Impersonalism and Personalism : the crux of the debate

A pure impersonalist philosopher reasons this way:

That who worship and serve a personal god with a form does it from a need. He cannot conceive of an immanent god because of his experience with name and form. He cannot conceive the abstraction and hence imagines a god – the anthromorphic principle.

A pure personalist philosopher reasons this way:

Worship means a person. But God as a person is a transcendental person – not conceivable by our limited abilities of perception. Hence impersonalists cannot conceive that such potency can emanate from a person. Due to their lack of conception, they imagine impersonalism.

Please note that both the school of philosophers acknowledge and use it to their advantage the inconceivable potency of a personal God or the all pervading Consciousness.

This debate can never be settled because of the inconceivable factor. Hence the impersonal and personal debate can never be resolved and is eternal.

It can only be resolved by someone who knows thoroughly about the Science of God. But how one can conceive which is by definition inconceivable. Or in other words, whom God has revealed Himself.

Who is that?

The author of Vedanta Sutra – Lord Vyasadeva delcares

Vadanti tatta-vidas tattwa ja jyanam-adyam

Brahmeti paramateti bhagavaneti sabdyate

Those who know the Supreme Absolute Truth has told the Truth to be non-dual and is realized in its impersonal Brhaman form, localized paramatma form and as Supreme Personality of Godhead form. 

From this, the immediate logical clarity, sparkling like light comes from Lord Krishna’s pronouncement in the Bhagavad-Gita where he establishes Himself as the Supreme Personality of Godhead:

bhaktya mam abhijanati
yavan yas casmi tattvatah
tato mam tattvato jnatva
visate tad-anantaram [ Bg – Chapter 18, Text 55 ]

One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by devotional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, he can enter into the kingdom of God. (Translated by Srila Prabhupada, BG As it is, 1974 McMillan Edition at www.asitis.com ]

 The purport by Srila Prabhupada below, finally settles the debate conclusively – Note the word visate

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna, and His plenary portions cannot be understood by mental speculation nor by the nondevotees. If anyone wants to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he has to take to pure devotional service under the guidance of a pure devotee. Otherwise, the truth of the Supreme Personality of Godhead will always be hidden. It is already stated (naham prakasah) that He is not revealed to everyone. Everyone cannot understand God simply by erudite scholarship or mental speculation. Only one who is actually engaged in Krsna consciousness and devotional service can understand what Krsna is. University degrees are not helpful.
One who is fully conversant with the Krsna science becomes eligible to enter into the spiritual kingdom, the abode of Krsna. Becoming Brahman does not mean that one loses his identity. Devotional service is there, and as long as devotional service exists, there must be God, the devotee, and the process of devotional service. Such knowledge is never vanquished, even after liberation. Liberation involves getting free from the concept of material life; in spiritual life the same distinction is there, the same individuality is there, but in pure Krsna consciousness. One should not misunderstand that the word visate, “enters into Me,” supports the monist theory that one becomes homogeneous with the impersonal Brahman. No. Visate means that one can enter into the abode of the Supreme Lord in his’s individuality to engage in His association and render service unto Him. For instance, a green bird enters a green tree not to become one with the tree but to enjoy the fruits of the tree. Impersonalists generally give the example of a river flowing into the ocean and merging. This may be a source of happiness for the impersonalist, but the personalist keeps his personal individuality like an aquatic in the ocean. We find so many living entities within the ocean, if we go deep. Surface acquaintance with the ocean is not sufficient; one must have complete knowledge of the aquatics living in the ocean depths.

Because of his pure devotional service, a devotee can understand the transcendental qualities and the opulences of the Supreme Lord in truth. As it is stated in the Eleventh Chapter, only by devotional service can one understand. The same is confirmed here; one can understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead by devotional service and enter into His kingdom.

After attainment of the brahma-bhuta stage of freedom from material conceptions, devotional service begins by one’s hearing about the Lord. When one hears about the Supreme Lord, automatically the brahma-bhuta stage develops, and material contamination–greediness and lust for sense enjoyment–disappears. As lust and desires disappear from the heart of a devotee, he becomes more attached to the service of the Lord, and by such attachment he becomes free from material contamination. In that state of life he can understand the Supreme Lord. This is the statement of Srimad-Bhagavatam also. Also after liberation the process of bhakti or transcendental service continues. The Vedanta-sutra confirms this: aprayanat tatrapi hi drstam. This means that after liberation the process of devotional service continues. In the Srimad-Bhagavatam, real devotional liberation is defined as the reinstatement of the living entity in his own identity, his own constitutional position. The constitutional position is already explained: every living entity is the part and parcel fragmental portion of the Supreme Lord. Therefore his constitutional position is to serve. After liberation, this service is never stopped. Actual liberation is getting free from misconceptions of life.

An old man’s challenge to MIT

In late sixties, an old Bengali gentleman born near Harrison Road, Calcutta went to Massachusetes Institute of Technology and delivered a challenge. The challenge is still alive after fifty years.

What is the challenge?

He asked, point blank: In your institution, where is the department which studies about that technology which makes a body alive? Which department studies about the active principle without which the most valuable body (that of an Einstein, of Tesla) is discarded?

In other way, where is the technology that can make a body alive again by engineering this active principle called living force?  Can you have that technology ?

In last two hundred years, of all Indian teachers who went to West did not or could not ask this question.

The question this old man asked was not new, nor his question. The question is eternal – philosophia perennis – the eternal question of all philosophy –

Atahtho Brahmajigansa?

Now (in this human form of life) is the time to enquire about Brahman – Who am I ? What technology makes a body alive ? What makes it die ? Where do I come from ? Where do I go ?

 What is the aim of human life ?

Birth Control Pill – A scientific enquiry

The discovery of birth-control pill has been explained by an old man of Bengal to me in a conversation and one can trace all discoveries or invention by following the logic. I have not heard anything like this from anyone : the ancient greeks to modern thinkers. None.

99% of men live on bodily platform of life and consider that body (mind and false ego included – I am this, I am citizen of that country, I am a scientist etc – the false comes because if we move time some decades, death comes and the person;s body becomes unmanifest) as everything. Body and its extension (family, land of birth, species of birth, inter-stellar position etc) are the only realities for them. Hence, all their activities are related to body. Sex is the greatest psycho-somatic pleasure and is achieved by direct bodily friction.

Now the more covered the body is, sexual pleasure is somewhat hampered. But sexual pleasure comes with a price or a future risk: potential of birth. So here is a catch 22 situation: Unhampered sexual pleasure risks birth and sterilisation may influence mind to insanity and castration is burning the boat.

In order to balance this: to have unhampered happiness and also to negate the risk of birth, pill is invented. That is the motivation.

This old man then went on to draw an incredibly relevant parallel and generalized it more powerfully than any mathematical generalization known to man: Just like a condom hampers happiness or fully dressed-condition coitus hampers happiness or sexual enjoyment, can we think for a while that this body, our gross and subtle body is some kind of a condom that is hampering our enjoyment for some entity that is encased within this body?

 Are all our activities in the body platform are a proof of our hampered happiness?

 Is this body of ours like a condom for the owner of the body?

 Where is the pill-solution for unhampered happiness for this entity ?

 From this query, knowledge begins : Who am I ? Who is that who enjoys ?

 Atatho Brahmajigansa ?

 

The Bluff of Modern Biology

When I was young, say thirty years back from now, we used to hear lots of noises coming from top end biologists that they are just around the corner creating life from matter. They are just going to unveil the supreme secret: Origin of Life.

After thirty years of research and spending huge amount of tax-payers money and some of the best brains utilized, we have not progressed an inch.

What has been touted as a the name of progress in biology is mere craftsmanship – engineering expertise. That’s all. We have mapped human genome : it is more like counting the springs, the coils, the arrangement of a complex watch and then getting joyous – a feat which befits a kid. That’s all.

The profound question, the most important question remains untouchhed: Who designed these structures called genes?

 It is not the genes or the structure that are causing the trouble.

 The trouble is with ‘Who’. The solution from these rascals are of two kinds  :

 1. There is no ‘Who’. This is a claim which can be immediately rejected because of being axiomatic and counter-intution.

2. Anyone who is against removing the ‘Who’ from the question is an insane, a heretic, and believer of outlandish theories.

 I would have agreed to them if they could have simply made a small insect from matter. I would have become their disciples instead of telling them fools and rascals. I would have served them with my life.

 Why I say counter intutuive?

I happened to be married for 9 years – not a biologist or a genetic expeprt and lo, I find 2 young boys resembling me and my wife pounding us with question which neither I know nor the Nobel Lauretes of Life Sciences know

 Wherefrom did I come from ?

Before you two got married, where we were ?  

 

 

         

 

 

 

The Greatest Silence from the Universities of Avidya

Vedic Literature, especially the Upanishads and the Bhagawad-Gita starts with the explicit and implicit statement of two states of ‘existence’: sat and a-sat.  Crudely speaking, a-sat means our material body and everything related to the body. Mind and ego are also part of our material body.

 

The very first instruction of the Bhagwad-Gita implicitly tells what is sat and what is a-sat.

 

dehino ‘smin yatha dehe
kaumaram yauvanam jara
tatha dehantara-praptir
dhiras tatra na muhyati [ Bg – Chapter 2 / Text 13 ]

 

As the embodied soul continuously passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. A self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.

 

The very first instruction, yes the very first one first challenges all known branches of material knowledge – blanket, without exception and triggers the following questions

 

 

 

• Ø Am I this body?
• Ø What is soul?
• Ø Why does the body take birth, grow, become old, infected by disease and then die ?
• Ø Why do we continuously change body? (Why there is no evidence of eternal youth, or eternal childhood?)
• Ø What is Death and whose death?
• Ø The way to conquer death
• Ø What is self-realization?
• Ø What is meant by a self-realized soul?

 

No philosophy ever manufactured by man cannot even face these four lines, leave aside refuting it. Let us see one by one :

 

1. Biology: There is no evidence or demonstration where one has been able to make a dead body alive by injecting chemicals, software or anything.

 

 2. Physics: Quantum Mechanics can provide clue to many technologies which seem like dream but cannot ask nor explain why a brain like Einstein or Schrodinger can be made operational again.

 

 3. Chemistry : Where is the chemical combination which will prevent old age, disease forever ? Is such a chemical possible ? Can we have a pill which will resist the subjugation of time on us ?

 

 4. Mathematics: Our body is changing. Within an eternal series, how many bodies we have changed and what were the limiting conditions?

 

 

 

5. Organized Religions :  What religion shall I have once I change my body ? Can any organized religion explain who I am other than being denominational and that denomination shall cease as soon as death comes

 

 6. Philosophy:  What is good? What is virtue? If these are with the body then if I change my body of a dog, I don’t have the facility to read and then what philosophy can do for me? Nothing

 

 7. Development:  I am making the tallest building with best of infrastructure to enjot. How many years? Suppose I change my body to next life as that of a dog – then what benefit the infrastructure and the buildings can give me or for that matter my next generation ?

 

           If one contemplates over these four lines and their implications, one gets devastated. One is near an abyss and that’s why Vedic Literature is not for the chicken-hearted or fools. It needs a level of brain and mind to appreciate what are the implications. The subject matter is subtle and only a bona-fide Master can bring the subtlety within the grasp of understand.

 

           This is hinted by the word ‘dhira’ – only a dhira can detect another dhira. The word Dhi means intelligence.

 

        No university in the world, none – teach this. Why ?

 

 Because they are all Universities of Avidya.

 

The Universal Learning Process

Every University – ancient, modern, online and off-line have got a place of lecture – a hall, a hut, a building, a piece of software creating a classroom where something is spoken by a teacher and pupils hear.  

 Why?

 This is has got a very profound reason and has implications for education of all time.

We ‘touch’ so as to say the world outside by our five senses: eye, ear, nose, tongue and skin. These five senses are governed by mind. These senses cannot act without the governance of mind. Now, mind – uncontrolled and random will be mad – one will try to eat sweet by rubbing in the skin. Hence above the mind is ‘intelligence’ – the tool that discriminates and saves us from being insane.

 Now, let us study one of the senses: hearing and its organ: ear. Suppose you are sleeping and I want to wake you up.  A picture is useless. Imagine moving a beautiful scene in front of the eyes of person deep in sleep. No response. I put very nice smell in the room. Useless. I keep many sweets in front of a sleeping man. Will he wake up from deep sleep? I change the temperature mildly or increase / decrease moisture of the room. Will he wake up from deep sleep ?  No.

 In short: all four senses are useless to wake him up.

 But just cry loudly: Fire, Fire, wake up…..!

 He immediately jumps off. The whole structure (the senses and the person and all working organs) become immediately animated which none of the four sense stimuli could do.

The fundamental purpose of knowledge is to wake us up from ignorance to knowledge. We recognize this as the ‘Aha’ moment. Hence Vedic injunction is : Uttisthata, jagrata, prapya, varan nibodotho : Wake up now (in this human life) and achieve the best goal of life.

One of the names of the Vedas is Sruti – what has been heard. From whom? A person who knows. By whom? Who is inquisitive to know?

To know what ? Other animals are also interested to know : where is food, how to have sex, how to defend and where is shelter.

Then what a human being is inquisitive to know : To enquire about who am I ? Wherefrom did I come ? What is my relationship with this cosmic manifestation ? Why do I suffer even though I don’t want it ? Why do I die ? Where from Life comes ? Who is controlling my senses ? Can I have any control ? What is that which leaves the body when someone dies ? Why people are in various stations of life ? What has decided my birth in a specific womb (mother / family /country / colour of skin) ? Why do I grow old ? Why do I get diseases even though I don’t want it ? And then the intelligence

Is there any way out to check my birth, death, old-age, disease?  What is the goal of human life ?

In order to learn this, the first (and last) process is to hear from someone who knows.

Hearing is so important.

The universal learning process is to hear. Right hearing and right speech = true knowledge. No other qualification is needed.

 The more an educational system degrades and gets deviated; there is proportionate decrease in right speech and right hearing.

 Why the sense of hearing is so profound?

The Vedas gives an answer (Vedas themselve means Sruti): In the hierarchy of cosmic manifestation, sound comes from subtle ether – the primal sound – where knowledge remains in the seed form.  

That is the reason why simply by chanting a bona-fide name / word, people reach their goal of life. Jesus said: Hallowed be Thy Name, Lord Krishna said: Satatang Kirtayanato Mam, Lord Chaitanya said: Kirtania sada Hari, Srila Prabhupada said: Chant Hare Krishna

These very very exalted personalities who are casting gigantic shadows over our space-time stresses so much on chanting and hearing. For what? For us to come to the platform of the most-valuable knowledge that is the goal of human life.

They never said – you take some loan and make yourself a debt-slave or pay someone an astronomical sum and get knowledge. Never said.

Knowledge is part of parcel of a living entity – Consciousness is the symptom and when that consciousness rises to know wherefrom it comes and starts the activities, knowledge begins.

Educationists need to be aware of this profound, eternal, designed by intelligence higher than human intelligence aspect of the process of learning.

 

 

 

Modern University : Low-Risk Revenue, Useful Idiots, Debt Slaves, Atheists and Plain Stupids

  Except a microscopic minority like islands, almost all universities of our times have the following species in more or less same proportion

 

1. Wage Slaves: When a Civilization remains in its full vigour, senior men advise younger men of promise: Don’t get into a job which is very difficult to leave. Pension, perks, stock-options and other incentives make the wage earning looking so good that one loves the chain simply because it is golden. A few generations of consciousness alteration going under various names making earning wage itself a matter of achievement. Modern Universities take pride in telling how well their students are sold in the wage-slave market. Inside the Universities itself, there is a group of wage-slaves – academic and support staff. With few exceptions, there is very little cultivation of knowledge anywhere.

 

This begs the question: What is Knowledge? We will come to that at the end of the post

 

1. Debt Slaves: Never in human history, young men and women went to University to become debt-slaves.

 

1. 3.   Atheists: There are 5 classes of atheists as per Lord Krishna– eternally. First class is mudha – a person having no higher level of enquiry. His/her all enquiry or curiosity is limited to eating, sleeping, mating and defense – more or less an animal. Naradhama: Lowest of the mankind. This class is almost at the borderline of animal life with the visage as that of man. Cannot have any idea more than the body – sodomizers, gender-benders, gender-confused, perverts and completely deluded. Duskriti: A person having genuine talent or promise but used for all kinds of activities creating disturbance and harm. Most of the activists, rights-activists, fanatics, change agents. Maya-apha-hritajna: Talking simple nonsense. Though speaking with apparently high intelligence but true knowledge is taken away. Most of the modern scientists, especially biologists. This class equates craftsmanship with knowledge. For example, they are extremely happy in making a map of human gene but the most profound question and the natural one eludes them: Who designed these genes? Wherefrom came such design-idea? Who invented me – the smart-Alec who can understand so many things? They don’t ask. They avoid and speculate – being specualation and mental concoction, they rotate in circles and consider this as knowledge. Asur-bhavam: These demons cause greatest havoc for the common mass of people. Demon’s worldview can be summarized into the following

 

• Ø There is no God or Supreme Person or Power in control. The world has come into being by chance (Recall Darwin / Big Bang) and run by desire (Freud )

 

• Ø Success means material possessions and they don’t have any conception beyond matter (Dialectical Materialsm) although they cannot explain birth-death-old age-disease by this chance theory and most important no control over these four pillars of existence.

 

• Ø Very ambitious plans and world-shaking ideas. They manufacture what they think legit and envy even their own selves.