SATYARTH PRAKASH - THE LIGHT OF TRUTH

Weekly Sermon by Acharya Vedshrami, Resident Priest, Greater Atlanta Vedic Temple

English Translation by Raj Bhalla, PhD

Question: In Emancipation, is the soul absorbed into God or does it retain its individuality?

Answer: It retains its separate individuality, because should it get absorbed into the Divine Spirit, who would then enjoy the bliss of Emancipation. Besides, all the hardships born, all the efforts made and all the means employed to obtain Emancipation would become useless. Absorption of the soul into the Divine Spirit is not Emancipation but its death or annihilation.

The soul gets emancipation only when it obeys the injunctions of God, does virtuous action, keeps good company and practices Yoga.

Taittiriya Upnishad, Anandavalli I, 1 says:

When the soul realizes within itself the existence of that Great God who is truth, knowledge and infiniteness, then being in communion with that boundless knowledge Brahma, it attains all its desires, i.e. it gets whatever happiness it desires. This is salvation.

Question: When the soul cannot enjoy worldly happiness without a body, how could it then enjoy the bliss of Emancipation without a physical body?

Answer: We have already thrown light on this question. We say a little more now, the soul enjoys the bliss of emancipation through God in the same way as it enjoys the worldly pleasures through the body. The emancipated soul roams about in the Infinite all-pervading God as it desires, sees all nature through the purity of its knowledge (sees everything even though without the presence of physical eyes, through its संकल्प शक्ति), meets other emancipated souls, sees all the laws, of nature in operation, goes about in all the worlds visible and invisible, sees all objects that it comes across, the more its knowledge increases the happier it feels.

Being altogether pure, the soul acquires perfect knowledge of all hidden things in the state of Emancipation. This extreme bliss alone is called Heaven (swarga, स्वर्ग = स्वः + ग = happiness + to obtain) while pursuit of worldly desires and consequently pain and suffering are called Hell (naraka). Swarga literally means place where it obtains happiness. The ordinary happiness is called worldly happiness. While the extreme happiness born of the realization of God is called Extraordinary happiness or Heaven (Swarga).

All souls naturally desire to obtain happiness and escape from pain and misery. But as long as they do not practice righteousness and renounce sin, they cannot obtain happiness and be freed from pain and suffering; because the effect cannot perish as long as the cause exists. It is said "All pain and suffering cease as soon as sin is destroyed just as a tree perishes when its root is cut away."