God, Brahman, energy

[dattaswami]

The entire creation other than the unimaginable God is manifestation of the imaginable cosmic energy, which was created by the unimaginable God. This process of creation of imaginable cosmic energy by unimaginable God is unimaginable because any link between unimaginable and imaginable is always unimaginable. The space is invisible cosmic energy and the fire is visible cosmic energy. Matter is another manifested form of cosmic energy existing in gaseous state, liquid state and solid state. Space (aakaasha), fire (agni), gas (vayu), liquid (jalam) and solid (pruthivi) are the five elements that constitute the entire creation. Apart from these five elements, work (karma) is another form of cosmic energy. Work involves working materials, which may be matter and other forms of cosmic energy.

 

Awareness is a special work form of cosmic energy, involving brain and nervous system as working materials. The transfer of information from senses to brain is a specific work that takes place in the specific nervous system. Electricity, sound, heat, light, magnetism, etc. are other different forms of cosmic energy only. Therefore, the entire creation leaving the unimaginable creator is a continuous infinite ocean of cosmic energy only.

 

 

All the manifestations of cosmic energy are unreal with respect to the basic cosmic energy. The basic cosmic energy is inert and the awareness is also essentially the basic inert cosmic energy only. Awareness treated as the basic inert cosmic energy is called as the soul (Atman) and the awareness treated as the work form is called as individual soul (Jeeva). The soul loses its boundaries and merges with the infinite ocean of cosmic energy, which is called as Brahman in the sense ‘The Greatest’.

 

When the same soul or cosmic energy is treated as awareness, it becomes a specific manifestation of cosmic energy called as work and hence, is termed as ‘individual soul’. This individual soul or specific work exists in four ways.

 

1) The first way of work is mind (manas), doing the work of thinking in different ways (sankalpa and vikalpa).

 

2) The second way of work (buddhi) is making a decision (adhyavasaya).

 

3) The third way of work (chitta) is the process of knowing (samjnana) and storing the information that can be remembered again (smarana).

 

 

The individual soul is a bundle of these four types of works (antahkaranam). Both the soul and the individual soul fall under the phase of creation, which is imaginable. Even the Brahman, the infinite cosmic energy, is imaginable only. This Brahman is also called as ‘Karya Brahman’, which is the unimaginable manifestation of the unimaginable God only. The unimaginable God is called as ‘Kaarana Brahman’ or Parabrahman. The word ‘Brahman’ can be used to any item, which is greatest in a category.

 

For example, the Veda is called as Brahman since it is the greatest among the sacred books. If the individual soul goes down very near to its basis, the soul, it becomes almost inert and becomes devoid of the activities of doer (kartaa) and enjoyer (bhokta). If you go down completely and become the soul, you will enter into deep sleep. Just before deep sleep, you will remain in the state of self awareness, in which you are aware of nothing other than the awareness. This is the state of perfect meditation. This state is the junction of awareness and deep sleep. In this state, you will lose the activity of doer and enjoyer.

 

But, even such awareness is not God, since such awareness is also dependant on the supply of inert energy by digestion of food and the functioning nervous system. Such awareness is limited to a living body only and is not the infinite ocean of inert cosmic energy. The advaita philosophers stand in this state of junction between awaken state and state of deep sleep and claim merits of both the states. They take the merit of awaken state, which is awareness. They also take the merits of infinite cosmic energy like continuous infinity and the three characteristics of creator, ruler and destroyer of the world.

 

Hence, their Brahman is the result of the synthesis from both the states and has no practical validity of existence.

You can remain in the state of individual soul and enjoy the pleasant things. You can go down very near to the basic soul, and become immune to everything that is unpleasant. By this, you can enjoy happiness only and go into coma-state with respect to unpleasant situations. This is one way. The other way is to remain very near to soul in every situation. The first way is better than the second way since you can enjoy at least now and then. There is a third way, which is better than both these ways. In this third way, you can enjoy the unpleasant situations also and be happy continuously. One remains happy even facing the death in this third way (Sthitvaasyaamantakalepi… Gita).

 

Krishna enjoyed even the genocide in the end in which all His sons and grandsons killed each other. He enjoyed even His death with a sweet smile while His foot was continuously bleeding hit by the arrow. When His father Vasudeva died, He was externally weeping, but internally enjoys that process of weeping also. Krishna said that He is like the white thread running through different gems with different colours (sutre maniganaa iva… Gita). The thread may become black, red, green, etc. while running through the gems of such colours. But, if the white thread is taken out, it appears white only. The colours that appeared on the thread are external only and the white colour of the thread was maintained in all these different colours. In fact, the white colour only generates the seven colours. The soul is never touched by the activities like doer, enjoyer, etc. because it is the inert (sthanuh… Gita) cosmic energy only.

 

Even the individual soul is untouched by such activities in the state of perfect meditation. The unimaginable God is also not touched by such activities since the imaginable actions cannot touch the unimaginable entity. By this common property of untouchable nature, either the soul or the individual soul in the meditation cannot be God because, the reason for the untouchable nature of God is His unimaginable nature whereas, the soul and individual soul are always imaginable. Both the unimaginable God and soul or individual soul in meditation are beyond all such activities and hence, can enjoy the unreal world without any involvement. But, the individual soul cannot enjoy in the state of meditation.

Instead of becoming inert to escape the involvement in these activities, it is better to remain as individual soul in normal state and enjoy all the activities like the human incarnation, following the principle of enjoying every situation realizing the unreality of the basic world.

 

Shankara preached this monism of continuous bliss through continuous enjoyment of the unreal world. The cosmic energy becomes creator, ruler and destroyer by the will of God only and hence, the unimaginable God is only the Ultimate Creator, Ruler and Destroyer of the world. But, to enjoy the unreal world continuously, the creatorship, rulership and destroyership are unnecessary and hence, the limited monism between God embedded in cosmic energy (Eshwara) and the individual soul (Jeeva) can be achieved as per Shankara. There is no meaning in bringing monism between the soul or individual soul and the unimaginable God because the comparison is not possible between imaginable and unimaginable.