
[Surya asked Swami about the significance of simultaneous incarnations of God as Rama and Hanuman. Given below is Swami’s reply.]
Rama stands for pravritti, which is your behavior and service to your family life. Hanuman stands for your behavior and service to God, who is available as the contemporary human incarnation. Both the incarnations are simultaneous and separate. This means that you shall maintain pravritti and nivritt simultaneously and separately. Both need not clash since they are two separate sections. In this context, there are three types of people...
Knowing that you are not God is as important as recognizing the contemporary human incarnation. If you feel that you are also God, there is no use of catching the living human form of God. As a human being, you should follow the norms of the world and at the same time, you should serve the living human form of God after recognizing Him. The first part of your behavior towards world is called as pravritti and the simultaneous second part of your behavior towards the contemporary human incarnation is called as nivritti. To preach both these aspects to the human beings...
Today is Samkranti, which means transfer of Sun from south to north. Sun represents the intelligence, which is the basis of logical analysis. The Gayatri mantra also says that sun provokes the intelligence. The south represents the path of rituals, which involves the worship of representatives of energetic forms of God like statues or formless models of Vishnu, Shiva, etc. and the worship of statues of past human incarnations like Rama, Krishna, etc. In this path, the statues or some formless representatives are selected for worship because the spiritual aspirant...
[Christmas Message] The unimaginable God is omnipotent and can do anything that is impossible. But, He does not do a thing because it is not proper to do so. If He has not done a thing, it does not mean that He is incapable of doing that thing. A person has an axe and can cut anything with that axe. He cuts the tree only and not an innocent child with it. This does not mean that he is incapable of cutting the child. It is not proper to cut the innocent child and it is proper to cut the tree in the forest by which the livelihood can be earned. You should not use the omnipotence of God to support your improper philosophy. If you say that God did something...
Hindu religion is very fortunate that it is built up by ancient learned sages, who analyzed the philosophy to the climax and hence, every concept is enlightened by the radiance of deep spiritual knowledge. This point was true in the past when Sanskrit language was the mother tongue of everybody so that whenever the scripture, the Veda, in the form of Sanskrit hymns, was recited, everybody understood it clearly. By this, every ritual was a revision of the spiritual concepts. Thereby, the spiritual knowledge was strengthened repeatedly. But, today what is the position of this greatest religion? The Sanskrit hymns are recited in every ritual as usual. Neither the reader nor the audience, understand the meaning of the scripture..
[Surya asked Swami ‘Some people are asking about the necessity of the preacher (Guru) since we can meditate upon God directly as Buddhists practice it’.]
Swami replied: People use the word ‘Meditation’ without knowing its exact concept. The word meditation means the intensified interest upon God. The interest on any item is generated by the knowledge of details of that item. Therefore, the knowledge of God alone generates the meditation. Knowledge cannot be obtained from scriptures directly without proper preacher. You cannot obtain the correct knowledge from books without going to the class room in which the teacher explains the knowledge present in the text book in a proper way. You cannot straightaway...
Earning the wealth is a great act. Saving the earned wealth by controlling unnecessary expenditure is greater act. Proper utilization of the saved wealth is greatest act. You can get the grace of God through proper utilization of the saved wealth in His name. When you spend your money in the name of God, God is pleased. But, you should spend it properly with sharp analysis. If the wealth is wasted or spent for undeserving persons, God becomes furious. Therefore, expenditure or donation of money can bring the grace or anger of God and it is like a double edged knife. Therefore, controlling the expenditure in unnecessary ...
[Evening Message] People give a lot of importance to the Gayatri mantra without realizing the true concept of it. When the actual concept is not realized, the misunderstanding misleads the people to negative results and their desired results are not at all touched. There are three subsequent steps in the spiritual path. The first step is knowledge (jnana yoga) by which you first realize the true information about the goal and its address. Then, you will also realize the true path for reaching the goal. Then, you will also realize the true status of yourself. All these three realizations constitute the triad (Triputi) of information about the goal (Jneya), path (Jnana) and the aspirant (Jnata). You must realize that your goal is the unimaginable God...
Hiranyagarbha called as karyabrahman, is the first produced infinite cosmic energy in which the unimaginable God is hidden. The cosmic energy is generated from the unimaginable God, who is called as Karanabrahman or the root source of everything. Hiranyagarbha means the cosmic energy in which the gold is hidden. The word gold indicates the most valuable unimaginable God. Garbha means hidden since God is not visible to imagination. The Veda says that Hiranyagarbha is first born cosmic energy, which is the controller of the world (Hiranyagarbhah samavartataagre...). The cosmic energy generates the matter...
[Evening Message] When the unimaginable God enters a medium, He remains in His inherent unimaginable form and at the same time attains the form of the medium also. But, the attainment of the form of the medium is by identifying Himself with that medium. The attainment is not real because God is not really transformed into that form of medium. When the current enters a metallic wire, the current is identified with the metallic wire because you can experience the property of the current at any part of the wire. This does not mean that the current is really modified or transformed into the metallic wire. The current is a stream of electrons and it remains in its inherent form, which is the stream of electrons. The metallic wire...
God created money or wealth, which is the most wonderful item in this entire creation because all the worldly bonds are condensed in it. It is the essence of all the bonds in this world. Directly, it has no importance, but, indirectly it has highest importance since it covers all the needs of your life of yourself and your kith and kin. You can purchase even the food by which you can maintain the life. Therefore, it is the basis of all the basic needs and other needs of life. In a nutshell, it can be said as the essence of the entire creation. It is said to be the root of the entire tree of world (Dhanamoola midam jagat). If the root is cut, the entire tree will fall...
[Evening Message] The stealing of butter by Lord Krishna as a boy is enjoyed by the devotees as the mischief of the Lord (Prabhu leela). By this, the Lord is treated as an ordinary ignorant boy and the mischief is reduced to the activity of ignorance of the childhood. God is never ignorant and the childhood is related to the body or medium in which the Lord is hidden. An ordinary soul in such a medium can be ignorant but not the omniscient God. God cannot be affected by the properties of medium. Therefore, there should be an excellent meaning and it should be a wonderful message for the spiritual aspirants. Externally, it looks like a mischief of an ignorant boy, but internally, it has the whole essence of the Holy Scripture the Veda, which says that the sacrifice of wealth alone leads to God....
[Dr. K. V. Prasad, a devotee, raised a doubt on the recent message given by Swami on Karteeka Poornima. The doubt is “You told that we should enjoy even misery like a hot dish in the meals. But, this is practically impossible”.]
Swami Replied: I will give an example to show that this is practically possible. A child enjoys the sweet, but dislikes the hot dish since it tasted the hot dish once and felt the pinch of it. This means that the child did not enjoy the hot dish even once and hence, does not like to taste the hot dish again. But, you take the case of an adult. He enjoyed the hot dish and hence, he tries to taste the hot dish again and again. The difference between the child and adult establishes...
If you want to eat an apple, you have to search for the seller of apples in order to purchase an apple from him. Then, how to identify the seller of apples? The identity mark for recognizing the seller of apples is the apple itself. Therefore, your requirement itself is the identity mark to recognize the possessor of your requirement. If you want to learn Physics, you have to select the best teacher of physics. What is the identity mark of the best teacher of physics? The identity mark is the best teaching of physics itself. Similarly, the requirement of an aspirant of spiritual path is the correct direction in his spiritual journey. The correct direction in the spiritual journey can be given by the true spiritual knowledge...
[Kartika Purnima] The Gita says that equality in situations of happiness and misery is yoga (samatvam yoga…). Generally, people misunderstand this concept. They think that keeping oneself inactive towards happiness and misery without any disturbance like a stone is the meaning of this verse. Such meaning is wrong and is not the actual opinion of the Lord. It is only the misinterpretation of misunderstood heart of the verse. You are not a stone to show such inert behavior. You are a living human being and can never behave like that. You can behave like that by taking some sedative drugs and there is no need of the intensive spiritual effort to achieve such state. The actual opinion of this verse is that you should enjoy both happiness and misery...
God will not use His superpower as far as possible unless a very rare occasion of protecting the most deserving devotee arises. A good administrator will always run the institution on the natural wheels of the rules already setup. As far as possible, he will not disturb the routine and natural functioning of the system. This is the reason for Lord Krishna not changing the mind of Duryodhana, who rigidly favored the war. He did not use the superpower in the case of Arjuna also, when Arjuna was against the war. In the case of Duryodhana, the Lord tried His best to stop the war. In the case of Arjuna, the same Lord tried His best to provoke Arjuna...
The sin, which is the source of all sufferings, cannot be cancelled through any extent of devotion and any extent of dearness and nearness to God. No way is competent to cancel the sin except one path. Such only one path is real and permanent transformation of the mind. Such transformation will avoid the doing of sin in future. Since the punishment given for the sin done in the past also aims at this transformation only, there is no meaning of punishing the soul further for the past sins after the transformation. Hence, the permanent and real transformation of the soul cancels all the past sins and the future possibility of doing any sin more. There is no other way than this because such unique way is the will of God...
The essence of all the rituals is just sacrifice of wealth to a deserving devotee of God and the sacrifice should be in the memory of God. Mere sacrifice to a deserving human being without referring to God is just social service, the reward of which is temporary stay in heaven (Ksheenepunye… Gita). The sacrifice is of two ways. One is in the form of work or service and the other is in the form of wealth. The sacrifice should be done with lot of analysis to discriminate the deserving from the rest. Sacrifice is the most powerful means to please God and get His grace, if the receiver deserves. If the receiver does not deserve, the same sacrifice will yield negative results in the form of punishment. Since all the rituals involve sacrifice...
People often get the doubt about the creation of bad in this world apart from good. The bad is related to the qualities of Rajas and Tamas. The good is related to the quality of Sattvam. Since God is the Creator and Maintainer of both good and bad, He is associated with both good and bad. This is clear when we say that Vishnu is associated with Sattvam, Brahma is associated with Rajas and Shiva is associated with Tamas. The doubt is that God should have been always in the form of Vishnu only. In fact, there is a sect called Vaishnavas, who follow this point. They treat God as Vishnu or Narayana only. In such case, God should not be the Creator of the entire world since bad is also a part of the world. This will limit God...
Datta means God available for souls. He is available in the human form with materialized body since human beings are with materialized bodies. The same God is available in energetic body to angels and to the departed souls from the earth, since both angels and the departed souls are in energetic bodies. The angels are the souls in permanent energetic bodies, whereas the departed souls exist in the energetic bodies till they take re-birth. The present alive human form of God is most relevant to the present alive human generation. Therefore, energetic forms of God and also the past human forms of God are irrelevant to the present human beings...