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[On the occasion of Yugadi or New Year according to the Indian Calendar] The devotion to Lord in the theoretical phase as well as the practical phase should be done by making God as the final goal. Only such devotion is real, and the real devotees are Hanuman and the Gopikas, who should be our guides in the spiritual effort. But very few human beings can attain this level and God says in the Gita that one in millions alone can attain such a state. In this real spiritual path, all items except God are only the means, whereas pleasing God is the final goal. But the majority of human beings is reverse to this real path. Most human beings make God as means to achieve their self-pleasure by crossing the difficulties...
For Scholars Posted on: 05/03/2007Tomorrow Lakshman is leaving for Mumbai. Therefore I shall serve a food item, which is to his taste on this farewell day. I will serve the food item of his liking, which is prepared in a better way or in a proper way so that its original true taste is known to him and his liking for that food item will be reinforced. The food item that he likes is the philosophy of Shri Ramana Maharishi, who is considered to be the human incarnation of Lord Subrahmanya. Lord Subrahmanya is the son of Lord Shiva i.e. He is the incarnation of Shiva. Shri Ramana Maharishi was a follower of the philosophy of Shankara, who is also an incarnation of Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva is the incarnation of Lord Datta (Shiva Datta) who is the source of all the three divine forms (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva). When Lord Datta...
For Scholars Posted on: 04/03/2007Shankara stated that awareness is Brahman irrespective of its association with intelligence or good and bad qualities. This means that birds and animals without intelligence and even cruel wild beings are introduced into the spiritual field since Brahman or God [by Shankara’s definition] exists in all living beings. Of course there is no use of spiritual knowledge for animals. But Shankara included all living beings in the spiritual field because even among human beings, there are some without intelligence and some demons having cruel qualities. Lord Shiva is worshipped even by demons and is said to be the Lord of animals (Pashupati). Angels with great intelligence and good qualities also worship Lord Shiva. Therefore, Shankara embraced...
[Shri. G. Lakshman came from Mumbai to have some spiritual discussion (satsanga) with Swami. His first enquiry was about the limitation of the soul in meditation and as well as in deep sleep. Swami compared pure awareness in meditation to a lump of gold, which becomes inert energy in deep sleep and can be compared to a lump of iron. This comparison was given in the poem, which was sent to Dr. Nikhil as a reply to his poem entitled Selfless Love. On this point, Shri. Lakshman raised the concept of the limitation of the soul even in the deep sleep, in which the soul is considered to be in its original state as per Advaita philosophy. According to Advaita the self becomes the unlimited Brahman in deep sleep as said by Shankara (Sushuptyeka siddhah). Following is Swami’s reply.]
Shankara said that Brahman is achieved in deep sleep. The meaning of this statement is that Brahman is unknowable or unimaginable. In deep sleep nothing is known and nothing can be imagined. Such a state indicates that Brahman is unknown and unimaginable. In this state, the soul looses its awareness...
Identification of the contemporary human incarnation and selfless service to Him is the total essence of the entire spiritual knowledge. The starting point is the direct atheist or the scientist (an indirect atheist) misled by ambition and is a follower of Advaita. Whenever the Veda uses the word Atman in the context of God, it means only the particular individual soul, which is charged by God and is called as human incarnation. When it is said in the Veda that space was generated by the soul, the word soul means the human being charged by God like Krishna, who came as the human incarnation. Krishna says that He is the source of the entire creation and the first item of this creation is space, which is the first of the five fundamental...
All the hectic effort in spiritual discussions (to analyze God, the soul, the link between God and soul, the link between God and the world and finally the path to become God if possible, or at least to become the dearest servant by pleasing God to get salvation or at least some benefit here) is only for some selfish advantage. The effort is hectic with a hope to find out the path to become God or to please God by some analytical knowledge and theoretical devotion without doing any action and without any sacrifice. If this single point is answered, all the effort made for only discussion and only theoretical devotion vanishes. In such a case, the devotees will not be worried whether God is unimaginable or imaginable...
The message from Lord Shiva can be understood from the lives of the two divine incarnations of Lord Shiva, which are Anjaneya [Hanuman] and Adi Shankara. The life of the human incarnation is always the message of God. Anjenaya did personal service of the Lord in human form and Adi Shankara did the social service through the propagation of divine knowledge. In fact, social service is also the personal service of the Lord since this entire world is His own family as He is the Divine Father of all the souls (Aham Bija Pradah Pita—Gita). The family of the Lord like Sita, Lakshmana etc., is nothing but the inner most circle of the family of the God...
Adi Shankara made certain assumptions, which are hypothetical to preach the spiritual knowledge to the devotees at various levels. Generally the devotees are trained in the logic pertaining to the imaginable items in the world. The development of a concept by them is from a worldly example and also its application is to another worldly example. For example since the black color of mud (cause) enters into the pot (its effect), the conclusion is that the nature of the cause enters its effect. This conclusion is applied to another worldly example and they say that the bright color of the gold-lump (cause) must also enter the chain...
God created all the souls and has the attitude of a father towards His children. A human father may sometimes show partiality in loving his children. But God always has infinite love for all souls in an equal manner. Even the punishments in the hell are meant for the transformation of the souls from the lower level to the higher level. God always tries to help the soul even if a trace of possibility exists according to its cycle of deeds to justify God’s help. One soul need not recommend another soul to God and ask for His grace on that soul. If a child requests his father to look after the welfare of his brother, how foolish it looks! No soul should recommend another soul...
[Dr. Nikhil asked: How can one avoid the diversion of one’s attention towards bliss? People are attracted to bliss and not to God if God does not give bliss to them.]
The Veda describes the concept of bliss in the Ananda Valli. Certainly you must discuss about the subject of bliss. You must avoid the diversion of your attention to attaining bliss for your own self. But you must concentrate on the service to God that gives bliss to Him. This means that doing service to God in whatever way you like is not correct because God does not require your service in any way like a human being. One has to render the service in whatever manner God likes it. The service should be for the pleasure of God...
[Shri M. V. K. Murthy, a famous writer of novels came along with another devotee called Yogi. On seeing him, Swami started emitting an intense scent of camphor for a long time. He was amazed since this scent was not found outside that room. Yogi joked “So, Swami does some magic now and then!”. Swami joked “I am a professor of chemistry. I might have used some chemicals for generating this scent. You must search Me fully”. Then Phani said “A devotee here believed that the statue of Lord Venkateshwara is the only God. He argued with Swami on this point. Swami generated several types of scents. The devotee said that Swami being a professor of chemistry...
[Dr. Nikhil raised a point: To enjoy both happiness and misery, one should have a choice. A king has the choice to enjoy in the palace or in a hut, but a beggar has no choice since he cannot enjoy the palace].
To think that the palace belongs to the king is only a feeling, which is relatively unreal with respect to the status of the awareness or soul. The king is living in that palace only for some time with that feeling [of ownership] and goes to stay in a hut for some time for recreation. A servant also lives in the palace for more time in service without that feeling. Both permanently leave the palace or hut after death. If you go to the absolute level of reality, the king, servant, palace, hut etc., belong to the Lord alone as His movable...
Every one desires to have bliss. Bliss means very intense happiness, which exists continuously. Such bliss exists only with God. To get such bliss, you have to attain the state of God. But the main condition to attain the state of God is to not aspire for that state and hence to not aspire for bliss. One has to start in the spiritual path with this fundamental correction. But everyone starts with this fundamental mistake of aspiration for bliss. Some start to achieve the state of God with hidden a reference to this bliss. Anyway both are one and the same since bliss is possible only for the state of God. You have to get the clue from God alone to get such bliss. The clue means the special knowledge...
The Lord comes in human form in every human generation. All people may not recognize Him. Only a few devotees can recognize Him and get the benefit of liberation form these worldly bonds. The human form of Lord has no obligation to see that every body recognizes Him. Of course, He will try His best to give His identity and to reveal Himself slowly according to the speed of digestion of the devotees. The teacher comes to the class and teaches the class impartially to his level best in view of the capacity of digestion of the sitting students in the class. Some attend the class very carefully and get a first class. Some attend with less care and just pass. Some do not attend and fail. The student is responsible for the final result. Similarly, some recognize the human incarnation as the Lord. Some recognize the human incarnation...
The word Samkranti [Sankranti] means complete transformation. The sun diverts itself from south to north [from winter solstice to summer solstice]. The south is called as Pitriyanam, which indicates the strong bond of love of parents. This is the strongest among all worldly bonds. The north is called as Devayanam, indicating the bond with God. This festival represents the diversion of love from the world to God. This festival is also called as Pongal which means a sweet prepared by boiling rice with milk and sugar. All these three ingredients are white indicating purity. Rice indicates service. Milk indicates spiritual knowledge. Sugar indicates devotion. When pongal is finally prepared...
[Smt. Shrutakirti from Hyderabad revealed her Divine experience as follows: “On December 24th 2006, I slept with some worry and I got a divine dream in which Swami walked into my house. He was radiating a light brighter than the light of a thousand suns. Every footprint of Him was shining with a pure golden color. Swami consoled me and preached Divine Knowledge. At the end Swami told me that He was giving a proof for the reality of His entrance into the dream. Then Swami told me that if I verified the calendar of 2007, the star (constellation, according to Indian Astrology) on 21st May 2007 was Punarvasu. This statement was repeated three times by Swami...
The involvement in this world is inevitable. The consequence of such involvement is stress, which is also inevitable. We may succeed in getting the fruit of the stress or we may not succeed in it. The bullet is shot but hitting the bird is not certain. The present Yoga [detachment from the world and remaining in one’s own awareness or Atman] is just a sleeping pill for a short time and it is in no way different from deep sleep. In fact deep sleep is better than the present Yoga. The reason is that in the present Yoga, the nervous system functions at a minimum level because awareness of oneself [awareness of the awareness alone] still exists as in the case of thoughtless self-meditation. In deep sleep...
Jesus asked Peter about the opinion of public on Him. Peter told that some are looking Jesus as the Messenger and some are looking Jesus as Son of God. He told that he is looking Jesus as the God Himself. Three views about the human incarnation are always available and these are Dvaita, Vishishtaadvaita and Advaita. According to these three views, Jesus gave the three statements that He is the Messenger, that He is the Son of God and that He is not different from God. This does not mean that He is changing His state from one to the other in these three positions. His three statements about Himself...
[Replies of Swami to Questions of Anil] 1) In one of Your discourse, You preached that human body is one and the same for God as well as the human being. But human beings vary due to the type and magnitude of a particular quality, this means their corresponding energy equivalent may be different and thus when the qualities goes back into original form may result in higher energy content with respect to other human bodies, if so how they can be same?
Swami Replied: The human body means the outermost gross body made of five elements, which is common to all the human beings including the human incarnation. The internal soul is made of pure awareness, which is also same because it is a special work form of energy. Only the qualities, which are the various forms (feelings) of the soul, differ in the human beings. This bundle of strong qualities is called as the subtle body...
Datta is called as Unmatta Datta, which means that Datta is mad. The reason for this is that He gives the absolute divine knowledge from His absolute state, which is the absolute reality. In that state, everything except Him is only relatively real including the souls. In this state, He is called as Nirguna Datta, which means that He is in the state of the absolute reality; free from any relative reality. The entire creation including the souls is only a relative reality. It is just His imagination or quality or feeling (guna). The guna is a property, which is not independent. It always depends on its substratum (Guni). That substratum is God or Parabrahman, who is far beyond our imagination. The knowledge radiating from that state is the absolute truth, which cannot be digested by human beings...
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