Posted on: 03 Feb 2005
[The Sikh religion says that God is formless. In the beginning we have to worship God through a form like a human being in whom the power of God, not God Himself, exists. This is easy. Then we have to travel from this simple stage to the complicated stage. We have to worship the formless God finally, which is difficult to imagine. But you are preaching the reverse. Can you enlighten me on this?]
Do you think that we have to travel from clarity to confusion or from confusion to clarity? Anything becomes complicated when there is confusion. Anything becomes easy when there is clarity. Clarity is the real knowledge and confusion is the real ignorance. We must travel from ignorance to knowledge and not vice-versa. When you say that God is formless, there is no complication. God is like all-pervading space or cosmic energy. A 10th class student who has studied physics can very easily understand this. But when a particular human being is declared as God the real complication arises, because He is looks like any other human being. How can this particular human being be God and how can every human being not be God? You have to analyze the internal form of the human incarnation and differentiate Him from an ordinary human being. A lot of logical analysis is required here. Moreover your egoism and jealousy attack immediately and due to this nobody accepts a particular human being as God.
Actually God is unimaginable and you cannot say whether He has a form or is formless. He is not the space, which is formless. But you imagine Him to be like space. In your imagination, you have only caught the space and not the real God. Somebody says that a peculiar animal in the forest called as a Gavaya looks like cow, you have only imagined the cow and not the Gavaya animal. Unless you perceive God directly, how can you imagine Him? Your imagination itself is nervous energy. Thus you perceive the unimaginable God through space and nervous energy. Both space and nervous energy are parts of the creation. If you analyze the human body, it is also energy occupying certain space. Therefore, you perceive God through the medium of space and energy. A medium, which is a part of the creation, is essential to imagine the unimaginable God. Unimaginable is different from formless. Space is formless but not unimaginable. First you distinguish between these two.
The Guru of your Sikh religion is actually a human incarnation and worshipping Him is the real worship of God. The reason for your Guru not encouraging the human incarnation is that fraud Gurus claim themselves to be God. It is really difficult to recognize the real human incarnation in which, God dwells. Certainly there is a large probability of fraud persons who claim themselves as God and mislead you. But you should not run away from analyzing the genuine incarnation for fear of frauds. Any system has loopholes. The system cannot be rejected due to the loopholes. One cannot avoid the train journey since there is a risk of accident. One cannot abolish the examination system because there is a probability of cheating. One cannot abolish the administrative offices of the government, as there is probability of corruption. There is a risk of artificial diamonds to be confused as original diamonds. Due to this will you avoid purchasing a necklace of original diamonds? You will take the help of an expert in selecting the original diamond. The human incarnation is the most convenient form for the worship and service.
When you say that God is omnipotent it means that God has all powers. If He cannot come in human form, it means that He does not have that power. Then He cannot be omnipotent. When He has the power to take a human incarnation, He has come in human form. Who are you to object that? He comes in human form for those devotees who are fond of worshipping Him through real service. They like to talk with God and live with God. They like to serve the God and see the pleasure in His face. They get full satisfaction by that. Therefore, God is in the human form for such devotees only. Those who do not like the human form can worship God through formless inert items like space, energy etc. or inert forms like statues. But such worship is not the direct worship and it is only a representative worship. Neither is space God nor is God in the space. Similar is the case of a statue. Both formless space and the statue, which has form, stand only as representatives of God. Of course God is pleased with representative worship also, but the direct experience of God and the possibility of pleasing Him to the maximum extent are possible through the human body of the incarnation only.
A devotee by the name Jyothi asked a question about the possibility of talking with God directly. She should try to find the present human incarnation and then talk directly to Him. The procedure to identify the human incarnation based on the scriptures is extensively explained by Me in several answers to the questions that are placed on the website (www.universal-spirituality.org). One has to identify the present human incarnation using that procedure, in which the inseparable characteristics of God in the human incarnation are well explained. God is coming in human form in every human generation. If He had come only in a particular human generation, God becomes partial to that generation only. God wants to talk with His devotees to please them by clearing all their doubts. This is the main purpose of the human incarnation of God. If you don’t believe in the human incarnation you need not approach the human incarnation. But there is a devotee like Jyothi, who is very much anxious to speak with God. You can neither object to her wanting to speak with the Lord nor to the Lord taking the human form.
You can carry on your representative worship. She is not objecting to you. If you don’t want to purchase the original diamonds do not purchase them. But you should not object to a person who wants to purchase the original diamond. Thus God provided both the ways separately. You purchase artificial diamonds and let somebody purchase the original diamond. Those who want to pray to God without talking to God, let them have representative worship involving formless God or statues. Those who want to pray, talk and worship the living God, let them have the human incarnation. You should not object to the desire of other devotee and also to God who is fully capable of fulfilling the desire of that devotee.
Suppose some parents requested the management of a school to provide a park for waiting. The management is capable of doing so and it is the earnest desire of some parents. Suppose, there are some parents, who do not like the facility of a park. They should not object to those parents who want to use the facility of the park. They should also not oppose the management in the construction of the park. It is the duty of the management to inform the availability of the park to everyone so that any parent who desires to use that facility can use it apart from those parents who requested for it. If this general information is not provided to all the parents, some may question the management regarding their negligence in informing the parents. Similarly, God comes in human form based on the prayers of some topmost devotees to give His direct experience to them. Through the human body the experience is not only direct but also complete. Such experience is not possible in formless worship or in the worship of the statues. Such worship of formless God and statues is only a representative worship. It is just like worshipping the statue of the king and not the direct worship of the king. When you break a coconut near the statue, you offer it to the statue by waving hand [make a gesture of offering it to the statute] and then eat it yourself. But when we break the coconut before the actual king, the king is fond of the pieces of coconut and will eat the entire coconut. When you want to avoid such inconvenience, you need not worship the human incarnation. You break the coconut before the statue and eat it yourself. But there is a fellow who wants to really offer the coconut to the king. He is pleased only when the king eats that coconut. He feels happy by seeing the happiness on the face of the king, while eating that coconut. What right do you have to object to such person? What right do you have to object to the king who wants to come directly to eat that coconut for the happiness of a real devotee?
There are two fields, Pravritti and Nivritti.
Pravritti. [This is the field of worldy life] In this field, people desire the welfare of their body and family. They only love their bodies and their families. Their real love is not for the God but only for their body and family. When that welfare is disturbed and when it is not possible to rectify it by worldly means, then only do they look at God. When you get a fever and it does not subside even by taking common medicines, you approach a doctor. Thus, for them, God is only an instrument to achieve the welfare of their body and family. They pretend to really love God, but it is not true. When you go to the doctor you show a lot of respect to him. That respect is not real. That respect is only apparent and the aim of that respect is only that he will cure your disease efficiently. These people do not bother about tomorrow. They don’t bother about the hell after death and about the next birth. Their aim is only the temporary happiness confined to this birth. They worship God for this purpose, which is not true love at all.
God also acts accordingly. He postpones all your bad results to the next births like a postponed debt, which gathers interest. He brings the good results from future births to the present with reduced values like prematured deposits. The Lord will not save these people in hell. They will go to heaven to enjoy the results of their good deeds and when the results of their good deeds are finished, they are thrown back to the earth. In the future births, which are full of just difficulties [since in the past birth, they prematurely encashed all the good results that were due to them in that birth], these people weep and scold the Lord. But the Lord keeps silent, because He acted only according to their prayers in the previous birth. In this field one can worship the Lord with a single face, who is Vishnu, the embodiment of Sattvam quality [The Lord is associated with all the three fundamental qualities out of which this creation is made. But only the Satvam quality is acceptable to the people in the path of Pravritti]. With this quality, God will help you when you worship. But this quality always requires justice and logic. Therefore, within the rules of the cycle of justice, God helps you. He will never harm you for your worship. In this field God in human form is not necessary. God will protect justice by His power. In this field the aim of the people is not God. Their aim is only protection of justice and their families. Lord Krishna did not fight directly in the war because in this field His power is sufficient to protect justice. Arjuna was charged with His power and Arjuna fought with the enemies. In this field the devotees can worship formless God or statues and can get apparent and temporary protection in this world.
Nivritti. [The field of total devotion and service of God] In this field people only want God. Their aim is the permanent association with God and not the temporary results in this world. They never care for worldly justice. They don’t care for their body or family bonds. Their concentration is always on God. Here even worldly justice is crossed [They do not mind breaking worldly rules for the sake of God]. Prahlada did not care for his father’s death. God came directly and fought with the enemy [the demon Hiranyakashipu, who was Prahlada’s father] in his case. The Gopikas left everybody and everything for the sake of Lord Krishna. He liberated them in this world itself. God in human form was required by the Gopikas and not by Arjuna. The Gopikas wanted to see, touch, talk and live with the God. The Lord came in the human form as Krishna for the sake of the Gopikas only. Arjuna wanted only the power of God to protect justice by getting back his kingdom. Therefore, Arjuna worshipped statues like Shiva Lingam and energetic body of Lord Shiva. Lord Krishna was an instrument for Arjuna in achieving his kingdom. The aim of Arjuna was getting his kingdom and not Krishna. But in the case of the Gopikas the aim was Krishna and not anything else or anybody else. They crossed even traditional justice and ran to Brindavanam to dance with Krishna. They were unable to live even for one minute without Krishna. In this field of Nivritti the Lord comes down in human form and donates Himself to the devotees. Such human form is called as Datta. In this field the Lord has all the three aspects of Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra [God associated with the three qualities Rajas, Sattvam and Tamas respectively]. He shows Sattvam of Vishnu, Rajas of Brahma and Tamas of Rudra. In this field He gives troubles to you when you worship Him. Troubling a devotee unnecessarily is Rajas and Tamas. Only in this field, is the real love for God proved. When God troubles you in spite of your worship, and if you still do not leave Him, then it means your love is real. Thus single-faced Datta (Vishnu) is for Pravritti while the three-faced Datta is for Nivritti.
God acts according to the field you choose. Only in Nivritti will He protect you from hell and take you to His eternal abode. In this field alone will He attract the evil effects of His real devotees and undergo suffering to save His devotees. Here the attitude of God is not logic and justice but only pure love. But real devotees oppose this [They do not like the Lord suffering for their sake]. Therefore, He undergoes the bad results without their knowledge. The God circulates the information regarding Pravritti and Nivritti to everybody so that nobody can blame Him later for their ignorance.
Other than this purpose of providing the information [giving both choices] He does not have any intention of attracting people into Nivritti. He is not benefited in any way by doing so. All the benefit is only for the devotee. The person following Pravritti always scolds the one following Nivritti. The reason is that he is unable to catch God directly in Nivritti and therefore, he discourages that field with jealousy. When he is unable to succeed in that field he does not want anybody to succeed in that field. He wants to close that field and wants only his field to remain open. Such psychological jealousy is not good because God will punish him. Even though he is incapable, he should appreciate others and in such a case God will help him to come to Nivritti. In a nutshell God helps in Pravritti only due to sympathy and such help is only by way of the apparent and temporary rearrangement of your good and bad results. In Nivritti, the fruit is permanent and real and God really loves the devotees.
If you are unable to follow Nivritti, please be in Pravritti at least and never become an atheist. Constantly try to follow Nivritti. You might have not reached your goal, but at least you have left your station. Only a person who is always limited to Pravritti should worry. The attitude [choice] towards Pravritti or Nivritti comes from the accumulated sadhana done in several previous births. Such a person spontaneously turns towards Nivritti and the association of the Sadguru is only accidental.
In the pearl shell a raindrop falls and becomes a pearl [It is a popular belief]. Even if 100 drops fall in a mud pond, all the drops only become muddy water. Therefore, the deservingness of the devotee due to previous sadhana [spiritual effort] is the most important factor and not the close or long association with Sadguru. One may sit on the seashore for several hours but he has only a small tumbler in his hand. He can take only a tumblerful of water even after sitting for several hours on the seashore. Another fellow may come with a large pot and take only 5 minutes to fill the whole pot. The Sadguru rains His divine knowledge on all people impartially so that He should not be blamed later on. The knowledge is essential like the rain, but more essential is the deservingness of the devotee that is developed based on his sincere spiritual efforts for the past several births continuously (Purva Janma Samskara).