Posted on: 24 Jun 2021
1. If Rāvaṇa kidnapped Māyā Sītā/Shadow Sītā, then why did Rāma cry for His wife?
[Śrī Anil asked: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmi, some questions raised in internet discussion forum is presented below. Please grace Your response to the same. At Your Lotus Divine Feet-anil]
Swāmi replied:- In the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇam, it is clearly told that Rāvaṇa stole Sītā directly. The other twists are not valid, which are just poetic imaginations of certain emotional devotees, who can’t tolerate the Rāvaṇa touching Sītā while stealing her. Vālmīki is authority for the Rāmāyaṇam since Sītā delivered two sons in the asylum of sage Vālmīki only. Rāma wept for Sītā, which shows love of God towards close devotee. The weeping is real, but, since He is God, He is internally entertained with His own creation. The word Rāma means He, who is entertained continuously.
2. Can we Hindus reject all the discriminatory/sexist verses of Smṛtis (which might be interpolated) and compose a new Smṛti for the modern era?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swami replied:- Will you burn your house due to a few rats disturbing you? You shall remove the rats, but not destroy the house and replace it by a new house. Believing the scripture totally with blindness is one extreme. Rejecting the whole scripture is another extreme. Both are like flood and drought. When there are some wrong points, they alone shall be rejected since such wrong points were insertions made by certain ignorant followers. Pollution is quite natural everywhere.
3. When Brahmā dies, does He get reborn again? Is it then we have Brahmā's day and nights?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Deep sleep is considered to be death and again awakening from deep sleep is considered to be rebirth in the case of us, the petty human beings (Atha cainam... Gītā). God Brahmā is the eternal absolute God. The dissolution of the world is assumed as night and re-creation is assumed as the beginning of the day. They are not actual night and day as we face.
4. Why is God not born (Incarnation) of the poor family? Why are only the kings here?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- God is born as Dattātreya to Sage Atri and Atri was very very poor in the view of wealth. In the view of knowledge and devotion, he is very rich. A king may be rich also by knowledge and devotion and his immense wealth shall not stand as hurdle for God to incarnate. Physical wealth is immaterial in both cases. It is immaterial whether one is rich or poor in terms of wealth to get God’s grace.
5. Do you believe there's a God? India has a Godless culture. We never believe anything. We're a land of seekers, not believers.
[A question posed to Śrī Anil that was brought to Swāmi]
Swāmi replied:- So, you are always a seeker without finding goal throughout your life. Belief comes after seeking the truth. Strength comes after eating food. Will you eat continuously? Then, the stomach will burst and the eater dies. If one remains as a seeker only throughout the life, he will be finally ruined (Saṃśayātmā vinaśyati).
6. If God created time and space, how can He exist without time and space?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Due to this reason only, God is concluded unimaginable. It means that God is beyond space and time. The Veda, the Gītā and the Brahma Sūtras say this.
7. Which is superior of these four, Dharma, Artha, Kāma and Mokṣa?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Mokṣa is superior provided Mokṣa (liberation from worldly bonds) is spontaneously resulting due to strong love and attachent to God. Mere Mokṣa is useless and impossible also.
8. What are the symptoms of the predominance of 'Tamas' in a being as per the Bhagavad Gītā?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Tamas is the fascination to the worldly bonds born out of ignorance as per the Gītā (Tamastvajñānajaṃ viddhi, Mohanaṃ sarvadehinām).
9. How do I get rid of negative thoughts that keep randomly popping into my head?
[Śrī Anil asked: It’s been keeping me down the whole day and I’ve tried to do things to take my mind off of it like watching TV, getting food, etc.]
Swāmi replied:- The methods adopted by you have nothing to do with removal of negative thoughts. Sometimes, they become sources of negative thoughts. Read My spiritual knowledge (www.universal-spirituality.org). It will show you the positive direction of this human life showing the ultimate positive goal of human life. Positive will automatically remove negative like Sun removing darkness.
10. It is written that no man has ever seen God. What about Satan? Has a man ever seen Satan (the devil)? Why?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Both God and Satan can be seen as energetic forms if you have the grace of God. Seeing is not important at all. Getting the grace of God is important. When the Prime Minister goes on road, every body sees him. What is the use of it? A person may not see the Prime Minister, but, gets a favour from him. Such person is lucky. Similarly, if you see the snake going on its own way, you need not worry about it. But, you may not see the snake and it bites you from your backside, it makes a lot of worry. The Prime Minister and snake are compared to God and Satan respectively. Here, seeing is not important. Their action is important.
11. Why is it hard to convert Muslims to Christianity?
[Śrī Anil asked: What is it that keeps their faith strong in their God and vehemently refuse to accept Lord Jesus as their Saviour?]
Swāmi replied:- Christians shall learn positive angle in this from Muslims. One shall reach the same ultimate absolute reality or unimaginable God through any divine form by following any divine path. Conversion from one religion to other religion is the climax of foolish ignorance. When roads from all houses lead to the same centre and when the distances of all roads to centre are one and the same, why one is not going straight to the centre from his house? Why one is thinking of going to other house and travel from the other house to the centre?
12. If God influenced the Bible, why is there no scientific information that wasn't known at the time of writing it?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- When a brief text was delivered by God in the name of the Bible, much scientific knowledge was not necessary. Then, the people were able to grasp concepts in brief way only because their I.Q. was not much developed and scientific. Now the I.Q. is terribly developed with science and logic and elaborate spiritual knowledge is very much necessary. Hence, scientific development is very much essential for recording the text to a great extent.
13. Which path is true between the following?
[Śrī Anil asked: Jesus Christ taught us if we pray something with our complete faith then we are going to definitely have them someday. On the contrary, Lord Kṛṣṇa told us only to take actions but the results are not in our hand. Which path is true between these two?]
Swāmi replied:- You are generalising the concept told for Pravṛtti (worldly life) and for Nivṛtti (spiritual life). Jesus told about Nivṛtti and there, faith means faith on God and faith here does not mean the faith that God will give you anything you ask through faith. When you utter the word ‘faith’, ‘faith on what?’ is the immediate question. Faith on God, which is selfless love? Or faith on getting your desire fulfilled exploiting the omnipotence of God through soaping prayers and worships? Kṛṣṇa told about both Pravṛtti and Nivṛtti applying the first Law of Thermodynamics. If you concentrate on the faith that your work will yield the fruit in Pravṛtti, your attraction for fruit will make you weak and inefficient to do the work. In Nivṛtti also, if you are attached to fruit and do God’s worship, such worship is not real love and God will hate you. If your worship is without aspiration for any fruit in return, your worship will be real love on God. Then, God will give you every thing since He is overwhelmed with your real love to Him.
14. Why do only Christian missionaries even give up their lives in order to spread news of Christ unlike other religions?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Every religion has both merits and defects. The merit of Hinduism is theoretical spiritual knowledge. The merit of Buddhism is elimination of desire, which helps in worshipping God without aspiration for any fruit in return. The merit of Jainism is love and non-violence. The merit of Christianity is practical devotion. The merit of Islam is theoretical sincerity blended with emotional devotion. The merit of science is perfect analysis of items in the creation so that none will mistake any created item as God. The practical devotion of Christianity is the cause for practical propagation of God’s knowledge. Every gem of every religion must be appreciated by all other religions. No religion shall be egoistic claiming that it alone is 100% meritorious. The merits of every religion are from its founder, who is the human incarnation of God and due to good followers of that religion. The defects of every religion are due to the ignorant followers of that religion.
15. Why did God create only one heaven for Jesus and Mohammad followers?
[A question by Śrī Anil]
Swāmi replied:- Merit is merit and sin is sin irrespective of the doer. Hence, there is one heaven and one hell only for any soul irrespective of its religion. There is one court and one jail only for anybody irrespective of his/her religion. Heaven is the third upper world and the abode of God is the seventh upper world in Hinduism. In other religions, heaven is the general word used starting from the third upper world up to seventh upper world. Hence, as per other religions the good souls have gone to the first sub-world of heaven (which is the third upper world in Hinduism) and Jesus went to the final sub-world of heaven (which is the seventh upper world in Hinduism). With this clarification, I think that you will be satisfied since good souls have gone to the lowest sub-world of heaven and Jesus has gone to the highest sub-world of heaven.