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As I said, according to Shri Ram Chandraji,
where religion ends, there spirituality begins.
After this sentence, Master gives the
description of God or the Ultimate Reality.
Religions have got notions of God which are as
different from one another as possible. But they
have all one common thing. God has a particular
nature such as that of the Creator of the world,
Sustainer of the world and Destroyer of the
world. He has wonderful attributes or excellent
attributes - Infinite Compassion, Infinite
Beauty, Infinite Power, Infinite Grace and so
on. This God is the God of Religion. That is, we
are all thinking of the excellent quality of
which we have some awareness and these are the
qualities of God. God is perfect extension,
perfect space. He is at all time, the past, the
present and the future, which are all in Him.
And so He has wonderful attributes. This God we
call Saguna. Of course, it may be that God has
the qualities of nature also in a sense. Nothing
that is not in the cause can be found in the
effect. So, God has all these attributes. But
according to Vedanta, the definition of Brahman
has been "He from whom all creation, all
origination arises". But, there are some people
who have stated in Upanishads that God is
described in terms of negation of these
qualities, which we call of nature, that is,
Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Some people go to the
extent that God has no qualities - either good
or bad. Some people say that God is Nirguna;
some people say that He is Saguna. What guna
means, of course, is a very troublesome point of
discussion or controversy. God has gunas means
He has no bad qualities. So, that is how some
people have interpreted. Certainly God cannot
have bad qualities. One may then ask `we have
bad and good qualities, how did they come about.
If God has created bad qualities, they must have
come from Him'. The cause must have the seeds of
effect. There is evil in the Universe. God must
in some way be evil. But we do not like to
attribute evil to God and so they say evil is
the good that we do not understand. 'Evil' is
excellent. You do not know what it is. So you
call it 'evil'. Anything you are afraid of is
'evil'. That is how some people try to explain
or rather explain away evil. Some others say
that the good qualities have the opposites also
in this world. The world is a negation of God.
God is perfect, we are all imperfect. God is
good; we are all evil. Where there is good there
must be bad. A good cannot be understood except
in terms of bad. So, the standard of judgement
of what is good or bad, truth or false must come
from God, who is Truth, who is Blissful and the
world is false, evil, unpleasant and unblissful.
That is another meaning of God. But, there is
another concept that God is a Principle rather
than a person. Then we may understand something
of the problem. Religions always consider that
God is a person. By person, it means someone in
talking terms, knowing terms and loving terms. A
person whom you can love, whom you can adore and
whom you can worship. But if it is only a
Principle, it is not in those terms. Are we
worshipping the law of Gravitation? We worship
persons in whom those laws are exhibited, a
person who exhibits those principles. For
instance, Gandhiji to us means a principle. He
tried to exhibit truth and non-violence. He
searched for Truth and Non-violence or love.
Suppose, we remove these pictures. Then the
principles will remain. We think of Rama as a
person. Rama is a dharma principle. But not a
person having a bow and arrow as in Kondanda
Rama, having particular colour - bluish colour
as it is described. That is not Rama. So you
will find ultimately every great man is a
principle and not a person. If you ask if a
great principle can be lived and practised, well
there is a man who came and showed that it can
be practised. So, to exemplify a certain man
comes into being. So, if God is the Supreme
person, he exhibits the principles continuously,
incessantly and eternally. But then, whenever
you look at a person, you see or perceive the
principle. Whenever you see principle, you see
the person. They are bound together. You cannot
think of the one without the other. God is the
first cause. As a first cause, he is also loved.
So we find that the Nirguna is non-personal God
and the Saguna is personal God. Non-personal
God, that is a principle and personal God, both
of them are inseparable, except by us. When we
want to think on principle we think of Him as a
principle. As a person we exhibit Him.
I was suggesting to a friend yesterday that
it is almost similar to the scientific notion of
considering energy either in terms of particles
or in terms of heat. When we think that as a
wave, it follows the laws of waves and then we
can take it as a particle also. So, if you take
it as in Religion, God is personal and if you
think in terms of philosophy, he is impersonal.
But we are confused in these matters and our
logical capacity is dwarfed by Religion. So much
so, even Sri Ramakrishna used to say that both
Saguna and Nirguna are true. Well. Therefore,
the principle point, if you want to put it, can
be called Para Brahman. Master also has used
them. This is used by the Advaithins also. But I
do not know whether they are clear except when
they emphasise this aspect in thinking of God as
transcendent to or interior to the creative
point. There must be a condition when He is not
a Creator. It is Nirguna. The posterior point
then is Iswara. So these are the Nirguna and
Saguna notions of the Ultimate Reality.
But Ultimate Reality, says our Master, is
something more than these. It is higher than the
Nirguna or Saguna conception of Brahman. It goes
far beyond. The Ultimate Reality, which we
should call God in the sense that it is that,
you have to attain, perfect Reality. So our
Master says all these discussions about Saguna
and Nirguna are transcended. We soar far beyond
the notions of Religion or philosophy. It is
attractive to hold a non-personal and think that
impersonal is superior to the personal. I do not
agree to either notion. We are going far beyond
both, a condition which is beyond the personal
and beyond the impersonal and that is something
which is not within the range of our normal
experience. It is not within the reach of our
reason or feeling.
Religion is described as an aesthetic
approach to Reality and philosophy is said to be
an intellectual approach to Reality. You may
also say that God can be approached through the
will aspect of man. But will goes beyond both
the intellectual and aesthetic approaches and
that is why Master wanted in each on of us a
will to go beyond the frontiers of philosophy
and religion. Will, in its purer form breaks
through these two barriers of intellect and
aesthetic. "A perfect will is needed" that is
what he says. Thought in its purer form is not
an idea. It is just an 'aspiration' a 'force' an
'urge'. So, that concept of Ultimate is as he
calls 'Energy' goes beyond the intellectual and
aesthetic. That condition is what we are aiming
at and that is the Ultimate Reality. So, when
Master describes in the circles, he shows that
there is a Brahmanda area and beyond that Para
Brahmanda and beyond that is the Central Region,
place of the purest will.
So, the Central Region, which is a discovery
of the Master, is something beyond the Saguna
and Nirguna from which our religious and
philosophical notions came.
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