26 Jan 2010
[Republic Day Message] A devotee asked Swami ‘The Brahmin priest collects about one lakh rupees as fees for performing the rituals after death. Is this justified for your caste?’
Swami replied: The priest is Brahmana. But every Brahmana is not priest. Ofcourse, if a person in a caste behaves wrongly, it reflects on the entire caste. I condemn this behavior of the priest as he loots the society through exploitation. This specific case is certainly opposed by Me. At the same time, every exploitation in the society and consequent looting everywhere in all walks of life of all the people should be equally condemned. Every job holder and every businessman loots the society through exploitation. I am not supporting this specific case, since generally the exploitation exists everywhere in the society. I only say that by controlling one case, society is not liberated from the exploitation. Let us start criticizing exploitation of the society from the priest and My appeal is only not to stop here itself, by which the use will be very little.
The priest exploits the society by creating the fear about hell and further says that the ritual conducted by him saves the departed soul from hell.
An atheist will deal this case in the beginning itself by saying that hell, which cannot be shown by anybody does not exist and therefore, the subsequent created fear for hell need not be exploited through the ritual. Since, hell does not exist, the fear is false and the subsequent ritual to remove the fear also becomes false by which one can escape hell as per the version of the priest. All this is the approach of the atheist to solve this type of looting through exploitation.
But, My approach to criticize this exploitation and its solution are totally different. I say that hell exists, the fear for hell also should exist and the ritual should be performed to remove the fear for hell certainly. The ritual is certainly capable of protecting anybody from hell. At the same time, the priest definitely exploits this concept and loots the society because the priest does not perform the ritual in the right spirit and asks fees for performing the ritual. These two points are wrong. The first wrong point is absence of the right way of performing the ritual. The second wrong point is to ask for fees after performing the ritual.
Correct Way of Performing Rituals
The right way of performing the ritual is to create knowledge and devotion about God through the ritual. The priest recites the prayers in Sanskrit, which is not known to the performer. The Veda, the Holy Scripture, was in Sanskrit since it was written by sages, whose mother tongue was Sanskrit language. God knows all the languages, since He is omniscient. The priest should read the prayers in the mother tongue. At least, the priest should explain the meaning of the prayers to create divine knowledge through which devotion develops. The priest himself does not know Sanskrit and he is incapable of the explanation. He wasted all the time in reciting the prayers without seeing the book. In old times, there was no technology of writing and therefore, such recitation was essential to preserve the Veda. Now, the Veda is well preserved since it is printed in the form of a book. Therefore, the priest should use the book for recitation and should explain the meaning of the prayers. Other religions like Islam and Christianity are blessed since the scriptures are in their mother tongue and the priest reads the prayers with the help of a book. You need not worry about the statement that one should not use the book (Likhitapaathakah…). It is only a verse created by some scholar and the same verse also says that the priest should know the meaning of the prayers (Anarthajnah…). The priest should spend all the time in learning the Sanskrit language so that he can explain the meaning of the prayers. He should not waste the time in practicing blind recitation. If this reformation is implemented, Hinduism will be alive once again.
The essence of ritual is only to propagate divine knowledge and devotion and not blind recitation of specific Sanskrit prayers. If this specific Sanskrit prayer alone can save the soul by mere recitation, it should have been made universal by the will of God. If such facility is confined to Hindus only, God becomes partial and cannot be claimed as father of the entire humanity. The essence of these Sanskrit prayers, which are divine knowledge and devotion, exists in every prayer of all religions in different languages. Thus, the essence is universal but not the language. Today in Hinduism, this essence is lost and therefore, the ritual becomes ineffective and cannot save the departed soul. The devotion flowing in the prayers through the knowledge of the meaning alone can save the soul from hell.
The priest demands the fees for the useless performance of the ritual. He should not ask the fees even if the ritual is performed in the right way. It is a double crime. Collection of fees is not a rule as per the Dharma Shastra, which says that donation of money is a rule but not the collection of fees (Adya trishuniyamah…). The priest should perform the ritual in the right way and inspire the performer with divine knowledge and devotion. He should receive the fees given by the performer as per his capacity and interest. There should not be any demand from the priest. The priest may argue about his livelihood in such case. I assuredly promise that the priest will receive thousand times more money from the society, since God is pleased with him because the duty of the priest is perfectly performed. The fee collected by demand is bad money and will not give happiness and success in his family. The bad money earned by corruption and exploitation will always give tragic end in the case of anybody. If you perform your duty in this right path, the performer will certainly reward you even beyond his capacity due to divine inspiration. The performer pays the priest in a forced way only due to fear and not with full willingness since he does not appreciate the meaning of the ritual.
If the priest does not realize this truth and does not change his false way, the solution is that the performer should refuse such useless ritual and conduct the ritual in the real sense. He can invite some good devotees and perform the prayers in his mother tongue for the protection of the departed soul. Certainly, such performance of ritual will save the departed soul because the real essence of the ritual is implemented. If the performer of the ritual is also foolish and is trapped by fear, let the departed soul take samnyasa before death and there is no need of any ritual for a Sanyasin after death. Thus, one can save one lakh rupees even if his son is foolish following the blind and wrong tradition. In fact, everybody is expected to take sanyasa in old age. The Shastra says that one should follow all the four ashramas before death and never recommends that one should die after the second asharama, which is the state of house holder.
The Concept of Arthavada
Actually, the departed soul is said to be directed in one of the two ways called as Shukla and Krishna paths (Shukla Krishna gateehyete… Gita). In the first Shukla path, the soul reaches God and there is no need of food for the soul in this path (Nahi tenapathaa tanutyajah…). The second Krishna path is sub-divided into three parts. The highest part is heaven and there is no need of food and water in heaven (Ubheteertvaa Ashanaayaa…). The next lower part is Pitruloka and here also, there is no need of food because the soul exists by the energy supplied from the moonlight (Nirvishtasaaraam pitrubhih himamshoh…). The next lowest part is hell and here also the food and water are denied and the soul suffers with hunger and thirst (Jaayasva mriyasva…). Therefore, the departed soul does not require food and water after death because the departed soul possesses energetic body only, which does not require any materialistic food. All the food given to the priests in the ritual is only to please the priests, the deserving scholars of the Vedic knowledge, so that the departed soul gets protection from God by such deed of good donation to devotees. Then, why is a lie told that the food given here to the priests reaches the departed soul? It is only Arthavada, which means a false statement given for a good purpose. By this, even a greedy fellow performs the charity to deserving priests and devotees due to fear that the departed soul may starve with hunger. This Arthavada is exploited by the present undeserving priests to extract huge amounts of money from the ignorant people. It is better to reveal the truth so that the charity can be propagated in the true sense, since it is also associated with the protection of soul through charity to deserving devotees. When the protection of departed soul is achieved through right path also, what is the need of this false path of Arthavada, which allows the possibility of exploitation?
In the ritual after death, a cow is donated to the deserving priest and the Arthavada here is that the departed soul will cross the river before hell. Here the charity is encouraged and crossing the river is only a lie created for good purpose. Similarly, a young bull is released in the ritual so that it helps the growth of race of cows through fertilization. Generally, the bulls are made incapable of fertilization and are used in agriculture. For the sake of the growth of cows such charity is encouraged through Arthavada. Nobody will do such good charity because everybody is interested in his own selfish growth of agriculture. All these good deeds of charity help the departed soul and hence, the charity can be also achieved by revealing the truth and there is no need of Arthavada. Arthavada is exploited and the undeserving priest is benefited. This donation to undeserving receiver is a sin and in fact the departed soul will be tortured more. The deservingness of the receiver is the essence of charity to give good result. If the deserving receiver is not available, you can postpone the ritual till the deserving receiver is available. The ignorant people do not give importance to this aspect. They are mostly bothered about performing the ritualistic charity on the date of the death of the departed soul. The place and time are not important for the charity.
Now, the atheist may argue that hell does not exist anywhere in the space and thus, there is no need of these rituals. I could not show the presence of hell to the athiest and equally, he also did not show the absence of hell to Me, since the space is infinite. Moreover, you cannot conclude that all invisible items are non-existent. The cosmic energy is invisible to our eyes but it exists and becomes visible through powerful microscope. The microscope is the special instrument to show the existence of invisible cosmic energy. Similarly, the superpower achieved by penance or God’s grace is special instrument to see the upper worlds. Hell may be near but is invisible due to lack of special instrument. The hell may be visible but may exist somewhere in the infinite space. Both of us are incapable of showing the presence and absence of the hell to each other and this results in 50-50 probability of both presence and absence. A blind person is walking and one says that fire is before him and the other says that there is no fire. If the blind person is wise enough, he will go back after analyzing the 50-50 probability. Even if he goes back, there is no harm to him assuming that the fire is absent. If he moves forward, he may be burnt, in case fire exists. Therefore, the wise person will believe the existence of hell and will perform the rituals in the right sense for the sake of the departed soul. In fact, the priest will go to hell, if the ritual is not done in proper way and if he demands the fees.
The invisible need not be permanently unimaginable. The invisible may become visible through special techniques and then may become imaginable. The invisible may remain unimaginable as long as it is not visible. The invisible may remain unimaginable for ever if it is not visible at anytime. The boundary of the universe is always invisible and remains unimaginable forever. The permanently unimaginable item remains invisible always like the boundary of space. The temporarily unimaginable item like cosmic energy may be invisible for sometime, but, when it becomes visible with special technology, it becomes imaginable. You may imagine some point of space as the boundary of this universe. But, that imagined point of space is not the last spatial point because such last spatial point can never be achieved even by imagination. If you claim that you have imagined the last spatial point, the immediate question will be “What is present after that last spatial point?” You have to say that some more spatial points exist after your imagined last spatial point. In such case your imagined spatial point is not the last point. Therefore, the boundary of space is always unimaginable.
Since God is beyond space, if you have reached the boundary of the space, you have reached God. Since you cannot reach the boundary of space even by imagination, God is always unimaginable. A miracle establishes the existence of permanently unimaginable item. A miracle is the word used for a group of imaginable and visible components through which the existence of hidden unimaginable and invisible component is established. The tender boy, his tender finger, the mountain and the process of lifting are visible and imaginable. All these items indicate the absence of vision and imagination of logical process of lifting of the mountain by a tender boy. Since the logic fails in this process, the process of such lifting becomes unimaginable. Unimaginable is always invisible because an item that cannot be touched by even imagination can never be touched by eyes. Though the process of lifting a mountain by the boy is visible, the hidden logical process of such lifting becomes invisible and unimaginable. This logical process remains always invisible and always unimaginable. Therefore, the permanently unimaginable item is always invisible. Similarly, in the performer of this process, the unimaginable God is hidden and is invisible, though the boy is visible and imaginable. By seeing the boy, you can say that you have seen the unimaginable God because you have assumed the boy as the unimaginable God, who is hidden in him only. Therefore, the Vedic statement that one blessed soul has seen God is valid (Kaschit dheerah…). At the same time, in reality the unimaginable God is hidden in the boy and is not actually visible and therefore, the Vedic statement that no eye can touch God is also valid (Natatrachakshuh…). The existence of this unimaginable process is inferred through this miracle.
You should not argue that since the inference succeeds here, the unimaginable component is resolved by inference and hence, it becomes imaginable. A sharp and patient analysis reveals that the inference has given only the knowledge of the existence of the unimaginable item and it did not give the knowledge of any other characteristic of the unimaginable item. When the invisible fire on the mountain is inferred through the visible smoke, not only the existence of the fire but also all the characteristics of fire like light, heat, flames etc., are inferred. Therefore, we can say that inference succeeds in giving the knowledge of all the characteristics of fire. But in the case of miracle, only the existence of the unimaginable item is known and no characteristic of the unimaginable item is known. Therefore, inference is also a failure in giving the characteristic knowledge of the permanently unimaginable item. If the existence is also not given here, nobody even recognizes and accepts the unimaginable item, which is God. Hence, the Veda says that only the existence of God is revealed and no other characteristic knowledge about God is attained. Therefore, by knowing the existence of unimaginable God, God does not become imaginable. The only knowledge of God is about His existence as said ‘Om Tat Sat’.
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