Posted on: 07 Mar 2010
Knowledge and devotion are helpful to find out the correct address of God and to please Him perfectly. Once God is pleased with you, you will be appointed by God in His divine service to uplift the people of this world. The correct address of God is only the contemporary human incarnation. The real devotion to please God is only the practical love expressed on God without aspiring for any fruit in return from Him. Once you are appointed in the service of God, there is no need of knowledge and devotion for your sake. You have to preach the knowledge to others by clarifying their doubts and you have to express your devotion for the sake of the others only to improve their devotion. Once you are appointed in the divine service, there is no need of doing anything to save yourself. As soon as you have joined in the divine duty, you are already saved. All your efforts must be only to save others. You may praise the officer to get the job after knowing the correct address of the officer and the correct clue to please him. All these end once the appointment order is fetched. Once the aim is fulfilled, there is no need of investigating the correct address and the correct clues and there is no need to praise the officer. After getting the order also, if you continue to investigate about the officer or continue to praise the officer without doing your assigned duties, the officer will be displeased. The officer continues in his pleasant state if you perform the assigned duties. There will be no salary for performing the divine service because the appointment order itself is the eternal salary. Such opportunity to participate in the service of God is very rare and no scholar aspires for any fruit in doing the divine service. Unless the aspiration for every fruit from God is burnt, the appointment order from God is not issued. Unless you are saved, you will not be appointed in the divine service. Therefore, there is no meaning in aspiring for any fruit and in doubting the safety of the self after joining the service of God. Both these aspects are supported by the substratum called selfishness. Unless the selfishness disappears completely, there is no opportunity for the divine appointment. Shankara, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad etc., were such blessed souls appointed by God. Shankara told that He did not have desire even for salvation because He was already salvated due to the fact that He was appointed in the divine service (Namokshasyaakaamkshaa…).
Anybody can get the divine order of appointment at anytime from God but the order gets cancelled and you are dismissed from the service as soon as the selfishness enters you. Sadhana is only a chain of orders of appointment and orders of ousting from the divine service. Awareness of self is selfishness and awareness of other selves is sacrifice that pleases God. He will be aware of yourself as long as you are not aware of yourself and aware of other selves. Forgetting yourself is not the final stage because even a stone is not aware of itself. You should be aware of others because you are the embodiment of awareness as living being. The school of Advaita believes in self- awareness only. They believe that such self- awareness is the ultimate end. Hence, there is no selfishness in such state. Selfishness means the desire to achieve some fruit by the self. When the achievement of self itself is the highest fruit, there is no opportunity for selfishness to achieve something for the sake of self. In this way, this acts as a psychological way for destruction of selfishness. Though selfishness is avoided in this way, ego enters, since the false concept that self is God is retained. Ego is a branch of selfishness and hence, in this state also, the selfishness exists in hidden form. There is no problem if the concept is correct.
God is praised as the ruler of selves (Atmeshvaram…) and therefore, cannot be any self. God is beyond even unseen and unknown items. Today, self is known as a special work form of inert energy called as nervous energy and it is even seen through sophisticated scientific instruments in the form of waves of energy. For ordinary people, the self is unknown in all the times. Self was unseen till the scientific instruments were developed. The Gita also says that self can be seen by scholars through extraordinary vision (Pashayanti Jnanachakshushah…). The Veda says that God can never be seen (Nachakshushaa…) and can never even be imagined (Namedhayaa…). The so called unknown items in the world become known through some special efforts in course of time. Similarly, the so called unseen items may be seen through special instruments. God is unseen and unknown forever. Hence, God is beyond even the so called unseen and so called unknown items. The atomic structure in a stone is not seen without microscope and is not known to ignorant human being at anytime. God is not only beyond this stone but is also is beyond the unseen and unknown atomic structure. Similarly, the inert energy in all the forms of matter is unseen and unknown. God is beyond even this entire inert cosmic energy. Even space is a form of the cosmic energy and hence, God is beyond even the space. Therefore, God is always unseen and unknown. You can only know the existence of unknown God even in the human incarnation. In the case of the human form of the God, not only the internal soul is unimaginable God, but also the external body also is unimaginable God as said in the Veda (Antarbahishcha…). The tender petty body of Krishna lifted the huge mountain and therefore, the external body of Krishna is also unimaginable God. In the case of all other human beings, even the internal soul is not God because the soul is just a special work form of inert energy only. You cannot compare even the internal soul of human being to even the external body of human incarnation because even the internal soul of any human being cannot lift the mountain. You may say that Ravana could lift the mountain but still Ravana is not God. Ravana also lifted the mountain due to induced power of God in his body. Therefore, during such process the unimaginable power of God only lifted the mountain. The induction of God’s power in Ravana was temporary and limited to that event only. The expression of unimaginable divine knowledge in the form of the Gita is a standing proof for the eternal existence of God in Krishna. The unimaginable divine knowledge itself is not a characteristic of God but it is the inseparable associated characteristic of God by which alone God can be identified (Jnanitvatmaiva… Gita).