93. शास्त्रतात्पर्यसंवेदी Śāstra-tātparya-saṁvedī

One who knew thoroughly, the quintessence of the scriptures

Śāstra refers here to religious scripture, and tātparya, to its quintessence. The quintessence of the Śāstras is captured in the nineteen mantras of the

246 93. Śāstra-tātparya-saṁvedī Madhu-brāhmaṇa of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-upaniṣad (2.5.1-2.5.19). They convey that all the divine powers in the external world and the individual being are but the manifestations of the Supreme Ātman-Brahman, which is immanent in all; the eternal laws governing the inert and the sentient, and the evolutions from the interaction between the world and the individual are also Brahman. Concluding His commentary on this, Bhagavatpāda asserts, “Thus this is the instruction, the teaching of all Upaniṣads; this is the conclusive purport of all of Vedānta; this is immortal, free from fear; with this concludes the quintessence of the Śāstras.”²³⁷

One who knows the Śāstras would be able to articulate the meanings of scriptural passages, but His Holiness, who saṁ-vedī, knew thoroughly, the quintessence of the Śāstras, was One who knew the scriptures both extensively and incisively, as well as the essential import of the entire scripture as a matter of experience.

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His Holiness once expounded the quintessence of the scriptures to a disciple, also relating it with the positions of modern day science. He said, “The scripture makes it amply clear time and again that the universe and the laws governing it are the manifestation of God. For instance, the Chāndogya-upaniṣad teaches, ‘He alone is below; He is above; He is behind; He is in front; He is to the south; He is to the north; He alone is all this.’²³⁸ The Śvetāśvatara-upaniṣad points out, ‘You are the woman; You are the man; You are the boy; You are the girl; You are the old man tottering with a stick…You are the black bee; You are the green parrot… You indeed are the seasons and the seas.’²³⁹ The Muṇḍaka-upaniṣad instructs, ‘This world is nothing but Brahman, the highest.’²⁴⁰ The Lord has said in the Bhagavad-gītā, ‘I am the moon…I am the mind…I am intelligence…I am the ocean…I am the lion…I am the wind…I am the shark…I am the letter ‘a’…I am time…I am the spring season…I am gambling…I am effort…I am silence…I am knowledge.’²⁴¹ He has also said, ‘I am fire. I am the act of offering…I am the effect. I am the cause.’”²⁴²

His Holiness then recounted the conversation He had had with a person regarding the objection the latter had about Lord Kṛṣṇa’s statement that Bhagavān takes the form of gastric fire (given under nāma 6).

Continuing, His Holiness said, “In the Śrī-rudra, we have, ‘Salutations to You who stretch the bowstring; Salutations to You who release the arrow; Salutations to You who are the cause of the arrow moving towards the target; Salutations to You who are the cause of the arrow piercing the target.’²⁴³ A bowman’s role ends with pulling the bowstring, taking aim and releasing the arrow. The movement of the arrow to its target is dependent on its velocity, the laws of motion, the wind, the pull of the earth, etc.; all these are the Lord. To penetrate the target, the sharpness of the tip of the arrow, the density of the target and such other factors play a role; all these are the Lord. The crux of all that I have been saying is that according to the scripture, God is everything in the universe and is every law governing its functioning.”

At this point, His Holiness took a sheet of paper and quickly sketched two pictures on it. He pointed to the first and asked the disciple, “What do you see?” The disciple said, “Two faces close to and facing one another, or a wine glass.” “Can you see both together?” He queried. “No,” the disciple replied. His Holiness then asked the disciple to look at the second picture and tell Him what he could see. The disciple responded, “Either a duck with its beak to my left or a rabbit facing right, with its long ears pointing backwards.” “Do you see both together,” He asked. The disciple answered in the negative.

His Holiness continued, “Each of these images is apprehended non-simultaneously in two different ways by a person. If two persons were to see either of the images at the same time, one may apprehend the image in one way and the other in the second way. Likewise, what is apprehended by a person as just the material world may be apprehended by him later, after spiritual discipline, as a manifestation of God; simultaneously too, what a materialist perceives as the material world, is seen by a saint as a manifestation of God.

“He who holds that God is a creator distinct from nature and its laws may have a problem if it be said that the bodies of the animals we see and humans came to their present state through changes over millions of years by the operation of the laws of nature; a true vedāntin would be fine with it. If someone were to say that gradual evolution of animals and humans is wrong, he would be fine with that too. To a vedāntin, a small irregularly shaped stone rolling in the river and becoming a round pebble, the formation of the sun and the earth, the development of a human child from a sperm and egg are all equally attributable to God.

“The scripture does not stop with presenting God as just being in the form of the universe and its laws. It goes further and says that the operation of every law of nature depends on God. The Śvetāśvatara-upaniṣad teaches, ‘He, the basis of the cosmos, is the one who manifests the nature of things (such as the heat of fire) and transforms what is mutable.’²⁴⁴ Thus, He is the universe and its laws; He is the one who gives life to the laws; He is the one who transforms things according to the laws of nature.

“He is, importantly, not only immanent but also transcendent. The materialist may be unwilling to concede this and argue against it but a true vedāntin is not put off by any of this because, to him, the materialist is a

248 94. Śāradā-pīṭha-nāyakaḥ manifestation of God and his temperament is also manifested by God. What is primary to the vedāntin is the essential nature of the Supreme, pure consciousness. It is in this that the universe with its laws appears, like a mirage in a desert or as a snake so misapprehended in a rope. There is, thus, no real cause and effect relationship between the Supreme of the nature of consciousness and the world, unlike between, say, a seed and a tree or say, between energy and the appearance of an electron. The Kaṭha-upaniṣad clearly states, ‘The Self of the nature of consciousness is not born; It does not perish; It did not originate from anything; nothing originated from It.’²⁴⁵ There is, therefore, no way any measurement made on the universe or any understanding of its laws can call into question the scriptural teaching about the true nature of the Supreme Brahman. The Supreme Brahman is decidedly beyond the scope of science. The aim of the Upaniṣads is to make a sādhaka realize his true nature of being Brahman and become liberated. Therefore, all the descriptions of creation in them are only meant to establish that there is nothing whatsoever that is other than the Supreme; the confirmation or falsification of any such description is immaterial.”

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