Posted on: 10 Jan 2016
Reply From Shri Datta Swami to Questions from Mr. Anil:
1) For those who are in the state of continuous suffering (chronic diseases, financial crisis etc), any practical spiritual solution for immediate relief?
2) Mainly troubles in the form of incurable diseases etc. comes in the old age and it will be too late for such people to start spiritual practices. What will be the fate of such people?
The disease comes due to sins only (Papam Vyadhi Rupena). The remedies said are medicines, donations to deserving and worship of God (Aushadhaih Daanaih Japa Homa Suraarchanaih). This shows the ascending order of the remedial response step by step. The main essence of this subject is only control of repetition of sin by repentance, rectification if possible and non-repetition. These three steps are sufficient to cancel the entire accumulated past sin. Prevention and rectification of the disease is one item. Achieving good health is another item. The first item is prevention of loss and the second item is gain of profit. The first item can be achieved through stopping the revolving cycle of deeds through non-repetition of sin. This avoids punishments, which avoids the loss. Gaining health is achievement of profit, which is related to the opposite deed to sin. By auspicious deeds, you can get health. Both these parts are in the subject called Pravrutti related to this worldly life. When all these steps fail, the Pravrutti is closed. The ultimate remedy is only the God and His related subject is Nivrutti. The devotion to God is of four types: 1) Devotion to get rid of intolerable suffering (Aarta), 2) Devotion to God to get interest in Him so that all the enquiry about Him continues successfully (Jijnaasu), 3) Devotion to God to achieve the grace of God in the spiritual path (Arthaarthi) and 4) Devotion to God to attain the ultimate true spiritual knowledge in all angles (Jnani). When one enters Nivrutti, all the four types should be the goal and not merely the first type. If one is confined to the first type only, God will again open the file of Pravrutti of the soul and proceeds according to such file only in which again non-repetition of the sin is the only solution. If one enters Nivrutti, just for first type only, it is not at all Nivrutti since it is Pravrutti only. The first type associated with the subsequent three types becomes Nivrutti. But, if one enters Nivrutti with all the above four aims, the response of God will be different. Irrespective of the Pravrutti file of the soul, the suffering will be removed temporarily, which is temporary postponement only and not permanent cancellation of the sin, which cannot be done without non-repetition of the sin. This temporary suspension of suffering is only to achieve the total spiritual knowledge without any hurdle in the path. This means that the suffering is temporarily stopped so that there will be no hurdle to achieve the total spiritual knowledge. Once the fourth type of goal is achieved, the person becomes a good scholar of the total spiritual knowledge. If the person stops with the satisfaction of mere knowledge, the suspended suffering will again come into action. To stop suffering at this stage, the subsequent step after gaining the total spiritual knowledge should be attempted by the person, which is the devotion (bhakti) or emotional force to implement the knowledge in practice. If one stops again after the second step by becoming the perfect devotee, the suspended suffering will again come into action. Now, if the person attempts to the third ultimate step, which is the implementation of spiritual knowledge in practice (karma), and succeeds in it, the suffering is stopped permanently. Remember that the suffering exists as an item in the Pravrutti file kept in the cold storage by the God. If you slip from this third stage called karma yoga, the Pravrutti file comes out of the cold storage and the suffering will again come into action. If you do not slip in the Nivrutti, the Pravrutti file exits in the cold storage for ever, which is almost equal to the destruction of the file. The reason here is that it is the law of the deity of the justice, who presides over the Pravrutti, that suffering should end only by undergoing that suffering. This law of justice is never broken by God since God is the sole supporter of justice. As long as you are in the field of Nivrutti, you are blessed by God getting permanent release from the suffering without undergoing that suffering. God gives you permanent protection without hurting the deity of justice. The law of justice is never violated by God and at the same time, you are relieved from the suffering forever by the grace of God. Everything impossible becomes possible and at the same time, the impossibility never becomes possibility in the administration of omniscient and omnipotent God.
Old age is always disadvantageous due to the diseased body left over with least energy. It is just like a spoon of milk left over in a broken cup. One should certainly enter Nivrutti in the childhood like Shankara or in the youth like Ramanuja and Buddha. Generally, these two possibilities are rarely seen in the human beings. At least, one should enter Nivrutti in the old age and even this possibility does not happen even though the human being appears externally as if it has entered the Nivrutti in the old age. In reality, if you analyse the inner core, the old person is in the climax of Pravrutti only in the disguise of Nivrutti. In old age, Pravrutti disappears in the actions due to the incapability only. Pravrutti leaves the actions and enters the mind so that Pravrutti is in double quantity in the mind. The old person fools others being doubly strong in Pravrutti internally and appears to be in the Nivrutti by the external drama dress of Nivrutti. Nivrutti is only a role for the old person, who as the inner actor, is in the Pravrutti only. Shankara says “the person in childhood is interested in games, in the subsequent youth is interested in the female and in the old age is interested in Pravrutti with deep worry till the death. Tell Me, who is interested in God (baalastaavat...)?” Even if the person really gets out of Pravrutti in the old age, lot can be achieved. It is not the question of the time left over. If sincere reality in practical implementation of the spiritual knowledge is maintained without hypocrisy by forgetting the surrounding public and assuming that he/she stands before God, the ultimate and total fruit of Nivrutti can be easily achieved even in one hour before death. One should always remember that God is omniscient and omnipotent whether the soul is in Pravrutti or Nivrutti.
God Relaxing in the Interest of Soul for Reformation
3) You mentioned that planets represent the power of God and there are presiding deities which deliver the fruits of deeds for any soul. It was mentioned that prayers to these deities pacify them. If they are strict in implementing the delivery of fruits impartially how the worship (prayers) to them give some remedy for problems? Whether these deities are over-whelmed or affected by the praises (in the form of prayers) of devotees to give relaxation in the suffering?
This doubt comes due to the lack of clarification of joints existing between the sentences in the above question. There are certain concepts as joints between these statements. When these joints are dropped, the continuous chain of the rods is broken and the rods fall as an irregular heap, which is nothing but confusion. Let Me link the rods with the missing joints.
In the atheistic astrology, the concept that the inert planets controlling the incidents of the human life is rejected because inert item has no role in the domain of awareness or human life. Now, only two types of astrology are left over:
1) Devilish astrology: Here, the presiding deities of the planets, which have awareness, influence the non-inert human life. Such influence is due to their unimaginable powers granted by the unimaginable God. Here, God comes into the picture. These deities are His servants only carrying on His administration on this earth. Praying such deities, remembering them as the servants of God is only indirect praying of the ultimate God only. This is the theistic approach in this devilish astrology. If this theistic approach is omitted, the devilish astrology is to be rejected. According to the devilish astrology, the presiding deities have inherent unimaginable powers and there is no existence of God. The entire universe is governed by this council of planets only. If such devilish astrology is accepted, prayers to such deities of planets are waste. Even if they are pleased, without the unimaginable God, such deities cannot have unimaginable powers and hence, cannot even influence the human life. Therefore, here, whether you consider these deities as independent powers without God or whether you consider these deities as the embodiments of the various unimaginable powers of God involved in the divine administration – is the main point before answering your question.
2) Theistic astrology: Here the main source of all the unimaginable powers is only the unimaginable God. These unimaginable powers of God control the presiding deities of the planets. Therefore, the ultimate controller is only the personified unimaginable power of God that controls the presiding deity of the planet. Here, the personified power of God is the ultimate officer and the presiding deity is only His personal assistant. Though, a double layered office is represented, the ultimate power is only the power of God or God Himself. For Ex: Jupiter is the inert planet. The presiding deity of Jupiter is called as Bruhaspati and the ultimate controller of this presiding deity (Bruhaspati) is Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is the personified destructive power of God or God Himself. The controlling deity of the presiding deity of the planet, Jupiter, is mentioned by the sage Jaimini (Gurunaa saambashive). Like this, the controlling deities of the presiding deities of all the planets are mentioned by Jaimini. This is the direct spiritual knowledge. In the above devilish astrology, you pray presiding deity, Bruhaspati, who is an assistant of Lord Shiva only. In the theistic astrology, you pray Lord Shiva directly, Who is the direct God Himself. In both types of astrology, your prayer is ultimately directed to the ultimate God only. You should leave the main theme of the devilish astrology, which says that there is no Lord Shiva except Bruhaspati. If you accept Lord Shiva, Bruhaspati can represent Lord Shiva as His sincere devoted servant. Service to devotee is also service to God since God identities Himself with the devotee as per the Bhakti Sutra of Narada.
The ultimate essence is only that the theistic astrology is nothing but the spiritual knowledge of God. God working directly or working through the deities of planets is one and the same. When we say that the Prime Minister has done this good work for country, it means that the instruction of the Prime Minister was carried on by his administration-officials as the work.
The underlying point is that whether God works directly or works through the deities of planets, is it proper to give relaxation in the suffering overwhelmed by the praise in the form of prayer? This point sees one side of the coin without seeing the other side. The other side is that this world is not the world of suffering like hell. This world is called as Karma loka having full freedom to do the actions. Hell is the upper world in which the punishments of sins are implemented without any freedom and hence, it is called as Bhogaloka. In this world, the reformation of the soul under the direct supervision of God is the main programme. If the soul is reformed by praising the God, God will show the relaxation in the interest of its reformation. The relaxation is not due to the praise applied to God as soap. Hence, the relaxation of suffering implemented or not implemented is not at all the point. The only point is that whether the soul is reformed or not? Since relaxation of suffering is never done for the sake of soaping, this blame cannot apply to God. The relaxation of suffering may be granted by God for the sake of reformation of the soul, which may be misunderstood by you that God relaxed the suffering due to your soaping. Since it is not the fact, God cannot be blamed even if you retain that misunderstanding forever. Therefore, astrology should be taken as the associated and sub-ordinate subject of the spiritual knowledge. It only gives the mechanism of the working administration of God under His ultimate control and supervision.
Best Devotee of God Also Does Service to God Only
4) Some people argue that countries like Sweden, Denmark etc., where majority of the people are atheist are countries with good standard of living with lesser crime rates than theist countries. Thus they favour atheism.
I have to reply this question in its deep level since whether such atheistic countries live with happiness or not, you are finding an atheist with your eyes in the society living with good standards and happiness. Therefore, this question cannot be escaped at the micro-level even if you deny the question at macro-level saying that such countries are not happy. If the answer can be given at the micro-level, it equally applies at the macro-level.
God always works and even takes human incarnations only to establish Pravrutti and is least interested in Nivrutti since He is personally involved in it. Nivrutti explains about our love to God and reciprocated grace. This is personal issue between God and an individual like Hanuman, Radha, etc. Pravrutti is regarding subject of the mutual behaviour of the human beings in the society that affects each other. The ultimate expectation of God is only that you should succeed in Pravrutti even if you don't look to the side of Nivrutti. God is never worried about your Nivrutti. It is only about your worry for God. The worry of God towards you is Pravrutti. God behaves as an individual in Nivrutti. God behaves as an administrator and king sitting on the throne ruling the world and maintaining the balance and peace of the society. God feels that Pravrutti is His greater responsibility or even His ultimate and single responsibility. The Lord says in the Gita that He incarnates only to establish justice in Pravrutti. The human incarnations of other religions also stressed on the ethical aspects of Pravrutti only and Nivrutti is seen in negligible quantity. Even in Hindu religion, it is said that if you follow justice in money and sex the salvation is automatically given (Apyarthakamau...). The happiness is the fruit of Pravrutti as rewarded in heaven. When this earth becomes filled with humanity following justice everywhere without doing any sin, this earth itself becomes heaven emitting happiness. God never wants your devotion to Him and treats it as soaping only. Of course, if your devotion is real, proved by practical sacrifice, which is very very rare that may happen in the case of a single individual among millions of human beings, that too, after millions of births, certainly the fruit is unimaginable, which is that God enters you and identifies with you. After becoming God, as the God, you will again do hectic work for the establishment of justice of Pravrutti only. The best devotee is also blessed with such service only. In Nivrutti, you are under the grip of God and will never slip so that the happiness is continuous, which is called as bliss (Ananda). In the case of happiness from heaven, it may break if there is a slip since you are in the grip of yourself. You will have full independence to do good or bad deed. Getting happiness by doing good deeds and avoiding bad deeds has always the possibility of slip. The continuity of such happiness is guaranteed till the occurrence of slip (Ksheene Punye... Gita). Success in Pravrutti is good or better than sin. Nivrutti is best but is very very rare. Therefore, even an atheist is blessed by God with happiness if he follows justice without doing sin in Pravrutti, even though the personal touch with Him does not exist. A student standing first in the class receives gold medal from the hands of the vice-chancellor even if the student is dead against to the vice-chancellor or even if he does not have any personal touch with vice-chancellor. In Nivrutti, the student is selected as his son-in-law personally and gets lot of gold from the vice-chancellor. The student receiving gold medal cannot stay in the house of vice-chancellor, but, the son-in-law can stay. Nivrutti is far greater than Pravrutti. Nivrutti is confined to very few sons-in-law proportion to the number of daughters. The students receiving gold medals in various subjects, every year, are many in number. The gold medal is only a coated gold medal. If you sell it, you will not get even a few hundreds of rupees. The gold given to son-in-law is genuine, the value of which will be in lakhs of rupees. In the case of gold medals, the vice-chancellor functions in virtue of his position of post. In the case of son-in-law, he functions as father-in-law, who is equal to father. If the countries named by you are really least in the crime rate, the award of happiness is inevitable as per the rule. But, I have seen a few atheists with least crime rate, following justice in Pravrutti living with happiness.
5) Lot of illiterate people are there. How they can benefit from Your divine knowledge since they cannot read it?
Let Me first bring unity by clarifying the concepts at the upper level, which is the literate. The upper level always leads the lower level of illiterate. The upper level, once gets clarified and convinced with the unified spiritual knowledge, it will take the work of propagation of the unified spiritual knowledge to the lower level. If I do not convince the upper level and go directly to the lower level, there will be a clash between Me and the upper level before the lower level. The lower level gets confused easily because it cannot get the clarification as fast as the upper level can get it. Hence, Shankara took the task of clarifying the upper level, which consists of a few scholars only. If you defeat the army chief, the army is defeated. If you convince the upper level scholar, his group of followers gets convinced immediately through him. Therefore, I am proceeding with the same plan of Shankara by preparing a group of scholars fully convinced with this spiritual knowledge. Such scholars will generate more groups and slowly these groups convince the general public at the lower level. It is like multi-level chain marketing. Except this, there is no other way in view of the limited life time of this medium (body) and the limited energy in this body. The work should be done with a proper plan. God will take care of all these things since He is omniscient and omnipotent.