Posted on: 29 Aug 2005
[Krishnashtami Day 4] To please the Lord you have to surrender your words by singing about Him, your mind in His devotion and your intelligence in His discussions. However these three constitute only 1% of the total sacrifice and this is called theoretical sacrifice. The sacrifice of your work and the sacrifice of the fruit of work constitute 99% of sacrifice, which is called practical sacrifice. The practical sacrifice should be done to the most deserving person, who is Lord in human form, when recognised properly. The reason is that all this wealth belongs to the Lord alone since He is the creator of the entire universe. All this wealth is His immovable property and all the living beings are His movable property. You are a part and parcel of His movable property. You are supposed to take only the necessary amount from His infinite wealth for your basic needs, the boundary of which cannot be infinite. The rich man, who has no boundaries for his ambition to take the wealth of the Lord, takes it in unlimited quantities. He must realise that his effort is useless and a waste. The reason is that one has to leave all the excess of wealth here itself [when one dies] and his family members will not share his sin. They never asked him to earn infinitely for their sake. Therefore only he is responsible for all the sins.
He should only retain the required wealth to meet his needs (Yavanartha Udapane—Gita). If he analyses the family bonds, they are proved to be unreal dramatic bonds. Therefore a rich man should donate the excess wealth to the Lord in human form for His mission. If the human incarnation is not recognised, the second address of the Lord is a real devotee. The Lord dwells in the heart of a real devotee. But people are donating to temples seeing the statues in it, without analysing that it is the temple management that collects and spends the donated money. If the manager is neither a human incarnation nor a real devotee, the sacrifice of your money is a waste.
The sacrifice of money applies even to ordinary human beings. No doubt these people are earning money only for their basic needs. Some earn a little more to save for unforeseen problems in the future. Storing wealth for such purpose is also justified. Such storing is not wrong. Some people earn just up to the mark. Some people earn even below the mark. All these people need not do any sacrifice of their money to the Lord, because the very basic point is that the Lord neither needs your money nor your work for His mission. His mere will is sufficient to carry on His mission (Name karmaphale spriha—Gita). But all these ordinary human beings also are wasting some money in the name of entertainment. All this entertainment will only end in loss and misery. Therefore you are wasting your time, energy and money in the entertainment, which ends in loss. For example if you see a movie, you have lost time and money and at the end you experience weakness and a loss of energy. Similar is the case of reading novels and doing unnecessary gossip. Either utilise your time, energy and money for satisfying your basic needs or store it for your future needs. Instead of wasting it on entertainments, which end in loss (Duhkha Yonaya Evate—Gita), convert this wastage into divine wealth for getting the grace of Lord, which protects you here as well as there [after-world]. This is a beneficial program for you alone and not for the Lord.
The money that is earned for your basic needs also comes under the account of the sacrifice of money to the Lord. Unless the basic needs are satisfied, one cannot even sacrifice work for the mission of the Lord (Shariram Kevalam, Sharira Yatra—Gita). But people of this ordinary level should avoid all entertainment and should feel entertained in the service of the Lord. If you properly analyse and realize, worldly entertainment finally gives you loss. This is the worst path (Bhogaishwarya—Gita). Instead of this loss, it is better to analyse your self and fix yourself in the soul, which is pure awareness [the path of Advaita]. This at least will give you peace, which is far better than the loss that you get in entertainment. However if you recognise the Lord in human form and engage in the service of the Lord, you get permanent bliss in the long run, which is a profit. If you cross this level also and serve the Lord even if it worries you, you enter His innermost circle. Therefore instead of purchasing worry by pursuing entertainment, it is far better to purchase worry in the service of the Lord. The result of the former case is hell and the result of the latter case is the permanent abode of the Lord. A person who purchases bliss from the Lord in His mission is called as a Yukta, who is blessed by the Lord. But the person who purchases worry from the Lord in His mission is called as Yuktatama, which means the best of the devotees present in the state of Yukta (Sameyuktatamah—Gita).
Existence of Parabrahman
You cannot say that the Parabrahman exists and nor can you say that Parabrahman does not exist. The reason is that in both sentences the verb ‘exists’ may mean that Parabrahman is understood or that Parabrahman is imaginable. Generally, people do not say that an unimaginable thing exists. Therefore the verb ‘exists’ always means the probability of the existence of imaginable things. Based on this, when you say that Parabrahman exists, generally there is a danger of thinking that the Parabrahman is imaginable. Similarly, even if you say that Parabrahman does not exist, it may also lead to thinking that the Parabrahman is an imaginable item. When we say that the tree exists or that the tree does not exist, in both cases the tree is imaginable. Therefore, the Lord says in the Gita that Parabrahman cannot be said to be existing or non-existing (Nasat tat naasat). Therefore, the Parabrahman is best expressed by silence and the conclusion is that no word can directly indicate the Parabrahman.
The word Parabrahman is not a direct word [a word that directly defines or describes the object indicated by it]. It means ‘that which is other than Brahman’. Brahman is the greatest imaginable item of creation, which is pure awareness. Shankara wrote His commentary about Brahman. The word Brahma Jijnasa means discussions about the Brahman since Brahman is an imaginable item. It can be well discussed but when the word Parabrahman came, Shankara said that it should be represented by silence alone (Maunam Vyakhya Prakatita Parabrahma…). The greatest item of creation is pure awareness. The inert energy like light, heat, electricity and magnetism is subtler and greater than inert matter. The life energy that is produced from the oxidation of food is only heat energy (Tejah sati—Veda) because the oxidation reaction is an exothermic reaction [a chemical reaction that gives off heat]. But the awareness, which is generated from the nervous system by the heat energy, is most subtle and is the finest form of energy.
The inter conversion of awareness and the heat energy is understood theoretically but is not possible to understand in practice for the scientist. This does not mean that the life energy is independent and eternal without generation and dissolution. The awareness disappears in deep sleep and appears when the person wakes up. This proves that the awareness is not eternal but is an inter-convertible form of the inert energy itself. Of course, the conversion is not in the hands of the scientist, even though the conversion is theoretically proved and accepted. When you stop the supply of food or oxygen, the heat energy is not produced by digestion, and the awareness disappears, which is the state of a coma or deep sleep. When life energy is not supplied, death occurs. In the last stage, even though the digestion of the patient stops, respiration continues. Although food is not supplied, oxygen is supplied. Instead of food, the stored fat is oxidized. Therefore the patient is alive for sometime in spite of the absence of food. After sometime, the nervous system stops functioning, either due to damage in the system or due to inadequate supply of the heat energy. This is the stage of unconsciousness. Finally in the last stage, the oxidation stops and no more heat energy is produced. We say that the human being is dead due to absence of any trace of heat and the body becomes cold. This process of death is described in the Veda (Manastejasi tejassati).
Just in the last fraction of a second before death, a small portion of the heat energy is used in the formation of the energetic body that goes out of the gross body along with the bundle of qualities, which are stored in the mind. This bundle of qualities, accumulated from the past millions of births of that soul, which is called as the subtle body or Jiva, cannot be prepared by the scientist. He cannot bring back this bundle called the subtle body, which escapes from the gross body and enters an energetic body that comes out of the gross body. This energetic body is called as a Yaatana Shariram [body of suffering], if the Jiva goes to hell. It is called as a Bhoga Shariram [body of enjoyment], if the Jiva goes to heaven and it is called as a Divya Shariram [divine body], if the Jiva goes to the abode of Lord. It is due to this reason that a dead person cannot be made alive after he has died [since the subtle body has already left the physical body and has entered an energetic body].
Otherwise science has developed an artificial nervous system and brain in the robot by introducing a small ‘bundle of qualities’ in the form of an information chip. Therefore, ‘man’ is produced [the robot or artificial intelligence is similar to humans] but the same man cannot be reproduced [a dead man cannot be recreated since we cannot force the sublte body of the person to reenter the dead body]. The concept of a robot clearly proves that awareness is also a form of inert energy because in the robot, electrical energy is converted into the so-called ‘awareness’ which is nothing but electromagnetic energy. The energetic body of a soul is called as the subtle body or ‘Sukshma Shariram’. It goes to the upper world after the death of the physical body on earth, and is invisible as said in Veda (Manomayah) and in the Gita (Vayurgandhan; Utkramamtam).
The final means of knowledge [authority] is faultless experience, which alone gives validity. The analysis of life energy and awareness is done based on the experience of a human being that exists here. All this is the analysis of the various aspects of the human being that exists in this world. We have concluded that awareness is the finest and the greatest item in this world based on the practical analysis here itself. If practical experience is neglected, logic loses its basis. In such a situation, even the scripture cannot stand because one may say that the scripture itself is the false imagination of some mad person. Therefore all this analysis is based on the internal nature of the available human being. The analysis of the human being perfectly gives the analysis of this entire creation because any human being is a part of creation [The human being can stand as a model for the analysis of creation, since it is a part of creation. What is true for the human being is therefore true for the creation].
Logical analysis and the associated practical experience together form science. Any spiritual aspirant is an ordinary human being and thus science is applicable for analysing yourself. In fact the process of logical elimination itself can enable you to attain the self or the causal body [by eliminating all the items in creation which are not the Self, one is finally left with the Atman or causal body, or pure awareness as the Self]. This process is perfectly scientific. The self is the best item of the creation and the analysis of the self is also science. When you are an item of creation, your ways and efforts cannot be supernatural and they must follow the natural rules of creation, which are again nothing but science. Therefore you must use the logical scientific analysis in analysing yourself and your path to reach God. But God is beyond this creation since He is the Creator. Therefore God cannot be analysed by science.
When the goal is above science the scientific path cannot be meaningful because the scientific path will only lead to a goal which can be analysed by science. For example, let us take the path to Mumbai. The path is on the earth and Mumbai is also on the earth. The path is analyzed by logic and the goal is also analyzed by logic. But if I start the journey to God and ask the path to reach Him, nobody can show the path because God is invisible. An invisible goal will always have an invisible path. Nobody can travel on an invisible path. One can show the path to a holy temple. If God existed in the statue, such a path would be a true path. The main purpose of reaching God is to know three things: yourself, the correct path and the correct goal. The reason is that God is the best preacher for all the matters which are related to God. The human incarnation of God is the correct place to find God. The human incarnation consists of a visible human body so that the path to reach Him also becomes visible. Since God is in the human incarnation, by reaching that human body you have reached God. In fact God pervades all over that body and you have reached God by reaching His incarnation. God becomes visible through that human body and therefore the path to reach God also becomes visible. The main purpose to reach God is to hear the correct version of the entire spiritual knowledge. Then through service, you have to please God.
In the case of a statue, it cannot preach even a trace of knowledge. Moreover when we serve the statue it does not appear to be pleased on its face. Due to these two reasons neither is God in the statue and nor is God the statue itself (Na Tasya Pratima—Veda). The statue in the human form is a model to indicate the human form of the Lord. Ignorant human beings who cannot accept the human form of God due to their egoism and jealousy can worship the statue for sometime as a training for worshipping the human form of the Lord in the future (Pratimahyalpa Buddhinam—Smriti). But one should not sit in the stage of training throughout his life. If he remains there, he is reborn as an inert object like a stone (Bhutejya yanti—Gita)
Since the human incarnation is the Creator Himself, the analysis of the human incarnation gives an idea about God but the Vedas and the Gita say that God is always unimaginable and can never be known. But the existence of the unimaginable God must be experienced (Astetyeva—Veda). Otherwise you may say that God does not exist because He is unimaginable and also beyond experience. The unimaginability is called as Maya. Unimaginability is the property of the Parabrahman, which has entered pure awareness and made the Mula Maya or pure awareness become Maya. Mula Maya is not the unimaginability since creation had not started at the stage of Mula Maya. Therefore, the word Mula Maya means the root of Maya and has no Maya [unimaginability] in it. When creation started, the Mula Maya was converted into Maya which is a mixture of the unimaginability of Parabrahman that entered Mula Maya and the imaginability of the world (Prakriti). Therefore, in the state of Mula Maya or Brahman, the Parabrahman does not exhibit unimaginability to the souls because the creation has not yet started and the souls were not yet created. Brahman is the purest state of Parabrahman in the absence of creation.
In that state, Parabrahman is not unimaginable to Itself and therefore has no superimposed apparent ignorance. The unimaginability arises only when imaginability or Prakriti also exists as a reference. Therefore, Brahman can be said as the Parabrahman leftover with pure awareness and without unimaginability (Maya) or imaginability (Prakriti). Maya means wonderful. A wonderful thing need not be unimaginable. Thus the imaginable world (Prakriti) is also called as Maya because the Prakriti is also wonderful. Shankara gave another meaning for Maya: ‘that which does not exist’. That is also correct because the droplet of the pure awareness, which has become the world or Maya is very negligible and can be treated as almost non-existent. Shankara never said that the world is absolutely non-existent. He said that the world is Mithya, which means that it is neither existent nor non-existent (Sadasat Vilakshana). It is existent because it exists even though it is very very little. It is non-existent because its existence can be neglected, since it is very very little. People have misunderstood Shankara. They state that according to Shankara the world is non-existent.
Maya is wonderful because Maya is a mixture of awareness and unimaginability. The pure awareness is from Mula Maya and the unimaginability is from Parabrahman. We must always remember that the unimaginability is not for Parabrahman and it is only for the souls. Thus we can generally say that Maya is unimaginability. Of course, the pure awareness is also generated from Parabrahman like the unimaginability. If it is diluted unimaginability, it is the wonderful or little Maya, since it can be understood by human beings. If the unimaginability is 100%, then it is called as Maha Maya.
The Mula Maya is in the form of pure awareness and is called as Mula Prakriti or Shuddha Sattvam. Sattvam is the knowledge of other things; Shuddha Sattvam is the knowledge of itself. Sattvam is a part of the Maya because Maya is composed of the three qualities called Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas. When the pure awareness is aware of other things, the Shuddha Sattvam is converted into Sattvam. Then the other things are Rajas and Tamas, which are the modifications of pure Rajas and pure Tamas that exist in Suddha Sattvam itself. Rajas is work or energy. Tamas is ignorance or matter. Both the Suddha Sattvam and Sattvam are states of the same knowledge. Therefore, the Suddha Sattvam or knowledge is nearest to Parabrahman and is an inseparable associated characteristic of Parabrahman. This does not mean that Lord Vishnu who represents Suddha Sattvam is nearest to Parabrahman. The Suddha Sattvam itself is pure Rajas and pure Tamas as already stated. This is said in the Veda (Brahmaacha Narayanah, Shivashcha Naarayanah). Pure Rajas is Brahma and pure Tamas is Shiva. Therefore Lord Datta, who constitutes all these three divine forms, is the item of the creation that is nearmost to Parabrahman. The only difference between Parabrahman and Datta is that Parabrahman is invisible and unimaginable. Datta is visible and unimaginable.
The visible part of Datta is the creation, which acts as a medium. The invisible part is the hidden Parabrahman. Krishna was an incarnation of Datta since He stated that He is the creator, ruler and destroyer of the world (Prabhavah Pralayastatha, Mayi Sarvamidam). The divine knowledge, which is the characteristic of Suddha Sattvam, can be used as the identity mark for Parabrahman. When this knowledge is wonderful, the Suddha Sattvam is called as Sattva Maya. This wonderful knowledge is Prajnanam, which consists of both wonderful Suddha Sattvam and wonderful Sattvam (Satvika Maya). This means that Prajnanam contains a wonderful explanation of itself (Suddha Sattvam) and all the other related things (Sattvam). It is the wonderful knowledge of the Creator, the path to please the Creator and the nature of the soul. Therefore the wonderful knowledge of the Parabrahman is the nearest inseparable identity mark in the case of the human incarnation.
The human incarnation is not recognised in the state of Brahman because there can be no preaching from Brahman, which is pure awareness without any creation. The preaching comes only from Ishwara since He is associated with creation. The Rajas and Tamas also attain unimaginability and become wonderful in the form of miracles. Rajas is work and Tamas is force. Thus miracles are forms of wonderful work and force, which are far from Parabrahman. Miracles can be transferred to demons. Since Rajas is Brahma and Tamas is Shiva, both of them grant boons to demons. Sattvam is Vishnu who never grants any boon to demons. It means that the Sattvika Maya or Prajnanam can never be transferred to demons. Sattvam represents Vishnu and Mula Sattvam represents Narayana. This is the reason why Ramanuja and Madhva stressed on Vishnu or Narayana who acts as the spiritual preacher. However this does not mean that the Parabrahman is associated with Mula Sattvam and Sattvam only. All the three qualities are associated and therefore are all separable and different from Parabrahman. The Parabrahman is associated with all the three qualities in a wonderful state.
Even while transferring the miracles to demons, the Rajas and Tamas in the complete unimaginable state cannot be transferred. The force and work of creating, ruling and destruction of creation cannot be transferred to any demon. For example a demon may create small objects but cannot create the world. Lord Krishna showed the Vishwarupam through which He proved that such a miracle could never be exhibited by anybody other than Himself. The entire Bhagavad Gita shows the non-transferable knowledge (Sattvam or Vishnu). The Vishwarupam in the Bhagvad Gita also shows the non-transferable Brahma and Shiva who represent the creation and destruction of the cosmos. In between the creation and the destruction, the Lord maintained the cosmos as Vishnu and preached to Arjuna about the spiritual concept of the vision. Thus Vishnu stands for preaching the knowledge even while maintaining the universe. Therefore one should not distinguish between these three divine forms of the Lord. The Lord is always associated with these three qualities in equal proportions. When the Prajnanam is preached, a little of it is also donated as jnanam. A scholar has received a part of the infinite Prajnanam. Similarly, demons receive a part of the divine force and divine work as the power to do miracles. Thus the donation of all the three qualities exists form the side of the Lord, but human beings or demons with their little capacities, can only receive a little of these three.
A scholar cannot be Narayana. A scholar is only a water-drop whereas Narayana is the mighty ocean of true knowledge (Satyam Jnanam Anantam—Veda). Similarly, a demon doing small miracles cannot be equal to Brahma and Shiva. A sage called Tandu created [materialized] a handful of sacred ash and thought that he is the Lord. But Lord Shiva appeared before him and produced a mountain of ash from His thumb. Thus the quantitative difference exists between the Lord and His devotee.