Posted on: 06 Aug 2021
Chapter-1 Chapter-2 Chapter-3 Chapter-4
Īśvarāvatāra Jñānam (The Knowledge Of Īśvara And His Incarnations)
1) It will be too hard for the soul to understand anything if the unimaginable God is introduced in the very first step. Hence, the unimaginable God was introduced as awareness by Śaṅkara. Every one understands awareness since awareness is the soul itself. Unfortunately, people understood the soul itself to be God! Actually, the awareness mentioned by Śaṅkara was not the relative awareness, produced upon consuming food, which, in turn, comes from plants (Oṣadhībhyo annaṃ annāt puruṣaḥ—Veda, Annād bhavanti...—Gītā). The awareness which was said to be God is the absolute awareness of the unimaginable God.
2) The absolute awareness means that the unimaginable God can also think like the relative awareness (soul) (Kṣetrajñaṃ cāpi māṃ...—Gītā). Both the absolute awareness and the relative awareness can think, but just because of this common property, both do not become one and the same. The difference between them is that, in the case of the absolute awareness, the thinker is the unimaginable God, whereas, in the case of relative awareness, the thinker is the relative awareness itself. In the case of the soul or relative awareness, there is no thinker separate from the thinking process. The thinker is the subject and the thinking process is the verb. The thinking processs means the process of knowing an object. The thinker as well as the thinking process are the same relative awareness. The soul’s basic ego, or the I-thought is the subject or the thinker, which, being a thought, is part of the thinking process itself. But in the case of the absolute awareness, the thinker is the unimaginable God and the thinking process is merely His process of knowing. Just because of the existence of a common thinking process, both the thinkers (God and soul) cannot be one and the same.
3) In the case of the relative awareness, both the thinker and the thinking process are the same work-form of the inert energy functioning in the specific nervous system. In the case of the absolute awareness, the thinker (God) is totally unimaginable. The thinking process of God also, is not the work-form of inert energy since, before creation, there was neither inert energy nor a material nervous system. Thus, in the case of God, the thinking process only means that He is able to know objects just as a soul can know objects.
4) It is said in the Veda that God wished to create this world (Sa dvitīyamaicchat—Veda). The whole tragedy in philosophy started here since scholars thought that God must be the relative awareness since He thought. It is true that a created soul who thinks is awareness itself. But, in the case of the Creator who is the unimaginable God, He can think due to His unimaginable omnipotence, without being awareness itself. God burns the entire world in the end. Yet, He is not fire since He can burn anything due to His omnipotence, without being fire (Attā carācara grahaṇāt—Brahma Sūtras).
5) Śaṅkara gave a separate place to the unimaginable God, which He termed as the absolute awareness. Rāmānuja and Madhva left the concept of unimaginable God and instead took Īśvara as the starting point. They called Īśvara as Nārāyaṇa. The unimaginable God created space, which is very subtle energy (Ātmana Ākāśaḥ..., Tat tejo asṛjata—Veda). The subtle energy formed a divine body having its own relative awareness or soul in it since awareness is a special work-form of energy. This was the first divine energetic being and is called Hiraṇyagarbha. The unimaginable God entered this first energetic being and merged with it permanently. The first energetic being thus became the first Energetic Incarnation called as Īśvara. Īśvara, thus has become identical with the unimaginable God and He controls creation.
6) Īśvara is called Hiraṇyagarbha because the unimaginable God (Hiraṇya or gold) is embedded in Him as the Creator. Īśvara, being omniscient, is the source of all knowledge and hence, He is also called Nārāyaṇa. He is also called Sadāśiva because He is always pure, without the contamination from any second item, other than Him. Some people use the word Īśvara instead of Sadāśiva. He is called Datta because He, as the unimaginable God, has given Himself to the souls for worship in the form of the visible energetic body.
7) Since Nārāyaṇa (Īśvara) is identical with the unimaginable God or Parabrahman, Rāmānuja and Madhva took this first Energetic Incarnation of God, having a soul and body, as the absolute God. Moreover, out of the three stages of creation namely, creation, maintenance and destruction, we exist in the middle stage of maintenance. Creation has already occurred and destruction is yet to occur. For this stage, the omnipotent and omniscient ruling of the world by God, as signified by the name, Nārāyaṇa, is relevant. Even if you take the absolute awareness to be God, a body becomes essential to hold the awareness because awareness is not seen to exist anywhere independent of a body. Thus, Īśvara’s body holds the absolute awareness of the unimaginable God. However, this is not an important point because the unimaginable absolute awareness can even exist without a body due to God’s omnipotence. But Śaṅkara also accepted the separate existence of Īśvara, after establishing the existence of the Unimaginable Awareness. He called the absolute Unimaginable Awareness as the God-without-attributes (Nirguṇa Brahman) and Īśvara as God-with-attributes (Saguṇa Brahman).
8) Rāmānuja and Madhva only took Saguṇa Brahman (Iśvara) without mentioning the Nirguṇa Brahman. Īśvara is called as the basis of the unimaginable God because the visible Īśvara is the permanent basic address of the unimaginable God and without Him, there can be no perception of the unimaginable God. This point is mentioned in the Gītā (Brahmaṇo’pi pratiṣṭhāham...). Īśvara is visible to energetic beings in the upper world, even though He is invisible to human beings. On the other hand, the Veda says that the unimaginable God is the basis of the entire creation (Brahma pucchaṃ pratiṣṭhā). But an ordinary devotee can be easily taught the concept of God through Īśvara, the first Energetic Incarnation, who has a body and a soul like a human being, but is also identical with the unimaginable God.
9) Īśvara as the medium (energetic body and soul) had a beginning, but He has no end since He is eternal. Even when the entire creation is destroyed in the final dissolution, Īśvara remains unaffected. The destruction of the world only means a transformation of the world from its gross state into a subtle state. In the state of destruction, the world, after transformation into subtle form is absorbed by Īśvara into Himself and retained there until the next cycle of creation. The unimaginable God never leaves Īśvara, which is His permanent address. Hence, there is no necessity to mention the unimaginable God separately. The unimaginable God and Īśvara differ only in terms of the extra energetic medium. It is the difference between gold and gold packed in an external package.
10) The unimaginable God entered and merged with the soul and body of the first energetic form to become Īśvara (Nārayaṇa). Hence, Rāmānuja and Madhva say that the body of Nārāyaṇa is supernatural (aprākṛtika). The Veda expresses the same idea as “Antarbahiśca...”. Hence, both the soul and the body of Nārāyaṇa are eternal and there is no difference between the unimaginable God and the soul or the body of Īśvara or Nārāyaṇa. The space occupied by the body of Īśvara is also eternal since it maintains the eternal body of Nārāyaṇa and is called as the eternal space or parama vyoma (Parame vyoman—Veda).
11) The unimaginable God directly entered only the first energetic form to become Īśvara or Datta. The unimaginable God never directly enters any other form to become an Incarnation. It is only Īśvara who enters other specific energetic forms to become other Energetic Incarnations. Also, it is only Īśvara who enters certain specific human forms to become Human Incarnations. When Īśvara enters and merges with other forms, it means that the unimaginable God Himself is entering the forms to become Incarnations. The unimaginable God is like the antibiotic medicine, which is enclosed in a capsule called Īśvara.
12) The Incarnation is a two-component system in a single phase. It is like the alloy of two metals, which is a homogeneous mixture exhibiting the properties of both components. An alloy is not a new compound formed through a chemical reaction to possess new properties. When gold is alloyed with a small amount of copper, it appears to be a single metal, gold, until it is observed through a microscope. Similarly, when God merges with the selected human devotee to become a Human Incarnation in order to carry out a certain divine program for the sake of the welfare of the world, that Incarnation only appears to be a single human being. God perfectly merges with the human devotee to become a monistic Incarnation, but beyond the limits of our imagination, dualism exists between God and the devotee. So, at anytime, God can quit the Incarnation. God did quit Paraṣurāma after the divine work to be carried out through Paraṣurāma was completed since the human being-component of Paraṣurāma developed an ego. God remained merged with Rāma, throughout His life, since Rāma never developed an ego.
13) The two components of the Human Incarnation are: (1) God-component and (2) Human being-component. The God-component means the first Energetic Incarnation, called Īśvara or Datta, in whom the unimaginable God has merged with the energetic medium forever. The unimaginable God is always invisible. The Energetic Incarnation is also invisible to us unless He wishes to become visible. So, in a Human Incarnation, the God-component is invisible and only the human being-component is visible. We can compare the Human Incarnation to an electrified visible copper wire in which the invisible electric current is flowing. The ordinary human being is compared to a non-electrified visible copper wire. Both the non-electrified wire (ordinary human being) and the electrified wire (Human Incarnation) appear to be identical until we experience the electric shock from the electrified wire. Hence, it is said that God can be known only through experience (Anubhavaika vedyaṃ Brahma).
14) When the current is flowing through the electrified copper wire, the properties of wire, such as its leanness, reddish colour, hardness and so on, are not disturbed. Similarly, in the Human Incarnation, the properties of the human being like birth, hunger, thirst, sleep, illness, death and so on, are not disturbed at all. It is due to this reason, that we are unable to distinguish the electrified wire from the non-electrified wire and we mistake the former to be the latter. Since the properties of the wire, which is the medium for the flow of electricity (human being-component), are constantly exhibited and the properties of electricity (God) always remain invisible, our misunderstanding grows strong. Mistaking the Human Incarnation to be an ordinary human being is also necessary. It allows the Human Incarnation to freely mix with human beings so that devotees can freely have their doubts clarified without any reservation and without any undue excitement.
15) Along with this merit of freely mixing with the devotees comes the danger of devotees developing negligence towards the Human Incarnation. The Human Incarnation, mostly never acts as God. He only acts as a devotee and a spiritual preacher. But even this slight speciality as compared to us, produces ego and jealousy in us towards Him. This inevitable ego and jealousy is called the repulsion between the common human media. If the Divine Preacher exhibits the properties of the invisible God present in Him by performing miracles, this jealousy in us touches the sky! But we hide this climax of jealousy since we expect to get our worldly problems solved with the help of His miraculous powers. When we find that He is not useful to us anymore, that climax-jealousy in us bursts out and we criticize and even insult Him, as told in the Gītā (Avajānanti māṃ...).
16) Due to this reason, the Incarnation always tries to act as only a human devotee or a human preacher, hiding His miraculous powers. But if His powers are completely hidden and not exhibited at all, He faces starting trouble—no devotees are attracted to Him and no one wants to listen to His preaching. If many miracles are exhibited, a lot of devotees approach Him, but most of them are only interested in getting their worldly problems solved. They are not interested in knowledge and devotion. Granting solutions to their worldly problems only increases their desire for more and more solutions. Their desire is never satisfied. When you add ghee to the fire, the fire is not pacified, but instead, it flares up even more (Bhūya evābhi vardhate)! Thus, miracles are harmful since they increase the worldly desires of devotees more and more. But miracles are very important to establish the existence of the unimaginable nature of God, based on the authority of perception.
17) The main aim of the Incarnation is to improve the devotee’s devotion to God, due to which, the devotee automatically develops detachment from the world. But these miracles end up doing the exact opposite by increasing the devotee’s worldly attachment more and more. The increasing attachment hinders the development of devotion. But if miracles are completely closed, nobody even comes to the Incarnation to listen to His preaching. Hence, the situation of the Incarnation is very very complicated, with many many mutually contradicting problems. The state of God in the Incarnation is the state of an extremely delicate divine balance! The divine program is managed by the Incarnation very carefully with His highest divine talent!
18) The Incarnation has the dual nature of God and the medium like the electron having a dual nature of a particle and a wave. In certain aspects, His divine nature is exhibited, while in certain other aspects, His human nature is exhibited like the electron exhibiting both natures in the respective contexts. The nature to be exhibited is decided by the Human Incarnation, based on the needs of each situation, in His divine program. Devotees try to fool God with their show of artificial glittering devotion, hiding their expectation of worldly benefits from God. But God is omniscient and can never be exploited by any soul unlike a human king who gets flattered by the poets in his court!
19) The Incarnation is generally monistic because God Datta merges with the medium perfectly (monism), as far as our intelligence can think. But beyond the limits of our intelligence and imagination, dualism exists between God and the medium. So, God may quit the medium, whenever He wishes. He may also continue in that state of monism with the medium forever. The decision lies with God. In the case of Datta, the First Energetic Incarnation of God, the unimaginable God has merged with the medium forever, forever, forever.... Datta is the permanent residential address of the unimaginable God. Therefore, we need not try to find even the slightest trace of even an iota of dualism in the case of Datta. We should always treat Datta as the unimaginable God in all respects and at all times.
20) Apart from the monistic Incarnation, a dualistic incarnation also exists. In the dualistic incarnation, a clear dualism between God and the soul exists at all times. An example of a monistic Incarnation is Krishna and of a dualistic incarnation is Balarāma. Balarāma is counted among the ten famous Incarnations of God. But He is actually an incarnation of Adiśeṣa, who is a servant of God and who always wishes to remain a servant of God. He always likes dualism alone. If the monistic Incarnation is a homogeneous mixture of copper and gold, the dualistic incarnation is the copper rod welded with the gold rod. In the dualistic incarnation, God becomes the servant of His servant as we see in the case of Krishna serving Balarāma. Hence, the dualistic incarnation is greater than the monistic Incarnation.
21) A devotee need not wish to become a monistic Incarnation since the devotee has the opportunity of becoming a dualistic incarnation, which is greater. As a dualistic incarnation, the devotee can also enjoy the love of God like an ant enjoying the sweetness of sugar! In fact, a devotee should never aspire to become any type of Incarnation since such an aspiration is the basic disqualification for becoming an Incarnation. An Incarnation is always the result of the will of God for the purpose of conducting a divine program for the welfare of the world. An Incarnation means duty and work and not power and ego. The human being-component in the Incarnation must constantly feel that it is always the servant of God and Hanumān is the best example of this. Otherwise, the Incarnation ends up like Paraṣurāma, who, in fact, only acted in that role, to preach by His own example and warn the human being-components in Incarnations to beware of ego.
22) There are five types of Incarnations, which are kalā, aṃśa, āveśa, pūrṇa and paripūrṇa. In all these Incarnations, the same God exists with full power. The difference among them is only in the quantity of exhibited power, which is based on the needs of the divine program. Ignorant devotees think that they differ in the possessed power. The first is the expression of only a ray of God’s power, as in the case of sage Kapila. The second is the expression of a part of God’s power like sage Vyāsa. The third is the temporary merging of God with a medium to carry out some specific divine work like sage Paraṣurāma. The fourth is the merging of God with the medium throughout the life of the medium like Rāma and the fifth is the lifelong merging of God along with the full expression of power like Krishna.
23) One doubt is that if the unimaginable item (unimaginable God) is not knowable to any soul belonging to the other side (imaginable world), there is no relevance of the existence of such an unimaginable item. This is not a valid objection because the unimaginable God knows Himself. He knows the principle behind unimaginable events called miracles. He also knows the boundary of space or the universe. All these aspects are unimaginable only for souls and not for the omniscient God. Hence, this objection cannot be entertained.
Iti Datta Vedānte Brahma Parvaṇi.
Īśvarāvatāra Jñānaṃ nāma tṛtīyādhyāyaḥ.
The third chapter of the Brahma Parva in Datta Vedanta, which is the knowledge of Īśvara and His Incarnations, is thus completed.