The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 3/Bhakti-Yoga/The Philosophy of Ishvara
CHAPTER II
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ISHVARA
Who is Ishvara? Janmâdyasya yatah — "From whom is the birth, continuation,
and dissolution of the universe," — He is Ishvara — "the Eternal, the Pure,
the Ever-Free, the Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher
of all teachers"; and above all, Sa Ishvarah anirvachaniya-premasvarupah —
"He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible Love." These certainly are
the definitions of a Personal God. Are there then two Gods — the "Not this,
not this," the Sat-chit-ânanda, the Existence-Knowledge-Bliss of the
philosopher, and this God of Love of the Bhakta? No, it is the same
Sat-chit-ananda who is also the God of Love, the impersonal and personal in
one. It has always to be understood that the Personal God worshipped by the
Bhakta is not separate or different from the Brahman. All is Brahman, the
One without a second; only the Brahman, as unity or absolute, is too much of
an abstraction to be loved and worshipped; so the Bhakta chooses the
relative aspect of Brahman, that is, Ishvara, the Supreme Ruler. To use a
simile: Brahman is as the clay or substance out of which an infinite variety
of articles are fashioned. As clay, they are all one; but form or
manifestation differentiates them. Before every one of them was made, they
all existed potentially in the clay, and, of course, they are identical
substantially; but when formed, and so long as the form remains, they are
separate and different; the clay-mouse can never become a clay-elephant,
because, as manifestations, form alone makes them what they are, though as
unformed clay they are all one. Ishvara is the highest manifestation of the
Absolute Reality, or in other words, the highest possible reading of the
Absolute by the human mind. Creation is eternal, and so also is Ishvara.
In the fourth Pâda of the fourth chapter of his Sutras, after stating the
almost infinite power and knowledge which will come to the liberated soul
after the attainment of Moksha, Vyâsa makes the remark, in an aphorism, that
none, however, will get the power of creating, ruling, and dissolving the
universe, because that belongs to God alone. In explaining the Sutra it is
easy for the dualistic commentators to show how it is ever impossible for a
subordinate soul, Jiva, to have the infinite power and total independence of
God. The thorough dualistic commentator Madhvâchârya deals with this passage
in his usual summary method by quoting a verse from the Varâha Purâna.
In explaining this aphorism the commentator Râmânuja says, "This doubt being
raised, whether among the powers of the liberated souls is included that
unique power of the Supreme One, that is, of creation etc. of the universe
and even the Lordship of all, or whether, without that, the glory of the
liberated consists only in the direct perception of the Supreme One, we get
as an argument the following: It is reasonable that the liberated get the
Lordship of the universe, because the scriptures say, 'He attains to extreme
sameness with the Supreme One and all his desires are realised.' Now extreme
sameness and realisation of all desires cannot be attained without the
unique power of the Supreme Lord, namely, that of governing the universe.
Therefore, to attain the realisation of all desires and the extreme sameness
with the Supreme, we must all admit that the liberated get the power of
ruling the whole universe. To this we reply, that the liberated get all the
powers except that of ruling the universe. Ruling the universe is guiding
the form and the life and the desires of all the sentient and the
non-sentient beings. The liberated ones from whom all that veils His true
nature has been removed, only enjoy the unobstructed perception of the
Brahman, but do not possess the power of ruling the universe. This is proved
from the scriptural text, "From whom all these things are born, by which all
that are born live, unto whom they, departing, return — ask about it. That
is Brahman.' If this quality of ruling the universe be a quality common even
to the liberated then this text would not apply as a definition of Brahman
defining Him through His rulership of the universe. The uncommon attributes
alone define a thing; therefore in texts like — 'My beloved boy, alone, in
the beginning there existed the One without a second. That saw and felt, "I
will give birth to the many." That projected heat.' — 'Brahman indeed alone
existed in the beginning. That One evolved. That projected a blessed form,
the Kshatra. All these gods are Kshatras: Varuna, Soma, Rudra, Parjanya,
Yama, Mrityu, Ishâna.' — 'Atman indeed existed alone in the beginning;
nothing else vibrated; He thought of projecting the world; He projected the
world after.' — 'Alone Nârâyana existed; neither Brahmâ, nor Ishana, nor the
Dyâvâ-Prithivi, nor the stars, nor water, nor fire, nor Soma, nor the sun.
He did not take pleasure alone. He after His meditation had one daughter,
the ten organs, etc.' — and in others as, 'Who living in the earth is
separate from the earth, who living in the Atman, etc.' — the Shrutis speak
of the Supreme One as the subject of the work of ruling the universe. . . .
Nor in these descriptions of the ruling of the universe is there any
position for the liberated soul, by which such a soul may have the ruling of
the universe ascribed to it."
In explaining the next Sutra, Râmânuja says, "If you say it is not so,
because there are direct texts in the Vedas in evidence to the contrary,
these texts refer to the glory of the liberated in the spheres of the
subordinate deities." This also is an easy solution of the difficulty.
Although the system of Ramanuja admits the unity of the total, within that
totality of existence there are, according to him, eternal differences.
Therefore, for all practical purposes, this system also being dualistic, it
was easy for Ramanuja to keep the distinction between the personal soul and
the Personal God very clear.
We shall now try to understand what the great representative of the Advaita
School has to say on the point. We shall see how the Advaita system
maintains all the hopes and aspirations of the dualist intact, and at the
same time propounds its own solution of the problem in consonance with the
high destiny of divine humanity. Those who aspire to retain their individual
mind even after liberation and to remain distinct will have ample
opportunity of realising their aspirations and enjoying the blessing of the
qualified Brahman. These are they who have been spoken of in the Bhâgavata Purâna
thus: "O king, such are the, glorious qualities of the Lord that the
sages whose only pleasure is in the Self, and from whom all fetters have
fallen off, even they love the Omnipresent with the love that is for love's
sake." These are they who are spoken of by the Sânkhyas as getting merged in
nature in this cycle, so that, after attaining perfection, they may come out
in the next as lords of world-systems. But none of these ever becomes equal
to God (Ishvara). Those who attain to that state where there is neither
creation, nor created, nor creator, where there is neither knower, nor
knowable, nor knowledge, where there is neither I, nor thou, nor he, where
there is neither subject, nor object, nor relation, "there, who is seen by
whom?" — such persons have gone beyond everything to "where words cannot go
nor mind", gone to that which the Shrutis declare as "Not this, not this";
but for those who cannot, or will not reach this state, there will
inevitably remain the triune vision of the one undifferentiated Brahman as
nature, soul, and the interpenetrating sustainer of both — Ishvara. So, when
Prahlâda forgot himself, he found neither the universe nor its cause; all
was to him one Infinite, undifferentiated by name and form; but as soon as
he remembered that he was Prahlada, there was the universe before him and
with it the Lord of the universe — "the Repository of an infinite number of
blessed qualities". So it was with the blessed Gopis. So long as they had
lost sense of their own personal identity and individuality, they were all
Krishnas, and when they began again to think of Him as the One to be
worshipped, then they were Gopis again, and immediately
(Bhagavata) — "Unto them appeared Krishna with a smile on His lotus face, clad in yellow robes and having garlands on, the embodied conqueror (in beauty) of the god of love."
Now to go back to our Acharya Shankara: "Those", he says, "who by
worshipping the qualified Brahman attain conjunction with the Supreme Ruler,
preserving their own mind — is their glory limited or unlimited? This doubt
arising, we get as an argument: Their glory should be unlimited because of
the scriptural texts, 'They attain their own kingdom', 'To him all the gods
offer worship', 'Their desires are fulfilled in all the worlds'. As an
answer to this, Vyasa writes, 'Without the power of ruling the universe.'
Barring the power of creation etc. of the universe, the other powers such as
Animâ etc. are acquired by the liberated. As to ruling the universe, that
belongs to the eternally perfect Ishvara. Why? Because He is the subject of
all the scriptural texts as regards creation etc., and the liberated souls
are not mentioned therein in any connection whatsoever. The Supreme Lord
indeed is alone engaged in ruling the universe. The texts as to creation
etc. all point to Him. Besides, there is given the adjective 'ever-perfect'.
Also the scriptures say that the powers Anima etc. of the others are from
the search after and the worship of God. Therefore they have no place in the
ruling of the universe. Again, on account of their possessing their own
minds, it is possible that their wills may differ, and that, whilst one
desires creation, another may desire destruction. The only way of avoiding
this conflict is to make all wills subordinate to some one will. Therefore
the conclusion is that the wills of the liberated are dependent on the will
of the Supreme Ruler."
Bhakti, then, can be directed towards Brahman, only in His personal aspect.
— "The way is more difficult for those whose mind is attached to the Absolute!" Bhakti has to float on smoothly with the current of our nature. True it is that we cannot have; any idea of the Brahman which is not anthropomorphic, but is it not equally true of everything we know? The greatest psychologist the world has ever known, Bhagavan Kapila, demonstrated ages ago that human consciousness is one of the elements in the make-up of all the objects of our perception and conception, internal as well as external. Beginning with our bodies and going up to Ishvara, we may see that every object of our perception is this consciousness plus something else, whatever that may be; and this unavoidable mixture is what we ordinarily think of as reality. Indeed it is, and ever will be, all of the reality that is possible for the human mind to know. Therefore to say that Ishvara is unreal, because He is anthropomorphic, is sheer nonsense. It sounds very much like the occidentals squabble on idealism and realism, which fearful-looking quarrel has for its foundation a mere play on the word "real". The idea of Ishvara covers all the ground ever denoted and connoted by the word real, and Ishvara is as real as anything else in the universe; and after all, the word real means nothing more than what has now been pointed out. Such is our philosophical conception of Ishvara.