Posted on: 02 Apr 2020
Shri PVNM Sharma asked: Most people say that the soul present in all human beings itself is God. Is this the truth?
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! There are two extreme ends. One end is Śaṅkara, who said that the soul is God and that God exists in every zoological living being having awareness. It means, the awareness present in all animals, including humans, but excluding plants, is God. The other end is Maharshi Dayānanda and Prophet Mohammad, who said that God is formless and that He never exists in any form. It means that God cannot be in any inert object or even in awareness which is non-inert. Both these ends are not correct and the truth lies in the middle golden path as told by Aristotle. Does this mean that Śaṅkara, Maharshi Dayānanda and Prophet Mohammad were wrong? Not at all! I have only told what the truth is. I never said that the three were wrong. All these three preachers were Human Incarnations of God (Sadgurus) and not mere scholars. Mere scholars are not bothered about the progress of the disciple. They are only bothered about the truth of the concept being taught to the disciple. If the truth is too high for the disciple to accept, revealing that truth to the disciple will cause harm to the disciple instead of benefit. But scholars are not bothered about it at all. They simply preach the ultimate truth and leave the disciple to his fate. A Sadguru or Human Incarnation is not only a scholar of divine knowledge, but He is also a person with high commonsense. Most importantly, He is interested in the welfare and the immediate progress of the disciple. In this effort, the Sadguru has the guts to even tell a lie, if that lie is helpful for the immediate practical progress of the disciple. It does not mean that the Sadguru does not know that it is a lie. It also does not mean that the Sadguru does not know what the truth is. The Sadguru fully knows the truth, but He modifies the truth to the extent that it becomes helpful for the immediate practical progress of the disciple. What is the use of preaching the ultimate truth, if it is going to harm the devotee due to the devotee’s incapability of accepting that ultimate truth?
When Śaṅkara incarnated in India, the land was full of atheists who followed the Buddhist or the Pūrva Mīmāṃsā philosophies. If the preacher says to the atheist that a God other than the atheist exists, he will turn against the preacher and call him a bloody fool! By telling the ultimate truth to the atheist, the atheist will never get converted into a theist throughout his life. Clearly, telling the ultimate truth to the atheist is of no use. Hence, Śaṅkara said that the soul, which is the relative awareness existing in every living being itself is God. The existence of awareness in the living being cannot be denied even by the atheist. When that awareness itself is said to be God, the atheist has no objection to such a God since, as per this philosophy, the atheist himself is God. So, this philosophy does not hurt the ego of the atheist. Since the atheist himself is said to be God and since he certainly knows that he exists, he easily accepts that God exists. This is how Śaṅkara converted the atheists of His time into theists.
Centuries later, when Maharshi Dayānanda came, the public in India was under the strong influence of Śaṅkara’s preaching. Every human being felt that he is already God. Everyone was actually blinded by their ego in thinking that he is the ultimate God. The background of why Śaṅkara had to preach that concept was completely neglected and forgotten. This is because, the knowledge of that background would have hurt their ego and spoiled their ambition of wanting to become God! Apart from that, people during Maharshi’s time were following several wrong practices in the worship of God. Hence, Maharshi brought in the theory that no living being, including human beings, can be God because God is all-pervading and formless. He did not reveal the ultimate truth that the ultimate God is unimaginable because worship to God becomes impossible, if God is beyond imagination. According to Maharshi, God is neither in inert items like statues and images nor in human beings. The advantage of this concept was that it removed the ego of the followers, who had been thinking that they are God. The worship of God also became universal, irrespective of caste, creed, religion, region and gender. His philosophy brought spiritual progress in Hinduism by avoiding gender and caste-based discrimination and developing unity. Thus, His philosophy was useful to the public at that time. Both Śaṅkara and Maharshi showed that the immediate practical welfare of humanity is more important for any Sadguru than merely revealing the ultimate truth.
Prophet Mohammad descended in the middle-east centuries after Jesus. In that land, Jesus, the Human Incarnation, had been crucified due to the ego and jealousy of people. It is a person’s ego and jealousy that do not allow the person to tolerate any greatness in another person. Such people can never accept the contemporary Human Incarnation of God since the Incarnation is not merely greater than themselves, but He is the absolutely greatest God! Since the public was not at all mature enough to accept the concept of the Human Incarnation, Prophet Mohammed strictly avoided the concept. Just like Maharshi, He established the concept of formless God and condemned the concept of the Human Incarnation. This was done only for the welfare of the public at that time. Killing the Human Incarnation is the greatest sin. The people of a previous generation, in the same land, had already committed that sin by crucifying Jesus due to their ego and jealousy. The people in the Prophet’s generation, also had very high ego and jealousy making them prone to committing the same sin. By rejecting the concept of the Human Incarnation, the Prophet eliminated the very possibility of such a sin.
These three Sadgurus knew the ultimate truth very well. But, depending on their respective circumstances, they modified the ultimate truth to encourage immediate spiritual progress among the public in their times. A person developed a serious headache due to the false belief that a chameleon had entered in to his head through his ear. All the doctors, who were like scholars, merely insisted on the truth. They simply rejected his false idea and told him that there was nothing wrong with him. They could not remove his illusion and his headache was not cured. Finally, a wise doctor, who was like a Sadguru, arrived. He accepted the false belief of the patient and said that he would remove the chameleon from his head. He made the patient sit in a chair. Hiding a chameleon in his hand, the doctor proceeded to inspect the patient’s ear. Then he suddenly threw out the chameleon which he had hidden in his hand. The patient saw the chameleon being thrown away and believed that it had been removed from his head through his ear by the good doctor. The patient was immediately cured of his headache since the cause of the headache was only psychological! This story shows how it is more important to cure the patient than merely insist on the ultimate truth.
Śaṅkara said that all living beings, including all human beings are God. Maharshi and the Prophet said that no living being or inert object can be God. The ultimate truth is the middle path between these two extremes. It is that only one or two human beings are God in any human generation. Those particular humans are called Human Incarnations of God. Neither is everybody God nor is it true that nobody is God. Both these extreme philosophical views are used by different Human Incarnations when they are necessary for the welfare of humanity. The preachers who originally preached these two extreme concepts were also Human Incarnations, for whom the immediate practical progress of their devotees was the topmost priority. In this middle path of the ultimate truth, the ego and jealousy of people are a very serious hurdle. This hurdle is totally absent in the two extreme philosophical views. If you say that everybody is God or that nobody is God, you do not hurt anybody’s ego. So, both these extreme views are the safest. Everyone can accept those concepts very easily. The concept of the middle view of the ultimate truth is highly inconvenient to everyone.
Even in this middle view of the ultimate truth, there is a concept, which can reduce the inconvenience in accepting the truth. This concept is that God can enter any human being in order to help a devotee in urgent need of God’s help. So, even though every human being is not already God, every one has the possibility of becoming a temporary Incarnation, in an emergency situation. If a devotee is captured by a group of criminals and if the devotee prays to God for help, the devotee’s need is immediate. There is no time for God to take birth on Earth as the contemporary Human Incarnation. Usually, the Incarnation is born and grows into an adult like a normal human being. But the devotee in danger cannot wait. His need is urgent. So, to help the devotee in urgent need, God enters and merges into a strong person present nearby. That person rescues the devotee from those criminals. Once the devotee is rescued, God leaves the body of the rescuer. Due to this reason, it is said that God can come in any human form (Daivaṃ mānuṣa rūpeṇa). Every human being has the opportunity to become God for a very short period of time, if it is required. Such an Incarnation is an instantaneous Human Incarnation (Naimittika Avatāra). A permanent Human Incarnation is called a Nitya Avatāra. But the ego and jealousy of human beings are not pacified with the mere opportunity of becoming instantaneous Human Incarnations, if and when required. Every human being still retains the inherent ambition to become a permanent Human Incarnation. This brings us back to the same original position!
The ultimate truth, which is the middle path, is that God is present in every human generation in the form of one or two permanent Human Incarnations. Among the permanent Human Incarnations (Nitya Avatāras), there are five types as follows: (1) The Kalā Avatāra or a Ray-Incarnation is an Incarnation in which only 1/16th of the power (a ray) of God is expressed. (2) The Aṃśa Avatāra is an Incarnation in which a considerable part of the power (more than 1/16th) of God is expressed. (3) An Āveśa Avatāra is a temporary Incarnation, in which the power of God to the required extent is expressed through a certain human medium in order to accomplish a particular divine mission. After completing that divine mission, God leaves the human medium. (4) The Pūrṇa Avatāra is that in which 3/4th (12/16th) of the power of God is expressed and (5) the Paripūrṇa Avatāra is that in which the entire power of God (16/16th) is expressed.
Dr. Nikhil asked: I am assuming that the instantaneous Incarnations (naimittika avatāras) mentioned by You are the same as the temporary Incarnations (āveśa avatāras). In that case, there would be four types of permanent Incarnations and one type of temporary Incarnation. Is this correct?
Swami replied: Both Āveśa Avatāras and Nimitta Avatāras (Naimittika Avatāras) are temporary, but there is a slight difference between them. Paraśurāma was an Āveśa Avatāra in whom God stayed for a long time for the destruction of the evil kings. In the Nimitta Avatāra too, God stays in the person temporarily, but the duration of the stay is very short. When a devotee is surrounded by criminals, God enters some strong person nearby, just to fight with the criminals and protect the devotee. He leaves immediately thereafter. In the āveśa Incarnation, God stays for a very long time in that person since the nature of the divine work to be accomplished through that person takes a long time. In the case of the nimitta Incarnation, the stay of God in the strong person nearby to protect the devotee is only confined just to that short time. Hence, the name of Paraṣurāma, the āveśa Incarnation, stands in the list of the ten famous Incarnations, whereas the number of nimitta Incarnations being very huge is not recorded. Nimitta Incarnations appear in countless places, in countless incidents in this world.
The important point to remember in this classification is that the absolute unimaginable God exists equally in all these types of Incarnations. The power possessed by God is one and the same in all the Incarnations. The difference is only in the amount of power expressed, which is as per the requirements of the divine program of God in each Incarnation. The basic reason for revealing only the minimum amount of power necessary for the divine program in each Incarnation is that God does not have the tendency to show off His power before the public. He need not advertise His powers to anybody because He is not at all interested in fame. Demons have a tendency to show off the little power they have acquired from God. A pot containing little water makes a lot of noise, trying to show off the water it contains. A pot fully filled with water does not make any noise and does not try to show off the water it contains. Many devotees do not know this concept that God possessing His full power always exists in every type of Incarnation. They think that just because some Incarnations express less power that they possess less power too.
Another important concept related to the contemporary Human Incarnation of God is that the Incarnation behaves differently with different devotees. The reason for this different behavior is the different levels of ego and jealousy of the devotees. When the devotees around the Incarnation are full of ego and jealousy, the Incarnation claims to be an obedient servant or messenger of God. This claim of the Incarnation being different from God exemplifies the dualism (Dvaita) of Madhva. If the devotees around the Incarnation have 50% ego and jealousy, the Incarnation claims to be a part of God or a son of God. With such a claim, the Incarnation claims to have an inseparability from God, in spite of a fundamental duality. This claim exemplifies the qualified monism (Viśiṣṭa Advaita) of Rāmānuja. If the devotees around the Incarnation have 0% ego and jealousy, the Incarnation claims to be God Himself, which exemplifies Śaṅkara’s monism (Advaita).
A devotee present for some time with the Incarnation gets confused because the Incarnation makes these three claims before different devotees. The Incarnation knows the internal composition of each soul approaching the Incarnation. Many a time, the devotee himself does not know the true composition of his own soul and so, he becomes a victim of the ego and jealousy that suddenly arise in him! The different claims made by the Incarnation about His own identity always aim to pacify the fire of ego and jealousy in the devotees. The more the fire of ego and jealousy in a devotee, the lower will be the claim of the Incarnation of His own identity. When you do not record the compositions of the souls of devotees, you do not notice that they have different levels of ego and jealousy. Then the statements of the Incarnation regarding His own identity made in the presence of different devotees appear to contradict each other. You get confused wondering whether He is God (monism) or part of God (qualified monism) or a messenger of God (dualism). So, the nature of devotees around the Incarnation should be considered along with the Incarnation’s statement of His own identity. Then there will be no confusion.
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| Shri Dattaswami | Maharshi Dayaananda Daivam maanusharuupena naimittika avataara Nitya avataara Shankara Ramanuja Raamaanuja Kalaa amsha avesha Parashurama