19 Dec 2012
[This is the speech given by Shri Datta Swami at the First World Parliament on Spirituality on December 19, 2012 in Hall-1 (Babaji Hall), Session 9 Global Peace Auditorium, Hyderabad. It was webcast live on December 19, 2012 between 10.00-11.30 hrs IST on the conference website http://www.wpsconnect.org/home.php ]
The Veda says that God is unimaginable—beyond words, mind, intelligence and even imagination (Yato vacho…, Manasaa saha…, Yobuddheh paratah…, Atarkyah…). If God is thought to be imaginable, then due to the multiplicity in imaginable items, people consider different imaginable items such as light, sun, space etc. to be God, since each person is fascinated by different imaginable items. This leads to different philosophies and religions, resulting in quarrels, disturbance of world peace and sometimes even terrorism. There cannot be two ‘unimaginables’ since you cannot differentiate one ‘unimaginable’ from the other. The unimaginable entity must be only ONE. Hence, the unimaginable God must be only ONE. Moreover, there can be oneness only in the case of the unimaginable. Once an item is imaginable, it can be differentiated from another imaginable item in this world and this results in multiplicity. Every religion says that their God alone created this earth and humanity on it. But unfortunately, there is only one earth and hence, there must be only one God, who is the Father of this entire humanity!
Since creation is imaginable, all these human beings are only imaginable items and they cannot even imagine God. Hence, the unimaginable God expresses Himself through an imaginable medium for the sake of humanity to give right spiritual knowledge, which gives right direction in the spiritual journey of a human being. This is the primary aim of God in descending on this earth as a human incarnation. For this purpose, the best and the most convenient medium is the human form alone; not inert objects. Hence, God will never enter into inert objects as per the Veda (Na tasya pratimaa…). Of course, any inert object can be treated as a representative model of God for the sake of developing personal theoretical devotion to God. But direct practical service to God is not possible, through such inert objects. Direct practical service to God is possible only in the case of the living human incarnation of God. Krishna, Buddha, Mahavir, Jesus, Mohammad etc., are such human incarnations. God comes in human form in every generation. Sometimes, He even comes simultaneously in different countries. Thus, God is not partial only to one human generation without any reason[1]. Otherwise, you cannot justify the partiality of God simply by saying that only one specific generation contained all the good people, who deserved God’s presence. In fact, every generation contains both good and bad people.
Buddha’s silence about God should not be misunderstood to be the negation of God like some of His followers did. His silence means that God is beyond words, since God is unimaginable. Mohammad, Himself being a human incarnation of God, did not accept the concept of human incarnation since His preceding human incarnation, Jesus, was crucified by His fellow human beings, who suffered from excessive ego and jealousy towards other human beings. A training of “Service to humanity is service to God” is essential for human beings to remove their jealousy towards other human beings. This helps human beings to recognize the contemporary human incarnation and do direct practical service to God. This meeting with the living human incarnation is called as yoga. It means a very fortunate union. The word yoga comes from Sanskrit root ‘yuj’ meaning union. Of course, for service, good physical and mental health is needed, but unfortunately today, yoga is confined only to health exercises.
The knowledge (jnana), which was preached by Shankara, leads to the devotion (Bhakti), which was preached by Ramanuja, and this devotion finally results in the practical service (karma), which was preached by Madhva. Knowledge and devotion are theoretical like water and manure. Practical service is like the plant yielding the actual fruit. Therefore, practical service alone yields the fruit. That is why these three preachers came one after other in this sequence.
This one unimaginable God incarnates in different countries in different human forms to propagate the same contents of the same syllabus of spiritual knowledge in different languages following the different cultures. In this way, from the beginning of creation, God preached the same syllabus simultaneously in all countries on this earth. Hence, there is no partiality on the part of God, who is the impartial Divine Father of this humanity. But every conservative religion says that their human incarnation alone is God and His message alone is the right path. These conservatives do not have the patience to examine the unity in the contents of various religious scriptures from different parts of the world. If the argument of these conservatives is correct, God becomes partial without reason by giving the right knowledge to only one country at a certain time, since that blessed country could not immediately propagate it to other disconnected foreign countries. When Krishna gave the Bhagavad Gita in India, all the disconnected foreign countries could not receive the Gita for some long span of time and thus the foreign countries were subjected to the reasonless partiality of God. If you say that India alone contained good people, so that the partiality of God is justified, it is not correct, since India contained several evil people also, who fought with Krishna.
The same criticism applies to the conservatives of any other religion in the world. Let us take the conservatives of Christianity as another example. India was discovered by the West only in 1700 AD, i.e. 1700 years after the Holy Bible was delivered by Jesus in Jerusalem. In these 1700 years, more than 17 human generations have passed away in India. They did not have the slightest opportunity of coming in contact with Jesus and the Bible, because India was disconnected from Jerusalem. Thus, all the forefathers of us Indians, who lived in those generations, have gone to the liquid fire in hell unnecessarily, for no fault of theirs. Had they come in contact with the Holy Bible and Jesus in the past, at least some of our forefathers might have been saved! The communication gap between India and foreign countries during this long period was not the fault of these unfortunate generations. If you say that the region around Jerusalem alone contained all the good people and hence the partiality of Jesus is justified, it is not correct. Jesus was crucified by the bad people in that very region.
The conservatives of any religion have no answer to this criticism, but we, from Universal Spirituality give an excellent answer to it. We say that the same ONE unimaginable God preached same subject through the various scriptures simultaneously in these disconnected countries. Anybody in any country following these contents, irrespective of the language of the scriptures, went to God and those opposing these contents went to hell. Now, God is completely devoid of partiality. If the conservative still shouts saying that it is alright even if God is foolishly partial, I salute him and leave. The logic in this knowledge should satisfy the present people, who are capable of advanced scientific analysis. They cannot be convinced by mere appeals to the heart as Swami Vivekananda did by telling the story of the sea-frog and the well-frog. Times have changed very fast. No hearts function in today’s people; only brains function!
Scientists need not negate the unimaginable God saying that everything is imaginable or explicable. They refuse miracles, which are unimaginable events indicating the unimaginable God. But the same scientists agree with the concept of infinite space, which has an unimaginable boundary. Hence, the existence of an unimaginable entity is practically agreed upon by science. The unimaginable boundary of space or universe, is itself God. Space or vacuum is not ‘nothing’ since ‘nothing’ never exists. Space is subtle energy and is something that bends around objects as per the Special Theory of Relativity. The imaginable space ends at its boundary. That unimaginable boundary of space is itself God. To understand this, consider this example. Water ends at the boundary of the ocean. Land, which is different from water, appears at its boundary. Similarly, the unimaginable God, Who is different from imaginable space, appears at the boundary of the imaginable space. Another example is that if you follow the track of smoke to its source, it ends at its boundary. At this boundary itself, there is fire, which is different from smoke and is the generator of smoke. Similarly, this space ends at its boundary, the unimaginable God, who is its generator.
It is important to note that space should not exist in its generator, i.e. the unimaginable God. If space were to exist in God, it would mean that it existed before its generation. This is impossible. Therefore, God does not have space or spatial dimensions in Him. You cannot imagine anything having no spatial dimensions, even if you concentrate for a million years. Hence, God is always unimaginable.
The Creator or God is unimaginable. The existence of the unimaginable entity is also proved by miracles, which are unimaginable events. The creation is imaginable. It exists in two forms: visible matter and invisible energy. Of course, the invisible energy also becomes visible in a certain range of frequencies. The energy is again present in two forms from the angle of inertness and awareness. The inert energy working in a specific system is transformed into specific inert work-forms like respiration in the system of the lungs, circulation in the system of blood vessels etc. Similarly, the same inert energy functioning in a specific system called as the nervous system, is transformed into a specific work-form of energy. This specific work-form of energy involves the transfer of information from senses to the brain through nerves and is called as awareness or soul. Hence, the imaginable soul is a part of this imaginable creation alone. It is not the unimaginable Creator.
The human being is a single-phase system in which the two components, matter and energy, are homogenously mixed. When a selected human being is charged by the third component, i.e. the unimaginable God, he becomes a human incarnation of God. The human incarnation is relevant to human beings living on this earth. Human beings after death, gain energetic bodies in the place of their earthly materialized bodies. Then, such a departed human being becomes a single-phase system consisting of two components, i.e. inert energy and the soul. A selected departed human being may be charged by the third component, i.e. unimaginable God to become an energetic incarnation of God in the upper world. Father of heaven, Narayana etc. are examples of such energetic incarnations.
The human being here or there (in the upper world) is unable to detect the unimaginable God and hence, it treats the incarnation here or there as equivalent to any ordinary human being. Due to ego and jealousy towards fellow human beings, the human being neglects the human incarnation. This is due to the principle of repulsion between common media[2]. The human being thinks that the incarnation is also a two-component system like itself. Thus, the human being loses God here as well as there. As a result it loses God forever due to his negligence towards God in the human form. The Veda says that anything that is close by is neglected and anything that is far away is preferred by people (paroksha priyaa ivahi …).
The absolute God is always unimaginable. The human incarnation is the relative God, i.e. unimaginable God existing in an imaginable medium. The relative God should always be identified by the true knowledge preached by Him as per the Veda (Satyam jnaanam…). Science was called as logic (tarka) in ancient times. Science (ancient or modern) is the analysis of the imaginable creation. It cannot help in directly identifying the absolute unimaginable God. But science helps in the identification of the constituents of this imaginable creation, which are likely to be misunderstood as God. Thus, it enables us to negate those imaginable items as God. The Veda says that you can identify God only by rejecting everything in this world that might appear to be God (Neti Neti …). This means that God is identified as the Unimaginable One, since every imaginable entity of this creation is negated as God. Hence, science helps us greatly in spiritual knowledge.
The organizers of this conference addressed Me as a ‘spiritual scientist’, meaning that I show spiritualism in science. Actually, the term should be reversed. I should be called as the ‘scientific spiritualist’ since I do scientific analysis in spiritual knowledge. Scientific analysis alone helps Me in rejecting some items of creation, which are treated as God by some ignorant people. Science cannot explain anything directly about the unimaginable God. But science is helpful in denying every imaginable item of this imaginable world, which might appear to be the unimaginable God. Thus, spiritual knowledge is only science indirectly, since every imaginable item is negated as God, while nothing is spoken about God.
For example, soul or awareness or consciousness is thought to be God. But science proves that soul is only a specific work-form of inert energy working in a specific functioning system called as the nervous system. The soul is imaginable energy and cannot be the unimaginable God. You are attributing an unimaginable miraculous nature to the soul when you say that the soul or consciousness is universal. The soul or awareness is confined only to the nerves and the brain in your body. It is not universal. You think that God is all-pervading to become omniscient. You also think that since God thinks, He must be awareness. Hence, you say that awareness must be all-pervading and is called as God. All this is chain of false logical concepts. God is beyond space and hence, He is not all-pervading. He knows everything (Omniscient) but for this, He need not be all-pervading. God being unimaginable can know everything due to His unimaginable power, even without pervading everything. Similarly, God thinks, but for this, He need not be awareness. The unimaginable God can think due to His unimaginable power. “Since He thinks, He must be awareness and since He knows everything, He must be all-pervading”—all this is worldly logic that only applies to all worldly items. God being unimaginable is beyond worldly logic!
You may doubt how Shankara said that the soul itself is God (Advaita). On the other hand, Ramanuja (Vishishtha Advaita) and Madva (Dvaita) said that the soul is not God. This contradiction in the three sub-religions of Hinduism[3] can be resolved by one simple point: these three philosophies speak only about the soul in a human incarnation and not about the soul of every ordinary human being. When the selected human being is charged by God (human incarnation), you can treat that human being to be identical with God (Advaita) for all practical purposes and at the same time, the imaginable human being acting as medium for the entry of the unimaginable God is totally different (Dvaita) from the unimaginable God. Both the versions are simultaneously valid with reference to different observers. When the electricity charges the metallic wire, you can have the following two simultaneously true versions:
This resolution of the contradiction between the sub-religions of Hinduism is a stepping stone to removing the contradiction between the religions in the universe for establishing world peace. Uniting the philosophies of Hinduism is like converting the house into one big hall by removing the internal walls. Uniting the religions in the world is like uniting all such big halls to make one biggest hall.
In ancient India, kings spent a lot of funds on spiritual education. Most people in present times feel that spiritual knowledge is the most useless theoretical subject, with no practical relevance. They do not realize its tremendous practical benefit to society. Spiritual education establishes the faith in God and fear for hell, which control sins like corruption etc. resulting in perfect peace. This avoids the necessity of courts and police, which are unable to control sins like corruption. In fact sometimes, these controlling systems also become corrupt. The present chaos in society proves the ineffectiveness of the courts and police. You cannot blame Me for not being able to show the existence of hell to you. You too are unable to show the absence of hell to Me in this infinite space. In this situation of a 50-50 probability of the existence and non-existence of hell, it is better to err on safe side, which is not committing sin and believing in the existence of hell. A wise blind man will go back by erring on the safe side, when somebody says that there is a fire ahead in his path, even if some other person says that there is no fire ahead. Realizing the wonderful fruit of spiritual education and following the ideal path of the ancient kings, the present government itself should arrange and fund conferences of this type.
[1] ‘Partiality without any reason’. If God favored a certain group of people because they were more deserving than others, then the apparent partiality is not unfair. In fact, it is not partiality at all. Partiality or favoritism without any reason is unfair.
[2] Both the ordinary human being and the human incarnation of God, have the human body as a common medium. Similarly in heaven, both the soul in an energetic body and the energetic incarnation of God, have the energetic body as a common medium. This common medium is the cause for repulsion. It is analogous to the concept in electricity and magnetism where we learn that like poles repel each other.
[3] The Advaita (monism) of Shankara, Vishshtha Advaita (qualified monism) of Ramanuja and the Dvaita (dualism) of Madhva are the three main Hindu (Vedantic) philosophies, which have different concepts about the relation between God and soul.
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