29 Oct 2024
(The human incarnation is an example of 100% monism with God
and the ordinary souls are examples of 0% monism with God.)
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
[February 22, 2016, Shri. Ajay asked: “Bhagavan Shri Satya Sai Baba was repeatedly telling that every human being is God, which perfectly coincides with the Advaita Philosophy of Shankara. This philosophy is opposed mainly by the concept that a specific human being alone is God, which is contemporary human incarnation. Reconciliation of these two contradicting concepts is to be clarified and this is the basic necessity in the spiritual knowledge”.]
Shri Swami Replied: First, let us take the most important and most sacred epics like the Shrimat Ramayanam and the Shrimat Bhagavatam, which represent the concept of the specific contemporary human incarnation. Thus, we are starting from one side thoroughly after which only we can speak about the other side. The spiritual aspirants in both these sacred epics are Hanuman and Gopikas and let us check their background. There can be no better scholar than Hanuman, Who studied the philosophy directly from Sun. If we studied one grammar (Vyakarana Shastra), He studied nine grammars in Sanskrit. Moreover, He got spiritual knowledge directly from Sun, the first student of God, (Imam Vivaswate – Gita) in whom the dark ignorance can never find a place. Similarly, Gopikas were the sacred sages doing penance of knowledge (Jnana Yajna) for millions of births and there can be never a better scholar than these sages. Actually, people misunderstand that the sages always did sacrifices involving burning ghee in fire altars. This is a totally misinterpreted and misunderstood concept. The highest sacrifice is the debate on spiritual knowledge by which alone God is pleased and such sacrifice of knowledge is far higher than the foolish sacrifice involving materials like ghee (Jnaana Yajnena…, Shreyaan dravyamayaat… Gita).
The sages born as Gopikas, after passing through such millions and millions of spiritual debates in the past, are now in their final birth to get the everlasting grace of God. This means, the sages have come to the final conclusion of all their debates in this birth. All this is the effort to say that there can be no better spiritual aspirant than Hanuman and Gopikas. The knowledge should be always perfectly reflected in the practice and then only the real fruit is attained. The final conclusion of your long discussed knowledge alone is transformed into your final practice. Arriving at right conclusion (Jnana Yoga), developing the force of concentration to transform the right conclusion into practice (Bhakti Yoga) and the final practice (Karma Yoga) are the three subsequent stages of spiritual path preached by Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva in sequential manner. This sequential manner is seen even in the issues of worldly ways.
Therefore, there is no doubt to say that the final right conclusion decided by your intelligence through analysis conducted internally and externally also with the help of scholars is known by this world only through your finally implemented practice. Let us see what these highest spiritual aspirants (Hanuman and Gopikas) practiced in their lives by which we can easily know their final conclusions arrived at through their long study and debates. Their final conclusion practiced is: Only the worship of a single contemporary human incarnation called Rama and Krishna respectively and they neither worshipped the statues of upper energetic incarnations (like Vishnu, Shiva etc.,) or past human incarnations (like Vamana, Parashurama etc.,) nor memorized constantly that they are God declaring that the soul is God. We have proved this concept with the help of the perfect witness, which is the traditional procedure in the honorable court of law. Here, since the witness represents highest perfection, there is no place for wrong witness, which means that whatever witness you show for the contradicting concept must be imperfect and wrong. Moreover, the witness on your side, sometimes, happens to be witness of our side also and we agree that your witness is also perfect since we don’t contradict at all this point. Of course, the perfect witness like Shankara and Bhagavan Satya Sai Baba for your opposite concept (our side) also should be examined carefully so that the contradiction between both sides, especially leading to lot of confusion due to the double standard of your witness can be resolved.
Gradual Fall from Monism Avoids Shock
Careful analysis of Shankara and Shri Satya Sai Baba reveal that often, they are also witness to our side, where as our side witness always remains with our side only without any trace of deviation. This means that neither Hanuman nor Gopikas ever spoke about monism with God and they always spoke about dualism only. On the other hand, even though the opposite witness (your side) spoke about monism often, at least now and then, dualism was also spoken by them. Let us take Shankara: He often mentioned the monism between the soul and God in His commentaries. But, in one prayer to Lord Jagannadha, He says “even if we achieve removal of the difference between God and soul, this difference appears since soul is a wave and God is ocean. Neither soul can become God like a wave that cannot become ocean, nor the God can become the soul like the ocean that can never become a wave”. Shankara has already given the concept of Ramanuja, which is that soul is a tiny part of God (Shesha-Sheshi). But, He mentioned both the contradicting concepts like removal of difference and existence of difference between God and soul. The verse composed by Shankara addressing Lord Jagannatha (Satyapi bhedaapagame…) shows two opposite concepts. The meaning of the verse is that even though the difference between God and soul disappears, neither soul is God nor God is soul just like neither the wave is ocean nor the ocean is wave. Both these opposing concepts cannot contradict each other if you apply both to different cases. The first case of disappearance of difference is human incarnation and the second case of difference between soul and God is an ordinary soul. If you apply both these concepts to one case only, the contradiction appears resulting in confusion.
The last Madhva said that God and soul are totally different except that both are made of same awareness. This is a gradual fall of 100% monism of Shankara to 10% monism of Ramanuja and finally falling to 1% monism of Madhva. This gradual fall follows the principle of avoiding sudden fall of the ambition of human psychology from 100% monism with God to 10% and then to 1%. Once a soul is fixed in 100% monism to fulfill its highest ambition of an atheist in the time of Shankara, there should not be a sudden fall from this stage to 0% of Datta Swami and hence a gradual fall of monism is shown to avoid sudden shock to human psychology of atheist converted in to theist by the assurance given by Shankara. After coming to the final 1% monism of Madhva starting from Shankara (100% monism) through the intermediate stage of Ramanuja (10% monism), the ambition of the soul is gradually reduced from 100% to 1%. This is the proper state where we can bring down this trace of 1% monism to 0%. It is easy to achieve 0% from 1% than achieving it from 100% or 10%. Hence, after Madhva, this Datta Swami appeared like the final dissolution of the world (Maha Pralaya) by which the 0% monism will never rise the ambition again like a burnt seed not giving rise to sprout. One can attain perfect peace either in 100% or in 0% like saying to stand on this bank or that bank of the river and not in the river!
Datta Swami achieved this 0% monism since God is unimaginable (beyond space) and any soul is imaginable awareness. After showing perfect witness on our side, we are showing the opposite witness supporting our side also, at least some times so that the self-contradiction of the opposite witness can be resolved through analysis and there is no need of analysis of witness on our side due to absence of any self-contradiction in our witness. There is no need of cross examination of our witness, which is to be done to the witness of your side only due to the self-contradictory statements of your witness, of course, resolved through careful analysis.
Shankara established in the commentaries that soul is God. It means every human being is God. All His disciples followed this theory and were feeling that each one is God (Shivoham or Soham). One day, Shankara drank wine. Every disciple also drank wine thinking that there is no sin in it. They thought if Shankara-God can drink wine, why not the disciple-Gods also drink the same? Hence, every disciple drank wine. Next day, Shankara drank molten lead and the other disciple-Gods could not do the same and fell on His feet! This brought out the clear difference between God and soul. All the soul-Gods could not drink molten lead except Shankara-soul-God. The conclusion is that no soul is God except one Shankara-soul, which alone can be considered as the contemporary human incarnation. All the disciple-souls fell on the feet of Shankara-incarnation. Then Shankara told that He alone is God (Shivah kevaloham). The word 'kevala' means alone. Similarly, Shri Satya Sai Baba also said both versions like Shankara. Shri Satya Sai Baba told often that every soul is God. At the same time, Shri Baba told some times in His speeches that if a human being behaves practically bad and says that still he is God, it is just madness of that human being. By this statement, the cat, the original idea of Shri. Baba came out, which is nothing but the reformation of human beings using the twisted concept of monism. Bringing out good pragmatic results is always appreciated even though truth is distorted for that purpose. Such twist for good result is called as Arthavaada (Artha= for the sake of good result, vada=telling twisted truth). The mother says to the child that if it eats food, moon will come down. Such lie is allowed to make the child eat the food well and grow.
No scientist files a case against her in the court that she is propagating unscientific lies in this way! Not only this, can any human being do miracles as Shri Baba did? If you say that the human being-Gods are covered by ignorance so that they do not know that they are Gods to do miracles, can ignorance cover God? Even if it covers, it can vanish by simply hearing that one is God. Is God covered by such strong ignorance, which does not vanish even after reminding Him the truth? Then, what is the difference between God and a most ignorant person? Actually, Shankara was questioned on this point by the atheists converted as theists. Shankara told that the ignorance is very strong and can vanish only by constantly thinking that one is God. People did the same as per the statement of Shankara. Still, they could not become God to drink molten lead! Then, finally, Shankara replied that one can become God only by the grace of God (Eshvaraanugrahaadeva...). This clearly means that the human being is not God and God exists separately from whom the grace is to be obtained.
Present Society in Worst Condition in Pravrutti
Shankara faced forcible inevitability in introducing 100% monism since He was surrounded by atheists only, who said that a separate God never exists. Except this, they will not listen anything else. There is no other way than to follow monism to make atheists believe in the existence of God. Shankara agreed to the concept of atheist by saying that there is no separate God since the atheist himself is God. Atheist has to accept the existence of God since he himself, called as God by Shankara, exists. In this way, using 100% monism, atheist was turned to theist to say at least that God exists. That much was the highest achievement of Shankara at that time since the case was a strong atheist. It is like the parents feeling highest happiness when their dumb son uttered the first letter ‘A’! At that time, all were Buddhists and Purvamimaamsakas, who were totally atheists. The former were doing all sins since world was nothing (Shunyam) for them. The latter were killing innocent goats in the sacrifices to attain heavenly pleasures. When they believed that each one of them is God, by the efforts of Shankara, doing such sin (killing goats) was arrested since the sacred God never does any sin since nothing is to be attained by God. The sacrifices were done for getting small heavenly pleasures. Since God is always infinite-blissful ocean, there is no need of any sacrifice to get small heavenly pleasures and hence sacrifices in which goats were killed had to be stopped. If they do not stop, they will lose the status of God attained by them from the offer of Shankara without any effort like a lottery! Like this, for the reformation of the society in Pravrutti, the Nivrutti-philosophy is used with a twist that every soul is already God and one has to simply know this truth! So also, Shri Baba used this twisted monism for the reformation of society in Pravrutti.
The present society is in worst condition as far as Pravrutti is concerned. Like Shankara, Shri Baba also used the flash of twisted monism for the reformation of souls in Pravrutti. God does not mind to sacrifice even His status if some good benefit can happen to this society like reformation of souls. A demon can never do such sacrifice of free status of God for the sake of the society. If the employees promise to function well in an office on changing their designations, Director, the Head of the office, does not mind to sacrifice his status to every employee of his office. He will give new designations for all the posts like Director-accountant, Director-typist, Director-peon etc. His only desire is that his office should run with perfection and peace.
The human beings in the society are doing bad deeds (sins) due to bad aims or bad thoughts. First, all the bad thoughts should be thrown out from the soul like bad employees from the office. Now the individual soul is like a vacant office. The group of thoughts is the individual soul. When the bad thoughts alone exist, they should be thrown out and by this, the individual soul is not thrown out. It is not like throwing out the golden jewels (bad thoughts) but removing jewels by melting so that the pure gold (pure awareness) remains. After this, the pure awareness, called as pure individual soul, remains, which is almost looking like the soul (inert energy without thoughts). Soul is the pure inert energy and pure individual soul is pure awareness. Soul is the causal side and pure individual soul is the product side of same entity. Pure awareness is a specific work form of pure inert energy. The pure awareness of individual soul without thoughts and aims to do works exactly looks like the pure inert energy of the soul. The only difference between soul of pure inert energy and individual soul of pure awareness is that the soul is inert whereas the individual soul is non-inert. Due to this 99% similarity, the pure individual soul is called as the soul itself. Hence, the soul of Shankara is not inert but pure awareness since the soul is viewed almost as the pure individual soul.
The soul is qualitatively similar to inert cosmic energy that forms various items of the world. But, the soul is quantitatively different from cosmic energy since soul is drop whereas cosmic energy is huge ocean. Due to the qualitative similarity, the soul is said to be the cosmic energy that generates, maintains and dissolves this world. The quantitative difference between soul and cosmic energy is neglected. One can take a small piece of gold and say that the piece of gold is source of all jewels overlooking the quantitative difference. The similarity between soul and pure individual soul is lack of doer-ship (kartaa) and enjoyer-ship (bhoktaa) in both even though reasons are different. The reason for the soul is inertness and for the pure individual soul is thoughtlessness. The end result is same in both. Due to this similarity of end result, pure individual soul is treated as soul that creates world and thus through this chain of similarities, the individual soul (called as soul) is considered as the creator of world. All these logical chains were used by Shankara to make the pure individual soul of a human being to be God, the creator of world. All these chains of logic twist the monism, which alone is true in energetic or human incarnation. This twist was not only essential to convert atheist in to theist, but also essential to purify the soul from sins since God is thoughtless awareness as defined by Shankara. Both pragmatic results were achieved: 1) The atheist speaks that God exists and 2) The soul is purified eliminating all bad thoughts (all thoughts since there was no single good thought). Up to this stage, the philosophy of Shankara works out.
A human being in this stage will not do sins, but also will not do good deeds and remains as the pure awareness without thoughts, which is the pure individual soul leftover with pure awareness looking like its basic inactive inert energy (soul). In this stage, the individual soul is almost looking like soul and is called as the soul itself. Thus, the soul of Shankara is pure awareness without thoughts, which is almost like a soul or inert energy. The actual soul is only the basic inert energy, which is naturally without any thought that forms the entire cosmos from which only all this world is generated. The soul of Shankara is also without any thought even though it is pure awareness. By this, you should not mistake that the soul spoken by Shankara is not the actual inert soul (inert energy), but, the individual soul becoming thoughtless remaining as pure awareness looks like exactly the actual inert energetic soul without any thought. Reformation of human beings should not stop here by simply eliminating negative signs (sins) and resulting in sign-less zero. The aim is not only avoiding sins, but also, doing good deeds. From this stage of zero, Ramanuja and Madhva developed positive sign or doing good deeds. The Goal of Shankara was pure awareness without thoughts (Nirguna Brahman), which is zero, resulting after elimination of all bad thoughts including a few good thoughts also, if at all exist. An antibiotic used, not only kills the huge bacteria, but also a few living cells leading the patient to a very weak zero state. Now, you have to use tonics to improve the health from this weak state to positive sign. Inevitable killing of few living cells shall be ignored while bringing the individual soul mostly filled by bad thoughts (to do bad deeds) to a zero state of thoughtlessness is the final aim of Shankara in the long journey of reformation of the soul.
The next stage after Shankara is of Ramanuja and Madhva, who told that the goal is God with all good qualities (saguna Brahman) without any bad quality indicating the future process of filling the pure awareness of soul given by Shankara with good qualities neglecting the entry of very few bad thoughts in to the soul, which generally aspires always to become God, the highest goal. This is like the subsequent stage of appointing good employees in the vacant office after removing bad employees in whom one or two good employees might have also existed. God qualified with good qualities (kalyana gunas) can not only be unimaginable, but also not even be formless and should be qualified by a specific form, which was called as Narayana (Saguna Brahman) by both Ramanuja and Madhva. The qualified soul (jeeva) is confined to a specific form, which cannot become other specific form of God, called as qualified God or Narayana, in which case, monism with Narayana is not possible and hence dualism was brought in to picture. Here, you should not find fault with these theoretical exercises of divine preachers since good practical result to reform the souls existing in a specific stage in their times was their ultimate goal. Without understanding this practical background, followers of these divine preachers quarrel with each other. If the truth is not twisted at all, there will be perfect unity in the philosophies of these divine preachers. When the twists are present, which differ according to the then requirements in the process of reformation of souls, naturally, the differences arise and these are not the original concepts of them regarding different truths. Truth is always one and all the three preachers know very well that truth.
The unimaginable God is adjusted by Ramanuja and Madhva in the unimaginable power of Narayana, who is the substratum of the unimaginable God and for this, the verse in the Gita was taken as authority (Brahmanopi Pratishthaaham…). This is again a twist in the concept of the highest goal, the unimaginable God. The aspirant does not mind whether the goal is unimaginable God or the power of goal (Narayana) is unimaginable since attaining unimaginable status of God or power is the ultimate ambition of any soul. In the case of Shankara, the formless pure awareness can exist equally in all human beings. But, the qualified God with a specific form cannot exist in all the souls like the common pure awareness and hence, later on, dualism has to result. In such case, the tiny qualified soul (with at least some good qualities) with a small human body called as “Sukshma chidachit vishishta” can become a part of the huge world body. In this huge world body made of five inert elements called as Vishva mingled with forms of collective inert energy called as Virat, very huge collective soul (all the souls viewed like a very large group) called as Hiranyagarbha, the first huge soul, also exists. This huge world-body containing non-inert Hiranyagarbha, inert Virat and inert Vishva appears as the external gross body (Sthula Shariram) of the qualified God existing as energetic incarnation with unimaginable powers (Narayana).
This unimaginable power of Narayana makes the energetic body as unnatural and unimaginable (Apraakruta Shariram). The ultimate God is the mixture of ‘awareness with unimaginable power’ as soul and the unimaginable body. The existence of unimaginable power in and out makes Narayana as the ultimate God without isolating the soul from body. The body is given equal importance to be treated as God so that a part of the body can be a part of the God so that whole-part relationship is maintained between God and soul and not the total monism. Thus, for every step of the philosophy, there is an ultimate goal of practical reformation of the soul for the benefit of the society. Without understanding this, followers blindly fight with each other. In qualitative angle: 1) both large (Hiranyagarbha) and small (individual soul) souls and 2) both big (Virat-Visva) and small (human body) inert parts exist. Both 1) and 2) are taken as common non-inert and inert parts of bodies of God Narayana (world) and an ordinary human being like Svetaketu (human body) showing qualitative similarity to maintain Advaita (monism) on one hand. On the other hand, the difference between God Narayana and ordinary human being through the unimaginable aspect of power possessed by Narayana shows dvaita (dualism). The actual concept of Ramunaja is only dualism and above mentioned monism is only to console sudden fall of ambition.
God Narayana is completely isolated from the ordinary human being, which is only a part of God’s huge external gross body. Nothing is leftover in the human being to be compared with God Narayana. The pure individual soul present in the human being with good qualities may be compared to Narayana without any direct relationship. If you leave the concept of comparison and come to the reality of the relationship, it only says that the entire human being composed of inert—non-inert body and the individual soul in the top head portion totally goes into the external huge gross world body of God only. Superimposing God on the world body (like superimposing the soul on the human body), a twist is given that the human being is a part of world body called as God and hence finally can be called as part of God. Later on, Madhva made more clarification recognizing the consolation given to ambitious soul. He separated the world-body from Lord Narayana as totally external item like a pot separated from the pot-maker, which cannot be called as the gross body of the pot maker. Now, the pot-maker cannot be superimposed on the pot so that a small part of pot cannot be called as the part of the pot-maker. By this, the consolation that a part of the pot (soul) is a part of the pot-maker (God) vanishes and perfect dualism between part of the pot and pot-maker results. However, Madhva consoled the human being by showing that the soul in Narayana and the soul in the ordinary human being are made of same awareness. Even this last hope is removed by Shri Datta Swami, who separated the unimaginable God represented by unimaginable power of energetic incarnation (Narayana) and gave the independent and ultimate status to the unimaginable God. The energetic incarnation Narayana becomes unimaginable not due to His inherent power but due to the entry of unimaginable God in to energetic form. Similarly, any human incarnation exhibits unimaginable powers not as its inherent powers, but due to the entry of unimaginable God only in to it. The actual God being unimaginable and the soul is imaginable (anyway, body is already concluded as imaginable), there is no question of even an iota of similarity between God and soul. All the energetic incarnations (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva etc.,) and human incarnations (Rama, Krishna, Sai Baba etc.,) are expressions of unimaginable God only pervading all of them homogeneously in and out. For human beings, the relevant human incarnation alone is ultimate God.
Shankara told the atheist with highest ambition that a lottery of one crore is allotted to him, his bank account was also opened in to which the entire lot of lottery is deposited and the only step leftover is to go to bank and withdraw one crore immediately! The atheist went to bank to withdraw the amount. Ramanuja was standing outside the bank telling the atheist that 90 lakhs of the deposited amount were taken back as income tax. The atheist was shocked and sat before the bank for some time to subside his B.P. and went inside the bank, Madhva sitting in the chair of Bank Manager told the atheist that 9,99,000/- were withdrawn from the deposit as service tax and Rs.1,000/- only remain, which cannot be withdrawn as the minimum to be maintained. The atheist collapsed, became normal after undergoing treatment in a hospital for some time and came to bank to withdraw the balance Rs.1,000/- to be paid to the hospital. The Bank Manager told that Rs.1,000/- cannot be withdrawn since education cess is left over unpaid. The atheist became very much discouraged in a state of weeping. Now, Shri Datta Swami approached and advised him that he can earn even Rs. 1 crore by hard work and effort from which the hospital bill can be easily paid off.
100% monism without the concept of the human incarnation of a specific soul presented by Shankara is the best tactful philosophy covering all the souls fully satisfying their highest ambition to become God without any trace of effort and without any problem of jealousy. This is the reason, why the philosophy of monism of Shankara spread very easily throughout the humanity. But, we have to remember that this policy appeared in the atmosphere of 100% atheists and any way even slightly different from this becomes utter failure in such atmosphere. You must understand every philosophy with respect to the prevailing the then atmosphere in the context of what best can be done to change the atmosphere even by the distortion of truth to any extent. Slowly, the atmosphere progressed well and the atheist-turned-theists developed to the higher stage of becoming devotees to achieve 100% monism practically by the grace of God as per the gradual suggestion of Shankara Himself. Ramanuja and Madhva slowly reduced the monism to dualism so that the ambition for 100% monism is brought down to the minimum most 1%. Till now, the path of effort for the transformation of souls is very smooth because the concept of human incarnation that blasts up the jealousy was not stressed at all by any previous preacher except an insignificant mention of it. Touching the ambition is tolerable but hurting jealousy is like throwing a stone on the mud pond as said in the Gita (Taanakrutsnavido mandaan…).
Every Soul Has Equal Chance to Become Incarnation
Shri Datta Swami could easily bring this 1% monism to 0% since the difference is negligible and in this point all the credit goes to earlier divine preachers only, who paved the way to be very smooth. In this line, there is no danger since removal of ambition does not hurt the ego of any human being. But, in His philosophy, the most dangerous concept of contemporary human incarnation was projected very well. Generally, this concept results in terrible blasting of jealousy and Jesus was crucified by the rest people for this only. In this concept, only one becomes God and all others remain as bonded slave-spectators! The human psychology does not differentiate the concepts of politics (like capitalism and communism) and the concepts of spiritual knowledge since the jealous tendency of mind is same everywhere in Nivrutti or Pravrutti since the human being is one and the same. The biggest mistake done here in the past was that the concept that every soul has equal chance to become human incarnation at any time was not clearly projected. This concept was clearly exhibited in the philosophy of Datta Swami to pacify the natural jealousy. Another factor in this direction shown was that there is every chance of the contemporary human incarnation to lose God from it, on getting succumbed to ego. Both these points clearly pacify the jealousy. There is also one more point that God need not leave the contemporary human incarnation to make another soul as the human incarnation in a specific span of time. Here, the important point to nullify the jealousy is that there is also possibility of a situation in which the present contemporary human incarnation may lose God and the new human being can become the contemporary human incarnation. Such possibility pacifies completely the jealousy of the human being, which gives more importance to the loss of God from the other human incarnation than the entry of God into him, for him to become human incarnation! All these concepts projected subside the jealousy. But, the most important point is that unless ego and jealousy are subsided and unless the desire to become human incarnation vanishes, a soul cannot become the human incarnation. The speciality of this philosophy of Datta Swami is that all good results are brought out without any distortion of the truth. The point that if a soul fails in Pravrutti, it cannot enter Nivrutti in which only the concept of human incarnation exists, is useful to reform souls in pravrutti. Everywhere, absolute truth is maintained without even a trace of its distortion. All this was possible only because the preceding preacher Madhva brought down the souls to 1% monism and hence all the credit goes to Shri. Madhva only and not to Datta Swami. Even the human being component of the incarnation should be very careful about ego at every stage.
Mohammed also brought down all the souls to have 0% monism as common factor saying that no soul can ever become God. Due to this equality of souls and the background of total eradication of concept of human incarnation, no danger of jealousy and crucifixion can happen. Here, though, monism between God and soul was removed, perfect 0% monism in all the souls is achieved. However, the difference between Shankara and Mohammed is that Shankara brought 100% monism of soul with God as the common factor of equality of souls without hurting the highest ambition of a soul, where as Mohammed brought 0% monism in all the souls without touching the highest ambition that can be fulfilled through human incarnation. In the time of Mohammed, such situation of total atheism did not exist and hence the common factor of equality of souls can be 0% monism between God and soul, where as in the time of Shankara, all were atheists and 100% monism between God and soul was inevitable. Circumstances existing in the time of the preacher are the deciding factors of the direction of the mode of the philosophy of that preacher. You should not find fault with that because the ultimate goal is to transform the atmosphere and not to preach simply the truth without bothering about the negative effects of the truth on the atmosphere. A preacher is that person, who develops the philosophy in view of the circumstances existing at that time so that there can be some good practical development in course of time due to effect of his preaching. A teacher is that person, who simply teaches the truth without caring for the surrounding atmosphere and the negative effects of the truth on the atmosphere.
Practical Efforts of Successful Aspirants Relevant
You need not argue that Hanuman and Radha were also human incarnations like Shankara and Baba. The roles of Hanuman and Radha throughout their lives never projected even a trace of monism with God. Therefore, our witness is by pure spiritual aspirants or devotees only and not by any human incarnation. All of us are spiritual aspirants only and the practical efforts of successful spiritual aspirants only are very much relevant to us. A spiritual aspirant is an ideal for us and a spiritual aspirant after becoming human incarnation is irrelevant to us in the present stage of our effort. We are preparing for IAS examination. A student, who is successful in the period of coaching is the ideal example for us since we are interested to take this similar coaching. The actions of the collector are irrelevant to us since the successful IAS student already became the collector. The career of the student before becoming collector is important for us and not the administration of the student after becoming collector. Hence, for us, Hanuman and Gopikas are important examples since we are in the process of the spiritual effort to enter the family or the inner most circle of God. The activities of Rama, Krishna, Shankara, Baba etc., are not that much important (purely from the point of our present position in journey), which belong to the stage after attaining the fruit. However, we can concentrate on the Human incarnations from a different angle, which is to develop devotion to God, who expressed Himself practically before us as the human incarnations.
A Gopika took a small heap of saris lifted on her finger claiming herself to be Lord Krishna in a high level of devotion. This cannot be treated as the ambition for monism, but, should be treated as the climax of love for Krishna to imitate Him based on a mad level of love towards His beautiful personality. The Gita says that pure devotees enter the feeling of monism (matbhaavamaagataah…). You should not argue that the word 'bhaava' means existence since its root word stands for meaning of existence (bhu sattaayaam). By this, you should not try to make that Gopika to become the real human incarnation. The reason is that the word 'bhaava' is used in the sense of feeling only. While using a word, its usage (rudhi) should be also considered. However, if you insist on the root meaning only, a devotee of the inner circle becoming human incarnation can be an example of this root word-meaning because the existence of human incarnation becomes the existence of the absolute God due to perfect merge. The sense of root meaning can be applied even to the existence of all souls and even the existence of whole world because Shankara says that the existence of absolute God only entered the creation as its existence. It means that the world does not exist in the absence of the existence of absolute God. However, existence as mere common factor between two different items cannot bring monism between the two items in any way. Ex: king exists and beggar exists. The common factor in both is existence and such existence can neither make the king as beggar nor vice-versa.
The twisted monism for establishing justice in the society and also establishing peace in an individual is highly appreciable. When the soul is God, the human being is forced to support justice and condemn injustice because God is said to be the supporter of justice and destroyer of injustice (paritraanaaya… Gita). The soul will fear to do or support injustice in which case the soul may not be treated as God. Since God is the owner of the entire world, there is nothing which is not attained by God and hence the soul will be always non-corrupt to be out of all tensions resulting in perfect peace. All these good results exist in the twisted monism. The twist of theory to bring a good practical change must be appreciated and should not be criticized exhibiting the true theory. We must not misunderstand the human incarnation to be ignorant of truth. The contradicting comments of the human incarnation expressed now and then prove that the God in human form is well aware of truth and is behaving as the preacher but not as a teacher. As long as a specific human being becoming human incarnation is not touched, any % of monism varying from 100 to 0 is not dangerous at all since whatever may be the % proposed, it exists equally in all the souls. To avoid such horrible danger of jealousy in the human psychology only, the concept of human incarnation is not touched by any preacher so far and this does not show their ignorance of the concept. It is only to avoid the practical problems.
But, the concept of contemporary human incarnation is the most relevant concept for humanity to get the correct direction in the spiritual path. The problems should be avoided by applying proper remedies and the main concept should not be buried fearing for the problems. Rats can be captured by using the sticking pads and the entire house should not be burnt for the sake of rats. The various problems of jealousy can be analyzed in different directions and in different levels and their corresponding remedial measures can be developed.
Basic Requirements to Enter Innermost Circle of God
For the sake of protection of pravrutti, concepts can be exposed or hidden or twisted and the preacher is fully authorized to do anything in the theoretical level to bring out any better practical change in the existing atmosphere of society. The contemporary human incarnation can be used as a practical example of soul becoming God by 100% monism for the concept that every soul has equal chance to become God. In the absence of such incarnation, this concept stands as a theory only without practical example as proof. Both the extreme concepts of 100% and 0% monism are true simultaneously if we apply these extreme concepts to different examples. The human incarnation is an example of 100% monism with God and the ordinary souls are examples of 0% monism with God. The other 10% and 1% monism can be applicable to the soul in the journey towards goal. The selection of a soul from the family or innermost circle of God for the sake of human incarnation is fully justified because the head of the family can be represented by any close family member according to legal procedure also. Instead of developing jealousy towards the human incarnation, the best effort is to enter the family or innermost circle of God as a member for which the basic requirements are: 1) one should not fail in pravrutti so that the first impression of God should not be bad. 2) One should not aspire to become the human incarnation even in dream. 3) One should always aspire to be the servant of God and no fruit shall be expected for the service since getting opportunity to serve God itself is the divine fruit.
The philosophy of Ramanuja is a bridge between monism of Shankara and dualism of Madhva and hence we have to carefully analyze this. Ramanuja takes Narayana, the energetic incarnation of unimaginable God as the ultimate God. This is justified because the unimaginable God is only recognized to exist through unimaginable events called miracles and is always based on inference and not perception. Though the energetic incarnation is also not perceived by us, at least it is imaginable even though it is invisible. The ego and jealousy in the devotees has not come down much even though Shankara advised that the Lord should be worshiped to get His grace to become God. Due to this worship, the ambition, ego and jealousy did not go fully. Hence, Krishna, the human incarnation, could not be given as the address of ultimate God since God in specific human form cannot be digested. God in all human forms (human beings) is the best idea for digestion. Even though my neighbor also becomes God, it does not matter much because I also become God. But, to accept that no human being is God except one bloody human being, called Krishna is horrible! You must know that Krishna had a very large number of enemies in His lifetime, who were mostly victims of jealousy only. Hence, Ramanuja gave the ultimate address of God as energetic incarnation and not human incarnation. This ultimate God is in the top most Brahma loka and all the universe is like His body (Vishwarupa) and the ultimate God is present in the top most head as the individual soul in brain (Aatmaaguhaayaam… Veda). Thus, the ultimate God in top Brahma loka of the world is like the individual soul existing in the top brain or intelligence (Vijnanamaya kosha) of the human body. The center point between two eye brows is already admitted as the place of mind or manomaya kosha. Above the mind, intelligence exists with 1000 petals or analytical ways of knowledge (sahasraara). The individual soul with its body is a small unit (sukshma chidachit vishishta) and Narayana with His world body is a huge unit (sthula chidachit vishishta) and similarity between these two units is called as Vishishta Advaita. Each unit is called Vishishta (fruit) having inseparable quality (taste). Fruit is called as Visheshya (substratum) and the taste is called as Visheshana (inseparable quality) and both these together as one unit is called as Vishishta (substratum with its inseparable quality).
The similarity between these two units is indicated by the word monism. In this philosophy, the dualism between ultimate God (energetic incarnation) and ordinary soul is fundamentally accepted and at the same time, the monism in the sense of similarity was introduced like the action of wiping tears of devotees weeping by loosing real monism given by Shankara like one crore lottery! Ramanuja consoled these shocked devotees by saying that the soul is a part of God. Here also, the soul is a part of His world-body only. In the world-body of God and human body of the soul, both inert matter-energy and non-inert awareness exist together. In the world body, the non-inert souls and inert matter-energy exist. In the human body also, non-inert awareness in the nerves below the skin and matter-energy co-exist. Here, the superimposition of God on the world (like soul on body) is exploited and a part of the world (body) is said to be part of the God (soul) and this exploitation is based on the philosophy of Shankara (Adhyasa) only. Ramanuja has taken sufficient care to avoid the whole-part constitution of actual God directly, which will lead to several problems. The whole-part philosophy is applied to God superficially and in deep sense, it does not exist. This whole-part system is again to shut down the throats crying for the loss of free lottery type monism. Devotees were consoled to some extent since even though the whole lottery amount is not paid, at least, a part of it is paid!
Finally Madhva came taking the basic concept of dualism from Ramanuja and accepting the same energetic incarnation as ultimate God. The world is only an external item like a pot created by the potter is standing separately from him. The only similarity between God taken as awareness in the energetic incarnation and the soul in the human body is that both are made of the same material called awareness. In the philosophy of Ramanuja also, this similarity exists since Ramanuja also feels that the awareness in the energetic incarnation is God. By the philosophy of Madhva, the soul is thrown out from God as an external item only. Even in the philosophy of Ramanuja, the soul is only an external item existing in the body of God and not in the God directly. The part of the body in the God is assumed as part of the God as per the usual usage. A person usually says that his finger is his part directly, though the finger is a part of the body of the soul of that person. The finger is assumed as a part of the soul since the soul is superimposed on the body as ‘I’. This trick, used to console the devotees, is clarified by Madhva, which vanished due to clarification. By the time of Madhva, the ambition to become God is very much reduced and the devotees could tolerate even the 1% monism (that God and soul are awareness).
Finally, this Datta Swami entered the stage to close the drama and sang the final National anthem! The devotees are standing on the trace (1%) of monism, which is very near to the 0%. He brought out the basic concept sung in the Veda in several places that God is unimaginable. He has taken the help of science to prove that the soul (awareness) is only a specific work form of inert energy, a part of the creation, to be rejected as non-God item (Neti Neti) as per the Veda. Since the ambition has come down to 0% level, there is no practical danger to introduce the most relevant concept called as contemporary human incarnation with necessary remedies to pacify jealousy at every stage in very careful way. The existing external atmosphere is very much congenial to propose this final truth, which is the final seal of the spiritual knowledge forever, anywhere and anytime for anybody in any religion of this world. The word ‘seal’ here is used not due to ego, but to indicate that the divine program assigned by unimaginable God is hereby completed.
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