Shri Dattaguru Bhagavat Gita: Kaalabhairava Khanda: Chapter-15 Part-2

(Song of Preacher – God Shri Datta)

 Kālabhairava Khaṇḍa—Part of Kālabhairava

Fifteenth Chapter- Shri Datta Viśvavyāpaka Yogaḥ

(Vision of Omnipresence of Shri Datta)

21. When I merge with the medium to appear as an Energetic Incarnation in the upper worlds, I merge with the soul. The external energetic body is also pervaded by Me based on the requirement. Similarly, when I become a Human Incarnation, I merge with the soul as usual. I also pervade the human body consisting of energy and matter, whenever there is a need. When Krishna lifted the huge hill on His tender finger, I pervaded all over His body. This is called as a complete miracle since Krishna did not become larger than the hill to lift it. Remaining as a small tender boy, He lifted the huge hill. In this miracle, there is a total failure of worldly logic. Hence, I alone can be the performer of such a miracle.
22. Whenever a demon attains miraculous powers from Me, there will be some deficiency in the miracles performed by him. So, You can identify that I am not present in the body of that demon. For instance, if a demon has to lift a huge hill, he must become larger than the hill to lift it. In this miracle, there is only a partial failure of worldly logic. The miracle exists only in the sudden growth of the demon’s body and not in the subsequent lifting of the hill. An intellectual should analyze any miracle to find out whether I exist in the body of the performer or not. Of course, the growth of the body is only due to My will working through the demon, since I gave him such a boon for his severe penance.
23. Hanuman also lifted the huge hill by becoming larger than the hill. But He should not be mistaken to be a demon, who has got a boon from Me. He is an Incarnation of God Shiva, who is none other than Me. But He was confined to play the role of a servant of God. He showed this miracle with the above-said deficiency only to show that the servant of God is always lesser than God.
24. Miracles had no significance in the first Kruta Yuga since almost everybody was a blessed devotee of God. As time proceeded, the position of justice became weaker and weaker and it is now at its weakest in this Kali Yuga. Justice (pravrutti) is a measure of My grace on the soul, since there can be no spiritual path (nivrutti) without following justice. Nivrutti is My total grace and pravrutti is My partial grace. In this Kali Yuga, almost everybody follows injustice and hence, My grace falling on a devotee to perform any miracle is also very rare.
25. The standards of people have fallen to a very low level in this time. So everybody is astonished to see even a small miracle. People link even a tiny miracle with God. Thus, even a demon performing low-grade miracles appears to be the absolute God to these people. Anything that is common to everybody has no significance and anything that is uncommon among everybody has a lot of significance. It was very difficult to find an undeserving recipient for donation, during the Kruta Yuga. Today in the Kali Yuga, it is very difficult to find a single deserving recipient for donation!
26. When Shankara passed through the bolted doors and entered the house of Mandana Mishra, nobody gave any importance to the miracle. Miracles were very common to the people present in the house. At that time, along with Mandana Mishra and his wife Ubhaya Bharati, sage Jaimini and sage Vyaasa were also present. Instead of them, if these people of today had been present there, they would have fallen at the feet of Shankara praising Him as God, based on that miracle! But Maṇḍana Mishra and the others present in his house, accepted Shankara as God only after seeing His knowledge, which was revealed in His debates that went on for about a month.
27. When You take the ocean as simile for Me, the ocean exists as water in every wave, only qualitatively; not quantitatively. It means that every wave is not the total ocean. In My case, I exist in every Incarnation both qualitatively as well as quantitatively. This is due to My unimaginable power called Maayaa. The possessor of such unimaginable power is called Maayii, who is the unimaginable God existing in Me in merged state forever. The space occupied by My energetic body, which is called as parama vyoma, will never disappear. I am eternal as the first Energetic Incarnation of unimaginable God and I am called Datta or Eshvara.
28. All exhibited miracles indicate Me alone, whether the miracle is complete or whether it is partial having some deficiency. In fact, I am also the Possessor of all the imaginable powers (Prakruti) studied by science. I gave up Prakruti to souls and confined Myself only to the unimaginable powers (Maayaa) so that I can have a separate identity. It is just like the father keeping some property with himself for his own maintenance and giving some property to his issues. All these souls are only My issues.
29. I become various Incarnations simultaneously keeping each Incarnation as complete as Me. Yet, at the same time, I also exist in My original place, without disappearing or reducing. You can understand Me only when You recognize the existence of the unimaginable power, which is frequently exhibited by Me in this world through genuine miracles. In this Kali age, every soul gives a lot of importance to miracles, not with the idea of recognizing the existence of unimaginable God; but with the only idea that the miraculous powers can be used to solve their personal worldly problems!
30. When the scripture says that I am everything in this world, it only means that everything is under My complete control. Scholars of Sanskrit grammar understand this point very easily (Tadadhiina prathamaa). Ordinary human beings misunderstand Me to exist everywhere. By this wrong concept, some people think that they are God, since God is everything and existing everywhere. Due to My unimaginable power, I am omniscient without being omnipresent. I can control everything due to My omnipotence.
31. The unimaginable God has all the merits expressed due to His omnipotence. But He has one defect, which is that He cannot be even imagined, not to speak of seeing Him. He is like the full moon having one black spot. But even this defect is not of the unimaginable God. It is the defect of souls, who cannot imagine anything beyond space. A human being has all the defects due to the ignorance of the human being. But it also has one merit, which is that the human being can be seen. All the defects of the human being belong to the human being alone. The single merit belongs to the plan of God in creating the human being. If the unimaginable God merges with the human being, all the defects of both sides disappear. This is the concept of the living Human Incarnation.
32. Intelligence is the highest mental faculty of the human being. Since the unimaginable God is beyond human intelligence, no one can even think about Him. This makes it impossible even for great scholars to think about unimaginable God. Being great devotees, such scholars would at least like to meditate upon God. But the real climax devotees are not satisfied with mere meditation. They want to see God, talk with Him, worship Him and also serve Him. To satisfy the theoretical devotion of these scholars and the practical devotion of these climax devotees, there is the utmost necessity for God’s Incarnation. Therefore, God incarnates in an energetic body in the upper worlds for the sake of energetic beings and in a human body on this earth for the sake of human beings. On one side there is a great necessity for the incarnation of God, and on the other side, God can easily incarnate in this way, due to His omnipotence. In that case, it is unimaginable to think why there is any necessity for anybody to put his or her dirty finger in this topic and object to this concept of Human Incarnation!
33. The first great sentence (Mahaavaakyam) of the Veda is “I am God (Aham brahmaasmi)”. This is the statement coming from the mouth of the Human Incarnation like Shankara. Immediately, the atheist asked Shankara that he must also be God, just like Shankara, because he also has a living body having awareness, like Shankara. So, Shankara told him the second great Vedic statement “You are God (Tat tvamasi)”. There is no other alternative but saying this to the rigid atheist because he will never believe in the existence of any God other than the human being. In this context, an ignorant person like Shvetaketu was declared to be God. Shvetaketu thus represents the ignorant atheist. At least after this, the atheist could accept the existence of God, which is a tremendous success of Shankara.
34. The atheist asked Shankara why he is unable to preach spiritual knowledge and why he is unable to pass through bolted doors like Shankara. Shankara drank molten lead and preached that He alone is God (Shivah kevaloham) and that the atheist is only a soul. Shankara told the atheist that he too is God, but due to the impurity of his mind, he had become the soul. So, in order to purify his mind, the atheist must worship God-with-form. When the mind is purified, the atheist would become God. Shankara maintained this basic concept of monism between God and any ordinary soul, for the sake of atheists. This concept is highly attractive and it strongly motivates the atheist to worship God-with-form. But it is very difficult for the atheist to worship the contemporary Human Incarnation due to his high ego and jealousy towards co-human beings. So, Shankara told these atheists to worship the statues of Energetic Incarnations like Vishnu, Shiva etc., and past Human Incarnations like Rama, Krishna etc. In this context, He brought the third great Vedic statement “This living form is God (Ayamaatmaa Brahma)”. He explained that the worship of inert statues is the worship of representative models of God. Such worship is sufficient to purify the mind from sins because the attachment to God decreases worldly attachments, which cause sins. But the great statement refers to the living God, in the form of a soul. This living God is the living Energetic Incarnation or the living Human Incarnation, which is represented by the statues.
35. The atheist became a devotee after the long worship of God in the form of a statue. He got the impression that the inert statue or image itself is God. The devotee reached a stage of the absence of ego and jealousy towards the co-human form. Now, Shankara told him the fourth great Vedic statement “Awareness is God (Prajnaanam Brahma)”. Shankara did say that awareness is God, but we must note that awareness cannot be found independently. It is produced only in a living body. The body can be considered to be the container of the awareness. This means that whenever the word ‘awareness’ is mentioned, it should be understood as ‘awareness with its container’ or a ‘living person’. If you analyze further, the word prajnaanam does not mean ‘awareness’ in Sanskrit. The word ‘cit (chit)’ stands for awareness. The word jnaanam means knowledge; it does not mean mere awareness. Further, the word prajnaanam, means exceptional knowledge (prajnaanam). So interpreting “prajnaanam Brahma” as “Awareness is God” is not accurate at all! Yet Shankara was forced to interpret it that way only to uplift the followers, with an atheistic mentality. The correct interpretation of “prajnaanam Brahma” is that a living human being who possesses exceptional spiritual knowledge like Shankara, is God. In other words, the Human Incarnation of God is obtained after filtering out all living beings having mere awareness (chit) like birds and animals and also human beings, who only have ordinary knowledge (jnaanam). In this way, the whole program of Shankara was based on these four great sentences.
36. The atheist-turned-devotee still held on to the basic idea given by Shankara that every soul is God (monism). This concept had been maintained by Shankara since it is highly attractive for devotees and it motivates devotees to continue the worship. But the time had come to reveal the truth to them at least partially. The purified devotee was now eligible to digest at least the partial truth. So, Ramanuja appeared and declared that the soul is not God, but is a tiny part of God. Shankara had promised to make the follower God. Now Ramanuja was only promising to make him a part of God. The attraction provided to pursue the spiritual path had now been reduced from a hill to an atom! Yet the devotee, whose ambition had now reduced after long worship, continued the worship to become at least a tiny part of God.
37. After further long worship of God, the devotee became perfectly purified to digest the truth of his perfect dualism with God. With this theory, the devotee could only remain as a devoted servant of God throughout his life. So at this stage, Madhva appeared and confirmed the perfect dualism of the soul with God. This is the permanent solution for any soul in this world. But the initial monistic theory of Shankara is not wrong. The soul indeed has an opportunity to become God. When the soul has no desire to become God or even a part of God and always wishes to remain as a servant in dualism, God selects such a soul to become a Human Incarnation. In this way, God grants perfect monism to the soul, which was the first desire of the soul!
38. Churning the infinite ocean of spiritual knowledge gives rise to the divine nectar, which is its essence. This essence of the entire spiritual knowledge can be summarized in one single point, which is related to our attitude and behavior towards God. That point is that we should have true love for God, which develops only as a result of the true spiritual knowledge gained by us. Such true love means, sacrificing anything and anybody for the sake of God, without aspiring for any fruit in return from Him. This unique bond with God is totally different from all worldly bonds, in which we love the other person only for some selfish benefit, as told in the Veda. This is the essence of all the divine scriptures present in this world.
39. The above-concept of having the strongest bond with God, without aspiring for anything in return, can be best understood from the example of the worldly love of parents for their children. Among worldly bonds, our bond with our children is relatively the strongest. Hence, it is the best example for understanding the unique bond between the topmost devotee and God, which is the strongest bond of all. The problem with the example of the parent-child bond is that we keep ourselves in the place of children and keep God in the place of the parent. So, we expect that God should give benefits to us even though we are bad and undeserving. This is a misunderstanding of the concept. The real concept comes out only when we reverse our places. In other words, we should be in the place of parents and God should be in the place of our child. We should sacrifice everything and everybody for the sake of God, irrespective of His behavior to us, without expecting any fruit in return from Him.
40. In fact, the name ‘Datta’ also means an adopted child. The adopted child should actually be treated at par with our own children. But such a feeling of equality never exists in our hearts! A couple after marriage was unable to have a child for a long time. So they adopted a child. After adoption, they also had their own child. What do you think will happen to the love of the parents towards the adopted child? The love will certainly decrease! It might even disappear or turn into hatred! Suppose the adopted child later becomes the king. In that case, the parents will show extreme false love for the adopted child in order to get some benefits for themselves or for their own children.
41. This is exactly the case of the souls existing in this world. Datta basically means the unimaginable God ‘given’ to the souls for their vision. The unimaginable God ‘gave Himself’ to humanity by appearing in the form of an Incarnation (Datta). He did so for satisfying His extreme devotees who were filled with true love for God. They had prayed to God to be personally available to receive their service and sacrifice. The word Datta also means an adopted son. Here too, the basic meaning of Datta as ‘given’ stands. It means that a child is ‘given’ to parents having no issues. In fact, in its generally-used sense, the name Datta indicates the child given to some parents in adoption.
42. I, the First Energetic Incarnation of the unimaginable God, am called by various names including Eshvara, Hiranyagarbha, Narayana and Sadaashiva. I appeared before sage Atri and his wife Anasuya as a fruit of their penance. The couple developed a desire to have Me, the God seen by their eyes, born to them as their son. God told them that He cannot have birth since He is without beginning and end. God told them to adopt Him as a Son instead. Hence, I am called Datta, meaning the adopted Son of that couple. Any soul can adopt God as Datta if the soul becomes Atri and Anasuya by getting rid of the three types of ego and jealousy. Atri (a-tri) means ‘not three’, which means a person free of the three types of ego. Anasuya (an-asuya) means ‘free of jealousy’, which means a person free of jealousy. In other words, Datta becomes the adopted Son of any soul, who is free of ego and jealousy. The three types of ego are based on the three qualities namely, sattvam, rajas and tamas respectively. The first type is the ego about one’s knowledge. The second type is the ego about one’s capability of doing every possible activity including difficult activities. The third type is the ego about one’s firmness in love. This third type of ego causes a person to reciprocate the love of anyone, without considering the other person’s deservingness. Such blind love is seen in the case of the blind king Dhrutaraashtra, towards his son Duryodhana.
43. After adopting God as their Son, souls should compare the love they have for their own children with the love they have for the adopted Son, Datta. How much love we possess for this adopted Son and how much love we possess for the children born to us, will become absolutely clear! There is no need for any analysis on this issue because the answer is very clear to the heart of every soul. Compared to the true love that we have for the children born to us, we do not have any true love for God, our adopted Son. We neither truly love Him theoretically nor practically. We might show love for this adopted Son, but it is just false love, shown only to get some benefits from Him. It is just like the pretense (acting) of love made by the parents when their adopted son becomes a king.
44. Clever souls have even developed a wonderful concept! They say that the king is in no need of anything or anybody and hence, we need not serve or sacrifice anything for our omnipotent adopted son-king! To expose their false love, the omniscient adopted Son, Datta, descends in this world in human form. As the Human Incarnation, He appears just as ordinary as our own children. He hides His divine powers and tests whether we can love truly love Him, theoretically and practically. To avoid being tested and exposed, these clever people have come up with yet another theory. They say that the abstract formless absolute God will never come in human form! A rare soul like Yashoda alone, showed true love for Krishna, her adopted Son, throughout her life. There is indeed a lot of inner meaning in the word Datta!
45. People criticize Datta for being the breaker of family bonds (Dattam chinnam). By this criticism, these people are claiming that they are sacrificing everything and everybody for the sake of God Datta alone and that therefore, they are unable to do any sacrifice for the sake of their family bonds. So, they are saying that Datta broke all their family bonds. This criticism is an utter lie! The sacrifice that we do for the sake of God is nowhere close to the sacrifice that we do for our own children. How can we then say that He is the breaker of our family bonds? We are only pretending as if we have sacrificed everything and everybody for the sake of God Datta, completely neglecting our family bonds in the process! We are not sacrificing anything or anybody for the sake of God Datta. Actually, He has zero value compared to our family bonds. Even if we do sacrifice something for Him, it is purely based on the expected fruit in return from Him. This is not devotion; it is spiritual business!
46. In older generations, there were some good devotees, who wrote in their will, one equal share for God in all their property, along with their children. These devotees at least treated the adopted Son-God as an equal to their own children. The own children of such parents might criticize their parents for the foolish act of giving part of their wealth and property to God. But these foolish children do not know that the grace of God who is pleased with their parents’ sacrifice, will protect their shares of the property. He will even cause their wealth to grow greatly. However, while sacrificing one’s wealth to God, neither the parents nor the children should aspire for the future protection and growth of the wealth. If there is any such expectation in the mind, then the divine sacrifice loses its value and turns into a mere business!

 

(To be continued…)