Posted on: 29 Jun 2024
[Shri Durgaprasad asked: Paadanamaskaaram Swami, 1) Myself and a devotee of Krishna were engaged in a discussion and were unable to understand a verse from Gita - "Ishvara Sarva Bhuutaanaam..." that the Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart and is directing the wanderings of all living entities. My questions related to this verse are as below:
a) This verse contradicts other verse from Gita - "Na kartrutvam Na karmaani..." that God is not responsible for soul's actions. How to correlate the two verses?]
Swami replied:- Mediated God Datta is sitting at the center of this world made of five elements. Bhuuta here means all the five elements and not the living beings. He is rotating the entire universe as the central axis. This is the correct interpretation and Bhuuta here shall not be taken as living being. In the Gita, God clearly said that He is not in the souls (Na cāhaṃ teṣu…, Na tvahaṃ teṣu…). Several Brahma Sutras also say that God is not the soul (Netaro'nupapatteḥ… etc). In the Gita, God clearly told that the creation including souls is on Him, the basic support and that God is not in the creation including souls. Incarnation is an exceptional soul because God enters a selected soul and merges with it. Even if you assume that God is sitting in the heart of living beings, He can be treated as simple witness without initiating the actions of the souls.
Even if you take God has the central axis of this world on which it is rotating, you should not imagine God as a physical item made of matter or energy that rotates the world. The example of rotation of earth around its axis can be imagined to understand the concept. Just like earth rotates on its axis, this world rotates around the axis, which is the unimaginable power of God. The resulting sense is to say that the unimaginable God is rotating the entire universe through His unimaginable will or power. This unimaginable will or unimaginable power can be told as unimaginable God because two or more unimaginable items become one unimaginable item only. Since God is beyond our imagination, you cannot imagine God or His power as the imaginable axis in literal or physical sense. Even if you take God as mediated God, His unimaginable will or unimaginable power is rotating this world because the unimaginable God is merged with the mediated form. Only in the case of incarnation, God enters this world and merges with the selected devotee (medium) so that the mediated God is the unimaginable God in the entire sense. When a simile is given to God, you must take only the applicable concept and the simile cannot be taken in all aspects even in the case of a worldly example. Especially with God, no item of the world can stand as complete simile in all or at least many aspects because God is unimaginable and the item compared is imaginable.
b. What is inner consciousness or antaraatma?
[What is inner consciousness or antaraatma? Is it part of four antahkaranams of awareness or some other instrument through which God guides? Is this related to the above verse?]
Swami replied:- The consciousness is nothing but the awareness that is aware or conscious of information. It is like the current that enters the computer to display the information from the RAM onto the screen.
c. Who guided the soul in the following case?
[Recently, a person died in a tragic car accident in which the person without any sankalp/vikalp thoughts, reversed the car and fell into a valley. As there were no prior thoughts, who provoked the thoughts of the person? Definitely God didn't guide it, but then who?]
Swami replied:- It is the fruit of his past sin (called karma) that diverted him to meet the accidental death. The punishment for a specific sin is stipulated by God in the divine constitution and God is not responsible at all to kill that person. Had he not done that sin, he would not have been punished.
d. Who inspired the thought when some sudden saving from accidents occurs?
[Other times, we also experience that we get saved all of a sudden by moving away from a falling tree or stone? Is it not that God inspired the thought through inner-consciousness?]
Swami replied:- It is the good fruit of your good deed that protected you as per the divine constitution of God.
e. What is the difference between the following verses of the Gita?
[Naarad bhakti sutram says "Tanmayahite..." that God dwells in the hearts of devotees, so as the verse ‘Ishvara sarva bhutaanam’ also says. There is a similarity as well as a difference between these two statements which I am unable to understand. Kindly remove my confusion. At Your lotus feet, Durgaprasad]
Swami replied:- In both verses, the meaning is not that God sits in the heart of everybody or in the heart of devotee. He does not sit in the heart of everybody – this is explained above. Regarding devotees, He does not enter the devotee because the basic philosophy of the devotee is dualism so that He can serve and enjoy God situated separately. The word ‘Tanmaya’ means that the mind of the devotee is completely absorbed on God. God is very close to the real devotee and hence, we can see the devotee as the second address of God. The first address of God is incarnation since God enters and merges with a selected human devotee.