Posted on: 02 Jul 2023
1. Swami, kindly elaborate the meaning of the underlined portion of the verse.
[Shri Anil asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, kindly give Your responses to the following questions. At Your Lotus Feet-anil.
Matthew 6:33-34: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own. Swami kindly elaborate the meaning underlined portion of this verse.]
Swami replied:- Seeking righteousness means sticking to justice and that is Pravrutti. You can reach God only through the gate of Pravrutti, which is supporting justice and opposing injustice. Devotion can go simultaneously with Pravrutti so that Pravrutti is also well flourished along with devotion. This is the proper state of 99% of humanity. Only 1% reach the climax of devotion where God becomes higher than even justice so that all shall understand that God is the ultimate. Even justice is a way to reach God and cannot be higher than God, who is its protector. This point becomes very significant especially when God competes with justice. Krishna asked Dharma Raja to tell a lie in the war. But, Dharma Raja gave more importance to truth and justice than God and could go up to the 3rd upper world called heaven and could not go to the 7th upper world called Brahmaloka or the abode of God. The fruit of merit obtained by following justice is temporary heaven only and not the permanent abode of God. This point is strictly restricted only to God opposing justice and not elsewhere.
2. Kindly elaborate the meaning of the underlined portion of this verse.
[Luke 18:7-8: Will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He continue to defer their help? I tell you, He will promptly carry out justice on their behalf. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?” Kindly elaborate the meaning of the underlined portion of this verse.]
Swami replied:- This means that when some devotee is crying for God, you must not mistake it as true love to God. All that cry is only the true love of the devotee for some worldly desire to be fulfilled. The child cries for the milk and not due to true love to its mother! Hence, in such case, God will follow the path of justice and examine the deservingness of the devotee in view of the cycle of deeds and fruits and the constitutional judgement that is delivered by the deity of justice. As far as possible, God tries to support the judgement because the constitution was written by Him only based on which only the judgement was delivered. He violates the judgement and even His own constitution if the cry of the devotee is for God and not for any worldly desire.
3. Kindly elaborate on the meaning of the following verses from the Bible.
[(Credit to Dr. Nikhil for the following verses presented in the recent Satsang held on 24/06/2023.)
i) Then He told them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. (John 8:23).
ii) Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.” (John 14:6-7).
iii) "Where is Your Father?" they asked Him. "You do not know Me or My Father," Jesus answered. "If you knew Me, you would know My Father as well." (John 8:19)
iv) "Truly, truly, I tell you," Jesus declared, "before Abraham was born, I am!" (John 8: 58)
v) Then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (John 8:12)
vi) The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him (John 16:21).]
Swami replied:
i) This means that souls are from the world whereas God is beyond the world. You need not doubt that souls must be also from above because God created the souls (Ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā… -Gita). Even though the souls are created by God, due to continuous association with this creation, the souls acquired completely the qualities of the creation only and hence, are treated as if they are from the creation.
ii) “You will come to My father through Me only”, means that the human beings living on this earth can approach the ultimate God only through the contemporary human incarnation. The ultimate God is Parabrahman or unimaginable God, who cannot be even imagined. For the sake of the worship of souls, such unimaginable God became energetic incarnation for the upper energetic worlds and human incarnation for this earth. You cannot see the energetic incarnation so easily because very long severe penance is to be done and the reason behind this is that energetic incarnation is irrelevant to human beings since the human incarnation is only relevant to human beings.
iii) This means that the ultimate God (unimaginable God) and the first energetic incarnation (God Datta) are merged with the human incarnation. If you understand the human incarnation in depth, you can realize God Datta, the Father of Heaven, who is referred as His Father by Jesus (God Datta and unimaginable God are not different at all because the unimaginable God is unmediated unimaginable God whereas God Datta is mediated unimaginable God). Therefore, if you catch the contemporary human incarnation of God with firm faith, you have caught the ultimate God Himself.
iv) This means that the contemporary human incarnation is the ultimate God and hence, the contemporary human incarnation existed before Abraham (the previous prophet) and this is true if you view the contemporary human incarnation as the ultimate God. The Ultimate God was certainly existing before Abraham.
v) This means that the contemporary human incarnation is the ultimate God or goal, who came to the earth as guide for the devotees so that they can reach the correct form of God through the correct path. The actual aim of God coming in human form is to save the true devotees being misled into a wrong path to reach a wrong goal by the influence of Satan.
vi) In every generation, some devotees pray to God to come in human form so that they can see, talk, touch and live with the contemporary human incarnation. Due to their prayer only God comes in human form in every human generation. Otherwise, God becomes partial if He comes to some generations only. Since the first energetic incarnation containing the unimaginable God merged with Him, is merged with the selected human devotee, there is no difference between the ultimate God and the contemporary human incarnation. The ultimate God comes to devotees in order to save their time. If the devotee has to spend all his life just to see the energetic incarnation, where is the time for him to put spiritual efforts to please God? God comes in human form to human beings so that they can recognize Him and put their spiritual efforts straight without wasting their short lifetime. Hence, this speaks clearly that the human form of God and God are exactly one and the same.
4. Kindly elaborate on the meaning of the following verse from the Bible.
[In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5).]
Swami replied:- The meaning of this is that word indicates meaning and meaning indicates knowledge and knowledge indicates spiritual knowledge since spiritual knowledge alone is the king of all branches of knowledge. A scholar told that spiritual knowledge is the roaring lion whereas other branches of knowledge are crying foxes in the forest. Word existed in the beginning means that God existed in the beginning of this creation. Word indicates spiritual knowledge and God is the embodiment of spiritual knowledge. We should not take that spiritual knowledge itself as God and hence, we should not take word itself as God. Word or knowledge can represent God. Similarly, light represents knowledge and light itself is not knowledge. Therefore, light represents God also.
5. Kindly elaborate on the meaning of the following verse from the Bible.
[Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? (John 14:9).]
Swami replied:- Father means the first energetic incarnation of the unimaginable God with whom the unimaginable God completely merged to become one and the same. This first energetic incarnation, called as Father of heaven or is Father as called by Jesus. Hence, the merged Father became His son and therefore, there is no difference between Father and Son.