Maharshi - God - #5

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Question: Why is samsara- creation and manifestation as finitised- so full of sorrow and evil?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: God’s will!

Question: Why does God will it so?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It is inscrutable. No motive can be attributed to that power –no desire, no end to achieve can be asserted of that one infinite, all-wise and all-powerful being. God is untouched by activities, which take place in his presence. Compare the sun and the world activities. There is no meaning in attributing responsibility and motive to the one before it becomes many.

Question: Does everything happen by the will of God?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: It is not possible for anyone to do anything opposed to the ordinance of God, who has the ability to do everything. Therefore to remain silent at the feet of God, having given up all the anxieties of the wicked, defective mind, is best.

Question: Is there a separate being Iswara (personal God) who is the rewarder of virtue and punisher of sins? Is there a God?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Yes.

Question: What is he like?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Iswara has individuality in mind and body, which are perishable, but at the same time he has also the transcendental consciousness and liberation inwardly.

Iswara, the personal God, the supreme creator of the universe really does exist. But this is true only from the relative standpoint of those who have not realised the truth, those people who believe in the reality of individual souls. From the absolute standpoint the sage cannot accept any other existence than the impersonal Self, one and formless.

Iswara has a physical body, a form and a name, but it is not so gross as this material body. It can be seen in visions in the form created by the devotee. The forms and names of God are many and various and differ with each religion. His essence is the same as ours, the real Self being only one and without form. Hence forms he assumes are only creations or appearances.

Iswara is immanent in every person and every object throughout the universe. The totality of all things and beings constitutes God. There is a power out of which a small fraction has become all this universe, and the remainder is in reserve. Both this reserve power plus the manifested power as material world together constitute Iswara.

Question: So ultimately Iswara is not real?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Existence of Iswara follows from our conception of Iswara. Let us first know whose concept he is. The concept will be only according to the one who conceives. Find out who you are and the other problems will solve themselves.

Iswara, God, the creator, the personal God, is the last of the unreal forms to go. Only the absolute being is real. Hence, not only the world, not only the ego, but also the personal God are of unreality. We must find the absolute – nothing else.

 

Question: You say that even the highest God is still only an idea. Does that mean that there is no God?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: No, there is an Iswara.

Question: Does he exist in any particular place or form?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: If the individual is a form, even Self, the source, who is the Lord, will also appear to be form. If one is not a form, since there then cannot be knowledge of other things, will that statement that God has a form be correct? God assumes any form imagined by the devotees through repeated thinking in prolonged meditation. Though he thus assumes endless names, the real formless consciousness alone is God.

With regard to his location, God does not reside in any place other than the Heart. It is due to illusion, caused by the ego, the ‘I am the body’ idea, that the kingdom of God is conceived to be elsewhere. Be sure that the Heart is the kingdom of God.

Know that you are perfect, shining light, which not only makes the existence of God’s kingdom possible, but also allows it to be seen as some wonderful heaven. To know this is alone jnana. Therefore, the kingdom of God is within you. The unlimited space of Turiyatita (beyond the four states, i.e. the Self), which shines suddenly, in all its fullness, within the Heart of a highly mature aspirant during the state of complete absorption of mind, as if a fresh and previously unknown experience, is the rarely attained and true Siva-loka (the kingdom of God), which shines by the light of Self.