03 Feb 2005
[The preaching of Sadgurus like You alone is correct. Should we not condemn the preachers of false knowledge?]
In this world only an atheist is the fraud preacher and you should condemn such fraud preachers who preach that God does not exist. All the other preachers, who accept the existence of God are not fraud teachers and therefore no body should condemn them. A person who teaches that you should not go to the school at all is a fraud teacher and should be vehemently condemned. But all the teachers in the school, college or university are not fraud teachers. They are true teachers whose teaching is suitable for different levels of the students. You should not scold the school teacher after going to college. When you leave the college and go to the university, you should not scold the lecturer of the college after hearing the university professor. The school teacher, the college lecturer and the university professor constitute the ladder of knowledge for all the students to climb up. The lower step should not be condemned after reaching the higher step. In the lower stage of knowledge, there will be some errors and mistakes, in order to make it suitable for the students of that level. The Gita says the same (Sarvarambhahi doshena). The school teacher of spirituality preaches about idol worship, which is suitable to the lowest cadre of devotees. In this stage people are with full jealousy and egoism. Their mental capacity is also low. Due to egoism and jealousy, they cannot worship the human form of Lord. Due to their low mental capacity they cannot imagine the formless God who is all pervading like space or cosmic energy. Moreover devotion needs the worship of a limited form. Devotees want to serve the Lord and they cannot serve the formless Lord. Due to these points, a statue, which is a representative model, is the best at this stage.
The college lecturer preaches about the formless God. The mental capacity of the student is grown to imagine the all-pervading God like space or energy. But egoism and jealousy are not removed. So the student goes to the second step and meditates upon the formless God due to higher mental capability, but cannot worship the human form of the Lord due to egoism and jealousy. Therefore, due to the mistakes [deficiencies] present in the students, the knowledge of that stage should be also erroneous [inaccurate] to suit the students. In this second stage, the all-pervading nature of God is realised, but not the living nature of God.
When the jealousy and egoism are completely eradicated and the mind is completely purified (Chitta Suddhi), Shankara says that such a student is eligible for ‘Brahma Jnana Yoga’, which is the university level. At this final stage the student recognises and accepts the human form of Lord. The student worships the limited human form and also gets all his or her doubts clarified. This facility of the living nature of God is not available in the concept of formless God or a statue. But unless the egoism and jealousy are completely removed, reaching this final stage is not at all possible.
The student, after doing a postgraduate course at the university level goes to higher levels like Ph.D or post-doctoral level. In this last stage, a student is fixed on the concept of monism or advaita. In this stage the student believes that the human body of the Lord and the Lord are one and the same like the electric wire and electricity. In this stage whatever the human incarnation says is the Veda and whatever the human incarnation does is Dharma. The student will not search the Vedas or Dharma Shastras to verify whether or not what the Lord said is in the Veda or whether or not what the Lord did is Dharma? Hanuman and Gopikas were students of such a research level. Dharma Raja was only a postgraduate level student. When the Lord ordered him to tell a lie in the war Dharma Raja verified the Lord’s word in the Dharma Shastra and refused to tell a lie.
The Veda available today is a very small portion of the total the Veda told by the Lord. The present Vedas are only one-year’s recitation of sage Bharadwaja who recited the Vedas continuously for 300 years. Even after 300 years, the sage found the remaining Vedas were as large hills. Whatever he recited in the 300 years was only a handful of stones of that hill. This is said in the Veda (Anantavai Vedah). Since the Lord is the author of the Veda, the research student believes that whatever is said by the human incarnation is the Veda, and may be existing in the remaining part of the Veda. This is 100% faith in the human incarnation, which is the research level. If the devotee has only 99% faith, he will verify the Lord’s preaching with the Vedas and the Shastras. Only for such postgraduate students, the Lord preaches by quoting from the Vedas and the Shastras. For a research student the Vedas and Shastras need not be quoted. Shankara quoted from the Vedas and Shastras for the postgraduate students. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa never quoted from the Vedas and the Shastras and His preaching was for the research level students.