christian reaction to the Islamic politics was, according to necessity, that must be said, violent though and there were crusades to fight the Islamic evil of ruling with passion in stead of with goodness and the imposition of strange religious duties. The Christian Roman order had to undergo the karmic consequences of the old Roman rule. But Christianity, not familiar with the concept of karma yoga, therewith lapsed itself into passion and intolerance for other beliefs and cultures and became itself possessed by the superego evil it wanted to fight in Islam. Christianity wanted just as well rule with power  and enjoy the material benefits of their own  supposedly superior religious virtue rather than share them. The old Roman evil of societal inequality on a religious basis raised its head once more. The time was not ripe for a more eastern approach of a multiform, more or less (different minded) democratic religiosity. At the end of the Middle Ages Islam had been driven back, but then the Catholic Church turned out to be too material, impure, intellectually questionable, politically corrupt and too violent to be able to hold absolute sway. That gave too much internal struggle and therefore a religious reform was needed as also a period of intellectual freedom or Enlightenment. In philosophy and science that originated from in particular the Greek Philosophy that was preserved by Islam, but religious, tradition-bound matters by contrast can by normal people not just like that be controlled and changed. Therefore in fact an avatāra was - and is - needed, an appearance of the Lord as the authority of His own religion, but that kind of understanding of a repeated appearance of Him was at the time in Europe still unknown. Luther and Calvin were faithful servants of the Christian cause, but could not be the infallible engine for such an authentic authoritative reform of the spiritual culture. In Europe that factional struggle thus led to many wars and persecutions.
The complete of mankind at the end of the Middle Ages was confronted with the necessity of a reform, also in India. There also one had estranged from the direct emotional bond with the Lord, with the Original Person, being bogged down in formalistic religious practices that did not address the heart and the emotion of the people any longer. In India one next to one's own formalistic rigidity also had to contend with the dominance of Islam, for the Moguls in 1526 had established their rule there, a rule that lasted until the second half of the 19th century whereupon the British took over the country. In that political climate then the channa avatāra Śrī Kṛṣṇa Caitanya appeared, the Lord of Reform in the form of a devotee. He attracted devotees from around the world and renewed the culture of bhakti by in particular rescuing the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam from oblivion, placing the book on an equal footing with the Bhagavad Gītā. He instructed by forming the lead in the devotion for in fact his own person and is known for having created a hyper emotional culture of bhakti, of devotional service. Therein he opposed the rationalism and formalism of the Viṣṇu approaches of those days, as also the māyāvādī philosophy of the emptiness of the self, of matter as an illusion and of the impersonalism that was  also omnipresent in de yoga cultures of India. The unicity of his historical contribution consisted of the acknowledgement of human emotions in relation to the Original Person of All Meditation. In certain so-called rasas, or emotional mellows, one could be of jealousy, anger, love, parental concern etc. in relation to Kṛṣṇa as the kernel of all meditations and engine of all personal emancipation up to the state of beatitude. He emphasized that only the meditative individually and also in association repeating of the names of in particular Rāma and Kṛṣṇa sufficed to find liberation in this age of Kali. But among the Vaishnava schools there is disagreement about Caitanya as being an appearance of Kṛṣṇa. He would be an emotionalist without a view of his own. All that he left in writing were eight instruction verses. Nevertheless nobody could defeat him in philosophical debates and he managed to properly lead his movement of bhakti reform together with four companions. He would be an ordinary person, but he demonstrated many characteristics of a real avatāra. We in the end owe to the Caitanya Vaishnavas that we now inspired by this book can write and speak about this book and have a good method of meditation to find relief from our modern time misery and be liberated in devotional activities. But also the these days in the West known Vaishnava association of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, became disputed as being an over the top personality cult around the ācārya, the spiritual teacher of example named A.C. Bhaktivedānta Swami Prabhupāda. Despite of being a great soul who brought this book to the West in the second half of the previous century, he must not be considered a Viṣṇu-tattva avatāra. In the reform minded Netherlands at the end of the 20th century in particular because of the excessive adoration of this ācārya, Vaishnavism the way it should be, did not or only minimally come about. Because of the sectarian fanaticism there was too little room for the personal development of the devotees and their integration in western society, as many witnesses testified who distanced themselves from the movement or were ousted in disagreement. After the demise of Prabhupāda in 1977 from India likewise schools of Vaishnavism took hold that were less fanatical in not being focussed on the vedānta philosophy of just one ācārya.

5) After the Middle Ages there was a period of enlightenment wherein science, with the resuscitation of the classical Greek Philosophy of in particular Plato and Aristotle, expanded enormously. Politically there were great landslides when the French Revolution put a violent end to the Absolute Monarchy, but the resulting democracies that arose from the conflict between the rationalist and empiricist philosophical controversy produced by the Enlightenment, were not exactly harmonious models of state wherein the citizen could find his peace. In the twentieth century one arrived with it at world wars in which not only  the nobility was carried to its grave as the lead in society, but wherein also the one-sided philosophies of state of liberalism-capitalism, communism-socialism, conservatism-fundamentalism and nationalism-fascism proved to be unreliable, defective and unfit as univocal forms of civil authority and order (see also Inspiration 1.13). Also democracy with its parties as we know it now, thus turned out to constitute no adequate defense against an unstable state authority and war threats, on the contrary, that turned out to be a most suitable breeding ground. Next to that, also science with its endless stacks of books could not offer a comprehensive solution or constitute a firm philosophical lead of wisdom. It constituted with its lack of cohesion, lack of interest in the person and missing 'theory of everything', just another symptom of the fragmentation of the authority of western culture. With the many crises that generated at the economical, ecological, political and psychic/physical level, the problem of modernity as a lack of real progress became evident in the twentieth century.

From that worldwide societal and spiritual instability and confusion there rose again the necessity of a new descend of the Supreme Person on Earth. This took place as a reaction to the second world war in a societal revolution of alternativity in the second half of the twentieth century, in which the old values of civil society were questioned  and a more natural and free life style and love for one's fellow man was propagated. Developments in natural science  in particular in the field of quantum mechanics and astronomy pointed in the direction of another more holistic paradigm wherein the philosophies of the west and the east are much closer associated. A lively interest came into being  for a more eastern life style with Yoga, Tai Chi and other, 'new time 'or 'New Age' approaches under the influence of in particular Eastern gurus. Among them there was a triple avatāra appearance who, being channa, neither in India, nor in the rest of the world generally could be acknowledged as such and, conform the modern strife of ego, even got discredited. These three successive appearances concern the ones of Shirdi Sai Baba (1835-1918), Sathya Sai Baba (1926-2011) and the upcoming by Sathya Sai Baba announced appearance of Prema Sai Baba for the 21st century, to complete his mission for the political reform and spiritual rescue of, the democratically, scientifically and spiritually confounded, modern man. Shirdi Baba spanned the bridge between Islam and Hinduism by promoting as a fakir, also for the Hindus, the devotion for the Person of All Devotees whom he represented himself. Sathya Sai Baba thereafter developed, as a bhakti guru and miracle worker with a great social calling, from within Hinduism the sarva dharma mission based upon the fundamental values of truth, love, righteousness and nonviolence, to unite the religions in the world and resuscitate the Hindu culture of Vedic sacrificing, without starting a new religion in the process. Prema Sai Baba is supposed to be around soon (2019?) in order to rescue the love for the true self of mankind that was lost in all the strife for material control.
The great resistance against not only this last row of three avatāras but against the entire avatāra science as described in this Inspiration 2.7 a&b, originates from the side of especially modern science, that rejects the entire mysticism of an existing superperson and the complete person-bound method. For that institute of knowledge it constitutes no proof that can be repeated, be properly controlled and verified and therefore cannot be accepted just like that. Moreover one has no confidence in his person in his latter missions as a consequence of, among other matters, the slander and backbiting around his appearance. His mission and his proofs, regarded with prejudice, are not directly understood. A channa avatāra happens to be difficult to recognize and to follow in his methods of taking upon him the karma of mankind and deal with it effectively. The proportion of miraculous phenomena was also in particular with the Sathya Sai Baba-incarnation exceptional. He performed great miracles, while preaching classical morality he took the burden of the entire sexual revolution of the twentieth century on his shoulders, but also did not hesitate to engage in normal magical tricks and other jokes and pranks in his līlā, his pastimes. It is only because of the grace of his appearance and activities, which I personally was allowed to witness in India, that I now as a writer, with the greatest confidence, can testify about it here as a devotee of all His appearances. Therefore there is this book of inspirations to the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. One has to comprehend the entire historical connection of the Person of All Teachings in order to be able to recognize and fathom these specific actual appearances of Him.
The exclusion and denial of the person in general and the concrete reality of His Ideal Person as a philosophical historical, spiritual, psychological and theological subject of study, can with all reasonableness and scientific understanding that we have today, not be kept up. Even in the hardest science we know, physics, one arrives at the conclusion that the observer, the one doing the measurements, cannot be excluded from the considerations of truth. In addition everybody understands that when one wants to be accepted as a person oneself one will have to accept other heroes and great persons oneself also. The impersonalism and empirical nihilism of the classical reductionistic and mechanistic approach of science has proved to be untenable. The complete of material nature proves itself in the most modern science of particle physics as a person-dependent multiform appearance of energy, whereby the validity of Western philosophy does not defeat the one of Eastern philosophy, because it, on the contrary, in complement constitutes a unity therewith. The puruṣa, the Person, is the quantum field as considered in theoretical physics, "I am the field in all fields" so confirms Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad Gītā. At this point filognosy steps forward as the description of the unity in the diversity of our human intelligence, self-realization and personal, cultural and natural presence. The repudiation of that unity, that integrity of consciousness, constitutes the darkness we by this writing want to contest."

Seeker: "For each avatāra there seems to be another reason to appear on earth. What is the general reason for his or their appearance?"

Teacher: "People are overcome by their ego. Their I-awareness therefore becomes false. The immaterial soul is the true I, not the body one has. That is just a coat of flesh, juices and bones. Becoming false means that one more and more identifies with the material interests of the body and what belongs to it. That process of identification, also forms the basis of the mental restlessness of man being overcome by matter. Materially entangled the mind ruminates on and on about the incompatibility of one's own material interest and that of others. One thus estranges from one's true nature, the inner self of the Original Person of Unity that  all people have in common. This lack of connectedness is associated with a diminished or receding attention for the culture of exercising respect for the Original Person in the form of an avatāra with this or that societal order of religious duties, meditations, prayers, congregational singing and study. When the societal classes, that normally are led and inspired by spiritual education, schools of learning, textbooks and teachers, are fixed on themselves because of the operation of the false ego and they as a consequence have less or no attention anymore for the religion, the dharma and the culture of the repeated retrieval of mutual connectedness, inner harmony and peace by means of meditations, people develop all kinds of bad qualities. Hypocritically one may keep up appearances for a long time, but ultimately the entire culture will be unsettled and will one tend to destroy the planet, the way we can observe it increasing with countless symptoms of crisis in the 20th and 21th century.
In the Bhagavad Gitā in the fourth chapter there is a most famous verse to be found (verse seven) in which Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna that time and again, there and when the dharma - de religion, the righteousness and the respect for nature and naturalness -  is lost and the people behave badly and selfishly, he in the appearance of this or that avatāra will manifest on earth to revive the dharma, chastise the bad characters, and protect the devotees. When people want to stay spiritually healthy they cannot escape psychically from the necessity to regard and strive for their own ideal self. Therefore they will always, well aware of their personal shortcomings, look for Him and pray for Him.  Thus He again and again finds, depending the time and circumstance, another way of stepping forward and restore the order in the world. Considering the exceptionally serious societal abuse of the last half century  and the enormous destruction of the planet and the life forms taking place at a global scale, it is therefore understandable that we now hear about - and can also testify of -  a triple incarnation of Him. I myself became convinced of this appearance of Him when He personally, not be misunderstood, manifested Himself to me by means of His specials abilities. Even though that for someone else, without His grace, cannot be scientifically controlled or relived, still the same can be heard from many others who became convinced of Him. Also confirmation from different sources is a form of acceptable proofs. Most religions derive their validity from this. One after all e.g. does not have to observe a flying saucer oneself to be convinced of the existence of that kind of manifestations of extraterrestrial visitors. Traditionally we call the confidence in testimonies of others belief, despite its methods science also is not free from this. Without belief in His spiritual authority real presence and predominance, there is of course no religion or only a successful and lasting culture of meditative spirituality thinkable."

Seeker: "Does with Him in this threefold appearance this period of decay come to an end?"

Teacher: "According to the calculations of the Hindus this age has just begun and this appearance would be only one of the many channa appearances in this Kali-yuga era. He will restore the order and push back the decay, that He will, but there is also mention of an avatāra of Viṣṇu who will definitively put an end to this era in its entirety. That appearance is called Kalki. He is imagined as riding on a white horse with a sword to chastise the wicked ones."

Seeker: "Is there any system in His appearances in the course of the ages?"

Teacher: "Certainly. In the beginning of a civilization there is a global culture of doing penance with the sages and the founding fathers who develop the culture. The emphasis is then on appearances of Him as the, usually unseen, Person of the creator who Vedically is called Brahmā. Half way there is then the consolidation of the culture with God-conscious people who constitute an example, with religious ceremonies and nobles who mediate between the spiritual authority and the populace. That kind of avatāras are typically the Viṣṇu appearances we spoke of. They always restore the order.  At the end of those periods of civilization when there is a rise of much decay and destruction, godlessness anger and chaos, the emphasis is on appearances of Him as the destroyer Śiva. One then only meditates without much respect for the scriptures, for each other or for the general rules of dharma."

Seeker: "What are the means of power Viṣṇu employs to put us back on track?"

Teacher: "It is not possible to give a full explanation of His powers. The sages in the past could not, let alone me now, not even mentioning all the others who cannot who are there after us.  Even if one could look around in all galaxies, one could not determine His limits. Just think of the way He as Trivikrama, the one of the three steps, manifested Himself as the dwarf Vāmana. With only a small allotted area he succeeded in covering the entire world with his transcendental grip on mankind. That kind of processes of developing consciousness and correction of dharma is difficult to put into words. For that reason the Hindus have laid down their culture of stories  in this Purāṇa about Viṣṇu and in particular Kṛṣṇa among others. There are categorizations and descriptions of the so-called siddhis, but I will tell you more about them later. For learning to know Him His grace is needed. That grace is there only for sincere seekers who can surrender  and are prepared to rearrange  their life. With just some academic interest one cannot achieve this. One then only licks the outside of the honey jar  in stead of relishing the honey itself, so says the popular Vaishnava metaphor. With duplicity the enormous influence of the material world cannot be overcome, such an ocean of difficulties can only be crossed in a boat of bhakti, of devotion and surrender to Him. Only they who consciously say no to the 'I' and 'Mine' of a normal physical civil life can succeed in this. You have to give up your selfhood and possessiveness. Travel so to say lightly and recognize your self-interest in that of others. This is the form of enlightenment one needs to find liberation."

Seeker: "Is He with His almighty command not simply playing a game with us? What can we do then?"

Teacher: "You and I and all devotees at all levels of realization in each stage of emancipation with each of the three basic qualities of nature and the sixteen fundamental civil identities of the four basic vocational groups in combination with the four departments of our age, constitute, as said, 3456 different kinds of people or positions in His game of order. This game bewilders us constantly and makes us easily forget our true self of His Supersoul within us. You can accept this game only for real and play along with it and thus lead a good life, when you by meditating on His Person of the Pastimes constantly are in touch with His knowledge, blissfulness and eternity. Without that nectar of Lord Kurma, we are constantly tussling about with people only interested in power and possessions, we cannot live, believe, be happy and live in prosperity. Without therein materially being modest with Vāmana but spiritually being great, you reach too high and fall too deep, and then life will hurt, will become a torment so that you will never find the self-respect you are always looking for. Respect therefore always the example of other praiseworthy devotees, also those of different convictions, but especially the Vaishnavas of course and follow their directions. Whether you find yourself societally marginalized, are a woman, have another color of skin or cultural background, whether you are of a deviating sexual preference, are someone contractually bound to a job and have debts or are someone lacking in proper education and training, it does not matter, each can find liberation who is of respect for Him and meditates on Him, provided one keeps in mind the basic rules of non-intoxication, sexual faithfulness, the sharing of your possessions and vegetarian - but wholesome - food in compassion with your fellow creatures on this planet. You do not have to be a monk, a philosopher or a yogi. Just having a job - preferably as a volunteer -, in respect of the natural oder of time not being of abuse with alcohol and drugs, being reticent in sexual shyness, knowing to share your home and possessions with others and taking much trouble to be pure, eat preferably biological vegetarian food with moderation and/or a regular day of fasting not to become obese, then you can be in control of the illusions the material world generates constantly and you can acquire the knowledge you need for your self-realization.
That what we in Judaism call Jaweh, in Christianity call God or Vedically call Brahman, in Islam call Allah, in Taoism call Tao, in Buddhism call Dharmakaya and in physics call the quantum field, is the Absolute of the Spirit that is known as unlimited happiness free from grief. That is the ultimate position of the Original Person of Self-realization, the goal of all emancipation for independence and connectedness that drives away all illusion. That state free from the burden of duality is difficult to describe in concrete terms. It is the actual nature of the Soul of All Souls, the Cause of all Causes, the Primeval Person, who liberates from fear and leads to one's awakening to the Complete Whole. In that state of consciousness you are independent, merciful and forgiving with no need to strive for control and perfection by austerity. For drinking from that source you will never be thirsty. That Lord of the Primal Person of Goodness, the Actual Person of Maintenance, is the master of all happiness, He rewards you with the spiritual fulfillment for all the good work done according to your nature and material ability. Your body may perish, but the unborn soul, your true self that as a fourth dimension has its existence above matter, will never perish, just as the dark energy will never be exhausted by the creation of the cosmos."   Seeker: "What is the source of this knowledge actually? I understand that you derive this knowledge from the rich past of the spiritual culture of humanity. But can you refer to one single source?"

Teacher: "My dear seeker, the certainty you are looking for you will find in both the time conscious and person conscious, meditative harmonizing with the entire universe, the complete of nature, with the actual person inside of you who is the Supreme Lord and creator of this culture and universe. Everything you can see around you, everything you can picture in your mind, can have no other cause than His Absolute Person. This story about Him as the Fortunate One who can both be acknowledged in many historical personal appearances in the outside world and  within oneself, is in the form of this book himself yet another appearance of Him, a form that was passed on by Himself in the form of the person of, among others, Śukadeva and Caitanya Mahāprabhu as channa appearances from Vedic conscious India, one of our oldest cultures on earth. Kṛṣṇa answers this question also posed by His friend Arjuna more or less as follows: 'There were many appearances of Me in the past. I identify Myself with all of them, but you, because of not doing so, doubt your eternal value, reality and presence of My Person as the actual source and cause. Thus this message can be said to have originated from the sun god and from the saintly kings on earth before My appearance as Kṛṣṇa, but in each case I am all of them.' Thus I as a middleman, as a teacher of this book, received the story of Him from the primal source.
Dear seeker, it is now up to you to pass on to humanity this message as faithful to the text - but also in clarifications as adapted to time and circumstance - as is possible, irrespective the local culture or religion, and thus inspire for devotion unto His Eternal Presence. May each world citizen find enlightenment and liberation by purification in this transcendental filognosy, this ātmatattva knowledge for the sake of self-realization that unites the complete of mankind, even not being aware of it. He, the Lord of All Knowledge, after all is the supporter of each and everything. How can we, with Him clearly before our mind's eye, ever fight each other and head for destruction? The description of His material presence is the water for extinguishing all the fire of the struggles we as humanity may be engaged in our ignorance about His Transcendental Unseen Person of Goodness and Maintenance as the peace formula. You can worship Him with any name you want, as being God, Lord, Prophet, or Devotee, but without this science of self-realization we will with the entire planet perish in the struggle of the false I-awareness, in the struggle of the material ego of being turned away from His and our transcendental oneness."

Source for this Inspiration:
S.B. Canto 2, Chapter 7