19 Oct 2022
[Shri Hrishikesh asked: Swami, You told that You are doubtful about Your status as Incarnation and advised me to follow You at least as representative model of God Datta. You know how firm I am about Your status as Incarnation of God Datta. I am pained by Your statement.]
Swami Replied: I know that you have unimaginable faith on Me. Hence, I have a doubt about the continuity of your faith in the future. Therefore, tomorrow or day after tomorrow if you lose faith in Me, My advice to you is not to lose faith completely and fall down to the ground. My intention is that even if you fall from your faith, you should not completely fall down and you shall stand somewhere in an intermediate level. Believing the Incarnation is direct worship of God, which is the highest step. A little below that step lies the higher step which is worship of the representative of God like a photo or statue of upper energetic incarnations or past human incarnations. What I say here is that as an alive form, I am far better than those inert forms. Those forms, which are worshipped in photos or statues were not the actual photos taken by the alive photographer in those times. All of them were imaginary pictures drawn by artists like Ravi Varma etc. The inert form will not enjoy your service or sacrifice whereas the alive form enjoys your service and sacrifice. When the service and sacrifice is received or is enjoyed by God as the Incarnation or an alive representative form of God, the true devotee will get real satisfaction in his/ her devotion. Of course, the case of a greedy devotee is quite different, who does not want to lose anything in the worship. I know very well that you are not such a greedy devotee. Hence, I thought that in your case, an alive representative model of God is better than the inert form of God (photos or statues) standing as representative model. Whatever that is told by Me is not related to your present stage.
It is always better to think about the worst first and be prepared for it so that if the best happens, it is well and okay. In this angle, I have given this suggestion. When you are taking some inert form as representative model of God, you will not learn any spiritual knowledge from that inert form. Even if you take a false incarnation as a representative form of God, there is no loss because you are confining to such alive model only for the sake of worship (service and sacrifice). If you take Me as representative model, this problem will not come to you because you have already heard My knowledge and such possibility of danger will not arrive at all. I am always happy if you continue your present faith in future also and I wish and bless you for such faith. I have made this suggestion because I don’t interfere in any psychological change of any devotee during his/ her spiritual journey. Especially in Nivrutti, God will not only interfere in the freedom of the devotee, but also will try to oppose the devotion of the devotee, in which case the faith may be disturbed.
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