Posted on: 15 Sep 2019
Smt. Bindiya wrote: Shat shat praṇām to Almighty Swamiji! I have full faith and believe that You are the true Human Incarnation of Lord Datta. There is no doubt in my mind and it is a fact for me now. I established this truth after analysing Your preaching and Your miracles which are not possible for any human being to do.
Now, I am not keen to know the ifs and buts of life and history. I am not intrigued why what happened in the past, be it in the Mahabharata age or the Ramayana age. I don’t want to know what happens after life or what happened before. For me, it is just important that You have chosen to reveal Yourself to me and nothing can be bigger than that. My only desire is to have your sākṣāt darśan and live life on the path guided by You, where I do not commit any sin.
Please let me know if I am wrong in not having the thirst for knowing the Purāṇas or the Vedas? For me, You are everything, the ultimate truth and the divine unimaginable power and I cannot even attempt to understand You. I want to only remember You and do prayers in Your name, nothing else.
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! Replying to your letter becomes a very complicated matter because your belief in the Human Incarnation is the most perfect climax-concept. It is the essence of the Gita, in which Krishna repeatedly said that He is the God-in-human-form to be recognized and served. Krishna cannot be misunderstood for saying that because God came as Krishna specifically to explain the nature of God-in-human-form. That is why Krishna is called a Līlā Mānuṣāvatāra, which means an Incarnation that has come to reveal the nature of God. Krishna gave excellent spiritual knowledge in the form of the Gita, showed the extreme love He had for His devotees and demonstrated several miracles, whenever He felt the necessity. He did not perform miracles simply to satisfy the desire of devotees to solve their selfish worldly problems. The knowledge, love and miracles exhibited by Him are the three inherent characteristics of God Brahmā, God Viṣṇu and God Śiva respectively. They are the three basic signs of God Datta, as seen in all His Human Incarnations. It is God Datta Himself who exists in the upper world in the form of the Divine Trinity of God Brahmā, God Viṣṇu and God Śiva. The form of God Datta with the three faces of the Divine Trinity indicates this concept. In His life, Krishna exhibited these three inherent signs of God Datta.
The unimaginable God (Parabrahman) merged with the first energetic form in the upper world to become Datta. Datta means the unimaginable God ‘given’ to the world of energetic beings for their clear perception. Datta is also known as Īśvara and He is omnipotent like the unimaginable God. Actually, there is not the slightest difference between Datta and the unimaginable God since Datta is the mediated God. He is the same unimaginable God who has reached out to souls through the medium of the energetic body. This God Datta further merges with a selected human being on earth to become a Human Incarnation of God. Krishna, who was also known as Vāsudeva, the son of Vasudeva, was such a Human Incarnation of Datta. Thus, Krishna was Īśvara and He was also Parabrahman. There is not the slightest difference between Parabrahman and God Datta and there is not the slightest difference between God Datta and Krishna. Krishna is indeed the unimaginable God, Parabrahman. Hence, we salute to Shri Krishna Parabrahman (Shri Krishna Parabrahmaṇe namaḥ).
The same God Datta had earlier become Rāma, another Human Incarnation. Rāma is known to be an Ādarśa Mānuṣāvatāra, which means an Incarnation of God whose aim is only to be an example of an ideal human being in worldly life (pravṛtti). While Krishna frequently exhibited Himself as God, Rāma mostly exhibited Himself as an ideal human being. Both Rāma and Krishna indicate the dual behaviour of the human form of God. There are two different programs adopted by God while preaching to humanity in the form of His Incarnations, based on two different aims. (1) The first program aims to confirm the faith of devotees in the existence of the unimaginable God. This is done by the Incarnation exhibiting divine behaviour like Krishna. (2) The second program is to stand as an ideal human being. In this case, the Incarnation like Rāma, preaches the basic knowledge of pravṛtti, which is the foundation of justice and peace in society. Every Incarnation acts as God as well as a devoted ideal human being, even though one of the roles might be seen more frequently in a certain Incarnation. Even Krishna, who often revealed Himself to be God, also behaved like a devoted human being. In order to get a child through His wife Rukmiṇī, He performed penance to please God Śiva. Similarly, Rāma, who usually behaved as a devoted human being, also behaved like God on the occasion of turning a stone into the lady Ahalyā, who was the wife of Sage Gautama. But the major part of Krishna’s life was meant to prove the existence of the unimaginable-omnipotent-omniscient God. His penance to please God was only a rare incident. Similarly, the major part of Rāma’s life was only to exhibit the behaviour of an ideal human devotee in pravṛtti. The miracle performed by Him was only a rare incident. Thus, the major program of each Human Incarnation is always pre-planned. The major program of Śaṅkara was to propagate real spiritual knowledge in the world in order to convert atheists into theists. Apart from this major program of the propagation of true spiritual knowledge, He also performed some miracles, now and then. He made golden fruits to rain in the yard of a poor lady who possessed real devotion. It showed both His love for His devotee as well as His miraculous power. Similarly, the major program of God Datta through this Datta Swami is to bring out the correct interpretations of various concepts in spiritual knowledge and to correlate all the world religions by establishing the Universal Religion for world peace.
God-in-human-form always sticks to His main program. Rāma always tried to hide His divine personality because His main program was to act like an ideal human devotee. An ideal human devotee should aim to please God by not committing any sin and by always supporting justice in the worldly life of pravṛtti. When the sages in the forest praised Rāma as God, He replied that He was only an ordinary human being (Ātmānaṃ mānuṣaṃ manye). If He had accepted that He was God, His main program would have been disturbed. But Rāma is said to be an embodiment of truthfulness (Satyavādī ca Rāghavaḥ). Then, how did He lie to sages? We cannot even say that Rāma forgot that He was God because God can never forget or be ignorant. He is always omniscient (Sa sarvajñaḥ...—Veda). In this case, it is proper to choose the option of saying that Rāma was omniscient, but He only told a lie to save His main program.
There is also another point in this context. If the Human Incarnation reveals Himself to be God, in the course of time, even devotees will develop jealousy towards Him, owing to their ego. That jealousy can be neutralised by telling such a lie. The safety and spiritual progress of the devotee is more important than merely speaking the truth. The ethical scripture of pravṛtti also says that in order to protect the higher justice, the lower justice can be sacrificed. For instance, one can speak tell a lie in order to prevent a good person from getting harmed. Hence, any Incarnation of God Datta shows a dual nature by behaving as a devotee like Rāma or behaving as God like Krishna. The Incarnation behaving like a devotee represents the path to be followed by souls and the Incarnation behaving like God represents the Goal, who should be worshipped by all souls. For any given Incarnation, the main program might be any one of the two.
The jealousy of a human devotee towards the human form of God is quite natural. It is merely the repulsion between the two common human media of God and the devotee. Another way of neutralising the devotee’s jealousy that arises out of the devotee’s ego is that the Human Incarnation should express dualism. In other words, the Human Incarnation should differentiate between the human-component and the God-component within the Incarnation. He should only claim to be the human-component and say that it is the God-component alone who is giving the excellent spiritual knowledge and performing miracles to help devotees due to God’s immense love for them. In fact, in the Human Incarnation of God, the God-component perfectly merges with the human being-component and there is no duality. It is this monism alone which satisfies the few climax-devotees, who had wished to directly see God and speak with Him. But, in order to neutralize the jealousy of the devotees, a lie is told that there is a duality between God and the human medium and such a lie told for a beneficial purpose is not wrong. The Guru or the preacher always looks for their welfare of devotees and does not bother about whether it is the truth or a beneficial lie that He is preaching. Contrary to this, a scholar is never worried about the welfare of devotees since he only cares about the truth in his preaching.
God Datta, through this medium called Datta Swami or Swami, generated faith in you by saying that He is always present with you in your house. He produced the divine scent of lotus flowers in your house, which you experienced and which stand as the proof of His presence with you. He also helped you to come out of your financial difficulties. God uses miraculous powers to help a devotee overcome worldly problems and to strengthen the devotee’s faith, provided God has full confidence that the devotee will make sincere efforts for spiritual progress. God will never perform miracles just because the devotee desired for them.
When excellent spiritual knowledge (prajñānam) becomes your basis for recognizing God-in-human-form, you are on the most correct path towards God. The true spiritual knowledge alone gives the correct direction in worldly life (pravṛtti), which is the first part of the journey and in spiritual life (nivṛtti), which is the final part of the journey. This spiritual knowledge is the greatest gift given by God to the devotee. All other things are not necessary. Seeing the human form of God or even seeing the energetic form of God Datta existing in the Human Incarnation is of no use. Rāvaṇa saw God Śiva, whereas Rāma could not see God Śiva at any time. Yet, God Śiva blessed Rāma and not Rāvaṇa. Seeing God is not at all important, but achieving the grace of God by practically following the spiritual knowledge preached by Him is of real benefit for a devotee.
The Human Incarnation is indeed the most convenient form of God because we can see Him, talk to Him and clear our doubts and serve Him directly. This is the biggest advantage. At the same time, there is a big disadvantage. The disadvantage is that the external human medium of God is similar to our own human body and there is repulsion between the like media. We observe that the Incarnation too undergoes common natural processes related to the medium, like birth, hunger, thirst, sleep, disease and death. Yet, the Incarnation is worshipped as God, whereas we are mere souls. We cannot tolerate this difference due to our ego. It gives rise to jealousy in our mind, which is the repulsion of common media. This repulsion damages our faith in the Human Incarnation.
Without this external human medium, we lose the biggest advantage of seeing, talking and serving God. With it, we also have to face the biggest disadvantage of the repulsion of the common medium, side by side. But this disadvantage of repulsion has a purpose. It filters away undeserving devotees, who are not able to accept the Human Incarnation due to their ego and jealousy. It also makes deserving devotees overcome their jealousy, in due course of time. Unless devotees conquer their ego-based jealousy, they cannot perfectly realize the Human Incarnation. Human beings are attracted to Energetic Incarnations due to the absence of the repulsion of the common medium. But the Energetic Incarnation is relevant only to energetic beings or angels in the upper worlds. The Human Incarnation alone is relevant to humanity. Moreover, you only be able to see and talk to an Energetic Incarnation which appears for a very short time, but you cannot serve the Energetic Incarnation directly. Energetic beings in the upper worlds also face the same disadvantage of the repulsion of the common medium. Both the energetic beings and the Energetic Incarnations have similar energetic bodies which are the source of the repulsion. So, the energetic beings wish to be born as human beings and worship the Human Incarnation! The final result is that human beings miss the Human Incarnation here and after death, when they take on energetic bodies, they miss the Energetic Incarnation there! Thus, the Incarnation of God present in a common medium simultaneously has the biggest advantage as well as the biggest disadvantage. Churning the Milk Ocean simultaneously yields both the divine nectar, amṛtam as well as the deadliest poison, halāhala!
Shat pranam Mahabharata Liilaamaanushaavataara Shiva Vishnu Vasudeva Vaasudeva Shri Krishna Parabrahmane namah Rukmini Aatmaanam maanusham manye Satyavaadiicha Raaghavah sarvajnah Prajnaanam Pravrutti Nivrutti halahala halaahala Rama Ravana amrutam