Bhagavantana Ananta gyAna

By: Shri kesava Rao Tadipatri 

Art by Smt.Vani Rao, Baton Rouge, LA

Audio link : Bhagavantana anantatva

A very interesting and one of the very frequently discussed topics. It is a little similar to the question - Can God create/destroy a Jiva? The question is a meaningless one, as God has taken upon Himself to protect the Jiva and so that question does not arise. Similarly, the question whether He can count should not arise, as He has taken upon Himself to keep it as uncountable.
Look at the pramANa given -
saN^khyAnaM paramANUnAM kAlena kriyate mayA |
na tathA me vibhUtInAM sR^ijato.aNDAni koTishaH || 11.16.39 ||
Look at the pramANa carefully.
It does not say "na kartum shakyate mayA". It says "na kriyate mayA".
One may think that it is just "play of words". But it is not. Note that He is the protector of the vedas and He makes sure that the vedic statements remain valid at all times. So, He maintains the countlessness. Also a question was raised whether it is 'kAlena" or "kAle na" and my friend Brahmaatma Dasa mentoned that "it cannot be kAlena" because then there cannot be anvaya with second line. But that is not true. It is kAlena only as Acharya has clearly commented it saying kAlena = sarvaguNAtmakena. Then how does the anvaya happen? It is by "tantra nyAya" - meaning the "na" in the second line applies to first line also. So, the anvaya will be as follows -
yathA paramANUnAM saN^khyAnaM kAlena mayA na kriyate tathA me vibhUtInAM saN^khyAnaM na kriyate.
ShreeKrishna, the way the infinities are dealt with is very unique. For example, even though the numbers are not countable, we know the totality of integers is twice the totality of even integers or that of odd integers. But we know that we cannot perform arithmatic operations on "I"(infinity) or else "I" = "I" + "I" and that gives absurd result. yet the concept of infinity is important. The total number of minutes should be 60 times the total number of hours (conceptwise). Thus though, we claim that we understood infinity or we claim that with the available resource, we can generate to any degree of accuracy, it is not completely true. There is a limit to our capability. But even though there is no limit to God's capability, He decides to do certain things in certain way. In other words, the reason we stop is different from the reason He stops. We don't know where He stops, but He knows where we stop.
A similar question is brought about infinity. The time is infinite and the number of Jivas are infinite. So, if from beginning less time, the Jivas are brought to creation and they reach mokSha, and considering that the time goes eternally, won't the Jivas be exhausted by some point of time and the creation comes to a grinding halt? The answer is given that the Anantya(infiniteness) of Jivas is more than the Anantya(infiniteness) of time. So, the creation will never come to a grinding halt. In other words a kind of computation is performed on infinities! This can only be justified by the infallibility and dictum of the shaastra-s.

Shri KrishNArpaNamastu !