JEALOUSY AND EGO

The jealousy and ego towards a human incarnation are not directed towards the inner Lord present in the human body but are towards the external human body. People think that the human incarnation is just the human being i.e., the human body. Every human being has jealousy towards another human being in this world. Nobody can tolerate the point of “greaterness” of another human being compared to oneself in any aspect like wealth, knowledge etc. Unless this repulsion towards fellow human beings is removed, the jealousy towards the human incarnation cannot be eradicated. For this purpose, the devotee is required to undergo a training in removing his jealousy towards co-human beings. Therefore, recognise the greaterness of every human being compared to yourself and develop submissiveness towards any human being in this world. Feel that you are the lowest among all the human beings. Always see merits in others and see only defects in yourself. Such vision will give you the submissiveness towards any fellow human being. Your ego will be destroyed by such training.

Love all human beings, seeing only the good side in every human being. Serve the entire humanity as the most obedient servant. Such training will remove the jealousy towards the external human form of the Lord. Even if you have not realised the Lord in the human form, you will not have jealousy towards the human incarnation because you are loving and serving every human being. Thus, even before realization of the inner Lord, you have started serving the Lord as a human being. In course of time you will experience the presence of the inner Lord and then slowly you will realise and become a devotee. You are advised to be slightly inferior to every human being and this does not mean that you should go down completely and develop an inferiority complex, which is also dangerous. The patient expects that his temperature should be decreased by the doctor and this does not mean that his temperature should be made zero. What is expected is that the extra temperature is to be reduced. Even slightly less than the normal temperature is not dangerous. Ego is the extra temperature. Removal of ego does not mean the removal of your self-existence. Some people always condemn themselves as sinners. They think that this is the removal of ego. That is overreaction. It is not just the removal of fever but is like bringing down the body temperature to ice-cold zero.

From Training to the Goal

You are advised to serve the humanity till you recognise the human incarnation, in order to avoid the danger of insulting the human incarnation by mistaking Him as an ordinary human being. Once the human incarnation is recognised, the training is to be stopped. Further service to humanity can be carried only under the instruction and guidance of the human incarnation. People have misconstrued this concept and have concluded that serving the humanity is serving God. They plead that God exists in all the human beings. In such case you could serve yourself and such service would be service to God. There would be no need of serving other human beings. Some people have gone to this extreme end also and started meditating upon the God present in themselves. In fact, this concept of the existence of God in all human beings is liked by everybody because by this concept everybody becomes God. If the humanity is served without the discrimination between good and bad, the sinners should not be punished by the court and must be served instead. If God exists in all the human beings, why are some human beings thrown into liquid fire at the end? This means that God is thrown in to liquid fire. Shankara condemned this concept of claiming that service to humanity being equal to the service to God (Loka Sevaka Mata Khandanam). Therefore, one should not remain in the stage of training and forget the main aim for which the training is advised.

In fact, the Lord came in the form of fish, tortoise etc., also. The Lord appeared as a small beautiful fish in the hands of a king. The king took it to home and kept it in a vessel containing water. The fish grew to the size of the vessel by the next day. Suppose the king was a non-vegetarian and killed the fish for eating, how much sin would he have committed towards to the Lord! Therefore, the Lord in the form of Buddha and Mahaveer preached non-violence and condemned the killing of any living being. You should love all living beings. But you should not continue with just that and forget the basic goal of searching the Lord in the form of some living being. In the Bhagavatam, a sage called Bharata loved a deer so much that he was born as a deer in the next birth. The Veda also condemns continuous service to good people also without searching for the human form of Lord (Devanam Pasurahaha…). Serving good people only gives you a place in heaven from where you have to return after some time of enjoyment. Therefore, the good qualities without the concept of God do not yield permanent fruits. When you start serving devotees, the concept of God has started and you will soon reach the human incarnation of God through the blessings of the devotees.

The names like Rama, Krishna, Jesus etc., belong to the external human body, which has taken birth. Such names are generated only after the birth of these human bodies. Therefore, such names are certainly only the names of the external human bodies, which are like shirts. When the human bodies perish, these names also must perish. But these names exist as eternal names even after the disappearance of these human bodies due to death. The reason is that these names were directed towards the inner Lord even during the time of existence of these human bodies. Suppose a person is selling vegetables. You call him by shouting “vegetables”. The person is not a vegetable and the vegetables are not the person also. But the possessor of the vegetables is called by the name of the possessed material [figure of speech: metonymy]. Similarly, when the name “Krishna or Jesus” was called, this name was directed towards the internal Lord. Therefore, even if the human body perished, since the Lord is eternal, Krishna or Jesus are also eternal.

When Krishna said that He will come again and again, whenever necessary (Yada Yada hi… Gita), it means the eternal Lord present in the human body will come again and again through different human forms. Similarly, when it is told that Jesus will come again, it means the Lord present in that human body will come again. Here the names Krishna and Jesus indicate the Lord and not the human body. When some body says that He will come again after 20 years, it does not mean that he will come in the same shirt. Even in the case of ordinary human beings the name can indicate the inner eternal soul. When people say that Subba Rao died, it means that the name indicates the external human body. People say that today is Subba Rao’s last journey. Here too the name indicates only the external body, which is going to be cremated on that day. In these sayings the name indicates the external human body. But after one year people say that today is the yearly ceremony of Subba Rao. When you have stated that Subba Rao went on his last journey one year back, how can you bring Subba Rao back after one year? Here the name indicates the inner soul. Therefore, even in the worldly terminology the name indicates both the external body and inner soul according to the context. Therefore, when you say that Jesus was crucified and killed, the name indicates the external human body. When you say that Jesus will come again on final day of destruction of this world, the name indicates the inner Lord. Thus, the same name indicates the external or internal item according to the context. When you say that Krishna danced in Vrindavanam, the name indicates the external human body. When you say that Krishna will come again and again whenever necessary, the name indicates the inner Lord. If you realise this discrimination, you have no quarrel with any religion. When you say that Jesus or Krishna will come again, it means that the inner Lord is going to come in different human bodies again. When you draw the picture of Jesus or Krishna, the picture represents the external human body only and not the inner Lord. You can never draw the picture of the inner Lord because He is beyond the realm of imagination. There cannot be two unimaginable Lords. When the Lord is unimaginable, He can be only one. If you say that there are two entities, it means that both the entities are imaginable. Therefore, you have to accept that there is only one unimaginable Lord or God. The external human bodies are different and cannot be one. When I say that Krishna is Jesus, it means that the Lord in the body of Krishna and in the body of Jesus is one and the same. It does not mean that the two different bodies are one and the same.

When you worship the statue or picture of the past human incarnation, your picture or statue also indicates the eternal Lord who existed in that human body. The Lord being eternal exists even today. Therefore, your picture indicates the Lord existing today. The statue or picture only indicates the existence of the Lord in a human form. It does not mean that the Lord existed only in that human body and is not present in any human body later on. If the Lord can exist in one human body, what is the objection for the Lord to exist in another human body also? Once the concept of the existence of the Lord in a human body is accepted, you must not have any objection to accept the Lord in another human body. When you say that electric current flows in this wire, you should not object the possibility of the flow of same current in another similar wire. If you object, you are a blind, rigid, ignorant lay-man and you can never be called as a scientist. Such conservative people will never change and even the liquid fire in hell cannot change them. When Jesus said that one could approach God through Him alone, it means that one can approach the unimaginable God only through the medium of a human form. It does not mean that one can approach the unimaginable God through that particular human body called as Jesus only.

The worship of the statue or picture is useful to develop devotion in your heart towards God. But such worship will not create love in the heart of the Lord towards you. Ekalavya worshipped the statue of Drona and learnt the technology of shooting arrows[2]. The statue helped him develop concentration of his mind and he became an expert in that field. But such worship did not develop any love in the heart of Drona towards Ekalavya. In fact, Drona did not show any love on him and got his thumb cut. Through the statue, Drona did not teach him anything. Ekalavya could not get the astras [divine weapons] like Brahmastram from Drona, which is based on some secret hymn to be taught by Drona. Arjuna got the technology of shooting arrows (shastra) and also the astras from Drona, because he served Drona in physical human form.

The devotion or love for God involves both sides i.e., your love for God and God’s love for you. The second love comes only when the first love is present. For the first love, the worship of the statue or picture is helpful. For the second love the worship of human form can only bring the result. In worshipping the statue or picture, you need not offer food as Naivedyam or money as Dakshina. In this line of worship you can clean the the statue or picture and decorate it. The constant vision of the picture or statue develops love and concentration in your mind. The statue or picture will not eat the food offered by you or take money offered by you. Keeping the statue or picture as the screen, the priests or temple managers are deceiving you. You are offering food and money in the name of Rama and Krishna. But Rama and Krishna are not taking that. Since the priests and the temple management are helping you develop your love for God through the maintenance of the statue or the picture, you can offer them some remuneration. But when you offer, beware that you are offering it to the priest or manager. Let your offer be direct and based on their merits. When they have no merits, do not offer anything in the name of the statue or the picture. Based on the deservingness of the priest, you can offer him something. If the priest is only of the level of a worker who cleans the statue, you can treat him as equal to your servant who washes your house and offer him accordingly. But since the priest is in the presence of the statue of God, you must show respect to him, unlike to your servant. If the priest is of the level of a preacher, you can offer him to your best. Some times the priest may be the incarnation of God like Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Then you should surrender everything including yourself at His divine lotus feet. Thus, the priest may vary from an ordinary level of the worker to the highest level of the human incarnation.

The priest should not feel great simply by his closeness to the statue of God. His greatness is recognised by his virtues and divine knowledge. The priest should not keep himself at the level of a worker earning his livelihood in the name of the statue of God. He should develop spiritually to the level of Shri Paramahamsa. Collection of offerings from the devotees should be direct. Sri Shirdi Sai Baba was offered a lot of money by devotees directly and He did not deceive the devotees by keeping any statue of God before Him. On analysis, one can easily find the intention of this drama using statues and pictures of God. Actually the statue or picture indicates only the human form of Lord. It indicates that you should search for the present human form of the Lord. Even the Shiva Lingam of Lord Shiva indicates the shape of a wave, which means life energy. It concludes that the Lord is present in a living form. First, people worshipped inert objects like sun, river etc. Later on the Shiva Lingam appeared which indicated life energy. At last, statues and pictures in human form appeared, concluding that the Lord comes mainly in human form. In the Gita, the Lord mentioned that He enters the human body alone.

You can become God and can become even the master of God provided you follow one condition. That condition is that you should never think that you are God. Take the case of Hanuman. He became God and attained even the power of creation of the world. The Brahma Sutras say that the soul may attain all the powers except this one power. But Hanuman, as an exceptional case attained even that power and became exactly Lord. But He always thinks that He is the servant of the Lord. Radha became the queen of Goloka, which is above the Brahma Loka. The Lord sits in Brahma Loka and her feet are above the head of the Lord. The Lord in the form of Krishna also pressed her feet. The Lord applied the dust of the feet of Gopikas on His forehead. Therefore, Radha became the master of the Lord. But still Radha feels that she is only the most beloved servant of the Lord. This is the correct route of becoming God or even greater than God. But if you think that you are the Lord already, then that route is not correct. You will not attain even a trace of the grace of the Lord. Only demons thought that they are the Lord and some demons thought that they are even greater than the Lord. You cannot achieve the fruit by this path of ego and sanctioning yourself as being the Lord already. Hanuman killed devils and demons. What does it mean? It means that the concept of Hanuman will remove the concept of ego of devils and demons by which one thinks that he is already God.

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