31 Jan 2019
Kālabhairava Khaṇḍa—Part of Kālabhairava
Sixteenth Chapter–Datta Matasamanvaya Yogaḥ
(Divine Vision of Correlation of Datta-Religions)
God-preacher Shri Datta spoke:-
22) When I merge with a devoted human being selected by Me to become an Incarnation it is called Saayujyam. The selected devotee never wishes for it and such merging happens only by My force. That human being then becomes Myself or equal to Me. This is monistic salvation or advaita mukti. No devotee aspiring for monism with Me attains it because such an aspiration is a disqualification. The disciples of the Incarnation selected by Me for the propagation of the knowledge generated by the Incarnation, attain a very close association with Me. This closeness with Me is called Saamiipya. I remain very close to such devotees like their bodyguard. I become the servant of My servant and this dualistic salvation called dvaita mukti is greater than monism. In monism, I cannot become the servant of My devotee since I become Himself or Herself. Knowing this truth, the human being-component in an Incarnation should remain free of ego before His or Her disciples.
23) Sometimes, God is more pleased with the disciple than the human being-component of the Incarnation. If You take the example of a movie based on the life history of a devotee, the main role of the devotee is played by a famous actor who gets a very high remuneration. The role of God, who appears before the devotee for just a few minutes in the movie, is played by a guest actor who gets a very meagre remuneration. In the movie, from the angle of the roles played, the role of the guest artist acting as God is far more important and superior to the role of the main artist acting as the devotee. But from the angle of the contributions of the actors, the actor playing the role of the devotee is far superior to the one playing the role of God. Hence, the human being-component of the Incarnation should not develop an ego when the disciple touches His feet in this world-cinema. He should recognize that the devotee-disciple is doing more service and sacrifice due to which God is pleased with him more and will give him a higher remuneration.
24) Several devotees belonging to the nivrutti line treat pravṛtti as if it were a lower level. They even commit sins, violating the justice of pravrutti. This is totally wrong. Pravrutti is not lower than nivrutti. It is only the prior step before nivrutti. If You cross one station and reach the next station, do You think that the first station is lower than the second station? Moreover, the same God is the Chief Controller in pravrutti as well as nivrutti. If You damage a factory’s administration, which is like pravrutti, and do some personal service for the factory-owner at his house, which is like nivrutti, do You think the owner will be pleased with Your personal service? If You do not damage the factory and help in its administration, the owner will be pleased with You even if You do not do his personal service. Even if You do not choose the path of nivrutti, God does not bother about it. He will be pleased with You even if You follow pravrutti, which is supporting justice in the world and avoiding sin. The path of sin is called dushpravrutti. If You support pravrutti and also follow nivrutti, God is greatly pleased with You. It is like the factory-owner, who is extremely pleased with the servant doing personal service for him at his house as well as doing good service in the factory.
25) I am the First Energetic Incarnation and the unimaginable God directly entered and merged only with Me. He will remain in this merged state with Me forever. When other Incarnations, energetic or human, are formed, I enter the corresponding media and merge with them. My entry and merging mean the entry and merging of the unimaginable God Himself. Shankara keeps the unimaginable God as the goal. He refers to this God as Nirguṇa Brahma, which He defines as an unimaginable awareness. This is the first goal. Ramanuja and Madhva keep Me as the goal. They refer to Me as Naaraayana or Saguṇa Brahma, which is the second goal. The first goal, when considered to be unimaginable awareness, is also imaginable due to its similarity with imaginable awareness. Both unimaginable and imaginable forms of awareness have the common property of awareness, which is the ability to know. So, in that sense, even the unimaginable awareness can be imagined even though it remains invisible. The second goal, which is I, the First Energetic Incarnation, is both imaginable and visible. The second goal is more convenient than the first goal for souls to meditate upon. The absolute unimaginable God or Parabrahma is the actual nirguna. Nirguna means that He is beyond creation. This Parabrahma is unimaginable and invisible and hence, meditation on Him is impossible.
26) Humanity is very complicated for the Human Incarnation to deal with. Different human beings exhibit different psychologies, and many a time, a single human being exhibits different psychologies at the same time or at different times. If miracles are not exhibited, the human being says that the knowledge given by the Incarnation is just theoretical gossip. If miracles are shown, the same human being says that the Incarnation is a devil doing black magic! When the Incarnation grants personal boons to any human being, he or she says that the Incarnation is the God of Gods (Deva Deva)! Only one in thousands desires My spiritual knowledge for their spiritual progress as said in the Gita. It is very easy to correlate all the religions in this world, but it is very difficult to correlate the various psychologies exhibited by even one human being! The Incarnation has to be very balanced if It has to reform at least one human being to the fullest extent in Its lifetime. I feel that I have succeeded greatly if I am able to perfectly reform even one single soul in the lifetime of each of My Incarnations.
27) Shankara was forced to say that the individual soul or relative awareness is God. Then He slowly introduced the First Energetic Incarnation, Eshvara for souls to worship. He said that the worship would bring purity to their minds by which the souls could become God. When He said that awareness is God, such a God is also a mediated God or Saguna Brahma. After all, awareness is also a medium since it is an item of this creation. Guna means a quality or property and its possessor is called dravya. In the case of a blue lotus, the lotus flower is the dravya that possesses the guna, which is the blue color. The guṇa is dependent on the dravya. Creation is the guṇa, which is maintained by and is dependent on God, who is the Dravya. When the unimaginable God (dravya) is associated with any item of creation (guna), which acts as His medium, that God is saguna. Hence, when Shankara says that awareness is God, He is referring to the unimaginable God mediated by the relative awareness found in creation. Nirguna literally means without guna or without creation. It means the absolute unimaginable God beyond creation, who cannot be this relative awareness.
28) The relative awareness or the individual soul in an Energetic or Human Incarnation is pervaded by the unimaginable God. This individual soul of the Incarnation can be called as the unimaginable God as per the theory of Shankara. The correct understanding of Shankara’s theory is that the individual soul of an Incarnation is God (Jiivo Brahmaiva) and not that every individual soul is God. This was the actual intention of Shankara. The concept was extended to every individual soul due to the special need of the situation during the time of Shankara, in which He had to convert atheists into theists. Leaving this special situation aside, and confining only to the individual soul of an Incarnation, we can say that the actual concept of Shankara’s monism is applicable only to the case of the individual soul of an Incarnation. But the individual soul or awareness always needs a container which is the energetic or human body of the Incarnation. The result is that the total Incarnation, consisting of the body and the individual soul, has to be considered as God. You cannot say that the basic soul, which is the essential inert energy of the individual soul, is God. The basic soul, is the essential inert energy that produces the awareness which is called the individual soul. The soul is inert energy and the individual soul is awareness. But God is beyond both inert and non-inert items.
29) The unimaginable God merges not only with the individual soul of the Incarnation, but also with the body (Antarbahishcha...—Veda). If God is said to enter only into the Incarnation’s individual soul, the tender finger of the boy Krishna, which is part of His body, could not have lifted the huge hill. However, even if You confine God’s entry to the individual soul, the external body as its container must exist simultaneously. When this external container of the individual soul is an energetic body, such an Incarnation is called as Naaraayana by Ramanuja and Madhva. When Shankara says that unimaginable awareness is God, it means that the awareness into which the Unimaginable God has entered is God. But this awareness or individual soul cannot exist independently without an energetic body. So, even Shankara is referring to the same First Energetic Incarnation of God, which is known by different names including Naaraayana, Hiranyagarbha, Sadaashiva, Datta, Eshvara, and Father of heaven. The final result is that the goal of both Shankara and Ramanuja is the same Saguna Brahma. Shankara’s goal is not nirguna since the actual nirguna is permanently unimaginable and it was not discussed by any of the three divine preachers, since it is impossible for any soul to grasp. This is the correlation between the three divine preachers.
30) We agree that the individual awareness is a relative awareness. It is a part of creation. Creation is a relative reality called the Vyavahaarasattaa or Bhaasamaanasattaa. It is non-existent with respect to God. The relative awareness in an individual is the product of the inert energy functioning in a nervous system. It is the work-form of the inert energy. Both the inert energy and the material nervous system, being part of creation, are relatively real. At any rate, this relative awareness is not the unimaginable God, who is the absolute truth called as the Paramaarthasattaa or Vidyamaanasattaa. This is the general rule. But in the case of the Incarnation, the general rule is amended since the unimaginable God merges perfectly with the Incarnation’s relative awareness to become one with it. The goal of the three divine preachers is one and the same, which is this mediated God. You cannot call the relative awareness found in every energetic or human being as the absolutely true unimaginable God because that entire being consisting of the individual soul and a body is part of creation. As per worldly logic, only the relative awareness found in living beings is capable of thinking. The unimaginable God also thinks. But just because He thinks, He need not be relative awareness since He thinks due to His unimaginable power or nature. If You still have a fascination for calling Him as awareness, You must call Him as an unimaginable awareness and not this relative awareness which is imaginable. He can do anything without being the corresponding item in the relative world due to His unimaginable power. His possession of the common property of thinking does not make the unimaginable God this relative awareness.
31) Shankara took awareness to be the ultimate absolute God to satisfy the atheists. Even though He pointed at the relative awareness, He actually intended to indicate the absolute awareness. He said that the absolute God alone is the absolute reality whereas the rest of creation other than awareness, is relatively true. This means that creation is non-existent with respect to God. Hence, the body of the Incarnation, which is made of items of creation is non-existent to God. So, He neglected the divinization of the Incarnation’s body by the merging of God with it. Ramanuja and Madhva accepted the divinization of the Incarnation’s body by saying that the body of Naaraayana is also supernatural and has an unimaginable nature (Aprakrutika shariiram). Shankara did not bother much about the need of a container for awareness since the divinized awareness can exist independently without the need of the container. The relative awareness always requires a container and at least based on this point, the atheists could not realize that their awareness was not God.
32) When the relative awareness itself was already said to be the eternal God, the surrounding body, which is non-existent in the view of God, was not given any significance by Shankara. Shankara considered the individual soul as the eternal God who is ever in the liberated state (nitya muktasvabhaavam). This applies whether the surrounding material body is present as in the case of a soul attaining jiivanmukti, or it is absent as in the case of a soul attaining videha mukti. Of course, when He said all this, He was actually referring to the First Energetic Incarnation in a hidden manner. Externally, He showed as if He was speaking about the relative awareness being God. Shankara differs from the other two preachers with respect to the good qualities and the body associated with the attributeless God. His main aim was to bring people to a state free of all qualities in order to make them give up sin. It is like making a person enter into a coma as the last resort, after all advice to acquire good qualities and leave bad qualities has failed. The atheists in His time were in such a bad state.
33) The view of scholars is always to present the ultimate truth given in the divine scriptures. Apart from this, the view of divine preachers is always to rectify the condition of society in their time by reforming human beings and bringing them to the path of pravrutti. Pravrutti is given the topmost importance by God since it is the basic stage of nivrutti. For the sake of establishing pravrutti, the divine preachers do not mind twisting some true concepts of the scriptures to help the beginners climb to the immediate next step. This is especially true when the majority in society are only beginners. Unless an atheist is first converted into a theist, how can You build up the field of nivrutti? Shankara twisted the truth to convert atheists into theists. His theory was also based on controlling the atheists from committing sins in pravrutti by giving the impression that the world is non-existent. He told them that the soul is already God, but has forgotten His true nature. He said that the only way to make the soul become God again or to make it realize that it is already God, was through the worship of the mediated God. He said that dualistic worship would bring purity to the mind, which, in turn, would allow the soul to realize its monism with God. In this way, He converted the atheist into a theist and later the theist into a devotee.
34) In fact, Shankara never specifically said that the world is unreal for the soul. He said it is mithyaa, which means that the world is unreal for God and real for the soul since the soul is part of the world. But since Shankara had already said that the soul is God, the followers got the impression that the world is also unreal for the soul, which is God. Shankara’s idea was to control the sinful nature of the atheist by giving the impression that this world is unreal. When the world is declared to be unreal, one’s fascination for the worldly bonds reduces and sin is minimized. (i) The first point is that by saying that the atheist is God, Shankara made the atheist accept the existence of God. If the atheist exists, and the atheist is God, then God must also exist. (ii) The second point is that since world is unreal for God, the worldly bonds are also unreal. This reduces the blind fascination for the worldly bonds and minimizes sin. The second point is a scriptural truth. But it is applied to the soul based on the first point. This means that the world is unreal for the soul, provided the soul is already God. Since in reality, the soul is not already God and is instead part of the world, the world is real for the soul. The awareness or the individual soul is called paraa prakruti, which is the ‘superior creation’. This means that it is only a part of creation and not the Creator.
35) Since the soul is not God, the soul is unable to do miracles. Miracles are possible only for God since the world is unreal for Him. If the world were equally true with respect to God, God could not have done any miracle. In fact, He could not have even created the world since one truth cannot change another equal truth in any way. But Shankara consoled the atheist that the atheist will be able to do all the miracles after actually becoming God through the worship of God as explained above. Shankara balanced the truth and the twists in the truth very carefully. The fact is that the soul is unable to do miracles since the soul is not God. But the color given by Shankara was that the realization of the soul was not complete due to the impurity of the mind. In this way, Shankara always maintained the concept of the soul’s monism with God in the mind of the atheist by giving different colorful reasons.
36) Shankara made His theory of monism most powerfully attractive for any soul including an atheist. As per His theory, any soul could become God by merely remembering that he or she is already God. The theory exploits the weakness of the soul, which is the ambition to become God. The theory says that the soul, which is essentially God (Brahman), has forgotten its own nature due to ignorance. Actually, it is impossible for God to forget His own nature just as darkness can never cover the sun. Even an ignorant person does not forget himself! Only a mad person forgets himself and is unable to recollect his own identity in spite of long and intensive preaching by others. If an ordinary soul were truly God, then God would not only have to be ignorant but also mad! He would have to be at the climax of ignorance! Do not think that Shankara did not know all these hidden facts. He was forced to hide these facts because His first project was the extremely difficult, which was converting the atheist into a theist. Converting the theist into a strong devotee of God, was the second project. Shankara first converted the atheist into a theist, successfully completing the first project. Then He also introduced the next project of turning the converted theist into a strong devotee. Ramanuja and Madhva concentrated mainly on this second project and carried it further.
37) We need not blame Shankara for saying that every soul is God. Introducing the concept that every soul is God is justified based on the atheistic atmosphere around Shankara during His time. The scriptural fact is not that no soul can become God. The scriptural fact is that one soul or a few selected souls can become God. Hence, what Shankara told was not a total lie. “Every soul is God” means that any soul can become God if God wishes. It is the wish of God that forces a devoted soul to become an Incarnation even though no devoted soul wants to become God. Madhva said that no soul can become God. This means that no devoted soul should have the desire to become God. The desire to become God is a disqualification for actually becoming God. Between Shankara and Madhva, Ramanuja stood balancing both extreme ends of monism and dualism. He acted like a bridge by suggesting that the soul is already a part of God.
38) Ramanuja and Madhva could reveal their philosophies in a straightforward manner since there was no atheistic atmosphere in their times. Due to the hard work of Shankara, most of the atheists had been converted to theism and had started worshipping the mediated God. The philosophies of both Ramanuja and Madhva take the point of view of the devoted soul. For the soul, the world is true, even though it is temporary, like the water flowing in a river. New water comes in and the old water flows away. But the old and new water are both true. Both these philosophies are one-dimensional in that they only deal with the point of view of the devoted soul without unnecessarily touching the point of view of the unimaginable God. The philosophy of Shankara was multi-dimensional: (i) It dealt with the conversion of the atheist into a theist by making him accept the existence of God. (ii) It also reduced the strong sinful nature of the atheist by convincing him that his worldly bonds are unreal since the world is unreal to the soul-God. (iii) Thirdly, it maintained important scriptural facts. One such fact is that the world is unreal to God. Another fact is that there is a possibility of any soul becoming God and that the world can become unreal to a specific soul in whom God has merged. These facts were used by Shankara to motivate the atheist to become a theist. Yet another scriptural fact is that God punishes the sinful soul in hell. Shankara said that before a soul becomes God, he is subject to punishment for his sins and hence the soul should avoid sin.
39) The relative awareness found in this world is actually the weakest form of inert energy. It even disappears totally during the deep sleep while the nervous system is taking rest. This awareness was given the highest place of omnipotent God by Shankara! It shows that the conversion of the atheist into a theist was the topmost priority of Shankara. Without it, Ramanuja and Madhva would not have been able to even start their work. When everybody is saying that there is no God, where is the question of developing devotion to please God? When Shankara said that the soul is already God, the world automatically becomes non-existent. By this concept, Shankara wanted to reduce the strong sinful nature of the atheist since along with the world, one’s worldly bonds also become unreal. A person’s fascination for the worldly bonds is the cause of sin and an atheist is more prone to committing sins since he has no fear of God or hell. This basic twist in the philosophy was very useful as a double-edged sword for converting the atheist into a theist and also for reducing the strong sinful nature of the atheist. Moreover, Shankara said that the converted atheist should worship the mediated God (Eshvara) to get the purity of the mind that is essential to recollect his own inherent divine nature of God. This step was said to be the removal of vikshepa, which is the practical effect of ignorance. The mere theoretical removal of the ignorance or Aavaraṇa by the knowledge that the soul is God does not lead to immediate realization. As per Shankara, only when the mind becomes pure through dualistic worship is the vikshepa is removed. Only upon removing the vikṣepa does the knowledge that the soul is God succeed in removing the Aavarana or ignorance, leading to the soul’s complete realization. This means that until the person fully attains that state of realization, the soul is not God and has to undergo the punishments prescribed by God for the sins. Thus, everywhere, Shankara made a leak-proof arrangement to control the sins of the atheist.
40) Ramanuja and Madhva started with the devotee worshiping the mediated God for the sake of getting His grace in order to attain the fruit of becoming God. Ramanuja told the devotee that one should not aspire to become God since the soul is a part of God. His insistence on giving up the aspiration for becoming God was a fundamental correction. The reason for giving up the aspiration provided by Him was a fundamental twist. Later on, Madhva told the devotee that God is totally different from the servant-soul. This was a fundamental and complete correction. Shankara’s theory of a soul’s perfect monism with God is like placing the soul in the sky. Madhva’s theory of the soul’s perfect dualism with God is like placing the soul on the ground. For the soul falling from Shankara’s sky to Madhva’s ground, it is an extremely steep fall. Ramanuja’s theory of qualified monism or special monism serves as a middle space station for the soul, avoiding a sudden and disastrous fall. Ramanuja’s philosophy helps the soul to gradually give up its ambition of becoming God. Ramanuja and Madhva started only from the mediated God since the absolute unimaginable God is beyond the imagination of the soul. Even if we consider the unimaginable God to be pure awareness, it is very difficult to clearly imagine even that pure awareness. Hence, Ramanuja and Madhva based their philosophy on the mediated God alone since the mediated form of God is convenient for ordinary souls to grasp. Since creation is real for any soul, both the preachers maintained the concept of the reality of the world for the soul. The view of absolute God was never considered by them hence, the absolute non-mediated God was never touched by both. Both started with the devotee worshiping mediated God. Both also preached about the omnipotent mediated God punishing the devoted soul if it committed any sins. Since the world is real for the soul, the body of the mediated God, which is made up of the components of the world, is also real. Similarly, the relative soul present in the body or medium of God is also real. Of course, both the body and the soul of God’s medium are divinized by the merging of the absolute unimaginable God with it.
41) In some situations, monism is helpful to the soul to a very great extent. A depressed soul gains a lot of self-confidence upon thinking that it is the omnipotent God. At the same time, there are some negative effects of monism like becoming proud and doing sins fearlessly since the soul thinks that it being God, is above merit and sin! Such a negative effect was seen in demons. Thinking that the world is unreal is also certainly helpful. The soul then thinks that worldly bonds are also unreal and hence, there is no need to commit sins. Committing sins becomes below the dignity of the God-soul, which is supposed to have a divine nature. But the negative effect of this concept is that since the world is unreal, the sin committed in the unreal world is also unreal. So, there seems to be no harm in committing sins. In the later theories of Ramanuja and Madhva, care was taken by both to rectify these negative effects which had appeared among the followers after Shankara. Both preachers proposed that the soul is not God and can be punished by God for its sins even if the soul is highly devoted like Ravana. Shankara Himself came as Ramanuja and rectified the negative effects of His theory by saying that the soul is not God, but is a part of God and that it should not commit sins since even the part of God should maintain God’s divine dignity. In any case, if the soul commits sin, the soul, which is the part can be punished by God who is the Whole. But maintaining the dignity of the soul even as a part of God created a little amount of pride in the soul leading to the continuance of its negative effect to a small extent. Hence, Ramanuja came as Madhva saying that the soul is totally different from God and is the servant of God. So, the devoted soul can be punished without any trace of mercy, if it commits any sin. Thus, we find that each of these divine preachers, who were Incarnations of God, was mainly worried about pravrutti more than nivrutti. This is because most of humanity lies below the level of pravrutti, which is the inherent human tendency.
42) In any religion, and in any region of the world, God-in-human-form gives a lot of stress on reaching the human level (pravrutti) and warns souls to not fall down to the animal level (dushpravrutti). This is because the major lot of humanity is only in the bottommost animal level. Even if a soul rises to the human level or to divine level (nivrutti), which is above the human level, it can easily slip and fall to the basic animal level due to its inherent human nature. Hence, a major part of any holy scripture is confined only to the glorifying pravrutti and warning against dushpravrutti. Falling from nivrutti to pravrutti is not that bad since the fall affects only that individual whereas the fall from pravrutti or nivrutti down to the lowest level of dushpravrutti is very dangerous since it affects the peace of the surrounding world. Maintaining the peace of the world is very important for God. The world is like a board-game of Snakes and Ladders. Both ladders for climbing up and snakes for sliding down are present. Spiritual knowledge is thought to be mere theoretical gossip mainly related to nivrutti. This is totally wrong since this very knowledge of nivrutti also ensures at every step that the soul does not fall to the basic animal level. Thus, spiritual knowledge is highly essential for pravrutti or practical life in this world.
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