Spinoza and Vedantic Conceptions of God
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Chapters
Comparing Spinoza and Vedic philosophy
Uh, Spinoza. Spinoza says that the infinite God must possess infinite attributes. He's saying that God, being the basis of all existence, cannot be described in a material way.
He is a pantheist in the sense that he believes in the one substance.
However, he believes that God has infinite divine attributes, and only two of these attributes fall within the realm of human experience, and these are thought and extension, or mind and matter.
So far as God is concerned, undoubtedly, he is unlimited and his qualities are unlimited. One of the most important qualities is called bhakta-vatsala. He's very much adhered to his devotee, bhakta- vatsala.
So he has unlimited devotees and unlimited dealings with them. Therefore, he is unlimitedly expanded. That is pantheism. But it does not mean because it is unlimitedly expanded, his personality is lost.
His person, his personality, even though he is unlimitedly expanded, uh, that is the Vedic lakṣaṇa: «pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate». He is complete.
And if another complete form expands from him, he still, he remains complete. He is not lost. The material conception is if one unit, if something is taken from it, then it becomes less of that thing.
But God is so complete that even with God taken from him unlimitedly, he still remains unit. That is, at least I think they are impersonalists. Yes, Spinoza is impersonal.
He asserts that God cannot be a remote cause of the creation. He says that the creation flows from God in the same way that conclusions flow from principles in mathematics.
God is free to create, but he is the immanent cause. That is to say, the creation is an extension of himself.
Divine energy and material creation
That is, he creates by his energy. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā it is telling: «bhūmir āpo ’nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca / ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā.
These eight kinds of material elements — earth, water, air, fire, sky, mind, intelligence and ego. They are material energies, and this material world is made of these material elements.
So because it is made of God's energy, therefore it is called created by God. But this is a creation of His energy. Prakṛti, pradhāna, upādāna. The ingredients are coming from Him. And prakṛti, nature, creates.
This is the idea of creation. So God is a remote cause and an immanent cause also. Because these elements, they are God's energy. So the immanent cause is the energy.
Such for it is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā: mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ. By Me, everything is expanded. So when He says "by Me", then He is the immanent cause. There are two causes: remote and immanent. Yes.
So both, He is remote and immanent. Both remote and immanent. Yes. He says that each soul coincides with its body. That is to say, the soul acquires a body befitting it. A soul acquires a body befitting it.
The soul can progress beyond bodies to come to know spiritual spiritual truths by turning toward God rather than the material world. Or as Spinoza would put it, by turning toward God's extensions.
He calls them God's extensions. Because he's pantheistic. This is expansion also, we accept. What's
Spiritual expansion and liberation
called... there is a technical name. Expansion, that is stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam: mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam. By Me everything is expanded. This very word is used: mayā tatam idaṁ sarvam. So expansion is also God.
But at the same time, in expansion, there is no God. No God means not in person. The expansion is in person, but expansion is from the person. Just say government, this is impersonal. But the governor is personal.
The government means under the control of the governor. So impersonal expansion of God is controlled by the personal. This is like pantheism.
And pantheism, so I think that because everything is God, the God has no personal existence. Is it not? Yes. Pantheists would say that God is immanent in everything. Everything.
But has no personal... That is material thought. Because the paper in your hand, if it is made into pieces and thrown, expanding, then the original paper is lost. This is material conception.
But the spiritual conception is that He may expand Himself unlimitedly, still He remains in His own person.
He believed that as long as man is composed of body and soul, he will be under the mode of passion, and as long as the soul is confined to the body, the living entity will necessarily be attached to the physical world.
Yes. We call it māyā. So that can... the body and soul and the material world is there, and therefore the aim of life is how to separate this... the soul from material body and remain in its original spiritual form.
That is the whole ideal objective for human life. Because as long as he remains attached to the body, he has to change the body. That is our practical experience also. We are changing always the body, one after another.
And if we give up our attachment for this body, then we are liberated. That is called mukti, to remain in his spiritual body. And that is possible only by always thinking of God. That is meditation.
That is actually meditation. Man-manā bhava mad-bhakto. Always thinking of Krishna, Krishna's devotee to become, a worshipper of Krishna, and always offering obeisances.
"My Lord, I am Your eternal servant. Kindly keep me engaged in Your service." That much prayer, nothing more. Then he remains always in presence of Spinoza.
Theistic devotion and loving service
Spinoza considered good and evil to relate only to man. They have no basis in God, who is beyond good and evil? No.
But as everything is God, as you know that thing and things, then what is the position of bad things? What is, what is the conception? Bad is God, is bad. But what is the position of evil? Evil is there.
But, but he said that God has not will, the will from which evil comes. Seems inconsistent. Yes. He writes... We, we say that good and evil, they are also emanation from God. Evil is the back side, as good is the front side.
He writes: "He who knows himself and knows his affections clearly and distinctly, and that with the accompaniment of the idea of God, is joyous, for he knows and loves God."
Thus through knowledge of the self, one can come to know something of God, and in this way man can be happy and love God. But there's no mention here of service. Love means service.
Just like mother loves the child, she gives service. The father loves the child, so he gives the service, he gives the service.
So dadāti pratigṛhṇāti guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati, bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva... Love means to give and to accept some gift from the lover, to feed him and to take foodstuff from him, to disclose his mind to him and understand his mind—these six reciprocations in dealing is love.
So love includes service. Spinoza's God is clearly not a personal God. Spinoza is an impersonalist, and his love for God is more intellectual or philosophical than theistic or religious.
Being an impersonalist, Spinoza believed in the identity of the individual soul with God. This is not to say that he believed that the individual soul was infinite, but that it is not distinct from God.
He writes, thus, that love of the soul is a part of the infinite love with which God loves Himself.
He sees the soul's intellectual love of God and God's love for the individual soul, which is within man, to be one and the same love. Love is five: śānta, dāsya, sakhya, vātsalya, madhurya.
The beginning of love is all an adoration. Oh, God is so great. God is everything. When he understands God's potency and unlimitedness, the soul adores Him. That adoration is also love.
When that adoration is further advanced, then he serves God as master and servant. When the service is more intimate, then friend to friend.
As one friend, friend as service to other friend, the other friend and the other friend, like that, reciprocal. Then further expanded, the love is turned into paternal love.
And further expanded, it expanded into conjugal love. So there are different stages of love. So Spinoza is touching only the beginning of love, simply adoring, appreciating God's power, expansion, that much.
But when this love of adoration expands, that is called dāsya-rasa, sakhya-rasa. So he is on the beginning stage of loving God. He has not advanced.
Nature of the spiritual body
It seems that he believes in the Paramātmā present within all beings, but does not believe in the jīva along with karma. Is this a typical impersonalist position? That means he does not know what is love. If God
loves the living entity, then He must be well-wishing friend of the living entity. And because God expands Himself unlimitedly, therefore He lives with the living entity. And living entities are limited.
That is said in the Bhagavad-gītā. And in the Upaniṣads also it is spoken. The two birds are sitting on one tree: one is eating the fruit and the other is simply a witness. So this witnessing bird is God.
Therefore Paramātmā and jīvātmā live together. And there are many other places. Sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo. He reminds the living entity.
That unless Paramātmā is there, I forget everything of my past life; but because I wanted to enjoy something in my past life, God gives him the opportunity and reminds him: "Now, if you wanted this, here is the opportunity, you do it."
So Paramātmā is always with you.
He does not believe that God has a body because by "body" he says we understand a certain quantity possessing length, breadth, and depth limited by some fixed form, and that to attribute these to God, a being absolutely infinite, is the greatest absurdity.
No. God has a body, but not this material body. The material body is limited. That does not mean... this is imperfect knowledge of the spiritual quality. God has got a body, that is confirmed in Vedic literature.
Sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. Vigraha means body, a form. But His form is eternal. He is full of knowledge and it's always blissful. So this body is neither eternal, nor blissful, nor all awareness.
This body is different from God's body, but God has got a body which is different in quality; it is a spiritual body. He writes: "God is free from passions, nor is He affected with any emotion of joy or sorrow.
Properly speaking, God loves no one and hates no one, for God is not affected with any emotion of joy or sorrow, and consequently He neither loves nor hates anyone." He's called ātmārāma.
He doesn't require anything from anyone. He's complete. But if anyone offers Him something out of love, it is his benefit who is offering something to God. God doesn't require anything.
Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā, God said: "patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati", a devotee, out of his love, even if he offers me a little leaf, little water, little flower, tad aham aśnāmi, I eat them.
So God is fully satisfied in Himself. Why He deserves a patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ from a devotee? It is not for His benefit. But if he begins to offer something out of love, then his love begins with love.
He gives him, gives him the chance. So, offering to God does not mean God is benefited. It is the benefit of the devotee that he begins to offer, and if he gradually develops that love, then his life is successful.
So it is a chance. God does not require anything, but the giver, whatever he gives to God, it is for his own benefit.
Perceiving the divine in everything
Just like the example is given: if your face is decorated, then the reflection of the face in the mirror is automatically decorated. So we are reflections of God. If God is decorated, then we become decorated.
That is the idea. So when Kṛṣṇa destroys demons, He does so without passion or without hatred. Yes. It is the benefit of the demon. Spinoza writes: "No sorrow can exist with the accompanying idea of God." No one can hate God.
Therefore, He is such a description of Vedāntists: ānandamayo 'bhyāsāt. By nature He is always full of pleasure. He is the source of pleasure. We therefore see Kṛṣṇa's picture.
When He's dancing with the gopīs, He looks very pleasing, and when He's killing some demon, He looks very pleasing. Not that He is morose that He's killing, because, you know, He said that He's not killing.
He's giving deliverance. Well, he says no one can hate God, but what about Kaṁsa and others? That is, uh, Bhīma... Naturally, uh, one is in love with God; he should love God.
But when he is in māyā, he thinks himself as separate from God. Instead of loving Him, he thinks that God is a hindrance, my competitor of sense gratification.
Therefore, "Avoid God, kill God, I become absolute." That is asura. Anyone who hates God means he's a demon. Spinoza writes, "The more we understand individual objects, the more we understand God."
Is this the proper process? Wouldn't you say that the more we understand God, the more we understand individual objects? Which is, uh, anything... That is perfection of knowledge in God. We think he is not related with God.
Everything is related with God. And if material world, anything you take, it is made of the five elements. But these five elements are an expansion of God's energy.
So an intelligent person sees in everything with reference to God's expansion of energy. That is the position of a devotee. He does not think anything separate from God.
And as he is a lover of God, a devotee of God, he wants to engage everything. Because if everything is God's property, that should be used for God's benefit. This is a devotee's conception.
The asuras, they have no conception of God. Neither they are obedient to God, neither lovers of God. He thinks the material world is for his enjoyment. He cannot see the material world is an expansion of God's energy.
Therefore, anyone who uses the material product for his personal benefit, he is called a thief. That's why I have created something. If somebody uses that something and does not think of the proprietor, he is a thief.
Thief means... in our childhood we got a definition of thief. That anything taken without the permission of the proprietor is theft. That is very nice.
So anything in this world has reference to the expansion of energy of God. So if we do not take everything as prasāda, then we are thieves and we are punishable. A thief is always punished.
So therefore those who are enjoying things without reference to God, they're all demons and they're punishable. They're thieves. That's all on Spinoza.