Are Man and God the Same?
Someone asked me recently, a youngster, twenty-year-old boy.
This is a very positive indication – youngsters taking interest in these topics and such queries coming to their mind. It’s a very positive indication.
The question was –
He was reading Bhagawat Gita and a book by Sage of Kanchi together.
In Bhagavad Gita, it is said that God and Man are different and in the book by the Sage of Kanchi it is said that God and Man are the same.
Which is correct, that is the question?
First clarification – In Bhagavad Gita is said that God and Man are different.
I said – it is not Bhagavad Gita, it is someone’s interpretation on Bhagavad Gita that you are referring to.
So if you interpret Bhagavad Gita from an Advaita perspective, it will sound different and if you interpret Bhagavad Gita from a Dvaita perspective it will be different.
Which is valid? Both are valid.
How?
Take a balloon, blow air into it.
Now, you have some air inside the balloon and air outside the balloon also.
Are they the same, are they different?
The air outside itself is inside the balloon, through your lungs the same air only has got into the balloon. So, they are the same.
But the air inside the balloon has limitations – it is limited in volume, it is a few cc, 200 cc, 500 cc. It is limited. The air outside is vast.
The air inside the balloon cannot move freely anymore. It is bound by the balloon. Wherever the balloon goes, the air inside also can go. That’s all.
So, the air inside the balloon has limitations, in terms of volume, in terms of movement.
But is it different from air outside? No, it is the same air.
This is the difference between man and God. The divinity outside without any limitation whatsoever – that is why we call it omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent – that divinity is what we call God.
The same divinity is inside man also, but with limitations. The source of prana, chaitanya, life force inside man – where does it come from? It comes from divinity only.
There is Prana Sukta in Atharva Veda, where the life force inside beings is recognized, accepted, and worshipped as Almighty.
So the answer to the question is:
Are man and God the same? Yes – because the stuff that man is made up of is divine.
Are man and God different? Yes – because man has limitations.
Both are correct.
Scriptures also interpret this in another way.
There is Sun in the sky and its reflection in the water in a pot down below.
The Sun in the sky is the Paramatma and its reflection in the water is Jeevatma or the embodied beings.
You put some mud in this water, the reflection becomes less clear, less sharp. But does it affect the Sun in the sky? No, it doesn’t.
You disturb the water in the pot, you will not be able to see the Sun in it anymore, it breaks into pieces. Does it affect the Sun in the sky? No, it doesn’t.
Remember, these are perceptions of the onlooker.
Reflection is seen by an onlooker. It is his perception.
So, when the mud called ignorance or maya is put into water or the embodied being, the appearance changes. When it is disturbed, the appearance changes.
This is why the onlooker differentiates between God and Man.
It is a matter of perception.
But, when the onlooker realizes that what he sees in the water in the pot is a reflection, which at times gets disturbed, a reflection of the divinity alone, which he earlier thought was a second Sun, then his awareness starts expanding.
Things start to become clearer for him.
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