Posted on: 25 Jan 2007
[Dr. Nikhil raised a point: To enjoy both happiness and misery, one should have a choice. A king has the choice to enjoy in the palace or in a hut, but a beggar has no choice since he cannot enjoy the palace].
To think that the palace belongs to the king is only a feeling, which is relatively unreal with respect to the status of the awareness or soul. The king is living in that palace only for some time with that feeling [of ownership] and goes to stay in a hut for some time for recreation. A servant also lives in the palace for more time in service without that feeling. Both permanently leave the palace or hut after death. If you go to the absolute level of reality, the king, servant, palace, hut etc., belong to the Lord alone as His movable and immovable property (Ishavashyam Idam—Veda). In the absolute levels of Lord and soul, both the world and the feeling about the world are only relatively true. The servant can also feel that the palace or the big building of a factory in which he works for most of the day is his own building since even the owner is characterized by that same feeling [both feelings are relatively unreal; so there is no difference]. The liberated soul in the absolute level gets the status of God and feels that the entire world is His own property. Therefore, to enjoy the world like this, one has to attain the status of God and I have told that such enjoyment is possible only after becoming liberated through divine knowledge and with the grace of God. If an ordinary human being directly takes this clue [of enjoyment in both happiness and misery] and applies it on his own, he cannot get the result. It is not an industrial formula to apply without the grace of anybody to get the corresponding result.
Moreover, if you analyze carefully, happiness and misery are not related to the wealth alone. Generally rich people suffer from problems and poor people enjoy their lifetime with full contentment and good health. However, this does not mean that a poor man always enjoys and a rich man always suffers. But we can say that a liberated soul will enjoy continuously where as an ignorant soul is vibrated with happiness and misery. The enjoyment by getting bliss is not related to the external world but it is related to the internal intelligence illuminated by divine knowledge and grace of God together.
Is Wealth Transferrable to the Upper World?
All the wealth in this world belongs to God alone. God tests your mentality and you have to leave this world after some time with the certificate of your mentality. You cannot carry on a single paisa that you have earned. If the wealth earned by you were really yours, the divine justice would have made an arrangement to carry over your earnings to the upper world. The absence of such an arrangement clearly proves that your earnings do not belong to you. God will never do injustice in His administration. The human government has made arrangements to transfer your money to foreign countries through the foreign exchange system. Here the government of human authorities cannot own your earnings either and therefore such exchange system is arranged by the will of God alone. Human justice need not be violated in the divine justice if it is correct according to the divine administration also. Human justice may go wrong but the divine administration will never go wrong. Therefore, the absence of such an exchange system to the upper world clearly shows that the arrangement is not done since it is not at all justified. The ignorance of owning wealth is the HIV virus in the spiritual path. This attraction to wealth is mostly based on the bond with children, which also leads to the process of corruption and finally to hell.
[Shri Phani raised a point: A person from India goes to a foreign country with a traveler’s cheque for better enjoyment. Similarly, the certificate carried by the soul to the upper world gives a better enjoyment in the upper world and therefore the system is one and the same in both the cases; the certificate of one’s samskaras is similar to wealth carried from this world to the next.]
There is a fundamental difference in both the systems. The money earned by you in India belongs to you because the wealth of the country is common to all the people represented by the government. Neither the people nor the government created the wealth of the country and cannot have real ownership. Therefore, you can apparently own the part of the wealth according to your talent and work. There is meaning in your apparent ownership of the part of the wealth to some extent even though it is also not valid in the spiritual sense. But the wealth of the country and all the people including the government are created by God and therefore the ownership of God is perfectly valid from all angles. Even you are a part of His property and hence you cannot be owner of any other thing. Therefore, here the certificate carried by the soul is purely the result of the examination [performance of the soul in the different life-situations, and evaluation after death] and cannot be compared to a traveler’s cheque. Of course, if the soul is going to heaven for better enjoyment, the certificate becomes similar to a traveler’s cheque in the final phase of the result, though not in the process of the generation of certificate.
Now the point becomes meaningful when the certificate gives you the abode of God (Brahma Loka) as in the case of Saktuprastha, who got the eternal fruit [for his performance] in the test of his mentality towards wealth. Getting heaven, as in the case of the Pandavas, which is a temporary fruit, is in no way different from a traveler’s cheque and its subsequent enjoyment in a foreign country. Of course, in the case of Kauravas their attitude towards wealth gave them a certificate leading to suffering in hell. Therefore, the mentality towards wealth in this world is going to decide your fruit, which may be Brahma Loka, heaven or hell like first, second and third class grades.
Sacrifice of Wealth is the Greatest
The Veda says that the sacrifice of wealth alone decides the final salvation (Dhanena…). The same Veda says that salvation cannot be obtained by Dharma (karma or action) or Kama, (Sex: The word Prajaya in the hymn denotes Kama because Praja or child is the product of Kama alone). The sacrifice of wealth (Artha) alone decides salvation. Therefore, the sacrifice of the fruit of the work is given the topmost place in the Gita (Dhanayat…). The fruit of work is superior to work because the work may give fruit on success or may not give fruit on failure. Therefore, the fruit of work indicates the better part of work, which is the successful work. Therefore, a householder is always tested in the sacrifice of wealth alone. The Lord did not test Saktuprastha, a householder, in his scholarship of the Vedas or ability to sing songs etc., but tested him in the sacrifice of wealth alone. People mistake that God after money! How foolish this idea is! What is the necessity of wealth for God when He is the owner of everything and when everything is created just by His will? But do not exploit this point to escape the sacrifice of wealth in the service because you are always very clever in exploiting any opportunity to misinterpret any concept for selfish motives. It would be just like saying that there is no need of writing the answers in the examination, since the examiner already knows all the answers and does not need to know anything from us.
A saint [monk] is also tested but in work [service]. Since there is no possibility of possessing wealth in the case of saint, only work is relevant in his case. Therefore, the word karma samnyasa denotes that work is mainly for the case of Sanyasins [monks]. The householder has to sacrifice the fruit of work and can also sacrifice some work if possible. Hanuman, the saint, was tested in his sincerity and dedication to the Lord in his work of jumping across the sea and searching for Sita. The obstacles created in jumping across the sea pertain to testing His sincerity in work. When Sita was not found even after a long search, He was prepared to commit suicide and this shows His dedication to the Lord. He was also tested for his aspiration for the fruit of work and thus even in the work the context of the fruit of work is inevitable even for a saint. Hanuman did all the work without any trace of aspiration for fruit in return. He was tested at the end in this aspect. Rama rewarded every worker and neglected Hanuman, the main worker, without giving any reward. Sita presented Him a chain of pearls. If we were in the place of Hanuman, can you imagine the situation? If I were Hanuman, I would be boiling for such an insult, “I have done so much work and I am insulted like this!” I would take the chain of pearls from Sita and put on my neck thanking her since at least she remembered me. But Hanuman rejected it stating that He only wants Rama!
People are dying day and night to earn wealth. They worship God intensively for earning more and more wealth and there is no end to this. The anxiety for wealth can be compared to the anxiety of a person to come out of the water when he is being drowned in a lake by force. God has arranged for the basic needs of every soul; even for an atheist. Even the human government arranges for the basic needs of criminals in the prison. Then how can one doubt about the divine government like this? The desire for wealth is never satisfied and in fact it grows more and more as wealth grows. The fire grows more and more as ghee [clarified butter] is poured in it (Na Kamah…).
Swami’s Childhood-Friend
I will tell you a small incident of one of My childhood-friends. He suffered with severe poverty and all his efforts to earn money failed. He did several worships of God but they were of no use. The silence of God here is to be properly understood. God knows that addition of ghee in the fire in that case will not solve the problem. One day he went to the railway station at 3 am with the intention of committing suicide by falling down on the tracks before the train. That day, I awoke very early and went to station under the pretext of a morning walk. I met him there and started giving spiritual knowledge regarding the wealth and God. I sang several devotional songs to change his mind and asked him to sing a few songs daily. I told him “Your worldly life is ruined and there is no hope of revival. At least try to win in spiritual life. People who commit suicide will go to hell and they have ruined not only their worldly life but also their spiritual life”. I brainwashed him and he finally came to a decision of building up his spiritual life, leaving all materialistic efforts to earn wealth etc. Generally people misunderstand Me in this point. They think that I have ruined that fellow completely in his worldly life. Do you know what happened in his case? Within a couple of years he became the richest man in the town, through some accidental business!
But he forgot Me and also left the entire spiritual life. He started singing the same songs with a different aim to grow his wealth more and more. Recently I met him and advised him about the change in his aim. I asked him to do some practical service to God by participating in the propagation of the divine knowledge by doing at least a little sacrifice of the fruit of work. Do you know the result? He stopped coming to My house! Previously he would come to My house and express his gratefulness to Me before My family. In no time, just by single will, I can bring him back to his original position. But I thought of not doing so because in that case, he will certainly commit suicide due to the shock of the turn in his fortune. “Let him continue in that state without further materialistic progress so that he will not be spoiled more”, I thought. There may be a hope of his turn before the end of his life. If he does not turn, anyway he will go to the same hell that he wanted to reach previously by committing suicide. God is never unkind. He will be either kind or neutral to His devotees. His heart is a gate without doors (Dwaraka). Dwaraka means the gate, which is always open, acting as a continuous passage. Anyone can enter at any time and they will be honored with divine love from God. Anyone in the heart of God is free to go out at anytime and God is never unkind to him; God just becomes neutral by withdrawing the love for him. There is no question of anger of God on His devotees, even if they insult Him.