21 Dec 2012
[This speech was delivered by Shri Datta Swami at the First World Parliament on Spirituality on December 21, 2012 in Hall-3 (Socrates Hall) Session 1, at the Global Peace Auditorium, Hyderabad. It was webcast live between 11.00-13.00 hrs IST on the conference website(http://www.wpsconnect.org/home.php )]
God comes to earth to direct the spiritual aspirants to the correct path. Direction is very important. Hence, we find that the position of ‘Director’ happens to be the topmost position in any institution. The basis of direction is information, i.e. knowledge, which is obtained as the conclusion of a perfect analysis. This perfect and impartial analysis is called as science. In order to preach this true knowledge, God comes in human form alone and not as a statue. If a statue starts speaking to you, you will be so excited that you will not be able to receive knowledge in your ground state[1] and get your doubts clarified. If a human being charged by God speaks and clarifies your doubts, you will receive the knowledge in your normal, unexcited ground state. This is the tremendous merit of the medium of the living human form. At the same time, there is a tremendous defect also. That defect is that you always neglect the human incarnation. Your carelessness is due to your ego and jealousy towards other human beings.
You may suggest that it is better to let the statue speak so that the problem of jealousy can be avoided forever. The problem of excitement can subside in course of time[2]. But if the statue speaks, it means that the statue has become a human being. The human being consists of matter and soul (awareness-energy). The statue is made out of matter alone. It can speak only when the soul enters it. If the statue speaks, it means the statue has become a human being since the human being is made out of matter (body) and soul. Then, the same story of jealousy repeats!
You are always fascinated by the energetic incarnations from the upper world, like Father of heaven, Narayana etc., which are relevant only to the departed souls, who are present in energetic bodies in the upper worlds. An energetic incarnation is a homogeneous mixture of the inert energetic body, the energetic soul (awareness) and the unimaginable God. The human incarnation, which is a mixture of the inert materialized body, the energetic soul (awareness) and the unimaginable God, is relevant to humanity here. You neglect this human incarnation just because It is closely associated with you here and you are instead fond of the energetic incarnation of the upper world since it is far from you.
It is very difficult to get a vision of the energetic incarnation here since it is irrelevant to humans. Even if you get a vision, it is momentary and it comes only after a long and severe penance. There is no difference between the energetic incarnation (Narayana or Father of heaven) and the human incarnation (Krishna or Jesus). Jesus said that He and His Father are one and the same. The unimaginable God and the imaginable soul are common to both the energetic and human incarnations of God. The only difference is that the human incarnation has a body made out of inert matter while the energetic incarnation has a body made out of inert energy. Matter and energy are inter-convertible forms as per the formula of Einstein (E = mc2). If you neglect the human incarnation here, you will neglect the energetic incarnation there too, after your death. This negligence is due to the principle of repulsion between common media. The result is that you lose God here and there, forever and everywhere.
Shankara said that the soul is God. It does not mean that the soul of every human being is God. This wrong sense is taken by ambitious people, who want to become God without any effort. The real meaning of Shankara’s statement is that whenever the unimaginable God comes down, He is always associated with the soul (awareness), i.e. God is present as the human incarnation. It only means that God will never enter inert bodies as said in the Veda (Na tasya pratimaa…). You can refer to any item by another item with which it is closely associated. For example, you can call out to the apple-seller (bearer of apples) as “Apples”. Similarly, the ‘bearer of awareness’ can be called as awareness. It does not mean that the awareness itself is God or that the apples themselves are the apple-seller.
The ambition to become God spoiled the human being and made him misunderstand this concept. Of course, the human being certainly has the chance of becoming God by becoming a human incarnation whenever God wishes so, for a certain good purpose.
The human being is matter (body) + energy in inert and awareness forms. Energy in awareness form is the soul. The human incarnation is the human being + unimaginable God. The energetic incarnation is the departed human being + unimaginable God. The departed human being is inert energy (body) + energy in the form of awareness (soul). The human incarnation or energetic incarnation is a single-phase system containing three components. The human being in this world or the upper world is a single-phase system consisting of only two components (the unimaginable God is not present).
Incarnation is a process of donation (Datta[3]) of unimaginable God to human beings through an imaginable medium. Since the incarnation is a system of three components, which are homogeneously mixed as a single phase, it is ‘not three’ (Atreya[4]) but one. Thus, the incarnation is said to be Dattatreya (Datta + Atreya). In the incarnation, the unimaginable God identifies with the medium to become one. The incarnation happens as per the wish of God for some good purpose. It is not for satisfying the ambition of a human being, who wants to become God. Therefore, you can become God provided you never aspire for it. Hanuman became God since He always aspired to be only a servant of God.
Your foolish ambition is so high that you dream that you are already God by assuming that the soul or awareness or consciousness is God! You think that you are a drop of awareness and God is infinite awareness, which no where exists. You feel that you simply have to connect to or merge with the infinite consciousness to become God. You feel that you can become God by simple operations or mechanical processes such as merging or connecting, without the wish and grace of God! You are neither God already and nor can you become God by your effort, since the unimaginable God cannot even be compared with the imaginable human being. Of course, by the wish and grace of God, you can become a human incarnation, in which you will be treated as God for all practical purposes. The metallic wire after electrification can be treated as electricity for all practical purposes, since the wire gives an electric shock where ever it is touched. But the wire still remains a wire and electricity remains electricity. The wire is a chain of metallic crystals and electricity is a stream of electrons.
Neither is the wire already electricity, nor does the wire ever becomes electricity. But the electrified wire can be treated as electricity. The wire is the human being and electricity is the unimaginable God. The electrified wire is the human incarnation of God. Shankara says that the electrified wire and electricity can be treated as one and the same. Ramanuja says that although there is definitely a basic difference between the electricity and the wire, both are inseparable in the electrified wire. Hence, they can be treated as one and the same. Madhva says that the basic reality is that electricity and the wire are always different. All these three versions are simultaneously correct and apply in contexts of different observers. Devotees should follow the version of Shankara and should treat the human incarnation as God. The human being existing in the human incarnation, should follow the version of Madhva and should be careful in not letting the ego arise in Himself. Parashurama, the human incarnation, suffered only because of this ego. The human incarnation and devotees can both take the version of Ramanuja. Devotees should maintain the oneness between the soul and the God present in the human incarnation, since the two are inseparable in the human incarnation of God. The human being (soul) present in the human incarnation should realize that the devotees are treating Him as God only due to this inseparable aspect and that he is basically different from God.
Krishna and Jesus both said in their respective times that They alone are God. Their conservative devotees do not take the actual sense of their statements and instead worship the pictures or statues of Krishna and Jesus alone. The statements of Krishna and Jesus were valid in their respective times, when they were living incarnations. This is the right sense of their statements. But Krishna also said that He will come again whenever there is a need. Jesus also said that He will come again. This means that in every generation God comes in human form to avoid reasonless partiality to only one generation. Thus their statements actually apply to the human incarnation in general, which comes in every generation. The human incarnation is a two-in-one system. It has a dual nature of the human being and God just as an electron has the dual nature of a particle and a wave. The human nature is useful to mix with human beings and the divine nature is useful in preaching the true spiritual knowledge. Krishna was addressed by His name everywhere (in the epic Mahabharata) but He was addressed as God (Bhagavan) while He was preaching the Gita. Jesus spoke like a human being everywhere except once, when He declared that He is God (I and My Father are one and the same). Throughout His life, Krishna behaved like a human being alone. If He had appeared as cosmic energy (Vishvarupa[5]), could He have mixed with people in their normal unexcited state? Therefore, He appeared in the form of cosmic energy only for a very short time while He preached the Gita.
The recognition of the human incarnation with the help of His exceptional true knowledge and receiving the right direction from Him should be done patiently, with the help of sharp analysis and without emotion. After receiving the details of the correct path from Him, you should develop emotional force (devotion) to implement the knowledge in practice (service). You should be emotional in running towards the goal only after deciding the correct goal and the correct path with patience and sharp analysis. Hence, there should be peace in the first stage (knowledge), emotion (devotion) in the second stage and running towards the goal (action) in the third stage as preached by Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva in that sequence. In such conferences on spirituality, the first stage should be adopted.
[1] The ground state is the unexcited or normal state. An analogy from the states of electrons in the band structure of an atom has been used here.
[2] The listener might get excited when he hears the statue speak for the first time, but in course of time, his excitement will diminish and it will become a relatively routine matter.
[3] Datta in Sanskrit means ‘given’. It signifies donation.
[4] Atreya in Sanskrit means ‘that which is not three’.
[5] Vishvarupa means “Form of the entire creation”. Creation (including matter and energy) is basically made out of energy. So the ‘form of creation’ is the basic cosmic energy which is what remains when the entire cosmos is destroyed. At Arjuna’s insistence, Lord Krishna appeared to Arjuna in this terrifying form for a short while as He preached the Gita.
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