06 Aug 2015
Shri Sharma asked “What is the way to reduce the intensities of these bonds and to destroy totally these bonds?”
Shri Swami replied: In pravrutti, the reduction of intensities lies totally on your effort only. When you enter the Nivrutti with the minimum bonds with already reduced intensities, God’s grace will fall on you to help you in the final examination of Nivrutti. For such grace, you must have the aim fixed in the beginning itself to reach God. Success in Pravrutti has also alternative award of heaven. Therefore, you must have the initial aim to reach God in the beginning level of Pravrutti itself. You can realize that the heaven is temporary only and God is eternal as said in the Gita and the Veda (Kshenepunye... Gita and Naastyakrutah... Veda). The weak bonds with already weak intensities can be destroyed easily since they themselves get destroyed easily. The bonds with the parents get destroyed as soon as the wife or husband enters into the life. The bonds with relatives and friends are always false internally since such bonds exist purely on the basis of businesses and profit. The actual effort starts only in destroying the three main bonds (Eshanas). The bond with wife or husband is purely based on the biological need only. This bond appears to exist in the old age also based on the memory of the past life. This bond breaks even in the earlier life by side attractions and divorce is possible only in this bond.
The other two bonds are very strong and unbreakable. The bond with children exists in the heart situated in the Anahata (Not broken by anybody so far) place. Even the sage Vyasa ran after his son, Shuka, who was proceeding towards God. Most of the unlawful earnings are only due to this bond. The love existing in this bond itself should be used to reduce the intensity in it. First, you must realize that you cannot protect your children and guide them in the path of welfare since you have experienced that you cannot protect even yourself. Therefore, your love on your children is only theoretical and useless in practice. If you divert this love to God, God will efficiently protect your children and lead them in the path of welfare. This point can be experienced in the practical life also. You can avoid the jealousy of your children towards you due to such diversion of your love to God by preaching this concept to your children and by making them also to become devotees of God. In this process, you have to sacrifice only your ego that you are the protector of your children. This process is based on selfishness on both sides (father or mother and children). The father loves God due to love on the children. The children love God due to their ambition for selfish welfare. You need not worry about this defect in the beginning. The Gita says that the beginning of any good practice is associated with defect like the fire associated with smoke in the beginning (Sarvaarambhaahi...). In course of time, this false based love on God is converted into true love as you experience the fact that God alone is real protector of not only your children but also yourself.
The bond with money or wealth is last of these three bonds. This is most powerful because money alone is the basis of all your bonds. Even your life and body depend on the food to be earned by money only. Hence, in the absence of money, even the body and life will leave you, not to speak of other bonds. Money is the source of all the bonds as said “Dhanamulamidam Jagat”. Hence, the Veda says that the sacrifice of money alone can lead you to God (Dhanena Tyagena...). The Gita refines this point more by saying that your hard earned money should be sacrificed (Karmajam...). The hard earned money has more intensity in its bond than the wealth earned by the forefathers. Shrichakra is the most powerful whirlpool of shri (money) in which even the sacrifice of bonds with body and life are indicated. The nine components (Navaavaranams), which are the eight of Apara and one of para prakrutti are mentioned here as the constituents of body and life. Without understanding this important significance, people worship this Shrichakra drawn on the metallic plate to get more wealth. When knowledge is absent, the direction is reversed! The sacrifice of the money in the occasion of maintaining the life is seen in the case of Saktuprastha. Gopikas sacrificed their bodies and lives in the fire for the sake of Lord.
When you have decreased the intensity of the second bond with children, there is simultaneous reduction of the intensity of the third bond with money since your ambition for earning is mostly based on your love to children. In this way, when these two bonds become weak, the unlawful earnings by corruption disappears and the total earning is reduced to lawful earnings only. Do not think that such a reduction in these two bonds will bring peace in the society only and thus there is no benefit in the spiritual line of your personal case. As already told, your contribution in this way for the balance of the society is only one face of the Pravrutti coin. Even in this one side, God is pleased and you should not forget this point. Another point in this face itself is that you will not go to hell for the corruption and this is in support of your selfish welfare only. If you observe the other side of the coin, the bond with money becomes weak, which is a pre-requisite of the future total sacrifice for God in the spiritual line.
The final stage of Nivrutti requires the situation in which all the nervous energy (mind) of the bond with God alone should be left over without any division or diversion to other forms of the bond. The way to achieve this is mainly based on hearing the stories of incidents in the lives of human incarnations of God that develop the real inspiration towards God’s personality. This way is suggested as one of the ways of the definition of devotion in the Bhakti sutras of sage Narada. The definition given by Narada explains the already formed devotion and not the way to achieve the devotion. Thus, you need not misunderstand that I have neglected the definition of Narada. A fan of a famous film actor gives up his life on the death of a hero actor proving the sacrifice of his body and life for the sake of that actor. The reason for such a climax of love is inspiration gained by such fan on seeing various cinemas, which are the occasions to project the good personality of such hero actor. The epics like the Ramayanam, the Bharatam, the Bhagavatam and other Puranas show this projection of the divine personality of the God through various incarnations. That inspires you to strengthen your bond with God more and more. This is the reason for the sage Vyasa to write so many epics on this aspect. Apart from these epics, the book called as the Brahma Sutras was also written by sage Vyasa to make you understand the philosophy of one unimaginable God existing in all the energetic and human incarnations.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★