Posted on: 01 Jul 2021
[śrī Durgaprasad asked: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi, You said that if one can turn the bad qualities towards God, they become good qualities indeed. How important is the controlling of senses from external world during this transformation? Even the sages practiced their sādhanā by going away from the materialistic world so that they do not get trapped from the attractions. At Your lotus feet, Durgaprasad]
Swāmi replied: This concept comes only from the example of sages. The ordinary souls confined to pravṛtti only controlled their senses and maintained perfect discipline stamping some qualities as totally bad and some qualities as totally good. For these souls, there is no point of salvation because their eternal world is only the bunch of their worldly bonds and they never thought of nivṛtti. For them, God is only an instrument from whom the welfare of themselves and their worldly bonds can be obtained. The sages tried for salvation inventing the field of nivṛtti totally isolated from pravṛtti, when they tried to embrace Rāma by becoming females. By this, they realized that the salvation from worldly bonds is possible and meaningful only by the attachment to God. Their aim was only salvation from worldly bonds for which they selected penance as the path. They were thinking that concentration of mind on God is the penance through which only salvation is possible. They were concentrating on God with the only aim of salvation from worldly bonds. They slowly realized that the salvation from the worldly bonds shall not be the main aim and the main shall be strong love to God, which is the essence of the penance. If the bond with God becomes very strong, the worldly bonds will spontaneously drop out. They got salvation or liberation from worldly bonds when they were born as Gopikas and loved God Kṛṣṇa to the climax, which means madness of Kṛṣṇa. Their worldly bonds were naturally dropped out.
Every quality has both good and bad sides. For example, sex is stamped as totally bad quality, but, it has both good and bad sides. The good side is to generate children for the extension of humanity as divine service. The bad side of it is illegitimate sex. In the previous lives, the sages have gone to the forest along with their wives and generated legitimate children and were never involved in illegitimate sex. In pravṛtti or worldly life, the sages were the best examples, who could find good side and bad side of every quality. The application of good side and bad side of a quality is within the limits of worldly life or pravṛtti. So far nivṛtti or spiritual life did not enter in the case of sages. But, when they entered nivṛtti, the change of direction is not within the limits of pravṛtti. In pravṛtti, turning the quality to good worldly bonds is merit and turning the quality to bad worldly bonds is sin. But, when the soul enters nivṛtti, the boundaries of the field are both pravṛtti and nivṛtti.
This means that whatever may be the side of the quality, if the quality is turned and dedicated to God, it is merit and if the quality is turned to world, it is sin. This means that even the bad side of the quality turned to God is merit and even good side of the quality turned to world is sin! This means that God is so holy that even the bad side of the quality becomes good when it is directed to God. For example, even if a thorny plant is thrown in to fire, it becomes holy ash to be put on the forehead. Similarly, world is so unholy that even the good side of the quality becomes bad when it is directed to the world. For example, sweet sugar thrown in drainage becomes rejectable only and can’t be put on the tongue. The good and bad sides of the qualities are not important and only the direction of the quality (good or bad) towards God is important. Rukmiṇī got salvation from worldly bonds and reached God through legitimate sex with God. Rādhā also got salvation from worldly bonds and reached God through illegitimate sex. In fact, her place was above the abode of God, which means that she was above Rukmiṇī. This difference is due to the difference in the intensities of love to God in the cases of Rukmiṇī and Rādhā, be it legitimate or illegitimate. This concept is clearly established by Kṛṣṇa in one of the final verses of the Gītā ‘Sarvadharmān…mā śucaḥ’, which means ‘you leave even the good side of the quality (dharma). Whatever may be the side of the quality, you direct it towards Me. I will relieve you from bad sides or sins of all qualities when they are directed to Me. You need not worry.’ This verse takes God to the unimaginable height because His holiness and power are unimaginable.
Opposite incidents were shown by God in pravṛtti and nivṛtti and the correlation between this contradiction is possible only when we understand that God is unimaginable in knowledge, power and holiness. In pravṛtti, God gave saris to Draupadī and protected her from becoming naked. The same God refused to return the saris stolen by Him to Gopikas while they were bathing and this is nivṛtti in which the concept that God is omniscient and nothing can be hidden from Him is established. Similarly, in pravṛtti God killed Śiśupāla by mentioning the sin of Śiśupāla in forcing the wife of king Babhru to become his wife. In nivṛtti the same God performed romantic dance with married Gopikas, in which the concept that God is testing the sages born as Gopikas in the three strong worldly bonds or eṣaṇās (one of the three is attachment to life partner) to give the certificate of full salvation to sages. God also tested sages in the other two worldly bonds (bond with wealth and bond with issues) by stealing their preserved butter (wealth) for the sake of their issues. Stealing butter in daytime and romantic dance in Bṛndāvanam in the nights constituted the tests of the liberation from the three strong worldly bonds (eṣaṇās), which itself is the certificate of salvation from worldly bonds, which were dropped spontaneously due to the strongest love to God. The whole picture clearly establishes the concept that the salvation from worldly bonds shall be attained due to the strong attachment to God, which means that mere salvation (mokṣa) without the attachment to God (yoga) is waste and also impossible (impossible because the mind has inherent nature of attachment to something).
The soul that is eligible to pravṛtti only shall keep itself confined to the boundaries of pravṛtti without touching the boundaries of nivṛtti. In such case, there will be no confusion to the soul. Only one in millions, who is well aware of the subject of nivṛtti like a sage shall only enter nivṛtti. Standing in pravṛtti and unable to enter in to nivṛtti, one shall not try to demolish the filed of nivṛtti because it becomes personally very inconvenient to the soul eligible for pure pravṛtti only. An ordinary soul can never understand the nivṛtti and hence, shall be confined to pravṛtti only. God also does not encourage any soul for nivṛtti. God always emphasizes the field of pravṛtti only and never opens the field of nivṛtti. God will also put several hurdles to prevent the soul entering nivṛtti.