Swami answers a question of an Advaita follower on Brahman and Parabrahman (Part-4)

Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only

Part-1   Part-2   Part-3   Part-4

FOURTH PART

[Shri M. Gangaiah garu (Advocate and excellent scholar of Gita and Upanishads) asked:- The Veda (Mahaavaakyaas) says that the soul is God (Brahman) and awareness is Brahman. The explanation says that God became the soul by forgetting Himself and by knowing that it is God, it becomes again God. Salvation means that soul is liberated from its nature on becoming God.]

Swami replied:- This is the most attracting rope (that soul is God) by which any soul, especially an atheist is attracted. In this theory, there is no need of any effort and by simply knowing that one is God, the soul must become God. I may forget some parts of the subject I studied, but, I (including the illiterate) never forget my identity. Only a mad person forgets his identity. Does this not mean that the omniscient (knowing everything) God became mad with climax ignorance to forget Himself like a patient in the mental hospital? This may be possible with soul having limited knowledge and limited potency, but, how omniscient and omnipotent God is becoming a mental patient? Even an actor acting in role may be absorbed in the role, but, at any time, he can recollect himself without any effort with his inherent knowledge and capacities. Even if God entered the creation as all souls (as Advaita followers say) for entertainment like an actor, no actor is mad to forget himself!

The great statements say that I am Brahman, You are Brahman, He is Brahman and awareness (the word Prajnaanam is misinterpreted as mere awareness, which actually means excellent knowledge) is Brahman. These can be interpreted in four ways:- i) Brahman means the greatest item in the category of created items and need not be God. Soul or awareness is certainly the greatest item in the category of all created items. ii) The verb ‘is’ present in these sentences is in present tense that can be used in the immediate future showing the greatest ambition of the soul (‘I am going’ means ‘I will be going very shortly’) to become God immediately. In two statements, present tense verb is expressed (Asmi and Asi) and in the other two statements same present tense verb (Asti) is to be brought inevitably. iii) The soul or awareness with body can also indicate a human incarnation of God and since such specially selected (by God) human being is really God due to perfect merge of unimaginable awareness (God) with imaginable awareness (soul), the monism (advaita) is perfectly correct in this special case. Remember that Shankara, the founder of monism, declared that He alone (special case) is God (Shivah kevaloham) and demonstrated this concept practically. iv) The human incarnation looks like an ordinary human being only on one side, but, on the other side is hidden God (Parambhaavamajaananto… Gita).

The human being and human incarnation are exactly similar in body and soul, but, are totally different since the soul of human being is not merged with unimaginable God whereas the soul of human incarnation is merged with unimaginable God perfectly to become unimaginable God. There is external similarity, but, internal difference exists between the two. For similarity, simile can be used to say that human being is like human incarnation. Here, the (external) similarity is much and metaphor can be used. ‘The king is like lion’ is simile. ‘The king is lion’ is metaphor. Using metaphor, we can say that an ordinary human being (imaginable awareness in ordinary body) is human incarnation or God (unimaginable awareness in ordinary body). In this way, several interpretations can be done for those statements, which are logical and why to take an illogical interpretation since any human being is totally different from the human incarnation like Krishna, Shankara etc. The Gita says that ignorant souls do not understand the unimaginable God existing in the imaginable soul (sometimes body also becomes unimaginable God through merge), who is beyond all these imaginable items (Muudhoyam...).

The imaginable awareness or soul can’t exist independently and requires a body like milk requiring a vessel as container. The container is also useful for expression to eyes of any spectator. You shall not say that the soul is unimaginable by itself, which is not true since it can be seen in scientific instruments only as waves (drushyate tvagrayaa buddhyaa… Veda, Pashyanti Jnaana chakshushah… Gita). The God merged with the soul in human incarnation can’t be seen and not even can be imagined. Hence, soul requires body due to its inherent incompetence to exist independently without support like milk whereas God requires body for expression due to the incompetence of the souls to see God. Soul requires container due to its own defect whereas unimaginable God requires container for the defect of us, who are unable to not only see but also even to imagine God!

In the Gita, God says that Prakrutti or creation created by Him is of two types (purusham prakrutimchaiva...). God is mentioned as Purusha (or Purushottama later on) whereas creation created by Him is always mentioned as Prakruti. This is established manner in the Gita. You shall not argue that the word Prakruti can also mean the cause of creation and hence, can mean the creator being the cause of this creation. You can support that the word Prakruti is also said to mean cause in dictionary (Prakrutirmuulakaarane), as well as root word (Prakarshena kriyate anayaa iti) and in Saamkhya (Prakruti as cause and Vikruti as product). But, Prakruti is used in the sense of product in the Gita, which is supported by the root word (Prakarshena Krutaa Kaarya Rupaa Krutih) and in usage, Kruti is used to mean product of work like an epic written by poet is called Kruti. In the Gita, God says that His creation (product of creation work since creation also means process of creating product) is product.

The Gita speaks clearly that prakruti means created world and Purusha means God. If you take Purusha to mean the awareness or soul and prakruti to mean inert part of creation and use a third word (Purushottama) for God, then also Prakruti means inert creation only and not God. It is correct to mean Aparaaprakruti as lower nature and not inert nature since mind, intelligence and basic ego belonging to awareness are included in Aparaaprakruti. If Prakruti can’t mean even the soul, certainly it can’t mean God. If soul is the meaning of Purusha and Prakruti is the meaning of creation other than Purusha, there is no place for God. Based on this only, Saamkhya is said to be atheism (since Purusha or imaginable awareness is soul and all the creation other than Purusha is prakruti, there is no place for God). But, in Saamkhya, in the 24 items other than Purusha, mind, intelligence and basic ego were mentioned, which are imaginable awareness only and thus the soul is covered under 24 items whereas God is indicated by the 25^th item called Purusha. Purusha means unimaginable awareness or unimaginable God merged with relative imaginable awareness called Ishwara. Patanjali did not add Ishwara as the 26^th item. He gave place to the soul separately as 25^th item called Purusha and placed Ishwara as extra 26^th item. Ishwara is only the clear explanation of Purusha, who means unimaginable awareness merged with imaginable awareness finally called Ishwara. Thus, Kapila included both God (unimaginable awareness) and soul (imaginable awareness) in one item called Purusha, who is none but Ishwara or any other incarnation of God.

Opponent:- In the beginning, the Gita mentions only two items called Purusha and Prakruti. Purusha means awareness and Prakruti means all created items other than Purusha. God is also mentioned by the word Purusha and Purusha means awareness that lies in the body (Puri Shete Iti). Therefore, awareness is God and both awareness and God are one and the same as indicated by the one word Purusha.

Swami:- Certainly, the Gita mentioned Purusha and Prakruti only as two items. But, the Gita mentions this relative imaginable awareness or soul in Prakruti itself, called Paraaprakruti. This means Purusha is not the soul. If soul, it will be repetition and hence, Purusha must mean God, who is different from soul. You need not worry that since Purusha means imaginable awareness pervading all over the human body, Purusha must mean soul only that pervades all over the human body. Here, your objection can be answered while giving value to it. If you take human incarnation as the meaning of the word Purusha, this contradiction is solved and both sides are correlated. How? The human incarnation is only a selected human being by God and hence, the soul or relative imaginable awareness exists in it and this serves your side that Purusha means soul present in ordinary human being. In human incarnation, the soul of the ordinary being is merged with God or unimaginable awareness and the final product is only God or unimaginable awareness only. Hence, such ordinary human being after merged with God becomes God (sometimes, body is also merged with God to become God) and this resulted or converted human being is God. In this way, Purusha means God also. The speaker of the Gita, Krishna, is an ordinary human being, the son of Vasudeva satisfying your side of meaning of Purusha. Such Krishna is the converted human being to become God after merge with unimaginable God and in this way, our meaning of Purusha is also adjusted in the same word.

You can’t confine the word Purusha to an ordinary zoological living being only, since Purusha is used in the meaning of God also by the Veda (Purusha evedam sarvam) as told that all this world is under the control of God only (Tadadhiinaprathamaa) and this does not mean that all this world is God, in which case, demon Ravana also is God! Omnipresence is only in effective sense (Omniscient and Omnipotent God knows and controls everything without being omnipresent) but not in physical sense. Krishna is Purusha or ordinary human being externally, but, is God internally and hence, is also different from ordinary human beings to be called the best human being (Purushottama) and this word is introduced later on to clarify this concept more. Purusha need not be materialized human being only, but, can be even the energetic being (angel) and also the energetic being merged by God (Narayana, Shiva, Brahma etc.) is Purusha or Purushottama.

Let us analyse carefully the two verses in the Gita: “Earth, water, fire, air, space, mind, intelligence and basic ego are the eight items called Aparaaprakruti that belongs to Me, which is lower part of Prakruti. The other greater part of Prakruti belonging to Me is Paraaprakruti that is the soul, which maintains all this world”. i) It is told that Prakruti or creation belonging to God is of two parts and one part is soul or Paraaprakruti. This means that the soul is a part of creation only and not God, the creator. ii) If you say that Prakruti also means root cause and hence, Paraaprakruti is the great or root cause or God, it is not acceptable because God told that Paraaprakruti belongs to Him (Me paraam). If Paraaprakruti itself means God, then, what is the meaning of Me in the word ‘belonging to Me’? Me and Paraaprakruti are different. If I say that this house belongs to me, I and My house are not one and the same. Hence, Paraaprakruti or soul is not God, but, belongs to God’s creation. If I say that this house (Apraaprakruti) and the surrounding site (Paraaprakruti) around the house belong to my property (Prakruti), does it mean that I am the surrounding site and the house alone is my property? Hence, in this verse, Prakruti means only the product or created world.

Since mind, intelligence and basic ego are covered under Aparaaprakruti part, the fourth internal instrument (Antahkaranam) called chittam is told as Paraaprakruti part. Chittam (faculty of memory) and chit (general awareness) are one and the same awareness. The root word chit is said to have two inherent meanings: (a) to know and (b) to recollect or remember (memory) by grammar (Chiti samjnaane smaranecha). Hence, Paraaprakruti means the relative awareness or soul called chit and the inherent faculty of memory is called chittam that stores this world in the form of information (Yayedam dhaaryate jagat). This relative awareness can’t store this entire world in physical sense. Only unimaginable awareness or God can store this entire world in physical sense. Even if you take this imaginable awareness as unimaginable awareness, the basic strong objection ‘belonging to me’ stands as it is.

Relative awareness is of four faculties called Antahkaranams. Mind (thinking in both ways), intelligence (deciding by analysis) and basic ego (feeling the basic thought called ‘I’) are functional faculties of awareness (which appear while work exists), whereas storing information or smaranam is the inherent faculty of awareness (existing always) and knowing or samjnaana is also always existing characteristic of awareness. If you want to take the relative awareness or soul of Krishna as Paraaprakruti, we have no objection, but, you have to remember that the relative awareness or soul of Krishna has already become unimaginable awareness or unimaginable God due to perfect merge of the soul of Krishna with unimaginable awareness. No more, the soul of Krishna can be called as this relative awareness since it has become unimaginable awareness or God. In that case, the word ‘My Paraaprakruti’ becomes absurd because Paraaprakruti itself is the meaning of the word ‘My’. Hence, the word Paraaprakruti referred to God is neither absolute God (Parabrahman or Unimaginable awareness) nor Krishna’s soul, which has become God by merge with Parabrahman. The word Paraaprakruti mentioned by God here is only relative awareness or soul (can be also soul of Krishna before merging with unimaginable God) found in other zoological living beings other than the human incarnation.

Therefore, absolute God is unimaginable and if you are fond of awareness, the absolute God can be called unimaginable awareness since two unimaginable items can’t co-exist. The relative awareness or soul is imaginable awareness generated by imaginable inert energy in functioning nervous system. This awareness itself is a specific work form of inert energy only and the work is transfer of information from senses to brain by neurons in the nervous system. The original form of awareness itself is inert energy (work is inert energy only) and the background materials generating this awareness are inert energy and inert materialized nervous system. There is no objection if you call this relative awareness as a special form of inertness (Jada) only, which is under the control of unimaginable awareness or God. Imaginable awareness has no freedom (Paratantra) since it is completely controlled by God or unimaginable awareness having full freedom (Svatantra), which is the real Chit or awareness and this is the aimed actual meaning of Shankara for the word chit or awareness.

In this imaginable world, any imaginable item is understood by perception or inference. While seeing the wood being burnt by fire, we say that fire has the property of burning and this is perception. When we see burnt wood, we say that this wood must have been burnt by fire and this is inference. We have concluded that fire only burns and if something burnt is seen, the burning must have been done by fire only. Wherever there is fire, burning must be there and wherever there is burning, fire must have been there (Vyaapti). When we hear the word fire, the property of burning spontaneously comes to our mind and vice-versa. God can burn anything and from this do you infer that God is this imaginable inert fire? Similarly, God can think and from this how can you infer that God is this imaginable non-inert awareness? God is unimaginable and beyond these imaginable inert as well as non-inert items of the imaginable world. Our worldly logic is based on imaginable items of this world and can’t apply to the unimaginable God. Hence, God is beyond worldly logic. God can be expressed through silence (no words) only and not through any word as said in the Veda (Yatho vaacho..., Ashabdamasparsham...). In the fifth Brahma Sutra (Iikhsaternaashabdam), God is said to be beyond words or names because through any word, we can’t understand God (Ashabdam). Hence, we can’t conclude that God is this relative imaginable awareness since God has the capacity to think. This is the real meaning of the Sutra whereas it is misinterpreted as: that since God is thinking, God is this relative imaginable awareness (because the Veda says that God is thinking). The word Shabdam is generally taken as any word or name and this general meaning shall be taken here, but, not the Veda, the special meaning for the word Shabdam.

The Gita says that God has no beginning or cause called as Parabrahman, who is told neither existing nor non-existing (Anaadimat...). i) He is not told to be existing because He is unimaginable and to be understood as unimaginable through silence only since no word or name can express Him and we say that something is existing only when we understand that something. ii) He is also not told to be non-existent because unimaginable events called miracles infer their source as unimaginable item called God. The meaning of both these contradicting statements is that God exists (Astiityeva... Veda), but, His nature (composing material) can’t be understood. This means that you should not conclude (limiting yourself to worldly logic only) that understood or imaginable items only exist. God can be inferred as the cause of this world. Modern intellectuals say “the energy, which is imaginable item itself is the root cause of this world (matter and awareness are also forms of energy only and these three: energy, matter and awareness, are the components of the world), which has no cause (just like your God) and can be called God. Why to bring an unimaginable item as the root cause of this world?” Hence, this inference (that God is inferred as the root cause of this world) is true, but, not very strong for the present atheistic scientist. Unimaginable God inferred by unimaginable miracles establishes that some unimaginable item also exists being the source of these miracles. Since imaginable items are generated in the miracle from that unimaginable source, we can say very easily that this imaginable world is generated by some unimaginable item only.

(To be continued…)

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