Different Stages In Worship Of God

Shri Datta Swami

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DIFFERENT STAGES IN WORSHIP OF GOD Vacant Space to Present Human Form O Learned And Devoted Servants of God, The atheist says that God does not exist. For him God is nothing i.e., vacant space. This is the first stage. When he sees miracles he becomes a believer in God. He accepts God as some power or energy. The power or energy is also formless, like vacant space. So the concept of God is very close to his previous concept and thus the atheist (scientist) accepts the formless (Nirakara) God very easily. The third stage is God with form (Sakara). In this stage, statues in human form are introduced. The training is given to do the sixteen upacharas (services) to these statues in human form. This training indicates that one has to worship God in human form, in this way. The sixteen upacharas are actually related to the human form only. For e.g.: the first upachara ‘Aavahanam’ means ‘invitation’ and is relevant to the human being only and not to an inert statue. Now the statue in the temple is said to be better than the statue in your house. Why? It is so because life initiation (Prana Prathishtha) is done for the statue in the temple. This again indicates that you have to worship the ‘statue with life’. The concept is that the inert statue plus life is equal to the human being. Therefore worshipping the statue in the temple indicates that you have to worship the ‘statue with life’ i.e., the human form of God. Thus you are slowly trained to worship the human form of God by the sixteen upacharas. In this training, when your egoism and jealousy are completely destroyed, the human form of God is introduced. Unless your egoism and jealousy are completely destroyed you cannot accept the human form directly. So the worship of the inert statue in human form, introduces the concept of the human form, and the initiation of life (Prana Pratishta) introduces the concept of the living human form. Thus, it is a gradual transformation of you by reducing your egoism and jealousy. When your egoism and jealousy are completely removed, the final human form of God is introduced. Only a particular man like Lord Krishna is God. This is different from the Advaita philosophy, which extended the concept by claiming that every man is God, due to the same jealousy and egoism. If every man is God, then nobody would require salvation!

Shri Datta Swami

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Thus when you start from vacant space you first accept God as a formless energy or power. Then you accept the human form but without life, which is a statue or idol in your house. In the same stage you accept the statue plus life in the temple, which only indicates a living human form. Finally you catch God in the present living human form. Whatever I have just preached here has the following best practical proof. Hanuman, the greatest of human beings in this world, worshipped Rama alone, who was a living human incarnation present in Hanuman’s time. Hanuman did not go down to the lower levels of worship i.e.; he never meditated upon the formless God or statues. In the Valmiki Ramayana such things are not mentioned about Hanuman. He never even worshipped previous human incarnations like Vamana. He worshipped only the human incarnation (Rama) present in his generation. Similarly, Radha never worshipped Rama but worshipped only Krishna, who was the human incarnation of her generation. According to the Bhagavatam, Radha never worshipped statues or the formless God. Hanuman became Brahma (the creator in the future cycle of creation) and Radha became the queen of the 15th world called ‘Goloka’ (the highest heaven). Nobody in this world will attain a better position than these two. So your spiritual journey must end in recognizing the human incarnation of God present in your generation. God is impartial and so He comes down in human form in every generation. If you say that Lord Krishna was the latest incarnation, then that generation alone was blessed by His presence and then God becomes partial. Therefore God comes in human form in every human generation. People do not recognize Him because after the incarnation of Krishna, egoism and jealousy have been growing continuously in all human beings. Men did not recognize God when He came in human form after Krishna. After Krishna and before the final incarnation, Kalki, is the Dark Age of Materialism (Kali Yuga). Due to the influence of the Kali, people are full of egoism and jealousy and so they cannot recognize the human form of God in the Kali Yuga’. God even comes in different human forms at the same time in various levels, for the sake of devotees who are in different levels. He comes as a school teacher for the school students (devotees who are at a low level of spiritual evolution, comparable to the school level in education), as a lecturer for the college students and as a professor for

Shri Datta Swami

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the post graduate students. Since the school students and college students are large in number he comes down as a number of school teachers and college lecturers. Such incarnations are called as Amsha Avataras, which mean the incarnations of a small portion of His power. The incarnation of His radiation is called as Kala Avatara which is the formless God like light worshipped by some believers. Light travels as waves and the Shiva Linga in the temple represents this formless God. Since the post graduate students are less in number, only one professor is needed. God comes down in the highest form as the ‘Pari Poorna Tama Avatara’ i.e., the most complete incarnation which reveals the final true knowledge. He is called the Sadguru (Sat-Guru) or the original Datta in the human form. Datta exists in two forms: 1) The three headed form—Trimukha Datta. 2) One headed form—Eka Mukha Datta. The three headed form indicates Parabrahma (God), who creates, rules and destroys the universe by His three faces respectively. The other single-headed form is the external human form, in which the threeheaded form exists as the internal form, but is not seen externally. This is the essence of the Eka Mukha Datta and Trimukha Datta. The school teacher shows miracles and converts the atheist into theist. The college lecturer trains the theists in the worship of statues having human form to remove their ego and jealousy and make them devotees. Lastly, the university professor gives the final true knowledge that God comes down in human form alone and that He (the professor) Himself is God.

Divine Knowledge [Mr Anil Antony asked Swami “What is divine knowledge?”] Swami replied: The Knowledge given by the Lord in human form like the Bible, Gita etc is divine knowledge. If the concept of human incarnation is realized, the divine knowledge is recognized. If people can believe in Krishna, Jesus etc as the Lord in human form, the Gita, Bible etc are recognized as the divine knowledge. But the problem is that there are several interpretations of such divine scriptures. These interpretations are contradicting each other. These interpretations are given by different human beings and no human being can decide the correct interpretation. You yourself cannot decide the correct interpretation because you are also a human being. Therefore the

Shri Datta Swami

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original author of that sacred scripture alone can convince you with the correct interpretation. Such correct interpretation is called as the real divine knowledge. For this you have to recognize the human form of the Lord present in your generation. The identity of such recognition is revealed to your inner self, which gets convinced by such real interpretation. The identification must be aided by your careful and patient analytical faculty of the intelligence called as buddhi. Even an illiterate person has this inner self and the analytical faculty even in the absence of language.