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Gandhi's Questions and Rajchandra's Replies
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deliverance to it.
Q 2. What is God? Is He the creator of the universe?
A. (1) You, I, and other are souls suffering the bondage of karma. The soul's existence in its natural state, that is, in freedom from karma and purely as the atman that it is, is the state of being Ishvar.' That which has the aishvarya of knowledge, etc., may be described as Ishvar. This Ishvarhood is the natural state of the atman, which is not revealed when it is engaged in karmas. When the atman, however, realizes that being engaged in karma is not its real nature and fixes its attention on itself, then alone do omniscience, power, etc., manifest themselves in it and we can see nothing among all the objects in the universe with greater power than the atman's. It is, therefore, my positive belief that Ishvar is another name for atman and does not signify a different Being of greater power.
(2) Ishvar is not the creator of the universe, that is, atoms, space, etc., can be conceived only as imperishable entities and not as created from some other substance. If it is stated that they came into being from Ishvar, that, too, does not seem likely; for, if we believe that Ishvar is a spirit, how can atoms, space, etc.. come into being from Him? For it is impossible that matter can come into existence from that which is spirit. If Ishvar is regarded as material, He will then lose His Ishvarhood; also, a spiritual entity like the soul cannot come into being from such an Ishvar. If we regard Him as being both matter and spirit, that only means that we are pleased to call the world, which is both matter and spirit, by another name, Ishvar. Instead of doing that, it is better to call the world the world. If we hold that atoms, space, etc., are imperishable entities and that Ishvar only awards the fruits of karma, this, too, cannot be proved. Convincing reasons have been given in support of this view in ShatdarshanSamuchchava."
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