What Is Meant by Salvation?

[Q. What is meant by salvation? Does it mean relief from this cycle of births and deaths? Why we are unable to develop real love to God without any aspiration for fruit in return? (This question is part of a mahā satsaṅga or a great spiritual discussion between Swami and several devotees who had come from various places, seeking the clarification of their doubts.)]

Swami replied:- Salvation (Moksha) means relief from the worldly bonds. It happens only by Yoga, which means attachment to God. The root word ‘Yuj’ of Yoga means attachment and the root word ‘munch’ of Moksha means detachment. When you are strongly attached to an item, other items naturally drop down. Hence, salvation can’t be attained by any forcible effort. Mind can’t keep silent without any attachment. Hence, without Yoga, salvation is impossible. Such detachment from everything is possible in unconscious coma state only, which is not called salvation. A stone is in such salvation. Awareness and strong attachment to God are the essential pre-requisites to attain salvation.

People, often misunderstand salvation as avoiding rebirth of the soul in this world, which is totally wrong. Even God takes rebirth in this world again and again. Are you greater than God to avoid the cycle of rebirths? God says that His birth and activities in this world are divine (Janma karmacha me divyam...—Gita). To be born along with God participating in His divine service in this world is the real salvation. Avoiding such births involved in worldly bonds is the real meaning of salvation interpreted as avoiding rebirth in this world. It is not avoiding the mere rebirth in the world. It means avoiding rebirth in the world involved fully in worldly bonds. It means taking rebirth in this world again and again to do God’s work due to full involvement in the bond with God. Salvation from worldly bonds shall be without any effort since it is a natural consequence of strong attachment to God. This strong attachment also comes without any effort because the divine personality of God is so strong that you will be attached to God as soon as you come to know everything about God without any doubt. Of course, you have to put a little effort to set aside the worldly bonds for a little time in order to know about God in the initial state. Attachment to God is Bhakti Yoga, which is the natural consequence of full knowledge about God, called Jnaana Yoga. Karma Yoga is a part of Bhakti Yoga itself, which means the practical proof of your real attachment to God. Rukmini came to know about the full divine personality of Krishna from sage Narada (the meaning of the word Narada is giver of the knowledge about God). After this, attachment to Krishna developed in the heart of Rukmini. After this, Rukmini took the practical step to send a messenger to Krishna to marry Him. Jnaana Yoga is given by Shankara, Bhakti Yoga by Ramanuja and Karma Yoga by Madhva in gradual sequence of time. Reaching Krishna with full attachment is Yoga and detachment from everything and everybody without any effort is the salvation. King Pariikshit got such salvation in seven days and king Khatvaanga got it in 48 minutes! It all depends on the quality of the heart of devotee.

Attraction to personality of God shall be the basis of the devotion to God. People say that Dr. Ambedkar opposed the personality worship. It is true if the personality is the case of an ordinary human being, which is generally observed in politics. This does not apply to spiritual knowledge in which God comes in human form like Rama, Krishna etc., from whom the right direction is clearly understood. But, we are introduced to God from our childhood not through such attraction to God‘s personality by our elders. From the beginning, we were introduced to God through the concept of fulfilling the selfish needs by the grace of God, which can be obtained through prostitute devotion or business devotion. The first type is to say that one can get the practical boons from God through prayers and songs praising Him. The second type is to say that one can get the practical boons from God through exchange of practical sacrifice from our side with practical boons from the side of God. Both these types of devotion are not real love to God, but, need based only. The real devotion to God that must have been taught to us should have been the issue type in which both theoretical and practical devotions are offered to God without aspiration for any fruit in return. We praise our issues with loving words (theoretical) and do practical service and sacrifice without aspiring any fruit in return and such real devotion can be attained only through the attraction of the soul to the divine personality of God like a mad fan attracted to a political leader or to a cinema hero, who (fan) sacrifices his life when such leader or hero dies! This fan is in no way benefited from such leader or hero and the fan does not have even any aspiration for any benefit in return. For the development of such real love to God, we face now lot of psychological difficulty because we are accustomed to need based love only from our childhood onwards.

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