a) As from a product we can infer about its maker, so too from the sun and the moon we can infer the existence of an omniscient God, the Imperishable Brahman. The creator of the sun and the moon compels them to rise and set at fixed time and place according to fixed causes.

b) Heaven and earth are made up of parts and are liable to fall or disintegrate or blown into pieces. But nothing like that happens because of the presence of their creator, the Imperishable Brahman keeps them together within their limits.

c) All the divisions of time like days, weeks, fortnights, months and years etc., are managed or controlled by the Imperishable Brahman.

d) The Imperishable maintains the flow of rivers in particular directions.

e) Though gifts by themselves are perishable by nature, the value of a giver of the gift is always cherished because of the relationship between the giver and the receiver of the gift established by the Imperishable.

f) The humiliating dependence of gods on the devotees for their offerings or the dependence of the manes on the offerings by their descendents for their sustenance, are all on account of the Imperishable.

Another proof of the existence of the Imperishable Brahman is given in the next mantra.

10)"Whosoever in this world, O Gargi, without knowing this Imperishable, offers oblations, performs sacrifices and practices austerities, even for many thousands of years, finds all such acts but perishable. Whosoever, O Gargi, departs from this world without knowing this Imperishable is miserable. But he, O Gargi, who departs from this world after knowing the Imperishable, is a knower of Brahman.

The apparently endless series of births and deaths in samsara cannot be brought to an end by dualistic worship, sacrifice or austerities. This provides only temporary results in the phenomenal universe. It is only through the knowledge of Brahman that birth and suffering in the world come to an end and one obtains Freedom and Bliss. This is another proof of the existence of the Imperishable.

Brahman is further explained.

11. tad va etad aksaram, gargi, adrstam, drastr, asrutam, srotr, amatam mantr, avijnatam vijnatr, nanyad ato'sti drastr, nanyad ato'sti srotr, nanyad ato'sti mantr, nanyad ato'sti vijnatr; etasmin nu khalv aksare, gargi, akasa otas ca protas ca.

11) "Verily, that Imperishable, O Gargi, is never seen but is the Seer; It is never heard, but is the Hearer; It is never thought of, but is the Thinker; It is never known, but is the Knower. There is no other seer but This, there is no other hearer but This, there is no other thinker but This, there is no other knower but This. By this imperishable, O Gargi, is the unmanifested akasa pervaded like warp and woof in the cloth.”

The Imperishable is not an object of vision, but vision itself. The Immutable Brahman is in every instance the Witness, the Seer of seeing, the Hearer of hearing and so on. The Brahman, which is immediate and direct, which is the Self, within all and is beyond the relative attributes of hunger, thirst etc., and by which the unmanifested akasa is pervaded, is the extreme limit, the ultimate goal, the Truth of truth.

In the previous Section (Section VII) the Inner Controller (antaryamin) was described. Now is there any difference between the individual self, the Inner Controller and the Imperishable Brahman? According to Sankara there is no intrinsic difference between these three entities. They are all by nature Pure Intelligence and like a lump of salt, homogenous. Brahman is one and never undergoes any change. The apparent difference between the three entities mentioned above is due to the limiting adjuncts. When associated with body and organs, It is called the transmigrating individual self. When associated with knowledge, it is called the Inner controller. When associated with Hiranyagarbha, the Imperishable Brahman is known by those specific names and forms such as Viraj, Gods, men, animals, and trees and so on. Therefore the difference between these three is the result of association with limiting adjuncts and is not basic. Therefore the conclusion of all the Uapnishads is “One only, without a second.”

12) Then said Gargi: "Venerable Brahmins, you may consider yourselves fortunate if you can get off from him through bowing to him. None of you, I believe, will defeat him in arguments about Brahman”.

Thereupon Gargi, the daughter of Vachaknu held her peace.

SARVAM BRAHMA MAYAM

The discourse by Yajnavalkya to the assembly finds an echo in the melodious and popular song in Raag Madhuvanti by Sadashiva Brahmendra, a saint, a composer of Carnatic music and an Advaita philosopher who lived near Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu during the 18th century. He composed mainly in Sanskrit. This song is given below together with its translation.

Sarvam brahma mayam 1.Kim vachaneeyam, kima vachaneeyam, 2.Kim rachaneeyam, kima rachaneeyam 3.Kim pataneeyam, kima pataneeyam, 4.Kim bhajaneeyam, kima bhajaneeyam 5.Kim bhodaneeyam, kima bhodhaneeyam, 6.Kim bhokthavyam, kima bhokthavyam 7.Sarvathra sada hamsa dhyanam, Karthavyam bho mukthi nidanam

Everything is filled with God, 1. All that is spoken, all that is not spoken, 2. All that is written, all that is not written 3. All that can be learnt, all that cannot be learnt, 4. All that can be sung and all that cannot be sung 5. All that can be taught, all that cannot be taught, 6. All that can be enjoyed and all that cannot be enjoyed 7. In all places the meditation of the Hamsa scale (Brahman) is the only thing that leads you to salvation.

GOD DOES NOT PLAY DICE

“One of Albert Einstein’s most famous statements is “God does not play dice with the universe”. This statement of God not playing dice relates to Einstein’s reaction to the part of Nature described by Quantum Mechanics, which is one of the pillars of modern physics. He felt that natural laws could not be like the throw of dice, with inherent randomness or probability.

But this is exactly what Quantum Mechanics tells us – that at the fundamental level Nature is inherently random, codified in Heisenberg’s famous Uncertainty Principle.

Today, after his death, the mainstream of physics does not take Einstein’s approach seriously. The popular notion is that he was unreasonably opposed to the highly successful Quantum Mechanics. While this debate continues, only time (and perhaps future brilliant scientists who take up his approach) will tell us if he was justified. Let us not forget that Newton’s theory of gravity was enormously successful until Einstein came along. We await the next Einstein”. - Vasant Natarajan, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore in RESONANCE, July 2008

“Science is the symbolic representation of the real thing. There cannot be an observation without the observer, subject and object. Maya is the quantification of consciousness. We measure something and call it reality. There are many unknowables in the cosmic horizon. Space continues to expand 43 million light years away. As space expands like a balloon, galaxies are spinning away into the unknowable. It seems God not only plays dice, he also puts it in places where you can't find It”- Deepak Chopra.

But according to Vedanta we confuse the subject with the object which is the source of all sufferings and misfortunes. We have therefore to separate the object from the subject. The body, the nervous system, the mind and the intellect are all objects. The only real subject is the atman – the Eternal Self which is ever pure, ever free, and ever luminous. We are That.

“Matter and energy are the two sides of the same coin; they are not two distinct entities at the subtlest level, opines a great physicist, Hans-Peter Duerr, Emeritus President of the Max Planck Institute in Munich, who succeeded Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg. Trying to look at matter at its subtlest level for the last 55 years, Hans-Peter recently realized that there is no matter distinct from energy at that level. That vast omnipotent energy is the universal consciousness (or God) and we humans are but a tiny bit of that consciousness, the individual consciousness”. – ‘The God within’ by Prof. B. M. Hegde, The Hindu, September 9, 2012

END OF SECTION VIII CHAPTER III

HARIH OM TAT SAT

[To be continued]