Sarvajnatva of Shri Hari-QA

Answers by Shri Kesava Rao Tadipatri (denoted by KT)

1. We say Shri Hari does NOT have even iota of sorrow in Him.

2. We also believe He is "Sarvajna".

3. Tamasa jivas experience sorrow.

Putting above 3 points together, does Shri Hari have "exact knowledge" on how> Tamasa jivas experience sorrow.

If you say YES, how can we say Shri Hari is free from any sorrow.

If you say NO, how can we say He is "sarvajna" when He has no knowledge of the experience of sorrow.

KT: In addition to the points

1. Sri Hari is known thru Agamas and so, the conclusion need be drawn from Agamas only.

2. Sri Hari is beyond any logical reasoning or perceptual aspects

3. Knowledge and experience are two different aspects,

like to draw attention to couple of incidents from the book "Ajayya Vijayindraru", wrt to present topic.

Sri Vijayindraru was known as "sarvakalApArangata (expert in all skills)"

A devadAsi, who claimed that she was an expert in "kAmashAstra", came to the swAmiji and challenges him to conquer her in kAmashAstra or surrender his title as "sarvakalAvetta". The swamiji asked her to come the next day for an answer. Many around there wondered as to how the Swamiji will compete in kAmashAstra with that devadAsi.

There was the silver-rod holding door-keeper(disciple servant) of the Swamiji. The Swamiji gave a floral string and asked that servant, the next day, to stroke the right shoulder of that devadAsi, when she was going to arrive there, with a floral string. When she arrived there and with a haughty smile asked if the Swamiji could compete with her in kAmashastra, the disciple stroked her with that floral string. That itself made her experience an enormous mental excitement, that she found unbearable and she surrendered and accepted the defeat. Thus the swamiji not only demonstrated his full knowledge of kAmashstra, but also was able to give the experience thru his disciple thru a mere floral string without ever indulging in any of that experience. Thus he proved that the knowledge and experience are two different things.

Still this did not convince some skeptics. One such, by name Shivabhatta, went to the swAmiji and questioned him "Swamiji, you are Ajanma Brahmachari. How can you claim victory and how can you claim knowledge in a matter that you did not experience?". The SwAmiji told him that he would get the reply in two days. He summoned a door-keeper, gave him a silver vessel and gave him some instructions.

After couple of days, Shivabhatta came back and asked "Swamiji, will you answer my question today?". The swamiji gave a nodding smile and took him to the back-yard. Various people also accompanied. The swamiji asked some workers there to take the silver vessel out of the feces or excremenet (where he originally asked his door-keeper to place), wash it and bring to him. It had turned red. He asked Shivabhatta as to why the white silver vessel had turned red. He replied that the sour or acidic fluid present in feces, made the vessel red. The swamiji retorted as to how he knew about the sour acidic fluid in there and whether he ever tasted it to know about the sourness. He replied that there is no need to taste the feces. The scientific analysis would reveal that. The Sawmiji told Shivabhatta "We made analysis thru kalAshAstra and conquered that devadAsi. If you can conclude, thru scientific knowledge, that the feces contains sour acidic fluid, without tasting it, is it not possible to conquer the devadAsi thru 'kAmakalAshAstra'? You asked as to how we would conquer her without contacting her. You asked as to how we can have the knowledge of kAmashAstra without experiencing it. That will be similar to having the knowledge of sourness in feces without tasting it."

Thus it was shown irrefutably that it is possible to possess the knowledge without experiencing it.

If that is possible in case of mortals and gods, where is the doubt in the Omniscience of the Lord, without compromising His Omnipotence?

To put it mathematically, 1. Let us say set "A" denotes the set of all sorrowful experiences and/or knowledge of any Tamasa jiva.

KT: It is a notational flaw.

Let A-E denote the set of all sorrowful experiences of T-J (Tamasika jIva),

A-K represent the knowledge of T-J.

The intersection of A-E and A-K represents the knowledge T-J acquired thru experience.

The exclusive elements of A-E represents what T-J experienced and yet did not acquire the knoledge (this can be due to lack of capability, forgetfulness, etc).

The exclusive elements of A-K represents what T-J knows thru other means, without ever experiencing.

2. Let us say set "B" denotes the totality of "knowledge and experiences" of Shri Hari.

KT: Likewise, let B-E and B-K be the corresponding entities for Brahman. B-K encompasses everything. It may seem that A-E is subset of B-E. However even in case of A-E, the Lord's experiences is different from that of Jiva. The Lord experiences as BimbarUpi and the Jiva experiences as pratibimba. Thus no one has even a tiny piece of B-E. The tiny piece of B-E is also ananta (A tiny fraction of infinity is also infinity. In fact there is no possibility to perform any operation on infinity.) Similarly even in case of B-K encompassing everything, even in a tiny matter, no one has the same knowledge as the Lord.

If "A intersection B" is "null" or "void" then set "B" lacks knowledge about sorrowful experiences of Tamasa Jivas.

In light of the above, even if it is null, B-K encompasses everything.

If "A intersection B" is "NOT null" or "NOT void" then set "A" consists of sorrowful experiences.

KT: There is no sorrowful experience for the Lord and so the intersection is null.

Anyway you look, it appears that one entity cannot have both "Sarvajnatva" and at the same time be completely free from sorrow.

KT: In fact, it is quite logical to have both. Won't a sarvajna know how to be free from sorrow?

This analysis should be one of many severe blows for Advaitic thinking. Irrespective of the vyAvahArika and pAramArthika mess that they have, they must show a simple awareness that the Omniscient Lord will not succumb to any upAdhi or any aj~nAna.They claim that He is ensnared as Jiva in this jagat, which is mithyA prapancha.That is impossible. How can an Infinite Being be trapped, left as clueless to escape the sufferings, by virtue of mAya, though He is master of mAya?

1. Sri Hari is known thru Agamas and so, the conclusion need be drawn from Agamas only.

What is wrong in using logic to understand our Agamas correctly?

KT: You chopped off the starting part of my mail -

"In addition to the points "

The purpose of stating that is to indicate that others have made the valid points in those lines(points 1,2 and 3) and that you like to hear the argument using logic and that is what I was going to do to satisfy that quest too.

2. Sri Hari is beyond any logical reasoning or perceptual aspects If that is the case, then nothing can be known about Him. While it is true that one cannot use logic independently to know about Shri Hari, I feel logic and other available tools must be used to understand Him correctly with the aid of shastras.

KT: I did not say that logic should not be used. The purpose of above statement is two-fold

- Logic alone can not describe the Lord completely

- If there is clash between logic and Agama, then you have to make effort to find the loop-hole in your logic. Since Sri Hari is beyond pratyaksha (meaning He can go beyond one's pratyaksha), one must rely on Agama for "final verdict" in such cases.

In fact, it is quite logical to have logic to follow one of the two upajIvya pramanas - Agama and pratyaksha. If they give any wrong info, that is purely due to misinterpretation of Agama or misconception of pratyaksha.The supercorrect information can only arise from flawless interpretation of great Acharyas, having divine grace.

That is why logic is called "anupramANa" (anusR^itya pramIyate) It follows pratyaksha and/or Agama. If not people can state their own positions and tend to prove that black is white, etc.

3. Knowledge and experience are two different aspects,

This argument is valid for limited beings with limited knowledge and limited experience.

KT: Quite contrarily, this argument is more apt for unlimited being. A limited being has the limitation "unless I experience it, how can I know that?".

To put it differently "If a limited being can have the capability to possess knowledge even without experience, can't an unlimited being have such capability?"

Then what to speak of an unlimited being, who in fact gives such capability to others? It is even more inconceivable to think that He gives such capability (to have knowledge without experience) to others, but lacks it Himself.

However, how can in the case of "Sarvajna" there can be any bheda between His experience and His knowledge? if there is, then His knowledge cannot be all encompassing.

KT: Of course, there is no bheda between His experience and His knowledge. In fact there is no bheda between any of His Gunas. At infinity, every thing merges. Because of His infinite knowledge, His experience is of infinite bliss only. Even a sorrowful thing, turns out to be a blissful thing. How? We don't know. If something makes Him sad, being an independent entity, He does not have to do that at all. Thus an absolute independence is absolute joy and is absolute knowledge and is absolute kindness. Just imagine the Mahapralaya is such scary, sad and undesirable thing for us. The Lord does it as Lila. There is no one, who forces Him. If it does not give him joy, He would not even do that. That is why I said "beyond logic", meaning we can not use our own logic in such matters. We have to think of His independence, etc.

In light of above question your statement "Likewise, let B-E and B-K be the corresponding entities for Brahman. B-K encompasses everything. It may seem that A-E is subset of B-E......" does NOT make sense to me still. B-E and B-K must be identical, otherwise there is a problem that either of them cannot be all-encompassing.

KT: B-E and B-K are identical - that by no means indicates that B-E has sorrow in that. For ex, the Mahapralaya is very sorrowful for most of the beings. That does not mean that the Lord feels sorrowful about that. He experiences every thing as bimba rUpi and that is expression of Joy only.

Remember one thing - every action one does in this universe comes under one of the five following -

1. One does for getting joy

2. One does for getting rid of sorrow

3. One does as an expression of joy

4. One does as an expression of sorrow

5. One does aimlessly (udasIna karma)

Given that the Lord is infinitely blissful, He does not have to do anything to get joy or to get rid of sorrow(which He does not have). Since He does not have sorrow, 4 also does not apply. Being a perfect being, 5 also does not apply to Him. Thus all His actions come under 3 only. If some school claims that He experiences sorrow, then the question is "How can One that is personification of bliss experience sorrow?"

The story of Sri Vijayindraru is a valid example for limited beings where there is bheda between one's knowledge and experience. One can have information that feces tastes sour, but the experience of sourness of feces is different from mere information that feces tastes sour.

KT: You are missing a very important thing. Let us make 4 broad categories -

1. Ordinary beings, who are not even paroksha jnAnis

2. The paroksha jnAnis

3. The aparoksha jnanis

4. The unlimited Lord

There are several sublayers in 1, 2 and 3.

While, Sri Vijayindraru himself belongs to 3, he is addressing the capabilities of category 1 people to make them understand that there is no need for experience to have knowledge. Do you mean to say that in such capability, category 2 will be worse of than 1? Category 3 will be worse of than 2? Such capability will be exponentially increasing from 1 to 4 only.

However, in my opinion, there cannot be any bheda in case of "Sarvajna" in terms of His experience and knowledge. His knowledge must penetrate the depths of object of knowledge to inconceivable levels.

KT: Surely, there is no bheda between His experience and knowledge. How can that mean that He experiences sorrow. You are trying to judge God's experience from the point of view of your experience.That is not right.

In light of above understanding, how can one say "Sarvajna" does NOT have even an iota of sorrow.

KT: The above understanding certainly indicates that sarvajna does not have an iota of sorrowful experience, as sarvajnatva implies independence and an independent one never ends up in a sorrowful situation, He being in charge.