Posted on: 27 Dec 2022
[Sri JSR Prasad asked: Mamātmā bhūtabhāvanaḥ - in this verse, Shankara wrote that His Atmaa is generating the materialistic creation (bhāvayati – utpādayati - vardhayati), please explain this. -- At Your divine holy lotus feet]
Swami Replied: The word ‘mamātmā’ can be taken in two ways:- 1. My individual soul (prakṛtiṃ viddhi me parām). This means that the individual soul (jīvātmā) of His creation is always thinking about the materialistic world only (bhāvayati) and not about God. 2. The word ‘mamātmā’ means the soul of the incarnation Shankara. Such soul is Parabrahman or unmediated God. Such Parabrahman is creating and developing (utpādayati) the materialistic creation. Ramanuja told that ‘mamātmā’ means the mind of God (saṅkalpa) creates and develops the materialistic creation. Madhva told that ‘mamātmā’ means the external physical body of God, which is creation (This body is not the energetic body of God. The creation is surrounding the energetic body and the creation itself is taken as the external body like a coat over the shirt.). This external body is having cosmic energy as the source of matter and awareness and hence, the external body or creation itself is generating the material of the creation. All these meanings are possible as per the concept selected for the word ‘mamātmā’.