16 Nov 2024
[Shri Lakshman G asked:- Paadanamaskaarams Swami. In Your reply to a question of a devotee, You had mentioned "It is not the question of desire. It is only the natural tendency to change the variety of enjoyment. Desire is the wish for something, which causes misery in its absence". Please clear my following doubt.
In the case of Parabrahman, the wish to create a second thing must have been a desire to kill His boredom (due to the absence of the second thing). Can this boredom be called a misery? After the creation of the second thing, He must not be bored. But, the only difference between the soul and the unimaginable God (with respect to misery) is that in the case of God, the second thing is never absent, which is not true in the case of soul. Can we conclude like this?
At Your divine feet, Your servant, G Lakshman.]
Swami replied:- A very rich man has everything in his palace except Television (TV). He got bored and ordered for a TV at once. The TV was fixed in his house immediately. Procurement of TV was very very easy and there was no trace of any difficulty. The boredom got by the rich man is not misery because he is fully confident that he will get rid of boredom immediately by purchasing the TV. Such boredom is not misery at all because the rich man is very much capable of getting rid of his boredom at once. Let us take another example of a poor man. He also got bored and wanted to procure a TV. But, his financial condition is very bad and he could not procure the TV. Now, his boredom turned into misery and his wish for TV became a desire. But, the wish of a rich man cannot be called as desire.
Similarly, God is an ocean of bliss and is fully contented. Due to the absence of second thing, He got bored. Immediately, He wished for a second thing and a second thing got materialised with equal reality to give real entertainment to God. The equal reality of the second thing is gifted from God only. The second thing is also not one thing, but several things so that even if He is bored with one thing, other things exist to give a change in entertainment immediately. In the case of a soul, even if it is bored, it can only entertain by creating an imaginary world and not by creating a real world and hence, the soul cannot get full and real entertainment. The boredom of the soul is not completely removed and such boredom is misery. Since the soul is always wishing for real entertainment, such wish is desire. As soon as the boredom started in the mind of the rich man, the boredom disappears immediately due to his capacity to remove the boredom immediately. In the case of a poor man, as soon as the boredom appears, it cannot be destroyed because of his incapability to purchase the TV. Hence, the boredom of a poor man is turned into misery and the poor man is always desiring to purchase the TV. Therefore, the boredom of God cannot be misery and there is no desire for anything at any time as said in the Veda (Āptakāmasya kā spṛhā?). Based on the omnipotence of God, any negative becomes like an external shadow only without any core material. Keeping the vast difference between God and soul in mind, we shall deal this topic.
The second thing or the world always remains before God. For the soul also, the world remains always. When the human being dies, it (individual soul) leaves the gross body in this world and goes up in a subtle energetic body to reach upper worlds. The upper worlds also are in the creation only. Hence, the creation is eternal for both God and soul.
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