13 Nov 2024
Continued from Part-2...
28. Should every ordinary Guru take Guru Dakshina first to avoid the disciples, who come for time pass?
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Swami, You said that a Sadguru preaches true spiritual knowledge and doesn't take money also because He is the human incarnation of God, who is a giver of everything to everyone. But, in the case of gurus, who are not omnipotent, who are not the incarnations of God – should they keep this eligibility test of taking the Guru Dakshina from people first before letting them enter and listen to the knowledge and avoid those kinds of disciples, who come for time pass? Swami, should this be followed as a rule to everyone?]
Swami replied:- I told that they will tell and follow “First is Karma Yoga, then comes Bhakti Yoga and finally Jnaana Yoga”. They say that in the 18 chapters of the Bhagavad Gita, the first six chapters are Karma Yoga, then the next six chapters are Bhakti Yoga and then, the last six chapters are Jnaana Yoga. I told that this is wrong. First should be Jnaana Yoga, then should be Bhakti Yoga and then, final should be Karma Yoga. In the first step or Jnaana Yoga, you preach the Jnaana (spiritual knowledge) freely without charging anything from the receivers. After hearing your Jnaana, the disciple must develop some inspiration (bhakti or devotion to God) if it is correct spiritual knowledge. With that inspiration (Bhakti Yoga), he will give Guru Dakshina, which is practical sacrifice (Karma Yoga).
If the Jnaana is not good, he has the right to reject that knowledge and leave the place. If he does the sacrifice of money (Karma Phala Tyaaga) in the beginning itself, he cannot take back the money if the knowledge is wrong and he will be at loss. Of course, in education institutions, they first collect the fees because there is a standard syllabus, which is strictly followed by the teachers and if the students complain, the management will change the teachers. Is it not? Such strict rules are not there in the field of spiritual knowledge. There is no officer, who is the controlling authority to manage this and hence, you cannot compare the learning of spiritual knowledge with that of worldly educational institutions. Here, first is Jnaana Yoga in which you must listen and feel that the spiritual knowledge is very good. It should be useful and tremendously excellent so that it develops intense inspiration in you. Developing that inspiration is Bhakti Yoga or theoretical devotion. Then, doing service (sacrifice of work) and giving Guru Dakshina (sacrifice of fruit of work) to the Sadguru is the final Karma Yoga or practical devotion.
29. Karma came first instead of Jnaana in the case of Rama and Vashishtha. How do you explain this?
[Swami, on one side You are condemning priests, who are charging money before they are doing some worship to God. On the other side, You are supporting Vashishtha for asking money from Rama before giving spiritual knowledge?]
Swami replied:- Yes! In the case of Sage Vashishtha, the disciple is none other than God Rama. So, the disciple has unimaginable deservingness and did not come for time pass like an ordinary worldly human being. Sage Vashishtha is none other than the grandson of God Brahmā. So, there is no need to test the truthfulness of his spiritual knowledge. Rama being God identified that Vashishtha is having the true spiritual knowledge and came to him with full faith. Hence, Vashishtha asked for Guru Dakshina just like the institutions, who first ask for standard fees. This is a very exceptional case and it need not be so in the case of present Gurus, who often preach wrong knowledge only. When a human being becomes a Guru, he may preach good or bad spiritual knowledge. Both possibilities are there, but that is not the case with Sadguru, the incarnation of God. He will teach the correct knowledge only because His aim is to give the true spiritual knowledge and uplift the humanity to flourish. Sadguru comes down with the aim to propagate true spiritual knowledge and establish peace in the society. Sadguru does not come to earn something through Guru Dakshina and maintain His family.
30. Why didn’t Baba tell knowledge to Buuti and ask for Guru Dakshina?
[Swami, now correlating the same concept and applying to the case of Sai Baba and Buuti, Shri Sai Baba should have told the spiritual knowledge first and if Buuti gets impressed, then he will give Guru Dakshina or not give according to Baba’s decision. Please clarify.]
Swami replied:- Baba has asked only for five rupees and not hundreds of rupees although Buuti was capable of giving it. Baba knows that Buuti is a very greedy fellow and he will not give even five rupees at any cost. Sai Baba is the incarnation of God Dattatreya. So, He knows what Buuti is. So, Baba wanted to remove that greediness in him. Greediness is the main cause for not accepting the contemporary human incarnation also. In the stage of photos or statues, you'll offer food to God with hand movements and consume it by yourself. But, you cannot do like this with contemporary human incarnation. If you put food before Him, He will eat. Therefore, the main reason for the rejection of contemporary human incarnation is spiritual economics based on greediness of the devotee.
31. Did Krishna say in the Gita that Karma Yoga comes first?
[Shri Divakara Rao asked:- Swami! You logically explained that the first step is to learn spiritual knowledge or Jnaana Yoga, then comes devotion or Bhakti Yoga and after that comes practical service and sacrifice to God or Karma Yoga. But in the Gita, it is said to be in the reverse order as mentioned by many preachers. I recently saw in YouTube also that a preacher said “Karma Yoga is first step so that we will get good discipline with which we will get into the right path”. Is it God Krishna, who told like that?]
Swami replied:- It is not God Krishna but the scholars told in that reverse way.
32. Is controlling senses a pre-requisite for learning spiritual knowledge?
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Swami, You told that Shirdi Baba said to a devotee that Indriya Nigraha i.e., controlling five senses is a prerequisite to learn Brahma Jnaanam. But here, You have allowed all of us to listen to Your true spiritual knowledge although most of us does not have the control. So, how can that be a standard, Swami?]
Swami replied:- Any policy has to be changed as per the circumstances. You cannot fix on a particular policy, which was adopted in Satya yuga. Will it be successful in this Kali Yuga? Policy should be changed as per the atmosphere. Shankara followed the same thing. When Shankara came, all were atheists since they were Puurva Miimaamsakas and Buddhists. So, He told that every soul is God because you cannot change the atheist by telling that God is existing differently from him. An atheist will not agree if you say that God is separate from him because of ego. He changed all the atheists by three simple steps of logic.
Step-1: You are God (Totally a lie).
Step-2: Do you exist? Yes.
Step-3: Therefore, does God exist? Yes.
Based on a lie, He could change the society full of atheists into theists and that is not wrong. It got a very good result. A teacher gives some good revision of the lesson or some important questions or some guide (revision book), etc., but does not allow copying in the examination to make the students pass. So, according to the stage of nature of the disciples and the surrounding atmosphere, the Guru should change the policy and get the result, which is most important. If you simply preach an old philosophy, which was successful in those days of the Satya yuga, then nobody will come to hear you. The Sadguru wants the welfare of the humanity and that is why, He is taking all that trouble and not to earn fame or money. He has already got a lot of fame and He is bored with that fame in the upper worlds. His wife is Goddess Lakshmi, who gives wealth to everybody. So, He is not bothered about these worldly things. He always has the guts to tell the truth because He is not aspiring for anything. An ordinary preacher thinks, “If I change the concept in this way, the devotees will not take out even one rupee as Guru Dakshina. So, let me change the policy”. The aim of changing policy here is to earn more money and fame. The Sadguru has all the guts to preach the truth whether you listen or don't listen since Guru Dakshina is not His aim.
33. Sometimes Goddess comes in the dream and asks for sacrifice or Bali. How to understand this?
[Shri Divakara Rao asked:- Swami, You mentioned that we should not kill any animals even for the sake of God also. But during the village festivals, The Village Goddess comes into somebody's dream and asks, “Why have you not given the ‘bali – sacrifice’ to Me?”. Swami, how to correlate this? I suffered this actually.]
Swami replied:- There is both truth and fraud everywhere. The truth is “You all worship Me. You have forgotten Me”. The Village Goddess comes in somebody's dream and tells this truth. The fraud is “You give Me animals as sacrifice. You give Me chicken or goat”. Eating non-veg. food is this fellow's desire and he speaks false for his taste for mutton. The dreams are of two types. It can be the true message of God or it can be one’s own samskaara that is materializing in one’s dream. The fellow’s taste for mutton materialized as dream and his taste appeared as the wish of the Goddess. See, this is just a simple logic. The Village Goddess is the Divine Mother of humanity. Is there any mother, who wishes the death of her child? At least, a father may be an exception since a father does not carry the child for 9 months in womb like a mother.
There is a Tamil cinema called ‘Tanga Patakam’ in which the father shoots his son for the sake of justice. But, if the mother was there in that place of the father, she cannot shoot her son. When a biological mother (who loves the child only for a single birth) cannot wish for the death of her child, how can the Divine Universal Mother (who loves the child in every birth since the beginning of the creation) ask for the death of Her child? It is only the dream of the ignorant soul but not the words of God. Actually, there is a Brahma Sutra (sandhye sṛṣṭi rāha hi), which says that the dream is of two types. First type is one’s own samskaara appearing as dream. Second type is God appearing and giving some message. You have to separate these two by your logical analysis. Suppose you got a dream sometime back, where Goddess appeared and asked for bali–sacrifice of an animal, then you must understand and think “Since the Divine Universal Mother will not aspire the death of Her child, this dream is only my samskaara. It is not true”. By analysis, you can find the truth with simple logic. No mother wants the death of her child. Will the Divine Mother desire for the death of her child?
34. What to do if non-vegetarian food is leftover?
[Shri Satti Reddy asked:- Swamiji, my question is that if excess of chicken or mutton curries are left, is it better to throw it away like that or serve to somebody? In some function halls, non-vegetarian food gets wasted.]
Swami replied:- Firstly, why have you gone there?
35. He said:- Swami, You are Sarvajna.
Swami replied:- May be. If you really believe Me as Sarvajna, you don't go there. Avoid those places. No question of dealing with that. Just leave it. It is full of sin and it is the highest sin in the entire creation (Ahiṃsā paramo dharmaḥ). The greatest justice is not to kill any living being. Therefore, killing any living being is the greatest sin and injustice. It is very serious punishment. The punishment is that you would be born as a goat and the goat would be born as a butcher in the next birth. The goat as butcher will kill you and you’ll have to undergo the same pain that the goat underwent while it was killed. So, don't associate yourself with that field in anyway. Try to oppose it. If you distribute non-veg. food to some hungry people, those people develop more desire for non-veg. food and this will encourage the killing of animals and birds. This will make you the shareholder of the sin.
36. Should I not go to the office parties, where non-veg. and alcohol is served?
[Shri Ganesh asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swamiji! Alcohol and non-vegetarian are served at office parties. Though I don't drink alcohol or eat non-vegetarian, my boss is asking me to go and attend. I go attend, eat some vegetarian food and come out. Is that also a sin?]
Swami replied:- This is not a sin. You can go there but don't take alcohol and non-vegetarian food. You will not get any sin by attending the meeting. You will get involved in sin and share the fruit of sin if you are involved in it by eating non-veg. food or by drinking alcohol or by selling non-veg. food or by doing alcohol business. Simply by attending the parties or meetings, you will not get this sin.
37. How to convince my parents about true meaning of Yajna sacrifice?
[In my house, ritualistic practices have happened. In homam, they have burnt wood and other things. How do I convince my parents and my relatives that this is wrong?]
Swami replied:- Try to convince them through logic. I have given several arguments in My website. As of today, 5000+ records are present in the website regarding the true worship to God and various other spiritual concepts. You take an article and present to your parents, friends and relatives. You can easily do that. Don't give arguments by yourself. You take My original script and read before them. Then only, perfect logic will be there. Sometimes, you may miss the logic somewhere and it may not impress them. But, if you take the knowledge written by Me, the points will come one by one in a perfect logical sequence and that will definitely change their mind because every question that they can raise is already answered in My script. Nobody can ask any question further. That is the power of God Datta. That is why, He is called as Guru Datta (Guror, guru tarāya namaḥ). He is the Guru of Gurus. He also tells in Bhakti Ganga (Dattātreya munīndrulamu, guruvula diddaga vaccitimi) that He has come not to preach ordinary humanity, but to rectify the Gurus (preachers).
38. How can we trust and maintain relationship with anyone?
[Shri Bharath Krishna asked:- Swami, You being the human incarnation of God, sometimes say that it is very difficult to trust human beings because they will change at any moment. So, we as human beings, how can we trust and maintain relationship with anyone, Swami?]
Swami replied:- If you don't maintain the relationship with God, you are the loser. The other side is not losing anything and the necessity is all yours. At least, you apply the 50:50 probability to the human incarnation. He may be a human being or He may be God. See, believing God as human being is worst since we may lose God. But, believing human being as God is not bad since there is no harm. If you treat some lower fellow as higher fellow, you will not be punished. If you call a peon as the collector, you will not be punished. But, if you call the collector as a peon, you'll be arrested. Is it not? Suppose you have mistaken a human being like Me as God and not considering Me as a mere human being. There is no punishment for you since you can consider a lower item as higher item.
Suppose I'm God and if you consider Me as a human being, there is punishment to you and you will lose all the benefits. In every type of knowledge, there are doubts. In Physics, there are doubts. In Mathematics, there are doubts. In Chemistry, there are doubts. You clarify all the doubts with the teacher. Similarly, in spiritual knowledge, you clarify the doubts with the Sadguru. If the Sadguru is preaching spiritual knowledge and asking you to follow that spiritual knowledge and if you don't follow, the loser is your own self. Therefore, you can believe somebody as God or you may reject some incarnation of God as a mere human being. Full freedom is given to you and there is no compulsion on you. There is one important point here. If a human being deceives humanity saying that he/she is the Sadguru or God, that fellow is definitely going to be punished by God and the punishment will be the most severe punishment since he/she is only preaching the wrong spiritual knowledge (by declaring himself/herself as God), which is very very harmful to the world. Such fraud preachers will be very severely punished by God and you need not bother about it. God will take care of that.
39. I am unable to trust any girl and go ahead for marriage. What to do?
[Swami! When it is the Sadguru saying something, we can have 100% trust. I understood that God or Sadguru is the only one, who is trustworthy. But when a young man has to go for marriage, he will discuss certain things with the girl. The girl may say something about herself and may promise to be in a certain way. But, any person may change in the future. So, how do we trust and go ahead for marriage?]
Swami replied:- Then, don't marry. If you find everybody like that, it is better not to marry. I will tell you a method so that you can test any girl for marriage in just one minute. You simply put a question, “Do you believe in God?”. If she says, “Yes! I believe in God”, then you ask another question, “Do you believe that God will punish sins?”. These two questions are sufficient to select a girl for marriage. If she says, “Yes! I believe that God punishes the sins”, then you can simply select her. No other questions are required. “Do you like Chiranjeevi-cinemas or do you like Akkineni Nageshwara Rao-cinemas? Who is your favorite hero?” - all these are unnecessary. If she says “Yes” to the two important questions, she will definitely be truthful in life. She may commit some error due to ignorance. But, if you rectify her ignorance, she will definitely come to the right path because she believes in the existence of God and that God punishes sins. Have faith in God!
40. Why did God give a long life to those who did many wrong deeds?
[Smt. Sudha Rani asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swami! My question is semi-Nivrutti, Swami! Like You said, the false Sadgurus are punished for their false interpretations. But they cheat people throughout their lifetime and people get diverted to wrong paths for a long time due to the wrong teachings. Similarly, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian prime minister, had made some wrong amendments in Indian constitution and even today, Hindus are negatively affected by his wrong deeds. So, why does God support those leaders by giving them long life and political power through generations and generations?]
Swami replied:- The punishment of God for sin is always definite and there is no exception in it. Even when God is forced to do some sin, He punished Himself. When Gopikas were after God Krishna, He told them to go back home. But, they loved God so much that they replied “We won't go back and we will die in the river Yamuna”. Then, He told “If you dance with Me, you will have to embrace the red-hot copper statue of Krishna in hell”. They replied that they do not care for the punishment by saying “After all, that statue is of Krishna. So, we don't mind”. Then, He accepted and danced with them. Although it is not a sin since He is God, Krishna has considered it as sin and taken all the punishments onto Him for having danced with Gopikas. He punished Himself by embracing the red-hot copper statues of Gopikas in hell. He did that twice for each Gopika. First, He hugged the red-hot copper statue of the Gopika punishing the assumed sin on Himself. Second, He took the form of Gopika and hugged the red-hot copper statue of Krishna on behalf of the Gopika. For thousand Gopikas, He punished Himself for two thousand times. Being God, He can cancel the punishment or escape the punishment. He is the law maker and even if He violates the justice, there is nobody to ask Him. For all of us, God is there to question. For God, there is nobody to question. But, God honored the climax love of Gopikas and at the same time, He uplifted justice by taking the extreme punishments unto Himself to make sure that any ordinary soul does not imitate Him. When God is not using the special powers in His own case and punishing Himself for assumed sins and not even real sins, will such God do injustice with anybody else? Will He allow injustice to happen to any soul in His creation? The defect on our side is that we are not studying a human being for all the 24 hours using an audio-video system. Even if you have recorded for 24 hours, you can capture only his external behavior and you will never know his internal behavior or thoughts. With your limited knowledge and limited equipment, how can you conclude about a person?
Only the omniscient God can judge the soul and give the fruits of his deeds accordingly. The person might do some good deeds and some bad deeds. The person will enjoy the fruits of bad deeds and good deeds separately. God will give the judgement and God exactly knows when to punish and when to reward the soul. If you punish your enemy, you can give one blow at the most. When He decides to punish, He gives 100 blows. Therefore, you leave everything to God, who is omnipotent and omniscient. Have no doubt regarding His administration. You are indirectly finding fault with the administration of God through your question. You are criticizing God’s divine administration by asking why He is doing like this and why He is not doing like that. You are not omnipotent and you are not omniscient. God is omnipotent and omniscient. He is definitely doing the correct thing only. Why should we worry about that? We have also done several bad things and we will also be punished by Him. How can we become the judge for other souls? Can a person, who is a criminal, become the judge for other criminals? Therefore, you leave everything to the omnipotent and omniscient God, who knows everything. Moreover, God's aim is not revenge. His aim is only the reformation of the sinner and hence, He gives sufficient time to the sinner for reformation. I discussed this in several articles and messages published on our website (www.universal-spirituality.org).
Suppose your enemy has done some harm to you. God will compensate you if you leave it to God without developing any revenge against your enemy. When He compensates you, you should keep your mouth shut. Since you got the compensation, you should not enter between God and that criminal. God may give some time to him to change and suppose he changes, then all his previous sins of that type are also cancelled by God. However, if you have harmed him in the previous birth and he has harmed you in this birth as a retort case, the case gets closed. Your enemy will not be punished in this case because it is not a fresh case. Therefore, many secret angles are there are in the administration of the world and God always does the best only. If you are unnecessarily having revengeful thoughts after getting compensation also, you will be punished for having such revengeful thoughts. For example, God Krishna decided to kill the Kauravas and He will certainly kill them on a specific day. Meanwhile, He tried to change them by going as a messenger and tried His level best. Draupadi, who was insulted by the Kauravas, was always crying that they should be punished and killed immediately. She always provoked the Pandavas by talking with revenge against the Kauravas. Had she kept quiet, her five sons would have become kings after the war. She was indirectly criticizing God's administration and that is a sin. As a punishment, her five sons were killed by Aswathaama that night. None of her sons became the king even though she fought for the war and got the victory. She could not enjoy the fruit of the victory. Subhadra, who never spoke anything against the Kauravas enjoyed the victory completely since her grandson had become the king.
I have written several messages on this topic and the best thing for you is to leave everything to God. He knows everybody and He knows what is present in every nerve of every human being. Sometimes, the human being may not notice the matter present in its own nerve, but, the omniscient God knows that also. God is not only omniscient but also omnipotent. He knows when to punish and He also knows if the soul is reformed or not. He throws the soul in the liquid fire of hell where he/she undergoes constant suffering until it is reformed. They say in the Bible (Purugu cāvadu, nippu āradu) that the soul will not die and the fire will not be extinguished. The soul will be given a suitable body called Yātanā Śarīra, which does not die even when extreme punishments are given. God waits for the soul to be reformed by giving these punishments. God tries all the ways for reformation while on this earth and if the soul fails even after all the efforts, He decides that the soul cannot be changed and then only He will throw the soul into the liquid fire of hell. God will try His level best to change the soul because He is the Divine Father of all souls (Ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā… - Gītā). We are the parents only in this birth but God is the parent in all the births. Can you compare His love to the souls with respect to our love to our children?
Shankara says that even the love of a million parents cannot be equal to God’s love towards souls (mātā pitṛ sahasrebhyo 'pyāptaḥ, bhagavān parameśvaraḥ). This is the reason why God doesn't punish the sinner immediately. He delays the punishment and meanwhile, He tries to change the soul permanently through spiritual knowledge while on earth. If the soul is transformed into a good soul through spiritual knowledge, he/she will have good future by the grace of God. A father will always try for that side only and when the father is disgusted and loses all hope, then also the blind human father will not punish, but, God is not blind like the human father. God is very intelligent and if the soul is not going to change, God will throw him/her in hell forever until the soul reforms. Suppose the soul is only interested in eating, drinking, sleeping and sex even after taking human birth, God is going to throw that soul into the permanent births of animals, birds, insects and worms, etc. Even this action of God shows so much love on the souls because the soul can enjoy eating, drinking, sleeping and sex in those lower births also without taking any tension of following justice.
The human body is very special since it has intelligence, which is meant for the soul’s spiritual progress in the path of reaching God through true practical devotion. Human birth is meant for becoming divine through close association with God and getting permanent salvation. If you are not at all interested in these divine things and if you are earning wealth all the time, you are already living like an animal only in human body. What do animals and birds do? They are always busy in earning their food, eating, drinking, sleeping and having sex to produce children. Being in human birth, if you are confined to these four only, God with all kindness gives you a place where these four are only available to you and nothing else. Is He opposing or harming His issues? Not at all. He is completely fulfilling the desire of His issue, who is fully concentrating on these four things in life. There also His kindness is there, not revenge.
Suppose you are eating only curd rice although God is offering you many other dishes. Next time, He will offer you a big vessel full of curd rice only. He does that because you don't want to see any other food item. Everywhere you find His kindness only. We foolishly misunderstand God but He always does everything properly. He is the Divine Father and you must remember that. You try to understand His love by comparing your love to your son or daughter. You are criticizing that some political leader is doing sin and God is not punishing him. Suppose your son or daughter is doing sin, will you punish immediately? Will you not give sufficient time for him/her to reform? Just for being father or mother in one birth, you put so much effort in the case of your son or daughter. God is the Father for millions of births to each soul. How much He would try to reform His sinner-son? You need not worry about all these because suppose the sinner has harmed you, God compensates you. Without compensating you, if He kills your enemy, what benefit do you get? Nothing. When you get the compensation, you are benefited. So, it is better you always leave everything to God. If you are harmed, He will compensate you immediately and then deal with the criminal. Since He has compensated you, you should keep silent and you should not ask for the punishment of your enemy.
41. How much is the sin for bribing a government official for work?
[Shri Divakara Rao asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swami! In practicality, when we go to any government offices like MRO office or police station to resolve our problem, we will be forced to give some money as a bribe. In this case, how much is the sin for the giver? If the giver is a devotee, who doesn’t want to sin by giving bribe, but, he is forced to do so, how much sin will the receiver and giver acquire?]
Swami replied:- This is again a question based on the different behaviors of the souls and different behaviors will have different fruits accordingly. Suppose you don't involve in corruption and you don't give money to anybody as bribe and go on justified path only. Then, you will get the fruit of following 100% justice. Suppose you have given money to somebody as bribe for some favor. If that favor is not justified, you will be punished severely. If the favour is justified, which means that if you are bribing for the sake of justice, the punishment will not be so severe because your case is justified. Since the police will not work without a bribe, if you give some bribe to the police for a justified purpose, it will not give you much punishment and you need not fear very much for that. You may be punished a little because you should have believed in God and walked in the path of complete justice without doing any corruption and without giving bribe to anybody. You must have depended on God directly than the policemen. God will definitely render better justice to you. You did not have faith on God. Therefore, even when your case is justified, a very minute punishment will be there although not severe. You will be given a serious warning in hell by Yamadharma Raja and that's all. No severe punishments thereafter. Hence, it all depends on the individual case.
42. What is the path to get relief from harmful diseases?
[Shri Vishnu asked:- Swami! Shatakoti paadaabhivandanaalu! Nowadays, I see that many people are suffering from very harmful diseases. What is the path for them to get relief from those diseases?]
Swami replied:- Disease is a type of punishment for sin (Pūrvajanma kṛtaṃ pāpaṃ, vyādhirūpeṇa bādhate). The punishments are also as many as the sins. People are suffering not only due to diseases but also due to other mental tensions caused by poverty. Some people are also suffering being mad. Somebody suffers throughout life because his one and only son is killed. All this is a type of punishment only. Suffering is delivered to souls in several ways and disease is one type of suffering. Finding a way to come out of disease cannot solve all the problems because other types of punishments will still cause suffering. It is better to think that one should come out of all the types of suffering or all types of punishments. All punishments can be cancelled only by reformation of the soul and not even by worship of God because God is punishing the soul for its reformation only and not for revenge.
Reformation involves three steps:- i) Realization, ii) Repentance, iii) Non-repetition of sin in future. Suppose you have the habit of stealing somebody's money from his pocket. But, stealing is a sin and it should not be done. Realizing it as sin is the first step or Jnaana Yoga because it involves a lot of logic. Suppose somebody's mother is very ill and he is damn poor. If he steals something and purchases a medicine for his mother, there is not much sin. Hence, logical analysis decides whether a specific case is a sin or not. There may be many sub-cases in one single case also. So, if you realize the sin, the next step is repentance. You should repent why you have done that sin and this repentance is Bhakti Yoga. Then, the third step is Karma Yoga, which is non-repetition of the same sin in future life. If you do not repeat the same sin in your future life, not only the punishment of this present sin but all the pending punishments of that type of sin get cancelled by God. Here, note that “that type of sin” is mentioned and not all types of sins.
Suppose you have the habits of stealing and torturing. If you do not repeat stealing after realization and repentance, then all your pending punishments of the stealing-sin in your karma list get cancelled by God. But mind that all the pending punishments of your habit of torturing will not be cancelled and will cause suffering to you. If you stop torturing anybody in the rest of your life, then all the pending punishment of past tortures will be cancelled. The reason is that punishment is given for your reformation only. If somebody murders, court gives him a death punishment or life imprisonment because he should not kill a second person again in the society. Suppose he gets reformed through knowledge and he is not going to kill a second person in the society, then why should he be hanged? What is the necessity of punishment? He is not repeating the sin in future and past is past, which cannot be changed. You are giving death punishment or life imprisonment only to make sure that he will not enter the society and kill a second person. But, the same is achieved through true spiritual knowledge. When he is already changed, why should you hang him? If you decide after all efforts that this fellow will not change and kill somebody in the society, then hanging should be done. When the reformation is there, punishment is unnecessary. When the soul is reformed, the punishments of that type of sin will get cancelled (Jñānāgniḥ sarva-karmāṇi bhasmasāt kurute 'rjuna - sarvaṃ jñāna-plavenaiva vṛjinaṃ santariṣyasi - Gita). You can cross the ocean of sins by this boat of reformation.
Therefore, we don't know due to which sin one gets the disease. If a diseased person worships God every day, realizes all types of sins, repents for all the sins and does not repeat any sin, that person will be cured from the disease immediately. There is no doubt in it. Except this one way, there is no other way. By doing some poojas or other worships, you may get temporary relief because the punishment will be postponed to the future and you will have to suffer with the accumulated interest in future.
Shri Vishnu commented:- Okay, Swami. Thank You. I was looking at diseased people and feeling bad for them. But, I think You have given a very good answer, Swami. Thank You so much!
I am concluding this question-answer session by giving a small message. Every one of you should recognize that everybody is suffering with one difficulty, which is that to which form of God should we worship? In Christianity, there is one God Jesus or Yehovah, the formless. In Islam, there is one God called Allah. In Hinduism, several forms of God are there. Which God should we worship? If you worship God Datta, who is present in all forms of God, you are worshipping all forms of God.
Every divine energetic form in the upper worlds and every human incarnation in this world (earth) contains God Datta. God Datta is the first energetic incarnation created by the unimaginable God. The actual original ultimate God is unimaginable, who is beyond this creation. Since He is unimaginable, we cannot see Him or imagine Him and hence, we cannot even meditate upon Him. The unimaginable God first created some space and energy called Paramavyoma from which an energetic form was created by Him. Then, He merged with that energetic form to become God Datta.
God Datta created the entire creation as God Brahma, maintains the creation as God Vishnu and destroys the creation as God Shiva. Hence, He has three faces. The original unimaginable God mediated in this energetic form because the future devoted souls can worship Him and meditate upon Him. Therefore, unimaginable God is like a naked person, who is taking bath in the bathroom without any clothes and God Datta is like the same person, who comes out of the bathroom wearing some clothes. Nobody sees a naked person inside the bathroom but when he comes out wearing clothes, he is visible to everybody. Since he has taken a medium (cloth), we should not say that he is a different person. Let us say that the energetic medium is the silk cloth and the human medium is the cotton cloth. Mind that both are clothes only.
If the unimaginable God is coming in the energetic form (silk cloth), it is called as energetic incarnation. If the unimaginable God is coming in human form (cotton cloth), it is called as human incarnation. The Veda, which is the most revered scripture of Hinduism is written by God Himself since He revealed the Veda to sages as God Brahma. The Veda says two points as the definition of God to understand who God is. i) God is that person or that entity, who is only one (Ekam evādvitīyaṃ Brahma) and ii) God is doing the creation, the maintenance and the destruction of this world (Yato vā imāni bhūtāni jāyante yena jātāni jīvanti yat prayanti abhisaṃviśanti). Now, these two points in the Veda cannot be applied to any form of God in Hinduism except God Datta.
God Datta is only one single personality. He has three faces, which are the faces of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. By the face of Brahma, He is doing the creation. By the face of Vishnu, He is maintaining the creation. By the face of Shiva, He is destroying the creation. Therefore, the Vedic definition of God involving the two points becomes completely true when applied to the case of God Datta. We, Hindus, call Him as God Datta. Other religions call Him as Father of Heaven with a different form. Therefore, He is the universal God not only in Hinduism but also in all the religions of the world. He may have a different form, but, any form is just created by Him. So, we should understand the importance of God Datta and the relevance of human incarnation to humanity. If human beings want to see the energetic incarnation of God, they have to do penance for a lifetime. Sometimes, a lifetime of penance also cannot give the vision of God.
The unimaginable God will never appear before you because He is unimaginable. Only His energetic incarnation can appear before you. Either God Datta or His subsequent energetic incarnations or past human incarnations can appear before you. But, that will take a lifelong time! If you take a whole lifetime for doing penance just to see God, where is the time to get the true spiritual Knowledge from God? Where is the time to practice it and attain the grace of God? Therefore, this is simply a waste of time. To get the true spiritual knowledge, you wanted to see God, for that you are doing penance, a lifelong penance, then where is the time for you to hear the spiritual knowledge and practice it? That is why, God has helped humanity by coming as human incarnation. In human Incarnation, He is available in every generation to the humanity and He explains the true spiritual knowledge through the human form. God has given this facility so that you can directly hear the true spiritual knowledge from God (from the human form of God). Then, you have a lot of life time to understand it, practice it and attain the full grace of God. No time is wasted.
In the upper worlds, the body and soul of the energetic beings are made of energy only. For the human beings here on earth, the soul is made of nervous energy (a specific work form of inert energy only), but the body is made of the five elements (materialized body made by matter and energy). Hence, the human form of God is relevant to the human beings on earth and the energetic form of God is relevant to the energetic beings in the upper worlds. If a soul misses the human form of God here due to common repulsion of the media, the soul will miss the energetic form of God also in the upper world after death. Every human incarnation (like Rama, Krishna, Sai Baba, etc.) has human body and soul as medium for the entering God Datta containing merged unimaginable God. Since an ordinary human being is also having human body and soul, there will be repulsion between human media of human incarnation and ordinary human being. Due to this repulsion between common human media, the human being misses the human incarnation here in this world.
When this human being dies here, his/her soul will enter an energetic body and go to the upper worlds. When it goes to the upper worlds, it will see the energetic incarnation (like God Brahma, God Vishnu, God Shiva, etc.), who has energetic body and soul as medium. Since this ordinary soul also has got an energetic body, there is again a repulsion between common energetic media. So, the person, who loses the human incarnation on this earth, will also lose the energetic incarnation in the upper world. That is what the Veda says (iha cedavedī datha satyamasti, na cedihāvedīnmahatī vinaṣṭiḥ). If you recognize the human incarnation on the earth, you will also recognize the energetic incarnation in the upper world because if you have crossed the repulsion between common human media here, you will undoubtedly cross the repulsion between common energetic media there. If you succeed in recognizing the human incarnation on this earth, you will succeed in recognizing the energetic incarnation in the upper worlds also. If you lose here, you will lose there. If you gain here, you will gain there. Therefore, this small point should be kept in your minds. You may worship any form of God, but remember that God Datta is present in that form of God. By this, we also do not have several Gods. The same God is present in different dresses or media. Whatever form of God you worship, that is only the external dress of God Datta and the inner personality is God Datta containing merged unimaginable God or Parabrahman. By remembering that you are worshiping God Datta through that form, you will succeed in your worship, prayers and meditation.
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