The Almight, Gods and We, the Human Beings

1

The Almight, Gods and We, the Human beings

Original Book entitled "Paramatma Devullu Manamu" was written in Telugu by:
His Holiness Sri Sri Sri Tridandi Sriman Narayana Rangaramanuja Jeeyar Swami Ji, Kakinada
This book is a translation into English by:

Srimaan S. S. Charyulu, Moulali, Secunderabad

and

Srimaan S.K.V. Ramacharyulu, Delhi.

Table of Contents

The Almight, Gods and We, the Human beings

Foreword

An appeal

Chapter - 1

Chapter - 2

Chapter - 3

Chapter - 4

Chapter - 5

Chapter - 6

Chapter - 7

Chapter - 8

Chapter - 9

Chapter - 10

Chapter - 11

Chapter - 12

Chapter - 13

Chapter - 14

Chapter - 15

Foreword

There are many religions andDars’anasin the world. Though on the first sight, the object of all of them looks to be the same, differences do exist.

The various practices are formulated according to the objectives to be achieved. The practices of different religions are different only due to this reason.

Practicing a particular religion but looking for the objective of another religion is like growing a coconut tree with the desire of obtaining mangoes.

The intelligence of those following all the religions is similar to the intelligence of those, who grow and tend the trees considering that the fruits from all the trees will be mangoes only.

The stupidity of those who hate the other religions andDars’anasis similar to the stupidity of those, who consider all the other trees to be of lesser importance because he likes mango.

The wisdom of a person, who looks out in other religions for the characteristics that are not to his liking, is like the wisdom of the person, who goes on talking about the bad qualities in the other fruits only to confirm the greatness of the mango fruit, that is liked most by him.

With this background behind, the religions andDars’anaswhich come into contact with us in our day to day life the are being introduced in this book.

This is only a compendium and not an independent writing.

The details of different religions andDars’anascollected from different books are provided in this book. However, the metaphysics orTattva S’aastrabeing an ocean there may be many more details. Not only that, there may be some deficiencies as well. They stand to be corrected if the enlightened readers can provide us the necessary authenticities.

The readers are earnestly requested to provide a feedback on how far we had succeeded in our efforts in bringing to light the different aspects of the religions andDars’anasthrough fictional characters and story telling techniques.

The basic characteristics of the religions and theDars’anaswere brought through the talks of some of the characters in the form of a novel and the opinions of the persons belonging to other religions andDars’anaswere made known through the other characters. Depending on the type of the characters voicing these opinions and statements, the narratives have been prepared with rhetoric, seriousness, innocence, humour or other types of expressions. The readers are requested to note this and not to get misled in believing this either as a praise or criticism of those religions andDars’anas.

This is philosophy. It is a very tough subject. It is natural that in spite of the best of efforts in making it simple to understand, it may still appear to be difficult to understand. It is our earnest opinion that if this book is studied two or three times, it will be quite useful.

- The Editors.

An appeal

Some argue that the philosophical or spiritual thinking has become more now compared to previous times and say that the increase in number of the temples and the increased number of people yearning for visiting the Almighty are indications of this phenomenon.

Some others discount this line of thinking saying that these changes are due to the increase in population and it need not be construed that the percentage of people with philosophical thinking has gone up.

Still some others are of the view that these people are simply those doing these acts with specific objective of enriching themselves with the resultant materialistic benefits only and this need not be taken as spiritual thinking.

But some do confirm that this is definitely an indication of the increased spiritual thinking and activity by giving the strong illustrations of increased number of new Ashrams in every village and town and the manifold increase in the number ofMatajisandSwamijis.

Whatever it may be, it has been accepted in the past and has to be accepted presently also that there exists in an invisible form (beyond the capability to be picked up by the sense organs) something which is much more powerful than us, and the number of persons who think that they should receive the blessings from that invisible super power. The opinions and views of different persons who have been analysing, thinking and searching ‘what that immortal power could be’ at different times have become the different religions and differentDars’anas.

Though the academics agree in common that the religion is the one which is practiced mainly on faith and the oneDars’anato be that is accepted being highly logical, the logicality and bound by reasoning added to the religions in the subsequent times, and the increased faith in theDars’anakaaraof his followers have made these two words viz., religion andDars’anato be used as synonyms in the common usage. It is seen subsequently the word ‘religion’ only being used mostly in all the occasions to indicate both religion and theDars’ana.

The number of persons, who consider that all the religions are the same, is also quite substantial in the population of spiritual thinking. They, who say so, keeping the highly principled view that they should not offend others and should be tolerant of the other religions, need to be respected. Those having views of “Any religion will preach universal welfare (of all the beings in the universe) through the basic directives like ‘talk only the truth, conduct yourself according to the prescribed code of conduct’ etc. Hence, all the religions are same” are more respectable.

But it must be said that the thinking of those, who consider all the religions to be same because the end result is same in all the cases irrespective of the religion being practiced, is faulty and brings misfortune for themselves as well as their followers.

Though the objective of all religions appears to be the same in a broader sense, the angles at which the objective is viewed by different schools of religions are different. If it were not so, there would be no necessity of so many religions!The different political parties that announce their objective to be the development of the country only, have different views on the development. It will be the industrialization for one party while it will be improved agriculture for another. The plans for the development – the objective, are made keeping such views of the development only.

Hence,it is imperative on the part of everybody that one should correct oneselfafter analysing different aspects and eliciting answers for different questions like, ‘what is our objective?’, ‘which religion makes it known to us?’, ‘what is the practice according to that?’, ‘is it proper?’, ‘is it practicable for me?’, ‘is the practice being followed by me till now not different than this?’, ‘the objective of this religion does not seem to match that which I was having it in my mind!’, ‘should I change my thinking?’, ‘should my practice change?’, ‘the goal and the practice I follow are matching till now, what should I do next?’ etc. Then only achieving the goal is possible.

Due to the changes incorporated in the educational systems, many have lost while they are still young, the opportunity to know about the religions and their practices. Some more neglect was there in the case of those seeking the materialistic benefits through the education because of absence of the physical benefits from the teachings about the religions etc. In addition to this, due to a combination of social and political reasons,the clarity of ‘which practice is of which religion’ also vanished gradually in the majority of the spiritual seekers.

Time of 1,2 months and some effort will go waste for a farmer, who did the sincere farming after sowing defective seeds thinking that they are genuine. A period of some years and some effort go waste for a head of a family, who does not know the difference between a male and female offspring of the cow and tends to a male calf with the desire of having milk from that animal. A traveler, without defining his destination, will not reap any benefit even if he travels for decades, except that he will be tired of the travel. Buta whole life time is wasted for a spiritual seeker, who does not know what he wants; for a spiritual seeker, who is unable to distinguish the difference between the practice that takes him through to the goal he is looking for and the practice that runs opposite that goal’s achievement; for the spiritual seeker, who sincerely tries to reach his goal unaware that he had been misled in the knowledge of the practice that will lead him to his goal. Hence, everybody must be having at least the minimum knowledge of the well-known religions in his surroundings and their practices.

When it is becoming increasingly difficult to know even the full picture of a particular religion or Dars’ana, it is indeed very difficult for the ordinary seeker, to correct oneself after examining the whole lot of literature of religions and theDars’anasand coming to a conclusion.S’ri Maadhava Vidyaaranya, the head pontiff of theS’ringeri Mathof 14th century, had authored a treatise in concise of the main features of all the religions that were in vogue during his time so that the spiritual seekers can have an easy information through one single book. Since then, many learned scholars had attempted the same even till today. A number of persons including me had intentions since long to take part in that great exercise, it has become possible now, out of Almighty’s grace, in this subject to have favourable circumstances.As a result, this small book-let called “Almighty, Gods and We, the Human Beings” is finding its place in the august hands of the seekers.

Except for one or two situations in which the descriptions that do not belong to any particular religion, except for the contexts in which subjects of all the religions have been described, and for the creation of the various characters during the process of narration in the book,this book is not an independent writing. Own views do not find place in this. This book has taken its shape in a question-answer form with fictitious characters, and as a fiction purely out of the desire to have good readability. This book is a compendium of the subjects specially picked up from the views expressed by well-known persons, from the various workshops of discussion on spiritual subjects, from the critical appraisals of the original works of the prophets andDars’anakaarasand finally from the various commentaries of these books.

No effort has been made to highlight the good qualities or deficiencies of any particular religion orDars’ana, in this book and they have been presented without any bias. The people of the present day society has been broadly divided in to 5, 6 categories and each character has been created to represent each of these categories. All the topics that are worthy of being told were narrated through these characters.Readers are requested not to attribute any bias to us from the style of their talking. Sincere regrets are being expressed to all those readers who may feel offended or get angry because of the mention of deficiencies that are not expected or can not be accepted by them in the religion which is most beloved to them. The authors and editors can be unbiased but they cannot take the responsibility for ensuring unbiased thinking of the readers!

It was initially thought that the mention of some religions or schools having highly reproachable practices be eliminated or make that beyond the scope of this book. But keeping in view that the readers should not be deceived in the subject of information and knowledge, they have been added. These despicable religions or schools with highly reproachable practices have also been covered with this further thought that the spiritual seeker should be made aware of the likely onslaught of some seemingly good looking but intrinsically dangerous religions among the various mushrooming new cults of today.

The famousDars’anasand religions with highly elaborate, difficult to understand, and tough doctrines and tenets, have been extensively dealt with and the others were deliberated in varying degrees of extensiveness according to the varying toughness in them. The ones, which were explained earlier already, were ended very briefly within one or two sentences. Since the book is compiled, mainly to be used as a primer by the seekers, no special efforts are made to discuss any particular religion orDars’anain depth. The primary objective of this work is to give only the minimum understanding on the subject to the reader and hence the reader has to go through the literature on the religion of his interest separately further.

Considering the majority of the readers of today, who are and were educated in English medium and thus are severely impaired of reading in Telugu language, considering the difficulty experienced by them when the technical words are not eliminated and also for the benefit of the average readers, the difficult topics are explained again and again. To ensure the reader does not loose interest to read the book, usual story narrating techniques are used. For ensuring the natural conversational style, the colloquial, idiomatic and simple language, has been used. Because of these, the scholars well versed in theDars’anasmay find the book to be devoid of the necessary texture for the philosophical treatises. Though one had not got the traditional education in theDars’anas, being highly qualified, academics may also find the book to be having repetitions and the same topic being dealt with at more than one place also. Not only that. In the effort to eliminate the usage of technical terms, certain usages are made and though it is known that this might have resulted in the distortion of the original meaning of the particular term, keeping the larger interests, this has been done and this may be pardoned.

The philosophy seeker having a strong desire to know the subject, will acquire the necessary literary skills and the skill to understand the technical words, on his own before proceeding on the study of the philosophical works. But for a person who does not do so and for those who are unable to do so, the grandeur of the best books need not be sacrificed according to some. Our appeal to them is that we also can think on the same lines, should the Almighty consider that there is no necessity for Him to descend to earth in the form of His incarnations in the holy places likeSrirangametc and in our homes to accept our worships, with the thinking that when the highly mobilizedJeeva– the soul, desirous of serving Him, shall acquire the necessary qualifications himself and then only approache Him since it is below His greatness to descend Himself in the form of incarnations on to this earth that is polluted by theRajasandTamo-Gunas.

Propounder every of religion, and everyDars’anakaara, belong to the class of an exclusive intelligentsia. They are endowed with limitless knowledge. EveryDars’anaalso is an ocean of knowledge. Even the highly qualified academics agree that it is highly an impossible task to talk about the exact central concept of theDars’anakaaraor the propounder of the religion in spite of his thorough study of theDars’anaor the religion. Under such circumstances, attempting to provide the entire philosophical science that is the comprehensive science encompassing all theDars’anas, though briefly, is fraught with extreme courage. We will be grateful to the learned scholars if they could excuse this highly dangerous attempt and point out the defects arising out ofBhrama– the misconception andPramaada– by accident, without any hesitation. Such mistakes will be corrected in the next print.

As every parent knows that the child has to chew and gulp the balls of food that is prepared ready to chew and gulp with all the side dishes like curries, chutneys, and other required materials, so also, all the writers and publishers know that in spite of all the efforts in bringing out in an easy to understand method, to suit the average reader, their effort is successful only when the reader fulfils his responsibility of reading the book once or twice or more with the necessary dedication and interest.

It is our earnest desire that this book will serve as a tool for retrospection for those who are already through with the philosophical studies, will be a guiding aid for those who have started the studies, one that gives an overview with a comprehensive understanding for those who intend to study the philosophy, and finally create an interest in those who have not shown any interest so far. We feel that a doubt may arise if this book is an experiment in the philosophical literature. It is not well known if a book like this is available in the philosophical literature in the form of fiction.