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Shri Datta Swami

Posted on: 24 Feb 2007

               

SWAMI'S BIRTHDAY MESSAGE

Identification of the contemporary human incarnation and selfless service to Him is the total essence of the entire spiritual knowledge. The starting point is the direct atheist or the scientist (an indirect atheist) misled by ambition and is a follower of Advaita. Whenever the Veda uses the word Atman in the context of God, it means only the particular individual soul, which is charged by God and is called as human incarnation. When it is said in the Veda that space was generated by the soul, the word soul means the human being charged by God like Krishna, who came as the human incarnation. Krishna says that He is the source of the entire creation and the first item of this creation is space, which is the first of the five fundamental elements.

The Gita clearly says that God comes in the form of a human being (Manushiim…). But the serious objection to the human incarnation is that if there were only one human incarnation like Krishna, only one human generation would be blessed [to be in contact with Him] and therefore God must be partial. To avoid this blame, Krishna said that He would come again and again (Yadayadahi…). But the same human body of Krishna is not seen again and again. This means that God is beyond the human body and hence God is beyond this entire creation. God takes a fresh human body every time, just like the soul. The human body is only a shirt, which can be changed often (Vasamsi... Gita). Unfortunately, human beings, due to the repulsion between common items, neglect God in the human body. Human beings do not recognize God existing in a particular human body and treat that particular human body as only an ordinary human being (Parambhavamajananto…—Gita).

As long as the human incarnation is alive, no human being recognizes Him; but people recognize Him after His exit. Krishna said that a human being recognizing Him as God is very rare (Kashchitmam…, Samahatma Sudurlabhah…—Gita). But, today most of us recognize Krishna as God. In that case how did Krishna say this? Is the Gita not universal and applicable to all times? A simple analysis of this point shows that Krishna said this in view of the negligence shown to Him by the human beings living during His lifetime. Hence this statement means that many do not recognize the living human incarnation and several recognize Him only after His exit. This statement also clearly proves that Krishna was speaking about the human incarnation (Himself) existing in His time alone (contemporary human incarnation) and this does not refer to a single human incarnation generalized for all the times [such as the physical body of Jesus or Krishna]. If Krishna were the single human incarnation generalized to all times, this statement becomes wrong because later on several human beings worshiped Krishna. The recognition of Krishna as God was and is present during several human generations after Him (a long span of time) and only during a short span of time (Krishna’s life time) was Krishna not recognized as God by most people, as per this statement. [Thus, the statement in the Gita would be true only for a very short period of time and false the rest of the time.] This means that there is no single human incarnation generalized to all times.

Salvation of Sage Nara

Krishna said that He knew all the births of Arjuna. Arjuna was Sage Nara who was associated with Sage Narayana. Sage Narayana was a human form charged by God. But due to the repulsion between the common media of human bodies and the resultant ego and jealousy, Sage Nara could not fully recognize Sage Narayana and Sage Nara treated Sage Narayana as only his friend (Sakhya Bhakti). The same attitude continued when Narayana became Krishna and Nara became Arjuna. Arjuna worshipped Lord Shiva through penance to get the divine weapon called Pashupata Astram to win the war but he did not have full confidence in Krishna since he was treating Krishna only as a human being having some limited divine powers. In those days, having such divine powers was not a big thing since even Arjuna had several divine weapons, which contained miraculous super powers.

For such incomplete faith of Arjuna, Krishna told Arjuna that he would not fight with any weapon in the war. It was an indirect hint to Arjuna about his incomplete faith in Him since Arjuna tried for the grace of Lord Shiva when Lord Krishna was already present before his eyes. Krishna meant that since Arjuna had the divine weapon from Lord Shiva, there was no need for Him to participate in the war. Arjuna could not understand this sense in the statement of Krishna. Arjuna approached Krishna not as a devotee but only as a student, treating Krishna as a human Guru and not as Satguru or God in human form (Shishyah teham…—Gita). Further, Arjuna asked Krishna that how Krishna taught Yoga to Sun-god [in the very ancient past] because Krishna was born only recently. Further, he asked for the proof of [Krishna being the Lord, through] the cosmic vision. Even after all this, on the last day of the war he did not get down from the chariot before Krishna got down and this shows the attitude of Arjuna towards Krishna was that of a only a human being.

The result of all this incomplete faith was that Arjuna went to heaven for some time after death and then returned back to earth and was born as a hunter called as Kannappa. He continued with the same worship to Lord Shiva in that birth also. He sacrificed his eyes for the Lord in the test. This shows that he gave full value to God; the only problem was in finding out the correct address of the Lord, due to the repulsion between common media. Then he went to the abode of Lord Shiva and could not worship Shiva there also due to the same repulsion of common media because he was also in the same energetic body as that of Lord Shiva.

Lord Shiva in meditation gives an impression that He is meditating upon the formless God called Brahman. All the devotees there are again misled by this Maya and neglect Lord Shiva due to the repulsion of common media and meditate upon the formless Brahman alone. These souls neglect the human form of God when they come to earth and worship the energetic form as greater than the human form. But the same souls in the upper world neglect the energetic form of God and meditate upon the formless God thinking that it is greater than the energetic form. Hence, the disease of repulsion of common media is common to both earth and the upper world. Even the souls in the divine energetic bodies called as Devas, are subject to this powerful illusion of neglecting the common form present before their eyes and loving some unavailable form, which is not before their eyes. This is stated in the Veda (Paroksha Priyaa Ivahi Devah Pratyaksha Dvishah). The Veda also says that God is before the eyes of the souls existing either on earth or in the upper world, since God takes the same common form as His medium (Yat Sakshat Aparokshat Brahma). When divine bodies are not exceptions to this great illusion, what to speak of human beings?

Indra neglected even Lord Shiva due to the same principle of repulsion between common energetic bodies and was made to stand still by a single look of Shiva. If that is the case of Indra towards the energetic incarnation [Shiva], what about his attitude towards God in a lower human body like Krishna? Therefore, Arjuna also worshipped formless Brahman in the upper world and his devotion to Shiva subsided completely by this new form of devotion. He was born as Swami Vivekananda on earth with the formless devotion and his next birth will be that of an atheist. A devotee of the formless Brahman is easily trapped by misconceived Advaita and will conclude that the formless Brahman is his own self. Therefore, the next step will only be atheism. But the Lord wanted to save him because the Lord was very much pleased with his basic sacrifice for God in the previous birth. The Lord wanted that this soul should find the proper address of God since the value for God was already present in him to the climax. Therefore Vivekanada was dragged to Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who was a simultaneous human incarnation of God in the time of Sai Baba and Akkalkot Maharaj. Shri Paramahamsa praised him as Lord Narayana in human form. This is the special style of Datta in preaching. When He wants to preach to a fellow who has a large ego, He will reverse the concept to Himself and hence the real meaning of that statement is that Shri Paramahamsa was Lord Narayana in human form. Nobody has understood the real sense of that statement including Narendra. Swami Vivekananda was called as Narandra, which means Nara (Arjuna) who is the son of Indra. He led all his life only as an Advaita philosopher. He treated Paramahamsa only as his master or human guru. The Advaita philosophy can be used to develop confidence and to come out of stress for which God is pleased like a father-doctor seeing his child claiming [pretending] to be a doctor. One can feel that one is God and develop confidence in oneself. Krishna said that Arjuna is Himself i.e., God (Pandavanam Dhanamjayah). This statement aims at building up self-confidence in Arjuna, which was lost due to tension and grief. One can come out of stress, feeling that this world is unreal and that one is God. But one should not really believe this and practice it. If the child pretending to be a doctor starts performing surgery on a patient, the same father [doctor] will become furious because the life of another human being is spoiled [in danger]. Moreover, in the case of the Advaita philosopher, he is misleading [putting in danger] several innocent souls, who are also children of the same God. Shri Paramahamsa said that He would open the brain [reveal the truth] of Narendra only in the end because such confidence and stress relief had to be given to the world through Narendra. In the end, Shri Paramahamsa opened the brain of this soul. In the last days, Narendra sat near Him and thought whether his guru was really God. Shri Paramahamsa immediately looked at him and said, “I am the Rama and the Krishna”. Narendra realized that He was the human incarnation and fell at His feet. He became a liberated soul by attaining full salvation from ego and jealousy that arises due to the repulsion between common media.

Removing the Repulsion of the Common Medium

God exists in the same medium as that of the soul for the sake of the soul so that He can preach to the soul and the soul can fully experience and fully serve God with full satisfaction. The soul is present in the human body on this earth and is present in an energetic body in the upper world. Therefore, God exists only in these two media. One is the human form on this earth and the other is the energetic form in the upper world. The soul also enters the births of plants and stones (Sthavara), but there is no need for God to enter such inert media because neither knowledge nor service with satisfaction is possible in such media of plants and stones. Therefore, God does not enter the common medium for the sake of plants and stones. For the same reason God does not enter the bodies of animals and birds also, since knowledge is not possible for them. God may enter the body of an animal like a fish, tortoise etc., just for a very short time to kill some demons or to do some work that is suitable only to such a body. Such forms are not for giving knowledge and receiving the service of the soul. The soul should accept God in the common medium and get guidance and further get the satisfaction of serving God, whether the soul is on earth or in the upper world. For this, the soul should first conquer its ego and jealousy towards the common medium. If the soul misses God in the common medium in this earth, it will also miss God in the common medium in the upper world (Ihachet Avedit…—Veda).

To remove the repulsion between common media, the soul can serve [other souls present in the] the common media or at least serve a statue or picture having the form of the same common medium. For a human being, service to humanity is advised only for this purpose. For this purpose alone is the service to the statues recommended in the form of rituals by which one worships the statues and pictures in temples. The statues are of human forms of energetic bodies from the upper world or of past human incarnations from this world. The whole plan of the entire ancient tradition is excellent, provided you use it for a specified period and then develop further. If you become stagnant, we have to criticize you and reveal the limited purpose of that level so that you will try to go up, realizing the limited value of your present level. School is good, without which the student cannot directly enter college. But if you sit in the school alone, throughout your life, stating that school itself is the final college and university, then we have to show you the right place of the school in the entire educational curriculum. You may misunderstand us and think that we are criticizing the school. But we are not condemning the school; we are only advising you that the school is not the final university. We are fully supporting the entire pattern of the original ancient tradition and we are condemning the twisted concept of treating the school itself as the final university.

All the epics describe God in the common medium. The main three epics (Ramayana, Bhagavata and Mahabharata) describe the worship of God in human form done by Hanuman, the Gopikas and the Pandavas respectively. Among the Pandavas, Arjuna is great and you have seen the whole life history of Arjuna. Dharmaraja only went up to temporary heaven because he could sacrifice anything and anybody for the sake of God except justice, by which one can only reach temporary heaven. He refused to tell a lie even though Lord Krishna desired for it. You will come near God by all the sacrifice and all the service that is possible for you to do for God. But you will become dear to God when He asks you to do a particular sacrifice or service and when you can do that sacrifice or service which you cannot do for anybody including God. God knows your single specific weak point, which is the only bond that cannot be sacrificed even for the sake of God and God finally asks you to sacrifice that weak point also, for His sake. Unless the sacrifice and service are total, you cannot become dear to God. The Gopikas sacrificed everything and everyone for the sake of Krishna and God tested finally whether they could even sacrifice the fear for torture in hell for His sake. God asked for the dust of their feet to be applied on His forehead to remove His headache. If such foot-dust were given to God, severe punishment in hell is certain. Sage Narada stated this clearly. Even Rukmini refused to give her foot-dust fearing the severe treatment in hell. But the Gopikas gave the dust from their feet without fearing hell, for the sake of Krishna. Their sole aim was that Krishna should be happy, for which even going to hell was happiness for them!

Bhishma was fighting against justice since he was bound by the word given to his father and mother that he would protect the throne irrespective of justice. He considered his parents to be the highest and he wounded even the Lord. He suffered all the torture that he was to suffer in hell, on earth itself on the bed of arrows, but since he could not sacrifice the word given to parents for the sake of Lord, he only went to Pitruloka [a lower heaven]. Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra went to hell since they could not sacrifice even the justified part of the kingdom to a devotee like Dharmaraja even though the Lord Himself was requesting for it. The only successful devotees were Hanuman and the Gopikas who recognized the contemporary human incarnation and served Him with full sacrifice in all angles.

Hanuman and the Gopikas only served the Lord personally. Hanuman did full sacrifice of work for the Lord for His purely personal cause. The Gopikas did full sacrifice of the fruit of work (butter) and sacrificed even traditional justice by dancing with Krishna and all their sacrifice was only for the personal growth of the body and happiness of Krishna. In both these cases, there was no trace of social service for the benefit of other souls. The personal service was totally for the Lord alone and there was no service to society here. This shows the highest devotion in which the goal is only the Lord and not any soul or an aggregate of souls (society). Social service is only service to other souls. In the case of Arjuna, the Lord showed personal service to the Pandavas in getting their kingdom back and social service of establishing justice on the earth. The Lord did not give an opportunity to Arjuna to serve Him personally in His personal issues. In all the wars with demons, which were His personal affairs, Arjuna was not involved and God did His own work. The reason is that Arjuna was not of the highest devotion like Hanuman and the Gopikas. Arjuna would certainly misunderstand the Lord if it were purely the personal service of the Lord, since Arjuna did not have full faith in the Lord.

Apart from these three epics dealing with the contemporary human incarnation for human beings, the other epics (Puranas) deal with energetic bodies of God in the upper world, which are worshipped by human beings here itself because these humans are hit by ego and jealousy and fail to worship the human incarnation. Even there, the human form of the energetic body represented by a picture or statue gives a training to the soul to serve the human form alone and to remove the repulsion towards the human form. Social service to other human beings is also praised here and there in the Gita and this is also a way to remove the repulsion towards other human forms. The three best epics concentrate only on the service to the contemporary human incarnation, revealing the full success of Hanuman and the Gopikas and the partial success of Arjuna. These epics also reveal the fate of the people who hate the human incarnation as in the case of Ravana, Shishupala, Kamsa, Duryodhana etc.

 
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