home
Shri Datta Swami

Jnana Saraswati – Parabrahma Sutras

    

24. Unimaginable God is treated as the imaginable soul


परब्रह्म तादात्म्यात्सुपर्णवत्।२४।
parabrahma tādātmyātsuparṇavat|24|

God is also said to be a bird in the Veda. Here the unimaginable God has charged the jivaatman, the bird. Hence, God is also treated as a bird.

Explanation:

Here God is also said to be a bird. This does not mean that God is also another composite of the subtle and causal bodies [1]. God is unimaginable and cannot be said to be any known item. The subtle and causal bodies are known items and hence God cannot be said to be a composite of other subtle and causal bodies. Hence, God cannot be called the bird. But here God is said to be another bird, because when God enters the human being, He charges that jivaatman. Hence, God is treated as another jivatman. When electric current enters a wire, the current is treated as the wire itself. In this way, the unimaginable God is treated as the imaginable jivaatman or bird.

Note:

Why is the Lord treated as a second jivaatman in the Human Incarnation?

God enters the jivaatman, but when God is to be mentioned how can He be indicated? The jivaatman is the medium (bird) [2]. God has to be called as another jivaatman. Now if you call God as the medium, there is already one jivaatman. Alternatively, if you say that God is the jivaatman, then God exists separately as jivaataman [3] and hence that point will be again rejected. The first bird indicates the medium and the second bird means that He is different from the first bird. This is a subtle point that you have to think and digest it slowly.


[1] The jiva, which is called a bird in the same example in the Veda, is a composite of the subtle and causal bodies.

[2] The Unimaginable God can be indicated only by the medium in which He enters. It is through the medium alone that He reveals Himself to us.

[3] The jivaatman is already mentioned as the first bird. If that first bird, the jivaatman were God, why would the second bird be mentioned additionally? Hence the argument that the jivaatman itself is God must be rejected.

* * *

    

 
 whatsnewContactSearch