U n i o n - w i t h - t h e - L o r d
There are some kind of spiritualists like the Sufis who try to become one with the Supreme. They proclaim, “An al-Haqq” - “I am Truth”. The Sufis accept impersonalism, believing in the oneness of the living entity with the Absolute Truth. Their supreme slogan is “An Al-Haqq”, which philosophically means “I am one with Allah” or “I am Allah”. The union with the Supreme of the impersonalists and the union with the Supreme of the devotees are not on a par. The impersonalists try to fully stop their individuality by attaining unification through merging into oneness, whereas the devotees keep their individuality so that they can exchange feelings in relationship with the supreme individual Lord. Such reciprocation of feelings takes place in the spiritual world, and therefore the liberation sought by the impersonalists is already achieved in devotional service. The devotees attain liberation automatically, while continuing the transcendental pleasure of maintaining individuality. The destination of the devotees is the supreme abode, the place where anxieties, distress and unhappiness simply do not exist. One should not mistake the destination of the devotees and that of the impersonalists to be one and the same. The destinations are distinctly different, and the transcendental pleasure derived by the devotee is also distinct from spiritual feelings alone. Those who try to avoid fruitive activity and those who become silent in order to merge into the spiritual existence of the Absolute Truth are generally known as speculative philosophers. They are not interested in fruitive activity, but only in merging into the Supreme. In either case, both are interested in personal benefit. The fruitive workers are directly interested in personal benefit within the material world, and the speculative philosophers are interested in merging into the existence of the Supreme. The speculative philosophers maintain that fruitive activity is imperfect. For them, perfection is the cessation of work and the merging into the supreme existence. That is their goal in life. The speculative philosopher wants to extinguish the distinction between knowledge, the knower and the aim of knowledge. This philosophy is called monism, or oneness, and is characterized by spiritual silence. There are two parties of philosophers, generally known as the monists and the dualists. The monist believes in the oneness of the Absolute Truth and the living entity, but the dualist believes in the separate identities of the living being and the Absolute Truth. Above these two classes of philosophers is the philosophy of simultaneous oneness and difference. This philosophy was propounded by Shree Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Union with the Supreme does not always indicate that a living being merges into the existence of the Lord. To become one with God means to attain one’s original, spiritual quality. Unless one attains one’s spiritual quality one cannot enter into the kingdom of God. The members of the impersonalist school explain their idea of oneness by the example of the mixing of river water with sea water. But we should know that within the water of the sea there are living beings, who do not merge into the existence of water but keep their separate identities and enjoy life within the water. They are one with the water in the sense that they have attained the quality of living within the water. Similarly, the spiritual world is not without its separate paraphernalia. A living being can keep his separate spiritual identity in the spiritual kingdom and enjoy life with the Supreme Spiritual Being, Allah.
