04 Jul 2010
Krishna, Buddha, Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva are the five important preachers in the spiritual knowledge. Krishna gave the original text called as the Bhagavat Gita. He told that God is unimaginable (Mamtuveda nakaschana…) and also told that God is incarnated through the imaginable creation (Prakrutimsvaam…). The incarnation is imaginable part of creation in which unimaginable God exists. The human beings can see, touch, talk and live with the human incarnation from which they can clarify all the doubts and get correct guidance, which is the most important factor. The Gita is the essence of the Vedas and the Vedas also say that God is unimaginable (Namedhaya…) and that God enters a part of the imaginable creation (Tadevanupravishat…). Buddha kept silent about the unimaginable God and silence is the most truthful expression of the absolute God. He concentrated on the eradication of desire, which is essential requirement to serve God. The followers of Buddha misunderstood His silence as negation of God and became atheists. Shankara condemned the followers of Buddha and not Buddha, who is the ninth incarnation of Lord [Vishnu]. To rectify this, Shankara took the formless cosmic energy as God, but such cosmic energy is only a medium into which God can enter. When God enters a medium, such medium becomes God just like the metallic wire becomes current when current enters it. Such charged medium is called as incarnation or relative God. The electrified metallic wire is treated as current and hence, the medium charged by God can be also treated as God. The relative God is imaginable and sometimes visible also if the medium consists of matter. By taking the relative God, the possibility of atheism can be avoided since the relative God is understood.
In the case of absolute God, you can understand only the existence of God but not any other characteristics of God (Assteetyeva… Veda). In the case of relative God, you can understand not only the existence but also the other characteristics since the characteristics of the medium of God can be understood. You may not see the current but if you treat the metallic wire as current, you have seen the current by seeing the electrified metallic wire. The cosmic energy is invisible but imaginable. Shankara told that this relative God is awareness. The cosmic energy which is all pervading is inert. If you take the awareness of human body as God, such awareness is not all pervading (since such awareness is limited to living beings only) and also not omniscient. By this, the awareness limited to human body is not God. He proposed the all pervading omniscient awareness as God and such God is neither the inert cosmic energy nor the limited human awareness. Such God is not available in the creation and hence, the God of Shankara becomes again unimaginable. But if you take the human incarnation like Krishna as God, the awareness limited to the human body of Krishna is all pervading and omniscient. Therefore, if you analyze the God of Shankara, He is only the human incarnation. Shankara Himself being the human incarnation told that He is God. The disciples misunderstood this and extended the concept to themselves and felt that each one of them is God. Shankara swallowed the molten lead and proved that the human incarnation alone is God and not every human being. However, Shankara did not mention the word human incarnation because the atheists were highly egotistic and could never accept the very concept of human incarnation limited to a specific human being only. To satisfy them he told that awareness in every human being is God but the completeness of God can be achieved only by some other specific characteristics like wonderful knowledge, miracles etc.
One Characteristic of God
Awareness is only one of the characteristics, which means that God is not inert. A king is a human being but every human being is not the king. Apart from the basic characteristics of a human being, the king has some additional specific characteristics like extraordinary valor, controlling capacity etc. Shankara just introduced the concept of God by mentioning one characteristic called awareness only so that atheist accepts the existence of God even though he feels himself as God due to the single characteristic (awareness). One merit with 99 defects is better than 100 defects. Ego and jealousy are the main hindering factors to accept a human being existing before your eyes as God. This is the most truthful concept but has the most powerful problem of ego and jealousy. Hence, this concept cannot be introduced in toto in the first instance itself. It has to be introduced partially depending on the concentration of ego and jealousy. At the time of Shankara, all were atheists with the highest concentration of ego and jealousy. Hence, Shankara introduced the human incarnation without name and limited Himself to one characteristic (awareness) only so that every one feels that he is God. Thus, their most powerful ego and jealousy were not hurt and at the same time the concept was introduced by one percent only.
Acceptance of the existence of God itself reduces the ego and jealousy. When Ramanuja came, the disciples were theists with reduced ego and jealousy. Therefore, He introduced the concept of human incarnation of the upper world called as Narayana. If the human incarnation of this world is introduced, people will not accept due to their remaining ego and jealousy. Narayana is human incarnation of energetic body and not of materialized human body. The medium of Ramanuja was visible energy where as the medium of Shankara was invisible energy. The concept of human form in energetic medium has further reduced ego and jealousy but still a little remains. Then Madhva came and introduced the materialized human incarnation of this world as Rama and Krishna. If the contemporary human incarnation is introduced, people will not accept the concept due to remaining traces of ego and jealousy. Hence, the past human incarnation of this world was only introduced by Madhva. He took Hanuman as the best spiritual aspirant who served Rama, His contemporary human incarnation. A little common sense indicates that you have to serve the present contemporary human incarnation only and not the past human incarnation through photos and statues. The photos and statues are inert and your service to these objects cannot be the service to God because God is not inert. Everywhere, you have to remember Shankara, who said that God is awareness and not inert.
If the last remains of ego and jealousy are totally removed, you can introduce the contemporary alive human incarnation for service and this last step of the concept is preached by Datta Swami (Myself). All these are steps of progress in the spiritual effort of an aspirant and the preacher must preach according to the stage in which the disciple exists. Unless you examine and estimate the percentage of ego and jealousy in a human being, you should not preach the spiritual knowledge. After estimating the percentage of ego and jealousy only, you have to preach the corresponding relevant step of knowledge and you should not reveal the whole concept also. You should give impression that the relevant concept of a particular stage itself is the ultimate knowledge. You should introduce the next stage of concept only after observing further reduction of ego and jealousy.
You should not say that God is incapable of preaching the characteristics of God and that it shows only the ignorance about God. Most of the people think of God as imaginable item like awareness, all pervading energy, visible light, inert matter etc. Negating all these possibilities and establishing the true unimaginable nature of God itself is the perfect and complete knowledge of God. By realizing completely that God is unimaginable, you have attained the true knowledge of God. Nobody other than God can understand God (Brahamavit Brahmaiva… Veda). Therefore, God is not ignorant about Himself. The inability to understand God belongs to the limited scope of intelligence of human beings and it is not due to incapable explanation of God. A blind man can never see any object, however much it may be explained. The defect lies with the blind man and not with the preacher. The intelligence of any human being cannot cross the spatial dimensions and can never imagine God, the generator of space, existing beyond space without spatial dimensions. The reason for not understanding God is also clearly explained by God. Therefore, God is the best preacher of the ultimate truth and the main purpose of human incarnation is only to preach the true spiritual knowledge, which alone can save any human being in the ultimate sense.
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