How to become like Jesus

[dattaswami]

How to become like Jesus

 

Everybody wants to become Jesus or Krishna to get the divine fame in the society in a similar way without such cruel death at the end. Such desire is hidden in the subconscious state of all the devotees even without their knowledge. Today there is freedom of expression of spiritual thought and there is the constitutional protection and hence a preacher need not fear for the crucifixion. Hence, now, the above desire is very strong. But one must remember that Jesus allowed the crucifixion from the view of a single point that is to suffer for the sins of His people (Refer to the meaning of the word Emmanuel), who are deserving and to save them from sins. In Bible it is clearly said that He came to save His people and not all the people. Now, can you suffer like Jesus for the sake of sins of your closest deserving devotees? Perhaps, now, your above desire is subsided! Powers are always associated with responsibilities.

 

However, if any devotee wants the position of human incarnation in spite of the awareness of responsibilities, there is an open chance for every human being to become the human incarnation. First you must concentrate on the correct divine knowledge, through which you must receive a clear-cut picture of the whole procedure. You must know that you are not already the God since God is not the ancestral property that is already given to you without any effort as felt by Advaitin. You must know that practical service to God alone can give any divine fruit. The correct spiritual knowledge and the theoretical devotion are only like water and fertilizer for the service-plant, which alone can yield the fruit. Through such selfless sacrifice of service in terms of sacrifice of work and fruit of work, you will be selected as a servant by God provided your service is not aspiring any fruit including the above fruit of becoming human incarnation.

 

Now you have entered the inner circle of God and this is the first step called as Dvaita. People often misunderstand that Dvaita is the relationship between God and an ordinary human being. Such relationship is only the creator-created relationship. In Dvaita, Madhva says that the relationship between God and the soul is the relationship of Master-servant. Madhva Himself kept in the position of the servant of God. Every human being cannot claim such position of Madhva, without reaching that state by spiritual effort as explained above ( Correct Spiritual Knowledge – Theoretical Devotion – Service). If you see Hanuman, He straightly jumped from the knowledge to the service and never expressed His love on God through songs and tears as per Valmiki Ramayana. Some plants yield fruits just with supply of water without fertilizer. Therefore, sometimes knowledge and service are sufficient without the intermediate theoretical devotion. But here the soil acts as a hidden fertilizer. Similarly, the theoretical devotion of Hanuman was kept hidden in the mind only. Hence this intermediate state exists in a hidden way in such cases.

 

Now one of the closest servants, excels other servants in service and becomes the Son of God and sits on the right side of God as told by Jesus. Ramanuja also says that one of the most fortunate devotees sits on the lap of Lord Narayana and talks with Him and this is exactly coinciding with the above point of Bible. This is the second state of Vishishtaadvaita. Now such Son of God comes down to the earth with a gross body (as usual like any other human being) and God enters him and pervades all over the soul and body. Now, this Son of God is the human incarnation and is treated as God by the devotees for hearing the knowledge and serving the God. This Son of God gets the credit of all the wonderful works done by God, who is hidden in him. This is the third final state of Advaita. God entered the devotee, stays for his lifetime and exits at the end. The entry of God is mentioned in the Veda (Tadevanupravishat…). The exit of God is mentioned in the Bible, when Jesus cried stating ‘Oh! God! Why did You leave me?’

Jesus told these three statements to different devotees in different times, but one should understand that Jesus remained in all the three states simultaneously because these states are only the simultaneous angles. In the third (Advaita) state, the other two lower states co-exist. This means that the lower state is always in the higher state but not reverse. In the human incarnation, which is the state of Advaita, Vishishtaadvaita also exists because the Son of God treated as God is the Son of God by himself simultaneously even in that state of Advaita. The live wire is a wire always. Similarly in the state of Vishishtaadvaita, Dvaita exists because the Son of God was selected from the closest servants and therefore, the Son of God is also a servant by himself even in the state of Vishishtaadvaita. Hence, the human incarnation can mention itself to be in the two lower states also simultaneously, which is also the truth. The human incarnation always says the truth only.

 

The reverse of these three states is not true. Every servant is not the Son of God and hence, Vishishtaadvaita cannot exist in Dvaita. The Son of God is God only in the time of human incarnation and he is not God always. Therefore, Advaita cannot exist in Vishishtaadvaita. Adishesha was one of the closest servants of God. When he was born as Lakshmana, he became the Son of God by his exceptional service. Then in the next birth, Lakshmana became the human incarnation called as Balarama, who is placed in the ten incarnations of God. In this incarnation, God pervaded all over Balarama. Even the God Krishna served this incarnation as younger brother to prove that He will become the servant of His servants. Even Jesus served His devotees by washing and kissing their feet.

 

 

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

 

Anil Antony

 

www.universal-spirituality.org

Universal Spirituality for World Peace

antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

[Soldier of God]

Hence the Lord says in the Gospel,

"Whoever listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them,

I will liken to a wise person

who built a house on rock.

The floods came,

the winds blew and beat against that house,

and it did not fall,

because it had been founded on rock" (Matt. 7:24-25).

 

Having given us these assurances,

the Lord is waiting every day

for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions.

And the days of this life are lengthened

and a truce granted us for this very reason,

that we may amend our evil ways.

As the Apostle says,

"Do you not know that God's patience is inviting you to repent" (Rom. 2:4)?

For the merciful Lord tells us,

"I desire not the death of the sinner,

but that the sinner should be converted and live" (Ezech. 33:11).

[dattaswami]

Hence the Lord says in the Gospel,

"Whoever listens to these words of Mine and acts upon them,

I will liken to a wise person

who built a house on rock.

The floods came,

the winds blew and beat against that house,

and it did not fall,

because it had been founded on rock" (Matt. 7:24-25).

 

Having given us these assurances,

the Lord is waiting every day

for us to respond by our deeds to His holy admonitions.

And the days of this life are lengthened

and a truce granted us for this very reason,

that we may amend our evil ways.

As the Apostle says,

"Do you not know that God's patience is inviting you to repent" (Rom. 2:4)?

For the merciful Lord tells us,

"I desire not the death of the sinner,

but that the sinner should be converted and live" (Ezech. 33:11).

 

 

Saving from the troubles and misery is the general sense of the word saving. In spiritual sense saving means cutting all the worldly bonds and establishing real bond with God, Who alone is the truth. God is truth. This means that God is infinite power. The creation is just His imagination and is almost not true. The imagining person is said to truly exist. The world, which is just His imagination and which is completely not nothing. The world is made of an iota of energy of God. God is like the infinite ocean of energy. Compared to God the world is almost nothing. Thus this entire creation is under the full control of God. Just like the person doing some imagination creates an imaginary world in him, God created this imaginary world in Him. The imagining person can fully control the world. He can transform any item into any other item. He can raise a dead body in His imaginary world. All the miracles of human incarnations can be explained only by this concept.

 

God who is present in the human incarnation does all these miracles only to establish this concept. If the world is equally true, then the world is equally powerful to God. In such case God cannot do whatever He likes. Since the world is least powerful and God is most powerful, God controls the entire world like a very strong person controlling very weak person. Thus the word truth indicates the omnipotent nature of God. When we say that this world is not true, it indicates the negligible power of the world. Suppose a small ant is on your shirt, will you say that yourself and the ant are present in the house? The ant is negligible and is treated as nothing. Therefore, a person who knows this concept surrenders to God and accepts Him as the saviour. In his eyes the entire world looks like an ant before God. You are a tiny particle in this ant-world. You can understand your position by putting a relative scale.

 

Assume that this ant is Infinite Ocean of energy. You are an iota of that ocean. This means your power is negligible before the power of this entire nature. The world is like the ocean and you are like a drop in it. God is like the ocean and the world a drop in God. You must understand this simile not in terms of volume but in terms of the intensity of the power. When we utter the word God, we immediately imagine Him as a very large figure with unlimited boundaries. The space is largest but as no power as it is treated has nothing. The atom bomb is very small but it has enormous power. Therefore, our idea about God should not be in terms of the three-dimensional space. When a person imagines a large city, the city is very huge but the person is very small. But that small person has created, maintains and finally dissolves this huge city. He can do anything in this huge city. Infact He is standing outside this huge city. When He wants to enter into this huge imaginary city, He will imagine a small form and He identifies Himself with that form. That small form represents the outside person. This imagined form, which is identified by the outside person, is treated as the outside person directly. This imagined small form is the human incarnation. The outside person is God. The imaginary huge city is this world.

 

Thus God identifies Himself with the human incarnation. From this angle the human incarnation and the God are one and the same. There is another angle in which the human incarnation is not the original God but a part and parcel of God. In this angle God and the human incarnation are treated as father and son. You can experience the Father only through this Son. In the third angle the human incarnation is just sent by God into this world as a messenger with some power. Jesus talked this truth in all the three angles. Jesus can save any human being who has any one of these three angles. Acceptance of Jesus as your saviour is the essential step in the spiritual effort. Here Jesus means the human incarnation in general. Only God is the saviour. But you cannot approach God directly. Only through the human incarnation you can approach God. This means you should accept the human incarnation as that very God. In such case only the human incarnation becomes your saviour.

 

God is like free electrons flowing in the atmosphere. These Electrons are the electricity. Then can you heat water by keeping the vessel containing water in the atmosphere? When these Electrons enter a medium like the metallic wire, you can heat water. If the medium is human form it is most convenient for you to clear your doubts, to love and to serve Him. Therefore, acceptance of Jesus as your Saviour means that you should accept the human incarnation as your saviour. It is told that Jesus will come again. This means that the human incarnation is coming in every human generation.

 

Otherwise, if one generation was only blessed by such fortune, the other generations will charge God as partial and such charge is justified. Therefore, if you think that Jesus means only that particular human incarnation, which came about 2000 years back, you have lost the whole concept. Through a particular example generalization must be made. If you say that sodium atom is indivisible it means the atom of any element is indivisible. If you say that Daniel is born, it means that every human being will be born. If this basic analysis is lost, the entire spiritual castle falls down due to the absence of its foundation.