Defining God

[Diogenes]

It is time that atheists get over this primitive understanding of God.

'Swami' attempts to turn the table and blame atheists, who believe in no gods, for rejecting some sort of 'primitive' definition of God. This raises questions:

Please define "primitive understanding of God."
In the alternative, perhaps Swami' could suggest his own "understanding of God."

Atheists as well as many theists reject 'primitive' definitions of gods. Atheists reject ALL gods. Perhaps Swami' or others can suggest a 'sophisticated' definition of a god. Then we can let atheists speak for themselves about whether they reject such a 'god.'

[sridatta]

But that's the rub, isn't it? How can God ever incarnate as human and become relatable without admitting unactualized potential into Godself? It seems to me that unactualized potential is integral to the human experience, and so if God truly incarnated, and is relatable, then God can't be pure actuality.

That or it's only ever going to be an illusion of human being that God has, and false knowledge. Never the real deal.

The unimaginable God is omniscient without becoming omnipresent in the world due to His omnipotence. If you say that God is omniscient since He is omnipresent, He is defined by space logic. The greatness of God reaches climax only when you say that God is omniscient even though not omnipresent. Climax of greatness is the essence of the word ‘Brahman’ or the greatest. Due to absence of omnipresence of God, no item of the world is God (neti neti - Veda) and no item of world contains God. Since God is not space-defined imaginable item like a table or ground, God is also not the direct basis of the world.

The world is created and maintained by God just by His will and therefore, God is not modified by creation and also is not maintaining the world by becoming the direct basis like space-defined table. The result is that you can neither find God in any imaginable item nor God is any imaginable item of the world. You can’t find God as the direct basis of the world so that you can find out Him by downward digging (analysis) taking an ordinary soul to be dug. Several Vedic statements and the Gita say that God is totally unimaginable.

Like this, even though God is completely beyond the world (space), as the Veda says, God enters the world as incarnation for participating in the world-drama for getting more entertainment than being mere spectator. Another important need is propagation of true spiritual knowledge in world. When God enters a human being (five sheaths) to become human incarnation, God pervades all over the human being so that every sheath (kosha) becomes God only.



The unimaginable God beyond the world can be only inferred whereas God as human incarnation(like Jesus, Rama, Krishna etc) can be even visualized being in our presence and this is the meaning of the Vedic statement that God is with us. In the analysis of five sheaths, every sheath is found to be God (Annam Brahmeti vyajanaat… etc.) and nowhere no sheath is denied to be God. Even the gross body (Annamaya Kosha) of human incarnation is becoming the unimaginable God (Brahman) and hence, the body of Krishna could lift the hill and the body of Shankara could withstand the swallowed molten lead.

In the case of such incarnation, there may be a probability of God pervading the soul only (probability depends on the requirement of the context), you can deny the five sheaths and find God as the soul or pure awareness called as Atman. God can be unimaginable standing as inseparable direct basis of such soul also as per the concept of Ramanuja, which is monism by inseparable dualism. As per Madhva, pure dualism is also possible when unimaginable God exists in Rama blessing the servant Hanuman from outside. All these three relationships are possible only in the case of specific souls called as devotees.

[Diagoras]

If you say that God is omniscient since He is omnipresent, He is defined by space logic.

Space logic! The final logic frontier…

Is that Euclidean space, though?

[sridatta]

Space logic! The final logic frontier…

Is that Euclidean space, though?

The unimaginable God burns the world into ash and immediately you will conclude that God is the physical fire based on your worldly logic developed by worldly observations.


Similarly, if I say that God thought to create this world, you will immediately ask that God is awareness or God has awareness so that God is inert energy to burn the world or God is the awareness or having awareness, which is generated from His inert energy and nervous system present in Him.

What I say is that God is neither fire to burn nor has awareness to think and God has burnt the world by His unimaginable power and God thought by His unimaginable power. You shall not judge the unimaginable actions of unimaginable God with the help of your imaginable worldly logic based on imaginable observations of the imaginable world.
When there is no logic between God and His action, how can we put such questions like God is having space in Him or not?

If He has already space in Him, He can’t be the generator of the space because the space already present in Him came out and is expressed as space. If God has space in Him, He must have spatial dimensions and must be seen by the naked eye or at least by a nanotechnologist with the help of a powerful microscope.

[William]

[Replying to sridatta in post #21]

Several Vedic statements and the Gita say that God is totally unimaginable.

That is the meaning of אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה.

[William]

{I Am that I Am}

[theophile]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #19]

Perhaps a subtle point, but either there is an illusion in our human experience (i.e., that the future is open and yet to be decided) or there is an illusion in God’s experience of being human, insofar as pure actuality will never match what we experience as humans (which means the incarnation is an illusion).

Either way, there is an illusion somewhere in this theology. Which, while not a disproof per se, does feel like a point against, and begs the question, why not a God that admits of unactualized potential? And along with this, the meaning we would gain in our own lives to shape an open-ended future?

That’s where I would want to go. Better to start from nothing, or the nothings of the world, even when it comes to God. So much less of a burden to bear!

[sridatta]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #19]

Perhaps a subtle point, but either there is an illusion in our human experience (i.e., that the future is open and yet to be decided) or there is an illusion in God’s experience of being human, insofar as pure actuality will never match what we experience as humans (which means the incarnation is an illusion).

Either way, there is an illusion somewhere in this theology. Which, while not a disproof per se, does feel like a point against, and begs the question, why not a God that admits of unactualized potential? And along with this, the meaning we would gain in our own lives to shape an open-ended future?

That’s where I would want to go. Better to start from nothing, or the nothings of the world, even when it comes to God. So much less of a burden to bear!

The unimaginable God beyond the world can be only inferred whereas God as human incarnation can be even visualized being in our presence and this is the meaning of the Vedic statement that God is with us. In the analysis of five sheaths, every sheath is found to be God (Annam Brahmeti vyajanaat… etc.) and nowhere no sheath is denied to be God. Even the gross body (Annamaya Kosha) of human incarnation is becoming the unimaginable God (Brahman) and hence, the body of Krishna could lift the hill and the body of Shankara could withstand the swallowed molten lead.

In the case of such incarnation, there may be a probability of God pervading the soul only (probability depends on the requirement of the context), you can deny the five sheaths and find God as the soul or pure awareness called as Atman. God can be unimaginable standing as inseparable direct basis of such soul also as per the concept of Ramanuja, which is monism by inseparable dualism. As per Madhva, pure dualism is also possible when unimaginable God exists in Rama blessing the servant Hanuman from outside. All these three relationships are possible only in the case of specific souls called as devotees.

[AquinasForGod]

[Replying to AquinasForGod in post #19]

Perhaps a subtle point, but either there is an illusion in our human experience (i.e., that the future is open and yet to be decided) or there is an illusion in God’s experience of being human, insofar as pure actuality will never match what we experience as humans (which means the incarnation is an illusion).

Either way, there is an illusion somewhere in this theology. Which, while not a disproof per se, does feel like a point against, and begs the question, why not a God that admits of unactualized potential? And along with this, the meaning we would gain in our own lives to shape an open-ended future?

That’s where I would want to go. Better to start from nothing, or the nothings of the world, even when it comes to God. So much less of a burden to bear!

I am not so sure it is an illusion. God is more like B theory of time. And it might be more like time is relative between observers as it is in relativity, but this would be relative to our physical observations vs God's eternal perspective.

For an analogy, I see it like this. God create all things in one eternal act, including where on the timeline where our souls would begin to exist. So from out point view we began to exist in the 1900s, me and you that is, assuming you were born for 2000. And in the same one eternal act God caused the souls to exist in Saint Thomas Aquinas' generation, 1200s. All souls were created in one eternal act to exist where they best fit on the timeline.

Or maybe that is even closer to reality than an analogy.

[sridatta]

I am not so sure it is an illusion. God is more like B theory of time. And it might be more like time is relative between observers as it is in relativity, but this would be relative to our physical observations vs God's eternal perspective.

For an analogy, I see it like this. God create all things in one eternal act, including where on the timeline where our souls would begin to exist. So from out point view we began to exist in the 1900s, me and you that is, assuming you were born for 2000. And in the same one eternal act God caused the souls to exist in Saint Thomas Aquinas' generation, 1200s. All souls were created in one eternal act to exist where they best fit on the timeline.

Or maybe that is even closer to reality than an analogy.

The concept of time is the fourth coordinate of space resulting in the four-dimensional space-time. Time can be expressed in terms of distance and this is also the basic concept behind the time machine.Śaṅkara proposed that God is beyond space and time. According to Him space and time are conventional and they are myths (mithyā) with respect to God. Based on this, scholars say that an event (paristhiti) is defined by space (deśa) and time (kāla) (Deśa kāla paristhitiḥ).

The same concept is proposed by Einstein, who says that any event in creation can be defined with the four-dimensional model of space-time, where three coordinates belong to space and the fourth coordinate, is time. Time is based on the activity of an item composed of matter and energy and the duration for which the activity continued. The sun is an item made of matter and energy. Its activity is the movement in the sky. Actually, after Aryabhaṭṭa, Brahmagupta established that the earth moves around the sun and around itself too. But from our point of view, the sun moves in the sky.

In any case, the study of time proves that time is a component of creation. It is certainly not beyond creation. The first created item is space, which is the subtlest form of energy. Time is always associated with space. From space (space-time), the rest of creation evolved. The unimaginable God is beyond creation. He is beyond the first created item, space and also beyond time, which is always associated with space. The First Energetic Incarnation is called Datta. He is also called Īśvara or Father of heaven. Even God Datta is beyond the concept of time. He is eternal and changeless. This is because the unimaginable God has permanently merged with God Datta.

Before the creation of the first item of creation, i.e. space (subtle energy); only the unimaginable God existed. No concept of time existed in the unimaginable God. The word ‘before’, which indicates time, is associated only with creation. It cannot be linked with the state of the unimaginable God existing alone up to that point of the beginning of creation. The concept of time appeared only after creation. God Datta exists in creation, but for all practical purposes, He is beyond this creation due to the eternal merging of the unimaginable God with Him. This creation will never end even though it had a beginning. Hence, there is no possibility of the disappearance of time at any point in the future. Since the entertainment of the unimaginable God (or God Datta) continues forever, this creation will never disappear.

Even when God withdraws from the entertainment, creation is maintained in a very subtle state (avyaktam), only to be projected again whenever entertainment is required. The disappearance of creation or space cannot even be imagined. If it were possible to imagine the disappearance of creation and space, it would also be possible to imagine the unimaginable God. Of course, that is impossible! The existence of the unimaginable God alone is imaginable (Astītyevopalabdhavyah—Veda). In fact, the existence of the unimaginable God can be logically experienced. Through the authority of experience, the existence of the unimaginable God is shown to be valid (Anubhavaikavedyam Brahma).

Of course, the unimaginable God perfectly has the potency to make the entire creation, including the First Energetic Incarnation, disappear at any time. But this potency is never exhibited practically for the sake of maintaining the eternality of God Datta, who is perfectly identified with the unimaginable God. The energetic body of God Datta is to Him as your body is to you. Your human awareness or soul pervades all over your material body. Similarly, the awareness of God Datta also pervades all over His energetic body.

The important difference is that the unimaginable God has merged in the awareness of God Datta. So, along with His awareness, the unimaginable God also pervades all over the energetic body of God Datta. Hence, we say that the soul as well as the body of God Datta are pervaded by the unimaginable God. Any human being who destroys his own body commits the greatest sin called suicide. Such a thing can never be imagined even in a dream, in the case of the unimaginable God! So, the First Energetic Incarnation, with whom the unimaginable God is completely merged, will never be destroyed. It remains eternal and changeless.

In the case of the unimaginable God, you should not think about the time in which the unimaginable God remained in His inherent state. It is the state even before the creation of space and His First Energetic Incarnation. Even if you assume that some such time existed, when God was in that unimaginable state before creation, that time is also unimaginable! You cannot consider the unimaginable time as a separate unimaginable entity because two unimaginable items cannot co-exist. The result is that the unimaginable time is also the same unimaginable God. Hence, you cannot imagine the unimaginable time in which the unimaginable God alone existed until the starting point of the imaginable creation.

[Swami]

In my worldview, God is fundamental reality. It is part of everything.

Would you then describe yourself as a pantheist?

I wouldn't quite call myself a pantheist because God is on a different level than the physical Universe. Only God is real, but the physical Universe is an illusion just as in a dream. I would not equate a dream with the real. The physical Universe exists in God as a field of possibilities.

The biggest problem in science is that most of its deductions come from a flawed source. Everything we observe is filtered through our mind and senses but yet scientists based all of their deductions on this flawed source. Aquinas brings up time, but time is also based on our deduction of our flawed mind and senses. Many mystics throughout thousands of years have discovered ways to experience without these filters, via higher states of consciousness. Their deductions are far more superior than what scientist can tell you about reality.

Mitchell was experiencing a spontaneous glimpse of what the sages of the yoga tradition call higher consciousness—a direct, intuitive experience of the infinite field of awareness that underlies and pervades the entire universe. When this experience is fully expanded, different traditions give it different names—samadhi, nirvana, enlightenment, turiya, shunyata, Brahman, Christ Consciousness, Absolute Truth, Atman, God, the Self, Supreme Consciousness—but whatever they call it, spiritual masters tell us that this experience of an all-pervasive consciousness reveals the truth about ourselves and the world we inhabit: it is all One. There is no division, no multiplicity, no separation. Everything—the astonishing variety of living beings; nature’s myriad shapes, textures, and forms; the sun, the stars, the clouds, and the wind in the trees—all of it is a manifestation of an indivisible field of Consciousness. The goal of human life, the sages tell us, is to meet that Consciousness within ourselves and to know ourselves as That.

A Glimpse of Cosmic Consciousness (yogainternational.com)