Posted on: 15 Sep 2020
[Shri Anil asked: This question is related to the Gospel of John 14: 7 If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.” 8Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” 9Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Swami in Your knowledge, You have enlightened us with the concept of the contemporary Human Incarnation and its significance in a very detailed and comprehensive manner. Even an illiterate person can follow these concepts very easily and develop love for Him. In the above verse of the Bible, I find a striking similarity with Your preaching on the importance of the concept of the contemporary Human Incarnation. The answer to Philip by Jesus that when he (a devotee) had seen Jesus (contemporary Human Incarnation), he (the devotee) has verily seen the Father (Heavenly Father) Himself. It completely establishes the concept of human incarnation preached to us by You. The Father can be seen by us only by seeing the living contemporary Human Incarnation of God. Here, I think Jesus switched back to the Adavita state i.e., the state in which the Father of Heaven (God) and the Son of God (Jesus) are merged homogenously. In that state, the Son of God Himself becomes the Father of Heaven due to complete merging. Swami, I want to ask You if my understanding in the above correlations is correct or not. I feel these concepts really establish a strong bond between Hinduism and Christianity. The right interpretations given by You in Your precious knowledge can strengthen the bond between these two religions.]
Swami replied: There are only two components: (a) the non-mediated unimaginable God and (b) The energetic or the human medium with which the unimaginable God merges homogeneously to become an Incarnation. The Father of heaven is an Energetic Incarnation and the son of God is the Human Incarnation. Since the same unimaginable God exists in both, there is no any trace of any difference between the two, as far as the composition is considered. The Energetic Incarnation is given the status of Father and the Human Incarnation is given the status of Son. The Veda says that the Father (Energetic Incarnation) Himself is born as the Son (Human Incarnation) (Ātmā vai putranāmā'si…). This Vedic statement mistakenly applied to the case of ordinary human beings leading to the misunderstanding that the human father is born as his human son. The same concept as explained in the Veda is explained by Jesus in the above statement.
Generally, the father is given more respect than the son. This difference can be understood very well since human beings give more value to the energetic form of God than the human form of God. Based on this general psychology of humanity, these two names Father and Son are given to the two types of Incarnations. That form which is not seen by the eyes is considered to be more valuable than the form seen by the eyes, as said in the Veda (Parokṣapriyā iva hi…). In fact, the Human Incarnation is more valuable than the Energetic Incarnation for humanity because one has to spend a lot of time out of one’s limited lifespan in penance, just to get a brief vision of an Energetic Incarnation. On the other hand, the Human Incarnation is seen without any effort. A wise soul spends his precious time in his limited lifespan in getting spiritual knowledge from the Human Incarnation and in serving the Human Incarnation. He does not waste any time in the effort to see the Energetic Incarnation. Even if the Energetic Incarnation is seen after a lot of effort, the soul cannot spend much time with it. But one can spend a large part of one’s lifetime with the Human Incarnation. In order to become such practically-wise person, one must conquer one’s ego and jealousy towards fellow-human forms, because these qualities hinder the recognition of the Human Incarnation. Here, the word knowledge means to know the Human Incarnation to be the original unimaginable God. In the Gītā, it is told that only one blessed soul knows the human form of God (Kaścit māṃ vetti tattvataḥ…).
Keywords:
| Shri Datta Swami | Can You confirm that Jesus indeed preached the concept of the contemporary Human Incarnation of God? | Aatmaa vai putranaamaasi Parokshapriyaa iva hi Giita Gita Kashchit maam vetti tattvatah