Ishwara and advaita -1

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The srshti we cognize is in perfect order.

Everything here has perfection, is perfect.

As even you are reading these words there are perfect rods and cones

depolarizing in your retina, there are electric potentials generating

along your nerves with multitudes of gated ionic channels opening and

closing along the way to a perfect tune, with a perfect depolarization

occuring in the occipital portion of your cortex and at the same time

memory cells and other portions of your brain registering all this and

recognizing what is being said and what it means, all in a matter of a

flash of a second.

As even this is happening your heart is beating in perfection to keep

your brain cells perfused and your lungs breathing in and out to

maintain oxygen at a constant.

Whose timeless rhythm is all this orchestrated by? Whose is this

wondrous power?

Wherever you see you see only perfection.

Who is the author of this perfection?

Every blade of grass has infinite perfection.

Everything is where it should be and everything is the way it should be.

The potential power inherent in all the elements witnessed graphically

by us as typhoons and tsunamis - who lends His power to that?

How does the fetus in the womb of the mother know what organs to equip

itself with prior to coming out?

The wonder of the double helical coil faithfully transmitting the

codes of life across billions of years - who is that code-writer?

The majestic mountains of the himalayas - whose power created these

Infinite jivas coming and going as it were in accordance with the

perfect doctrine of karma - whose laws are these and who governs their

perfect functioning?

this infinite expanse of the earth - so vast - with oceans, mountains,

trees - selfsufficient - with the right temperature and water to

support life - circling like a tiny top around itself and around the

Sun - who is supporting it in space.

Who lends the power tot he Sun to generate heat and light for billions

of years?

Nothing in srshti could ever have been created by chance, as a freak.

If so it could not have been perfecter than perfect.

There is without doubt an Ishwara who is the srshtikarta.

"vistabhyaham idam krtsnam ekamsena sthito jagat" declares Bhagwaan

Krishna in the Gita. (Ch 10 42)

Encompassing this entire world by a fragment f My power, do I abide,

eternally

Bhagwaan Shankara's commentary:

vishtabhya visheshatah stambhanam krtva idam krtsnam jagat ekaashena

ekaavayavena sarvabhootasvaroopena ityetat; tatha cha mantravarna

"paadosya vishwa bhootani - (TU 30.12 RV 10.90.3) iti; sthitah aham iti

"Steadying the whole world with but a part - a quarter - that has

assumed the form of all that exists, do I abide forever"

 

Does advaita really say there is no Ishwara?

Let us examine it.

 

Whenever any advaitic text mentions that there is no Ishwara, it first

mentions there is no jiva.

Take a well known example of Kaivalyopanishad - we have the student

who has attained brahmavidya exclaim

"Mayyeva Sakalam jaatam Mayyeva sarvam pratishtitam Mayi Sarva Layam

yaati Tad brhamaadvayamasmyaham"

I me alone is everything born in me does everything rest and in me is

everything dissolved. I am that Brahman the secondless.

Same thoughts in the Ashtavakra Gita as well..

"kva maayaa kva cha samsaaram kva pritih viratih kva vaa kva jiva kva

cha tad brahma sarvadaa vimalasya me"

So there is neither jiva, nor jagat nor Ishwara - there is just I the

self - this is true. What it really means - there is no jiva jagat and

Ishwara as separate entities - the sat vastu underlying them all is

Brahman and that Brahman is Ishwara minus his Ishwaratvam!

When at the culmination of knowledge a jiva realizes his true self,

then there is more concept of separation of seeker, world and Ishwara.

The emphasis is on the word separation. There is no more Ishwara for

him because he the jiva doesnt exist separate from the whole - what is

the whole - brahman or Ishwara. Brahman and Ishwara are not two

different things. Brahman is nirguna from the Ultimate standpoint of a

realized one, and saguna or Ishwara from the standpoint of a seeker.

A realized seer does not "dismiss" or reject Ishwara - what he has

successfully dismissed is his own ego-sense of a false identity

separate from the whole - once that is negated then he is Ishwara,

like milk in milk or water in water. There is no demarcation where he

ends and Ishwara begins - there never was - only now by Ishwaras own

grace he can see it for himself.

To say Ishwara is a concept is incorrect.

Ishwara is Brahman. Brahman is Ishwara. Only the standpoint is

different. Is He with attributes - Yes. Is He without attributes -

Yes. How is that possible? Because He is incoceivable for me with my

limited intellect. How will I know him if he is inconceivable -

because in His infinite mercy He allows you to - How? by knowing your

"innermost" self.

The shruti I read, the intellect I use to understand it, the health

-physical and mental - that I take for granted while studying the

shruti or meditating, the meditation itself, my background,

upbringing, coming in contact with a Guru - limitless are the factors

that are working their ways so I the deluded jiva understands my true

nature - all this is possible needless to even mention only and only

because of Grace.

Every Upanishad starts with a invocation, a shanti mantra - why? - for

the same reason. The same upanishad declares

"shraddhabhaktiyogaadavaihi"! through faith devotion and yoga alone do

you come to know it yourself!

Why would a text that is about to dismiss a concept demonstrate its

own acceptance of that concept.

The same sentences often dismiss the Guru also "- guru naiva shishya"

- so this teaching asks you to reject the Guru - the very ocean of

mercy who taught you the truth about yourself - of course not - it

only means I reject my sense of separation from my Guru - i am Him and

He is me - in fact there is no me, a student, and hence there is no He

- a guru - at this deepest level we are one with the substratum, we

are one with Ishwara.

 

If Brahman is Ishwara and Ishwara is Brahman, what does it matter if

we do not recognize Ishwara or reject Ishwara as a concept? Why not

focus on self-enquiry alone and try to ascertain my identity with Brahman?

 

...continued