08 Sep 2012
Note: This article is meant for intellectuals only
You must carefully understand the meaning of the three words: smiling, weeping and enjoying. These three words are totally different from each other and have independent status of meaning. Generally, people misunderstand that smiling means enjoying and weeping means not enjoying. This is not correct. Smiling and weeping are external phenomena, whereas enjoying is an internal phenomenon. While eating the sweet, you smile. While eating a hot dish, you almost weep since your tongue and lips vibrate and eyes shower tears. This smiling and weeping are observed externally. In eating both sweet and hot dishes, you internally enjoy. You need not smile externally while eating the hot dish to show to the people that you are internally enjoying. You are the internal witness for your internal enjoyment. You need not smile externally to give proof for your internal enjoyment to the observers because the external public is in wrong notion that enjoyment means external smile only. If you give proof to the wrong notion, your proof is also wrong. If you do not enjoy the hot dish, you will always reject it. You cannot enjoy the sweet dishes also continuously. You certainly enjoy the hot dish between two sweet dishes. Therefore, the enjoyment is the common underlying concept in smiling as well as in the weeping. You are not enjoying the weeping because you do not have the knowledge of the concept of enjoyment in weeping. A child does not enjoy the hot dish, which causes weeping, because it does not have the knowledge of the concept of enjoying the weeping. A grown up adult has the knowledge of this concept and hence, enjoys the hot dish. This same difference is the reason for the child to be reluctant to the hot dish and to get attracted for the sweet dish. The reason for this reluctance and attraction is the ignorance of the concept in the case of the child. The grown up adult is well versed in this knowledge and is also experienced for a long time in overcoming the initial reluctance to hot dish. Therefore, the adult is equally attracted to the sweet and hot dishes in the meals.
Unless you are equally attracted to the both scenes of happiness and unhappiness and also subsequently enjoy both the situations with equal interest, you cannot become the Yogi as said in the Gita. This equality in interest and attraction is called as yoga in the Gita (Samatvam yoga uchyate…). This equality is misunderstood by some ignorant people as the equality in inertia and non-enjoyment of both the situations. Yogi is the person, who is equally interested and attracted to both the happy and unhappy situations and subsequently enjoys both equally. A yogi is not the person, who runs away from both the situations and becomes inert equally without interest to both the situations. Yogi is the person, who enjoys equally both the sweet and hot dishes. Yogi is not the person, who runs away from both the dishes without interest.
God created this world with both happy and unhappy situations in altering fashion. Summer is followed by winter and winter is again followed by summer. Day is followed by night and night is followed by day. This world is created for the entertainment of God in the ultimate sense. The sweet and hot dishes are prepared in the palace for the king. You are only a guest joining the king in the meals. The king is enjoying both the sweet and hot dishes equally. If you enjoy only sweets and are reluctant to the hot dishes, you are only a child and you are not a grown up adult like the king to enjoy both the dishes equally. You cannot be equal to the king in having the power of the administration of the kingdom. That point is ruled out. If you can enjoy the sweet and hot dishes equally like the king, you can become equal to king at least in this one concept of eating. If you behave like a child and become reluctant to the hot dishes, you are in no way equal to the king in any angle. Similarly, you have no power of creation, control and destruction of this world like God. You cannot be equal to God in these angles. If you become equal to God in enjoying both happy and unhappy situations, you can claim to be equal to God at least in this one angle. You should not say that God is only spectator and not involved in the world directly. God is involved in the world through human incarnations like Rama, Krishna etc. as any human being is involved. The word Rama means the continuous enjoyment through continuous entertainment. If you see the life of Rama, there were several tragic scenes. Rama wept when His wife Sita was stolen. He internally enjoyed while weeping externally. This is similar to internal enjoyment of hot dish by an adult in whom you find the external signs of weeping only. It is said that Rama gives the salvation while alive (Jeevanmukti). The word Rama is said to be Taraka Mantra, which means that you will cross the grief. Grief is inevitable in life. How to cross it? You can cross it only by learning the technique of enjoying it. Without understanding this meaning of the word Rama, there will be no use of chanting the word Rama continuously.
At this level of this concept, the difference between good and bad also vanishes as said in the Gita (Buddhi Yukto Jahatiha…). Rama wept when His wife was stolen. The reason for this grief was the result of a bad action performed by Him previously as Lord Vishnu. Lord Vishnu killed the wife of sage Bhrugu. The present grief is the result of that previous sin. But, still, Rama enjoyed the grief internally so that He is always in the continuous state of entertainment and enjoyment only. Hence, this concept is the state of highest philosophy. This alone can be the real and permanent solution to be in constant state of bliss in which the stress and strain cannot exist at any time.
[Mr. Anil asked whether enjoying grief will encourage sin. A person avoids committing sin since it might lead to misery in the future, which is not enjoyable. But if one can enjoy misery too, then why would one try to avoid commiting sins? Shri Swami responded as follows.]
You need not fear for this because in this state there is no interest in doing some wrong action for selfish benefit. When you can enjoy the state of absence of selfish benefit also, where is the need for doing sin? Sin is said to be the wrong action performed for selfish benefit. Lord Vishnu also killed the wife of sage Bhrugu, since she was protecting a demon, who is harmful to the world. There was no selfishness in that action, but, the sage Bhrugu cursed Lord Vishnu due to his emotional ignorance. This curse can be actually nullified since there was no sin in reality. But, the Lord welcomed it since He is fond of grief as an interval dish. Hence, in this level of the divine state of God, there cannot be any possibility of even a trace of sin. The source of sin is selfishness and there is no need of selfishness in this state since self and non-self are equally enjoyed.
The human being is inert body with life having developed faculties like mind, intelligence etc. The natural tendency of the developed life is to interact, involve and respond to the situations of circumstances. The present philosophers are developing various ways to develop immunity and become inert to the situations. In another way, they are preaching the transformation of natural tendency to unnatural tendency. In such case, the unnatural tendency of inertia of inert materials is far better than the natural tendency of developed life. It would have been better that the human being should have remained as inert body without the development of life. It means that God has created the life unnecessarily. God should have been wise if the creation of the world stopped at the level of inert materials and various forms of inert energy. The present philosophies indirectly blame God. The state of inertia, which is being tried to achieve, was already existing everywhere in the world. Therefore, all these philosophies are perverted. The present philosophy [i.e., My above philosophy], on the other hand, supports the development of life as the merit of God to enjoy everything with equal interest and involvement. It is in the line of the natural tendency of the developed life. Being a human being with developed faculties of life like senses and feelings, it is impossible to develop the inertia. Of course, you get tired due to the activities of awareness, and rest, which is total inertia, is needed and it is already provided by God in the form of sleep for a good period in the night. There is no need of inducement of sleep in the awaken state like some wonderful students having the talent of sleep while opening the eyes in the class room to fool the teacher!
[Mr. Anil asked for the way to remove selfishness. Shri Swami clarified as below.]
Selfishness is a quality, which is conceptual. Selfishness is a wrong concept. A wrong concept can be removed only by a right concept. In fact, to be more precise, selfishness is ignorance, which is the absence of knowledge. A wrong concept is the absence of a right concept. Darkness is the absence of light. Light is a radiation. Darkness is not a radiation and it is only the absence of radiation. Only light can remove darkness and not anything other than light. You can blow lot of wind with high speed, but, darkness is not blown away by the wind. Similarly, selfishness cannot be removed by any materialistic item or by any mechanism other than knowledge. A photo or a statue is a materialistic item and any intensive worship of it cannot remove your selfishness. Chanting any word or sentence is a mechanical process, which does not involve knowledge and hence, such chanting also cannot remove the selfishness. Therefore, any religious practice or ritual cannot remove the selfishness. Demons, very strong devotees of God, doing rigorous penance, could not get rid of selfishness. Only the true sharp knowledge radiating from the face of God in human form, a real preacher (Satguru), can remove the selfishness like a diamond cutting another diamond. The divine knowledge about God gives rise to strong attraction to God, which is called devotion. The practical proof of this devotion is service to God. Hanuman received the divine knowledge from the Sun and became devotee to God. When God came in human form, Hanuman served Him practically and was blessed. The service always involves practical sacrifice, which is the real proof for the lack of selfishness. Knowledge (jnana yoga), devotion (bhakti yoga) and practical service (karma yoga) are the three subsequent steps to please God, which are preached by the three divine preachers Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva respectively.
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