Posted on: 26 Jul 2018
[July 26, 2018 Guru Purnima Message] Tomorrow is Guru Purnima. It means the full moon day on which sage Vyaasa, the top spiritual preacher is born. Guru means the spiritual preacher, who removes the ignorance-darkness. ‘Gu’ means the ignorance darkness. ‘Ru’ means remover of it. The ignorance-darkness is always removed by the knowledge-light only. Tomorrow happens to be the eclipse of moon also. This shows that our mind is eclipsed by the ignorance. Scripture says that moon represents mind (Chandramaa manasojaatah… Veda). The shadow planet or the planet of darkness (Tamograha) by name Raahu swallows the Moon or the mind. Tamograha means the planet of tamas or darkness or ignorance. Today, the situation in Hindu religion is represented by this Guru Purnima having the eclipse of moon.
Spiritual knowledge of God is very important since God helps the devotees in Pravrutti as well as in Nivrutti as far as possible without disturbing the cycle of deeds of the devotee. The omniscient God is very very talented in adjusting the cycle of deeds with His timely help to the devotee. Hence, God is all in all for the worldly life here as well as the life after death in the upper world. From beginning to the end in every angle, God’s help is very essential to every soul. The atheist denies the existence of God and looses everything everywhere and in every time. There can’t be any more unfortunate fellow to be really sympathised other than the atheist in this entire creation!
Spiritual knowledge or detailed information about the divine personality of God is the very basis for generation of devotion to God. The generated devotion turns to be practical to become sacrifice and service to God that leads the soul to achieve the eternal fruit in reality. Hence, the fundamental step is the spiritual knowledge, which shall be true knowledge. Otherwise, the wrong knowledge will mislead the soul to wrong path and wrong goal. After hearing the spiritual knowledge from Sadguru like sage Vyaasa, who is the incarnation of God Vishnu or the ultimate God Datta, you must analyze it and then arrive at the right conclusion to take up the practical steps, called as Karma Yoga.
For this right path, the spiritual knowledge must be heard from the divine spiritual preacher (Sadguru), who appears in every human generation. A constant touch with spiritual knowledge by hearing it (Adhyaatma Jnaana Nityatvam) and confirming it by analysis (Tattva Jnaanartha Darshanam) are recommended by the Gita. For this purpose to be fulfilled, rituals are often suggested by the scripture to be done frequently in the life. On the occasion of ritual, there will be a holy assembly of devotees to hear the right spiritual knowledge from the priest or Guru, who revises the spiritual knowledge already established by Sadguru. By hearing more and more details of God through spiritual knowledge, more and more theoretical devotion is improved, which on ripening turns to practice. Hence, every ritual is an occasion for the devotees to assemble together and hear the spiritual knowledge propagated by the priest or Guru following the footsteps of Sadguru. The rituals like entering new house, marriage etc., vary in dates from one to other and hence, all the devotees will have the frequent opportunity of assembling together for the purpose of receiving good spiritual knowledge to improve the devotion. The ritual involves not only the propagation of spiritual knowledge, but also, involves a programme of developing the devotion by singing devotional songs, prayers, worships etc.
But, what is the situation today? The priest is blindly reciting the scripture without knowing the meaning of a single word whether it is related to spiritual knowledge or to the process of praying God. The performer of ritual is blindly doing the ritual without any involvement of improving the spiritual knowledge or devotion to God. The scripture in Sanskrit is blindly recited, which is Greek and Latin to everybody attending the ritual including the performer and the priest! The performer is doing the ritual blindly with headache to hear something, which he/she doesn’t understand at all. But, the performer does the ritual with utmost attention! Why? The performer is captured by a false impression propagated by the priests that the very sound of the scripture has miraculous power to do miracles, which remove the difficulties of the performer. This is total cheating because the priest is covering his defect about not knowing the meaning of the scripture and is exploiting the performer in this false way to get some benefit (in the form of fees) from the performer for his ignorance of the scripture! Except the devotion to God based on vast true spiritual knowledge, God will not be pleased and except God, nobody and nothing else can do even a trace of miracle! This unfortunate situation represents the eclipse of moon taking place on this auspicious day of Guru Purnima. Sage Vyaasa has written a lot of details about the divine knowledge of God in the form of the Brahma Sutras, the Bhagavat Gita and the Shrimat Bhagavatam to develop the spiritual knowledge and devotion to God. Nowhere, He has written that you should hear the blindly recited scripture doing some foolish activities involving wastage of precious materials, which have no relationship to the knowledge or devotion to God. Unless this reformation is achieved by the demand of the performers of rituals (being their pay-masters and customer Gods shall demand for the explanation of the scripture) by forcing the priests to spend their learning time in studying the Sanskrit language and secondary scriptures like Grammar, logic etc., which help in understanding the primary scripture, Hinduism is to be sympathised a lot because Hinduism is famous for the excellent deep spiritual knowledge! The followers of Hinduism must take up this revolutionary step to rejuvenate this sacred religion established by the great ancient sages, who were the brilliant lights in the spiritual knowledge.
The scripture says that the Veda shall be studied and known along with secondary scriptures (Saango Vedodhyetavyo Jneyashcha). Here, three words are used, which are the Veda, Adhyetavya and Jneya. All these three words in Sanskrit mean knowledge only based on the principles of grammar. It means knowledge is stressed thrice and unfortunately that itself is missing! Either every Hindu shall know the Sanskrit language or at least, the priest shall explain the meaning in the mother tongue. A priest is spending about ten years time in doing the blind recitation of scripture and this time could have been fairly spent in studying the meaning of scripture deeply. The spiritual lives of these priests are also spoiled since their brains became mechanical machines of blind recitation without even the sense of knowledge. In every religion, the scripture is in mother tongue and at least its literal meaning is understood. In the time of ancient sages, Sanskrit was their mother tongue and hence, the scripture was written in Sanskrit. In every religion, the scripture is read from the printed book and if possible, extra explanation is given by priest. In every religion, during the rituals, prayers are done in mother tongue so that devotion generated by spiritual knowledge is further developed. In the ancient time of sages, recitation of the scripture was done due to absence of writing technology so that the scripture is passed on from one generation to the other. This recitation program had an additional advantage of avoiding insertions in to the scripture by some selfish scholars and thus, pollution of the scripture was completely avoided. Today, the scripture is well printed and well preserved so that both the purposes (passing on the scripture from one generation to the other and avoiding pollution of scripture) are met perfectly. Again, this is a blind tradition following what the ancestors did (recitation) without understanding the background intension. This unfortunate fate happens to the Hindu religion only, which is very famous for its depth of spiritual knowledge by very shrewd analysis done by the greatest intellectual ancient sages!
The conservatives of Hindu religion will certainly misunderstand Me for this message given by God Dattatreya, who is the ultimate king of kings of spiritual preachers (Gururaaja Raaja) through the throat of this Datta Swami on this Guru Purnima festival. If the intension of Datta Swami, who is the real Hindu, is not understood, every ritual is lost totally like a living body without life as we observe the rituals done today. Today, the rituals have become platforms of business by overeating various special items of food along with friends and relatives, who bring some gifts, which are to be returned to them when they perform the rituals and in the series of such rituals, this Guru-Purnima festival must be renamed as Guru-Amaavaasyaa (on which the moon disappears totally) festival representing this eclipse of moon! A true lover of own body (Religion) analyzes the food (ritual) to be taken by the body so that the food gives correct development and energy to do good works. If the food taken is poisonous without analysis, the food will kill the body. If the meaning is understood, we can say whether it is true or false (good food or poisonous food). When the meaning itself is not understood, it is like not supplying the food at all to the body, which will also kill the body! First, the food shall be procured (meaning of the scripture shall be known) and then before eating it (before accepting the interpretation), you must test it (you must analyse the interpretation) whether it is good food (right interpretation) or poisoned food (wrong interpretation). The present Hindu Religion is like the son of a great scholar, who is totally ignorant, called as the saying that the son of the great scholar is an ignorant idiot (Panditaputrah shunthah)!