Is the Universe God?
When you cannot perceive God in His original form and you can perceive God only through some medium of creation like space or energy or awareness, why not perceive God through the medium of matter also? Now if God exists in space, it means that God is exists in this universe. If God is present in the universe, the universe cannot be a separate object of entertainment to God. The Veda says that this universe is created for His entertainment (Ekaki Na …). If you are present in the cinema and become the cinema by pervading all over the cinema, the cinema is not a separate object for you and therefore it cannot give entertainment to you. If you are the spectator of the cinema, you should be separate from the cinema. You are the subject and the cinema is object, which is separate from you. If the subject and object are one and the same, there is no existence of the object at all. It means God did not create this universe. If the creation is absent, there is no entertainment to God. This leads to the inability of God in creating any object that is separate from Himself for His entertainment. Such inability makes God impotent and then God cannot be Omnipotent. Therefore, the separate existence of the universe in which God is not present, must be accepted to avoid all these contradictions.
Now the Veda says that God entered this universe (Tadevanu Pravisat…). But the Veda does not say that God entered the entire universe. God entered the Universe only through some limited form. Therefore, the entrance of God in to the universe is accepted. At the same time since God did not enter the entire universe, the universe exists as a separate object for His entertainment.
You may argue that God entered the entire universe as per a Vedic statement (Eesha vasyam idam…). But if you carefully analyze that statement, it also means that God enters this big universe only through a small form. The translation of that Vedic statement reveals the correct meaning like this: “In this large world, any small world can be pervaded over by the Lord entirelyâ€. This is the true translation. The small world means the human body and the big world means this entire universe. This means that the Lord enters this big world through a small world, which is the human form. The human form alone can be called as a mini-world.
The large world contains nine items, which are the inert five elements (earth, water, energy, air and space) and the four living items called as Antah karanams (mind, intelligence, self-awareness or egoism and the awareness which stores all the information). All these nine items are common between this large world and the small human being. Therefore, the conclusion of the Veda is that God enters this large world through a small human form. This can be explained by common experience also. A spectator, who is seeing the cinema, wishes to take up a role in the cinema. Thus, he enters the cinema through a role and the cinema still entertains him. Therefore, the Gita also says that God enters this world only through a human form.
The the Gita also says that God becomes a Jeeva or human form by entering such a human form (Jeeva Bhutah…). You have entered the role or the dress of a king in the drama, which means that you have become the king in the drama. For all the practical purposes you are the king in the drama. But you retain your identity as the actor in the role and therefore you have not become the king in the true sense.
The audience can treat you as the king but at the same time they are aware that you are not the real king. Similarly the devotees treat the human incarnation as God for all practical purposes. But whenever egoism and jealousy enter their minds, they can analyze and know that God is in the human form and therefore the human form is not really God. Neither has God become the human form nor has the human form become God. Such clarification will reduce their egoism and jealousy and their devotion can become again alive.
Therefore, God cannot enter the (entire) space because if God enters this space, He becomes one with the Universe and His entertainment is lost. Therefore the power of God is material cause of this world. The power is modified into this world as the mud is modified into the pot. Therefore, the formless God, you think, is only the power of God and not the original God. Space is only the modification of the power of God, which is like the mud. God is like the pot-maker who is not modified into the pot. In this example let us assume that the pot-maker created the mud and then made the pot from the mud.
While creating the mud, the Lord is the creator or designer as well as the material. But while creating the pot from the mud, God is only the pot-maker or designer. The pot-maker, while creating the mud, is not modified because only the power of the pot-maker is modified into mud. Therefore, the material cause for the mud is the power of the pot-maker and not the pot-maker directly. This is the concept of Dvaita (duality) of Madhva.
In the concept of Ramanuja, which is called as ‘Visishta Advaita’ (qualified monism), the pot is considered as an associated body of the pot-maker. Instead of the pot, you can take the example of the cloth. The cotton thread is the material cause of the cloth. The weaver is the creator of the cloth. The weaver has created the thread and the power of the weaver is modified into thread as explained above. The weaver is wearing the cloth made by him and this point alone (association of the creator with the creation) is the extra concept in this theory. The weaver treats the cloth wrapped on his body as another external body of his.
The the Gita also says that your external gross body is like a shirt. Therefore, Ramanuja assumes this world as the body of God.
The Advaita scholars mocked at this concept due to their ignorance. They said that if God were associated with the world, the changes in the world would mean the changes in the body of God, which means that God is changed. This is absolute foolishness. When the body is compared to an associated shirt, the changes in the shirt cannot be equated to the changes in the person who is wearing it. If you take the body of a realized soul like Ramana Maharshi, He treated his body as his shirt. He separated himself from the body and limited himself to the soul. He observed the surgery of his body like a person, who is the spectator of his shirt being stitched by somebody.
Thus if you take God as a realized soul, the changes in this universe cannot touch God, in spite of His association with the universe. To reject the mocking of the Advaita Scholars, Madhva avoided the example of the weaver in which the wrapped cloth is treated as another external body. He took the example of a pot so that the pot cannot cover the body of its creator like the cloth. Therefore, the pot cannot be treated as an external body of its creator like the cloth.
Shankara compared the world to an imagination or a daydream of a person. The person is not modified into the imagination. Only his mind or his mental energy (awareness) is modified into the imaginary world. This awareness (Chit or Para shakti or Mula Maya) is just like the cotton thread of a weaver or the mud of the pot maker. God created this awareness in the beginning and here also the power of God created the awareness, which is modified into the world. Thus just like the mud or the thread, the awareness is the material cause of the world. The power of God is the material cause of the awareness. Now the most important point comes. What is the difference between God and His power? Both God and His power are inexplicable and exist in the same state.
Therefore, if the power is modified, we can say that God is also modified. In that case instead of the power of God, God directly becomes the material cause of awareness. The real point is that since God and His power are both inexplicable, the process of modification of the power of God into awareness also becomes inexplicable. In such a case you cannot use even the word ‘modification’ when you say that the power of God created the awareness.
Shankara called awareness itself as God and for Him God is the awareness-incarnation (Awareness in which God has entered). This awareness-incarnation alone is taken as the original God by all the Acharyaas and also the Brahma Sutras. If you go beyond awareness you cannot understand God and cannot preach to anybody about God. For such original God, no words can be used to describe.
When you utter a word some thought comes to your mind, as the meaning of that word. The original God is beyond thought and therefore, any word fails to indicate Him. If such a God is preached, nobody will believe in the existence of such a God. People will say that such a God does not exist. That is why the Buddhists became atheists. Therefore, any preacher should say that the absolute God is the awareness-incarnation. It means that awareness is God.
