Verse-5
God, you are the creation, creator
And the created objects all.
You yourself are the material sole
Which went into the creation whole.
(O God, you are the creator of the universe, the process of creation, all the created objects and the matter used for creation-all in one)
The verse deals with the creation of the universe. All the prophetic religions assert that God created everything. It is preposterous to ask about the material used in creation, for God is omnipotent and can create out of nothingness.
This view cannot satisfy the oriental thinkers (Philosophers).The Upanishads present two different theories of creation. One of them looks at it from within the universe and the other from the angle of the ultimate truth or Brahman. When viewed through the latter perspective the world itself appears to be untrue. What is untrue cannot came into being nor can it cease to exist. This is known as ‘Ajathavadam’.
Yet the truth remains that there are two entities-the one who is engaged in prayer and the world which encompasses him. How did this happen? In the beginning there was only the soul. The soul did ‘tapas’(Meditation) wishing to become many. This is the theory of creation given in the Upanishad. When the soul looked around after creation, it could see only himself in everything.
Guru’s vision presented here is quite similar to the Upanishad theory of creation. The only difference is that it is presented in a cause and effect principle. All that have been created comprise the ‘effect’ and what has led to creation is the ‘cause.’ There can be several causes for the origin of something. According to vedantins there are two causes namely Material cause and Efficient cause.
As for example: For making an earthen pot, clay and a potter with his tool is needed. Here the clay is the material cause; the potter and his tools constitute the efficient cause.
The cause and effect principle was introduced in the western philosophy by Aristotle. In addition to the material and efficient causes he formulated two more causes. They are the Formal cause and the Final cause. The vedantic thought claims that in the ultimate analysis there is only one truth. That is God. So the material cause of the universe is God ie the material that went into the creation of the universe. In the absence of anything else God itself must be the creator of the universe, ie the efficient cause.
Creation is the process through which the effect springs up from the cause. Both the creator and the created remains in God. That is why God is described as ‘you are the creator and the created’. Here there is no room the differentiation between cause and effect. God is the only truth. So this absolute phenomenon God or Brahman is termed by the vedantins as the Indivisible Efficient- Material’ cause.
Verse-6
Are you not maya(illusion), the wielder of maya
And also the rejoicer in maya?
Are you not the true one who,
Having removed maya, grants the supreme union?
(Oh God you are the illusion and the illusionist who creates illution. You yourself are the one who revals in illusion. You yourself are the compassionate savior who redeems us, who are caught up in its tricks in the snare of worldly misery and gives us salvation)
That which doesn’t exist is maya. The ignorance which prevents one from knowing the truth is called maya (Brahmasutra). Is maya an absolutely nonexistent something? No. It is something which is unreal when viewed through the perspective of truth but appears to be real in transactional world. When the clay assumes new form of a pot, it is still clay itself and no new material is added to make it a pot. But for all practical purposes clay ceases to exist and pot becomes the reality. In the same way Brahman alone is the ultimate truth. But when it undergoes the process of molding, it takes diverse names and forms. What happens then is that the truth is conveniently forgotten and its diverse manifestations assume supremacy. In the process the basic factor is relegated to the background and a new world of manifested objects comes to the forefront. Each such objects (eg. Pot) gets an identity of its own. This process is maya.
Maya has another face. The selfsame maya can function as a device which enables one to identify the truth and discard everything that is untrue. It works in the reverse order also. When maya functions as the means to the truth we become ‘Athmaramas’(indulge ourselves in the self) and when it acts as a distractive force, we become ‘Indriyaramas’(find pleasure in sense objects) .
Maya can be as tiny as a seed (which by slow degrees grows into a huge tree) and as boundless as the universe. The Invincible power which has control over such a wonder-working maya, dispels all its hallucinative charms and bestows on us salvation. That power is the ‘Paramporul’ or God.
When God is in its active phase, his maya lights up the world in revelry. But when God is lethargic, all the created objects face extermination. So God the creator of maya , acts as its destroyer while giving salvation to man.
Verse-7
You are truth, knowledge and bliss;
You’re the past, present and future,
You are infact the word
We use in your praise, o lord.
(O God, You are truth, knowledge and bliss; You are past present and future, too. You are the very word we use to praise in your prayer)
God is generally called ‘Satchidanandaswarup’. It means: Sath(existence) Chith(consciousness) and Ananda(bliss) all blended in one. What is truth? That which exists always irrespective of past, present or future and is present everywhere irrespective of geographical differences is truth. Anything which springs up and dies out has no real existence.
What is the nature of truth? When you see a gold ornament, what is really true about it is gold alone. What you see on the surface is the form temporarily given to it. The form like the ornament is destructible. But the true substance gold is indestructible. When we think of gold, we can conceive of it only in one of its ornamental forms, given to it. Likewise, though the various objects in the universe are known by different names, they constitute one phenomenon. That is their single abiding form- God or knowledge. The only truth that does not brook the difference between the spiritual and the temporal is knowledge. So God is truth and knowledge which are not two aspects of God.
All the people strive for getting bliss. It is sheer ignorance to find delight in appropriating material objects. True bliss lies in the realization or knowledge that God is the ultimate truth. In other words, God is bliss as well as truth and knowledge.
We think of time, based on its three divisions or dimensions- Past, Present and Future. We think that events pass through these three stages. All that have transpired belong to the past; all that are happening at the moment come under the present and all those which are not yet to happen are designated as the future. The past stretches far into the bygone times with countless memories. Numerous expectations in the endless future lie ahead. The present is a spot that lies between the two and one may be tempted to believe that it is an insignificant void. But, in fact, what is really true is the present. God is the aggregate of these ever blooming present.
All that are comprehensible and all that are incomprehensible are nothing but God. We speak about all these things by means of words. Where did these words capable of expressing ideas come from? From knowledge. Since the abiding form of God is knowledge, “the words that we speak are nothing but God”.
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Sree Sankara and Cast
Priest: “Swami, you say that there is only one caste. Will the Hindus who follow the tradition of Castism accept this? Even Sankara who was a great saint was of the opinion that caste system should prevail”.
Sree Narayana Guru: Sankara might be great. In the matter of caste he was not so.
Sree Narayana Guru Vaikhari.
-Dr. T. Bhaskaran.
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