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Who is an Avatar? || Acharya Prashant, on Bhagavd Gita (2020)
Scriptures and Saints
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2 years ago
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Shrimad Bhagvat Gita
Shri Krishna
Human Bondage
Truth
Consciousness
Spirituality
Self-love
Description

Acharya Prashant explains that fools disregard the Lord when he appears in human form because they are content with imaginary beliefs, idols, and rituals. They prefer to locate divinity in temples, scriptures, and myths rather than recognizing it in flesh and blood. He clarifies that an avatar is not a specific person but an incidence that occurs when human consciousness struggles against its own limitations. It is the meeting point between absolute freedom and human bondage. When an ordinary human being chooses to go against their animal conditioning and animalistic tendencies, that moment is an incidence of avatar-hood. He emphasizes that an avatar is not someone who descends from the skies with divine backing, but a mortal being who chooses to rise upwards from the soil. The difference between an avatar and an ordinary person lies in the frequency and quality of their choices. Shri Krishna is considered an avatar because he consistently made difficult, counterintuitive choices that went against normal biological and hormonal impulses. One must earn the status of an avatar in every moment by choosing truth over falseness, which is often demanding and forbidding compared to the easy path of suffering. Acharya Prashant asserts that the most heroic battle is the one fought against oneself. An avatar feels the same temptations, pains, and deceptions as any other human, but chooses differently. He advises that to recognize an avatar, one must first start making similar choices toward truth. An avatar is identified by the tension of struggling against the 'gravitation' of worldly bondage. True spirituality is not about unconditional love for everything or mere relaxation; it involves the right struggle and the courage to side with godliness in the face of difficult battles.