Relative and absolute
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Dear Guruji and sincere devotees, Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna!
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Sri Sri Guru and Gauranga!
The absolute and relative point of view: I have thought about this for quite a while. It comes back to us in so many ways and it causes so many confusions and contradictions when we are not able to differentiate between the two. The following is simple, complicated, and deep, all at the same time. I hope some of it will resonate in your hearts because it has the ability to shed more light in our understanding. Of course we can choose camps and fight on either side of understanding, but after sunset the camps are free to visit each other and can exchange insights beyond the contradiction.
To me all contradictions in the Vedas can be seen for what they are by just understanding the difference between the relative and absolute point of view. Actually when we are able to use our intelligence in a distinguished way the so-called contradictions seize to exist and all we perceive is one big harmony. Lord Gauranga Krishna never promotes any contradictions and always induces supreme love and harmony. Whenever we find ourselves on either side of a relative or absolute point of view we have to develop the ability to see all sides. A coin is round when seen from the top and oval when seen from the side. We cannot say the coin is exclusively round or oval. Both are true. Slightly tilted and turned the coin has even more shapes. All are true. An intelligent person accepts that there are more shapes to the coin and accepts all of them as true. An unintelligent person only acknowledges certain shapes and rejects others. When I only accept the oval shape and you only accept the round shape we can fall prey to extremism and then we are more than likely ending up having a war over that.
Let’s take a very sensitive subject under Vaisnavas; we have never been in the spiritual world as opposed to we have fallen down from the spiritual world. We see both stements and it seems many devotees are divided into camps over it. In the following I will prove that both statements are 100% true within the context of point of view.
The absolute point of view is the Lord’s point of view. In the eternity of His realm there is no past and future, there is only the eternal present. So the nitya siddhas (eternally liberated souls) are eternally in the present and never fall down into the relativity of past and future. Srila Vrndavana dasa Thakura says that there is no birth or death for the nitya siddhas. Sometimes they descend to the material world with the Lord and return to His abode with Him. The eternally liberated souls are never bound by karma and thus do not take birth in the material world (Sri Caitanya-Bhagavata Antya-lila 10.172).
The nitya baddhas (eternally conditioned souls) seem to be trapped forever in this material world. They have forgotten their position as eternal servant of the Lord and they have come under the spell of the relative point of view. Relative means containing past, present and future with rarely the awareness being on the present: predominately struggling with the past or dreaming about the future. The absolute spiritual world can never be dragged into the relative material world and although the Lord and His devotees appear in the relative world They remain, at all times, in Their absolute nature.
The nitya siddhas are always totally aware of their absolute nature and they don’t even know about the existence of relativity. The nitya baddhas are always totally trapped within the relativity and are not aware of the absolute nature. The marginal souls occupy a unique position in which they are allowed to have perception of both worlds: relative and absolute. They can chant the holy Names of the Lord and attain total perception of the absolute and regain their original position as servant of the Lord. The devotee who is 24/7 absorbed in the Lord’s Names and pastimes only sees the absolute world and is in fact already back in the spiritual world. For such a devotee the relative world stops to exist as a perception of reality. The non-devotees remain having the perception of the relative world dominated by a past and future, however they are sometimes given the golden opportunity to have a glimpse into the absolute world of the Lord. They become so fascinated with that glimpse that they start to try to find that again and again and when they are so fortunate to come in contact with the devotee of the Lord their perception of their original position as servant of the Lord is awakened. Marginal souls are in this unique position because they can experience a shift in perception from relative to absolute.
This brings us to the simple understanding that from the relative point of view the soul has fallen from the spiritual world. Because when our eternal position is to be a servant of the Lord there must be somehow a point in time in which we retired of being a servant of the Lord. And from the absolute point of view we can never have been fallen from the spiritual world because the eternal present isn’t defined by any consideration of past and future. From the relative point of view we have never been in the spiritual world with the Lord. From the absolute point of view we have always been with the Lord. When we cling to one point of view these conclusions seem to contradict each other but when we consider both, the relative and absolute point of view, there is no contradiction.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Thakura says that ‘what the unalloyed devotee of the Supreme Lord says is all true and is independent of any consideration of unwholesome pros and cons’. So we should never play speculative games with our acharyas’ realizations and we are always open to see all points of view before we come to a hasty ‘unwholesome’ conclusion. And when we don’t understand it we should follow Sridhara Maharaja’s advice: ‘Why asking about the most difficult thing to understand and why not try to understand the easiest thing? That is: how to become Krishna conscious and go back to Godhead.’ We better avoid forming an opinion and choosing ‘camp’ when we have not the capacity to distinguish the truth from different angles. Pure devotees avoid endless discussions that seem to ‘loop’ and recognize this trap of maya’s, however sometimes in their compassion they clean up the whole trap so others will not fall in them.
Lord Gauranga Krishna states that our constitutional nature is that all living beings are eternal servants of the Lord. So to say that conditioned souls have never been in the spiritual world is absurd. The Lord is absolute, His nature is absolute and therefore everything He says is absolute. When a living being is in a conditioned state that doesn’t take away his eternal absolute nature: he is just overshadowed with the concept of past and future and has adopted a relative perception. From the absolute point of view that living being is now eternally conditioned and when liberated there was never a departure. Coming and going, birth and death, are relative perceptions and simply don’t exist within the spiritual world.
Captured within relative perception we can never get a perfect picture of the absolute. In other words we can never ‘drag’ the absolute into the relative. However the absolute can easily ‘contain’ the relative. For instance in the spiritual world the ecstasy of love between the Lord and His devotees are always increasing. That means that what is now the topmost experience of love is the next moment overwhelmed by an even higher experience of love. Although we think of progress in terms of past and future it is not of the same nature as in the spiritual world. Like the seasons are all simultaneously existing within the spiritual world and still the Lord and His devotees can enter them in sequences. What is possible in the spiritual world is endless and full of wonder, surprise and anticipation and way beyond the ordinary relativity of the conditioned world. The events and dealings within the spiritual world are truly within the unique nature of the absolute.
I fully understand that the above is philosophical and is not necessary for understanding the highest ecstasy of a loving relationship with the Lord. In fact you don’t have to know any philosophy to behold the Lord in blissful realization. However I felled compelled to write about the absolute and relative point of view to clear up a seemingly deep rooted discussion under Vaisnavas about the soul’s position. All are true and just need the understanding of the different perspectives they originate from.
Nityananda Nityananda Gauranga Gauranga Hare Krishna Hare Krishna!
Daaso’smi, Hadai Nityananda dasa
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by Srinath on Dec 10, 2009 at 22:13 Reply Top
Sri Baladeva Vidyabhushana writes in the Govinda Bhashya about the kind of relativity present in the Absolute platform :
Adhikarana 5
The Lord’s Activities Are Eternal
Introduction by Shrila Baladeva Vidyabhushana
Purvapaksha (the opponent speaks): Because the Supreme Lord is by nature eternal, it may be said that His activities performed with His associates in His childhood and other ages are also eternal. In this way His many different activities, from beginning to end, may all be considered to be eternal. However, it is illogical to say that there can be an eternal previous action that is followed by another action. If the previous action is followed by a subsequent action, then the eternality of the previous action is destroyed. If one action is eternal then any subsequent action must be performed by a different person. To say that the subsequent action is performed by the same person contradicts both scripture and direct experience. Every action has a beginning and an end. Without beginning and end no action can be brought to completion, and without such beginnings and ends there can be no experience of the nectar of transcendental mellows (rasa). For these reasons, how can it be possible that the Lord’s activities are eternal? If the Lord’s activities were eternal they would be still and unchanging, like a painted picture. If it is said that the same actions are repeated again and again and in that way they are eternal, then I say that there are bound to be times when the beginning of the action is different, and thus the subsequent actions will become changed, and the action would then not be repeated in the same way as before. Therefore, how can it be that the activities of the Lord are eternal? Therefore it should not be accepted that the activities of the Lord are eternal.
Siddhanta (conclusion): In the following words the author of the sutras gives His reply to this idea.
Sutra 11
sarvabhedad anyatreme
sarva—all; abhedat—because of non-difference; anyatra—in another place; ime—they.
Because of complete non-difference they are in another place.
Purport by Shrila Baladeva Vidyabhushana
Both Lord Hari and His associates are the same persons in both previous and subsequent actions. Why is that? The sutra explains: “sarvabhedad” (because of complete non-difference). This means that because there is no difference in Their personalities, the same Lord Hari and the same associates present in the previous actions are also present in the subsequent actions. That Lord Hari remains one even though He expands into many forms is confirmed in the Gopala-tapani Upanishad in these words:
eko ‘pi san bahudha yo ‘vabhati
“Although He is one, the Supreme Lord appears in many forms.”
Also, in the Smriti-shastra it is said:
ekaneka-svarupaya
“Although He is one, the Supreme Lord appears in many forms.”
This is also true of the Lord’s liberated associates, who remain one even though they appear in many forms. In the Bhuma-vidya (Chandogya Upanishad 7.26.2) this is said of the liberated souls. In the Smriti-shastra this is also said in the description of the Lord’s marriage with many princesses and in other pastimes also. In this way the Lord and the liberated souls can, retaining Their identities, expand themselves to be present eternally in different places in time. The sentence “It was twice-cooked” is understood by an intelligent person to mean that one thing was cooked twice, not that two separate foods were separately cooked. In the same way the sentence, “He called out the word `cow’ twice,” means that one cow was addressed twice, not that two cows were addressed. In this way Lord Hari, His eternal associates, and His transcendental abodes all retain their identities even though they are manifested in many different places and perform activities that are all eternal even though their activities have a beginning and an end. In this way it is said that a wonderful variety of transcendental mellows are manifested by this sequence of eternal events. It is not that these ideas do not have their root in the descriptions of scripture. In the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (3.8.3) it is said:
yad bhutam bhavac ca bhavishyac ca
“The Supreme Personality of Godhead exists in the past, present, and future.”
In the Atharva Veda it is said:
eko devo nitya-lilanuraktah
“The one Supreme Personality of Godhead is eternally engaged in many, many transcendental forms in relationships with His unalloyed devotees.”*
The Supreme Lord Himself affirms (Bhagavad-gita 4.9):
janma karma ca me divyam
“One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.”*
Only a person who has attained the Supreme Lord’s mercy can understand and accept all of this, as the Supreme Lord Himself declares (Shrimad-Bhagavatam 2.9.32):
yavan aham yatha-bhavo
yad-rupa-guna-karmakah
tathaiva tattva-vijnanam
astu te mad-anugrahat
“All of Me, namely My actual eternal form and My transcendental existence, color, qualities, and activities, let all be awakened within you by factual realization, out of My causeless mercy.”*
In this way it is proved that the Lord’s activities are eternal. However, only the actions that the Lord performs with the help of His spiritual potency are eternal, and the actions that the Lord performs with the help of His material potencies and material time are not eternal, for if the Lord’s creation of the material universes were eternal then the eventual dissolution of the universes could not occur.
Srinath
by Swami on Dec 11, 2009 at 09:40 Reply Top
Nityananda!! Gauranga!! Hare Krishna!! Jaya Shri Guru Parampara! According to me there is no absolute and relative in this matter. Neither it is ambiguous nor confusing. Neither were we in any spiritual planet at any time of our existence. Neither have we ever seen any eternal form of God in the spiritual planets. Shrila Sacchidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura does not explain like that (absolute and relative) in the Jaiva Dharma regarding the science of the soul. He categorically (unambigiously) states that the souls which are manifested in the marginal line between the spiritual and material worlds were never in the direct association of the Supreme Lord nor were the marginal soul ever a nitya siddha and therefore the souls in this material world are called as nitya baddha, eternally conditioned, because they have never entered into any spiritual planet nor received the direct assocation of the Lord in Vaikuntha at any point of time. However, Shrila Sacchidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura explains that these marginal souls can become sadhana siddha and attain that exalted position of entering into one of the spiritual planets and rendering direct service to the Lord by practicing Naama Bhakti Yoga in this material world. We were there in the spiritual world but in the third region of the brahmajyoti or the tatastha shakti (which can be also considered as a part of the spiritual world), not in the two primary regions of the Goloka and Vaikuntha. And we made the wrong choice there and have now fallen to this material world and in our conditioned stage are thus no longer present even in this marginal line what to speak of being there in Goloka or Vaikuntha, both of which we have never seen.
Though the Lord is always easily accessible and very close to us via His Holy Names, Pastimes etc. in the conditioned stage even though He is present in Goloka at the same time, it does not mean that in some “absolute level” we were or are directly with Him or in any spiritual planet. This is actually not possible until we become sadhana siddha. Our constitutional position in relation to the Lord is ingrained in us but it does not mean that we have had direct association with the Lord according to that constitutional position. He reveals to us in many ways during our Bhajana but that does not mean we were with Him due to the gradual awakening of our constitutional position. We have yet to attain that ultimate good fortune of fully blossoming consciousness leading to direct service to the Lord in Goloka and that is why we are still here in this material world.
Daaso’smi, BR Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada.
by ghadgech on Dec 11, 2009 at 19:24 Reply Top
Nityaananda! Gauraanga! Hare Krishna!
Dear Swamiji,
I always used to think that at some point of time we were with the Lord and because of our rebellious nature we are now in this material world. My doubt is clear now. At no point of time we were in Lord’s abode because if that was the case then It is contradiction of what Lord has said in Bhagwat Gita chapter 15:6
na tad bhasayate suryo / na shashanko na pavakah
yad gatva na nivarttante / tad dhama paramam mama
Sun, moon and fire cannot illuminate that supreme realm, which is self-effulgent and illuminates everything else. When surrendered persons attain that abode of Mine, they do not return to this world.
Thanks a ton! Swamiji!
Aspiring to serve Your Lotus Feet
Chhotoo & family
by Srinath on Dec 11, 2009 at 22:52 Reply Top
Dear devotees,
Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! Thank you for your nice clarifications.
When you do see it from another angle I need to ask, “Are we really separate from the Lord at any time?” Because He is really everywhere and even in the conditioned state He is directly with us as the Paramatma in our heart all the time. Although the spiritual world is so far away from the material world, yet at the same time after chanting the Holy names I experience that there is no distance between us and the spiritual world either because the Lord is always around us and yet because of our conditioned state we never realize it.
Everywhere I look I have to see time and time again the Lord directly acting in the lives of all living entities. I see more and more how He is acting in my life and in my experience, although we experience being separated from the Lord, still we cannot be separated from Him because without Him nothing can exist and nothing can happen. For that matter the whole universe is there in the abdomen of Lord Gaurasundara. He pervades everything and with spiritual eyes it is possible to see Him everywhere, even in the atoms with all His names, forms, abodes, associates, qualities and pastimes. He pervades every aspect of our lives and yet we fail to see it.
When the conditioned soul experiences being cut into pieces or feeling happiness or suffering, actually nothing is happening to the soul. Then the experience is actually the experience of the false ego that identifies with the material platform. At the material level of the false ego it is truth, and yet at the spiritual level of the soul, it is not true. But both are fact and depending on whether the soul is conditioned or liberated, accordingly the consciousness is aware of the material experience or the spiritual experience.
SB 11.28.10: Śrī Uddhava said: My dear Lord, it is not possible for this material existence to be the experience of either the soul, who is the seer, or of the body, which is the seen object. On the one hand, the spirit soul is innately endowed with perfect knowledge, and on the other hand, the material body is not a conscious, living entity. To whom, then, does this experience of material existence pertain?
SB 11.28.11: The spirit soul is inexhaustible, transcendental, pure, self-luminous and never covered by anything material. It is like fire. But the nonliving material body, like firewood, is dull and unaware. So in this world, who is it that actually undergoes the experience of material life?
SB 11.28.12: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: As long as the foolish spirit soul remains attracted to the material body, senses and vital force, his material existence continues to flourish, although it is ultimately meaningless.
SB 11.28.13: Actually, the living entity is transcendental to material existence. But because of his mentality of lording it over material nature, his material existential condition does not cease, and, just as in a dream, he is affected by all sorts of disadvantages.
SB 11.28.14: Although while dreaming a person experiences many undesirable things, upon awakening he is no longer confused by the dream experiences.
SB 11.28.15: Lamentation, elation, fear, anger, greed, confusion and hankering, as well as birth and death, are experiences of the false ego and not of the pure soul.
SB 11.28.16: The living entity who falsely identifies with his body, senses, life air and mind, and who dwells within these coverings, assumes the form of his own materially conditioned qualities and work. He is designated variously in relation to the total material energy, and thus, under the strict control of supreme time, he is forced to run here and there within material existence.
It follows that once the false ego is eradicated, all material experiences cease and the jiva does not experience a material world anymore. The soul is now in the spiritual world.
I fully agree with Bhaktivinode Thakur’s explanation of the jiva tattva. That is true and that’s how it is. And yet even then we are never really separated from the Lord either. The separation is only something we have created for ourselves in our hearts by choosing matter over the Lord — the only separation that is actually removed is that and all that we experience in our spiritual path is simply a manifestation of that.
So while the Lord allows the marginal souls to enjoy separately Him, and makes it a separate reality for them, at no time can the soul really be separated from the Lord because ultimately all existence is ultimately included within the Lord on the largest scale.
Even the Vedas speak the truth in various ways like comparing material existence to a dream to make us realize that our constitutional position as a servant of the Lord is eternal and although we have not experienced that, it doesn’t mean it is not there. That is what I realize by Absolute and Relative platforms.
I have written a long time earlier about impersonal merging. From material time it is permanent and the soul is gone forever, but spiritually speaking it is not permanent and the soul will receive another chance to become a devotee.
We cannot say “when” the soul chose the material world instead of the Lord because eternally conditoned (nitya-baddha) means the soul is always in the material world and yet it is also a fact that the marginal line is involved somewhere. So both of them are different levels of reality — one is viewed from material time and the other is viewed from the spiritual point as said in Jaiva Dharma. In the words of Baladeva Vidyabhushana all this is possible to understand with realization.
But the experience of spiritual time (cit kala) and eternity cannot be properly expressed in any material words which are forever bound to material space and time and so there is bound to be a limit on how far we can describe without going into endless loops and contradictions as said in Jaiva Dharma itself when the Babaji tells the sannyaasi that he is only giving a small glimpse in words.
So I don’t disagree with anyone nor do I intend to provoke any devotees and raise arguments. Controversies in Kali Yuga are simply distractions meant for us to waste our time. As devotee aspirants we cannot allow ourselves to waste time on fighting and arguing that has been going on in spiritual circles. That is the real message I want to convey.
This is whatever little understanding I have from the mercy of the Holy names. All that matters now is that we chant the Holy names and see what we can do now.
Daaso’smi,
Srinath
by Swami on Dec 12, 2009 at 10:46 Reply Top
Dear Srinath, Nityananda!! Gauranga!! Hare Krishna!! Thank you for understanding. As you have said, He is all-pervading and constantly with us in this material world in His form of the four-handed Supersoul or Paramatma not in His original Goloka form of Lord Gaura Krishna. And that is the form we are associating with. If His original Abode, Pastimes, and Associates were manifested everywhere in this material world, then He would not need to bring Them with Him during His personal advent nor would He have needed to come personally only once in 8.64 billion years if He is always present here in His original form. So the understanding is that even though He pervades everything in His Paramatma abd Brahman form, He is not actually present in this material world in His original form of Goloka (na caham tesv avasthitah) and we (the conditioned souls) have never seen that original form face to face, otherwise we would not have fallen here. When a pure devotee sees the Goloka Lord everywhere within every atom even in this material world, that is Lila Sphurti, meaning that since the pure devotee is directly connected to the spiritual world in consciousness, he or she is seeing that revelation everywhere in this material world also. That does not mean that the Golokapati Lord Gaura Krishna is there directly performing His Goloka pastimes within each atom. Thus the Holy Abodes of the Lord in this material world are much powerful than the space between each atom because the Lord personally comes and performs His pastimes there, not in any other place, even though He is indirectly present everywhere as His partial expansion of Paramatma. I hope this helps.
Daaso’smi, BR Sadhu Swami Gaurangapada.
by Srinath on Dec 12, 2009 at 17:10 Reply Top
Dear Swamiji,
Nityananda Gauranga Hare Krishna! Thank you for your kind explanations. I confess my ignorance of so many subtle points in our acharyas writings. What would we do without the guidance of the spiritual master?
Daaso’smi,
Srinath