Posted on: 23 Apr 2023
[Mr. Abhiram K asked: The experience of bliss is the ultimate fruit of any achievement. Even if I am not God, suppose I think that I am God and live in bliss always, what is the difference between me and a real human incarnation? I am also telling that I am the human form of God and I will also arrange some devotees to praise me as human incarnation. If an Advaita philosopher is living with such belief enjoying bliss throughout the life, in what way, the human incarnation is greater than the Advaita philosopher? Even if the Advaita philosopher goes to hell, Lord Yama cannot punish him since the Advaita philosopher did not harm anybody and did not do any sin. He simply lived with bliss throughout his life. Is it a sin? Hence, Lord Yama also will not punish him. Please clarify in what way the Advaita philosopher can be rejected.]
Swami replied:- If any Advaita philosopher wants to live with bliss following the meaning of the above question, I request them not to read My answer and spoil their beautiful fortune. The reason is that everybody knows very well that if you hear the answer from God Datta, any question will be crushed into pieces so that the true Sun will rise and squash the ignorance-darkness however much it may be strong and powerful.
The whole problem came up with the three divine Saint-Preachers called Shankara, Ramanuja and Madhva. First Shankara appeared and told you that one crore rupees are deposited in your bank account and you have to simply go and draw the lottery gift. This is told to every soul and all the souls ran to the bank to withdraw the amounts. The gate keeper of the bank, who is Ramanuja told every soul “The lottery is deposited but it is not one crore and it is only rupees ten thousand”. Everybody, though disappointed with the news, went inside the bank to withdraw at least rupees ten thousand and submitted withdrawal forms. The manager of the bank, Madhva called every fellow inside and started scolding “How can you get even one rupee without doing proper hard work? Nothing is credited to your account!” This final advise was not accepted by 99% of the people and they replied to the bank manager, which is exactly asked by you. Very few people followed the final advice, went, did hard work, earned one crore rupees and deposited in their bank accounts. Majority are living in false assumptions that they also have one crore in their accounts. Neither the few crore-owners nor Lord Yama in hell had any objection or any stomach pain for these theoretical heroes (like Hamlets). The only practical problem that came up in the case of these poetic dreamers was that they were constantly seeing these real crore-owners often withdrawing huge amounts from their accounts. The information given by somebody that they are God was completely theoretical. But, they see practically with their own eyes these crore-owners withdrawing their interests permanently. If false theoretical information can bring such faith, how much faith would have been obtained by seeing the practical incidents! Don’t you think that the observation of these practical examples of the crore-owners will have some effect on their minds regarding the falseness of their assumptions? Certainly, their theoretical dreams will vanish with the practically observed true scenes.
Actually, Shankara proved to His disciples not to imitate Himself, the real crore owner. When He drank wine, these imitating theorists also drank wine because they were also assuming themselves as God like Shankara. In order to remove their ignorance and foolishness, Shankara swallowed molten lead and others failed in doing so. Then Shankara told that He alone is God (real crore-owner) by saying “Śivaḥ kevalo'ham”. The informer of one-crore lottery Himself is telling that He alone got the lottery and not others. Still, the attraction to the ultimate fruit that is thought to be attained without any trace of effort is so strong, so strong and so strong that even today, some poor innocent children are still attracted to the feeling that they are real crore-owners.
If a soul is trapped by a depression in life and in order to get the highest self-confidence to cross over that depression thinks that he is God for sometime (till he crosses the depression), this is not wrong and God is very much pleased with such benefit. Whenever you get such depression, take the Advaita-sleeping-tablet. For such good help only, Shankara introduced the Advaita philosophy as medicine. If you constantly take the sleeping tablets, you will sleep forever!
The case of Poundraka Vaasudeva was very amazing. He was a false crore-owner and gave a registered notice to Krishna, the real crore-owner saying that Krishna is a false crore-owner and he himself is the real crore-owner. Krishna never minds the false crore-owners getting bliss within themselves and live without harming anybody. Therefore, Krishna came and attacked this buffoon killing him in war.