Introduction to Miracles

The primal power (Maya) of the Lord itself gets modified to form creation. This modified Maya is called as nature or prakrti. The Lord can control nature with His Maya. Everything in creation follows certain natural rules. These include the rules discovered by science and those which are not yet discovered by science. Nature functions mechanically and independently as per these rules. It does not need continuous supervision of the Lord through His power, Maya. Individual souls, being part of creation, are subject to these rules of nature and dependent on them. Maya, on the other hand, acts according to will of the Lord. It is at the disposal of the Lord. He may, using Maya make effects on nature that are beyond the usual rules of nature. Therefore Maya is also called as the super-natural power. When God uses His super-power, Maya, on nature, we perceive it as a miracle. E.g. Water normally flows downhill under the influence of gravity. This is a natural law. Now the Lord could use Maya and make it stand still. This would be called a miracle. Such interference of the Lord's Maya (super power) with natural laws is called a miracle.

The miracle shows that the entire creation is just the will of the Lord (cchamatram prabhoh srstih ). Maya underwent modification to become creation by the Will of the Lord. Miracles prove that creation functions independently according to the laws of nature only because of the Will of the Lord. At any point, the Lord can use Maya to circumvent the natural laws and control creation as per His Will. The Lord also has the power to destroy creation at the end of the cycle of creation. The miracle is a practical demonstration to preach this divine concept. Thus, miracles are a tool to preach divine knowledge.

The power to perform miracles is extremely dangerous in the hands of human beings. No person other than the ringmaster can control the lions in the circus. The lions will kill any ordinary person. Similarly the power to perform miracles will ruin a devotee. Some individuals perform severe penance and obtain certain limited superpowers from the Lord. These powers can be controlled only by God. No individual can completely control them. The possession of such powers creates egoism in a person. He uses them to perform miracles and get fame. He wants to be worshiped by the world as God. However using miracles for such a purpose certainly destroys the person. In the epics, we have stories of demons performing severe penance to get superpowers from God. They get the powers and use them for selfish ends. Finally the same powers lead them to their destruction.

Kartaviyarjuna, was a beloved devotee of Lord Datta. He had tremendous superpowers. He thought that he was invincible and became egotistic. Blinded by his ego, he could not recognize Parasurama, who was backed by the Lord's power. The result was that he was defeated and killed by Parasurama. Now Parasurama became egotistic and his pride was broken by Lord Rama, who was an incarnation of the Lord. Lord Rama too was once defeated by Hanuman, who was an incarnation of Lord Siva. Hanuman performed several marvelous miracles. Yet he was free of selfishness and pride. This is because he was an incarnation of the Lord. He was the ringmaster who could control the lions of miracles without being hurt by them.

When the Lord comes down in human form, sometimes it is essential to perform some miracles for the sake of certain deserving devotees. For the highest devotee, miracles are not necessary. They believe in the Lord even without miracles. For the lowest devotee or a person who is not a devotee and one who is not likely to turn to God anyway, miracles are of no use. Miracles are necessary only for devotees who are in between these two levels; those who mostly have faith but sometimes have doubts. Krsna did not show His Divine Cosmic Form (Visvarupam) to Radha, who was the highest devotee. Duryodhana was the other extreme. Even though the Lord showed Him the Divine Cosmic Form, he did not change. He continued with his evil ways and fought the war against the Lord. The miracle of showing the Cosmic Form was useful only in the case of Arjuna, who was generally very devoted to the Lord, but at that moment had some doubts.

The human incarnation of the Lord performs miracles to prove that God exists in that particular human body. However superpowers and miracles are not the essential identifying characteristics of God. They are only associated characteristics. As mentioned earlier, superpowers can be given to any person, good or evil, if he does adequate penance and asks the Lord for the boon of those superpowers. Therefore if someone has certain superpowers, it does not necessarily mean that he is a human incarnation of God. The crown of a king is an associated sign of the king; it can be given to anybody. Suppose a king is very generous and gives his crown in donation to a beggar. The beggar cannot be called the king just because he possesses the crown. However the physical form and features of that king are his essential identifying signs. They cannot be donated to anyone. Where they are the king always is.

When devotees or even demons perform rigorous penance for getting superpowers, the Lord grants them the powers. Suppose a child pesters his father or a golden ring. The father, in frustration gives it to the child. Some thugs see the ring on the child and kill him to get the ring. The Lord is the Father of all souls in creation as per the Bhagavad Gita (Aham bija pradah pita) When His children act stubborn and insist on getting those powers, the Lord reluctantly grants them their wishes. Unfortunately, they are unable to handle the powers and are destroyed by them.

When demons or ordinary persons, who have superpowers, perform miracles for their selfish ends, a lot of people are fooled into thinking that those persons are incarnations of God. However, great sages do not get fooled easily. They do not accept a person as an incarnation of God just by seeing his miracles. Real devotees of the Lord too are not impressed by such miracles. Sita did not accept the evil Ravana in spite of his miracles. On the other hand, Lord Rama, who was an incarnation of the Lord, never performed miracles in public. In his life time He performed only one miracle in the presence of Sage Visvamitra and His brother, Laksmana. Both of them were deserving devotees. The miracle that He did was that He touched a certain stone by his foot and that stone became a lady called Ahalya, right before their eyes.

On several occasions, even when there was an emergency, and performing a miracle would be justified, Lord Rama, desisted from performing it. On one such occasion, Lord Rama's brother, Laksmana, was knocked unconscious by the attack of a deadly weapon in the war. He was sure to die if he did not get help soon. Yet Rama, who was an incarnation of the Lord, did not do any miracle. Hanuman, who was also an incarnation of the Lord, but in that incarnation had taken the role of a servant of Lord Rama, had to perform a miracle. He flew to a certain mountain, a thousand miles away, picked up that mountain and got it to where Laksmana lay. The doctors were able to go up the mountain and search and obtain a particular rare divine herb that could save Laksmana. When Laksmana was saved, Lord Rama wept with joy. To a casual onlooker, it might have seemed that Hanuman was the Lord and Rama was his servant, whereas the reverse was true. In this divine drama, the king had forced the servant to sit on the throne, while he himself acted as the servant.

Great scholars and sages of the past did not give any importance to miracles. When Lord Sankara entered the house of Mandana Misra even though the door was locked, the sages, Vyaysa and Jaimini were present there. They were not at all surprised by the miracle. In fact, Mandana Misra, who was a scholar, got angry and scolded Sankara for entering his house like that. Later the same Mandana Misra entered in a scholarly debate with Sankara. The debate lasted for twenty one days. At the end of it, Mandana Misra was defeated. He recognized Lord Sankara as an incarnation of Lord Siva and became His disciple. His recognition was not based on the miracle that Sankara performed but on His divine knowledge, which was revealed during the course of the debate. This divine special knowledge is the real form and essential identifying sign of God according to the Veda (satyam jnanam anantam brahma). It is inseparable from Him. Most people, if they had been in the place of Mandana Misra, would have fallen at the feet of Sankara as soon as He performed the miracle. Who is interested in divine knowledge? Their aim is only the power of the Lord; not the Lord Himself. All they want to do is to tap that power and utilize it for solving their worldly problems. This path is called as pravrtti. People who follow this path do not care for the real form of the God. They are also not interested in being near and dear to the Lord. All they are interested in is getting their own work done.

Suppose a person wants to get his work done from a government office. All he needs is to get the signature and approval of the officer. He is not interested in meeting the officer, talking to him or befriending him. Since he is only concerned with getting the officer's signature, it is adequate to give the relevant documents in the hands of the officer's assistant or secretary, who can have them signed by the officer. Once the job is done, he will not even remember the name of that officer. If such a person actually happens to meet the officer, he will show false respect and politeness to the officer. He will put up an act of being friendly with the officer. The only reason he does so is because he wants to get his work done. He is a follower of the path of pravrtti. These followers of pravrtti show false love and devotion to the Lord only in order to obtain some selfish benefit. The ape-king Sugriva, was devoted to Lord Rama for the sake of getting his lost kingdom back. He promised to help Lord Rama in return. After that work was completed, he went back to his kingdom and forgot about Lord Rama.

A real devotee wants only God and not His power. This path is called as nivrtti. He does not aspire for any selfish benefit from the Lord and neither does he care for any miracles. Thus miracles are not required for a true devotee. A true devotee has only one bond with the Lord. He is detached from all other worldly bonds; even the bond with his own life. Radha was so madly devoted to Lord Krsna that she never cared for her own body. She fell on the burning sand in summer and died crying for Krsna. She only desired the Lord. For her there was no necessity of miracles.

In case of more ordinary devotees, who are interested in solving their worldly problems, the Lord uses his superpowers to remove their difficulties and bring happiness to them. However He does so with the hope that the devotees will gradually be transformed from the path of pravrtti to the path of nivrtti. The devotee who is extremely agitated or disturbed due to some worldly problem needs some respite. The Lord will provide it by using His superpowers. He rearranges the cycles of the deeds of the person. According to the law of karma, a person has to enjoy or suffer the results of his actions. The difficulty that the person is facing at present is the result of some bad deed performed by him the past. The Lord uses His super powers to postpone that bad result to the future and prepones some future good result to the present time. However due to the rearrangement there is a loss incurred. The bad result of the present time, which was postponed, gathers interest and grows in magnitude while the good result which was preponed to the present time reduces in value. It is like a penalty for a premature encashment of a fixed deposit.

Ultimately there is no escape from the law of karma. All that such a rearrangement does is that it gives the person an opportunity to turn towards God. God expects the devotee to take this opportunity. He expects that once the problem is solved and the devotee has some peace of mind, that he will give up his attachments and self-centered desires and turn to God. The devotee, unaware of this whole invisible technology, thinks that in response to his prayers, God cancelled the bad result (problem) and created good. In fact, it is only a rearrangement.

Now if the devotee, after getting his immediate problem solved, changes and follows the path of nivrtti, then the Lord actually transfers the bad results of His devotee's sins on His human body and suffers for the devotee's sake. Canceling the results of sins of an individual altogether, is a grave violation of the law of karma. The Lord does not allow such a blatant violation of the rules of nature. Therefore He suffers for His devotees' sake. If the son of a policeman commits a traffic offence, the father cannot let the son go scot-free. As a father, he wishes to protect his son but as a policeman, he is bound to uphold the law. Therefore he will pay the fine for his son's mistake. This is the way of the Lord.

A real devotee will never accept that the Lord suffers for his sake. Therefore, the Lord suffers for His true devotee without his knowledge. Although He mostly suffers secretly, He demonstrates this phenomenon of transferring of devotees' sins on His body, in a few cases. In incarnations of Datta like Jesus, Sai and many others, the Lord suffered in this way.

Undeserving devotees, whose love for the Lord is false and are only concerned about getting rid of their own problem, plead and cry to Him to solve their problems. They try to exploit the Lord and pressurize Him into giving boons and removing their pains. They do not understand that in doing so they make the Lord suffer. Some, who know it, just do not care as long as their job gets done. The Lord is the Ocean of Compassion. His heart melts quickly when He sees His devotees in pain. There is a danger that He may even take up the suffering of undeserving devotees on Himself. In order to avoid His exploitation by pretenders, the Lord keeps the control of taking up His devotees' sins in the hands of His most sincere servant, Kalabhairava. Thus even if the Lord is forced by pretenders to take away their sins, Kalabhairava will not allow it. If the Lord yells at Him for disobeying Him, Kalabhairava will yell back. This is the meaning of the very word Kalabhairava. If the servant pays heed to the Lord's reprimand at that time, the Lord will dismiss the servant when returns back to heaven. His job is to make sure that the Lord is not made to suffer for some undeserving soul. He will allow only the transfer of sins of the most deserving devotees. The Lord gives Kalabhairava such instructions before coming down to earth, since the Lord knows that this earth is a very dangerous place, full of false devotees.

Lord Krsna brought back to life, the son of His teacher Sandipani. However He did not do any such thing when His own sister's son, Abhimanyu, died. In fact when His own sons died, He watched them in silent pain but did not interfere in the cycle of karma. Ignorant people think that the Lord cancels the punishment of sinners by using His super power. If He did such grave violations of the law of karma, all the great sages and divine angels, who are constantly meditating on the Lord, would be shocked. These great souls are highly evolved devotees and are very dear to the Lord. The Lord will not do anything to shock them or disturb their meditation on Him. He will not let His own image in their hearts get tarnished. Moreover the law of karma has been created by the Lord Himself. Violating it is an insult to the Lord. The Lord will not act in any manner so as to insult Himself.

The Lord in human form will try as far as possible to avoid performing miracles. People are attracted by miracles. They approach Him and pressurize Him to do miracles for the sake of their selfishness. They will exploit the Lord for their selfish benefits. This too leads to the violation of the law of karma. There is another important reason why the Lord does not do miracles. If He did a lot of miracles then everyone would believe that He is the Lord. However if He rarely performed miracles or not performed any, then the faith of those who claim to be His devotees would be tested. Only the real devotee will believe in Him, when the Lord does no miracles. This devotee identifies the Lord based on His essential characteristic of Divine Knowledge. He does not care for any miracles. He does not aspire for any benefit from the Lord. He does not expect the Lord to violate the law of karma for His sake and last of all he will not tolerate that the Lord should suffer for his sins. He will only focus on serving the Lord through his own efforts (sacrifice of work for the Lord) and wealth (sacrificing the fruit of work for the Lord).

If the Lord in human form performs miracles then it would be only too obvious to people that He is the Lord. Then they would serve Him even if their faith were not total. There would be no way of differentiating a true devotee from a pretender. The answer to a mathematical problem in an examination is never revealed. If it were revealed, then all students would score cent percent marks. There would be no way of distinguishing and rewarding the good students. However if the Lord were to totally behave like a human being, then no one would pass the test. No one would be ever be able to identify Him. Therefore He reveals Himself partially. It is like a hint given to solve a mathematical problem. He appears as a mixture of man and God. Thus some people are able to identify Him and pass the test while others are unable to identify Him and fail the test. He behaves like God in order to attract people to Him. Then He behaves like an ordinary human being to filter out false devotees.

The whole universe itself is a miracle. It is the modification of His Mind. Maya is the mind of the Lord. The mind is His energy or power. This power is the 'substance' out of which the entire universe is made up. This Maya (mind) is the water and all the objects of the world are only waves in this Maya. Since the Maya is inseparable from the Lord, you could generally say that the Lord (Brahman) is modified into the world, remembering of course that the Lord does not actually get transformed into the world. When you imagine of a certain city, the city takes form in your mind. You are not modified into the city. Only your mind is modified. As your mind changes, so does the city change. Your mind is under your control. So that city of your imagination is also under your control. Maya, controls all creation. The Lord controls Maya. Therefore the entire creation is under the full control of the Lord. The wish of the Lord itself is Maya. All the miracles are only the wishes of the Lord. The Lord may wish to follow certain rules. In such a case, there is no miracle. But when the Lord wishes to break a certain rule, a miracle happens.

Again, one should remember that the power to do miracles can be granted to anyone. Therefore it is not an unambiguous distinguishing characteristic of the Lord. Super powers are associated qualities, like ornaments of a person. The person may choose to wear ornaments or not to wear them. Some incarnations may display a lot of miracles while others may display few or none. Lord Krsna exhibited a lot of miracles but Lord Rama did not.

A cow should be recognized by its physical characteristics, not by the presence of the cow-bell in its neck. The bell can be put in the neck of any other animal as well. The Lord should be recognized by the Divine Knowledge that He posses. This Divine Knowledge has the capacity to produce infinite bliss and infinite love for the Lord in your heart. Thus knowledge, bliss and love are the essential signs to identify God.

Miracles may sometimes be useful to distinguish the Lord from an ordinary scholar. However, some scholars may also perform miracles. Ravana was a scholar and also performed the miracles. But his knowledge could never generate infinite love and infinite bliss in the heart of anybody. A scholar, who preaches spiritual knowledge to us, may generate a trace of love and bliss in our hearts. Some people may even get fooled into thinking that the scholar is an incarnation of God. Here we must remember that the bliss and love that a scholar produces in our heart is very limited in quantity and intensity. What the Lord produces is infinite bliss and love. Therefore true divine knowledge that generates infinite love and infinite bliss in your heart is the only characteristic sign of the Lord. The Lord performs miracles only when absolutely necessary. Ordinary souls who have superpowers, perform miracles for cheap exhibition and fame. Ravana was a demon and he performed many miracles for his selfish interests and fame. Lord Rama, on the other hand avoided performing miracles unless there was a dire necessity and even in that case, he performed them discreetly. Lord Krsna did not perform any miracle in the war, except in the case of hiding the sun, which was necessary to save the life of Arjuna. In fact, He made it appear as if a cloud had covered the sun. Miracles are a violation of natural laws and justice (dharma). The Lord avoids breaking these rules since no good administrator likes to break his own rules. Even if he breaks them for the benefit of an exceptional devotee, he will do so discreetly, otherwise even undeserving devotees will bother by Him to do the same for them.

It is correct that Swami performed these miracles. When I say Swami, who do I mean? The name of this human body is Venu Gopala Krishna Murthy. By body, I mean, the composite of three bodies (outermost physical body, inner subtle body and innermost casual body). Swami means the Lord. The Lord dwells in this human body. Datta means the Lord given to the devotees through human body. For most of my devotees this human body is transformed into Lord. Therefore, for these devotees there is no human body. Only the Lord exists. This Lord, they call as Datta Swami or Swami. I declare to such devotees, that I have performed these miracles.

Some other devotees think that I am a mixture of both Swami and human body. Some others think that Swami is in heaven and His power alone has entered my human body. For these two types of devotees, I say that Swami (Lord) performed these miracles and not this human body called as Venu Gopala Krishna Murthy. In any case, Swami (Lord) alone performed these miracles. This is what the readers should remember. The human body cannot be given the credit for the miracles. It is only a medium required for the Lord to interact with people in the world. If this point is forgotten, the reader will be attacked by jealousy. This disease of jealousy is like a viral fever, which will take down the strongest person in no time. It will result in another disease called egoism. The devotee who is free of jealousy (asuya) is called Anasuya. The devotee who is free of ego is called Atri. Lord Datta, or the human incarnation of the Lord is available only to the devotee who is both Atri and Anasuya.

Datta is the human incarnation, who is present in your time, before your eyes for receiving your service. You get this extremely rare opportunity because you prayed for it. Divine (energetic) forms of the Lord such as Brahma, Visnuand Siva are also Datta but only for souls who are in energetic forms themselves. A soul in an energetic body can perceive the Lord in an energetic body. Humans on earth, who are in physical bodies, can perceive the Lord only in a physical body.

Now all human incarnations of the Lord are Datta, however we have to understand an important point. Incarnations, who lived in the past such as Rama, Krsna, and Jesus were Datta, but only to human beings who lived in that time. You are not able to perceive, interact with or serve past incarnations of the Lord, so they are not Datta for you. You have to find that human incarnation of the Lord who is present in your time, in front of your eyes, with whom you can interact and whom you can serve.

You are unable to recognize and accept the Lord Datta, even before your eyes because of two factors.

1. The body of the Lord is the same human body as yours and likes repel each other.

2. You are able to see human incarnation right before you without any difficulty. He simply comes before you without any fanfare or fuss. This leads to casualness and negligence, owing to which the devotee is unable to recognize the human incarnation as God Himself.

Rama and Krsna were objects of such negligence and casualness in their times. People around them thought that they were mere human beings who were related to them as brothers, sons, husbands or friends as the case may be. As humans are prone to neglecting the Lord in His human incarnation, so are souls in energetic bodies, towards the Lord in an energetic body. Daksa, was a soul in an energetic body. He did not recognize that Lord Siva, who is the Lord in an energetic body, was the Lord Himself.

Therefore, unless you fully realize the meaning of Datta and unless you believe that the Lord performed these miracles through the human body, you cannot enjoy the miracles. In fact, initially, Swami was against performing miracles, because such exhibition invariably attracts undeserving and shallow devotees by the thousands. Swami would rather be a merchant, who possesses a few rare diamonds of devotees, than being the owner of stone quarry with heaps of useless gravel and pebbles.

However a certain devotee, who loved and served Swami like a mother, continuously pressed Swami for two years, to show some miracles. At last Swami agreed and showed some miracles. Some devotees recorded these miracles and wanted to publish them as a book so that ordinary human beings will be attracted to Swami. At least for the sake of miracles, they would approach Him and would be uplifted and benefited in course of time. However Swami refused to publish His miracles. The reason is that miracles will attract people who are interested in the power of God in order to solve their selfish desires. Such people do not really love God. Even if God uses His super powers to satisfy a certain burning desire of such devotees, new desires will sprout up in them. When they find an avenue to satisfy their desire, all desires will become burning desires and demand immediate satisfaction. There is no end to this. They will go into an infinite regression of entertaining and growing desires and solving them at the Lord's expense. Fire is never satisfied by pouring oil (ghee) into it. It flares up even more. ("na kama?"). Yet My devotees persisted. Finally Swami agreed to publish the book on miracles. It was titled "Mahima Yamuna" or 'Miracles, the Black River Yamuna".

The black color indicates the ignorance of the shallow devotees, who are attracted to miracles. They are not real devotees. When Swami gives a vision to such a devotee, he sees a brilliant light. This radiance is the same radiation that comes from the sun or a powerful electric bulb. It is not different at all. It is as good as seeing the shining sun. Sunlight and the light in that vision are one and the same. They are both created by the Will of the Lord. Therefore, the realized soul sees the entire universe, which is full of brilliantly shining bodies as the greatest miracle of the Lord. He does not want to see any other lights, which are far smaller and duller.

Every human being is fond of seeing the Lord in a radiant form rather than in a human body. The ordinary human form is very boring for humans. Therefore humans like to see other human forms as forms of light on the television screen. The human body is made out of five elements (space, air, fire, water and matter). Light energy (fire) is only one of them. The human body is a mixture of light and other elements. Now the way most people would like to see God, is in the form of only one element, light.

A shirt made out of terylene (an artificial yarn) is a status symbol in some places, whereas, locally grown cotton is considered ordinary. Suppose most people wear a terycot shirt, which is a blend of terylene (an artificial yarn) and cotton. They all yearn for a pure terylene shirt. Now even if the prime minister comes wearing an ordinary terycot shirt, he will not be respected. On the other hand an office-boy wearing a pure terylene shirt will be greatly respected. This shows the shallowness of those people, who decide the worth of an individual based on his external shirt rather than his internal value. The terylene shirt represents the energetic body which is made up of one element alone; light. The human body is compared to the terycot shirt which is a blend of the element light, and other elements. Thus, Krsna, the Lord in a human body is neglected by human beings. Even a ghost, which is an ordinary soul, which has taken up an energetic body after death on earth, is respected. The reasons why people are so attracted to energetic forms are:

1) Energetic forms are quite different from the human body

2) The energetic body can have peculiar forms like having three heads and six hands etc.

3) The energetic form appears only for a very short while

Compared to energetic forms, the human form of the Lord thus has disadvantages. Therefore, people are prone to negligence and casualness towards human incarnations of God. This is what Krsna says in the Bhagavad Gita, "avajananti mam "... Initially Arjuna was not convinced that Lord Krsna was the Lord, since he could only see Lord Krsna's human body. When Arjuna saw the energetic body of Krsna(Visvarupam) he was finally convinced. Yet afterwards, he doubted again thinking that maybe the vision was only an illusion. This proves that miracles can only temporarily convince devotees.

In cinema halls in India, the lower level of seats called 'stalls', are cheap and are ocupied by people, who are least interested in the finer aspects of the movie. Their primary objective is watching the cheap cabaret dances, which are so common in Indian movies. They just want to hoot, pass comments and enjoy themselves. People with finer tastes usually occupy the 'balcony' seats, where the crowd is generally more interested in the main aspects of the movie such as the story line, performance of the actors, cinematography, etc. They do not care for the cabarets in the movie.

Divine knowledge and devotion constitute the main aspects of Divine Cinema. Miracles are like cheap cabaret dances; they are thrown in, here and there, to attract low-class devotees. The balcony-class in spirituality contains very few scholars and devotees. They are only interested in knowledge and devotion. Their goal is not achieved by getting visions and miraculous healings. So they are not interested in the miracles.

People think too highly of miracles. However, what they should enquire into is what benefit they get from visions? Suppose you watch a king in a royal parade through the streets. You may feel happy that you saw the king. But beyond that temporary elation, what actual benefit do you obtain from having seen the king? Merely seeing him does not mean that he is pleased with you. If he were pleased with you, it would be an actual benefit since he would shower riches on you and grant you positions and titles of power and prestige. Hence it is more important that the king be pleased with you than merely having seen the king. Even if you had never seen the king, but if he were highly pleased with you, you would derive benefit from him.

Similarly, seeing visions of the Lord should not be our aim; our aim should be to please the Lord. The powerful demon, Ravana saw Lord Siva in visions. Yet he met with an untimely death along with his entire family. Rama, on the other hand, did not get any vision of Lord Siva, but lived long. Siva is considered to be the Lord of longevity and the One, who prevents untimely death. He is the Conqueror of the Death (Mrtyunjaya).

People get illnesses or problems as results of sins committed by them in the past. Whenever Swami removes illnesses or solves a problem of devotees, people think that Swami, as the Lord, (or the Lord through Swami) cancelled their sin using some special powers and therefore, the problem was solved. But this is not the truth. The sins of people cannot be simply cancelled. The problem or illness that the devotee is suffering from, is converted by Swami into some illness of His own body. He suffers for the sake of his devotees. This is the reason why Swami goes to several places for a few days; so no one notices how much He is suffering and from what illness.

Therefore, real devotees do not like to have visions, which are of no use to them. They also do not like to get their problems solved because they know that the procedure of solving problems of devotees, involves the Lord suffering for the devotees' sins.

-SWAMI