16 Feb 2011
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
In spite of hectic efforts of atheists, the devotion of devotees did not decrease even by a trace from the beginning of this creation. The percentage of devotees also did not decrease and the very little percentage of atheists also did not increase even by a trace. Do you think that the reason for this standard devotion is the reality of devotion to God? No no. The real reason for this is the unimaginable power of the link between devotion and the materialistic benefits. People believe that due to the devotion, the worldly life is protected and benefited. This faith is the life of the devotion. God as the protector of worldly life and as the donor of materialistic boons is loved by all. Some people love God so that they will be blessed by God to become God. The real love to God without expecting anything in return is totally absent. There are some people who love God without any aspiration in return, but the reason for such selfless love is that God will be pleased by such love so that they will become God as a result of such pleasure of God!
Several people think that they are already God and they have to only remove the ignorance that they are not God. Hence, there is no need of the element of love to God. Their effort is always to strengthen their memory power that they are God. They think that they are really God and that they have forgotten this fact. The basic reason for such concept is that God is the awareness present in a living being. Actually, awareness is the best comparison for God. The creation of this world by God is best compared to the creation of dream by awareness.
Similarly, God can change any object of the creation in to another object by His will. For this point, the awareness and dream stand as best examples. On sharp analysis, the comparison shows its own limitation.
Neglecting all these limitations, you can take awareness as the best simile for God. The best simile is always expressed as metaphor. If a person is exactly as brave as lion, a person can be spoken as lion itself through the figure of speech called as metaphor. Similarly, God is called as awareness. The person is not actually lion. The metaphor indicates that the person is almost as brave as lion. The comparison is in the quality of courage only and not in other aspects like strong jaws, strong nails, brown basket of hair, roaring, killing the animals etc. Similarly, God is compared to awareness in only one aspect, which is changing anything into any other thing just by will.
The Veda is a collection of poems and poetry always involves the figures of speech. People have misunderstood this tradition of poetry and took God actually as awareness. Hence, everybody thinks that he is God. Shankara used this misunderstanding to introduce theism to atheists. The atheist will never agree to the existence of the separate God. He will accept the existence of God only if he is said to be God since nobody denies his own existence. This trick was used by Shankara to make the atheist believe in the existence of God at the very outset. If the existence is not accepted, further details will never be heard. When the details were completely heard and analyzed, one will easily be convinced that he is not God. This is the development of teaching method as per the psychology of a set of students. Shankara practically demonstrated to His disciples that everybody is not God by swallowing the molten lead and by asking them to drink it similarly if everybody is God. The Advaita philosopher does not still leave the hope by saying that he is unable to drink molten led since his memory power that he is God is not fully restored. He continues the efforts to regain the full memory power that he is God. He will memorize this concept through [out] his life time and cannot go even near the molten lead even at the time of death. What more foolishness can be there in this world than this?
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