Posted on: 15 Jun 2020
[Shri Hrushikesh Pudipeddi asked: Dear Swami! A spiritual aspirant has raised a concern on social media about the contradiction between the Vedic statements “Etasmād ekāki na ramate; sa dvitīyaṃ aicchat;” and the concept that the nature of God is sat-cit-ānanda. These two ideas about God are contradicting. The first statement says that God was alone and bored and so, He created creation for His enjoyment. The second idea is that God is in a state of eternal bliss (ānanda). How can God who is Sat-Cit-Ānanda, become bored and need some second item (creation) for His enjoyment? Given below are some of the comments made by this person on social media on this topic:
“Saying that God could not enjoy because He was alone, seems inappropriate. As per the Vedas, He is sat-cit-ānanda, which means, He enjoys never ending bliss (ānanda). Why are you lowering His status by saying that He could not enjoy because He was alone? Does it mean that creation was created just for one person’s (God’s) enjoyment? Clearly, something is missing in your idea. Just take it positively; I am also trying to find the anwswer. Treat this conversion as a spiritual discussion (satsang).”]
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! Generally, people think that a very high quantity of happiness is called ānanda. But this opinion is not correct. In the Veda, different quantities of ānanda like mānuṣānanda, Indrānanda etc., are mentioned and all these various quantities of happiness are indicated by the same word ānanda. Mānuṣānanda means the maximum quantity of happiness that a human being can withstand. Beyond it, the human being will get a heart attack and die. Human beings can only enjoy happiness within a certain range, upto a maximum limit of one mānuṣānanda. Different angels and energetic beings can enjoy higher levels of happiness as mentioned in the Ānandavalli of the Taittirīya Upanishad. Brahmānanda or the happiness of God, which is the highest level of happiness, can only be withstood by God. No other divine beings including Indra, Bṛhaspati and so on, can withstand that level of happiness. If it were so that Brahmānanda alone can be called ānanda, it alone would have been mentioned as ānanda. The other lower quantities of happiness would not have been referred to as ānanda. But the Veda indeed says that the different quantitative levels of happiness are all ānanda or bliss. This clearly proves that the term ānanda is not related to the quantity of happiness. Ānanda means enjoying the relevant level of happiness continuously—without any break (Āsamantāt nandati iti ānandaḥ). This happiness-without-a-break is called ānanda and it has nothing to do with the quantity of happiness.
The Veda clearly says that God was alone in the beginning and that there was no second item other than Him (Sadeva somya..., Ekameva...). Hence, it is said that He was bored (Na ramate...). The Veda further says that since God was bored with His loneliness, He created the second item, which is creation, for His entertainment, so that He could get rid of His boredom (Sa dvitīyamaicchat). The objection is that when God already possessed the maximum quantity of happiness (Brahmānanda), why should He get bored? A human being who is alone may get bored since he or she does not already possess the maximum happiness, within the relevant range of happiness that a human being can possibly enjoy. The human being’s boredom can be removed by being in the company of other human beings. But God already possesses the climax of happiness. A greater happiness than what He already possesses, does not even exist anywhere! In that case, these two states—one state of boredom and less happiness and the other state of more happiness due to the removal of boredom—are not possible in the case of God. As per the Veda, this state of boredom was clearly the state of God only before creation, since God created the second item (creation) to remove His boredom. All this is the background of the question, which is valid.
Now coming to the answer, the Veda refers to God’s state of boredom only as the state before creating this world. But you say that God already possessed infinite bliss even before creation. For both the Veda and you, there must be some authority (pramāṇam) on the basis of which, such conclusions about God’s condition before creation can be drawn. What is the authority for you to say that God possessed bliss even before creation? It cannot be the Veda because the Veda has taken a different stand by saying that God was bored before creation. You must understand that God, as He existed before creation, is completely unimaginable. You cannot say, without the authority of the Veda, that God possessed bliss even before creation. Before creation, the unimaginable God is certainly beyond all concepts of the imaginable creation. The concepts of both happiness and boredom are imaginable concepts that exist only in the imaginable creation. If you claim that God was happy even before the creation, what is the procedure that you adopted to detect that the unimaginable God possessed immense happiness called bliss? You yourself did not exist before creation. Neither was there any way or means to detect the happiness of the unimaginable God before creation. Since no second item other than God existed, neither detector such as a human being nor any means to detect God’s nature or state existed before creation. Hence, the only conclusion one can make about God before creation is that He is unimaginable and totally different from this entire imaginable creation. Other than this one conclusion, it is impossible to draw any other conclusion about God before creation.
Even though no conclusion can be made about the unimaginable God’s condition before creation, the Veda says that He was bored. This statement is actually the best-possible inference about God’s condition before creation, which explains God’s purpose behind creating the world. No better inference can be found to explain why God created the world. The Veda follows human psychology in explaining spiritual knowledge since the knowledge is to be understood by human beings. If God is said to already possess bliss, there would be no reasonable purpose for Him to create this creation. If a person does something without any reason, the person is called mad. But the omniscient God can never be mad. We are inferring the condition of God to be a condition of boredom on the basis of observations made by us in the creation created by Him. On the other hand, you are claiming God’s condition before creation to be blissful on the basis of direct perception. But the direct perception of God before creation is totally impossible since, before creation, no second item such as the perceiver or the means of perception existed. You cannot use any other authority or means of knowledge within creation to justify your claim because creation itself did not exist in that beginning state. The observer and means of knowledge can only exist after creation and not before creation.
We too are saying that God is blissful, in accordance with the Veda (Raso vai saḥ), but that blissful condition of God refers to God who is situated in the world, after the creation of the world. This concept is based on the earlier inference that God must have been bored before creation since He was alone and that He created this world for His entertainment to get rid of that boredom. Our inference, which is also stated in the Veda (Ekāki na ramate…aicchat), is based on worldly logic, which, of course, arises only after creation. But it provides a reasonable explanation for God’s purpose behind creation. On the other hand, your approach lacks basis. It is not only that you have no means of knowledge to justify your claim, but that any means of knowledge to know the condition of God before creation is fundamentally impossible. You have to stand in the unimaginable state of God in order to draw the conclusion that the unimaginable God was blissful. That conclusion cannot be reached on the basis of inference, after creation. In other words, you cannot conclude that God created the world because He was blissful. It becomes a meaningless statement because no one does anything, when one has full of satisfaction about everything and is full of happiness!
Although we cannot directly know anything about the unimaginable God before creation, we can make assumptions about His condition. So, assuming that God was blissful even before creation, we can still say that He had a special type of boredom. Continuous happiness is also a special type of boredom. This can be understood with the example of a king, who is full of happiness, with all available facilities and luxuries. Still, the fully satisfied king, who does not even have a trace of any need, gets bored and goes for hunting a deer in the forest. The kitchen in the royal palace contains a lot of meat of hunted deer, which is supplied by hunters for his grand meals. So, obviously, he is not going on the hunting trip because his kitchen lacks deer-meat. This boredom of the king having full satisfaction from all angles, is a new type of boredom. The king did it only to pass time and there was not the slightest need for him to chase the deer in the dangerous forest, risking his life. This is how Sage Vyāsa has answered this question in His Brahma Sūtra (Lokavattu līlākaivalyam). The example of the king going on a hunt was given by Śaṅkara, while writing His commentary on this sūtra.
Ānanda is derived from the nine emotions or nine types of situations (navarasa). Rasa means interest or an emotion that gives entertainment. There are nine rasas and grief (karuṇārasa) is also one of them. This means that happiness is not the absence of grief. The very basis of our understanding of happiness is to be revamped. God created this world with all the nine rasas, in which tragedy also has its place. Shakespeare wrote several tragedies, which gave a lot of entertainment to people. An epic contains all these nine emotions in order to give full enjoyment or happiness to the audience.
What gives the climax of enjoyment to God in this world created by Him? It is enjoying the pure love of His devotee for Him. This climax of enjoyment is possible only when creation exists. It is not possible when God exists alone. How many emotional scenes of devotees exist in this world! The devotees perform the climax of sacrifice for the sake of their love for God. In return, God also expresses the climax of love towards them. Everybody will agree that the best part of human life is to enjoy pure love in different situations. All such incidents that touch the climax of devotion are possible only when God is associated with creation and not when He is alone. It is mainly for enjoying this climax of devotion, that God created this world.
Monistic philosophers feel that the entire creation is only an imaginary daydream of a lonely person who is entertained by the imaginary world. The imaginary world of God gives Him full and real entertainment because it appears as if it is perfectly real, due to His unimaginable power. If creation did not appear fully real to God, as it appears to the soul, God would not have derived complete entertainment from it. Hence, you cannot simply dismiss creation as something unreal. A soul may not be able to materialise its imaginary world, but the omnipotent God materialises His imaginary world, making it fully real, while simultaneously maintaining the relative reality of the world. This extraordinary capability of God reminds us that He is indeed unimaginable!
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| Shri Datta Swami | How Can the Blissful God Get Bored? | Etasmad ekaki na ramate; sa dvitiyam aicchat and Sat Chit Ananda Maanushaananda Aananda Indraananda Brahmaananda Upanishad Bruhaspati Aasamantaat nandati iti Aanandah Sadeva Soumya Ekameva Na ramate Sa dvitiiyamaichhat Pramaanam Raso vai sah Lokavattu Liilaakaivalyam Vyaasa Karunaarasa Navarasa