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Shri Datta Swami

 Posted on 08 Apr 2007. Share

Compassion in Punishment

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

God acts as Father as well as the teacher (Guru) in the case of any soul. Since God created the soul, He is the Father. But at the same time, He is the teacher who trains every soul to come up in the spiritual path. Generally, in the world, the father is different since teacher is separate. But here in the case of any soul, the real Father and the real teacher is only one and that is God. Therefore, God is always kind as Father and is strict and harsh as teacher. But the harshness of the teacher is apparent only and in reality, the harshness is kindness only. Hence, basically God is always kind. God appears harsh as the teacher and appears kind as Father. Since the teacher is basically kind even in his harsh attitude also, God is always kind in reality or in the basic sense. The souls have done continuous sins and continuous good deeds and if the results are to be given based on the same sequence and span of time, there will be continuous punishments for long time and continuous happiness for another span of long time. Then it will be summer for one year and winter for one year. But the kindest God has re-arranged our results in such manner so that our human life is made with alternative good and bad results so that there will be summer for two months and winter for two months so that the two years are made with alternative couple of months of summer and winter.

Neither summer nor winter bores with continuity and both summer and winter with the span of one year each gets exhausted. The punishments are used to remove the ignorance and happiness is given as an interval between punishments. The punishments are also selected in such a way so that their intensity is suitable to the frequency of requirement for the transformation in the life again and again. This means that a particular soul requires a particular punishment of a specified intensity suitable to the degree of ignorance of the soul and based on the same, the duration of the punishment also varies from one soul to the other. According to the requirement, a suitable portion from the result of the sin is cut like a piece from a large cake. The size of the piece depends on the requirement of the nature of the soul. The sizes of the pieces of the salt (bad result) and sweet (good result) cakes depend upon the duration of treatment and interval required by the nature of the soul. The salt cake is a medicine for the ignorance and the sweet cake is the food during the treatment for the patient-soul. The leftover cakes are used for the external hell and heaven in the upper world. Whatever may be the place (hell or heaven or earth), the punishments are given for the treatment of ignorance only. In the earth, the punishments are used as medicines but in the hell, the punishments are used as the final surgery for removing the ignorance. In any case, only the kindness of God is always reflected. Thus, God can be seen as Father or Teacher or Doctor giving medicines or surgeon doing operation and, in all angles, only the kindness is reflected always.

God Always Works for Upliftment of Every Soul

He is always working constantly to uplift every soul. God works as Teacher, Doctor and Surgeon and at the same time, the God with an attitude of the Father also observes the possible limit up to which the soul can withstand the treatment. Once the limit is reached, God will regain the attitude of Father withdrawing Himself from the attitude of Teacher or Doctor or Surgeon and as a Father, He starts giving the food of happiness for some time. Remember that He is using the bad and good results of the deeds of the soul only in every action to uplift the soul. The deeds are done by the soul in a free atmosphere and God has no trace of interference and the same time, all this treatment and food arranged alternatively makes the life cycle quite interesting to the soul without boring since continuity of anything is absent. Otherwise, the soul would have got bored and the samskara (strong feeling) of boring should have followed the soul and the soul must have developed repulsion to this world as soon as it is born in this world.

The results of sin are not only serving the purpose of alternative intervals in the continuous happiness but also serve as the cane for guiding the soul in the proper spiritual path. Due to happiness, the soul becomes lazy and proud with ego and such continuous laziness and ego will ruin the soul. Therefore, the results of sin are required immediately to bring normalcy to the soul. After some time, these punishments bring down the soul to the subnormal state and now good results are required to bring the soul up to the normal level. It is just like balancing the horse with a double chain controlling it from both sides or it is just like balancing the patient with the weakness caused by antibiotic medicines and strength caused by nutritious food alternatively. The treatment is very critical and balanced and is highly specific for each soul.

A learned soul will not ask for stopping misery because God has already cut the salt cake to the required size and it has to be finished. The dosage of misery selected by God is like the dosage of medicine selected by the doctor who analyzes the disease properly. You should not decide about the use of medicine or its dosage. You are an ignorant patient and you are not aware of your internal structure. The doctor has scanned the internal organs and knows the dosage of the medicine. The doctor knows whether the medicines are to be used or whether the surgery is necessary in the hell. Therefore, you should not pray God to avoid the hell also. How can the patient say that the surgery should be avoided in his case? Even if the soul is thrown into hell for surgery, the soul should see the kindness of the Doctor-God. Therefore, the soul, surrendered to God will never ask for the removal of misery. It should ask only for the removal of ignorance-illness. The method of treatment is selected by the Sadguru-Doctor-God. Often, the patient cries due to the pain caused by the injection of medicine or surgery and prays to stop the injection of medicine or surgery like the ignorant child. The learned patient will not find fault with the doctor and the doctor will not bother about that pain.

Kuchela (Sudama) was suffering with severe poverty and he did not pray Krishna to remove his poverty because he was a scholar of scriptures. The Lord also kept silent during his misery since the patient is learned and tolerates the pain of the injection of medicine. If the injection here is denied, the patient certainly needs surgery in the hell. The surgery is far more painful than the injection. Neither the Lord is unkind nor Sudama is ignorant. The father and son are learned doctors and therefore, there is no need of the interference of any third party between them. Rukmini, the wife of the Lord, being the mother of the souls recommended the case of Sudama to the Lord. The wife of Sudama was also highly emotional because the Lord being the friend of her husband is keeping silent. She was emotional due to the motherly pain on seeing her starving children. Both the women could not understand the truth, which was known both to the Father (Lord) and the son (Sudama).

Some scholars ask God to exhaust all the sins by continuous punishments so that they can have continuous bliss. It is just like asking the doctor to give a dozen injections on one day itself. This is also another type of ignorance since the patient wants to take the full dosage of medicines immediately so that illness should disappear on the spot. You must leave every thing to the divine doctor and you should surrender to the doctor who is the best judge of the medicine and its dosage. If all the sins are exhausted, the soul will be bored with continuous happiness and the misery due to boring is generated. In the beginning (Kruta Yuga), there was continuous happiness because God created pure souls only. In course of time, the continuous happiness bored them and misery was generated from the continuous happiness itself. Happiness is the mother of misery. The misery produced in the continuous happiness is special because it is generated without any sin. Therefore, God never created misery. Hence, both who like to stop misery and who like to continue the miseries are not wise because the patients are becoming doctors in their own cases. Even a doctor on becoming a patient consults another doctor. In such case, the patient who is not a doctor acting as doctor in his own case is really pitiable.

Prahlada Never Asked for Protection During Sufferance

When Prahlada was tortured, he cried taking the name of the Lord but never asked for the protection. He understood that the torture is taking him up to the climax of devotion. He always thanked the Lord for His exceptional kindness since God is giving him intensive coaching in devotion. His devotion reached the sky due to the torture. But every step of the torture failed at the end to prove the existence of God. If you are in the place of Prahlada, you will blame God for interfering in the last second after such a long torture. You will feel that you have wasted lot of time in the long span of torture. You will feel that God is cruel and finally became kind due to your pathetic appeals. But Prahlada thanked God for such long torture, which is the intensive coaching of devotion, and he was happier because the existence of God is also proved at the end. If you are not devoted to God during difficulties and if you have wasted that precious time in useless worry and tension, you have really lost the time. If you have used these difficulties for provoking your devotion more and more, you have used the difficulties very well. Once the interval of happiness comes, you are going to be lazy and egoistic and thus, in happiness, you cannot even dream about the devotion. You feel lazy in taking even name of the God in happiness. People who have missed the devotion in difficulties are unfortunate because they have suffered without any use. Therefore, difficulties are your golden opportunities to develop your devotion. If you have simply suffered the difficulties just for the sake of finishing the punishment without developing the devotion using those difficulties, even your silent suffering is also a big wastage.

The Advaita scholar suffers the difficulties with patience and detachment by confining to the self. He does not use these difficulties to develop the devotion to the God and to cry for God. In happiness, you will not utter even the name of God and there is no point of crying for God. Only in difficulties, you can cry for God and develop your devotion to the sky. Prahlada used the torture for developing his devotion to the climax by crying for the Lord. He did not detach from the body and confined to the self like an Advaita scholar to suffer the torture with detachment. You must realize the beautiful intention and design behind the miseries, which alone can develop devotion to God. Of course, this devotion is theoretical because it is related to the mind. However, without the theory, where is the birth of practical? The love on God present in the mind alone can lead you into practice, which is the service. Hence, you cannot rule out the theory for a beginner. If a person enters into practice straightly in this life, it means he had sufficient theory in previous birth, which is following soul as a strong feeling (samskara or vasana).

The difficulties are really pious because they serve the Lord on the earth when He comes down bored with continuous happiness in the upper world. The servants of God are always your real guides in the spiritual path. Getting detachment from the difficulties is not the aim of the Lord. If that were the aim, the Lord would have not created problems at all in this world. The difficulties serve as good intervals between two happy scenes. After misery, the happiness gives you the real taste just like the sweet after tasting pickle. Therefore, to enjoy the happiness, misery is a pre-requisite. God enjoys both happiness and misery equally like sweet and hot dishes in the meal. Even the soul has to enjoy in this way only, if it wants to reach the state of God. The difficulties are real preachers even to Advaita scholars. In the lifetime if the soul is enjoying the difficulties also with equal entertainment, such a soul is certainly the Brahman. Thus, the experience in the difficulties gives you the proof of the status of your soul. Logically you may arrive that you are God but experience is different from logic. Logically one may prove that the food eaten is another form of the excretion of the human being itself. The pigs eat the excretion of human being and excretion of pigs is used as manure for the fields. The manure becomes the material of the crop. All this logistic cycle proves that the human being is eating its own excretion. But such conclusion is not correct because the experience in tasting the food is quite different from tasting the excretion. Logic is useful in rejecting the non-divine items but not in experiencing the divine nature of God. God is beyond logic. Therefore, if you are God (Brahman), why don’t you enjoy the problems like the tragic scenes in the cinema? For you (advaita scholar), the entire creation is only imaginary like the cinema. Therefore, the difficulties prove that the soul is not God by itself inherently. But the soul can become God when God charges it to enter this world as the human incarnation. If the soul enjoys the difficulties, the soul reaches the state of God even though the soul does not become God. When the soul becomes God (when the soul is charged by God and becomes human incarnation) such soul is the creator, maintainer and destroyer of the world. But when the soul attains the state of God, the soul is equal to God in all aspects (Matbhavayopapadyate- Gita) except in the above-mentioned three aspects because it is not actually God.

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