Swami Vivekananda

Vivekananda propagated that the essence of Hinduism was best expressed in Adi

Shankara's Advaita Vedanta philosophy.[1] Nevertheless, following Ramakrishna, and in contrast to Advaita Vedanta, Vivekananda believed that the Absolute is both immanent and transcendent.

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"Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or mental discipline, or philosophy—by one, or more, or all of these—and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details."

[1] Jackson, Carl T (1994), "The Founders", Vedanta for the West: the Ramakrishna movement in the United States, Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press, ISBN 978-0-253-33098-7

Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Regarding Avatara

Higher and nobler than all ordinary ones are another set of teachers, the Avatâras of Ishvara, in the world. They can transmit spirituality with a touch, even with a mere wish. The lowest and the most degraded characters become in one second saints at their command. They are the Teachers of all teachers, the highest manifestations of God through man. We cannot see God except through them. We cannot help worshipping them; and indeed they are the only ones whom we are bound to worship.

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