In English
The symbolic attributes of the Divine
God is called in His Cosmic form as , who permeates everything in the cosmos. God is the cause and the cosmos is the effect. You must try to understand the various attributes of the Lord. is depicted as having a conch in one hand and a wheel in another. In a third hand he carries a mace and in the fourth a lotus. What is the esoteric significance of all this? The conch is a symbol of Sound. Hence, God is described as the embodiment of Sound. The (wheel) symbolises (the Wheel of Time). The Lord is the master of Time and Sound. The mace signifies strength or power. This means that the Lord holds in his hand the strength of all beings. The lotus in the Lord's hand is a symbol of the heart. This means that the Lord holds in His hand the hearts of all beings. Because the symbolism of these attributes of the Divine was not properly explained by the commentators on the scriptures, a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion came to prevail in later years. As regards the in the head of the human body, it is a thousand-petalled lotus, each petal having sixteen (phases). There are thus 16,000 in the . These phases were symbolically described as the wives of the Lord. The inner meaning of these expressions should be properly understood. Going only by the superficial and literal meaning of these terms, the nature of the Divine is misconstrued and misinterpreted.