Posted on: 10 Nov 2020
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
Continuued from Part-1...
You have shifted your basic party itself when you began to face a lot of inconvenience, due to your misunderstood theory of monism. You have created a convenient theory by saying that God is not the soul because God and the soul are associated, like the real rope and the false snake. Of course, we are happy that you have recognized that the soul is part of the illusory world. At one end, you say that the soul is not God, just as the false snake is not the real rope. Then, why do you contradict yourself by claiming that the soul is God, with two affirmatives ‘eva’ and ‘nā'paraḥ’ for emphasis (Jīvo Brahmaiva nā'paraḥ)? Does it mean that the soul is not real the Brahman and is only the false Brahman?
To support the claimed monism between Brahman (God) and the soul, you brought this long discussion of a word and its implied meaning. This object-indicator relationship is called a lakṣya-lakṣana sambandha. In the relation between an indicator (lakṣaṇa) and its object or implied meaning (lakṣya), there can be some similarity and some difference. You brought in the example of a person called Devadatta saying “That stout person (object) seen in Kāśī is this lean Devadatta (indicator) seen in Kāñcī (so'yaṃ devadattaḥ).” This example is a specific type of an object-indicator relationship called the jahadajahat lakṣaṇā (jahat-ajahat lakṣanā). The ‘jahat’ part is the neglected point of difference of stoutness and leanness between the stout Devadatta and the lean Devadatta. The ‘ajahat’ part is the stressed point of similarity, which is that it is the same Devadatta seen in different places at different times. Similarly, you say, “That omniscient God is this ignorant soul”, due to the common awareness. The ‘jahat’ part is the difference between the omniscient and ignorant natures of God and the soul, respectively, which is neglected. The ‘ajahat’ part is the awareness, which you believe is common to both.
What is the final conclusion? It is only that both God and the soul are one, based on the stressed ajahat part. Who claimed this monism? Did Datta Swāmi claim it? Who discussed this at length to support monism between God and the soul in the context of the great Vedic statement “Thou art that (Tat tvam asi)”? Did the disciples of Datta Swāmi discuss it?
Jahadajahat lakṣaṇā is a mixture of the two other kinds of object-indicator relationships namely, the jahat lakṣaṇā and the ajahat lakṣaṇā. In the first, there is only difference and in the second, there is a sense of union. An example of the first is to say that a village exists in (on) River Gangā (Gaṅgāyāṃ ghoṣaḥ). This actually means that the village exists on the bank of the river. It is separate from the river and not actually in the river or united with the river. The example of the second is to say that the bamboo-stages are shouting (mañcāḥ krośanti). This means that people standing on the bamboo stages are shouting to drive away birds from the fields. Here, there is a sense of union between the people and the bamboo stages.
The work done is not the doer. A person is walking. Walking is not the walker. Talking is not the talker. Similarly, the process of knowing must not be the knower. Knowing is knowledge, which depends on the will of the knower (draṣṭā). Cit is knowing or knowledge. If you confine the ‘I’, which is a person’s self-identification to the knower alone, the process of knowing is also the knower. The known object is different from the knower. Thus, there are only two categories, which are knowledge (dṛk) and the knowable object (dṛśyam). An identity between the knower and knowledge is agreed upon in the case of cit (awareness), which is a relatively true item (human being) within creation. But when one person is seeing another person, the knowable object can also be a knower (awareness). Thus, it is possible for a knower to also be a knowable object. But it does not mean that all knowable objects also need to be knowers because even inert things can be seen or known by the knower. The imaginable knower and the imaginable knowledge are both awareness, whereas, the knowable object can be awareness or an inert thing (non-awareness). All this is true in the analysis of the awareness, found within creation, which is only relatively true like the rest of creation. It cannot be applied to the case of the absolutely true God.
The Veda says that God is unknowable or unimaginable to any human being (Yasyāmatam..., Yato vāco..., Yo buddheḥ parataḥ..., Na medhayā..., Atarkyaḥ... etc.). The Gītā says that no human being can know God (Māṃ tu veda na kaścana...). The Brahma Sūtras also point to the fact that God is unimaginable, at the very beginning of the sūtras. The first sūtram says that the enquiry about God will be made. It means that there will be an effort to reveal the inherent nature (svarūpa lakṣaṇam) of God. But the second sūtram says that God is He who creates, controls and destroys this world. This is only an associated characteristic of God (taṭastha lakṣaṇam). It only reveals the nature of the work done by God. It does not reveal even a trace of His inherent nature. This means that God is unimaginable to any human being. The Gītā also says that nobody knows the original unimaginable God (Māṃ tu veda na kaścana...). Here, the word ‘Me’ (māṃ) used by Kṛṣṇa indicates the unimaginable God merged with Kṛṣṇa.
Svarūpa lakṣaṇam and taṭastha lakṣaṇam: Svarūpa lakṣaṇam means an inherent quality that is useful to identify the possessor of the inherent quality. E.g. “This brown cow belongs to Devadatta (Kapilā gauḥ devadattasya)”. The cow may be in any place and we will still identify it by its inherent brown colour. Hence, it is a real identification and the brown color is its inherent quality or svarūpa lakṣaṇa. The taṭastha lakṣaṇam is an associated quality. That association of the quality with the possessor of the quality is only temporary and so, the associated quality will not be useful in identifying the possessor. E.g. “The cow, which is eating grass on the south border of the field of Yajñadatta belongs to Devadatta (Yajñadattasya kṣetra-dakṣiṇasīma-tṛṇāśana-parā-gauḥ devadattasya)”. The cow may move to some other place by the time we go there to identify the cow of Devadatta. Hence, the associated quality does not enable a real identification. Similarly, we are informed of the associated characteristic of the unimaginable God, which is the fact that He is the creator, controller and destroyer of this world. This associated characteristic is not a real identification of God because not a single inherent characteristic of God is revealed to enable a real identification.
You say that God is Sat (true existence), Cit (awareness) and Ānanda (bliss). We agree that God is true existence (Sat) since He is the absolute reality. The Veda also says that the only knowledge about God that can be obtained is that He is the absolute reality (Astītyeva upalabdhavyaḥ; Sadeva somya...—Veda). If God were awareness and bliss, the Veda could have easily stated “Cidānandaḥ astītyeva...”. The word ‘eva’ is an affirmative used for emphasis and it means that the only available information about God is that He exists. Even angels and sages do not know the nature of God (Na me viduḥ suragaṇāḥ, Prabhavaṃ na maharṣayaḥ...—Gītā). Even god Yama says that angels are still discussing, how they can come to know at least something about God (Kathametat vijānīyām...). If this is the status of the unknowability or even the unimaginability of God, how can you say that Cit is God?
Cit is essentially inert energy converted into a special form of work called awareness. It can be detected by electronic instruments and visualized as pulses of inert energy on the screen. When one has a lot of thoughts in the mind, the pulses are more prominent and when one is in a peaceful state, the pulses are reduced in intensity. The Veda and the Gītā also say that awareness or the soul can be seen (Dṛśyate tvagrayā..., Paśyanti jñānacakṣuṣaḥ...). The cause or the material out of which cit is made is inert energy. This inert energy in the body is called Ātman and is referred to in the Gītā in the verse “Sthāṇuracalo'yam...”. Ātman means that which spreads in space. As the body grows, the brain and the nervous system also grows and more inert energy is converted into awareness that spreads in the system. Hence, Cidātmā means the awareness (jīva) that is essentially made of inert energy (Ātman). God too is called Ātman (Ātmana ākāśaḥ...—Veda), but not in the sense that God spreads throughout space. God is said to be Ātman in the sense that He is the important and most precious central controller of the world, who is comparable with a soul controlling the body.
The Gītā clearly mentions two separate categories: (a) Puruṣa, which means God or the Creator and (b) prakṛti or creation. Awareness is mentioned under the category of prakṛti and not under the category of Puruṣa (Prakṛtiṃ viddhi me parām; Jīvabhūtām...). Cit or cetanā refers to the individual soul and is mentioned in the category of creation or kṣhetra in the Gītā (Saṅghātaḥ cetanā dhṛtiḥ). Cidātmā means the individual soul existing in the body. Kūṭastha also means the same individual soul existing in a group of systems called the kūṭa, which is nothing but the body. The individual soul is said to be relatively eternal with respect to the perishing gross body (Na hanyate hanyamāne śarīre...—Gītā). But it does not mean that the individual soul is the absolutely eternal God (Kūṭastho'kṣara ucyate...—Gītā). Akṣara, means that which is eternal, but, in this context, it only means that which is relatively eternal. Hence, this relative awareness is imaginable and it belongs to prakṛti alone.
In a different type of classification, the soul can be called puruṣa since it is the most important item in creation and in that sense is comparable to God. But in that case, God is called Puruṣottama. Inert items in creation are called prakṛtī. This second type of classification thus, has three categories namely, (a) Puruṣottama or God, (b) puruṣa or soul and (c) prakṛti or creation. The word Kūṭastha can also be used for God, in the sense that He is the central controller of the world (kūṭa) which is made of different categories of items. In that case, the word akṣara applies to God, in the sense that He is absolutely eternal. The meaning of akṣara, thus, varies with the context.
Cit means a specific work-form of energy that has the capability of knowing or observing any knowable or observable item. When one hears the word cit, the immediate meaning striking the mind (śābdabodha) is the above-mentioned relative awareness alone. This meaning of cit is also supported by analysis. Through this analysis, we come to know that cit is totally dependent on the inert energy, which is produced from food and which is functioning in the materialized brain and nervous system. In this specific system, the inert energy gets converted to awareness, just as electricity gets converted to a specific type of work called grinding work, in a specific machine called a grinding machine. The same electricity also gets converted into another specific type of work called cutting work, in another specific machine called a cutting machine. Awareness is thus, a specific type of work, which is the work of transferring information from the senses to the brain.
Nobody thinks of the word cit as being an awareness that is independent of inert energy and the material brain and nervous system. If the word Cit is used to refer to the independent God, understanding this meaning literally (śābdabodha) is impossible. The cit that is understood by everybody is the awareness that is produced on waking up from deep sleep (after deep sleep and not during it). Awareness is only produced when the brain and nervous system start functioning upon waking. Awareness disappears in deep sleep, when the brain and nervous system are resting and they do not function in a manner to produce awareness. Such an awareness alone is literally understood from the word cit and this cit is born each day and it dies each day (during deep sleep) as told in the Gītā (Atha cainaṃ nityajātam...—Gītā). Of course, this cit cannot be the God, who does not have any birth or death.
The word cit can be understood from verbs like ‘cetati’ (parasmai pada of bhvādigaṇa) and ‘cetayate’ (ātmane pada of curādigaṇa). The word conveys the sense of awareness or noticing some object externally (Citī - saṃjñāne). It can also mean being aware of some thought internally (Citī - Smaraṇe ca). If you confine the meaning of cit to simply noticing something internally and externally and if you do not go into the background of how that cit is produced, you can say that God also has such awareness. In that sense, God is similar to an ordinary human being having such awareness. In the human being, the awareness is a converted form of inert energy that is released from the digestive system. This background of how the awareness is produced applies only to the human being and is not applicable to God. Based on that one similarity of knowing or being aware, the ordinary human being cannot claim to be identical with God.
A king and a beggar, both have similar awareness, which is only relative awareness. In fact, between them, many more similarities exist, including the fact that both have a brain and nervous system and that both also have inert energy in their bodies. Based on those similarities, can the beggar claim to be the king? Of course, not! But the Advaita philosopher says that the same beggar was a king in the past (So'yaṃ Devadattaḥ). He also says that Cidātmā or God and cidābhāsa or soul are essentially one and the same because of the awareness, which is the same ‘essential material’ existing in both. But that awareness happens to be inert energy transformed into a specific form of work. So, the Advaitin’s logic may be applicable in the case of the king and the beggar, whether the king and beggar are considered to be two separate individuals or the same individual in the past and in the present. But the logic does not apply in the case of God and the soul because the awareness in God is unimaginable while the awareness of the soul is imaginable.
God’s awareness existed even before the creation of inert energy and matter. So, it must be independent of both inert energy and the material brain and nervous system. The cause of God’s awareness can neither be known nor imagined. In the case of the soul, the causes of its awareness are clearly the inert energy and the material brain and nervous system. The awareness of the soul is essentially inert energy, whereas, in God, the awareness is unimaginable. In God, awareness does not exist as an entity at all. In the case of God, awareness only refers to the work of knowing or thinking. Hence, in the case of God, awareness exists as the work of knowing done by God, even though it cannot be defined as any materialistic entity. It only means that God is doing the work of thinking, due to His omnipotent and unimaginable nature or capability. In the case of the soul, it is doing the work of thinking due to the presence of materialistic awareness as an individual entity in which inert energy is the essential material.
Swāmi Vidyāraṇya was a great scholar, who wrote a commentary on the Vedas. He compared Cidātmā or God with cidābhāsa or the soul. In both, the same relatively-true awareness must exist for comparison. If you take the mediated God, which is a Human Incarnation like Kṛṣṇa, He is comparable with an ordinary human being. Both have the same relatively-true awareness as their individual souls. The soul in Kṛṣṇa has become God since God has merged with it fully. In the ordinary human being, the same relatively-true awareness exists without God. The particular soul in Kṛṣṇa, which is the relatively-true awareness, is God. But the soul of an ordinary human being, which is also the same relatively-true awareness, is not God. Both the basic relative souls exist as one (ābhāsate) and are also experienced as one (Anubhūyate ca). The second soul, which is the ordinary human soul, looks like the first soul, which is the divine soul, in our experience. This is because both have relative awareness that is produced from inert energy and the material brain and nervous system. But when we see the Gītā emerging from Kṛṣṇa, we confirm that the soul of Kṛṣṇa is God because of the unimaginable excellent spiritual knowledge (Prajñānaṃ Brahma) being delivered by Him. In this way, we can say that the soul of Kṛṣṇa is Cidātmā and the soul of the ordinary human being is cidābhāsa. However, this does not mean that the unimaginable God is cit. It only means that the cit (soul) of Kṛṣṇa became one with the unimaginable God, due to the complete merging of the unimaginable God with it.
People take the word cit to mean knowledge (jñānam) and even unimaginable spiritual knowledge (prajñānam), which is not correct. To support their claim that God is cit they quote the Vedic statements “Satyaṃ jñānam...” and “Prajñānaṃ Brahma”. Acutally, cit only means awareness, which even exists in birds and animals. Jñānam means knowledge and prajñānam means unimaginable excellent spiritual knowledge. Their argument is that since cit or awareness is the basic material of ordinary knowledge or excellent knowledge, there is no difference between awareness and knowledge. That is not true. Awareness is like a mere lump of gold. Knowledge means a golden chain. Can you purchase the lump of gold and a golden ornament for the same rate? The ornament requires a lot of talent to design it, which cannot be neglected. Therefore, a golden ornament costs more than just the lump of gold out of which it is made. Similarly, knowledge and excellent knowledge are to be differentiated from mere awareness.
The four great statements (mahāvākyas) also can be interpreted as comparisons between God or the Human Incarnation and an ordinary human being. One is the unimaginable God or the Creator appearing through the human medium and the other is the imaginable human being, which is just the medium. The human being (medium) is only a tiny part of creation. As far as the external body and the internal soul of the Human Incarnation and the ordinary human being are concered, both are exactly one and the same. Both are human beings from the point of view of the relatively-true soul and the relatively-true body. When two items have some similarity, a figure of speech called a simile is used to compare them. If both have even more similarity, a metaphor is used. A metaphor is stronger form of simile in which the word indicating comparison (like) gets dropped. In Sanskrit, it is called a luptopamā vācaka upamā'laṅkāra in which ‘iva’, the word indicating comparison (upamā vācaka), gets dropped. An example of a simile is “Her face is pleasant like the moon”. An example of a metaphor is “Her pleasant face is the moon” in which comparison word ‘like’ is dropped. If the similarity is very high, the figure of speech becomes an epithet or rūpaka in which one item is addressed as the second item, such as “This is the pleasant face-moon”.
There is a very high similarity between an ordinary human being and the Human Incarnation—in terms of both their souls and bodies. Hence, the first three mahāvākyas state that the soul is God in the sense of a metaphor (or epithet). The first mahāvākya is “Aham Brahmā'smi”, which literally means “I am God”. What it really means is that I, the ordinary soul, I am like the Human Incarnation of God, in many respects. Similary, the second mahāvākya, “Tat tvaṃ asi”, which literally means “You are God”, actually means that you, the ordinary soul, are like the Human Incarnation of God, in many respects. The third mahāvākya “Ayamātmā Brahma”, which literally means “He is God”, actually means that he, the ordinary soul, is like the Human Incarnation of God, in many respects.
In both the ordinary human being and the Human Incarnation of God, the souls are made of the relatively-true awareness, which is a specific work-form of the inert energy. The inert energy released in both bodies gets transformed into awareness, in their respective functioning brains and nervous systems. The unimaginable God exists in a merged state in the human being component of the Human Incarnation. But, of course, He is not perceived in any way. Hence, the highest similarity between the Human Incarnation and the human being is not at all disturbed, in the external sense. Thus, the first three mahāvākyas establish the total perceived similarity between the basic souls and bodies of both.
The fourth mahāvākya, “Prajñānaṃ Brahma”, literally means “Excellent true spiritual knowledge is God”. This too is a figure of speech and it actually means that the possessor or giver of excellent true spiritual knowledge is the Human Incarnation of God. This figure of speech is called a metonymy, which is similar to jahallakṣanā, in Sanskrit. The excellent knowledge is basically knowledge; not God. It is inherently different from its possessor (God). But since it is associated with the possessor, the possessor can be referred to by the quality.
This mahāvākya brings out the difference between the ordinary soul and the Human Incarnation of God through inference. One infers the existence of the unimaginable God merged into the human medium of the Human Incarnation through the miracles performed by the Incarnation and the miraculous knowledge delivered by Him. Miracles are unimaginable events and they point to the existence of their unimaginable source, which is the unimaginable God. The miraculous knowledge is most important for devotees since it gives correct guidance to devotees. These two indicators show the difference between the Human Incarnation of God and a human being. A human being may possess good knowledge (jñānam), but that knowledge cannot be of the level of the unimaginable spiritual knowledge (prajñānam) possessed by the Human Incarnation.
The word cit is far below even the knowledge of a scholar. Needless to say, it is far far below the excellent spiritual knowledge of the Human Incarnation. Cit means the mere awareness that is present even in birds and animals. Hence, you cannot use the word Cit or Cidātmā (awareness) for God and the word cidābhāsa (false awareness) for the soul. You can use the word prajñānam, which is excellent true knowledge, to indicate God. To indicate the soul, you can use the word prajñānābhāsa, which is knowledge that appears to be excellent, but which is not true.
The first three mahāvākyas can also be interpreted in the sense that I, you and he, as souls, are the greatest among all items in creation. This is because the soul, which is awareness, is called parā prakṛti, which is the superior category of created items. All other items of creation are categorized as aparā prakṛti, which means the inferior category of creation. As per this interpretation, the word Brahman is merely taken in its root-sense (yaugika prayoga) of greatness. Anything that is the greatest item within a given category can be called Brahman and examples of such usage of the word Brahman are found in the Veda and the Gītā (Annaṃ Brahmeti; Brahmākṣara samudbhavam).
The interpretation of the fourth mahāvākya can be that the spiritual knowledge spoken by the Sadguru or the Human Incarnation is the greatest (Prajñānaṃ Brahma) and that it is far greater than the knowledge (jñānam) of a human scholar. We cannot equate awareness (cit), which is even present in birds and animals with jñānam or prajñānam simply because it is the basic material of knowledge. There can at least be some comparison between an animal, an ordinary human being and a scholarly human being because they all have the basic relatively-true awareness (cit) in common. But you can never bring prajñānam into the picture for comparison because prajñānam is the work done by the unimaginable God. It only reflects through the relative awareness of His medium (Incarnation).
The sūtram quoted by you is “Ābhāsa eva ca”. It is not “Cidābhāsa eva ca”. We have no objection if the soul is said to be an illusion since the soul is a tiny part of the very huge illusion called the world. The soul is certainly an illusion of God. But God is not cit and hence, the soul is not the false cit. The word Cidātmā can mean soul because cit is the relative awareness and Ātman means the inert energy, which is its cause and which pervades the awareness, similar to the gold pervading the golden chain. Ātman comes from the verb ‘atati’, which means pervading. Cidātmā can also mean the relative awareness or the soul of the human medium of the mediated God (Incarnation). In that case, the Ātman can be taken to mean the unimaginable God merged into and pervading that relative awareness. Here, the word Ātman is taken to mean God is not in the primary sense of the word (mukhyārtha) but, in an associated secondary sense (gauṇārtha) of the word. God is referred to as Ātman because God is important to the world as the Ātman is important to the body.
God is said to be omniscient, which means that He knows every bit of creation, including its past, present and future (Vedāham...—Gītā). Is this omniscience possible for the awareness generated from inert energy in the brain and nervous system? Never! In that case, there is no point in using the word awareness in the case of the unimaginable God. Cit or awareness is an item within creation and every item within creation is rejected as not being God (Neti neti iti ācakṣhate tadvidaḥ—Veda). The Creator and creation are the two separate items. The Creator cannot be the same as creation since the Creator alone existed before creation. The causal link between the Creator and creation is unimaginable because we can only know the links between two imaginable items within the imaginable creation. We have no other example of a causal link between an unimaginable item and an imaginable item within creation because the entire creation is imaginable. Just like awareness or cit, bliss too cannot be treated to be God. Bliss cannot be God for the same reason why cit cannot be God. Bliss is one of the qualities of cit. If bliss itself were God, there would not be a statement in the Veda like “That is the bliss of God (Sa eko Brahmaṇa ānandaḥ—Veda)”. When you say that this is the shirt of Devadatta, it clearly means that the shirt is not Devadatta.
In fact, Śaṅkara Himself defined the ultimate God as the Parabrahman, who is totally unimaginable. He said that no word can reveal or define (the nature of) God. Hence, silence alone can represent the ultimate God (Mauna-vyākhyā-prakaṭita-Parabrahma-tattvam...). The word Brahman means any item which is the greatest in a given category (Bṛhi - vṛddhau). The Veda is the greatest among Hindu spiritual scriptures and hence, the Veda is said to be Brahman (Brahmākṣara samudbhavam—Gītā). God can also be said to be Brahman since He is the greatest among all the categories. To avoid the possible confusion, between the various ‘greatests’ in different categories and God, who is the greatest in all categories, the word Parabrahman was introduced by Śaṅkara. This word is specifically reserved for the ultimate unimaginable God. The prefix ‘para’ in this context means ‘other’. So, Parabrahman means the Brahman which is other than the various Brahmans within different categories.
We have no objection, if you say that cit or awareness is Brahman, if you are considering Brahman to mean any greatest item in a category, as per its root-meaning (yaugika prayoga). Awareness is indeed the greatest among all items of creation. But you must remember that the unimaginable God is greater than cit and hence, God is said to be Parabrahman which means ‘other than Brahman’ or ‘other than cit’. We have to be very careful in understanding the meaning of a word, in a given context. Otherwise, the greatest confusion will result (Śabdajāla mahāraṇyam, Citta bhramaṇa kāraṇam).
End of Part-2. To be continuued...