QUESTION: There are five acts of God they say—the acts of creation (Srishti), protection (Sthiti), destruction (Samhara), concealment (Tirobhava) and grace (Anugraha). The first three and the last are understandable. But Tirobhava is ill-understood. Some explain it with an analogy like, ‘a tree concealed within its own seed’, meaning the subtle state. If that be so, is not merely ‘remaining unseen in a subtle form’ only a passive state? Or is it a dynamic act rightly to be grouped under the great works of God?
MAHARAJ: Technical expressions like Tirobhava may have different meanings in different forms of Indian theology. So it is difficult to give an explanation of it common to all systems. One system in which it plays a very crucial part is Vallabha’s system of Suddhadvaita. How the non-dual Satchidananda has become the many has to be explained by Vedantic schools. Sankara’s system does it by his doctrine of ignorance and superimposition under the aegis of an indeterminate category called Maya. Vallabha has no use for Maya except as the power of God, in which case it is one with Him and not an indeterminate category. So he gets the many, i.e., the Jiva and the Jagat, out of the non-dual Satchidananda by the Tirobhava doctrine. The following quotation from p. 159 of Vedanta Kesari, May 1979 on the subject will explain the doctrine:
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