Meaning of Dattatreya

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dattaswami
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Meaning of Dattatreya

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MEANING OF DATTATREYA

The word Dattatreya is combination of two words i.e., Datta and Aatreya. Datta means the unimaginable God given to devotees through the human incarnation, which is the human form with which God is identified. By this process, the unimaginable God becomes imaginable and visible human being with whom all the spiritual aspirants can clarify their doubts. The word Aatreya comes from Atri meaning that God is not three entities. The three entities are Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Brahma represents the unimaginable and invisible God. Brahma is said not to have the direct worship. Since the absolute God is unimaginable, you can never worship the absolute God directly. Shiva represents the invisible but imaginable energy, which is in the form of waves. Shiva is also worshipped in the form of Lingam, which is in the form of a wave. This energy indicates the soul. Vishnu represents the visible and imaginable matter representing body. Vishnu is worshipped in the form of materialized statue. All these three together constitute the human incarnation. All these three components together are taken as one entity only without differentiation. The God is identified with both the soul and body and hence, the human form consisting of both body and soul is taken as God.

The word Aatreya denotes the human being in which both body and soul are identified with each other, is taken as God. In this way, the unimaginable and invisible God is given to the devotees as visible and imaginable body with which already the invisible and imaginable soul is identified. This process of transformation of God into human body is true for all practical purposes even though theoretically each component has separate identity. In the same way, the unimaginable God is given to the energetic living beings [exist in upper worlds] in the form of energetic body, in which the matter is absent.
However, the three components can be still maintained in the energetic incarnation also by taking the inert energy as the first component representing the body and the second component as the awareness representing the soul. The inert energy and the inert matter can be treated as the same component and the only difference is that the inert matter is visible and the inert energy is invisible. The common essential property is that both are inert. The awareness is also energy but the difference is that the energy is inert and the awareness is not inert. In this way, the materialized human body of this world, the energetic body of the upper world and the soul are inter-linked with each other forming the sub- parts of the creation.

Hence, there is no difference between the energetic form and the human form of Lord Dattatreya. The only difference is that the energetic form of Datta is for the upper world and the materialized human form of Datta is for this world. The energetic form of Datta is also not different from the other energetic forms of God. The difference is only in the form of the energetic body. Of course, the energetic form of Datta gives the full information of the absolute God, which is that God is creator, ruler and destroyer of the creation and that God is only one. The philosophy of the human incarnation and the energetic form of Dattatreya is one and the same representing the single entity of the three components, which is the basic concept of any divine energetic incarnation or any divine human incarnation.
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