17 Jan 2011
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
When sages told Rama that He is God, Rama denied it and declared Himself as an ordinary human being. Rama knows that He is God but He denied it since He acted in the role of an ordinary human being to preach the ideal behavior of a human being to humanity. His aim is that every human being should not declare that it is God. But, you may doubt about the philosophy of Shankara, which says that every human being is God. The reason for such concept of Shankara is quite different and should be understood in the context of the necessity to preach atheists in the time of Shankara. When this country was filled with atheists like Buddhists and purvamimamsakas, God came in the form of Shankara to bring them to the right path. The atheist will never agree to the separate existence of God. But, he will agree to the existence of God if he is said to be God since the denial of existence of God results in the denial of self-existence. By this trick, Shankara made them agree the existence of God by declaring that the atheist himself is God. Shankara converted all the atheists into theists by single stroke. The atheists questioned Shankara regarding the absence of characteristics of God like omnipotence, etc. in them, if they were God. Then, Shankara replied that due to strong effect of ignorance (ajnana vikshepa), the achievement is not materialized even though the theoretical ignorance (ajnana avarana) is removed.
The shivering of the body due to fear of serpent continues even though the rope is seen by the lit lamp. Even though the real rope, which was mistaken as serpent is seen, the fear for the serpent does not disappear at once. When the realization of serpent becomes more and more strong by the repeated thought of the rope, then only the fear disappears completely. Therefore, one should repeatedly meditate upon God to achieve the real monism with God. This second trick of Shankara made atheists-converted-theists to become strong devotees. A rigid ignorant fellow can be moulded by tricks only and not by straight statements. Such special situation of Shankara need not be applied to the present normal situation.
However, Shankara brought the monism with the state of God in limited condition. Since God is enjoying the world, the human being also can enjoy the world in the same way. Just like a producer-cum-director enjoys the unreal cinema, a peon sitting along with him can also enjoy the same unreal cinema. We may say that cinema is unreal to both of them where as the world is unreal only for God. There is a small correction in your statement. The world is unreal to both God and the realized soul. The soul is a bit of cosmic energy. The entire world is unreal with respect to the cosmic energy. The entire world including space is cosmic energy only and the world is illusory with respect to cosmic energy. Since soul is cosmic energy, the world should be unreal to the soul also. With reference to God, the world along with the cosmic energy is unreal. The world is unreal to both God and soul, and the unreality of the cosmic energy to God is irrelevant and immaterial as far as the common point of unreality of world to both God and soul is concerned. The soul or cosmic energy is also unreal to God. But, this point is unnecessary as far as the unreality of the world to both God and soul is concerned. Therefore, both God and soul can enjoy the unreal world in a common way. God created the cosmic energy and by the will of God, the cosmic energy created the world. The cosmic energy by itself is inert and cannot have will without the nervous system and the nervous system is absent since matter is not yet got manifested. Based on the will, you cannot conclude that God is awareness. God can have the will through omnipotence without being awareness. The soul is cosmic energy in qualitative sense but in the quantitative sense, the infinite cosmic energy is the infinite ocean and the soul is a drop of it. Due to this quantitative difference, the soul cannot create the infinite world and only the infinite cosmic energy creates the infinite world by the will of God.
Since the will of God is absent, the soul, a bit of cosmic energy, cannot create even a bit of the creation. Only in qualitative sense, we can say that the soul is creator and the destroyer of the world, that too by the will of God only. Actually, as far as the enjoyment of the unreal world is concerned, the aspects of creator and destroyer are also irrelevant being out of context. The producer-cum-director might have produced and directed that cinema. But, as far as the state of enjoyment of such unreal cinema is concerned, both the producer-cum-director and the peon are one and the same. The absolute unimaginable God is called as Brahman. The infinite cosmic energy in which the unimaginable God is embedded is called as Eshwara or Hiranyagarbha. The soul is a bit of cosmic energy and hence, qualitatively both the soul and cosmic energy are one and the same.
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