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BHAKTI-YOGA
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. III, pp. 37-42
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| Who is Ishvara? | Who is Ishvara? Janmadyasya yatah -- "From whom is the birth, continuation, and dissolution of the universe," -- He is Ishvara -- "the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers"; and above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniya-premasvarupah -- "He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods -- the "Not this, not this," the Sat-chit-ananda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta? No, it is the same Sat-chit-ananda who is also the God of Love, the impersonal and personal in one. It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is too much of an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the Bhakta chooses the relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler. To use a simile: Brahman is as the clay or substance out of which an infinite variety of articles are fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or manifestation differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they all existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are identical substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form remains, they are separate and different; the clay-mouse can never become a clay-elephant, because, as manifestations, form alone makes them what they are, though as unformed clay they are all one. Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara. |
| In the fourth PAda of the fourth chapter of his Sutras, after stating the almost infinite power and knowledge which will come to the liberated soul after the attainment of Moksha, Vyasa makes the remark, in an aphorism, that none, however, will get the power of creating, ruling, and dissolving the universe, because that belongs to God alone. In explaining the Sutra it is easy for the dualistic commentators to show how it is ever impossible for a subordinate soul, Jiva, to have the infinite power and total independence of God. The thorough dualistic commentator MadhvAchArya deals with this passage in his usual summary method by quoting a verse from the VarAha PurAna. | |
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Does sameness with Brahman give the power of Ishvara? Ramanuja's views |
In explaining this aphorism the commentator Ramanuja says,
"This doubt being raised, whether among the powers of the liberated souls
is included that unique power of the Supreme One, that is, of creation etc. of
the universe and even the Lordship of all, or whether, without that, the glory
of the liberated consists only in the direct perception of the Supreme One, we
get as an argument the following: It is reasonable that the liberated get the
Lordship of the universe, because the scriptures say, 'He attains to extreme
sameness with the Supreme One and all his desires are realized.' Now extreme
sameness and realization of all desires cannot be attained without the unique
power of the Supreme Lord, namely, that of governing the universe. Therefore, to
attain the realization of all desires and the extreme sameness with the Supreme,
we must all admit that the liberated get the power of ruling the whole universe.
To this we reply, that the liberated get all the powers except that of ruling
the universe. Ruling the universe is guiding the form and the life and the
desires of all the sentient and the non-sentient beings. The liberated ones from
whom all that veils His true nature has been removed, only enjoy the
unobstructed perception of the Brahman, but do not possess the power of ruling
the universe. This is proved from the scriptural text, "From whom all these
things are born, by which all that are born live, unto whom they, departing,
return -- ask about it. That is Brahman.' If this quality of ruling the universe
be a quality common even to the liberated, then this text would not apply as a
definition of Brahman, defining Him through His rulership of the universe. The
uncommon attributes alone define a thing; therefore in texts like -- 'My beloved
boy, alone, in the beginning there existed the One without a second. That saw
and felt, "I will give birth to the many." That projected heat.' --
'Brahman indeed alone existed in the beginning. That One evolved. That projected
a blessed form, the Kshatra. All these gods are Kshatras: Varuna, Soma, Rudra,
Parjanya, Yama, Mrityu, Ishana.' -- 'Atman indeed existed alone in the
beginning; nothing else vibrated; He thought of projecting the world; He
projected the world after.' -- 'Alone NArAyana existed; neither Brahma nor
IshAna, nor the DyAvA-Prithivi, nor the stars, nor water, nor fire, nor Soma,
nor the sun. He did not take pleasure alone. He after His meditation had one
daughter, the ten organs, etc.' -- and in others as, 'Who living in the earth is
separate from the earth, who living in the Atman, etc.' -- the Shrutis speak of
the Supreme One as the subject of the work of ruling the universe. . . . Nor in
these descriptions of the ruling of the universe is there any position for the
liberated soul, by which such a soul may have the ruling of the universe
ascribed to it."
In explaining the next Sutra, Ramanuja says, "If you say it is not so, because there are direct texts in the Vedas in evidence to the contrary, these texts refer to the glory of the liberated in the spheres of the subordinate deities." This also is an easy solution of the difficulty. Although the system of Ramanuja admits the unity of the total, within that totality of existence there are, according to him, eternal differences. Therefore, for all practical purposes, this system also being dualistic, it was easy for Ramanuja to keep the distinction between the personal soul and the Personal God very clear. |
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Does sameness with Brahman give the power of Ishvara? Sankara's views |
We shall now try to understand what the great representative
of the Advaita School has to say on the point. We shall see how the Advaita
system maintains all the hopes and aspirations of the dualist intact, and at the
same time propounds its own solution of the problem in consonance with the high
destiny of divine humanity. Those who aspire to retain their individual mind
even after liberation and to remain distinct will have ample opportunity of
realizing their aspirations and enjoying the blessing of the qualified Brahman.
These are they who have been spoken of in the Bhagavata Purana thus:
"O king, such are the glorious qualities of the Lord that the sages whose
only pleasure is in the Self, and from whom all fetters have fallen off, even
they love the Omnipresent with the love that is for love's sake." These are
they who are spoken of by the Sankhyas as getting merged in nature in this
cycle, so that, after attaining perfection, they may come out in the next as
lords of world-systems. But none of these ever becomes equal to God (Ishvara).
Those who attain to that state where there is neither creation, nor created, nor
creator, where there is neither knower, nor knowable, nor knowledge, where there
is neither I, nor thou, nor he, where there is neither
subject, nor object, nor relation, "there, who is seen by whom?" --
such persons have gone beyond everything to "where words cannot go nor
mind", gone to that which the Shrutis declare as "Not this, not
this"; but for those who cannot, or will not reach this state, there will
inevitably remain the triune vision of the one undifferentiated Brahman as
nature, soul, and the interpenetrating sustainer of both -- Ishvara. So, when
Prahlada forgot himself, he found neither the universe nor its cause; all was to
him one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and form; but as soon as he
remembered that he was Prahlada, there was the universe before him and with it
the Lord of the universe -- "the Repository of an infinite number of
blessed qualities". So it was with the blessed Gopis. So long as they had
lost sense of their own personal identity and individuality, they were all
Krishnas, and when they began to think of Him as the One to be worshipped, then
they were Gopis again, and immediately tAsAmAvirBhUcChouriH
smayamAnamuKhAmbujaH | pItAmbaraDharaH sthragvI sAkshAnmanmaThamanmaThaH ||
(Bhagavata) -- "Unto them appeared Krishna with a smile on His lotus
face, clad in yellow robes and having garlands on, the embodied conqueror (in
beauty) of the god of love."
Now to go back to our Acharya Shankara: "Those", he says, "who by worshipping the qualified Brahman attain conjunction with the Supreme Ruler, preserving their own mind -- is their glory limited or unlimited? This doubt arising, we get as an argument: Their glory should be unlimited because of the scriptural texts, 'They attain their own kingdom', 'To him all the gods offer worship', 'Their desires are fulfilled in all the worlds'. As an answer to this, Vyasa writes, 'Without the power of ruling the universe.' Barring the power of creation etc. of the universe, the other powers such as AnimA etc. are acquired by the liberated. As to ruling the universe, that belongs to the eternally perfect Ishvara. Why? Because He is the subject of all the scriptural texts as regards creation etc., and the liberated souls are not mentioned therein in any connection whatsoever. The Supreme Lord indeed is alone engaged in ruling the universe. The texts as to creation etc. all point to Him. Besides, there is given the adjective 'ever-perfect'. Also the scriptures say that the powers Anima etc. of the others are from the search after and the worship of God. Therefore they have no place in the ruling of the universe. Again, on account of their possessing their own minds, it is possible that their wills may differ, and that, whilst one desires creation, another may desire destruction. The only way of avoiding this conflict is to make all wills subordinate to some one will. Therefore the conclusion is that the wills of the liberated are dependent on the will of the Supreme Ruler." |
| Is Ishvara Unreal? | Bhakti, then, can be directed towards Brahman, only in His personal aspect. kleshoadDhikatarasteShAmavyaktAsaktachetasAm -- "The way is more difficult for those whose mind is attached to the Absolute!" Bhakti has to float on smoothly with the current of our nature. True it is that we cannot have any idea of the Brahman which is not anthropomorphic, but is it not equally true of everything we know? The greatest psychologist the world has ever known, Bhagavan Kapila, demonstrated ages ago that human consciousness is one of the elements in the make-up of all the objects of our perception and conception, internal as well as external. Beginning with our bodies and going up to Ishvara, we may see that every object of our perception is this consciousness plus something else, whatever that may be; and this unavoidable mixture is what we ordinarily think of as reality. Indeed it is, and ever will be, all of the reality that is possible for the human mind to know. Therefore to say that Ishvara is unreal, because He is anthropomorphic, is sheer nonsense. It sounds very much like the occidental squabble on idealism and realism, which fearful-looking quarrel has for its foundation a mere play on the world "real". The idea of Ishvara covers all the ground ever denoted and connoted by the word real, and Ishvara is as real as anything else in the universe; and after all, the word real means nothing more than what has now been pointed out. Such is our philosophical conception of Ishvara. |
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COPYRIGHT REGISTERED UNDER ACT XX OF 1847 Published by President Advaita Ashrama Mayavati Pithoragarh Himalayas |
