04 Aug 2012
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
[Evening Discourse] God does not become imaginable since His existence, which is the inherent characteristic, is known. No doubt, the existence of an item is its inherent characteristic. But, this inherent characteristic is common to all the existing items. It is only a general inherent characteristic, which is common to all the existing items. It is not specific and hence, the knowledge of such general inherent characteristic does not isolate that item from other items. It does not give any specific information about the item by which you can isolate and recognize it. If you say that something exists in the locked room, it means that something is existent, which is not non-existent. Hence, the general characteristic is useful only to negate the non-existence. The specific characteristic of such existing item, representing a specific work, can alone give the identity of the specific item. If the item is hot, the specific characteristic is heat, which is recognized by the work of heating your finger near it. Now, the heat is the specific characteristic by which you can identify the fire. Therefore, the general characteristic does not give any information about the specific nature of the item. The item is unimaginable due to the absence of the knowledge of its specific characteristic. The knowledge of the general characteristic has nothing to do with the specific nature, which is its identity mark.
In the case of God, the Veda says that God can do any specific work, but, such specific work does not give the information about the specific nature of God. The reason is that this whole procedure of identifying the specific nature through specific work is limited to the imaginable items of the creation only. The authority of inference applicable to imaginable items fails in the case of unimaginable God. The Veda says that God runs but has no legs and God catches but has no hands (Apaanipaado…). Running and catching are specific works indicating the specific nature like presence of legs and hands respectively. If it is the case of the imaginable item, we can infer that God must be a living creature due to running legs and catching hands. The specific work done by God exists, but, it fails to indicate the corresponding specific nature, resulting in the failure of final inference of God as the corresponding specific item. The essence of all this discussion means that God runs and catches due to His unimaginable power and not due to legs and hands as in the case of imaginable items.
All the philosophy of Shankara is almost applicable to space or cosmic energy, if you treat it as God. There are several merits. Space is apparently modified into the materialized world. Space has spatial dimensions and hence, every item of the world has spatial dimensions, being the modification of the space. Hence, space is the creator of this world. Space maintains and destroys this world as energetic radiation. Since space itself is energy, the energetic radiation must be also space. Thus, the creation, maintenance and the destruction of the world are accomplished by the space or cosmic energy. The all-pervading space can be treated as God. But, there are two defects to negate such assumption. The first is that space is imaginable unlike the unimaginable God. The second is that Space is inert cosmic energy and cannot think. God being Omnipotent should be able to do anything including the work of thinking. These two defects cancel the treatment of space as God. Similarly, awareness, which is a specific work form of inert energy, cannot also be God. The first defect is that God being a specific effect of the inert energy, cannot be the cause of energy. But, the Veda says that God is the cause of energy or space (Aatmana akashah…). The second defect is that awareness is born after the end of the deep sleep and dies after beginning of the deep sleep (Athachainam… Gita). In such case, God has continuous chain of births and deaths, which contradicts the eternality of God. Due to these defects, God is neither the cosmic energy (space) nor the awareness. You cannot say that God is a mixture of both cosmic energy and awareness so that the mixture can have all the merits rejecting the defects. This is the impossible idea because you cannot mix the inert energy and non-inert awareness like day and night. There is an equal possibility of such mixture to have the defects of both, avoiding all the merits of both the items.
By the specific work, you cannot infer His specific nature and finally, infer God as an imaginable specific item. The specific nature is possessed item of its corresponding specific item, which is the possessor. [Example:] If you put your finger near God, your finger is heated. Therefore, the specific work of heating is done. From this specific work, you cannot infer its corresponding specific nature i.e., heat. The link between the specific work and specific nature is broken in the case of unimaginable God. In the case of an imaginable item like fire, the fire heats your finger due to the heat possessed by it. Here, the link between specific work (heating) and its specific nature (heat) exists. From the specific nature, you can easily recognize the item as fire. But, in the case of God, the link between the specific work and specific nature is broken. The reason is that the unimaginable God heats your finger through His unimaginable power and not through His possessed specific heat. God is also not awareness because He does the work of thinking through His unimaginable power. The link between thinking (specific work) and thought (specific nature) is broken here and hence, the final inference that God is awareness fails.
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