Part-1

Lord Krishna in the Gita said – ‘Bahūnāṃ janmanāmante’ means that ‘Unless one has done penance for several births, one cannot recognize Me’; and further He said – “Yatatāmapi siddhānāṃ kaścin Māṃ vetti tattvataḥ” means that ‘In spite of one getting the miraculous powers (Ashta Siddhis), if one continues spiritual effort to attain Me without any ego, one will recognize Me.’ Reading these statements of the Lord, anybody may doubt that what is so difficult to identify the Brahman. Some say that Brahman is formless and is all-pervading awareness. Awareness is a form of energy like the light. Similar to the light pervading all the worlds during the day, awareness, which is a form of energy, pervades this entire universe. What is the great difficulty in understanding this analogy? No matter how ignorant one may be, if one thinks about it for five minutes, one will understand this. A student who studied tenth-grade physics can understand this subject in a minute. Why are so many births required to understand the formless and all-pervading awareness called God?

Some others say that Parabrahman is the cosmic form (Virāṭpuruṣa), exceeding even the limits of the universe and this creation is like a ‘dress’ worn by Him and He is the in-dwelling controller of this whole universe. It is even easier to understaind this analogy. An ignorant person can understand it in a few minutes. Some others say that Parabrahman exists in the upper world, as Nārāyaṇa in His abode called Vaikuntha, as Parama Shiva in His abode called Kailāsa and as Hiraṇyagarbha in His abode called Satyaloka. Now, it is even more easier to understand this description. Even an ignorant peson can understand it in a minute. So, according to these theories, it is clear that knowing about Brahman (Brahma Vidyā) is not difficult.

However, the Shrutis say that Parabrahman is beyond logic, imagination and that even the angels cannot understand Him. Therefore, it becomes clear that the above theories are not the actual means of knowing the Brahman. So, what is Brahma Vidyā? Why is it so difficult to understand? The Bhagavad Gita itself gives the answer to this. The verse –

"Bahūnāṃ janmanāmante jñānavān māṃ prapadyate |
Vāsudeva ssarvamiti sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ"

tells about eligibility of knowing Brahma Vidyā. It means that ‘no such great soul can be found who completely believed that this Vāsudeva, who is the son of Vasudeva, is none other than Parabrahman.’ It means that it is very difficult to recognize that this Vāsudeva, who was born in the womb of Devaki, brought up by Yashoda and behaved as a human being among all human beings, is Parabrahman. Here the word ‘Vāsudeva’ indicates about every human incarnation of God but not just about the incarnation of Krishna. The later verses of the Gita – "Tadātmānaṃ sṛjāmyaham" and "Mānuṣīṃ tanu māśritam" say that ‘I will incarnate in the form of a human being whenever injustice raises its head.” It is very difficult to identify the human form of the God, who incarnates as a human being among human beings and behaves just like human beings. Not only for humans, it is also difficult for the angels to recognize the God who incarnates in human form. Human beings are very much inferior to angels, so, they look down upon human beings. When such angels cannot recognize the God in human form, what about the plight of the humans? Indra rained for seven days without recognizing the human form of the God, as Krishna born in the Yādava dynasty.

Even sages fall into delusion in recognizing the God. Sage Udanka tried to curse Krishna. Angels and sages with delusion, fail to recognize the God in the human form and try to insult Him (Avajānanti māṃ mūḍhāḥ mānuṣīṃ tanu māśritam" and "Mama bhūta maheśvaram"). Recognizing God in human form is Brahma Vidyā. Now see! How much difficult this Brahmavidyā is? That is why the Shruti says – "Brahmavid Brahmaiva Bhavati," means that knowing Brahman is possible only to Brahman. Even the great Krishna devotees like Akrūra, Vidura, Bhishma, Arjuna and the Gopikas slipped in specific weak moments. Radha was the only one who firmly stood without slipping, even for a moment. That is why Swami says in the Gita that ‘only one individual soul (in billions) can know My real nature’  (Kaścin Māṃ vetti tattvataḥ). Radha forgot about herself by completely surrending to Krishna, the God in human form. That means, her Sāttvika ego "I" is also destroyed due to which that surrender was possible.

Ego is of three types. Sāttvika ego is the feeling of awareness only in the form of knowledge as "I". In this, the meaning of the word "I" denotes a soul. The individual soul, with this awareness, even if it leaves the body, considers itself to be “I” and “I” and so on. Therefore, even after death, this Sātvika ego will not be destroyed. It is Rājasika ego to think that this body is ‘I”. For instance, one says that he is red because his body is red. Function of Rājasic quality is to unite “I” with this body. So, the color of the body is attributed to the ‘I’. Due to ignorance, it is unknown that this body will be burned in the fire and then the soul that comes out without burning is the actual meaning of the word "I". Therefore, the quality of Rajas is ‘ignorance.’ Sāttvik quality is ‘knowledge.’ It is truth only when the unperished individual awareness identifying itself as "I"! And it is the quality of Tamas to think of the associated relatives and money as "I". In Sāttvika ego, as long as the knowledge of “I”' remains, so long the awareness remains as limited being the part of the cosmic awareness. When this "I", the Sāttvika ego, is also destroyed, then this limited, part-awareness of the soul dissolves in the absolute awareness of the Parabrahman. Then the identity "I" will remain only for the Parabrahman. This is the inquiry made by Ramana Maharshi about the word "I", who came after Shankaracharya. In this way, whoever participates in the service of the human incarnation and forgets his self-identity, attains Kaivalya with the Parabrahman.

Some people use drugs like ganja to forget the "I", but that is not Kaivalya. This "I" springs again when the intoxication of ganja goes off. Even in deep sleep also, this "I" is dissolving. But deep sleep is not Kaivalya. Therefore, only Radha has attained true Kaivalya. Therefore, true Brahma Vidyā is to recognize the Parabrahman coming in human form. That recognition is not easy as said above and has many difficulties. The human body possessed by the Parabrahman is also bound by natural laws like all human bodies have. The human incarnation also gets hunger, thirst, cough and cold like us. Many people are deceived by these external features. Even if you recognize Him, He appears to be following injustice to confuse you. By that, whoever recognized Him will also slip like the slip of one’s foot on a banana peel. His identification marks are also very confusing. If the miraculous powers only are considered as identification marks of the human incarnation, you will fall into the trap of demons and black magicians as they also exhibit miracles. If you keep spiritual knowledge as a mark of the divinity, then you will get caught in the trap of scholars.

Part-2

The knowledge possessed by the scholars cannot produce the experience of Brahman. Some of His divine (Kalyāṇa) qualities are also seen in the deserving devotees. It will be very difficult to separate such devotees from God because God possesses His true devotees. The Lord possesses the devotees to achieve a specific program. As soon as that program is completed, the Lord will leave that devotee. Lord Vishnu possessed Parashurama, a devotee and the son of a sage, and killed all the bad Kshatriyas. As soon as that program was over, He left Parashurama. Therefore, it is difficult to separate these great human devotees from the human incarnation. Sometimes, God, who is in human form, expresses His power through a devotee, takes his help as if He was in that need and glorifies him as God and He acts Himself in the place of the devotee.

Hanuman brought Sanjiivani mountain, brought back Lakshmana to life and removed Rama's grief. Lord Hanuman could bring Sanjiivani because of Rama’s power. For those watching this incident, it looks like Hanuman is the Lord and Rama is the devotee. God’s divine play is like that. It is very difficult to identify Him by avoiding all these illusions created by Him. Like a pestle (heavy stick used for powdering the items) accidentally falling on a swollen finger, He covers the eyes of the devotees with layers of Māyā by the deceiving acts like stealing the butter, teasing the Gopikas while facing the criticisms of all the people. In addition to this, it is very difficult to identify the God acting as human involved in activities like stealing the butter, dancing with the Gopikas (Jaaracoratva) etc., from the fake people acting as the God like Pauṇḍraka Vāsudeva who got original conch and wheel directly from the Nārāyaṇa. This is the inner meaning of the worship (Pūjā) of God Satyanārāyaṇa. In the worship of Satyanārāyaṇa, various names of incarnations of God like Govinda, Krishna etc., are chanted. That means, the one who recognizes the true Nārāyaṇa among these human beings and takes a firm decision without scope for any slip is the one who has truly performed the Satyanārāyaṇa Vrata (Pūjā).

In this way, the Brahmavidyā is to recognize the tiger which has mingled with the herd of sheep that is covered in sheepskin which shouts just like a sheep. What is the difficulty in distinguishing a tiger, which is completely different from a sheep? Similarly, there is no difficulty in identifying the Lord, who is different from the individual soul. Even if you say that all the sheep are tigers, then every sheep is considered a tiger. Similarly, there is no difficulty in stating that all individual souls are Brahman (which is in fact, not true). Therefore, Brahmavidyā is to get rid of the illusions of such over-intelligent theories and recognize the tiger in the disguise of a sheep in the herd of sheep. So, it is very very difficult to recognize Nārāyaṇa (tiger), who came in human form and mixed with human beings (sheep). It requires numerous births to recognize the God in human form. Hanuman, who recognized Rama in human form with complete belief and Radha, who recognized Krishna in human form with complete belief, are the two greatest devotees who knew the Brahma Vidyā thoroughly, because they are the  possessors of the knowledge of the Brahman.