Posted on: 19 May 2023
[Shri Anil Antony asked: Padanamaskaram Swami; In the discourse given on 07 May 2023, (Link: https://www.universal-spirituality.org/discourse/kindly-explain-the-meaning-of-the-following-statement-of-god-hanuman--de65af91712c6dca--030c180340b4bd2b--fa28fefc758fe35d--5 ). It was stated that from the angle of the individual soul (Atheistic): “The collective awareness of the universe is not greater than the individual awareness in quality because the collective awareness is not omniscient due to the absence of God in atheism or in science”. Question: Here, is the ‘collective awareness of the universe’ the sum of all the individual awareness in each person in this universe? At Your divine feet -anil]
Swami replied:- Collective awareness in the sense of total addition of all the individual awareness-bits to make it an ocean of awareness is a foolish idea in view of spiritual value. What is the collective awareness of all the tigers in this world? It is simply quantitatively large wildness even though qualitatively there may not be much significance. Instead of this childish classification, it is better to have classification as imaginable awareness of souls and unimaginable awareness of God. The unimaginable awareness means simply that the awareness is generated without inert energy and a materialized nervous system. In philosophy, I could not understand this one point, which is that Hiranyagarbha is collective awareness (Samashti chaitanyam). In reality, human beings maintain distance among themselves and a collective awareness is impossible in a practical point of view. An ocean of water represents several water drops joined together continuously and such an ocean of awareness is not possible and it must be in imagination only. Even if you assume a collective ocean of awareness, the entire ocean comes under imaginable domain only because every drop of such ocean contains imaginable properties only. Every drop of the water-ocean contains the chemical properties of water only. No unimaginable property can enter the ocean because it is a collective quantity. Quantity does not change the quality in the case of any item.
The unimaginable awareness irrespective of quantity will have new unimaginable properties. When we say God as unimaginable awareness, we should not say that it is collective awareness of souls because such collective awareness has the imaginable properties of imaginable bits of awareness and such collective awareness cannot be treated as God with unimaginable property or power. Of course, if you treat each bit of the imaginable awareness as God, then also, there is no need of collective awareness to attain God since already each bit of awareness is God. Hiranyagarbha actually means the first energetic incarnation, called God Datta (first energetic being merged by the unimaginable God) involved in the work of creation of this universe and has unimaginable omnipotence with Him. Hiranyagarbha represents His energetic incarnation, called God Brahma.