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The Buddhists took the concept of cause and effect to analyze this creation. The effect is always unreal with respect to the cause. But, when the cause is analyzed, it becomes the effect of some other internal cause. Mud, the cause, is real whereas its effect, the pot, is unreal. When the mud is analyzed, it becomes the effect and the particles become the cause. Hence, the mud, which is real with respect to the pot, becomes unreal with respect to its cause, the particles. If you go deep like this, the particle is the effect and the crystals in it become its cause. The crystal again becomes effect with respect to its cause, the sub-atomic particles...
[Shri Phani Kumar asked “You have interpreted the Vedic analogy of two birds on a tree as God and soul in the context of the human incarnation. But Shri Shankara interprets, the two birds as soul and intelligence. Is there any difference between soul and intelligence?” Shri Swami explained as follows.]
The Mantra in the Veda says that there are two birds on the tree. One bird eats the fruits and the other shines without eating. Shankara took these two birds as the soul and the intelligence. I have taken these two birds as the unimaginable God and imaginable soul existing in the human incarnation. If you carefully analyze, both these versions become one and same. God was called as soul and the intelligence...
The gross matter is visible and imaginable. The subtle energy is invisible and imaginable. The common point in matter and energy is that both are imaginable. Both matter and energy form the two parts of imaginable creation. Even science says that matter is a form of energy and both are inter-convertible. But, now, due to development of sophisticated instruments by science, even the energy becomes visible through instruments. But, since the energy is invisible to the naked eye, you can still maintain the difference between the matter and energy...
The light energy is quantized and its fundamental bits are called as photons. A photon exists with certain frequency but the frequency is variable. The light energy is a part of cosmic energy and therefore, you should not say that the entire cosmic energy is light energy. Similarly, awareness is quantized into bits, called as the individual souls. Even though the light energy occupies a part of the cosmic space, it is continuous within its limited boundaries. But, the awareness is not like that...
The absolute reality is always without spatial dimensions and the relative reality is always with spatial dimensions. The creator is the absolute reality and the creation is the relative reality. The relative reality is always imaginable since it has spatial dimensions. The creation contains both visible and invisible items. The visible items have macro-spatial dimensions. The invisible items have micro-spatial dimensions and hence, the eye cannot catch them. Therefore, a stone is visible and the atom present in it is invisible. Only the absolute reality is unimaginable...
The word ‘Atman’ means both the soul representing energy as well as the body representing the matter. The soul or energy creates the imaginary world, maintains and dissolves it. The soul has full control on the imaginary world and can do anything. Similarly, God creates, maintains and destroys this world. God is omnipotent since He can do anything in this world. All these are good aspects of comparison. But, there are defective aspects of limitations. The soul is converted into imaginary world whereas, the unimaginable God is not converted and hence...
Science goes up to the space only, which is very subtle form of energy. Due to bending of space around the boundaries of object, space cannot be treated as nothing since nothing can bend. The topmost scientist, Einstein, treats the space as geometrical entity and not absolutely existing item. He treats space as relatively existing based on the existence of two materialistic items, since space is the distance between two materialistic items. If the matter disappears, space also disappears according to him. If all the matter is converted into energy...
When similes are selected for the unimaginable God, the concepts of comparison should be always limited and not to be fully extended in all other aspects. This principle exists even if you give a simile to an imaginable item taking another imaginable item. For example, if you compare the face of somebody to moon, the aspect of simile should be confined to the pleasantness only. You should not extend the aspect of similarity to other points and say that the face contains black spots...
[Mr. Anil asked, “You said that God is beyond creation and at the same time. You also say that God is in a human body, which is in this creation. Is it not a contradiction?” Shri Swami’s explanation is given below.]
Unless the contradiction arises and you are unable to solve it through your analysis, you cannot call it as unimaginable action. Unless you recognize the unimaginable action, you cannot accept that God is unimaginable, who is the source of the unimaginable actions. For the establishment of unimaginable actions, there should be pre-established...
In spite of hectic efforts of atheists, the devotion of devotees did not decrease even by a trace from the beginning of this creation. The percentage of devotees also did not decrease and the very little percentage of atheists also did not increase even by a trace. Do you think that the reason for this standard devotion is the reality of devotion to God? No no. The real reason for this is the unimaginable power of the link between devotion and the materialistic benefits. People believe that due to the devotion, the worldly life is protected...
The infinite cosmos [universe] itself is a proof of the existence of unimaginable God. ‘Infinite’ means that the boundary of the universe is everlasting. What is the secret of this everlasting boundary? Suppose, let us say that the ocean is infinite. It means that you may travel and travel for any extent of time, you will not reach the bank of the ocean. The bank of the ocean means the land, which is different from the ocean or its water. The land, which is beyond the water, is never achieved if the ocean is infinite...
When the light rays fall on the object and get reflected, the image of the object falls on the retina of the eye and this image is transferred to the brain. The brain receives the image of the object. The process of receiving the image of the object by the brain is said to be awareness of the object. All the materials like rays of light, object, image of object, materials transferring the image like neurons, materials composing the brain, etc. are either inert matter or inert energy only. The process of transfer of the image...
The entire creation other than the unimaginable God is manifestation of the imaginable cosmic energy, which was created by the unimaginable God. This process of creation of imaginable cosmic energy by unimaginable God is unimaginable because any link between unimaginable and imaginable is always unimaginable. The space is invisible cosmic energy and the fire is visible cosmic energy. Matter is another manifested form of cosmic energy existing in gaseous state, liquid state and solid state. Space (aakaasha), fire (agni), gas (vayu), liquid (jalam) and solid (pruthivi) are the five elements...
When sages told Rama that He is God, Rama denied it and declared Himself as an ordinary human being. Rama knows that He is God but He denied it since He acted in the role of an ordinary human being to preach the ideal behavior of a human being to humanity. His aim is that every human being should not declare that it is God. But, you may doubt about the philosophy of Shankara, which says that every human being is God. The reason for such concept of Shankara...
To accept any concept, there are four authorities: 1) Shruti, the scripture, which is the divine text and it is the Veda for Hindus, 2) The second authority is Smruti, which is the text written by sages, 3) The third authority is logical discussion to find out the correct interpretation of the scripture, 4) The fourth authority is experience of divine scholars.
Essence of Mahavaakyas: Shruti
Let us examine the first authority, the Veda, which is said to be the word of God revealed to sages. In this scripture, lot of importance is given to the four great statements (Mahavaakyaas). One statement says that the special knowledge is God (Prajnanam Brahma)...
Shankara gave two phases in His philosophy—1. Phase of Reality (Paramarthadasa): In this phase, the absolute reality and the relative reality are mentioned. God is the absolute reality and the cosmic energy is the relative reality, which is produced from God in the beginning of this creation. The cosmic energy includes vacuum also and vacuum is the original form of energy, which is very much invisible. The theory of vacuum generating galaxies supports this point. The special theory of relativity also supports this point, which says that the space or vacuum bends along the boundaries of an object. 2. Phase of Relativity (Vyavaharadasa): In this phase, the cosmic energy, which is acting as relative reality...
The scientific atheists say that the cosmic energy is the ultimate God from which this entire creation is generated through big bang, maintained and destroyed. He says that another unimaginable God as generator of cosmic energy is unnecessary. If we say that an agent of intelligence is required to maintain all this creation in such a systematic manner, the atheists disagree saying that randomness with probability based on theory of evolution can be the reason for such systematic administration. We cannot completely rule out this answer of the atheists. In such case, the unimaginable God disappears and the imaginable cosmic energy becomes God. The concept of energy is clearly understood only through intricate scientific analysis...
Krishna Ashtami Special Message] Krishna gave two statements in the Gita. The first statement is that He is unimaginable because nobody can know Him (Maam tu veda na kashchana…). The second statement is that He entered a human body (Manushim tanumaashritam…). These statements together give the total concept of God. God is beyond spatial dimensions and hence, He is beyond imagination. In order to preach the spiritual knowledge, to give the correct direction to the humanity, He comes down to the world of human beings by entering a human body. The human body means a human being. The inert material body associated with inert energy consisting of awareness with different feelings (jeeva) is the human body. Human body does not mean mere inert body...
[Guru Purnima Day] God wanted to create the universe and based on this reason God is thought to be awareness. Awareness can alone desire to do anything and not an inert entity. Another strong reason is that as the human awareness creates dream-space and the subsequent dream in it, the God-awareness created this real space and the universe in it. Just as the dream and its space are generated by the human awareness, maintained and controlled, and finally dissolved in human awareness, the universe along with the real space is generated, controlled and is dissolved by God-awareness. Another step was that the human awareness itself is God-awareness. As the dream-space and dream are real during the period of dream, the universe and real space are real...
The concept of unimaginable God is already mentioned in the Vedas and in the Gita. It was not elaborated since there was no need in the earlier period, when science was not so much developed. The energetic form of God was thought to be the original God, since the energy can remain in the invisible region as well as in the visible region by changing its frequency. The energetic form exists in the invisible region and thus, the energetic form of unimaginable God remained always invisible. By some severe penance, the invisible energetic form becomes visible by changing its frequency and devotees thought that the invisible God became visible to them for sometime. The people in the earlier period called this invisible form of the God as unimaginable...
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