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The Jagat or Cosmos was created by God out of Himself, so that He is the originator as well as the material of the Cosmos. As a result, He is Full (Paripoorna). The Creation is also Full and the Individual Atma is also Full. Therefore, many full entities are postulated. God made the Cosmos manifest from Himself, when this declaration is made, the doubt may naturally arise, “How could God become these walls, these tables?” God is supremely pure, how could He become these impure things? This is another doubt that is uppermost to some.
Let us seek the answers. Man is fundamentally Atma, but he has the encasement of a body, hasn’t he? From one point of view, man is not distinct from the body, is he? In spite of this, however, man feels that he is not this body, that his reality is distinct from it, that he is not the baby he was or the old man he is, that he is neither male nor female, and that he persists through babyhood, boyhood, middle age and old age, masculinity and femininity and all the other stages and changes. So too, the Cosmos and all creation are but the billion bodies of God. He is all this and in all this, but He is changeless and eternal. Nature is amenable to change. The Atma too can contract or expand, blossom or fade, shine or be befogged. Bad deeds will diminish its splendour by clouding its brilliance. Its innate and genuine truth and wisdom may be hidden by evil thoughts and deeds. Those acts and practices that can disclose the native splendour and glory of the Atman are termed “good.”
The Atma is “unbound” at first, but later it is seen as limited and restricted. Through good deeds and activities, it resumes its vastness and boundlessness. Everyone without any difference has the opportunity to achieve this transformation. When the time gets ripe, everyone can succeed in this and liberate himself from the bounds and bonds. But the Jagat (Cosmos) will not end. That is eternal, incapable of being destroyed. This is the explanation of the second school of philosophy in India. The first one is the dualist or the Dvaita. The second one is the Vishishtadvaita or the Special Advaita. This is a higher stage in spiritual inquiry and experience. It posits three entities—God, the Atma, and Nature, and speaks of an integration of the three. The dualists posit that the Cosmos is a vast machine designed and operated by God. The Vishishtadvaitins declare that it is a phenomenon that is interpenetrated and imbued with the Divine. But the Advaitins or the non-dualists assert that God is not outside the Cosmos, that He became the Cosmos (Jagat), and that He is all that is. There is nothing except God, no Other, no Second. This truth has to be accepted by all. This is the highest Truth. To say that God is the Atma and the Cosmos is as the Body which He operates and lives in, is not correct. To assert that the Atma (God) is eternal and changeless but the Cosmos which is His Body can be subject to change and transformation is also not satisfying.
What does it signify when it is said, “God is the Upadana-karana, the Proximate Cause of the Cosmos”? Proximate cause means the cause which produced the effect. The “effect” is the “cause” in another form. It cannot be separate from the cause. Every effect that we notice is but the cause that has assumed a new form. The Cosmos is the effect, God is the Cause—these statements only stress the fact that the Cosmos is but God in another form. When it is argued that the body is limited and subtle, and that it leads one to the Cause, that is, God, or it was from God that it has evolved and taken shape, the non-dualists would reply that it was God Himself who manifested in the form of the Cosmos.
It may be doubted whether all this multiplicity of things and beings are really God. Yes. It is the Truth. All these that the senses cognise, that come into the awareness, are God. There is nothing else but He. Our bodies, minds, intellects, consciousness—all are God.
Here, another doubt may arise. Why should God be so many individualised beings? Why should He be so many Jivatmas? Will God, who is of one Form, manifest Himself as so many? How did this happen? If God has transformed Himself into the Cosmos, He should have subjected Himself to change; all things in Nature that are by their very composition subject to change, suffer both birth and death. And if God has come within the precincts of change, does it mean that He too has to die someday? Has he to undergo change and ultimately end? Keep in mind this point also. Then, there is another point to be considered. How much of God, what portion of God became the Cosmos?
The Advaitins say, “Whatever the portion you may allot, or guess about, remember this: The Cosmos does not exist. It is an illusion. It never is, has been or will be. The Creation of the Cosmos, the dissolution of the Cosmos, these billions of individuals emerging and merging, all this is but a dream. There is no individualised jivatma at all, no separated Atma. How can there be billions of Jivatmas? There is only ONE Indivisible Complete Absolute. Like the one sun reflected as a billion suns in a billion lakes, ponds, and drops of water, the Jivatmas are but reflections of the One in the minds that it shines upon. This is what Bharatiya thought emphasises most clearly through the Advaitin thinkers. Those who cannot grasp this truth are under the influence of maya or delusion, it can be said.
Dreams too have to be based on reality. Without a basic reality, the “dependent idea or fact” cannot exist. Without a basic thing, subsequent things cannot emanate. Without a basic being, subsequent beings cannot manifest. That base is God or Ishwara. He is Full. He is the Mind, the Body, the Atma. You are only as real as a dream. For the eye that can see reality, the Cosmos is, not this multiplicity of name and form, but mere Sat-chit-ananda, Being-awareness-bliss. Just think of your dream. It does not arise from somewhere outside you nor do the varied images and activities disappear into some place outside you. They arise in you and disappear into you. While dreaming, you consider the events and persons as real, and you experience, as really as in the waking stage, the feelings of grief, delight, fear, anxiety, and joy. You do not dismiss them at the time as illusory. The Cosmos is the dream of God. It arises in Him and merges in Him. It is the product of His Mind. These lives and repeated arrivals, all are the fanciful weavings of Maya, unreal fantasies, illusory agitations, unreal appearances. You are the Full, you are God. God is You. Those who have experienced this highest wisdom can attain oneness with the ONE, here and now.
Index
Preface
The Supreme Reality
From Truth to Truth
The One Alone
The Miracle of Miracles
Basic Belief
Religion Is Experience
Be Yourself
Bondage
One With the One
The Yogis
Value in Vedas
Values in Later Texts
The Avatar as Guru
This and That
Levels and Stages
Man and God
Color and Caste
Activity and Action
Prayer
The Primal Purpose
The Inner Inquiry
Eternal Truths
Modes of Worship
The Divine Body
The Jagat or Cosmos was created by God out of Himself, so that He is the originator as well as the material of the Cosmos. As a result, He is Full (Paripoorna). The Creation is also Full and the Individual Atma is also Full. Therefore, many full entities are postulated. God made the Cosmos manifest from Himself, when this declaration is made, the doubt may naturally arise, “How could God become these walls, these tables?” God is supremely pure, how could He become these impure things? This is another doubt that is uppermost to some.
Let us seek the answers. Man is fundamentally Atma, but he has the encasement of a body, hasn’t he? From one point of view, man is not distinct from the body, is he? In spite of this, however, man feels that he is not this body, that his reality is distinct from it, that he is not the baby he was or the old man he is, that he is neither male nor female, and that he persists through babyhood, boyhood, middle age and old age, masculinity and femininity and all the other stages and changes. So too, the Cosmos and all creation are but the billion bodies of God. He is all this and in all this, but He is changeless and eternal. Nature is amenable to change. The Atma too can contract or expand, blossom or fade, shine or be befogged. Bad deeds will diminish its splendour by clouding its brilliance. Its innate and genuine truth and wisdom may be hidden by evil thoughts and deeds. Those acts and practices that can disclose the native splendour and glory of the Atman are termed “good.”
The Atma is “unbound” at first, but later it is seen as limited and restricted. Through good deeds and activities, it resumes its vastness and boundlessness. Everyone without any difference has the opportunity to achieve this transformation. When the time gets ripe, everyone can succeed in this and liberate himself from the bounds and bonds. But the Jagat (Cosmos) will not end. That is eternal, incapable of being destroyed. This is the explanation of the second school of philosophy in India. The first one is the dualist or the Dvaita. The second one is the Vishishtadvaita or the Special Advaita. This is a higher stage in spiritual inquiry and experience. It posits three entities—God, the Atma, and Nature, and speaks of an integration of the three. The dualists posit that the Cosmos is a vast machine designed and operated by God. The Vishishtadvaitins declare that it is a phenomenon that is interpenetrated and imbued with the Divine. But the Advaitins or the non-dualists assert that God is not outside the Cosmos, that He became the Cosmos (Jagat), and that He is all that is. There is nothing except God, no Other, no Second. This truth has to be accepted by all. This is the highest Truth. To say that God is the Atma and the Cosmos is as the Body which He operates and lives in, is not correct. To assert that the Atma (God) is eternal and changeless but the Cosmos which is His Body can be subject to change and transformation is also not satisfying.
What does it signify when it is said, “God is the Upadana-karana, the Proximate Cause of the Cosmos”? Proximate cause means the cause which produced the effect. The “effect” is the “cause” in another form. It cannot be separate from the cause. Every effect that we notice is but the cause that has assumed a new form. The Cosmos is the effect, God is the Cause—these statements only stress the fact that the Cosmos is but God in another form. When it is argued that the body is limited and subtle, and that it leads one to the Cause, that is, God, or it was from God that it has evolved and taken shape, the non-dualists would reply that it was God Himself who manifested in the form of the Cosmos.
It may be doubted whether all this multiplicity of things and beings are really God. Yes. It is the Truth. All these that the senses cognise, that come into the awareness, are God. There is nothing else but He. Our bodies, minds, intellects, consciousness—all are God.
Here, another doubt may arise. Why should God be so many individualised beings? Why should He be so many Jivatmas? Will God, who is of one Form, manifest Himself as so many? How did this happen? If God has transformed Himself into the Cosmos, He should have subjected Himself to change; all things in Nature that are by their very composition subject to change, suffer both birth and death. And if God has come within the precincts of change, does it mean that He too has to die someday? Has he to undergo change and ultimately end? Keep in mind this point also. Then, there is another point to be considered. How much of God, what portion of God became the Cosmos?
The Advaitins say, “Whatever the portion you may allot, or guess about, remember this: The Cosmos does not exist. It is an illusion. It never is, has been or will be. The Creation of the Cosmos, the dissolution of the Cosmos, these billions of individuals emerging and merging, all this is but a dream. There is no individualised jivatma at all, no separated Atma. How can there be billions of Jivatmas? There is only ONE Indivisible Complete Absolute. Like the one sun reflected as a billion suns in a billion lakes, ponds, and drops of water, the Jivatmas are but reflections of the One in the minds that it shines upon. This is what Bharatiya thought emphasises most clearly through the Advaitin thinkers. Those who cannot grasp this truth are under the influence of maya or delusion, it can be said.
Dreams too have to be based on reality. Without a basic reality, the “dependent idea or fact” cannot exist. Without a basic thing, subsequent things cannot emanate. Without a basic being, subsequent beings cannot manifest. That base is God or Ishwara. He is Full. He is the Mind, the Body, the Atma. You are only as real as a dream. For the eye that can see reality, the Cosmos is, not this multiplicity of name and form, but mere Sat-chit-ananda, Being-awareness-bliss. Just think of your dream. It does not arise from somewhere outside you nor do the varied images and activities disappear into some place outside you. They arise in you and disappear into you. While dreaming, you consider the events and persons as real, and you experience, as really as in the waking stage, the feelings of grief, delight, fear, anxiety, and joy. You do not dismiss them at the time as illusory. The Cosmos is the dream of God. It arises in Him and merges in Him. It is the product of His Mind. These lives and repeated arrivals, all are the fanciful weavings of Maya, unreal fantasies, illusory agitations, unreal appearances. You are the Full, you are God. God is You. Those who have experienced this highest wisdom can attain oneness with the ONE, here and now.