A WORLD FULL OF GODS

"Whenever the world declineth in virtue and righteousness;
and vice and injustice mount the throne, then cometh I,
the Lord and revisit my world in visible form, and mingleth
as a man with men, and by my influence and teachings do I destroy
the evil and injustice and reestablish virtue and righteousness.
Many times have I thus appeared, and many times hereafter
shall I come again."



The witness of history is that always the appearance of man's necessity has been met with a divine Revelation," wrote Alice Bailey, author of The Reappearance of the Christ, in the middle of last century. Considering that "man's necessity" has perhaps never been so acute as it is today, it may be time to start watching the skies, or the internet, or maybe even Times Square for the signs of a new revelation. And once you start looking for a messiah, you will find that there is no shortage of eager aspirants. Just type "avatar" or "second coming" into Google and see what you get. "Christ is back. He's black. He's gay. And he shall overcome" are the words running across the top of one website. Welcome to the democratic internet age, where everyone has a platform and no one is excluded from the messianic sweepstakes—a fact that becomes somewhat overwhelming after spending just a few minutes online. But even in the midst of the confusing free-for-all of this messianic clamor, a few teachers have put forward more serious, or at least more influential, bids in this high-stakes spiritual drama in which, tradition tells us, there can be only one—only one Messiah, one Maitreya Buddha, one Imam Mahdi, one Kalki Avatar, only one true Son of God . . . or maybe not. Certainly if we're talking about Hindu avatars, apparently there can be many.

Avatar is a Sanskrit word that means the "descent of Divinity into flesh" and originally referred specifically to the incarnations of Vishnu, with the Kalki Avatar being number ten, prophesied to appear at the end of our current age, the Kali Yuga. Why, then, an astute observer might ask, do avatars seem to be proliferating everywhere in today's spiritual world? Indian spiritual teachers Sai Baba and Mother Meera both call themselves avatars. The late Meher Baba adopted the designation in the early twentieth century; Swami Yogananda was referred to as an avatar; the mythical yogi Babaji as a "maha avatar"; the early-twentieth-century Indian sage Sri Aurobindo and his spiritual partner The Mother were declared to be avatars by their students—and the list continues to grow. There is even a quick and easy weekend enlightenment program called "The Avatar Course." All of which adds up to not so much a descent but a veritable cascade of divinity into flesh. Vishnu, it would seem, has some explaining to do.

At the same time, in a postmodern world that tends to lean heavily toward a diminishment of spirit and a cynicism about the unabashed, one can't help but be slightly in awe of the willingness of so many to unequivocally proclaim themselves to be the prophesied religious savior of humanity. "The Promised God-Man Is Here," announces the most recent book of American spiritual teacher Adi Da. But even that outrageous statement has some serious competition from a former traffic cop all the way over on the other side of the world. "I am Jesus Christ. That which was promised must come to pass," says Vissarion Christ, the Russian founder of one of the two major spiritual movements today being led by individuals claiming to be the return of the Son of God. "It was promised in Israel two thousand years ago that I would return, that I would come back to finish what was started." Looking as if he just walked straight out of a da Vinci painting, this modern messiah has attracted a large following that includes a number of Russian artists and intellectuals, and the first international seekers are beginning to find their way to his remote rural home as well. Indeed, with a presence on the web, even the teachings and ministry of this "Jesus of Siberia," as one reporter dubbed him, can reach around the globe—testimony to the unique dynamics of this moment in history, as a new crop of now globalized messianic dreams greets the twenty-first century.

Despite Vissarion's success, when it comes to sheer numbers, his efforts pale before the alleged influence of a nameless, faceless second coming of Jesus purportedly living in China. "For as the lightning cometh out of the east . . . so shall also the coming of the Son of man be," writes Matthew in the New Testament. And someone in China has apparently taken this particular prophecy quite seriously indeed. A major underground movement has arisen in Mongolia named Eastern Lightning that is declaring, quite actively (and militantly, some claim), the arrival of Christ in this world. And here is the twist: this time Christ is a woman, and a very circumspect woman at that, as no one in the West has so far seen, interviewed, or taken a picture of her. This Christ figure, her disciples say, believes in an imminent apocalypse and has written her own addition to the gospels, which she calls the "Third Testament." The exact number of converts is not known but estimates are in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, a number that may be sufficiently large to draw some special attention from the authorities (a dangerous thing to do in communist China, as anyone associated with the Falun Gong sect will tell you). And don't be surprised if Eastern Lightning tries to make some Western waves in the years to come. East may still be east and West may still be west, but in our brave new messianic world the internet is quite big enough for would-be Christs on both sides of the Suez—black, gay, Siberian, female, or Chinese.


The Once and Future Messiah

"The King Messiah will in some future time come, restore the kingdom of David to its former power, build the Temple, bring together the scattered of Israel, and all the ancient laws will again be in force. Sacrifices will be offered, and years of release and Jubilees will be kept as prescribed in the Torah. Whoever does not believe in him, or does not hope for his coming, shows a lack of faith not only in the prophets, but also in the Torah. For the Torah testifies concerning him in the words: 'And the Lord your G-d will again bring back your captivity, and show mercy unto you, and again gather you from all the nations. If your outcasts be at the ends of the heavens, from there will the Lord gather you, and the Lord will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed.' (Deuteronomy 30:3-5)"



If one has messianic aspirations but doesn't quite have the inclination to stand up before the world and unequivocally declare oneself to be the religious savior of humanity now manifest on this earth, one needn't despair. There are other ways to end up on top of the messianic heap. Indeed, a look around at our eclectic spiritual world tells us that one of the most common and direct ways is simply to have others recognize you, to be what we might call an accidental messiah, the helpless pawn of a messianic drama that installs you in the unsought for position of avatar, Christ, Mahdi, or whoever the particular tradition might be waiting for.

For example, Sri Kalki Bhagavan, founder of the Golden Age Foundation, is a popular and well-established Hindu spiritual teacher who now goes by the name of the Kalki Avatar and is one of the best-known Kalki claimants around. So how did he come to adopt this rather bold and conspicuous title? Was there a point when he recognized the truth of his own incarnation, a moment of awakening that revealed to him his true identity? "It was neither a revelation nor an experience, nor was it a spiritual awakening," Sri Kalki Bhagavan explains. "It was always so from the beginning. I knew I had come here to give enlightenment to humanity." But lest we assume that this knowledge, along with his adoption of a messianic title, constitutes a personal claim to be the mythological Kalki Avatar, he sets the record straight. "I have never proclaimed to be the Kalki Avatar," Sri Kalki Bhagavan says. "It so happened that lots of people began to have visions and revelations that I am the Kalki Avatar come to set man free. On the basis of those experiences, people started to call me Kalki."

Of course, it should be said that the recognition of one's own spiritual realization by students is a crucial indication of any spiritual attainment—although hardly a definitive or objective standard. And obviously, to even be considered a serious candidate for a position as extraordinary and profoundly influential as a prophesied religious savior, one would have to already possess an unthinkable spiritual depth and purity, or at the very least, a rare charismatic power that few could even begin to approach. But in a world filled with all kinds of mahdis and messiahs, it never hurts to have a few supporters to push you over the messianic hump.

Another fascinating case study of this dynamic and, in fact, a number of dynamics surrounding messianic claims, is the saga of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Brooklyn, NY. Few would disagree that Rabbi Schneerson, founder of the Lubavitch movement in America, was a divinely inspired leader, a spiritual genius, and by all accounts a true tzaddik—a deeply wise and holy man. But the Jewish Messiah himself? Could it be true that the prophesied one, long awaited by so many, has already lived and died . . . in Brooklyn? Rabbi Simon Jacobson, a close student of Schneerson who worked with him for over fourteen years, is careful in his response: "You see, this is not up to my opinion here. This isn't a popularity contest. What we humans can do is look at the criteria. Does a certain individual fit those criteria that tell us God is choosing that person?" For all messianic hopefuls, the criteria are laid out in various Jewish scriptures. Perhaps the three most significant of these, as established by the Jewish prophets, are that he will come from the House of David, rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, and gather all of the exiles back to Israel.

Rabbi Schneerson never announced himself to be the Messiah nor did he seek the title in any active way. Yet for the last several years of his life, a culture grew up around him convinced that this great rabbi was indeed the prophesied one—a culture of belief and speculation that he never unequivocally dispelled. His death in 1994 would seem to have put the issue to rest once and for all, given that at least two of the major prophecies concerning the Messiah remained rather conspicuously unfulfilled. But when it comes to charismatic spiritual leaders, death often seems to enlarge rather than diminish their mythological standing in the eyes of followers, and Schneerson's death has provided little deterrence to those who see in his deeds the works of the prophesied king from the House of David and the promise of the messianic kingdom he will bring. They point to the fact that resurrection is hardly an unheard-of concept in the Jewish tradition, and there are those who believe that Schneerson may still be planning a return engagement to this world. There are even rumors that a camera sits watching over his grave, ready to record the expected event. "He's not with us anymore," says Rabbi Jacobson. "But in Judaism, there is a belief in resurrection." Jacobson is a little more circumspect about the rabbi's status: "That doesn't mean it's easy to believe. Trust me, I don't find it easy to believe that the dead will rise, but I do believe in spiritual energy, that saints can change the world. At minimum, he definitely set in motion a chain reaction that is a major contributor to the new age. Rabbi Schneerson is secondary to the fact that the world is ready."

This passionate expectation of an imminent golden age is characteristic of millennial movements such as the one Schneerson inspired. And if this expectation is unfulfilled, explains Dr. Landes, then you have to come to terms with disappointment. "You can't start out with an announcement of the imminence of the kingdom without getting disappointed. And there is no more exquisite or painful description of disappointment than in the response of the apostles to the crucifixion. That is sort of the prototype model. The most important way that that disappointment is handled is the Second Coming." This is especially true of Islam and Christianity, Landes feels, but not as common to the Jewish tradition, a tradition that has over the centuries seen many would-be messiahs come and go—acknowledged mistakes in the messianic drama. That is what makes the talk of Schneerson's resurrection so unusual, he says. "In some of Schneerson's disciples who are talking about him sitting next to God in heaven and that he's coming back, you are beginning to have a group of people who sound more and more like Christians."

Ironically enough, it was this disappointment—the fact that the messianic age has not yet arrived—that Rabbi Schneerson himself was addressing in one of the last public talks given a few months before he fell sick and eventually died. "How is it that the Moshiach [Messiah] has still not come?" the rabbi asked his audience. "Why is our world still a place in which evil and suffering prevail? Why is it acceptable that redemption should not come tonight, nor tomorrow, nor the day after? You must do all that you can to bring our righteous redeemer, immediately! . . . It is up to each and every one of you to bring the ultimate redemption with your actions. It is in your hands to bring about the harmonious, perfect world of Moshiach."