Question: Was the Christ an Avatar?

Sri Chinmoy: An Avatar means the direct representative of God — God in human form. It is a matter of individual opinion whether Christ was an Avatar. I can only say something on the strength of my own realisation, and on the strength of your own realisation you can say something else. On the strength of my own realisation I wish to say that he was, is and shall always be an Avatar. If others want to refute this, they are perfectly free to do so. This is a personal realisation of mine.

An Avatar is someone who is the direct representative of the Highest Absolute, who embodies God’s Vision and Reality all at once. The Christ embodied the Vision and manifested the Reality all at once. Not only did he embody, but he embodies it still, and he shall eternally embody God’s Vision and Reality, along with Krishna, the Buddha, Ramakrishna and others. They all came from the same root, only with different names. This moment we say “Krishna” because we like the Krishna form. The next moment we may like the Buddha form, so we will call him the Buddha. At another moment, we may call him the Christ. But they are eternally one: the Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, Ramakrishna and other Avatars.