20 Jul 2012
[A devotee asked a question: “God is said to be happy continuously without any break (Akhanda ananda swaroopa). But, we do not have continuous happiness. Why is this difference?” Given below is Shri Swami’s reply.]
People say that God is bliss or extreme happiness (ananda). This means that God is not the extensive happiness and it means only that God possesses the extensive happiness. It is the custom to call the possessor of some item by the name of that very item itself. You call the possessor of apples by the apples. You call “Oh Apples! Come here”. Similarly, the Veda says that God is the true and infinite knowledge (Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma). Here, God is the possessor of the knowledge. It is wrong sense if you take the knowledge itself as God. Alternatively, you can call the God as knowledge in the sense of its personification. It means that the knowledge itself is personified as God. This again is a figure of speech and not the actual sense. It means that the knowledge is not the actual personification, but it is taken as the personification. In this way, you can call God as bliss in the sense of its possessor or its assumed personification. In anyway, you should not treat bliss itself as God directly.
Now, coming to actual subject, God has bliss continuously without any break. It means that God enjoys this world continuously. You are unable to enjoy the same very world in continuous manner. You should not think that God derives enjoyment from something continuously, which is beyond this world. There is nothing beyond this creation except God, the creator Himself. God is beyond this imaginable world because God is unimaginable. The real reason for the infinite continuity of this world is that God exists beyond the boundary of this world. Since God is unimaginable, you can never touch God even by imagination. Therefore, the world must continue infinitely as you travel so that you can never touch the unimaginable God. This is the actual concept in the infiniteness of the universe. Scientists could not give the reason for the infiniteness of this universe since they are unable to accept the existence of the unimaginable God beyond this world or space. Hence, for scientists this universe is infinite without any reason. Philosophy, accepting the existence of unimaginable God, who is beyond the space (due to absence of spatial dimensions), is able to give the logical reason for the infinite continuity of the universe in this way.
Now, coming to the point, God enjoys this same very world, which is enjoyed by you. Since God is beyond the world, God can enjoy the world as an external spectator enjoying the cinema. But, the human being is involved in this world and cannot be the external spectator. You may say that this difference is reason for the difference in the enjoyment. God is certainly beyond the world, but the Veda says that God enters this world. Even in the world, God can maintain His status of being beyond the world. If a drop of oil enters the water in a vessel, the drop maintains its individuality without mixing with water. But, if a particle of sugar enters the water, it dissolves in water. The human being is a part and parcel of the creation. The soul of the human being is part and parcel of the cosmic energy. The external human body is part and parcel of the cosmic matter. But, God is beyond energy and matter. Therefore, God maintains His individuality and the human being is unable to maintain its individuality and dissolves in the world. Therefore, you may say that this is the reason for the difference in the enjoyment. If you analyze carefully, even this point is not valid. The simile here is not correct. The soul in the human being does not dissolve in the cosmic energy and the human body does not merge with the cosmic matter during the lifetime of the human being. This may happen after the death of the human being. The human being is separately maintained in this world and hence, the human being is also like the drop of oil only. Hence, this cannot be attributed to be the reason for the difference in the enjoyment of God and human being. Moreover, God enters this world through a closely devoted human being only, which acts as the medium.
God exists in the human being and derives the experience through that human being only and such a specified human being is called as human incarnation of God. The wrong interpretation of this concept is that God exists in all the human beings and every human being is the human incarnation. In such case, what is the necessity of the appearance of the Veda, the spiritual knowledge, when all the human beings are God? In such case, there is no necessity of preaching the human being. In such case, the king, one human incarnation, should not punish a sinner, the other human incarnation. Here, the main point is that God has the same involvement and the same way of enjoyment through the human being possessed by Him in this world as in the case of a human being. This means that the human being possessed by God and the ordinary human being exist in the same world and experience the different scenes in the same way. The human being possessed by God is identified with God and hence, the status of such human being is the status of God. Finally, this means that God and ordinary human being exist and enjoy the same common world in equal way. Both Krishna and Arjuna lived in the same world of scenes of happiness and unhappiness and their process of enjoyment was also the same. Yet, God continuously enjoys whereas the enjoyment of a human being is frequently disrupted by unhappiness. Everything being the same, how has this difference cropped-up?
This creation is made of a lot of different items and feelings. The feelings in different occasions are different due to variation in the proportions of happiness and unhappiness. The two extreme feelings are happiness and unhappiness based on profit and loss, winter and summer, day and night etc. The two extreme items mix in different proportions giving rise to a number of different feelings. What is the necessity of this multi-phased creation? The reason is that if there is only sweet in this world, continuous enjoyment of the sweet bores the human being, generating unhappiness. Therefore, if you want to rectify this, the source of enjoyment should be altered. If there is a hot dish also and if the sweet and hot dishes alter regularly, the process of enjoyment can continue without generating unhappiness. If the item is single, the process of enjoyment cannot be continuous. Mixing the sweet and hot can give rise to various items and in such case, the altering is with many more dishes. Even if the process of enjoyment is one and the same, you will not be bored based on that point. You are bored only when the source of the enjoyment (dish) is one only. God does not mind to provide you sweet dishes only continuously. But, in such case, you will develop such unhappiness that you become allergic to sweet and will never enjoy the sweet again. Suppose you are given the sweet dishes only for 24 hours and the life of your happiness is forever 24 hours only and at the end of this, happiness from sweet can never be regenerated. Is this desirable? Will the divine Father wish for such a situation? Instead of such worst option, it is better to give sweet dishes for half day (12 hours) and give hot dishes for other half day. By this way, every day you are happy for 12 hours and after ten days, the life of your happiness is 120 hours, though not continuous. In the first way, the life of your happiness is 24 continuous hours only, but the life of unhappiness due to sweet-allergy is 9 days. Which is better between these two ways? The divine Father always prefers the way of maximum benefit to His children. Therefore, God created both sweet and hot dishes in view of the maximum benefits for His issues. But, if you can develop the talent of enjoying the hot dishes also and derive happiness from such hot dishes also, you can be happy continuously in all the 10 days. In such case, the life of your continuous happiness by enjoyment is 240 hours! Therefore, the divine Father did not create only the sweets by which the issues get one day happiness and nine days unhappiness. God created both the sweet dishes and hot dishes in an alternating way so that atleast, the issues get discontinuous happiness for 120 hours and discontinuous unhappiness for 120 hours. This second way is certainly better than the first way. The third way is the expected divine way of the divine Father, which is continuous enjoyment for all the 10 days by deriving continuous happiness from the process of enjoying the sweet and hot dishes alternatively. This process of deriving continuous happiness through continuous enjoyment will not bore you because the source of happiness is not the single item. The happiness derived from the continuous enjoyment of single item only bores you leading to unhappiness. In the third divine way, the same process of continuous enjoyment of different sources or dishes will not bore you and will not generate unhappiness at all. Now, how to derive happiness from the enjoyment of hot dish also? The answer is very simple. If you are not a child and if you are grown-up adult, you will derive the happiness from the enjoyment of hot dishes only. If you are a child, you cannot enjoy the hot dish. Similarly, if your spiritual knowledge attains maturity, you will enjoy the world of different situations continuously and be happy always. If your spiritual knowledge is primitive like the ignorant child, you will be in the second way, deriving 120-hour happiness. Even this is better than the 24 hour happiness and hence, God did not create only situations of happiness in this world. The second middle way is better than the first way and the third way is your goal to be achieved.
If you enjoy the world of different items and situations and be happy continuously, you become equal to God atleast in the process of enjoyment. You can neither create the world nor put the end to world. You cannot also control the world in between these two states. You are neither Brahma, the creator, nor Vishnu, the controller and nor Rudra, the destroyer. All these three are the names of the three potentialities of God. In view of these potentialities, you are totally different from God (Dvaita). Atleast, enjoy this world like God enjoying all the situations of life. If you can attain this state, you are equal to God and this is the Advaita preached by Shankara. All the spectators of the cinema are equal as far as the state of continuous enjoyment of the cinema is concerned. The producer-cum-director may be one of the spectators in the hall. The enjoyment of such producer-cum-director is one and the same as the enjoyment of a poor beggar. The personal positions and capabilities are immaterial as far as the process of enjoyment is concerned. Your friend earned the food materials and cooked to prepare both sweet and hot dishes. You neither earned nor cooked the food. Atleast, [you] become equal to your friend by enjoying the food like him.
The equality in the process of enjoyment of different situations is yoga (Samatvam yoga… Gita). Some foolish people try to develop the detachment and inertness in enjoying the different situations of this world. This equality in inertness is interpreted as yoga by such ignorant people. Non-enjoyment and inertness is not the aim of God in creating this creation. If God wants to be inert and peaceful by non-enjoyment, He could have kept silent without creating this universe. You go to the cinema hall, close your eyes and ears and finally come out saying that you remained in equal balanced state! In such case, you can stay in your house and there is no need to go to the cinema hall. Such philosophers will be born as inert stones since they tried for such state only. You should go to the cinema hall and enjoy the cinema with different scenes and your process of enjoyment should be continuous and should be in equally balanced state of deriving continuous happiness from both happy and unhappy scenes. The continuous equality (Samatvam) should be in the process of enjoyment of both sweet and hot scenes. The continuous equality should not be in the inert non-enjoyment by closing the eyes and ears. On one side, you say that awareness is God and on other side, you develop the state of inertness, which is the non-awareness! This becomes self-contradiction!! You can never be God in the case of the potentialities (Ishwara), but atleast be God, the possessor of awareness (Brahman), to enjoy this world constituted by multi-phased scenes and derive continuous happiness. This is the essence of the monism (Advaita) of Shankara. This is the highest concept in the spiritual knowledge and this is the only way to become God perfectly and completely atleast in the present state of enjoying the world continuously.
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