Chapter Five: Avatāra Doctrine and Rama Worship

—and from two, the many. Yet within the heart and life of the many there remains an intense and unconquerable longing to meet again their source, that One—to unite completely, dissolve into it, and become wholly one with it. This alone is the single aspiration of embodied life. The indomitable yearning of the swan to meet and sport with the Supreme Swan keeps the living being restless here in this body of earth.

The original motive of worship

From the beginning, the Aryan people embraced throughout the universe the divine vision expressed in “All this is pervaded by the Lord,” “All this indeed is Brahman,” “There is no multiplicity here,” “Vasudeva is all,” and “You are That.” Even in the age of the mantras, they encountered the one Brahman in Indra, Varuna, Yama, Agni, Vayu, and the other gods.¹

It is beyond dispute that worship began from a desire for happiness. At first this happiness meant worldly prosperity; later it included transcendent blessedness. The complete cessation of suffering and attainment of supreme bliss remained the motive force of worship. Gradually the wish to benefit the world was added, and sacrificial rites arose.

Thus greed for pleasure, fear of suffering, and gratitude for a master’s beneficence initially became reasons for worship. The heart was therefore not yet completely united with the worshipped.² Yet alongside greed, fear, and gratitude, exceptional human hearts also possessed reflection and emotional sensitivity. The Puruṣa-sūkta of the Ṛgveda is their fruit. On beholding Bhagavan in the magnificent divine form of the “Person with a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand feet,” the human heart’s joyous exaltation knew no limit.

This cosmic Puruṣa of the Ṛgveda came to be understood as the manifest Supreme Lord Narayana—the support of humanity in its totality.³ The unmanifest Brahman worshipped as food, life-breath, mind, knowledge, bliss, and other principles⁴ inspired a desire for immediate nearness. That longing took shape in Narayana’s enchanting, heart-drawing human form. Experiencing Bhagavan’s all-pervading presence equally within and without is the chief characteristic of the path of devotion.