THE RELATIONSHIP OF GOD WITH THE SOUL

Dayananda does not concur with the Vedantic view - aham brahmasami 'the soul is Brahman'. The objector poses the question of the eternality of the universe. Dayananda expounds his view that without a maker nothing that has the quality of becoming can be made. Those elements, which we see, go to produce the world, like earth etc. They can never be beginingless. And what the union of various things brings about cannot exist before such union, nor can it exist when such union ceases. Atoms unite to make elements and so they can also separate at some time. We have stated that when Dayananda wrote the first Satyarthprakash, he was greatly influenced by the Nyaya philosophy. According to the Nyaya's atomic theory a particular body was the product of a particular atom. When two material substances combined to form a new product there was both samayaya (intimate relation) and samyoga (coming together). The material dravyas, earth, water, fire and air, were believed to be derived from atoms (anu).

The universe thus consisted firstly of atoms that were the ultimate substances and so could not be further sub-divided, and secondly the sub-stratum built on them, which is the world we ordinarily see and know. Dayananda, however, denies the soul to have the same status as Brahman. No soul, however much it tries, however great wisdom it may gain, can ever be like God. If God had not endowed the soul with a body and with the five senses, how could it ever strive for perfection? And if it could not so strive how could it attain that perfection? The soul can never be equated with God in whom there is infinite perfection. However great the soul's knowledge may be it will be limited, and so too its power. The soul cannot have limitless knowledge and power. No one has yet been born and no one will ever be, who can change the order or law of God's creation.

The earth and the elements were created first, according to Dayananda, and thereafter - human beings. Also many human beings were created in the beginning, not just one like the Adam of the Christians. This was a natural corollary to Dayananda's concept of moksha, according to which souls, which have achieved liberation, are again reborn on the earth after the end of the cosmic cycle. If he propounded the theory of their being one man and one woman only in the beginning of creation, how could he fit in with that of the rebirth of all these liberated souls? He also says that after creating the earth, God inhabited it with young men and women, for if he created them old how could they copulate and produce children? Creation is beginingless and endless. As day follows night, night follows day and so on, so too before creation there was dissolution, and after dissolution, creation and so forth. In this way creation goes on eternally, although it may appear to be non-eternal. As day and night follow each other eternally in succession, yet one day has an end, and a particular night an end too, so too creation and destruction. It is as the flow of a river. The river goes on. It may dry up in summer, yet as the rains come, its bed fills up again and it brims with water.