05 Aug 2025
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QA:63-68
(Some of my friends, who are atheists, have asked these questions on sweet devotion and related topics. I have sent those questions to H.H. Shri Datta Swami, who has answered these questions. - Ms. Thrylokya)
63. Swami, please comment on the following hypothesis.
[Swami, there is a proposal of hypothesis as follows: "Tattvamasi" is a Sanskrit phrase, which is one of the four Mahaavaakyaas (great pronouncements) of the Vedanta written in Chandogya Upanishad, where Svetaketu is told by his father Uddalaka "You are that ultimate God". Until now, many scholars took it as absolute truth. But, You revealed that it is just an Arthavaada (beneficial sinless lie). Similarly, the statement given by God Brahma to his son, Sage Naarada, "God Krishna is a real celibate" must be an Arthavaada to protect Naarada's devotion to God Narayana, who incarnated as God Krishna on earth. By Krishna's Maayaa only, it might appear to Naarada that real Krishna is with Radha and Rukmini, and unreal Krishnas are with other Gopikas and wives. Since Krishna is omnipotent, He can enjoy all Gopikas and all wives in His real forms only and make it appear to sages as if He is uniting with them in unreal forms. When You say that God can do Maayaa on Gopikas (who were sages from millions of births) making them believe the unreal Krishnas as real, He can do Maayaa on sages and angels also to make them believe His real forms as unreal. Isn't it? In this way, His aim of creating this creation (enjoying dualistic bliss based on true love) is fulfilled and also the sages, who are particular about justice are happy that God is practically a celibate. Swami, please comment on this hypothesis.]
Swami replied:- Your hypothesis says that God created Maayaa on the eyes of Sage Naarada so that he can understand the real forms of Krishna also as illusory forms of Krishna so that the real God enjoyed all His wives and Gopikas. In the above answer, the logic given by Me condemns your hypothesis. Even if Sage Naarada is covered by such Maayaa, basic truth remains as such, which can be detected by some or the other sage or an angel. Your hypothesis means that the real father enjoyed his daughter secretly. Even the consciousness of a bad soul in the creation will not allow such thing and will prick the person continuously throughout his life. You are removing the importance and power of truth through your hypothesis. Moreover, you are applying such a nasty mentality to the most pious God. In the Bible, there is a story that one father enjoyed his three daughters. Even there, the story says that the daughters had given excess wine to him and made him unconscious to enjoy their father. Hence, your proposal is not tenable even to a bad soul in this creation. Certainly, your proposal will be blown out by a good soul in this creation. I need not say that your proposal cannot even reach God, who is the ultimate goal of all the good souls in this creation. God is satisfying even such souls, who are desiring for sweet devotion with God, through a specific technology designed with the help of His unimaginable power of omnipotency. God thinks that the illusory Krishnas created by Him are His sons-in-law. The devotee cannot understand this fundamental secrecy. She is rigid to have union with God and is fully satisfied because the illusory Krishna is having exactly the same form of real Krishna. The devotee, if married to another worldly soul, will get the enjoyment of the same components of her husband, which are present in the illusory Krishna. There is no extra benefit to Sita/Radha/Rukmini as explained in the above point.
The illusory Krishna must have the same form of real Krishna to satisfy those devotees of sweet devotion entering into devotional field with their own logical arguments like “God is not our biological father because we see our biological father and biological mother with our own eyes here. God incarnated in a human form is completely equal to any other individual by the angles of gross body, individual soul, internal instruments and hormonal activities. We are preferring such an incarnated soul leaving all our worldly bonds to prove that God is the ultimate. Among our worldly bonds, the spouse-bond is also one worldly bond and that also has to be defeated for the sake of God”. They develop very powerful logic to establish their own path of philosophy. Hence, whatever is arranged by God is the perfect solution for any problem and if any petty human brain suggests other ways of solutions, they can be easily condemned even by a new born child! My advice to you is that you can measure your co-souls with your petty and pretty brain-scale. At least, you have 50% probability to be right. But, if you try to measure God with your petty and pretty brain, you will disappear just like the salt doll entering the ocean to measure its depth!
64. Swami, please comment on the following hypothesis.
[Swami, this is a proposal of another hypothesis: Since God can take many forms at a time, there would be many real forms of Krishna. One real form enjoys each sweet devotee including wives and Gopikas. The form of Krishna, who said “If I am a celibate, let Parikshit be saved” must be one of the real forms of Krishna and is really a celibate, who did not touch any wife or a Gopika. Therefore, every real form of Krishna need not be a celibate. One of the forms of Krishna may be a celibate and said so. Swami, please comment on this hypothesis.]
Swami replied:- When the real Krishna is multiplied, all the real forms of Krishna are one only with perfect homogeneity because the same God-component exists in all the real forms of Krishna. If one real form of Krishna is not a celibate, all the other real forms of the Krishna are not celibates simultaneously. This is due to the presence of the single Parabrahman present in all the real forms of Krishna. In the case of illusory Krishnas, such homogeneity does not exist because the creation itself means multiplicity and difference.
65. God encouraged sweet devotion instead of telling them off as His daughters. Does this show God’s interest in sweet devotion?
[To support Your theory of unreal Krishnas, You said that God is the Father and Gopikas are the children of God according to Gita (Ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā...) and hence, Krishna will not unite with them. If that was true, God should have told Gopikas that they are His daughters and it is not correct to desire for father. But instead, God encouraged this desire practically and permanently, which means that God is quite interested in sweet devotion. Isn’t it?]
Swami replied:- You said that God should have told the souls that He is their Father and should have disciplined all the souls to behave like children. In fact, God has told about this point very clearly and for this reason only, all our scriptures (including the scriptures of other religions) say that God is the creator of this world and should be treated like father. He is the creator of not only this inert world, but also the non-inert souls. The non-inert awareness or soul is also a part of the creation called Paraa Prakriti. His inseparable power of omnipotency can be taken as the Divine Mother. Even in other religions like Christianity, Jesus (treating Himself as a soul) always addressed God as Father. But, at the same time, this need not be the uniform thought of all souls. Different souls have projected different commentaries on the words of God with their own individual powerful logic. It is true that in any worldly bond, true love is the basic material just like the sugar candy present in different forms is prepared from the same sugar. We cannot contradict this argument. God also gives value to the weight of the sugar (true love) and not the form of sweet (bond). We cannot reject this argument also. Sweet devotion is also one of the worldly bonds when it is diverted to a legally married spouse. In all the other worldly bonds, the point of spoiling character does not arise whether the bond is father or mother or brother or spiritual guide. Another point is also that when the entire true love is concentrated on the ultimate God only, God is addressed by the names of all bonds. Gopikas addressed Krishna by the name of all bonds in a prayer.
This point of spoiling the character cannot arise because we are concentrating on the quantity of love (sugar) only and not on the form of bond (shape of candy). Even this logic cannot be rejected. Actually, the bond of romance between souls is created by God for the extension of human generations so that there is continuous flow of population to give continuous entertainment to God. Hence, this bond stands as one of the worldly bonds. We cannot reject this point also. God also told that He will approach the soul in the same way in which the devotee approaches God. He also told that He is just a reflection of the devotion of the devotee. In this saying of God also, we cannot find any mistake because the fruit is always based on the effort of the devotee. In this effort, a particular bond cannot have any special significance. This concept is always based on true love and not on the form of bond. If the romantic bond has any special significance, how could Draupadi as a sister of Krishna defeat all the romantic bonds? If the romantic bond has any speciality, even the bond with a prostitute shall be pious and not sinful. Of course, in the romantic bond, there is the greatest merit that there is the most completest union of the soul with God. But, remember that I am speaking about this union of the soul having its entire true love on God so that all the worldly bonds including the bond with spouse are defeated for the sake of God.
Again and again, I am telling that the sweet devotion of the test of spouse-bond is only the last formal physical fitness test and the actual main success is based purely on the result of the written examination, which is 99% important. I am not making the physical fitness test as zero and this is also necessary for making the 99% success to 100% success. This sweet devotion has both sides like the love of Radha to Krishna and like the love of a prostitute towards a rich customer. Both these sides of the same coin must be kept in mind and if you take one side only, the entire coin is lost. Also, God cannot stress on the father-issue love only because He is not the biological father contributing the seed or sperm. This point becomes more important due to the presence of biological parents existing before the eyes of every soul. If you take the background of any bond, the true love existing in that bond is the main essence and not the form of bond. Hence, for a devotee, who wants to be in constant union with God, this point of a romantic bond or a non-romantic bond is immaterial. Since we are giving importance to the biological union only, this point has entered into the field of discussion of spiritual knowledge in the name of ethics. In view of the climax scholars of spiritual knowledge, this bond is not given any special importance since this bond is also treated to be equal with all the other worldly bonds stressing on the inner true love only.
Sage Ashtaavakra says that the mother in the present birth will become the wife of the soul in the next birth due to her extreme care taken about the body of the soul. Hence, if you rise to the ultimate level of spiritual knowledge, we need not find any speciality in any bond since all these worldly bonds are inherently unreal like the shooting bonds of roles for the actors in a cinema. A mother of a hero role could have been in the role of wife for the same hero in some old cinema. This means that the real bond between all actors is only the co-actor role bond only. Now, the final question comes:- In such case, why the real form of God is not acting like the darling for a devotee in the sweet devotion? The answer for this is very critical and you have to understand it very patiently and very carefully. Let your hypothesis in the question be the first possibility, where God satisfies sweet devotion through His real form.
Suppose if there is second possible way of solution that can shut up the mouths of any type of criticism, is it not better than the above first possibility provided the devotee is equally satisfied and the critic will also shut up his mouth simultaneously. When there is no trace of cheating the devotee and at the same time, the critic also cannot open his mouth, is it not a better solution than the solution of first possibility? If the second possibility is absent or if the devotee is cheated in anyway, the first possibility becomes inevitable. Both the devotee and the critic are satisfied and such a talent is the best administration in which neither the truth is damaged nor the ignorant soul is dissatisfied. He is the creator of all souls and a wise father always tries to satisfy all types of His children without hurting anybody from the point of truth. The ignorant issue also will realise the truth in course of time. A father is like Guru and not like a scholar simply standing on the truth. You have to understand the final divine administration of God, which can never be criticized even by the worst fellow in this creation. Hence, God arranged this way of solution, which satisfies the devotee completely without any trace of cheating, encouraging them till they reach the goal and at the same time, no foolish critic also has any chance to open his mouth.
I give an example:- Rama asked Sita to show a miracle to prove her character so that even the mouth of the foolish washerman in His kingdom is shut up. This does not mean that Rama has some innermost doubt about the character of Sita. If He has such doubt, He will abandon her permanently and would not have asked for such a miracle. When the miracle is possible for Sita, what is the confusion here? Sita emotionally dissolved in the earth misunderstanding Rama. Let Sita think that she has to perform this miracle continuously since some Tom, Dick and Harry will be blaming her every day. Even then, when Sita is capable of performing this miraculous test, she can perform such miracle even every single day to close the mouth of every fellow in the kingdom. By dissolving in the earth, the same washerman might say that since Sita is having a doubt on her character and a doubt on her miraculous test to prove the truth, Sita might have entered the earth. Hence, people do not understand the administration talent of God Rama. Even though her entry into earth is a miracle by itself and proves the character of Sita, is there no alternative miracle to prove her character? She would have said that if she is chaste, let a big fire appear or let a heavy rain fall immediately. Such miracle also should have proved her character. This miracle done by her had a horrible consequence that Rama suffered to the maximum extent after her permanent separation. Hence, the unimaginable talent of God’s administration must be properly and patiently understood by every devotee if the devotee aspires further spiritual progress getting relieved from constantly doubting God. It is said that such constant doubting on God will finally destroy the soul (Saṃśayātmā vinaśyati… - Gita).
66. When Rama being God and is ocean of bliss, how can You say that He suffered after Sita’s separation?
[Swami, when Rama being unimaginable God is always an ocean of bliss, how can You say that Rama suffered to the maximum extent after Sita’s permanent separation? Rama is enjoying that pain of separation. Isn’t it? Moreover, only the medium of Rama (with mind, body and antahkaranams) suffers the separation and God-component remains as neutral spectator. If God-component wishes and remembers His reality and world’s unreality, even that little suffering gets vanished. Isn’t it?]
Swami replied:- The suffering of Rama in the separation of Sita indicates the climax love of Rama for Sita. This love is most justified since Sita is the power of Rama helping Rama in doing creation, maintaining creation and finally destroying it to take the world from gross state to subtle state in intervals. Sita is not a housewife, but, equally employed in the same office helping the husband in every problem even in the office also. In fact, Sita and Rama are one only. She is the Mahaa Maayaa and the Queen of Parabrahman (Mahāmāyā viśvaṃ bhramayasi Parabrahma Mahiṣī—Shankara). Both Sita and Rama are the incarnations of the same Parabrahman. For the sake of the rules of the roles in this world-drama, Sita covered herself with full ignorance permanently and became a totally surrendered devotee to Rama, who is in the role of God with full awareness of Himself.
67. What is the meaning of ‘Indro māyābhiḥ pururūpa īyate’?
[Swami, You quoted a Vedic statement (Indro māyābhiḥ pururūpa īyate), but, it only says that God enters this world with His unreal forms (Maaya rupas). We agree that every medium of God is a maayaa rupam (unreal form) only. Your concept that God-component doesn't exist in some Maayaa Rupams is not particularly written in the above verse. Please explain.]
Swami replied:- You say that God enters into the creation with the power of creating or multiplying different forms and this does not mean that God-component is absent in every created form. But, the Veda and the Gita clearly say that God is beyond the creation and God is neither any item of the world nor exists in any item of the creation (Neti Neti – Veda, Natvahaṃ teṣu…, Nacāhaṃ teṣu… - Gita). God is beyond space whereas His creation has spatial dimensions. Hence, God must be logically beyond this world or space. He can enter the world (Tat sṛṣṭvā tadevānu prāviśat, sat ca tyat ca abhavat - Veda) by the power of His omnipotency in the form of an incarnation (energetic or human). Hence, due to the power of omnipotency, He can multiply Himself into several real forms or He can create illusory forms of Himself or He can create other illusory forms, which are ordinary living beings created in this world. Hence, by way of scripture and by way of logic, this point is proved.
68. Did God conduct the spouse-bond test before Dvaapara Yuga?
[Swami, did God conduct the spouse-bond test to the souls in previous yugas before He conducted the same test to Gopikas at the end of Dvaapara Yuga?]
Swami replied:- In the previous ages, sweet love was concentrated on legally married spouse only. In order to protect justice, husband was advised to be God for a married female. But, for male, female was not advised as God due to the suppression of females by males. If the spouse-bond is to be enlightened for the sake of protecting justice, the spouse-bond itself must have been advised as the divine-bond so that both husband and wife give equal importance to that bond. If the spouse-bond is divine in real sense, just like the wife is thrown into the funeral fire of husband, the husband must have been thrown into the funeral fire of wife! Let us keep this point aside for some time and proceed with the main topic. For this achievement of concentration of sweet love on spouse, absence of bad qualities and presence of strong justice existed in those ages since such atmosphere was very essential to protect the legal sweet love in the worldly life (Pravrutti). Only in the Kali age, since justice is weakened very much and since bad qualities gained lot of strength, there is a necessity of diversion of bad qualities towards God so that the criminal activities of bad souls are not concentrated on the society resulting in the peace of the society. For this purpose only, sages were born as Gopikas and enacted a divine play of the Bhagavatam along with God Krishna, giving a lesson to the souls of Kali age that instead of concentrating illegal sweet love to other human beings in this world, it is far better to divert this illegal sweet love (devotion) to God. Love diverted to God is called devotion.
Miira Bai was the incarnation of Radha, who also participated in this program by diverting her sweet love completely towards God Krishna. Here, Miira Bai was not a bad lady suffering with bad qualities like illegal sweet love to divert her bad quality to God. She was of very good character and best qualities. Her husband was also a very good king, who married Miira Bai, who was a very poor girl. In this case, the above described situation is not applicable. Still, why did she, having all best qualities, reject her best husband? She doesn’t have any bad quality so that we need not doubt her spoiling the society. Here lies a new concept, which is not having any reference to the above written paragraph. The new concept is not concerned with bad or good qualities and is also not concerned with Satya Yuga, Tretaa Yuga, Dvaapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. It is also not concerned with caste and gender. Gender is only related to the external gross body, which perishes here when it is burnt or buried after death. The soul is eternal without gender.
For all the souls with male or female genders of the perishable gross body, salvation from all the worldly bonds is necessary before the soul unites with God. In Nivrutti, male souls need not be pained for the sweet devotion of their female spouses because their female spouses are also pained when they leave their female spouses for the sake of God. It is climax of ignorance to take this concept only on female souls. In the case of female souls also, if they leave their male spouses for the sake of the mission of God detaching themselves from the sexual life with their male spouses, the female souls become equal to the male souls, who leave their female spouses for the sake of God’s mission. In such case, God will not crave for the sexual union with such females leaving their male spouses for the work of God. This is a higher stage of Nivrutti in which God will not test the devotee whether the devotee will vote for Him in romance even against her legal husband since the devotee has left the fascination for the very sexual life itself. There may be some female souls, who are very much fascinated for sexual life. In such cases also, the female souls like to have sex with God than with their male spouses. Here, sex also is a point of fascination provided it exists. In such case, such females like to divert their sexual love to God than their male husbands. For such females, God arranges His technology of Maayaa as already explained. Therefore, the case of Miira should not be taken as an example for the situation explained in the above paragraph. This point of spouse-bond test exists even apart from the situation explained in the above paragraph.
To be continued...
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