17 Aug 2024
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- You told that sweet devotion is the highest because the body, word and mind are together surrendered to God and the practical proof for the highest value of sweet devotion is granting the highest Goloka to Gopikas. Am I right?]
Swami replied:- Sweet devotion is definitely the highest because the female devotee has to face a lot of social resistance. But, you should not put down the other types of devotion. Draupadi as sister defeated all the romantic bonds with God by tearing her new sari for the bandage of the finger of God Krishna. All the romantic bonds ran in all directions just for a piece of cloth! Don’t you think that the brother-sister bond defeated the sweet devotion? Since there is surrender of body in this path of sweet devotion, this devotion may be treated as the highest. But, don’t you think that their female birth gave them this chance? Devotees in male birth may have even higher devotion, but, this type of surrender of body is not possible in the case of male devotees. Since such chance is impossible due to the male body, you cannot say that their devotion is lesser than sweet devotion. Moreover, the sweet devotion is treated as the highest because the surrender of the activities of mind, word and body are diverted to God simultaneously. This surrender is called the surrender of three instruments (mind, word and body) or Trikaranaarpanam and is called “Manovākkāya karma samarpaṇam”.
The actual translation is that the activity of mind, the activity of word and the activity of the body are surrendered to God. The physical union of Gopikas with God Krishna is the surrender of the activity of physical body. Don’t you think that when Hanuman and other monkeys searched for Sita, such kind of search is also the activity of physical body? I will go even one step further and put the following question:- Gopikas surrendered their body to God Krishna in which there is no torture or death of the body. But, when monkeys fought the war standing by the side of God Rama, they were prepared to undergo the torture of their physical body done by the arrows from enemies and they were also prepared for the death of their physical body in the war. Is the surrender of the bodies of monkeys to God Rama not greater than the surrender of the bodies of Gopikas to God Krishna?
When Gopikas surrendered their physical bodies, they got bliss from God Krishna and not even a trace of misery. So, which surrender of the activity of physical body is greater? You say that Goloka is the highest of all the worlds. But, God Datta has already prepared a new upper energetic world above Goloka called as ‘Datta Sevaka Loka’. The aim here is that the Karma Yoga of the servants of God is greater than the sweet devotion! Of course, Gopikas also did the sacrifice of service through dance and the sacrifice of fruit of work (butter) to God Krishna and hence, Gopikas are also equal to the servants reaching the 16th world. But, the 16th world is higher than the 15th world (Goloka). The reason is that in sweet devotion, there is no fear of torture and death of the physical body whereas in the case of servants going to the 16th world, the servants are ready for the horrible physical torture and even the death of their gross bodies as we see the case of monkeys prepared to fight the war on behalf of God Rama. For this reason, the 16th world is at higher level than the 15th world. God always speaks the truth, which may appear as praise for some devotees and which may appear as scolding for some other devotees.
For God, there is no need of the support from the souls like a politician aspiring votes based on caste, gender, etc. Hence, every message given by God Datta shall be taken as the truth and the helping factor in the spiritual success irrespective of region, religion, caste, gender, etc. (Yathārtha vyāhṛtiḥ sā hi). The final birth for any devotee is female birth only because every male soul is having gender ego. Only to remove that gender ego, the female birth is given as the final birth for a male soul. But, there are exceptions for male devotees, who are not having male ego at all. For such devotees, the final female birth is not necessary and hereafter, such exceptional male devotees go to the 16th world. Until now, such exceptional male devotees have reached the 14th world called Brahma Loka.
The main essence is that a devotee must succeed in having true and complete spiritual knowledge, subsequent theoretical devotion and final practical devotion to God. A devotee succeeding in reaching these three steps will attain the highest fruit, which is either Brahma Loka (Brahma Loka itself is Vishnu Loka and Shiva Loka) or Goloka or Datta Sevaka Loka. All these three can be considered as three highest fruits. There can be several gold medals related to several departments in a university. All the gold medal holders coming from all the departments are equal only. In fact, no devotee shall aspire for any spiritual fruit (Brahma Loka or Goloka or Datta Sevaka Loka) or any worldly fruit from God in return for his/her climax devotion. If such aspiration exists, the devotee becomes completely disqualified even for the basic divine fruit, which is like the admission into an LKG class.
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