24 Oct 2022
[Shri Jsr Prasad asked:- Sashtanga pranamas Swamiji. You told that when Shankara condemned the Maadhyamika school of Nagarjuna of Buddhism that everything is non-existent, Shankara told that there should be a receiver or awareness to understand and maintain this concept of non-existence (shuunyavaada) without which even the follower of this school cannot argue that non-existence exists. In this way, You told Shankara established the existence of awareness and told that awareness is God. Then, how can You say that awareness is not God? -At Your divine lotus feet]
Swami Replied:- The existence of awareness is accepted because the creation got the absolute existence from God as gift. Awareness is also a part of the creation. The relative existence of awareness (soul) or of the creation means that it has absolute existence gifted by God and hence, there need not be any doubt about the existence of the soul. Hence, We agree that Shankara proved the existence of the soul in this context, which is not the existence of God. Even if the soul exists, the school of non-existence of everything gets disproved. When the purpose is achieved, telling that soul is God is unnecessary and extra in this context. This extra point is out of the scope of condemning the school of non-existence of everything.
If every existing soul is God, every existing soul must be the omniscient God. In such a case, the above point that everything is not non-existent since the soul exists, must be known to every soul. In such a case, why did the Buddhist soul, which established the non-existence of everything not know this point? How did the Shankara-soul alone know this point? Hence, it is proved that every soul is not the omniscient God. Only the soul of Shankara knows this point and this means that only the soul of Shankara is the omniscient God. We accept the concept of human incarnation, which says that a specific selected devoted soul by God becomes God since God perfectly merges with it to make it the human incarnation. We fully agree that Shankara is the human incarnation of God. This means that even though all the souls are basically the same awareness, there is difference among the souls due to difference in the acquired knowledge. Due to this difference only, the soul of Shankara knew a special point that is not known by all the other souls. Like this, even the soul of Shankara need not be God and can be a scholarly soul inventing this point. By this conclusion, ‘no soul is God’ can also result, but, this does not mean that ‘every soul is God’ is established. Your philosophy is not established by not accepting that some soul is God. In fact, Shri Madhva told that no soul is God. We belong to the Madhva line as well because We accept all the three philosophies (Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva) as correct and correlate them. We are telling that Shankara is the incarnation (instead of telling Him as a special scholar) so that Shankara’s philosophy has a special case in which His philosophy is absolutely correct. If you deny Shankara as the incarnation of God and say that He is a special scholar only, you have destroyed the entire Shankara’s philosophy by denying even Shankara, Who is a rare example of the Advaita philosophy. If you accept Shankara as the incarnation, you will get at least 1% strength. If you say that Shankara is a special scholar only, you lose that 1% strength as well! Which would you prefer? Moreover, as per your interpreted Advaita philosophy, both Rama and Ravana are God and Rama killing Ravana means the suicide of God!
The Advaita followers also worship Shankara as God showing their acceptance that Shankara is the incarnation of God. If these followers say that every soul is God, in such a case, these followers should not worship Shankara. If they are opposing Our argument, it means that they are opposing the special status of Shankara as God. If they are equal to Shankara, their worship is questioned! If you say that the followers of Shankara worshipped Shankara just like Shankara worshipped His preacher, based on the tradition of worship being done for the sake of ignorant souls (loka samgraha), Our fundamental question will attack you, which is that how an ignorant soul can exist when every soul is God and how can God become ignorant?
Our philosophy is giving place to all the three philosophies of the divine preachers. The monism of Shankara is correct in the human incarnation of God (due to the perfect merge of God, Shankara becomes God completely). The qualified monism of Ramanuja is correct in a very close devoted soul like Adishesha, who is treated as His limb by God (God is whole and devotee is like a part or an inseparable limb). The dualism of Madhva is correct in a totally separate ordinary soul serving God (God is the master and soul is the servant).
Based on the clue obtained from the concept of the opponent, Shankara told that the receiving awareness (Pramaataa) exists due to which ‘everything is non-existent’ is defeated. This does not mean that the awareness or soul alone exists and everything except the soul does not exist. In fact, the absolute reality of God gifted to the world made the entire world to be absolute real due to which the tiny part of the world, the awareness or soul also became absolutely real. Hence, along with the soul, we have to accept that the entire creation also exists and this situation makes that ‘everything is not non-existent, but, existent’ only. By this, it becomes clear that soul is also not inherently absolute real, but, becomes absolutely real due to the gifted absolute reality by God to the world. God is inherently absolute real and hence, the soul cannot be God. The acquired absolute reality of the world and the soul from God makes the world and the soul to be called as relative reality.
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