Gospel | Chapter 6: Oct 28, 1882 (Part 5) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

He takes the question of what is the ultimate reality? And then what is God? What are we? So ultimate reality is one unbroken existence consciousness.

Let's just think of it.

He says, think of it as an ocean.

Then what is God? He says in that ocean, due to the he says the intense cold generated by the the focused devotion of the devotee the water freezes into various forms so you have the different conceptions of god some with forms some without form but they are all god but conceptions of personal god so Even the idea of a God without form, the wanted idea of a formless one, the monotheistic God of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, is all included within the personal God.

One type of personal God is saguna brahman, nirakara, formless with qualities, which is worshipped by Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus also.

Another aspect is the same, ,, God with qualities, with form, from which comes the entire technology of depicting God in various forms, and then symbols, and images, and so on.

And all of them are .

God without form is not the Nirguna Brahman of ,, that is far deeper and far more profound, because You say, why not? Nirakara, isn't that what Advaitins talk about? No, no, no, not at all.

The Advaitin, the absolute of the Advaitin is your own reality.

Tat tvam asi, that thou art.

There you can honestly say, Aham Brahmasmi.

For the Nirakara Saguna Brahman of the Abrahamic religions or in Hinduism or the Brahmos, for example, you can never say, I am that.

That's a personal God.

It's a God to whom you are praying.

So these are different conceptions.

In the religions which, the other religions, apart from Advaita Vedanta, other religions, they stop at a personal God.

They may have issues of God with form, without form, God, what are the qualities of God, what relationship we should have with God, but they are all dualistic.

And they are all based on bhakti.

There's no other way.

If you accept God, and in a dualistic sense, there's a God really of this universe, a real universe he has created, and we are tiny creatures in this universe, and that's it.

It's not an appearance.

That's the end of it.

That's the final truth.

Then in that case, we as tiny creatures will have a relationship of devotion to God.

There's no other way.