07 Oct 2017
[The practice (Karma Yoga) is the most important final stage of spiritual effort, which alone yields the fruit. Whatever is learnt is implemented in practice to get the fruit. Knowledge, devotion and service are the three steps in sequence proposed by Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva, who appeared in sequence one after the other. Knowledge gives the right direction. Theoretical devotion or inspiration generated from knowledge gives force to do the action or practice. Finally practice yields fruit. This inspiration continues throughout the action also as the force of action. Knowledge takes very long time like the yearlong academic course. When the examination approaches, you are inspired with the serious preparation till the examination is over and this is theoretical devotion. After the examination, you get certificate and join the job to do service, which gives you monthly salary or fruit. Knowledge involves long time and service involves lifelong time. The service to God is considered as the fruit given by God with grace. Since the fruit cannot have another fruit, a true devotee does not aspire for any fruit of the divine service. The continuous divine service is felt as the enjoyment of divine fruit. In between, the examination involves short time. All the three are equally important steps for the salary drawn by you throughout your life. The Veda says that you have to do service (karma) throughout your life (kurvanneveha...shatam samaah). Hence, practice decided by correct knowledge and implemented by inspiration is permanent for the soul.]
[Service for human beings is possible only in the case of human incarnation. Service to inert statues is of no use since the inert item can’t enjoy the service sacrificed by you. Service even to energetic incarnation like Vishnu is not possible for human beings since such energetic incarnation is relevant only to souls in the energetic bodies in the upper world. Here, the energetic incarnation is not rejected due to disrespect, but, left due to irrelevance to humanity. Since same unimaginable God exists in energetic incarnation like Vishnu and human incarnation like Krishna, worship of Krishna is worship of Vishnu only. A human being after death, on going to upper world with energetic body, can serve the energetic incarnation like Vishnu, Shiva, Brahma etc. On this earth, a soul in materialized human body can serve only human incarnation like Krishna, which is relevant to human devotees here. The Veda clearly says that God does not exist in inert statues (Na tasya pratimaa).]
[This does not mean that you shall serve the statue of Krishna, who is the past human incarnation. Same God comes in human forms for every human generation so that the alive human incarnation can be served by every devotee of every generation. Impartial God gives the chance of serving contemporary human incarnation to devotees in every generation. Krishna said that whenever there is a need, He (God) will come in human form (Yadaa yadaa hi...). The meaning of Govinda is God attaining human form. ‘Go’ means group of senses meaning human body and ‘Vinda’ means attaining (Gosanghaatam shariram vindate iti Govindah). Krishna said the same definition in the Gita that God attains human body (Maanushim tanumaashritam). The word ‘Bhaja’ means attainment and service (Bhaja sevaayaam praapane cha), which means that you have to attain human incarnation and do service. Hanuman attained Rama, the human incarnation, and served Him continuously. Similarly, Radha recognized Krishna and served Him. This is the meaning of the famous song “Bhaja Govindam”. People mistake this thinking to sing group songs on Krishna. Of course, such group songs on God indicate the second stage called as theoretical devotion (Bhakti) after which attainment and service to alive human incarnation is the final stage.]
[Even though God does not enter statues and photos, the devotees in the initial stage can worship these as representative models of God to develop their theoretical devotion to God, just like for the development of devotion to nation, the national flag is saluted. The flag is neither nation nor nation exists in the flag, but, flag is a representative model of nation to develop the inspiration towards nation. Hence, one need not criticise the idol worship, which is meant for beginners as said in the scripture (pratimaa hyalpa buddhinaam). But, in this worship, food materials should not be wasted, which can be offered to God and shall be distributed to poor and devotees. Even, the oil lamps, candle lights need not be burnt if there is light already existing to help the vision of the devotees. Bathing the statue with water and decorating with flowers etc., are allowed to develop visual attraction of devotees.]
[In the worship of the statue, life initiation (Pranapratishta) is done, which indicates that your next step is to worship the human incarnation. The inert statue with initiated life indicates alive human body into which only God enters here for the sake of humanity. The worship of Shiva-Linga indicates the worship of energetic incarnation like Lord Shiva there, in the upper world meant for departed souls existing in energetic bodies. The shape of Shiva-Linga shows a curve, which represents wave nature of energy. The worship of Shiva-Linga for Shiva and worship of similar Shaalagrama stone for Vishnu indicate not only the worship of energetic incarnations there, but also is convenient to a starting devotee, who doesn’t like human form due to ego and jealousy.]
[The word karma or action or practice in the Veda and the Gita are confined to the works related to God only. In general, the word karma means any work including the work done for worldly matters like earning etc. To stress this aspect, in the word karmayoga, yoga means association with God. Similarly, knowledge may mean knowledge of world (jnana) or God (Jnanayoga). Similarly, devotion may mean love to world (bhakti) or love to God (Bhaktiyoga). The Gita mentions only the word karma when the worldly work is referred (sharira yaatraapi cha...). Karma as per the scriptures is very much confined to the ritual in which preaching spiritual knowledge (Jnana Kanda), praying God (Upasana Kanda) and feeding the participants (Karma Kanda) are involved without omitting any part. These three categories are found in the divine ritual of any religion everywhere in this world. Hence, this basic essence of the Vedic ritual in Hinduism indicates the universality establishing that God is not partial to any religion. Once the basic essence of the ritual is performed, you must know that the ritual of every religion is performed and the external culture and language are not at all to be cared.]
[The word karma or work confined to God is used in the scripture without referring to worldly work and this is justified because the worldly work is essential for every human being, which is done by every human being without any advice. Nobody needs advise for doing worldly work for earning for the needs of life and hence scripture being the advice to humanity is not involved in such worldly advice. Hence, the word karma means only the work of God, which is propagation of spiritual knowledge and devotion to uplift the humanity (Nivrutti) along with peace in society (Pravrutti). The Gita clearly says that the main concentration of the human being shall be towards the work of God (matkarma paramobhava…).]
[The development of knowledge and devotion are the duties of the preacher (priest). Work is the responsibility of the owner of the ritual, which is cooking the food and distributing it to the participants after feeding the preacher. Every preacher accepts some offering (Dakshina) from the owner and hence, the fruit of the entire ritual goes to the owner only. If the preacher demands for the offering, the preacher gets sin. If the preacher refuses the offering or takes whatever is offered, the preacher also gets a little portion of the theoretical fruit, because practical devotion is far higher than the theoretical devotion. The total practical fruit of the ritual goes only to the practical performer or the owner of the ritual since he is responsible for the practical sacrifice of work and fruit of work in the ritual.]
[The importance of practical devotion is indicated by 80% of the Veda, which describes about the details of the work to cook the food to supply to the participants of the divine seminar. Only 20% of the Veda describes the theoretical devotion as knowledge and spiritual prayers. This indicates that the practical devotion is far superior to theoretical devotion. A little portion or the theoretical fruit of the ritual is obtained by the preacher based on his attitude to offering and such fruit is also in theoretical phase only. This means that the entire practical fruit of the practical ritual goes to the performer of the ritual only.]
[The most important final stage of the spiritual path is work or practice. This consists of two parts. 1) Karmasamnyasa or Sacrifice of work to God, which is theoretical or even practical in the work of ritual without sacrificing any money. 2) Sacrifice of money or fruit of work. The second part (sacrifice of money) is very much stressed, which is the part of husband (in olden days, husband is only earning) and the sacrifice of work relates to wife (in olden days, wife was cooking the food). The fruit of this practical ritual goes to both husband and wife and hence, the eligibility to do the ritual (yajna) is said to be a householder with wife. The first part exclusively is for a saint, who doesn’t have anything to offer. Such a saint, generally, participates in the work of propagation of spiritual knowledge and development of devotion through prayers. The word samnyasa (sainthood) indicates this in the word karmasamnyasa. A house holder is eligible to do all these three works (sacrifice of theoretical work of knowledge and devotion, sacrificing work involved in the ritual like cooking etc., in practical sense and sacrifice of fruit of work involved in the ritual).]
[The sacrifice of the money for the divine ritual is stressed in the Veda, which is for the offering to the preacher and for expenditure involved in the ritual (aacharyaaya priyamdhanamaahrutya…, dhanena tyaagena…). The Gita modifies this concept by saying that you should sacrifice from the fruit of your hard work with which you will have the maximum bond and such sacrifice shows your highest sacrifice for God (karmajam…phalam tyaktvaa…). The fruit of work is matter (money), which is condensed energy and hence is greater than sacrifice of work, which is a form of energy. This is the reason why one respects the employer (exchange of matter with work) than respecting a shopkeeper in business (exchange of matter for material). Hence, the donation of wealth shall be carefully done with lot of analysis (samvidaa deyam – Veda) since, sacrifice to deserving gives good fruit and sacrifice to undeserving gives sin. In the Yogavaashishtam, sage Vashishta asks Rama to give offering (Gurudakshina) after earning money by hard work (dhanamaarjaya...).]
[The very word ‘yajna’ means worship (yaja-poojaayaam) of God (preacher as God) through the sacrifice of work in the form of worship and in the form of sacrifice of fruit of work. The word yajna means essentially the practical sacrifice only as worship. The English translation of this word yajna is ‘sacrifice’ which indicates the basic essence of the word yajna. Doubting the meaning of the word yajna to be confined to sacrifice work form of worship only without offering (dakshina), the word ‘daana’ (meaning the sacrifice of fruit of work as dakshina) is added to the word yajna (yajnena daanena tapasaa… Veda, yajno daanam tapashcha... Gita). The first word yajna means sacrifice of work in the form of worship (Karmasamnyasa). The next word daana means sacrifice of fruit of work as offering to preacher and for the expenses of ritual. The last word ‘tapah’ means the work done in propagating theoretical spiritual knowledge and theoretical devotion.]
[The fruit of work shall be sacrificed to the deserving receiver. The deservingness of the preacher is based on his correct knowledge of scripture and non-aspiration for any fruit in return (shrotriyasya chaakaama hatasya - Veda). The secondary scriptures say that the ritual becomes useless if the offering is not given to preacher (adakshina hato yajnah). While donating to poor beggars, one shall not do this analysis of deservingness since it is an emergent sacrifice to save the life. If the life is saved basically, you can preach him later on. Swami Vivekananda told to give bread first and then preach philosophy. It should be noted that He told about bread only and not about money in the case of offering to hungry beggar.]
[The second requisite to become deserving to receive any sacrifice is very very important, which is non-aspiration of any fruit in return from any side after doing God’s work. Even if offering is not done, the preacher shall not aspire for it since he should feel that he did work in the service of God and not humanity. One shall not foolishly extend this concept to worldly work. The poorest lady, who donated a small fruit to Shankara without aspiring anything in return from her beggar (Shankara), received unlimited wealth given by God! Krishna also gave unlimited wealth to Sudaama (Kuchela), who never aspired anything from Krishna in return. Doing sacrifice of work and fruit of work without any aspiration in return is the highest stage of a devotee, who will be blessed by God always here as well as there.]
[The word karma can be applied to the worldly work and the word karmayoga can be applied to the divine work. One will naturally do the worldly work with the aspiration for fruit only and it is not wrong to do so. It must be done for the fruit only. But, even in the worldly work, you should not always think about the fruit only, in which case, all your concentration or mental energy is spent in such useless thinking only. You will become weak in doing work (since your major energy is spent in thinking about fruit only, which is as per the first law of thermodynamics Q=E+W. Q is your total energy available for work, E is the energy spent in thinking about fruit and W is the energy spent in work) and thus finally will not achieve the fruit. In the case of God’s work, even trace of aspiration for fruit will spoils everything. You are doing service to God due to your attraction to the personality of God and in such case you shall not aspire any fruit in return. When you are attracted to the personality of a prostitute, you are donating a lot to her without aspiring any fruit in return! Don’t you have even a trace of such worst love towards God? If you do sacrifice in the work of God without any aspiration for fruit, God will take care of everything about you here as well as there. But, this statement also shall not be in your mind. God is omniscient and knows even a trace of feeling present in your nervous system and brain. You cannot fool omniscient God like your father to whom you can do sacrifice of work and fruit of work with hidden aspiration for fruit in return. Your father is a human being and can’t know your idea hiding in you. But, God knows everything. When worldly problems attack you, you must solve your problems through the necessary work without turning your face to God and this is the highest spiritual state for which God donates Himself to you and will make you to become human incarnation in this world while alive. The Veda and the Gita say that you shall concentrate always on the work without aspiration for fruit in God’s work and without thinking much about the fruit in the worldly work (kruvanneveh karmani jijivishyet shatam samaah…, karmanyevaadhi kaaraste…).]
[The sacrifice of fruit of work based on the deservingness of the devotee is very important. When you sacrifice offering to a preacher, it shall be in the form of money because the preacher can purchase anything required by him with the help of money. Due to his spiritual knowledge, the preacher does not use the money for vices. The preacher (guru) can be treated as the divine preacher (Satguru) if the preacher is perfectly following the spiritual knowledge already preached by the divine preacher without additions and deletions. Of course, the present tape recorder-priests are misusing their earnings for vices also due to lack of spiritual knowledge. Similarly, when you sacrifice to a poor beggar, your sacrifice must be in the form of required material like food, cloth, medicine, shelter etc., and not money. The beggar is suffering with poverty due to the previous sins done due to lack of spiritual knowledge. He has not attained the control of senses through knowledge and hence the donated money will be spent in vices like drinking, gambling etc. You must give him the basic facilities instead of money and preach the spiritual knowledge so that he will get control on vices, realisation and reformation so that all the punishments of sins are cancelled forever. By this, he will become very rich in future births. Your help to him in the name of social service is, at maximum, limited to this birth only. If you add divine program to the social service, you are helping him forever throughout his future births also.]
[If you do only social service without divine program, it is also good work and you will get temporary heaven. The fruit in social service is temporary because your donation to poor is limited to this birth only. In such donation, if you donate money and if it is used to increase vices, you will not get that temporary benefit also and will get additional sin. Mere social service is done by politicians for getting votes and to earn more in sinful ways, by which they and their families get destroyed. Every politician shall take Mahatma Gandhi as inspiration, who was always immersed in devotion to Rama while doing the social service. Without spiritual knowledge and devotion, if sacrifice (yajna) alone is done, it gives temporary heaven only since the donation is limited to this life only (evam karmchito lokah kshiyate – Veda, ksheene punye… Gita)]
[The doctrine of work (karma) of Purvamimaamsa as preached by Mandana Mishra was only to do the sacrifice without knowledge and devotion and get heavenly pleasures here and there as fruit in return. In this context, blind recitation of the Veda related to cooking of food resulted and such mere sacrifice is directly linked to the temporary heaven. These people say that mere work (cooking) and sacrifice of food (donating food) is sufficient without theoretical knowledge and theoretical devotion. These people related the work and donation of fruit as the mere path (knowledge of doing the work only), which is the major part of the Veda and feel that this much is sufficient. They have related the fruit to the sound of the scripture in blind recitation. Such sacrifice is useless due to the absence of the actual aim, which is theoretical knowledge and theoretical devotion. Mere practical philosophy is like a blind person walking without eyes in wrong direction due to the absence of guidance.]
[Shankara condemned this doctrine of practical philosophy without theory stressing the theory, which is the aim of the practice. He is again misunderstood as mere theorist without practice, in which case it will be like a lame person with eyes. He travelled all over the country to establish this karmasamnyasa and gave all the golden fruits rained to the deserving poorest lady, who gave Him a single small fruit, which alone was leftover in her house! Since He condemned Mandana Mishra doing only work, He should not be taken as exactly the opposite side representing only theory. He only condemned work without theory and His aim is not mere theory without work. He was appreciated by Kumarilabhatta, who is the founder of theory and work (jnana karma samuchchaya). Actually Mandana Mishra was the student of Kumarilabhatta, but, followed only the doctrine of isolated work or karma.]
[The government thinks that it is secular and concentrates only on the social service to poor. Secular means supporting spiritual knowledge treating all the religions to be equal. The government is avoiding the spiritual knowledge itself in the name of secularism. You are asked to take the medicine from any bottle or take little from each bottle and this is secularism. But, today, secularism is misinterpreted to be not taking medicine from any bottle! It is the duty of government and all the religious trusts to build beggar homes to provide all the basic needs along with the preaching of spiritual knowledge and developing devotion to any form of God liked by the individual.]
[If one understands the basic universal essence of all rituals of all religions, it can be easily found existing everywhere in every religion in any part of this world. This universal essence establishes that God is not partial to any religion in any country, which was not having communication with other countries in some span of past time. This is the concept of universal religion of Datta Swami. This will remove the ego of the followers of any religion that their religion is the only way, which was granted to them only by the partial God, thinking that the external culture and language only represent the ritual! This will also remove the grievance of the followers of any specific religion feeling that they missed the rituals of some other specific religion, which alone are true. Such people may convert their religion into other religion to get the real benefit, but, are still suffering that their forefathers lost this benefit since this new religion did not come into their contact. Such grievance about the past loss is also rectified if the universal essence of all rituals of all religions is understood properly since their forefathers practiced the essence in their time.]
[The universal sense of any religion in its rituals can be found out by the examination of any part of the ritual. In Hinduism, the word karma is strictly confined to the ritual to be performed with all the three aspects (knowledge, devotion and practical sacrifice). Unfortunately, the word karma or work is only taken as the meaning of the word yajna by confining to blind recitation of scripture without knowledge and devotion, simply cooking the food and distribution of food to all the participants. The basis of the inspiration in doing such ritual in such a blind conservative way is the blind tradition established by forefathers. Following the blind faith of such blind traditions, blind following also resulted without any enquiry. The Gita says that one must perform any ritual after complete enquiry and after getting correct knowledge standing as a specific aim of the ritual. Examples are:- blindly maintaining three burning altars of fire, blindly burning ghee in fire, blindly lighting the lights even though light exists etc. Burning fire with sticks continuously in the name of ‘dhuni’ to please Sai Baba also comes under this.]
[The three fire altars namely Aahavneeya, Gaarhapatya and Dakshina are maintained as simple instrumental fires for cooking the food for different occasions of rituals. The fire is maintained continuously because its generation by rubbing one stick with the other was very very difficult in the olden days. The continuous burning of fire has additional advantages for sages in huts in the forest. The fire will avoid venomous creatures and its smoke will repel the mosquitoes from the hut. If this knowledge of the background is absent, you can see certain people even today maintaining three fire altars in their houses in city also! For the same purpose, Sai Baba maintained the continuous fire since He was residing in a condemned mosque. The lights were burnt only for the vision of devotees in presence of darkness. All the followers of such blind traditions without analysis come under the school of Mandana Mishra. The founder of the school of Purvamimaamsa (Jaimini) has also agreed to the variation of a practice in view of the background of the circumstances of a context (kriyaayaam vikalpah) in a ritual. This concept is mentioned in the Veda that seeing a special planet called as Shodasi in a ritual may be done or may not be done (Atiraatre shodasinam grunhati na atiraatre sdodasinam grunhati – Veda). The ritual called as Atiraatra can be performed even if the Shodasi planet is not seen due to disturbance in weather.]
[People have given a wrong definition to the aahavniya fire as the fire that receives the offering of ghee (aahavniyaartham agnih). This is wrong because the correct definition is that it is the fire used as instrument to cook the offerings with ghee (aahavniyapaakasaadhanam agnih). The reasons are:- 1) The first hymn of the first Rig Veda says that fire is the hungry priest, who sacrifices ghee-food into his hunger fire (agnimile…hotaaram). If the physical fire is the subject, how the inert fire can offer the ghee-food into itself since hota means the person who is offering the ghee-food to himself. 2) Fire is of two types. First is the physical fire burning by sticks or electricity (Loukikaagni and Vaidyutaagni). This fire is instrumental to cook the food (yajnasaadhanam). The second type of fire is the deity called as vaishvaanaraagni or fire of hunger (aham vaishvaanaro… Gita) into which the ghee-food is to be surrendered by the hungry person. This second type of fire is to be worshipped (yajna upaasya agnih). The hungry guest is mentioned as agni or fire by the Veda (vaishvaanarah pravishati, aagneyovai brahmanah). 3) The Veda says that food shall not be destroyed (annam na parishakchita). 4) In the Bhagavatam, sage Kapila condemns the burning of ghee in fire. Krishna also asks for food for His hungry friends from the wives of sages before burning it in physical fire.]
[When the correct preacher is fed with ghee-food in the beginning itself (since the word agni comes from agri or the first person to be fed), in such preacher all the deities reside (since He is the human incarnation or Sadguru), all the deities are pleased to give rain. Misinterpretation of the smoke of the fire actually causing pollution to give rain is condemned, because experimental proof opposes it. Such smoke increasing the pollution of the atmosphere in addition to other causes, stops the rains. Hence, knowledge of the ritual is essential as said in the Gita. The Veda says that all deities reside in Human Incarnation or divine preacher (yaavatirvai…).]
[We must know clearly the word i) karma meaning necessary work in general and sub-divided as worldly work needed for maintaining the body etc., and work related to God, ii) karmayoga meaning work needed in the service of God only and iii) vikarma meaning doing sins, which include doing unnecessary works of world without relating to God or basic needs of world - as said in the Gita. The word samnyasa also means surrendering work to God (karmanah samyak nyaaso Bhagavati) apart from the meaning of leaving unnecessary worldly work (vyartha laukya karmanah nyaasah tyaagah). The context decides the meaning to be taken. Worldly work needed for maintenance is essential and such work is included in the work related to God (karmayoga) since maintenance of body is essential in the service of God. Hence, all the necessary worldly works should not be left and doing the necessary worldly works is always better than leaving all worldly works totally to become finally inactive and leaving the worldly work for basic needs is also impossible. When all the works are left, work of God is also left and this is not the desired aim. Hence, the conclusion is that one can leave all the unnecessary worldly works and concentrate on the necessary worldly works as well as the work related to God. This is the essence of nishkaama karma yoga propagated by the Gita (karmanohyapi.., tayostu.., naishkarmya siddhim.., shareera yatraa…, kaamyaanaam karmanaam… etc.).]
[The theory and practice must be joined together (ekam saankhyam cha… Gita). Either theory or practice alone without the association of the other is useless. King Janaka is mentioned for the practice existing with the theory (karmanaivahi… Gita) and he is not to be misunderstood standing for doing practice alone without knowledge like Mandana Mishra. The persons standing for blind practice without knowledge and devotion are seriously condemned by the Gita (kaamaatmaanah…), who are demons, doing the Vedic rituals not for developing the devotion to God by knowing the full details of the personality of God, but, doing rituals to get materialistic boons and heavenly pleasures. Such devotion is only instrumental and not real devotion to God.]
[The ritual called as yajna was unfortunately confined to mere cooking work of food (eight types food were cooked as said in the Veda “ashtaakapaalam...”) and sacrifice of cooked food. Such a ritual is involved with getting happiness after eating food and getting heavenly pleasures (sattvam), mere preparation of food for distribution of work (rajas) and the ignorance (tamas) of the actual main purpose of the ritual, which is to develop knowledge and devotion of God. Such major part of the Veda excluding Upanishat (Vedanta) is said to be not correct and to be leftover (traigunya vishayaa vedaah… Gita). Here, the Veda means blind recitation of the scripture or at the maximum, knowing the details of work in cooking only, which is excluding the subject of God. These blind followers of rituals without knowledge are concentrating on the details of the work only like the six requirements of a ritual, which are related to doing (vidhi), not doing (nishedha) etc., and these are not related to the subject of God in anyway. These people say that Indra killed Vrutra due to wrong accent of sound in support of their theory that mere sound yields results! Indra killed Vrutra because Indra is an angel doing good works and Vrutra is a demon doing bad works. This is the decision of God and not the decision of the sound!]
[Work or karma is actually the dynamism or force or energy. Dynamism of electron means the kinetic energy of the electron, which is possessing certain potential energy also with it. The possessor of these kinetic and potential energies (electron) is also condensed form of energy, which means dynamism only. When matter is energy and energy means dynamism, the possessor of this energy or dynamism must be always mentioned separately apart from the dynamism or energy or work even though the possessor itself is dynamism or energy. This results in the concept that electron as well as its dynamism are the components of dynamism or energy or work only. The conclusion is that this world taken as an item is not a special entity, but, dynamism of God only. This is the reason why the world is called as creation and creation means not an entity but a process or work or dynamism only. The creation is process and the created product is also called as creation or process. If you say that Rama is walking, there are two entities:- 1) Rama, the working element and 2) The walking work, which is the dynamism of Rama only. Hence, the working element or the possessor of work or dynamism is the unimaginable God, which is the relative plane only, meaning thereby that it exists depending on the existence of the working element or God. Hence, this entire creation is the work form energy only presented as dance of God Shiva, God being the absolute plane of independent existence. If you eliminate God from His work, you will attain the absolute plane in which you will infer the existence of unimaginable God only. This is called as attainment of absence of work or naishkarmya siddhi, which can be attained by leaving the entire creation or work or dynamism or energy including its forms of matter and awareness as said in the scripture (neti neti – Veda, naishkarmya siddhim… Gita). As long as this relative plane exists in which you are also a component, perfect monism can’t be even imagined.]
[The practical philosophy is the greatest valuable item because it alone can yield the practical fruit like a mango plant alone giving the mango fruit. At the same time, the theoretical knowledge and theoretical devotion are also the greatest items since without these two, the plant can’t be alive and can’t grow to yield the practical fruit. Hence, you must give uniform importance to all these three, which are the three components of the primary scripture called as the Veda. The oneness in such importance is mentioned by the Gita (ekam saamkhyam cha yogam cha…). Theoretical knowledge of intelligence and theoretical emotional devotion of mind stand by the word saamkhya. Yoga stands for the practical philosophy, which is sacrifice of work and fruit of work related to God. God is the homogenous unity in these three (Jnana, Bhakti and Karma) and these three become one due to oneness of God. Hence, the Gita says that Saamkhya or theory (Jnana and Bhakti) and Yoga or practice (karma) are one and the same (Ekam saamkhyam cha yogam cha…). Even though there is theoretical-practical difference in their potentialities of fruits. This is the unity (oneness of God) in diversity (fruits). Hence, practical fruit can’t be attained by theory and mere practice without theory becomes useless. ‘Useless’ in the sense that mere practical sacrifice without knowledge of God and devotion to God may give temporary fruit like heavenly pleasure, but, God, the eternal fruit, is lost forever.]
★ ★ ★ ★ ★