Posted on: 24 Aug 2018
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
Shri G Lakshman (Mumbai) asked:- You told that God is unimaginable and omnipotent having the power beyond logic. At the same time You say that God does everything with logic for the safety of humanity, which has to proceed based on logical analysis. How do You reconcile both these with more clarified explanation?
Swami replied:- Whenever there is necessity to use the power beyond logic, using that unimaginable power in such appropriate place is also doing an action based on logical analysis. A cruel lion is coming to kill an innocent good baby. You and I will go back to attack the lion because we don’t have the omnipotence to fight and kill that lion. Actually, in such context logical action to protect justice requires fighting with the lion. But, we are not going to do that logically based action requiring justice because if we go and fight with the lion, we can’t protect the baby since the lion will kill us first and then the baby. In such case, we are giving up our lives foolishly without protecting justice. In our place, if God exists in human form, He will just warn the lion to go back and lion will hear His order and will go back, which we can’t achieve by even fighting with it. God achieves it simply by order due to omnipotence by having unimaginable power to use it whenever it is necessary and logically justified. In this case of lion, logically justified human strength fails and hence, there is an urgent need of use of unimaginable power only. Hence, there is no contradiction between the two statements made by Me.
All the scholars describe the nature in actions of God taking worldly examples in every step. These scholars say that God has not done like this because such concept is not justified logically due to the absence of worldly logic and justice. By such procedure, these scholars are confining God to be an item controlled by worldly logic only. Such resultant God is like an ordinary human being having limited powers and limited knowledge, in which case the item has to compulsorily follow the worldly logic only and should not exhibit unimaginable power. Generally, philosophers misunderstanding monism of Shankara follow this procedure everywhere in their books because their intension is that God shall be reduced to an ordinary human being so that the philosopher himself being an ordinary human being can claim very easily himself to be the God!
Hence, in the proper place, the appropriate power, whether it is imaginable or unimaginable is used fully by God. In the case of human being also, the proper power to the required extent should be used in the place of proper context. While preparing vegetable, you should add salt fully (to the required extent) and you should not add salt at all while preparing a sweet. You shall become angry fully when there is a context requiring necessity of your anger. If a child is doing mischief, we shall become angry to the required extent and if the child is not controlled, we shall even beat it to bring control. When you are talking with elders, you shall always represent peacefully without showing any anger. Even while speaking about the character of Rama, the embodiment of justice and peace, He is described by Valmiki as a divine person becoming angry wherever the context is required and even beating if the context is still required (Sthaanakrodhah prahartaa cha). He became seriously angry with sage Jaabaali on giving wrong advice and had beaten with arrow to kill Vaali, Ravana etc. Some elders advise to have an average middle character of both peace and anger, which is also not correct because showing lesser anger to bad person is useless and showing little anger to elders is also not justified. If the cook adds a little salt to the vegetable and to the sweet in average way, is it correct? You must have the balance of your mind and power of analysis of the context, which requires what to what extent to be done in which place? Maintaining average policy everywhere is your impotence of analysis and balance of your mind in judging the context and its requirement. God showed love to good souls and protected them. He showed anger to bad people and punished them (Paritraanaaya saadhuunaam, Vinaashaaya cha dushkrutaam- Gita). God says that doing both fully in the proper places is justice (Dharmasamsthaapanaarthaaya). If you show average behaviour in both places, neither the good person is fully protected nor is the bad person fully controlled. Showing a specific behaviour without analysis in a wrong place is also foolishness. If you show another cheek to a very cruel fellow, who has beaten your one cheek, he will beat your other cheek also with double force thinking that you are impotent to react! Of course, if the opponent is having a mixed character, you may use this trick to bring realization in him by provoking his good side. But, if you have not estimated him properly, you must be prepared to receive beating on your other cheek also since your trick is based on trial and error!
Similarly, let us take the context of creation of world from the omnipotent God. You compare this concept to the creation of imaginary world by an awakening person having full control over it like God. When a person having little potency creates imaginary world, the imaginary world is non-existent before him and is hence created or modified in desired way and destroyed whenever the person wished so. In all these concepts, there is perfect similarity in comparing God creating world to the person imagining an imaginary world. The similar point is: The world (real world created by God and imaginary world created by person) is non-existent and untrue before creator (God or person) because one perfect reality can’t be created or modified anyway or destroyed by another perfect equal reality. The difference is: the person enjoying his imaginary world can’t enjoy it clearly as he enjoys this real external world and this also proves that the enjoyed imaginary world is unreal, otherwise, it would have been enjoyed clearly like this real world. If the person has to enjoy the imaginary world as real world, he needs ignorance or sleep in which the person enters the imaginary world through an imaginable form to enjoy the imaginable world as real world. But, in the case of God, there are no two worlds like real and imaginary worlds. The only one world created was unreal-imaginary before the real God. After creation, the world need not continue to be unreal like imaginary world of a person, but can be become real in the stage of entertainment due to the omnipotence of God by which the imaginary world becoming real doesn’t contradict the real God, who is beyond worldly logic.
If required, the created world can be partially true and partially untrue as per the requirement of God. Shankara wanted to enter the house of Mandanamishra through bolted doors. For Him, the entire world including the house of Mandanamishra has become true for the sake of entertainment. His requirement is only that the bolted doors shall become untrue because He wants to enter the house. As per His wish, the world including the house of Mandanamishra remained true while the bolted doors alone became untrue allowing Him to enter the house!
In the case of the person having little potency, the created imaginary world must always be unreal and hence, can’t be enjoyed clearly like the external real world at any stage unless he enters in to ignorance or sleep. This is inevitable limitation to the human being. Our God is omnipotent unlike the ordinary human being. Our God has unimaginable power to do any impossible work if such logically required necessity exits. Of course, He will not do every impossible work, though it is not necessary, just like an egoistic demon trying to express his unimaginable potency on achieving it through some special effort like getting a boon from God through rigid penance. Hence, exactly at this point, God need not feel sad like a human being having limited potency, which restricts the real enjoyment of unreal imaginary world. God can use His omnipotence to make this untrue world to appear true like the external real world appearing as true. You need not doubt that how this world becomes true before God, in which case, God can neither do miracles nor destroy this world (in which the world disappears) just by His will. You are always binding God with the rope of worldly logic. By the power of omnipotence of God, the world created, which was essentially untrue during the creation is now maintained as perfectly clear and equally true world to get clear and real enjoyment from the imaginary world that has become real. After creation of this world, God enjoyed this world by seeing it as you enjoyed this real world by seeing it really and clearly (Saakshii chetaa… Veda). Don’t rub the deficiency of simile on omnipotent God throughout your study about God. He will be following the worldly logic throughout His course of action, but, becomes beyond logic wherever there is a justified need.
The omnipotence of God to do actions in unimaginable ways must be exhibited to the humanity of this world to give a constant message continuously by exhibition of unimaginable events, called as miracles since it is the fundamental requirement to maintain control against sin in the humanity. The message of the miracles is that the unimaginable God with unimaginable power (omnipotence) exists to punish the sinner even if the sinner escapes the punishment to be given by the Government through false ways. Based on the frequent weakness of the human mind attacked by vices, such frequent exhibition of miracles is necessary just like police patrolling is essential to control sinful tendency of human beings. These miracles are like hard sticks or pistols in the hands of the policemen, which warn the sinners regarding the inevitable stingy punishments for indiscipline and various sins. God is said to be omniscient, which is also a warning to sinners that God knows every bit and truth from which the sinner can’t escape by any trick. This exhibition of omnipotence and omniscience of God through miracles is done frequently through human incarnations as the basic activity. This is for the sake of humanity and not for any personal purpose of God. Since sinners can’t escape omniscient and omnipotent God from punishment, some of them have chosen the path of denying such God with such power so that they feel that they can escape the sin if they take care of the Government here. To escape from Government, at the very outset, they say that they can remain ethical even without concept of the God. Such statement is not real and it is only to create good impression about them in the view of public so that they can do sins in safety and hidden manner! These atheists feel that they are really enjoying the full freedom, which is going to land them in very cruel punishments where they don’t have even a trace of freedom!
Leaving the above mentioned inevitable exhibition of omniscience and omnipotence of God (to control the sin) and selecting the personal places of God (the places, which are used by God for personal purpose of enjoyment), if you take the omnipotence of God used in proper places (unlike a self projecting egoistic demon using unimaginable power in improper place), such properly used omnipotence also brings the highest place to God. Ex:- In the case of God, the cause (He) generates the world, which is not at all existent in Him (either in subtle state or in other state like power). At the same time, the generated product is unreal (so that it becomes laughable when one says that he has created an unreal item, which is like horn of rabbit). In His case, both the concepts are real, which bring the highest place to God (which is the meaning of word Brahman). The worldly logic shows both theories:
i) the product exists in its cause in the form of its potency (like the structure of the tree decided by various different bio-chemical constituents of cells in the seed). This is Satkaarya vaada.
ii) The product does not exist in the cause Asatkaarya vaada. Both these theories are confined to the worldly items involving worldly logic.
Both these theories do not apply or apply simultaneously to the unimaginable nature of the God. When the world is created, it is Asatkaarya vaada because if the product exists in the cause already, how can you say that the product is created since it existed in the cause even before its creation? This will also reduce the greatness of God since He is projecting some item hidden in Him as His created item! Alternatively, another opposing objection about Asatkaarya vaada is that how something is created from nothing? This also becomes fooling of us since God is creating that which doesn’t exist and anybody can do such false creation! To resolve this, we can say that product didn’t exist directly in the cause, but, existed in the cause in the form of potency to generate that specific product. If this potency is absent, a mango plant also should be born from lemon seed! Shankara brought further resolution by saying that the power is not different from the cause since there can’t be unimaginable cause and unimaginable power separately because any number of unimaginable items results finally in one unimaginable item only. You must confine this resolution of Shankara to unimaginable God only and not to extend it to the imaginable seeds of mango and lemon (worldly logic) since both seeds have their specific bio-chemical potencies to generate their specific plants. Awareness is also an imaginable item like the seed having the plan of ideas of imaginary items observed from the external world to express imaginary world or dream. You can’t argue that an unimaginable component may also appear in the dream. Such unimaginable component is linked with imaginable parts only even though the final component looks like unimaginable. An animal having eight legs and two tails is unimaginable, but, the components like tails and legs are imaginable only. Hence, except the unimaginable God, the usual imaginable human awareness can’t create anything, which is totally new. Before creating this world, God did not have the experience of some other world.
You may argue that if God is getting real and clear entertainment, after creation (by converting untrue world in to true world by His omnipotence), what is the necessity for the God to enter the world as incarnation to move along with ordinary human beings? This purpose is totally different. God did not enter this world to have a better clear vision of the world like a person going to eye-specialist to get his cataract operated for better vision of this real world or like an ordinary person entering ignorance in order to have the real experience of his imaginary world. His main purposes to become incarnation are totally different:
i) He wanted to appear before some climax devotees, talk and live with them since they desired so.
ii) He wanted to mix with human beings closely and preach them the right knowledge and also clarify their doubts with correct answers.
For this purpose, He incarnates entering and merging with a devoted human being to do this program. When He merged with the human being, the real experience of the world can be grasped from the closely merged devotee also like the heat gained by cold iron rod on associating with hot iron rod. When this facility is available otherwise, a good administrator will not do any self effort to attain the same facility using special power. You have gone to your friend’s house to stay with him for a few days. You come to know the information of the city in which your friend is living from your friend through a conversation. For that purpose, you need not go around the city and study the atmosphere personally wasting your time. This does not mean that you are unable to go round the city and get the information personally.
Hence, the analysis of any subject especially belonging to God must be not only steep and deep, but also, must be cool and peaceful examining the change of situation every time at every micro step to find out its correctly required explanation.