No word can indicate God

No word can indicate God

Several statements of Veda clearly speak that God is completely unimaginable under any circumstances. Silence can only indicate God. Silence means that no word can be used to indicate God. In the creation every imaginable item has the specific name, which cannot be used for any other imaginable item. For example the word pot means only a particular object. The word cloth means another particular object. You cannot use one word for any other object. But God can enter any item of the creation. Therefore, the name of every item can be used to indicate God because there is no specific word for God, who is not at all a specific object. Even if God does not enter an item, the name of that item can be used to indicate God, because you are keeping that item as the representative of God. For example God never enters the inert planet like sun. But still Sun can represent God due to some similarities. God removes ignorance. Sun removes darkness. The lotus buds are opened by sun. The ignorant intelligence is also enlightened by God. Therefore, sun can represent God to some extent. Therefore, the word “sun” can also represent God.

Thus, in one extreme end no word can indicate God (Yato vachah-Veda). At another extreme end, the name of any item into which either God can enter or any item, which can represent God, can indicate God. All the prayers of God by thousand names (Shasra Nama) indicate God. When a word indicates God, it is the name of medium into which either God entered or which stands as representative God. This means you can experience God through a specific medium when God enters it. Alternatively you can also imagine the experience of existence of God through a representative item like sun. You can experience the existence of God through Lord Krishna because God entered and exists in the human body of Krishna. In case of sun you can imagine the existence of God through the properties of the sun. Thus, there is difference between the worship of human incarnation and worship of the representative item like sun, statue etc.

Veda says that you can worship sun as God, which means that sun is not directly God (Adityam Brahmaiti…Veda). There is difference between the direct worship of king and indirect worship of his photo. In both cases the king is pleased. But in the direct worship the king is extremely pleased because every bit of your service is experienced by king directly. When God enters the human body, God has not become the human body. God is in the human body. Therefore, the human body is not God. You can only experience God through human body. Therefore, by seeing the human body you have not seen God, but you have only experienced God through that human body. Therefore, God is invisible. Of course, a devotee can be satisfied by treating the human body as God and can feel satisfied that he has seen God. From this angle Veda says, “A blessed fellow has seen God” (Kaschit Dhirah…..).

 

Yet another bone to pick here.

"therefore, the human body is not God"

It IS God, just not in totality. There is nothing that God is not. God is the clay from which creation is made.



x

 

God is LOVE.

 

"no word can indicate God'

Not even the word God? Unless we have a word or words, there is no way we can even talk about God.

And if the word 'God' doesn't indicate God, then why have it as a word at all?

Of course, having a word 'God' and knowing what that word represents are quite different matters.
Same with words like 'hermenuetics' - one may have no idea what hermenuetics is, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or that the word should be expunged from the language. Rather it indicates that some process is needed, in this case looking in a dictionary, to discover what it does mean.
With God, the process of filling in the blank may be far more complex than simply looking it up, but the same principle applies.

Some say that by repitition of the names of God such as 'Krishna' one can come to have realization. This is becase His names have a special innate vibration and power not present in ordinary words. So to say the name has no value or power is avidya.

 

I am talking about the absolute GOd, who is unimaginable. But such God comes into this world in human form by entering the most suitable soul on this world (Son of God). Then such human incarnation (or mediated God) is known by name.

 

God is unimaginable because God, the generator of space, is beyond the space. The intelligence can never go beyond the space.

Veda says that God is the cause of space (Atmaana Aakaashah….). Cause can be seen in its original form, only when its effect is destroyed. The lump of mud can be visualized only when the pot is destroyed. Hence, to understand the original God, the space must be destroyed. When the space is destroyed and does not exist, the situation is unimaginable, in spite of your intensive imagination even for hundred years. Since, your intelligence cannot cross the space, God, who is beyond space can never be imagined by human intelligence. This is the reason for God being unimaginable.


But such God comes in human form to give His presence to us. Thus mediated God is available to us for seeing, touching, conversing and clearing the doubts. HE comes in every human generation to preach and uplift the human souls. Thus God is now available to us, the same unimaginable God mediated to give us an opportunity to come to Him.

 

Krishna as He actually exists is wholly un-imaginable I can assure you.

What your doing here is something actually quite strange. You're saying no word can indicate God, then using the word 'God' according to your own understanding to indicate that God is un-imaginable.

If you were to say that knowing the word 'God' doesn't imply actual knowledge of God I'd have no problem.

 

Exactly, by God you are known anything of God, because God is unimaginable!!

 

Why God is keeping the unimaginable state

God is coming to the earth in human form from the beginning itself. He is preaching the atheists, He also shows miracles, then why this unimaginable state of God? If you know everything about God, after some time the value on God will decrease. Suppose a subject is not understood, you will have some difficulty regarding that subject, but if it is understood then you will have light view on that subject. Therefore God maintains His unimaginable state, so as to save human beings from Ego. For such divine purpose only He is keeping the unimaginable state.

God knows about Himself this statement is not with respect to human beings. Who is the knower of God? God alone. No body can know Him. The meaning of these scriptures is; nobody other than God can know Him. When He comes in human form and perform Miracles, nobody can understand those miracles. But the miracle is under His control only. So God exists, but we do not know His existence, that is all.

 

The problem is that Krishna's devotees don't accept that His form was a human form as we understand the term.
Krishna is different from us because His Form, His Svarupa, is the same as He Himself.
In the case of the human being, this is not so. The body/life/mind are a vehicle for the true Self, the Jiva, or soul, which in turn is a fragmentary part of God.

The original spiritual form of Sri Krishna is completely beyond the human imagination. Even those who were close to Him as friends often regarded Him as an ordinary human being, as in the case of Arjuna, who was so shocked when Krishna revealed to him just a little bit of His real form.
Similarly, in the case of Ma Yashoda, when she looked into Krishna's mouth and saw the entire cosmic manifestation situated within His body.

In short, it only appears that He were manifesting as an ordinary human being.

 

I think if you read the scriptures you'll find the idea that God can indeed be known. Not by logic, not by thought,not by imagination, but through spiritual sadhana.

It would be tedious to post here examples from the scriptures unless you absolutely insist. And I'n not sure if it's allowed in the Christianity forum, as Bible quotes are banned, perhaps quotes from other scriptures are too.

 

God is a word for God. It indicates whatever God is. It does not have to encapsulate the very essence of what God is in its written and audible substance like some mythical pre-Adamite language, anymore than "red" or "vulva" or "ginseng" do. They're just labels for larger things.

 

True enough, but 'red' 'vulva' 'ginseng' are definite items of sense perception, but not 'God'.

 

How so? Do you think we know more about any of those things than we do about God? How many of us have seen any more than a shadow, a projection of the vast complexity of the essence of a vulva?


I promise I'm not being glib here. The argument that's being made, about God's unknowability, is applicable to just about anything.

 

Maybe so, but for the practical purposes of language we assume when we say 'cow' we mean a 4 legged thing that says 'mooo'.
But the difference is that in the space filled by this 4 legged thing, is a definite tangible something which appears to be different from, or even partially independent of other surrounding somethings.
Same with qualities like 'red' - we use the term to differentiate it from our perception of other tonal qualities.
But 'God', unless one has experience of God, or some idea as to what God might be, is not such a definite something.

 

Interesting given your understanding of how we define colours; in what way do we not define God the way we define anything else, by virtue of what it's not, rather than what it is? We define God as not human, not mortal, not of this world... the fact of what something is is a TINY part of what we use to define it. I am male because I am not female, I am alive because I am not dead or unliving... See what I mean?

 

I see yes. But with a colour there's a definite sensory input - to which later on we learned to attach the word 'red'. With 'God' there's generally no such sensory input which corresponds with the word.

 

What God are you speaking of? There are many Gods

 

Maybe. God has more in common with "The virtual" then; things like money, power, meaning, etc., that exist by virtue of mutual belief and maintain that existence by virtue of the "evidence" of their effect on the world. Money isn't tangible (not to be confused with cash, or coins, which are) but we know it's real because, even if we stop believing in it, we are still affected by it.

 

Exactly. They think that Krishna will again come as in the same body which He had come earlier. But how foolish is this! No body in fact has seen Krishna when He came then how they will indenfify Him.

Lord comes in every human generation to preach and uplift the human souls. He is impartial and comes in every generation