28 Sep 2006
The present spiritual preachers who are conducting workshops on the relief of stress are just doctors and psychiatrists only. They preach Asanas (physical exercises) and pranayama (breathing exercises) which are the measures for the physical health. The preaching of Atma Yoga which is the dissolution of thought limiting to awareness is done under the headline of meditation. Meditation is a pious word used to limit yourself to the thought of God only forgetting all the other thoughts including the awareness of your awareness. I do not know how you are calling these as spiritual preachers and concentration on self as meditation. When I asked a spiritual preacher about this point, he told Me “What can we do? The people are up to that level only aspiring the stress relief only”. A Neuro specialist also behaves in the same way adopting hypnotic treatment in order to bring the stress relief by dissecting all the thoughts like a surgeon. When there is no element of God in such workshops, such workshops are only the nursing homes or mental hospitals of stress effected mad people. A stress in these worldly problems is very little compared to the stress at the time of death and after death. Then the soul is struggling a lot with agony to cut all these bonds forever to come out of the body. The two servants of Yama appear with frightening appearance. The stress is unimaginable at that time! At that time the human being cannot attend any workshop for stress relief since there is no time. The soul in a separate energetic body (Yatana Sareeram) is forcibly dragged out of the human body. It is taken to the hell and the entire journey is horrible. The soul will enter the hell and will be subjected to unimaginable torture. The hell is a real workshop of stress.
Are You Prepared for Real Stress in the End?
I am always feeling very very sad about the fate of these people, because I am clearly seeing the future. What are the measures that you have taken for such stress relief? The spiritual path related to God (Nivrutti) serves the purpose of relieving the stress in this world as well as in the upper world. The present workshops are useful to relieve the stress temporarily in this world. In the present workshop, you are preaching Atma Yoga to forget all the worldly thoughts by meditating upon the self with full concentration.
Why Not Replace Self with God?
What is the harm if you replace self by God? Whether the concentration is on self or God, the diversion of the mind from the world is common. The dissolution of worldly thoughts is also common. Devotees forget all the worldly affairs in the love of God and get complete stress relief as the Atma Yogi gets. When everything is same, why do you prefer the self to God? Perhaps you think that self is God. I can prove in hundred ways that self is not God. The Atma Yoga is not completely efficient even in relieving the stress in this world. By concentration on self, the cycle of your deeds will not alter anyway. Hence, your problems in the world do not change at all and continue to give the stress as usual. If the soul is replaced by God, by the grace of God even the external atmosphere changes. The stress causing factors get altered. The effects of sinful deeds are either reduced or completely altered. You need not think that the cycle of deeds is disturbed and justice is violated by this. That is the job of God. Why should you worry about it? He can protect yourself and justice simultaneously. He has His own procedure. If He is pleased with your real devotion, He transfers your sins on to Him and suffers for your sake. You are relieved from the stress of sins. Even you will not know what happened. You do not know your own sins. When God suffers for those sins and gets you relieved, you are not aware of anything. Whenever you help somebody, the person who is helped by you understands you and thanks you. But you are not satisfied with this. You will advertise so that the whole world should know about it. But God helps you secretly and even you will not know that to thank Him. If you know the help done by God, your love on God certainly improves. Such love is impure because the love is developed due to the knowledge of the help form God. When your love improves on God without help, such love is real and pure. Expecting such pure love from you God hides His help to you. When your devotion reaches to climax, your love also goes to climax in which you will love God even though He appears to be harming you apparently.
It is sheer foolishness to think that the worldly affairs get spoiled if you are involved in devotion. You are thinking that God can help you only in the upper world. You have forgotten that He is the Lord of the both the worlds. His help to you in the upper world is sure if you are helped here. If you are not helped here, you will not be helped in the upper world also. If He is furious, you are neither helped here nor there. If He is pleased, you are helped here as well as there. Tyagaraja was completely devoted to God. He had one daughter and she attained the age for marriage. He was not having a single paisa. He was not worried about the crisis. God appeared before a rich devotee who has a good son. The Lord ordered Him to go to Tyagaraja to get his son married with the daughter of Tyagaraja. God also ordered him to perform the marriage with his money only. Every thing went on well as per wish of the Lord. If God is pleased with you, even the cause of the stress is removed. But in Atma Yoga, such possibility is ruled out because the self has no trace of super power. Every thing and every body in this world is on the finger tips of the Lord. The works which are giving lot of stress to you will be done either with your little effort or even without effort. Tyagaraja did not apply even a trace of the effort in the case of the marriage of his daughter. Even if you put hectic effort, you cannot change even a trace of the fruit of your deeds. Therefore, Nivrutti (God) is not against to Pravrutti (Self). Instead, Nivrutti includes Pravrutti. The Lord said that if one is always associated with His service, He will take care of both the worlds (Yoga Kshemam Vahamyaham…Gita). The welfare in the upper world is called as Yoga and welfare in this world is called Kshema.
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