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[Evening message] The Gita says ‘svalpa mapyasya dharmasya…’. It means that something is better than nothing. Based on this point, our traditional customs are built up, which should not be mocked as illogical and blind. Our tradition says that you should offer any food or drink to God before you enjoy it. Offering to God is theoretical and not practical. You should not say that the theoretical step is useless. Offering to God develops your theoretical devotion to God...
Serve Incarnation, Devotees or the Poor in God’s Name: Worship to God in human form can be digested only by human beings, who have completely conquered their ego and jealousy. Devotees of highest level can only reach this level of maturity of divine knowledge. Most of the human beings cannot reach this level and therefore, only energetic forms of God are prescribed for them. But, energetic forms are not available on the earth to receive the service of the devotees because such forms are prescribed only for the upper worlds in which souls in energetic bodies live. Therefore, only inert photos...
The Veda says that one alone cannot enjoy (Ekaki na ramate…). This statement is quite logical also. Enjoyment is a verbal noun, which indicates the verb or work done. Unless there is an interaction between two different items, work can never be done. Enjoyment is work. Therefore, the work or enjoyment cannot exist with the existence of only one item. The eating work cannot take place without the existence of the eater and eatable food. Therefore, the Veda says that in the absence...
Equal Enjoyment Leads to Lack of Aspiration: The Gita is called as Yoga Shastra, which means the subject of yoga. Yoga is the basis for spiritual development. The effect of yoga is not to aspire any fruit from God. Generally, people pray and love God to remove the misery and get happiness. But, if you can enjoy both misery and happiness equally, there is no need of praying or loving God for the removal of misery. Yoga means equal enjoyment of both misery and happiness. In such case, you need not pray God...
Neutrality Towards Happy and Misery is Not Yoga: The bliss of God is said to be continuous without any interruption. This means that God is in continuous state of joy derived from continuous enjoyment. The Veda says that God created this universe for the sake of enjoyment through entertainment. This creation contains both happiness and misery altering continuously. The creation is completely in the hand of God. If God enjoys only the happy scenes, God could have created this creation with continuous happy scenes only. Anything continuous leads to boring, which is the misery. Therefore, misery is...
[Telugu New Year Day] God created this world and controls it. The soul can neither create nor control the world. God also destroys this world and the soul cannot do it. Therefore, the creation, ruling and destruction of the world can be done by God only and the soul is a total failure in these three aspects. The soul wants to become equal to God and such an ambition is called as Monism or Advaita. But, the soul is not equal to God in any aspect. God created this world for His entertainment...
The lives of human incarnations of God are always filled with intensive scenes of pleasure and sorrow. It is just like the plate of meals containing intensive sweet and intensive hot dishes. The intensity of the sweetness and the intensity of the hotness give climax of enjoyment. When the dish is intensively sweet or intensively hot, your enjoyment will always reach the climax. The Gita says that equality is yoga (Samatvam yoga uchyate…). The interpretation of the word ‘equality’ is misunderstood...
Ninety percent of the Veda describes the process of preparing food from materials and this is called as Dravya Yajna or Karma Yajna. Only 10% involves the process of analysis of spiritual knowledge as the Upanishads and this is called as Jnana Yajna. The Veda gives importance to karma. But, in the Gita, Lord said that jnana is better than karma (Shreyaan…). How to resolve this contradiction? First, you must differentiate karma and karma yoga. In both, the process of involvement of materials...
For Scholars Posted on: 10/01/2012Logic of Shankara Demolished the Theory of ‘Nothingness’ Buddhists became atheists since they applied the theory of relativity of cause and effect in endless way and found that everything is nothing. As a result, even the God, the root cause, also does not exist. Shankara attacked this argument that there should be some real receiver, which receives the knowledge that nothing is real. Such receiver can be only awareness, which alone is the receiver of information. Hence, awareness should...
For Scholars Posted on: 08/01/2012[Following is a very close discussion of Swami with His devotees clarifying their doubts.]
Shri Lakshman: You say that the awareness is the product of inert energy and also that awareness is non-inert. Where from the characteristic of non-inertness entered the awareness?
Shri Swami: Let Me know your intention. Did you put this question to establish awareness as God like the Advaita philosopher? If so, it is a waste. I have elaborately dealt that awareness is not God and the reasons are that i)it is not all-pervading, ii)it is not the creator of any item of the real world, iii)it is not the controller of any item like a hitting stone, iv)it is not the destroyer of any item of the real world, v)it is generated from inert energy, vi)it has birth...
he real and absolute nature of God is unimaginable. The previous Preachers knew this point very well since They performed several miracles, which were unimaginable events only. The miracles stand as practical proof for the existence of the unimaginable Entity that performs the unimaginable events. When the preachers performed so many miracles, can’t They know the existence of the unimaginable item? It is very simple and no effort is necessary for the performer of the miracles to understand the existence of unimaginable entity and to propagate the same concept. In such case, why did not the preachers say that God is unimaginable? There may be difficulty to believe this...
[Shri Anil asked, “Several people are asking how a person can enjoy physical pain?” This question is with reference to Shri Swami’s New Year Message given on January 1, 2012.]
There are several illustrations to prove that the physical pain can be also enjoyed. In boxing, when the opponent embraces you strongly, you feel unhappy because such a situation leads to your defeat. But, when you are embraced by a beautiful girl, you feel more happiness and the degree of your happiness is proportional to the strength of the embracement! Therefore, the physical pain in one situation is unhappiness, whereas the same physical pain...
[Message on New Year Day] The human being is reluctant to miseries and enjoys the happy situation. The human being can be compared to an ignorant child, who enjoys the sweets only and is reluctant to chillies. Hence, such a human being is ignorant. The grown up adult enjoys both sweets and chillies in the meals. Similarly, a realized soul enjoys both happy situation and misery in the life. Therefore, it is only ignorance, which is the inability of art of enjoyment. God created this world with happiness and misery. People enjoy the cinema, which contains both pleasant scenes and tragic scenes. Similarly, people enjoy both sweet dishes...
Pravrutti (worldly life) is the important basic stage for Nivrutti (Spiritual life). If Pravrutti is correct and strong, Nivrutti can stand on it with peace and balance. Today, the position of Pravrutti is in high danger. In fact, God often incarnates Himself to establish Pravrutti only. He never encourages Nivrutti because the devotion to God is the subject of the devotee. God takes up the responsibility for Pravrutti since He is the creator of this universe. In fact, God opposes Nivrutti so that the real devotee can come out with successful colors. The examiner gives difficult question...
The devotee interested in the spiritual line should study more about the successful devotees. The study of God is not so important as the study of the personality of a true devotee. You should concentrate more on Prahlada, who could succeed in pleasing the Lord and your concentration on Lord Narasimha is not so important. You should always examine the personality of Hanuman in the spiritual line because God is extensively pleased with Him, which can be seen in the awarded fruit. Hanuman is made the future creator of this universe and this is the highest fruit, which means that God is extensively pleased with Him. Hanuman is famous...
The Gita says that you should totally surrender to God (Tvameva Sharanam…). After your prayer and worship to God, you need not ask Him for anything even in the mind because He is omniscient. You are treating Him as an ordinary human being having limited knowledge. You should follow this principle even in the case of the human incarnation. The external human form misleads you to think that He is an ordinary human being. But, when you worship the photos and statues of energetic forms like Vishnu, etc., you should have the sense of omniscient God...
For Scholars Posted on: 04/11/2011Shankara told that the awareness, which is filtered from all types of thoughts and left over with a single thought that it is awareness, is the absolute God (Nirguna Brahman). All the thoughts can be classified into three types, which are called as Trigunas. Awareness, aware of itself is a thought by itself, which is the inherent characteristic of the awareness and is called as awareness in general. Sattvam is one of the three types of thoughts. The type Sattvam represents all good and divine thoughts. The general awareness (jnanam) is also included in this first category...
For Scholars Posted on: 04/11/2011The Buddhists took the concept of cause and effect to analyze this creation. The effect is always unreal with respect to the cause. But, when the cause is analyzed, it becomes the effect of some other internal cause. Mud, the cause, is real whereas its effect, the pot, is unreal. When the mud is analyzed, it becomes the effect and the particles become the cause. Hence, the mud, which is real with respect to the pot, becomes unreal with respect to its cause, the particles. If you go deep like this, the particle is the effect and the crystals in it become its cause. The crystal again becomes effect with respect to its cause, the sub-atomic particles...
[Shri Ramanaiah asked “Why does God always want to remain unimaginable? Does it not leave the devotee ever dissatisfied that it is impossible to know God?” Shri Swami replied as follows.]
[Message on Naga Panchami day] The actual reason is that the intelligence of the devotee can imagine anything, which has the spatial dimensions (length, breadth and height). Anything, which does not have the spatial dimensions, becomes logically unimaginable. You can test this point by closing your eyes and constantly try to imagine anything, which is not having spatial dimensions. Even the minutest particle that you can imagine must have some least measurable or atleast spatial dimensions...
[Shri Ajay asked “Generally people are worried about death and what will happen after death. Please enlighten us on this topic.”]
Scientists and atheists feel that death is a simple phenomenon of nature like stopping of a non-functioning old machine. The digestive system along with the respiratory system is like the non-functioning battery unable to generate the current. The oxygen from the respiratory system oxidizes the digested food in the digestive system generating the inert energy, which is supplied to different systems of the body like brain, heart, kidneys etc., The inert energy is transformed...
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