Posted on: 11 Apr 2023
[Shri Ganesh V asked: Padanamskaram Swamiji, Why didn't the previous Acharyas talk about the unimaginable God even though there are many references in the Vedas? Only Adi Shankaracharya talked about Nirguna brahman but He also didn't talk about the Unimaginable God who is beyond space and time. At Your divine feet, Ganesh V]
Swami replied:- To understand the concept of the unimaginable God, it requires a lot of I.Q. in practical logic, which is the theoretical logic concluded on the observations of practical experiments. This field called science is developed very recently only and in ancient days, only theoretical logic developed much, which cannot demonstrate the truth in a perfect way. For example, space or vacuum is thought to possess sound as its quality. But, sound cannot propagate in space. They thought that sound propagates in space because whatever you speak is propagated through space and reaches the other person. The error in this logic is that the air molecules that propagate the sound through their collisions were unseen by ancient scholars of logic. In this way, the I.Q. of ancient logic was very high, no doubt, but, was not perfect due to the absence of study of practical experiments. Therefore, even though the divine preachers, who were the human incarnations of God Datta, knew the absolute truth, they could not present such a subtle topic of the unimaginable God due to the imperfect I.Q. of the receivers. Since in recent times, the I.Q. of receivers is well developed due to advanced progress of Science, the divine preacher called Shri Dattaswami presented this concept, which is well grasped by the present receivers of knowledge. The reason for the silence of divine preachers was the defective I.Q. of the receivers of knowledge and not due to their ignorance.
In the ancient time, the concept of the unimaginable God could not be introduced by the divine preachers because the unimaginable God could not be experienced by senses. In ancient logic, experience was the final authority for existence. For example, in ancient days, if you said that air was God, people could believe it since air is experienced by the skin-sense. But, in ancient times if you said that X-ray was God, scholars will not believe it since X-ray is not experienced by senses. Then, the ancient scholars will say that the unimaginable God is absent. The ancient scholars said that even God shall be experienced (Anubhavaika vedyaṃ Brahma). Due to this danger of possible atheism, the divine preachers did not mention about the unimaginable God. But, today, even the items, which could not be experienced are detected and their existence is proved due to the development of science. Today, if you say that X-ray is God, no scholar will oppose it because X-rays in the atmosphere can be experienced through eyes with the help of sophisticated electronic equipments. Hence, Dattaswami could dare to say about the existence of unimaginable God since science has already accepted the existence of unimaginable boundary of the universe or space. I have given this answer already, when a devotee called Shri Ramnath asked the same question.