IN ELUCIDATION OF AN IDEA, SEEMINGLY COMPLICATED BUT ESSENTIALLY QUITE SIMPLE
Sugata Bose : অপ্রকাশিত ঈশ্বর হল শয়তান ; স্বপ্রকাশিত শয়তানই ঈশ্বর | এই প্রকাশ ব্রহ্মসত্তার |
Juthika Sarkar : Khub complicated toh !
Sugata Bose : Why so? Divinity in the dark that is not yet manifested in all its glorious goodness and the transcendence thereof but in its absence is rather its very antithesis is the Devil, and divinity manifested in the sunshine of light and freedom and towering above the dualism of attributes while enshrining within itself all the holy and pure attributes of love, wisdom, spirituality, justice and the like is God. As Swamiji says, it is the same river of consciousness but with two main currents flowing in the opposite direction, one, that of God, flowing upward against the gravitating pull of Nature toward enlightenment and freedom, and the other, that of the Devil, so to say, flowing downward and tending to carry the infatuated soul with the gravitating pull of Nature to ignorance and bondage. It is the two-way traffic of a single road that carries men towards opposite ends.
The Kathopanishad talks of it in a variant manner as the impulsion towards the shreya (the preferable / the electable) and the preya (the pleasurable / the delectable) that the maturing man is faced with and has to make a choice between these two diverse directions of life. The single track of the sleeping soul now has to branch out at the bifurcation of life as either one of these avenues has to be adopted for future traversing the terrain of life. The man of discrimination chooses the shreya or the preferable path and comes to enlightenment, immortality and freedom while the man of poor judgement comes to grief, bondage and ignorance having opted for the preya or the pleasurable path. The former is the path of God while the latter that of the Devil when the idea is stretched to its ultimate mythological limit for ease of mass understanding of sorts. As such, God and the Devil are but degrees of manifestation of the absolute consciousness of Brahman, God being conceived of as the bright part and the Devil being dubbed as the dark part of a single stream of evolving energy (shakti).
The whole of Nature is a vast variegated scheme of differentiation where every element is essentially the same Brahman but superficially, in manifested terms, differing in degree of divine expression. God, here, is divinity in full play, the summation of all positive attributes, whereas the Devil is divinity in terms of positive attributes entirely hidden and negative attributes in full play. This is, of course a Semitic derivation of Abrahamic religious origin and Indian Vedantic thought does not subscribe to it as stated above. The Vedanta merely describes all of Nature as the series of progressive attributes towards freedom and measures good and evil only in relational and relative terms without attributing them permanent residence in phenomenal existence or in the transcendence that is beyond duality. As such, conceptions about the Devil / Satan are but mythological accretions in our scriptures dating to Purana times and are not intrinsic to Vedic thought.
In the Sanatan Dharma there are traditions of dualism as well which hold quite a different view on good and evil vis-a-vis the Semitic religions of Abrahamic origin. While God and the Devil are two eternally distinct entities for Semitic religions, Indian thought rejects such absolute distinctions. Like there are no two entities as light and darkness but the latter is but the absence of the former, so also India traditionally holds the Devil concept to be God in the minimum mode of manifestation so far as purity is concerned but in a high degree of manifestation of power riding along with such impurity. Indian tradition calls it 'Avidya Shakti', that is, power divorced from purity and knowledge. The other entity, God, is termed 'Vidya Shakti', that is, power accompanied by purity and light. But here also, Indian thought clearly states that both 'Vidya Shakti' and 'Avidya Shakti' are complementary elements of a single 'Adya Shakti' (Primal Power) who is the summation of the twain, the totality and resolution of all attributes, positive and negative. As stated above, India thought does not hold positive and negative attributes to be absolutes by themselves but points out that they stand in their relative merits in specific reference frames as such. That which is good in a certain frame of reference becomes bad when the reference frame changes. A simple numerical illustration will elucidate this fact. The number 6 is larger than the number 5 but is smaller than the number 7. There are not here any absolutes such as large and small but they assume such proportions in relational terms of numbers assorted in the reference frame. So also with characteristic attributes and their assigned values.
In finality, thus, God is the upward tug the human soul feels towards freedom, enlightenment and perennial peace while the Devil is the downward tug the human soul has to overcome in order to avert a precipitous fall into bondage, darkness and terrible strife. And both these are occurrences in the same stream of consciousness, here expanding unto the manifestation of divinity, there contracting unto its reverse and hiding the Self even more. This dual movement constitutes the dynamics of life and its resolution the fruition in terms of bondage or freedom.
Om! Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
Written by Sugata Bose
Sugata Bose : অপ্রকাশিত ঈশ্বর হল শয়তান ; স্বপ্রকাশিত শয়তানই ঈশ্বর | এই প্রকাশ ব্রহ্মসত্তার |
Juthika Sarkar : Khub complicated toh !
Sugata Bose : Why so? Divinity in the dark that is not yet manifested in all its glorious goodness and the transcendence thereof but in its absence is rather its very antithesis is the Devil, and divinity manifested in the sunshine of light and freedom and towering above the dualism of attributes while enshrining within itself all the holy and pure attributes of love, wisdom, spirituality, justice and the like is God. As Swamiji says, it is the same river of consciousness but with two main currents flowing in the opposite direction, one, that of God, flowing upward against the gravitating pull of Nature toward enlightenment and freedom, and the other, that of the Devil, so to say, flowing downward and tending to carry the infatuated soul with the gravitating pull of Nature to ignorance and bondage. It is the two-way traffic of a single road that carries men towards opposite ends.
The Kathopanishad talks of it in a variant manner as the impulsion towards the shreya (the preferable / the electable) and the preya (the pleasurable / the delectable) that the maturing man is faced with and has to make a choice between these two diverse directions of life. The single track of the sleeping soul now has to branch out at the bifurcation of life as either one of these avenues has to be adopted for future traversing the terrain of life. The man of discrimination chooses the shreya or the preferable path and comes to enlightenment, immortality and freedom while the man of poor judgement comes to grief, bondage and ignorance having opted for the preya or the pleasurable path. The former is the path of God while the latter that of the Devil when the idea is stretched to its ultimate mythological limit for ease of mass understanding of sorts. As such, God and the Devil are but degrees of manifestation of the absolute consciousness of Brahman, God being conceived of as the bright part and the Devil being dubbed as the dark part of a single stream of evolving energy (shakti).
The whole of Nature is a vast variegated scheme of differentiation where every element is essentially the same Brahman but superficially, in manifested terms, differing in degree of divine expression. God, here, is divinity in full play, the summation of all positive attributes, whereas the Devil is divinity in terms of positive attributes entirely hidden and negative attributes in full play. This is, of course a Semitic derivation of Abrahamic religious origin and Indian Vedantic thought does not subscribe to it as stated above. The Vedanta merely describes all of Nature as the series of progressive attributes towards freedom and measures good and evil only in relational and relative terms without attributing them permanent residence in phenomenal existence or in the transcendence that is beyond duality. As such, conceptions about the Devil / Satan are but mythological accretions in our scriptures dating to Purana times and are not intrinsic to Vedic thought.
In the Sanatan Dharma there are traditions of dualism as well which hold quite a different view on good and evil vis-a-vis the Semitic religions of Abrahamic origin. While God and the Devil are two eternally distinct entities for Semitic religions, Indian thought rejects such absolute distinctions. Like there are no two entities as light and darkness but the latter is but the absence of the former, so also India traditionally holds the Devil concept to be God in the minimum mode of manifestation so far as purity is concerned but in a high degree of manifestation of power riding along with such impurity. Indian tradition calls it 'Avidya Shakti', that is, power divorced from purity and knowledge. The other entity, God, is termed 'Vidya Shakti', that is, power accompanied by purity and light. But here also, Indian thought clearly states that both 'Vidya Shakti' and 'Avidya Shakti' are complementary elements of a single 'Adya Shakti' (Primal Power) who is the summation of the twain, the totality and resolution of all attributes, positive and negative. As stated above, India thought does not hold positive and negative attributes to be absolutes by themselves but points out that they stand in their relative merits in specific reference frames as such. That which is good in a certain frame of reference becomes bad when the reference frame changes. A simple numerical illustration will elucidate this fact. The number 6 is larger than the number 5 but is smaller than the number 7. There are not here any absolutes such as large and small but they assume such proportions in relational terms of numbers assorted in the reference frame. So also with characteristic attributes and their assigned values.
In finality, thus, God is the upward tug the human soul feels towards freedom, enlightenment and perennial peace while the Devil is the downward tug the human soul has to overcome in order to avert a precipitous fall into bondage, darkness and terrible strife. And both these are occurrences in the same stream of consciousness, here expanding unto the manifestation of divinity, there contracting unto its reverse and hiding the Self even more. This dual movement constitutes the dynamics of life and its resolution the fruition in terms of bondage or freedom.
Om! Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
Written by Sugata Bose
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