Incarnation

CRITICAL: for Muslim-background readers this is shirk (blasphemous association) in mainstream Islamic theology and must be taught into directly, not softened. For Trika-shaped Pandit readers, Shiva’s self-manifestation as the world (spanda) is a live philosophical category but describes an impersonal, ongoing, non-dualistic self-expression, not the eternal Son’s unique, personal, once-for-all assumption of a genuinely distinct human nature; never use avatara-derived vocabulary, which would default toward pan-Indian Vaishnava categories foreign to Trika itself.