29 Sep 2017
Dr. Annapurna (Prof. in Central University, Hyderabad) asked:
1) In TV9 channel, I heard one producer of films called as Shri Rama Gopal Varma asking the following questions: i) It is told that God Shiva cuts the head of Vinayaka and latter on joins the head of elephant with the body. God Shiva could have joined the original head itself being omnipotent! ii) Rama cuts the nose of Shurpanakha just for her love to Him. Is it not the most cruel deed? iii) Rama sends His pregnant wife to forest based on some blame. Rama can’t be a role model for humanity. iv) Krishna dancing with Gopikas and marrying 16 thousand girls is against a role model. Kindly answer these points.
Swami replied: i) The story of Vinayaka is a drama played by God to give an important concept to humanity, which is that you should not worship a cinema actor as God seeing the beauty of his/her face. You must worship anybody for the qualities, deeds and knowledge, not based on face value. The face of person may not be beautiful and may look ugly, but, you shall worship that person for his/her good qualities and good deeds. Vinayaka, with beautiful face objected even His father, who is the Father of entire creation based on single point of the order given by his mother. The same Vinayaka with face of elephant was made as the Lord of all devotees (Ganas) by the same Lord Shiva. Head represents knowledge and subsequent deeds. If you don’t catch the background message of this divine drama, such doubts will come, which are not related in any way to the divine message. The capability or incapability of God is unconcerned issues in this context. God shall not be degraded to the level of a human being to become a role model like Mahatma Gandhi. But, even in this story, God Shiva stands as a role model by not giving importance to face value. Greatest devotees like Hanuman with the face of monkey, Garuda with the face of bird and Nandi with the face of bull come under this concept.
ii) Rama didn’t cut the nose of Shurpanakha for her love to Him. Lakshmana wounded her nose when she ran towards Sita to kill her shouting that Rama is rejecting her due to His beautiful wife. You have missed the complete incident and hence, this is misunderstanding.
iii) Rama is God in human form and is the judge of all deeds of all living beings. Rama left Sita in forest based on a blame that her character was not good. This is the punishment given by God to her for the sin committed by her, which was her blaming Lakshmana in the forest that Lakshmana is fascinated to her and is wishing the death of Rama! This is the greatest sin of her for blaming the greatest Lakshmana, who is the highest devotee with highest moral character. Lakshmana did not recognize any jewel of Sita because he never saw her above her feet! He recognized only the anklets since he saw her feet only every day in salutation! When Lakshmana became unconscious, Rama stopped the war saying that Sita is not required before Lakshmana. Such a blame from her on such a great devotee! Sita knows the sin from the nature of punishment since sin can be detected from the inference of the nature of punishment, which is unreal blame. Since she recognized her sin, she tells Lakshmana in the forest after Rama leaving her that Rama shall be her husband in future births also (Tvameva bhartaa na cha viprayogah). When the affected party (Sita) itself is telling that the punishment was justified, the advocate is finding fault with the punishment! After war also, Rama scolded Sita in the same language by asking her to go and marry anybody with full freedom. Rama never proposed the fire test, which was proposed by her only. She asked Lakshmana to make the fire ready and this shows that she recognized her sin done to Lakshmana. If Sita is not punished here, She cannot go to the abode of God (Vaikuntha) directly since she has to go to hell before that. This shows unparallel love of Rama to Sita. Without knowing this background, ignorant people misunderstand Rama as undemocratic. Rama is the highest role model for humanity proved through His practice (Aadarsha Manushaavataara).
iv) Rama is an ideal for human behaviour and Krishna is an ideal for the omnipotence of God shown in His human form (Leelaa Maanushaavataara). He married sixteen thousand daughters of kings and generated ten issues to each. This simple fact shows that He is God and not an ordinary human being! Moreover, these sixteen thousand girls loved Krishna and were imprisoned by Jarasandha. When Krishna freed them from jail, they forced Krishna to marry them threatening that they will commit suicide otherwise. Kings were justified to marry many as told in the scripture (Raajaano bahu vallabhaah) since their marriages will have several political obligations for welfare of public in kingdom.
Krishna stole butter (wealth) meant for the children and danced with married Gopikas. Gopikas were the sages in several births and this is their last birth in which Krishna tested them for their three strong worldly bonds (Eshanas) to wealth (butter), issues and life partner. Krishna already proved that He is God by several miracles. After this one incident in Brundavanam, Krishna neither repeated this elsewhere nor returned to Brundavanam in His lifetime. Except this one incident, which is the test of sages for salvation, there is no trace of difference between Rama and Krishna. Without understanding Krishna as God and Gopikas as sages, if you equate Krishna and Gopikas with ordinary human beings, you are lost! Gopikas also threatened to jump into river Yamuna when Krishna advised them to go back. In worldly life (Pravrutti), justice must be voted against injustice. In divine life (Nivrutti), God must be voted against even justice. Understanding the real concept of the Bhagavatam is said to be a test for any scholar (Vidyaavataam Bhagavate parikshaa).
Shri Phani asked:
2) In discussion with Dr. Nikhil recently, a point came up which is to say that God Vishnu is this world (Vishvam Vishnuh). Please clarify this point.
Swami replied: Even the Veda says that all this creation is God (Sarvam khalvidam Brahma). When you say that X is Y (Prathamaa Vibhakti), it can be taken in two ways: i) Meaning that X is Y (Tatartha Prathamaa). Here, only one item exists in the final sense. When you say that Rama is husband of Sita, there are no two personalities like Rama and husband of Sita. There is only one personality, Rama, who is the husband of Sita. When you say that God is pervading this entire world (Eshaavaasyam), then also, one item only results. When you say this, are there two items which are God and separate world that is not pervaded by God? If you say two items existing, there must be world, which is not pervaded by God. If you say that there is no world that is not pervaded by God, it means only God exists. This is the absolute plane (Paramaarthadashaa) in which only one item, God, exists and the other item, world does not exist. Here, God is the absolute unimaginable God and world is the relative imaginable creation. This plane can be easily misunderstood by taking the other side of concept. When you say that this world is God, it can also mean that there is no God except this world as taken by atheist. You should take the other side of the concept by meaning that there is no world separately except the one God. Due to this fear of other side atheism, Ramanuja and Madhva left this absolute plane untouched. Moreover, the concept of unimaginable God can easily mislead in to atheism since the human brain can accept the existence of an item only when it is imaginable and understood. Imagination of the item through inference at least shall be allowed even if the perception is absent. Unimaginable nature allows neither perception nor inference. Shankara took both the planes for the total concept. Ramanuja and Madhva preferred only relative plane in which God Vishnu, the deity of the present existence (Sthiti) of this world is stressed. Neither we are in the past creation nor are we in the future dissolution.
ii) Meaning that Y is the property controlled by X (Tadadhina Prathamaa). Here, two items exist separately so that neither X is Y nor Y is X. Here, you can’t say that X is pervading all over Y since Y exists separately without X in it. When you write the document of property, the boundaries are mentioned like Rama is on East and Krishna is on West etc. This means that house or site controlled by Rama is on East and house or site controlled by Krishna is on West. This doesn’t mean that the property itself is either Rama or Krishna himself. Separate existence of two items results and this is the relative plane (Vyavahaara Dashaa). Here, God is mediated God and God is taken as the imaginable medium since God identifies Himself with the medium. Thus, the relative plane consists of two parts of imaginable creation only and there is no reference of unimaginable God in this plane. The entire material of the plane is only the imaginable creation, which exist in two parts: a) the medium of God and b) the rest creation. Here, God is beyond the world and is not existing in the world anywhere except as human incarnation. You need not worry about the omniscience of God without omnipresence. Due to omnipotence, God can be omniscient without becoming omnipresent.
Shankara never neglected the importance relative plane since He told that this creation is neither existent nor non-existent (Sadasat Vilakshana Midhyaa). You need not laugh at Shankara by saying that this is mutual contradiction. It is only due to the illusion of correct understanding of the meaning of the word Midhya. It means that this world is non-existent for the view of unimaginable God and is existent for the view of the soul, which is a part and parcel of the world. Since the references are different, there is no mutual contradiction. In the context of above said first meaning, perfect monism of God results whereas in the context of the above said second meaning dualism results. The monism due to inseparable dualism of God-component and human being-component of Ramanuja finds its best application in the context of human incarnation. The human body also represents this entire world qualitatively (Apara and Para Prakruti) and hence this concept applied to the world shall be taken as the concept applied to human incarnation only. If you take this concept of Ramanuja to the world, a bad demon must also be God and God killing the demon means suicide! Hence, omnipresence must be limited to human incarnation only and not to be extended to the entire rest world. In the case of world, you can speak omnipresence as an assumed fact achieved by omnipotence since God is omniscient without being omnipresent. If God is present in the father of Prahlada also, father of Prahlada must be also a good devotee. To protect the word of Prahlada, God occupied the entire world in the form of Narasimha and this is a special situation of time only. If God is everywhere in the creation, only God must exist and creation shall be totally absent since there is no creation without God as said above. Such state brings the absolute plane and we can take Prahlada talking about the absolute plane only like Shankara. Several statements of scripture exist saying that unimaginable God is beyond the imaginable world (Nedam Tat…, Neti neti…, Maamebhyah param…). We can accept the existence of God in this world as human incarnation and we can also interpret His existence in the entire world by taking the meaning of the world as human body of human incarnation due to qualitative identity between world and human body (Antar bahishcha…).
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