Swami teaches...Part 3. Creator Is the Cause, Humanity Is the Effect

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Light and Love Swami teaches... Part 3. Creator Is the Cause, Humanity Is the Effect The Atma shines eternally, With no birth and no death, With no beginning, middle or end Ever remaining the All-Seeing Witness.

 

You may give God any name or form. The Divine has given various names. Even the rishis have called God by many names - Siva, Shankara, Adithya, Sambhava, Bhagavan... These names were given to Him; He did not give Himself any name. So, all that you see may be called God. Nature is God. Energy is God. Nothing is God. But, it is really not nothing; it is everything. In what you call everything, there is nothing. What you call nothing has everything. (By recent discoveries of modern science, it is physical vacuum that is 'nothing'. At the same time physical vacuum has an infinite capacity to be full of everything. It is very close point where modern quantum physics of recent years as fused into Swami's Teaching). Everything is nothing and vice versa. Some say, "There is no God", but everything is in God. The atheist denies the existence of what is. In saying "There is no God", "There is" comes first. This means that atheist is denying what is.

However, most scientists who have not attained the knowledge of the totality suffer from want of faith in the Divine Will. Even though the scientific method with its hypotheses, data collection, and statistical analysis is well documented, the method by which scientists themselves came to conclusions, remains largely hidden without spiritual outlook. It is truth, what none can deny.

 

/Two vital ingredients seem to be necessary to make a scientist: the curiosity to seek out mysteries and the creativity to solve them. According to one definition, curiosity is sensitivity to small discrepancies in an otherwise ordered world. To resolve the conflict between reality, data, and theory, a scientist often has to think outside the box and approach the problem from different angles. Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858 -1947) one of the worldly known fathers of quantum physics, Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918, once said, "The scientist must have a vivid and intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination.” This creative imagination is activated by the Divine Will only and will lead to the awareness of the Great One/. The information and the physical and intellectual skills and gain will be of use in dealings with this material world. Scientific knowledge can be expanded through the manipulation of matter, or through the understanding of the world and the changes that happen in them. Scientists can describe the composition of matter and its behavior, but they cannot delve into the why and wherefore of things. The real aim of education must be to help the student discover the Divine in every being (in scientists also). Every must necessarily make efforts to realize the principle of Atma, which is present in him/her and all others. The sweetness of Atmic experience is unparalleled. In the spiritual field, what one has to attain is the experience of Atmic bliss. He/she, who realizes the inherent divinity in humanity, is a true human being. The Atma has no specific form. This has to be realized and experienced by every individual. One may know the nature of an individual, but it is not possible to understand and estimate the nature of the Atma. When one proceeds to attain the Atmic vision, one has to negate everything as 'Not this', until at the end of the journey, the Atma alone is cognized. It admits of no definition, no description, and no designation. On the end of enquiry of all endeavors, the silence swallows all speech. The primary seed of knowledge is "I am not the body." It contains three entities: I, body and not. 'I' is the Atma, the Only truth. The idea 'I' applies only to the eternal 'I', over which, the transient is superimposed by ignorance, born out of false identification./Deha (body) means that which will undergo destruction. It means the five feet bundle of bone and muscle, nerve and brain, the senses, the vital airs, the mind that imagines (constructs images), the intellect that argues pros and cons, the chittha that revolves around the past impressions and choices and the ahamkara (ego) that urges outwards, the internal and external equipments of human/. We live in ignorance of our innate reality. Entangled by the elements, we become victims of duality such as those or pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow and life and death.

Human's primary need is food. The production of food involves cultivation of land to grow food crops. Without the production of grains, hunger cannot be appeased by mantras or money. With the basic needs of food, shelter and clothing satisfied and with rearing a family, human is content. Nevertheless, with the growth of knowledge and skills, huts develop into mansions, villages turn into towns and cities; population grows and human is proud of what has accomplished. However, human is not aware of the things which are outside his/her ken and beyond his/her capacity. Although births and deaths have been occurring from the beginning of time, people have not been able to understand the reasons for these happenings or their inner significance. Recognizing that despite all human's intellectual achievements, there were many things beyond understanding and control, the ancients concluded that there was some super-human power behind and beyond the phenomena. Vedic sages (rishis) felt that they should enquire into the nature of the power without which human could not exist, no plant could grow, and no living being could survive. These enquiries were not based on blind faith or ignorance and lack of knowledge, nor were they products of wild imagination. They were profound seers, free from attachment and self-interest. They sought to find the truth by austere penance. They regarded it as a search for God. After discovering the basic truth through disinterested enquiry and personal experience, they gave it to the world. The earliest finding of the Vedic rishis was that the Sun was the most important factor in determining the daily life and providing the basic requirements for living. The Sun was regarded as the source of all energy and responsible for birth, growth and destruction of all things in creation. It was for this reason that Sage Viswamitra glorified the Sun God (Savitr) in the Gayathri mantra. The sages believed that the Divine principle was present in and outside of everything and that it could be experienced directly as well as indirectly. They pursued their penances further, for the benefit of humanity. They realized the Truth that the Divine Effulgent Person was beyond the outer darkness and, experiencing this Reality, they called upon all to seek and experience it. This Effulgent Purusha is utterly selfless, full of light, the embodiment of all auspicious qualities and free from attributes. By Upanishads Iswara is one who is endowed with all conceivable kinds of wealth. He was described as "Shiva" meaning one who is beyond the three gunas, absolutely pure and untainted. He was regarded as eternal, omnipotent, all pervading and the possessor of all that is great and glorious. The sages found that Shiva is also the protector of those who seek refuge in Him. Hence, He was called Shankara - one who confers protection and grace. His Sankalpa (Will) and grace have no bounds and are not dependent on any person, condition or qualification. He was described as Swayambhu (self-created). The sages conceived of Him as one who could incarnate at will for the protection and rescue of human and the safeguarding of Dharma. In view of this transcendental power, He was described as Sambhavah - the one who incarnates whenever Dharma (the reign of Righteousness) is in danger and the good need protection.

 

Recognizing that the Divine is present in all living things, the rishis gave Him the name, Adithya. They realized that it is not possible to know this all-pervading, all-knowing, omnipotent entity. There are three bases for knowing anything: 1. Direct perception, 2. Inference 3. Vedic sabda (testimony). The Divine is beyond prathyaksha (direct perception) because He has no form. The Divine may appear in the form one contemplates, but that is not the reality. Proof by inference may not be valid in the case of the Absolute. You may know that a seed has the potential to become a tree, but you cannot know what kind of tree it will actually become. Hence there are obvious limitations in seeking to know the nature of the Divine by means of direct perception or by inference. We have, then, the Sabda (testimony) of the Vedas. The Vedas can only describe the Absolute, but cannot demonstrate it. It has, therefore, been declared: "Not by rituals, or wealth or progeny can you attain the Eternal. Only through sacrifice can you realize the immortal". The Upanishads* (i. e. Vedanta, part of Vedas) explored the process of elimination--"Not this", "Not this" - to arrive at the Absolute, Atma, as was briefly mentioned above. Having found that the Divine cannot be known by any of the three methods of knowing, the sages gave the name, aprameyah - the indescribable, the immeasurable. The sages also found that the Supreme Person was not only the creator and the protector, but also the destroyer and-that he combined in himself all the powers required for these three functions. In fact, he was all these and more; that he could confer joy or sorrow, affluence or privation, and that, there was nothing beyond his power. They wanted to choose a name, which would be all comprehensive and appeal to one and all and so gave him the name Bhagavan a name which expressed all the glories and powers of the Supreme Person.

 

The Upanishads declare, "By knowledge of the Self can freedom be won." The goal of self-realization depends upon the foundation of self-confidence. Without having confidence in yourself, if all the time you are talking of some power being with someone else, when are you going to acquire any power and confidence in yourself? You should consider self-confidence as the most important asset in life. You are God yourself; God is the eternal resident of your heart. Believe in yourself. Then believe in God. When you have this kind of faith you will not be affected by dual tendencies in nature. The Upanishads were authored by sages (rishis) who experienced the deepest truths and exhort us to seek liberation from the consequences of ignorance through knowledge of the Self. Sanathana Dharma has no single founder. Swami indicated that unlike other spiritual traditions, the Supreme Being is the Prophet of this Sanathana Dharma. He is the Founder. Four Vedas and the Upanishads constitute its foundation. The Bhaghavad Gita constitutes the essence of the Upanishads. Do not neglect the great lessons embedded in Sanathana Dharma, which have sustained countless generations in Bharath for many centuries and spread to many countries over the world. "May All the Worlds Be Happy" - this is the goal towards which Sanathana Dharma is leading. Welcome within the fold of your love all people without distinction of race, religion, color, or class. Two weapons that have provided to humankind to overcome the bondage of Maya are discrimination (viveka) and detachment (vairagya). A study of the Upanishads helps the jivi (individual soul) to exercise such discrimination and detachment to discover or merge with the original source (Paramatma), what is the Prime Cause of all Creation what is the effect of Prime Cause. (Reet's compilation from, Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol.11. "Saline turned sweet," Chapter 4; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol.15. "A happy human community," Chapter 12; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol.19. "Bhagavan and Bhakti," Chapter 4; Sathya Sai Speaks. Vol. 26. "The life of Samartha Raamadhas," Chapter 10; Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 36. "Develop Spirit of brotherhood," Chapter 15). *The teachings of Upanishads have known as Vedanta. Namaste - Reet