A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 4-3: Swami Krishnananda

Chinmaya Mission:

During the Vrindavan Bhagavata Week, Swami Abhedananda led over 200 seekers from across the globe in a transformative event organized by Chinmaya Mission Jaipur at Chinmaya Mission South Africa. 

Through daily sessions, Swami Abhedananda illuminated the teachings of Shrimad Bhagavatam, fostering spiritual growth and enlightenment. 

Traditional rituals and visits to revered temples enriched the experience, culminating in joyous celebrations of Ram Janmotsav and Krishna Janmotsav. 

Under meticulous organization, attendees enjoyed comfortable accommodations and nourishing sattvic meals. 

As the Bhagavata Saptah concluded, each devotee departed with hearts full of contentment and gratitude, cherishing the profound spiritual journey in the divine ambiance of Vrindavan and eagerly anticipating future opportunities for spiritual enrichment.

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Thursday 08, Feb 2024 07:00.

Chapter - 4: The Total Picture of Creation-3.

Post-12.

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God created the heaven and the Earth, says the Bible. !?

Out of what substance did He create them? Out of his own body, which is something very funny to say. And if there is nothing outside God, out of what substance did He create it? He created it out of a vacuum, a kind of nothingness.

You will find later on, by a deep analysis of the process of creation, that creation is a vacuous projection. It has no substance by itself because substance is God only, and if the universe also had a substance independently, there would be a conflict between the two substances – God and Satan, as certain theologies posit. There is no Satan; he does not exist outside God. It is only a theological conception of human frailty, I may say, which is unable to locate evil in this world because it does not know where it exists. The Satanic, the evil, the bad, etc., must exist somewhere. It cannot exist in God, and it cannot exist outside God, so where does it exist? This is the theological problem before all religious people. Anyway, we shall not touch that subject now.

God seems to be creating a vacuous situation to create a universe that is also basically a vacuum. Hence, there is non-substantiality in the whole universe. Everyone, everything, including you and I, are basically vacuous. There is no substance in us. The substance is only a jugglery. It is a mix-up of space-time and certain elements which I will mention to you afterwards. Thus, creation might have taken place, or creation might not have taken place. You may say the juggler has really created something because you can see it, and therefore God has created the world because you are seeing it. But the juggler has created nothing; he has only put you under the pressure of an influence. In the same way, God has created no world, but somehow or other some illusion has caught hold of you – this consciousness. You do not know how you are seeing what the juggler is doing, though he has done nothing. In the same way, God has done something like the greatest juggler, and you are seeing a world which is really not there. Finally you will see, if the curtain is lifted, God alone is permeating the whole thing. This so-called world is nothing but scintillating God. That is what you will realise afterwards, about which you will be told a little later.

So the objective universe, which is adhibhuta, starts with space, time and vibration. This vibration is fivefold in its nature. In Sanskrit, these five aspects of vibration are called shabda, which means the potential of sound, sparsha, the potential of touch, rupa, the potential of sight, rasa, the potential of taste, and gandha, the potential of smell. The whole universe of perception is constituted of these fivefold forces. What do you see in this world? What do you mean by 'the world'? What is called 'world' is nothing but what you hear, touch, see, taste, and smell. Suppose you do not see anything, and you cannot touch or smell or taste; the world vanishes for you. So the world is nothing but a bundle of sensations; it looks like that.

There is a great history behind this question of whether there is a substance behind sensations or whether the world is made up of sensations only. Subjective philosophers in the West, such as Berkeley, concluded that the whole world is nothing but sensations only. If these five sensations are removed from you, there will be no world, and your body will also not be there. But a difficulty arises in the mind due to its very structure because it believes the sensations are sensing something, and if something is not there to be sensed, what are the senses going to sense?

Continued

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