In the previous episode we saw how Badarayana defines God. Most religions should have no problems accepting that definition.
That definition does not talk about a person or an entity, but a cause. It is more of a way of explaining the origination of the world.
To a large extent, even modern science may not have problems accepting a single cause for the origination and final reabsorption of the world. We have our own theory in which we posit that world emerged from some ‘black hole’ and would finally end up as a black hole. We picturize this process as a mechanistic happening without assuming any ‘intelligent’ being. We believe that everything can be explained purely in materialistic terms. Though we are not sure about how exactly that happened not to speak of why it happened.
But Vedic Indians didn’t believe that a world which is so brimming with intelligence could come from inert matter. Inert matter could have provided the substratum but what operated from behind the scene has to be intelligent. Mere inert things cannot produce ‘intelligent’ things.
There are some scientists who question the very idea of ‘intelligence’. They say that intelligence is nothing but an emergent property of some complex arrangement of inert things. So, inert things can combine together and produce intelligence! But so far, we are unable to show it even at the lowest organism level. All scientific effort to ‘create’ a living organism from inert things have failed. At least for now, we are forced to accept that only an intelligent thing can give rise to another intelligent thing.
I am using this word ‘intelligent’ very loosely. What I mean is some entity that can think, that can feel, and that has a free will of its own. These are the qualities an inert thing does not have. and so far, we have not succeeded in showing these qualities in an inert thing. Well, there is lot of talk on artificial intelligence and so on, but let me not get into that at this juncture.
But Vedic Indians were very clear about what intelligence is all about. They define an intelligent being as something that can think, feel and assert its will. And Badarayana says that Brahma or God has all these three qualities.
Where is the proof?
As I said earlier, Badarayana goes by what is said in the Upanishads.
He points out sentences from the Upanishads which declare that the God is capable of thinking and has a free will of his own. He says that the world did not come into existence by some mechanistic interaction between inert things like what the Samkhyas or the Vaisheshikas believe, or for that matter the way our modern scientists conjecture. It was a willful act of an intelligent being.
Badarayana gives a pointer to the Upanishadic texts by saying
“When the creation of the world is explained in the Upanishads, the word used is ‘thought’ or ‘willed’. Since inert things cannot think or assert their will, they cannot be the source of the world”.
Badarayana was probably referring to sentences from Upanishads such as
“In the beginning, there was only a single entity. There was nothing else. And that ‘thing’ ’thought’ ‘let me be many’”
– Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.1..
There are many things that this Upanishadic sentence is saying.
- There was something in the beginning. It was not all void.
- There was only a single entity. There was nothing else.
- And this single entity could think or assert its will.
- It did not create the things but it ‘became’ many.
- And the motivation to ‘become many’ is not some external cause, but it itself decided to ‘become many’.
So, unlike normal religious notion of God, this Upanishadic notion of God did not ‘create’ the world. It just ‘became’ the world. That provides a strong binding force that unifies the whole universe. It is a stronger assertion than saying that we are all creations of the same God. We are in fact various forms of the same God as this Upanishadic verse goes on to explain.
But this assertion confuses many people. The theistic religions like Christianity or Islam cannot accept that we are forms of God. They have clear demarcation between God and non-God. So also, the Vedic duelists in India such as the Madhvas. Even Sankara has problem accepting this idea of oneness between God and non-God without additional qualifiers. So, he invents the concept of illusion or Maya to justify this. He says that this multiplicity is just an illusion and in reality, only the God exists. The world does not exist!
In that case, what does this verse from the Upanishad mean?
This is an interesting question Sankara answers in an evasive way in many places. I am not quite satisfied with that. I have my own explanation. Let us skip that and continue with our discussion on Badarayana’s views. Please do join me in the next episode.
Quite a complex topic.needs repeated listening to assimilate!
ReplyDeleteYes. It is indeed a quite a complex topic. Just repeated listening may not suffice. You may have to ponder a lot. Also, you need to know the background before you listen to this episode. By any chance are you skipping episodes and reading randomly? That won't help ;-)
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