Posted on: 01 Feb 2009
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
No example can be given from the world to explain the unimaginable generation of imaginable world from unimaginable God. We have to select imaginable items only to explain the concept. God creates, controls and dissolves the world like the awareness (soul) creates, controls and dissolves its imaginary world. To understand the concept, you have to place the soul in the place of God and the imaginary world in the place of the world. This does not mean that the soul is God and the world is imaginary world. If a son asks his father about the way in which he is his son, the father says that he is his son just like his grandson is the son of his son. To explain this effectively, the grandfather asks his son to keep himself in the position of the grandfather and grandson should be kept in the position of his son. This does not mean that the son is the grandfather and the grandson is his father. The grandfather may also say that he controlled his wife (grandmother) just like his son controlled his daughter-in-law. For clarification, the grandfather may say that his son should stand in his place and the daughter-in-law should stand in the place of grandmother. This does not mean that his son is himself and can control grandmother. Similarly, the soul can control its imaginary world but cannot control the actual world by placing itself in the place of God. The soul is advised to be placed in the place of God just for understanding the concept. The concept is that as the soul controls its imaginary world, God controls the actual world. When the imaginary world is placed in the place of actual world, it does not mean that the actual world is the imaginary world of the soul. The Advaita philosopher misunderstood the concept given by Shankara and treated soul as God and the actual world as imaginary world. The comparison is misunderstood as the compared item.
Shankara used the misunderstood concept for a good purpose of converting atheist into theist. He advised the atheist to learn the spiritual knowledge of God, by which the illusion that he is not God gets removed and that he will become God. The atheist was attracted to this and started learning the spiritual knowledge. Otherwise, the atheist will not try to learn even the alphabets of spiritual knowledge. Then, Shankara advised that the strong illusion will be destroyed by the worship of the Lord, who is also a realized soul. The atheist followed the course of devotion also with the same original ambition to become God. By this time, the atheist has completed the two courses of knowledge and devotion. He has tasted God sufficiently and now cannot leave God even if the truth is revealed that he is only the permanent servant of God. Therefore, to achieve some good result, even a twisted concept can be used. When the result is achieved, the twist in the concept can be removed, which will help in further progress.
Constructive Aim of Misconceived Advaita
The misconceived Advaita is used by human incarnation to purify Pravrutti, which is the balance of social justice. If Pravrutti is in damaged condition, Nivrutti, which is the effort to please God, cannot be achieved. If the stage is not strong, the drama cannot be enacted on it. If you are said to be God, you will develop the impartial outlook to all the members of the society without the prejudice to your family. God created this entire world and all the humanity is also created by God. All the human beings are His issues only. Now if you are God, you will not have partiality to your issues generated through your wife. Then, you will not grab others’ wealth through corruption for the sake of your limited family. This generates good health of the society. If you think that this actual world is unreal, your ambition to earn wealth by corruption will also be eradicated, since all the wealth is unreal. Thus, the misconceived concepts of Advaita are used by human incarnations to achieve morality and ethics in the society for the sake of social balance. In such case, the misconceived concepts need not be analyzed perfectly to expose the truth to the public. The human incarnation continues to support the wrong logic only so that the misconceived Advaita can be used for the purification of moral rules of the society. It does not mean that the human incarnation is unaware of truth. But, when the case of a specific individual comes into the picture, which has already achieved perfection in Pravrutti, God will advise him personally by removing all the twists of Advaita concepts and will expose the plain concepts to reveal the truth so that, that particular individual proceeds in the path of Nivrutti. Hence, the truth is revealed to a deserving specific individual only by exposing the plain concept, whereas the truth is masked by exposing twisted concepts in public preachings to achieve the preliminary requisite of Pravrutti in the society.
World-peace is very important in Pravrutti. You can praise your religion, but should not try to throw mud on other religions. A devotee says that the Prophet Mohammed forced a girl for marriage and hence, Godly qualities do not exist in Him. A similar criticism is also present in the case of Krishna, dancing with Gopikas in Hinduism. Even in Christianity, the crucifixion of Jesus can be blamed as the incapability of Jesus to save Himself. But, you interpret that it is not the incapability of Jesus but it is His unimaginable love to the devoted mankind to save it from the punishments of the sins through His personal crucifixion. Thus, for every activity of human incarnation, there will be a valid background without understanding which, you should not pass on comments on the other religions. Krishna stole the butter from the houses of Gopikas and this cannot be equated to the stealing of butter by ordinary thieves. A thief steals butter for his personal needs. But, Krishna stole the butter (the wealth of Gopikas) to cut their bond with the wealth forcibly. It was done since all of them requested the Lord in the previous birth for their salvation from the worldly bonds. You should not equate the human incarnation with a human being. A deed may be same, but its background decides the result. Killing a person in war is not a sin but killing a person in the society is a serious crime. In that case also, killing a person to save a woman’s dignity or someone’s life is not again a crime. A person may not kill directly but is considered to be a criminal if he plans it with intention. Hence, the analysis is very important and you should not come to hasty conclusions. A real doctor spends a lot of time and energy on diagnosis. If the diagnosis is correct, the corresponding treatment requires no time for implementation. But, today, we find many doctors jumping to treatment by either little or no diagnosis. Your little or no analysis about the background of the human incarnation leads to such hasty conclusions.
Analyze With Patience Before Arriving at Conclusion
You should have patience at least to analyze the light concepts such as above. If you are hasty even in such light points, how can you have the hectic patience to analyze the basic concepts of Advaita philosophy, which says that awareness is God and you are God since you are awareness (soul)? You can say ‘the awareness of God’ but you cannot say that God is awareness. The reason for this is that the awareness observed in living beings is a form of inert energy working in the nervous system. Before the creation, space cannot exist, since space is the first item of creation, which is the first subtle form of inert energy. Therefore, before creation neither materialized nervous system nor inert energy can exist. In such case, the generation of awareness is unimaginable. Even if you assume that the awareness was generated from some unimaginable source, the awareness, which is a work form of inert energy, cannot exist before creation. Since space is the first form of inert energy, in the absence of space, there cannot be existence of inert energy. If inert energy was absent before creation, how can you say that awareness, which is a form of inert energy existed before the creation? In such case, you have to conclude that both the source of awareness and awareness itself are unimaginable. Instead of two unimaginable items, it is always better to say that one unimaginable item existed. Then, the conclusion is that the unimaginable source (God) existed and His will, which is awareness, must be the first form of inert energy that was created even before space. But, without space, inert energy can never exist, since space is needed for the waves to propagate or for the fundamental particles of inert energy, which alone is transformed into awareness or will. To avoid the two unimaginable items, even if you say that the unimaginable God Himself is the unimaginable will or awareness, then also, your purpose is not served, since the unimaginable awareness cannot be the imaginable awareness that is seen in the living beings. Moreover, when you say that something is unimaginable, how can you say that it is awareness or inert? Hence, there is no other way than to say that one unimaginable item, which cannot be qualified by terms like awareness or inert created the space directly. Therefore, the Veda says that the unimaginable God created the space directly (Atmana Aakashah…). But, the Veda says that God wished to create the world. Such statement can be taken in view of the general procedure seen in the world, which is adopted for the sake of convenience of understanding by human beings. The Veda also says that the unimaginable item (God) created the space or energy directly (Tat tejo asrujata…). Once the space is created, which is the first form of inert energy, the procedure of the creation is a routine process as described by the Veda regarding the creation of air etc. after space. In this procedure, the last item that was created was awareness from food (Annat purushah). You cannot bring this awareness even before food and not to speak of bringing the awareness even before the generation of space.
Now, there are two items. One is the unimaginable God and the other is imaginable world, which includes awareness as the final product. The generation of the world from God is also unimaginable, since there is no similar example of unimaginable generating imaginable in the world. From space onwards, we have only the imaginable generating another imaginable and any link between two imaginable items is imaginable. Therefore, the Veda says that the link between space (Mahat) and God (Purusha) is unimaginable (Avyaktam) as seen in the statement “Mahatah paramavyaktam, avyaktaat purushah paraha”.