Removing Selfishness

 

Shri Balaji asked “How to get rid of selfishness?”

Swami replied: If the self is forgotten, selfishness also disappears from your mind. The self is indicated by ‘I’. Christianity says that the cross indicates the crossing out of the ‘I’; which means negating the ‘I’. When the ‘I’ is crossed, selfishness also gets crossed. When can we forget this ‘I’? When you are watching a movie, you forget yourself. You do not even notice the mosquitoes biting you and the bedbugs on your seat sucking your blood! It means that you forget the ‘I’, when you are strongly attracted to something. The strongest and permanent attraction is the attraction to the personality of God. There can be no attraction equal to it. But attraction to the absolute unimaginable God is out of the question since He is unimaginable. One can only develop an attraction for Energetic Incarnations or Human Incarnations. In other words, attraction is possible only for mediated God and not the absolute unimaginable God. Specifically, one must develop attraction towards the contemporary Human Incarnation of God. This is because, the contemporary Human Incarnation alone is the relevant and available form of God for human beings. Energetic Incarnations are relevant for angels who themselves also possess energetic bodies. Human Incarnations are relevant for human beings who possess material human bodies. Among Human Incarnations of God, the past Human Incarnations are not available to us anymore. Only the contemporary Human Incarnation—the Human Incarnation who is alive in our generation is both relevant and available to us.

Attraction to the personality of God means the attraction to His divine qualities. The attraction to the external beauty of the Human Incarnation of God can only be temporary. It can provide some initial attraction but the external beauty disappears in old age. Besides, the Incarnation might not be externally beautiful. Hanuman and Shirdi Sai Baba were not beautiful externally. The contemporary Human Incarnation is certainly the best, but the majority is unable to develop an attraction towards Him. This is because of people’s ego and jealousy. The Human Incarnation possesses the same medium of a human body as ourselves. As a result of the common medium, the human being experiences a natural repulsion from the Human Incarnation in the form of ego and jealousy. All human beings invariably experience this repulsion of the common medium from other human beings including the Human Incarnation of God present before their eyes. So, instead of developing attraction for the contemporary Human Incarnation, most people develop repulsion.

For such people, statues and images of Energetic Incarnations and of past Human Incarnations serve an important purpose. In the case of the contemporary Human Incarnation, people experience maximum repulsion in the form of ego and jealousy. The repulsion is greatly reduced in the case of Energetic Incarnations and past Human Incarnations. But since they are not available to us, their statues or pictures, which are representative models, must be used. By worshipping these representative models, you can at least develop theoretical devotion towards God. This theoretical devotion is the source of the practical devotion that you must show towards the contemporary Human Incarnation in the future once you identify Him. The greatest facility available in the case of the contemporary Human Incarnation is that you can serve God directly. Practical devotion means the service and sacrifice done to the contemporary Human Incarnation out of pure love (theoretical devotion). Such practical devotion alone gives the devotee the climax of satisfaction.

When this attraction to the contemporary Human Incarnation of God is fully developed, it is so powerful that you forget the self or ‘I’. Subsequently, selfishness also disappears. Constant devotion brings the eradication of selfishness forever. The Gopikas are the best examples of such constant devotion towards God Krishna, their contemporary Human Incarnation. Ramanuja gave the concept of developing theoretical devotion to God. Before Ramanuja, Shankara had already given the concept of spiritual knowledge, which generates the theoretical devotion. Unless you have full information (knowledge) of an item, you cannot develop attraction towards that item. After Ramanuja, came Madhva. He stands for practical devotion, which includes both service to God and the sacrifice of the fruit of one’s work for God. Service to God is called karma samnyasa. Since one earns money in return for one’s work, money is the fruit of one’s work. Sacrifice of the fruit of one’s work, thus, means the sacrifice of one’s hard-earned money for the sake of God. This sacrifice of the fruit of one’s work is called karma phala tyaga. Service and sacrifice together are called practical devotion or karma yoga.

The practical devotion is the proof of one’s theoretical devotion and the theoretical devotion is the mother of the practical devotion. The practical devotion alone brings the fruit. Practical devotion is like mango plant that gives the fruit. The spiritual knowledge is like water needed for the survival of the plant and the theoretical devotion is like the manure needed for the growth of the plant. All the three are equally important. Spiritual knowledge, theoretical devotion and practical devotion are the three steps in the spiritual path. Simply stated, the three steps are knowledge, devotion and practice. The three can be considered to be the grandmother, the mother and the daughter standing in a line. The grandmother is highly respectable and the mother is all in all. The daughter is young and strong enough to get pregnant and deliver a child.

The first step of knowing spiritual knowledge is like getting all the information about Mumbai city. Upon getting all the information, one develops a lot of attraction for Mumbai and strongly wishes to travel to it. This is the second step of devotion. The attraction makes you practically go to the railway station (karma samnyasa) and purchase the ticket for Mumbai (karma phala tyaga). This is the third step of practice or karma yoga. Once you complete these three steps, you must have patience till you reach Mumbai. No further effort is required from your side. All that you have to do is simply sit on your seat or lie down on your berth in the sleeper coach. You should not be in a haste to see Mumbai immediately after purchasing the ticket. Patience (kshama) is very important everywhere. Patience shows that you have realised the value of the spiritual fruit. This point was well-explained by Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

Once, the divine sage Narada was flying towards the city of God. A sage doing penance requested Narada to find out from God when he would be granted salvation. At the same time, a mad devotee was dancing under a banyan tree, singing songs in praise of God. He too asked Narada to find out from God when he would get salvation. After some time, Narada returned. He told the sage that he would be granted salvation after four births. The sage disappointedly remarked “Will it really take that long?” To the mad devotee, sage Narada said that he would get salvation after millions of births. The devotee was overjoyed and remarked “Will I really get salvation so soon?” At once, the voice of God was heard from the sky “O devotee, you are hereby granted immediate salvation!” The sage had grossly underestimated the value of salvation. The devotee, on the other hand, had estimated its value correctly and was rewarded handsomely by God.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★