07 Jun 2018
Shri P V N M Sharma asked:- Once You said that Sureshvara, disciple of Shankara was unable to see God in the temple due to curtain put before God. Then, he said that God’s fate is in his hands when atheists argue that God doesn’t exist. Immediately, the curtain fell down. Does this mean that even God feared for Sureshvara?
Swami replied:- It is true that when he entered the temple of Jagannaatha in Puri, curtain was drawn before the statue for offering food to God. Then, Sureshvara told God “You have become proud due to wealth (since He is the husband of Goddess Lakshmi, the deity of wealth). When Buddhists (atheists) come and argue that God doesn’t exist, I argue to establish Your existence and hence, Your fate is in my hands (Eishvaryamadamattosi, maam na jaanaasi durmate!, upasthiteshu Bauddheshu, madadhiinaa gatistava)”.
There are two points here to be answered:- i) why he said like this, threatening God?—The answer is that he, called as Mandanamishra, was an atheist following Purvamiimaamsaa previously from a long time before he met Shankara and got defeated to become theist. Even though he has become theist, the long standing past influence of atheism in his mind (samskaara) in a hidden way, influenced him to talk like this. We shall not criticise God even in our dream. Such state comes only when we spend a lot of time in spiritual knowledge, based on the existence of God having all merits only without a trace of defect. ii) Why God dropped the curtain, which looks that as if God feared for Sureshvara like a human being, fearing for his advocate arguing his case in the court? It is not so. You see God as matured wise Father and Sureshvara as a small child talking some nonsense due to foolish ego and its father is entertained by acting as if following the child sincerely! If God opposes and punishes this child immediately, the child will not realise its mistake due to arrogance. When God accepts our foolish remark and appears to fear for us, we will immediately doubt whether the omnipotent God is acting like that so that we will get a doubt on our own remark and start analysing our mistake. This is the way of preaching done by a wise preacher. God always reacts in natural way without showing His power in any way so that the soul gets reformed in a natural way only. Reformation in natural way is always permanent. Reformation through forced punishments in unnatural way is always temporary. This is the reason why we do sins again in this birth even though we have just come to this birth after passing a long time through the forced punishments in hell.