REAL BOND BETWEEN GOD AND ANY SOUL IS ONLY MASTER AND SERVANT

Padanamaskaram Swami

1) A muslim devotee argues with following statements from Hadit and Quran that eating non-veg is allowed in Islam:

[The Prophet (SAWS) said (Sayings and Teachings of Prophet Muhammad Nawawi's 40 Hadith 17):

 "Verily Allah has prescribed excellent in all things. So if you kill then kill well; and if you slaughter, then slaughter well. Let each one of you sharpen his blade and let him spare suffering to the animal he slaughters.”

 Allah says in the Qur'an (The Noble Qur'an 22:36-37):

 And the camels and cattle We have appointed for you as among the symbols of Allah ; for you therein is good. So mention the name of Allah upon them when prepared; and when they are settled, then eat from them and feed the needy and the beggar. Thus have We subjected them to you that you may be grateful.

 Their meat will not reach Allah , nor will their blood, but what reaches Him is piety from you. Thus have We subjected them to you that you may glorify Allah for that [to] which He has guided you; and give good tidings to the doers of good.

Kindly enlighten on the genuineness and correctness of above verses.

Also animal sacrifices practiced in Hinduism is correct?]

Shri Swami replied: If you are emotional with very strong settled mind to eat non-vegetarian food by killing animals, you will always search for a supporting scripture only. For you only your favourable interpretation stands authentic. However, if you are searching for truth with open mind, you must go through My following comments without initial prejudice and bias.

There are two ways of examination: 1) Any concept should be analyzed with powerful logical analysis only and the concept should pass through this fire test. If it passes through this test, certainly it is the statement of God because God is never illogical. God is the creator of all the living beings. He loves all the living beings as His children. If one child kills the other child, the father will suffer with highest pain than even the child killed. The simple logic is that you should just think about the probable pain that you suffer, keeping yourself in the place of that animal being killed. No more logic is needed than this perfect experience. Experience is said to be the highest authority. You should not take every statement of the scripture as authentic since in every scripture there are insertions from exploiters. You have to filter such insertions by pushing the entire scripture into the fire of logical analysis. Then only, you can find which is told by God and which is told by a clever human being inserting wrong concepts in to scriptures to support its sins.

2) Assuming that the statement was said by God, you have to carefully analyze it so that the interpretation of the scripture taken by you is verified to be correct or not. If the interpretation opposes the logical analysis, you must try to search the possibility of a second interpretation of the same text, which is quite logical and is easily available in the text if the statement is really stated by God. Let us examine these statements carefully: God (Allah) has created precious (excellent) in every living being (thing). The excellent is precious life that is common in every living being. God is not telling “kill the living being”. He is only telling “if you kill, then kill well”. What does this mean? God is not willing to kill the living being. However, if you are rigid to kill it, at least you take the name of God and kill it so that one day or other the fear for God may control you from this sin. God is also saying that you should sharpen your blade so that the suffering of the animal being killed is spared. This again means that God is feeling pained about the suffering of the slaughtered animal. God is also telling to distribute the meat to needy and beggars. This charity is again suggested to reduce the seriousness of sin. If the killing is already a good deed, there is no sin and there is no need of any charity to pacify the sin at least to some extent. God is also telling that He will receive the piety (pity to be shown on the slaughtered animal as per the religious convention indicated by Allah) from you. The word piety is used since you are doing a cruel act of killing the living being just for food even though you have plenty of alternative vegetarian food.

If you have open mind, My interpretation will touch your heart. But, if you have closed mind and is very fond of eating meat, you will not agree with My interpretation that opposes this slaughter of animals. You will rigidly take your own interpretation because you can’t avoid meat and you badly need the support of the scripture for the slaughter so that you will not feel guilty of consciousness due to satisfaction arrived that the slaughter is acceptable to God. But, such satisfaction is artificial only and somewhere, sometimes, prick in the consciousness of every non-vegetarian is inevitable because self-analysis is the highest authority.

All this applies to the sacrifices in Hinduism also. The Veda, the scripture of Hinduism clearly says (Manyuh pashuh) that the animal to be killed in sacrifice is not the actual animal, but, your animal nature like ignorance, rigidity and stupidity. The goat represents innocence of ignorance. Killing of goat means killing of your ignorant innocence. If you are innocent, all the exploiters of the scripture will take undue advantage to make you a scapegoat in any activity. Killing of innocent goat means that you should be always active and alert so that no exploiter of the scripture can fool you in the name of the original scripture by forcing you commit the sin so that his sin gets support of majority. In spiritual path, majority is not appreciated as in the case of politics.

2) Padanamaskaram Swami

Kindly give your response to the following question asked in internet

[Shri Krishna Vijay asked the following question in internet

Datta shri ji.

I have this question since years and I did not get a convincing answer yet. Can you answer this?

Your end statement here mentioned God as a separate entity from us. At least that is how it sounded to me. If God is a separate entity, then how can God be omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient? If God is omnipresent, then God is present in both you and me, in everything in this existence. Then how can one say God is only good? Everything comprises of good and bad both. And God is everything. Then God must be bad also. Right?

Then the whole concept of sin becomes obsolete. The moral code, the practices, the rituals everything followed in the name of God becomes obsolete because there is no 2 separate entities but one. The worshipper and the God are the same. Under this pretext, why do these concepts exist? Why does God exist as a separate entity? Why morals, why rituals and customs and practices? Are they created by us humans or God?

Did God tell people to worship or pray to him? Construct temples, churches, mosques etc.? If that God is one, then why are there many many many different ways of worship, customs, rituals, traditions?]

Shri Swami Replied: While doing analysis you must be slow and steady and should not be fast, which results in several confusions. God is omniscient, which means that He knows every bit of this creation in and out. For such over all knowledge (knowledge of everything in the creation), He need not be omnipresent. If He is omniscient based on the reason of omniscience, it is logically supported. If God is an imaginable item subjected to logic, He should be omnipresent if He is omniscient. If He knows everything, He should exist everywhere if He is an imaginable item. But, God is unimaginable and due to His unimaginable power, He is omniscient even though He is not omnipresent. Such unimaginable power makes God omnipotent. Omnipotence means to be capable of doing anything even beyond logic. Therefore, God is omnipotent and this omnipotence is sufficient to make God omniscient even though God is not omnipresent. The Veda says that no item of the creation is God (Neti Neti) and the Gita says that God is not in the creation (Natvaham teshu…). God is beyond this imaginable world and hence is unimaginable. Since God is not in the world and also not the world, all the objections shown by you will vanish. If God is in demon also, when God kills the demon, it results in saying that God killed Himself! All such foolish thoughts disappear since God is beyond the world. In fact, God is unimaginable because God is beyond space having no spatial dimensions.

Even though God is beyond world, He enters this earth through several human incarnations of various religions to preach spiritual knowledge so that the society of the entire world runs peacefully. God never said that He should be worshipped. Worship is our concept only. Even though, we do not worship Him, if we follow justice and maintain peace in this world, God is extremely happy. The cultures of various regions differ and resulted in different religions. Variety is inevitable in this nature. Our duty is to recognize the unity in different religions so that we don’t quarrel with each other and live united. One day, the universal religion will engulf the entire world like a huge tsunami and all these variations will vanish forever.

3) Why is the goddess Lakshmi always seen sitting next to Lord Vishnu's feet whereas other goddesses do not? Also, what message does it give to society about women's status in Hinduism? (a question from internet)

Shri Swami replied: Goddess Lakshmi is the deity of wealth, which brings ego into any soul. Lakshmi represents matter or material wealth of this world. Lakshmi is also the power of embodiment of Sattvam, which is for the knowledge and submissiveness before the Lord. It is not the question of male or female and husband or wife. It is the question of God and soul representing master and servant. The real bond between God and any soul is only master and servant as per Madhva. As per the old tradition, the wife serves her husband like a servant serving the master (Karaneshu daasi). The statements in the scripture are based on the old traditions existing in the world in that time since relevance is very important. Traditions have changed and in the modern tradition husband is servant of wife. I am not saying that this is wrong or that was wrong because the gender should not be linked to the greatness of the soul. Ravana is a male but the horrible demon. His wife Mandodari is a very chaste lady and is far greater than Ravana. The greatness depends on the qualities and subsequent deeds and not on caste, gender, colour, region, religion, education etc. The old tradition always reflects in the scripture since scripture was composed in the old time. You cannot bring the present traditions and disputes of gender etc., into the scripture. The message of God to humanity is based on the then existing conditions of culture and traditions of the society. If God gives message based on some new conditions arriving in future, the then existing public will not receive the message in a palatable way. We have to take the basic essence of the message only and not the conditions of the then existing culture, which may be modified in the future. There is only one basic point here: The husband, Lord Narayana happens to be God and not a human being. If He is human being, we can discuss about the legal issues of gender since it becomes a general case of humanity. You cannot superimpose the present social problems on the relationship between God and soul, which is not the relationship between one human being (husband) and the other human being (wife). Any human being, whether male or female in the place of Mahalakshmi shall opt to sit at the feet of Lord only. Here, Lakshmi is soul and Lord Narayana is God based on the old tradition becoming servant and master. Both are not human beings to allow the issues of the human beings, which cannot be superimposed on God and soul for criticism. The Veda says that any soul irrespective of gender is female and wife of God only (Striyah satih…). Meera asked Tulasidas “Is there a male in us, the souls?” The concept is totally different, which cannot allow such sociological issues like caste, gender etc. Had I told that a lady X was sitting at the feet of her husband Y in some past history, you can criticize that past time as domination of male gender, which was wrong and say that the present equality of gender is correct. The topic of such context has homogeneity in the sense that X, Y, present husband and present wife—all are human beings only.

4) Narayanan Shanker from Quora Forum: Why did not God stop criminal act. In our law anyone who witnesses crime and does not stop it becomes an accomplice in the criminal act. Why do we say then he protects us, actually he doesn't.

Shri Swami replied: A crime takes place today in presence of police force under the control of a politician existing in the Government. Do you say that police and Government are not protecting forces? In your presence also, a crime takes place and you cannot prevent it due to your insufficient strength. Have you supported the crime since you could not stop it? There is a reason for you in not attempting to stop it, which is your inability. Similarly, there is a reason in the first example, which is partiality of the politician controlling the police force. Therefore, when a criminal case was not stopped by God, there exists some reason, which may not be partiality or inefficiency, but may be different from these two. Without going in to the details of background, you cannot say that God is wrong or inefficient to protect us. The souls in the first Kruta Yuga age did not do any crime since they were fully controlled by God. In course of time, the souls desired freedom and God gave it limiting Himself as an adviser. The parents control children, but, when they grow, the parents will not interfere with their freedom, yet, advise them to go in right path. The human beings are given the best faculty of analysis to discriminate good from bad using logical analysis and God is constantly helping the souls with the advises through scripture and human incarnations. Moreover, we do not know whether X committed crime on Y in the previous birth and present is vice-versa. If it is not of that type, certainly Y shall be punished at a proper time. The criminal is jailed and court-trail is going on. Will you say that the criminal is not immediately punished and hence the court is inefficient? Moreover, the punishments are used to reform the soul and not for vengeance. The application of punishment to the full extent or to the partial extent depends on the degree of reformation required for the soul as per the guidance of God. This is a system, which is already setup in a particular way that was felt best by constitution or God. Your remark exists in the present system also in which one may escape punishment forever also. But, in the administration of God, punishment is sure. The present judiciary system is based on witness, which may be false also. God Himself is the witness being omniscient and hence no wrong track of the case due to the false witness. The present Government is not your protector since your remark applies to it also. You cannot be protector of yourself since you are also unable to stop the crime. Then, who is protector? Based on the present statement given by you, you are not allowing the concept of God and hell also so that the hope of resistance of crime inbuilt in every human being due to fear is also lost because you are doing away with the basic God Himself. Your criticism ends without any solution and leads to the progress of crime to climax very shortly. It is destructive and negative approach denying all hopes of possibilities. If faith in God and fear to hell are strongly established in every heart, even the police and politician can be controlled at least to some extent. It is not proper to criticise God in this way without understanding the basic background of creation during the evolution of time.

5) Omprakash Kumare requested your answer Why don't Bhagwad-Gita is considered most sacred, and above Vedas, despite being the only direct word of God in Hinduism?

Shri Swami replied: The Veda is also spoken by sages into whom God entered and spoke the spiritual knowledge. They were also human incarnations of God like Krishna. Even Krishna praised the Vedas through whom God alone is to be understood (Vedaishcha sarvaih…). Of course, in the Gita, concepts are made more clear. The Veda says that sacrifice of money is the practical test. The Gita says that sacrifice of the fruit earned by hard work is the practical test for love to God. Here, the bond with hard earned money is stronger than the bond with the money given by forefathers. Sacrifice of more strong bond is indicated by the Gita. The Veda said that God enters this world. The Gita said the same more clearly that God will enter the human form while coming to this world. Logical analysis is very important before accepting any scripture since there is every possibility of the scripture to be polluted by insertions from exploiters. ‘Who told?’ is not important. ‘What is told?’ is the most important. In view of the insertions, these two statements stand very valuable.

6) Someone anonymous requested your answer: What kind of miracles of God you can see only in India?

Shri Swami replied: God has distributed miracles very widely so that even devils perform miracles. A miracle is unimaginable event indicating the unimaginable God as its source. This is the basic concept and except this purpose, the miracle has no any other utility. God comes in human form everywhere in the world and performs miracles whenever required. God does not concentrate much on miracles since a wide distribution of miracles was already done including devils also. God starts the preaching assuming that existence of unimaginable God is already established. The teaching in school starts assuming that you have already learnt the alphabets. Recent human incarnation, Bhagavan Shri Satya Sai Baba showed several types of miracles in the presence of entire public of the whole world. Jesus also performed several miracles in foreign country. For God, miracles, heaven, hell etc., no region or country has any special significance.

7) Aditya Mandapaka requested your answer: When did Viswamitramaharshi first said about gayatri mantra?

Shri Swami replied: I have already commented that such questions have no significant use in the spiritual knowledge that concentrates mainly on your approach to God to please Him. These are questions of past history regarding date, month and year. A king might have existed 100 years before or 200 years before. What is the difference? What is the way of administration of that king towards public is most important so that it can guide the present rulers of the country. In this way, even history is useful and hence is given place of a department in the system of education. Pragmatism is most important guideline in any branch of knowledge.

8) How does the soul enter the womb kindly explain.

[Some says A) it enters the male sperm through food which the males eat (through rain it enters the crop then man eats that food and then it comes to sperm and from sperm to females womb).in that case even females eat food then why does it not enter the female body first). B) Some say when sperm and egg unite in womb cell is formed and after that the soul enters the cell or fertilized egg. there are so many birth and death happening all over the universe(fishes insects birds and so many other species take birth and die) how come so many souls travel all over the universe and always find an impregnated ovum so that soul can enter the fertilized egg. there is much confusion about this kindly explain the process of rebirth as to how soul comes in the womb of all species I will be happy if you reply ? By Bhargav Patel]

Shri Swami replied: Again, this is a topic of research having no pragmatism. Why don’t you take this point simply that the soul enters the womb either through male or female (sperm or ovum) while taking the food. In the Brahma Sutras, you find the explanation of process of the entry of soul through rain, crop etc., as you have described above. The miraculous divine mechanism takes perfect care about the plan in which the soul enters the correct womb of mother and there is no scope of any error as in the case of scientific procedures. You must take a long jump over some unnecessary areas, which are in no way related to the uplift of soul to get the eternal grace of God. Shankara told in His commentary (Adhyaasabhashyam) that such unnecessary areas are to be avoided in the interest of the actual issue of spiritual progress of the soul. He says that discussion on such unnecessary topics is like powdering the already powdered grains (Pishtapeshanameva). One is asked to go to his daughter’s house to know about some problem relating to her. He went and returned. He should narrate all the information about that specific problem faced by her. In this context, if the person goes on describing for two hours all the details of his journey like name of every station and exact span of time the train stopped in each station etc., without opening the actual topic, what will be your reaction to him? At the maximum, he can say that the train started at 10 Am and reached the destiny by 6 Pm and that the train was late by two hours, it is tolerable to some extent. Instead of such waste details, it is better to know about the details of the punishments faced by the soul in the hell for its sins so that one shall be careful to avoid doing sins in this world on hearing such details. Such description has practical use in the spiritual progress of the soul.

9) According to Genesis 2:2, God rested on the 7th day. Why did God choose the 7th day as the rest day? Why did He rest on that day?

Shri Swami replied: This question is also similar to the above questions. Ok. God did not rest on 7th day. You tell Me, which date you like for His rest. Suppose I put the same question to you. You work for 6 days from Monday to Saturday and take rest on Sunday, the 7th day. What is the reason here? All these are insignificant light points. Will God need any rest? Is He a human being to become tired on doing work? All these are superimposed on God so that a human being on doing work for 6 days continuously should take rest at least on the 7th day. If this concept is projected, a greedy person will not listen and works on 7th day also to earn more and finally spoil his health. For the sake of such people, the ancestors created certain statements so that everybody is forced to take rest for one day after 6 days. If you say that if one works on the 7th day on which God takes rest, God will be angry, even the greedy person will fear and take rest. All this is done for the welfare of the entire humanity and not to cheat the humanity for getting some selfish benefit. God also appreciates such traditional statements created for the welfare of entire humanity. This clarification should be kept confidential since if the greedy person knows this, he will again start working on 7th day!

10) What lies beyond seventh sky according to Islam?

[To the above query somebody responded like below:

What lies beyond the seventh sky is a unknowable. A tree marks the end of the seventh heaven beyond which no one can pass. So, what's beyond is Allah's well-guarded secret.

Sidrat al-Muntahā (Arabic: سدرة المنتهى‎) is a Lote tree that marks the end of the seventh heaven, the boundary where no creation can pass, according to Islamic beliefs. During the Isra and Mi'raj, Muhammad, being the only one allowed, travelled with the archangel Gabriel to the Sidrat al-Muntaha where it is said that Allah assigned the five daily prayers to all humans. Sidrat al-Muntaha]

Shri Swami replied: The unimaginable God is called as Allah in Islam. As per Hinduism, the creation contains 14 worlds, 7 above and 7 below. This creation is also compared to a sacred tree (Asvattham praahuravyam). Allah’s well guarded secret in to which nobody can pass exists beyond the boundary of 7th world. This means, beyond the boundary of this imaginable universe, unimaginable domain of unimaginable God exists. See the beautiful correlation between Islam and Hinduism! Are the quarrels between these two religions not meaningless and utterly foolish?

11) Who rules hell?

Shri Swami Replied: There may be a controlling deity of hell working under complete guidance of God. Such deity in Hindu Religion is called as Yamadharma Raja. Everyone and everything is under the absolute control of the absolute God only. In fact, deities are not necessary. But, deities are employed by God to give them opportunity to serve God.

12) If Shri Krishna is God, whom did he refer to as "Him" in the 62nd verse of the 18th chapter of the Gita?

[tamevasharanamgacchasarvabhaavenabhaarata |

tatprasaadaatparamaamshaantimsthaanampraapsyasishaashvatam ||62||

Take refuge wholeheartedly in Him only, O Bhaarata. With His grace you will attain supreme peace and the eternal abode.]

Shri Swami Replied: The president may say to a person “You must respect the chair of president”. He need not say this statement as “You must respect my chair”. Both these statements mean the same. ‘Me’ and ‘President’ are one and the same. If the word ‘President’ is used, it means that any person sitting in the chair of president is to be respected. If the word ‘Me’ is used, it means that he alone while sitting in the chair of president should be respected. The first sense is more proper and logical. The second statement means that other human incarnations should not be approached for surrender. The unimaginable God present in every human incarnation is the target of every surrendering devotee. Even though you are respecting the person sitting in the chair, you are indirectly respecting the chair only. As long as the person sits in the chair, the chair and person cannot be isolated and differentiated. Based on this monism between chair and the person, several references can be found in the Gita like “surrender to Me alone” (Maamekam sharanam vraja). There is no difference between these two modes of expressions. In the simile given above, the chair and the person sitting on the chair are clearly visible separately. Even in the homogeneous alloy, the individual atoms of both metals are separately visible through microscope. In human incarnation, in which we say that unimaginable God and human being are homogeneously mixed, we cannot find separately the unimaginable God even through imagination. Hence, you have to take the human being component, Krishna, alone for the unimaginable God also. Even if you want to differentiate both, it is impossible because one component is unimaginable. Hence, ‘Me’ alone should be used to represent the unimaginable God also. A demon with ego will exploit this situation and say that he himself is the unimaginable God. But, Krishna is not such selfish and egoistic demon. He defined the human incarnation as the unimaginable God entering human being (Maanusheem…). By this, He made clear that Krishna, the human being component seen by all is not the unimaginable God but the unimaginable God exists in Krishna. He also made this point very clear by saying that some ignorant people think that the unimaginable God is modified into the human being component in human incarnation (Avyaktam vyaktimaapannam). By this, He frankly told that unimaginable God and the human being component are separate and the human incarnation is only a mixture but not compound produced after reaction. He also mentioned that the unimaginable God cannot be seen and even cannot be imagined (Maam tu veda na kashchana). All the points are clearly explained and no exploitation was done even though fair chances are available. If such exploitation is done as done by a demon, such knowledge is not true. Unimaginable God will not stay in any human being even for a fraction of second if ego enters it.

13) Ramayana (Hindu epic): Why did Laxman not take his wife in 14 years Exile, but Rama did?

Shri Swami Replied: I have already explained this. Lord Rama is testing Lakshmana, for the sake of the world of devotees only. The test is to the mind of Lakshmana to see whether he thinks about this point at any time during the 14 years of stay in forest. Lakshmana came to serve the Lord so that the Lord is pleased by his service. When Rama and Sita were together in the bolted hut enjoying each other, Lakshmana was very happy since the Lord is happy. He sacrificed his pleasure for the sake of the Lord. He didn’t take food or even slept for a minute and constantly walking around the hut like a watchman. Young Rama and young Sita were enjoying each other. Lakshmana, being even younger than Rama should have more attraction for the enjoyment. But, never such idea of self enjoyment or jealousy to enjoyment of Rama entered the mind Lakshmana at any time during these 14 years. Lakshmana was the incarnation of Adi Shesha, who was given the unique opportunity of being associated with the entire body of the Lord from top to bottom throughout all the times. Even Mahalakshmi did not have such unique opportunity! When Sita scolded Lakshmana, Rama punished her later on by sending her to forest. When Lakshmana became unconscious in the war, Rama told that such brother can’t be obtained even though a lady like Sita can be obtained and hence declared that He is not interested to fight further (Yatra bhraataa sahodarah). Lord always has many folded love than devotee like a secret tsunami! We mistake His external silence as love on one side (devotee’s side) since we are unable even to imagine the cyclone of love-whirl on the devotee that is going on in His deep heart! The external silence of the ocean always indicates many many fathoms of depth in it!