28 Jan 2007
[Shri M. V. K. Murthy, a famous writer of novels came along with another devotee called Yogi. On seeing him, Swami started emitting an intense scent of camphor for a long time. He was amazed since this scent was not found outside that room. Yogi joked “So, Swami does some magic now and then!”. Swami joked “I am a professor of chemistry. I might have used some chemicals for generating this scent. You must search Me fully”. Then Phani said “A devotee here believed that the statue of Lord Venkateshwara is the only God. He argued with Swami on this point. Swami generated several types of scents. The devotee said that Swami being a professor of chemistry might have used some chemicals. But the scents started surrounding the devotee for six months continuously, day and night. Even though the devotee left town and went away to far places, the scents never left him. He became very weak and his wife prayed to Swami to stop the scents. Swami agreed and the scents stopped”. Swami gave the following afterwards].
Miracles, Knowledge, Devotion, Service
Miracles are just the fundamental level of elementary schools which are widely spread everywhere by the wish of God. Even evil people can do these miracles by black magic. The idea behind such wide distribution of miracles is that these miracles are useful in converting atheists into theists. For such elementary work, human incarnations or professors are not necessary. The next level is Jnana Yoga, which is the level of high schools. High schools are lesser in number than elementary schools because only some converted theists start the enquiry about the subject (Jnana Yoga) of the unimaginable God. His existence was indirectly proved through the unimaginable miracles and He is the source of the unimaginable power behind the miracles. The next higher level is formation of theoretical love (Bhakti Yoga) or devotion on the Lord, since only a few of the scholars [having the knowledge] of God get it. This level is the level of colleges. The ultimate highest level is practical devotion (karma yoga) or service to God, which is the level of the university and is very rare since only a few of the devotees can become servants of God through practical sacrifice of work and the fruit of work.
The scientific analysis of divine knowledge (Jnana Yoga) pervades all the four levels as the basic torchlight. In the first level the existence of God is accepted. In the second level the existence of the unimaginable God is accepted. In the third level, representatives of God like statues in human form are worshipped by words and mind to get rid of ego and jealousy towards the human form. In the fourth level, the decision of the final conclusion of the intellectual analysis results in detecting the contemporary human incarnation. Involvement in practical service in His mission results from it.
There are two paths of love for God: the path of limited real love like the love for one’s wife and the path of unlimited real love like the love for one’s children. The first path is aspiring for boons from God for selfish happiness, which involves mostly theoretical and a little practical devotion. In this first path, one loves God as his wife; for selfish happiness only and most of his love is emotional (theoretical) with a little practical sacrifice. The second path is selfless love without any aspiration of fruit in return and consists of mostly practical and a little theoretical devotion. In this second path one loves God as his child; without any selfishness and with total sacrifice of work and the fruit of work.
Hanuman and the Gopikas are the best gold medal-students of the university. Once you are fixed in the divine service of God, there is no need of miracles, knowledge and theoretical devotion. Knowledge is the qualifying degree and theoretical devotion is the official appointment order. Practical devotion is the work done in the month and the salary (fruit) is given only for the monthly work done. Only work (karma) can yield the fruit.
The unimaginable God is beyond the four-dimensional model of space and time. You can imagine the dissolution of matter and converting into energy that fills space. Subsequently you can imagine the disappearance of energy in space and the result is final vacuum. But even if you try for your whole lifetime, you can never imagine the disappearance of vacuum. God being the generator of space, is beyond space and therefore can never be imagined. If you have to imagine God, the pre-requisite is the imagination of the disappearance of space or vacuum. Of course space itself is a form of very fine energy and in this context the word energy used by Me above can be taken as the crude form of energy. The only knowledge about God is that He is beyond knowledge (Yasyaamatam—Veda).
Social Responsibility of Novelists
People are writing novels and these novels are also useful in building up justice in Pravritti of the society. The authors have to raise the suspense, tension and anxiety to make the soul alert regarding the justice to be followed in maintaining world peace. But I find that this point of raising the tension is maintained throughout the novel just for increasing the popularity and sales of the book and this is not good. When there is a necessity like studies, the human being should be awakened from sleep. But when there is no necessity, let the fellow sleep. However, the impression of justice through novels is a total failure because nobody on this earth will give value to the human values in practical life, even though these values may be theoretically appreciated. In the novels, you must at least indirectly stress on the consequences of good and bad deeds to be enjoyed here itself. Such inevitable consequences indirectly indicate the existence of the firm divine system of heaven, hell and God. But you write the story in such a way as to show that good is punished and bad succeeds. For such special practical instances, the requirement of explanation of the doctrine of karma is essential [it is essential to explain on the basis of the doctrine of karma, why the good was punished]. The sins done by the person in his previous birth have to be taken into account for such practical cases [The novelist should clarify in the novel that the ‘good’ person was punished inspite of his goodness because of some sin committed by him the past birth]. Even if rebirth is not accepted, sins misunderstood as good deeds might have been done by the person in this birth itself and their inevitable consequences explain such special cases.
Without such a total concept of spiritual knowledge in the background, people are just writing novels that raise tension continuously in their readers, just for killing time. Time can be killed by several ways without raising tension. Tension is the source of all chronic diseases. They are writing the novels to earn wealth at the cost of the health of people and this is a terrible sin. Sages Valmaki and Vyasa also wrote novels, which are noble stories with vast ethical and spiritual knowledge in their background. Even in the Mahabharatha, which is a social novel [on a social theme], the aspects of Pravritti and Nivritti are stressed through the role of the human incarnation (Krishna). These epics are not only scriptures for establishing Pravritti but are also practical scriptures of spiritual knowledge, which were built around the then living human incarnations of God. In fact the Ramayana and the Bhagavatam are the best scriptures of the practical spiritual knowledge of Hanuman and the Gopikas who have achieved the highest fruit of salvation. Mahabharata shows the partial success of Pandavas in the recognition of their contemporary human incarnation. Hence, you must write novels after achieving complete spiritual knowledge and you should use the point of raising tension in the soul to bring alertness only to impress upon it, ethical and spiritual concepts of Pravritti and Nivritti.
Breaking the Chain of Worldly Life
Once you are settled in the practical service of the contemporary human incarnation of God, there is no need of any more theoretical devotion (Bhakti Yoga) and there is no need of any more analysis of the subject (Jnana Yoga). Practical service (karma yoga) is the endless stage in which one has to continue for births and births till the end of creation. This is the significance of the endless life (Chiranjivi) of Hanuman, who fixed Himself in the service of the human form of God. Knowledge (Jnana) and theoretical love (Bhakti) exist in the soul, as samskaras and the soul need not waste time again and again in acquiring these two. The short lives of Shankara and Meera indicate the brief periods of learning Jnana and getting Bhakti.
You must come out of Pravritti as early as possible and enter Nivritti. Shankara and Prahlada entered Nivritti even in their tender childhood. People misunderstand that the subject of Pravritti is made of chapters so that one can turn to Nivritti at the end of at least some chapters [after passing through at least a few stages in your life such as marriage, achieving career goals and getting chidlren]. If you are at the end of a chapter and if the bell rings, you can request the other teacher for five minutes-time to complete your chapter before coming out. But if it is a continuous subject, there is no meaning in such a request. You think that you will come to Nivritti after ensuring that your children are well-settled. But your children are virtually never settled because they are again ‘unsettled’ when they get children. Hence, your children are never settled since their children are unsettled in your lifetime. Thus, the chain is endless and you have to break the endless chain at some point or the other. In an endless chain any point is equally good to break.
The Veda says that you must leave the chain at any point once you are completely attracted to God (Yadahareva Virajet Tadahareva Pravrajet). Shankara, the top most genius realized this truth and broke the chain in the childhood itself. Today people are not breaking this endless chain even on their deathbed. A fellow in Karnataka died and his last word was “Kasabari”. The word means a broomstick that is used to sweep the dust from the floor. A donkey was trying to eat it. He warned his son to save the broomstick from the donkey. You know, that soul was born in the next birth as a sweeper on the roads with a broomstick in hands. A pickle soaked in a jar for a long time in salt and acidic fluid, cannot give a sweet taste if you put it in a sugar solution. Therefore, it is better to turn towards Nivritti as early as possible. A poor peon today was a greedy fellow in the previous birth, who earned wealth for generations through his business and corruption, without any sacrifice. A beggar begging for money was a person who wasted money in a lavish manner by giving it to undeserving people. A lifelong diseased rich fellow was a rich person in the previous birth, who spent all his earnings for his own selfishness.
The sins and punishments are very systematically implemented by a very powerful computerized system called Chitra Gupta in hell. I am surprised to see many scholars [in spiritual knowledge], even in their old age are involved in the deep analysis of only useless routine family affairs. Even if they were to spend 1/10th of their time, energy and logical talent for the subject of God, they would get salvation. What happened to their spiritual knowledge in which they are very famous preachers? Has it been covered due to the effect of the long association with family life? Darkness may be associated with you for a long time. But the moment, the sun shines, even darkness existing for centuries and centuries should vanish. In that case, what is the reason for the ineffectiveness of their divine knowledge? The power of their knowledge-light is too less and hence the darkness is not much affected. What is the reason for the absence of power in their knowledge? The power of the knowledge is directly proportional to the degree of truth in it. If the knowledge is absolutely true from all angles, it is like the summer sun and the ignorance-darkness of any intensity and length of time, has to vanish in a fraction of second. Therefore, the absence of the absolute truth in their knowledge is responsible for the reduced power in their knowledge to remove ignorance. Even though the moon and stars exist, darkness is not removed in the world. But in the daytime, no trace of darkness can exist before the sun.
Masked Knowledge
The sages built up the tradition in such a way that the absolute truth is always masked by the extent of ignorance suitable to the level of devotees. For example the ultimate goal is the contemporary human incarnation who is God covered by the three qualities and five elements, which cannot touch Him. To reach this highest state you have to worship the human form of God as a statue [representative]. Before this you have to accept that a representative medium is necessary to worship the unimaginable God and a representative model like a stone (Shiva Lingam) should be worshipped. Since ignorant people neglect even the diamond present before their eyes, to satisfy their psychology, the model should be far from their place, like the Shiva Lingam in Varanasi. To encourage the person to go to that city, the river Ganga should be praised so as to provide an attraction. So it is said that if you take a bath in the Ganga and die in Varanasi, your entire sins are washed away. Death in Varanasi means that at least in your old age you should turn to Nivritti. This is the absolute truth masked by an infinite intensity of ignorance. If that were true, what is the value of the karma chakra [cycle of karma] and what is the necessity of hell?
Today you can find even a scholar with deep knowledge of the scriptures going for a bath to the river Ganga when several dead bodies are floating in the Ganga. What happens finally? The sins remain in the same status [do his sins get washed away?]. The river Ganga is so polluted that a resident of Varanasi cannot even drink the water from the Ganga. The person who has taken bath in the Ganga and died there has added this new sin of spoiling people’s drinking water, to his list of sins. I know that ignorant traditional people will revolt against this revealed truth. Nobody has guts to say this absolute truth in the city of Varanasi. The foremost rebels will be the priests and other business people of Varanasi who are earning money, exploiting the ignorance of this absolute truth. People will even not have the patience to argue about the truth. Emotion is always a sign of ignorance (Krodhaat Bhavati—Gita).
★ ★ ★ ★ ★