Posted on: 23 Jan 2007
The Lord comes in human form in every human generation. All people may not recognize Him. Only a few devotees can recognize Him and get the benefit of liberation form these worldly bonds. The human form of Lord has no obligation to see that every body recognizes Him. Of course, He will try His best to give His identity and to reveal Himself slowly according to the speed of digestion of the devotees. The teacher comes to the class and teaches the class impartially to his level best in view of the capacity of digestion of the sitting students in the class. Some attend the class very carefully and get a first class. Some attend with less care and just pass. Some do not attend and fail. The student is responsible for the final result. Similarly, some recognize the human incarnation as the Lord. Some recognize the human incarnation as a blessed devotee. Some treat the human incarnation as an ordinary human being. For this variation, God is not at all responsible. Suppose, the teacher comes to a class in one year and does not come to next batch of the same class, it is injustice on the part of the teacher to favor one batch and not the other batch. Similarly, the human incarnation cannot favor only one human generation by direct contact.
There is no greater devotee than Hanuman and the Gopikas. Both have worshipped their contemporary human incarnations alone, who were Rama and Krishna respectively. Hanuman did not worship the statues of Vamana or Parashurama who were the past human incarnations or the statues of heavenly energetic forms like Vishnu, Shiva etc., or even the formless God. After completing the learning from the Sun-god, He did not say that He was Brahman already but He became Brahman finally by serving the contemporary human incarnation. The present Advaita scholar is the reverse of this. He says that he is already Brahman and never became Brahman! Hanuman did not go to temples and pilgrimages, never chanted any mantra, never did any penance etc. He simply recognized the human incarnation in His generation and served Him in whatever way the Lord required. The same Hanuman lived after Rama till the next human incarnation came. During the time of the next incarnation, Krishna, Hanuman was still worshipping Rama in His mind. But Krishna corrected Him and made Him a devotee of the contemporary incarnation again.
Similarly, the Gopikas did not worship statues of a past human incarnation like Rama or statues of Vishnu etc., and did not do anything except worshipping their contemporary human incarnation by offering butter, by dancing with Him etc. These Gopikas reached the highest Goloka. The Gopikas were the ancient sages who wrote the Upanishads, which form the basis for Advaitins. Even as Gopikas, they retained their previous knowledge about God and hence they cannot be treated as illiterate (Mahatmya Jnana—Narada Bhakti Sutra). The Pandavas who recognized their contemporary human incarnation but could not do total sacrifice for the Lord due to limitations of justice [they cared for justice more than God], could go only up to heaven.
Every devotee in Hinduism has digested these three epics thoroughly and their essence very very clear. What more proof is required for the concept of the contemporary human incarnation than this? Everywhere in the Gita, the worship of Krishna was stressed, which means the worship of the contemporary human incarnation. The worship of the living human form of God is far better than worshipping energetic forms and worshipping dead human forms (Devan Deva Yajo Yanti Pitrun Yanti Pitru Vratah—Gita). The word ‘Pitru’ here can be taken as the past human form of God who was the real father of the soul [‘Pitru’commonly means dead father or ancestor]. Jesus referred to these living people who worship the past dead forms as dead, because they should go to the past in the same state of dead to get the effect of contemporary human incarnation (Let the dead burry the dead…).
Artificial Goal and Path
One cannot argue that it is impossible to please God in human form by such total sacrifice of work and the fruit of work. This argument is not correct because one can do such total sacrifice for the sake of one’s children. One is unable to do it only in the case of God. If it were really impossible, it would have been impossible in the case of the children too. People want the highest fruit through the easiest path. Hence, they have changed the very goal itself. Suppose it is very difficult for you to travel to Delhi. But you want to go to Delhi. Then, you name a nearby village as Delhi and reach that Delhi. Now you are satisfied that you are in Delhi. You will say that there is no Delhi other than that village. Generations pass and after a long time, that petty village stands as Delhi. People do not even know of the existence of the real Delhi. But the truth is that that the petty village can never be Delhi and no matter how many people for how many generations are living in that petty village, they are not the citizens of Delhi. This is the power of truth and the incapability of tradition.
People want the grace of God by mere theoretical devotion like prostitutes, or want the grace of God by investing some work or wealth like businessmen. The difficulties in selfless service and in sacrificing work and wealth without aspiring for any fruit in return to the contemporary human incarnation, lead the people to invent a new comfortable God with a comfortable path. This new God is formless or a statue and the path is theoretical meditation or theoretical devotion with sacrifice of a little work in one’s leisure time or with the sacrifice of little wealth to escape tax problems [escaping income tax by making tax-deductible donations]. The new path is laid out with their own new conditions, which are possible to do with some difficulty so that they too can claim that the path is difficult. For example, taking a cold-water bath early in the morning in winter, is one such new condition, which is not possible for all people. Some people can do this and feel that they have satisfied the concept of the path to God being full of difficulties. The actual path is full of thorns [practical sacrifice] and nobody can travel on it to God but they can travel on it in for the sake of their own children. Now a new path is made for the new goal and the path is artificially made to contain some small pits. Now crossing these pits on the new path is the difficulty in the path to God. Somehow, some people cross these pits and have the satisfaction of traveling through a path filled with difficulties.
Such selfish, clever misinterpretations of the long blind tradition have harmed souls. Even a soul, which is capable of traveling on the thorny path, is not aware of the real path and the identity of the real goal. Even such a capable soul is misled into traveling on the false path filled with small pits and reaching the petty village called as Delhi. Such a capable soul should at least have the knowledge of the right path and the right goal. For this purpose alone, are the true path and true goal revealed today in My divine knowledge. The truth will attract only very few gems. The fraud will attract many gravel stones. If I had wanted only the majority of gravel stones, I need not preach this divine knowledge any more, because there is sufficient fraud already established by the blind tradition.
One should not be afraid of the thorny path, which alone is true. One should constantly try to travel on that true path. If the soul is constantly trying, God will help the soul by sanctioning any number of future human births with a congenial atmosphere and one day or other the soul will certainly reach the true goal. This is better than reaching the false goal through the false path in this very human birth itself. But remember, the effort should be really sincere and not a cinematic act.
Illusory Goal of Advaita
The Advaitin preaches Atma Yoga to get rid of both happiness and misery. It is a no-profit-no-loss business, which not even a fool would do. Such Atma Yoga denies the existence of God other than the self and this greatest sin generates continuous punishment to be enjoyed by the soul. When the punishment is to be implemented, you cannot escape it by limiting yourself to a state of non-involvement. The powerful divine Maya will catch you and drag you out for delivering the punishment. If the thief hides underground without any involvement with the world, the police will search for him, catch him and impart the punishment to him. The final result of Atma Yoga is becoming an inert stone but one cannot become even that stone if there is a balance of sin [remaining to be suffered] and the sin is endless in this case. Hence, there is no chance of becoming even a stone through Atma Yoga. However, if you are so fond becoming a stone, you have to worship the Lord who is the controller of your self. Then, no sin is generated. When the previous balance of sin is exhausted by punishments, you can become a stone by the grace of God.
Such a state represents the state of deep sleep where the soul has no awareness and remains as a lump of inert energy alone—in eternal peace. If such a state were the highest, God too would have remained in that state without this creation. Perhaps, you are wiser than God for having this better state, which is not realized even by God! In your opinion God has foolishly created this world to have full enjoyment through full entertainment based on full involvement in the world.
State of God
When you become a liberated soul through selfless service to God in human form, you will attain the same state of God—of full entertainment in the world based on the full involvement. In such a state you will enjoy both happiness and misery like sweet and hot dishes in a meal or like comedy and tragedy in a cinema or like winter and summer seasons in the world. You may think that you have come to know this clue [of how to enjoy bliss] and that you can start enjoying the world like God forgetting God once again. You may think that God is no more necessary since the clue of enjoyment is now known. Then you will become the Bhasmasura [a demon] who tried to burn Lord Shiva after getting such a power from Lord Shiva Himself. Such ungratefulness to God again generates sin and in order to undergo the punishment for that sin, Maya will drag you to the lower level of normal human beings. As long as you are in the selfless service of God, you will always be with God in human form in this world to derive bliss from the entertainment continuously. If you go far from God due to egoism and jealousy by crossing the mark of the circle of His closest devotees, the thousands of hands of Maya will bite you like black poisonous serpents.
To become a liberated soul, one need not exhaust the results of all his deeds to be enjoyed by him. There is no need of the transfer of sin to God in this case. Such transfer of sin only protects the closest devotee before liberation. In the case of the liberated soul, the existing balance of sin can be enjoyed by himself through the divine clue [of how to derive bliss and entertainment in both happiness and misery]. If the devotee gets this clue from God and maintains His grace through selfless service, one can be liberated in any moment in this very human life. You need not worry about the balance of the results of his previous deeds. This worry has no validity because the moment you become a liberated soul, you are going to enjoy the balance of the results of your deeds also as a part of the world to be enjoyed like that in the future. Anyway he is going to enjoy both sweet and hot dishes in a restaurant outside his house. He can enjoy the sweet and hot dishes left over in his house also in a similar way. Therefore, Jeevan Mukti (liberation while living in this human life) is possible for anyone at any time. It is just like seeing a part of the movie on your television in your house, and seeing the next part of the movie in a theatre (assuming that the size of the screen is same) outside your house immediately. The story of the movie is a continuous stream.