Posted on: 16 Jul 2021
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
Part-1 Part-2 Part-3 Part-4 Part-5 Part-6 Part-7 Part-8 Part-9
Part 9: Clarifications
Swāmi continued:- The three divine preachers called Śaṇkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva representing Śiva, Viṣṇu and Brahmā represent the single God Datta, who does destruction, maintenance and creation of this world respectively. God Datta is not only the single God (Ekamevādvitīyam... Veda) doing these three works, but also the single spiritual preacher, who established Advaita, Viśiṣṭa advaita and Dvaita philosophies for the sake of devotees in this world. These three philosophies can be applied to practical situations in the worldly life by devotees to come out of worldly disturbances.
Śaṇkara proposed Monism or Advaita philosophy in which He said that the soul is the ultimate non-mediated unimaginable God or Parabrahman as per the understanding of devotees. In fact, He was the first person to introduce non-mediated unimaginable God (Parabrahman) different from Brahman (Maunavyākhyā prakaṭita Parabrahmatattvam). He told that awareness is God by saying that the meaning of the word Prajñānam is God or Brahman. Such Brahman is the mediated unimaginable God and medium is awareness. Awareness or soul has no form and hence, Brahman is formless (Na rūpamasyeha... Veda, Nirākāravadeva... -Brahma sūtra). In the case of mediated God (first energetic incarnation or any energetic or human incarnation), before unimaginable God merges with the medium, the medium contains formless awareness or soul and formful external body. Śaṇkara selected only the formless awareness to be medium of unimaginable God. He neglected the external formful body because body perishes while the soul is comparatively eternal. Such concept is observed in the human beings. His idea is to say that soul is God and not the body. By this, He wanted to make atheist to say that God exists using the three-step formula (Soul is God, soul exists and hence, God exists). By this formula, the atheistic soul will say that God exists. Now the atheist is turned to theist saying that God exists. The atheist-converted-theist asked about the miraculous powers of God to be seen with his soul since soul is God. Śaṇkara made another trick to say that the practical affect of ignorance (ignorance is that soul is not God) can be removed only when the soul worships God so that the soul will become God in course of time. The atheist-converted-theist has now become devotee of God. In course of time, such devotee may forget his original aim and become eligible to become God. Eligibility means not to have aspiration to become God. This point can’t be mentioned by Śaṇkara because this is the main aim of the atheist. Śaṇkara told that eligibility comes when all the aspirations are removed, which is called purity of mind (Cittaśuddhi). His idea is that when all aspirations are removed the aspiration to become God is also removed. By this, eligibility is achieved and the devotee becomes God whenever there is necessity (welfare of the world). Hence, even though Śaṇkara told that the soul is already God for the sake of initial initiation of atheist, what all He told became correct once the atheist followed entire procedure advised by Śaṇkara. If He told the truth in the beginning itself, the atheist could not have become God. Hence, Śaṇkara appeared telling a lie in the beginning but what He told became true in the end if His advised procedure is followed. All this is one side of His divine program.
The other side of the divine program of Śaṇkara is to say that the divine soul of any incarnation is God. An incarnation has eternal soul (imaginable relative awareness or soul after merging with unimaginable God) and surrounding perishable body. Of course, the first energetic incarnation has both eternal body and eternal soul. Shankara took the rest majority of incarnations for His theory leaving one exceptional case of first energetic incarnation, called Datta or Īśvara or Nārāyaṇa or Hiraṇyagarbha or Father of heaven. Rāmānuja and Madhva confined to the first energetic incarnation only and told that both body and soul of the first mediated God are eternal and God is both body and soul (because unimaginable God merged with both body and soul forever). They never said that the body of every latter incarnation is eternal because the body of every latter incarnation is perishable. This means that all the three divine preachers concentrated their philosophies on the incarnation of God only and not on relationship between God and ordinary soul. Since the unimaginable God merges with the soul and body of the medium in the case of any incarnation (first or latter incarnations), the medium of any incarnation becomes unimaginable God. This is true in the case of first energetic incarnation, which is eternal by both body and soul. In the case of other incarnations, the perishing nature of the body can be explained by saying that the unimaginable God withdraws Himself from the body at the time of the end of the program of incarnation. The eternal souls of the latter incarnations remain maintaining their individualities in the eternal soul of the first energetic incarnation called Datta. Hence, soul of any incarnation is eternal and this establishes the universality of the eternality of any soul of any incarnation. But, you shall remember that the soul of any divine incarnation is spoken by Śaṇkara as God and not the ordinary worldly soul. The eternality of ordinary soul is also not questioned because it is also maintained along with subtle world in God Datta for the future entertainment during dissolution of world. The only objectionable point is that the soul is God and not the eternality of divine soul or ordinary soul.
Of course, the soul of the medium is just a worldly soul only before the merge with unimaginable God. But, such worldly eternal soul becomes eternal God-soul after the merge of unimaginable God with it. All these divine souls of the incarnations remain in the eternal soul of Datta so that their individuality is maintained forever. This merge is not real merge and is called as superficial merge only so that these divine souls incarnate again and again in the future cycles of creation. Of course, remember that the soul of Datta was also worldly (in the sense that such soul is imaginable relative awareness only) before merging with the unimaginable God. In this way, every relative soul of every incarnation (including Datta) was worldly (in the sense that it is imaginable relative awareness) only before merge with unimaginable God. Don’t forget that the unimaginable God is not at all the relative imaginable awareness because He is totally unimaginable and His awareness is called unimaginable awareness because imaginable relative awareness does not exist in Him. Also remember that every relative soul of every incarnation remains as the unimaginable God forever because such soul remains having individuality in the eternal soul of Datta even in the final dissolution of creation. Every divine soul including the soul of God Datta is unimaginable God and in this view, divine soul differs from ordinary soul even though eternality is common with every soul. But, even in eternality there is one difference that the divine soul can never perish because it is the eternal unimaginable God (Parabrahman) whereas the ordinary soul maintained is eternal because unimaginable God is maintaining it as eternal for the sake of future entertainment. If the unimaginable God wishes, the ordinary soul can simply disappear at any time.
When Śaṇkara said that every soul (relative awareness) is God, it is true if you take all such souls as the souls of divine incarnations, which have become unimaginable God. Śaṇkara extended the meaning of such divine soul to the ordinary soul also in order to bring atheists to right path. Once the unimaginable God merges with a soul, such soul becomes mediated God and this principle is one and the same for all souls of incarnations including Datta. Hence, when Śaṇkara told that God is relative awareness, He meant the relative awareness of soul that has become God in every incarnation. Only the body of Kṛṣṇa perished, but, the divine soul of Kṛṣṇa remains in the soul of Datta forever. In fact, the unimaginable God merged with the body of Kṛṣṇa also because His body lifted a huge hill, which is an unimaginable event done by the body. Only at the time of death of the body, the unimaginable God withdrew from the body whereas the same unimaginable God never withdraws Himself from the soul of Kṛṣṇa. If you confine to such divine souls of incarnations only in which monism between God and soul exists, what all said by Śaṇkara (soul is eternal God) is totally true. Śaṇkara must be confined to the divine souls of incarnations only. Rāmānuja and Madhva must be confined to ordinary souls only and hence, they preached dualism between God and soul only.
If you take the soul of Datta and the souls of other incarnations existing in Datta, you can find homogeneity in all the souls including the soul of Datta, which is that each soul is relative awareness merged by the unimaginable awareness called as unimaginable God. From the view point of the relative souls, all the souls are divided. But, from the view point of unimaginable God merged with each soul, all the souls are undivided and one only, which is the unimaginable God or Parabrahman (Avibhaktaṃ vibhakteṣu...—Gītā). In this way, every word of Śaṇkara’s philosophy is perfect truth if you confine to the divine souls of incarnations of God only without extrapolating His concept to ordinary souls. But, Śaṇkara purposefully extended this concept to ordinary souls also so that any ordinary soul including the soul of even atheist can become God (the incarnation) so that any soul can become God provided God wishes. The only thing to be always remembered is that no soul is already God. Any soul can become God only due to the will of God and not due to the effort of the soul. Effort of the soul can bring eligibility to the soul to become God. Every eligible soul will not become God because misunderstanding may come that the acquired eligibility will certainly make the soul to become God. Aspiration to become God even as a trace in the soul will kill such chance just like even a trace of potassium cyanide kills the living being. Effort will bring the eligibility to the soul, but, the eligibility does not guarantee the soul to become God because becoming God (incarnation) totally depends on the will of God. Of course, when He wishes to incarnate, one of the eligible souls is picked up by Him. Thus, eligibility brings the probability of the chance to become God.
The philosophies of Rāmānuja and Madhva are related to the chance of ordinary souls to become God whereas the philosophy of Śaṇkara is related to the soul that has already become God (incarnation). Hence, Śaṇkara told that every soul (every divine soul of incarnation) is already God. Rāmānuja told that every soul is a part of God and here also every soul means every divine soul of incarnation and God means God Datta. Since the body of God Datta is also eternal and the bodies of all other incarnations perished, He brought a partial difference between God and divine soul. God is fire and divine souls are sparks. The quantitative difference between the fire and spark is that God Datta is having eternal body as extra feature. Qualitatively fire and spark are one and the same, which means that both the divine soul of Datta (Fire) and the divine souls of other incarnations are qualitatively one and the same (relative awareness merged with God to become God). Madhva took the same philosophy of Rāmānuja regarding these divine souls. Madhva took climax devotees of God (ordinary souls) as messengers of the master God Datta elaborating the qualitative and quantitative differences. Madhva’s philosophy applies to ordinary souls only, who are devoted servants to the master-God.
If you take the non-mediated unimaginable God and an ordinary soul, you can’t dream even about an iota comparison between God (Unimaginable God) and soul. If you take the mediated God and ordinary soul, where is possibility of comparison because the medium of God and the ordinary soul are one and the same. When Śaṇkara told that God is the imaginable relative awareness or soul, it means that the soul is the medium of God. Hence, the ultimate God projected by Śaṇkara is not the non-mediated absolute unimaginable God, but, the same unimaginable God merged or mediated by this relative awareness of the soul. Such soul covered by an energetic body with which also unimaginable God merged is a clear mediated God in the philosophies of Rāmānuja and Madhva. Hence, all the three divine preachers dealt with mediated God only and did not speak anything about the original unimaginable God. Śaṇkara spoke that the divine soul of incarnation as ultimate God whereas Rāmānuja and Madhva spoke that the incarnation (especially the first energetic incarnation) as the ultimate God. This is quite logical because there is no difference between non-mediated unimaginable God and mediated unimaginable God from the side of God except that the former is unimaginable and invisible whereas the latter is imaginable and visible to souls (from the side of souls). Hence, the three philosophies are exactly one and the same in the basic sense. The superficial difference is only that Śaṇkara spoke the divine soul as God. Whereas Rāmānuja and Madhva spoke that the divine soul along with divine body of first energetic incarnation as God.
These three divine philosophies can be used even by a non-devoted ordinary soul also in the worldly life to overcome psychological disturbances also for which the God-Father is also happy to help His issues in worldly problems. If you are disturbed by misery of highest intensity, you can apply Śaṇkara’s philosophy to your soul thinking that you are God and gain full confidence to come out of the mental chaos for which God will not mistake you that you claimed yourself as God. If the misery faced by you is not of highest intensity and is only of higher intensity, you can apply the philosophy of Rāmānuja to yourself (that your soul is a part of God) and come out of lesser chaos. If the misery is of least of intensity, you can come out of such least chaos thinking that you are a devoted servant of God, who is always protecting you. All these applications are useful in curing your personal psychological problems only and you must confine these philosophies to your mental state within yourself only. You shall not extend these philosophies in the world with ego. For example, you can think that you are God to come out of worst chaos in your worldly life. But, you should not really think that you are God and stand in Sunlight of summer thinking that Sun fears from God (Bhīṣodeti Sūryaḥ- Veda) and lose your life on the spot!