Aim Of Human Life

Shri Dattaswami

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AIM OF HUMAN LIFE Can We See and Talk to God? O Learned And Devoted Servants of God, Purpose of Human Life: In the materialistic plane, a person says that the aim of his life is to achieve a particular post [career objective] and then help his family members. Another person says that the aim of his life is to serve mankind. We appreciate the second aim as higher than the first one. The highest aim of human life can be known only in the spiritual plane. The sole aim of this creation is pleasing God through entertainment. Every human being is a part of the creation and so the same aim applies to every human being. Human life becomes fruitful if one serves the Lord and pleases the Lord through the service. Service means the sacrifice of work and the sacrifice of the fruit of work. Service is the proof of real love. The mother serves her child by sacrificing a lot of work like feeding, giving a bath, dressing-up the child etc., continuously for years. The father serves the child by sacrificing the fruit of all his hard work to the child [by providing for the child financially]. It is a clear practical point that the proof of real love is only service. If you serve your family, it proves that you love your family. If you serve the entire world, it proves that you love the creation. If you serve the creator, it proves that you love the Creator. It is a very simple point. Love is the attraction of the mind towards anybody or anything. When illness attacks the body, you take so much care to serve your body. You love your body. Similarly you serve your father, mother, wife and children because your mind is attracted towards them. What is the first prerequisite for this love? When you love your child, you are aware that a particular small living being is your child and you have the differentiating knowledge of your child from other children who are similar. Similarly, when you love God you must be aware of the form of God, who must be differentiated from other forms, as your child is differentiated from other children. You identify your child by certain special characteristics like the shape of the face, voice etc; you do not recognize your child by the clothes, which it puts on. Other children can put on such clothes too. Similarly, you must distinguish the Creator from the creation and then only love the Creator. You cannot love the

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entire creation as the creator. Do you love all the children as your own children? Therefore, the prerequisite of love is the true knowledge and the inseparable identifying characteristics of an object by which you get attracted towards it. Therefore, what is the real form of God? And how does it differ from other forms? What are the inseparable identifying characteristics of God? The answers for these questions constitute the detailed true knowledge of God. Only such true knowledge generates attraction and love. When you know the separate special details of Bombay, which are not seen in any other city, then only are you attracted to Bombay and like to see it. Before proceeding to identify the true knowledge of God, you must also know the purpose of your attraction towards an object. You love your child, and there is no purpose in it. You also love a doctor when you are ill. But that love is not real. It is not love at all. It is only an artificial apparent love, exhibited for a purpose. You want the doctor to help you. Therefore, true love is that when there is no purpose in it. False love is that in which there is some purpose. Generally almost all people love God because God is omnipotent. He has miraculous powers to do anything that is impossible for anybody on this earth. When a problem comes and when one fails to solve it by all the means existing in this world, one starts loving God to solve that unique problem. Therefore, you love the position or power of God and not God Himself. A poet shows a lot of love and appreciation for a king by his spontaneous poetry because the poet loves the power and the wealth of the king. He expects the king to donate some land or to give him some money after being pleased with his poems. The poet does not love the person, who is the king. He only loves the position of king. Will he write the same poems if the king loses his kingdom and becomes a beggar? In his poetry, the poet praised the king for his very beauty, sweet voice and infinite wisdom. These qualities still remain with the king even if he becomes a beggar. But the poet does not praise the same qualities of that beggar because the beggar cannot donate anything to him. The post of the king and the kingdom are separable characteristics, whereas the qualities are inseparable characteristics. You can easily identify the person by these inseparable characteristics and if your love for him is real, you will love him whether he is a king or a beggar. Do you not love your son and praise him whether he serves you or not? Sita garlanded and married Rama who was to be the future king of Ayodhya.

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The love of Sita may be for Rama or may be for the kingdom of Ayodhya of which she can become queen, or it may be both put together. Rama tested her love by discarding the kingdom and by going to the forest. Sita followed Rama to the forest. Her love was only for Rama and not for the kingdom. Ravana further tested this. Ravana offered her to become the queen. But she refused. Therefore, the love for God should be analyzed and should be decided whether God is loved or His omnipotent miraculous power is loved for our advantage. Some people want to take advantage of this power in this world and some others want to take the advantage of this power in the upper world so that they can be protected from hell. In both cases the love for God is not true. It is only the love for his associated power. Shankara says that the true love for God should not have any desire related to this world or to the upper world (Ihaamutra Phala Viragah). If the love is only for the power of God, what is the use of the real form of God or the inseparable characteristics of God? The poet loves anybody as the king. For him whoever is on the throne is beautiful and wise. In such a case, if the king donates the desired land or cash by seeing the poem written by the poet, the poet does not bother to see or talk with the king again [because he has achieved what he wanted]. Therefore, when we love God’s power for some advantage, we need not worry about His form or about seeing or talking with God. You can just chant some prayers. He responds to your prayers and your desire is fulfilled. In such a case one need not see God and God too does not want to see his or her bloody face! When a mother wants to see her child, she does not think about any advantage out of it. Infact the mother presents some cash to the son as a gift and if the son needs, she will even sell all her ornaments and sacrifice for the sake of her son. Similarly, if the person has true love for God, the person wants to see God not for any advantage, but even at the cost of great disadvantage. For such a person, God appears and only such a person can see, talk, touch and even live with God. Only for such persons is there a need for the enquiry of the real form of God. The real form of God is unimaginable as said in the Vedas and there is no question of seeing or talking or touching the God. The Gita also says that nobody can know God (Maamtu Veda Na Kashchana). Such unimaginable God cannot be said to have a form and cannot even be said to be formless. The Creator is beyond the creation, which is a

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four-dimensional network of space and time made up of with matter and energy. The creation contains both formless items like space, energy and air and also items with form like water, earth etc. If you say that God has form or that He is formless, then God becomes a part of the creation and not beyond the creation. The Veda says that no item in the creation including the pure awareness or life energy is God (Neti Neti…). But there are real devotees who have real love towards God and want to see, touch, talk with and live with God for no selfish advantage, either in this world or in the upper world. God, who has infinite kindness and infinite love, cannot reject such real love. God is omnipotent and can satisfy the desire of such real devotees and the real devotees are crying for the fortune of His vision, touch, conversation and living with God. God is capable and the devotees deserve. Nobody can put his finger between these two. To satisfy the real devotees, God comes in human form and all these four fortunes are blessed upon the real devotees. If God comes in the form of space or energy, which is formless or He comes in the form of statues, He cannot grant these fortunes. He can talk, touch and live with the devotees only when He comes in the human form. Only the human body can do such things as per the laws of nature. Nature is His creation and the laws of nature are the rules of His own administration. He will not violate these rules except in the case of inevitable emergency. Why should He use His special power (Maya) and talk, touch, or live with you in the form of space, energy or statues? When the purpose is served through the normal routine [following the laws of nature], why are you so rigid in insisting on an abnormal way? God need not pay any heed to the foolish rigid behaviour of some human beings. Infact they want to pray to the formless God or God in the form of a statue, only for the sake of their selfish convenience. You can offer food to the formless God or a statue and then you can eat the entire food. You are satisfied as if you have given meals to God and at the same time you have not even a grain of rice. There are many inconvenient losses and troubles with the human form of God. But the real devotees are not worried about such loss and are infact happy to lose anything if God can enjoy by that. They feel happy when God eats the offered food. The mother visits her son and gives him some cash so that he may enjoy. When the son is happy with that, she derives infinite happiness and does not feel it as a a loss or trouble. The mother will stay

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with her son and serve him day and night if necessary and feels very happy about it. Similarly, these real devotees feel happy to serve the Lord and they are happy about the loss incurred in it. The Lord came in human form as Krishna only for the sake of the Gopikas and not for others. Only the Gopikas could recognize Him and they served the Lord by offering butter. They felt happy in this sacrifice. They did not feel any loss in this sacrifice. Krishna was not their child. But they loved Him more than their children. They did not give butter even to their own children and offered it to the Lord. Their love for God crossed even their love for their children. When such real love exists, God comes in human form and reveals His identity to you. Your love must be real and must be practically proved by the sacrifice of work (Karma Sanyasa) and the sacrifice of the fruit of work (Karma Phala Tyaga) as emphasized in the Gita. Sacrifice of words, mind and intelligence, which are freely supplied to you by God is like offering drinking water to the guest, which was freely supplied by the municipality. But sacrifice of work and fruit of work are like offering meals to the guest and it is the sacrifice of your hard-earned money. Ofcourse the meals must be associated with drinking water also and at the same time, mere drinking water is almost nothing. Sacrifice, which alone is the complete proof of your real love, becomes complete, when you sacrifice mind, words, intelligence, work and fruit of work. Sacrifice of words is prayer, sacrifice of mind is meditation, and sacrifice of intelligence is spiritual discussion. Therefore, simply doing meditation is the sacrifice of the mind, which is supplied freely by God. Sacrifice of anything that is hard earned by your work, is the real main sacrifice. When the Lord exposes Himself as the source of all the infinite super natural powers, all the people will run to Him with the same speed and will sacrifice to their maximum. In such a case you cannot differentiate the real devotee from a fraud devotee. The reason is that the super natural power attracts all the people with equal force. When acids are dissolved in water they show equal strengths because water being a highly polar solvent attracts the hydrogen ions from all acids equally so that their extent of ionization becomes same. The strong acid cannot be differentiated from a weak acid. This is called as the leveling effect. When the same acids are dissolved in glacial acetic acid, which is

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a weak solvent, the acids will ionize to different extents as per their inherent nature. When an important government official asks for some amount of money, all the merchants will run to him with equal speed and give that amount. In this case you cannot differentiate the real donor from the real greedy merchant. But when a beggar begs for some money, a real donor donates whereas a greedy person refuses. The real nature of the individuals comes out only in the case of the beggar. Similarly, when God comes in human form and exhibits super natural powers, all the people rush to Him with equal speed and show equal love for God. [Ofcourse God cannot be fooled in this way. He exactly knows who the real devotee is and who the selfish devotee is, since God is all-knowing] Even if God recognizes the real devotee by His all-knowing power and rewards him, the other devotees will find fault with God. They will argue that even though the extent of devotion of all devotees was equal, the Lord showed partiality. Therefore, God in human form will not exhibit miracles and will exhibit only His inseparable special knowledge, which projects Him only as a Guru [Teacher] and not as Bhagavan [God]. Datta means God donated to the devotees in human form. His right half is Guru and the left half is Bhagavan. Only the right half is projected and the left half is hidden. Only in this case can the real devotees be filtered. It is easy to approach the human incarnation of God and praise Him as God. But the most important part is to retain the same faith throughout one’s life. When following Datta becomes practically inconvenient [He gives you problems to test your faith] your faith should persist. The faith should be practical and permanent. The recognition of the human incarnation must be done with the help of the sacred scriptures like the Vedas, Brahma Sutras and the Gita. You must take a long time to decide the human incarnation. Once you have decided, you must stick to your descision in spite of all the troubles and inconvenience, which you face practically. There is no use of catching somebody in haste and then withdrawing the next day. You will continue like this throughout your life. Therefore, you must study all the scriptures and be thorough with the divine knowledge, which generates devotion or love. If your devotion is real you must prove it by your service. Real love is only a one-way traffic. Attaining the God, seeing Him and talking with Him are useless. Demons have seen and talked

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with God after doing long penance. What is the use of it? They were finally destroyed. Even if you don’t see or talk with God, if you please Him through your proven real love, you are blessed. Rama never saw Lord Shiva. But He was blessed. Ravana saw and talked with Shiva, but was destroyed. Therefore, pleasing the Lord should be our final aim and not mere vision or conversation. If your aim is only to solve your problem in this world or in the upper world or in both, you have nothing to do with the formless God or the form of God. Your work is done when you pray for it sincerely. But mind that your love is not for God but for the solution of your problem. Then God gives the solution for your problems only in a temporary way, which is not good for you in the long run. He postpones your bad results and brings the good results from your future births to the present. By this, you only enjoy the results of the deeds, which you have done and you cannot enjoy the results of the deeds, which you have not done. It is like sending your application to the officer through a peon [office boy] after paying the necessary amount and getting back the application with the signature of the officer. You have nothing to do with the personality or the qualities of the officer. But when a girl loves the officer, she likes to see the personality and know about his qualities. His position as an officer is only one of the several aspects. Often, she neglects this aspect of the post, when the personality and qualities have attracted her. Similarly, a real devotee feels happy by knowing the details of God and he is not worried about the benefit from God. In this case, the Lord suffers for bad results of that real devotee and gives him eternal happiness. Some people are not bothered about God and go on doing worldly works continuously. They only believe in themselves. Such people are either athiests or just neglect God. But the so-called devotees also do not love the God really. They show false love for God and all their real love is only for the solution of their problems. They want to visit the Lord and try to show their interest in the personality of the Lord. But all that is only to please the Lord, who may be helpful in solving their future problems. These devotees are not better than those atheists in any way. But the Lord allows these devotees, because there is a hope of a change in their attitude and their becoming real devotees. Prahlada was always absorbed in the personality of the Lord and did not ask for any help even when he was tortured. He was only remembering the Lord in those

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situations. Hanuman served Lord Rama, not for any gift in return. Infact when Sita gave him a chain of pearls, He broke those pearls to see if Rama was present in those pearls. Rama never announced the gift given to Hanuman and Hanuman never aspired for any gift. Rama gave the post of the creator of this world and the matter was not revealed to anybody. By revealing that, Rama never wanted to reveal Himself as the Lord. Hanuman was not even aware of that post because His mind was fixed only on the personality of Rama. Similarly, Radha never aspired for anything and she was given a specially created topmost world (Goloka). Arjuna had partial devotion and therefore, the final fruit that he attained was partly happiness and partly misery. Duryodhana invited Lord Krishna for a big feast in His honour. Krishna never attended it and finally destroyed them. All the respect and love shown by Duryodhana were only to exploit Lord Krishna in the war. When Duryodhana found that Krishna was found useless for him, he was angry with Krishna and tried to chain Him. This shows that he did not even recognize Krishna as the Lord. Therefore, the Lord gives vision, conversation and co-living etc., only for the real devotees who do not aspire for anything in return. The worst devotees want practical fruits from the Lord by serving Him through words, feelings and intellectual discussions. The middle class devotees sacrifice practically for the Lord and aspire for practical results in return. These types of devotees are businessmen and the above types of devotees are prostitutes. A businessman invests some amount and tries to get back more amounts in return. A prostitute tries to earn money from a person without investing any amount but by investing only sweet words, sweet feelings and artificial discussions. The last type of devotees serves the Lord practically and do not aspire for any result from the Lord either theoretically or practically. For such devotees alone does the Lord come in human form, give His experience to them and save them in this world as well as in the upper world.

Consequences of Suicide [Shri Ramnath asked about the consequences of the suicide.] Swami replied: “As I told you, the human life is almost impossible. The Christianity and Islam do not agree re-human birth. In Hinduism the re-human birth is admitted but it is said to be very rare. When the same God is the speaker of all the religions, there cannot be

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contradiction. Therefore, this means the re-human birth is generally impossible. But the omnipotent God can sanction the re-human birth to a soul if there is a hope of its upliftment. The human birth is meant for the human being having interest in spiritual knowledge. It does not mean mere human form. Eating, sleep, emotions related to the environment and sex to produce children are common to both human beings and animals (Ahara Nidra Bhaya Mithunani...). The human birth with spiritual knowledge and coming in contact with the human incarnation happens only once. Such a human birth is called as Brahmana. Here this word is not at all related to the present caste system. The Brahmana means the human being belonging to any caste having full interest in the spiritual field and comes in contact with the human form of the Lord with faith so that he attains the perfect spiritual knowledge (Brahma Jnanam). If such chance is missed, he will be born as Kshatriya who believes only in his effort and efficiency with full egoism. The next birth is Vysya having over attachment to wealth. The next birth is Sudra who is always selfish. The next birth is fisherman (Ganga putra) in which he kills the fish in the water. The next birth is hunter (vyadha) who kills the animals in the forest. The last birth of human form is Chandala who kills even the animals that served him. Thus, the soul descends by seven births and finally enters the cycle of animals, birds, worms etc. The soul existing as Brahmana will never commit suicide. The souls of other levels only commit suicides due to problems in the world. The Brahmana will never commit suicide because he is well aware of the main divine aim of the human life. Even if the soul of other types is alive there is very little chance of its upliftment. The Veda says that by committing suicide the soul enters the world of permanent darkness, which means ignorance (asuryanaamate…). This means that the soul directly enters the cycle of animals etc., on committing suicide. Thus there is only one chance of the birth of Brahmana for a soul, which means that there is only one chance for any soul to have the real fruitful human birth in which it can meet the human incarnation. In the other births the soul has only a very tiny trace of chance to meet and recognize the human form the Lord in true spirit. All ready when the possibility of the upliftment of self is a trace only, if suicide is committed, it looses that trace of chance also. Thus, one in seven persons can only recognize the human form of the God in the right spirit of the upliftment of the self. The other human

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beings do not recognize at all and even if they recognize, they try to use the Lord for the worldly matters only.

The Real Suicide The real suicide is that when the soul is not trying for its spiritual upliftment and always is dragged by the worldly affairs only. Such a soul will become a lizard which is always watching for an insect to eat. All its concentration is on the insect only. Gopikas jumped into fire after hearing the death of Krishna. But it is not suicide, because they have realized the main aim of the human life, which is the Lord only. What is the use of a soul, which is always immersed in worldly affairs and worldly bonds only? Such a soul has really committed suicide already because the soul killed itself (Naatmaana mavasadayet—Gita). When the sage Sanatsujata came to Dhrutarashtra, Dhrutarashtra asked him about the death. Then the sage told that the real death is that by which the soul forgets God and is completely immersed in the world (Pramadakhyo Mrurtyuh). Thus the soul, which leaves without any contact with God, is already a dead soul, which committed suicide. Gopikas are immortal even though the have committed suicide since the sacrificed their lives for the love of God. This gross body is just like a shirt according to the Gita (Vasamsi Jirnani...). Therefore, committing suicide is not a big thing for a realized soul. It is just like changing the cloth. But the purpose for which the suicide is committed is very very important. If the purpose is due to any worldly matter, the soul is thrown in to the permanent hell. The reason for this is that the soul has to detach from the world and attach it self to God. Instead of doing this, the soul is disturbed due to over attachment to the world and is committing suicide. In the memory of Krishna Radha became mad and wandered in the Brindavanam without food and water. She finally died in the madness of Krishna. That is suicide due to over attachment to God, but the consequence of such sacrifice of life is divine and has immortal fruit. Jesus also sacrificed His life for the sake of God. He said that if one does not carry on his own cross for the sake of God, he cannot be the dearest devotee of God. The Gita says that a real devotee will even give up the life for the sake of God (Matgata Pranah...). Therefore, the consequence of suicide for any worldly matter is only the permanent hell. When Meera was given poison, she swallowed it and was saved by the Lord. Hanuman tore His heart with His own nails to show Lord in

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His heart. All these cases of attempt of suicide but have immense spiritual value. Dhrutarashtra lived hundred and twenty years but he has already committed suicide, even though he was alive, because he did not listen to the advice of Lord Krishna even in the worldly matter.

Each Soul Independent in Sadhana [Smt. Uma Ramanath asked that how a household wife depending on the earnings of the husband can sacrifice the fruit of work especially when Swami says that each soul is completely independent in the spiritual field.] Swami replied like this: Suppose the household wife is living in a joint family having a child. Suppose her husband is giving all his money to his father only who is the family head. Suppose the head is spending that money on the family in impartial way. Suppose in such set up the mother wants to do some special favour to her child, which involves some extra finance. In this situation what the mother will do? Will she say to the child that how she can help in that set up? No. Her strong love on the child starts investigating the paths. When there is a will there is always a way. She will say to her husband that the child belongs to him also and therefore, the special favour should be done. Similarly, the devoted lady can say to her husband that God is not only the creator of herself but also the creator of her husband also. God is the father of all the souls. Thus, she will convince him to do the sacrifice. Let us go to the simile. Suppose the husband refuses to do the special favour to the child in view of the disciplined system of the family set up. Now, the mother will choose even a wrong path like stealing the money by showing some wrong accounts of expenditure and does favour to her child. Therefore, the intensity of love will always reveal a path. The mother will not mind the injustice and the consequent hell for that. The extreme intensity of love (Moha) on the child will not consider the injustice and the hell. In this case since the Moha is on another soul, she will certainly go to hell. But, if God is in the place of the child, there is no trace of sin or hell because in whatever path, God is pleased, such path is justice (Aham tva Sarva Papebhyah – Gita). But the biggest fun is that the mother will favour child in any path, but when God comes in that place, all the enquiry of the procedure and justice starts. This shows the lack of intensity of love on God. Infact, unlike the child, God will create more and more hurdles to oppose the

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sacrifice. The devotee is expected to cross even those special hurdles. If the devotee is unable to cross even this natural hurdle, how can you expect her to cross the special hurdles? The elder Gopikas loved Krishna as their son whereas the younger Gopikas loved Him as their boy friend. The elder Gopikas were going to Madhura to sell the butter. When they found Krishna in the path, they used to feed Krishna with the butter. When they returned to their homes, they were giving wrong accounts. Similarly, the younger Gopikas were cheating all the family members to go and dance with Krishna secretly. There was no concept of injustice or hell in their brains. When Narada asked them to give the dust of their feet to be applied to the head of Krishna to remove His head-ache they immediately gave it. Narada told that they will go to the hell for giving such dust. They replied that they are ready to go to the hell for the happiness of Lord Krishna. This is the intensity of their devotion and therefore Lord gave them a specially created highest divine abode. However, the sacrifice of fruit of work and work are one and the same and can be done according to the convenience. The saints cannot do the sacrifice of fruit of work. They compensate by sacrificing work. Infact they are more quickly blessed by God than the householders are. The requirement of God is the most important point for your sacrifice. When Rama is searching Sita, He needs the sacrifice of work. Hanuman, a saint, sacrificed work only and became God by His grace. Krishna as a boy required butter for growth and the Gopikas (householders) sacrificed the required butter (wealth). The fruit of work (money) is another form of work only. Money is matter and work is energy. Both are inter convertible forms. Therefore, one can participate in the mission of the Lord even by sacrificing the work according to the convenience. It is true that the soul is independent in the spiritual field (Nivrutti). Only in Pravrutti the wife can share the fruit of good action of her husband. Pravrutti is the stage of drama. The queen in the drama has her share in the wealth of king. But when the drama is over and when the actors receive remuneration from the producer of the drama, the actor of the queen-role cannot have share in the remuneration of the actor played in the king role. The Gita says that in the spiritual field the self must uplift itself (Uddharedaatmanaa…). You must note that the wealth of king in the drama is unreal and the remuneration of the actors outside the drama is real. Similarly, the share in getting heaven etc., is

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possible because the heaven is within the relative reality. The grace of God is like the real remuneration.

Does Enjoyment Lead to Yoga? [Smt Gayathri Chandrasekhar asked that people say that Bhoga leads to Yoga and whether such concept is correct.] Swami replied like this: The word Bhoga [Enjoyment] by its root meaning is taken as the meaning for even the basic enjoyment like eating food. If you do not eat food how can you serve the God? The Veda says that such basic enjoyment should be done (Bhunjeedhah…). This is the Yogic meaning (meaning obtained from the word) of the word Bhoga. But in Rudhi (general usage), the word Bhoga means the over-enjoyment of worldly pleasures, which leads to Roga (illness). This is proved by medical science also. If you become ill how can you serve God and please Him? Such Bhoga should be left. Tyaga (leaving) of such Bhoga will make you healthy and enable you to please God (Yoga). The Veda refers to such leaving of over-enjoyment (Tena Tyaktena …). Bhoga is based on the concept of intensive love on a cohuman being or a worldly item. The process of such intensive love is good because God will be also pleased by such intensive love (Moha) only. The object of such Moha should be replaced by God. A person is running very fast in the opposite direction. Only the direction has to be changed but the fast running is appreciable. By such fast running only he will reach the goal quickly. Therefore, the basis of Bhoga, which is Moha should be retained and by the spiritual knowledge the object only should be changed. Thus, the essence of Bhoga, which is Moha will certainly lead to Yoga or attainment of grace of God. Bilhana was going in a forest immersed in the memory of his darling. He touched a sage by his foot by mistake. The sage was meditating upon God. The sage became angry to curse him. But Bilhana asked, “I am thinking about my darling and I did not know that my foot touched you. But, you are immersed in the memory of God like me and how you are aware of the touch?” The sage realized and directed Bilhana to God. The sage learnt the Moha from Bilhana. Thus God blessed both. The attraction to the worldly bond can be directly transformed into attraction to God. There is no need of achieving the detachment from the worldly attraction. The detached soul cannot have the attachment again because the soul is habituated to the continuous detachment only.

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Suppose a student is reading novels and not the class books. The reading-habit is good. You have to replace the novels by class books. This can be achieved by proper and talented counseling. Suppose you give sleeping tablets to him so that he will stop reading the novels. By this the student is not reading novels because he is always sleeping. Now after this stage if you ask him to read the textbooks, he will refuse, because he is habituated to sleep only without reading. Similarly, if you bring the soul to complete detachment form the worldly bonds, it is very difficult to development attachment to God. In Advaita philosophy such detachment is achieved by which the soul becomes inert like the tree or a stone. The devotion cannot be generated in such rock. The attraction to the world can be taken as the training of development of the very process of attraction. But the worldly attraction should take a turning point on one day and should be transformed into divine attraction. If the training continues for the whole life, there is no meaning of such training because the re-human birth is very rare and it means almost impossible. Moreover, the attraction to the world is accumulated form millions of births and it is very difficult to bring down the attraction to zero. Instead of this, it will be easy to replace the world by God. Any way, even after bringing the attraction to zero you have to again raise it to the sky. Therefore, conversion of the worldly attraction to God is easy and also desirable. If you ask the mother to cut her bond with her child, it is impossible. It is easy to replace her child by Krishna. Infact, the Moha etc are created only to help you in spiritual path. You have diverted it to the world and misused it. Now you say that Moha is a bad quality. Moha in its original aim of creation is a good quality. You have made it bad by giving wrong direction to it. Shri Ramanuja says that the relationship between God and a real devotee is “Bhogya-Bhoktru Sambandha”, which means that God is the enjoyable item (Bhogya) and the devotee is enjoyer (Bhokta). The enjoyment of God is the real Bhoga.

Meaning of Enlightenment [Shri Ramnath asked about the meaning of the word “enlightenment”] Swami told “The word enlightenment means finding the truth clearly after clarification of all the doubts. This can happen in any branch of knowledge. But this word is generally used in spiritual

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knowledge. The Gita is the enlightened knowledge of Upanishads. My divine knowledge is the enlightenment of the Gita. The enlightenment means that the torchlight is put on and the illusions disappeared. The truth is perfectly reveled and all the doubts are cleared when the soul and the intelligence are simultaneously convinced by the divine knowledge which analysis the spiritual concepts in coherence with the scriptures. The enlightenment comes resulting in the determination that leads into practice. Thus practice is the sign of enlightenment. The enlightenment of the Gita is the realization of the essence of Upanishads, which is the concept of the human incarnation. In the Veda, it is mentioned that God entered the world for real enjoyment (Tadevanu Pravasat). This point is clearly elaborated in the Gita because everywhere in the Gita, Krishna has stressed that He is directly Lord. The essence of Upanishads is this point only but it is stressed with full clarity in the Gita and this is the enlightenment of Upanishads through the Gita. In the Gita it is mentioned that the Lord will come again and again whenever there is requirement. This point is stressed with full clarity in My divine knowledge and thus the Gita is enlightened through My divine knowledge.

Speciality of Divine Knowledge [September 13, 2006] The Scripture says that among the ten incarnations, Lord Krishna alone is the fullest incarnation (Paripurna Tamah Saakshat). If you compare Krishna with the other incarnations, the special point that lies with Krishna alone is the revelation of divine knowledge about God (Nivrutti) or Brahma Jnana. Buddha also gave divine knowledge. But He kept silent about God indicating that God is unimaginable. All His preaching was concentrated on the behaviour of the human being towards other co-human beings and also towards other living beings. He concentrated on the elimination of desire, which is the basis of the path to please God (Nishkama Karma Yoga). But since the concept of God is absent, the elimination of desire is taken for achieving the happiness of self itself. The followers misunderstood Buddha and took all His knowledge for Pravrutti or social service only. By this, Nivrutti disappeared in His knowledge. Similarly, if you take Rama, He did not give any knowledge about Nivrutti. He followed the Pravrutti to preach the humanity regarding the behaviour of a human being towards other co-human beings. Ofcourse He showed faith and worship of God

Shri Dattaswami

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and thus He cannot be misunderstood as an atheist. If you take Vamana, He also did not give any reference to Nivrutti. He was concentrating on the charity towards a devotee, which is only related to Pravrutti. His mission was to suppress Bali and protect Indra. If you consider other incarnations, all were involved in the war to kill the demons and evil people. Thus, there is no trace of Nivrutti in their actions. All their actions were only to save the balance of the society, which is Pravrutti. The inherent characteristic of Parabrahman is spiritual knowledge as referred in the Veda (Prajnana…, Satyam Jnanam…). The real knowledge is only the philosophy or spiritual knowledge, which relates to God and regarding the achievement of His grace. Except this all the other branches of knowledge are related only to the achievement of worldly pleasures, which are temporary and unreal. Therefore, the spiritual knowledge is called as Prajnanam. The letter Pra means the best. In another Vedic statement the spiritual knowledge is told to be the true knowledge (Satyam Jnanam…). This means that it deals with the ultimate absolute reality i.e., God. All the other branches deal with various levels of creation, which are relatively real with respect to God and become totally unreal if isolated from God. Therefore, based on this scriptural statement, Krishna is considered to be the fullest incarnation. Even in the field of spiritual knowledge, Krishna correlated all the levels and unified as a single ladder to attain the grace of God. Before the revelation of the Gita, some were thinking about knowledge (Jnanam) and some others were thinking about devotion (Bhakti) as the real paths. Some others were thinking that rituals (Karma) happen to be the path. Krishna correlated these three levels. In the knowledge, He fixed Himself as the goal, who is the then human incarnation. This shows that the unimaginable God expressed through a convenient medium like human body for humanity is the real goal. He clearly stated that He will come again and again, which means that every generation will have the opportunity of having the human incarnation. He explained the devotion to be fruitful when it is directed to the then existing human incarnation because such human form alone can feel and respond to your devotion. Finally, He has uplifted the service (Karma) to the top most place. A ritual is worship of God. Worship means the path to please the God. When God is in human form, then only God can feel the service. He corrected the old path of the rituals by eliminating the selfish desire in it.

Shri Dattaswami

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Such, ritual or service happens to be the path to please God directly. When Arjuna fought the war as the service to Lord Krishna, Arjuna could see the pleasure in the face of Krishna directly. In other forms such direct evidence is not possible. The proof of real devotion is service only, which is the sacrifice of work or fruit of work. The Knowledge should lead to devotion and finally end with selfless service to God. Thus, Krishna brought out the essence of all the Upanishads and arranged a regular ladder. Thus, Krishna happens to be the fullest human incarnation based on the revelation of the Gita only. Simply doing miracles or destroying the demons is not the criterion, which is common in the other incarnations also. Vamana occupied the entire world and no miracle can be equal to this. Again the conservative devotees say that Krishna is the only fullest incarnation in the entire creation till today. But the above verse was told with reference to the ten incarnations only because the preceding verse speaks about the ten incarnations. This means that Krishna was the fullest human incarnation among the ten incarnations. Assuming that their argument is only correct, how can they deny the appearance of God again and again as told by Krishna Himself (Yada Yadahi – Gita)? Thus, you cannot rule out the reappearance of fullest human incarnation in the world after Krishna. Whenever there is a need, the fullest incarnation will appear again and again. Infact, God is always pleased to take the fullest human incarnation as many times as possible because such incarnation deals with the revelation of spiritual guidance to His children. In the other incarnations He has to kill His evil children and He is always reluctant to do this unless the inevitable situation comes.