Dear friend,
The philosophical proposition "I think, therefore, I am'' was enunciated by Rene Descartes and not Baruch Spinoza. Next, Einstein's Theories of Special and General Relativity are purely physical laws and have no bearing on the Spirit. Hence, they are inapplicable in any sense here. The Tagore quote is also inappropriate as it deals not with the primal moment of apparent fragmentation of unitary consciousness into the phenomenal duality and multiplicity.
The statement of the post is much too deep for easy verbal description here. I can only say that this seeming duality is only seeming and not real. In essence it is ever the unconditioned solidarity of unitary existence that is there. The moment this unbreakable consciousness undergoes the first derivation of change, God and the universe spring together. In a like manner, in the reverse order though, God and the universe fall together at the time of mass dissolution of the Cosmos or at the moment of individual liberation into the unqualified Being (Brahman).
God and the universe are, therefore, complementary entities, one the governing principle and the other the governed entity. The individual soul (jeeva) comes within the universal set and may, therefore, be equated with the universe. The moment God comes into seeming being, the universe, and, hence, the jeeva also comes into being as a simultaneous consequence of the veiling act of inexplicable Maya which, incidentally, also is concurrent in time with the manifestation of God and the universe. The Trinity of Maya, God and the individual soul are concurrent events and none of these can technically at source be called the arbiter of the other's life and career. However, with the derivatives of Maya assuming higher powers, the veil of ignorance thickens over the jeeva making it appear helpless at the hands of a so-called omnipotent God. But this is purely a fear-driven reaction to one's helplessness and the contrasting vast power of Nature whose arbiter is now posited to be an omnipotent being called God.
Had death not stalked life on earth and sickness, sorrow and fear prevailed, had men lived in perfect health and wealth for eternity (logical contradiction, though, it would have been then), had peace and plenty and pleasure without pain (again a contradiction in terms) subsisted on earth, who would have ever cared for the existence or non-existence of God? In such a case human consciousness would have been unaware of this elemental being just as, perhaps, animals and inert matter are unaware of the same. So, God not being available to cognition, His creating man would not have been accessible to human understanding and hence, would have been falsified.
The question now arises, would that mean that man in that case could never have been? Well, these terms, 'God', 'man', 'consciousness', 'existence' and the like have their specific scriptural meanings and cannot be loosely commented upon and conclusions drawn. Suffice it to say that God and man are the ends of a single lever that is fixed at the centre which may be called Brahman and the oscillation of the lever is provided by an inscrutable power called Maya which has manifested both God and man by becoming the twain. It will then be argued that Maya is God and precedes the manifestation of the jeeva. But, as has already been said, the trinity of phenomenal manifestation are a concurrent act and the cognition of each by the other is simultaneous as well.
If it is said the God creates man first, then the counter-argument will be that it is man's conception that creates a God first who then proceeds to create man. Alternatively, it may be said that man's misapprehension of phenomenal reality makes him submit to such a superfluous proposition as God. If, on the contrary, it is said that man creates God first, it will require the term 'man' to be defined accurately in spiritual terms before forming a judgement on the statement.
None of these assertions are true, though, and the truth somewhere lies in the uncertainty that characterises phenomenal life. God and I (man), thus rise together into mutual self-existence and fall together, as Swami Vivekananda has affirmed and the given statement of the post merely takes away from God this predominance over the whole show as being the arbitrary divine director whose will governs everything. The whole concept is based on the dual division of phenomena into the omnipotent Spirit and the impotent material man. But I wish to say that this is a flawed conception of man. Like God is pure Spirit, so is man pure Spirit. In essence, then, man is God and God is man, and, hence, each creates the other in a single act of an apparent split lending dual perspective to Nature. Each is the substance of the other and each is the other's image.
For better understanding, dear friend, you need to study deeply the Vedanta in the purified isolation of the ascetic spirit and even detailed elaborations of the word will fail to impress upon the clouded soul the essence of the spiritual message of 'Tat tvam asi' in its phenomenal derivative. May you be illumined!
Written by Sugata Bose
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