Analysis of Buddha on world

[sridatta]

Buddha said that the world is nonexistent as well as existent. It is nonexistent for the absolute unimaginable God while it is existent for the soul since the soul is a tiny part of the world. The world was nonexistent to the absolute God before creation. But after creation, the absolute God is entertained with the basically nonexistent world which appears fully existent to Him just as it appears to the soul.

The world is existent since it gives real entertainment to God. The same world is also basically nonexistent to God because God is able to do miracles in the world. If the world were actually real for God, He could not have created, changed, controlled or destroyed anything in the world. This is because, one absolute reality cannot do anything with another absolute reality. Due to the unimaginable power of the unimaginable God, the world which is actually unreal, appears to be fully real for the sake of giving real entertainment to God.

The same world was totally unreal for the unimaginable God before creation since it had not been created. The world which is actually unreal is very much real for the soul which too is equally unreal. One unreal item is real for another equally unreal item. In fact, the soul is an inherent tiny part of the world.

Buddha said that the world is nonexistent (śūnyam) as well as momentary (kṣaṇikam). These two characteristics of the world are mutually contradictory if both are applied to the world from the same frame of reference. That which is nonexistent cannot be momentary. Only an existent entity can be momentary. Only ‘something’ can appear for a moment. ‘Nothing’ cannot be said to appear for a moment. It means that the momentary entity cannot be nonexistent. For the unimaginable God, the world is always nonexistent.

Certainly, before creation, the world was nonexistent. But after creation, even though the world remains actually nonexistent for the unimaginable God, it appears to exist for a certain period during which it provides entertainment to the same unimaginable God. The nonexistent becoming existent while still remaining nonexistent simultaneously is possible with the inherent unimaginable power of God. Hence, for God, the world, which is basically nonexistent, simultaneously becomes existent to give real and full entertainment to Him. These two mutually contradicting states of creation are possible only from the frame of reference of God. The soul, which is a part of the nonexistent world, is also nonexistent for God. Yet, it is also simultaneously existent for the God who is watching creation and being entertained by it. But from the soul’s frame of reference things are different.

The soul thinks that it exists and so, the rest of the world also exists for the soul since the soul is only a part of creation. We cannot apply the word śūnyam (nonexistent) to the world from the soul’s point of view because the world is never nonexistent to the soul. Both the soul and the world which contains it are nonexistent only from God’s point of view. But for the nonexistent soul, the nonexistent world indeed exists and is real. Hence, the frame of reference is very important in order to resolve such contradictions.


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-By Shri Datta Swami
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