Posted on: 01 Feb 2007
God created all the souls and has the attitude of a father towards His children. A human father may sometimes show partiality in loving his children. But God always has infinite love for all souls in an equal manner. Even the punishments in the hell are meant for the transformation of the souls from the lower level to the higher level. God always tries to help the soul even if a trace of possibility exists according to its cycle of deeds to justify God’s help. One soul need not recommend another soul to God and ask for His grace on that soul. If a child requests his father to look after the welfare of his brother, how foolish it looks! No soul should recommend another soul to God and ask for His protection or grace on the soul. If any soul does so, it is only insulting the infinite love of God. It is the climax of ignorance and the emotional love for the other soul, which lacks even a basic analysis of spiritual knowledge.
Never Criticize Anyone
Never criticize any one in the world. If you do not want to praise somebody, keep silent. If you scold somebody and suppose God is hidden in that person, it will lead to immediate punishment. Worship of God and insulting God will have immediate results in this world because both are powerful (Atyutkataih Papapunyaih…). The help and insult of colleague-souls will have results in the upper world in heaven and hell. But the service and insult to God in human form and devotees will have immediate results here itself. Generally it is very difficult to identify God in human form. He will try to hide Himself by looking like an ordinary person or may sometimes look even like a person with negative qualities. God in human form acts according to the role taken on the stage of the world. The role is according to the divine program drawn by God Himself. The role generally does not contain supernatural behavior, which will create problems for the free mixing of God with the souls. The role mainly consists of normal behavior and sometimes sub-normal behavior to test the devotees or to drive away the undeserving devotees, who will try to exploit God. In such a case there is every possibility of misunderstanding God as a normal human being or sometimes as a bad human being. If you neglect God assuming Him as a normal human being, there is nothing wrong in it and you will not be in loss even though you may not get any benefit. But if you insult Him assuming Him to be a bad fellow, that is the greatest sin and will have immediate negative effect. Since, we cannot identify God easily, it is better not to criticize even a bad fellow. Leave him to his fate. Who are you to criticize anybody? You have a lot of bad points in you, which is shown by your bulky thumb, when you point out at others with your lean finger. The constitution of God running the divine cycle of deeds will take care of everything in the world. Why do you unnecessarily take the risk of insulting the hidden God?
Hidden Backgrounds of Souls
In the sacrifice, Dharma Raja wanted to worship some eligible person in the beginning. Bhishma told him that Lord Krishna was the best choice. But Shishupala started scolding Krishna unnecessarily and got punished. He was furious with Krishna for taking away the bride (Rukmini) that Shishupala was supposed to marry. However the marriage was against the will of Rukmini and Shishupala knew this. Rukmini sent a secret message to Krishna that if Krishna did not rescue her before the marriage, she would commit suicide. Life is the most important item to be protected according to justice (Ahimsa Paramo Dharmah…). There was no trace of injustice on the side of Krishna in that event. The mother of Shishupala prayed to Krishna to spare the life of her son. The Lord prolonged the death of Shishupala for some time and then finally the punishment was given. Shishupala was actually the gatekeeper of the Lord and that was his last birth before reaching God after fulfilling the curse and he was very anxious to reach the Lord. [Vijaya was one of the gatekeepers of the Lord who was cursed to be born thrice on earth as a demonic human and face death at the hands of the Lord. Then alone could he return to heaven and resume his duty as the Lord’s gatekeeper. In the last of the three births, Vijaya was born as Shishupala]. His mother did not know all this background and her recommendation to the Lord to spare his life, was actually against the welfare of Shishupala.
If you take the case of Abhimanyu, the Lord got him killed even though he was His beloved relative. People misunderstand this and may think that Krishna was very cruel. Abhimanyu was the incarnation of a demon in disguise. The Lord knew the internal background. The doctor knows the internal system and operates upon the patient who has a headache. Ordinary observers think that the headache can be easily cured by applying some ointment. But the doctor alone knows the reality through scans and x-rays. Therefore, all the actions of God are correct and justified. You should not mistake God for any trace of cruelty. Even if there is a trace of possibility [to show kindness to the soul], God will act even before you recommend. He is the Father of all the souls and you are only a brother to other souls. The love of the father is far superior to the love of a brother. Moreover, you misunderstand His action of punishment as revenge. The action of God is only for the welfare of the soul and not for revenge. When Krishna killed Shishupala, his soul in the form of a light merged into Krishna. It means that the gatekeeper had reached the abode of God after three births as the Lord’s enemy. You misunderstand Krishna as cruel for punishing him just because Shishupala abused Him. But you do not know the background that Shishupala was His gatekeeper and was very anxious to reach God. Since, your knowledge about a soul is just limited to the present birth, your conclusions regarding God are always wrong.
Divine Banking
When you serve God, you expect a clear expression of the grace of God and this is not good. Suppose you are given a cash award of one lakh rupees for your service, you will spend it lavishly and suffer after some time. If you do not expect the cash award, that amount is invested in the bank of God and you will constantly get one thousand rupees as interest every month. Your principal is safe and will be spent by God whenever there is an emergent need. When you do not expect any clear fruit from God, God implements this system. In this system, the result of your service is not clear because there is no emergency. But if you do not aspire for any trace of fruit from God even in the deeper plane of your heart [subconscious], the system is completely different. Then there is no account between you and God just as there is no account between father and son. Without any account the father will naturally spend for the requirements of the son. When Draupadi tore a piece of cloth from her sari to bandage a bleeding wound of Krishna, there was no account in this bond because Draupadi never aspired for even a trace of fruit in return. She did not even recollect this incident when Duhshaasana dragged her sari in the court.
Action-Result in Karma Cycle
Do not link your service to any fruit from God. Link the fruits to your own actions. Some times your actions fail and unexpected negative results appear. People think that a good deed has given a bad result and a bad deed has given good result. Based on this, people doubt the existence of the divine system of the cycle of deeds. Every action has its corresponding result after some time. The time gap may be even longer than this lifetime. Some actions give results at once. If you put your finger in the fire, it will burn immediately. But generally one’s actions are enquired by the divine system under the supervision of God and the result of the action may be delivered after the some time in this lifetime or even after this life. The time gap is a decision of the judge and not you. You might have done some good deed and its result may be received after ten days on a particular day at 10.30 am. You might have done a bad deed on that day at 10.29 am and its results will be received at a particular time after some days. Now the observers think that the good result at 10.30 am is the effect of the bad deed done at the 10.29am. The observers criticize the divine system of God. This cycle of deeds is a very complicated multidimensional network system with so many parameters of time and place correlated with each other (Gahanaa karmano gathih—Gita). The superimpositions and coincidence of some actions and some other fruits mislead you and you end up misunderstanding the intricate system. Except God nobody can analyze this network system. A deep analysis of all the parameters is impossible for the human brain. Therefore, never criticize the administration of God and unnecessarily earn sin.
Negative Blessings
Generally, one worships God through practical devotion (service) in order to avoid negative results. Such an attitude is a failure to achieve real love and the permanent grace of God. You must learn to enjoy the negative results also like hot dishes in the meal. In fact, due to the divine knowledge attained by the grace of God, try to find more benefit in the negative result so that the negative result can at least be enjoyed equally with the positive result. Whenever, you start to do some work, you always pray for the blessings of the Lord to get victory and benefit. Defeat and loss are never expected by you even in the mind. Elders always bless you to succeed and get profit. They will never bless you to enjoy even the negative result, if attained. They feel it is inauspicious even to utter the possibility of a negative result as an alternative. But Lord Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita “If you die in the war you will enjoy the heavenly pleasures and if you win, you will enjoy the pleasures on this earth” (Hatovaa Prapsyase Swargam —Gita). The Lord is giving blessings announcing the negative result in the beginning and the positive result is mentioned only as the other alternative. The Lord is showing more happiness in the negative result than the positive result because heavenly pleasures are far superior to the pleasures on earth. It is just like saying that if you are defeated in something you will get a treat in a five star hotel and if you win you will get a treat in an ordinary hotel.
The Lord says that He is giving the analytical faculty to laugh at results of deeds (Buddhyaa Yukto—Gita). The ignorant fellow may laugh at the statement of Krishna, but a scholar will laugh at the ignorance in judging welfare based on [our common attitude towards] positive and negative results. Actually the negative result giving you misery, is for your greater welfare becoming closer to God. The positive result is for your loss by which you go farther from God. The punishment purifies you from all bad effects and the boon will pollute you with ego and ignorance. You must have faith in God that He is always doing everything for your welfare. Then, you are never upset in the life and hence there is no need of linking your devotion to the favor from God. You are mistaking the favor of God as His anger and the anger of God as His favor. The divine knowledge, which is harsh to you, is always in your welfare and the Satguru who gives such divine knowledge is the human form of God. Majority likes the sweet, which harms your health in long run; they welcome the knowledge preached by the preachers who are the human forms of Satan.
Divine Medicine
In the lower level, the divine knowledge is also sweet but such divine knowledge is only a sugar coated bitter medicine. The knowledge of the messengers of Satan is totally sugar, which is sweet and causes diabetes. The lower divine knowledge is like a sugar coated bitter medicine to cure the disease and the sugar coating is needed for children. An adult eating sweets is different from a child, which is given a sugar coated medicinal pill. The ignorance of the adult cannot be excused like the ignorance of the child. Therefore, beginners in the spiritual path are excused for their ignorance and God favors them by granting certain boons which appear to violate the cycle of deeds. In fact it is not a violation and it is only an adjustment without any violation, hoping for the growth of the soul in the spiritual line. But the soul should not sit only in this level and in course of time, should progress and respect the rigid cycle of deeds without any aspiration of fruit from God. When Rama turned the stone into the lady, Ahalya, a lower devotee may think that Rama did a miracle and favored Ahalya by canceling her curse. But the higher-level devotees will see the same incident in another angle. The same sage Gautama who gave the curse limited his curse only till the day when Lord Rama would arrive and free her of the curse. Therefore, when the duration of the punishment was over, Ahalya came back in to her original state and in this incident there is no violation of the cycle of deeds, which not only gives punishment but also fixes the duration of the punishment. In fact, Rama followed the divine administration strictly because the curse had to end only through Him. Thus, the lower level devotees take God as one who is capable of violating and one who will violate the divine administration if He likes. But the higher-level devotees take even the violation as a part of the divine administration itself.
Clarifications on Karma and Punishment
Shri Surya asked, “One person argued that the soul is only one among all humans and therefore if God charges a certain soul to become a human incarnation, the same single soul being present in all human beings, would make all human beings as incarnations of God.” Swami replied: The soul is one in the sense of its basic form as inert energy, which is the material of this entire universe. In that sense, the soul is inert energy and the soul is never taken in that basic sense. The soul is taken as pure awareness, which is the special work form of inert energy. In that case the souls are many, even though you may argue that every soul is pure awareness alone. In this sense the soul is limited to the human body and the awareness is absent in the gap existing between two human bodies. The awareness is absent even in some parts of the body like hair and nails. Awareness is discontinuous. Suppose you have taken the lump of iron, which consists of atoms of iron having the same matter and atomic structure. We say that there are many iron atoms in the lump of iron because there is a gap between the atoms. You cannot say that the entire lump is one single atom of iron. You cannot say that the entire lump of iron is only one single item, which is inert energy because the matter present in all the atoms is basically energy. The space between atoms can be also considered as a subtle form of energy and thus the entire lump of iron is a single homogeneous lump of inert energy alone. The word atom stands for a particle of the matter and not energy. Similarly, the soul is fixed in the sense of pure awareness and therefore a single homogeneous unit of soul consisting of all the human beings cannot be achieved and is also against practical experience (Anubhava Pramanam).
In the above example, the matter and the atomic structure are common among all the atoms. But in the case of souls, only the awareness is common; not the qualities, which are different structures of awareness. When God charges a particular soul like Krishna, He charged only the awareness in the body of Krishna and not the basic form of inert energy of the soul. Otherwise He would be charging the entire universe which is nothing but different forms of the basic inert energy. If this were to happen, it would violate the concept of entertainment of God from the universe, since the scene of entertainment is always different from the seer. The single homogeneous awareness in all human beings is in a qualitative sense but not in the sense of a quantitative continuity. The gold is one and the same in two different ornaments. Since gold is one and the same, if one ornament is purchased, the other ornament must have been automatically purchased by you without paying the cost of the other ornament, if your concept were true. You must know that the gold is the same qualitatively in both the ornaments but there is no quantitative continuity of gold in both the ornaments.
Shri Anil asked, “A person asked me whether or not the theory of punishment of the results of sins in the form of illnesses was violated if the illness is cured by medicines, yoga etc.” Swami replied: The theory is not violated because the cure of illnesses by medicines etc., is not universal in every case. In some cases the cure fails. In some other cases the cure succeeds and in such cases the duration of the punishment was only for that much time. Unless the fixed duration is over, medicines and other cures will not work. Moreover, the punishment of a sin can be converted from one form to the other. This concept is present even in the world as you see the penalty for a crime is announced as “Thousand rupees fine or six months in prison”. Apart from this, there is a possibility of postponement of the punishment with accumulated interest to a later time in this life or to hell or to the next life in case rebirth is accepted. All these facilities are used by God when you pray to God to avoid punishment. In the case of the servant who serves God without the aspiration of any fruit in return, God can transfer the punishments of his sins on to Him and this is the main aim of the human incarnation as you can see in the crucifixion of Jesus.