Discourses 51 To 100

Discourses 51 – 100 51. You should not misunderstand the silence of God to your prayers in your problems. Why God is careful while granting boons?The treasure of God is infinite and will not exhaust by giving you some money The treasure of God is infinite and will not exhaust by giving you some money. Similarly, if He cancels your sins, there is no body to question Him. Then, why is He delaying in giving money to you and in removing your problems by canceling all your sins? The reason is that His single aim is to transform you in to a divine soul. If He gives you money, what will be the change in your behavior? If He removes all your problems, what will be the change in the practical style of your life? If God is sure that there will be no change in your behavior, He will certainly make you wealthy and will remove all your problems. A doctor is careful to give sweets to a diabetic patient. If the sugar-level of the patient rises, the problem in treating the patient also is on the head of the doctor only. If you become wealthy and get rid of all problems, you may become an uncontrolled demon and disturb the society. You may be immersed in endless luxuries and fall down. In such case, to save the society and to save your self, God has to act. Therefore, God is careful in granting boons. Except this complication, God is not worried in any way because His power and wealth are infinite. If you can become a realized and liberated soul through the spiritual knowledge, then, there will be no change even if you become wealthy and happy. The spiritual knowledge is like the sugar tablet given to the patient in advance. In absence of such medicine in advance, the doctor will not give you more sweets since he is aware of your sugar (ego) level in your blood. Hence, you should not misunderstand the silence of God to your prayers in your problems. Shri Akkalkot Maharaj asked the poor fellow to take only two serpents (gold roods), which are like the limited sweets allowed by the doctor for a diabetic patient. The poison of the serpents, which will be induced, is the ego and the spiritual knowledge is the medicine. The poor fellow was not having spiritual knowledge and therefore the Lord gave him limited sweets. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 52. The poverty, difficulties and death indicate the necessary atmosphere for the establishment of spiritual knowledge Saturn is considered to be the giver of spiritual knowledge (Jnana Karaka) and is said to be the husband of the deity of poverty (Jyestha Devi). This means that the best ground for the spiritual knowledge is poverty only but not wealth. The excess of wealth will lead to ego and attraction to luxury and is not congenial for the spiritual knowledge. But a minimum is essential for the basic needs of a spiritual preacher. A spiritual preacher must

have his own minimum arrangement for the basic needs of himself and his family without depending on the society. If a spiritual preacher shows need for the basic maintenance, his preaching is misunderstood by the public, which thinks that the preacher is aiming at the fulfillment of his basic needs through the preaching. This misunderstanding is natural for the human psychology. Saturn is also famous for creating severe problems. The problems always direct the soul to God. Saturn being the eldest son of the Sun, received the spiritual knowledge from his father, who was taught by God in the beginning of this creation (Imam Vivasvate Yogam….Gita). Sun is said to be the promoter of intelligence and logic which is essential basis for knowledge (Dhiyo yonah…..Veda). The brightness of Sun destroying the darkness represents the removal of ignorance by Knowledge. Saturn being the eldest son got the spiritual knowledge from his father and then passed on the same to his younger brother, Yama who in turn passed on the same to Nachiketa. Nachiketa was the first human form to bring the spiritual knowledge that transmitted from God to Sun to Saturn and finally to Yama. God is unimaginable and Sun, Saturn and Yama are the three energetic forms. Nachiketa is the first human form, who brought the spiritual knowledge from the upper world to the earth. It is mentioned in Veda that the fire of Nachiketa (Nachiketa agni) is very sacred and here the fire means knowledge. Yohan says that Jesus will sprinkle fire, which means that Jesus emit the sacred spiritual knowledge. Yama is the deity of death and here death does not mean leaving the body. Death means the ignorance by which, God is forgotten and this is the definition of death given by the sage Sanat Sujata to the king Dhritarashtra. Therefore, Yama does not cause death and instead, removes the death. The poverty, difficulties and death indicate the necessary atmosphere for the establishment of spiritual knowledge. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 53. The nature of real spiritual path to God You are leaving the misery of the world and on attaining God, you think that you will derive the bliss, which is the eternal happiness. By leaving the worldly attachment, you have left the minus. Then, you have attained the intermediate state of absolute peace, which is zero. Now on attaining God, you have attained the plus, which is bliss in your view. The plus is a double minus in which, two signs of minus are arranged one over the other at right angles. This double minus indicates that you have to work more and face more misery in the service of God. The work and misery in the worldly affairs is very much less compared to the misery in work of God. The plus sign indicates the cross and the servant of God has to sacrifice even his own life to please God in the divine mission. You need not sacrifice your life for the sake of your family at any time. Unless you have developed the attitude of enjoying the misery, you cannot face misery in the service of God. Sugriva lost his wife because Vali has taken away her by force. Sugriva did not go to Vali to fight with him for the sake of his wife due to the fear for his life. His life is more valuable than his wife. But the same Sugriva went to Lanka to fight in the war taking the full risk of his life for the sake of getting back the wife of Lord Rama from

Ravana. Thus, one has to sacrifice even his life for the sake of God even though he may not sacrifice the same life in any worldly matter. Jesus says that unless one is prepared to carry on his own cross for the sake of the Lord, one cannot be His dearest disciple. The plus sign appears as double negative to threaten you by its facial expression. The final result of plus is not negative at all because its value is only positive. Similarly, if you are prepared for the double minus and intensive sacrifice in the case of God, you will derive the bliss at the end. God tests you to find out your attitude. God wants to know whether you have approached Him for bliss or to work and do the total sacrifice for His sake. Once God is fully convinced about the reality of your attitude, the result is quite different from the test. Finally Sugriva was given a place in Brahma Loka (Vaikuntha), where Sugriva lived with bliss. Ramayana is always taken as guidance in pravrutti (worldly life) by taking Rama as a good son, good husband, good father, good friend etc. Rama was always taken as a human being externally and the inner form of Rama as Lord was always hidden. All the monkeys were incarnations of angels and hence they could recognize Rama as Lord. No Advaita Scholar has become Brahman so far except Hanuman who served Rama as the Lord in the form of the contemporary human incarnation. Only Hanuman became Brahman, who still says that He is the servant of Rama. Therefore, Ramayana, which gives the path to any soul to become Brahman, is the only scripture of Advaita Philosophy in practical sense. The total surrender of your self is possible if you know that you are a tiny part of His movable property. A goat is a part of the movable property of the butcher. Every drop of the blood and every bit of the flesh is the property of the butcher only. The butcher is going to enjoy the entire flesh and blood of the goat and therefore there is no individuality for the goat. Similarly, every atom of your gross body and every wave of the energy in your gross body belong to the God. All your qualities (subtle body) and your entire pure awareness (soul or causal body) belong to God only. Hence, total surrender of your self is the complete justice (Tameva Sharanam Gachcha….Gita). To signify this concept, the Lord is called as Pashupati or the owner of the souls, which are like the animals. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 54. The heaven, which is the fruit of doing social service is temporary Another human incarnation of Lord Datta was Manikya Prabhu, who as a boy excreted in the Vedic fire alter and His excretion was found to be a lump of gold. The Vedic fire alter is Yajna, which represents the path to heaven. The heaven means luxurious life, which involves excess wealth indicated by the lump of gold. But the lump of gold was treated to be the excretion, which is considered to be wastage. This means that the luxurious life is wastage only. The heaven, which is the fruit of doing social service is temporary (Ksheene punye….Gita) and is not like the permanent bliss of the Lord. The present politicians who do social service without the name of the Lord, just to become wealthy and lead a luxurious heavenly life, should take the message from the Lord Datta.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 55. Can I expect some visions from God to know that I am in the right path? Visions are miracles done by God to rectify the defective students. Visions are not necessary for the souls of perfect spiritual level. Krishna never showed the cosmic vision(Vishwarupam) to Gopikas, who were the perfect sages. He showed this vision to sage Udanka who was rectified permanently. Again He showed this vision to Arjuna who was rectified temporarily upto the 18th day of war. On that last day, Arjuna refused to get down from the chariot for the sake of his prestige before the soldiers even though Krishna ordered him to do so. Again Krishna showed the same vision to Kauravas, who did not change at all. Jesus told that the devotees who believe without proof are really blessed. Hence miracles like Visions are not important at all in the case of real devotees. Suppose you are giving milk to your child, are you not happy to give that? Are you weeping to give the milk to your child? Are you praying the Lord To give strength to sacrifice milk to your child? This means that the Lord Is not equal even to your child, you are sacrificing all the bonds for your child But you are not sacrificing all the bonds for the sake of the Lord Therefore, your love on the Lord is not real compared to your child The Lord expects only one bond with Him and not any other bond See Sakthuprastha, who sacrificed his food and food of his family They were not eating for the past ten days in that severe draught If they do not eat that food their lives will leave their bodies He sacrificed the entire food spontaneously with happiness. When Shankara left His mother He was so happy to go on the mission You be in the place of Shankara and not in the place of His mother His mother was weeping to leave Shankara but Shankara was happy You should get the grace of the Lord like Shankara directly and not Like the mother of Shankara indirectly, you must yourself win His grace Do you want to achieve His grace because you are mother of Shankara? Everybody stands with his or her isolated account before the Lord The account of other soul is not at all affecting your account Every soul is individually and independently judged by the Lord When the gross body is dropped all these relationships vanish You cannot claim that the Lord should bless you As the wife of some sacred soul or as the mother of some other sacred soul When Shankara left the home He advised her to concentrate on the Lord And not to think about Him, the mother did so and is salvated. The mother got the salvation by her effort and Shankara encouraged that We say that the son of a professor got good rank because he was his son This does not mean that his son was given good marks due to the professor. This means that professor helped his son by teaching with special care, Therefore, you should come to the mission of the Lord and your bonds Should weep, you should be aspiring for the reverse situation After leaving this gross body there is no recognition of any other soul When Abhimanyu died and reached the heaven Arjuna, his father Was taken by the Lord and Abhimanyu did not recognize his father. I told that the mother of Shankara got the salvation because of Shankara That does not

mean that she got the salvation just because she was His mother She spent all her rest life in the devotion of Lord Shankara and for this She got the salvation, don’t think that she was sitting in her home And went on seeing the T.V., and cinemas and at the end claimed The salvation because of the single qualification that she was mother of Shankara, as mother of Shankara, she received best preaching from Him. That preaching helped her to have firm single-minded devotion Thus Shankara was responsible for her salvation through His divine knowledge One has to lift his or her own soul on his or her own effort only No other soul can lift any soul except the super soul that is the Lord Gita says the same “Uddharet Atmana Aatmanam”, When Mandanamisra was Walking out of his house leaving his beloved wife, Ubhaya Bharathi, She gave farewell to him with immense pleasure and she also took the sacred Orange robe and walked out as another saint, she was a great scholar She knows that she will not get salvation because her husband is a saint Therefore, she was happy that her husband realized the truth and is saved But by this she is not satisfied because her husband can save himself only And not her, therefore she walked out as a saint for her own upliftment. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 56. The bliss is inherent of the state of God only You must understand that the bliss cannot be obtained through any other way like getting materialistic benefits etc. The bliss is inherent of the state of God only. But you can attain the state of God through the knowledge of the state of God and maintain it by the grace of God. Even Shankara did not forget the necessity of the grace of God to attain even the state of self where the peace is the result instead of the bliss (Eshwaraanugrahaat…). Even for the continuity of peace by self-attainment, the grace of God is necessary. In such case, I need not tell you the necessity of God’s grace to attain the continuity of bliss by attaining the state of God. In the first case of self-attainment, you may succeed to attain it for a moment by your self-effort, which is simply self-realization. But you will immediately fall from it dragged by Maya so that you can be punished for the regular schedule of sins. Moreover, in this path you are adding special endless sin to your list of sins by not accepting God other than your self. If you accept and worship God other than your self and proceed in this path of selfattainment, you will maintain the continuity of this state. But once you have accepted God other than your self and worshipped Him, why should you crave for the peace only? Will you pray God just for not giving loss in your business? You will pray for the profit and God will at least protect you from loss. Similarly, if you enter the service of the contemporary human incarnation with the aim of getting the bliss of God, at least you will attain the peace, which may be a relative bliss with respect to misery. But if you enter the service of God without aspiration for peace or for bliss, you are sure

to get the bliss provided your state of selfless service is maintained. Therefore, never approach the Satguru who is the human form of God for attaining the continuous peace by self-realization. The human preachers can give you peace for a moment through selfrealization the continuity of peace is again depending on the grace of God only and not on the human preacher. Since, bliss is obtained only from the divine knowledge given by God, you need not stress on the aspect of bliss separately from the knowledge. God is possessor of divine knowledge and it means naturally that He is the possessor of the bliss also because bliss is a consequence of His divine knowledge only. Therefore, when you identify God through divine knowledge, it means you have identified the possessor of the bliss also. You need not identify God separately through bliss. Some false human incarnations claim themselves as God by simply expressing bliss on their face. Without the divine knowledge, such bliss is not true because when the clue is absent, how can the consequence be present? Of course, he may be a liberated soul enjoying the bliss by the grace of God and in such case he has the clue also. You can get clue from him but as you know the grace of God is required for the success of the clue. The liberated soul will tell this fact also and will guide you to get the grace of God and not his grace. If the liberated soul acts as the human incarnation hiding God, he will loose the bliss immediately. A liberated soul will never do that because for meaningless fame of a Guru, he will not sacrifice such eternal bliss. But the false human incarnation expressing false bliss may trap you, who can also give you the clue known from the divine knowledge. To eliminate such false God, you have to observe the overall spiritual knowledge containing various other aspects with various angles and the special way of His presentation to convince your self. In this point the miracles cannot help you because even a demon can perform the miracles. Just like bliss, love need not be a separate sign for identifying God because the divine knowledge giving the bliss continuously requires the grace of God, which is the divine love only. A false incarnation without the divine knowledge tries to impress on you by expression of false love. The true love is limited to only giving the divine knowledge to you, which alone can give you eternal bliss. Therefore, the love and bliss exist in the knowledge itself and there is no separate place for love and bliss apart from the knowledge. The human preachers who are false incarnations show love on you by helping you in getting some temporary worldly benefits, which do not give you real bliss. They give only some temporary apparent and illusory happiness, which is only false bliss, and here the help to you is only false love. The true love is only to give you the true spiritual knowledge, which gives you the real eternal bliss. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 57. The clue to attain the state of God

Every one desires to have bliss. Bliss means very intensive 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 not to aspire for that state and hence not to aspire for bliss. One has to start in the spiritual path with this fundamental correction. But every one starts with this fundamental mistake of aspiration for bliss. Some start to achieve the state of God with hidden reference to this bliss. In any way both are one and the same since bliss is possible only for the state of God. You have to get the clue from God only to get such bliss. The clue means the special knowledge (Prajnanam). The clue is not like the industrial secret, which can be obtained somehow, and then disposing the clue-giver forever. Such disposal cannot harm you because the clue is not at the grace of clue-giver. This clue is special because the application of this clue is simply based on the grace of the clue-giver (God). You have to continuously remain in the divine service of God so that the application of the clue is continuously successful. Therefore, the continuity of the application of this clue to get continuous bliss by maintaining yourself continuously in the state of God is purely based on the grace of God. The grace of God does not end with the handing over of the clue to you. The grace has to continue forever for its continuous successful application. If you are not aiming at this bliss from the beginning and since your aim is only to serve God continuously without aspiring for any fruit including bliss, the point of disposal of God after getting the clue does not arise at all in your case. If you are aiming for the bliss at any time before giving the clue, the clue will not be given by God. Even if you happen to know this clue from some human preachers or from the divine knowledge directly, the clue will not work at all. Even after getting the clue from God, if your aim turns towards bliss, this clue shall not work from that moment. Even after application of this clue and subsequent attainment of bliss for some time, if your aim turns towards the bliss, the clue stops functioning from that time onwards. I am clearly stressing on this point, which is very important, because the diversion towards bliss is inevitable to human psychology at any time, which is the only possible poision. One should be aware of this point continuously. You have to enjoy the bliss in the state of God, which is granted to you by the grace of God feeling that you are enjoying the bliss since that is the wish of God. By following His wish, God gets pleased. For such pleasure of God only you are enjoying the bliss and at anytime your aim is not the bliss. For any action (Karma), for any sacrifice (Tyaga) and for any enjoyment (Bhoga) from your side, the basis should be only the wish and pleasure of God. Therefore, if your aim is always to give bliss to God and not to enjoy the bliss, God will be just a mirror reflection of your attitude. Then His aim will not be to enjoy the bliss but to give you the bliss and for the fulfillment of such wish of God, God will not mind to transfer all your sins on to Him and get relieve you from the punishments (if you are unable to enjoy your own punishments in the initial stage. In course of time you may become capable of enjoying the misery in the world and derive bliss from it).

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 58. Aim of your practical worship. God in human form, devotee in human form and a poor fellow in human form should be the aim of your practical worship. Even you can select the soft natured animals and birds for such service in the name of God. In any case life is essential. You are directly worshipping God in human incarnation. When you are worshipping His devotee, God is more pleased. When you serve the poor in the name of God, then also God is pleased. The first case is direct worship whereas the second and third cases are indirect worship of God. All these are good because your hard-earned wealth is properly received by the life or awareness or soul. Therefore, Shankara stressed on the soul to be treated as God and not the inert objects (Jeevo Brahmaiava Naparah). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 59. What is the essence of justice? Justice is the divine system created by God, to maintain the balance of the society so that the spiritual aspirants can do their efforts with peace. The justice is related to your colleague soul. The essence of Dharma is not to hurt anyone in anyway because the law and order is in the hands of God. At least you should not harm any devotee. But punishing the students for their welfare is exempted because the welfare of the student is the main aim. The word Dharma (Justice) means the characteristic property which stands for the identification of an item. The Dharma of fire is burning by which it is identified as fire. It is the expected natural behaviour of an item in the creation. If the fire is cool, such coolness is Adharma which means that it is not the expected property of the specific entity. The human being in this creation is a specified entity and is expected to show certain characteristic properties (Dharmas) by which he or she is identified as the human being. If the human being shows the characteristic properties of other specified items, it loses its identification. When God created various items in this world, He has assigned certain characteristic properties to be associated with the corresponding items. Therefore the possession of Dharma is the will of God. The balance of the creation is maintained when specified items exhibit their specified properties assigned by God. All the inert items like fire, water etc. are strictly following the will of God. God created this universe for entertainment. The entertainment is disturbed if the natural balance is upset. God has given freedom to the human beings, which is the inherent desire of the souls. God has full freedom to change any characteristic property of any specified item. When He wished, the fire could not burn, the air could not move and the water could not quench even a dry grass blade. Since He is omnipotent, He has unlimited freedom. But the souls have very little potentiality. Their freedom is naturally conditional and limited. The living

being has little freedom within its specified boundary of its potentiality. If freedom is not given, it is not a living being. Among the living beings, the human being has full potentiality due to analytical faculty (Buddhi) and thus relatively more freedom is granted to it. The human being should understand the limits of its capability and should freely behave within that specified boundary. Such behaviour is Dharma which is expected by God. If the limits are violated and the behaviour of some other category like animals is shown, the soul is punished and the soul is pushed into the life cycle of animals. Such animal lives in the forest and can have its characteristic behaviour which does not upset the balance of animal kingdom in the forest. But when a human being lives in the society of human beings and behaves like an animal, the society of human beings is disturbed. The humanity is the most advanced race of the living beings into which God often enters in human form (Manusheem Tanumasritam –Gita). Dharma is called as Pravrutti which is the expected behaviour of the human being with the other co-human beings to maintain the balance of humanity. Only in humanity, the spiritual effort is taken up by some blessed and realized human beings. Therefore the behaviour of the human being should not upset any other human being. Therefore if a co-human being is a devotee of God and a spiritual aspirant, he or she should not be even hurt. God excuses even the atheist who abuses Him but will never spare if the atheist even hurts the devotee. You should not hurt the feelings of any co-human being except in the case of punishment. Even in the punishment, your aim should not be to hurt the sinner but to change him. Even if you are an atheist you must respect the devotees also because they are your cohuman beings. Whether you are an atheist or theist, you are expected to maintain the balance of the human society. The highest Dharma is only not to hurt any soul including birds and animals. Even a tree is a living being and you should not cut any green tree. Non-violence towards the living beings is the essence of Dharma (Ahimsa Paramo dharmah). Ungratefulness is said to be the highest sin (Adharma). An atheist who may have any number of good qualities is the highest sinner because he is ungrateful to the creator. A theist who may have any number of bad qualities is good with reference to such atheist (Apichetsa –Gita). Of course you are expected to be a theist with good qualities. An atheist with bad qualities is the worst, called as demon and will be punished by God immediately. Therefore gratefulness to the creator and not hurting any soul except in the punishment is the essence of Dharma. As long as you are not disturbing the balance of society, God does not distinguish the good and bad qualities applied in the path of the spiritual journey. The hunter who gave flesh as offering to the Lord attained the eternal abode of God. He killed a rabbit which is a harmless animal but neither he nor his family took that flesh. He did not sell the flesh. This sin was excused by God due to lack of selfishness and immense love to God. As long as Lord does not enter into your life, you have to reject Adharma and vote for Dharma. But when God enters your life, you have to vote for God only even against Dharma, if required (Sarvadharman-Gita). Dharmaraja did not tell a lie even though the Lord asked

him to tell a lie. He voted for Dharma against God. The result of Dharma is temporary and he went to heaven for some time. He did not go to the permanent abode of God. In fact, dharma need not have any reward because it is expected behaviour. The heaven is only a consolation gift to encourage not to do Adharma. Arjuna killed His grandfather Bhishma on the instruction of the Lord and he was permanently associated with the Lord Narayana as Nara. God is the greatest and is beyond even dharma. After all, the aim of Dharma is only not to displease God. In Pravrutti which has no reference to God, you should not displease any co-human being. In Nivrutti, you should please God at the cost of even sacrificing Dharma. In Pravrutti, you should not leave your old parents, your wife and your children. But in Nivrutti, Shankara left His old mother, Prahalada got his father killed, Buddha left His wife and child and Meera left Her husband. The result of Pravrutti is not to displease God whereas the result of Nivrutti is to please God. One should not confuse with these two fields (Pravruttincha Nivruttincha – Gita). The expected behaviour (Dharma) differs in these two fields separately. You have to follow Dharma corresponding to the field in which you exist. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 60. Forgiveness and Punishment Some people say that even good people are unnecessarily harmed. They criticize God. You cannot decide any person as a good person. Did you observe him every minute from his birth? You also think yourself as a good person. Are you aware of your sins done in your childhood? You might have harmed an innocent insect in your childhood. Do you remember that? Even mental feelings are sins, which may not be expressed in words and actions. The feelings of the mind are the source of words and actions. Therefore the feeling may not hurt others today. But tomorrow it will hurt others which will come out in words and actions. In fact, intention is given more importance in the crime according to law. The judge gives more importance to the intention in giving the punishment. You are walking on the road and the ant is killed by your foot, without any intention. There is no punishment for such sins. But when you kill the same ant with intention, you are punished by God. Therefore mind is the source of action. If somebody harmed really a good person, then also leave it to God. You should not revenge. Why? The reason is that you cannot judge the exact nature and line of the case. You do not remember your own sins. Some times you do the sin thinking that it is good. You cannot be the standard in judging your own sins. Only the Lord can decide. Therefore, if somebody harmed really a good person, in the view of the Lord also, then the Lord himself will punish him. You cannot take the law and order in to your hand. You have to refer the case to the court. Let the Judge decide, and punish the criminal. Therefore the Lord said, “Revenge is Mine”. If the revenge is justified, the Lord will certainly punish. The Lord will not revenge if you pray Him to do so. The Lord, will not excuse even if you recommend the unjust case.

Neither you have the power to punish nor to excuse anybody. The reason for this is that you are not omniscient. If a sinner realizes the sin and repents, the punishment is reduced. After repentance if you do not repeat the sins, the punishment is cancelled. If the sinner does not repent, he will repeat the sin again and again. Such sinner can be controlled only by punishment. If this is not true the police department has no use. There are some sinners who can be controlled only by third degree treatment. If such punishment and revenge are not required, and if everybody can be transformed by preaching, then what is the necessity of the existence of’ Hell and Liquid Fire’. If such possibility of transformation by love and knowledge is there, then why the Lord mentioned the word ‘revenge’ at all? Therefore this means that there are some sinners who cannot be transformed by love and knowledge. Some clever people criticize Lord Rama and Lord Krishna, who have resorted to punish the sinners. Such clever people should answer about the word ‘revenge’ uttered by the Lord and also should explain the mention of the liquid fire in the scriptures. If all the human beings can be transformed through love and knowledge such words should not have been mentioned in their scriptures. The Lord is the father of all the souls. Your love on another human being is only brotherly love. The love of the father is far greater than the brotherly love. You are criticizing your father for punishing your brother! The father tries His best to transform His son. On the first day of the war Ravana ( a demon) was defeated by Rama(Lord). Rama could have killed him on the very first day. But Rama, asked Ravana to go back and think that night. The Lord punishes any one as last resort. Even then, the Lord doesnot have anger or hatred. The punishment is only the last method attempted for transformation. There also the aim is only transformation. But when you punish your enemy such aim does not exist. Therefore the punishment by Lord is also reflecting His divine love and kindness on the soul. Due to such sacred aim the Lord is authorized to punish the soul. He is just like a teacher who punishes the student for his misbehavior. The teacher does not get any sin in such punishment. The reason again is that the intention decides the action. Therefore when you live in the world, according to instructions given by the Lord, the Lord is pleased with you. The Lord will make you happy in this world. Your happiness in this world is an indication of His grace. Therefore you will be happy in the upper world also. He is the only one lord for both the worlds. Therefore if you are unhappy in the worldly affairs, you will be unhappy in the spiritual matters in the upper world also. If you are blessed in this world you are also blessed in the upper world. Therefore you follow His commandments and be happy in this world. When you are serving the Lord you should be happy in the sacrifice. You should not sacrifice to the Lord with unhappiness. The sacrifice with unhappiness will make the Lord unhappy. The result of such service is unhappiness in the upper world. Therefore it is better not to sacrifice if you are not happy. Why should you purchase the unhappiness with such sacrifice? Are you unhappy when you are sacrificing to your family members? Therefore the sacrifice without any force or unhappiness is not only waste but also brings negative results in the

case of Lord. In the case of family members if you sacrifice with unhappiness it is waste. Therefore the intention is very important for the Lord. You should not do any sacrifice aspiring something in return. Such sacrifice is only a business. The business done in the case of your family members may bring benefit or loss. But in the case of Lord the business always brings loss. Therefore live in this world according to the instructions of the Lord given to you with regard to other human beings. With regard to the Lord do sacrifice and service to the Lord to that extent only up to which there is no force or pain or business. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 61. God acts As Father And Teacher God acts as Father as well as the teacher (Guru) in the case of any soul. Since God created the soul, He is the Father. But at the same time He is the teacher who trains every soul to come up in the spiritual path. Generally in the world the father is different since teacher is separate. But here in the case of any soul the real Father and the real teacher is only one and that is God. Therefore, God is always kind as Father and is strict and harsh as teacher. But the harshness of the teacher is apparent only and in reality the harshness is kindness only. Hence, basically God is always kind. God appears harsh as the teacher and appears kind as Father. Since, the teacher is basically kind even in his harsh attitude also, God is always kind in reality or in the basic sense. The souls have done continuous sins and continuous good deeds and if the results are to be given based on the same sequence and span of time, there will be continuous punishments for long time and continuous happiness for another span of long time. Then it will be summer for one year and winter for one year. But the kindest God has re-arranged our results in such manner so that our human life is made with alternative good and bad results so that there will be summer for two months and winter for two months so that the two years are made with alternative couple of months of summer and winter. Neither summer nor winter bores with continuity and both summer and winter with the span of one year each gets exhausted. The punishments are used to remove the ignorance and happiness is given as an interval between punishments. The punishments are also selected in such a way so that their intensity is suitable to the frequency of requirement for the transformation in the life again and again. This means that a particular soul requires a particular punishment of a specified intensity suitable to the degree of ignorance of the soul and based on the same, the duration of the punishment also varies from one soul to the other. According to the requirement, a suitable portion from the result of the sin is cut like a piece from a large cake. The size of the piece depends on the requirement of the nature of the soul. The sizes of the pieces of the salt (bad result) and sweet (Good result) cakes depend upon the duration of treatment and interval required by the nature of the soul. The salt cake is a medicine for the ignorance and the sweet cake is the food during the

treatment for the patient-soul. The left over cakes are used for the external hell and heaven in the upper world. Whatever may be the place (hell or heaven or earth), the punishments are given for the treatment of ignorance only. In the earth the punishments are used as get ordained but in the hell the punishments are used as the final surgery for removing the ignorance. In any case only the kindness of God is always reflected. Thus, God can be seen as Father or Teacher or Doctor giving get ordained or surgeon doing operation and in all angles only the kindness is reflected always. He is always working constantly to uplift every soul. God works as Teacher, Doctor and Surgeon and at the same time the God with an attitude of the Father also observes the possible limit up to which the soul can withstand the treatment. Once the limit is reached, God will regain the attitude of Father withdrawing Himself from the attitude of Teacher or Doctor or Surgeon and as a Father He starts giving the food of happiness for some time. Remember that He is using the bad and good results of the deeds of the soul only in every action to uplift the soul. The deeds are done by the soul in a free atmosphere and God has no trace of interference and the same time all this treatment and food arranged alternatively makes the life cycle quite interesting to the soul without boring since continuity of anything is absent. Otherwise the soul would have got bored and the Samskara (strong feeling) of boring should have followed the soul and the soul must have developed repulsion to this world as soon as it is born in this world. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 62. God is never unkind- He is kind or neutral only People are dieing day and night to earn wealth always. They worship God intensively for earning wealth more and more and there is no end to this. The anxiety for wealth can be compared to the anxiety of a person to come out of the water when he is drowned in a lake by force. God has arranged for the basic needs of every soul even for an atheist. Even the human Government is arranging the basic needs for criminals in the prison and how can one doubt about the divine Government in this? The desire for wealth is never satisfied and in fact it grows more and more as the wealth comes. The fire grows more and more as the ghee is poured in it (Na Kamah…). I will tell you a small incident of one of My childhood-friends. He suffered with sever poverty and all his efforts failed in earning money. He did several worships of God but they were of no use. The silence of God here is to be properly understood. God knows that addition of ghee in fire in that case will not solve the problem. One day he went to the Railway Station at 3 pm to commit suicide by falling down before the train. On that day, I awoke very early and went to station under the pretext of morning walk. I met him there and started giving spiritual knowledge regarding the wealth and God. I sang several devotional songs to change his mind and asked him to sing a few songs daily.

I told him “Your worldly life is ruined and there is no hope of revival. At least try to win in the spiritual life. People who commit suicide will go to hell and they have ruined not only the worldly life but also the spiritual life”. I washed his brain and he came to a decision of building up the spiritual life leaving all the materialistic efforts to earn wealth etc. Generally people misunderstand Me in this point. They think that I have ruined that fellow completely in the worldly life. You know what happened in that case. Within a couple of years he became the richest man in the town through some accidental business. But he forgot Me and also left the entire spiritual life. He started singing the same songs with a different aim to grow his wealth more and more. Recently I met him and advised him about the change in his aim etc. I asked him to do some practical service to God by participating in the propagation of the divine knowledge by doing at least a little sacrifice of the fruit of work. You know the result! He stopped coming to My house. Previously he was coming to My house expressing his gratefulness to Me before My family. In no time, just by single will, I can bring him back to his original position. But I thought of not doing like that because in such case he will certainly commit suicide by the shock of the turn. Let him continue in that state without further materialistic progress so that he will not be spoiled more, I thought. There may be a hope of his turn before the end of his life. If he does not turn, anyway he will go to the same hell that he wanted to reach previously through the suicide. God is never unkind. He will be either kind or neutral to His devotees. His heart is a gate without doors (Dwaraka). Dwaraka means the gate, which is always opened acting as the passage continuously. Any one can enter at any time and they will be honored with divine love from God. Any one in the heart of God is free to go out at anytime and God is never unkind to him and God becomes just neutral by withdrawing the love to him. There is no question of anger of God on the devotees even if they insult Him. QUESTIONER: Sadguru, if the God is not unkind what is the talk of the Hell, which has been preached about by you and others before you? In fact, I have made numerous observations here in the western world of people who have absolutely no devotion on God. They say they believe in God (or at least the existence of God), but they have no sadhana in their lives, and they do not believe in heaven/hell. Even a Sikh once told me that God can be either believed in, or ignored without consequence. SWAMI: Punishment is only for transformation of the soul. God punishes any soul without any hatred, like a father punishes his children for his upliftment. Lord punishes as a last resort only. He keeps silent for long to see whether they change, if not as a last resort He punishes, here punishment is only from the souls account only, the fruits of bad deeds of the soul is given as punishment, hence Lord is clearing the bad fruits as the same

time try to induce devotion on Lord from the soul, during the punishment stage, if the soul introspect and try to understand the motive of suffering in his life. The earth, hell and heaven come under the plane of materialism (Pravrutti) only. The punishment on the earth and the punishment in the hell differ just by the areas present in the same realm of Pravrutti. It is just the difference between a jail in India and a jail in Andaman Islands in the olden days. Therefore, the postponed sin along with the interest can be met with punishment in the hell or in the next birth. It is one and the same. The serious deeds good or bad will yield results in this birth it self (Atyutkataih Papa Punyaiah Ihaiva Phalamashnute..). The place and time have no significance. Only the quality and quantity of the nature (good or bad) of a deed and its subsequent fruit destined by the constitution of God are important. As the postponement increases, the interest also increases. You will receive the principle along with the interest in any online branch of the divine bank existing on this earth or in the upper world. Actually the deeds are inert actions and do not follow the soul. Only the essence of the deed which is alive in the form of quality (Guna or Samskara) follows the soul and from the color and intensity of the quality, results are decided by the divine computer called Yama for bad deeds and Indra for good deeds. Kalabhairava is the over all in-charge of super vision in implementing the results (Karanam Guna Samgosya…Gita). Sattvam is white, Rajas is red and Tamas is black. Therefore, the internal intention (Sankalpa) of the mind which is made of these three qualities decides good and bad of a deed and not the inert subsequent action. The cycle of deeds and its administration is simplified based on the specific quality and its quantity. This is the simplified picture of the system of deeds, which is followed by the judge in the final enquiry. Of course, the total network of deeds with all the minute details also exists inside the system, which can be referred if necessary (Gahana Karmanogatih…). The difficulties giving misery are the best ground to understand this statement of Lord in Gita. Therefore, love the problems and misery. Hate peace and happiness. But this should be limited to yourself for the personal spiritual effort and should not be extended to society surrounding you. You are not supposed to disturb the society around you in any way in which case God will be furious with you. Demons were punished for this because they gave misery to the society for their personal happiness. Those who undergo misery for the happiness of the society please the Lord and reach the temporary heaven. Here you are serving the society without any selfishness and therefore for the sake of welfare of the society you are rejecting your peace and happiness. You are certainly greater than a fellow who serves the society for his personal peace and happiness like the present politician. But those who undergo misery for the sake of the mission of the Lord, will achieve the love of the Lord and reach His divine abode forever. Here also you are serving God not for your peace and for your happiness. Therefore, whether it is service to society or God, the selfishness should be absent and sacrifice should be present. Several devotees aspire bliss by serving the Lord. This is not the

correct spirit. One should aspire for the bliss of God through his service and not selfish bliss. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 63. One God many incarnations The Lord also comes in different human forms at the same time for the convenience of people living in different places. Convenience (Sowlabhya) is one of His divine qualities. Everything is possible by His super power called Maya. Parusurama and Rama were present in the same time. Vyasa and Krishna were present in the same time. Akkalkota Maharaj and Shirdi Sai Baba were present in the same time. In the same time He comes in different forms to preach at different levels, since the devotees in the same time are at different levels. Even His servants and disciples come down in various human bodies. He comes down fully along with His whole department. Many school teachers, lecturers, and readers are present in His department. He comes down as one professor because there will be very few devotees, who have reached the top level. In some human bodies, only a ray of His energy enters and this is called a ‘Kalavatara’ (e.g Sage Vyasa). In other cases, a part of His energy enters a human body and this is called as an ‘Amsavatara’ (e.g Kapila). When He enters a human body only for some time, it is called an ‘Avesavatara’ (e.g Parasurama). When He enters a human body and lives from birth to death but reveals Himself partially, then He is called as a ‘Purnavatara’ (e.g. Lord Rama). When the ‘Purnavatara’ reveals Himself completely, He is called a ‘Paripurnavatara’ (e.g. Lord Krishna). He is the professor and His preaching at the topmost level is the Bhagavad Gita, which is the essence of all the Vedas. We must remember that the human body of the Lord is not a modification of the Lord (the Lord does not get transformed into the body) and therefore the Lord can leave the body at the end (Avyaktam Vyakti Maapannam). Due to this reason, the body retains its natural properties like birth, death, hunger etc., and these properties do not touch the internal Lord. The internal Lord is the True Infinite Knowledge as said in the Veda (Satyam Jnanam Anantham). The Vedas are only His preaching (Asya Mahato Bhutasya, Vedaanta Krut). The Vedas and the Gita are called as Shastras. Shastra means that which is spoken by the Lord (Tasmat Shastram). Therefore any human incarnation of the Lord at the professor’s level, will definitely quote these Shastras as said in the Gita. Scholars also may quote these Shastras but their preaching results in a headache. The preaching of the Lord gives bliss in your heart since the Veda says that God is bliss (Aanando Brahma). Lord Shankara and Mandana Misra argued for 21 days. Both quoted the Shastras. But the knowledge of Shankara gave bliss not only to the audience but also to Mandana Misra. Therefore Shankara was considered as the incarnation of Lord Shiva. Shankara entered the house of Mandana Misra even though the doors were bolted from inside. He used His miraculous power since nobody opened the doors in spite of His several calls. The incarnation has all the super powers but uses them only when it is absolutely necessary. He does not exhibit His powers for fame or to attract people. If He

were to do so, people would catch Him and press Him for granting them boons that they do not deserve. He gave His super powers even to the demons since the powers are like His jewels (which can be donated to anyone). However the demons could not get His characteristic property, which is the divine knowledge. Therefore great sages did not accept the demons as God even though the demons exhibited several miracles. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 64. The need to have Sadguru The inert energy is produced from food and oxygen (Anna and Prana). This inert energy flows through brain and nerves which are in the state of functioning, develops the property of awareness. Such awareness-energy is called as mind, which is not associated with any external knowledge. The awareness simply makes some desires without any analysis. Such desire (Sankalpa) is often altered (Vikalpa) because the logical analysis is not developed due to absence of any external knowledge. In this state, the awareness (Mind) makes the human being equal to a bird or animal only. When the external knowledge is associated with awareness, the logical analysis develops which results in decision without making any alteration. Then the awareness is called as intelligence (Buddhi) or Vijnana. The mind is blind and when the mind is the ruler, the human being is just like the blind king Dhrutarashtra. If the awareness is associated with the knowledge given by external Guru, the human being is like the kingdom ruled by Dharma Raja associated with Gita, the divine knowledge, given by Lord Krishna. The mind by itself is like a blind sense only (Manah Shashthani-Gita). The mind is like the untrained driver. The intelligence is like a trained driver. The intelligence alone can make the determination which leads to correct practice. Therefore, the soul (Yourself) is like the owner. Your body is like the car. The mind is like the steering rod. The untrained driver is like the inert steering rod which is mind. The same mind (awareness) becomes a trained driver due to association of divine knowledge given by the Sadguru who is the correct guide of training. The correct knowledge in driving alone makes the difference between untrained and trained drivers. Therefore, your first responsibility is to search for the Sadguru to obtain the correct trained driver (Buddhi) in your body. Therefore, Gita starts with the Buddhi Yoga. Gita is starting with Jnana Yoga. Sankara gave the entire credit to Jnana Yoga, which is the correct knowledge in driving that is obtained from Sadguru. Therefore, do not proceed with the mind like an animal or ignorant person in the spiritual journey. In such case you will be exploited by various selfish ignorant people. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 65. The psychology of the people is to get attraction towards the things, which are far

The psychology of the people is to get attraction towards the things, which are far and to get detached from the things, which are very close. Infact, this is the general psychology of souls and even angels are not exceptional as said in Veda ‘Paroksha Priya ivahi devah pratyaksha dvishah…’, which means that even angels like any item, which is far and dislike any item present before the eyes. This is the reason for God keeping us in close association with worldly atmosphere and to keep Himself far from us. Whatever God does is always meaningful and we criticize God without understanding Him in depth. You should always be closely associated with the items from which you want detachment. You should always keep yourself far from the items on which you like to maintain your attraction. When the item existing away from you becomes closely associated, your attraction towards it starts diminishing. This is the reason for the repulsion towards the contemporary human incarnation, which exists before your eyes. Similarly, the reason for attraction to past human incarnations and the energetic incarnations of God related to the upper world is that these forms are not before your eyes. One day Radha came to Dwaraka from Brindavanam and Rukmini gave her hot milk. Rukmini also was taking the same hot milk every day but on that day Krishna became red due to heat. On enquiry Krishna told that since He is in the heart of Radha, His body became red due to the hot milk taken by Radha. Then Rukmini asked the Lord for not seeing the same effect every day since she was also taking the same hot milk. The Lord told that since He is in the heart of Radha only, the effect was seen. Rukmini asked the reason for the difference between her and Radha. The Lord told that since Rukmini is staying very close to Him, her devotion was not as strong as that of Radha, who was staying in Brindavanam far from Him. This story shows that close association always leads to the negligence. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 66. Mental attraction is always on the item, which is far from you Two devotees were traveling to the city of Varanasi to worship the Lord Shiva. One of them was attracted by a prostitute and stopped in her house before reaching Varanasi. The other person went to Varanasi and worshipped Shiva for the rest of the life. Both died on the day of Shivaratri. The person in Varanasi was always having mental attraction to the prostitute. The person who is with prostitute is always having mental attraction to Lord Shiva. Finally the messengers of Yama took theperson who died in Varanasi to hell, whereas the messengers of Lord Shiva took the person who died in the prostitute’s house. All these incidents prove that the mental attraction is always on the item, which is far from you and the detachment comes from the item, which is before your eyes. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

67. It is better to be far from worldly atmosphere to get detachment from it The psychology of the people is to get attraction towards the things, which are far and to get detached from the things, which are very close. Infact, this is the general psychology of souls and even angels are not exceptional as said in Veda ‘Paroksha Priya ivahi devah pratyaksha dvishah…’, which means that even angels like any item, which is far and dislike any item present before the eyes. This is the reason for God keeping us in close association with worldly atmosphere and to keep Himself far from us. Whatever God does is always meaningful and we criticize God without understanding Him in depth. You should always be closely associated with the items from which you want detachment. You should always keep yourself far from the items on which you like to maintain your attraction. When the item existing away from you becomes closely associated, your attraction towards it starts diminishing. This is the reason for the repulsion towards the contemporary human incarnation, which exists before your eyes. Similarly, the reason for attraction to past human incarnations and the energetic incarnations of God related to the upper world is that these forms are not before your eyes. Sage Vasishtha says that it is better to be far from worldly atmosphere to get detachment from it. You may think that this contradicts the above statement regarding human psychology. But it is not so as it is clear on sharp analysis. The statement of sage Vasishtha does not apply to the stage of leaving the family permanently. His statement should apply to a temporary period of meditation on God in the case of a householder. The householder gets real detachment from the family being close to the family. Now he wants to concentrate on God for sometime. For this purpose, he should leave the house and go to a lonely place and meditate upon God for sometime. He can meditate upon God in the atmosphere of the house. Therefore, one should leave the house for a short period to concentrate on God in a lonely atmosphere as said in Gita (Vivikta Sevi…). But if one leaves the house permanently and goes to a forest for meditation upon God, everything fails. The concept of leaving the family forever brings tremendous attraction on the family in the mind leading to failure of meditation upon God. Therefore, the statement of Vasishtha in Yoga Vasistha should be taken for a short exit from the house and not in the case of permanent exit. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 68. Once the attachment on God becomes complete, the detachment from the family becomes natural The statement in Veda (Yadahareva Virajet Tadahareva Pravrajet…), which says that you should leave the house whenever you are detached from the family, can be applied for leaving the house for a short period also. The spiritual aspirant can control the mind and attain detachment from the family slowly by such constant practice only (Abhyasenatu… Gita). Once the attachment on God becomes complete, the detachment from the family becomes natural and spontaneous and there need not be any effort for such detachment. After such detachment, one may stay in the house but still he is not attached internally to the family like king Janaka. For such a fully detached soul, even leaving the house for a

divine program of propagating the spiritual knowledge will not have any difficulty as in the case of Buddha and Shankara. Once the internal detachment is complete, the external detachment is not at all a problem and even if one is not having the external detachment, still he is completely detached soul only. There is no difference between Janaka and Shankara or Buddha because in all these cases the internal detachment is complete. However, certain people who claim the internal detachment like Janaka without the external detachment can misinterpret this concept. Such cheating the public is of no use because it is deceiving his own soul since one cannot fool the God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 69. Leaving the house for the propagation of knowledge and devotion should be done on the command of God only When the person is totally absorbed in God, even the surrounding atmosphere of the family cannot disturb him in anyway as in the case of Janaka ( a great devotee). Such person may even leave the family like Shankara and Buddha (previous human incarnations) for the propagation of spiritual knowledge and devotion in the world on the order of God. Such exit is designed in the divine program and cannot be taken as a step in the spiritual effort (Sadhana) of a human being. Shankara and Buddha are human incarnations of God (Siddhas) and they are not to be compared with the spiritual aspirants (Sadhakas). If the spiritual aspirant becomes Janaka by slow practice as said above, such state is equal to the state of Buddha or Shankara, provided the attainment of such state is real with reference to his inner consciousness. Leaving the house for the propagation of knowledge and devotion should be done on the command of God only as stated by Sri Rama Krishna Paramahamsa. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 70. Your spiritual effort should not be against the psychology of the mind You have to tackle the Maya carefully with tactful approach according to the human psychology. Otherwise, one will be insulted and thrown away by the powerful Maya. Your spiritual effort should not be against the psychology of the mind. The detachment from the family should be spontaneous without any effort. The effort means force and mind cannot be controlled by force, which is already attracted to the world. Without the complete attraction to God, if you detach mind from the worldly attraction, the mind will rebel because it needs the process of attraction as its food. If the mind is immersed in the attraction to God, it is satisfied with such divine nectar as its food. In the absence of divine nectar of devotion to God, the mind likes to eat some rubbish food and it cannot remain hungry without food. In the absence of divine nectar of devotion as the food of highest quality, some food of even low quality is needed for the mind. When you are in journey, you cannot get homely food, but you cannot also remain hungry without food. Therefore, you will be eating some nonsense during the journey to pacify your hunger. Similar is the case with mind. If your are served with homely food,

you will not go for bad food even by force. Similarly, if you fully pacify mind with the devotion, the mind will not go for worldly affairs even if it is forced. The high quality food should be sufficiently supplied to pacify the hunger. Then only your hunger is put off. Simply tasting a little food of high quality cannot pacify the hunger completely. Therefore, merely tasting the devotion of God is not sufficient to detach the mind from the worldly affairs. The devotion should be completely injected in to the mind so that the hunger of the mind is completely satisfied by the quantitative aspect also. Once your mind is engaged in the devotion always, the worldly affairs cannot deviate you. This is the reason for the diversion of the mind to the world even though the mind has tasted devotion. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 71. The devotion to God should be based on absence of aspiration for any fruit in return The devotion to God should be based on absence of aspiration for any fruit in return. This point is the life of the entire devotion. In all most all the cases the devotion is based on the need for God’s help in the materialistic life or in getting protection from the hell after death. Such need based devotion will lead to atheism one day or other because at least after sometime, God will keep silent towards such need based devotion. When God becomes silent and the need for God disappears, the devotion also vanishes like the useless tail in the case of human being in the process of evolution. The tail is well developed in the case of animals because it is needed to throw away the flies. But when the animal started walking on two legs and the two hands are well developed to throw away the flies, the tail slowly disappeared due to the absence of its use. A monkey walks on four legs and therefore the tail exists with full vigor to throw away the flies. When the same monkey became the human being in the process of evolution, the hands were well developed and hence the tail disappeared. If you see the physical form of Hanuman, it is fully human form with well-developed hands. The mouth of Hanuman can be seen even in certain human beings and therefore, it cannot prove that Hanuman is a monkey. His mouth was as good as the mouth of a handsome human being and it is deformed when He swallowed the Sun due to burning. In His case, the tail should disappear since it has no use. But in His case, the tail is very long and very strong even though its need disappeared. The tail represents the devotion without need or aspiration of fruit. The long tail represents the continuous devotion without any break even in the absence of need. The strong tail denotes the intensive devotion even in the absence of need. Thus, the very physical form of Hanuman represents His path of devotion, which is very strong and continuous even in the absence of any need. Even though there was no aspiration of any fruit, God gave Him the highest fruit by which He became God Himself. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

72. One can cross the Maya with the help of Maya Veda says, ‘Avidyaya mrutyum Tritva Vidyaya Amrutamasnute’, Which means that one can cross the Maya with the help of Maya only and can catch God only with the help of true knowledge. This means that you can capture God by truth and sincerity only. But you cannot win the world by the same truth and sincerity. The world is full of falsehood or Maya. To reach God you have to cross this world by false means only. Therefore, you have to learn both Maya and true knowledge to be used for the world and God respectively. If you reverse, you will neither cross Maya nor attain God. When your aim is God, the false means used to cross the worldly bonds are not at all false. Anything in the direction of God is not at all false. Anything in the direction of the world is not at all true. Ends justify means. A lie told by Krishna to kill Drona became justice. Even truth against the will of God becomes injustice. Shankara wanted to leave His mother for the divine service. He told several times the true spiritual knowledge to His mother. But the mother finally wants Him to stay with her only. Shankara cheated her by telling a lie that a crocodile caught His leg under water and forced her to accept sanyasa as His last wish. He did not cheat her to allow Him to marry an unacceptable girl. In that case it will be a sin. For the sake of God only, He cheated His mother, which is a right way only. Similarly, Buddha left His family in the midnight. Saibaba told that the verse in Gita ‘Upadekshyanti te jnanam…’ (which means that the preacher will preach knowledge) should be also reversed by introducing Ajnanam in the place of Jnanam, which means that the preacher shall also preach about ignorance or Maya to cross the Maya. Unless you cross the river, you cannot reach the village on the other bank. The guide who gives the details of the village present on the other bank of the river must also teach you the swimming to cross the river. Krishna knows stealing the butter and dancing with Gopikas to attract them to get detachment from the worldly bonds and at the same time He is the excellent expert in spiritual knowledge as seen through Gita. When the preacher gives knowledge of God only, the Soul cannot cross Maya with the help of that knowledge. Such a preacher is a human Guru who gives only theoretical knowledge without the practical knowledge that is required in the worldlaboratory. Only Sadguru can give both theoretical and practical knowledge. He represents not only the scripture but also the world (Vishwam Vishnuh...). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 73. The knowledge of unimaginable God can be established only on knowing the science intensively Science is the knowledge of the world (Vijnanam) and is unaware of God and hence, science can be also treated as ignorance (Avidya). Though science cannot speak about God, it can disprove the awareness as non-God item of creation. The Advaita philosopher, who does not know this ignorance (Science) mistakes awareness as God. Therefore, the knowledge of unimaginable God can be established only on knowing the science intensively, which can prove all the non-God items as non-God items only. To cross the

Maya of awareness, one requires the help of ignorance (science) only and not the mere knowledge of God from the scripture. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 74. You must know the nature of intelligence and the nature of the mind also to control the mind You must know the nature of intelligence and the nature of the mind also to control the mind. Though intelligence is higher faculty, it cannot control the mind by passing on the orders as decisions. The mind yields to the decision of intelligence immediately but slowly the mind proposes alternative (Vikalpa) and controls the intelligence by diverting it into the alternative way. The mind is like the tactful wife who yields to the decision of the husband on the spot but slowly diverts him to her will in course of time through sweet proposals. To capture such mind, you must learn the same talent of the mind. Krishna transformed Satyabhama slowly by not behaving like her husband but behaving like a wife to her. You can cut the diamond by another diamond only and you can remove the thorn by another thorn only. To teach this spiritual concept of intelligence and mind, God created the man and woman with such different natures representing the intelligence and mind respectively. When this concept is understood, both man and woman should take the concept equally and get the spiritual benefit. There is no difference between the man and woman in their three bodies. The Gross body is made of five elements, the inner subtle body is made of three qualities and the innermost causal body is made of pure awareness in both the cases. The compositions of the proportions of the three qualities vary in both the cases to suit the above concept. Thus the firm intelligence and the inconsistent mind are represented by the man and woman respectively and here both are equal as actors but for their difference in the external assigned roles. One actor need not criticize the other actor for external role. Thus, the man need not criticize the inconsistent nature of the woman which is only a role given by God. The man should also learn the submissiveness of the woman, which is also an external role and which is necessary for attaining the grace of God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 75. Real Devotion Vs false Devotion to God The devotion to Lord in the form of theoretical phase as well as practical phase should be done by making God as the final goal. Such devotion only is real and the real devotees are Hanuman and Gopikas who should be our guides in the spiritual effort. But very few human beings can attain such level and God says in Gita that one in millions only can attain such state. In such real spiritual path all the items except God become means only, whereas pleasing God is the final goal. But majority of human beings is reverse to this real path. Most of the human beings make

God as means to achieve their self-pleasure by crossing the difficulties in life. Even the devotees who worship the Lord for the upper world also belong to such path only because they are also making God as means to avoid the hell in the upper world. Crossing the difficulties and attainment of selfish pleasure is the only goal whether the place is earth or upper world. Hence, for ordinary human beings it is almost impossible to attain such real devotion. Selfishness is the nature of the soul and can never be avoided like the curve of a dog-tail (Prakritim yaanti Bhutani – Gita). Therefore, for almost all the human beings God becomes only the instrument or means to attain the selfish pleasure. Even the so called spiritual aspirants say that the goal of their spiritual effort is only to attain the bliss of God and in their view it is only the selfish bliss and not to give bliss to God. If you take the case of Hanuman ( a real devotee of Lord), He wanted to commit suicide in the service of His contemporary Human incarnation while searching for Sita ( a female devotee). He thought that if Sita is not found, Rama will die and instead of becoming cause to the death of Rama, He thought that it is better to end His own life. Generally people worship God to avoid pre-mature death. But Hanuman wanted the pre-mature death for the sake of God. Several demons worshipped God to become immortals without death. Thus, there is 180-degree difference between Hanuman and demons and hence Hanuman is the bitter enemy for all the demons. Therefore, to achieve real devotion towards God with a final aim of pleasing God at the cost of one’s own death is a matter of dream for human beings. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 76. All about souls The individual soul (Jeeva) is a bundle of various qualities, which are different proportions of the three basic qualities called as Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas (Nanyam Gunebhyah…Gita). The material of these qualities is awareness or nervous energy called as Chit and this material is known as soul (Atman), which is beyond these qualities (Nirgunam) and the same is stated in Gita (Gunebhyascha param….). The individual soul is always contains the basic material and hence can be called as Jeevatman, which is like calling water-waves. The awareness is a special work form of inert energy and this inert energy is produced by the oxidation of food. This inert energy on functioning in the nervous system becomes the awareness. When the nervous system takes rest as in deep sleep, the awareness is not generated in the deep sleep. In the state of dream, the awareness is generated and the qualities play as the dream. In the awakened state, the awareness is generated, which contains the qualities but the awareness is in interaction with the external world. In the state of perfect meditation, the awareness is generated but the qualities are subsided temporarily. All the qualities constitute the plane of mind (Manomaya Kosha). These qualities may be strong or weak. The strong qualities constitute the eternal Jeeva (Ajo nityah..Gita). This

Jeeva leaves the gross body in the death (Manomayah Prana Sharira Neta…Veda, Utkramantam…Gita) and the individuality of the Jeeva is maintained which is eternal. This Jeeva undergoes the enjoyment of its good and bad fruits. The individuality of each and every soul is thus protected and maintained in this divine system of creation. However, the weak qualities disappear after some time, which do not materialize into actions. Thus, the weak part of Jeeva or mind is not eternal and disappears every day after the deep sleep (Manastejasi… Veda, Natvam vettha..Gita). Gita refers to this weak part when it says that Jeeva is born and dead every day (Atha Chainam Nitya Jatam…). Thus, Jeeva is eternal as well as non-eternal in view of the qualities, which are strong and weak respectively. In the deep sleep all the qualities exist as impressions in the plane of inert energy. Mind is the plane of qualities, which vary, and intelligence is the plane of qualities, which are fixed due to decisions. The impression of individuality (Ahamkara) is also a quality only. In deep sleep the mind, intelligence and individuality exist as impressions on a cassette even though the current is absent and hence mind, intelligence and the individuality are categorized under the inert nature only (Mano Buddhirevacha Ahamkara Itiyam…Gita). The awareness-current is called as Paraprakruti, which is the Chit or Chittam. The awareness is transformed in to basic inert energy in deep sleep and thus it is not eternal. Even the qualities are not really eternal because the Advaita Philosopher attains the complete destruction of qualities in the state of Avadhuta (Manolaya Yoga). The Avadhuta after death dissolves here itself completely and the individuality of the soul is forever destroyed. His awareness is transformed into inert energy and thus such a soul is dissolved here itself (Ihaiva Pranah …Veda). In the case of an ordinary soul, all the weak qualities and the awareness are converted in to inert energy in the body and finally the individual inert energy merges in the general cosmic energy (Tejassati…Veda). However, the individual soul and the awareness existing within the individual soul as the material is not destroyed, which leaves the gross body to the upper world. But in the case of Avadhuta, the individual soul is also destroyed because even the strong qualities are destroyed and the awareness existing in the individual soul is also transformed into inert energy, which merges with the cosmic energy. The Advaita Philosopher claims such complete destruction of the individual soul as the complete salvation and this is the climax of foolishness! Burning the house containing the rats is the final solution of Advaita Philosopher! He removes misery of the soul by destroying the soul completely and forever! The solution is to capture the rats with the help of a cage and live in the house with happiness and enjoyment. The Advaita Philosopher praises the primary state of God or Brahman before creation (Nirguna Brahman) and such state of God was without any entertainment, which was neither praised by Veda nor appreciated by God (Ekaki Naramate..Veda). The advanced state of God is association of God with His own creation containing both happiness and misery like sweet and hot in the meals. If the meals contain only sweet, one gets bored. The hot dish is created to remove such boring and therefore you should like the hot dish also. You do not like the hot dish (Misery) and you are bored with continuous sweet dish (Happiness). The solution of Advaita Philosopher in this case is to

fast by avoiding the meals completely! The real solution is to enjoy both happiness and misery like God. God created both happiness and misery to have real and continuous entertainment. If you are trying to avoid the misery, you are criticizing God for His activity of this creation, which contains both happiness and misery. A person (God) cooked food containing sweet and hot dishes (created world containing happiness and misery), served it on the plate (rules the world) and eats the entire food (destroyed the world). An ant (the human being) entered the plate (exists in the world) and tastes the food. The ant criticizes the hot dish and likes the sweet dish for some time but gets bored with the sweet. The ant can neither cook nor serve and nor eat the entire food. If the ant enjoys both sweet and hot dishes, the ant resembles the person at least qualitatively in this one aspect of enjoyment. Similarly, the individual soul can neither create nor rule and nor destroy this world. If the soul is able to enjoy both happiness and misery with equal attitude, at least in this aspect the soul can resemble God in a micro scale (Matbhavayopapadyate….. Gita). Otherwise, the soul does not resemble God in any way and if the soul says that it is God; it is the climax of foolishness. The soul can attain God at least in this one aspect and such attainment is called as Yoga (Samatvam Yogauchyate..Gita). The human beings should understand that God creates this world for His own entertainment and this is not for the entertainment of any soul. If some ants criticize that the person does not exist, the criticism of such ants is not even heard by the person. Similarly, God is not at all bothered about the atheists or theists who criticize the misery. The human being is like a tape recorder and the current in it is like the awareness (Soul). The recorded cassette in it is Jeeva. A recorded cassette without current and the current without recorded cassette is useless. The cassette may contain a good song or a bad song. You have to replace the bad song by a good song in the cassette. Similarly, you have to replace the worldly qualities by the divine qualities in your mind. You are trying to destroy the cassette and tape recorder to remove the bad song and you are not prepared to enjoy any song. This is the state of the Advaita Philosopher. First, he is removing the song from the cassette by erasing it and maintains the current in the tape recorder, which does not generate any song. Similarly, he is erasing all the qualities from the mind and the awareness without any quality is like the current with a blank cassette. After erasing the bad song, you have to record a good song in the cassette. Similarly, after erasing the worldly qualities in the mind, you have to fill the mind with devotion to the God. Instead of doing this, you are keeping silent with the pure awareness (clean mind) after removing the worldly qualities from mind. Your spiritual effort stopped in the middle stage only. First, you have to erase the worldly attachment from the mind. First, you have to clean your house by removing the waste, which produces bad odor. Such removal of waste is work (Karma) and this is the first step in the spiritual path (Arurukshoh Muneryogam Karma Karanamuchyate…Gita). Now the house is clean without any bad odor and in this state even the good scent is absent. This is the intermediate state of pure mind, which is devoid of both bad and good qualities, which is termed as perfect peace (Shama). This intermediate state is the pure awareness without any quality and is called as Nirguna Brahman or pure Atman. Here

the word Brahman does not mean God. Any greatest item in a category can be called as Brahman. Veda, the greatest among the scriptures is called as Brahman in Gita. Awareness (Soul or Atman) is the greatest item in this world due to its special quality of knowledge and hence is called as Brahman. This possibility of calling any soul as Brahman was exploited by Shankara to attract the atheists towards spiritual path. Remember that Shankara was surrounded by lot of atheists in His time. Shankara called this intermediate state as Chitta Shudhi or purity of mind, which is a pre-requisite for the knowledge and attachment to God. The cleanliness of the house is a pre-requisite to sprinkle scent in the house. If the scent is sprinkled in a dirty house, there is no use of it, because the good odor of scent cannot be enjoyed by any one in the house in the presence of bad odor created by the dirt. Removal of every thing in the house refers to the removal of bad material only. When Shankara used the word Nirgunam, it means only removal of worldly qualities from the mind. If the ultimate aim of Shankara is only Nirguna Atman or Pure awareness without any quality, He should have stopped His message with the commentaries only. Shankara composed several prayers on God, which represent the good scents to be sprinkled in the house after complete cleaning. You must take the total personality of Shankara and should not confine to His partial activity of writing commentaries only. You cannot confine yourself only to His composition of commentaries and neglect His composition of prayers on God. The God referred in His prayers was with qualities (Saguna Brahman) and this proves that the God associated with world for entertainment is a better-advanced state than the primary attribute less God (Nirguna Brahman). The commentaries represent the process of cleaning the mind and attaining pure awareness by removing the worldly attachment. The prayers represent the next process of filling the clean mind with devotion. You cannot enjoy the devotion when the mind is contaminated with the worldly attachment, as you cannot enjoy the scent in the presence of bad odor produced by the dirt. Therefore, the reason for your enjoyment of devotion is only the cleanliness of the house as stated in Gita (Yogarudhasya tasyaiva shamah karanamuchyate…). The perfect peace of the mind after removing the dirty attachment to the world is responsible for the bliss that is enjoyed in the devotion. Shankara, in His commentaries referred to the primary state of God before creation, which is the perfect peace without any quality or thought. His commentary was aimed at the atheists (Buddhists and Purvamimamsakas) who were attached to the world denying God other than themselves. First, Shankara wanted to remove the attachment to the world from their minds due to which only they were not interested in God. If you want to change the ignorant fellow in one aspect, you must accept to his other ignorant aspects. This is the psychology of ordinary human beings. For any teacher, the psychology is very important which gives the tactful plan of removal of ignorance in a gradual way. You have to remove the layers of ignorance one by one only. When you are removing one layer, you must accept to all the other layers. Then only the ignorant student will come in to your grip. For a preacher (Guru), the ultimate aim is not to establish the total truth in the beginning itself, by which there is no use in any way. His ultimate aim is to uplift the soul and for that, He follows the gradual process of removing the layers of ignorance one by one and in every stage He accepts to the other layers. Shankara, being the incarnation of God is the real Guru (Satguru) and His aim is only to uplift the souls, which are His issues. Therefore, Shankara accepted to one point i.e., the soul is God and there is no God other than the soul. Even here, Shankara being the top

most genius used the word Brahman, which stands for God as well as the greatest item in any category. Shankara told that the soul is Brahman. Atheists took the word in the sense of God and were satisfied. They became friends to Shankara and liked Him. This brings the grip of the teacher on the students. Now Shankara proposed the primary state of God, which is devoid of all qualities. It is obvious that God is having no quality or thought before creation. Therefore, to become God, one has to clean himself from all the qualities. Since, all the qualities in the atheists are worldly items only, all the qualities mean worldly qualities only in the context of atheists. Therefore, the word Nirgunam (devoid of any quality) means removal of worldly qualities only since in the context of atheists, all the qualities were of world only. After Shankara, this word Nirgunam is misunderstood for removal of all good and bad qualities because the context of atheists disappeared. Therefore, you can understand Shankara only if you can understand the context in which He existed. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 77. Eternal history of Swami Vivekananda Brahma Randhra is the soft spot that can be experienced on the head of a newborn baby and this is the hole through which the liberated soul escapes to reach God. Swami Vivekananda reached God through such path as witnessed by the disciples. In this portion there are three nerves. The left nerve is called as ‘Ida’ or ‘Chandra Nadi’ or the nerve of moon. On the right side the nerve is called as ‘Pingala’ or ‘Surya Nadi’ or the nerve of Sun. In the center lies ‘Brahma Nadi’, which is the nerve of God. This is a representative model of a spiritual concept. The central nerve ends in ‘Brahma Randhra’ through which a liberated soul leaves the body. When this hole undergoes internal rupture, blood flows through the nose and this was witnessed just after the death of Swami Vivekananda. Shri Parama Hamsa told that the sage Nara is born as Vivekananda and his name was also Narendra. The same sage Nara was born as Arjuna and Arjuna was born as the hunter (Kannappa). The first birth of the sage Nara represents the nerve of moon or the plane of mind, which always doubts a concept (Sankalpa and Vikalpa). Mind is born from moon as per Veda. This state represents Arjuna, who doubted Krishna as God. He was oscillating between Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna. His next birth represents the nerve of Sun. Sun is related to intelligence or determination. Sun is also the source of energy. Therefore, the hunter was fixed in the energetic form called as Lord Shiva. At the end the hunter removed both the eyes and entered into the third eye, which represents the knowledge of absolute God (Nirguna Brahman), who is without any medium. The absolute God is unimaginable even to logic and intelligence. The hunter went to the world of Lord Shiva and became the follower of absolute God. He was born as Vivekananda in the third birth. The third eye or the central third nerve (Brahma Nadi) represents the absolute God without medium. Hence he was born as the follower of absolute God. He was considering Parama Hamsa as Master only and not as God in human form. This treatment can be seen in the birth of Arjuna also who addressed Krishna as his Master only and not as God (Sishyasteham… …….Gita).

Shri Parama Hamsa was a strong believer of Mother Kali, who represents the creation. Without the creation, no medium is available because any medium is only a part of the creation. Parama Hamsa was thus giving stress on the medium through the worship of Kali. Finally Swami Vivekananda realized that Parama Hamsa is God in human form and thus was liberate At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 78. The caste and the state (Ashrama) have no significance in the case of God When God comes down in human form, the caste and state (Ashrama) are not at all the indications of God because both these belong to the medium only. Shankara and Rama Krishna (Paramahamsa) were Brahmins. Shankara became a monk where as Rama Krishna remained as a householder. Rama was born in the caste of Kshatriyas and remained as a householder. Krishna was born in the caste of Yadavas, which is considered as a backward caste. He married several girls and violated even the state of a householder. Shankara recognized God in an untouchable person (Chandala) and fell on His feet. Often, people view the spiritual preacher (Sadguru) as untouchable person fearing for His spiritual knowledge, which may weaken their materialistic life! All this shows that the caste and the state (Ashrama) have no significance in the case of God. Gopikas belonged to the backward caste and were also women. Swami Vivekananda was born as Shudra but became a monk and reached God. Ramanuja and Madhva were also the souls (Adishesha and Vaayu). They were born as Brahmins but became monks. Janaka was born as Kshatriya and remained as a householder. All this shows that caste, sex and state have no relevance to either God in human form or to the soul in the human form trying to reach God (Sadhaka). But in the case of the soul (Sadhaka) the internal state (Ashrama) is very important and the internal state in the human incarnation is always unimaginable God. Shankara mentioned the same point in the beginning of His commentary on Brahma Sutras. He said that the four qualities (Patience etc., detachment from desire, discriminating the truth from false and intensive desire for salvation) are only the criteria in the spiritual field and not the caste, sex etc., Ramanuja told that the soul should be a Brahmana for spiritual field. Here the word Brahmana means the quality of interest and spiritual knowledge. Without knowledge, devotion cannot be born. Without devotion (practical service) there is no salvation. Therefore, the fundamental step to reach God is the spiritual knowledge. Gita says that the words like Brahmana etc., have to be decided based on the qualities and actions only (Guna Karma Vibhagashah). Brahmana means Knowledge or the person (Sadguru or spiritual preacher), which or who leads us to God (Brahma Nayati iti Brahmanah). A Brahmana by birth means that he or she is only related to the ancestral Brahmanas or sages and he or she may be Brahmana or not by qualities and actions (Brahmabandhuriva…Veda). Veda calls such a Brahmana by birth as Brahmabandhu and not Brahmana. Swami Dayananda tried his level best to bring the reformation in

Hinduism through the above concept but conservative people killed him. Reformation is always opposed because certain privileges and benefits will be damaged for certain people in the society. Shankara and Jesus are also killed on similar grounds. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 79. Basic flaw in astrology Swami sang the following three lines: “Jnana Tejasam Tam Divakaram, Jnana Karakam Tam Shanaishcharam, Jnana Dayakam Tam Yamam Bhaje”. This means “I shall pray the Sun, who emits the radiation of spiritual knowledge, the Saturn who generates the spiritual knowledge and Yama who gives the spiritual knowledge (to Nachiketa).” Swami continued: Sun, Saturn and Yama are the three spiritual preachers in the traditional Vedic line. Sun is the son of Kashyapa and is called as Kashyapeya. Kashyapa is called as Pashyaka, meaning the seer of even minute subtle concepts (Kashyapah Pashyako bhavati yah Pashyati Saukshmyan…Veda) and this means the top most spiritual preacher. I am born in the early hours (Brahma Muhurta) of Sunday in Kashyapa dynasty (Gotram). I am born in the zodiac of Capricorn for which the Lord is Saturn. My birth star is Uttarabhadra in which the period of Saturn starts. The Capricorn is viewed by Saturn from the seventh house (Cancer). The Capricorn indicating the crocodile is famous for the firm grip or firm determination, which is essential in the spiritual knowledge for practice. Today is the day on which the Saturn is moving from Cancer Zodiac to Leo Zodiac (In the early hours of this day, Swami looked very black and certain physical changes were seen in His body. Today one devotee Mrs. Shrutakirti from Hydarabad reports that Swami gave her vision as Lord Yama in jet black color surrounded by several departed souls, sitting on the throne, conducting the enquiry). You must understand that the planets indicate the nature of the soul and not vice-versa. Due to planets the nature is not created. This is the basic flaw in astrology. People think that the planets due to their positions and movements harm or benefit them. The planets harm or benefit the people not based on their positions and movements, but they harm or benefit based on the bad and good deeds of the people done previously. The word Jyoti stands for light meaning the planet. But the same word Jyoti stands for the original light or God (Param Jyotih….Veda, Jyotiradhikaranat…..Brahma Sutra). The real astrology is only the spiritual knowledge. People approach astrology for remedies to their problems. The solutions must be linked to the worship of God so that slowly people become devotees of God. Even the Kamya Yajna (Sacrifice performed to fulfill the desire) slowly is expected to lead the person to the worship of God and this is the path of Veda (Nastyakrutah….Veda). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 80. Essence of past history

(Swami watched a film on the T.V. titled “Yashoda Krishna”. Devotees requested Swami for a message on the film). Swami spoke: You must take the message from the past history, which shall be useful to your present. Otherwise, history is only a time pass entertainment and is useless. By seeing the past human incarnation Krishna and His past devotees, you, the present people must become devotees of the present human incarnation in a similar way as far as possible. Then only the picture serves the practical purpose of its aim. You have seen God in human form and the love of His devotees in various bonds selected as per their taste. The extent of love in a bond is important and not the form of bond. The weight of the sweet fixes the rate and not the form of the sweet. You must not forget that the basic essence of this picture is the love of devotees expressed to God in human form existing before their eyes through the proof of sacrifice. If you forget this basic essence and see the picture externally as the expression of love through various bonds, this picture is as good as a social picture, which also shows the same emotional love in various bonds like mother, father, beloved, husband, brother etc., as we see in the case of Yashoda, Nanda, Radha, Rukmini, BalaRama etc., respectively. People often forget this basic formula of a divine cinema and take the emotional love of worldly bonds only. Then the final result is strengthening the worldly bonds only further and further, which is quite opposite to the aim of strengthening the bond with God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 81. Spiritual knowledge is the most complicated path Brahma Vidya or Brahma Jnanam or spiritual knowledge is the most complicated path and even to achieve the correct knowledge is hectic affair (Kashinmamvetti…. Gita). Correct knowledge is the first step and even in this first step, lot of complications exist and people are mislead even in this first step. The whole complication lies only in one point i.e., you must conquer your ego and jealousy completely and recognize the contemporary human incarnation existing before your eyes acting as an ordinary human being and some times acting as worst human being. You have to recognize God beyond good and bad. God is possessor of the world in which both good and bad exist. God is not touched by the world and therefore good and bad do not touch Him. He can expose good or bad but He is not touched by both. The world is like a shirt, which cannot be His characteristic like His skin. The good and bad are like the different colors of His shirt and they are not the colors of His skin. The white color of His shirt is not the white color of His skin. He is in the white shirt and He is beyond the white shirt. Seeing the color of white shirt, you will decide that He is white and approach Him as a good person. In the case of the individual soul, your analysis is correct because the individual soul is a bundle of qualities. The individual soul is the shirt itself. Therefore, the individual soul is white or good. Similarly, the individual soul is black or bad. But in the case of the human incarnation, God is beyond white and black colors, who is unimaginable. When you approach Him, He will change His white shirt and puts on black shirt. You will think that He is black and you will run away. All your spiritual knowledge must be used to distinguish a really black man and a colorless person wearing black shirt.

This is a test for your knowledge of discrimination and your faith about your identification of God. It is also a practical test for your value of God over the other worldly values including the value of your life. Thus, your identification of God in a human being who looks like ordinary human being is the first step. The faith in such identification is tested on exhibition of bad qualities. If your faith remains, the extent of faith is tested through the extent of value given to God over other worldly values. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 82. Salvation is for one in millions Sage Sharabhanga could not identify Rama as God, because Rama ended in problems by blindly following the foolish desire of His wife for golden deer even though Lakshmana warned. He submitted his alive body to the fire alter for the sake of God and thus he showed highest value for God. But he could not recognize the contemporary human incarnation. King Dhrutarashtra believed Krishna as the contemporary human incarnation but his value for God is not high before his value for his son and therefore refused the proposal of Krishna even after seeing His cosmic vision (Vishwaroopam). If you see Hanuman, He not only recognized the contemporary human incarnation as God like Dhrutarashtra, but also gave top most value to God like Sharabhanga by opening His chest with His own nails and offering the life for God. Thus, Hanuman contains merits of both Sharabhanga and Dhrutarashtra and avoided defects of both. Most of the human beings have both the defects and therefore salvation is for one in millions and that too in millions of births as per Gita. In the statement of Jesus that unless one sacrifices all the worldly bonds including bond with life, one cannot be His dearest disciple, both these merits are indicated. Generally the inner circle-devotees of God, who are very few in number are born as devotees and get salvation, which is only a show for the devotees because they are already liberated souls. The sage Nara was a liberated soul already associated with Lord but he was born as Arjuna, hunter and finally Vivekananda. In these three births, he represented an ordinary human being (Nara) and showed the path of salvation in the role of a devotee. Thus, the same liberated souls are born again and again and get salvation to show the path to devotees. Only one in millions after millions of births gets the real salvation and enters the inner circle of God. To achieve this goal, you have conquer the ego and jealousy in order to recognize contemporary human incarnation on one side, and on the other side you have to increase the value of God to the highest place defeating all the other worldly values including even the value of your life. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 83. Shri Surya Asks Questions Shri Surya (Bombay) asked the following questions posed by some devotees. The questions are 1) Veda says that God is not body (Akayam). How do you support human

incarnation of God? 2) It is said that God incarnated as pig and killed a demon, who immersed earth in ocean. The ocean is on the earth. How is it possible? 3) A devotee called Pundarika asked God to stand outside the house till he finished the service to his parents. How do you say that God is greater than parents? Swami replied: 1) God is not any medium or body (Akayamavranam…Veda) because God is unimaginable. The body or medium is a part of the creation and hence is imaginable. God is also not modified into medium or body. God only entered the medium or body. The current is not the wire. The current is not modified into wire. The current has entered the wire. As long as the current exists in the wire, the wire has to be treated as the current and there is no other way to experience the current than this. The wire attains the property of the current and gives shock thereby giving experience of the existence of the current. The experience of the existence of current is not the experience of the knowledge of original form of current. God entered the human body of Krishna and Krishna became God. Krishna lifted the hill on His finger. This unimaginable event indicates the existence of unimaginable God in Krishna. By this God did not become imaginable. Veda says that God revealed His body (Vivrunute Tanum vam….). Therefore, the word Akayam means that God is not body. It should be taken as Najntatpurusha samasa (a mode in grammar). If you say that the meaning of this word is that God has no body (Bahuvrihi samasa), then, it contradicts the above Vedic statement (Tanum svam) saying that God reveals His own body, which means that God has His own body. There is another Vedic statement in which this word is used in Bahuruvrihi samasa (Akayonirgunohyatma). This means that the original unimaginable God (Atma in this statement represents God because God is compared to the soul in the body in view of His importance in this world) is not the possessor of body and possessor of quality before the creation. You have to take this statement to the state of God before creation. Otherwise, once creation is done, God becomes the possessor of the creation, which is treated as His own body by Veda (Pruthivi tasya shariram). Any human body in the world comes under the possession of God after creation and then God becomes the possessor of any human body. Thus, you cannot maintain the Bahuvrihi Samasa after the creation. Veda also says that God entered into the creation (Tadevanupravishat) and this refers to the human incarnation, where God becomes the special possessor of a particular human body. The entire kingdom is the property of the king in general sense. In special sense, the royal palace is the property of the king. Similarly, though God is possessor of the world in general sense, He becomes the special possessor of a particular human body like Krishna. The vision of Viswaroopam showed by Him indicates the general possession of the entire cosmos as His body. By this, every human being cannot claim as the human incarnation as per Advaita. Every human being is only under the control of God like every house. The human body of Krishna alone is the living place of God like the Royal palace. In the case of human incarnation, this word Atman means the individual soul, which is not the body (Kayam) and not the Jeeva (Guna). The individual soul is pure awareness, which is neither the external gross body (Kayam) nor the internal bundle of qualities (Guna or Jeeva). Though pure awareness is also a quality (Sattvam), it is neglected, being

the controller of other qualities. A king is also a citizen but he is told as the Lord of citizens. The citizens are all the other human beings except the king, though the king is also a human being. If you take this statement in the sense of God, there also, it means that God is neither the external gross body nor the internal Jeeva. Then, you may say that God means the pure awareness as per Advaita. Here the pure awareness is also a quality (Sattvam-ref: Sattvatsamjayate Jnanam) included in the category of Jeeva, as said above. Even otherwise, the individual soul, which is bundle of qualities, includes pure awareness as the material of the qualities. A bundle of golden jewels includes gold. Therefore, here the statement means that God is neither gross body, nor quality and nor the pure awareness. All these three items (gross body, quality and pure awareness) are the items of the creation where as God is the creator, who is beyond the creation. Gita says that God enters the human body (Manusheem tanumashritam) and after entry, the human body becomes His body. Christianity says that God is in flesh. God is neither the human being nor God is modified in to the human being. God only entered the human being. Such human being alone is to be treated as God. For human beings, human being is the best medium for interaction with God for receiving knowledge and guidance in the spiritual path. 2) The symbolic story must be understood for its concept. The earth represents humanity. The sea represents the worldly attractions. The demon represents the preacher, who attracted the humanity and immersed it in the worldly attractions opposing the existence of God. The earth is lifted on mouth of the pig. This indicates that God in human form came down and lifted the humanity from the worldly attractions by preaching through mouth. Here the demon-preacher and the followers are really the stupid pigs. God in the form of pig indicates that God has to come in the medium having similar qualities of the people who should be lifted up. Similarly, God came as fish and lifted the knowledge of God (Veda) from the ocean, which was stolen by a demon. This again represents that the knowledge of God was used as instrument to achieve the worldly happiness and thus the spiritual knowledge is immersed in the worldly attraction. The fish represents the third eye of knowledge by which the spiritual knowledge is isolated from such worldly attraction so that God is the ultimate aim to be achieved and not instrumental to achieve worldly happiness. 3) Pundarika was the worst person through out his life and he became a devotee later on. Prahlalada was a devotee from the birth and is certainly greater than Pundarika. Prahalada rejected his father for the sake of God. Pundarika cheated and harmed his parents and unless he serves his parents, his previous sin cannot be removed. Unless the sin is removed, God will not allow him to come near to Him. His rejection of God indicates the will of God, which is the rejection of Pundarika till he clears his previous mistake. The soul changes parents from birth to birth but God is constant in every birth. Therefore, no body including parents can stand before God. Shankara left His mother for the sake of God. Shankara was a great scholar of scriptures and also was a great devotee. Pundarika was only a devotee. Shankara has to be taken as an authority in spiritual knowledge. The story of Pundarika is meant for the beginners who are eligible for Pravrutti (worldly behavior) only and not eligible for Nivrutti (behavior towards God). Some clever people exploit Pravrutti misusing Nivrutti. For example, a fellow loved a bad girl and wants to

marry her against the wish of the parents. He wants to avoid the parents as the authority. He may quote Prahalada and Shankara and prove that parents are not the ultimate authority. Now, he will use this result to marry the bad girl. For such clever people, the concept is to be twisted. In his case, the story of Pundarika should be used and the parents are established as the ultimate authority to save him from the grip of the bad girl. Every thing depends on the context. Shankara said that any human being is God, just to attract the atheists in to the spiritual line. This twist is necessary in that context. Otherwise, for normal context, certainly God is the highest, who will be the constant care taker of the soul in every birth as long as this creation exists. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 84. Property of a person said to become God You must know that the producer and director of the cinema pays the actor of the villainrole also, because without villain the hero cannot shine at all. If you want to attain the possible state of God, you must also like the atheist like the hot chilly in your meals. When the hatred or rejection or repulsion to anything and anybody completely disappears in the heart, I assuredly tell all of you that such person has attained the possible state of God completely and you can call Him as God. When there is no break in the continuous love of every thing and every body and when there is continuous bliss, I assuredly tell all of you that such a person has really become the God. Gita says that if one remains in bliss even in the state of the death, such person is in the permanent state of God Bajji is a special item of tiffen, which is prepared with the flour of pulses with internal chilly. It is the hottest dish. There are three types of chilies. The chilies from Ballari region are mild. The chilies from other regions are of normal intensity of burning sensation for the tongue. The chilies from Guntur region are of the top hottest taste. The bajjies prepared from these three types of chilies represent misery of mild, normal and high intensities. Some people weep even for mild difficulties. Some people weep for difficulties of average intensity. All the people weep for the top most difficulty, which is the time of death while leaving this gross body cutting the bonds with every thing and every body. Thus, death can be compared to the bajji of Guntur chilly. Gita says that if one remains in bliss even in the state of the death, such person is in the permanent state of God (Esha Brahmi Sthitih….Gita). Lord Krishna was with smile, narrating the future of this world in the coming Kali age to the sage Narada in the last stage of life, while the leg was bleeding! Jesus did not fear or weep even on the cross and He was preaching about God even in that last state by assuring salvation to another neighbor who was also crucified and surrendered to Him. Rama jumped into the river of Sarayu with the smiling face. Hanuman tore His chest with His own nails without any trace of sorrow on the face. Therefore, if you can enjoy the bajji of Guntur chilly also (death), you are sure to have

continuous enjoyment. I belong to the region of Guntur! While eating the hot dish, you will respire much, tears will be flowing from your eyes and your tongue will be vibrating. All these are external symptoms of misery and the internal enjoyment is not indicated by these external symptoms. Such equal enjoyment of good and bad results is called as Yoga (Samatvam Yoga…Gita), which means the attainment of the possible state of God. Without attaining this yoga, there is no meaning if an Advaita philosopher says that he is God stating that his soul and God are the same pure awareness. All the other meanings attributed to Yoga like physical and mental exercises are misinterpretations of the word Yoga. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 85. The happiness and misery in this world are based on the bonds you have with the items present in the world The happiness and misery in this world are based on the bonds you have with the items present in the world. Real matter and real energy constitute the forms. The forms are only unreal designs of matter and energy. In a cinema all the items are the unreal designs of the real energy only. In a drama all the items are the unreal designs of the real matter only and slight energy also exists in drama as the light focused on the stage. For God, this entire world is a cinema which is just imagination of the awareness or nervous energy. Therefore, there is no difference between a cinema and imaginary world except that the cinema is made of visible light energy and the imaginary world is made of invisible nervous energy or mind. For individual souls, this world is a drama consisting of real materials and real human beings having equal status with the observers (individual souls existing in human bodies called as human beings). Hence, the world is equally real with the observing individual soul. But in the case of cinema, the observer is real matter, whereas the cinema is real energy, which is weaker than matter in expression. Hence, the observer is in higher status in view of strength of expression. If you take the imaginary world, which is made of the weakest real energy or mind, the observer is in far higher status. In the case of God observing this world, God is in the highest status as the ultimate absolute reality whereas the world is in totally relative reality. However, from the view of God or the individual soul, the bonds in the world are totally unreal and illusory only, since the bonds are related to the totally unreal designs of energy and matter only. One bond is full of love on a particular design and another bond is full of anger on another particular design. Since the design is unreal, the related bonds must be unreal. The design does not exist before its production and after its destruction. That which did not exist in the past and will not exist in future must not exist in the present also. Therefore, its existence in the present is only illusory. The love and anger in those bonds are foolish and if you analyze, even the love and anger are unreal because they are qualities. A quality is also unreal design of the mental energy. Hence, the love from somebody and the anger from else one are also unreal and your love and anger based on such qualities are also unreal. Therefore, your bond based

on the unreal design which defines the individuality of a human being like wife, son, father, mother etc., must be also unreal. Your bond based on the personality of unreal qualities must be also unreal. Therefore, when Shankara said that the world is unreal (relatively real), it means that the world made of these unreal bonds only is unreal for the individual souls. The matter, energy and awareness (a form of energy only) are real for the individual souls and hence the world made of these three items is not unreal. But, for God, the total world is unreal. However, for both God and individual soul, the common world consisting of these unreal bonds is unreal, which is the basis of the entertainment. You can entertain with unreal items only. The entertainment is not at all based on matter, energy and awareness, which are the three uniform phases without any difference. The difference only causes the design and brings the limits causing the individuality. The homogeneous single phase of cosmos (since matter, energy and awareness are inter convertible resulting in the final single phase of cosmic energy) is called as Brahman, in the form of creation (Karya Brahman) and this cannot give any entertainment. If you try to analyze God (Karana Brahman), it is also homogeneous phase of unimaginable entity. Shankara represented God by this single phased cosmic energy in the form of awareness (awareness is a special work form of energy) or Karya Brahman. This clearly means that neither Karya Brahman is God nor God charges Karya Brahman homogeneously. If such charging takes place, there is no difference between seer and seen. Such charging takes place in the case of human incarnation because if an individual soul is charged by God, such human incarnation can be the seer of the rest uncharged world (cosmic energy). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 86. Both love hatred and are foolish as far as the worldly bonds are concerned Therefore, analyze both love and hatred and realize that both are foolish as far as the worldly bonds (wife, husband, children, mother, brother etc) are concerned. Based on such foolish ignorance, if you become corrupt in your life for the sake of some unreal bonds and as a result you are thrown in to hell, you are the biggest fool. All this results due to lack of analytical spiritual knowledge. If you destroy these foolish ignorant bonds in your heart and entertain yourself continuously with these unreal bonds, you will be called as Sthitaprajna (Prajahati Yada…Gita), which means a person whose intelligence is firm by constant analysis. Divert your entire unreal love to God, who is the absolute reality and your love also becomes absolute reality. Divert all your unreal hatred towards the above said foolish ignorance and then your hatred becomes real and meaningful. By this you can avoid the unreal love towards your own religion, which is conservatism. Religion is also an unreal design giving individuality and limits. Then, you can avoid the hatred towards other religions based on the same analysis. There is one God and there is one message from God to all the human beings on this earth and that is the Universal Spirituality. All the merits of any religion are the concepts of the Universal Spirituality. The unity in diversity of various forms of God and of various branches of philosophy related to different levels can be appreciated from Hinduism.

Love and compassion leading to social service of needy in the name of God should be appreciated from Christianity. Sincere faith in God and disciplined life must be appreciated from Islam. Control of desire through analysis by intelligence (Buddhi) leading to justice and social service must be appreciated from Buddhism. Non-violence of even animals and birds by avoiding non-vegetarian food must be appreciated from Jainism. Avoiding the projection of non-God items as God through systematic analysis of world must be appreciated from science. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 87. What is Brahma Loka or Abode of God? ,Meaning of dissolution of world. People think that Brahma Loka is a place like America. Brahma loka means the life in contact with God existing in human form on this earth and God existing in energetic form in the upper world. If a person on the earth is in contact with the human incarnation of God and subsequently after the death comes in contact with the energetic form of God in the upper world, such a person is said to be in the eternal Brahma loka, since he recognizes God here and there. This is stated as eternal life with God or Parmdhama (Tatdhama paramam mama…Gita). The soul is in human body on this earth and is in energetic form in the upper world. Therefore, God exists in the same common medium of the liberated soul to give this His eternal association (Nasapunaravartate…Brahma Sutra). Devotees who have worshiped the statue of energetic form or past human incarnation in this world instead of contemporary human incarnation due to ego and jealousy, will reach the energetic form of God in Brahma Loka, but will return back due to repulsion between common media since they were also in the same energetic form (Punaravartinorjuna….. Gita). People have misunderstood that one, who reaches God in medium (Karya Brahman), reaches the original God (ParaBrahman or Nirguna Brahman), when the God in medium (Karya Brahman) dissolves in the original God during the final dissolution of the world. Even if the medium dissolves, the soul cannot reach the unimaginable God because when the medium dissolves, the soul also dissolves. The soul is a part of creation called as Paraprakruti in Gita. The original single state of God before the first creation will not be attained again because God is not foolish to destroy the creation, which was done for His entertainment. You may say that God has the power to create it again. A producer of a cinema may be very rich to create the cinema again and if he does so, he will be certainly called as a fool. The dissolution of creation means closing the show of cinema on the curtain, but the cinema is stored in the form of film. Such subtle state of creation is called as Avyaktam. Therefore, there is no point of dissolution of God in medium (Karya Brahman or Eswhara). Since the medium exists, the soul also exists and hence the association of God becomes eternal. If you say that the soul has to dissolve in God, like sugar dissolved in water, the molecules of sugar remain separately along with the molecules of water. Here, the sugar in water exists separately in invisible microstate. If you say that sugar must be transformed in to water, the molecules of sugar have to be re-

arranged into molecules of water by the re-arrangement of fundamental particles (protons, neutrons and electrons). Then the number of water molecules increase. It means God will increase in size after the transformation of soul in to God. This is not acceptable because God is constant without any change. Alternatively, the soul should disappear and this is possible when the film is destroyed. But God is never such a fool! The single state of God is possible because it existed before the first creation and if God wishes it can be attained again. We do not say that it is impossible for God. We only say that God is wise to continue the creation in microstate of the film so that it can be projected for entertainment again and again. Hence, when the devotee reaches Eshwara, the devotee reached the original God also. The original God may enter the devotee also like the current entering the associated metallic wire from the live wire. In such case, you can say that the soul became God from the point of normal external view and you can call this as monism (Advaita). But in subtle view, God charges the soul and therefore dualism exists even in the monism on deep analysis. When sugar dissolves in water, you may say it as monism but in subtle view dualism exists because the invisible sugar molecules exist separately along with molecules of water as you can see in the microscope. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 88. God loves His innermost devotees equal to Himself The high devotees of God serve His office (society or world) as employees and take salary. God is pleased with them also. Pandavas served God in establishing justice in the world for which they were paid salary (Kingdom) in this world and heaven after their death. Pandavas went up to heaven only (Swargarohanaparva). The higher devotees of God serve His family members or His closest devotees of His inner most circle. Hanuman served Sita (a female devotee and wife of Lord Rama) by protecting her through the war, served Lakshmana by bringing Sanjevi and served Bharata by saving his life. Even today Hanuman serves the real devotees of God. Hanuman became God and protecting the devotees of God can continue as usual. The highest devotees of God serve Him directly like Gopikas. They were given Goloka where they can continue the direct service to God. There is no much difference between the higher and highest devotees. God is extremely pleased in both the cases because God loves His innermost devotees equal to Himself. He does not differentiate between the service done to Him and the service done to His closest devotees. Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva, Meera etc., carried on the propagation of knowledge and devotion related to God only and hence they are also highest devotees. Since the propagation is aimed at the majority of human beings, they did not take the concept of contemporary human incarnation, because majority suffers with ego and jealousy. In the case of the majority, either God in the medium of awareness (named as awareness by Shankara) or God in the medium of energetic body like Narayana or God in the medium of past human form like Krishna was selected for propagation. Due to this, devotees will reach Brahma Loka temporarily but shortly such devotees will reach

Brahma Loka permanently by overcoming ego and jealousy towards contemporary human incarnation. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 89. God wants every soul to come-up to His level, learn humbleness and be submissive always If you want to come-up in the life to higher and higher levels, you need not pray God for that, because God is always anxious to bring you up to the highest level. God wants every soul to come-up to His level or even more than Him. This is the attitude of a father towards all His children. God created all the souls and hence He is the divine Father of all the souls (Ahambija pradah pita…Gita). He is the constant Father in all the births of the soul unlike a father-soul, limited to the present birth. His affection to the souls is far superior to the paternal affection. Therefore, He is ready and always dreams to bring any soul up to the highest level. Then what is the hurdle? The only hurdle that stops Him is the consequence of your behavior in the highest level. Your eyes climb the roof of your head and your increased ego will throw you down to a level far below your feet. Instead of such drastic fall, your present position on the earth is far better and hence God is not helping you to come up. Therefore, learn humbleness and be submissive always. If God gets confidence that you will not fall down after reaching higher levels, God will immediately push you up. As you suppress your ego more and more to lower level, God will bring you up more and more to the higher levels. Most of you are using the fan all the time in your house and office. Observe the fan constantly and take the message from it, which is your best spiritual preacher. The fan is drawing a zero in the space in every revolution. It is reminding that itself is a zero only and the real hero is the current that is revolving it and giving air. People think that the fan is giving the air and the fan should develop ego due to the praise. But it is very careful in passing on the credit to the current and feel itself as Zero constantly. If the current is absent, the fan cannot move even an inch. Similarly, whenever any one praises you for any good work, feel yourself as Zero like the fan and pass on the credit to God who is the real hero. If you can develop this behavior, you will reach to the unimaginable heights very shortly. Instead, people want to hear the praise regarding them from others. Some people boast constantly about themselves by narrating the incidents and want others to appreciate them. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 90. The best worship of God is not through flowers etc. The best worship of God is not through flowers etc. You remember constantly God’s help in the past incidents of your life and feel grateful with tears in eyes. Try to express

gratefulness to the past help and you will be helped in the present and future without asking for it. If you cannot recognize the contemporary human incarnation and if you cannot sacrifice in any way in His mission, at least, remember the previous help and become grateful to the invisible God without asking anything at least in that time. God will be certainly pleased with you and you will be helped by Him in your life. Regarding the case of devotees, who serve the God in present human form without aspiring anything in return, they will receive the eternal love from God. The fruit of His eternal love is unimaginable! At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 91. This world is just an imagination only for God This creation consists of matter, awareness and energy as the components. Matter takes different forms like pot, table etc. Energy takes different work forms like light, heat etc. Awareness is also a special work form of energy only, which is generated when the energy functions in a special system called nervous system and brain. The work forms of awareness are ideas, which if become firm, are called as qualities (Gunas). For example charity is a quality, which in the initial stage is an idea only. This world is said to be constituted by the three fundamental qualities (Sattvam, Rajas and Tamas), but remember, this world is made of the three qualities only from the point of God. This means, for God only, this entire creation is imaginary. For a soul it is not so. For a soul this world is made of matter, energy and awareness. In fact, matter and awareness are also different forms of energy only. Hence, basically the creation is made of energy only. Awareness is the weakest form of energy. Hence, the conclusion is that this world made of energy is weakest for God and hence this world is just an imagination only for God. For the soul, the world is very strong because the soul itself is awareness or the weakest form of energy. This is the scientific explanation for the creation to be strong and real for the soul, where as the world is just the weakest form of energy or awareness modified in to qualities for God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 92. God does not require the rules of nature as required by the soul The imaginary world for God is made of awareness, which does not require the existence of nervous system for God because the unimaginable God does not require the rules of nature as required by the soul. This is said in Veda that God can walk without feet etc., (Apani Pado..). The knowledge-part is Sattvam, the static inert part is Tamas and the kinetic inert part is Rajas and all these three qualities exist in the imaginary world of God. God is said to be associated with this creation constituted by these three qualities (Trigunatmaka). Your spiritual effort needs the existence of these three qualities also and hence your effort (Sadhana) is also constituted by these three qualities. Before conclusion, you must

analyze the subject in various angles so that after decision you must not have any doubt. This analysis is Sattvam. The firmness in the decision standing like a rock without any vibration by the efforts of your mind, your family and the public is Tamas. The conversion of this firm decision into practice leads to Rajas because practice or work is Rajas. You must meditate God associated with the creation constituted by the three qualities (Eshwara or Saguna Brahman) through spiritual effort constituted by the three qualities. For meditation, Eshwara (God associated with Brahmanda or world) is sufficient, but for direct service and for direct clarification of doubts, the same God in human form (Pindanda) is required. This is denoted by the three threads of Yajnopavitam given to you in Upanayanam, which means that you are taken towards God. The threads are symbolic representation of the concept only and hence one need not worry whether the three threads exist or not. It is foolishness to think that the three threads will do something directly. If the concept is grasped, there is no need of the symbolic representative model. The realized soul (Sanyasin) throws away this symbol since the concept is understood. Without understanding this point, people are quarrelling with each other that the Upanayanam is done for a fraction of people only. In fact, it should be done for a fraction of people only, who is interested in the spiritual effort and this should not be decided by birth or sex. Swami Dayananda tried to bring out this truth and save the Hindus from internal hatred. Unfortunately He was opposed and was killed by the ignorant selfish Hindus, who blindly believe in birth and sex only for eligibility to reach God. Even Shankara stated that there is no caste or sex for spiritual effort (refer His commentary on the first Brahma Sutra) and He even fell on the feet of the untouchable scholar. He was also killed by black magic for such revolutionary reformation. Krishna stated clearly that the caste system introduced by Him was based on the qualities and actions of the soul and not on birth (Guna Karma Vibhagashah….Gita). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 93. God is always in human form for human beings (you can understand God only through Shastras) Shankara told that God is awareness. By this He means that God is always in human form for human beings. The awareness is not available independently anywhere without a gross body. Therefore, the awareness indicates the human body and it avoids the statues and photos, which are inert. Of course, statues and photos are essential for worship for beginners, who cannot accept the human form due to ego and jealousy. Hence, you should not criticize the idol worship since the majority will be hurt, which is trying to get rid of the ignorance gradually. You should not condemn the idol worship but you should analyze the truth in it and try to help the beginners to come up. Any effort is with mistake only in the beginning (Sarvarambhahi doshena..Gita). Awareness is the identity card of God for humanity. This can be understood from lakshana from Tarka Shastra. According to that, when you call “Apples”, the word apples

indicates the possessor of the basket of apples, who is selling apples in the street. Apples are in the basket and the basket is on the head of seller. This does not mean that the seller is apple. Similarly, the awareness is in the human body and God is in the human body. God is neither the awareness nor the human body. God charged the human body containing awareness. The main program of God is to give spiritual guidance. Hence, you cannot take a living being like a bird or animal since it cannot preach the spiritual knowledge. Hence, the awareness indicates human body only. The specialty of awareness is that awareness is the basic material of knowledge and hence from the point of the importance of knowledge in spiritual guidance, the essential basic material (Awareness) is indicated here. Every human being cannot give such spiritual guidance and hence every human being is not God and there is no question of calling every living being as God. Only the top most spiritual preacher like Krishna, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha etc., can be the human form of God. The other spiritual preachers catering to the lower levels are the liberated souls, who are the servants of God incarnated to help His mission. Without understanding all this, if you foolishly argue that awareness is God and since awareness is in every living being, every living being is God, you have not understood even an alphabet in the preaching of Shankara. You require the knowledge of all Shastras to understand Veda and Shankara (Tasmat Shastram..Gita). Brahma Sutras also tell that you can understand God only through Shastras (Shastra yonitvat). The word Shastra is limited to the elaborate logic that is essential to understand Veda. Veda (Shruti) is the primary text. Smruti is the secondary text like Gita. Yukti is the logical analysis, which is the Shastram. Finally, Anubhava is the practical experience and this is the most important. If anubhava is contradicted, your interpretation of the texts is wrong due to your wrong logic. Some times, the experience of a foolish ignorant person stands in the way and to negate this the logic is needed. The experience of scholars (Vidvadanubhava) should be taken and majority is not the point. The texts and logic help to avoid the experience of ignorant majority. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 94. Every living being is not God Let us analyze foolish argument that awareness is God and therefore every living being is God. In such case, the practical experience is that awareness exists as discontinuous bits in different living beings, which are separated from each other. Now if awareness is God, either there are several Gods or God is divided in to bits. Both these possibilities are denied by Shankara, who says that God has neither Sajatiya bheda (many Gods) nor Svagata bheda (God in bits). You cannot say the space between living beings is also awareness and hence the awareness is one pervading homogeneously. This is against the practical experience of all including scholars. The space between the living beings is inert and the air in it is also inert. If you say that you are the only scholar experiencing awareness everywhere, there is equal possibility of your madness also. When there is the

alternative excellent solution, why should you cling to your madness? The alternative excellent solution is that a particular human being like Krishna alone is God. The awareness in Him is one and is homogeneous and hence there is no Sajatiya bheda and Svagata bheda, because awareness is pervading all over the human body and is called as Atman. This charged soul is can be treated as God because a wire charged by current can be treated as current itself. The word Atman is used to the gross body also in Sanskrit language and hence the entire human being is charged by God and can be treated as God. The little and tender finger of Krishna lifted the mountain for seven days and this proves that the entire human body also was charged by the unimaginable God. The human body became unimaginable and hence the mountain is lifted by the little finger. The wire charged by current gets the property of current and gives shock. Similarly, the unimaginable nature of God is seen in that human body also. Such miracle is need for atheists. For theists, miracles are not necessary and spiritual guidance is sufficient. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 95. There is no existence of a second item other than God Shankara told that God has no Vijatiya bheda also, which means that there is no existence of a second item other than God. If you take this in the absolute sense, then there is no entertainment for God, since He remains alone always (Ekaki Naramate…Veda). You should take this in relative sense. The world exists as relatively real item. The imagination of any person is relatively real. The awareness in the form of mind is the absolute reality in him. The imaginary world is relatively real which does not exist at all if absolute reality is absent. This means that this world is under the full control of God like the imaginary world existing under the control of the mind of a person. Now, this is also possible in the case of Krishna ( or any human incarnation), who can control this world, as He likes. But, this aspect is not at all seen in the case of any other human being. Therefore, the world is almost unreal or unreal for God only and hence there is no Vijatiya bheda for God or Krishna charged by God. For any other human being, the world is more real and stronger and hence you cannot say that Vijatiya bheda is absent in the case of individual soul being treated as God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 96. Brahma Vidya (Knowledge about God) is the most difficult The Brahma Vidya is most difficult because you have to recognize co-human form as God and this is possible only if you conquer your ego and jealousy. As training, you start with removing your ego and jealousy towards other co-human beings. Do not be jealous with any human being and do not show ego towards any human being. By this training, you will conquer ego and jealousy towards co-human forms and shortly you will recognize God in human form. In the training period you can treat every human being as

God to avoid ego and jealousy. But, this is not truth and hence you need not worship a bad person without discrimination. You can worship all the good people and especially all the devotees. God treats His devotee more than Himself. God will bless you shortly by giving His identification if you complete the training successfully. The Advaita philosopher is treating every human being (living being) as God not to love all as God, but to treat himself as God only. The intention is not to train himself to remove the ego and jealousy but to increase the ego by becoming God! If you think that the Prime Minister in Delhi means that the Prime Minister is in every house in Delhi, it is foolishness. You have to recognize his particular residence. If you think that he is in some house, though he is not actually in that house, at least you are better, because at least your concept is improved because at least you know that he lives in one house and not in every house! Therefore, it is better to worship some deserving person like a poor devotee as God instead of treating every body as God. Treating a statue or a photo as God is like treating a vacant inert house as the living Prime Minister himself! To day is Guru Purnima. If you recognize Guru as a particular human form of God, the Guru Purnima is meaningful and it becomes complete by this full moon. If your recognition is correct, the full moon is spotless. But the full moon shows black spots, which are your defects of ego and jealousy towards co-human form and this is main black spot, though your spiritual effort is full by devotion. The lack of perfect logical analysis is the black spot in this full moon like full devotion of your spiritual effort. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 97. How can one recognize a devotee? A devotee is like a student. A student varies in his level of study starting from LKG to PG level. The level is important. The knowledge generates devotion and devotion generates practical service. The intensity in the practical service indicates the intensity of the devotion, which in turn indicates the level of the knowledge. The extent of sacrifice in the practical service indicates the extent of real love on God. The real love on your child is indicated by your practical service to the child done through sacrifice of work and sacrifice of fruit of work. Hanuman is considered to be the real and best devotee of God. Throughout the Valmiki Ramayana, there is no single mention of chanting the name of God or singing devotional songs etc. which constitute the theoretical devotion. Sundara Kanda elaborates the practical service done by Hanuman in the work of God. The most important point is that Hanuman did all the practical service to his contemporary human incarnation, which was Rama. He did not serve the statues and photos of the past human incarnations like Vamana, Parashurama etc. or the statues and photos of the energetic forms of the upper world like Vishnu, Shiva etc. Gopikas also served Krishna who was their contemporary human incarnation and did not serve the statue or photo of the past human incarnation like Rama. Gopikas served Krishna by sacrificing the fruit of their work, which was butter. They buttered Krishna through the real butter and not through words and feelings (theoretical devotion)! The

practical service becomes meaningful in the case of live human form of God only. It is meaningless in the case of inert statues and photos because the fruit of the practical service goes to the priest and not to the God directly. Hence the devotee of the contemporary human incarnation alone is devoid of ego and jealousy towards the cohuman form and such a devotee alone can be recognized as the real devotee. Devotion is to be judged by the logical basic knowledge and not by the extent of ignorant emotion. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 98. How to know that I am in the right spiritual path? Your inner conscience aided by logical analysis of scriptures given by the Sadguru gives you the correct green signal of the right spiritual path. The Sadguru is the helper only but the inner conscience alone is the final judge to give the conclusion through its full satisfaction. Mere conscience cannot be the judge without the help of Sadguru because the conscience of Ravana (a demon) always gave its judgment that whatever Ravana did was correct. Krishna told Arjuna (a devotee) to act according to his conscience after analyzing His preaching (Vimrushyaitadasheshena… Gita). Both are equally important. Unless your conscience is satisfied, you should not yield to anyone including the Sadguru. At the same time, you should not be over confident about the capability of yourself alone. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 99. How to understand the words like Dharma (justice) and Adharma (injustice) in the spiritual effort? In Pravrutti (social behavior) the justice should be voted against the injustice. In the spiritual field or Nivrutti (subject related to God), God should be voted even against the justice because God is the ultimate justice (Paramadharma). Shankara (a previous human incarnation) cheated His mother to do the work of God and that was not a sin. He did not cheat her to marry a girl and go away! Ramanuja left his newly married wife for the sake of God and not to marry another girl again! You should not mix Pravrutti and Nivrutti and get confused. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami 100. Is it not better to earn more and sacrifice more for God’s work? One should not be lazy and one should put his maximum effort in doing any work. But if one earns a little only in spite of his best effort, one need not be discouraged because God looks at the percentage of sacrifice and not the magnitude of the sacrifice. Suppose one is in India and earned 100 Rs and donates 20 Rs to God. Another person is in USA and earned 100 $ and donated 10 $ which are equal to 400 Rs. Which is greater sacrifice? 20 Rs are greater than 400 Rs because the former is 20 % and the latter is 10 % only. Dharmaraja sacrificed 3 crores of rupees (just an assumption) to priests in Ashwamedha

sacrifice and as a result went up to the heaven which is the 3rd upper world. Saktuprastha sacrificed flour of 3 rupees to the hungry guest during a draught and he sacrificed entirely, everything possessed by him. He went to Brahma Loka, which is the 7th upper world. A railway ticket given based on the distance proportional to the magnitude of the payment is quite opposite to this concept of God. At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami