Complete Sacrifice of World Is Essential for God's Grace

[Devotees worshipped Swami on the day of this festival, January 10, 2006]

Today you have made Me sit facing North and you had the vision of Me in these early morning hours with a 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 the 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 the poles of North and South. The word Vishuchi means the instrument having the two needles indicating North and South in opposite directions. Thus, this is a simile only and the concept is that God and world are just diagonally opposite. Unless you leave the last point of the path of the world, you cannot enter the first point in the path of God. This indicates that the complete sacrifice of 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 world is in the South. You can take east and west or upward and downward directions also to understand this concept. Similarly, people say that the sacred time is after Pongal when the sun turns towards North. People think that if one dies after this festival, they are salvated. Several great saints died before this festival and several sinners died after this festival. Again, this has inner meaning. The sun indicates the determination taken by the intelligence. The North side indicates God. This means that if you are determined towards God by leaving the world completely, you are salvated atleast at the time of death.

There is no use in taking scriptures in external sense only which will be just for entertainment only. If you see the Ramayana as a story only it is just like the present cinema. Every cinema shows a hero like Rama and a heroine like Sita. A villain like Ravana enters attracted by Sita. Rama wins over Ravana. Every cinema is based on this outline of the Ramayana only. In such case, if you see the Ramayana in the light of a story only, it is as good as seeing a cinema only for entertainment. If you take the inner spiritual sense, then only you are benefited in your spiritual effort. Such inner sense of the Ramayana is called as the Adhyatma Ramayana. Hanuman is the greatest scholar in this universe because He recognised Himself as soul (Jiiva) and Rama as the Lord. Rama never gave any spiritual discourse nor Rama performed any divine miracle. He was covered by a very thick blanket of Maya. Hanuman studied nine grammars of Sanskrit from Sun and no scholar can compete with Hanuman in knowledge. Hanuman performed unimaginable miracles like jumping the sea and carrying the mountain by hand. Any human being in the place of Hanuman will certainly think that he is the Lord and Rama is the devotee. Hanuman remained unmarried and never did any work for selfish purpose in His life. But if you see the case of Rama, He looked very fond of His wife and almost blind in the love of His wife. Ravana was troubling the world and Rama is expected to kill him and save the world. But, Rama said to Ravana on the first day of war that if Ravana returns back Sita, He would just go back. Suppose Ravana returned back Sita, Rama will go back and Ravana will continue to trouble the world. Therefore, for Rama His wife is more important than the world. Hanuman heard this and if you are in his place, you will quit Rama blaming Him as a blind person in the love of His wife, who does not care for welfare of this world. You will say “I have supported you thinking that you will help this world. I never expected that you would come out as such a blind fellow in the love of your wife”. But Hanuman continued to be slave of Rama forever. When Sita was stolen Rama was weeping and told Lakshmana that He will destroy all the fourteen worlds if His wife is not seen. He is prepared to destroy this world containing so many saints for the sake of His foolish wife who brought all the problems due to her attraction towards the golden deer. Lakshmana told Rama that the golden deer is the trick of demons but Rama did not listen his advice and ran after the deer to fulfil the desire of His wife. Again, this shows the blind love of Rama on His wife. If you are in the place of Lakshmana, you will certainly leave Rama telling “I have left my wife in your service. But you are blind in the love of your wife. In such 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 very strong blind fellow in the love of His wife.

The entire Ramayana is only the personal service to Rama attended by the devotees and there is no trace of welfare of this society. Generally, we expect the Lord to come down to this world to uplift the humanity. We join the Lord in such 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 the service to his personal work. But in the Ramayana, you see all the devotees served Rama in His personal affairs only. Every thing was for the sake of protection of His wife only. Such protection is the personal duty of Rama. Lakshmana stood without food and sleep as a watchdog when Rama and Sita were enjoying inside the hut. Sita insulted Lakshmana blaming him that he was after her. In spite of such horrible insult, Lakshmana did all his best to get her back for Rama. Hanuman did all the works for the protection of wife of Rama. Such protection was the personal duty of Rama and has nothing to do with the welfare of the world. Therefore, the essence of all this is that you should not think yourself as the Lord by doing some miracles. Hanuman never thought like that. Similarly, you should recognise the Lord in human form not through miracles. Hanuman recognised Rama as the Lord even without any miracle. Hanuman never told that He is Brahman.

The present Advaita scholars who claim themselves as Brahman are perhaps greater scholars of the Upanishads than Hanuman! Hanuman did not worship photos and idols. Hanuman did not worship energetic forms like Vishnu, Shiva etc., He recognised the human form of the Lord and this is the main essence of the 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 garland of beads. He never did any penance or any other form of worship. All these are theoretical tricks to cheat the Lord. Service is only the real path to please the Lord. Hanuman sacrificed even marriage and even left His parents in search of the Lord in human form. If you are in the place of Hanuman you will 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 back His wife, He will leave Ravana and allow him to continue his mischief to the society. If His wife is so dear, why should I be unmarried?” Even His mother Anjani should have advised Hanuman like this only. But His mother encouraged Hanuman. This means that after recognising the Lord in human form, the logic should stop. You have to use the torchlight on the way only and not after reaching the house. Similarly, you have to use all the logic to recognise the human incarnation, because several false human beings also claim themselves as human incarnations. Once you have reached the Lord, your ultimate aim is only to please the Lord and not to analyse the Lord. The Lord knows how and when to uplift the humanity. His ways are beyond your logic and imagination. You do not know your own welfare and you cannot uplift even your self. It is the outlook of the Lord regarding the welfare of the society. Hanuman was working with the king Sugriva. Vali obstructed the wife of Sugriva, called Ruma. Hanuman can kill Vali just by one stroke. But He did not do so. The same case happened with Rama. The wife of Rama was prisoned 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 who represents the society. Hanuman could have killed even Ravana for the welfare of the society. But He waited till the Lord comes because the Lord can give the punishment. You can punish any human being only by His instruction. The Lord is only the final judge and without the judgement, the punishment cannot be executed by any human being. Therefore, Hanuman waited for the punishment of Vali and Ravana. Therefore, your duty is only to serve the Lord and you should not differentiate the personal service and the service to the society. You have to act according to His wish and pleasure only. He will test your faith by exhibiting Maya. Therefore, the Ramayana gives the essence of spiritual knowledge regarding important points like recognition of human incarnation, position of miracles, path to please the Lord in human form, personal service and service to the society etc. If you take these divine aspects, then only you will be benefited by the Ramayana.

Knowledge is like sitting in your house without happiness or worry. Devotion is like travelling to the Lord by bus or train, which gives you happiness only. But service with sacrifice (Karma Yoga) is like travelling by aeroplane to the Lord, which involves full worry and misery only. To reach the Lord, only 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. The path is full with thorns. After reaching the goal also, you have to sit on the thorny thrown with thorny crown only. Lord Datta is said to be the ocean of bliss. This means that He is not enjoying the bliss but He makes His devotees to enjoy the 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 goal are full of misery only and not the bliss. The spiritual aspirant must always invite troubles and misery in his life, which are the real friends to give the advanced training. But if you analyse carefully, such misery gives you the 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 the misery attacks it. Therefore, you must try to derive the internal bliss through the misery obtained in the sacrifice. Misery also comes by sins but such misery will not give the 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 one sacrifices all the bonds and even is prepared to sacrifice the life by carrying his own cross for the sake of the Lord, He is not pleased with such 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 the poison only as the food cannot be affected by the bite of a serpent.

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 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 the sacrifice of the world is complete. The sages requested the Lord to help them in sacrificing these three bonds. Krishna attracted Gopikas, their children and stole the 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 the Pravrutti, which means the 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 Surpanakha who was looking more beautiful than Sita. Therefore, in Pravrutti the human being should stick to his wife or her husband sincerely without any side attraction. Rama gave His entire kingdom to His sons only. This means that one should give his wealth to his children only in Pravrutti. But Nivrutti appears when the Lord enters this world in the human form. Lakshman left wife. Bharata left wealth. Hanuman left everything and everybody. Their sacrifice was for the sake of the Lord. Similarly, Gopikas came to Brindavanam in the night when Krishna was singing on the flute. Krishna requested them to go back to their houses to attend their husbands and children. But Gopikas refused. They asked Krishna whether the wife who is worshiping the photo of her husband should leave the worship when the actual husband arrives to attend him or not? They treated the fellow human beings as inert photos. The soul is 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 Pravrutti. The husband is highest in Pravrutti. But when Nivrutti comes, the Lord is higher than the husband. Krishna showed Nivrutti. Gopikas faced lot of troubles in Nivrutti because the Lord was not a statue or formless awareness. The Lord was in 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. Imagine the intensity of problems faced by Gopikas when the Lord is in the direct human form!

There are different levels of love even in Pravrutti. On one extreme end you see a wife maintaining an illegal contact with other 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. In between these two extreme ends, different levels of love exist. A widow throws herself forcibly into fire. A widow wears only white sari and gets her head shaved like monk. A widow removes tilakam from her face but wears coloured saris and jewels. A widow marries another person and wears tilakam also. Thus, you find different levels of love in Pravrutti. Similarly, there are different levels of devotion in Nivrutti also. A love should be spontaneous and should not be forced. One level should not criticise another level. You should not force anybody to come to your level only. Any level should be natural without any force.

Krishna was associated with Gopikas and danced with them in nights for two years continuously. They tasted the sweet Lord like a cup of sweet. If you eat the sweet continuously, the value is lost. If Krishna stays in Brindavanam throughout His life, they would have fallen to the lowest level. Samba was the son of Krishna but he mocked the sages and got the curse. Being the son of Krishna, nobody expects him to behave like that. He did not treat his father as Lord due to constant association with Him. In constant association, you are observing the external body and its natural properties only. The internal Lord is invisible. Therefore, you will treat the Lord as an ordinary human being only. This is one extreme end of flood. The other extreme end is drought. Without even little association with the Lord, you cannot have the love practically developed in yourself. By studying the Ramayana, Gopikas could not develop love on the Lord. You cannot develop the love on the sweet just by hearing explanation about it. Therefore, Krishna wanted to develop the devotion of Gopikas and left Brindavanam permanently. They tasted a small cup of sweet and got a long gap. This is the correct middle golden path. By this, the level of devotion rose to climax and Gopikas reached highest abode. In the absence of Krishna, Gopikas tried to get satisfaction from the drawings and statues of Krishna. But they could not get the satisfaction. This means that worship of statues and photos cannot be the perfect path. Uddhava, a messenger from Krishna, came and preached Gopikas that they should meditate on the all-pervading formless aspect of God. Gopikas refused and laughed about that suggestion. In their previous births, these sages did lot of penance on such formless aspect God only and could not get the 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 is spontaneous only. Therefore, the example for anybody in this world is Hanuman only, who sacrificed everything and everybody in His service. The 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 and you can never become mad by any effort. Therefore, you cannot blame Radha for not doing the service to the Lord. It is said that Adissesha, the head of the serpents is bed of the Lord. According to Ramanuja, Shesha means the soul. Any soul is shesha, who attends to do the responsibility of the Lord in human form. Lakshmana never slept and did not take even food in protecting Sita and such protection was duty of the Lord. Hanuman searched for Sita by jumping over the sea. Searching once own wife is 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.

[One devotee asked Me about the benefit of complete sacrifice of the Eshanas by wearing the saffron cloth.]

Even if you limit to this world only, such a person lives without any tension and worry. In such case, there is no trace of selfishness. Such person derives the eternal bliss in the misery obtained by sacrifice in the service of the Lord or even in service of the society. He lives with perfect peace and infinite bliss till his last minute of life. What more benefit is present in this world even in the case of atheist?

[A Christian devotee, Anil Antony, asked Me some questions just now. He asked whether the salvation is a free gift of God and not based on the work.]

This is the climax of foolishness. Even in the 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 full mad person. Do you treat God as mad person, who 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 wander all over the earth and they are propagating the divine knowledge by constant lecturers. Is this not work? If salvation is a free gift why should they work? How much divine work Jesus carried on? In Hinduism, you can support free gift by saying that a soul might have done lot of good work in the previous birth and the gift may appear as free gift because the soul did not perform any good work in this birth. But, Christianity does not believe the re-birth and therefore, such possibility of explanation is also ruled out here.

[His 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 LKG class is not correct. It is correct but it is lowest. The first step is true but does the lowest step exist on the ground. If you take the case of Jesus, He is in the highest step. He also praised and prayed the Lord but never asked anything for Himself. He asked anything only for the propagation of the fame of the Lord. The lowest step is certainly better than the pit, which is lower than the ground. Thus, the beginner is certainly better than the atheist, who does not believe God at all. Even though the beginner is selfish, atleast he believes the existence of God.  

Miracle

(Swami gave a divine vision to a devotee called Sitamma. Swami appeared as Lord Vishnu with Shankha and Chakra on both sides of the face. According to her narration Swami appeared with bright crown and several shining jewels on the body. After giving this vision to the devotee, Swami asked her to explain all the details of the vision to the rest of devotees so that every devotee can feel happy about the vision. Sri C.B.K. Murthy, Smt. Bhavani, Sri. Ajay Kumar were some of the devotees present at that time who felt very happy to hear such divine vision. Sri. C.B.K. Murthy worshipped Swami by chanting 108 names on Swami (Ashtottarasatanamavali). Each name indicates a miracle done by Swami previously, which are narrated in a printed book called “Mahima Yamuna”, which means the Yamuna River of Miracles.)

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