Posted on: 10 Aug 2021
1. What should I do if I lose interest in world while going through Gītā?
[Śrī Anil asked: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi, some questions raised in internet discussion forum is presented below. Please grace Your response to the same. At Your Lotus Divine Feet-anil
I am getting attracted to Śrīmad Bhagavad Gītā and losing interest from school studies while doing homework. I think only of writings in those books and Kṛṣṇa. What should I do?]
Swāmi Replied:- You have to put forced interest on your studies because Pravṛtti or worldly life is the supporting foundation for the Nivṛtti or Spiritual life. Pravṛtti becomes very essential if you do not have any background of ancestral property that is sufficient to support your future worldly life.
2. Upaniṣads say, "Know Brahman". At the same time, it says that Brahman cannot be known. How is it reconciled?
Swāmi Replied:- “Know Brahman” means recognising the mediated God, who is the contemporary human incarnation on this earth for a human being. The attributeless Brahman or Nirguṇa Brahman is the absolute unimaginable God, who can never be even imagined.
3. Why is God not able to protect His own temples?
[If Gods like Śiva, Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa are so powerful as told in Hinduism then why They were not able to save Their temples which were destroyed by Islamic invaders? Why Śiva didn't kill & repel invaders by opening His 3rd eye in Kāśī?]
Swāmi Replied:- Temples contain only statues installed by human devotees only in which the Father of Heaven or Datta does not exist directly. These statues are only representative models of God useful for the devotees to develop personal theoretical devotion. Hence, the invaders could not touch God directly. The statues were again reinstalled and in this way, they could not harm God directly or indirectly in any way and even the process of the development of theoretical devotion could not be disturbed in any way. In fact, the invaders insulted their God only because the unimaginable God and Father of Heaven is common to all the religions existing on this earth. The anger and foolishness bring damage to themselves only.
4. Why is Mahā Mṛtyuñjaya mantra didn't work for me?
[Me and my entire family chanted Mahā Mṛtyuñjaya mantra to save my ill dad, but he didn't recover from his illness and ultimately died. Why it didn't work for me if it is such a powerful mantra?]
Swāmi Replied:- Mantra is not an electronic instrument that can be played by anybody to get the universal result. Even if you treat Mantra as an instrument, current-devotion is necessary to play the instrument. Death is fixed for every soul and why should you worry about such inevitable thing? The current-devotion becomes strong and effective if you develop devotion due to the divine personality of God without aspiration for any fruit in return.
5. What does it mean when Lord Kṛṣṇa said, only "witness" the situations?
Swāmi Replied:- Witnessing the world means detachment from the worldly bonds resulting due to strong attachment to God.
6. Did Śiva eat corpses like Aghoris do?
[Did Śiva eat corpses like Aghoris do? Are, Śiva worshipping, human flesh eating Aghori Sādhus Hindus? Are their rituals accepted in Hinduism?]
Swāmi Replied:- God Śiva represents burial ground, death and destruction of world indicating that all these are also divine activities only. Beyond this, the mad activities of Aghoris are not divine at all and are not accepted by Hinduism.
7. Is attaining spiritual enlightenment my only chance of inner peace in this life?
[If I am ugly, single, poor, unlovable and unhappy, is my only chance at happiness/inner peace in this life through attaining spiritual enlightenment and destroying my ego identity?]
Swāmi Replied:- All the characteristics mentioned by you are very much congenial for the Spiritual development and you are the best and luckiest soul blessed by God.
8. Why shouldn't there be just one religion and that religion is love?
Swāmi Replied:- The general word “love” is not correct because love for sin and crime also come under that general word. Love for God and love for justice in worldly life shall be the meaning of your word “love”.
9. How long does a soul wait for the next incarnation? What prayers should I chant as a Hindu for dying early?
Swāmi Replied:- Whenever there is need for Pravṛtti and Nivṛtti, God incarnates on the earth and there is no time limit (Yadā Yadā hi…- Gītā). The human life is the best grace of God and you should utilise it to attain the grace of God. It is climax of foolishness to wish for earlier death.
10. Can God change the past and if He did, how would we know?
Swāmi Replied:- God can change past, present and future. This can be known by you when God wishes that you should know.
11. Thought of previous sins leading me to inferiority complex and depression. How to come out of this feeling?
Swāmi Replied:- When you do not repeat the past sins, all your past sins get destroyed forever. In such situation, there is no question of inferiority complex.
12. Is marriage without a religious certificate a sin?
Swāmi Replied:- The religious certificate indicates that you got married in the presence of God. That is very essential and such certificate need not be given by a religion. If you perform marriage with prayer to God, the certificate is attained.
13. If one committed the sin of accepting dowry from spouse; how to rectify that sin?
Swāmi Replied:- Put that dowry as fixed deposit in the name of your wife.
14. Why is Draupadī considered to be chaste when she had 5 husbands?
Swāmi Replied:- There was lot of background of previous birth of Draupadī and Sage Vyāsa along with God Kṛṣṇa revealed this with a divine vision given to Kuntī, the mother of Pāṇḍavas. It is an exceptional case, which does not influence the general Pravṛtti.
15. What shall a person who is continuously suffering, shall do to get some immediate relief from misery?
Swāmi Replied:- He shall pray God to give some relief so that he can concentrate his attention on God. God will certainly respond his prayer.
16. Why Jesus told the woman at the well that she should ask Him for water?
[13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water (water of well) will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”]
Swāmi Replied:- The water offered by Jesus was the true Spiritual knowledge that pacifies the ambition-thirst for worldly bonds.
17. In Bible, how Abraham got salvation when he was not associated with any human incarnation of God?
Swāmi Replied:- Every generation is having the opportunity of human incarnation of God. It might have not been identified by those people.
18. If Jesus is the truth, then is it possible to love Jesus without loving the truth or to love the truth without loving Jesus?
Swāmi Replied:- The absolute truth is the unimaginable God and any medium containing the unimaginable God also becomes the absolute truth as long as the medium exists alive. Love is an abstract quality and can’t be loved by itself. Love is the process or action of loving an item. Without the item, how can you love the love? Another similar mad slogan is to treat the existence (Sattā) itself as an item. Existence is the quality of existence of the item. These people giving the status of item to a quality must consult psychiatrists to cure their mental defect.
19. why is Jesus only considered as God in flesh?
[In Bible, why only Jesus is considered to be God in flesh or Human incarnation. Several others came before Him (like Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Solomon etc) were treated only as a messenger of God or Prophet. Why did God send only messengers before Jesus and came Himself as Jesus after that?]
Swāmi Replied:- Messengers are also incarnations of God only. They express the power of the status of a messenger only so that ego and jealousy of co-devotees is pacified. A complete human incarnation also projects Itself as the messenger of God before people having 100% ego and jealousy. The same incarnation also projects Itself as the son of God before people having 50% ego and jealousy. The same projects Itself as God before people having 0% ego and jealousy.