Posted on: 25 Jan 2021
[Śrī Anil asked: While presenting Your divine knowledge in a discussion forum, a Muslim devotee commented as below. Swāmi, please give Your response to this.
“First, if God is beyond everything and unimaginable and all knowing and we cannot reach Him with our limited minds, then whoever is the Incarnate Being, born from His mother’s womb as a baby, who has been fed milk, who learns by trial over time, is definitely not God. He is regular creation and a human being.
Second, you say God created this world for His entertainment and play. Then you say He is keen about teaching and guiding humans and so He Himself comes directly in all generations as Incarnations to preach and guide! The contradiction between both acts is equal to infinity. Also a Real God with all the super divine traits does not need to ‘play’ and seek ‘entertainment’. This is another contradiction which is equal to infinity.
Third, If God has to be human incarnate with full human traits so that we can see Him and know Him, then what significant difference would this make in comparison to sending human prophets and messengers with His guidance and teachings. The only faith on earth claiming your belief about the one and only super divine, unimaginable, all-knowing God with all the holiness and divine traits and linking this faith to all the prophets and messengers sent with God’s consistent guidance and teachings through all the ages is; Islam. So, if you believe in God as you mentioned, there should not be much confusion for you to reach and embrace the faith of Islam, the Only Universal Faith claiming your claims and preaching of the One and Only Creator. That if you are really looking for the Truth and not just looking for entertainment and play. A God with the traits you mentioned should have communicated very wisely and clearly to humanity and should have made the truth very clear and provable…just like the super accurate sciences He created including mathematics and physics.”]
Swāmi replied: The response to this person’s objections can be given in three parts corresponding to his three objections.
The first part is about the concept of God’s incarnation. The electric current is invisible, but it has entered a visible metallic wire and has identified itself with the wire. Clearly, the wire is not the current and the current is not the wire. We agree to this because even a just-born baby would know this! But we consider the electrified wire to be the electric current for all practical purposes. Suppose I caution a child telling it to not touch electricity. It does not mean that the child should avoid touching the invisible electric current. It only means that the child should not touch the electrified wire with which the electric current has merged perfectly and from which the current cannot be isolated. In that sense, even a scientist will refer to the electrified wire as the electric current itself. In the atmosphere, there are innumerable electrons travelling around. Electric current only means flowing electrons. But scientists do not call that ‘electric current’ in the atmosphere as electric current because that current in the atmosphere cannot be experienced in the form of an electric shock. The electric current (stream of electrons) flowing in the metallic wire is called electric current since a shock is experienced on touching the electrified wire.
Know that Prophet Mohammed Himself should be called Allāh because He was a Human Incarnation of Allāh. Seeing the properties of the copper wire like its leanness and its reddish colour, you should not say that the electrified wire is not the current just because the stream of electrons, which is the actual current, does not have these properties of the wire. The wire is the medium which is charged by the electric current. The properties of the medium are not affected by the current or the God that charges (enters) it. It is true that the human body of the Human Incarnation may have properties like birth, death, hunger, thirst, sleep, sex etc. It is also true that God who charges that human medium may not have these properties. But there is no interference of God with the properties of the medium. The flowing current does not affect the properties of the wire. Yet the electrified wire must be considered to be the electric current.
There are two types of entertainment. One is the good entertainment desired by good people and the other is the bad entertainment desired by bad people. A bad person gets entertained by torturing others and is called a sadist. A good person wants entertainment or proper engagement. For example, a good and rich person might want to establish an institution and run it on the lines of justice. Do you say that such entertainment is unnecessary for that a good person? A good person doing some good work is to be praised. The person’s entertainment or engagement is only an associated point. It does not spoil the justified lines on which the institution is being run.
You are paid a personal allowance (PA) and a daily allowance (DA) to attend a seminar and present a research paper there. You have done your duty very well. While returning home, you wanted to purchase a sari for your wife. It is a way of getting some entertainment through love. Is such entertainment wrong and not needed? God created this world for entertainment to enjoy the real love (devotion) of His devotees. Is such enjoyment of the climax of love shown by devotees unnecessary? God is not a stone. He has unimaginable awareness. Creating the world to enjoy the true love from His true devotees and to return the same true love to those real devotees is the climax of good and is highly appreciable. Do we also not similarly enjoy the love of our loved ones? We can understand God very well, if we understand about ourselves.
A professor comes to class and teaches a subject explaining the fundamental concepts. For the next class, he sends his research scholar (students) to further elaborate the subject and give additional clarifications to the students for which he need not come directly. Hence, we agree that God comes down as a Human Incarnation to preach the fundamental concepts of spiritual knowledge and He also sends His messengers to clarify the subject further in an elaborate way. By coming into the world for preaching, the greatness of God is only enhanced. It is not tarnished at all. The professor’s coming to the class in person shows the lack of ego of the professor. The same is true in the case of God.
I think that you are suffering from such ego and that you are rubbing it on God. What is your problem if God wants to directly come into the world and directly preach to humanity? Of course, Prophet Mohammed, being the Human Incarnation of God, opposed this concept of the Human Incarnation. This is because egoistic and jealous devotees had crucified His preceding Human Incarnation called Jesus. You are praising your religion for which I have no objection. But do not criticize other religions by saying that your religion alone is true. The same unimaginable God or Allah as called by you, came to different parts of the world in different forms and delivered the same preaching using different examples in different languages following different cultures. If you criticize any religion, you are only criticizing your own religion and your own Allāh.
Keywords:
| Shri Datta Swami | Incarnation, Divine Entertainment And Islam | Allah Islam