Upanishad talks about Lord Brahma, but in fact it talks about Madhvacharya. According to yoga sutras the concept of ‘Lord Brahma’ and ‘Lord Vishnu’ are two different entities. They are not the same thing, for they are different realities, which exist at separate ends of the universe. The basic difference between the two entities is that the concept of ‘Brahma’ is much more powerful than the concept of ‘Lord Brahma’. This concept is expressed by many philosophical texts including the Upanishads.
Lord Brahma is the Lord of creation and is omnipresent. He is the omnipresent controller and supreme ruler of this life and reality. All beings and creatures are dependent on him, including the individual souls of humans. The concept of ‘God’ is relative, as it is defined according to each individual’s personal existence and relation to the Supreme God. The philosophy of Atman or Dualism believed that matter and energy are nothing other than the supreme reality of Lord Brahma, expressed in diverse forms through various scriptures.
In the philosophy of Atman, the individual souls are eternal, immortal, spiritual animals. The souls exist in the form of various organs, which include lungs, eyes, ears, skin, heart, stomach, head, nails, etc., and there is a great variation in the organs. The vital organs determine the life and usefulness of an animal and are responsible for the materialization of the body. The variation in the physical body is manifested in the various changes that take place in the souls while they are dependent upon the Supreme Soul.
The individual souls live in the world of matter, enjoying physical and mental health only in a material world. However, in this world, everything is relative to the conditions of the here and now. This includes the value of our physical existence and the significance of various activities performed daily. Materialists, who believe in no separation between soul and mind, deny the reality of individual souls and hence, this concept, known as Madhvacharya, stands in the way of spiritual progress. However, the learned author Shashi Patanjali has declared that the individual soul and mind are separate entities and, therefore, cannot be compared with any object or person, whether good or bad. According to Patanjali, man is a part of God, and he enjoys a certain degree of freedom and responsibility following his separation from God.
The concept of Madhvacharya is that individual souls have their own world of action, which is different from the causal world of this physical world. In the causal world, everything is nothing but the reflection of actions performed by the soul and mind in this world. In the world of Madhvacharya, there is no room for any such separation. Everything is the reflection of actions performed by the individual soul, which is a part of God.
The concept of Madhvacharya has some analogies with the ancient teachings of the Upanishads. In the Upanishad, the ‘Vishnu’ is described as the giver of all blessings, while the ‘Ruru’ is identified with ‘grace’. Madhvacharya maintains that the individual soul enjoys the power of life and death, whereas the Supreme is surrounded by a circle of potency that is referred to as ‘Neti’. This circle is representative of all phenomena in the external world, which are subject to change. The individual soul has a certain amount of fixed energy, which is referred to as ‘kamas’ and this kamas affects the existence and future of the soul. These changes are temporary and they can be explained by reference to the concepts of kama-sadhana and kamas-sadhana.
Madhvacharya believes that souls enjoy liberation from karma generated at birth, which is the result of actions performed by the previous births. This is the reason why the souls enjoy liberation from the cycle of births and are liberated from the bonds of past lives. It is believed that the soul is believed to be contained within the body at various levels, and to be situated between the gross aura surrounding the body and the subtle aura surrounding the body. If these definitions are understood correctly, it is possible to understand the meaning of Madhvacharya’s formula ‘God is within me’.
According to Madhvacharya, a samadhi is a point in time when all the organs of the body are perfectly balanced and there is no chance of any disease. There is also no problem of hunger or thirst. He also claims that a yogi should strive to reach the samadhi, which means that they should be devoted to learning the secrets of yoga, as well as to eating foods that are healthy. According to Madhvacharya, yoga will solve all the problems of a human being and they will become like immortal animals. However, his teachings are not accepted by all of his students and some of his methods are considered questionable by modern scientists.