In Pursuit Of Happiness Part 6

 Continued From: http://thoughtsonsanathanadharma.blogspot.ca/2017/06/in-pursuit-of-happiness-part-5.html

The Chandogya Upanishad records the conversation between sage Udhalaka and his son Shwethaketu. The conversation takes place between the twenty four year old son and his father after Shwethaketu returns home from his gurukulam after completing his education. The son stands tall feeling proud that he is a learned man. Sage Udhalaka realizes that his son feels proud because he doesn’t have true knowledge called Brahma Vidhya. The sage then engages his son in conversation so that he can teach him Brahma Vidhya which is the true knowledge.

‘I see that you have returned home after completing your education. You are now a Somya, a person eligible to partake the Soma Juice offered in sacrifices but, do you know about the commander?’

Thus the father starts a conversation to teach his son about God and God realization. The summary of the conversation is as follows.

God is omnipresent as well as the Supreme Controller:

We say that God is Supreme because He is omnipresent but so is ether. Ether is present everywhere but omnipresence alone does not grant it supremacy. God is Supreme not just because He is omnipresent but because He is also the controller of everything. God wished for the cosmos to be created and from Him the entire cosmos was created. Thus everything we see is His body and thus everything is Him. A pot can be created from clay; hence, we can say that a pot is made of clay and thus is clay. We can use a pot to store water but we can’t use plain clay to store water. Clay can be used to store water only when it is fashioned into a pot by a potter using a kiln. The pot was clay before it was made. Similarly everything we see now was Sat. Sat is the Supreme Brahman. Sat has been transformed into this Universe. Sat is clay, the potter as well as the kiln.

Sat is the soul of every jeevatma. To explain this concept let us examine the following analogy. Let us say that we are travelling in a car. We are the passenger and there is a driver who drives the vehicle. In the journey of life, the car is our body, we are the passenger and the driver is Lord Krishna who is the Supreme Brahman. The car and the passenger depend on the driver to traverse the path; they cannot work without the driver. Similar to the car and passenger, our body as well as us depend on Lord Krishna as He is our soul and our driving force.

Eternal nature of jeevatma and prakruthi:

The jeevatmas are eternal. Our body is made up of prakruthi. Prakruthi is eternal. Hence, the jeevatmas and the building blocks of our bodies are both eternal. This is also supported by Science through the law of conservation of mass; matter can neither be created nor destroyed. At the time of creation, God changes matter from one form to another.

Creation and Apocalypse explained:

If we as well as the building blocks of our body as well as this Universe is eternal then what happens during a pralaya i.e. during apocalypse?

Before we can answer the above question, we need to understand why God undertakes creation in the first place. He is very compassionate by nature. Before creation we exist in an inactive form. He takes pity on us and in order to enable us to achieve eternal happiness, He creates. He gives us independence after creation and waits for those souls who seek Him and reach Him. He assigns bodies to the souls based on their past karmas. Some souls realize the reason behind creation and reach our Lord whereas most of the souls start to misuse their bodies. The souls gradually accumulate karmas which lead them further and further away from reaching the divine feet of our Lord. The Lord again takes pity on all the souls and causes pralaya to prevent us from sinking even lower. At the end of pralaya He decides to give us one more chance to see if we will reach Him and starts Creation again.

Lord gives rest to all souls during pralaya. We exist as one with our Lord. This condition of oneness during pralaya is known as Sat. Plurality was one in the beginning. Sat is unique. There is no second force on Sat to make it create. Creation transforms the inactive into active state. The cycle of creation and pralaya can be explained with the example of a self-blowing balloon. Let us imagine that there exists a balloon and it can inflate itself at its own will. Creation is equal to the inflated balloon and pralaya to the deflated balloon.

People often get confused and think that there existed nothing before creation. Something cannot be created from nothing as matter can neither be created nor destroyed. During pralaya we exist along with God at a micro level called sukshma roopa. After creation we exist as sthula roopa or in macro form. Thus creation is the process through which God transforms the micro into macro form and pralaya is the reverse of creation.

At the time of pralaya we are united with God and at the time of creation He becomes our souls. Thus we are never separated from God. We are always with Him and hence it can be said that we are Him.

Continued On: