171All Bloggers are Hindu
posted by Jeffrey on July 13th, 2006
Not only are all bloggers apparently Hindu, but also any who involve themselves in online communities where they identify themselves by a little 60×60 image we like to call an avatar.
Ok, so those of us who mark our place in the cyber world with the stamp of our avatars aren’t really Hindu, but that’s where the term avatar comes from. Let me explain with an excerpt from Love Trumps Karma by Karyn Henley:
“…The ultimate purpose of a Hindu Life is to reach the Supreme Brahman, and Hindus want to communicate somehow with this great unapproachable Reality. That’s where the second level comes in, the conditioned Brahman who has physical features.
Hindus believe they can communicate with the conditioned Brahman, who becomes the bridge between them and the unapproachable Supreme Brahman. They say the conditioned Brahman is the all-powerful, all-knowing Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer of the world. They often call the conditioned Brahman “Lord” or “God”. And they believe that one way that the conditioned Brahman works is that when necessary, it can manifest itself as a man for a while. When this happens, the conditioned Brahman is called the Avatar.”
I just thought it was both funny and interesting to learn that our various avatar images are, in essence, the self-manifestations of our unapproachable realities to the feeble minds that gaze at their screens day in and day out, searching for love and for answers. Silly mortals, I have you all fooled–you truly think that Jeffrey Davis is the flying squirrel you see before your eyes in my profile! muah ha ha ha…
Tags: Hinduism, Love Trumps Karma, Karyn Henley, Avatar
001: Kat Coble,
July 13th, 2006 at 1:01 pmA more up-to-date reason for the use of the “avatar” comes from Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, which is, I believe, where the online usage came from.
More information can be found
While Stephenson was not the first to apply the Sanskrit term avatar to online virtual bodies, the success of Snow Crash popularized the term to the extent that avatar is now the de facto term for this concept in computer games and on the World Wide Web [1]
002: Jeffrey,
July 13th, 2006 at 2:33 pmha ha ha, leave it to the all knowing kat coble to correct my oblivious mistakes. 
(previous statment made in fun, not cynical sarcasm).
But i’m gonna go on the assumption that the movie plot took their “avatar” concept from the Hindu beliefs as well ;-).
I’ve never seen that movie, but it looks good–i’ll have to go rent it.
004: Jeffrey,
July 14th, 2006 at 7:53 amwell of course it is. lol. wow–now where did I leave my brain again?
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