10 Apr 2022
Rāma always doing human efforts without miracles stands for Pravṛtti or worldly life. Kṛṣṇa always doing miracles stands for Nivṛtti or spiritual life. First Rāma came and then only Kṛṣṇa came. This means that first you must concentrate on Pravṛtti to settle in worldly life and then build up for Nivṛtti. Rāma or Pravṛtti is the unseen foundation hidden in the earth on which the mighty multistoried mansion representing Kṛṣṇa is erected. If you jump straight into Nivṛtti without establishing Pravṛtti, such Nivṛtti collapses like the multistoried mansion built without the basic foundation. The mansion will fall down even during construction. This means that your Nivṛtti starts falling down in the absence of established Pravṛtti even during your efforts put up for the construction of Nivṛtti. Especially, in this Kaliyuga, majority of people are involved in Duṣpravṛtti (sinful deeds) secretly or even openly and the rest of the minority is involved in unjust Pravṛtti (spending time in enjoyments along with family) and very few are involved in justified Pravṛtti (doing the basic duties for one’s family). Nobody is really involved in real Nivṛtti (true spiritual life). Even if people are involved in Nivṛtti, such Nivṛtti is only for strengthening their Pravṛtti only. Nivṛtti is real love to God without aspiring for any fruit in return and such Nivṛtti is really, really and really absent in this Kali age. The spiritual preachers, who want to earn money through preaching Nivṛtti have twisted Nivrutti completely in this direction and the Nivṛtti preached by such preachers is only applied Nivṛtti to strengthen Pravṛtti. Hence, the spiritual preachers are earning their livelihood as dignified beggars.
The real preacher of real Nivṛtti preaches to minimize the fascination for Pravṛtti or worldly bonds and serve God without aspiring for any fruit in return. Such a real preacher of true Nivṛtti will not get even basic food from devotees, not to speak of extra offerings needed for other basic needs. The situation was not like this in ancient times and hence, there was some encouragement at least in the case of a devotee intensively interested in propagating true spiritual knowledge. Hence, for a true spiritual preacher, the establishment of needs for basic Pravṛtti is to be done before entering into the divine program of propagation of true spiritual knowledge. During the propagation, the devotees offer food etc., to you if they know that you are not propagating the spiritual knowledge for the sake of food etc. If they come to know that you don’t have anything personally for the sake of your food etc., their minds will not absorb even an iota of your preached knowledge because they will be continuously thinking “this fellow is a cheat, who has come to steal our food etc., only”.
In such continuous thinking, the devotee is not absorbing even one word from your one hour spiritual speech! Your purpose of propagation is not served at all. The devotees also don’t think that at least giving a little food to a hungry man is the basic duty of any human being. If the devotee is having a little lesser food due to such donation, God will protect the devotee from all kinds of diseases. Eating a little less is good and Yoga Śāstra recommends eating only half of the food required! People try to save by closing the holes through which mustard seeds escape and open the holes through which pumpkin fruits go out! One can control over enjoyment that brings illness and sacrifice a little food for the hungry person without analyzing the merits and defects of such a person. This is the emergent donation to be done by every human being. People donate little food to an open beggar, but not to a spiritual preacher because they think that the open beggar is frank in begging whereas the spiritual preacher is indirectly begging for food through cheating. They don’t think that anybody, who is hungry must be given a little food at least irrespective of his defects and that this is the basic justice for any soul born as a human being.
Hence, in view of the above changed mentalities of the public in this Kali age, you can’t imitate Śaṅkara by walking out of the house not caring for food since day by day, injustice is increasing. Moreover, the need of propagating the spiritual knowledge lies especially in the discovery of new concepts needed for the public for their spiritual growth. Of course, even the old concepts can be preached in new angles so that their fresh use is possible. In any case, you shall go to anybody after taking your meals, preach the spiritual knowledge throughout the daytime and must return home for your dinner. You must not accept anything except water. In such a case, they will hear your preached concepts with full patience and complete attention. Once they admire you for your spiritual knowledge and find use of it in their spiritual line, they may offer something to you with love, respect and gratefulness. After testing them on their true impression and true love for you, you can accept their offerings in such a situation where if you reject their offering, they would feel pained. If you don’t need it personally, you can sacrifice it for the service of God.
The essence of all this is that you must study well and fetch a good job with full stability for your livelihood and then only proceed to the service of God. Hence, concentration on Pravṛtti is of utmost priority before proceeding to Nivṛtti. You can find many people having the name Ramakrishna, but you will never find a person named Krishnarama. First comes Pravṛtti or Rāma and then only comes Nivṛtti or Kṛṣṇa. If your Pravṛtti is established, you will easily learn the most crucial point of spiritual line, which is that you must serve God without aspiring for any type of fruit from God in return. If you are stable in Pravṛtti, your desires are minimized to a large extent and you can implement the above main concept in Nivrutti. The essence of the teaching of Buddha is only to cut desire, which can help to achieve the above said main concept in the spiritual line. People have heard what Buddha told (cut the desire), but couldn’t understand the purpose of Buddha behind such instruction, which is to help the spiritual aspirant to achieve the stage in which aspiration for any fruit in return from God is to be avoided. If there is aspiration for any fruit, such aspiration will spoil the entire sanctity of the devotion or real love like a drop of poison added to a pot of milk making the whole milk become poisonous.
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