Posted on: 29 Jul 2017
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
Shri P. Surya asked: “Swami! Please explain more about the word ‘Universal subjectivity’, used by Dr. Nikhil.
Swami replied: Subject means knower (kartaa or jnaataa). The process of knowing (kriyaa or Jnaanam) is the link between subject and object to be known. The object is the item known (Karma or Jneyam). Subjectivity means the experience or knowledge gained by the subject. The subject can be Unimaginable God or imaginable soul.
The soul knows certain limited objects since the potency of its awareness is limited. The potency of awareness of God is unlimited and hence God is omniscient. The awareness of soul depends on the function of nervous system and available inert energy like cutting machine and current needed for the cutting work. Awareness means work or process of knowing and its alternative word is knowledge. The process of knowing or awareness is common to God and soul. The knower or the subject is God and soul.
In the case of God, the process of knowing takes place without nervous system and inert energy due to His unimaginable power. Unimaginable power and God or possessor of unimaginable power are one and the same since any number of unimaginable items become one unimaginable item only. Regarding God, the subject and the power of subject are one and the same. Apart from the subject (or its power), the process of knowing and object are the same as usual in the case of soul-subject and God-subject. Ofcourse the process of knowing results in omniscience in the case of God and the same results in the limited knowledge in the case of soul. Similarly the entire creation is the object for God whereas a little part of creation only becomes the object of the soul.
The soul is imaginable and limited and so also its power. Scholars say that the subject (knower or drashtaa) also can become the object (drushyam) of some other subject. Hence only two items remain:
i) Knowledge (druk) or process of knowing and
ii) The object known (drushyam).
I feel that the subject of knower is not different from the process of knowing, then above two items only result. What I mean is that it is better to include the subject in the first category (druk) instead of including it in the second category (drushyam). The process of knowing is not different from the subject or knower and hence both the subject and the process of knowing can be called as awareness. In the case of soul, the knower is awareness, which is the process of knowing also. When nervous system doesn’t function, the process of knowing stops and the knower or subject disappears. This is what exactly is happening in the deep sleep. You can’t call the brain or nervous system or inert energy as the knower when the process of knowing is absent in deep sleep. In the deep sleep, the object, which is the sleeping body and the external world, exists because another person, who is not sleeping in the same time, is seeing the external body of the sleeper along with the external world. Hence after awakening from deep sleep, the knower (subject) appears since the process of knowing starts along with the starting function of nervous system. The ignorance during deep sleep was not experienced during the deep sleep through perception. A person in the awakening state without thinking anything (as in meditation) says that he is not aware of anything. But, in this state, the experience of ignorance exists because the awareness is aware of itself and not aware of anything else other than itself. Awareness of awareness consists the process of knowing, which is the awareness of subject itself. Here, the awareness is both the subject as well as the process of knowing itself. In the deep sleep, there is neither perception of itself nor perception of anything other than itself. The deep sleep is total ignorance of both the knower and the process of knowing any object even though the object is present.
The word universal subjectivity can be taken in two senses:
i) The common experience or knowledge of all the souls in the universe and
ii) The total knowledge of the universe possessed by the unimaginable God as the universal witness.
First sense: The deep sleep of all the souls is common without any difference, which is the absence of subject or knower or the process of knowing or knowledge or any experience even though the entire universe exists as the object along with the inert body of the sleeper.
The dream states of all souls differ in the contents of the dreams, which are specific to the sub-conscious states of specific souls. Similarly, the awakening states of all souls also differ in the contents of knowledge varying from one soul to the other soul. But, there is a common state of deep sleep in all the souls, which is nothing but absence of knower or knowledge. After rising from the deep sleep and in the simultaneous entrance into awaken state, all the sentences (like that one slept happily, that one didn’t know anything etc.,) spoken are only based on the knowledge of inference constructed as soon as the awaken state started. The person, who slept deeply, was neither having the experience of happiness nor was having the experience of ignorance during the deep sleep since any type of experience or knowledge was totally absent during the deep sleep. In the absence of awareness, none can establish the presence of the subject or knower since the process of knowing itself disappeared. In the state of self-meditation, one can have the experience of total ignorance other than the awareness of himself and this is not the real total ignorance since the awareness of awareness or himself exists. In this state, the ignorance experienced is not really the total experience of ignorance because there is no ignorance of self here. In this state one can experience the happiness of the almost resting nervous system. After this meditation, if one says that he experienced the happiness of the rest during the period of rest or meditation, it is valid deductive (perception) knowledge. After deep sleep, one is saying that he had slept happily, but, he is not saying that he experienced the happiness during his deep sleep. Hence, such a statement is inductive (inference) knowledge only. The experience of total ignorance during the deep sleep is similarly inductive knowledge only. Hence, you can’t say that the soul or subject exists in deep sleep.
Second sense: Certainly, the unimaginable God is existing beyond this world and inside the Human incarnation or energetic incarnation. Such God is witnessing the entire world including the inert body of the deep sleeper. Such God is not existing in every living being and hence, you can’t say that there is a witness in the inert body present in the deep sleep. Of course, Shankara told that the witness of the inert body exists in the body as God because He has already said that soul is God to encourage the atheists to come to the line of theism. If you understand the background of this encouragement of atheists, you can easily understand the implication in the philosophy of Shankara. After all, the soul or relative awareness generated by inert energy in the functioning nervous system, which is disappearing in the deep sleep can’t be the eternal unimaginable awareness or absolute God (the unimaginable awareness is also the Unimaginable God just like the unimaginable power is said to be the unimaginable God above). Another reason is that if the witness in the deep sleep is unimaginable God, as soon as the awakening starts, the experience of God should be the omniscience or the knowledge of entire universe and not the experience of total ignorance! God will not say that He didn’t know anything in the deep sleep or in any state. Even in the awaken state the soul is not God due to not showing the omniscience. Only little knowledge is exhibited by the soul in the awaken and in the dream states, even which is absent in the state of deep sleep. The soul is neither omniscient nor omnipotent at any stage and hence, can’t be told as the witness (God) in the deep sleep. If the son says that he attended the marriage of his father, we can accept that the soul remained as witness in deep sleep in which it totally disappeared!
Even if you analyze the state of Human incarnation, there are two components:-
i) God-component
ii) Human being-component (In energetic incarnation, similarly energetic being will be the second component).
Even though we say that the two components merged with each other homogeneously, both the components maintain their individualities in the finest level so that it is a simultaneous external monism and internal dualism, which is the concept of any homogeneous mixture like alloy of two metals. Even in sugar solution, we feel that sugar pervaded all over the water. Still, you can find through a microscope, sugar molecules differently existing from water molecules in the solution. The sugar molecules didn’t enter water molecules. You can’t say that sugar pervaded all over the water. Even if you assume that sugar molecules entered into all the water molecules, you should say that there is no water molecule since the sugar molecules entered into all water molecules and finally you should say that sugar alone is present everywhere. This means that there is no water at all except the sugar since there is no separate part of water in which the sugar is not present. Hence, penetration of sugar into water completely means the homogeneity in the external sense only and not in the internal sense. In the Human incarnation also, the God-component is omniscient due to its unimaginable omnipotence. The human being-component doesn’t possess the brain, which is omnipotent to store the total knowledge of the universe. If the omniscience of God-component enters the brain of the human being-component, the brain will explode and the human being component dies immediately! In order to save the medium (human being-component), the God-component is not transferring His omniscience into the human being-component at any stage. Even the most powerful electro-magnetic disk can’t exhibit omniscience and not to speak of a tender human brain! In such case, the visualized human being-component of Human incarnation also remains as limited human being only, but, the devotees are not satisfied that they are not seeing the omniscient God! To solve this, God-component transfers a bit of information from its omniscience into the human being-component so that the human being component appears as omniscient to the devotees. I will clarify this point with an example:- I was singing a devotional song composed by Me on Goddess Mahalakshmi in the group of devotees. The song contains a number of verses. I was singing it while closing My eyes. All the devotees are repeating the verse after I sung. When one specific verse was sung by Me, Shri Ajay (a very sincere devotee) was attracted by that verse in his mind and thought that it will be better if I repeat the verse again. Then, I opened My eyes and smiled looking into the eyes of Ajay and repeated the same verse. The repetition of that specific verse happened to be a common practice in future also. Shri Ajay thought that I am the Human incarnation of God Datta and hence I am omniscient so that I could recognize the idea thought by the mind of Ajay. Immediately, he told this to all the other devotees, who also naturally thought that I am omniscient. The faith in the devotees is so much that nobody is prepared to accept the explanation given as above. The projection was that I was omniscient only.
Here, there are three items i) God-component or sugar, ii) Human being-component or pure water and iii) Human incarnation or sugar solution. Here, sugar alone is sweet and water is not sweet. But the sugar solution is sweet because of the sugar only and not because of water. Similarly, the God component alone is omniscient and the Human incarnation is also omniscient due to the omniscient God-component only and not due to human being-component. When you say that the sugar solution is sweet, it means that a) the sugar alone is sweet, b) the water is not sweet at all or (the water may have little sweetness) and c) the sugar solution is sweet due to sugar only and not due to the water. You can apply this analysis to Human incarnation so that the Human incarnation is projected as omniscient even though It can’t be omniscient in the real sense at the innermost finest level with respect to human being-component alone. Even in the deep sleep of Human incarnation, the relative awareness or soul or subject of the Human being-component disappears due to the rest of nervous system in order to maintain the mental health of the human being. The God in the human incarnation is omniscient and such omniscience is in no way related to the disappearing soul in the deep sleep. Since the inert human body is the common medium of the God-component and the human being-component, you can say that God in such body is witness of the deep sleep along with the rest of universe. But, as far as the human being-component is concerned, it is not different from any other human being in the deep sleep. On knowing this analysis, the human being-component will never say that it is God. If the human being-component feels monism with God, it is insulted and punished immediately by God as in the case of Parashurama. At the same time, the devotees of Human incarnation must feel that the human being-component of Human incarnation is God so that they will be benefited by such monism. The human being-component shall remain in dualism always even though the devotees are washing the brain of It through prayers expressing monism! The devotee shall remain in monism only even though the Human incarnation is washing his/her brain through message expressing dualism! This is very difficult state for both the sides. The sages praised Rama as God, but, Rama replied that He is not understanding those prayers since He knows that He is just a human being as the son of Dasharatha (aatmaanam maanusham manye Ramam Dasharathaatmajam). If this is the fate of the human being component of Human incarnation, it is the point of a big laughter if one says that the soul in every human being remains as a witness!
The Gita is the authority to say that soul dies and is reborn every day in the beginning of deep sleep and in the beginning of awakening respectively (athachainam…). Here, the word ‘Atha’ denotes an alternative view of the concept, which is not condemned (atha pakshaantare). The eternality of the soul described in the Gita is not the absolute eternality of God. It is only relative eternality of the soul with respect to the perishing body in death. In death, the soul enters the energetic body for which neither dream nor deep sleep exists in the upper worlds. If you take the inert energy as the basic cause of the soul (awareness), even then, the cosmic inert energy may be eternal without end, which may be taken as eternal soul, but, it has birth (being created by God) and can’t be equal to birth less eternality of God.