Are the devotees totally surrendered to God also the human incarnations of God?

[Ms. Laxmi Thrylokya asked:- Certain devotees, who are totally surrendered to God are also called as God. In such case, are they also the human incarnations of God?]

Swami replied:- The devotees totally surrendered to God are not God because they become Gods of God! God becomes the servant of such totally surrendered devotees. There are two meanings for the statement “you are X”. (i) In one sense, you have become exactly ‘X’ in all angles and this sense is called ‘Tādātmya prathamā’, which means that there is no trace of difference between yourself and X. (ii) In the other sense, you are under the full control of X in all angles and this sense is called ‘Tadadhīna prathamā’. In the case of human incarnation, when God merges with a selected human devotee to become incarnation for certain welfare work of the world, the first sense applies. In the case of totally surrendered devotees, the second sense applies because such devotees are totally under the control of God. However, this does not mean that other souls are not under the control of God. Due to free will given to all souls, God follows the norm of the free will, which is not mandatory for God. If God feels that the soul is crossing the given boundaries of free will, God will control such a soul immediately cancelling the facility of free will given to that soul completely. When the Veda says that this world is God (Sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ Brahma), the second sense shall be taken to mean that the entire creation is under the control of God. While writing the documents regarding a property we mention east:- Rama; south:- Krishna etc., it means the eastern boundary is the property under the control of Rama and not Rama Himself. This is an example for the second sense of first case (Prathamā vibhakti).

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