31 Oct 2011
[Shri Ramanaiah asked “Why does God always want to remain unimaginable? Does it not leave the devotee ever dissatisfied that it is impossible to know God?” Shri Swami replied as follows.]
[Message on Naga Panchami day] The actual reason is that the intelligence of the devotee can imagine anything, which has the spatial dimensions (length, breadth and height). Anything, which does not have the spatial dimensions, becomes logically unimaginable. You can test this point by closing your eyes and constantly try to imagine anything, which is not having spatial dimensions. Even the minutest particle that you can imagine must have some least measurable or atleast spatial dimensions, which can be calculated atleast by calculations if not by instruments. Therefore, the problem to understand God lies with the devotee and not with God. You have to keep God beyond the space because God is the generating cause of the space. You cannot find pot in the lump of mud before the generation of the pot. If you say that the pot exists already in the mud, you cannot say that the pot is generated after the preparation of the pot since the pot already exists in the mud. Therefore, the effect should not be in the cause before its generation. Hence, space should not exist in God before its generation. It means the original God before the generation of space does not have the characteristics of space, which are the spatial dimensions. This logic inevitably keeps God beyond space and hence, unimaginable.
You may argue that nothing is impossible for the omnipotent God. All impossibilities called as miracles are possible for God. Therefore, the unimaginable God by His unimaginable power or capability can make the devotee to imagine even the unimaginable God. The answer for this is that God never breaks the general logic to be followed by the souls in Pravritti. Of course, God performs these unimaginable events to establish the concept of unimaginable nature. But, this one point stands as an exception and the other miracles are sufficient to establish the existence of unimaginable nature. For another reason also, you should not say that God is not omnipotent due to incapability of this exception since there is a valid reason for this in the interest of not only the devotee but also God. Such valid reason is: the human being is made of ego, jealousy and negligence over the attained or known things. As long as an item is unknown and is not attained, the negligence, ego and jealousy subside. The human being always regards the distant item and neglects the item, which is present before the eyes. We can find this human nature by several examples and I can give one or two of these. People worship the statue of the serpent today, the Naga Panchami, with unimaginable devotion since the actual serpent is not seen. When it appears, it is immediately killed! People neglect their parents when they are alive and do not give meals even with one side dish. But after their death, their yearly ceremony is performed with meals containing at least a dozen side dishes! In the case of serpents, the fear for selfish harm is the reason. In the case of parents also, the same fear for the selfish harm is the reason because if the yearly ceremony is not performed, there is a fear that some harm will happen to him. This is the inherent nature and even the angels are not exceptional to this as said in the Gita (Paroksha Priya ivahi Devaah…).
Even in the case of contemporary human incarnation, devotees worship it with lot of devotion for sometime and negligence starts slowly. God tested whether the human being makes God an exception to this inherent nature. Such test is the observation of the human incarnation after living with the devotees for sometime. The human being perfectly proved that even God is not an exception to its inherent nature. Even the devotee like Rukmini could not overcome this. She was daily drinking the hot milk and the Lord was normal even after drinking the hot milk. One day Rukmini gave the same hot milk to Radha. When Radha took that milk, the skin of the Lord became red due to heat. The Lord told that this happened since He is in the heart of Radha. The conclusion showed that the Lord was not in the heart of Rukmini. Rukmini asked the Lord for the reason. The Lord told that Radha was staying far and hence, the value of the Lord was maintained by her. This proves that anybody staying far away will have value. Therefore, God wants to stay far from the devotees by always becoming unimaginable so that the value can be maintained. When the value is broken, the Lord will feel more for it. He does not want to see the break of His value and feel for it. Hence, God avoided this one miracle not only in the interest of the devotee but also in His interest. The interest of the devotees is that the devotee should not lose the Lord due to such negligence.
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