21 Jun 2022
[A question by Ms. Thrylokya]
Swami replied:-
i) You are the best example for Sthitaprajna from your childhood as per the divine vision of God Datta.
There are two fields of human life. One is worldly life and the other is spiritual life. In worldly life, the soul has worldly bonds only as the final goal and in spiritual life, bond with God alone is the final goal. The colour of Sthitaprajna is different in the worldly life than the colour in the spiritual life. In Pravrutti also, Nivrutti exists as a false phase. God is not the final goal in Pravrutti. God is used as an instrument just like any other worldly instrument to achieve happiness for himself and his close family. Hence, the path of Nivrutti is totally unnecessary in the path of pravrutti. Strictly speaking, this is the utmost truth. But God hopes that the follower of Pravrutti also in contact with Nivrutti will behave good in Pravrutti and slowly may turn to Nivrutti completely. This is also true because every beginning is covered by defects just like the fire in the initial stage is covered with smoke.
ii) It becomes very complicated to define Sthitaprajna in Pravrutti containing false atmosphere of Nivrutti. Of course, one has to become a real Sthitaprajna by following Nivrutti and then shall continue in Pravrutti by which the soul would realize everything clearly. If Nivrutti is not followed, the word Sthitaprajna has very limited and superficial meaning only, which is that of a person having mental balance without emotional angles to arrive at the correct decision of the pravrutti-problem. Even this little bit of the aspect of Sthitaprajna gives wonderful success in pravrutti. Without looking at Nivrutti, this little bit of information can be achieved by anybody. I am giving the example of an atheist sticking only to pravrutti. But, generally, every soul involved in pravrutti is linked with Nivrutti side by side to exploit God’s miraculous power in the achievement of solutions for its pravrutti problems. Such a selfish theist is far better than an atheist because the theist always has the future path before him. Such a selfish theist involved in pravrutti is always associated with God and hence, such a theist shall follow Nivrutti separately for some time and become a perfect sthitaprajna so that he can wonderfully succeed in Pravrutti.
iii) Sthitaprajna as per the line of Nivrutti is a person, who leaves all the worldly desires from the mind due to the immense happiness derived from the human incarnation of God Datta (Prajahāti yadā…, Ātmanyevātmanā… - Gita). Here, the first word Aatman means the incarnation having common human medium. The second word Aatman refers to the soul. This means that the soul must derive happiness from the incarnation of God Datta due to which the aspiration for any worldly desire disappears. Such a Sthitaprajna resulting from Nivrutti, not only succeeds in pravrutti, but also enters Nivrutti completely in course of time.
iv) The Atman (human devotee) absorbed in mediated God (energetic or human incarnation) deriving bliss from mediated God and neglecting the worldly desires can be called as Sthitaprajna. The word Atman does not touch the unimaginable God or Parabrahman. Hence, the devotee absorbed in energetic or human incarnation comes under the category of Sthitaprajna. Devotees like Prahlada were absorbed in the energetic incarnation called God Vishnu and Markandeya was absorbed in the energetic incarnation called God Shiva. Both these devotees were deriving bliss from the energetic incarnations and neglected worldly desires. Hence, both these devotees can be called as Sthitaprajna as per the definition given in the Gita. This definition was given by Krishna in the Gita and hence, all the devotees of Krishna absorbed in the human incarnation called Krishna are referred as Sthitaprajna. Hence, as long as the devotion on the mediated God (energetic or human) continues on this earth, all these devotees are called as Sthitaprajna. However, this definition is based on the human incarnation, and taking God in human form is better from one special angle. That is, if a human devotee rejects human incarnation here and worships only the energetic incarnation, there is still no objection to call him as Sthitaprajna on this earth. But, when such a devotee leaves this body and enters an energetic body to go to the upper energetic world ,the real problem comes, which is that the same devotee will reject the same energetic incarnation in the upper world due to repulsion between common energetic media. Hence, if the devotee worships human incarnation on the earth crossing over the repulsion between common media, such devotee in energetic body after death will also recognize the energetic incarnation in the upper world. Due to this special angle, I like to give the meaning of the word Atman as human incarnation only. However, this special angle is not interfering with the devotee of energetic incarnation to be called as Sthitaprajna.
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