Datta Vedaantah - Yoga Parva: Chapter-9: Nishkaama Yoga Jnaanam
(Knowledge of the Selfless Yoga)
Jump to other chapters
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
- Among the worldly bonds, bond with issues is greatest because the practical proof of the true love exists always in this bond. The final practical proof is the practical service and practical sacrifice of fruit of work (hard earned money). The parents do immense service to their issues since childhood and finally sacrifice all the total fruit of their work (hard earned wealth) to their issues only and to none else. Even though parents expect service from issues in return in their old age and if the issues do not render service in their old age, the parents may scold them but never change their will of hard earned wealth already written to the issues! Hence, this bond is top most among all the worldly bonds in practical sense.
- The bond of issues with their parents may not be of true love, but, the bond of parents with their issues is certainly of true love and hence, greatest among all the worldly bonds. Hence, the word Datta means adopted son and not the adopted Father. The devotee shall try to look Datta equal to his issues and not try to look Datta as adopted Father. The reason is that the father will show true love to his son even if the son becomes enemy to his father and not vice-versa. The devotee must similarly have true love to God even if God harms the devotee without giving desired boons. Such true love is possible only when God Datta is treated as adopted son and not as adopted father.
- Datta looks always like sixteen year old boy as said by one of His hundred holy names (Nityaśoḍaśavarṣīyase namaḥ). By this, there is no chance of treating Him as adopted Father. Angels appear always in 30 years age (Tridashaah), who can’t avoid the possibility of being a father. But, our clever devotees always praise God (Datta) as Father only (Pitā tvameva— Gita) so that as father He has to fulfil their desires even if they are undeserving! Our devotees show God’s word itself as authority to treat God as father (Ahaṃ bījapradaḥ pitā— Gita). But, God is not like the worldly father having a wife to generate children. In fact, God created the entire world including the souls whereas worldly father creates only children and not the world. The main essence of a real bond is always love without aspiring anything in return from the other side. This point is against the general usage that even a stupid fellow will not act without the fruit in return (Prayojanamanuddiśya, na mando'pi pravartate).
- Unfortunately, from our childhood, we are trained by a wrong tradition that encourages us to worship God for the sake of our welfare only in return! The tradition shall train the soul from its childhood in the divine stories of God to develop love in the child regarding the projected wonderful inspiring personality of God without mention of any fruit for devotion. The training given in the childhood can never be changed later on. Of course, the false training (fruit oriented devotion) gives powerful attraction since any soul is interested in its welfare only. In this concept, both merit and defect lie simultaneously. But, in childhood the concept of personal welfare is not much developed and hence, the correct training (personality oriented devotion) must be given to the child. In order to attract grown-up souls also towards God, devotion linked to fruit is essential in the initial stage. Hence, the Veda mentions such rituals fulfilling the desires (Kaamya Yajna) in the beginning and proceeds later on to the Upanishats in which devotion delinked with fruit is explained.
- In the initial stage even God is projected as the giver of boons based on fruit linked devotion as seen in temples. Of course, this is better than fruit-delinked atheism, but, the final golden state is only fruit-delinked devotion. This is the reason for the initial exhibition of miracles linked with fruits by the incarnation. The propagation of the incarnation along with true spiritual knowledge (fruit-delinked devotion) in any localized area may discourage the devotees because the really deserving devotees of true spiritual knowledge are in minority like diamonds scattered here and there only. The majority of devotees is interested in fruit-linked devotion only existing everywhere in crowds like the heaps of gravel stones. If you want to propagate the incarnation everywhere, you will be encouraged if you propagate the incarnation along with its miracles. Only propagation of true spiritual knowledge through E-mails and TV channels becomes fruitful so that the real diamonds alone will be attracted to it.
- The service and sacrifice done to issues is against to this usage (that none acts without fruit) since we are doing practical sacrifice to our issues even if they become enemies to us. In spite of this truth, we aspire their return service to us in our old age. By this, we may mistake that there is no real bond in this world, which is totally against the above usage. But, we find such exceptional bond in this world also. A fan of a political hero does not get any benefit from the hero, spends a lot from his pocket only for his propaganda and finally commits suicide when the hero dies. The fan sacrifices even bond to his life (Praaneshana) as we heard that Gopikas jumped in to fire after the end of Krishna. If that fan replaces the hero by God, the fan gets the full grace of God. However, the love of the fan is purest and the goal is only foolish unlike the case of Gopikas. Hence, practical example for fruit-delinked love exists even today in the world.
- The fan is totally impressed by the personality of the hero involved in social service. If the hero is a cinema actor, his personality is always projected with climax of goodness, which is false in reality. But, in the case of God the personality projected by scriptures is really real. Naarada in his Bhakti Sutram says that devotion is created on hearing the divine stories of God (Tat kathā śravaṇādiṣu...) and the same is said in the Gita also (Kathayantaśca...). This path is really effective in generating devotion. Some believe in constant repetition of the name of God to develop devotion to Him as we see devotees repeating the name of God constantly by rotating the garland of beads!
- If we are really interested to know the truth, the devotee does not develop any devotion through such path of repeating the name continuously. After sometime, the devotee develops headache if he is really a human being. Instead of this, if the devotee reads or hears the exciting stories of God in which His divine personality is repeatedly projected, the devotion is certainly developed in the devotee, if he is really a human being and not a robot! Shankara used the word japam in repeating divine stories and not in repeating the name (Guṇagaṇakathāmreḍana japāḥ). Even the spiritual knowledge, which is the sharp analysis of the nature of God, creates immense devotion in the case of intellectuals. We hear that God appears before a devotee chanting His name repeatedly for a long time (and this is called penance!) to grant boons to him. If this is true, the background truth is that God develops severe headache on constantly hearing the name and appears to grant boons, not impressed by his devotion, but, to get rid of the headache!!
- Knowledge and devotion are theoretical phases, which are also essential because theory is source of practice. God expects your practical service and sacrifice along with your theoretical devotion developed by theoretical knowledge because God is really not in need of your service and sacrifice. God is not a beggar to accept your service and sacrifice based on sympathy because of the absence of any need since He is fully contented (Āptakāmasya kā spṛhā—Veda, Nānavāptamavāptvyam— Gita). All your strength and wealth are given by God only, but, God covers your brain with illusion to recognize this so that your service with sacrifice to God is not based on gratefulness. When you do the service and sacrifice to God without the concepts of sympathy and gratefulness, then only the real love developed in your heart towards His divine personality gets proved provided there is no any aspiration from Him in return for such selfless love.
- The path to God is very narrow, full of thorns and you may find one or two souls only very rarely! The path to hell is very wide, full of flowers and you can find always lot of traffic jam! A grandfather brought a packet of biscuits for his grandson and gave it to his mother secretly telling her to maintain the secrecy. The grandson got some biscuits from his mother and is thinking that his mother brought the packet. The grandfather begged the grandson for a biscuit (while the grandson is eating the biscuits) neither based on sympathy (the grandson knows that his grandfather is very rich) nor based on gratefulness (the grandson does not know that the grandfather brought the packet). If the grandson gives a biscuit to his grandfather with full theoretical respect (since grandfather is not in need as known by the grandson), the grandson proved that his love to his grandfather is real. The begging of grandfather for a biscuit is only based on his desire to test his real love for grandfather.
- Generally, one is doing service and sacrifice to God existing in temples. But, the statue in the temple is only a representative inert symbol (Pratiika) of God and not God directly. The Veda (Na tasya pratimā...) and secondary scripture (Pratimā hyalpabuddhīnām...) say that God does not exist directly in statues and photos and that the statue or photo is only for the beginners. The Gita clearly says that God comes down as incarnation through human form (Mānuṣīṃ tanumāśritam). Then only, your service and sacrifice become meaningful and real when rendered to the contemporary human incarnation, which is very very important to test the real devotion. You have to really offer the food to God in human form by which your real love to Him is really proved. When you offer the food to the statue of God and eat it with your family, your devotion is not really proved, which may be real or a false show.
- Gopikas got Goloka, which is specially created 15th world above the creation confined to 14 worlds because they proved clearly that any worldly bond is defeated before the bond with God and such God is neither a statue of energetic incarnation (like Vishnu, Shiva etc.,) nor statue of past human incarnation (like Vaamana, Raama etc.,) but, the contemporary human incarnation, called Krishna. The human incarnation is relevant to this human world whereas energetic incarnation is relevant to the upper energetic world. But, due to repulsion between common media of God and soul, energetic incarnation is repelled in the upper world by energetic beings and the human incarnation is repelled in this world by human beings. Due to this, the soul is missing God here in this world during life and the same soul after death going to the upper world in energetic body is missing God there also. Hence, God is not even recognized by any soul anywhere and at any time! The Veda calls this as permanent loss (Mahatī vinaṣṭiḥ) to the soul.
- Recognition of relevant contemporary human incarnation by conquering ego and jealousy to co-human form is difficult. More difficulty lies in rendering real service and real sacrifice without aspiring any fruit in return. In the place of contemporary human incarnation if inert statues (of energetic incarnations or past human incarnations) are kept, the direct service and sacrifice can be avoided. We can offer the food and eat it ourselves. We can put our gold chain in the neck of the statue during worship and take it back at the end of worship. By this, we think that service and sacrifice are done by us to get full boons from God and at the same time, even if the boons are not granted there is no practical loss to us since we eat the offered food and take back the gold chain at the end of the worship. Worship of statues is developed very much due to this convenience and due to lack of risk. Due to the inconvenience and risk, the concept of contemporary human incarnation is denied by majority of devotees.
- The main problem of everybody is to avoid the worldly misery for which the sin done is totally responsible. Unless the sin is cancelled by God, the misery can’t be avoided permanently by any other way. Of course, temporarily the misery can be avoided by your devotion to God since God postpones the misery with increased interest to future. How to get the sins done cancelled by God for permanent solution? The only way is realization, repentance and non-repetition of sin and except this one way, surely, there is no other way to get the punishments cancelled forever. Doing a merit can give good fruit separately, but, can’t cancel the sin done. If one is arrested for theft, he can’t suggest that his arrest may be cancelled since he will not take the gold medal got by him in the examinations. He has to take the gold medal and has to be placed in prison. Merit can never cancel the sin.
- The priests may say that worship of God will cancel the sins. Such a lie is told because the priests can earn some offering from you through the worship conducted by them! You shall not doubt that how the Gita told that even the sinful devotee of God will get peace by getting the sins cancelled by God (Api cet..., Śāntiṃ nigacchati). The doubt comes that how the love shown to God can cancel the sins forever (temporary solution by postponement is only possible)? This means that the judge will cancel his negative judgement given to you if you show immense love to the judge! Hence, if we soap the judge, will he cancel his negative judgement given to us? How this scripture (the Gita) said such illogical and unjust statement? The Veda says that peace will not come as long as the sins are continued (Nāvirato duścaritāt nāśāntātmā...).
- In this statement there is an intermediate step which is told by the scripture that your love to God makes God to reform you after which only God cancels your sins to give you peace (Kṣipraṃ bhavati dharmātmā...). The Gita clearly says that due to extreme devotion to God, the devotee will be reformed by God and will get the peace by getting relief from miseries. It means because of your love to God, God will preach you the concept of reformation so that you will be reformed to get the peace. Only an ignorant human king cancels the punishment given by him to you since you have trapped and exploited him through your praise. But, God is omniscient and can’t be exploited by ignorant souls. Pleased with your devotion, God will come down to earth in human form to reform you through His preaching. We must always remember that the fruit of action must be enjoyed by the soul even after millions of births with accumulated interest (Avaśyamanubhoktavyam...) unless reformation of soul takes place. God incarnates on this earth only for the sake of devotees, who prayed Him to come to earth for their protection.
- Your extreme love to God itself will reform you because as devotee, when you like God, you must dislike anything that is not liked by Him. This is the fundamental true devotion. When God does not like the sins, as a devotee of God, you must also dislike sins, which are disliked by Him. This results in non-repetition of sin so that God will cancel all your sins having pending punishments and in this way, reformation comes by devotion and not by knowledge. In this way, we may say that the devotion develops reformation directly. But, even in this way to know that God dislikes sins is also knowledge! Punishment is a temporary solution to bring temporary reformation through fear. If permanent reformation is obtained through your devotion making God to reform you through His knowledge, what is the use of implementing punishment in the case of a permanently reformed soul through knowledge? Punishment is not for revenge but, for reformation only to avoid repetition of sin. A killer is hanged to death so that the killer may not kill second person. If you are sure that the killer is reformed and will not kill the second person, what is the use of hanging the reformed soul, which can’t make the first killed victim to become alive? This is the logic behind the cancellation of sins after full reformation of soul. The importance of contemporary human incarnation is the reformation of soul brought by the excellent preaching of true spiritual knowledge by human incarnation.
- The life cycles of souls are re-arranged by the divine Father. If the soul did some merits continuously and then some sins continuously, continuous enjoyment of one type is very much difficult. Hence, God prepares the life cycle by placing merits and sins one after the other alternatively so that the life is really enjoyed like meals having alternative sweet and hot dishes. As divine Father, God always tries to help the souls. This arrangement is also changed by Him based on the requirement of sudden happiness and misery whenever necessary in the life depending on the progress and circumstances of the soul. He is like a doctor changing the prescribed step of treatment based on the sudden urgency required.
- When the soul compels God through devotion to cancel the sins done (undeserving relief) and grant the merits undone (undeserving benefit), the soul is compelling God to become unjust and change His judgement already given. If God does any unjust favour, the impression of angels (who are watching Him constantly) on God gets disturbed. The soul is cheating God to change the due judgement through soaping devotion! God’s reaction is always a reflection of our action. God also cheats us back. He will postpone the present sins with increased interest to later on in this life or to future births and brings forward the merits of future cycle with reduced values like premature deposits. We think that God is exploited by our oiling and removed our misery by undue cancelling of our sin followed by granting benefit even though our merit is absent! God always stands as judge without any trace of criticism.
- By such situation the future births of souls become fully filled with postponed punishments only devoid of any merit so that the soul enjoys misery only from birth to death scolding God for its own unknown mistakes. Nobody has a trace of chance to criticize God’s administration in any angle at any time. Pravrutti is development of love to legal worldly bonds in competition with the illegal worldly bonds. Nivrutti is development of love to God in competition with all legal and illegal worldly bonds. A soul in pravrutti is like an employee in the office of God (owner) and need not worry about its personal bond with God (Nivrutti) as long as it follows the code of office (worldly justice) set by the Boss (God).
- As employee in the office, the soul need not have even a trace of love (devotion) to God and it will get promotions (worldly and heavenly pleasures) for merits along with demotions (worldly and hell’s punishments) for sins. Fear to God is the main controlling factor in Pravrutti. But, if the soul develops love to God to establish personal bond, Nivrutti starts at that point. Based on purely the love of the soul to God, God will be pleased to have this personal bond. But, there is one strict condition before formation of this personal bond since God is very intelligent and omniscient. The strict condition is that the record of the soul in the office (Pravrutti or worldly life) must be without a trace of black spot! If the soul is corrupt in the office (doing sins in the worldly life), it will do the same corruption in the house of God also after entering His house through the personal bond!
- Therefore, a failure in Pravruti has no entry into Nivrutti. Demon Ravana was a climax devotee of God, who has cut his heads to be offered as flowers in the worship of God! But, he is a failure in Pravrutti due to sins and hence, he was not even admitted in to Nivrutti. All the extreme devotees of God failing in Pravrutti or demons do not have even a trace of consideration to enter the spiritual field. This is the most critical and important point. If the priest says that the worshipped God will protect the soul from its sins, it is only the financial interest of the priest to conduct the worship. Of course, by extreme devotion, God will help the sinner by preaching spiritual knowledge to bring reformation through which all the sins get cancelled. The most important point here is that God is not cancelling the sins of the soul due to its devotion directly, but, cancels the sins of the soul when it attains reformation through His preaching. The preaching of God is only help and the practical effort of the soul put for reformation gives the final fruit of cancellation of sins.
- After receiving preaching from God, the soul requires some justified time to put effort to get the reformation. In that span of time-interval, the punishments of sins are kept in suspension by God based on the norms of justice. Justice always prevails in every inch of the administration of God. People will be surprised to know the truth that the minimum and maximum effort of God is always only to establish justice and destroy injustice in Pravrutti. God is not at all bothered about Nivrutti, which is only the discovery of devotee! God says that He comes to earth with the only aim of establishment of justice in Pravruti and Nivrutti is only an incidental minor work (Dharma saṃsthāpanārthāya… - Gita). The subject in all divine scriptures of world is 99% Pravrutti only and even if some Nivrutti is mentioned, it is only related to Pravrutti. You can’t neglect Pravrutti and please God in Nivrutti because the same only one God is in both fields! Of course, Nivrutti gives the highest fruit (Nivṛttistu mahāphalā) in which God takes the total responsibility of protection of soul. Pravrutti is the first step and Nivrutti is the second step. Without crossing Pravrutti successfully, how can one enter the Nivrutti?
Iti Datta Vedānte Yogaparvaṇi
Niṣkāma Yoga jñānaṃ nāma Navamādhyāyaḥ।।
The Ninth chapter of Yogaparva of Datta Vedanta, which is the Knowledge of the Selfless 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
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
