26 May 2009
Pravrutti is the field of worldly matters involving bonds with your body and family members, which is limited to the present birth only. Nivrutti is the field of spiritual matters involving bonds with God and devotees, which is related to every birth of the soul continuously. The basic frame work is the same in both the fields. In both the fields, knowledge, devotion, work, sacrifice and the final fruit for sacrifice are common. In Pravrutti, the knowledge gives the identification of yourself and your family members. You will distinguish your family members as your dear and near from the outsiders to whom you are neutral. Similarly, in Nivrutti, the knowledge gives the identification of human form of God and identification of good deserving devotees and they are distinguished from the general lot of humanity. The second step is devotion, which is nothing but intensive love. In Pravrutti, once you have recognized your family members, you will develop intensive love on them. Similarly, in Nivrutti, the devotion is developed on the living human form of God and other devotees. Therefore, in Pravrutti, the goal is yourself and your family members. In Nivrutti, the goal is living human form of God and devotees. In both, the goal is living human forms only and not non-living objects. The need of non-living objects is also realized when these objects are used for developing the concept of devotion.
Let us take an example in Pravrutti. A person was served for a long time by a non-living car used as vehicle. He does not want to sell the car even though it is not working. The non-living car does not recognize the value shown by him. But still, the concept of gratefulness to long service is built-up in the mind of the owner. Similarly, in Nivrutti, the concept of devotion is built up based on non-living items like statues and photos. It is true that neither the car nor the statue or photo recognizes nor responds in any way. But, inspite of that defect, the concept of gratitude and the concept of devotion are built up in this model based training. Except this advantage of building up the good concepts, no practical fruit is possible in this stage.
[Question: Car is a non-living item and does not represent anybody. But, the statue or photo is a representative model of omniscient God, who recognises the concept and awards the devotee with a practical fruit. Therefore, there is a difference between the examples of Pravrutti and Nivrutti in this aspect.]
Answer: We agree with the difference. But, there is no difference in the final result. The omniscient God understands well that theoretical devotion alone is built up and not the practical sacrifice or service. Therefore, the omniscient God will not reward the theoretical devotion with a practical fruit. A foolish king may reward a fellow on hearing that he worshiped the photo of the king. Since God is omniscient in your own words, God is very careful to reward the practical service only. Hence, in building up the concept and in not rewarding the practical fruit, both the examples are similar. For us, both these points are important, which are not disturbed at all by the difference raised by you.
In this stage of building up the concepts using the inanimate objects, which is called as Pratika-Upasanam or model worship, the generation of a strong feeling and its intensification take place and both these are also important. The strong feeling or mind alone can generate the practical service. Though the concept is built up with the help of inert items, the concept is applied to living beings only. After developing the concept of gratefulness to service with the help of the inert car, the owner starts applying this intensified concept to the living people, who have served him for a long time. Such application alone brings the response. Similarly, after developing the concept of devotion in Nivrutti with the help of statues, the strong devotion should be applied to the human form of the Lord and the devoted human beings. The practical devotion is also trained with the help of non-living items. The owner daily washes the car and keeps it in a covered place with utmost care. This is the practical service to be applied to the living beings. Similarly, the practical service done to the statues is to be applied to God in human form and devotees. Without application to living form, no fruit can be expected and even a response is impossible. The worship of the living human incarnation and the living devotees is called as Sakshaat-Upasanam or direct worship. The model worship must be transformed into direct worship as early as possible for attaining fruit. Otherwise, remaining constantly in the model worship is totally meaningless. In the institute of teacher-training, the candidate is expected to teach certain model classes for which the trainee is not paid salary. After the training, the candidate teaches the actual classes in the institution and gets salary.
After developing the concept of love to family in Pravrutti and devotion to God in Nivrutti, one has to enter the third stage of doing work by which the fruits are earned. In Pravrutti, the work and the fruits of work are sacrificed to yourself and your family members. Such work is called as mere karma. In Nivrutti, the same work and fruits of work are sacrificed to serve the human incarnation of the Lord, His devotees and for His divine mission to uplift the world. The same work in the field of Nivrutti is called as karma yoga. There is no difference between work and fruit of work, because the fruit of work is a product of the work only. A saint can sacrifice work only, since he does not earn any fruit for his work. Therefore, karma samnyasa or sacrifice of work is meant for his case only. The word samnyasa indicates this point. A retired father without earning tries to sacrifice work by taking the grand children to the school etc. His case is like the case of a saint in Nivrutti. A house holder is capable of karma samnyasa and karma phala tyaga or sacrifice of fruit of work. A father takes his children to the school (karma samnyasa) and also spends on their education from his earnings (karma phala tyaga) in Pravrutti. Similar is the case of a house holder in Nivrutti, proceeding in the spiritual path.
The final step in both Pravrutti and Nivrutti is sacrifice of work or fruit of work or both. The sacrifice alone can bring the fruit in both. If you earn the fruit by work and bury all that in a pot, the fruit is not attained, because you have stopped in the third stage of work only. Therefore, the final stage is sacrifice, which alone can bring the fruit in both Pravrutti and Nivrutti. Even to yourself, you have to sacrifice the money (fruit of work) to maintain your basic life. If you do not sacrifice to yourself, even your life is endangered. Therefore, knowledge, devotion, work and sacrifice are the four stages in Pravrutti as well as Nivrutti. Pravrutti and Nivrutti oppose each other if you and your family members are not devoted to God. Even the distant bonds in Pravrutti (relatives) are strong and not to speak of close bonds (wife, children, parents, brothers and sisters). Arjuna was unable to cut even the distant bonds in Pravrutti and refused to fight the war in the beginning. Again after some days, when his son died in the war, he refused to fight the war. Thus, Arjuna tried to drop from the war in two instances. In the first instance, he tried to sacrifice the wealth (kingdom) for the sake of distant bonds. In the second instance, he tried to leave the war even though he realized it as the work of God for the sake of a close bond. The close bond (son) is so powerful that even God was set aside! People do a lot of corruption even without fearing for the hell for the sake of close bonds! People (e.g. in hiring roles) select a non-merit candidate, since the candidate is their distant relative. If you cannot sacrifice even the distant bond, you have not understood even the first chapter of the Gita. How can you understand the other chapters of the Gita, which are at a far higher level?
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