Ātman, the “ real me, ” is ever-free, ever-pure and ever-perfect — and yet I find that I'm not so free, not so pure, and not so perfect. The “ real me ” is joyful and yet I suffer in all kinds of ways. Why does — and, more importantly, how can — the ever- joyful “ real me ” suffer? We reflected on this in the former post.
It's the pain of suffering which forces us to search for ways to overcome it. While there are quick fixes available, none of them seems to bed out the problem fully. One ancient and time- tested way to get a endless fix to the problem of suffering is to seek God’s help. Not everyone does this, of course, but some of us do. When a sapient mind begins to suppose of God, it's natural for questions to arise. Any number of questions are possible. Beginning with the egregious
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Who's God?
One possible answer God is one from whom everything originates, on whose support everything depends, and to whom everything returns( see Taittirīya Upaniṣad3.1- 6, Brahma- Sūtra1.1.2). This bare- bones answer accounts for not only the presence of the world but also how it's supported and where it ends up. What the answer does n’t explain is how everything originates from God, what God’s support really means, and what going back to God entails and, most importantly, who God really is without reference to you, me and the world.
There has n’t yet been a widely respectable explanation, and nearly clearly there noway will be. Has there been anything at all which is respectable to everyone, far and wide? What we do have rather are several different answers handed at different points in history by different people from different corridor of the world, which is how different religious traditions have surfaced.
It’s no surprise that the answers are different. What to speak of enterprises, indeed answers backed by a disclosure or direct experience of God are bound to be different. When an experience is clothed in words using language and culture-specific symbols, conceits and imagery, it's bound to have a distinct texture and color. What's important to admit is that, in malignancy of the answers that occasionally look radically different from one another, they represent sincere mortal sweats to understand and describe God. The sweats are noway completely successful, but that's only to be anticipated. After all, how can you ask for a perfect description of a transcendent being who's basically inexpressible?
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Is God particular or impersonal?
Some view God in abstract terms, as the each- percolating reality, the godly source, or the horizonless being. Others view God as a person, not simply as a principle. Both of these views — God as a principle and God as a person — are from a mortal perspective. They represent a quintessentially mortal way of thinking. God as a person is mortal in numerous felicitations but also preternatural. God is viewed as being loving, kind, and compassionate, but also universal, almighty and human. Since God as a person is described in mortal terms, we tend to see in God a father- figure or a mama - figure. Hence the frequence of God the Father, God the Mother — further of the former, reflecting the gender bias that still exists in utmost societies around the world.
Others go further and, in addition to attributing rates and gender to God, also suppose of God in visually further charming ways, making God’s personality indeed more personable. There's an egregious limit to the rates we can imagine in God, but to suppose of God in visual terms opens up a lot further openings. When I'm in the presence of God, who'll I see before me? Hindus have been historically veritably good at making the utmost of exploring these possibilities.
Thinking of God in an abstract, impersonal way or thinking of God in a most particular way is only a way of thinking. God always remains who God is, no matter how we suppose of God. Just because my friend thinks of me in some way does n’t change who I am. I'm who I am. My friend’s thinking about me does n’t change me. Likewise, God does n’t change. God is who God is. All dissensions about the nature of God have nothing to do with who God is. Those are dissensions about who people suppose God is. It's egregious that God has been imagined by the mortal mind in numerous different ways, which are occasionally mutually antithetical.
Until we directly stand face to face with God, what can any of us do other than imagine how God is? rather of jarring about the superiority of one view over another, or claiming with no egregious substantiation that one view is right and other views are wrong, it's better to ask a more practical question will the way I imagine God take me close enough to God, so I can corroborate for myself who God really is?
Not all of these mortal imaginations are arbitrary and accidental. It isn't helpful to dismiss them as products of immature minds or overheated smarts. numerous of these descriptions of God, in both particular and impersonal aspects, have been handed by those who had a direct experience of God. The expression of an experience can noway equal or substitute for the experience itself, but it does have the power to lead a person to the experience. Both a particular God and an impersonal God can lead me to God as- God- really- is.
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Does God really live?
Faced with multiple answers about God’s identity, each claiming to be right and none uncontested, it's natural to wonder if God really exists or is only a “ belief, ” a nebulous reality who can be propped up only on the strength of faith. numerous affirm that God exists, but this can not be objectively proved on the strength of their stopgap, belief or faith. Others feel too confident that God does n’t live, although their assertion is as much a statement of faith as of those who feel that God does live. A many others claim that no bone
knows and no bone
can ever know — whether God exists. We're left with the feeling that both veneration and dogmas have moment come persuasions of feathers.
According to Vedanta, God not only exists but is actuality itself. This means, claiming that God does n’t live is tantamount to saying, “ Actuality does n’t live. ” Funnily enough, this brings into question indeed the actuality of the person who claims that God does n’t live. See Taittirīya Upaniṣad(2.6.1)
असन्नेव स भवति, असद्ब्रह्मेति वेद चेत् ।
Asat eva sa bhavati, asat brahma- iti veda cet.
still, he himself becomes absent, “ If a person knows Brahman as absent. ”
It's significant that the tutoring of God as actuality( sat) isn't laid down as a dogma or an composition of faith. It's simply a disclosure set up in the Upaniṣads. Everyone is welcome to study what it means, to examine it precisely, to ask questions about it, and to determine whether it fits well in the Vedanticworldview.However, its verity can be vindicated through particular experience, If God as actuality resonates with our own exposure to the godly.
Vedanta goes a step further God not only is actuality itself but God alone exists. There's nothing differently piecemeal fromGod.However, that too is nothing but God, If commodity differently appears to live. See Chāndogya Upaniṣad(3.14.1)
सर्वं खलु इदं ब्रह्म ।
Sarvaṁ khalu idaṁ brahma.
“ All this is indeed Brahman. ”
The word for God that's generally used in Vedanta is “ Brahman. ” Brahman is neither a person nor a power nor anything that can be described through words. Literally, “ Brahman ” simply means the vast, the horizonless — which is how actuality itself is. What we can say with absolute certainty is this God is. Any description we add after “ is ” may be helpful, but it also ever circumscribes God’s infinitude and compromises God’s ineffability.
Which means, indeed “ God is actuality itself ” isn't a perfect description. What it really implies is that God isn't absent( asat). In other words, God isn't fantastic . Likewise, when God is viewed as pure knowledge( cit or caitanya), what's really inferred is that God isn't a material( jaḍa) object. In other words, God isn't subject to “ the six variations ”( ṣaḍvikāra) birth, growth, metamorphosis, decay, complaint, and death. When God is viewed as horizonless( ananta), what's really inferred is that God isn't finite. In other words, God alone exists.
Put simply, if we want an accurate description of God, we can only say what God is not, noway what God is. After barring everything that God is not, whoever remains is God.
Source:Vedanta society,Wikipedia