Metaphors in Spiritual Preaching Except God, all are imaginable items and hence there is no way other than to choose an imaginable item as a comparison for the unimaginable God. We take an unperceivable item or an item, which can be imagined with a lot of difficulty as a comparison for the really unimaginable God. Awareness is an item of the world, which can be imagined with a lot of difficulty and hence is selected as the best comparison for the unimaginable God. Unfortunately, the concept of comparison has been lost and awareness itself is [mistakenly] thought to be God directly. One day the electricity in the wire compared to God by Me may also become God! Another reason for such misunderstanding is the metaphor, which is a figure of speech like a simile. The simile reminds one constantly that God and awareness are different items. But the metaphor easily misleads ignorant people into thinking that awareness is God. Only scholars can recognize the metaphor carefully. If you say that a person is like a lion, it is a simile. The word “like” acts as the torchlight to constantly separate the person and the lion. In a metaphor, we say, “The person is a lion”. This misleads ignorant people into thinking that the person is actually a lion and they think that every lion (person) of the “Lions club” (a club of important persons who serve the society) is actually a lion, which will kill people! The Veda is the greatest poetry of the greatest poet—God (Kavim Kavinam—Veda). Advaita scholars are also great scholars of all the Shastras and they know this figure of speech very well. Alankara Shastra deals with figures of speech. They know the truth very well. But they are already so intensely attracted by the concept that the soul itself is God, that they cannot come out of this sweetest dream in which they get the highest without the least effort! The dreamer knows that it is only dream but the sweetness is so much that he does not want to come out of it. A scientist is relatively better than this Advaita scholar, who is caught by the powerful ghost of Mohini, because the scientist thinks of himself as an ordinary soul and not as God. You may say that the scientist denies God, which is the greatest sin. I agree to it, but if you analyze, even the Advaita scholar is also an indirect atheist. He is denying God apart from himself, which also means an indirect negation of God. After the establishment of a simile, the metaphor is used further in all contexts. A great person is compared to a lion and once this simile is established, the metaphor is used further and every important person is called as a lion. Thus, the lions of the Lion’s Club mean important persons and not actual cruel animals (wild lions). Similarly, it is established that God is compared to the soul and the universe is compared to the human body. Therefore, the word soul can stand for God as the word lion stands for the important person. Hence, in the Veda the word Atman (soul) is used to mean God in some places. It does not mean that the word soul stands for the actual soul, just like the word lion in the Lion’s Club does not stand for an actual lion. At least in the first case the great person and the lion are both imaginable items and we can use the word ‘great person’ without lion. But in the second case, God is unimaginable and always needs an imaginable item for comparison. This problem becomes more significant when God comes in the form of a soul (human incarnation) where the word soul has to be used as the external cover (Upadhi) to indicate the direct address of God. Written by His Holiness Shri Datta Swami website address: universal-spirituality.org e-mail address: [email protected] Jai Guru Datta
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 14:30:00 +0000
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