12 Jul 2021
[A long spiritual conversation continuously for about 9 hours took place on 11th July in Hyderabad, which was attended by a very large number of devotees like Lakshmi Ms. Thrylokya etc. Some of the flashes of spiritual knowledge that radiated from Śrī Datta Swami are given below for the benefit of the spiritual world.]
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
1) For such a long time the devotees remained so much absorbed without remembering the place and time and any other worldly matter. What is reason for such a state? The reason is that God beyond space and time and world exists in Satsaṅga. Satsaṅga means the spiritual conversation among devotees (Satāṃ saṅgaḥ satsangaḥ). It means the spiritual conversation taking place among devotees. Satsaṅga also means the spiritual conversation that take place among devotees along with God (Satā saha sangaḥ). This means that God will be present wherever Satsaṅga takes place. God told that He will sit wherever His devotees praise God (Tatra tiṣṭhāmi Nārada). Jesus also told that He will be present wherever two or three devotees assemble on His name. This means that the association for discussion must be a limited number of qualitative devotees, which is middle path between a large number of devotees and thinking alone without a second person, which are the two extreme ends like flood and drought. Too many devotees will spoil because someone spiritually immature devotee will stand up desiring to leave the Satsaṅga telling that he has to go to market to purchase vegetables. This will pollute other minds to think that they are wasting time in unnecessary discussions without attending important worldly works and as a result the concentration on God disappears, which means that God will quit that Satsaṅga. If the assembled devotees are climax devotees, there will be no effect of such immature devotees. This is the reason why Satsaṅga of immature devotees will end as early as possible or will be converted into conversation of worldly topics within a very short time! Sitting alone thinking on God also gives boredom, which will also make the God to quit from the heart of devotee.
2) I assuredly tell all of you that the total essence of the spiritual knowledge is that all of you shall try to develop real love or devotion to God, which is the love without aspiration for any fruit in return from God. ‘Any fruit’ literally means strictly any fruit only. You do the worship of God for one hour or even more than that. If I say that God will not give any fruit for your worship, is there anybody, who will do the worship even for one minute? You can test yourself about the reality of your devotion with this question. All your love on God is like swelling only and not real strength of stoutness. You are exhibiting such unimaginable love through such long worships not due to your real love on God, but, due to your real love on yourself and on your worldly bonds aspiring either the general welfare of yourself and your family or for a specific worldly issue. Hence, all our love to God is unreal love or the unreal devotion only. If you realize that God is neutral towards your worship, all these temples will be replaced by commercial complexes! Hence, the first spiritual step is to develop real love or devotion to God, which is love without aspiration for any fruit in return.
3) The original absolute God is unimaginable and omnipotent. Between these two adjectives, I give more importance to ‘unimaginable’ because we say that God is said to be omnipotent when He does an impossible thing and such potency of God is naturally unimaginable. If you say that God is omnipotent, the word ‘omni’ may be interpreted by somebody as all possible things and in such case the word ‘omni’ can’t mean all impossible things also. If you say that the word ‘omni’ means all impossible or unimaginable things, the other meaning of the word ‘omni’, which is all possible things is automatically included. This means that God doing all impossible things can naturally do all possible things also. The unimaginable power doing all impossible things is called Māyā and the imaginable power doing possible things is Prakṛti. God is specifically told as possessor of Māyā (Māyinaṃ tu Maheśvaram- Gītā) doing impossible things because it automatically includes possessor of Prakṛti doing all possible things also. Just like a father retains some property with him and gives some property to issues, God kept Māyā with Him exclusively and gave the power of Prakṛti to His issues called souls. But, the souls are trying to become the absolute unimaginable God also just like the issue tries to grab the property possessed by the father. Anyway, the father will give his property to his issue only through will and similarly, God will give His Māyā power to the soul whenever He has will. Hence, calling the original absolute God as ‘Unimaginable God’ is more proper than to call Him as ‘Omnipotent God’. Unimaginable God naturally means omnipotent God and reverse may not be proper based on the above analysis.
4) Unimaginable God naturally means omnipotent God and also naturally means Omniscient and Omnipresent because omniscience and omnipresence are unimaginable or impossible aspects for any item. Even though the cosmic inert energy is omnipresent, it is not omniscient since it is inert. The omnipresence of the Unimaginable God shall be taken in the effective sense only and not in the literal sense because if God is present everywhere (omnipresent) everybody and everything in this world must be pure and sacred and demonism should not have existed at all. You need not doubt that how God can be omniscient without being omnipresent because God is omnipotent and any impossible thing is possible to Him. Even in this imaginable domain of creation, a king knows everything happening anywhere in his kingdom with the help of his power of the department of secret agents. Therefore, Unimaginable God means omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent (Omnipresent in the effective sense only.).
5) The word ‘unimaginable’ means either substratum or substance (dravya) or nature or quality (guṇa). Then, we can say that the unimaginable quality depends upon God, who is the substratum. The quality is always a form of energy and the substance is a form of matter only. The school of substratum (Vedanta) says that a substratum is needed as the support for any quality. They say that the blue colour (a form of energy) is based on the lotus flower (a form of matter). The school of energy (Śākteya) says that God is the unimaginable quality itself and no substratum is needed for the energy. This school is also correct because the electromagnetic radiations travel in vacuum without the support of any medium. Both these schools are quarrelling based on the examples of the imaginable domain or creation. They forget that the Unimaginable God or creator is Unimaginable domain. We can’t say that the Unimaginable God is either matter or energy. The fun is that Vedanta says that awareness is the substratum and awareness itself is a specific work form of inert energy resulting in a specific functioning nervous system! The analysis of the items of the creation is the actual subject of ancient logic (Tarkaśāstra) or modern science. Therefore, the conclusion is that the Unimaginable God is beyond imaginable domain and no quarrels can take place in understanding the Unimaginable God. If a discussion takes place about Unimaginable God, it will be a quarrel among some deaf people!
6) The Unimaginable God merged with a first energetic being created by Him and such energetic being after merge is called as the first energetic incarnation or first mediated God or Īśvara (Lord) or Hiraṇyagarbha or Nārāyaṇa or Father of heaven or Datta. The word ‘Datta’ means the first energetic incarnation of Unimaginable God GIVEN (means Datta) to the world of devoted souls for meditation and worship and this word has no connection with any religion.
7) The formation of Datta was based on His will of entertainment by creating the world with souls. Such entertainment appears as if it started to get rid of boredom due to loneliness of God (Ekākī na ramate...—Veda) like going to see a drama for entertainment. But, such entertainment is of very low level of ordinary souls. Moreover, God, the self-contented (Āptakāmasya...—Veda) ocean of bliss (Sa eko Brahmaṇa Ānandaḥ...—Veda) need not have such a cheap entertainment and this is the objection raised by several. However, Śaṅkara answered this by saying that even a self-contented king goes for hunting to have entertainment. But, God is beyond the human king and the aim of creation must be something more than this. Such aim of highest level of God is to enjoy the unimaginable stage of real and pure love or devotion of His devoted souls in the creation. For such future devotion of souls, the unimaginable God became Datta even before the creation of souls. In this way, we must realize that the noble aim of the noble God in creating this world is to exhibit the bliss of God through the unimaginable devotion or real love of devoted souls in which God becomes the servant of devotees. Even in our human lives, we are entangled by several worldly bonds, which are selfish only as per the Veda (Ātmanastu kāmāya...), when we find a real selfless worldly bond, the joy we get will be the highest in the life! Of course, it is impossible as per the Veda, but, an assumption is made.
8) However, devotion shall not be exaggerated to be greater than God because the value of devotion is only due to the value of God. One monkey told Rāma “You are unable to construct a bridge on the sea. But, when we write Your name on the stone and drop it in the sea, it floats. See, Your devotion is greater than Yourself”. Rama just smiled and kept silent. After telling this, the monkey dropped the stone on which he wrote the name of Rāma and the stone drowned immediately! Some say that there is no God, but, say that Godliness exists because love is God. If the love is towards worldly bonds, how such love is Godliness? In such case, every type of love shall be Godliness and love for injustice and crime must be also Godliness! Love to whom or which shall be specified. Love to God alone can be Godliness. Love to God can’t be greater than God Himself because the value of such love comes from the value of God only.
9) Datta became several other energetic incarnations in the upper worlds and several human incarnations on this earth by merging with different energetic beings and different devoted human beings. The unimaginable God never enters directly any further incarnation except Datta. But, every incarnation is the incarnation of the unimaginable God (Parabrahman) only because there is no difference between the unimaginable God and Datta. For that matter, there is no any difference between unimaginable God and any incarnation except that Datta has birth but no end whereas other incarnations have both birth and end. The merge of Unimaginable God with the medium including Datta is to become imaginable and visible to devotees. Along with the imaginable nature of medium, the unimaginable nature of Unimaginable God continues to exist to be exhibited whenever God wishes. Such exhibitions of the unimaginable nature are called miracles, which are visible, but unimaginable, inferring the existence of Unimaginable God in any incarnation. By this, the existence of unimaginable God gets established (Astītyeva...—Veda) even for atheists and this does not mean that the unimaginable became imaginable (Avyaktaṃ vyaktimāpannam…—Gītā). Hence, the unimaginable nature is not really transformed into imaginable nature and it only became visible and hence, the objection that unimaginable became imaginable is ruled out. However, the Veda (Sat ca tyat ca abhavat) and the Gītā-verse (Sadasacchāham…) is not wrong because the unimaginable became imaginable in the sense that the unimaginable is identified with the imaginable medium and this is the Monism (Advaita) of Śaṅkara, which is true in the case of incarnation and not true in the case of every ordinary human being. Both extreme ends (that no soul is God and that every soul is God) are not correct and the middle path is only correct, which is that a few selected souls only become God. When the actor Devadatta acts in the role of King Hariścandra in a drama, the actor (Sat or Unimaginable God) became the role (Asat or imaginable medium) in one angle and is separate from the role simultaneously in another angle. In the first angle, Devadatta identified with Hariścandra and is said to be living in the role, which is Advaita of Śaṅkara. In the second angle, Devadatta and King Hariścandra are always separate people and this is the simultaneous Dvaita of Madhva. Devadatta is the main actor in several roles and Hariścandra is one of these roles and hence, Devadatta is the main whole and Hariścandra is a part of several roles, which is Viśiṣṭa Advaita of Rāmānuja. All the three divine preachers are simultaneously correct depending upon the angles of the view!
10) Every soul can’t become God, but, any soul has the opportunity to become God. This is because that a soul becoming God purely depends upon the will of God. Becoming God through incarnation is descending of God to become soul (Ava-tāra) and not ascending of soul to become God (Ut-tāra). God becomes incarnation to do certain work of welfare to the spiritual world and for this purpose only incarnation takes place. Associated purposes are to please close devotees by granting the four fortunes of vision, touch, talk and close living (Darśana, sparśa, saṃbhāṣaṇa, sahavāsa – Bhāgya catuṣṭayam). Aspiration to become God is a permanent disqualification to become God!
11) Śaṅkara had no other way to tell that every soul is God because He was surrounded by atheists only and an atheist will not accept God other than himself. By three steps (you are God, you exist and hence, God exists) Śaṅkara turned atheist in to theist. When this converted theist asked for miraculous powers of God, Śaṅkara advised him to worship God to get purity of mind in order to get rid of the influence of practical effect of long-standing ignorance that the soul is not God (Ajñana vikṣepa). In the worship, He emphasised on devotion (stressed by Rāmānuja later on) and service with sacrifice (stressed by Madhva later on). Śaṅkara was the divine preacher, who had courage to slightly twist a true concept in the interest of the welfare of the soul for spiritual reformation unlike a mere scholar, who emphasises always the truth only. An ignorant fellow was suffering with headache imagining that a chameleon entered his head through his ear. Every doctor told like a scholar that it is impossible and hence, the headache was never cured. One doctor like the preacher agreed with this imagination and threw a chameleon from the side of the ear standing at back saying that it came out of his head through his ear and the headache of the patient was cured!
12) The Unimaginable God exists in every divine form of every religion and in every divine form of every sub-religion of Hindu religion. The candy is one and the same and the forms of candy-statues only differ from each other externally. Hence, every divine form of every religion is absolute unimaginable God because the merge of the Unimaginable God with any medium is perfect so that the unimaginable God became the imaginable medium retaining His original unimaginable nature without interfering with the properties (guṇas) of medium. The scripture of every religion in the world was written by the same one unimaginable God and the written contents (syllabus) is one and the same even though the culture and language differs from one religion to the other. The goals and paths prescribed by scriptures are one and the same because the goal and author is one and the same God. Certain defects appeared in the scriptures due to insertions made by some ignorant followers and due to this, no religion shall be rejected and none should convert in to other religion. If you filter these impurities, all religions become only one religion called Universal Religion based on Universal spirituality. Then, religions differ only externally by different cultures and languages. Every devotee can exist in one’s own religion and simultaneously be a member of Universal religion just like a citizen in India belongs to a State Government and simultaneously to the Central Government!
13) Unimaginable aspect is beyond imagination, which is neither imaginable matter nor imaginable energy. Energy or space was created by God (Tat tejo'sṛjata..., Ātmana Ākāśaḥ...- Veda), which became matter (Ākāśāt vāyuḥ...- Veda) and awareness (Annāt puruṣaḥ...- Veda) in due course of the process of creation. These three fundamental building components of the creation (inert energy or Rajas, inert matter or Tamas and non-inert awareness or Sattvam) are called as three fundamental qualities (Triguṇas) because they depend on the substratum called God. Hence, the Unimaginable God without creation or these three guṇas is called nirguṇa or attributeless and the mediated God is called saguṇa or with attributes. The various permutations and combinations of these three fundamental qualities in various proportions generate different qualities, which are associated with mediated God as divine qualities and associated with souls as good and bad qualities. The three qualities are always associated together even though one may become predominant and such predominant quality is called the pure single quality as per scriptures.
14) No quality is good or bad by itself and you shall not stamp the entire quality as good or bad. In worldly life or Pravṛtti, any quality is good on one side and bad on other side. God created all the qualities oriented to good sides only as good qualities only because God will never create bad. For example, anger is good shown to control a bad fellow and is bad if it is shown to a good fellow. Sex is good if it is legitimate and is bad if it is illegitimate. Greediness is good shown to undeserving receivers and is bad shown to deserving receivers. Fascination towards God is good and the same to selfish worldly bonds is bad. Ego in basic sense of identification of the individual is good and the same in excess as pride is bad. Jealousy to others is good to develop self and is bad in harming others. The soul orients every quality to its bad face and stamps it as a bad quality. God and His creation are always good and only the soul is bad.
15) In Nivṛtti or spiritual life, every quality is good irrespective of its face provided it is directed to God. The side of the quality is not important. Any quality turned towards God brings the grace of God and any quality turned towards worldly bonds gives the results based on its face. If the face is good, temporary heaven is fruit and if the face is bad temporary hell is the fruit. The eternal fruit of Nivṛtti comes from the direction of quality towards God. The distinction between good face and bad face of quality disappears when it is directed towards God with real love or devotion. The greatness and sacredness of God is so much to the unimaginable extent that both the faces of the quality become good and pure due to the value of the goal. Even if a thorny stick is burnt in fire, it becomes sacred ash to be put on the forehead like the ash of the burnt sandal wood. Even the good face of quality becomes non-eternal directed towards worldly bonds like the sweetest sugar fallen in drain becomes rejectable to be put on the tongue! The intensity of the real love decides the grade of the fruit and not the face of the quality directed to God. Rukmiṇī reached the abode of God through legitimate sex to sit at His feet whereas Rādhā reached Goloka through illegitimate sex and hence, the two faces of the same quality (sex) are immaterial for the fruit. The Goloka exists above God so that the dust of her feet falls on the heads of both God and Rukmiṇī!
16) The Unimaginable God or God Datta present in all divine incarnations is one and the same and hence, the root quality of unimaginable nature is one and the same. This means that the miraculous power possessed by all the divine incarnations is one and the same. The media of selected devotees, be it energetic or human, can differ due to the difference in the ratios of these three fundamental qualities. In this way, the media may differ, but, the inner most Unimaginable God or God Datta remains constant. This constant unimaginable nature is reflected through the different media in different ways as per the requirement of the program. It is just like that the same light of bulb looks in different colours due to different colours of the external wrapped transparent sheet. The radiation of the colour becomes more brilliant due to the inner white light, which means that the quality of medium becomes unimaginable or wonderful or excellent. If Sattvam is predominant in the medium, excellent knowledge comes out. If Rajas is predominant, excellent exhibition of miraculous power comes out. If Tamas is predominant, excellent qualities of fascination or deep love towards devotees come out. When Datta enters a medium directly, it is a direct incarnation of God Datta expressing balance of these three qualities. When an incarnation in which God Datta already existed in merged state merges with another medium, it is called indirect incarnation of God Datta. Sai Bāba is the direct incarnation of Datta. Kṛṣṇa is the indirect incarnation of Datta because He is direct incarnation of Viṣṇu in whom Datta already merged. In all incarnations, the same God Datta possessing the same power exists and one incarnation may differ from the other in the extent of exhibited power as per the requirement of the program. Hence, we shall not be confused in thinking that one incarnation is more powerful than other because God is not fascinated to exhibit all His possessed power for fame like a demon! God always tries to hide Himself as far as possible to avoid excitation in devotees to mix with them freely, who in ground state can clarify their doubts freely.
17) Nivṛtti is purely the discovery of climax devotees called sages because God is not interested to project Himself in any personal way. God always tries to hide Himself unlike a demon, who always projects himself. He always tries to put hurdles in Nivṛtti testing the reality of the devotion of the devotee. Nivṛtti is totally confined to the attraction towards the divine personality of God. God is always limiting Himself up to Pravṛtti only like an industrialist establishing a factory is interested in the discipline and peace in the community of the workers of the factory. God makes Pravṛtti (worldly life) as mandatory for the peaceful running of the creation through protection of justice against injustice. In Pravṛtti, the soul must vote for justice against injustice. However, in Nivṛttii, the soul votes for God even against justice because God is the protector of justice-cow. Pravṛtti is the employer– employee relationship with God. In this, basing on the merits and defects of the employee, both promotion (heaven) and demotion (hell) are given to the employee. If the employed girl loves the owner of the factory (God) and tries to become his wife, Nivṛtti starts from the side of the employee (devotee) only and not from the side of the employer. In such trails, the employer conducts severe tests to know the reality of the love of the employee towards himself and also her sincerity in doing the duties of office (worldly life) so that if the soul fails in Pravṛtti, there is no entry into Nivṛtti. If the girl is corrupt in office, she will loot the owner after marriage! Even though, Rāvaṇa stood as number one in Nivṛtti by offering his ten heads to God, Rāvaṇa was not allowed into Nivṛtti since he failed in Pravṛtti. The fruit of Nivṛtti is highest (Nivṛttistu mahāphalā) compared to Pravṛti. The employer takes personal responsibility of the employee after marriage and not so much as the employer looks after the welfare of an employee. If the wife is fined, the husband will pay for it. Similarly, God enjoys the punishments of the sins of the climax devotee of Nivṛtti, but, this is not possible in Pravṛtti where rewards and punishments purely depend on the merits and defects of the employee.
18) The devotee is not expected to do sin in Pravṛtti disturbing the peace of the world. In Nivṛtti which is confined to the personal relationship between God and devotee, the so called sin becomes ineffective due to the personal compensation of the victim in such sin. For example, when Śaṅkara left His mother for the sake of God, all the services to His mother were done by God Himself and the extra benefit is that she got even the salvation, which can’t be given by any ordinary son. If the same sin is done in Pravṛtti, which means that the son left his old mother for the sake of love with a prostitute, the mother suffers, which means that the world suffers losing peace since world is the collection of individuals only. This is told by God that Arjuna shall not fear for the sin done for the sake of God because God will liberate Arjuna from the punishment of such sin through the compensation done by the omnipotent God. Here, God does not mean that He will liberate Arjuna from the sin because He is omnipotent to use His supreme power to cancel the punishment of the sin. Liberation from sin (Sarvapāpebhyo mokṣayiṣyāmi), which is not cancellation of sin through the omnipotent power in which case, God would have told the same (Sarva pāpāni nāśayiṣyāmi). God has not broken His own constitution written for Pravṛtti, even in Nivṛtti! When the husband says to his wife that he will liberate her from fine put for fault, it does not mean that the husband will go to the authorities and get the fine cancelled through his power, but, it means only that the husband will pay the fine from his pocket! God Datta always liberates His climax devotees from their sins not by cancelling the sins through His omnipotent power, but, liberates His devotees from their sins by taking the punishments of their sins on Himself! In fact, in the case of God, even if God cancels the sins directly as omnipotent, there is nobody to question Him. In spite of this, He has not done so and due to this only the Veda says that there is nobody greater than God (Na tat samaścā'bhyadhikaśca...).
To Be Continued...
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