16 Feb 2025
[Master Samadrito asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swami. Currently, I am reading this book called Puranas. Here are some doubts that occurred in my mind. Please clarify them. At Your divine lotus feet, Samadrito.]
1. What does Lord Brahma's form represent?
Swami replied:- The four faces are looking at the complete surroundings covering all the directions around. Therefore, the spiritual knowledge that is coming out from His four mouths indicates that such spiritual knowledge is the complete truth since all the surrounding doubts are cleared. God Brahma Datta is the embodiment of spiritual knowledge and He is also the creator, which means that the spiritual knowledge is the first step in the spiritual path.
2. What is the story behind how the earth and heaven emerge?
Swami replied:- Earth indicates the central neutral zero whereas heaven indicates upper plus. The lower negative sign is indicated by the below lower worlds. Zero is better than the lower minus sign and is lesser than the upper plus sign. This means that you, the human being, shall always try to avoid sin and always try to do merit. The middle human being is better than the lower demon and is lesser than the higher angel. The physical creation always indicates excellent spiritual concepts. This is told by the saying that this universe represents God (Viśvaṃ Viṣṇuḥ…- Mahaabhaaratam).
3. What is Kalpa and what are Manvantara and Vaivaswata?
Swami replied:- Kalpa and Manvantara are specific periods of time. Vaivaswata Manvantara is the name of one Manvantara.
4. Who are Saadhyas?
Swami replied:- Saadhya is the name of a race of energetic beings dwelling in the upper energetic worlds. The names of other races include Gandharva, Caarana, Siddha, etc.
5. Did bhuutas emerge from various parts of Lord Brahma's body?
Swami replied:- The word ‘bhuuta’ stands for both the inert five elements and the non-inert zoological living beings. Thus, this word stands for the entire creation. All the creation came out from the different wills (parts) of God. Here, the word ‘body’ shall be taken as the unimaginable will of God.
6. Does Lord Shiva hold the chopped-off 5th head of Brahma?
Swami replied:- This story shall not be taken in the sense of Lord chopping off the head of another Lord because both God Shiva and God Brahma are the two different forms of the same one God Datta. These stories are the dramas of God in various forms to preach some good spiritual lessons to the souls. Lord Shiva represents the quality of Tamas and God Brahma represents the quality of Rajas. Rajas represents ego and Tamas represents ignorance. The lesson is that ego and ignorance are responsible for any quarrel leading to violence. Various forms of the same one God are involved here to create a strong idea that such mistakes are inevitable even for the divine personalities and not to speak of human personalities.
This idea focusses on the immense strength of the concept speaking that the human beings must be very very careful about such strong concepts. Chopping the head of God Brahma indicates a murder. The result of that sin in the form of a skull, which is sticking to the palm of Lord Shiva means that the fruit of the killing did not leave even the Supreme Lord Shiva. This means that the ordinary human beings can never escape the fruit of violence and murder done with ignorance. One can give any punishment to any soul for the sin in view of the establishment of justice in the society. But, the violence resulting in killing shall not be done in haste because the fruit of such sin is inevitable to any great person, which is clear from the case of Lord Shiva. Hence, all these divine dramas in the form of Puranaas are only to preach the correct concepts to the humanity. If ordinary human beings are taken as the actors for the roles in such dramas, no human being will care for the concepts preached by such dramas.
7. How was the work of creation done?
Swami replied:- Creation was done just by the will of God. In fact, the will of God itself is the materialized creation (Icchāmātraṃ prabhoḥ sṛṣṭiḥ).
8. What is the meaning of Puraana?
Swami replied:- Puraana means an old story on hearing which, the ethical (Pravrutti) and spiritual (Nivrutti) concepts are developed in the human life. This must be the aim of the Department of History in Universities. From the old stories, we can learn what is good and what is bad. The results of actions in those old stories caution us about the future fruits of our present actions being done in this world.
9. Will Chhaya's following curse on Yama work on him?
[As Yama is the god of death, will Chhaya's (illusion created by Sanjana, Surya Deva's wife, to avoid the brilliance of Surya) curse on him that his foot will be eaten by insects as soon as he places his feet on the floor, work on him?]
Swami replied:- As I told above, these stories are enacted by the divine personalities to preach the lessons in Pravrutti to human souls. You shall not take these dramas as real incidents that attacked the actors of the roles projected in these dramas. You are worried about the actors and not worried about you. The actors played these dramas because they are worried about you only! You need not worry about God Yama. You must worry about yourself in doing a sin and this is preached by the above drama.
10. I wish to hear the tale of the universe's origin from You so that I can tell my friends properly.
Swami replied:- As per the Veda, God is only one (Ekamevādvitīyaṃ Brahma). Such God was bored due to His loneliness (Ekākī na ramate). Therefore, God wanted a second item for entertainment (Sa dvitīya maicchat). If the second item is only one, there is a chance of God getting bored with it after some time and hence, He created the second item with multiplicity containing several different items (Sa idaṃ sarva masṛjata). In this way, He created and maintained this creation for His entertainment. Just like the interval in a cinema, this creation is stopped or destroyed for some time. Destruction here does not mean the demolishment of the film reel of the cinema. It only means making the gross cinema to be maintained in the subtle state in the film reel. This is the tale of this creation. Here, you should not mistake that God, the embodiment of bliss, is really bored. Such boredom of God is not due to the deficiency of some item like a TV in the house. Even though a king has everything in the palace, he gets bored and likes to change the place for some time by going to the forest for hunting. Here, boredom means the will to change the existing variety.
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