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There is a misunderstanding that women were suppressed in Hinduism without independence. People quote Manu Smruti in this context, which says that woman should not be independent (Na stree svatantryamarhati…). But, the same Manu says that women should be worshipped to please God (Yatranaryastu pujyante ramante tatra devatah…). Both these contradict each other. If you do not give even basic independence to somebody, how can you worship him or her? Will you worship a person without independence, put in prison? This means that the first statement of Manu is misinterpreted. The actual meaning of first statement is that women should not move independently without escort because...
The essence of the Gita relates to the basic attitude of the spiritual aspirant, which decides the direction i.e., whether you are proceeding towards God or away from God. The external projections are immaterial. If you compare Kannappa and Ravana, the external projections are quite opposite. Ravana used to take bath in all the seven seas, early morning, and used to worship Lord Shiva with all the pure Vedic rituals. Kannappa never took bath and used to worship Lord Shiva with all prohibited customs. But, the basic attitudes were quite opposite. The fundamental attitude of Ravana...
[Krishna Ashtami Day at Bhimavaram] The essence of the message of Lord Krishna to the human beings is the Bhagavat Gita. Sage Vyasa wrote all the eighteen Puranaas and Maha Bharatha, but still he was not having mental peace. It is surprising to see that the Sage Vyasa did not get peace even after composing the Gita!! The reason is that the theoretical knowledge does not give any fruit unless it is practiced. Arjuna was not the best example of practice of the Gita. Even on the eighteenth day, he did not get down from the chariot in spite of the instruction from Lord Krishna. He was treating Krishna as a driver only...
Today our country is facing a very serious problem. The poor man does not receive the fruits of the schemes implemented by the Government, so the poor are becoming poorer day by day. This is the reason of the unrest and tension in the minds of majority of the public since the majority is poor. Every political party, which is voted to power, tries to serve the poor by implementing good schemes. But, the fruits of every scheme are filtered by a screen called corruption. The authorities involved in the implementation of the schemes snatch away the fruits, so the rich become richer day by day. All the wealth is concentrated with the minority of the public, which is involved in the implementation process. Sometimes, even the Government...
[Guru Purnima Message] GURU means the preacher, who removes ignorance-darkness by emitting knowledge-light. The field of the context is important here. If you are ignorant of mathematics, a teacher may remove your ignorance about mathematics by teaching mathematics. Such a teacher cannot be called as Guru. Guru is the preacher, who diverts you towards God by removing your ignorance about God. This is the most important field for any human being because it is the basis of every aspect of life here as well as there after death. The final knowledge of God is to know that you are always ignorant of God because God is unimaginable or ever unknown. Thus, to know the ignorance about God is knowledge. Whatever you know relates to the item...
The soul is an imaginable item. It is a part of creation and creation is imaginable. The soul taken as basic inert energy can be seen by eyes with the help of powerful scientific instruments. The soul taken in the form of special work or transportation of information by special neuron cells can also be visualized. Thus, the soul taken in any form is visualized and hence, it cannot be the unimaginable God. The Veda (Drushyatetvagraya…) and the Gita (Pashyanti Jnanachakshushah…) clearly say that the soul can be visualized by Scholars or Scientists. God is beyond space and hence, can never be imagined even by intelligence (logic), which is highest faculty of Knowledge. The human imagination can never go beyond space. Since God is the generator of space...
[A talk given by Swami at the inauguration function of Montessori Engineering College and College of Pharmacy, Vijayawada.] Today, several people speak about the various ways to develop our country. All are forgetting one basic concept. The progress of a country is like the improvement of strength of a normal healthy person by giving various tonics. But, if the person is a patient of cancer, what is the use of talking about strengthening him without looking into the treatment of the cancer? Any number of tonics given to such patient becomes useless. Similarly, our country is not a normal healthy person to plan about the improvement of progress through several schemes. Our country is a patient suffering with the incurable...
[I heard that somebody refused the propagation of My divine knowledge based on the reason that this knowledge is the personal version of Myself.]
Examine Logically To Arrive at the Truth: The Gita was told by Krishna only. The Bible was told by Jesus only. The Quran was told by Mohammad only. Buddhism was preached by Buddha alone. All the Brahma Sutras and Puranas were the personal version of sage Vyasa only. Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva preached the three schools of philosophy as their personal versions only. Each Sukta in the Veda was told by a single sage only and thus, the entire Veda is a bundle of personal versions only. God told the scripture...
Miracles are done by God and not by the individual soul (Jeeva). The Veda says that God alone does miracles (Satyakamah…). The logic in this point is that this entire creation is just His will. This world is just the imagination of God. You can do any impossible thing in your imaginary world. In that imaginary world, you can also make somebody who is created by you, to do anything. That somebody is able to do anything only due to your will. Hence, if somebody is doing a miracle, that somebody is not doing the miracle. God, the Creator of the world, is doing the miracle through him. Your will power is the material of your imaginary world and is responsible for any action that is natural...
The human incarnation is a homogeneous mixture of God (Narayana) and human being (Nara) existing as a single-phase alloy of two metals. An alloy with gold as the major component and copper as the minor component, is called gold alone[1]. Similarly, the human incarnation is considered to be God. The live wire is treated as the electric current. God is unimaginable even to the intelligence and certainly none can see God with one’s eyes (Na chakshusha—Veda). But the Veda says that a rare blessed soul sees God directly (Kashchit dhiirah…). God as a pure component is not seen directly. But the same God can be seen through the medium of a human being (Manusheem tanum—Gita). Everybody takes Him to be only a human being as seen by the eyes. But only a rare blessed soul sees Him as God. Sage Vyasa saw Krishna as God...
[It was announced that Shri Satya Sai Baba was going to publically show the cosmic vision (Vishwarupam) on the moon at Puttaparthi airport. Large crowds of people gathered to witness the event. Shri Baba arrived at the appointed time. However, the moon was not visible at that time and He did not perform the said miracle. There was a lot of criticism from opponents. Devotees asked Swami for clarification on the issue. Swami gave the following discourse to devotees].
Significance of the Unshown Miracle: Shri Baba has shown thousands of miracles to the world and even scientists have accepted the truth in the miracles. If this particular miracle was not done, does it mean that all the previous miracles are invalid? Even if this miracle were done, our atheist friends will say that some laser technology was adopted [to create an optical illusion]. Our friends have disposed all the earlier miracles also as magic. When Lord Krishna...
The entire spiritual knowledge exists in the Upanishads (Veda) or Shruti. Smriti is another category of texts, which should be taken as an authority if it does not contradict the Shruti (Shruti Smriti virodhetu…). Smriti consists of the Gita along with the Ramayana, Bhagavata and Mahabharata (the three sacred epics). In fact, the Gita itself is a part of the Mahabharata. The Puranas come after the Smriti (Shruti Smriti Purananam…). The sacred epics deal with the secrets of the spiritual effort of Hanuman, the Gopikas and Arjuna towards their contemporary human incarnations called as Rama and Krishna. Third class people take these three epics as some historical stories and get entertainment...
God created this world with happiness and misery, which are alternate cyclically like the spokes in a rotating wheel. God arranged the fruits of good and bad deeds in an alternating manner even though the good or bad deeds may be done repeatedly in sequence. This reshuffled arrangement of happiness and misery resembles sweet and hot dishes in a meal or a movie containing scenes of both happiness and tragedy in an alternating manner. This system of alternating arrangement of happiness and sorrow gives continuous entertainment not only to God but also to the individual soul. Thus, the basic intention of God is only to entertain Himself and also all the individual souls...
Some people criticize that God is enjoying creation and entertaining Himself, while souls are troubled with problems. So they blame God with sadism. The entertainment of God is not sadism at all. Sadism is based on two points: One is that an action can be called sadism if it is exhibited in reality in the world and not in the imaginary world. For God, this world is imaginary and not real. However, sadism in the imaginary world may also show a mental attitude towards sadism. Even that point is ruled out because the second point on which sadism is based is that a sadist enjoys by torturing some innocent person without a justified reason. Here in the case of God, the problems of the soul...
A poor fellow was a disciple of Shri Akkalkot Maharaj. Shri Maharaj took that fellow to a forest and showed an abode of snakes. Shri Maharaj asked him to take two snakes and put them in to his bag. The disciple took two snakes with a lot of fear, put them in his bag and took them to his house. When he opened the bag, both the snakes were found to be two rods of gold. What is the message of this story? Shri Maharaj was the human incarnation of Lord Datta and was called as Samartha Sadguru, which means that He was the capable human form of the Lord appearing as the preacher. Hence, the message must be very capable. The message of Lord Datta in this story is that an excess of money...
[Dr. Nikhil said “My spiritual classmates did not become householders but I became a householder. All of them are lucky to have salvation.” Swami replied “Only you are going to get salvation because you became a householder. Nikhil was astonished and asked for clarification. Swami continued:]
The psychology of people is to get attracted towards things, which are far, and to get detached from things, which are very close. In fact, this is the general psychology of souls and even angels are not exceptions as said in the Veda “Paroksha Priya ivahi devah pratyaksha dvishah”, which means that even angels like any item, which is far, and dislike any item present...
The unimaginable God requires a medium for expression. When the medium is charged by God, the medium is treated as God directly and service to this medium is the direct service to God. When a wire is charged by electric current, touching the live wire means touching the current itself. But if you touch the picture of a live wire on paper, you are not touching the current. It is only an indirect representative model of the live wire. Service to the charged medium is called as sakshat upasanam, which is direct service. Service to the representative model is called as pratika upasanam, which is only indirect service. Indirect service is a total waste because neither are you experiencing God in the model, nor is God experiencing...
[Shri Phani raised a question “Between sacrifice of work (karma samnyasa) and sacrifice of the fruit of work (karma phala tyaga), which is greater?” Swami said “Tell me your opinion on this”. Phani replied “Certainly sacrifice of the fruit of work is greater than sacrifice of work because the fruit is the essence of work. Cutting the bond with the fruit is very difficult”. Following is Swami’s detailed discourse that followed.]
Certainly sacrifice of the fruit of work is greater than the sacrifice of work in the case of householders, who have the option for doing both. The reason is that the bond with the fruit is very strong. Generally, money or wealth is the fruit of work. Therefore, the Veda says that sacrifice of the money and wealth is the real essence of sacrifice and stands as the proof of real love...
[This morning, Swami composed this song spontaneously in Sanskrit and was singing it. He also explained the meaning of the song.]
Naasadhyamasti kimapi te Datta
Nacha karanamapi karunayaste Datta.
Oh Lord Datta! Nothing is impossible for Your infinite power
And there is no reason for the kindness that You show form me.
Papi shailamuddhartum shaktiraparacha
Ayogyashikharaa yapya karana karunacha
Mahyam dwyamida mavasara bhavyam bhavatihi.
Infinite power is needed to uplift me, the mountain of sins
And reasonless kindness to protect me, the most undeserving
I, in need of these two infinite divine qualities, praise You
In this creation people are running after money thinking that it can solve all problems. But if some incurable disease attacks a person, no amount of money can solve the problem. Therefore, Artha (money) is not a power that is applicable in every place. The next one is kama (sex), which only destroys the person both physically and mentally, and no problem can be solved by it because it is the source of several problems...
When the child cries for milk, the mother does not mistake the child for its desire for milk saying that love should be without desire. The same mother (if wise) will find fault with her grown up daughter asking for her ornaments because ornaments are not basic needs like milk. The wise mother will say that she will give the ornaments to the daughter only after her death. But the same mother will not say that she will give the milk in her breast to the child after her death because the dead body cannot give milk and moreover the child cannot wait for the milk for a long time. Similarly, God will not mistake a pure soul asking for the basic needs of life, especially when the soul is participating in the divine service. For a mother the cry of the child...
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