Necessity of Correct Analysis

[sridatta]

Shankara said that God is awareness. By this He means that God is always in human form for human beings. Awareness is not available independently anywhere without a gross body. Therefore, the awareness mentioned by Shankara, indicates the human body. Mentioning awareness eliminates statues and pictures, which are inert. Of course, statues and pictures are essential for worship for beginners, who cannot accept the human form due to ego and jealousy. Hence, you should not criticize idol worship otherwise the majority, which is trying to get rid of their ignorance gradually, will be hurt. You should not condemn idol worship but you should analyze the truth in it and try to help the beginners to reach higher.

Any effort is always defective in the beginning (Sarvarambhahi doshena...—Gita). Awareness is the identity card of God for humanity. This can be understood from Lakshana[12] from Tarka Shastra[13]. According to it, when you call out “Apples”, to a person selling apples in the street, the word ‘apples’ indicates the possessor of the basket of apples[14]. The apples are in the basket and the basket is on the head of the seller. This does not mean that the seller is an apple. Similarly, the awareness is in the human body and God is in the human body. God is neither the awareness nor the human body.

God charged the human body that contains awareness. The main program of God is to give spiritual guidance. Hence, you cannot take a living being like a bird or animal, since it cannot preach the spiritual knowledge. Hence, awareness in this context, indicates human body alone. The specialty of awareness is that awareness is the basic material of knowledge. Hence, from the viewpoint of the importance of knowledge in spiritual guidance, the essential basic material (awareness) is indicated here. Every human being cannot give such spiritual guidance and hence every human being is not God. There is no question of calling every living being as God.

Only the topmost spiritual preacher like Krishna, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha etc., can be the human form of God. The other spiritual preachers, catering to the lower levels are the liberated souls, who are the servants of God, who have incarnated to help His mission. Without understanding all this, if you foolishly argue that awareness is God, and since awareness is in every living being, that every living being is God, you have not understood even an alphabet in the preaching of Shankara.

You require the knowledge of all the Shastras to understand the Veda and Shankara (Tasmat Shastram…—Gita). The Brahma Sutras also tell you that you can understand God only through the Shastras (Shastra yonitvat). The word Shastra is limited to the elaborate logic that is essential to understand the Veda. The Veda (Shruti) is the primary text. The Smritis like the Gita, are secondary texts. Yukti is logical analysis, which is the Shastram. Finally, Anubhava is practical experience and this is the most important. If anubhava is contradicted, your interpretation of the texts is wrong due to your wrong logic. Sometimes, the experience of a foolish ignorant person stands in the way and to negate it, logic is needed. The experience of scholars (Vidvadanubhava) should be taken. The experience of the majority is not the point here.

The texts and logic help us avoid the experience of the ignorant majority. Let us analyze your foolish argument that since awareness is God, every living being must be God. In such a case, our practical experience is that awareness exists as discontinuous bits in different living beings, which are separate from each other. Now if awareness is God, either there are several Gods or God is divided into bits. Both these possibilities are denied by Shankara, who says that God has neither Sajatiya bheda (many Gods) nor Svagata bheda (God in bits). You cannot say that the space between two living beings is also awareness and hence the awareness is one, which pervades homogeneously.

This is against practical experience of all, including scholars. The space between living beings is inert and the air in that space is also inert. If you claim that you are the only scholar who experiences awareness everywhere, then there is an equal possibility that you are mad. When there is an alternative excellent solution, why should you cling on to your madness?

The alternative excellent solution is that a particular human being like Krishna alone is God. The awareness in Him is one and is homogeneous and hence there is no Sajatiya bheda or Svagata bheda. Also, because the awareness pervades all over the human body, it is called as Atman. This charged soul can be treated as God because a wire charged by electric current, can be treated as the current itself. The word Atman can be used for the gross body also in Sanskrit.

Hence the entire human being is charged by God and can be treated as God. The little and tender finger of Krishna lifted the mountain for seven days and this proves that the entire human body was also charged by the unimaginable God. The human body became unimaginable and hence the mountain was lifted on the little finger. The wire charged by the electric current gets the property of the current and gives a shock. Similarly, the unimaginable nature of God is seen in that human body also. Such a miracle is needed for atheists. For theists, miracles are not necessary and spiritual guidance is sufficient.

Shankara said that God does not even have Vijatiya bheda. This means that there is no existence of a second item other than God. If you take this in the absolute sense, then there is no entertainment for God, since He always remains alone (Ekaki Naramate…—Veda). Therefore you should take this in a relative sense. The world exists as a relatively real item. The imagination of any person is relatively real. The awareness in the form of mind is the absolute reality in him.

The imaginary world is relatively real and it does not exist at all if the absolute reality is absent. This means that this world is under the full control of God like the imaginary world is under the control of the mind of a person. Now, this is also possible in the case of Krishna, who can control this world, as He likes. But this aspect is not at all seen in the case of any other human being. Therefore, the world is almost unreal or unreal only for God. Hence there is no Vijatiya bheda for God or for Krishna who was charged by God. For any other human being, the world is more real and stronger than him. So you cannot say that Vijatiya bheda is absent, if an individual soul is to be treated as God.

Brahma Vidya is most difficult because you have to recognize a co-human form as God. This is possible only if you conquer your ego and jealousy. For training, you can start with removing your ego and jealousy towards other co-human beings. Do not be jealous of any human being and do not be egotistic towards any human being. By this training, you will conquer ego and jealousy towards co-human forms and shortly you will recognize God in human form. In the training period, you can treat every human being as God, to avoid ego and jealousy. But this is not truth and hence you need not worship a bad person without discrimination. You can worship all good people and especially all devotees of God. God treats His devotee as greater than Himself. God will bless you shortly by revealing His identity to you, if you complete the training successfully.

The Advaita philosopher treats every human being (living being) as God, not to love all as God, but only to treat himself as God. The intention is not to train himself to remove his ego and jealousy, but to increase his ego by becoming God! If you think that by saying that the Prime Minister is in Delhi, means that the Prime Minister is present in every house in Delhi, it is foolishness. You have to recognize his particular residence. If you think that he lives in some house that he actually does not live in, you are better, because at least your concept is improved. At least you know that he lives in one house and not in every house!

Therefore, it is better to worship some deserving person like a poor devotee as God, instead of treating everybody as God. Treating a statue or a picture as God, is like treating a vacant inert house as the living Prime Minister himself!

Today is Guru Pournima[15]. If you recognize Guru as a particular human form of God, the Guru Pournima is meaningful and it becomes complete by this full moon. If your recognition is correct, the full moon is spotless. But the full moon has black spots, which are your defects of ego and jealousy towards the co-human form and this is the main black spot, even though your spiritual effort is full of devotion. The lack of perfect logical analysis is the black spot in this full moon-like full devotion of your spiritual effort.