Swami answers questions of Shri Anil Antony

1. Please give Your comment on the following saying of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa.

[Shri Anil Antony asked: Paadanamaskaaram Swami, I request You to give answers to the following questions. At Your Lotus Divine Feet-anil.

“A man practicing semen retention for twelve years develops a special power. He grows a new inner nerve called the nerve of memory”. Swami please give Your comment on this saying of Sri Ramakrishna Parama Hamsa.]

Swami replied:- The semen is prepared from blood. Its retention will make the person very healthy and to develop strong power of memory. Such person is called ‘ūrdhvaretāḥ’, which means sending the semen to upward direction by which the semen is re-dissolved in blood. Lord Shiva is called by this name ‘ūrdhvaretāḥ’.

2. Do the semen ejection in dream harms the health?

[Regarding semen ejection in dream Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said: “After nocturnal emission, a man retains enough to succeed. But he must not lose it voluntarily. What remains after nocturnal emission is very refined. The Lahas stored pots of molasses with holes in the bottom. After a year it was found that the molasses had turned into crystals, like sugar candy. Whatever liquid there was had come out through the holes”.

Swami, with respect to the above, if the semen ejection happen in dream will it harm the health?]

Swami replied:- Semen ejected naturally will not harm the person very much. The harm is negligible. But forcible ejection will cause a lot of damage to the health.

3. How can an intellectual soul experience deathlike boredom in times of tragedy yet find peace in moments of extreme happiness?

Swami replied:- Anything can be attained by practice (Abhyāsena tu kaunteya… - Gita).

4. What message did Hanuman convey through His incarnation as Bhima?

[Hanuman incarnated as Bhima during the time of Lord Krishna’s incarnation. What message did Hanuman convey through His incarnation as Bhima?]

Swami replied:- Bhima is not the incarnation of Hanuman. Bhima is the younger brother of Hanuman since Bhima is born due to the grace of God Vāyu. Bhima is the topmost devotee of God Krishna like Hanuman, who is the top devotee of God Rama.

5. Why did Shurpanakha approach Lord Rama with lust (tamas) instead of being attracted to any other human being?

Swami replied:- Shurpanakha is a demon, who is the embodiment of Tamas quality. She is prepared to go with any beautiful person. She was prepared to go with Lakshmana on hearing that his wife was not with him. In Tamas, no analysis and no discrimination of good and bad exists.

6. When God incarnates in this world, does He always have a guru?

[Shri Anil Antony asked: Padanamaskaram Swami, I request You to answer the following questions. At Your Divine Lotus Feet-anil. When God incarnates in this world, does He always have a guru? Who was the guru of Shri Satya Sai Baba? Some say that John the Baptist was the guru of Jesus. Could You kindly explain this?

Swami replied:- When God incarnates on this world, He will have His own Guru so that everybody in the world will try to search for their own Guru on seeing God’s example. He does such things to set good example so that others will follow Him and this is called as ‘Loka Samgraha’ in the Gita. He does not require any Guru for Himself in real sense and this is shown by Shri Satya Sai Baba so that the concept is complete on both sides of the coin.

7. Swami, why did You say that Shri Satya Sai Baba is Your guru?

Swami replied:- I have answered as above.

8. Please provide Your response to the claim.

[Some people attempt to compare Shri Shirdi Sai Baba with Shri Satya Sai Baba, arguing that since some of Shri Satya Sai Baba's devotees lost their lives during an assassination attempt on Him, this suggests that Satya Sai Baba cannot be God. Please provide Your response to this claim.]

Swami replied:- The defect lies with others and not with Shri Satya Sai Baba. Is Jesus responsible for His crucifixion? It only reflects the selfish ignorance of the priests present at that time.

9. Should a devotee focus on multiple contemporary incarnations or on only one contemporary Incarnation?

[When multiple human incarnations—such as Yourself, Shri Satya Sai and Shri Ganapathi Sachidananda Swami—are present at the same time, should a devotee focus on all of Them, or concentrate on only one Incarnation? Please explain this in the context of the Eka bhakti concept also.]

Swami replied:- The concept of Eka Bhakti means that you should divert your attention from the world to God. Whether you concentrate on one form of God or several forms of God, it is one and the same. You are respecting the same person wearing different dresses. Whether you take one liter of milk in one vessel or you take four vessels of each containing ¼ liter of milk, it is called as the same Eka Bhakti or single concentration.

10. Do all human incarnations declare a successor to carry the mission forward?

[Shri Datta Vijayananda Teertha Swamiji is the spiritual successor to Sri Ganapathy Sachidananda Swamiji. However, Shri Satya Sai Baba did not appoint a successor. What is the reason for this? Do all human incarnations not declare a successor to carry their mission forward?]

Swami replied:- God Datta directly selects the successor in the spiritual mission. He will appear before you and order you to carry on His spiritual mission. Then, you should express your un-deservingness and full incapability. Then, He will merge in you and He will use you as His medium. Then, you become the human incarnation of God Datta so that God Datta Himself would carry on His own mission through you, the medium. This is the ultimate reality practically experienced by Me.

11. If both human incarnation of God and His wife exist simultaneously in this world, whom should a devotee serve?

[If both the human incarnation of God and His wife exist simultaneoiusly in this world, whom should a devotee recognize as the human incarnation and serve? For instance, a devotee living during the time of Lord Krishna and Goddess Radha, or during the time of Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and His wife—whom should they treat as the human incarnation and serve?]

Swami replied:- In fact, both are equally the human incarnations of God.

12. Why did Jesus not mention about the coming of Prophet Muhammad after Him?

Swami replied:- Jesus told about it. But, the recorded point got deleted for various political reasons.

13. What should be the criteria for declaring someone a saint?

[The Catholic Church declares certain devotees as saints after their death. What should be the criteria for declaring someone a saint? Should a devotee be declared a saint while still alive, or only after their death?]

Swami replied:- Saint is always a living person and not a dead person. The only criterion to be a saint is that he/she should propagate the most wonderful spiritual knowledge in most excellent way. Clarity of the concepts must be 100%. Clarity will be lacking in the preaching when the speaker himself doesn’t have complete clarity in the mind. A confused preacher will always confuse the audience. Keeping silent is far better than creating confusion.

Questions from internet:

14. What does the concept of "unwanted progeny" mean in the context of the Bhagavad Gita and why is it considered problematic?

Swami replied:- When men are killed, the women have to do marriages with the available men without the choice of selecting a good person in the marriage. The children of such marriages become undisciplined due to the undisciplined husbands selected in the marriage without the choice of discrimination. This was argued by Arjuna.

15. What is the meaning of Sade Sati?

Swami replied:- Saade Sati means seven and half years. When the planet Shani (Saturn) moves in the twelfth, first and second houses, which are subsequently situated, the total period will be seven and half years. Saturn stays in every house for two and half years. Three houses x two and half years = 7 ½ years. This period of 7 ½ is said to be very serious in astrology.

16. I made a promise to Lord Vishnu and broke it many times. How do I make Him believe in me again?

Swami replied:- This time, you don’t break the promise. He will believe you again.

17. How does Dakshinamurti, the ‘Silent Guru’ form of Shiva, impart wisdom differently from Shiva’s other manifestations?

Swami replied:- Dakshinamurti means the embodiment of kindness. Hence, He is very kind towards souls to help them through preaching perfect spiritual knowledge.

18. Is silence as sinful as doing wrong?

Swami replied:- If one is capable of stopping the sin and keeps silent even though he could have stopped the sin, such person will be punished by God since his silence is a sin. Bhishma and Drona were capable of stopping the crime done against Draupadi in the court, but, kept silent. For this sin of silence, Bhishma has to lie on the bed of arrows and Drona’s head was chopped off by Dhrishtadyumna.

19. Why is Draupadi considered pure despite loving Arjuna more than her other husbands?

[Why is Draupadi considered pure despite loving Arjuna more than her other husbands? Why didn't she love all of her husbands alike, if she accepted all of them? Compared to Goddess Sita, isn't Draupadi the most overrated character of Hindu mythology?]

Swami replied:- In the final journey of the Pandavas in Himalayas, Draupadi was the first to fall. Dharmaraja explained that Draupadi fell down since she was loving Arjuna more than the other husbands. Of course, there is some logic in this point because Draupadi’s attention was fully focused on Arjuna when he stepped forward to participate in her svayamvara, the ritual in which a woman selects her husband from assembled suitors. It was only afterward that the proposal for her to marry all five brothers emerged. Draupadi was having justified special love to Arjuna based on this point.

20. Did Draupadi sleep with all five Pandavas in Mahabharata? If so, how can we say that she was a woman of good character?

Swami replied:- Draupadi by herself did not love all the five Pandavas and never insisted that she would marry all the 5 Pandavas. It is the decision of God Krishna and Sage Veda Vyasa that Draupadi shall marry all the five brothers based on some reasons related to her previous birth.

21. What do angels look like? Are angels male or female? Is there a Guardian Angel for each one on Earth as some believe?

Swami replied:- Angels look like human beings only. But they are forms of radiant energy. Both males and females exist in angels. They always look with same age of 30 years old and hence, they are called as ‘Tridaśas.’ The constant age is due to the effect of the divine nectar (amrutam) drunk by them.

22. What should a Hindu do with a Quran given to him/her by a Muslim friend?

Swami replied:- Anyone can read any scripture because God is the author of the scriptures of all religions. You must study every scripture to realize the unity of the subject presented by God in all the scriptures. The subject of every scripture deals with three aspects only. First is about God, second is about the heaven that rewards merits and the third is hell that punishes the sins of souls. Except the scripture of atheism, all scriptures are authorized by God.

23. What should be the punishment for someone who ridicules and burns the Holy Quran?

Swami replied:- One day, his/her heart will burn with repentance after knowing the universal spirituality.

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