Shree Jagannath: Lord of the Universe

Lord Jagannath is the Lord of the Universe. He is Param Brahman, the Supreme Godhead, from which all Gods and Goddesses emanate. He is both the God unmanifest as well as the God manifest. He is both Nirgun Brahman (God without attributes. God as avang-manasa-gochara, beyond the reach of senses or mind) of Shankara and Sagun Brahman (God with attributes, the personified Brahman, such as Rama or Krishna) of Ramanuja. This multitudinous character of Jagannath reminds me of this great Vedic wisdom:

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पुर्णमुदच्यते

पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

It literally means: “That is full. This is full. The full is taken out of the full. Take out the full from the full, the full remains. Om, peace, peace, peace.”

Lord Jagannath is both the ‘full’ and the parts that are also ‘full’, which are taken out of the ‘full’. Let us meditate on this. By creating the universe and all the elements in it, the Lord does not limit Him or lose His ‘full’ness. This brings another element. As the whole world is Lord's creation out of Himself, the whole world and its elements partake His consciousness. Applying this logic further, we are all divine as we are created by the Supreme Lord.

Then the question arises - if we are all parts of God, then why there is so much violence? Why there is so much chaos in the world? Why cannot we see and consider another individual as we consider ourselves? The answer is Avidya- Ignorance. We consider our separate selves as the sole reality. We cannot see all – ourselves and other selves – as creations of God. We cannot see the other integrated reality, the Lord, who is our Creator. Because of our ignorance, we think our separate selves as the sole reality. As dust particles cover a mirror and hides our view of ourselves, a thick miasma of ignorance veils us from our integrated and truer reality. Shankara took this aspect of ignorance and our indulgence in it seriously and declared the world is Maya, illusion. Shankara has a sound argument here. So far we consider ourselves absolute truth and ignore the divine truth, we are in illusion. But once we recognize that we are truth, but relative or empirical truth, the ignorance and illusion vanish, we become truly liberated.

Tulsidas believed that the Lord Jagannath is Lord Rama. At the first sight of Lord Jagannath, Tulsidas fell into a dilemma. How could Jagannath be not beautiful as Rama? How could this Lord be incomplete – no feet, no complete hands, no ears? Grief-stricken, he returned from the temple, thinking – no, Lord Jagannath cannot be Lord Rama. He had a vision. It was so powerful and compelling, he rushed to the temple and saw in place of Lord Jagannath was standing Lord Rama. He wrote in Ramcharitmanas:

बिनु पद चलइ सुनइ बिनु काना।

कर बिनु कर्म करइ बिधि नाना ।।…

He goes everywhere without legs.

He hears everything without ears.

He does everything without hands…

While Tulsidas’s vision of Lord Jagannath as Lord Rama can be characterized as his experience of the Lord as Sagun Brahman, his poem, quoted above, alludes to his experience of the Lord as Nirgun Brahman. Lord Jagannath is Lord Rama, but He is not confined to the image of Lord Rama as He is Nirgun Brahman. To a devotee like Tulsidas, He is amenable as a personified God, Lord Rama, but for a Jnana Yogi like Shankara, He is Nirgun Brahman - beyond the reach of human senses and conception, including the conception of a particular God.

Lord Jagannath is not confined to a particular people or a particular place. He is not the God of a particular state or a country. He is above the narrow confines of religion, nationality, creed, color, language, economic status or any man made divisions. Muslim Salabega was his devotee, as also poor Dasia Bauri. Guru Nanak went to Puri to see the Lord. Contemporary research suggests that Jesus Christ had visited Puri to receive light from the Lord.

Lord Jagannath is the only Lord who comes out of the temple every year so that all His devotees receive His grace. It has a deeper significance. Before the Supreme God all are equal. There is no discrimination on the basis of man-made divisions.

More the Jagannath culture spreads more the good for the world. The more this culture spreads, the more the people across the world come to know the Lord’s universal significance. I pray that the Rath Yatra in Tampa is a step in this direction.

Jai Jagannath !

(This article is part of the Tampa Rath Yatra Journal, July 2018.)