15 Dec 2013
[Shri Phani asked: “Many people do not have appetite for knowledge. Only one in millions has the real appetite for spiritual knowledge. In such case, the job of the Preacher becomes very easy to preach those only having appetite”. Given below is Shri Swami’s response.]
The job of the Preacher is not only to give spiritual knowledge to those having appetite but also to give medicines to create the appetite. The effort should be not only to give food to those having appetite, but also to give the medicine to others to generate appetite. Food is different from medicine. Food is meant for hungry people and the medicine is for those not having hunger. There is no use of speaking about God to those, who are not interested in God. This is the tendency of majority of human beings. The general public is not interested in any topic, which is not useful to it. Real devotion is that pure love to God without aspiring anything in return. But, God loves those only, who are not interested in any return from Him. Spiritual knowledge preaches such real love by which you can love God expecting no return from Him and thus, God can love them. Such real devotion is not possible with the majority of humanity. Hence, the picture is altered so that if you can love God, God can become useful to you. Nobody wants the love of God when there is no practical use. Their love should bring some practical use and not simply love of God in return. Hence, the new picture will be that God helps you practically if you love God. This is not the food but the medicine.
People develop devotion in order to get practical help from God. In course of time, the aspect of practical utility gradually weakens and the concept of enquiry about God develops. Naturally, any person likes to know about God, who is helping him for a long time. At that stage, the real spiritual knowledge can be dealt with. The Veda followed this technique. First, the rituals, which are result oriented, are recommended so that after a long time, the utility based devotion can be converted into real devotion. The whole Veda preaches the utility based devotion only to the majority in the form of rituals, which are categorized as Kamya Yajna. After a long time, the person loses interest in such devotion and starts developing the pure devotion (Sa gurumevabhigachchet). This pure devotion is preached in the minor portion of the Upanishads. Thus, Kamya Yajna is medicine to create the appetite.
Even the Jyothisha Shastram (Astrology) is such medicine to create the appetite. The word ‘Jyothi’ means God as per the Brahma Sutras (Jyotiradhikaranam) and thus, Astrology is a medicine to create the appetite. Spiritual knowledge is the food that should be given after generating the appetite. When the planets are to be pacified to get good results, different forms of God are to be worshipped as said in the Jaimini Sutras. In course of time, this worship leads to the quest for the spiritual knowledge.
Atheism is the worst case of the disease, which is lack of hunger. For the Atheism also, there is a strong treatment. We use the concept of 50 – 50 probability in the case of atheist by telling that I am unable to show you the existence of hell, but you are also unable to show Me the absence of hell in this infinite space. This leads to 50 – 50 probability in the case of existence of hell. If we follow theism, we may escape the hell, which may exist based on the 50 percent probability. In such case, nothing is lost if the hell is absent based on the other half of the probability. It is wise to take the side involving least risk and therefore, it is wise to follow theism. This theory will work out in the minds of atheists. In course of time, the atheist may also become a true theist convinced by the logical concepts of the advanced spiritual knowledge.
Therefore, the responsibility of a preacher in propagating the spiritual knowledge is not only to serve the knowledge to the people having the quest for it but also to give medicinal concepts to create hunger in the case of the rest majority of human beings. The food and the medicines are already prepared in the form of this vast spiritual knowledge, which can be used by the Divine Preachers interested to do the service of God. They can use the food packets and the strips of medical tablets as per the requirement. This is a hotel associated with a medical shop!
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