04 Nov 2021
[Smt. Priyanka asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, Can surrendering our body for God be considered as Total Karma Phala Tyaga?
Swami, we have learnt that Gopikas were great sages in their previous lives, who sacrificed everything for the sake of God, except their bodies. Therefore, they were given a final female birth to get rid of the male ego and to be given the opportunity of surrendering even their bodies for the sake of God. Even though they crossed other bonds in their previous births, God conducted an annual joint examination for all bonds once again even though only bond with life partner was left to be sacrificed. You said that almost all the gopikas could come for a dance with Lord Krishna at night since the weakest bond is the bond with life partner over other bonds. But only the gopikas who willingly sacrificed their stored wealth (butter) for the sake of God, crossed the bond with issues and money together (the strongest bond), thereby passing all the tests proving their real love towards God. Therefore, we can see that they did Karma Samnyasa by serving Lord Krishna as well as Karma Phala Tyaga by sacrificing their stored wealth to Him. Now comes the point of sacrificing their body. That was the one last thing remaining.
Swami, some time ago, You said that even sacrificing one's body for the sake of God is considered Karma Phala Tyaga and that one should use whatever medium available to them to serve God (whether it is karma samnyasa or karma phala tyaga or both). If someone is not working/ earning money, but they sacrifice their body because that is the only available medium, does this fall under karma phala tyaga for them, even though this is not the typical sacrifice of earned/stored money through an external worldly job? In the case of gopikas, they were earning their living and sacrificed it for God's sake. Therefore, karma phala tyaga was done by them! But, when it came to surrendering their bodies also, was it done with the intention of total karma phala tyaga (money + body) or was it lust based on love for Lord Krishna or both? Can You please explain this further?
Does total sacrifice to God ultimately mean surrendering one's body also apart from crossing over other bonds? In the concept of chakras/ kundalini also, none of the bonds mentions a bond with one's body. Anahata chakra (bond with issues) is considered the most difficult to cross to reach God. So, even if a female devotee is able to do karma phala tyaga as well as cross all worldly bonds to reach God, can she reach God without the surrender of her body? Is it purely her choice to surrender her body also if she has madhura bhakti towards God? Can You please explain this further? At Your divine lotus feet, Priyanka]
Swami replied:- Mere surrendering the body is not sacrifice of fruit of work. A prostitute surrenders her body to earn the fruit of work of public. Hence, surrender of body came as the last idea to the minds of sages because they already got detached from all worldly bonds except the bond with life partner. Drop out of bond with life partner needs a female birth. Even if female birth is obtained, it is not necessary that the soul will sacrifice the bond with life partner because the soul may have terrible love for her life partner since our tradition is to treat the male life partner as God. The betrayal done to life partner is severely punished in the hell. The punishment is to embrace red hot copper statue of that illegal person! In view of this also, some will not cross the line of justice or Pravrutti. God may not look as beautiful as the male life partner because God is testing the love to God and not lust to God. The lust is based on the beauty of the external body and the love is based on the internal divine qualities of the soul. God is testing the love, but not the lust, which is based on the biological hormonal activity and the temporary external body, which is common to all living beings including animals and birds.
The divine qualities constitute the internal and eternal personality and the temporary external body constitutes the external and temporary personality. Sages or Gopikas know very well about this point since they reached the climax of spiritual knowledge and were decided to travel in the path of eternal love related to God. In fact, the fact is that God also can create His external medium with infinite beauty since He is the possessor of such power. Sages or Gopikas know about this point also. In fact, Gopikas were not beautiful at all and Krishna with top most beauty was running after them because Gopikas were sages, who loved God for millions of births through penance. Real penance means only development of love to God forgetting even the basic needs. Hence, Krishna ran after Gopikas in the path of the true and eternal love of Gopikas had for Him. In such case, why Krishna came with such top most beauty? The reason is that Krishna wanted to test Gopikas to know whether they are running after Him for His external beauty or internal beauty. Since God is omniscient, He recognizes this internal point unlike an ordinary human being. Therefore, no hypocrisy is useful before God and the devotee shall be uniform in mind, word and action before God.
The sages were asked to take the final female birth because as males leading their life-partners for the sake of God was not much difficult in view of their inherent gender-ego. The sages born as Gopikas were not ordinary human beings, who burnt their lust in the fire of their penance. Hence, Gopikas were having love only to God Krishna and not the lust. Krishna also has no lust because He is God Shiva, who burnt the cupid, the deity of lust. Krishna is God Vishnu, God Vishnu is God Shiva and hence Krishna is God Shiva. Here, the situation is that lust is zero on both sides and only love exists on both sides towards each other. This love is the purest devotion, which is climax love of devotee to God and the climax love of God towards climax devotee! Hence, there is no place of lust between Krishna and Gopikas. Due to this reason, the sacred epic became the top most purest epic to give salvation to any soul in seven days. In the Bhagavatam everywhere there is possibility of slip to misunderstand the love as lust because lust was seen between Krishna and Gopikas in the midnight dance at Brundavanam. Immediately, any scholar will confuse to treat this lust as lust based lust that is caused by the hormonal activity. It is actually love based lust because both God and sages have the control of lust based lust, which means that the basic lust caused by hormonal activity is transformed in to lust. The lust between God and Gopikas was love based lust, which means that the love is transformed into lust. Any scholar will slip very fast in this point and hence, it is said that proper understanding of the Bhagavatam is an acid test for any scholar of spiritual knowledge (Vidyāvatāṃ Bhāgavate Parīkṣā).
Sages were already tested by God in the three strongest bonds independently in several previous births but in this final birth all the three strongest bonds are tested together like the test of entire syllabus in the annual examination. In quarterly test one topic might have been tested and in half yearly test another topic might have been tested. In the annual test questions interrelated to both topics will be asked. The point is whether a soul can sacrifice all the worldly bonds at a time for the sake of God or not. Certainly, the bond with life partner is weaker than other worldly bonds because we see the possibility of divorce in this bond through justice and such facility does not exist in any other worldly bond. The bond with money is not mentioned in the chakras (wheels) of yoga and only bonds with living beings are mentioned there because bond with money exists only due to bonds with living beings. If all bonds with all living worldly beings are dropped, the bond with money is always dropped spontaneously because it has no individual attraction towards any soul existing alone.
It is very very clear that the bond with issues is very very strong, which was not beaten (crossed) by anybody and called as unbeaten bond (Anāhata cakra). Some sages could pass in the test of this unbeaten bond in the previous birth when this single bond alone was tested. But, in the final annual test, when all the worldly bonds were tested together, several failed in this unbeaten bond, who complained to the mother of Krishna regarding stealing of butter (money) by Krishna that was preserved for their children. Hence, Gopikas succeeded as wives, but failed as mothers. The Veda says that the devotee shall proceed towards God on that day when all the worldly bonds are dropped in one instance (Yadahareva virajet tadahareva pravrajet) because in some special case the expected strong bond may be weak and the expected weak bond may be strong. We heard that a lady killed her own issues for the sake of an illegitimate sexual bond.
Body was considered as the fruit of the deeds to be enjoyed in this world by the sages and not by the God. They also thought that everything and every bond was sacrificed for God, but not the bond with body. This is the opinion of sages and not the opinion of God. Hence, I can’t say whether the opinion of sages was correct or not. In fact, God opposed this because it is against the justice of Pravrutti. God Krishna even threatened Gopikas that they will have to face horrible hell for this sin. But, Gopikas rejected the argument of Krishna showing their mad love for God Krishna. However, My mind is confused because God Krishna danced with them and underwent the fruits of all the sins, not only the fruit of this sin!
Perhaps, Krishna was overwhelmed by their madness for God and did all this nonsense! The scholars of worldly justice will not appreciate this and some of them even tried to hide the truth of union of Gopikas with Krishna by giving some cooked reasons. This is very delicate topic threatening the peace of the world due to the foolish madness of the sages. I have already explained that the sages born as Gopikas were attracted to Krishna and participated in the lust, which is not created by lust (hormonal action) but in the lust, which was the transformed product of love. If there is any impurity of lust in the causal basis, then, they were not Gopikas and Krishna was not God. This breakage of the bond with life partner shall be viewed in the light of breakage of all worldly bonds of which life partner bond is just one bond. This situation shall not be generalized to spoil the Pravrutti since both sides have to give the proof that the devotee is a sage and the human incarnation is really God. Otherwise, this situation will lead to chaos and all shall know that this situation is very very very very rare.
In yoga the Svaadhisthaana chakra indicates the bond with life partner in which the surrender of body exists between the two life partners, who are husband and wife. Freewill exists in every inch of Nivrutti line and in fact, God opposes even the freewill because when Gopikas wanted to surrender their bodies to Krishna, Krishna opposed vehemently giving top most priority to Pravrutti. Hence, there is no question of force from the side of God in any sacrifice, not only this specific sacrifice. The sacrifice will be opposed by God and unless the devotee is mad based on pure freewill this possibility can’t be accepted by God as seen in the exceptional case of Gopikas.
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