Continuing the posts on the meanings of the names of Lord Viśṇu
Viśṇu ṣahasranāma means the thousand names of the Lord. Why should we chant the thousand names of the Lord? Is it possible that Lord can have a thousand names? These kinds of questions are answered when we understand who is the Lord.
The Lord is the Giver – the giver of our body-mind-sense complex, the world around us, the universe. The Lord is Ishvara is the one who protects, sustains and who is ever the source of all blessings.
Let us understand, why we call Ishvara as the Giver. We are individuals, placed in this universe, which is in time and space and which is the total. This universe consists of sentient and insentient beings, the forces of nature, the man-made forces, all causes and their effects which includes actions and their results. – Everything here, in this universe is interconnected.
Our body-mind-sense complex is an assembly of many different types of cells and organs which are inter-connected, intelligently put together. Similarly, the world external to the body is also an assembly of different parts, interconnected, intelligently put together.
Look at a simple seed and you can understand the intelligence that blessed it with enough nourishment to bring forth a huge redwood tree. Look at the working of the different organs in your body, and see how they intricately interact with each other to serve the needs of the body as a whole.
Anything can be intelligently put together only when there is knowledge of how to do so. For example, the eye is the organ of sight, that is composed of photo receptor cells, retinal nerve cells, support and structural cells and focusing and colour cells. These have all been intelligently put-together to create the eye.
Knowledge precedes their being put-together. And knowledge must rest in a conscious being.
Whatever is intelligently put-together is what is this universe and there must be a conscious being behind it, who has the necessary knowledge to put it together.
Naturally this knowledge must be all-knowledge, or total knowledge because we are looking at the whole universe.
Thus, this whole universe is GIVEN and it includes our individual body-mind-complex. The various laws of cause and effect that governs this universe is also GIVEN. Individually and totally all that is here is intelligently put-together. And the one who has the prior (prior to the universe’s manifestation) knowledge of this universe is called īśvara, the GIVER of all that is here. Naturally īśvara has total skill to create.
People think that īśvara is sitting somewhere in heaven. But the question is where was īśvara before heaven was created? Heaven is also in time and space, being created. Creation includes time and space and everything that is there in it. īśvara, the creator of this entire universe, which includes time and space, cannot sit in the universe and create.
So somebody replies, ok , then īśvara must be outside the universe and from there He created this universe? However, the concept ‘outside’ is also within space! So īśvara cannot be ‘outside’ space, nor can īśvara be ‘inside’ space and time. Then we can only say that this universe which includes space and time is īśvara.
More on the nature of īśvara, the GIVER, in the next post
