Is there a God? What is his nature?+

Some claim that the universe was created thousands of times in cyclic order.  They speak as if they themselves were present before they were created at each time.  It is mere imagination or assumption without proof.

How does a man know that, he is related to God when he has not seen God and that God created the world, that He has manifested himself is merely supposed.  Every religion has its own idea of God and his creation.   One religion will not accept the idea of another religion of God and his creation.  Thus, there is no universality in their idea of God.

Man and his experience of the world are part of the creation, which means man did not see God creating the world.  Man created God with his own imagination.  Such an imaginary God has no place in the realm of truth. 

The seeker of truth should never start his quest with the idea of God. He does not know whether there is God or not. There is no proof. The seeker has to accept   God only after he gets proof of his existence.

One e need not doubt that mystics saw Krishna, Shiva, Kali or  Jesus or Buddha. That they saw visions may he an undeniable fact. But the question is:-  “ what they saw as GOD is really a  GOD?

Many people who make similar claims. They no doubt had such vision, but they never stopped to inquire if their visions are true. the dream becomes unreal when the waking takes place. the visions are a parallel dream, therefore how can they accept the dream as unreal and accept the vision as real.  

When wisdom dawns than the waking experience itself become unreal.  thus whatever seen, known, believed and experienced as the waking entity is bound to be a falsehood.

The seeker of truth has to take all the facts, science, and religion and then investigate  'what is the truth?'  

One has to collect as much evidence as possible, even contradictory, and then proceed to examine all of it.  seeker of truth should not be opposed to anything, but he has to analyze mentally and know what is truth and on what basis it is the untruth. 

Remember:~ 

A Gnani also has a body and perceives the world like everyone else. The wisdom will not dawn by becoming thoughtless or going blank. The  Self is nondual it does not mean that Gnani is bodiless, but he is fully conscious of the fact that his body and his experience of the world are one in essence. And that essence is consciousness.  The Soul,  the Self which is present in the form of consciousness. 

From the standpoint of the Soul, the   Self,  you, your body and your experience of the world are merely an illusion. Thus, no second thing exists other than the consciousness even though the Soul, the Self is within the world it is not of this world.     

People talk of universal consciousness, but they do not know it in this physical body, or in that universe.   it is only  Mere guess!

Those who speak of developing God-Consciousness are meaningless because they merely find their own idea of hallucination of God.  Because they are unaware of their true existence and they are trying to develop god consciousness on the base of the physical self, which is the false self  (ego) within the false experience(waking).  They do not know what God is because they do not know what truth is.

v  How does one know there is a God?

The onus of proof is on the one who makes this assertion.  Such a god can be imagined only on the physical self, which is the false self within the false experience.  When waking experience itself is falsehood from the ultimate standpoint than whatever one thinks or imagines as god is bound to be a falsehood.  Without proof, one e should not accept any religious doctrine. 

v  What is the value of so-called spiritual experiences?

v  What is the value of the words of wise men and sages? 

In the pursuit of truth, the seeker has to examine and evaluate them all in order to find the truth.

v  Is there a God?

v  What is his nature?

Let there be proof. Such questions must arise. People know God according to their religious samskara or conditioning but that they must know him as Truth. They must have proof of what God is in truth.  

v  Why did God create pain and pleasure? 

v  Why did he create a world which was never peaceful and why he wants people to fight in the name of God and religion?

v  Is this God of belief is a sadist?  

v  Has God no better business to do?

v  What type of lessons he is teaching people through these sufferings. 

v  What lesson can God teach the people who lost their lives in wars, violence, epidemics and natural calamities? 

v  How can one believe that God is all-merciful when he constantly has become the cause of concern to the whole of humanity? 

Suppose religionists say they have got faith in religion and their God. Suppose atheists have no faith in the belief system and their belief of God. Thus, there is a contradiction. Nothing can be done about it. In the realm of the truth, there can be no contradiction, nor any possibility of it. In the realm of the truth, there is no scope for the duality.  

Thus, man and his world and his belief in God can exist only in the domain of duality. The duality is falsehood from the ultimate standpoint.  

Thus, one has to reach the ultimate end of understanding to realize that duality is merely an illusion is created out of the Soul, The Self, which is present in the form of consciousness.   

People believe by praying to God their problem in practical life will be solved. It is mere coincident something occasionally get what they ask for. They think it to be a miracle to be placed to the credit of God! But when they fail to get what they pray for they do not attribute these failures to God, and thus,  the obvious fact that, the failures far outnumber the successes. 

Hundreds and thousands of people from all over the world pray to God to protect humanity, but the prayers remain unheard, the war, violence, terrorism, epidemics,  and calamities continue in this so-called Gods creation.

Yantra, mantra,  and tantra are for the ignorant populace.  In this modern age, people are capable of thinking deeply and assimilating and realizing the ultimate  truth or Brahman.  Thus, we have to focus our attention on acquiring Self-knowledge. By dropping all this accumulated dross, which is a hindrance in realizing the ultimate truth or Brahman. 

The illusion can be understood only when the mind learns to view and judge on the base of the soul,  innermost self.

Vedic religion was modified and reintroduced with new add-ons by Sage  Sankara a great Advaita founder to uplift the Vedic culture and Sanatana Dharma, which were in ruins in the clutches of Buddhism. 18 Puranas are introduced in the name of Veda Vyasa. 

It indicates the fact that somewhere someone has added the Puranas in the name of Veda Vyasa the grandmaster of Vedas. It is impossible to accept and believe that Veda Vyasa authored and introduced Puranas which has all conceptual gods because:~ 

Belief in multiple Gods, The worship of idols; the worship of images that are not God, The worship of sacred images, ancestor worship, pilgrimage, priestcraft, the belief in avatars or incarnations of God, the hereditary caste system on the grounds that all these lacks Vedic sanction.

In Vedas, God has been described as:~

         Sakshi (Witness) 

         Chetan (conscious)

         Nirguna (Without form and properties). 

         Nitya (eternal)

         Shuddha (pure)

         Buddha (omniscient) 

         Mukta (unattached).

It indicates clearly all the gods with form and attributes are mere imagination based on the false self. 

And also  in Yajurveda says:~

Translation 1.

They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc).

They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol, etc.) (Yajurveda 40:9)

Translation 2.

"Deep into the shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent."(Yajurveda Samhita by Ralph T. H. Giffith pg 538)

Translation 3.

"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."(Yajur Veda 40:9.)

So, Yajur Veda indicates that:~

They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example, table, chair, idol etc  (Yajurved 40:9)

Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."(Yajur Veda 40:9.)

When the religion of the Veda knows no idols then why so many gods and goddesses with different forms and name are being propagated as Vedic gods. Why these conceptual gods are introduced when the Vedic concept of God is free from form and attributes. 

Who introduced the concept of god with attributes and attributeless gods, when Yajur Veda says: ~  those who worship visible things, born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like), in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness. Therefore, all these add-ons prove that the form and attribute-based concepts are introduced by some sages of the past with a new belief system and code of conduct in the name of Vedas.  

Sruti is made the final or exclusive authority in apara Vidya and that for supporting the tenet of the CAUSAL relation or creatorship of Brahman, Nirguna Brahman = the "Absolute beyond qualities," which can be defined only in a negative way. For the Sankarian school = the Ultimate Reality, higher than the Lord. i.e. of Saguna or apara Brahman ... The support of Scriptural Revelation is, therefore, absolutely necessary for this hypothesis of cosmology, this Saguna or apara (= inferior) Brahman, but not for the absolute truth of Nirguna Brahman.  The Sruti itself says: "This Atma is NOT to be attained by a study of the Vedas.  (Katha Upanishad I, 2, 23.)   

Instead of physical sacrifice, an inner, spiritual sacrifice is enjoined; “sacrifice in knowledge is better than sacrifice with material objects” (Gita, 4:33, Miller 1986: 53).

    

Therefore, all the add-ons,  and attribute-based knowledge, which are inferior, have to be bifurcated and excluded to know the ultimate truth.  The seeker of truth has to drop all the inferior knowledge based on the attributes and go beyond Vedas to understand assimilate and realize the ultimate truth or Brahman.  The ultimate truth or Brahman itself is God. 

One has to go beyond Vedas means to go beyond religion. Go beyond religion means, go beyond the concept of god.  Thus, going beyond Veda, religion and conceptual god means going beyond illusion.   That is the end of Vedas (Veda –antha) 

When one goes into the annals of the history it looks like the true Advaita expounded by Sage  Sri Sankara and Sage Sri, Goudpada was lost or mutilated by the orthodox, because the preaching and practice do not match. 

It is necessary for the seeker to do his homework, and verify the validity of all the claims, rather than blindly believe, what others expound as knowledge, till; the un-contradicted truth is obtained.

The seeker must have the courage of Buddha to accept the truth and reject the untruth. Since Buddha rejected religion, the idea of god and scriptures, therefore, it is evident that he has gone through every aspect and verified and found them to be inadequate and useless for the pursuit of truth.

Remember:~

Even Buddhism is mixed up with regional culture and traditions of the local religion, wherever it existed. Thus to get the full essence of Buddhism is very difficult.

The scriptures are for ignorant masses, who wholly accept the material world as it presents itself. Wisdom is for those who have begun to realize that things are not what they seem.

Each sect concocts a God to suit its own purposes.  Such concocted Gods have no value in pursuit of truth.  The Man himself suggests that there must be a God. It is an auto-suggestion. 

Prayers and sacrifices belong to a premature stage of development. However, when no answers come to prayers, the struggle for existence presses the man, and doubt arises again.  Faith in religion weakens as the man pays more attention to facts of life and this world. 

The Reason is the common ground for whole humanity in the modern age, whereas the appeal to scriptural relations reaches only the sects.  Those who argue that truth is only in their religion are vain logicians, depending on mere ideas, speculations, and imaginations. 

Remember:~

The Truth is a bitter pill. It becomes very difficult for the seeker to accept it at first; because of his inherited conditioning. Gradually he will be able to grasp it as he moves on.

The illusion is present only in ignorance where 'I' and you are a separate entity. In truth, there is neither 'I' nor you, nor, the illusion. Therefore, there is no teaching, no teacher, and no student in reality.

Truth pursuit is a very personal journey. The seeker has to verify minutely on his own, “what is the truth”, and “what is not the truth”, before accepting anything as truth. The illusion exists as a reality, only on the base of the ego, which is the false self within the false experience.

For Gnani, who is aware of the fact that the Self is not physical, but the Self is consciousness, there is no illusion, even though; he is in the midst of illusion because he is fully aware of the fact that, all the three states are consciousness.  Therefore, he is conscious of consciousness in the midst of illusion.  

The language of the duality, invented by the within the duality, for use in the dualistic world, when used to describe non-duality, produces these apparent contradictions, because, there no apparatus in non-duality, because nothing exists other than the soul, which is in the form of consciousness. 

There is only one absolute reality, which Soul, which is in the form of consciousness.  the nature of the Soul is formless and non-dual. Consciousness or Soul is the Self. and consciousness is the only reality, and everything else, which appears to exist as the universe is merely an illusion.

The continuing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara or universe or waking) occurs because of ignorance.   However, the illusion can be overcome by removing the ignorance of the fact that  Soul is the ultimate truth  or Brahman.  universe is essentially consciousness and has no individual existence. 

Nonduality is the state of oneness of existence and there is no scope in its philosophy for anything like non-existence.  

Gaudapada’s rational exposition of Advaita:~  That whatever is seen, whether external or internal, whether by the ordinary persons or yogis, is unreal. 

The essence of Manduka Upanishad is:~ Do not be satisfied with rituals, yoga, etc. which are good in their own way but inquire. Inquire into the nature of the mind. ? Brahman and Atman are things one can never see. So the seeker should not inquire into them.  He has to inquire into the world around him, which he can see. Analysis tells him it is passing away every second. Everything is dying repeatedly. Where is it going? Thus, he follows up his investigation into what he can lay hands on. How can he inquire into Atman which he cannot see? So first he must deal with the known and seen, this inquiry leads up to the unknown in the end.

Mediocre minds waste their time arguing about unimportant matters. Accumulation of scriptural knowledge is dangerous in pursuit of truth. The seeker has to establish the truth of Non-duality by sheer reasoning alone. The seeker has to begin by defining "What is real?" "What is unreal?" etc, because that is the right way to discuss, understand and assimilate Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or  Atma Gnana. 

Thus, the seeker has to remove all the hindrances in order to acquire Self-knowledge or Brahma Gnana or Atma Gnana. :~Santthosh Kumaar