Divinity

 

Q18: Swami!  When the same divinity is present in everyone, why should differences exist?  Divinity being the same, why are we so different from each other?

Bhagawan: Ekamevadviti yam brahma, "God is one without a second", says the scripture.  Then how do we account for the variety, diversity, differences and so on?  A small example to understand this.  Power supply being the same, don't you find the difference in the voltage of the bulbs that illumine?  A bulb with a low voltage gives you light of low intensity and a bulb with a high voltage illumines more brightly.  Don't they?  But at the same time, electricity is one and the same.  Bulbs are different in their voltage and this determines the intensity of light.  Similarly, our bodies are like those bulbs with the inner current of the same Divinity.

Swami!  You said that divinity is in everyone.  Then before we were born where had it been?  Does divinity exist even after our death?

The Divine exists.  Divinity is imperishable, pure and unsullied.  It has neither birth nor death.  It is eternal and stable.  It is beyond time and space.  Divinity transcends all physical laws.

Now, your question is: where did divinity exist prior to your birth and where will it be after your death, while it is in you during this lifetime?  You see, there is an electrical wire on the wall, and also holders here and there to which bulbs are fixed.  You get light only if a bulb is fixed to a holder and not otherwise.  Why?  The current passes through the wire that enters the bulbs fixed to the holder.  If you hold the bulb in your hand, it does not illumine, as there is no power supply.  What you have to understand is this.  The current has not been newly produced to get into the bulb.  It was already there in the wire.  If you remove the bulb, what will happen to the current?  It will be there in the wire only.  The only difference is that you will not experience its presence as illumination.  Similarly, the bulb is the body, the current of divinity persists hidden or latent, so much so divinity has all along been there before you were born, during your lifetime and will even be there after your death like the current of electricity.

(From "Satyopanisad" Vol. 1 by Prof. K. Anil Kumar)