God as paramarthika satya – the absolute reality

In continuation of three of my earlier articles, God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman, Experiencing God as he really is and God as purna – the one infinite whole, the following is the fourth extract from the second chapter, ‘God’, of The Truth of Otherness:

Thus, these three verses of Guru Vachaka Kovai are an emphatic refutation of our separation from God, the one infinite purna, the unlimited and absolute reality, who alone truly exists, and who is perfectly non-dual and therefore completely devoid of parts. In verse 888, Sri Ramana emphasises that the infinite purna alone exists by quoting this Vedic mantra, which says that even “when purna is taken out of purna, purna whole alone remains”, and by adding that purna alone remains not only then but also when purna has united purna. That is, whether anything appears to separate from it or unite with it, the infinite purna in truth always exists alone, because whatever appears to separate from it or unite with it is in truth nothing but that purna itself.

Then in verse 889 he explains that, since nothing other than that real purna exists, there is nothing that could ever either separate from it or unite with it, and that therefore everything that appears to exist as other than it is in truth one with it. However, he does not conclude his explanation of this Vedic mantra by saying merely that everything is one with the infinite reality, but goes one step further by stating clearly in verse 890 that everything except the infinite reality is a mere imagination and is therefore completely unreal.

God as purna – the one infinite whole

In continuation of my earlier two articles, God as both nirguna brahman and saguna brahman and Experiencing God as he really is, the following is the third extract from the second chapter, ‘God’, of The Truth of Otherness:

The reason why we said in the previous chapter [an extract from which is given in the article The world is a creation of our imagination] that this world is not created by God is that in his true nirguna form he is mere being, and therefore never does anything, and that in his imaginary saguna form he and this world are both created simultaneously. That is to say, God as a seemingly separate supreme being comes into existence only when we come into existence as a seemingly separate individual being.

When we rise as this mind, our limited individual consciousness, we perceive the world and all the other objective thoughts in our mind as being separate from and other than ourself, and thus we seemingly create duality and division in our non-dual and undivided real self. When we thus see ourself and this world as separate and finite entities, we transform our infinite real self into a seemingly infinite God, whom we consider to be separate from ourself and this world.