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Datta Vedaantah - Yoga Parva: Chapter-13: Yogopadesha Jnaanam

(Knowledge of Advises for Yoga)

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O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

The first advice is that you shall not think yourself as God or part of God, in which case there is no need for you to do any effort to reach God. This advice is given to you assuming that you are already theist believing in the existence of seperate God. If you are already the Banaras city or a street of that city, you need not travel to that city! You shall think that you are the servant of God to reach Him to do service to Him. In course of time, your master may be pleased with your service and may adopt you as His son/daughter treating you as His right hand in His work of propagation of spiritual knowledge and then you are treated as His part. Finally, He may write a will making you the owner of His property by which you may be treated as Himself. Without doing any service in His work, you are assuming as His adopted son or as Himself already! If your assumption is true, there is no need to advise you because you are the best adviser to this world!
The gradual steps to reach God are:- 1) To develop faith in the existence of God. 2) To identify the contemporary human incarnation and reach it to get true spiritual knowledge for right direction in your effort. 3) To participate in His mission of propagation of spiritual knowledge by which you will assimilate it. 4) Not to do any sin practically in the life in order not to displease God. 5) To do good works to please God. 6) Gradually, trying to develop real theoretical and practical love to God without aspiration for any fruit in return. The first five steps are Pravrutti and the last sixth step is Nivrutti. One can enter the sixth step only after climbing the initial five steps.
Pravrutti is related to an ordinary soul devoted to God for a happy life without misery here as well as there after death. In Pravrutti, God is only an instrument used to escape misery (punishment for own sins) and to attain happiness (fruit of good deeds). Such aim is not wrong because it is natural tendency of any soul in this creation. But, the astonishing aspect of it is that the soul wants to escape the punishments of sins done by itself and also wants to attain fruits of good deeds not done by itself! For this highly irrational desire also, there is a provision created by God, which is realization of the sin committed (without misinterpreting as justified action), repentance for the sin done and non-repetition of the same sin again in the rest of life period. By this, the punishments of all such type of sins already done by you pending to give you punishments are cancelled by God and you will escape not only the misery of present punishment but also the future misery of similar type of punishments (Jñānāgniḥ... Gita).
If you want that total misery shall disappear in your future life, you must not repeat any type of sin in your entire life. Absence of misery is peace. If you say that mere peace without any happiness bores you, even mere happiness bores you! Continuous enjoyment of sweets also bores you and develops allergy towards sweets! The happiness comes only as fruit of good deeds only. If you are doing normal sins, you will go to hell (sub-world) for punishments to attain misery. If you are not doing sins, you will go to the middle sub-world called Pitruloka where peace is attained. If you do good deeds, you will go to the third upper world called heaven to attain happiness. Even while you are alive in this world, you will get misery for your sins, peace for not doing sins and happiness for doing good deeds. A little portion of all these three types of fruits will be given to you in this world also to make you realize here that the concept of deed and its fruit is true as arranged by the unimaginable God through unimaginable power. A major portion of the fruit is enjoyed in the upper worlds after death.
Misery is the fruit of sin, which is minus. Peace is the fruit of not doing sin, which is the middle zero. Happiness is the fruit of good deed, which is plus. Zero shall not be treated as plus in absolute sense, but, can be treated as plus in relative sense compared to the misery. Absence of loss in the business is also a type of profit only compared to the loss! Hence, you can enjoy the relative happiness in the form of peace by not doing sin, which itself is considered as a type of good deed only. This is very very important point. If sin is done, you might have climbed the final stage of Nivrutti, even such Nivrutti becomes useless as in the case of Ravana. You might have attained a pot of divine nectar, but, a drop of Haalahala poison will spoil it. Hence, the divine nectar is generated from the churned sea only after the whole terrible poison called Haalahala was swallowed by God Shiva.
If you are not doing sin, it itself is as good as doing a good deed! There is a crude saying that not releasing bad odour by purging in a temple is as good as lightening scented sticks! This crude saying will come to the memory often and brings the concept along with it. Some say that one shall be always active (Mā te saṅgostvakarmaṇi— Gita) and actions must be done whether those are good or bad. This is wrong interpretation. Here, the word ‘akarma’ means not doing good work because ‘karma’ means good work, ‘vikarma’ means bad work and ‘akarma’ means not doing good work (Karmaṇohyapi... Gita). Inactivity by not doing good or bad work is better than not doing bad work. The word ‘Naishkarmya’ means not doing worldly works, which can’t be attained by leaving all types of works (Na karmaṇāmanārambhāt... –Gita) because one has to do God’s work called karmayoga (Matkarmaparamo bhava, Karmayogo viśiṣyate—Gita). As per the context, the meaning of the word karma shall be taken to mean good work or all works since the word karma has deep sense (Gahanā karmaṇo gatiḥ— Gita).
God excuses sins done in ignorance, but, punishes souls doing sins with knowledge due to ego. Even soft natured animals do a horrible sin of sex without discrimination of brother and sister, which are not punished by God due to their deep ignorance! This sin is not done even by demons, but, demons are punished by God for their other sins because demons have knowledge of a sin, but, do the sin due to ego. There is no better scholar of scriptures than Ravana, who still committed terrible sins! Angels never commit sin whereas human beings commit sin and rectify it through reformation. The human beings doing sin due to ignorance are called animals with two legs. The human beings doing sin due to ego while aware of the sin are called demons in human form. The human beings, who never commit sin, are called angels in human bodies (angels are always in energetic bodies). Reformation (including realization, repentance and non-repetition of sin) makes the sinner-human being to become angel while alive in human body!
The human beings are always in wrong path except very few, who are always in right path. Mostly the human beings are either atheists (not believing in God and doing sins without fear) or atheistic-theists (believing in God with a doubt about the existence of God) doing sins with some fear. The atheists have strongest belief in the non-existence of God. They feel that the priests have developed this concept of God so that in the name of worship to God, they can earn for their livelihood. The atheists are horrible in placing the existence of God in the hands of the priests! Certainly, the priests have exploited devotees by saying that if God is worshipped, sins will be destroyed and misery can be escaped. They have made God to be a human king, who will cancel the punishment on flattering and soaping! This is not the correct way of interpretation. When God is worshipped, He will come in the form of human incarnation and will preach the process of reformation by which one can escape all the punishments (Kṣipraṃ bhavati… Gita). The priests, certainly, diverted the worship for their earnings needed for their livelihood. But, saying that God is created by priests is the most terrible sin.
Why our past generations believed strongly in God? The belief came due to their long experience of incidents of life. When old people describe their self-experiences of punishments of sins done by them in their lives, the link between sin and its punishment was clearly established. Hence, learned people say that God is realized through experience only (Anubhavaikavedyaṃ Brahma). The link between sin and its punishment is clearly drawn from the common nature of deed and fruit. The daughter of a fellow gets raped and such fellow realizes his past sin of raping a good lady in similar way. The nature of the fruit reveals the same nature of past sin (Phalānumeyāḥ prārambhāḥ...). By such analysis of miseries and past sins, every old fellow realizes the existence of unimaginable God using unimaginable power in getting every sin punished here itself. The punishment here is very little, just to show the concept and major part of the punishment will be in the hell after death! Similarly, fruits of good deeds are also realized in this life itself in the same way.
Apart from this knowledge attained by the experience, the unimaginable power of unimaginable God is also seen by human beings through miracles performed by incarnations and climax devotees. Even if the performer of the miracle is devilish, the establishment of existence of unimaginable power of God is not at all disturbed. The qualities of a demonstrator performing a scientific experiment are unnecessary as far as the experiment and its concept are concerned. The devilish person will be punished for all his sins separately and this is in no way concerned with the miracle demonstrated by him that establishes the unimaginable nature of God. You need not reject the miracle because the performer of the miracle is devilish. You need not reject the medicine given by a doctor to control your smoking since the doctor is a smoker! The doctor will suffer for his smoking and you need not show this as the cause for not using the medicine suggested by him!
Hence, every miracle is divine and very important for an atheist to be converted in to theist. Some scholars scold miracles as black magic in negative way since the performer of the miracle is devilish. Even if it is black magic (it is called as black magic due to your jealousy based on your incapability of performing the miracle), you must investigate it and see whether it is a genuine miracle or not. You can reject it if your investigation proves that it is false magic. Some say that when one creates an item by will-force, the same item disappeared elsewhere due to law of conservation of energy and matter. If it is so, why such speaker is unable to do that simple miracle? When some scientists approached Satya Sai for the first time, Satya Sai created a photo of Himself among those standing scientists and this scene never existed in the past. Logic and investigation are certainly necessary to prove that a miracle is genuine and not false magic. A scientist believes the miracle after its genuine proof, but, an atheist is still rigid by commenting that even a genuine miracle is false magic!
Of course, miracles are having negative sense in another angle and not in the above angle. Miracles are very important to condemn atheism. But, miracles are negative since these are very dangerous for theist. The theist always tries to exploit the miraculous power of God to solve his/her worldly problems, which are nothing but the punishments of sins done previously. To get the advantage of miraculous powers, devotees praise the performer of the miracles (especially the human incarnation) as God. The human incarnation is always a homogenous mixture of God and a selected human being. The human being-component becomes egoistic due to such praise and the God-component quits it at once. If one worldly problem is solved, the devotee will be ready with another hundred worldly problems and this will strengthen the worldly side only and not the spiritual side. The real spiritual development of any soul exists only when the soul is loving (theoretically and practically) God without aspiration for any fruit in return. Thus, miracle damages the human being-component of incarnation on one side and the human devotees on the other side like a double-edged knife cutting both sides. In this angle, miracles are negative, but, these are very positive in establishing the existence of unimaginable God to an atheist. Several atheists are converted into theists due to these genuine miracles.
In first sense, the word Karma means any general activity of a soul whether it is good or bad or neutral. In second sense, the word Karma means only good work. In the third sense, the karma also means God’s work, which is specifically mentioned as Karma Yoga. As per the context, the sense shall be selected. Sins are not done due to the fear of punishment here as well as there. Similarly, good works are done due to attraction to good fruits giving happiness here as well as there. These good works are done in two angles:- 1) Due to love towards the souls of this world, called social service and 2) Due to love towards God so that God is pleased if souls are pleased and here social service becomes a part of God’s work only. Apart from these two angles, the third angle is that good works are done for attaining happiness from good fruits sanctioned by God. The first (love to souls) and third (attraction to happiness given by good fruits) angles belong to Pravrutti (worldly life) and the second (love to God, who is pleased if souls are pleased) middle angle belongs to Nivrutti (spiritual life). Doing social service in third angle is lower state and doing the social service in the first angle is higher state and both these angles belong to Pravrutti only. Doing social service in the second angle is highest Nivrutti. In this highest angle, social service is done not due to selfish love and not due to love for other souls, but, due to love to God. In this Nivrutti, social service is done only to please God because a father feels happy if one of his issues helps the other issues. Whether you are helping your brothers and sisters due to your love on them or due to your love on your father is the main point. Even an atheist does social service in the first sense (due to love on brothers and sisters) and is blessed by God with happiness here as well as there even though the atheist scolds God! Even if the theist is doing sins, the theist will be punished by God here as well as there since God is impartial without any selfishness. The father feels unhappy if you help your brother or sister, who is under the punishment given by God for reformation. Discrimination between good and bad fruits is very important basis in the social service.
Nivrutti is purely personal relationship of the devotee with God by which the entire responsibility of the devotee is taken by God as per the justice of relationship only. You shall not misunderstand that this is selfishness of God in protecting personal bond. You may criticize that God is also like an ordinary human being protecting the son and leaving others to their responsibilities only. If your criticism is correct, what is the difference between son and outsider? If there is no difference, the outsider must also serve you like your good son without aspiration for any fruit in return. When the outsider is different from the son in this angle, the father must differentiate the outsider (follower of Pravrutti) from the good son (follower of Nivrutti). You shall not argue that since all souls are issues of God only, such difference does not arise at all. This is not correct because the father shows partiality towards a good son neglecting other bad sons. The father is not harming bad sons with revenge (punishment brings at least temporary reformation), but, is helping good sons and this is not unjust partiality.
While giving food to a hungry person, you shall not discriminate whether he is good or bad because assuming that he is even an atheist, if he dies due to hunger, he will not have opportunity to reform himself in future life. This is justified due to emergency (Aapaddharma). While doing functions, people invite their relatives and friends to feed them heavily and give gifts to them, but, not feed poor beggars. The friends and relatives have their food in their homes and are also rich not requiring gifts. This is sin since charity is done to undeserving fellows due to blind worldly fascination and charity is not done to deserving persons based on sharp analysis, called ‘Samvit’ by the Veda (Samvidā deyam). Hence, the help of sharp analysis is required, which can come only from Sadguru, who does not bother about your pleasure and displeasure.
In avoiding sins and doing good works, you shall be very careful in doing intrinsic analysis so that you can identify the actual sin and actual merit. Sometimes, you do sins thinking those as merits and vice-versa. The reason for this misunderstanding is your classification of good and bad based on good and bad qualities respectively that appear. You have fixed certain qualities like anger etc., as bad qualities and certain other qualities like non-violence etc., as good qualities. You think that a person appearing angry is bad person whereas a person appearing peaceful is a good person. A cheat appears very calm and peaceful and a frank person appears furious. Again, you must not generalize this and conclude that every peaceful person is bad and every furious person is good! You have to decide good and bad based on not only qualities but also based on the contexts in which the qualities appear. If a person is shouting against a bad fellow, such person is good and if a person is peaceful to a bad fellow, such person is bad. If a person is shouting against a good fellow, such person is bad and if a person is peaceful to a good fellow, such person is good.
Bhishma and Drona were peaceful while Draupadi was insulted and their peace is sin. Arjuna withdrew from fighting with bad Kauravas and such withdrawal is also a sin. Even though he pleaded that he can’t fight against good Bhishma and good Drona, his argument is totally wrong. Both these elders are standing on the side of bad Kauravas as support and how such elders supporting injustice are good? Arjuna withdrew from war due to his blind fascination towards both these elders and not due to sharp analysis. Therefore, even arguments are wrong in some cases. Arjuna got clarification from Krishna, who is Sadguru to guide in worldly matters and spiritual matters and such guidance is the Gita.
There are six vices:- 1) illegal sex, 2) illogical anger and violence, 3) indiscriminate greediness, 4) ignorant fascination, 5) improper ego and 6) irrational jealousy. The first three belong to Pravrutti and the latter three belong to Nivrutti. The first three result in harming other souls. The subsequent three harm self due to hindered spiritual progress. God becomes furious with the first three, which are called sins. God becomes displeased with the subsequent three vices. Hence, the first three are called the three main gates of hell as said in the Gita (Trividham...). Displeased God can be brought to normalcy through easy efforts. But, furious God can’t be brought to normalcy so easily. Hence, every soul is sincerely advised not to do the first three vices under any circumstances.
All the six vices are the six knives, which can be used for cutting vegetables, for killing others and even for committing suicide. It is wise to use the knife to cut vegetables. For this, God is happy for the wisdom of the soul in worldly life. With the help of knife if one punishes sinners, God is pleased more. With the help of same knife, if one protects good people, God is mostly pleased. If one commits suicide, God is displeased and feels unhappy for the foolishness of the soul. God becomes furious if one harms good people with the same knife. In this way, there are several angles of the knife or a quality in various contexts. Without the knowledge of all these contexts and sharp analysis, it is very difficult to conclude which is good and which is bad. An ignorant fellow simply believes that harming others is bad and Arjuna behaved like an ignorant fellow to drop from the war. Krishna analyzed the qualities and contexts with sharp analysis to prove that participating in war to kill unjust people is good and justified.
The soul is advised to worship statues and photos of God as representative models of God to develop theoretical devotion to God. Theoretical knowledge can’t be developed by the inert statues and photos. In the worship of statues and photos, service and sacrifice must be done with the help of sharp analysis. This means that one shall not waste precious food items in bathing the statues. Similarly, in the name of sacrifice, the precious food item, the ghee (including cloths, fruits etc.,), shall not be burnt. The fire is lit in the sacrifice only to cook the food with precious ghee, which is to be served to hungry devotees and which is to be burnt by the hunger fire (Vaishvaanaraagni) and not by the physical fire used for cooking the food. God becomes very furious if you waste food since He created food from the five inert elements for the sake of living beings. The fellow, who wastes food is insulting God! One can bathe the statues with scented water and decorate them well so that the mind gets attracted towards the statues. The statues must be carved with climax of beauty so that minds of devotees get attracted. Unfortunately, we find most of the statues in very ugly forms! In this angle, photos are far better than statues.
The soul is advised not to have ego of any position or the ego of headship of the family at least before God. In the case of inculcating discipline in youngsters and threatening bad people, ego may be exhibited for good purpose. In such exhibition also, the soul shall not be tinged with ego in anyway. Exhibition of ego in improper contexts will spoil the soul. As long as you are fascinated to your limited family bonds, God will not take care of your family since you are already concerned about those family bonds. If you are fascinated to the bond of God only, God will take care of your family. If God takes care of your family, your family is perfectly protected (because God is omnipotent whereas your potency is very much limited) and that will be your real love to your family.
Instead of your impotent fascination to your family, you must encourage your family to become devotees to God. In such case, you need not pray for them for their difficulties since they themselves pray God straight. You must start propagation of spiritual knowledge in your family and then extend in the society. If your family becomes devotees to God, it will not hinder your spiritual progress. If your family is not changed, you shall not wait till they get changed and you shall start your propagation in the society without wasting the little time of your life. If your unchanged family hinders you in your spiritual efforts, you shall do God’s work secretly as far as possible as said in the Gita (Ātmānaṃ rahasi sthitaḥ, Rahasyaṃ hyetaduttamam). You shall not hurt your ignorant family under any circumstances and for this purpose, you can even cheat your family, which is not a sin because your spiritual progress will please God to make Him to protect your family and this fact is unknown to your family! Of course, you shall not cheat your family for the sake of other people, which becomes a sin in Pravrutti or worldly life.
Your bad behaviour consisting of six vices is the root source of your sin. The same six vices will mislead you to punishment also, which is stated by elders “your sin itself will burn you”. For example, if one earns a lot by corruption due to greediness for money, he will be mislead by his greediness itself to invest it in wrong place and to lose it. This may not cause much pain. But, the person invests even ethically earned money also along with it and looses it also ending in miserable pain (Anyāyenārjitam...). Hence, one is advised not to be clutched by the six vices to make God serious about that soul, which is very much opposite to Yoga. Yoga means pleasing God and six vices mean making God to become furious.
For salvation (which means liberation from misery) from pending fruits of sins, practice of non-repetition of sin is most important and most difficult also for several souls due to the constant influence of six vices for the past several births. In such inevitable context, the soul must surrender totally to God for help (Tameva śaraṇam…—Gita). In real surrender, the soul clearly knows the will of God and tries to follow it. In false surrender, the soul attributes its will as the will of God. For Yoga, you shall implement the will of God (not to do sin) and then only it is real total surrender to God. False people say that they have already totally surrendered to God and whatever is their will now, is the will of God (Jānāmi dharmam…). You must always try to follow the will of God and once you succeed in it, then only it means that you have totally surrendered to God. For this, your constant trial and grace of God are essential. God’s grace can be obtained through constant devotion and continuous service to God.
Spiritual concepts must be applied to the correct context after careful analysis because selfish partiality will make you feel wrong contexts as right and vice-versa. In your personal cases, you must take the advice of Sadguru or at least a guru strictly following the knowledge of a Sadguru. Your judgement in your personal cases is always wrong unless you are the incarnation of God. By this, you will always show peace and anger in wrong contexts only. In correct context also, if you are really unable to control injustice through your anger and force, then only, you must leave it to the will of God. Otherwise, you must control the sin even if it is others’ case after getting correct conclusion from the mouth of Sadguru. By this, you are pleasing God (Yoga) since you are participating in His duty to establish justice and to destroy injustice.

Iti Datta Vedaante Yogaparvaṇi
Yogopadeśa Jñānaṃ nāma Trayodaśādhyāyaḥ.

The Thirteenth Chapter of Yogaparva of Datta Vedanta, which is the Knowledge of Advises for Yoga, is completed.

Datta Vedaantah

Part-1: Brahmaparva: Chapter-1: Anuyogajnanam

Part-1: Brahmaparva: Chapter-2: Anuhya Parabrahma Jnanam

Part-1: Brahmaparva: Chapter-3: Ishvaraavataara Jnanam

Part-1: Brahmaparva: Chapter-4: Datta Vaishishtya Jnanam

Part-2: Jiiva Parva: Chapter-5: Jagattattva Jnaanam

Part-2: Jiiva Parva: Chapter-6: Jiivaatma Tattva Jnaanam

Part-2: Jiiva Parva: Chapter-7: Avidyaa Guna Karma Tattva Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-8: Yoga Vicaara Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-9: Nishkaama Yoga Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-10: Yoga Saadhana Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-11: Yoga Kaushala Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-12: Yoga Samanvaya Jnaanam

Part-3: Yoga Parva: Chapter-13: Yogopadesha Jnaanam

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