Swami answers questions of Smt. Chhanda

1. Do the five inert elements arise from awareness or from the unimaginable awareness of Parabrahman?

[Smt. Chhanda asked: Paadanamaskaram Swami. While going through one of Your discourses, I got the following doubts. I would like to get enlightened from You on these. “The mind is a form of awareness. From this mind, i.e., from awareness, arise the inert five elements. The properties (dharma) of inert are different from the properties (dharma) of awareness.” Is it so Swami that five inert elements are arising from awareness? Or is it talking about the unimaginable awareness of Parabrahman?]

Swami replied:- The five elements are arising from the omnipotent unimaginable power of God. There is no trace of doubt in this. In analysing the creation, we can know that all items are modifications of the energy only. Mind is also a special form of energy and hence, the five elements can arise from the mind also. But, this does not mean that a human being can create five elements from its mind. Even though this is correct theoretically, it must have practical sanction from God. If practical sanction from God exists, even the scientific process can take place and even a process beyond scientific logic (miracle) can take place. Miracles will help to develop faith in God and science will help to lead the mechanical worldly life.

2. Please elaborate once again on the non-inert property becoming inert.

[In continuation to the above text, while discussing the topic of ‘Parinaama (Real Modification)’, You mentioned ‘But the awareness property has become the inert property. This is Parinaama. This change is wonderful. So, it is called Maya.’ and You explained the two theories of Shankara and Ramanuja. Please elaborate once again on the non-inert property becoming inert.]

Swami replied:- The non-inert awareness is also the inert energy only since the awareness is only a special arrangement of inert items. The awareness is functioning through the mechanism of the movement of electrical sparks called neurons. Hence, the individual soul (awareness) is only a part of the creation and not the part of the Creator, who is totally unimaginable. The soul is mentioned in the imaginable creation (Prakruti) as Parāprakruti. God mentioned by the word ‘Purusha’ is totally a different unimaginable item. Non-inert and inert items are in one phase only, which is the creation. Hence, Pariṇāma (modification) is possible among various non-inert and inert items as per the scientific explanation. When the creator along with the creation is explained, it is Vivarta, which is real water and inherently unreal water-wave. Even though science explains the modification of inert item into non-inert item and vice-versa, it is practically impossible to do this experiment in laboratory. This can be treated as a junction between scientific explanation and miraculous power. You know that science can move a limb of the dead body, but cannot give awareness to the dead body so that the dead person will become perfectly alive once again. We can clearly understand the scientific explanation, but the lack of God’s miraculous power limits us to implement the scientific explanation into practicality. This is the reason to say that the human being is with half knowledge like a pot filled with little water making huge sounds!

3. Is the energy spent in the sorrow due to separation from God useful or not?

[Swami following para seems to be in contradiction to a reply for a question asked by me. The link for that reply is https://www.universal-spirituality.org/discourses/Swami-answers-questions-of-Smt-Chhanda--5131--5191--ENG and the reply is given in question no. 5. You are telling exactly the same by taking the example of Goddess Rukmini Who was undergoing a lot of agony for Lord Krishna in contrast to the example of Bhishma. Please remove my misunderstanding. Following is the part of the paragraph from Your discourse.

“…Because he had eaten the food of the Kauravas, he said that it was justified to fight on their side and he turned that virtue to the individual souls and threw arrows at the Paramatman. As a result, he fell on the bed of arrows and suffered death like life, with the agony of death (Marana Vedana). He experienced direct hell in this world itself. Therefore, when one is agitated in the sorrow of separation from God, the expenditure of the energy in that agitation is useful only but not wasteful. Rukmini underwent a lot of agony for Krishna and on the day of her wedding, she agitated at every moment. That turned into great penance; Krishna violated even justice and married Rukmini”. Please reply to this.]

Swami replied:- The sorrow was directed towards God in all the above examples. Such agony for God is the real penance. A soul involved in worldly bonds may also undergo such agony travelling in theoretical phase and such penance is useless. Theory alone is incompetent to move the heart of God. The practical sacrifice done for the sake of God must be associated with such penance. Rukmini sent a love letter to Krishna through a priest and sacrificed her necklace to the priest. She was completely in the service of Krishna throughout her life. Even Sudaama was doing such penance for God Krishna. Such theoretical penance became fruitful when he offered a small quantity of parched rice to Krishna, which was more than 100% sacrifice in his case.

Theoretical devotion must be accompanied by practical devotion, which proves the real detachment from worldly bonds. Mere sorrow without the practical sacrifice for God cannot prove the complete detachment from the worldly bonds. The theoretical penance in the form of sorrow or agony for God must be channelised to perform service and sacrifice to God so that the penance is proved to be true. I have already told that a devotee in separation from God must not waste time and energy in sorrow and must involve in propagating the spiritual knowledge and devotion, which are very useful to the souls by which God will be extremely pleased. In fact, every devotee irrespective of his/her physical closeness to God must do service and sacrifice for the mission of God to please God. God Himself comes down to earth for this divine mission along with liberated souls. Even if a devoted soul gets liberated in future, it has to do the same work irrespective of gender, age and separation.

4. Why does Goddess Parvati represent awareness and not Sarasvati even though internally both are not different?

[“Action is Brahma, interest is Vishnu, time is Shiva, speech is Vani, items are Lakshmi and mind (awareness) is Parvati”. Here I am not able to understand why Goddess Parvati represents awareness and not Sarasvati even though internally they are not separate? But Your knowledge say that Goddess Sarasvati represents awareness. Please correct me.]

Swami replied:- Goddess Saraswati, the power of God Brahma, is the embodiment of Rajas or inert energy that is involved in action (Rajaḥ Karmaṇi bhārata! – Gita). Goddess Lakshmi, the power of God Vishnu, is the embodiment of awareness or Sattvam (Sattvāt sañjāyate jñānam – Gita). Goddess Parvati, the power of God Shiva, is the embodiment of Tamas, which represents the condensed energy called matter. God Vishnu is involved in the ruling of the materialised (matter or Tamas) world and God Shiva is involved in meditation related to peaceful Sattvam and knowledge till the time for the dissolution comes. For these purposes, the qualities of God Vishnu and God Shiva are mutually exchanged with each other. Hence, Goddess Lakshmi represents Tamas, the materialised wealth (matter) and Goddess Parvati represents Sattvam, the spiritual awareness. Due to this exchange, God Vishnu is told to be the form of God Shiva and vice-versa (Śivāya Viṣṇu rūpāya, Śiva rūpāya Viṣṇave).

5. Please elaborate on: “Those who show blind faith in the path and logic in the goal are slipping”.

Swami replied:- Blind faith shall be on God and logical analysis must be in selecting the correct path to reach God. This is because God is only one and paths to reach God are many. When there is only one item, there is no need of logical analysis. When there are several items, you need the logical analysis to select the correct item.

6. What is the difference between Tanu and deha or shariira?

[Swami, at one place You wrote “Our physical body is called Deha or Shariira. The same body of the Swami should not be called Deha or Shariira. It should be called Tanu.” Why is it so Swami? What is the difference between Tanu and deha or shariira? Can we say Tanu as human being since God will always merge with the gross body, subtle body and it’s awareness?]

Swami replied:- ‘Deha’ means the body that is burnt after death. ‘Śarīra’ means the body that is destroyed after death. ‘Tanu’ means a small medium that represents mega God. Since God is eternal, the word ‘Tanu’ is suitable for the body of God. This means that God is smaller than atom (aṇu) and bigger than the biggest world (Mahān) as said in the Veda (Aṇoraṇīyān mahato mahīyān). The biggest becomes the smallest to deal with the smallest human beings.

7. Does ‘mahima’ only mean miraculous power or does it mean divine qualities of God also?

[What is the real meaning of ‘mahima’? Is it only miraculous power? Or does it include other divine qualities of God also? If this word means only miraculous power then mahima is same as Vibhuti. Can we say so?]

Swami replied:- Actually, the word ‘mahimā’ means becoming very big and the opposite power is to become very small (laghimā). These two exist in the eight miraculous powers (ashta siddhis). But, in the world, people use the word mahimā as an alternative word for vibhūti, which is a general miraculous power. Since the qualities of God are also unimaginable by their purity, we can call the divine qualities also by the word ‘mahimā’.

8. What is the meaning of ‘qualities’ in the following context?

[In Raadhaa Krishna Giita chapter 6, in verse no. 33 of You told, “When these qualities are destroyed completely, the soul will attain the unimaginable God or Parabrahman permanently through merging with an energetic incarnation, who is the infinite ocean of bliss due to the merged Parabrahman.” Are You talking about Vāsanā, Saṃskāra and Guna here? Or the qualities like Sattva, rajas and tamas? Please clarify.]

Swami replied:- Sattva, Rajas and Tamas indicate the qualitative nature of a quality, which means that whether it is a good quality or bad quality. The words vāsanā, saṃskāra and guṇa mean the quantitative aspect of a quality. Vāsanā is like water vapour, saṃskāra is like liquid water and guṇa is like the solidified ice. One is the nature of the quality and the other is the concentration of the quality. Both are interrelated to each other and you cannot isolate qualitative and quantitative aspects in a single item. All the Rajas and Tamas qualities must be destroyed at the level of vāsanā itself to be able to merge with God.

9. After the answers on sweet devotion, can we still say that the knowledge of a scholar is tested by the understanding of Bhagvatam?

[Swami, from Your new revealing of created form of Lord Krishna, I got a new doubt. From Your preaching now, it is very clear that there was no involvement of God Krishna with the Gopikas except Raadhaa, who is His hlaadini shakti. Then, this answer could have been given earlier also and people could have understood the logic and they might not have mistaken God Krishna to such climax of wrong extent. Now, after hearing this beautiful knowledge from You, can we still say that the knowledge of a real scholar can only be tested by his understanding of Bhagvatam?]

Swami replied:- You are perfectly correct in your analysis. The delay in the explanation of God Datta is due to the proper time that developed in the path of sinful nature of human beings. Previously, in the ancient generations, every soul was highly devoted and extremely scholastic in spiritual knowledge. They need not be subjected to this explanation. Slowly, the truth is covered by falsity and justice is covered by injustice. The scripture is misunderstood by twisted interpretations. Hence, the correct time has come to reveal this true interpretation.

10. What is the divine fruit the devotee loses when it doubts the incarnation?

[Swami, in today’s (5th October, 2025) Satsanga, You told that a devotee should treat the contemporary human incarnation either as a human being or as God. The faith must not be in between these two. Otherwise, the devotee will lose the divine fruit due to the doubt. Is it in the context of divine fruit only? As most of the devotees’ faith will be in between 0% to 100% faith? Please explain. At Your divine feet, Chhanda always.]

Swami replied:- I understand the point that devotees are always progressing from 0 to 100 in the faith towards God. I am not denying this point. But, I am worried about another crucial point, which is that the human re-birth is in the hands of God-judge and this human re-birth is not a routine policy applicable to every human soul. If God thinks that you are eligible for human re-birth since God has hope about your future spiritual progress, you will be allotted the human re-birth. This is from the view of the judge and cannot be the view of the party fighting in the court. There is always some risk in the human re-birth. Hence, it is better to reach the 100% faith on God in this very human birth itself. There is a saying “Arrange things in your house as long as the light (electricity) exists.” Both Christianity and Islam are completely benefitted by believing that this human birth itself is the final one. Of course, their concept is slightly wrong since God has the power to sanction the human re-birth for a deserving soul. Due to this small correction, you may say that the other two religions are not correct perfectly. Even then, they are perfectly benefitted in practical angle. Do you think that a theoretical correction is better than a practical benefit?

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