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[dattaswami]

The Buddhists took the concept of cause and effect to analyze this creation. The effect is always unreal with respect to the cause. But, when the cause is analyzed, it becomes the effect of some other internal cause. Mud, the cause, is real whereas its effect, the pot, is unreal. When the mud is analyzed, it becomes the effect and the particles become the cause. Hence, the mud, which is real with respect to the pot, becomes unreal with respect to its cause, the particles. If you go deep like this, the particle is the effect and the crystals in it become its cause. The crystal again becomes effect with respect to its cause, the sub-atomic particles. Like this, the creation is analyzed and the analysis becomes endless, since the ultimate cause, God, is unimaginable. The entire creation, which is imaginable, becomes unreal with respect to the ultimate cause, the unimaginable God.

The unimaginable God is the ultimate reality. In the analysis of creation, the ultimate imaginable item is the space, which is the subtle energy. Therefore, the Buddhists have ended in space or vacuum, which is considered as nothing (Shunya). In fact, the space or vacuum is not nothing, which appears as nothing. There is nothing like nothing since everything is something. The existence of everything is derived from the existence of the ultimate cause. According to Buddhists, the ultimate cause is nothing and hence, everything is nothing (Asatkarya vaada). Even the space, which is the subtle cosmic energy, becomes nothing in the stream of the analysis of relativity. The effect is unreal by itself, but, is real due to existence of its cause.

This unreal – real duality of the effect is called relativity. The effect is said to be relatively real with respect to the cause. Shankara pointed out that if the ultimate cause is non-existent, then, the non-existence of the ultimate cause should pervade into the chain of causes and effects. In such case, everything should have been told as non-existent. But, we say that everything is existing. Therefore, the ultimate cause of this creation should exist. All the causes and effects in the ladder are non-existent by themselves, since all these are ultimately the effects of the ultimate cause only. Hence, all these effects are said to be existing, since their existence is the existence of ultimate cause only. Even the modern scientists end with space or energy only as the ultimate cause. The modern scientists have identified the space as energy through the concept of bending of the space around the boundary of the object. For the scientists, the space or vacuum is energy, which is the ultimate cause that exists. Therefore, the entire creation exists for scientists.

The Buddhists just differed from the scientists by one point only, which is that the space or vacuum is also absence of energy and hence, non-existent. Hence, for Buddhists, the ultimate cause is the non-existent vacuum and hence, the entire creation is non-existent. Both Buddhists and scientists are partially correct and partially wrong. The truth is that the vacuum or space is energy. But, the energy is also non-existent, since it is not the ultimate cause. The energy is the first effect of the ultimate cause [God]. First, the energy is produced and hence, first the space is also produced, because space is energy.

Therefore, the Veda says that God created the space in the beginning. The same Veda says that God created energy in the beginning. There is no contradiction because the space is the same energy. The ultimate cause, which is the generator of the space, should not have space (spatial dimensions) in it. Hence, the ultimate cause becomes unimaginable due to absence of spatial dimensions.

The existence of unimaginable cause is also established in experience through the exhibition of unimaginable events called as miracles. We have to accept the existence of unimaginable entity through the unimaginable miracles. ‘Unimaginable’ means the absence of spatial dimensions only because anything with spatial dimensions becomes imaginable. Thus, the absence of spatial dimensions establishes the cause of space since only the cause of space does not have spatial dimensions. All these points with the experience prove the existence of the ultimate unimaginable cause.

Shankara Meant the Awareness of God

Shankara established the need of the existence of awareness to understand the non-existence of this unreal world of Buddhists. Such awareness must be present for the existence of the non-existence of the world. Otherwise, the non-existence of the world becomes non-existent. Therefore, there must be the existence of awareness, which grasps the non-existence of the entire creation. Here, the very important point is that such awareness, which grasps the non-existence of the entire creation, must be related to the ultimate cause only, since the entire creation is unreal with respect to the ultimate cause only. Since this ultimate cause is called as God, the awareness, referred by Shankara here for the sake of Buddhists, must be the awareness of God and not the awareness of the soul. Soul is not the ultimate cause, which is an imaginable item, existing in the chain of relative causes and relative effects only. At this point, Shankara did not mention the word ‘God’ because the atheistic Buddhists will not accept God.

Therefore, Shankara kept silent in naming the ultimate cause as God. Therefore, Buddhists have accepted the existence of awareness and dropped their concept of Shunyavada i.e., everything is nothing. Shankara did not meddle with the concept further because at least the existence of something is established, which is a step for the future establishment of existence of God. But, there is a serious problem at this stage because the awareness or soul is misunderstood as the ultimate cause and hence, the entire creation becomes unreal for the soul.

Shankara kept silent in spite of these negative effects since any slight disturbance may reverse the atheistic Buddhists. The serious result of these negative effects is that, the soul or awareness is the ultimate Creator (Cause) of this entire creation. Since God is the name given to such ultimate cause, Buddhists did not mind to say that the soul, the ultimate cause, is called as God. Therefore, Buddhists agreed that God is the ultimate cause of this Creation and God exists. The desired result is achieved, but, the undesirable negative side effect is that such God is the soul itself.

Shankara allowed these negative side effects in view of the greatest success achieved in converting atheists into theists. These negative effects resulted in the spiritual knowledge (Nivritti) were used to rectify the worldly issues (Pravritti). The soul became God due to negative effect, but this is used in positive sense to bring social justice. When you feel that you are God, there need not be any scope for ambition because the highest is achieved. It also brings self-confidence and full self-satisfaction. The ambition for the worldly things leads to the concept of sin in the society.

This ambition is further reduced by another negative effect, which is that the world is unreal for the soul, the ultimate cause. There is no need of ambition to attain any unreal item. Thus, Shankara used all these negative effects to establish the social balance. Such detachment from ambition is also required in the effort to achieve the grace of God. Thus, these negative effects are not only useful for Pravritti but also for Nivritti.

Soul is not the ultimate cause because soul is the awareness and awareness is only the product of energy. Awareness is a specific work form of the inert energy. Energy consists of particles or waves, which have spatial dimensions. Therefore, soul, a form of energy, has spatial dimensions and is imaginable. Since soul has space (spatial dimensions) in it, the soul cannot be the generator of space.

The reason is that space should not exist in its generator before its generation. Hence, space is not the unimaginable God. Space is not the ultimate cause since it cannot create even an iota of this real world. It may be the generator of the imaginary world but not the real world. The awareness was established by Shankara as a requirement to grasp the non-existence of the entire creation. But, awareness is not an independent entity, which is only a dependable process of some independent item only. Awareness is the process of knowing something, which is work. Work is dependable property of some independent working element.

The awareness is the dependable work and the independent working element is the soul, which is the inert energy. Similarly, God is the independent item and the awareness of God is a dependable property of God. Of course, all the items of the creation including the soul are dependable properties of the ultimate independent God.

Hence, awareness is neither the soul nor God. Even though all the items of the creation are dependable properties, one dependable property, the soul, can get the independent status of the working element with respect to the other dependable property, the awareness and all this happens by the will of God. Hence, the awareness proposed by Shankara can neither be taken as soul nor as God. Hence, we said that the awareness proposed by Him was the awareness of God. But, that awareness is misunderstood as soul and here also it means that it is misunderstood as the awareness of the soul.