Thank you and some more questions
Your Holiness,
Please accept my prostrated obeisances. All glories to Your good self.
I sincerely apologize for the delay that I have made you endure. I couldn't coordinate my various mental and physical inclinations well enough.
I thank you so much for the suggestions you have given. I did know the name of Rasaraja Prabhu before, and had even visited his website, but had not been able to infer his research aptitude in the field of, quantum physics and its connection to consciousness studies. In West Bengal also there are very learned devotees working on the field of consciousness. However they remain absorbed in their services. Thus I was unable to muster enough courage in my heart to approach them regarding this matter. I did want to contact a devotee who has time on his hands, but Rasaraja Prabhu is such a prolific scholar that I am again intimidated regarding contacting him. However I will try to address my intimidated heart more effectively than I have done in the past. I thank you again for this suggestion.
Maharaja, I have downloaded Ken Wilber’s book “Quantum Questions” and have gone through it a little superficially. I do intend to study this book better in the future.
I have some questions which have been troubling my heart for quite some time which I will be extremely grateful if you could please try and answer. At first I tried to ignore them thinking that logical contradictions are likely to be there in a treatise as vast as the Vedas. That doesn’t mean I give up rendering devotional service or reduce the intensity till they are answered. But for some reason, which I cannot endure to fathom, the doubts do cast a lengthy shadow on my attitude towards God. Thus I am humbly pleading you to address these doubts in my heart.
They are:
a)There seem to be some intermediate tattvas between jiva tattva and Vishnu tattva. Examples of such tattvas are:
1)Srimati Radharani whom I humbly think could be addressed as Shakti tattva
2)Lord Siva who seems to be addressed as Siva Tattva
3)Parvati Devi who is again Shakti Tattva
It is reasonable to accept that God is all powerful, and all attractive and someone who can and will fulfill my wildest expectations of happiness and go way beyond. But this same all attractive, all benevolent and very personal God seems to have created intermediate tattvas which are not as noble as God, who can be approached but not achieved. Even as a child I remember how incoherent, and unendurable it would be when my parents would seem to show more affection for my sister than me. Now, these intermediate tattvas can be considered to be also children of God. So how can an all attractive, all benevolent God create one child who is eternally going to be more opulent than another.
One might reason that God wants us to become humbler than a blade of grass. But this blade of grass is allowed to think that he will one day shed the mortal coil and go beyond svarga loka and the host of gods, and the higher realms, even beyond Satya Loka, beyond even Kailash, beyond even the Vaikuntha Lokas and even beyond. Thus the jiva is allowed a fair degree of self esteem. Even as I sit on my desk, I can just look at my relatives and see how they are attached to the lower modes of nature whereas I am leading a more purposeful life. It is pointed out how we are getting freed from the lower modes, and Krsna says that this is verifiable, in the Gita. So self analysis, and a generous leave for self esteem seems to be allowed in a Monotheistic context. When I lament unceasingly, I am allowed to think that a Shudra laments uselessly and I am not a Shudra or even a personality of great prowess and magnanimity who does sometimes lament unceasingly, at least for days. I know of people who have achieved a lot in life, but who nonetheless lament or feel euphoric (and then pay a price for that euphoria) about relatively uneventful things, such as cricket scores or loss of a hundred rupee note etc.
So my perception of transcendence is that humility is one of the assets of a devotee not a cause of disconcerting feelings as to why I have to be satisfied being a caterpillar when someone else can be a king or queen. Please correct me if I am thinking inaccurately.
In short I would like to just question as to why God has created intermediate tattvas who will act as intermediaries for eternity and who are neither as qualified as God nor as infinitesimal as the jivas.
They are not as qualified as God, for example Siva tattva is pointed out as having some inefficiencies especially in comparison to Lord Narayana. So while honouring Lord Siva his faults do occur in my mind, and I cannot say that he is just an ex-pure devotee of God, and that one day we will all happily hold hands and dance on an equal level. For example Lord Siva seems to aspire for liberation but doesn’t make it. Yet isn’t by that analysis he inferior to say a resident of Vaikuntha? Does that mean that a jiva becomes more qualified than Lord Siva once he is liberated?
Another doubt I have is that God is called Achyuta or One Who doesn’t degrade Himself. Then how does it manifest that “ He has analyzed that Krsna is cent percent Bhagavan. And Narayana is ninety-four percent Bhagavan. And Lord Siva is eighty-four percent Bhagavan. And all other living entities, all living entities, we are, we are minutely seventy-eight percent Bhagavan”.
Now if God doesn’t reduce in potency due to the effect of ignorance as the Brahma-vadis seem to indicate, how does it happen.
The living being can never possess attributes like Shiva, Vishnu or Lord Krishna. A living being can become godly by developing the seventy-eight-percent transcendental attributes in fullness, but he can never become a God like Shiva, Vishnu or Krishna. He can become a Brahma in due course: - Srimad Bhagavatam 1.3.28 purport”
Thus I do admit that I have some inefficiencies in my understanding.
I will be extremely grateful if you could please give me some shastric references, so that I know the authority of the source, that you might be asking me to refer to.
Your servant
jashodev
and