dattaswami Posted September 27, 2007 Report Share Posted September 27, 2007 [color="#0000FF"][b]No simile can perfectly represent God in full sense[/b] [/color] The similes given for God are always worldly items, which are definable by space and time. God is beyond space and time and no simile can perfectly represent God in full sense. This defect brings the doubts in the minds of human beings since their minds cannot cross the dimensions of space and time. Veda gives three similes (Tatha Aksharat..) in explaining the process of creation from God but no simile can convey the full meaning because all the similes are worldly items only. The world comes out of God like the net from spider, like plants from earth and like hair and nails from the human body. In these similes, the spider, earth and human body are imaginable worldly items only and convey partial concepts. In the first simile the liquid from the mouth of the spider is very simple but the network is multi dimensional. Similarly from the single God, this complicated universe is designed in wonderful manner. The material of the net is nothing but the condensed form of the saliva of the spider. Both saliva and net are inert matter only in different states of liquid and solid. This means that the material from God is condensed in to the world. But since God is unimaginable, the material of the God is also unimaginable and hence the condensation of the unimaginable material of God in to imaginable material must be ruled out. For this purpose the other two similes are given to show the difference between unimaginable cause and imaginable effect. In the other two similes, the living matter (plants) is produced from the inert matter (earth) and reverse of this is also told in the third simile where the inert matter (hairs and nails) is produced from the living matter (human body). The difference in these two similes establishes the difference between God and world and through these two similes you can neither establish God as life (awareness) or inert. In the second simile God is compared to the inert earth and in the third simile God is compared to living human body so that you should neither conclude that God is inert or awareness. This proves that God is beyond awareness and inert nature. The third simile shows that the living matter reduces inert matter and this means that the characteristics of cause need not enter the effect. This proves the violation of the logic of physical world in the case of God and hence the argument of Advaita (the awareness characteristic of the cause entered the creation as the soul) cannot be accepted in the case of God. At the same time the Sankhya school also (which states that the soul is the product of the inert item called as Pradhanam) ruled out. These two similes are given to show that the logic of cause – effect fails in the case of production of universe from God. These three similes mean that this wonderful universe, which is constituted by imaginable items, emerged out from the unimaginable God through an unimaginable way, which is called as “Anirvachaniyata Khyati” by Shankara. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami Anil Antony www.universal-spirituality.org Universal Spirituality for World Peace antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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