Posted on: 24 Mar 2023
(Continued from Maha Divine Satsanga on 20-03-2023...)
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
8. Why does Sadguru make the devotee feel that he is sacrificing his hard earned money?
[Smt. Chhanda Chandra asked: While a devotee offers some money to the Sadguru, who is the incarnation of God Datta, God Datta will see that the devotee feels that the devotee is sacrificing from his/her hard earned money. This will make the devotee never feel that he/she is donating from the money given by God Datta to the devotee. Why?]
Swami replied: If the devotee feels that God Datta blessed him with wealth, the devotee will certainly think that he/she is donating something based on gratefulness. If this is the case, such sacrifice will not represent the true love of the devotee on God Datta because anybody will sacrifice something if such person thinks that God Datta blessed him with the wealth. In such a case, the sacrificed Guru dakshina will not express the true love of the devotee towards God Datta. Generally, every theist thinks that whatever wealth is achieved, it is only by the grace of God. Hence, this general feeling naturally comes to the mind of every devotee and if the devotee gives Guru Dakshina based on such feeling, the sacrificed offering does not represent the true love of the devotee. It only represents the gratefulness of the devotee towards God. God always likes to see only the extent of true love of the devotee and not the extent of gratefulness. True love comes out only when the devotee firmly believes that the wealth belongs to him/her only and then sacrifices something from his wealth. Therefore, God Datta will influence the mind of the devotee to forget the concept that God is the real giver of wealth to anybody in this world.
9. Please clarify whether a disciple increasing the number of doubts as time proceeds represents the lack of understanding of the knowledge of the Sadguru.
Swami replied: When the Sadguru preaches spiritual knowledge, there is no question of not understanding the knowledge. This may happen with some normal human preacher. The knowledge preached by the Sadguru is always very clear and clarity is the fundamental aspect of the preaching of the Sadguru. The reason for this clarity is that His preached knowledge is always true. Truth is always 100% clear. Confusion comes only when the knowledge is not true. The Veda says that the first characteristic of divine knowledge preached by the incarnation of God is truth (satyaṃ jñāna manantaṃ Brahma). The clarification for the increase of number of questions by the devotee is that the devotee is going more and more deep in the knowledge preached by the Sadguru and hence, more and more number of doubts in the form of questions are coming out. It only shows that the depth of the knowledge of the devotee is increasing day by day.
10. Why was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu not represented with His statues and whether He was murdered?
Swami replied: Chaitanya Mahaprabhu died with heart attack and there was no incident of His murder. He is very much represented by beautiful photos. Everyday, He used to get the personal vision of Krishna. Raadhaa incarnated as this devotee to propagate the climax devotion to God.
11. What are the qualities of a true disciple approaching the Sadguru?
[A question by Shri Soumyadip Mondal]
Swami replied: The fundamental quality of a disciple approaching the Sadguru is the quest for knowing all the details of God, true path to reach and please God and the true information about the soul. ‘Gu’ means the ignorance about these three concepts, which is like darkness. ‘Ru’ means the true knowledge about these three concepts, which is like the radiant light removing the ignorance. Hence, Guru means the shining sun, who removes the deep darkness. The initial form of God Datta (Guru Datta) was God Brahma, who is the author of the Veda, which means the knowledge. Goddess Sarasvati, the form of speech, is the power of God Brahma existing on His tongue. ‘Sat’ means the absolute reality standing for God. Sadguru means God incarnated as preacher. The disciple must have patience in understanding the divine knowledge. If the knowledge is perfectly understood, inspiration for God will be generated resulting in practice and practice alone yields the final fruit. The knowledge of Sadguru is always related to practice and hence, it generates practice in the disciple. Mere theoretical knowledge without the practical aspects is of no use. The main requisite of a true disciple is that the disciple must have true love for God. Guru preaches the path to reach God. Sadguru carries practically the devotee to God. If the disciple is able to recognise the Sadguru, there is no path because the disciple has already reached the goal. The disciple, who reached the goal and did not recognise the goal is to be sympathised more than the disciple, who is far from God and is travelling to reach the goal. Sadguru is both the guide and the goal. The realization of the complete truth of the Sadguru is a very important quality of the disciple.
If any human being wants to know the true nature of God, God says that He is just the reflection of devoted human being as said in the Veda (rūpaṃ rūpaṃ pratirūpo babhūva) and the Gita (ye yathā māṃ prapadyante, tān stathaiva bhajāmyaham). What is the nature of the devoted human being? The nature of the devoted human being is one way traffic, which is “Oh God! I will not sacrifice anything for you. Please give me everything”. The same one way traffic of the devotee is reflecting in God just like an object is reflecting in a clean mirror. God is very pure and hence, very clean mirror. Now, what God is telling to the devotee? He is telling the same one way traffic, which is “Oh devotee! I will not give anything to you. Please sacrifice everything to Me”. Since we are purely responsible for this kind of unkind nature of God, what is the solution? The only solution is that we should sacrifice everything to God without aspiring for anything from God. If we do this, the nature of God will at once change and God will give everything to us without taking anything from us because God is just a pure mirror reflecting our nature. You may doubt God saying “suppose I sacrifice everything and suppose God does not give anything to me”. Immediately God will also doubt us (because He is just a pure reflecting mirror) saying “suppose I give everything to the devotee and suppose the devotee does not give anything to Me”. Hence, if you have no practical faith on God, God also will not have practical faith on us.
True love has no place for any doubt or for any logic. True love is always one way traffic only. For example, let us take the example of a fan’s devotion. A fan of a cinema hero, who commits suicide on the death of the hero is the perfect example of true love. In the function of the release of every cinema of his hero, the fan spends from his pocket only without aspiring for anything in return from the hero. Actually, the hero is not giving anything to the fan. Hence, you become a true devotee only when you sacrifice without expecting anything from God in return. Such a state of devotion is the ultimate goal. If this ultimate goal is written on a board and is hung at the door of the temple, all temples will be perfectly vacant proving that such a true devotee does not exist in this creation.
12. After knowing that human birth is very rare, what is to be done by us?
Swami replied:- The first step is study of spiritual knowledge from the Sadguru. If the knowledge is perfect and all round, your inspiration will be also full and your practice will be also perfect because practice is the reflection of the knowledge. If your knowledge contains errors, the practice also will go wrong at some place. If the knowledge is incomplete, your practice also is incomplete without a perfect end. If a student is not good in the study, his professional practice will be severely affected. If you are a doctor, your study will affect your profession and the patient dies. Hence, you must complete your first step with perfection in every angle so that your further steps reflect your perfection in your previous step.
13. People say that knowledge, devotion and practice are the alternate paths to reach the same goal called God. Please explain.
Swami replied:- This is a misunderstanding of Arjuna in the Gita. Krishna spoke about the path of knowledge and the path of practice. Arjuna thought that both these paths are alternative roads leading to the same God-goal. Arjuna also questioned Krishna that while preaching the first path, why Krishna is recommending about the second path also for the same person. Then, Krishna clarified that the goal of both paths is one and the same and also that both paths are not the two alternative roads to God. In the same line leading to God, knowledge forms the first part and practice forms the other part. Hence, one shall follow both paths to reach God because the path is one only having the prior part as knowledge and the latter part as practice. You must acquire the knowledge and follow the practice to reach the goal.
14. Please clarify whether importance should be given equally to every path since all the three paths are quantitatively equal.
Swami replied:- The single path to God contains three parts. The first is knowledge, the second is devotion and the third is practice. The three parts exist but need not be equal always. The quantity of a part depends on the nature of the devoted soul. One may take a very long time to study knowledge, but may develop inspiration immediately. For him, practice may come immediately or may take a very very long time. A scholar, who spent a very long time in the study of knowledge, may not practice it due to the lack of inspiration or devotion. In this way, depending on the nature of the devotee, the quantitative duration of each step differs. But generally, knowledge takes a very long time, inspiration takes a very little time and practice takes some moderate time. Since inspiration is momentary and abstract, Krishna did not recognise it as specific part of the path and hence, Krishna mentioned only two parts: knowledge and practice. If inspiration or devotion is not developed, the fault may lie with the preacher in the sense that the defective knowledge could’t inspire the disciple. Alternatively, there may not be perfect digestion of the knowledge preached by even the Sadguru and the defect lies with the disciple.
15. Why was Jesus punished with crucifixion?
[A question by Shri Samadrito Mondal]
Swami replied:- Unless Jesus was killed the hearts of the priests could not be pacified because they were burning with ego based jealousy against Jesus. The knowledge of Jesus was so sharp and truthful that it enraged them with a lot of jealousy. When God comes in human form, the human forms of the souls repel since the media is common. This repulsion between common human media will not be effective if Jesus was having a lower profile. But the profile of Jesus was highest and generated the highest ego-jealousy in the hearts of the priests. The quality of the knowledge of Jesus was at an unimaginable high level and subsequently the ego-jealousy of priests was also at an unimaginable high level resulting in the cruel punishment, which was also at an unimaginable high level.
16. How to lead worldly life along with spiritual life since both are opposite to each other?
[A question by Shri Anil Chandra]
Swami replied:- If you are leading a spiritual life, God is pleased with you and the worldly life becomes very simple and very easy by the grace of God because after all this world is under the full control of God. In fact, this world is just the will of God. If you are leading only a worldly life, God will not interfere with you and allows your worldly life to go on as per your merits and your sins. Be sure that God will not harm you if you don’t lead a spiritual life. Spiritual life is an option for souls. God is very particular about worldly life. He wants only one thing from you in worldly life, which is that you should not harm good people and innocent living beings. You can harm bad people, in case you are capable, so that you can control bad people and their sins. If you are not able to do this, it does not matter. At least do not cause any trouble to good people and innocent living beings.
17. Why are good people suffering here and bad people are enjoying here?
[A question by Smt. Anjali Chandra]
Swami replied:- The merit of good deed or sin of bad deed is punished either in this world while living or in heaven and hell after death. The merit is enjoyed here or in heaven. Sin is punished here or in hell. God wants to give more enjoyment for good deeds to good people. God also wants to give more suffering for sins to bad people. The enjoyment in heaven for the same good deed is thousand times more in heaven than here. Similarly, the punishment in hell for the bad deed is thousand times more than here. Therefore, God wishes that a good person must enjoy merit in heaven and suffer punishment for sin on this earth so that the good person enjoys happiness at climax level and suffer with pain at minimum level. For this purpose, good people suffer at the minimum level on earth and enjoy at the maximum level in heaven. Similarly, bad people enjoy here at the minimum level and suffer at the maximum level in hell. This means that you are seeing only the minimum suffering of good people here and the minimum enjoyment of bad people here. By this, you are misunderstanding the whole concept. This means that you are unable to see the maximum enjoyment of a good person on earth (because he undergoes enjoyment in heaven only) and also you are unable to see the maximum punishment-suffering of a bad person on earth (because he undergoes punishment in the hell only). By this, you are standing in a false conclusion that a good person is suffering and a bad person is enjoying on this earth. Now, we must find out the reason for the difference between earth and heaven or hell in either enjoyment or suffering. The reason for this difference is that the soul is with a materialized gross body on earth and the soul is with a very sensitive subtle body (made of mind and little inert energy) so that the soul undergoes more experience of any fruit in the upper world (heaven or hell) than on earth. If you take a good person, he will not be allowed to experience good fruits here since the enjoyment becomes minimum. The good person will be allowed to experience bad fruits here because he will suffer at the minimum level only. Similarly, a bad person will not be allowed to experience bad fruits since his suffering becomes minimum. The bad person will be allowed to experience good fruit here so that he will get only the minimum enjoyment. We always misunderstand the divine administration of the omniscient God.
18. You told that Shankara said that the scripture speaks following the nature of the receiver. Will the statement of the scripture apply to all contexts?
[A question by Prof. Dr. J S R Prasad]
Swami replied:- The scripture is a reminder (jñāpakam) only based on the practical nature of the receiver and is not an enforcing ruler (kārakam) against the nature of the receiver. This makes the scripture to make all to follow the scripture because the advice is only as per the strong nature of the receiver of the scripture. A person kills the animal to eat it as food and scripture says to kill the animal (paśumālabheta) at a specific stage of the ritual. By this, we shall not argue that the scripture is the enforcing ruler to make the person to kill the animal in the ritual. Even if the scripture does not say this, the person is going to kill the animal and eat it. Hence, the person did not kill the animal because he was forced by the scripture to kill the animal and then say that the sin must go to the scripture and not to the person.
Let us take a different context. The person is not going to kill the animal even if the scripture orders to kill the animal. Following his strong nature, the scripture says that one must kill his animal nature and not the actual animal (manyuḥ paśuḥ). This statement is in accordance with the already existing strong nature (not to kill the animal under any circumstances) of the person.
I am reminded about an ayurvedic doctor present in our village. If a patient suffering with fever asks him “Is buttermilk good for fever?”. The doctor says “Buttermilk is the best for fever because it cools down the body and reduces the heat. You have very good knowledge in Ayurveda medicines”. Suppose the same patient says “Will the buttermilk not damage the health especially when fever exists?”. The doctor says immediately “Buttermilk is worst for fever and damages the health and lungs. What a stupid you are in thinking to drink buttermilk while in fever”!
Scripture is not like the above ayurvedic doctor. The scripture certainly shows the true path in worldly life (pravrutti) or spiritual life (nivrutti). The above statements are only for rigid people. The scripture certainly says that the second path is correct and this statement is in reference to a non-rigid person anxious to know the ultimate truth. The same scripture says that doing rituals blindly without analysis destroys the soul (karmacito lokaḥ kṣīyate).