How do we define the Paramatma?

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how would we define the Paramatma? One of the Yoga texts, Vedanta Sutra, it gives a very universal definition of the absolute truth of the Paramatma is janma dhyasyata that which is the source of everything.
So we see various things exist in this world. Last year we were talking at Cambridge University and a student asked you say that if God created everything who created God? That’s a standard question that comes up naturally. Now this question is actually an incoherent question.
Why? We can ask whether God exists or not but asking who created God is like asking why is the circle circular? A definition of circle is actually circular. So when you talk about God or the absolute truth we shouldn’t start from a depiction. If you think of a particular form, how can this be God? First start with definition.
The definition of God as understood as absolute truth is that absolute truth is the source of everything. So from the point of view of pure logic the source of everything cannot have a source. Isn’t it? The source of everything had a source and that source would be the source of everything.
So where the causal chain stops that is the point where the causal chain stops that is the absolute truth. Now scientific research especially in the field of cosmology has demonstrated quite persuasively that the universe we live in is not eternal. It had a beginning and that beginning point what it is, that’s a matter of speculation because neither time nor space existed so it’s simply a matter of speculation from where it came.
But the point is even science tells us everything came from something. Once we understand the absolute truth as the source of everything we have basically two options. Everything came from something or everything came from nothing.
Now everything coming from nothing is extremely counter intuitive and counter experiential. Intuitively it doesn’t make sense and in our experience we don’t see anything coming from nothing. So it’s far more logical to say that everything came from something.
Now what that something is we cannot know directly but we can logically infer. Now that something exists outside the domain of time. So it’s like if a child reads a novel for the first time and after reading the novel a child comes to know that there is an author.
Child starts looking through the pages of the novel. Where is the author? The author created the storyline, the timeline, the characters, the plot but the author exists outside the novel. So like that God the absolute truth, the Parmatma doesn’t exist in this domain.
It exists in another domain. And what we can know is that if the storyline if the novel is well written we can know okay I can’t know the author directly from this novel but what I can know is the author must be an intelligent person. If the book is well written the author must know the language, English, grammar well.
We can infer certain things about the author. So like that we can look at the world around us and what we see is there is matter in this world and there is consciousness. There is matter, the body is material things around us are material and we ourselves are conscious.
So if the absolute truth is the source of everything then in the absolute truth has to have matter and consciousness both associated with it. And further we all of us are finite whereas the world is huge. So it is not in our capacity to create or control this world.
So therefore the consciousness which is the source of all this must be of far far greater capacity. So by this chain of inference what we can know is that the Parmatma has matter as its energy as a feature and Parmatma has consciousness. Now to know further about this we need to turn to the appropriate sources of knowledge.
The Vedanta Sutra says that we can infer some things about the absolute truth through reasoning but for knowing the absolute truth in person we need an appropriate source of knowledge. That source of knowledge is realization. When our consciousness rises from the material level to the spiritual level then we realize.
Otherwise we can’t know. Say if there are two twins in a mother’s womb and one twin starts saying this is all that there is to the world. Nothing more.
No, no, I believe that there is something wonderful out there and we are going to go there. Who has seen that? It’s all so dark. Outside there is wonderful light over there.
Who has seen that? What is the proof for that? In the womb there is no proof but outside the womb there is a way to go there. Similarly we exist right now in a womb like condition. Our existence is constricted existence right now but outside this there is free existence and those who have realized that free existence have talked about it and written about it in the yoga texts.
So from their writings, from their realizations we can get further knowledge about the absolute truth. At present what we can understand is that absolute truth, the Paramatma is a conscious being, infinite conscious, far greater than us and that matter and spirit is at its energies. That’s what we can infer and to know further we can study the yoga texts.
Does that answer your question? Yes please.