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The Path to Please God - Message on Hanumat Jayanti

The Essence of My [Swamiji's] Divine Knowledge is Condensed into a Sanskrit Verse by Me as

avatīrṇa naro brahma
mārgaḥ karma phalārpaṇam |
jīvaḥ sṛṣṭikaṇaḥ sṛṣṭiḥ
mithyā tasyaiva nātmanaḥ ||

This means "The human incarnation is God for human beings. The path to please Him is only the sacrifice of work and the fruit of work in His divine mission. The soul is an iota of the creation. The creation is unreal (mithya) for God alone and not for the soul."

[Hanumat Jayanti Day, the birth anniversary of Hanuman] The festival of Hanumat Jayanti is coming very shortly in 2-3 days, which happens to fall on this Monday. How to celebrate that festival? The low level of celebration is done when the devotees worship Hanuman with leaves, fruits, special food items and prayers and then finally ask for worldly boons. The second middle level of worship is doing Bhajans on Hanuman with emotion representing the love on Hanuman. Since in the middle level there is no desire for boons, certainly the middle level is higher than the low level. But the best and highest level of worshipping Hanuman is to analyze what Hanuman practiced and take it into our practice to attain the permanent grace of Lord like Him. This highest level of worship is called as Jnana Yajna. The middle level of worship is called as Swadhyaya Yajna and Tapo Yajna. Swadhyaya means reciting prayers and singing songs. Tapo Yajna means having emotion through devotion, which is the penance and which develops Tapana or Vedana, which is nothing but the climax urge of devotion. The low level worship is called as Dravya Yajna. The Gita says that the God is pleased with Jnana Yajna (Jnana yajnena) because with this you are analyzing the concepts, which guides your practice in the right direction leading to please the Lord. Therefore, the best way of celebrating Hanumat Jayanti is to analyze the practice of Hanuman as presented in the Ramayana written by Valmiki, which is the best authority about His practice.

Hanuman studied all the Vedas and Shastras. He studied nine grammars from Sun. Nobody in creation can be equal to Hanuman in this scholastic ability of scriptures. Even though Hanuman became the future Brahma, He never stated that He is God (Aham Brahmasmi). I am astonished to see these petty Advaita scholars who do not have one-millionth knowledge of Hanuman speak Aham Brahmasmi! Hanuman always says ‘Dasoham’, which means that He is the humble servant of the Lord and never states ‘Soham’, which means that He is God. It is said that by remembering Hanuman the ghosts run away. The real ghost is this misconceived Advaita, which will run away on remembering Hanuman.

The most important essence of the life history of Hanuman is meeting Rama, who was the then human incarnation of His generation. Hanuman was waiting to meet the human incarnation on the instruction of His mother and several sages. Hanuman has all the capacity to jump to the upper worlds and go to Brahma Loka or Vaikuntha or Kailasha to see Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. In fact, in the war, He went to Vaikuntha and brought down Garuda. Even in His childhood all the angels appeared before Him and gave boons. Then Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Indra etc., appeared. In such case, why He was so anxious about the human form of the Lord? He has seen all the energetic forms of the Lord like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The psychology of Hanuman seems to be quite opposite to our psychology. We are always anxious to see the energetic form of God. In fact, we feel that we have seen the original form of God when we see the energetic form of God. It is just like saying that when a person appears in a silk shirt, he is the original person. If the same person appears in a cotton shirt, he is not at all the original person. This means we treat the human form of the Lord as an ordinary human being and we treat the energetic form of God as the original form of God. We do not see the person in both the shirts. But for us the silk shirt is the original person and the cotton shirt is only the cotton shirt and not the person. Even if an angel who is simply an energetic form without God appears, it is God for us. Even the human form with God is only a human being for us. For the villagers of Brindavanam, Indra, who is the energetic form and a servant of God was God! But Krishna in human body was thought to be a human child. But Indra fell on the feet of Krishna and asked for apology. Indra could not recognize Krishna because he was seeing the external cotton shirt, which is lower than the silk shirt. He could not see the hidden God in the cotton shirt. In fact, he was simply the silk shirt and thought the silk shirt itself i.e., himself as God.

Hanuman never cared for the energetic forms, which are simply angels. He respected the energetic forms of God like Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva but He did not worship them as per the Valmiki Ramayana. The reason is that the energetic form is not convenient for worship. Hanuman is in a body made of five elements. The energetic form is made of one element i.e., Agni (energy) only. It is not suitable to the human bodies of the earth. Therefore, in the Valmiki Ramayana there is no reference to Hanuman worshipping any energetic form like Vishnu, Shiva etc. It is impossible to worship the energetic form directly. Only you can worship a statue as a representative of such energetic form. Instead of worshipping a statue or a photo representing an energetic form in which neither the original energetic form nor God exists, it is better to worship God in the human form, which is also very convenient, being the common medium in the case of human beings. Is it not better to worship a person in the cotton shirt instead of worshipping the photo of that person in a silk shirt? Therefore, Hanuman recognized the human incarnation of His time and worshipped Him directly instead of worshipping energetic forms of God directly, which are inconvenient and instead of worshipping their representative statues indirectly, which are useless. Therefore, we should learn the main aspect of this spiritual life of Hanuman and then only we shall get the real benefit in our spiritual path.

There are three items in spiritual life 1) yourself; 2) the path and 3) the goal. Regarding yourself, you should realize that you are not God and that you are only the humble servant of God. Regarding the goal, you should realize that the goal is the human incarnation present in your generation. Neither formless aspect nor energetic form nor statue nor photo is the convenient form for worship. These two aspects of yourself and the goal are very clearly understood from the spiritual life of Hanuman. The third item is the path to the goal. This is also very clear from the life of Hanuman. He was searching and waiting for the then human incarnation. He was anxiously waiting and searching for that only. Thus, meeting the human incarnation physically is the first step. Then only direct conversation and direct vision are possible. But today due to development of electronic technology, we are seeing the persons, situated far from us and we are talking with Him directly. This is exactly equal to the direct meeting and direct conversation. Such technology did not exist then and therefore, meeting the human incarnation was very very essential. Meeting does not mean the simple physical sense. Meeting means understanding Him with full faith. Ravana and several demons also met Rama. Several evil persons like Kauravas also met Krishna. What is the use of such meeting in physical sense? Meeting means understanding Him with full faith and receiving the true knowledge from Him by clarifying all the doubts.

The path in the darkness is shown by the torchlight in the hand. The Sun situated far in the sky also shows your path by the same light. Therefore, receiving the proper guidance from the Lord is important than mere meeting in the physical sense. After this, Hanuman entered in to the service of the Lord by participating in His mission. He did not receive the Gita like Arjuna before the participation in the work. Already Hanuman received the Gita with full clarification from the Sun and the Sun was preached well by the Lord in the same Gita. The Lord says in the Gita that He preached the spiritual knowledge first to the Sun. Therefore, knowledge was not necessary for Hanuman from the Lord. He saw Rama and entered in to the service. Sometimes a person becomes a wonderful devotee in practice without receiving any knowledge from the guru. The reason for this is that he has already received the knowledge in the previous birth and that samskara follows him in this birth. The hunter Kannappa did not receive any spiritual knowledge from the Lord and entered directly in to the service of the Lord because in his previous birth, he was Arjuna and received the Gita from Him already. The knowledge leads to devotion and devotion leads to practice. The knowledge continues in the devotion also and leads to practice. The knowledge continues in the practice also. Thus, the knowledge is underlying in the devotion and practice. If the knowledge disappears, doubts will arise. Then practice will be stopped. The devotion decreases. Therefore, knowledge is like a torchlight, which is put on continuously till the goal is reached. Therefore, the guidance of the spiritual guru is necessary till the goal is reached. After preaching the Gita, Krishna did not leave Arjuna while practicing His message. Krishna was with Arjuna throughout the war and was clearing several problems in the war. The 18 chapters of the Gita were Jnana yoga, which were completely transformed in to the 18 days of war, which is the Karma Yoga.

In between the Jnana Yoga and Karma yoga, Bhakti yoga is developed in the mind of Arjuna, which is in the hidden state. Krishna represents the buddhi or the driver or the Jnana Yoga, who is the guiding force as guru. The Veda says that buddhi is the driver. Arjuna represents both Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga. The Bhakti Yoga is hidden in the mind of Arjuna. The Karma Yoga is expressed in the form of participation of Arjuna in the war. The Gita is a mixture of the intelligence of the Lord (Guru buddhi) and the intelligence of Arjuna (Atma buddhi). Thus, Jnana yoga is the interaction of the self with the superself. The Gita is not simply preaching of Krishna like a non-stop express train. It is the series of answers given to the enquiries of Arjuna. Thus, the Jnana yoga becomes the knowledge with relevance to the soul.

Hanuman stands as an example like a mountain for knowledge, devotion and service. The knowledge of Hanuman was over even before meeting Rama. The devotion rose like a Tsunami, when He met Rama. Thus, both the knowledge and devotion are in hidden state in Hanuman. The entire Ramayana of Valmiki, especially the Sundara Kanda, relating to the Hanuman is simply concentrated on the service of Hanuman to the then human incarnation. The service (karma yoga) cannot result without devotion (bhakti yoga). The devotion cannot be generated without the knowledge (jnana yoga). Rukmini heard about all the details of Krishna (Jnana yoga) and developed terrible attraction (Bhakti yoga) to attain Krishna by such knowledge. Her devotion is selfless and her attraction to Krishna was not to become the queen of Dwaraka. She wanted to be present at the feet of Krishna and press the feet continuously and her aim was such service (Karma yoga). The karma yoga implies the already existence of Bhakti yoga and jnana yoga. You are serving your son. What is the reason for your service? The reason is your love on your son, which is Bhakti yoga. What is the reason of your love on that child? The reason is that you are well aware that he is your child born from your blood. Such knowledge and identification (jnana yoga) is responsible for your love. Therefore, when the service exists, it means the existence of Bhakti yoga and Jnana yoga simultaneously. Of course, the service should be without any aspiration for any return. A servant also does lot of service, but the reason for the service is the salary i.e., expected by him from you. The service and love of a prostitute exhibited is for your money. Thus, when selfless service is present, it means the real devotion and the real knowledge exist.

Sundara Kanda shows the selfless service of Hanuman to the then human incarnation of His time, which is a proof for the existence of real devotion through real service. Thus, from Hanuman we must learn the three items (Triputi) of spiritual concepts, which are yourself, the path and the goal. To know that you are not the God and that you are only the humble servant of God is the first item. The selfless service directly to the present human incarnation is the true path. The present human incarnation in your generation and its identification is the goal. Thus, the entire three fold spiritual effort can be realized perfectly from the life of Hanuman, which is the divine message of the guru. There can be no better guru than Hanuman because Hanuman Himself is Lord Shiva, who is acting the role of a spiritual aspirant. Rama is the human form of Lord, who is acting in the role of a human being in Pravrutti. You have to learn from Rama about the behavior that you should adopt towards your co-human beings in a balanced and justified society, which is established by the Lord. Hanuman is the human form, which came to preach Nivrutti of the spiritual side that involves the knowledge of yourself, the knowledge of the true path to please God and the knowledge of right convenient form of the God to be worshipped on this earth during this human life. Thus, God as Narayana came in the form of Rama to teach Pravrutti. The same God came in the form of Hanuman as Lord Shiva to preach Nivrutti. Shiva is Narayana and both these are the names of same God (Shivascha Narayanah).

Another most important aspect that we have to learn from the spiritual life of Hanuman is about the significance of miracles in the spiritual path. Hanuman Himself performed several tremendous miracles. But He did not give any importance nor He gained egoism due to such miracles. In fact, He saved Rama several times through miracles as in the case of giving life to Lakshmana by bringing Sanjeevi Mountain or as in the case of bringing down Garuda to relieve Rama from serpent-bond or as in the case of jumping the sea to get the information about Sita etc. Any person in the place of Hanuman will definitely say ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ and ‘Shivoham’ and also declare Rama as His devotee because God protects His devotees through superpowers. Rama never did any miracle and acted as an ordinary human being. He wept like an ordinary human being when Lakshmana became unconscious. He became unconscious when He was hit by serpent-bond. He was unable to cross the sea and required a bridge. The Lord behaved like an ordinary human being in the role of Rama because the main aim of His role was to preach Pravrutti to all the ordinary human beings. Therefore, He should act within the limits of His role. The turning of a stone in to Ahalya was done in the presence of Lakshmana and Vishwamitra only. That miracle was not advertised by both of them because it was against to His role. The role of Hanuman was quite different. He is acting the role of a devotee. The devotee also attains superpowers. But he should not be attracted to such powers and should not become proud by such powers. Hanuman attributed the cause of these powers only to Rama. Similarly, the devotee must realize that God is doing the miracles through him and not himself. This was preached by Hanuman through His statement that Rama was the source of the miracles. Krishna, Hanuman and Ravana lifted big mountains. Krishna declared Himself as the Lord. But He declared only to Arjuna, a deserving devotee and not to public.

Duryodhana did not agree the lifting of the mountain by Krishna and said that Krishna lifted a small stone and the story was propagated as a mountain. Hanuman lifted the mountain and also carried on it but He said that He could lift due to Rama, the God. Ravana lifted the mountain and declared to the public that he is God. Hanuman did not accept Ravana as God even though Ravana had special superpowers. Hanuman did not see any miracle performed by Rama. He never saw any vision given by Rama. He never heard any preaching like the Gita from Rama. He believed Rama as the God in the first instance of the meeting itself and rendered the final form of service straightly. This shows the strength of the previous samskara and the strength of divine knowledge of Hanuman. Thus, Hanuman is the highest guru for any human being in this world. God Himself came down in that form to show the part of Nivrutti for a spiritual aspirant. Rama can be a practical guide in Pravrutti, Krishna is a theoretical guide in Nivrutti but Hanuman is a practical guide in Nivrutti or spiritual path. Therefore, for all the spiritual aspirants, only Hanuman can be the real and complete guide.

Stages in the Spiritual Journey

There are two stages in the spiritual journey. The first stage is realization and attainment of self, which is the undisturbed pure awareness like standstill water. This pure awareness is vibrated in association with the worldly bonds. These vibrations are called as gunas or samskaras or vasanas or feelings or thoughts etc. When you detach yourself from all the external worldly bonds and also withdraw yourself from the gross body, you are confined to the vibrated soul. Due to the detachment, the vibrations also disappear and the undisturbed soul remains. If you confine yourself to this undisturbed soul by fixing your ‘I’ to it, this is called as self-realization or self-attainment. This is the first stage. This stops at the fifth stage of Asthanga yoga of Patanjali, which is the Pratyahara and which means the complete withdrawal of yourself. The self-attainment is possible by identifying the original nature of the self and by removing its superimpositions. The soul superimposes itself on the gross body and also on its vibrations, called as subtle body. When the superimpositions are removed, the worldly bonds which are nothing but strong feelings also disappear. All the worries and stress disappear. The perfect mental peace remains. The body and mind are interlinked. A peaceful mind leads to perfect health of the body also. Hanuman achieved all this and attained a sound mind in the sound body. By this, the capacity of the logical analysis (buddhi) also improves. The attainment of this self is a pre-requisite or qualification for the second part of the journey. Shankara stressed this first stage to atheists, who are the beginners.

The second part of the journey is attainment of superself (God) in human form and to please Him with the selfless service. Hanuman is the best example in both the parts of the journey. For a beginner, the first half of the journey is stressed and an encouragement is given by stating that the intermediate station of the first half of the journey itself to be the final goal. The second half of the journey is not mentioned for an atheist, who is the beginner. Thus, for encouragement the self itself is spoken as the superself. This will also coincide with the nature of the atheists, who do not believe God separately. All the atheists are encouraged to take up the first half of the journey because even an atheist likes to be peaceful without stress in the life here. The attainment of self is the qualification to serve the superself. It is only a rank in the entrance examination, which gives eligibility to study the professional course. A rank in the entrance examination is not a rank in the professional degree. Normally we encourage the students by saying that if he gets a good rank in the entrance examination, he has become engineer. The study of the engineering course after getting rank in the entrance examination is hidden for the sake of encouragement. By getting a rank in the entrance examination, one should not feel that he attained the post of engineer without studying the engineering course. The fruit of self-achievement is salvation. Salvation means the relief from all the worries and is not at all related to God. Even an atheist wants salvation but not kaivalyam. Kaivalyam means attainment of God. God is pleased with selfless service. The selfless service is possible only if you have attained the self by self-realization. The atheist, who completed the first half of the journey obtained salvation and thought that he attained God because he thinks that self is God. This misinterpretation can be clarified by studying Hanuman because He is the first rank holder of the first half of the journey and still, He never said that self is God. He showed the second part of the journey by catching the then human incarnation and pleasing Him through selfless service. Therefore, the atheists should realize that just for encouragement only the intermediate station is mentioned as the final station. They should understand this and should start the second half of the journey.

Take the Hanuman as an example. The atheist should catch the second train from the intermediate station. Sometimes you may have a direct train from the first station to the third station i.e., you can realize the God in the beginning itself and complete the total journey by the direct train. You will achieve the self also with self-realization as an intermediate station. You are cutting all the bonds in the first half of the journey so that you will have a strong bond with the Lord in the second half of the journey. You are acquiring the full independence by relieving yourself from all this slavery of materialism only to become the best slave to God latter on. The complete independence of the soul (Aapnoti swaraajyam – Veda) as aspired by Shri Jiddu Krishna Murthy pertains only to the first half of the journey. Almost all the spiritual preachers are concentrating on the first half of the journey and they are getting excellent response from the public because everybody wants relief from the stress. But they should know that the Gopikas were having maximum stress in remembering Krishna and Radha became even mad. The madness of the worldly bonds should disappear so that you can become perfectly mad about God! Even in the time of Rama and Hanuman, the present society existed with the same psychology with different external culture.

People never recognized Rama as God except a very few topmost devotees. Even in the case of Krishna, who performed so many miracles and preached the excellent Gita, only very few devotees like Gopikas could believe Him as God. Even Dasaradha, Kausalya and Kaikeyi etc., also loved Rama as a good person only. People used to worship the representative statues of energetic forms like Vishnu, Shiva etc., or the past human incarnations like Vamana, Narasimha etc. But there is not even single reference in the Valmiki Ramayanam for the idol worship by Hanuman in any way. Hanuman worshipped only the then human incarnation. Therefore, in every generation the same majority exists, which does not recognize the then existing human incarnation due to jealousy and egoism. The worship of statues is thus inevitable. Ofcourse just for vision of the past human form, the statues or photos serve very good purpose and develop the inspiration towards the concept of human form of God. But the extension of service to the statues imagining them as live human forms is imagination and madness only, which does not contain even the basic logical analysis. When the human being is covered by egoism and jealousy on his eyes, the idol worship is inevitable like a medicine for the patient. The subjective satisfaction is the only merit in the idol worship. But unfortunately, such satisfaction is only imaginary or illusion. However, ignorance is inevitable in the beginning of the treatment as said in the Gita (Sarvarambhahi doshena). It is only a representative worship but not direct worship. For representative worship even a statue or photo in your house is sufficient. You need not take tedious journey and spend lot of money to see the statues in temples present in far places in the name of pilgrimage. The statue in your house and in the temple is one and the same and God is not present in both. They only represent God to satisfy your madness of the past human incarnation or the ignorance of an ordinary human being affected by egoism and jealousy.

The priests of the far places created stories of those temples (Sthala Puranam) just as the commercial advertisement because they are benefited by the offerings of the large public. However, our ancestors used to carry on the pilgrimage. Their aim was different. They wanted to go to a place like a hill or forest, where they can peacefully concentrate on the statue leaving the disturbance in the house. But today these famous temples present on hills and forests are heavily crowded due to the commercial advertisements of the priests. Your house has the better peaceful atmosphere than these present temples. The case of the human incarnation is different, which is direct worship (Saakshat Upasanam) unlike the worship of statues (Pratiikopasanam). God exists in that particular human form only and therefore, you have to run to Him and hear His wonderful knowledge even if He is present in the war like Kurukshetra. God does not exist in any human being including yourself except that human being and therefore, there is meaning if you leave your house and take up a tedious journey to reach Him in the present time. Even that strain is not necessary because you can see a human incarnation and hear Him through present electronic technology.

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