Beach 3: Focus on Three Qualities of God
Wave 6: A
Six-Party Conversation on
the Concept
of ‘GOD’ in Hinduism
The
following is an imaginary six-party conversation on the concept of ‘God’ in
Hinduism. The six persons who are parties to this conversation, namely, RNB, DD, OT, PP, SV and PA are all Hindus who have
grown in an atmosphere full of the culture and tradition. They are such thick friends of one another that each knows
the others inside out! But the six have different views on Hindu beliefs, philosophy
and practices and that makes the conversation interesting.
1. RNB is a rationalist and a non-believer to the
extent that he has serious questions on the existence of God. The one thing he
appreciates is the necessity for the purification of one’s mind. He has a soft
corner for karma-yoga,
because the concept of unselfish service means something to him but his ideas
are only vague. His attitudes to his friends’ perception of the ‘faith’ part of religion are
rather blurred.
2. DD is a simple and pious devotee, but he is a kind
of a ‘doubting’ devotee, because every alternate day he discovers that his
prayers are not answered by God. He jumps from one form of God to another (and
Hinduism gives him this flexibility) and is carried by naivity to believe in any one who
poses the frontal of a saffron colour. He thinks he understands Lord Krishna
and His leelas, but of
3. OT is the orthodox theologist. He knows all the
puranic stories. He corresponds to the traditional layman-Hindu, very often
superstitious. He does not have a clear understanding of the basic philosophy
of the religion and he tends to develop dogmatic attitudes towards viewpoints
that do not coincide with his own perception of religion. He thinks he
understands both
4. PP is one who professes Philosophy. Mostly his is
an arm-chair philosophy. He believes in the omnipresence
of Divinity. He knows that God is immanent in himself and he has to only
realise that Godly presence. He believes or cares for nothing else. For him,
neither karma yoga nor bhakti nor surrender theory nor the concept of Avatar
has any meaning, much less, any fascination. But he is very knowledgeable
because he is well-read.
5. SV, the Scientist-Vedantin, on the other hand, has a great
fascination for the intellectual exercises embodied in the philosophical
schools of Hinduism, the consequent corollary of a karma yoga and so on. He
even probes into treatises which deal with these teachings in their depth. He
needs ‘proof’ for everything on the lines of what his scientific mind seems to
be familiar with. The concept of One God with myriads of names and forms is
unpalatable to him even as an academic hypothesis. He thinks he understands the
Gita, but certainly he cannot swallow the pranks of
6. AV is an advaita-vedantin. He claims to have read (and
understood!) all the advaitic treatises and has probably a good perception of
the Prasthana-traya.
The
conversation starts in an elementary casual way between #s 1 and 2 on the
existence of God. At some point #3 joins in the debate. The conversation turns into a serious debate.
#4 also joins now. #s 5 and #6 join in
the final stages. Now let us go to the
conversation from the beginning. The paragraphs are numbered so as to
facilitate any further reference.
1.
RNB: Good morning DD,
what temple did you visit today? What was your latest prayer?
2.
DD: Well, over the
weekend I had been to the
3.
RNB: I know what you
mean. You have prayed to your God that he should grant me faith in him. And you think he can do
that for you.
4.
DD: Why not? God can
get anything done if He wills it.
5.
RNB: So do you think
He can put that faith in me in spite of my will otherwise?
6.
DD: Certainly. Further I am not asking Him to give
me material benefits. I have asked Him, on your behalf, the one and only thing
you need and that is not a material benefit.
7.
RNB: That is your
feeling about me. But I don’t feel I am lacking anything. Why should I have faith in a
non-existent God?
8.
DD: Come on, don’t
repeat all that talk of yours. You seem to take pleasure in denying God. Don’t
you know that even
in the west they are talking about a super-designer who must have designed this
universe with all its fantastic order and in-built regularity, which is
unexplainable?
9.
RNB: But you are
begging the question. Who designed that super-designer?
10.
DD: That super-designer
is God. Nobody designed Him.
11.
RNB: That is exactly
my point. You are only making a hypothesis, aren’t you?
12.
DD: So what? That is the declaration of all religions of
the world.
13.
RNB: Religion is
man-made. God is just a creation of man’s intelligence. Man created God in his
own image as an anthropomorphic super-duplicate of himself. I don’t need such a
creation.
14.
DD: Have you ever felt
depressed when things don’t work the way you wanted them to work for you?
15.
RNB: I don’t feel depression at such times. I know
I am lucky most of the time and some times I am not lucky; that is all.
16.
DD: What is luck, if
not God’s Grace?
17.
RNB: Why do you bring
in God into everything? Luck is luck; there is no God there. What does your God
gain by giving me luck? I do my duty and I expect rewards. If I don’t get those
rewards it only means there is some fault in the system and I have to work
towards removal of that fault. You believers rely on God to give you those
rewards or correct those faults in the system. Last year you were visiting
local temples one by one for redress of your grievances and this year you have
gone all the way to Guruvayoor. But your grievances are still there!
18.
DD: You may not agreee
with this. But it is God that gives all the rewards.
19.
RNB: But if it is a
God that rewards only those who pamper him, then I am not willing to have
anything to do with him.
20.
OT (entering): Hello
friends, it appears you are seriously discussing something. Can I join you?
21.
RNB. Actually we were
looking for you. DD has just returned from a trip to Guruvayoor. He is trying
to convince me that Guruvayoorappan is the supreme God. Last year he tried to
convince me that the elephant-God Ganesha in the corner of this street is the
supreme God. This year it is different!
22.
OT. Nobody can
convince you, because you don’t believe in anything.
23.
RNB. Why can’t you
folks give me a logical argument for the existence of God? Don’t bring in a
bundle of primitive concepts from your Puranas and all your superstitious
beliefs.
24.
OT: Is it superstition
to believe what hundreds of great men
like Shankara,
Tirunavukkarasar, Ramanuja,
Madhva,
Vedanta
Deshika, Appayya Dikshidar, Kabirdas, Meerabai, Chaitanya or a Vallalar
have believed? Is it superstition to believe a Ramakrishna
of our own times who saw the Goddess in person?
Is it superstition to have trust in a Raghavendra
who lives still in his samadhi and grants our wishes? Have you ever exposed yourself to the sayings
or the life story of any of these? That is exactly your problem, the problem of
Ignorance!
25.
RNB: Wait for a
minute! I thought you were going to give a logical argument.
26.
DD: The logical
argument is three-fold: 1. First you
have to let go your mental block which says that that everything can be reduced
to simple explanations. You have to change your mental framework to admit
truths beyond the reach of your common sense. 2. Just as we individuals have
minds of our own there are greater minds which are able to see the global
picture more clearly than most of us single individuals. Carrying this analogy
further we have to grant a super mind that may be called the transcendental
mind. This is the mind of the all-knowing God. 3. The mystics of the world have a common
story to tell the rest of the world. It is a compelling story whose
authenticity is difficult to dismiss on the basis of our subjective
understanding with our limited minds. ...
27.
RNB: Excuse me. Pardon me for telling you that you
are only making
profound statements without an iota of logic or personal experience.
28.
PP (entering at this
time): What personal experience are you talking about?
29.
OT: RNB wants to have
a logical argument for the existence of God. And DD is telling him that mystics
of the world have a lot of personal experience which we cannot but believe.
30.
PP: I agree with RNB that we should not believe
in something of which we have no personal experience.
31.
OT: Come on, that is false logic.
Do you have personal experience that so and so is your father?
32.
RNB: Please, my friends, stop going in that direction. Our business here is
not to win a point, but to search and find out whether there is any logical way
in which we can believe in the existence of God.
33.
PP: That is right. As
a professor of philosophy I like Hinduism not because of its variety, flexibility
and tolerance but because of its ideal mixture of reason and faith. Reason
saves the aspiring devotee from avoidable errors and pitfalls and faith
supports him with courage in the hour of despondency.
34.
RNB: Then what is the
final authority? Reason or Faith?
35.
OT: Faith in the scriptures, certainly.
36.
DD: But even the Gita
is difficult to comprehend.
37.
PP: By depending
solely on faith in the scriptures one tends to be dogmatic. By depending solely
on Reason one may fall into the trap of rationalising one’s desire. Such a person
proves what he wants to prove. Personal experience by itself can be deceptive
because one may be just projecting one’s own favourite ideas. All three have to be combined to arrive at
the truth. I am told this is what the Upanishads claim to be doing.
38.
RNB: Aren’t the
Upanishads also full of dogmatic pronouncements called ‘maha-vakyas’?
39.
OT: These mahavakyas
are the axioms from which the other things are logically deduced.
40.
PP: Do they tell you why man has been
created? What must have been the purpose of
creation?
41.
DD: Man has been
created in order for him to work out the path to go back to his source, namely
God.
42.
RNB: Then it means he
was separated from God originally. Why was he separated?
43.
PP: You will go nowhere by asking these
questions. Because if you assign some purpose to God for his creation you will
have then to question the very omniscience and omnipotence which are part of
the definition of God.
44.
RNB: What is wrong in
questioning the omniscience and omnipotence?
That is why I say you cannot even postulate a God. Because by the nature
of your postulation you have also to postulate that he is omnipresent, omniscient and
omnipotent. In other words you are postulating everything about him and then
you say you can logically deduce his presence from the mahavakyas.
45.
OT: But the
omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience have been demonstrated in several
instances recorded in
the puranas of religion. Have you heard of Prahlada’s story where
the Lord appeared from a pillar just like that in order to demonstrate the
truth of his omnipresence asserted by his devotee?
46.
RNB: These are only
stories and have only a story-value.
47.
PP: All of this
tantamounts to saying that one should have faith. As I said already, only by a
proper mixture of reason and faith you can arrive at the truth. Neither of them
singly will be satisfactory.
48.
RNB: On the other hand the laws of
nature as discovered by science can explain almost all the phenomena in the
universe. And very soon they will also discover explanations for those
phenomena which are at present eluding our scientific understanding.
49.
OT: Can science
explain all the mystery that is experienced at the individual human level?
50.
DD: All through history we have heard of thousands of
individuals who have been emotionally influenced by the Divnity of temple
deities.
51.
OT: That is where
religion and philosophy play a part. Every temple in the world of Hindus is a
monumental example of what spiritual
giants have achieved in the past. Their achievements in the spiritual field are
all part of the history of that temple.
52.
PP: Hindu philosophy,
on the other hand, starts by investigating the mystery
surrounding the individual mind. The innermost essence of man refers to the
substratum of the individual mind. But ancient Hindu philosophers have seen a parallelism between
the study of the individual and that of
the universe as a whole.
53.
SV (entering at this
point): Friends, I was standing nearby and I heard the words ‘religion’,
‘philosophy’ and ‘science’ tossed about among you. I think I can join the discussion , if you don’t mind.
54.
RNB: What is your
opinion, SV, since you have dabbled in both science and Vedanta, about the
question of the existence of God? Can you tell us some real good reason why I
should believe in God?
55.
SV: Frankly, if you
ask my sincere opinion, the existence of God cannot be proved. I would love
myself to have a proof but all the proofs they are all giving has some flaw or
other. God must be the
name we have given to what we cannot understand even collectively. Such a God
has to be the
creative force, the overall intelligence which governs the universe, the
all-pervading essence which binds together everything in the universe and gives
life to all living beings.
56.
RNB: Beautiful
definition! But only a definition. It does not say whether such a thing exists
or not.
57.
PP: If you are looking
for it intellectually, it is the creative force, the sustaining power, the
motivation towards change, the overall intelligence, the truth.
58.
OT: If you are looking
at it emotionally, it is love, goodness, kindness and beauty. Among feminine
qualities, says the Lord in the tenth chapter of the Gita, “I am glory, beauty,
speech, memory, intelligence, steadfastness and forgiveness”. (KiirtiH
shrIr-vAk-ca nArINAM ... )
59.
SV: If you are looking
at it spiritually, it is the ever-present all-pervading essence or spirit that
gives life to everything and binds them all.
60.
DD: You are all
confusing me. I simply know Him as He who gives me rewards when I do good and punishes me when I default in my ethics or morals.
61.
PP: There are
different levels of the conception of God. An answer given to a questioner at
one level will not suit or be satisfactory to, the questioner at a different
level. When a Hindu child asks you to tell her about God, you can tell her
stories about Rama and
62.
SV: The beauty of
Hindu philosophy and religion lies in the fact that instead of starting with
the reality of the universal mind (this is the name that I give to God in my
understanding of things), they start from what is
experienced at the human level. So the innermost recesses of the human mind are
first explored. This investigation leads to what constitutes the innermost
essence of man. One finds that the innermost essence of man is the seeker
himself, rid of all his tools of search. In fact the mind itself is part of the
luggage that is to be shed off. But the exploration of this innermost core is
inextricably interlinked with the preconditioning of the mind. This
preconditioning is nothing but the cumulative effect of all traces of sensory
experience left in the memory bank. This preconditioning differs from
individual to individual and so the understanding of the innermost core also varies from
person to person.
63.
DD: Ah, I see the point now. It is clear now why
I jumped from one God to another in my search for that God who will listen to
me! It all depends on the
preconditioning of my mind at that time. Wonderful!
64.
PP: The technical
jargon that is equivalent to this ‘preconditioning’ is ‘VasanA’. This innermost core is what I call the
psychic principle. The Vedantins call it the Atman.
65.
SV: Though there is no
scientific proof of this, it is declared by Vedantic works that this psychic
principle, the Atman, is so deep-seated within us that it has a sense of
undeniable reality that goes with it, in the same sense that one does not look
for a proof of one’s own existence.
66.
OT: That is because,
it is God seated in our heart of hearts. “IshvaraH sarva-bhutAnAM
..” in
the last chapter of the Gita. He is the One who prompts all our actions and our
thoughts.
67.
SV: Don’t confuse the
issue now by bringing theology and all that stuff about God being the
motivator of our actions. RNB here and I would
immediately ask you to give logical proof for it and you will be stuck. The
subject here is different; it is about the question as to what the innermost
core of Man is. Let me continue my observations. This innermost reality within
us is the real subject of all our experiences. It is the eternal witness to
everything that I do or think.
68.
RNB: But where is God
now, in all this?
69.
AV (entering
and joining the discussion): It appears you are looking for God.
70.
SV: Now that you have
joined us, AV, we would like you to give us the benefit of all your knowledge
about Vedanta and advaita to solve this riddle of the existence of God.
71.
AV: Since
you have referred to advaita, let me say this much. There is no God other than yourself.
72.
OT: I see you are referring to the Atman within
each man. But then, that would mean there are several Gods.
73.
PP: Simple. There are
not several Atmans. The Atman within yourself and the Atman within myself is the same.
74.
DD: But the question
is about God who is Master of the universe and who is the Creator of this
universe.
75.
PP: This is where
Hindu philosophy has scored. Particularly the advaita school.
They assert that the Atman which is the innermost core of ourselves is also the
transcendent eternal Reality which is omnipresent .
The name given to that Supreme Reality is Brahman. The declaration of the
Upanishads is, according to advaita, Atman is the
same as Brahman, period! This statement is not amenable to any proof. Yogis however say
that it will be seen as true in meditative Samadhi.
76.
AV: But instead of getting into those technicalities, let me ask
you all: How often have you asked God to provide guidance in making your
decisions? And what has been your experience?
77.
DD and OT (together):
Almost all the time.
78.
RNB: Frankly, I don’t
remember to have ever asked God to guide my decisions. And the reason is
obvious. It never struck me. I have no practice of going to God for every one
of my dilemmas. You may call it my ego,
if you want to.
79.
PP: Both of you, RNB on one side and DD and OT on
the other, have a point of view which is acceptable. It is no use asking a
non-beleiver of God whether he invokes God in his decisions. The question should actually be posed in
another manner. “Have you ever had
occasion to feel helpless in making decisions? And in such times what do you
do?”
80.
RNB: The answer is the
same. Even when I felt helpless, how would I go to a non-existent God?
81.
SV: I think we are pursuing matters to a dead
end.
82.
AV: May I be permitted to shock you all at this
moment? The matter whether God exists or
not is not relevant from the absolute point of view. For, our advaita teachers
are very clear on this point. The necessity or otherwise for a God, the
existence or otherwise of a God with superlative attributes all arise only in
the mundane world which is after all only relatively real. As far as absolute truth is concerned only
non-duality is true: namely, Truth is One and
only One. You may call it God. But that God is not your God with superlative
qualities. It is Brahman, the unqualified Brahman, to which there can be no
attributes.
83.
OT: Then why do all
the scriptures say that everything in the universe owe their existence to God?
84.
AV: They say it in the
sense that all the movie pictures you see on the screen owe their existence to
the screen. If the screen were not there there would be no pictures. This is
the famous ‘anvaya’ logic. But the
screen alone is always there, before the projection of the pictures on it,
during the projection and after the projection . So
the screen is relatively more real than the pictures on it. It is in this sense that the scriptures
including the Brahma Sutra say that Brahman is the source of everything.
85.
SV: That portion of Brahma sutra is usually
quoted to affirm that Brahman is the First Cause and is itself uncaused.
86.
OT: In fact almost all
scriptures say this.
87.
SV: Let us look at it in another way. Man is
conscious of his limitations. It means he is capable of imagining or conceiving
the infinite and in comparison he knows he has limitations that make him lack that
infiniteness. It is that infiniteness he renames as God. It is a vague consciousness, no
doubt. But it is that vague consciousness, I think, that brings religion as a vital need of
man.
88.
AV: The advaita
teaching goes somewhat like this. It says that man has to rise from his
limitations which are collectively termed as his avidyA. So long as he is
subject to these limitations or avidya, he cannot dispense with religion or his
belief in God.
89.
PP: In other words
advaita also tells you what to do in your world of duality.
90.
OT: Only through the
Grace of God does the saving knowledge of non-duality come to us. We have to
resort to prayer and meditation to make ourselves worthy of God’s Grace. Adi
Shankara emphasizes this in almost all his devotional poems.
91.
PP: Much research has
been done to establish a strong connection between prayerful or meditative states
and overall health as confirmed by
physiological indicators.
92.
DD: And that God to
whom you do prayers can be your ishta-devata (favourite
deity). I don’t see anything wrong in it provided it does not carry with it
hatred of any other God, either of Hinduism or of other religions.
93.
PP: One can have
preferences without exclusions. Hinduism is a graded religious discipline. It
takes man step by step from the worship of the popular gods for gaining
material ends all the way up to the prayer of the Jiva. This is the prayer
which is keen on being led “from unreality to
reality, from darkness to light and from death to immortality”. One has
to observe all forms of worship and go all the way with religion in order to
arrive at a point beyond religion.
94.
AV: Reason is
strongest when it accepts divine guidance. This divine guidance does not
necessarily have to come
from a personality called God. Whenever we say ‘personality’ we
think of it only in human form. We are not able to think of it as something
which makes us think. This something which makes us think is the consciousness
within us. This consciousness is actually what guides us. That is divine
guidance, not necessarily someone who is sitting there in the distant heavens
and guiding every one of us.
95.
DD: But then all those
descriptions of Kailasa (the divine abode of Shiva) and Vaikuntha (the divine
abode of Vishnu) must be taken to be mere imaginations. I for one would not
want to accept your stand. The other schools of philosophy like Dvaita and
Vishishtadvaita have no problems here, because for them the Ultimate God is
personal and his abode is a real place. How can you say that advaita is the
right view?
96.
PP: As I have already
said, there are levels of
evolution among us all. There are some of us for whom nothing but
the grossest form of a divinity has appeal. There are others among us for whom
the most impersonal representation of that divinity is the only thing
acceptable. There is no right or wrong here.
97.
AV: No. It cannot be
made that simple. Different presentations of the all-pervading divinity are
true only in their
respective spheres . There is only one reality from the transcendental point of
view. For purposes of worship various names and forms are superimposed upon it.
Note the word ‘superimposed’. Once this
process of giving a name and form to what in reality is
nameless and formless starts, there is no end to it. We lay down all
forms of worship and compose litanies in praise of Gods. We undertake
pilgrimages to distant places to offer worship to deities in sacred shrines.
All this is quite necessary in the case of ordinary men who choose to live in a
world which takes multiplicity as real either as truth or as an unavoidable
come-down. The true advaitin belongs to the latter category. He knows all this
is maya but he cannot but do it. He knows he is sinning against his own
enlightened state in doing all this. Appayya Dikshidar said: “Oh Lord I have in my weakness committed three sins and I
beg forgiveness from you. To serve as a support for meditation I have given a
form to the Highest who is really formless; I have tried to define the
indefinable by composing stotras and litanies and lastly I have confined the
omnipresent Lord to particular places of worship and have journeyed to those
places”. This is the attitude of a true advaitin towards all forms of
worship. Whether each such form or for that matter the formless Ultimate was
the first Cause or not
does not make any difference to this attitude.
98.
OT: I find it very
difficult to accept that all the myriad deities in the various temples are part
of the passing
world of Maya. How come there have been so many theological discussions and stories about
different manifestations and deities?
99.
DD: I have always been
confused about the relationships among the different Gods and Goddesses. The
deity called ShAstA is the son of Shiva and Mohini, the feminine manifestation
of Vishnu. So Vishnu is ShAstA’s mother and Shiva is his father. So what is the
relation of Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, to ShAstA? In fact this question was
raised by the famous Appayya Dikshidar himself, whom you just quoted.
100.
PP: Yes, the
mythological set-up is certainly confusing if you take them all at their
story-value. For instance, Shiva and Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning are
brother and sister because they both emanated from the Supreme Mother Goddess
in her Mahalakshmi form. Like that Vishnu and Parvati are brother and sister.
Brahma and Lakshmi are brother and sister. But Brahma himself emanated from
Lord Vishnu. So Lakshmi is also the mother of Brahma. Can you take all these things
literally in terms of our worldly language, imagery and relationships?
101. AV: The Vedic tradition seems to be contradicting itself
if you look at it as if they were written by successive generations to
elaborate differing theories. At one
place it may say that the universe was created by God in the way in which a
carpenter creates or constructs a work of art from his mind. At another place
the same Vedas will declare that the entire universe came just out of the
will-power of God. At another place it will raise the question: ‘Who knows
about this creation?’. Such writing if at all, reflects only a questioning intellectual mind which
tries to present the truth to different levels of understanding. For the
discerning mind the last word is that of the Upanishads. For example, to the
question: Who is this Self, whom we desire to worship? Is he the Self by which
we hear, see, etc.? Is he the heart and mind by which we perceive? The answer
comes, just to cite one instance, in Aitareya Upanishad. No, these are only adjuncts of the Self. The Self itself
is Pure Consciousness. He is Brahman, He is God. He is Creator BrahmA, He is
Indra, He is all Gods. The reality behind all the five
elements, all that is born, everything that breathes, is Brahman, who is pure
Consciousness. All creation and all the universe is
established in Consciousness, they exist only through Consciousness, they work
through Consciousness, their foundation is Consciousness. Brahman is
Consciousness and Consciousness is Brahman. PrajnAnaM Brahma.
102.
RNB: What appeals to
me in all the scriptures is the repeated appeals for
the purification of our mind. Without that basic requisite, everything else is
only an academic exercise.
103.
SV: What appeals to me
most is the theory of the Causeless Cause of all causes. A cause and effect
relationship can be entertained only when there is a feature that can clearly
distinguish between the two and there is no such distinguishing feature in the
case of Brahman. The maxim that says, as in the Mandukya-Karika, That which does not exist in the beginning and the end is
equally so in the middle present, is the most wonderful statement that appeals
to me.
104.
PP: What appeals to me
most is the universal human urge to be at all places at the same time, to know
everything and to be always happy. These three urges may be summarized as ‘to be’, ‘to know’ and ‘to be happy’. They are
actual finite dim reflections of the essential infinite nature of Brahman,
namely, existence, consciousness and bliss. These basic insitincts of man are
also responsible for producing an innate fear of death, fear of ignorance and
fear of misery.
105.
OT: What appeals to me
most is the fact that this Ultimate Reality that is Brahman, though
incomprehensible to ordinary men like me, manifests itself as transcending
everything, as immanent in everything and as the supreme perfection. All our
stotras and sahasranamas with which we propitiate our deities at temples and in
homes repeatedly affirm only this transcendence, immanence and perfection of
the ultimate God.
106.
DD:The
three qualities Transcendence, Immanence and
Perfection appeal to me most.
107.
AV: What appeals to me
most is that these three qualities Transcendence, Immanence and Perfection
constitute only the TIP
of the Iceberg that is God. T for Transcendence, I for Immanence and P for
Perfection. The Reality is far far beyond the TIP.
108.
PP: Transcendence points
to Sat,
Immanence to Chit and Perfection to Ananda i.e., bliss. So the TIP is what
points to Sat-chid-ananda.
Copyright
© V. Krishnamurthy Sep.1, ‘05