24 Dec 2016
Dr Nikhil asked: In the poem composed by Shankara there is a line “Shivah kevaloham”. The translation of this line can be done in two ways.
1) The word ‘kevala’ (only) stands as an adjective to God Shiva or
2) The word ‘kevala’ (only) stands as an adjective of Myself (Aham).
The first way is preferred by Advaitins and thus every soul becomes God Shiva. How can you explain this verse in the second way only?
Swami replied: In the first way, the translation will be “the only President of India is Myself”. In the second way “only I am the President of India”. In both these ways “Myself is the President of India” is the result. Of course, in the first way the stress is given on the President and in the second way stress is given on Myself. Hence, the conclusion in both ways is that Myself (Shankara) is the President (God Shiva). In both these ways, the post is confined only to one person, who is Myself (Shankara). In both the ways the speaker is Shankara only (Aham) and not any other soul. If the sense is that every soul is God Shiva, the word Aham (Myself) should have been replaced by the word Aatma (every soul). Such an important concept should have been expressed in clear word like Aham or Aatma. There should be no ambiguity when the word is clearly expressed as Aham.
Moreover, the theory should be in line with the practice. Here, Shankara swallowed molten lead and is saying that He alone is God Shiva. If you extend the word Aham to every soul, it contradicts the practical aspect. If you forcibly bring out such general sense to mean that every soul is God Shiva, every human being should be able to drink the molten lead. Since none except Shankara could drink the molten lead, the concluding meaning is only that the stress should be given to the word Aham. Even if you give stress to the word God Shiva, it will not contradict the above meaning that Shankara is that only God Shiva since only Shankara is the speaker of this statement.
Advaitin may extend the argument in his favor by saying that even a demon can swallow molten lead and hence by such miraculous power alone, the demon should not be decided as God. We completely agree to this point. But, the demon is also filtered by the second step of filtration, which is that Shankara gave the excellent spiritual knowledge where as a demon like Ravana could not give such spiritual knowledge. 99% of general humanity is also filtered out along with scholars from Shankara by the first filtration, which is the exhibition of miraculous power. This is gross filtration. The second filtration is fine filtration by which the demons are filtered by the unimaginable spiritual knowledge exhibited by Shankara. In the purification of water, the first step is allowing the water in big tanks so that gross particles settle down by their gravity. The upper water is siphoned out and is filtered through fine filters by which the fine suspended particles are also removed.
A scholar or an ordinary human being posing that he is God is filtered out by the first step of filtration since he cannot perform any miracle. A demon exhibiting miraculous powers is filtered out by the second step of filtration. Even the miraculous power exhibited by the demon like Ravana is only due to the boon given by God Shiva. It is the power of God Shiva only and not the power of Ravana. A miracle is unimaginable event and is the characteristic of unimaginable God. Unimaginable God exists in the energetic incarnation like Lord Shiva or in the human incarnation like Shankara. Ravana is not the human incarnation. The demon attained that miraculous power (unimaginable power) from the unimaginable God existing in Lord Shiva. Demons do rigid penance and God Shiva yields to them due to their rigidity like a father yielding to a rigid son. When the demon performs a miracle, you must keenly note that God Shiva alone is performing that miracle through the medium of demon because the miraculous or unimaginable power is always the inherent power of the unimaginable God existing always in Lord Shiva. When Shankara performs the miracle, God Shiva is in Shankara because the unimaginable God is always introduced into the human form through energetic incarnation like Lord Shiva (Datta). Since God Shiva is outside the medium of Ravana and is transferring the unimaginable power from Him to Ravana in the context of a miracle; you cannot say that the demon is performing the miracle. The red color of a ruby gem near a crystal makes the crystal temporarily to become red. The crystal does not have the red color as inherent characteristic. If the red ruby is fixed inside the crystal permanently, we can say that the crystal has characteristic red light. In this way you have to differentiate the human incarnation from the demon though both perform miracles.
While typing this, Shri Pavan asked a question “Why not God grant the miraculous power with a condition that it should not be misused?”
Swami replied: You are having a son, who is a small boy. He is suffering with cold. But, he is insisting you to purchase a chocolate. He is not listening to you even if you say that the chocolate is going to enhance the cold. Will you yield to him or not? Similarly, God yields to every devoted soul, be it a demon. If God puts such condition, the demon will perform another installment of penance to get the unconditional miraculous power.
You can also differentiate the human incarnation from the demon through the attitude in exhibiting the miraculous power. Demons perform miracles very frequently because their attitude is to expose their own greatness or even to make an impression on others that they are God. The attitude of human incarnation is quite different. Unless there are very much pressing circumstances, the miracle is not exhibited. God does not wish to expose Himself like a demon. In fact, one of the purposes that God came to this earth is to enjoy the life of human role like an actor identifying himself with the role completely and forgetting himself fully. Hence, the human incarnation always tries to hide itself and its exposure is done only in the unavoidable circumstances. Even if the miracle (exposure) is done, the human incarnation passes on the credit to external God. Sai Baba performed several miracles but always impressed the minds of others by constantly saying that ‘God (different from him) alone is the Master’ (Allah Malik), which invariably suggests that Sai Baba is the servant of God. Shankara performed this miracle because the important concept of spiritual knowledge is human incarnation, which should be properly understood by His disciples. Imparting right knowledge to His disciples is unavoidable occasion. The problem with the human incarnation is that if miracle is not exhibited, it will be treated as a scholastic human being only and no attention is given to the preaching. This is one extreme end like drought. The other extreme end like flood is performing the miracles frequently like a demon. In this extreme end of flood, there is a lot of danger because devotees will try to use the miraculous power often for their normal problems also and this develops selfishness and lazy nature. Moreover, these devotees try to praise constantly the human incarnation for the benefit of miraculous power and the human being component of the human incarnation may also be affected by ego and fall like Parashurama. Hence, the policy of human incarnation is only to perform minimum number of miracles in the unavoidable circumstances only.
Dr. Prasad asked: Can You clearly explain the link between finite, infinite, imaginable and unimaginable domains?
Swami replied: Imaginable domain is this creation, which has two subdivisions: 1) visible and 2) invisible. Shankara says that creation of God is both visible and invisible and both these are imaginable only (Drishyaadrishya vibhoothi…). You need not mistake that if something is invisible, it should be unimaginable. The invisible part of creation can be seen through sophisticated instruments as in the case of x-rays, gamma radiations etc. Here, the word invisible means that which is invisible to the naked eye. Similarly, the soul is invisible part of the creation only and hence is imaginable. The soul is nervous energy, which is a specific work form of inert energy only resulting in the specific nervous system. This nervous energy can be seen as pulses of inert energy in the instruments in medical labs. Hence, Lord says in the Gita that the soul is not viewed by ordinary human beings by their naked eyes, but can be viewed by the high level scholars or scientists (Vimoodha naanupashyanti, pashyanti jnanachakshushah). Imaginable domain is that phase in which you can differentiate two items like matter and light energy. Similarly, you can differentiate finite and infinite and hence both these are existing in the imaginable domain only. A tree is finite and universe is infinite. Infinite means that it is imaginable everywhere. The core and the boundary of infinite universe are imaginable. The boundary of this universe consists of the same visible components of the core and hence the boundary is well imaginable. The only difference between the core and boundary of the infinite universe is that core is visible through naked eye or instruments and the boundary is not visible to the naked eye or even to the instruments. But, we can imagine the boundary since boundary is like the core only.
Some people wrongly take the infinite to unimaginable domain. The unimaginable domain is always one only because you cannot distinguish two unimaginable items separately. Any number of unimaginable items become only one unimaginable item since neither core nor boundary of any unimaginable item can be imaginable. Therefore, you cannot bring the infinite into unimaginable domain because infinite is distinguished from finite. Two distinguished items must exist in the imaginable domain only. The invisible nature of the boundary of the universe cannot bring it into unimaginable domain. The reason is that invisible nature exists even in the imaginable domain.
The unimaginable domain or God is also invisible. All invisibles are not belonging to imaginable domain or unimaginable domain only. Invisible belongs to both the domains. Hence, God is invisible and unimaginable whereas the boundary of the universe is invisible but imaginable.
Real infinite means that the boundary of which cannot be seen by anybody. Such real infinite cannot exist. You cannot say God as real infinite because neither core nor boundary of God is visible. In the case of infinite universe, the core is visible and imaginable and its boundary is imaginable though invisible. The problem of the invisible nature of the boundary of the infinite universe is not arising because the boundary is the boundary of a real infinite. The boundary of this infinite universe is visible to the unimaginable God, who surrounds the boundary of the universe (Sarvamaavritya tisthati – Gita). Invisible nature of the boundary of the universe is not the problem of this actual universe. The actual problem is that if you reach the boundary of the universe, you will see the starting boundary of unimaginable God just like when you reach the boundary of the earth, you will find the starting boundary of the sea. When God is unimaginable, there is no point of visible nature of God. Since you cannot visualize God, you cannot reach the boundary of the universe. Hence the problem is due to unimaginable God and not due to the imaginable universe. Hence there is no absolute infinite and the unimaginable God cannot be the absolute infinite because infinite should be always imaginable. The unimaginable God is beyond the aspects of finite and infinite. This imaginable universe is only a relative infinite since its boundary is invisible to human beings only and not to God. This infinite universe did not exist at all before its creation. Non-existence of real infinite is impossible. Therefore, the created universe is finite with reference to the creator and is infinite with reference to its part or human being. When God said in the Gita that this creation is infinite (Naantostimama…) it means only that this world is a relative infinite (which means that it is infinite to souls and simultaneously finite to the unimaginable God).
The constant expansion of the universe, indicating the running of space ahead as the human being runs after it, is also a poetic expression of the above concept. Otherwise, how the universe can expand in space, when the space itself is a component of the universe?
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