prasad1
Active member
I started a thread "why do we need dwarapalakas in Temples". It got good responses.
But my quest is even more fundamental.
I do not have answers.
I believe in the concept of Vedantic Brahman, not an activist GOD.
When I consider myself as a limited being with a limited body, mind and Intellect, separate from the rest of the universe, those are my current notions. When I look at the universe which is unlimited, I wonder where did it come from. To account for the universe, I bring in Isvara or God, who is the creator of this universe. To create this he needed:
1. Material to create
2. Power to create and
3. Knowledge or know-how of how to create.
Since I cannot bring in another God to create all of these, I have to endow my God with all these powers and knowledge. I can decentralize this concept and say I have three Gods – one to create, one to maintain and one to recycle – and each god is endowed with their needed powers to accomplish these tasks.
To make sure (at least in my mind) that these three different portfolios do not conflict with each other, I can invoke another supreme power overseeing all these subsets. This building of the castle can go on – as my imagination expands.
All this arises because I consider myself as a limited entity and therefore I have to bring in the concept of Isvara to account the presence of an unlimited universe.
But when I recognize that I am not this body, mind and intellect, but consciousness that cannot have any limitations, then all the above concepts also topple down along with my notions of separateness from the rest of the universe.
It is like pot space thinking that it is only a space limited by the pot and that the outside space is different and then imagining that there is a super pot that created the whole universal space different from the tiny pot space that I am. But when the pot space recognizes that I am ‘The Space’ and that space is single and not plural – i.e. space in the pot is the same as the space everywhere – then the concept of superpot also goes away.
The bottom line is these are concepts in the mind and one can devise one God, many gods and supergods with mahaashakti’s etc, as long as one does not question the validity of even the existence of the universe separate from me. Scripture ultimately declares you are that Brahman and there is nothing other than Brahman. Then all others concepts drop out as just notions of the ignorant jiiva.
We create God and endow Him with all super powers so that He can create us and the universe. Now who is the mahaashakti? – the God or the one who created even the God with all those powers! One can invoke mahaashakti to create the God, but who created that mahaashakti? – Another mahaashakti. One can go on but the buck has to stop somewhere. Mind always seeks something supreme, but ultimately one has to examine carefully what is that mind itself that is seeking. Then the very seeking itself dissolves.
http://advaitaforum.org/discourses-by-dr-sadananad/god-creation-and-ignorance/
But my quest is even more fundamental.
I do not have answers.
I believe in the concept of Vedantic Brahman, not an activist GOD.
When I consider myself as a limited being with a limited body, mind and Intellect, separate from the rest of the universe, those are my current notions. When I look at the universe which is unlimited, I wonder where did it come from. To account for the universe, I bring in Isvara or God, who is the creator of this universe. To create this he needed:
1. Material to create
2. Power to create and
3. Knowledge or know-how of how to create.
Since I cannot bring in another God to create all of these, I have to endow my God with all these powers and knowledge. I can decentralize this concept and say I have three Gods – one to create, one to maintain and one to recycle – and each god is endowed with their needed powers to accomplish these tasks.
To make sure (at least in my mind) that these three different portfolios do not conflict with each other, I can invoke another supreme power overseeing all these subsets. This building of the castle can go on – as my imagination expands.
All this arises because I consider myself as a limited entity and therefore I have to bring in the concept of Isvara to account the presence of an unlimited universe.
But when I recognize that I am not this body, mind and intellect, but consciousness that cannot have any limitations, then all the above concepts also topple down along with my notions of separateness from the rest of the universe.
It is like pot space thinking that it is only a space limited by the pot and that the outside space is different and then imagining that there is a super pot that created the whole universal space different from the tiny pot space that I am. But when the pot space recognizes that I am ‘The Space’ and that space is single and not plural – i.e. space in the pot is the same as the space everywhere – then the concept of superpot also goes away.
The bottom line is these are concepts in the mind and one can devise one God, many gods and supergods with mahaashakti’s etc, as long as one does not question the validity of even the existence of the universe separate from me. Scripture ultimately declares you are that Brahman and there is nothing other than Brahman. Then all others concepts drop out as just notions of the ignorant jiiva.
We create God and endow Him with all super powers so that He can create us and the universe. Now who is the mahaashakti? – the God or the one who created even the God with all those powers! One can invoke mahaashakti to create the God, but who created that mahaashakti? – Another mahaashakti. One can go on but the buck has to stop somewhere. Mind always seeks something supreme, but ultimately one has to examine carefully what is that mind itself that is seeking. Then the very seeking itself dissolves.
http://advaitaforum.org/discourses-by-dr-sadananad/god-creation-and-ignorance/
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