07 Apr 2020
[This question was asked as part of the evening satsaṅga with Swami, at the house of Shri Pavan K.
Shri Kishore Ram asked: Swami, could You please explain the meaning of “Viśvaṃ Viṣṇuḥ” from the Viṣṇu Sahasranāma Stotram, which contains a thousand names of Lord Viṣṇu? ]
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! Literally, viśvaṃ means the world and Viṣṇuḥ means God. So, “Viśvaṃ Viṣṇuḥ” would mean that the world is God. But this is not the correct meaning of the statement. In this particular context, viśvam means worldly knowledge and Viṣṇuḥ stands for spiritual knowledge. The statement means that you can build all the concepts of spiritual knowledge with the help of worldly knowledge. It means that every concept of spiritual knowledge is found in worldly knowledge. Not only that, but the knowledge of God who is beyond the world, is obtained when you reject the entire worldly knowledge. This means that you should first identify the different items in this world and gain scientific knowledge about them. Then you should reject every worldly item, saying “This is not God; This is not God…” and so on (Neti neti—Veda). Science is the final authority in the case of worldly knowledge. Science is basically not different from the ancient logic (tarka), which also analysed all worldly items. But science is superior to ancient logic because ancient logic was only theoretical, whereas science adds practical proof to it in the form of experimental validation. For instance, some scholars of ancient logic thought that the awareness found in animals and humans, itself is God. But science proves that awareness cannot be God because awareness is only a specific work form of the inert energy functioning in the working nervous system of a living being. Based on science, we can reject the idea that awareness is God because God is defined as the unimaginable Entity existing beyond the world and which is the source of the world.
The most important concept in spiritual knowledge is that you should pray to God and serve Him, without aspiring for any fruit in return. This concept can be very easily understood from worldly knowledge. If you serve your father due to your love for your father and not out of the hidden intention of acquiring his property, your father will be extremely pleased with you. With pleasure, he will also give his entire property to you. But when you aspire for something from your father and link your service to that fruit, your father will be unhappy due to your cheap behavior. Due to his bad impression about you, he may even reduce the share of the property to be given to you. Similarly, our devotion to God should be free of aspiration. Constantly aspiring for some fruit from God and repeatedly begging for it from Him, only brings negative results.
In this world, the bond of parents with their child is said to be the highest. They do the work of feeding, bathing and caring for the child, which is service (karma saṃnyāsa). They spend a lot of money for the child and finally, by way of their will, they transfer their entire wealth to their child. This is the sacrifice of their wealth to the child (karma phala tyāga). Their love for their child is not only theoretical, but it is also proved to be true practically. Service and the sacrifice of wealth to the child are the practical proof of the genuineness of their love. But when the grownup son neglects his parents, due to his love for his wife, the parents become jealous and they scold the son. Hence, even this true parental love is impure because of the parents’ aspiration for some fruit in return from the child. They expect the son to serve them in their old age. So, their love for their child was only business-love (vaiśya bhakti). Vaiśya bhakti involves love which is accompanied by service and sacrifice, but which is based on an expectation of receiving some practical fruit in return. Of course, in spite of this defect of aspiration in their love, they do not change their will and transfer their property to someone else. At the most, they might scold their son bitterly. Thus, we see that parents’ love for their child is not absolutely pure since parents do have some expectations from their child. Nevertheless, compared to other forms of worldly love, parental love is the purest.
Even this purest and strongest worldly bond stands defeated before the bond with God. The reason is that God actually loves you without aspiring for anything in return from you since He does not need anything from anyone. His love for you is the purest. The love of any soul for you is always impure. The Veda says that every worldly bond is basically selfish. All souls with whom you have relationships, only love you for the sake of their own happiness and not for your happiness (Ātmanaḥ kāmāya…—Veda). Hence, between the bond with God and any other worldly bond, one must always vote for God, rejecting all worldly bonds. That is why Śaṅkara left His mother, Prahlāda left his father and Buddha left His wife, son and kingdom. The three of them left the three strongest worldly bonds for the sake of God. The three strongest bonds or eṣaṇas are the bonds with one’s money, issues (children) and life-partner. This excellent concept of aspiration-free love that is proved through practical service and sacrifice, is again based on concepts from the worldly knowledge of love in various relationships.
In this way, every bit of the world contains concepts that are useful for learning spiritual knowledge. This is the essence of saying that the world is God. It does not actually mean that the world itself is God. It only means that the knowledge of God is completely based on worldly knowledge. It is the same old wine in a new bottle!
Keywords:
|Shri Datta Swami| Vishwam Vishnuh Vishvam samnyaasa Karma samnyasa karma phala tyaaga Vaishya bhakti Aatmanah kaamaaya
★ ★ ★ ★ ★