30 Jul 2024
[Smt. Chhanda asked: Paadanamaskaram Swami. One of my friends asked me the following question. Please reply to it. “When a devotee is in Nivrutti, he/she always feels blessed in Pravrutti life. But in Nivrutti, the same devotee feels very sad due to separation from God. This pain goes on increasing with time even after knowing that nearness brings negligence and farness makes closer to God.” You please comment and guide. At Your divine lotus feet always, Chhanda.]
Swami replied:- The sympathy towards pain in the separation from God is like the above said gross justice, which is subtle injustice that can be found on sharp analysis. Even though there is pain in separation, such separation avoids the negligence that is sure in constant association. By such negligence, the devotion decreases and this is subtle injustice. The fruit is always far far greater than the suffering in the path. The Veda says that even angels cannot escape from this rule, which states that physical nearness leads to negligence and physical farness leads to climax devotion (Parokṣa priyā iva hi devāḥ pratyakṣa dviṣaḥ). One day, Radha came to Dvaaraka wishing to stay with God Krishna permanently and Rukmini offered her some hot milk to drink. Rukmini was also drinking the same hot milk every day. That day, God Krishna appeared in hot red colour. Rukmini asked Krishna for the reason to become red hot on that day. Krishna replied that He is in the heart of Radha and hence, He became red hot due to the hot milk drank by Radha. Then, Rukmini asked Krishna for the reason for not becoming red hot every day since she was also drinking the same hot milk every day. Then, Krishna told that Rukmini developed negligence towards Him due to constant association with Him and due to this, Krishna was not in the heart of Rukmini. On hearing this, Radha went back to Brundaavanam visting Krishna now and then only dropping the idea to stay in Dvaaraka forever in association with Krishna.
When God comes down in human form, such human body will show all the inherent properties of a human body since God does not interfere with the properties of His human medium just like the current does not interfere with the properties of the metallic wire (like the leanness of the wire and color of the metal). Due to this, the devotee constantly associated with contemporary human incarnation, continuously mistakes those inherent human properties exhibited by His human body so that the devotee is unknowingly impressed that the God in human form is also an ordinary human being only, which leads to the development of negligence towards God. This is an additional factor apart from the natural ego-based jealousy towards a co-human form. In this way, the negligence increases rapidly like the fire aided by air. Based on this reason only, God kept His climax devotees, the Gopikas, far from Him after He left Brundaavanam. The maintenance of the climax devotion of Gopikas by separation is far far important (in view of their permanent Goloka fruit) than their temporary pain in separation. The path to God is very narrow filled with thorns, whereas the path to hell is very wide like a national highway filled with rose flowers! The path to God shows a very rare climax devotee travelling now and then, whereas the path to hell is always crowded with a very large number of human beings.
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