Posted on: 05 Feb 2005
[Was the Lord not satisfied with Himself that He started this dolls play of creation with animals, plants and humans? For the Lord it is a game to engage souls in deeds and then clear their sins (or good deeds). If He has set the rules of the game and He has predetermined how much sin of each soul to clear in one birth, then does the soul have no independent will and freedom of choice? Should we just do our duty as said in the Gita and not worry about steering our own lives as we see fit?]
In fact the Lord is satisfied by Himself as said in the Brahma Sutra (Lokavattu Leela Kaivalyam). The Lord gets satisfaction when His devotee gets satisfied. The essential aim of this creation for the God is only the sweetness of love. The Lord enjoys the sweetness in the love of His devotees for Him. The devotees enjoy the same sweetness of love of God for them. Therefore, the devotees who are satisfied with such sweet love will not put this question. Only the devotees who could not get such love which flows both ways, ask this question. Such devotees love these unreal bonds in this world. They do not get satisfaction because when such love is analyzed, their inner selfishness comes out. When the essence of such [selfish] love is realized, this question comes to the mind of the devotee and the creation looks like a waste.
They have only seen the false love of the world but have not seen the true love of God. If they enter the spiritual line and experience the true love of the Lord, they will certainly find the necessity of this wonderful creation. Without this creation the existence of such divine love is not possible. Therefore, on realizing the false love in this world, one has to turn towards God to experience the real love. When they experience the divine love they will appreciate the Creator, the creation and the aim of the creation. Thus the game, which is the aim of the creation, is not just for the selfish satisfaction of the Lord. In fact the divine love is enjoyed more by the soul than the Lord. The reason is that the Lord Himself is an infinite ocean of bliss and does not require any more enjoyment. It is actually the soul, which is an infinite ocean of worry and misery that enjoys the divine love, which contains bliss. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said that He likes to be the ant to enjoy the sugar than to be the sugar itself. The ant, which is not the sugar, enjoys the sweetness more. The sugar, being sugar itself, cannot enjoy the sweetness. In fact even the Lord imposes ignorance on Himself and becomes an ordinary soul to really enjoy this sweetness of divine love.
Hanuman was the incarnation of the Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva could not enjoy the divine love of the Lord for a devotee. Therefore, He imposed ignorance on Himself and became a devotee. Hanuman enjoyed the divine love of Lord Rama more than Rama Himself. In fact Rama also could enjoy the divine love by imposing self-ignorance and by acting as an ordinary human being. Therefore, this game is more meaningful for the sake of the souls than the Lord Himself. The Lord transfers the evil results of such real devotees on Himself and actually enjoys the misery. By this the devotee enjoys permanent happiness. Therefore, this game of the world finally results in the permanent happiness of only the devotees (souls) and not in the enjoyment of the Lord.
The rules of the game are well defined. Violation is not possible as long as you are in the field of Pravritti. Even in Pravritti if you accept and surrender to Lord unlike the atheist, some concession is given such as the rearrangement of the results i.e., postponing and preponing. Since, the interest is increased and decreased appropriately in all such rearrangements, the concession is not beyond the rules of justice. When the person to whom you have to pay the loan comes to you, he may postpone the payment on your request but will not cancel the interest. But in Nivritti the loan and the interest is cancelled. But the Lord pays all that for your sake. The main purpose of the human incarnation is only this. Through the human body, He suffers as you suffer. He will not avoid the suffering using His super power because it will again be cheating of justice. Thus, the rules of the game, which are called as the administration of justice, are never violated either in Pravritti or Nivritti. But you have full freedom in the game to win or to be defeated. The rules will not affect your chances of either success or defeat. You have to play the game following the rules. Sometimes the rules may help you to succeed.
When the soul with its subtle body returns to the earth with a gross body as a baby, the subtle body contains very little remains of the original qualities. In hell the intensity of these qualities has been very much reduced. The remains of these qualities are called as Karma Sesha (remains of deeds). Actually it is Samskara Sesha (remains of qualities) [and not the remains of the actual deeds]. People misunderstand this point and think that the subtle body is associated with the remains of the deeds. The deed is inert and cannot be present in the life energy (subtle body). Only a quality, which is a wave of the life energy, can remain in the subtle body. When a thief was beaten in the police station and is left, he comes out with a reduced intensity in his quality of stealing. The deed of stealing does not remain with the thief. It is this remainder of quality that generates its corresponding deed of stealing. The remaining quality of stealing grows in the encouraging atmosphere and generates the deed of stealing. Now you are caught and again punished. For the second punishment, what is the cause? The root cause is only the remaining quality of stealing. Thus, you are told that you are undergoing the result of your past deed. The word ‘Past deed’ only means the remaining quality from the past. If that past remaining quality is destroyed, there is no second punishment.
How to destroy the quality? The quality is made of life energy and is constituted of wrong knowledge. Therefore, only the right divine knowledge can destroy the quality. If the qualities are destroyed by the divine knowledge the deeds are destroyed. This is said in the Gita, “Jnanagnih Sarva Karmani …”, which means that divine knowledge can destroy all the deeds. What is this divine knowledge? It is the knowledge of the Lord, your self and the path to attain and please Him. If He is pleased, He will give you the divine knowledge and all the deeds are burnt. If you are unable to use the knowledge fully and if some deeds are still leftover due to your improper assimilation of knowledge, the Lord will burn those deeds also by suffering with those results. The Lord clearly stated in the Gita that the divine knowledge alone could relieve you from all the sins. Once you are determined due to the divine knowledge you will practice it without any doubt. The result of that is the full grace of the Lord.
The divine knowledge consists of two parts:
1. If you are in Pravritti, you can attain your self by the self-realization. You will be fixed in the self and get detached from the both subtle and gross bodies. By this all the bonds related to gross body and related to feelings (subtle body) are cut off and you will attain eternal peace. All your worries, anxiety, tensions, misery, mental pain, dissatisfaction, confusion etc., will disappear forever. You will live in perfect peace throughout your life. Peace is your property, which is the characteristic of your soul. You have to think that you are the standstill pure awareness (called as Atman or soul). If you are attached to the gross body or subtle body (mind), you have lost the peace. If you are attached to the casual body (soul), you have gained your lost peace.
2. In Nivritti, you attain the Lord, who has come in the human form for your sake, to give bliss. Bliss is the only characteristic of Lord as said in the Veda (Anando Brahma…). The Veda also says that the Lord alone can give bliss to the soul (Eshahyeva Anandayati…). Bliss is not the characteristic of the soul. Your property is only the golden chain [peace] and not the diamond necklace [bliss]. You should not think that peace is bliss. By your effort you can only attain peace but not bliss. You can get bliss only by going closer to the Sadguru who is the human incarnation. You can get the cool breeze when you are near the sea shore. If you are in the house, you have avoided the hot sun. By attaining the soul you have come to zero from minus, but zero is not plus. Zero is within your self and bliss is from the external agency [of God]. When you have attained what you have, it is avoiding a loss, which can only give peace but not bliss. Thus, the divine knowledge of the Sadguru gives you at least peace, which is the earth, if not bliss, which is the sky. He will give you the knowledge of Atman to give you peace. This is the essential requirement for anyone in this world. A few blessed people can also get bliss if they realise that the Sadguru is the Lord Himself.
Therefore, you must utilise the full freedom given to you in this human birth and you must destroy all your sins permanently through Nivritti only. You should be very active in using this unlimited freedom within the limited span of your lifetime. When you leave this gross body and go to the upper worlds you have no freedom at all and hence those upper worlds are called as ‘Bhoga Loka’ which mean that they are the worlds in which the results are to be enjoyed without any freedom. This earth is called as ‘Karma Loka’ which means the world in which you are given full freedom to do anything. You are given the opportunity to receive the divine knowledge here and if you practice it by determination, your entire fate is changed here as well as there.
The sages did long penance and sat in the process of self-realization for several ages. They obtained the peace of the self but not the bliss of the Brahman. Then they realized and approached Lord Krishna as the Gopikas for this bliss, which they got in Brindavanam in the presence of the Lord (Sayujyam). You can smile or laugh with bliss only by attaining the Lord in human form. You can get at least a shadow of the bliss by remembering the Lord. But without an external agency you cannot get happiness or bliss. If you are peaceful and silent, nobody will ask you the reason but if you are laughing and dancing in bliss, stating that there is no external reason for it, it is unnatural and people will admit you in the mental hospital!