Posted on: 08 Apr 2007
God acts as the Father as well as the Teacher (Guru) of any soul. Since God created the soul, He is the Father. But at the same time, He is the teacher who trains every soul to come up in the spiritual path. Generally in the world, the father is different from the teacher. But here, in the case of any soul the real Father and the real Teacher is only one, and that is God. Therefore, God is always kind as the Father and strict and harsh as the Teacher. But the harshness of the Teacher is only apparent and in reality the harshness is kindness alone. Hence, basically God is always kind. God only appears harsh as the Teacher and kind as the Father. Since, the Teacher is basically kind, even in his harsh attitude, God is always kind in reality or in the basic sense.
Souls have done continuous sins and continuous good deeds and if the results are to be given in the same sequence and span of time, there will be continuous punishments for a long time and continuous happiness for another span of long time. It will be like summer for one whole year and winter for one whole year. But the kindest God has re-arranged our results in such a manner that our human life is made up of alternate good and bad results. Hence we will have summer for two months and winter for two months so that the two years are made up of alternate couple of months of summer and winter. This way, neither summer nor winter gets boring due to continuity and the two one-year spans of summer and winter get exhausted.
The punishments are used to remove ignorance and happiness is given as an interval between punishments. The punishments are also selected in such a way that their intensity is suitable to the frequency of requirement for the transformation in the life again and again [God chooses the appropriate duration and intensity of punishment for a soul, repeatedly in his life, depending on the soul’s degree of ignorance, so as to achieve maximum transformation in the soul]. This means that a particular soul requires a particular punishment of a specific intensity, suitable to the degree of ignorance of the soul. Based on the same, the duration of the punishment also varies from one soul to another. According to the requirement, a suitable portion from the sinful results is cut like a piece from a large cake. The size of the piece depends on the requirement based on the nature of the soul. The sizes of the pieces of the salty cake (bad result) and the sweet cake (good result) depend upon the duration and intensity of treatment required by the nature of the soul. The salt cake is a medicine for the soul’s ignorance and the sweet cake is the food that is to be given during the treatment to the patient-soul. The leftover portions of both cakes are exhausted, by giving them to the soul in the external hell and heaven in the upper world. Whatever may be the place (hell, heaven or earth), the punishments are given for the treatment of ignorance alone. On earth, the punishments are used as medicines but in hell, the punishments are used as the final surgery for removing the ignorance. In any case, only the kindness of God is reflected. Thus, God can be seen as Father, Teacher or Doctor giving medicines or as a Surgeon doing an operation. In all angles His kindness alone is reflected.
He is working constantly to uplift every soul. God works as a Teacher, Doctor and Surgeon and at the same time God with an attitude of the Father, observes the possible limit upto which the soul can withstand the treatment. Once the limit is reached, God will regain the attitude of the Father, withdrawing Himself from the attitude of the Teacher, Doctor or Surgeon. As a Father, He starts giving the food of happiness for some time. Remember that He is using the bad and good results of the deeds of the soul alone, in every action to uplift the soul. The deeds are done by the soul in a free atmosphere and God has no trace of interference in it. At the same time all this treatment and food arranged alternately, makes the soul’s life cycle quite interesting to the soul. There is no boredom since continuity [prolonged duration] of anything is absent. Otherwise the soul would have got bored and the Samskara (strong feeling) of boredom would have followed the soul. The soul would then have developed repulsion to this world as soon as it is born in this world.
The results of sin not only serve the purpose of providing alternating intervals in the continuous happiness but also serve as the cane for guiding the soul on the proper spiritual path. Due to happiness, the soul becomes lazy and proud with ego and such continuous laziness and ego will ruin the soul. Therefore, the results of sin are required immediately to bring normalcy to the soul. After some time these punishments bring down the soul to the subnormal state and now good results are required to bring the soul up to the normal level. It is just like balancing a horse with double reins; controlling it from both sides. Or it is just like balancing the weakness in a patient caused by antibiotic medicines and strength caused by nutritious food alternately. The treatment is very critical and balanced, and is highly specific for each soul.
A learned soul will not ask for stopping misery because God has already cut the salt cake to the required size and it has to be finished. The dosage of misery selected by God is like the dosage of medicine selected by the doctor who analyzes the disease properly. You should not decide about the use of medicine or its dosage. You are an ignorant patient and you are not aware of your internal structure. The doctor has scanned your internal organs and knows the right dosage of the medicine. The doctor knows whether medicines are to be used or whether surgery is necessary in hell. Therefore, you should not pray to God even to avoid hell. How can the patient say that surgery should be avoided in his case? Even if the soul is thrown into hell for surgery, the soul should see the kindness of the Doctor-God. Therefore, the soul that has surrendered to God, will never ask for the removal of misery. It should ask only for the removal of the ignorance-illness. The method of treatment is selected by the Satguru-Doctor-God.
Often, the patient cries due to the pain caused by the injection of medicine or the pain of surgery and prays to stop the injection or surgery like the ignorant child. The learned patient will not find fault with the doctor and the doctor will not bother about that pain. Kuchela (Sudama) was suffering from severe poverty and he did not pray to Krishna to remove his poverty because he was a scholar of the scriptures. The Lord also kept silent during his misery, since the patient is learned and tolerates the pain of the injection of medicine. If the injection here is denied, the patient certainly needs surgery in hell. The surgery is far more painful than the injection. Neither was the Lord unkind nor was Sudama ignorant. The Father and son were both learned doctors and therefore there was no need of the interference of any third party between them.
Rukmini, the wife of the Lord, being the mother of the souls recommended the case of Sudama to the Lord. The wife of Sudama was also highly emotional because the Lord being the friend of her husband was keeping silent. She was emotional due to the motherly pain on seeing her starving children. Both the women could not understand the truth, which was known both to the Father (Lord) and the son (Sudama). Some scholars ask God to exhaust all the sins by continuous punishments so that they can have continuous bliss. It is just like asking the doctor to give a dozen injections on one day itself. This is also another type of ignorance since the patient wants to take the full dosage of medicines immediately so that illness should disappear on the spot. You must leave everything to the Divine Doctor and you should surrender to the Doctor who is the best judge of the medicine and its dosage. If all the sins are exhausted, the soul will be bored with continuous happiness and a new misery due to boredom is generated.
In the beginning (Kruta Yuga) there was continuous happiness because God created only pure souls. In course of time the continuous happiness bored them and misery was generated from the continuous happiness itself. Happiness is the mother of misery. The misery produced in the continuous happiness is special because it is generated without any sin. Therefore, God never created misery. Hence, both who like to stop misery and those who like to continue the miseries are not wise because in both cases, the patients are trying to act like doctors in their own cases. Even a doctor on becoming a patient, consults another doctor. In that case the patient, who is not really a doctor but is acting as a doctor in his own case, is really pitiable.
Proper Utilization of Misery
When Prahlada was tortured, he cried in the name of the Lord but never asked for protection. He understood that the torture was taking him up to the climax of devotion. He always thanked the Lord for his exceptional kindness since God was giving him intensive coaching in devotion. His devotion reached the sky due to the torture. But every step of the torture failed at the end to prove the existence of God. [Prahlada’s tortured and tried to kill Prahlada several times, saying that if Prahlada’s God really existed, He should save Prahlada’s life. The torture was a means to prove that God did not exist. God never came to rescue Prahlada until the very end.]. If you had been in the place of Prahlada, you would blame God for interfering only in the last second, after such a long torture. You would feel that you have wasted a lot of time in the long span of the torture. You would feel that God is cruel and has finally become kind due to your pathetic appeals. But Prahlada thanked God for the long torture, which is an intensive coaching in devotion, and he was happier because the existence of God was also proved at the end.
If you are not devoted to God during difficulties and if you have wasted that precious time in useless worry and tension, you have really lost the time. If you have used these difficulties for intensifying your devotion more and more, you have used the difficulties very well. Once the interval of happiness comes, you are going to become lazy and egoistic and thus in happiness you cannot even dream about devotion. In happiness, you feel lazy even to say name of God. People who have missed developing devotion in difficulties are unfortunate because they have suffered without any use. Therefore, difficulties are your golden opportunities to develop your devotion. If you have simply suffered the difficulties just for the sake of finishing the punishment, without developing devotion using those difficulties, even your silent suffering is a big waste.
The Advaita scholar suffers the difficulties with patience and detachment by confining to the self. He does not use these difficulties to develop devotion to God and to cry for God. In happiness, you will not even utter the name of God and there is no question of crying for God. Only in difficulties can you cry for God and develop your devotion to the sky. Prahlada used the torture for developing his devotion to the climax by crying for the Lord. He did not detach from the body and confine to the self to suffer the torture with detachment like an Advaita scholar. You must realize the beautiful intention and design behind the miseries, which alone can develop devotion to God. Of course this devotion is theoretical because it is related to the mind. However, without the theory, where is the birth of practicals? The love for God present in the mind alone can lead you to practice, which is His service. Hence, you cannot rule out the theory for a beginner. If a person enters into practice directly in this life, it means he had sufficient background of theory in his previous birth, which has followed soul as a strong feeling (Samskara or Vasana).
The difficulties are really pious because they serve the Lord on earth when He comes down, bored with the continuous happiness of the upper world. The servants of God are always your real guides in the spiritual path. Getting detachment from the difficulties is not the aim of the Lord. If that were the aim, the Lord would not have created problems at all in this world. The difficulties serve as good intervals between two happy scenes. After misery the happiness gives you the real taste [enjoyment; refreshing change] just like tasting a sweet after eating a spicy pickle. Therefore, to enjoy the happiness, misery is a pre-requisite. God enjoys both happiness and misery equally like sweet and hot dishes in the meal. Even the soul has to enjoy in this way alone, if it wants to reach the state of God.
The difficulties are real preachers even to Advaita scholars. In a soul’s lifetime if the soul enjoys the difficulties also with equal entertainment, such a soul is certainly Brahman. Thus, the experience in difficulties gives you the proof of the status of your soul. Logically you may arrive at the conclusion that you are God, but experience is different from logic. Logically one may prove that the food eaten by a person is another form of the excreta of the human being itself. Pigs eat the excreta of human beings and excreta of pigs is used as manure for the fields. The manure becomes the material of the crop. This cycle proves that the human being is eating his own excreta. But the conclusion is not correct because the experience in tasting food is quite different from tasting excreta. Logic is useful in rejecting the non-divine items but not in experiencing the divine nature of God. God is beyond logic. Therefore, if you are God (Brahman), why don’t you enjoy the problems like tragic scenes in the cinema? For you (Advaita scholar) the entire creation is only imaginary like the cinema. Therefore, the difficulties prove that the soul by itself is not God inherently. But the soul can become God when God charges it to enter this world as the human incarnation. If the soul enjoys the difficulties, the soul reaches the state of God even though the soul does not become God. When the soul becomes God (when the soul is charged by God and becomes a human incarnation) such a soul is the Creator, Maintainer and Destroyer of the world. But when the soul attains the state of God, the soul is equal to God in all aspects (Matbhavayopapadyate—Gita) except in the above-mentioned three aspects, because it is not actually God.