27 Oct 2011
[Shri Anil Antony asked “Why are the lives of devotees always full of difficulties and miseries? Does this mean that God is always associated with misery and not bliss?” Shri Swami replied as follows.]
God is always associated with bliss. Everybody approaches God to get that bliss just like you approach the fire to get the heat. You love God only to get happiness, benefits and protection from God. Such love is instrumental love and not the ultimate love. Instrumental love means that you love somebody or something because that person or that thing is the instrument to give you happiness. This is stated by the sage Yajnyavalkya in Bruhadaaranyakopanishat. He says that anybody loves anything or anybody to fulfill his desire for happiness from that person or that thing (Atmanah kamaya sarvam priyam bhavati…). One loves his wife because she gives him happiness. One loves his son because he serves him in the old age. One loves money because it gives all sorts of comforts in the life. If the wife or son or money gives problems and misery, one throws away these. From the childhood, the human being is habituated to love anything or anybody for the sake of its happiness only. The child loves its mother because she gives milk when it is hungry. All the worldly bonds are thus, selfish only. Nobody loves anybody for the sake of that person. Therefore, the human being is trained from the childhood with such selfish love only.
Therefore, when the human being loves God, naturally such selfish love only flows towards God. The human being thinks that its devotion to God is very pure and of very high level. No doubt, it is of very high level, but the entire love is impure only. The magnitude of anything with minus sign is to be condemned more and more only as its value becomes more and more. You should not appreciate the intensity of the devotion of a demon because such intensity of devotion is directly proportional to the intensity of his selfishness only. In this aspect, there is no difference between a human being and demon. This concept of the devotion is not known to the human being and hence, it thinks that it is the greatest devotee. In fact, it is not even one percent devotee because its devotion is with negative sign. This point should be clarified to the devotee. Therefore, God gives difficulties and miseries to the devotee. In such case, the devotion vanishes away. Then the devotee will realize that his devotion is only instrumental but not ultimate. The devotee should not try to increase his devotion because the devotion is in negative sign.
Therefore, the first step is to transform the devotion from negative sign to positive sign. The positive sign is to love God without aspiring any benefit or happiness in return. For this purpose, God gives misery to the devotee. By this, one should not misunderstand that God is not associated with bliss and is associated with misery only. The context here is to preach the devotee to purify his devotion. This should not be mixed up with the other context that God is always associated with bliss. The very fact that God is associated with bliss spoils the devotees to get attracted for getting bliss from God. The root meaning of the word Durga is that the God is to be gained through misery (Duhkhena gamyate iti Durga). The meaning of this word contains all the above analysis.
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