26 Oct 2014
Swami’s reply for the questions by Shri Nikhil Kothurkar, Associate Professor, Amrita University, Coimbatore on 25-10-14.
1. Which of the two ways of serving the Human Incarnation of God is better? i) Like a servant promptly obeying orders: doing exactly what is told immediately and doing it only when told. ii) or like the devotee taking the initiative: Doing something useful for Him, based on the best of one’s understanding, even when not told, out of devotion (love).
[Servant: Promptly following orders is a mark of total faith in the Human Incarnation and lack of attachment to anything other than Him. Not obeying, partially obeying, or obeying after a delay, are all indicative of incomplete faith or attachment to the world (Eshanas).
Devotee: When Lord Rama arrived at Shabari’s hut He probably might have expressed His tiredness or hunger; perhaps He might not even have asked her for anything. In any case, Shabari took the initiative to feed him with the sweetest (tasted) berries. She did not follow orders; she took initiative as an expression of her devotion. Any mother does what she feels is the best for her child, based on her limited understanding, without being told what to do. This is the expression of her love. Naturally, the action will be based on the devotees qualities (gunas). So, people with different qualities, might find that type of service provided, objectionable. But God alone can judge whether or not the service is pure (free from ego or selfishness).]
Swami Replied: Is there any fixed percentage of marks to give gold medal to a student? Whatever may be the percentage of marks, the gold medal is awarded to the topper in the class. Therefore, there are no fixed norms and procedures in the service to please God. The top most theoretical devotion (Bhakti) existing in the mind of a devotee expressed as practical devotion in action (Prapatti) pleases God. Knowledge, which is the information of all the details of God, generates such devotion and the power of the same knowledge transforms Bhakti into Prapatti overcoming all the hindrances. Every hindrance is only a doubt in the knowledge in disguise. Therefore, Shankara said that knowledge alone takes you to the goal. Shabari saw Rama and gave the best fruits. Here, there is no order from the God. The context decides the need of the order. Order or no order does not matter at all. The quality of service reflecting the extent of surrender pleases God. Love is beyond all the norms and procedures. Before love, formalities have no meaning. Sometimes, God orders to see the value given by the devotee to Him. On a pious day, Saibaba ordered a Brahmin devotee to kill the goat. The Brahmin was ready to do it, but Saibaba stopped him. The testing of the devotee is done not that God wants to know the stage of devotion of the devotee. God makes the devotee to know his own stage. God does not need anything from anybody. Norms and procedures do not improve the devotion. The devotion is improved only by the extent of right knowledge about God. Through analysis, you can remove the misunderstandings and arrive at the right knowledge. The quality and quantity of the right knowledge of God (Brahmajnanam) alone generates and improves the power of the devotion. When the context of expression of love to God arises, the reaction of the devotee is spontaneous like tsunami in which all the procedures and norms get drowned. We find several institutes to improve knowledge and all the qualities of various issues, but there is no training institute for improving the love, which is spontaneous attraction. The ways and procedures of expression of love are immaterial.
2. What should we do when our service fails to please God?
[The devotee’s service is always according to his qualities (gunas), which are his constraints, since the devotee cannot cross his own gunas. Ex.: an illiterate devotee cannot propagate knowledge like a scholar or a weak person cannot fight a battle. Thus, if God is not pleased with a devotee’s service, it cannot be due to the qualities of the devotee, since God is the Creator of all the qualities and has no specific preference to any quality. So, His displeasure must be due to the selfishness and ego of the devotee. But the devotee is helpless before his own ego. He is torn between his own qualities (ego) and the desire to serve God. So, the failure leads to extreme dejection and depression. How can one proceed with one’s life under such circumstances?]
Swami Replied: All this situation is only due to inadequate spiritual knowledge or knowledge of the details of God, which alone generates the love to God and also supplies the power to such divine love. The doubts, which were not cleared, hinder the spiritual progress. Ego itself is an un-cleared doubt. If you improve the spiritual knowledge, all the hindrances including ego disappear. The reason for Gopikas to have such gold medal devotion is only the quality and quantity of their spiritual knowledge acquired by them in the previous millions of births. Lot of time was taken in arriving at complete and clear knowledge. Devotion, which is theoretical and practical, is spontaneous and momentary compared to the knowledge. Knowledge is like one year academic course. Devotion is like three hour final examination. If you are patient and sincere in achieving the complete right knowledge during the period of one year, there will be no trace of difficulty in the examination. The spiritual knowledge must be mainly regarding knowing all the details of God, which alone can generate and concentrate the devotion. All other details in the spiritual path are also indirectly related to clarify in giving the right details of God. Basically, you must know that God does not need anything from anybody (Nanavaaptamavaaptavyam – Gita) because there is nothing that is not attained by God and there is nothing that is to be attainable by God. All the service to God is only a drama to show your exact stage in the spiritual path so that you can start your efforts from that point. You should not be hurt by the failure since, failure only shows your true stage disproving the wrong stage that you are thinking that you have already attained. By failure, you will remove your illusion and arrive at truth so that you can plan your efforts in a true way. Hence, disturbance due to failure is the most meaningless point.
3. When the contemporary Human Incarnation’s external qualities are different from a devotee’s qualities, how can he approach and serve God?
[Each Incarnation takes different external qualities (of the medium) in order to associate closely with those devotees, who also have similar qualities. Any devotee (jiva) is made up of qualities and is inseparable from them. Family background, language, upbringing, education, etc., shape up the personality (set of qualities) of the soul in any particular birth. While some qualities can be changed, some others cannot be changed and yet some others can be changed after a lot of effort and time. The soul can certainly not change them overnight. If the soul’s qualities happen to be different from those of the Incarnation, then how can he approach and serve God? Does it mean that the soul is not destined to be closely associated with God in that birth?]
Swami Replied: God is beyond all the qualities. He may associate with a medium having specific qualities for the sake of friendship with a specific group of human beings. But, if your quality is different from those specific qualities of the medium, do you think that He cannot change those qualities and attain your quality? It does not take even a fraction of second to change His blue shirt and put the white shirt relevant to you. If He is really a human being, he cannot change the colour since; the colour is in his skin. The skin of God has no colour and He has several shirts having different colours. By His will, the qualities of the medium, which are inherent also disappear in your context and will attain the relevant qualities. Nothing is impossible for His unimaginable power. He may take a specific medium for the sake of a major program and there may not be necessity to change the qualities of the specific medium. But, if necessity comes, He has the unimaginable power to suppress the qualities of that specific medium and attain new qualities relevant to the new context. An ordinary human being will not be able to change its qualities. But the human being possessed by God, will act as per the will of God. Lord Krishna showed Tamas in Brindavanam and showed Rajas in His latter political life. The same Krishna showed climax of Sattvam in the Bhagavat Gita. Rama showed Sattvam everywhere, but showed anger of Rajas while scolding the sage Jaabali. The same Rama showed Tamas in running after the golden deer against the advice of Lakshmana falling in the blind love towards Sita. All the three qualities exist together in any place and no quality can be isolated from the triad.
4) How can one balance worldly life and service to God?
[Both worldly people and devotees need to work in the world to sustain themselves and their families. Work in a professional environment involves intense competition for both types of people. For worldly people, the work is a means and also the goal. For spiritual people, that work is only a means for achieving their real goal, which is serving God. Hence, many spiritual people tend to choose a slightly low-pressure career, which will give them more time and energy for learning divine knowledge and serving God. Some devotees try their best to develop skills and setup or arrange their work or life in such a way, that the work will proceed almost automatically, with minimal intervention from them. (Yogah karmasu kaushalam- Gita) This is done in the hope that they will be able to complete their professional and worldly duties satisfactorily, with minimal effort so that they can divert the rest of their energies towards their real goal. But, the world is like quicksand and the more one struggles to get out of it, the deeper one sinks. The work never proceeds smoothly or automatically as expected. Seemingly simple or basic things turn out to be disproportionately complicated or tough. In some cases, situations change so drastically, that all the previous efforts go waste and one has to start new struggles from scratch. At times work-pressure gets so intense that it takes up all the energy of a person and causes extreme stress. For some other devotees, similar stress could be caused by family issues. The effect is the same in both cases: the devotee is unable to concentrate on the spiritual path. The conclusion is that the world can never be controlled by a soul; it can only be controlled by God. Then, how can we balance worldly life and spiritual life?]
Swami Replied: A person is travelling in X boat. This is the first stage. In the second stage, he likes to transfer himself to the Y boat. Now, during the period of transfer, he has put one leg in the Y boat and takes sometime to put his second leg also in Y boat. In the third stage, the person is completely in Y boat. All the devotees exist in these three stages. The problems for a person putting his two legs in the two boats, which are simultaneously travelling are inevitable. Balance of both the legs should be done in a talented way. The actual problem here is that you wanted to shift to Y boat since you realized that X is a sinking boat and Y is a strong boat that can reach the sea shore. After putting one leg in Y, you have suddenly developed two doubts. One is that whether Y is also a sinking boat. The second doubt is whether X is not actually sinking boat. The person, who is travelling in the X boat, only did not get these doubts. The person, who shifted to the Y boat also has no doubt about the Y boat and thinks firmly that Y is not a sinking boat. All the doubts come only in the middle stage. Till your doubts are clarified, you have to balance your legs in both the boats. This is a stage of tension, which can end only on the clearance of the doubts. That is done only by more study and more analysis of the spiritual knowledge. You have to find the solution and I am only showing the path for that.
5) Shri Phani asked: “You cannot leave the leg from X boat because the basic needs have to be fulfilled.”
Swami Replied: The basic needs are fulfilled for all the three types of devotees. People in the X boat fulfill their basic needs through their efforts. People in the Y boat also fulfill the basic needs by the grace of God. They also work like the people in the X boat, but their concentration is on God and they stand in the service of God also. At the time of test, they prove that they are in the Y boat only. Even the person putting the two legs in both the boats, earns basic needs by his effort, but fails in the test. The first person in the X boat will not attend any test and there is no question of success or failure in his case. But, remember, all these three types of people are earning the basic needs only by the Grace of God, who is like a father towards his children. God provides basic needs even to an atheist-child.
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