Kindly Elaborate on the True Meaning of Matthew 11-28 and 16-24 With Respect to Contemporary Incarnation of God.

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

[Shri Anil Antony asked: Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”]

Matthew 16:24 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

The above two verses seems to be diametrically opposite, first one giving assurance, second one showing the seriousness of spiritual path. Kindly elaborate on the real meaning with respect to contemporary Human incarnation of God.]

Swami replied: The human psychology is of dual nature. It needs simultaneous encouragement and seriousness to be varied alternatively like sweet and hot dishes in a meal. When the encouragement is given, the soul becomes satisfied and inertia develops. This is the needed rest of the soul in the night. After night, the day comes in which activity is to be induced through serious preaching. It is an alternating fashion of potential and kinetic energies. When you are walking to another village, which is five miles far along with your son, your son gets tired after walking a mile and enquires about the rest of the distance to be covered by walk. If you say the truth that it is four miles away, your son will say that he would like to go back by walking one mile back, instead of four miles towards front. You should say that the remaining distance to reach the village is just one mile only. Then, he will think that instead of walking one mile back, it is better to walk one mile front and reach the goal. After one mile, you have to say that by walking two miles the goal will be reached. He will apply the same calculation and walks forward. Now you can tell the truth about the remaining one mile. Like this, God, the divine Father also adopts the same policy of encouragement and seriousness alternatively. Psychology is very important in the profession of teaching the students and also in the divine program of preaching the devotees also. Such encouraging statements are called as ‘Artha vada’, which means slight distortion of truth to encourage the devotee in the spiritual journey towards the ultimate divine goal.

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