Posted on: 22 Jul 2018
Shri Anil asked:- Padanamaskaram Swami
1) A person in quora forum asked the following
'If Jesus is Almighty God, why did He fear dying and was so stressed that He sweated blood the night before?' Kindly give Your answer to it.
At Your Lotus Feet, anil
Swami replied:- Jesus is a human incarnation of the Father of heaven in whom the unimaginable God is existing in merged state. The human incarnation is a single face resulting by the merge of two components:-
1) The God component and
2) The human being component.
When current enters the metallic wire, the properties of wire (like the colour of metal, leanness as wire etc.,) are not at all disturbed. The wire attains the property of current as additional property, which is giving shock when touched. This new property of the current attained by the wire also does not disturb the normal properties of the wire. Jesus, a devoted human being, is selected by God to undergo the suffering of sins of deserving devotees of God. It is the love of God to undergo suffering for the punishments of His beloved devotees standing in climax of devotion. Emmanuel is the word that means God came down to save His people and not to save all the people. The interpretation that God came to save all the people is not correct, but, it is useful to convert everybody into devotee of God through sympathy by saying so as per the Arthavaada (Arthavaada is a lie used to do some good work and such lie is not wrong.). Hence, the soul, called as Jesus, was selected by God for this purpose because of its divine virtues like kindness, patience etc. The soul was also willing to do this work of God and hence, such good soul is selected by God. But, when this good soul is associated with a human body, the soul develops some sort of attachment to the body due to the virtue of friendship. This association became naturally strong in the case of Jesus, in course of a long time of life for more than 30 years. Due to this long association, the soul is superimposed on the body due to excess of love to the body. You can find such superimposition in strong love of a boy and girl since each one feels that he/she is the same as the other partner! This is the nature of human soul even though it is merged with the God, who is non-interfering with the personal qualities of the soul. If you go to the house of your friend and stay for a few days for your personal work in that city, you will mind your work without interfering with discussions between your friend and his wife! Due to this freedom of soul, the association of body imparts tremendous love on the soul to such extent, in which the soul feels that it is the body. By this, the suffering of body is experienced by the soul. The expected suffering of the punishments of the devoted souls by Him was viewed by Jesus as tremendous one. Hence, He suffered a lot to say that He sweated blood. Sweating blood explains the intensity of suffering as a figure speech and need not be taken as reality. The next day suffering is going to be so high that even Jesus prayed to avoid the punishment, if possible. But, He immediately remembered His acceptance already given to God and told God that let the punishment take place since it is the will of God. Even after crucifixion, He cried with thirst based on the human nature and questioned God for leaving Him so. Actually God didn’t leave Him, who is also equally experiencing that suffering being merged with Jesus through the Father of heaven. Due to this homogenous and perfect merge only, we call the human incarnation itself as the ultimate God. In fact, God is appearing through the human form and is the master of the soul as well as the human body. God takes the place of the soul and the soul is degraded to the level (phase) of the body. Hence, the ultimate suffering is experienced by the ultimate God through Father of heaven and Jesus. Even then, the media of unimaginable God (Father of heaven as first energetic body and Jesus as human body) also undergoes suffering in the service of God. Jesus, Father of heaven and the ultimate unimaginable God are three, who underwent the suffering and this is the meaning of the statement of Jesus, who told that He will resurrect the body in three days. This is also the meaning of the word Aatreya in the name Dattaatreya. Aatreya means not three, but, one since al the three merged perfectly to become one.
Every human soul tries to become God seeing the status and fame of human incarnation having miraculous powers. If the actual suffering of the human incarnation for the sake of its devotees is realized, people will run away from such monism with fastest speed! Hence, in reality, it is not the fruit of the effort of the soul, but, it is the duty assigned to the servant by God. Once, a devotee came to Shri Satya Sai Baba and asked Him to transfer His state to him. Immediately, Baba agreed and gave His state to the devotee, by keeping His hand on the head of the devotee. Then, the devotee heard thousands of cries asking Baba for help in the difficulties. Even by hearing so many cries, the devotee felt as if his head is breaking into million pieces! The poor devotee doesn’t know the later state in which the devotee becomes God through human incarnation and undergoes the suffering of all those, who cried for help!! Had he known this subsequent fact also, he would have become mad. This is the reason why Paramahamsa said that He would like to be an ant biting the sugar and not to be the sugar itself to be bitten by the devotee-ants!
2) Shri Anil: Referencing to the statement 'The Veda says that God is condensed knowledge (Prajnaanaghanah)' and since it is applied to mediated God (Father of Heaven or Datta), how the special knowledge or Prajnaanam can be condensed since the awareness of God is unimaginable? Is that the merge of unimaginable God in first created energetic form is meant by this statement? Condensation can be applied to the body of 'Datta' or His relative awareness, but whether it can be applied to the special knowledge of unimaginable God being condensed. Kindly clarify the meaning of condensed knowledge here.
Swami replied:- The word ‘Prajnaanaghanah’ means condensed or solidified knowledge. Actually, this is a figure of speech only. When we see a profound scholar of a subject, we say that that scholar is personified subject. This doesn’t mean that the subject or knowledge is the awareness (as the basic material of knowledge), condensed to become soul and body. Of course, the scientific process in such a way is possible since awareness is a form of inert energy and inert energy condensed is matter. We can say that the awareness is directly the soul and on condensation becomes materialized body also as per the scientific process. In such case, every human being (human body as well as human soul) can be called as condensed awareness. But, we are calling a specific human being only, who is the scholar in a specific subject as condensed or personified specific subject. Hence, such scientific process to say that any human being or energetic being is a condensed form of awareness, can’t be applied to this specific case of the profound scholar. The main reason for this hurdle in application is that the word ‘Prajnaanam’ does not mean mere awareness, but, means exceptional spiritual knowledge for which the basic material is awareness. You can call a specifically designed golden chain as gold in loose sense. If there is no difference between lump of gold and golden chain, instead of the golden jewel, you can purchase a lump of gold itself! Hence, Prajnaanam means exceptional spiritual knowledge. The prefix ‘Pra’ means exceptional and the word ‘Jnaanam’ means spiritual knowledge (Satyam Jnaanam... Veda). You can’t call even the knowledge as awareness. Knowledge is not mere awareness that is seen in even animals, but, the spiritual knowledge that finds out the truth by analysis. Other subjects as analysis of creation can be called as knowledge that help the spiritual knowledge, which finds out ultimate truth. Awareness means mere non-inert nervous energy without any thought as found in the last minutes of death without any thought. The word awareness is separately indicated by the word ‘chit’ or ‘chaitanyam’. If knowledge and awareness are one and the same, how a person having awareness without knowledge, is scolded as ignorant or ajnaani or a person without knowledge?
But, you may argue that Shankara told that both Jnaanam and Prajnaanam mean awareness only so that every soul is God having excellent knowledge. What you said is correct, but, you must recognize the context of the atmosphere in which He told like that to twist the true concept for the practical purpose of developing the receivers to the next higher step. He is dealing with atheists, who are not having excellent spiritual knowledge and they don’t agree that God having excellent spiritual knowledge exists separately. The task of Shankara was to convert them into theists accepting the existence of God. For this, He told that God is every soul and since soul exists, God must exist. In this process of this special program, He has to tell so and you should not take this as His real intension. The reason is that mere awareness is found even in a tiny creature and if you say that it is God having excellent spiritual knowledge, such creature is not exhibiting such talent. If both preacher and student are the same God, how Shankara had four students to learn knowledge from Him, when they themselves have the same knowledge of Shankara, being the same God?
3) Shri Anil: A muslim devotee 'Mohamed Ameen' gives the following argument regarding seeing God with naked eye in quora forum.
[Eyes can not bear the vision of God. He tells us in the Quran:
“Vision cannot grasp Him, but His Grasp is over all vision.” (Quran 6:103)
Moses, to whom God spoke and gave great miracles, was chosen by God to be His Prophet. It is said that he thought that, since God used to speak to him, he might be able to actually see God. The story is in the Quran, where God tells us what happened:
“And when Moses arrived at Our appointed time and his Lord spoke to him, he said, ‘My Lord, show me (Yourself) that I may look at You.’ (God) said, ‘You will not see Me, but look at the mountain; if it should remain in place, then you will see Me.’ But when his Lord appeared to the mountain, He rendered it level, and Moses fell unconscious. And when he awoke, he said, ‘Exalted are You! I have repented to You, and I am the first of the believers.’”
(Quran 7:143) God made it clear that no-one, including the great prophet Moses, can bear the sight of the divine, for God is too great to be grasped by human eyes in this life. According to the Quran, Moses realized his request was in error; therefore, he sought forgiveness from God for having asked.
Please give Your reply.]
Swami replied:- The energetic body of God is very intensive with energy having very high frequency so that these materalized human eyes can’t grasp the divine vision of the mediated God. Not only the eyes, but also the human being will be turned to ash if the vision of the first energetic incarnation takes place! You must always remember that the actual ultimate God is unimaginable, not grasped even by the imagination of brain of not only human beings but also of the divine angels. The question of vision of God comes only when such unimaginable God is mediated by the energetic body having intensity beyond the range of grasping power of human eyes. When Arjuna asked for the vision of the first energetic incarnation in the original state, called as Yogeshwara, the Lord told that He will give the new divine eyes or capability of sight to see such vision. Then, the Lord showed the divine vision of the first energetic incarnation having energy wilth very high intensity so that Arjuna says that the energy is equal to the energy of thousand Suns appearing at the same time (Divi Suurya sahasrasya... Gita)! In the case of Moses, God did miracle through which the existence of God is proved through inference in which perception of the miracle exists. This means that any genuine miracle proves the existence of God. This will avoid the necessity of vision of God. Any devotee can realize the existence of God through such inference even without perception. This miracle covers a large range of devotees to believe the existence of God not by perception of mediated God but through the miracle performed by God by inference.
I have explained the experiences of Arjuna and Moses here. The experience of this Dattaswami before God Datta merged with Him was that God Datta was seen by Him in energetic form having the intensity of energy that can be grasped by the human eyes. This means that the omnipotent God can reduce the intensity of His energetic body to the grasping range of human eyes. God can do anything and He chooses the way He likes. After the merge with God Datta (the first energetic incarnation), Dattaswami couldn’t see God Datta any more. He was very much aspiring to see God Datta as seen previously. One day, a lady was possessed by God Datta, who came to His house and was giving correct advises to the devotees for their problems and the prophecy was found to be correct in every case. It was proved beyond doubt that God Datta possessed her and was speaking through her throat. Since even minute details of the problem of every devotee was spoken by her! Then, Dattaswami prostrated to her praying for the vision of God Datta as given previously. The lady laughed at the desire of Dattaswami and Dattaswami thought that God Datta was laughing since Dattaswami was not deserving for it any more. After laughing for some time, the lady told that if Dattaswami wants to see God Datta, Dattaswami should see His face in a mirror! Dattaswami grasped the concept of monism with God Datta through her reply and kept silent. The merge of God Datta with Him was done in the temple of Shrishailam as Dattaswami saw it clearly with His eyes. Then, Dattaswami realized His ignorance in expressing such desire to God Datta.
4) Shri P V N M Sharma asked:- One of My friends sent me a message in which a scholar explained to him about the time of death in which the soul leaves the body and enters the body again and again trying to move the body. The soul remains at the height of 12 feet above the body till the funeral is over. On 12th day, it leaves this earth and enters the abode of souls. I am posing this information before you to hear your comments on this.
Swami replied:- All these details of the departed soul are given in the Brahma Sutras. All these details are useless from the point of the main issue concerned. The departed soul leaves this earth through the energetic body and goes to the upper worlds like hell and heaven to experience the fruits of its deeds done on the earth for temporary reformation so that the soul taking rebirth on this earth is mild in doing sins quickly for a long time till the sinful ideas enter the soul and remain in it strongly. How to escape from the hell? This is the most important point on which the soul shall concentrate. A person is going to attend the interview to get a job by which he can live happily in this world settled in his life. The details of this point come in the spiritual knowledge and collecting the correct details from true spiritual knowledge is the most important aspect. Instead of doing this preparation work for the interview, if the candidate is concentrating on the details of the facts of the compartment of the train in which he has to travel to the next city for interview, is it appreciable? Whether the soul is at 10 feet or 12 feet or 14 feet height, it is immaterial. Just above this surface of earth, called as Martyaloka, lies the sub-world of departed souls, called as Pretaloka, in which God enquires about the soul regarding its further journey to hell or to heaven or to the abode of God. Above Pretaloka lies the sub-world, called as Narakaloka or hell to which sinners are sent. Above the Narkaloka, lies the sub-world, called as Pitruloka to which neutral people (not doing sins or good deeds) are sent. These four sub-worlds are called as Bhuuloka. Above this world Bhuuloka lies the second world, called as Bhuvarloka to which people doing social service for fame are sent. Above this, the third world is Suvarloka or heaven to which people doing good works are sent. Above this three worlds (Maharloka, Janaloka and Tapoloka) exist related to people following the path of devotion and service to God. The final uppermost seventh world is Brahma Loka or abode of God to which the true devotees are sent. On 10th day, the judgment is given about the further fate of the departed soul by God (The scripture says that the soul is not called as preta after 10th day – Itah param pretashabdo naasti.). Accordingly, the soul takes up further journey to the upper worlds. The most important aspect is not the details of the journey of the soul to the upper worlds, but, it is about the result of enquiry done by God and the final judgment that is to come regarding the further fate of the departed soul. The judgment is very clear even before its announcement, which can be easily inferred from the deeds done by the soul on this earth. Hence, the future judgment expected is very clear to any soul if a real self-analysis is done. Avoiding the sins that lead to hell and doing good deeds to the society that lead to heaven is the good path to be followed by every soul and this is Pravrutti. Some souls are personally interested in God and this is Nivrutti. Some true devotees place the abode of God in the place of heaven and do spiritual propagation about Pravrutti as well as Nivrutti and such souls participating in the service of God are directed to the abode of God irrespective of their files of deeds. These points are most important, which are like the points of the subject of interview and a wise person neglects about the details of his train journey to the place of interview.