The True Lineage of the Avatars

In this essay, I want to discuss True Lineage.  And True Lineage is not the same thing as linear descent. I will mention three great world religions and tie my thesis to them: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

According to Judaism, the chosen-ness is passed on through physical descent.  God chose Abraham and it is through physical descent from Abraham that the covenant promise continues.  It goes from Abraham, through his son Isaac, through Isaac’s son Jacob and so on down the line.

Christianity, in its attempt to usurp Judaism, said, you people got it wrong. You are no longer the chosen race, because it is not physical descent from Abraham that makes one the covenanted people.  What makes us the chosen race is that we demonstrate the same kind of faith that Abraham had.  And, beginning with the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, faith came to mean a cerebral acceptance of the corpus of church teaching – the embrace of a creed.  They had substituted Credo (I believe, I give my head to) in place of Cordo (I give my heart to)

Then, six hundred years after Christianity, came Islam.  The Muslims say that while the Jews claim descent through physical means and the Christians claim it through faith, they – the Muslims – have both bases covered. As far as physical descent is concerned, they rightly point out that Isaac was not the first child of Abraham.  Abraham had a child before Isaac who was called Ishmael. He was born of an Egyptian slave woman and was some years older than Isaac. So, if you are going to speak about linear descent and first-born, we Muslims have the right because we are descended from the first-born child of Abraham.

And, if you Christians claim that it is faith that makes the covenanted people, then know that our very name means faith.  The word “Islam” from the Arabic root “Salema” means: submission and obedience. In the religious sense, Islam means submission to the will of God and obedience to His law.

(Of course, figuring out exactly what God’s law is, creates all kinds of opportunity for human hubris and prejudice.  In my opinion it most certainly is not Sharia nor Canon Law nor the 613 precepts of Torah.  But that is a discussion for another essay.)

So, Muslims say, in effect, Abraham was the first Muslim, since, demonstrably, he was the first faith-filled person within the scriptural traditions of the peoples of the book – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  He is the first person to totally prostrate himself and to submit to God.

I think, in some sense, the Muslims have it right.  Theirs is the best articulation of the three because what they are pointing out is that it is an attitude of submission to God that puts us in the lineage and makes us people of the covenant. It is not about miracles, it is not about extraordinary births or extraordinary conceptions, it is not about the miracles or the signs and wonders of coming into incarnation nor resurrecting after death; rather it is about being in alignment with the law of God and the love of God.  It is about alignment with is-ness, alignment with the God who plays no favorites.

If we think God looks down on this vast universe of ours, with its one hundred billion galaxies, and picks the Milky Way as his favorite; and if we think, further, that he then chooses, within that galaxy, our sun with its nine planets; and if we think he then chooses our planet as his favorite; and from our planet he picks out one special group of people to love.  If we think that is who God is, we do not know God.  For God is the God of all.  In fact, all that exists is simply God in drag. God is neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Muslim.  God is She who favors neither daffodils above dinosaurs, nor earwigs above elephants, nor human beings above humming birds.

Why do we constantly try to force God to decide among us? We tire Him with our constant, insecure whining, “Do you prefer them or us? The Blacks or the Whites? the Jews or the Christians? the Muslims or the Hindus?  Whom do you really prefer?” What a question to be asking God!  Our insecurity constantly wants to push God into choosing sides.  Of course, there are no sides.  God is the Source from whom all of creation emanates in a delightful dance; and when we are in alignment with that, then we are standing in the lineage God.