Posted on: 04 Feb 2005
In the materialistic plane, a person says that the aim of his life is to achieve a particular post [career objective] and then help his family members. Another person says that the aim of his life is to serve mankind. We appreciate the second aim as higher than the first one. The highest aim of human life can be known only in the spiritual plane. The sole aim of this creation is pleasing God through entertainment. Every human being is a part of the creation and so the same aim applies to every human being. Human life becomes fruitful if one serves the Lord and pleases the Lord through the service. Service means the sacrifice of work and the sacrifice of the fruit of work. Service is the proof of real love. The mother serves her child by sacrificing a lot of work like feeding, giving a bath, dressing up the child etc., continuously for years. The father serves the child by sacrificing the fruit of all his hard work to the child [by providing for the child financially]. It is a clear practical point that the proof of real love is only service. If you serve your family, it proves that you love your family. If you serve the entire world, it proves that you love the creation. If you serve the creator, it proves that you love the Creator. It is a very simple point.
Love is the attraction of the mind towards anybody or anything. When illness attacks the body, you take so much care to serve your body. You love your body. Similarly you serve your father, mother, wife and children because your mind is attracted towards them. What is the first prerequisite for this love? When you love your child, you are aware that a particular small living being is your child and you have the differentiating knowledge of your child from other children who are similar. Similarly, when you love God you must be aware of the form of God, who must be differentiated from other forms, as your child is differentiated from other children. You identify your child by certain special characteristics like the shape of the face, voice etc; you do not recognize your child by the clothes, which it puts on. Other children can put on such clothes too. Similarly, you must distinguish the Creator from the creation and then only love the Creator. You cannot love the entire creation as the creator. Do you love all the children as your own children? Therefore, the prerequisite of love is the true knowledge and the inseparable identifying characteristics of an object by which you get attracted towards it. Therefore, what is the real form of God? And how does it differ from other forms? What are the inseparable identifying characteristics of God? The answers for these questions constitute the detailed true knowledge of God. Only such true knowledge generates attraction and love. When you know the separate special details of Bombay, which are not seen in any other city, then only are you attracted to Bombay and like to see it.
Before proceeding to identify the true knowledge of God, you must also know the purpose of your attraction towards an object. You love your child, and there is no purpose in it. You also love a doctor when you are ill. But that love is not real. It is not love at all. It is only an artificial apparent love, exhibited for a purpose. You want the doctor to help you. Therefore, true love is that when there is no purpose in it. False love is that in which there is some purpose. Generally almost all people love God because God is omnipotent. He has miraculous powers to do anything, that is impossible for anybody on this earth. When a problem comes and when one fails to solve it by all the means existing in this world, one starts loving God to solve that unique problem. Therefore, you love the position or power of God and not God Himself. A poet shows a lot of love and appreciation for a king by his spontaneous poetry because the poet loves the power and the wealth of the king. He expects the king to donate some land or to give him some money after being pleased with his poems. The poet does not love the person, who is the king. He only loves the position of king. Will he write the same poems if the king loses his kingdom and becomes a beggar? In his poetry, the poet praised the king for his very beauty, sweet voice and infinite wisdom. These qualities still remain with the king even if he becomes a beggar. But the poet does not praise the same qualities of that beggar because the beggar cannot donate anything to him. The post of the king and the kingdom are separable characteristics, whereas the qualities are inseparable characteristics. You can easily identify the person by these inseparable characteristics and if your love for him is real, you will love him whether he is a king or a beggar. Do you not love your son and praise him whether he serves you or not? Sita garlanded and married Rama who was to be the future king of Ayodhya. The love of Sita may be for Rama or may be for the kingdom of Ayodhya of which she can become queen, or it may be both put together. Rama tested her love by discarding the kingdom and by going to the forest. Sita followed Rama to the forest. Her love was only for Rama and not for the kingdom. Ravana further tested this. Ravana offered her to become the queen. But she refused. Therefore, the love for God should be analyzed and should be decided whether God is loved or His omnipotent miraculous power is loved for our advantage.
Some people want to take advantage of this power in this world and some others want to take the advantage of this power in the upper world so that they can be protected from hell. In both cases the love for God is not true. It is only the love for his associated power. Shankara says that the true love for God should not have any desire related to this world or to the upper world (Ihaamutra Phala Viragah). If the love is only for the power of God, what is the use of the real form of God or the inseparable characteristics of God? The poet loves anybody as the king. For him whoever is on the throne is beautiful and wise. In such a case, if the king donates the desired land or cash by seeing the poem written by the poet, the poet does not bother to see or talk with the king again [because he has achieved what he wanted]. Therefore, when we love God’s power for some advantage, we need not worry about His form or about seeing or talking with God. You can just chant some prayers. He responds to your prayers and your desire is fulfilled. In such a case one need not see God and God too does not want to see his or her bloody face!
When a mother wants to see her child, she does not think about any advantage out of it. In fact the mother presents some cash to the son as a gift and if the son needs, she will even sell all her ornaments and sacrifice for the sake of her son. Similarly, if the person has true love for God, the person wants to see God not for any advantage, but even at the cost of great disadvantage. For such a person, God appears and only such a person can see, talk, touch and even live with God. Only for such persons is there a need for the enquiry of the real form of God.
The real form of God is unimaginable as said in the Vedas and there is no question of seeing or talking or touching the God. The the Gita also says that nobody can know God (Mam tu the Veda Na kashchana). Such unimaginable God cannot be said to have a form and cannot even be said to be formless. The Creator is beyond the creation, which is a four-dimensional network of space and time made up of with matter and energy. The creation contains both formless items like space, energy and air and also items with form like water, earth etc. If you say that God has form or that He is formless, then God becomes a part of the creation and not beyond the creation. The the Veda says that no item in the creation including the pure awareness or life energy is God (Neti Neti…). But there are real devotees who have real love towards God and want to see, touch, talk with and live with God for no selfish advantage, either in this world or in the upper world. God, who has infinite kindness and infinite love, cannot reject such real love.
God is omnipotent and can satisfy the desire of such real devotees and the real devotees are crying for the fortune of His vision, touch, conversation and living with God. God is capable and the devotees deserve. Nobody can put his finger between these two. To satisfy the real devotees, God comes in human form and all these four fortunes are blessed upon the real devotees. If God comes in the form of space or energy, which is formless or He comes in the form of statues, He cannot grant these fortunes. He can talk, touch and live with the devotees only when He comes in the human form. Only the human body can do such things as per the laws of nature. Nature is His creation and the laws of nature are the rules of His own administration. He will not violate these rules except in the case of inevitable emergency. Why should He use His special power (Maya) and talk, touch, or live with you in the form of space, energy or statues? When the purpose is served through the normal routine [following the laws of nature], why are you so rigid in insisting on an abnormal way?
God need not pay any heed to the foolish rigid behaviour of some human beings. In fact they want to pray to the formless God or God in the form of a statue, only for the sake of their selfish convenience. You can offer food to the formless God or a statue and then you can eat the entire food. You are satisfied as if you have given meals to God and at the same time you have not even a grain of rice. There are many inconvenient losses and troubles with the human form of God. But the real devotees are not worried about such loss and are in fact happy to lose anything if God can enjoy by that. They feel happy when God eats the offered food. The mother visits her son and gives him some cash so that he may enjoy. When the son is happy with that, she derives infinite happiness and does not feel it as a a loss or trouble. The mother will stay with her son and serve him day and night if necessary and feels very happy about it. Similarly, these real devotees feel happy to serve the Lord and they are happy about the loss incurred in it.
The Lord came in human form as Krishna only for the sake of the Gopikas and not for others. Only the Gopikas could recognize Him and they served the Lord by offering butter. They felt happy in this sacrifice. They did not feel any loss in this sacrifice. Krishna was not their child. But they loved Him more than their children. They did not give butter even to their own children and offered it to the Lord. Their love for God crossed even their love for their children. When such real love exists, God comes in human form and reveals His identity to you. Your love must be real and must be practically proved by the sacrifice of work (Karma Sanyasa) and the sacrifice of the fruit of work (Karma Phala Tyaga) as emphasized in the Gita. Sacrifice of words, mind and intelligence, which are freely supplied to you by God is like offering drinking water to the guest, which was freely supplied by the municipality. But sacrifice of work and fruit of work are like offering meals to the guest and it is the sacrifice of your hard-earned money. Of course the meals must be associated with drinking water also and at the same time, mere drinking water is almost nothing. Sacrifice which alone is the complete proof of your real love, becomes complete, when you sacrifice mind, words, intelligence, work and fruit of work. Sacrifice of words is prayer, sacrifice of mind is meditation, and sacrifice of intelligence is spiritual discussion. Therefore, simply doing meditation is the sacrifice of the mind which is supplied freely by God. Sacrifice of anything that is hard earned by your work, is the real main sacrifice.
When the Lord exposes Himself as the source of all the infinite super natural powers, all the people will run to Him with the same speed and will sacrifice to their maximum. In such a case you cannot differentiate the real devotee from a fraud devotee. The reason is that the super natural power attracts all the people with equal force. When acids are dissolved in water they show equal strengths because water being a highly polar solvent attracts the hydrogen ions from all acids equally so that their extent of ionization becomes same. The strong acid cannot be differentiated from a weak acid. This is called as the leveling effect. When the same acids are dissolved in glacial acetic acid, which is a weak solvent, the acids will ionize to different extents as per their inherent nature.
When an important government official asks for some amount of money, all the merchants will run to him with equal speed and give that amount. In this case you cannot differentiate the real donor from the real greedy merchant. But when a beggar begs for some money, a real donor donates whereas a greedy person refuses. The real nature of the individuals comes out only in the case of the beggar. Similarly, when God comes in human form and exhibits super natural powers, all the people rush to Him with equal speed and show equal love for God. [Of course God cannot be fooled in this way. He exactly knows who the real devotee is and who the selfish devotee is, since God is all-knowing] Even if God recognizes the real devotee by His all-knowing power and rewards him, the other devotees will find fault with God. They will argue that even though the extent of devotion of all devotees was equal, the Lord showed partiality. Therefore, God in human form will not exhibit miracles and will exhibit only His inseparable special knowledge, which projects Him only as a Guru [Teacher] and not as Bhagavan [God]. Datta means God donated to the devotees in human form. His right half is Guru and the left half is Bhagavan. Only the right half is projected and the left half is hidden. Only in this case can the real devotees be filtered.
It is easy to approach the human incarnation of God and praise Him as God. But the most important part is to retain the same faith throughout one’s life. When following Datta becomes practically inconvenient [He gives you problems to test your faith] your faith should persist. The faith should be practical and permanent. The recognition of the human incarnation must be done with the help of the sacred scriptures like the Vedas, Brahma Sutras and the Gita. You must take a long time to decide the human incarnation. Once you have decided, you must stick to your descision in spite of all the troubles and inconvenience, which you face practically. There is no use of catching somebody in haste and then withdrawing the next day. You will continue like this throughout your life. Therefore, you must study all the scriptures and be thorough with the divine knowledge, which generates devotion or love. If your devotion is real you must prove it by your service. Real love is only a one-way traffic. Attaining the God, seeing Him and talking with Him are useless. Demons have seen and talked with God after doing long penance. What is the use of it? They were finally destroyed. Even if you don’t see or talk with God, if you please Him through your proven real love, you are blessed. Rama never saw Lord Shiva. But He was blessed. Ravana saw and talked with Shiva, but was destroyed. Therefore, pleasing the Lord should be our final aim and not mere vision or conversation.
If your aim is only to solve your problem in this world or in the upper world or in both, you have nothing to do with the formless God or the form of God. Your work is done when you pray for it sincerely. But mind that your love is not for God but for the solution of your problem. Then God gives the solution for your problems only in a temporary way, which is not good for you in the long run. He postpones your bad results and brings the good results from your future births to the present. By this, you only enjoy the results of the deeds, which you have done and you cannot enjoy the results of the deeds, which you have not done. It is like sending your application to the officer through a peon [office boy] after paying the necessary amount and getting back the application with the signature of the officer. You have nothing to do with the personality or the qualities of the officer. But when a girl loves the officer, she likes to see the personality and know about his qualities. His position as an officer is only one of the several aspects. Often, she neglects this aspect of the post, when the personality and qualities have attracted her. Similarly, a real devotee feels happy by knowing the details of God and he is not worried about the benefit from God. In this case, the Lord suffers for bad results of that real devotee and gives him eternal happiness.
Some people are not bothered about God and go on doing worldly works continuously. They only believe in themselves. Such people are either athiests or just neglect God. But the so-called devotees also do not love the God really. They show false love for God and all their real love is only for the solution of their problems. They want to visit the Lord and try to show their interest in the personality of the Lord. But all that is only to please the Lord, who may be helpful in solving their future problems. These devotees are not better than those atheists in any way. But the Lord allows these devotees, because there is a hope of a change in their attitude and their becoming real devotees. Prahlada was always absorbed in the personality of the Lord and did not ask for any help even when he was tortured. He was only remembering the Lord in those situations. Hanuman served Lord Rama, not for any gift in return. In fact when Sita gave him a chain of pearls, He broke those pearls to see if Rama was present in those pearls. Rama never announced the gift given to Hanuman and Hanuman never aspired for any gift. Rama gave the post of the creator of this world and the matter was not revealed to anybody. By revealing that, Rama never wanted to reveal Himself as the Lord. Hanuman was not even aware of that post because His mind was fixed only on the personality of Rama. Similarly, Radha never aspired for anything and she was given a specially created topmost world (Goloka). Arjuna had partial devotion and therefore, the final fruit that he attained was partly happiness and partly misery. Duryodhana invited Lord Krishna for a big feast in His honour. Krishna never attended it and finally destroyed them. All the respect and love shown by Duryodhana were only to exploit Lord Krishna in the war. When Duryodhana found that Krishna was found useless for him, he was angry with Krishna and tried to chain Him. This shows that he did not even recognize Krishna as the Lord. Therefore, the Lord gives vision, conversation and co-living etc., only for the real devotees who do not aspire for anything in return. The worst devotees want practical fruits from the Lord by serving Him through words, feelings and intellectual discussions. The middle class devotees sacrifice practically for the Lord and aspire for practical results in return. These types of devotees are businessmen and the above types of devotees are prostitutes. A businessman invests some amount and tries to get back more amounts in return. A prostitute tries to earn money from a person without investing any amount but by investing only sweet words, sweet feelings and artificial discussions. The last type of devotees serves the Lord practically and do not aspire for any result from the Lord either theoretically or practically. For such devotees alone does the Lord come in human form, give His experience to them and save them in this world as well as in the upper world.