Posted on: 10 Jan 2006
[Devotees worshipped Swami on the day of this festival (Ekadashi), January 10, 2006] Today you have made Me sit facing the north and you have had the vision of Me in these early morning hours with the faith that Lord Vishnu is seen today through the north gate. You think that the divine abode of the Lord is in the north and that hell is in the south. This is not correct. The Veda says “Duramete Viparite Vishuchi” which means that God and this world are quite opposite like north and south poles. The word Vishuchi means the instrument having two needles pointing in opposite directions like north and south [magnetic compass]. It is only a simile and the concept is that God and the world are diametrically opposite. Unless you leave the last point of the path of the world you cannot enter even the first point in the path of God. This indicates that the complete sacrifice of the world is essential to achieve the grace of God. People have left the concept and are foolishly following the simile and say that God is in north and the world is in the south. You could take east and west or upward and downward directions also to understand this concept.
Similarly people say that the sacred time is after Pongal (Sankranti) when the sun turns towards the north. People think that if one dies after this festival, they get salvation. Yet several great saints have died before this festival and several sinners have died after this festival. Again this has an inner meaning. The sun indicates the firm determination of the devotee made by the intelligence. The north indicates God. This means that if you are determined to go towards God by leaving the world completely, you get salvation, at least at the time of death.
There is no use in taking the scriptures only in their external sense because it would be mere entertainment. If you look at the Ramayana merely as a story it is just like the story of a modern-day movie. Every movie has a hero like Rama and a heroine like Sita. A villain like Ravana enters, attracted by Sita. Finally Rama wins over Ravana. Every movie is based on this outline of Ramayana. In such a case if you see Ramayana only as a story, it is as good as seeing a movie for entertainment. Only if you take it in the inner spiritual sense, are you benefited in your spiritual effort.
Lord’s Personal Service
The inner sense of Ramayana is called as the Adhyatma Ramayana. Hanuman was the greatest scholar in this universe because He recognized Himself as a soul (Jeeva) and He recognized Rama as the Lord. Rama never gave any spiritual discourses nor did He perform any divine miracle. He was covered by a very thick blanket of Maya. Hanuman studied nine grammars of Sanskrit from the Sun-god and no scholar could compete with Hanuman in knowledge. He also performed unimaginable miracles like jumping over the sea and flying a thousand miles, carrying a mountain. Any human being in the place of Hanuman would certainly think that he is the Lord and Rama is the devotee. Hanuman remained unmarried and never did any work for His selfish purpose in His life. But if you see the case of Rama, He appeared to be very fond of His wife and almost blind in her love. Ravana was troubling the world and Rama was expected to kill him and save the world. But Rama said to Ravana on the first day of the war that if Ravana returned Sita to Rama, He would just go back.
Now suppose Ravana had returned Sita to Rama. Rama would go back and Ravana would continue to trouble the world. Therefore, for Rama His wife was more important than the world. Hanuman heard Rama offering to make this compromise. If you had been in Hanuman’s place, you would leave Rama’s side and blame Him as a person blindly in love with His wife, who does not care for welfare of the world. You would say to Him, “I have supported You in this war effort thinking that You will help this world by destroying the evil Ravana. I never expected that You would come out as such a blind fellow in the love of Your wife”. But Hanuman continued to be the slave of Rama forever.
When Sita was kidnapped by Ravana, Rama wept and told Lakshmana that He will destroy all the fourteen worlds if His wife was not found. He was prepared to destroy this world containing so many saints and good people for the sake of His foolish wife, who had brought all the problems due to her attraction for the golden deer. Lakshmana had told Rama that the golden deer was a trick of the demons but Rama did not listen to his advice and instead ran after the deer to fulfill the desire of His wife. Again this shows the blind love of Rama for His wife. If you were in the place of Lakshmana, you would certainly leave Rama saying “I have left my wife in Your service. But You are blind in the love of Your wife. In such a case let me also go back to live with my beloved wife”. But Lakshmana did not even think like this. Thus, Rama behaved like a person very much blind in the love of His wife. The entire Ramayana is only the personal service to Rama done by His devotees and there is no trace of welfare of this society.
Generally we expect the Lord to come down to this world to uplift humanity. We join the Lord in such a mission. We treat the Lord as a political leader who is in the service of the society and we support His mission. We donate to the politician expecting him to spend for the welfare of the society. But if he spends for his family we will immediately criticize him because our support is not for his personal work. But in the Ramayana you see that all the devotees served Rama in His personal affairs. Everything was for the sake of the protection of His wife alone. Such protection is only the personal duty of Rama.
Lakshmana stood outside without food and sleep like a watchdog when Rama and Sita were enjoying inside the hut. Sita insulted Lakshmana blaming him that he was interested in her. In spite of such a horrible insult, Lakshmana did all his best to get her back for Rama. Hanuman did all the work and service for the protection of the wife of Rama. Such protection was the personal duty of Rama and had nothing to do with the welfare of the world. Therefore, the essence of all this is that you should not think of yourself as the Lord by merely doing some miracles. Hanuman never thought like that. Similarly, you should not recognize the Lord in human form through miracles. Hanuman recognized Rama as the Lord even without any miracle. Hanuman never claimed to be the Brahman (God). The present Advaita scholars who claim to be Brahman are perhaps greater scholars of the Upanishads than Hanuman! Hanuman did not worship photographs and idols. Hanuman did not worship energetic forms of God like Vishnu, Shiva etc. He recognized the human form of the Lord and this is the main essence of Ramayana.
The path of Hanuman to please the Lord was simply service to the Lord. He never praised the Lord through bhajans. He never chanted the name of Rama using the string of prayer-beads. He never did any penance or other forms of worship. All these are theoretical tricks to cheat the Lord. Service alone is the real path to please the Lord. Hanuman sacrificed even married life and even left His parents in search of the Lord in human form. If you were in the place of Hanuman you would certainly think like this, “How foolish I am! Rama is craving for His wife and is not worried about the welfare of this world. If He gets His wife back, He will leave Ravana free and allow him to continue his mischief to the society. If His wife is so dear to Him, why should I remain unmarried?” Even Hanuman’s mother Anjani should have advised Hanuman similarly. Instead she encouraged Hanuman to seek and serve the Lord. This means that after recognizing the Lord in human form, logic should stop. You have to use the torch-light on the way only; not after reaching home. Similarly you have to use all the logic to recognize the human incarnation, because several false human beings also claim to be human incarnations. However once you have reached the Lord, your ultimate aim should only be to please the Lord and not to analyze the Lord.
The Lord knows how and when to uplift humanity. His ways are beyond your logic and imagination. You do not know your own welfare and you cannot uplift even yourself. Welfare of the society is the outlook of the Lord. Hanuman was working with King Sugriva as his prime minister. Vali forcibly took the wife of Sugriva, called Ruma. Hanuman could have killed Vali just by one stroke. But he did not do so. The same happened in the case of Rama. The wife of Rama was imprisoned by Ravana. The case was exactly the same as that of Sugriva. Hanuman did all His best in the case of Rama but never did anything for Sugriva. Sugriva represents the society. Hanuman could have killed even Ravana for the welfare of the society. But He waited till the Lord came so that the Lord could give the punishment Himself. You can punish any human being only by the Lord’s instruction. The Lord alone is the final judge and without His judgment, the punishment cannot be executed by any human being. Therefore, Hanuman waited for the Lord to punish Vali and Ravana.
Your duty is only to serve the Lord and you should not differentiate between personal service of the human incarnation and the service [in His mission] for the society. You have to act according to His wish and pleasure only. He will test your faith by exhibiting Maya. Therefore, Ramayana gives the essence of spiritual knowledge regarding important points like the recognition of the human incarnation, position of miracles, path to please the Lord in human form, personal service and service to the society etc. Only if you take these divine aspects, will you be benefited by Ramayana.
Eternal Bliss
Knowledge is like sitting in your house without happiness or worry. Devotion is like travelling to the Lord by bus or train, which only gives you happiness. But service with sacrifice (Karma Yoga) is like traveling by aeroplane to the Lord, which is full of worry and misery to you. To reach the Lord, only an aeroplane is effective and therefore you hear that a divine aeroplane came down to take a devotee. A bus or train does not come down from heaven, to pick up devotees. The path is full with thorns. After reaching the goal also, you have to sit on the thorny throne with a thorny crown. Lord Datta is said to be the ocean of bliss. This means that He is not enjoying the bliss but He makes His devotees enjoy bliss as said by the Veda (Eshahyeva Anandayati…). The Lord transfers the evil effects of His devotees on to Him and always suffers. By this the devotees are blissful. Therefore, the path and the goal are full of misery and not bliss. The spiritual aspirant must always invite troubles and misery in his life, which are the real friends to give the necessary advanced training. But if you analyse carefully, such misery gives you real eternal bliss. This bliss is eternal because it is associated with misery and is not affected by misery.
Thus, the real eternal bliss comes only through the misery in the sacrifice. The bliss that comes in the happiness of selfishness is always temporary. It disappears when misery attacks it. Therefore, you must try to derive internal bliss through the misery obtained in the sacrifice. Misery also comes by sins but such misery will not give eternal bliss. Therefore, you should try to attain the eternal bliss by sacrificing everything and everybody in this world for the sake of the Lord in human form. Lakshmana, Bharata, Hanuman etc., did the same. Even Jesus says that unless the disciple sacrifices all the bonds and is even prepared to sacrifice his own life by carrying his own cross for the sake of the Lord, He is not pleased with the disciple. The bliss rising from misery and associated with misery can never be affected by misery and therefore remains eternal. A person, who is grown up by feeding on poison as the food, cannot be affected by the bite of a serpent.
Sacrificing Bonds for the Lord
The sacrifice of the world lies in the sacrifice of the three strongest bonds called as ‘eshanas’. These are the bonds with wife or husband, children and wealth. Rama left Sita [when she was pregnant] and never enquired about the delivery of Sita. He sacrificed the kingdom and went to the forest. Krishna loved Radha to the climax but left her permanently. At the end when His sons and grandsons were killing each other on the seashore, He never bothered. He was prepared to sacrifice all His wealth to His beloved devotee called Sudama. Buddha left His wife, one-year-old son and the kingdom in one stroke, and went to the forest. He gave the conclusion in nutshell by leaving the three strongest bonds in one stroke. Thus, the Lord showed the sacrifice of these three bonds in His three important human incarnations of Rama, Krishna and Buddha. Then only is the sacrifice of the world complete. The sages requested the Lord to help them in sacrificing these three bonds. Krishna attracted the Gopikas [reborn sages] and their children, and stole their butter, which was their wealth. Thus, the sages got complete salvation and reached the highest abode of the Lord called Goloka.
Rama acted like an ordinary human being and showed Pravritti, which means, correct behaviour in the world in absence of the Lord. Ravana was a greater scholar and a richer king than Rama. Ravana had all the supernatural powers unlike Rama. Thus, the personality of Ravana was far superior to that of Rama. But Sita was not attracted by Ravana. Similarly, Rama was not attracted by Shurpanakha, who was looking more beautiful than Sita. Therefore, in Pravritti, the human being should stick to his wife or her husband sincerely without any side attractions. Rama gave all His kingdom to His sons. This means that one should give his wealth only to his children in Pravritti. But Nivritti appears when the Lord enters this world in human form. Lakshman left his wife. Bharata left wealth. Hanuman left everything and everybody. Their sacrifice was for the sake of the Lord.
Similarly the Gopikas came to Vrindavanam in the night when Krishna was playing the flute. Krishna requested them to go back to their houses to attend to their husbands and children. But the Gopikas refused. They asked Krishna whether the wife, who worships the photograph of her husband should leave the worship when the actual husband arrives to attend him or not. They treated the fellow human beings [their husbands] as inert photographs. The soul is an inert doll, playing for the entertainment of the Lord and has no independence. Only the Lord has full independence. Krishna was pleased with this question and immediately danced with them. Therefore, the Lord is higher than the highest of Pravritti. The husband is highest in Pravritti. But when Nivritti comes, the Lord is higher than the husband. Krishna showed Nivritti. The Gopikas faced a lot of troubles in Nivritti because the Lord was not a statue or formless awareness. The Lord was in a human form, similar to the human forms of their husbands. When the Lord was even in the form of a statue, Meera faced lot of troubles from her husband[1]. Imagine the intensity of problems faced by the Gopikas when the Lord is in the direct human form!
There are different levels of love even in Pravritti. On one extreme end, you see a wife maintaining an illegal contact with another person even with the knowledge of her husband. On the other extreme end, you see Padmavati, the wife of Jayadeva who died just by hearing news of the death of Jayadeva[2]. In between these two extreme ends, different levels of love exist. A woman throws herself forcibly into fire on the death of her husband. Another widow wears only a white sari and gets her head shaven like a monk. Another widow removes tilakam from her forehead [sacred mark indicating marriage] but wears coloured saris and jewels. Another widow marries another person and even wears tilakam. Thus, you find different levels of love in Pravritti. Similarly there are different levels of devotion in Nivritti. Love should be spontaneous and should not be forced. One level should not criticise another level. You should not force anybody to come only to your level. Any level should be natural and without any force.
Avoiding Constant Association
Krishna was associated with the Gopikas and danced with them at night for two years continuously. They tasted the sweet Lord like a cup of sweet honey. If you eat sweets continuously, their value is lost. If Krishna had stayed in Vrindavanam throughout His life, they would have fallen to the lowest level. Samba was the son of Krishna but he mocked the sages and got a curse. Being the son of Krishna, nobody expected him to behave like that. He did not treat his father as the Lord due to constant association with Him. When you are in constant association, you only observe the external body of the Lord and its natural properties. The internal Lord is invisible. Therefore, you will treat the Lord as an ordinary human being. This is one extreme end like a flood. The other extreme end is a drought. Without even a little association with the Lord, you cannot have love practically develop in your heart. By studying the Ramayana, the Gopikas could not develop love on the Lord. You cannot develop the love on the sweet just by hearing an explanation about it.
Krishna wanted to develop [and intensify] the devotion of the Gopikas and so He left Vrindavanam permanently. They tasted a small cup of sweet and got a long gap. This is the correct middle golden path. By this, their level of devotion rose to the climax and the Gopikas reached the highest abode. In the absence of Krishna, the Gopikas tried to get satisfaction from the drawings and statues of Krishna. But they could not get any satisfaction. This means that the worship of statues and photographs cannot be the perfect path. Uddhava, a messenger from Krishna came and preached to the Gopikas that they should meditate on the all-pervading formless aspect of God. The Gopikas refused and laughed at that suggestion. In their previous births, these sages did lot of penance on this formless aspect God and could not get satisfaction.
Radha became mad in the devotion of Krishna. You cannot take Radha as an example because madness does not come by any effort and it can only be spontaneous. Therefore, for anybody in this world, the example to follow is Hanuman, who sacrificed everything and everybody in His service. Service is the only real path and is the climax for any human being in this world. In the state of madness, everything disappears including service. However, you can never become mad due to devotion by any effort. Therefore, you cannot blame Radha for not doing service to the Lord.
It is said that Adishesha, the head of the serpents is the bed of the Lord. According to Ramanuja, Shesha means the soul. Any soul is a shesha, who attends to the responsibility of the Lord in human form. Lakshmana never slept and did not take even food in protecting Sita and such protection was the duty of the Lord. Hanuman searched for Sita by jumping over the sea. Searching for one’s lost wife is the duty of the husband. Thus, the duties of the Lord were taken by the devotees and this indicates the Shesha acting as the bed, bearing the weight of the Lord on his head. Several heads of Shesha indicate several devoted souls.
A devotee asked Me about the benefit of completely sacrificing all the eshanas by wearing the saffron cloth [giving up all bonds and becoming a monk]. Even if you limit only to this world, such a person lives without any tension and worry. In such a case there is no trace of selfishness. Such a person derives eternal bliss in the misery obtained by sacrifice in the service of the Lord or even in the service of the society. He lives with perfect peace and infinite bliss till the last minute of his life. What more benefit is present in this world even in the case of atheist?
Salvation—Free Gift From God?
A Christian devotee, Anil Antony, asked Me some questions just now. He asked whether salvation is a free gift of God and is not based on your work. This is the climax of foolishness. Even in worldly affairs, a selection board sits and filters the deserving candidate to give the gift. If anybody in this world gives a free gift without seeing the deserving qualifications, people will call him as a completely mad person. Do you treat God as a mad person, when He is wiser than the wisest in this world? Jesus asked His devotees to go to villages and propagate His knowledge. Even today the Christian fathers [priests and preachers] wander all over the earth and are propagating diving knowledge by constant lectures. Is this not work? If salvation is a free gift, why should they work? How much divine work did Jesus carry out? In Hinduism, you can support this free gift idea by saying that a soul might have done a lot of good work in the previous birth and the gift may appear as a free gift because the soul did not perform any good work in this birth. But Christianity does not believe in rebirth and therefore the possibility of such an explanation is also ruled out here.
Anil Antony’s another question is that Christianity encourages the praise and prayer of the Lord for certain materialistic benefits. He asks whether such prayer is correct. The answer is that such a stage is not incorrect but it is a lower stage. The LKG class is the beginning of school education. You cannot say that the LKG class is not correct. It is correct but it is the lowest. The first step is true but it is the lowest step which is at ground level. If you take the case of Jesus, He is in the highest step. He also praised and prayed the Lord but He never asked for anything for Himself. All He asked for was the propagation of the fame of the Lord. The lowest step is certainly better than the pit, which is lower than the ground level. Thus the beginner is certainly better than the atheist, who does not believe in God at all. Even though the beginner is selfish, at least he believes in the existence of God.
[1] Meera’s devotion
[2] Jayadeva