Absolute Brahman and His Manifold Creations

Absolute Brahman and His Manifold Creations - Shrikant Soman

Isha Upanishad Second Stream Verses 4-5 … continued from Part I

Verse 4
One unmoving that is swifter than Mind; That the Gods reach not, for It progresses ever in front. That, standing, passes beyond others as they run. In That the Master of Life establishes the Waters.

Verse 5
That moves and That moves not; That is far and the same is near; That is within all this and That also is outside all this.
….. repeated and continued from Part I

In the manifested world of forms and relations, Brahman takes various forms and it enters into relations with Itself through each human being in a variety of ways. This is the play of divine consciousness. However, in each individual, the Brahman is present in its full entirety and not in pieces. Brahman in its absolute form, can stand back from the multitude of movement and relations. This is his supreme power. However, for the joy of play, he makes the illusion of differentiation between the individual being and the Absolute Brahman. The multitude of relations and forms between different beings in the creation is conceived as distinct from the One unmovable and Supreme Being. This is not out of any compulsion or an error. The Brahman is beyond any ‘necessity’ or the duality of Vidya and Avidya. This differentiation is created solely for the joy of ‘experiencing’ the existence and its play. If this illusion of differentiation between the individual being and other world and the Supreme Being is not created, the world will automatically and naturally get ‘absorbed’ into the Brahman. In other words, this world of forms and relations would cease to exist the moment the illusion or the Maya is removed from the mentality of the creation. All will then become One Brahman. There will be no more any world of creations and relations. This illusion at the universal level is reflected in the individual level of each human being. Therefore, each being considers himself as separate from other human being and also from the Supreme Brahman. The identity with the Supreme Brahman is kept in the background consciousness and the separative Ego come to the front of the consciousness of each human being.

Three possibilities emerge out of this play of separative consciousness and the striving of each individual to get at the ultimate Truth.
1 The individual being may consider himself eternally different from the supreme Brahman.
2 The individual being may realise the oneness of the individual with the Absolute Brahman, while at the same time keep his separative ego and existence.
3 The individual being may completely identify himself with the Supreme Reality.
It should be noted that in the first two possibilities, even if the individual considers himself as ‘different’ from the Supreme Reality, he can not consider himself as ‘independent’ from It. For example, the individual leaves and branches of the trees can consider themselves as different from the main bark. This is also a reality – though only a partial reality. However, these can not consider themselves as ‘independent’ from the main Tree. This understanding has no basis on the physical reality. Similarly, when the individual considers himself as ‘different’ from the Supreme Reality, it is based on the truth contained in the Master Plan of Creation – that is the Drama of the Play of Consciousness being enacted on the World Theatre. Though it is not the ultimate Truth, it is also part of the Truth. However, when the individual considers himself as completely ‘independent’ from the other individuals and also form the Brahman, then it is gross error because it does not have any source in the ultimate scheme of things.

These three different ‘understandings’ of a human being about the Truth are all valid in themselves, though only partially valid. They all represent any one aspect of the same Reality. They are in a sense complete the picture of the whole Reality. They are not therefore to be taken as ‘complementary’ truths and not as ‘independent’ truths. They all are valid simultaneously. They are not mutually exclusive. They are the three sides of the triangle of Reality. Remove any one side, and you have incomplete triangle. This is only an ‘intellectual’ explanation of the Reality. It defies our common logic and understanding. We are able to comprehend any one of this theory at a time. We can not comprehend all the three theories as simultaneous truths and have full picture in our mind. It is something like saying we exist, we exist not and we exist as well as we exist not at the same time and then go on explaining that all these three phenomenon are true and simultaneously valid. Howsoever we stretch our imagination, we will not be able to extend our understanding to envelop the full reality. It is much beyond our ‘intellectual understanding’. The solution is given. The only way to ‘grasp’ this reality in our human instrument is by ‘identity in consciousness with Brahman’. Instead of trying to ‘understand’ the reality, we ‘become’ the reality and ‘experience’ it in our consciousness. We traverse our journey from Becoming to Being. Instead of trying to fully grasp the full terrain of the mountain standing at the bottom of the mountain on one of the side of it, we climb to the peak of the mountain and then have the full view of it.

Even when we reach the peak and get a full view of the mountain, still it is falling short of the complete understanding of the full terrain of the mountain. To do that, we need to ‘become’ the mountain ourselves. This is not possible in our limited consciousness. We can only have the ‘view from the top’ and try to get as near to the full understanding as is ‘humanely’ possible. Our only instrument of understanding is mind. And mind can not ‘understand’ unless it discriminates. And ironically, our quest necessitates us to ‘transcend’ this very ‘discriminative’ faculty of the mind which is its essence. Even when we claim to understand the One Reality as the Truth, we understand it with our mind. The thought of this One-ness is a projection of the mind. However, Brahman is not a creation of thought. In other worlds, we are trying to understand the Absolute Truth by our discriminating mind, while this Truth is Absolute, infinite, eternal and therefore beyond the reach of discriminating faculty.

Our mind can understand anything only when it projects its thought toward something visible or perceptible. It can understand ‘in language’ of words. It can not reach beyond the words. It can only understand symbols and not the truth contained in the symbols. It can understand the truth only through the means of the symbols. We have only a knowledge based on symbols and language of words which is the representative of the Absolute Knowledge. We can not comprehend the Absolute Knowledge directly beyond symbols and words. We can say more definitively what is ‘not’ the Truth. We can understand the Truth by understanding what is NOT the Truth. We can progress by the process of elimination. We thus reach the state of the Void – empty of all that is not the Truth. We thus get nearer to the Truth – as far as it gets and not more. It is certainly better position than being trapped in the illusion of separative identity and multitude of relations with the world and its beings. But we must always keep in mind that the Absolute is not Void or negation. By arriving at the understanding of what is not the Truth, we can not claim to have understood what is The Truth. Truth is certainly included in this manifested world bound by space and time. But it is also beyond the limits of Space and Time.