29 Jul 2021
[Ms. Laxmi Thrylokya asked: Swāmi, You have clearly explained that we should not expect anything from God in Nivṛtti because God always gives the best to us. Is it wrong to expect a spiritually oriented life partner also?]
Swāmi Replied:- In Nivṛtti, the devotee does not ask God for anything or for anybody except God Himself. In Pravṛtti, the devotee can ask such boon. In Nivṛtti, the devotee is filled with God only and there is no vacant space in the devotee except God. When Uddhava preached Monism (Advaita) – knowledge, Gopikas replied that there is no vacant space in them except Kṛṣṇa and hence, not even a single word spoken by Uddhava has entered them! There are two stages in the case of Gopikas: 1) When they were with Kṛṣṇa with lot of interest (Śraddhā) in Him. In that time also they were totally filled by Kṛṣṇa. 2) When Kṛṣṇa left them and went to Mathurā, their interest was intensified to climax resulting in madness. In the 1st stage cunning devotion was adopted and in the 2nd stage care not devotion was followed by them. Whenever you take the word Nivṛtti, you must be aware that Nivṛtti is the field started and developed by devotees only and not by God. Of course, God gives the highest fruit to the devotee on success in Nivṛtti. Except this one end favour, God always opposes Nivṛtti by creating several hurdles. But, in a successful devotee the speed of devotion increases due to these hurdles and in this angle, actually God is helping the true Nivṛtti devotees.
A failed Nivṛtti devotee stops in the path of Nivṛtti due to these hurdles. This is the reason that the successful devotees in Nivṛtti are very very few only (Sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ…– Gītā). Truly speaking one in millions and that too after millions of births (Bahūnāṃ janmanāmante…, kaścit māṃ vetti… - Gītā) is successful. All the rest constitute the devotees of Pravṛtti and failed devotees in Nivṛtti. Even though several Sages were born as Gopikas aspiring the goal of Nivṛtti, only 12 Gopikas reached the highest fruit called Goloka! Any boon regarding worldly bonds is asked in pravṛtti only and not in nivṛtti. Nivṛtti starts when all the worldly bonds are dropped from the soul due to the attachment to God. Nivṛtti means drop out of all worldly bonds. Only bond with God remains and this is the purification of love to God. From this point onwards, Nivṛtti starts and ends in two stages of initial interest and final madness, which is the intensification of love to God. As the process of attachment to God continues the worldly bonds start becoming weak and this simultaneousl process of attachment and detachment is a mixture of pravṛtti and nivṛtti. Such a mixture is not pure nivṛtti. In pure nivṛtti, only one bond with God remains (eka bhaktir viśiṣyate… Gītā). When this pure nivṛtti is reached where all the worldly bonds are dropped, the intensification of bond with God starts and such intensification of the only bond with God is called pure nivṛtti.
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