Why Did God Create the World? Part 3

Why Did God Create the World?

Part 3

We see that every answer produces counter questions. This is because we already have a certain concept of God as a person, sitting somewhere and creating the world. Thus we land up questioning and justifying our own notions.

Now let us give up all our preconceived notions, prejudices, likes and dislikes and enter into the discussion with an open and attentive mind. Let us think logically (yukti), supported by valid means of knowledge (shruti) and our own experience (anubhuti). Let us not take things for granted and build our logic on false basis. This way we will try to understand the essence of the question.

We will first try to understand, what is the world and who is God? We will then see why He created the world.

Vedanta has a knack of classifying everything into the minimum categories. Elaborate explanations are abridged into aphorisms (sutras) of few words. Infinite varieties are reduced into a few groups. Let us classify the world into minimum components.

The world consists of innumerable human beings, animals, plants, insects trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, sun, moon, stars, wind, cities, villages etc. etc. These are all names given to forms with qualities. Names are given to forms, and forms are recognized by names. All three (names, forms and qualities) are interdependent. The world is therefore names (nam), forms (rupa), and qualities (guna). That which existed before creation, must therefore logically be nameless (anam), formless (arupa), and quality-less (aguna). That entity is called God in religion and Truth in philosophy. God is therefore neither a man nor a woman. Any name, form or quality attributed to God must be part of creation and not that which existed before creation.

Also, the world consists of innumerable objects. Now let us think if time and space are part of creation or apart from it. It is clear that they too are a part of creation. Objects cannot exist without time and space, nor time without space and objects, nor space without objects and time. Time, space, and objects are interdependent. Time (kala), space (desha) and objects (vastu) is creation. Therefore that which existed before creation must be timeless(akala), spaceless(adesha) and objectless(avastu).

Also something cannot come out of nothing. The world cannot come out of a void (shunya). Hence something has to exist before creation. That something we have seen should be formless, nameless, quality-less, timeless, space-less and objectless. It is therefore of the nature of Pure Being, or Existence, and One without a second (advaita).

Om Namah Shivay