Posted on: 04 Oct 2007
[It was announced that Shri Satya Sai Baba was going to publically show the cosmic vision (Vishwarupam) on the moon at Puttaparthi airport. Large crowds of people gathered to witness the event. Shri Baba arrived at the appointed time. However, the moon was not visible at that time and He did not perform the said miracle. There was a lot of criticism from opponents. Devotees asked Swami for clarification on the issue. Swami gave the following discourse to devotees].
Significance of the Unshown Miracle
Shri Baba has shown thousands of miracles to the world and even scientists have accepted the truth in the miracles. If this particular miracle was not done, does it mean that all the previous miracles are invalid? Even if this miracle were done, our atheist friends will say that some laser technology was adopted [to create an optical illusion]. Our friends have disposed all the earlier miracles also as magic. When Lord Krishna gave the cosmic vision to the Kauravas, they did not believe it and concluded that it was some magic show. Laser technology was not known then; otherwise they might have said that Krishna passed some laser beam from a small box hidden in His dress! Krishna showed the cosmic vision to Arjuna in whose case there was a temporary change. The same vision shown to Sage Udanka resulted in a permanent change in the sage. The same vision had no use for Kauravas. In fact, Krishna showed this vision to the Kauravas only to prove that the visions are useless for such people. The aim of miracles is only to establish the existence of an unimaginable nature, so that the unimaginable God can be established. Again and again, devotees need the exhibition of miracles to establish the existence of the unimaginable nature.
God has arranged one unimaginable entity in creation, which can be seen by everybody at anytime. This miracle is the infinity of space. The limits of this universe are unimaginable in this infinite space due to the existence of an infinite number of galaxies of stars in space. Everyone including the scientist accepts the infinity of space. The scientist could not see the limits of the universe, even through the most powerful telescope. The stars seen by you with your naked eye are very few in number compared to the infinite number of galaxies of stars.
In the time of Krishna, the telescope was not there to realize this fact. Hence, by God’s grace, Arjuna could visualize the infinite number of galaxies. Krishna said that He is giving divine sight to Arjuna to see the infinity of the universe. Krishna also stated, while showing this vision, that there is no end to His creation (Nantosti… Gita). Hence, the only purpose of the cosmic vision is to establish the unimaginable limits of this creation. This establishes the unimaginable nature of God. Krishna stated that God is unimaginable, when He said that none can know Him (Mamtuvedana… Gita). Arjuna got a doubt about the very existence of an unimaginable nature. Hence, a practical example of unimaginable nature was needed. All authorities (Pramanas) are based only on perception (Pratyakasha). Experience is the final basis for the other three authorities, viz. shruti, smriti and yukti. Krishna could have exhibited some miracle to establish the unimaginable nature. But such a miracle would have been limited only to Arjuna. If the unimaginable limits of the universe are established through the cosmic vision, it becomes a permanent miracle for anybody to easily experience in the future. Anybody can stand on the roof of his house, look into the sky and easily imagine the unimaginable limits of space or the universe.
Today, the telescope supports such an imagination. One can actually see the infinite number of stars through the telescope and the same can be imagined by the mind also. The telescope gives a perception of the concept; where as imagination by the mind gives an inference of the same concept. The grace of Krishna was the present telescope, by which Arjuna could perceive the infinite number of galaxies, similar to the scientists perceiving the same through a telescope.
In fact, neither the telescope nor the special power [divine sight] is needed to see the infinite number of galaxies in the sky. The same can be easily inferred even by a common man on seeing the sky, since the limits of the sky (space) are not seen by the naked eye. Hence, the vision of the cosmos or cosmic vision is the best and easiest miracle to understand the existence of the unimaginable nature through which unimaginable God can be inferred. This is the importance of the cosmic vision, which is easily available to anybody at any time. Hence it occupies a unique place in the Gita. A common man need not seek any miraculous vision to get proof for the unimaginable nature.
Even if you see the infinite galaxies through a telescope or through the divine sight granted by God, you will reach the same conclusion that is drawn by a common man through a normal sight of the sky. That sole conclusion is that space or the universe is infinite due to its unimaginable boundaries. At any level of space the same conclusion is reached and this conclusion is the same as that reached by inference of the mind, which is based on the above-said perceptions. By this conclusion, the existence of unimaginable nature is established and there by the existence of unimaginable God can be understood. This conclusion is based on the cosmic vision and the inference of the mind.
Mind is born from the moon as per the Veda. Hence, the cosmic vision in the moon means getting the inference of this knowledge through the mind with help of the cosmic vision. The word ‘cosmic vision’ indicates the perception of infinite number of galaxies. The word ‘mind’ indicates the inference reached, based on this perception of the cosmic vision. Even Arjuna uttered this very conclusion after seeing the cosmic vision through the divine telescopic sight. He said that he finds no limits of the cosmos (Sarvatonantarupam…Vishwarupa… Gita). The aim of the cosmic vision as said by Krishna and the final conclusion as said by Arjuna are one and the same, which is that unimaginable God exists due to the existence of the unimaginable limits of cosmos. This is the exact link of cosmic vision with the moon.
Moon stands for mind here. The language of God is always symbolic. In the Christian scripture, God is indicated by the word ‘Lamb’ due to the innocent nature of the lamb; representing the purity of God. Otherwise, everybody knows that on the day of Ashtami[1], the moon is not seen between 6 and 7 pm. The inner meaning is to be understood and there are several such topics in the Veda that are communicated through symbolic language.
The vision of the cosmos cannot relate to God in any way. God pervaded the human body of Krishna and vision of His human body is the vision of God. Shri Baba is sitting in the crowd and the vision of Baba itself is the vision of God, since Shri Baba is a human form of God. The airport indicates the aeroplane that travels in the infinite space indicating the unimaginable limits of the cosmos. Thus it too establishes the unimaginable nature of God. All these put together indicate the vision of unimaginable God:
The moon was not visible. This infers the unimaginable limits of space. The airport also infers the unimaginable limits of space. It is for this reason that the invisibility of the moon (mind is invisible) and the location of the airport were selected. The whole scene is to be understood carefully to conclude the concept.
The actual God is not seen by the eye since God is not imaginable even to the mind, intelligence or logic as per several Vedic statements. The Veda says that the eye cannot see God. But the same Veda says that a blessed soul can see God. This contradiction is easily removed by taking original God for the first statement and mediated[2] God in human form for the second statement. God is not pervading all over the creation because the Veda says that God created the universe to see and enjoy it. If you pervade all over the cinema and become that cinema itself, you cannot see and enjoy it. The Veda says that nothing in the world is God (Neti Neti…). The Veda also says that God entered the world after creating it. If God has already pervaded all over the universe, there is no meaning in saying that God entered the universe. When the Veda says that this entire world is God, Ramanuja interpreted it as the world being under the control of God. You call a kingdom by the name Kalinga, when it is under the control of King Kalinga.
Therefore, the universe is not like the human body of Krishna to be pervaded by God. Thus, seeing the cosmos is not like seeing the human body of Krishna. The human body of Krishna is seen completely, touched and served in several ways. This gives full satisfaction to devotees who are anxious to see God completely and serve God directly. In the same way, if you take the universe also to be like the human body of Krishna, then the universe is not completely seen and it means that God is not completely seen. It is also impossible to serve the universe. Similarly, it is impossible to speak with the universe as we can speak with Krishna in the human body. Therefore, there is no necessity for God to pervade all over the universe to satisfy devotees.
In that case, the vision of the cosmos has no use since it is not a medium for the entrance of God as the human form of Krishna is. But the cosmic vision is given importance in the sense that its unimaginable limits establish the existence of unimaginable God. But for this one reason, there is no purpose of seeing the infinite universe through the cosmic vision. Seeing all the human beings is also of no use because neither do they indicate the infinite limits like the cosmos, nor do they indicate God like the human form of Krishna. Madhva established that the universe is an entity that is completely different from God as a pot is different from the pot maker. Ramanuja said that the universe is inseparable from God as the body is inseparable from the soul. In this sense, the universe can be treated as the body of God. The Gita compares the body to a shirt. The shirt is different from the person but when it is on the body of the person, it is inseparable because if it is separated, the person becomes naked. Even the body is separated from the soul after death and hence in no way is it different from a shirt. Therefore, the universe is like a pot that always exists with the pot maker without separation. In this sense alone does the Veda treat the universe like a body. Thus, there is no difference between Ramanuja and Madhva in this point.
The universe is controlled by the power of God, which is pervading all over the universe. In fact, the universe is only an imagination of God and it is the product of the mental energy (power) of God. Thus, there is a complete difference between the cosmic vision and the vision of the human form of God. The first vision is to understand the unimaginable nature of God. The second vision is to see God with naked eyes, talk with Him and finally serve Him. Both the visions are important in their respective angles. Scholars who understand the inner sense of the whole scene are benefited by the incident. But ignorant masses took only the external physical sense and they were disappointed. Such masses did not take the inner sense of the unimaginable nature of God from any miracle that was exhibited by Shri Baba previously. They have never taken the inner sense of the miracles so far and hence they did not take the inner sense this time too.
Tribute to Shri Baba
Today is Thursday, the day of Lord Dattatreya, who comes down in the human form to guide the spiritual aspirants on earth. The presiding planet of this day is also Jupiter (Guru), who is the preacher of angels. Today is Ashtami[3], the birthday of Krishna. Today’s star is Punarvasu, the birth star of Rama. Rama and Krishna are important human incarnations. The time between 6 pm and 7 pm is a mixture of the zodiacs of Aquarius and Pisces. In Aquarius, Saturn, Jnanakaraka[4], is in association with Ketu, Mokshakaraka[5]. Pisces is the time in which Lord Dattatreya entered this earth. All this shows the holy aspect of this time.
Shri Baba is the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba, who was an incarnation of Lord Datta. Datta means the God given to humanity in human form. Shri Baba did several miracles to establish the unimaginable God. The present time needs His mission to establish the existence of the unimaginable power of God through miracles. In this time, science has developed tremendously so that people think that everything is explicable by human logic and nothing beyond human logic exists. The foundation itself is wrong. All these miracles established that there is God, who can never be explained by science or human logic. Thus, Shri Baba constructed a strong foundation for spirituality on which any spiritual preacher can stand safely to preach spiritual knowledge. If Shri Baba had not come, by this time, all the temples would have been converted into business complexes. He established the fundamental faith in God all over the world, which is the foundation for world peace. He showed Universal Spirituality in all His preaching. He rained an ocean of knowledge and developed devotion through His sweet songs. He worked day and night to set right the field of Pravritti, which is the basis for Nivritti. The spiritual world must remember His name in the beginning of any spiritual effort. Ethical and spiritual values became alive due to Him alone. Such a divine personality is very rare.
Even devotees perform miracles by the grace of God. In the case of devotees, a divine program chalked out by God is strictly implemented. The devotee, without the sanction of God, cannot perform any extra miracle. If he tries to perform it, it will utterly fail. The miracle that happens spontaneously is due to the will of God. The devotee need not plan for it. God comes down in human form as an incarnation, but He will also act as a devotee. Hanuman is God acting as devotee forever. Rama acted as the master rarely. More frequently, He acted only as a devotee. Krishna acted as the master frequently and rarely as a devotee. The program of the incarnation is planned according to the requirement. Whenever God acts as a devotee, He will be exemplary to all devotees. In the role of the devotee, God also shows the defects and mistakes committed by devotees, and He also reveals the results of such mistakes. God in the role of Parashurama exhibited the defects of devotees and showed the bad effects of such defects. Devotees think that they are human incarnations and show jealousy towards the real human incarnations and also to other devotees acting as human incarnations. Their ego gets insulted at the hands of God. Parashurama was egoistic and jealous of Rama, who was real human incarnation. Remember that Parashurama is also a real human incarnation but acted as a false incarnation to show the defects of fraud devotees acting as human incarnations. You should not misunderstand that Parashurama was really egoistic and jealous. He miraculously killed all the corrupt kings as per the divine program of God. But when He saw Rama, He offered the bow of Lord Vishnu for handling and got insulted at the hands of Rama. This indicates that a devotee does miracles by the grace of God as per the divine program. Offering the bow of Vishnu to Rama was an extra miracle, which was not in the divine program, and hence he got insulted.
Bhaskara Sharma prepared food for Shri Narasimha Sarasvati, the human incarnation of Lord Datta. The Lord invited all the villagers for the feast and hence the food was multiplied. If Sharma had invited the villagers, the Lord would not have performed the miracle. The Lord would have also come for food, along with the villagers. Sharma cannot force the Lord to perform the miracle. Govinda Bhagavatpada, the preacher of Shankara jumped from the top of a hill announcing that if God is the author of the Veda, he will be protected. He was protected because his statement was from God. If every fellow utters this statement and jumps from a hill, he will surely die since the statement is from the devotee and not from God, even though the statement is true. You should not embarrass God by such foolish statements even though they are true. If God speaks through you, He will certainly act through a miracle. You are the best judge of the source of your statement since your inner consciousness knows the truth very well. If the statement is from God, you will utter it forcibly and spontaneously.
Satan challenged Jesus to turn the stones into bread by the grace of God if God were really omnipotent. God is really omnipotent and God can turn the stones into bread in no time. But Satan provoked Jesus to do the miracle and God is not involved in this issue directly. Jesus replied to Satan stating that one should not test God through miracles. Jesus did several miracles to change several human beings into devotees. When a devotee deserved a miracle, it was done spontaneously. Satan did not deserve the miracle and God did not wish to do the miracle for the sake of Satan. Jesus grasped the will of God and did not force God to do the miracle. Even if He had forced God, God would not have done the miracle. Jesus acted as a devotee to preach this point to devotees.
Jesus did several miracles and even gave life to a dead person. But He could not save Himself from crucifixion in the end. The soldiers stated this point and mocked at Jesus. Krishna, even as boy, killed several demons who came in disguise to kill Him. The same Krishna, grown up well, could not prevent a hunter who killed Him by mistake. Krishna laughed at Sage Udanka, who was ready to curse Krishna and gave the cosmic vision to the sage. The same Krishna did not control Gandhari, a common lady, who cursed Him[6]. Jesus and Krishna were certainly God in human forms. When that is the fact, why did both not show the power of God to control the situation against to them? There must be a message in this action, apart from God’s wish to enjoy the role of an insulted person. God is bored with continuous success and happiness and sometimes likes to enjoy defeat and insult also. Apart from this self-entertainment gained from a negative role, there is a message for devotees also because the action of God is always multidimensional. The other aspect in suffering with insult is to enjoy the sins of His devotees personally and get them relieved from their sins. Another dimension is the message given to devotees regarding the defeat occurring due to their defects.
There should be a minimum standard even if you are criticizing somebody. You say that Shri Baba is only doing magic. Baba performed miracles in a tiny village even from childhood. Who could have taught Him magic in that tiny village? If He had undergone some training under somebody to learn magic, people would have noticed it. Miracles prove the unimaginable nature and there by establish the existence of unimaginable God. This is the only basic purpose of miracles. Even demons performed miracles through the power of God. God allowed the power to perform miracles to act even through them because miracles are the basis to prove the very existence of unimaginable God. If everything is explicable and if there is no existence of any unimaginable item, it directly means that the human being alone is God and that there is no God other than the human being. This will spoil even Pravritti[7], which is based on justice. If God is absent, hell is absent and everybody tries to do injustice secretly and if the law of the courts is managed through a strong advocate, there is no fear of doing any sin. Even governments will fail if such atheism comes up. If Nivritti is destroyed, the slow consequence is the destruction of Pravritti leading to the disturbance of justice in society.
God Helps in Pravritti and Discourages Nivritti
God is not much worried about Nivritti because it is His personal affair. In fact, God discourages devotees in Nivritti and in spite of opposition from God, devotees please God by their extreme love for God. God is always worried about Pravritti, which is a peaceful balance in society. In the Gita the Lord declared His purpose of visiting earth to be establishing justice in Pravritti alone. He only tries to establish Pravritti. He never tries for Nivritti, because Nivritti is the affair of the devotees who love God. God never tries to make anybody love Him. He is only worried about the peaceful coexistence of human beings in society (Pravritti). He encourages Pravritti by giving the gift of heaven. He discourages people in Nivritti and in spite of that if some strong devotee aspires only for Him, He allows the soul to be with Him in His divine service. Even the fruit in Nivritti is simply the service itself, but in Pravritti, the fruit is heaven.
Baba always tried to establish Pravritti through His speeches and this shows the divine nature of God in Him. Rama and Krishna always tried to establish justice in Pravritti through continuous efforts like killing evil demons. Rama was hiding Himself behind dense ignorance and never even gave the opportunity to recognize Him as God. Krishna left the Gopikas forever and discouraged their Nivritti. If you try to make somebody love you, you are the biggest fool. Real love comes spontaneously and grows tremendously in spite of your terrible opposition. If you try to generate and develop love in somebody’s heart, such love is not true. How can you advertise about the process of loving you and the consequent gifts to be given by you? If somebody loves you, even if you discourage it by showing loss and misery; if still that soul is still loving you and is prepared for loss and misery, then that is the real love. Shiva in disguise, discouraged Parvati in several ways, from loving Him. Therefore, God is always for establishing Pravritti in the society, since it is the issue of love between souls and He is not involved in it. He never tries for Nivritti because it is the issue of love of souls towards Him.
Pravritti is rejection of unjust bonds before justified bonds. If you reject the love of a prostitute before the love of your wife, it is the rejection of injustice and voting for justice. Hence, justice is the basis and the very essence of Pravritti. When you come to Nivritti, you reject your wife before God. This appears to be injustice but on analysis, you can find that this is your vote for the highest justice as you had voted for the relatively higher justice in the above case of Pravritti. Hence, the same basis of justice continues in Nivritti also, if you analyze deeply. A person loving a prostitute and rejecting wife, neither has the perfect knowledge of a wife nor does he have the perfect knowledge of a prostitute. Only in the ignorance of both, does he say that his love for the prostitute is justice and his love for his wife is injustice. Similarly, only when you do not have the knowledge of God and the world, will you will feel that the worldly bonds are more justified than the bond with God. This is only due to your ignorance of both God and the world as in the above case.
If you have to be grateful to your parents, wife and children, how much grateful should you be to God on the same basis of help done by each to you? Since you have not realized the help of God, you are less grateful to God. You have over-estimated the help of your family and you are more grateful to the worldly bonds. God is helping you million times more than your family and His help is continuous—for millions of births—even though you are not grateful to Him. The help from your family is limited to this birth and if you analyze, you will find that a businesslike attitude is always hidden in your worldly bonds. The Veda says that any soul loves you only when you are the means of its happiness (Atmanah kamaya…). Hence, voting for God and rejecting worldly bonds is not a violation of justice but it is based on the very same justice alone. Lack of deep knowledge and analysis makes it appear as voting for God against justice. But in fact, it is only voting for the highest justice and rejecting the higher[8] justice.
When you reject the prostitute before your wife, it is voting for the higher justice against the lower justice or injustice. Justice and injustice are only comparative terms. If a bachelor loves a prostitute and marries her as social reform, such love for the prostitute becomes justice alone. Hence, justice becomes injustice and vice-versa in different contexts. It is only a relative concept. Therefore, establishment of justice means the establishment of both Pravritti and Nivritti. You can identify justice at every level through the torchlight of analytical knowledge. Therefore, if you cannot identify justice in Pravritti, how can you identify justice in Nivritti? If you cannot vote for your wife against a prostitute, how can you vote for God against your wife? Hence, analytical knowledge and voting for justice continue without any change in both Pravritti and Nivritti. Hence, the Lord stressed only on the establishment of justice and this covers both Pravritti and Nivritti. The high justice becomes injustice before the higher justice. The higher justice becomes injustice before the highest justice. Rejecting the lower justice before the higher justice is the very essence of justice and this is established by God (Dharma samsthapanarthaya… Gita).
When God said that you have to leave justice before Him, it means that you have to leave the higher justice before Him, who is the highest justice. There is no contradiction here. Shankara served His mother in the highest place. He even diverted the river for her sake. He gave the highest place for her in Pravritti. Since He was highly analytical in discriminating between justice and injustice, He rejected everything and everybody for her sake. The Veda also gives the first place to the mother. But with the same sharp analytical discrimination, He rejected her before God and even cheated her to go out for God’s work. This is the highest justice and His importance to His mother is only a higher justice, which is the highest only within the Pravritti, since God doesn’t appear in Pravritti. God establishes Pravritti so that it is a training for you to reject the lower justice before the higher justice so that in Nivritti, you can follow the same principle to reject this higher justice before the highest justice. Hence, you will find on deep analysis that Pravritti and Nivritti do not contradict each other. The same principle and the same practice exist in both. If you have failed in Nivritti, you will also fail in Pravritti. Once you have the power of discrimination through sharp analysis, (Sadasat viveka as called by Shankara) you will succeed in both Pravritti and Nivritti. Heaven is the fruit of Pravritti and the abode of God is the fruit of Nivritti. Heaven is the third world and abode of God (Satya Loka) is the seventh world. Without climbing the third step how can you climb the seventh step? Climbing the third step is Pravritti and if you learn to climb the third step, you will learn to climb the seventh step also. Up to the third step, God helps you because your love for Him is not involved and it is only love between souls.
Shri Baba tried His level best to establish the justice of Pravritti and establish a good society with love flowing between all the souls in the world. He never projected Nivritti, which is limited only to a very few souls and God always keeps silent. If necessary God even opposes Nivritti, since it is the issue of love towards Him and it becomes His personal issue. Of course, that is of the highest value and is eternal. But today, the souls have come down to the third step by rejecting justice before injustice. People are rejecting justice and voting for injustice due to the lack of true knowledge. You are voting for corruption and rejecting the justified way of earning through hard work. You are loving others, who are going to cheat you, rejecting the advise of your family members. When you cannot discriminate between the higher and lower planes, and truth and false in Pravritti itself, how can you discriminate between God and the world in Nivritti? When you cannot leave corruption and favor justified earning in Pravritti, how can you sacrifice even your justified earning for God? When you cannot reject false friends and listen to your true parents and family members, how can you reject the parents and family for God? In the ancient time, people rejected false love and voted for justified family life. They rejected corruption and favored justified earning through hard work. Then God competed with their family and justified earning because the love of God is far more compared to the love of family.
But today, He need not compete with justice, which has already been rejected in favor of injustice in Pravritti. Today, justice cannot give a strong competition to God. Only injustice can give strong competition to God. Today Krishna need not ask the modern Arjuna to kill his grandfather, since the modern Arjuna is already ready to kill his grandfather for the sake of the kingdom. Today Krishna has to ask him to sacrifice the kingdom for His sake. Today the modern the Gopika has already sacrificed her husband for the sake of her boyfriend and Krishna has to compete not with her husband but with her boyfriend!
The sages asked God to cut their strong justified bonds like the bond with the wife or husband, the bond with hard earned wealth like butter and the bond with children. These three are the strongest bonds called as Eshanas. God as Krishna attracted their minds from all these justified strongest bonds and gave salvation from these bonds, when they were born as Gopikas. But today, the strongest bonds are different. The husband is already sacrificed in the love of her boyfriend and the husband has already sacrificed the wife in the love of his girlfriend! The hard earned money is already sacrificed to bribe officials in order to earn unjust money by corruption. The children are already sacrificed since the parents are roaming around in clubs. Now God has to cut the bonds of souls with the boyfriend or girlfriend, with unjust wealth earned through corruption and with clubs. Replacing them with justified bonds should cut these unjust bonds. Hence, the knowledge of Pravritti is needed first. Justice is a weapon by which the unjust bonds are cut for the sake of justified bonds. Then Pravritti is established. Then the society lives with peace and happiness and heaven is the gift. But all this is not eternal and everytime effort is needed to maintain the cycle of happiness and heaven.
Nivritti, the Invention of Rigid Devotees
Hence, a few wise souls investigated the path of Nivritti even without the interference of God. The interference of God is only up to Pravritti and He gives a lot of encouragement in it. Although Nivritti is eternal, God opposes it, since it is the point of love of the soul for Him and not the love of the soul for other souls. Love for Him is Nivritti and the love for other souls in the family and society, is Pravritti. Of course, Nivritti is also based on justice alone, which is higher than the justice involved in Pravritti. Still, God does not show interest in Nivritti because it is His personal issue and He is involved in it. If He supports it, even though it is justified based on logic, it looks like a personal interest and hence God opposes it. He is satisfied if you love other souls and keep the balance of family and society. Shri Baba never encouraged Nivritti and He always concentrated only on the establishment of Pravritti, since He is interacting only with the masses. The majority can only come up to the third step of heaven at the maximum. Only the minority can climb up to the seventh step. Shri Baba always concentrated on the majority. He continuously gave speeches and shed His sweat and blood for establishing Pravritti for world peace, which is the basic stage even for the minority trying for Nivritti. Today His throat is severely affected by the continuous speeches given by Him to establish justice in this society. The entire world should be grateful to Him for the peace existing in the world today. The peace of the world would have been crushed to powder by this time if He had not come and worked for it.
Miracles only prove the existence of unimaginable God. Anybody including the demon demonstrating miracles is in the service of God to establish the existence of God to an atheist. Miracles exist widely. They are shown by God in human form, devotees and even evil demons. Establishment of the existence of the original unimaginable God is the fundamental subject that needs wide publicity and hence God has spread miracles over a wide range. Once the existence of God is accepted, the atheist becomes a theist. This is the foundation step. Even Shankara spent all His life in the first step only; converting atheistic Purva Mimamsakas and Buddhists to theism. Existence of God is needed even to establish Pravritti by creating the fear of hell. If God and hell are not accepted, sin will grow to the climax in a slow and steady way. Atheists promise to follow justice even without faith in God, but such a promise does not having a strong basis and it can be violated at any time. God doesn’t mind even atheism provided justice is maintained in society. But there is always a possibility of the violation of justice if the fear of hell disappears from the mind. When you are provoked to do injustice, at least the concept of hell and God will control you to a certain extent. At least the percentage of people committing sins will be reduced. Of course, the concept of God and hell does not bringing the percentage of sinners to zero, but if that concept were totally absent, one day or other the percentage of sinners would reach a hundred. For this point alone, does God come down to establish His existence and thereby create the fear of hell so that at least the percentage of sin and injustice comes to a minimum level, although complete eradication is impossible.
God is not at all bothered about establishing Himself for the sake of Nivritti. If the society runs completely on the rules of justice, He will not mind even if all human beings are atheists. He comes down only to establish peace and harmony in the society and not to encourage devotees for Nivritti, which is His personal affair. In fact, He is not interested in Nivritti and only when few diamonds (devotees) are rigid in Nivritti, He further discourages Nivritti by showing no fruit for Nivritti. After all, the final fruit for Nivritti is only continuous service of God like a slave! If you still argue that such service is the highest bliss for you and cling on to it, He grants it only in an unavoidable situation. Brahma Loka is only a place of such slaves of God and no facilities exist there! God created heaven with all extreme luxuries for the people who follow justice in Pravritti and closed the entire spectrum of knowledge with that alone. Nivritti was investigated and invented only by devotees and was not announced by God at anytime.
God announced Himself only as the Father of heaven in the scriptures of all other religions. Only in India, in Hinduism, devotees like Sanaka, Sanandana etc., who were called as sages, due to their extra intelligence, invented Nivritti. God became helpless in the final stage because the devotees were rigid in that line in spite of His hectic opposition. The real bliss of true love exists only in this path of Nivritti. When somebody loves you and becomes rigid in his or her love for you, inspite of your hectic opposition, such love is real. Only in this path of real love, does real bliss come to you and also to the other side.
Hence, Nivritti is justified only with such a specific nature. If you take the case of any devotee in Nivritti, you will find either negligence or opposition from God and the rigid devotion of the devotee standing firm. Only finally does God accept such love of the devotee. Prahlada was rigid in his devotion and God appeared only after a long time. Radha was rigid and Krishna neglected her throughout her life and she could get the love of God only in Goloka after her death. Hanuman was insulted in the end for his sincere service and the fruit given to Him was not announced by Rama at any time. The fruit is that Hanuman will get the post of the Creator in the future. After all, the future is always the future![9] You will find a board on some shops saying that you will get a certain item on loan only tomorrow. That tomorrow always remains as tomorrow! But Hanuman is not worried at all, because He never aspired for the fruit at any time. Only we are worried about His future post, because we are always worried about the fruit. He is living in the bliss of devotion continuously, without any aspiration for fruit. This shows the real interest of the devotee in God even though God discourages it.
Shri Baba always concentrated on the establishment of Pravritti for the peaceful life of souls with love and harmony in society. This is because He always interacted with the majority (masses) of the society. He is always engaged in the construction of the basic stage of society and if justice is not established in Pravritti, Nivritti also fails because it is also based on the same justice. If you slip from justice, you will lose heaven and thus heaven is not eternal. But the same risk is there in Nivritti also. If you slip from God, you will lose His service. You can re-attain heaven or God by realization through knowledge and by the subsequent rectification in both Pravritti and Nivritti. God helps you to rectify in both cases. But if you say that the taste of God is million times more than heaven and hence you prefer Nivritti, God cannot help, because God is God and heaven is always heaven. Even if God multiplies the taste of heaven by a million times, relatively the taste of God also gets multiplied by a million times. It is the inherent characteristic of God, because the infinity of God always makes the bliss infinite. Heaven is always finite and hence the bliss of heaven can never become infinite. The Veda says that the bliss of God is several times greater than heaven. God cannot change His own inherent characteristic and at the maximum He can hide Himself with ignorance or Maya so that He will not come in contact with you at any time.
It is you, who investigated Him and found out His taste inspite of His running away from you and inspite of His terrible opposition to your efforts in reaching Him. You are totally responsible in Nivritti and God is not at all responsible. His responsibility lies only in Pravritti. The eternality of the fruit is also from your side alone. After tasting God, your mind does not desire to taste any item other than God. God did not make the fruit eternal. The highest taste of God is the inherent characteristic of God and is not by the will of God. Miracles are the easiest for God since the entire creation is His imagination alone. Nothing is impossible for you in your imaginary world. Miracles prove not only the unimaginable nature of God but also the imaginary nature of the world. But miracles do not give the exact address of God, since miracles are also performed by demons. Only knowledge gives the address of God. Krishna was called as God (Bhagavan)[10] only when He was delivering the Gita. To convince and change the human being, who is like the curved tail of a dog, only God can do something. Hence, God alone can preach directly. His all-pervading power can enter anyone to express a miracle. Krishna preached Pravritti to all in the court of Dhritarashtra. But He preached Nivritti-based-Pravritti only to Arjuna in person. He preached pure Nivritti to the Gopikas through His flute in secret since they were rigid in their devotion. Krishna advised them strongly to go back to their houses and never encouraged them. Seeing their firm faith, He interacted with them in Nivritti. The address of God is given by the special spiritual knowledge (Prajnanam) and not by miracles. Miracles only give the knowledge about the inherent unimaginable nature of God. Except for this one purpose, the miracles are useless and are always harmful. They are not useful to identify God since demons also show miracles. They increase the selfishness by utilizing the super power for solutions of problems and they increase the ego. Shri Baba should be taken as God in human form not by His miracles but by the guiding knowledge through His speeches. The Veda says that the special spiritual knowledge (Prajnanam) is the identity mark of God.
[1] Eight day in the lunar month.
[2] God present in the medium of a human body.
[3] Eight day of the lunar calendar.
[4] One who causes or gives knowledge.
[5] One who causes or gives moksha—liberation.
[6] Gandhari cursed that Krishna, along with His entire dynasty would be destroyed.
[7] Path of worldly achievement. Peaceful worldly existence.
[8] Lower compared to the highest.
[9] You cannot be sure if it will ever happen.
[10] In the Bhagavad Gita, Vyasa wrote “Shri Bhagavan uvacha…”, which means “The Lord spoke…”. Elsewhere in the Mahabharata, Vyasa simply wrote, “Krishna spoke…”, indicating that the Lord Himself was preaching the Gita.