10 Mar 2013
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
[Shri Phani asked “I feel bored staying at home continuously and I feel like visiting different places. What is the reason for this feeling?”. Given below is Shri Swami’s reply.]
The mind always feels happy in change. If you are in a busy place, you will feel happy by going to an isolated place. But, if you are in an isolated place, you will feel happy by going to a busy place. Therefore, the happiness is not in any place or external atmosphere. The happiness lies only in the change of the state, which is totally related to your mind. The Veda says that even God got bored by His isolated state before the creation of this world and hence, He created this world. If you analyze with the help of your intelligence (Buddhi), you can overcome this by knowing the truth with the help of the knowledge. Lord Krishna says in the beginning of the Gita itself that the analytical faculty should be always adopted to know the truth and reach God (Dadami Buddhi yogam tam…). This whole world is composed of the five elements only everywhere. There is no sixth extra element in any place. Therefore, change of one place to get happiness is total ignorance. If you further analyze, you yourself are made of the same five elements. Hence, you need not be aware of the external atmosphere in which you are placed. You can derive happiness from yourself and this is called as ‘Atma Yoga’, which of-course is not divine since awareness is a part of the creation only. By ‘Atmayoga’ you cannot protect yourself forever.
We can say that this entire world is a five component system. The sixth component, awareness, which is also created by God and happens to be a created component of the world, is not present everywhere in this world. It is present as non-continuous discrete item only limited to the living beings. Since you are a living being, this sixth component exists in you. Hence, you are more than the external inert atmosphere. You are not different from the external atmosphere, which also exists in you and in fact you are greater than it. Is it not illusion for you being a six component system to get happiness from the external five component system, especially when the five components are common? In fact, you sit somewhere and think of your awareness by closing your eyes. You will certainly realize that you are greater than the external atmosphere. Therefore, if one is fond of a particular place like native place or fond of change of place, the reason is only ignorance. Krishna left His native place, Brindavanam in His childhood and never returned to it in His life time. Similarly, Shankara also left His native place in His childhood and never returned. Only ignorant people are fond of their native places and even try through unethical ways to get posted in their native places! By the same analysis, you can overcome your bonds with certain people only. Every human being is a six component system like you and hence, there is no meaning in the special attraction to certain human beings and special repulsion to certain human beings without proper reason. Your blind attraction to certain human beings in the name of your family is the basis of your home. Similarly, your blind attraction to certain human beings in the name of your relatives and friends is the basis of your native place. In the light of clear analysis, a six component system also need not have attraction towards another six component system. This clearly analyzes the blind attraction of a boy towards a specific girl or vice-versa, which sometimes results in the most foolish suicide due to failure of love. Every girl or a boy is a six component system only. Any girl or any boy will behave as a good wife or good husband in a specific set of conditions. Hence, the specific liking between a specific boy and a specific girl is the climax of ignorance and illusion. All this is called as Pravritti for which the basis is ignorance and illusion due to lack of intensive analysis. Hence, we can understand the negligence of Lord Krishna towards His family members in the native place and similar negligence of Shankara towards His mother in the native place.
Apart from these six components, there is a seventh component called as the Unimaginable God, who is beyond all these six components and is unachievable in His original state. You need not neglect God since He is unachievable. The unimaginable God is achievable since He enters a specific human being like Krishna, Shankara etc., and gets identified with that specific human form. You have to search such human incarnation, who is the Preacher of True Knowledge. If God is everywhere in the world, the spiritual effort is unnecessary and salvation also becomes meaningless. In such case, Shankara should not have left His mother, who is already God. In such case, Shankara should not have preached anything since everybody is already God. There is no need of search of God in any place in this world since no item in this creation is God. The Veda says this clearly that no created item is God (Neti neti…). The Veda also states that you cannot achieve the Creator, who is not created by another creator (akrutah…) through any item created by Him (Krutena) as said in the Veda (Nastyakrutah krutena…). This means that none of these six components is God. But, God can enter any created item due to His unimaginable power. The most logical selection for His entry is the six component system, which is the human form. The main reason is to preach the true knowledge and clarify all the doubts so that the right path of the spiritual journey becomes very clear. Therefore, you should search for such a specific human incarnation, which is the Preacher of the right path as well as the goal by Himself. If the preacher is also the God, there will not be any mistake in identifying the right path. Most of the preachers do not know the right path. Even if a preacher rarely knows the right path, it is suppressed or twisted in his preaching due to selfishness. The truth is always harsh and is not liked by anyone. This is the reason for the salvation to be rare. The preacher always expects some worldly benefits from the disciples. Such a benefit is possible only when the disciple likes the preaching. Since harsh truth is not liked by anyone, the preacher keeps silent on the truth even if he knows it. When God is the preacher, such worst stage will never happen because God does not require anything from anybody being the donor of anything to anyone.
Jesus, God-cum-preacher, said to a rich man that he should sacrifice all his wealth to the poor people for the sake of salvation. Any other modern preacher in His place will say that salvation can be attained by payment of rupees fifty thousand to him! If you believe such statement, the result is that you will get salvation from rupees fifty thousand existing in your pocket!! This is the difference between God-cum-preacher (Satguru) and mere preacher (Guru). The extra word ‘Sat’ stands for God. ‘Sat’ means absolute truth denoting God. The Veda says that you should search for such Satguru, who is the destroyer of your ignorance (Guru), the right interpreter of the Divine Scripture (Shrotriya) and God by Himself (Brahmanishtha) as said in the Veda (Satgurumevabhigachchet… Shrotriyam Brahmanishtham). Any preacher can remove the ignorance and interpret the Divine Scripture. But, when the Scripture is misinterpreted, the knowledge is removed by ignorance. The misinterpretation is done by the preacher for the sake of selfish benefit from the disciples. When the correct interpretation is given, the true knowledge radiates, which is always harsh. Therefore, the Veda says that God in human form can be recognized only by the true knowledge preached by Him (Satyam Jnanam Anantam Brahma). In the Gita, Krishna directly told that He is God, which will not be liked by anyone. His statement is substantiated by the vast true knowledge given by Him. You have to differentiate Krishna from a fool, who also may say like that. The specific human being, which is selected by God to become human incarnation, is also a created item. By this, every created human being or non-living created item cannot be God. You can make a non-living created item as a representative model of God to develop your feelings of devotion. You should be careful in making any human being as a representative model of God, since such a human being may preach wrong knowledge unlike the silent non-living item. Ignorance of truth is better than wrong knowledge. Knowledge is more valuable than devotion. If you have selected a wrong path through wrong knowledge, any amount of devotion is useless. The speed of your running is not only useless but also dangerous when you are running in the wrong direction because he will be more far from the truth. The temples in various places are associated with false stories by the priests to attract more devotees for their selfish benefits. Such exploitations should be condemned by revealing the truth. But, such false story called as ‘Sthalapuranam’ or ‘Arthavada’ is also useful to improve faith and devotion in the beginners. Revealing the truth will spoil such benefit. Therefore, you should hide the truth from such devotees and should expose the truth to the priests to correct them. Shankara told the priests that such false stories can work in the case of beginners but not in Him, who is omniscient. He said that a knife may cut the vegetables but not the stone (Shilaprayukta Kshuradivat…). Hence revelation of proper knowledge should be done based on the state of disciple (Adhikari).
Therefore, you should move to any place in search of such God-cum-Preacher or devotees for the sake of spiritual discussion (Nivrutti). In such case, the external atmosphere is immaterial. Shankara in isolated hut at the peaceful forest is the same as Krishna in battle-field of high tension because the same divine knowledge is radiated from both irrespective of external atmosphere. Therefore, achievement of Satguru is important and not the change of place or atmosphere. The first alternative is for the eternal benefit of the soul and the second alternative is useless psychological feeling due to ignorance and illusion.
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