A devotee should treat the human incarnation as absolute God and serve God directly

[dattaswami]

A devotee should treat the human incarnation as absolute God and serve God directly

 

A devotee should treat the human incarnation as absolute God and serve God directly. Otherwise the very purpose of the human incarnation is lost. But at the same time when the properties of the human body and the human soul are exhibited like birth, illness, hunger, human feelings, death etc., the devotee should become scientist and must realize that God is beyond these properties. Some times the Lord exhibits these properties extensively to test your firm faith and devotion in Him.

 

During such tests, you should realize Dwaita of Madhva and should stand firm in the tests. Both Advaita and Dwaita are essential like the two eyes, but you should not open both the eyes simultaneously in the case of the human incarnation. Depending on the context you should open the corresponding eye. Ramanuja maintains both these concepts together since He is the bridge between Advaita and Dwaita. Since gold and copper cannot be separated and isolated, it is Advaita. But gold is not copper and copper is not gold and therefore it is Dwaita. He treats the world as the body of God, which consists of inert materials and souls. For a scholar the body is like a shirt according to Gita. The inert objects (Achit) and souls (Chit) are like the threads of the shirt with different colors. The world is like the blue color or adjective (Visheshana) and God is like the flower or substratum (Visheshya) and both are inseparable according to Ramanuja. The inseparable aspect brings Advaita and the two separate items establish Dwaita. All this is only in the case of the human incarnation. There is no debate in pure gold or in pure copper.

 

God as creator of this world is untouched by the world and remains as pure gold. The world never touches God and stands as a separate scene (Drushya) and God (Drashta) is entertained by the self-imaginary world, which is the cinema. The entertainment by seeing the cinema (Druk) is only one aspect of the seer (Drashta). The seer is also hearing the dialogues of the cinema. Now from this angle, God is hearer (Shrota) and the dialogues of the cinema are to be heard (Shravya). The process of hearing (Shravana) is not the process of seeing (Druk). Therefore, awareness is only the process of knowing the object and it is not creating or controlling or destroying the object. The soul can know the object but cannot destroy or control or create the object. The soul can create, know, control and destroy its imaginary world. But in the actual world the soul can just know the objects and neither creates nor controls nor destroys the objects. Knowing the objects is common point to both actual and imaginary worlds in the case of the soul or God. But the creation, maintenance and destruction of the actual world are not in the hands of the soul and are not the common points but these three are only similar points.

 

It means that as you create maintain, and destroy your imaginary world, God also creates, maintains and destroys the actual world. It is a simile but Shankara expressesed it as metaphor in the case of atheists to uplift them. The metaphor should be taken as the simile only. If the agent says that the girl is just the rose flower, it means that the girl looks like a rose flower. This does not mean that the girl is actually rose flower. The soul and imaginary world can be taken as the best simile for God and actual world. The simile helps you to understand the concept and at any time you should not think that the simile and concept are one and the same. A similar point is not the common point. Therefore, the creation, control and destruction of objects are the three similar points in both the actual world and imaginary world. God and soul are similar. Actual world and imaginary world are similar. The only common point is that God and soul (assuming that the soul is a perfect scholar) know the actual world and imaginary world. This common point cannot make God as soul and the actual world as the imaginary world.

 

 

 

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

 

Anil Antony

 

www.universal-spirituality.org

Universal Spirituality for World Peace

antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org