The right way to view misery in life

[dattaswami]

The right way to view misery in life

 

When Prahlada ( a child devotee, he has been tortured by demons for his devotion on God) was tortured, he cried taking the name of the Lord but never asked for the protection. He understood that the torture is taking him up to the climax of devotion. He always thanked the Lord for his exceptional kindness since God is giving him intensive coaching in devotion. His devotion reached the sky due to the torture. But every step of the torture failed at the end to prove the existence of God. If you are in the place of Prahlada, you will blame God for interfering in the last second after such a long torture. You will feel that you have wasted lot of time in the long span of torture. You will feel that God is cruel and finally became kind due to your pathetic appeals. But Prahlada thanked God for such long torture, which is the intensive coaching of devotion, and he was happier because the existence of God is also proved at the end. If you are not devoted to God during difficulties and if you have wasted that precious time in useless worry and tension, you have really lost the time.

 

If you have used these difficulties for provoking your devotion more and more, you have used the difficulties very well. Once the interval of happiness comes, you are going to be lazy and egoistic and thus in happiness you cannot even dream about the devotion. You feel lazy in taking even name of the God in happiness. People who have missed the devotion in difficulties are unfortunate because they have suffered without any use. Therefore, difficulties are your golden opportunities to develop your devotion. If you have simply suffered the difficulties just for the sake of finishing the punishment without developing the devotion using those difficulties, even your silent suffering is also a big wastage. The Advaita scholar suffers the difficulties with patience and detachment by confining to the self.

 

He does not use these difficulties to develop the devotion to the God and to cry for God. In happiness, you will not utter even the name of God and there is no point of crying for God. Only in difficulties you can cry for God and develop your devotion to the sky. Prahlada used the torture for developing his devotion to the climax by crying for the Lord. He did not detach from the body and confined to the self like an Advaita scholar to suffer the torture with detachment. You must realize the beautiful intention and design behind the miseries, which alone can develop devotion to God. Of course this devotion is theoretical because it is related to the mind. However, without the theory, where is the birth of practical? The love on God present in the mind alone can lead you in to practice, which is the service. Hence, you cannot rule out the theory for a beginner. If a person enters into practice straightly in this life, it means he had sufficient theory in previous birth, which is following soul as a strong feeling (Samskara or Vasana).

[Soldier of God]

Life is not misery. Life is beautiful. Before you can truly hear the Word of God addressed to your heart, the spirit and practice of silence is essential.

[dattaswami]

Life is not misery. Life is beautiful. Before you can truly hear the Word of God addressed to your heart, the spirit and practice of silence is essential.

Every spiritual aspirant aims at the bliss to be obtained by himself (Atmaananda). Salvation means liberation from all the worries and misery. Sayujyam or Kaivalyam means reaching the God to attain the bliss because God is Infinite Ocean of bliss. If this is the aim of spirituality, how is it different from materialism? In materialism also every body wants to release from worries and misery and wants to attain permanent happiness, which is called bliss. Therefore, there is no difference between a materialistic aspirant and a spiritual aspirant.

 

The only difference between these two aspirants is that the materialistic aspirant uses the worldly items as instruments to attain the goal and the spiritual aspirant uses God as instrument to attain the same goal. Remember that enjoying bliss is enjoying the fruit you have earned. If you enjoy the bliss in this world, nothing remains for the upper world. In the upper world you cannot do any effort (Karma) and earn the bliss because it is only the world of enjoyment (Bhogaloka) and not the world of any effort (Karma Loka). Therefore, you must think of reducing your desire to enjoy the bliss-fruit obtained from God. Even if you store a part of the fruit for the upper world you have to come back to this earth again to do the spiritual effort. It has lot of risk because when you return back again we don’t know the atmosphere in which you will be placed and so you cannot be sure of this spiritual effort.

 

Then what is to be done? Go on doing the spiritual effort without aspiring for the bliss-fruit. Surrender the fruit to the Lord and you have no aspiration for that fruit. You are entering into the service of Lord as His beloved servant. You must aspire the bliss of the God and not the bliss for yourself. This means you should do such service to the Lord so that it pleases Him. The bliss or pleasure of the Lord should be your goal. If Lord is pleased you are pleased. In the service even if you undergo loss and get troubles and misery, it should be a pleasure for you because the service is going to finally please the Lord. This is the highest path in which your bliss-fruit is infinitely multiplied and is beyond any account.

 

When the finger of Lord Krishna was cut, Draupadi tore her sari and banded the finger. It was a very costly sari and she is sitting in the sacrifice of Rajasuya. If then the sari is torn, she will loose wealth. She knows it and Pandavas lost the kingdom after the sacrifice. She was prepared for all this because her goal was only to please the Lord. When she applied the piece of cloth as a bandage, she never aspired the bliss-fruit for that service. Therefore, that piece was infinitely multiplied into several saris and was given to her by the Lord at a proper time. Similarly, when you sacrifice the bliss-fruit to the Lord, it will be infinitely multiplied and He will give you whenever the right occasion comes according to His discrimination. In this stage the Lord is pleased to see you enjoying the bliss and therefore, you must enjoy the bliss because that pleases the Lord.

 

Sankara prayed the Lord telling "Namokshasyaakaanksha", which means that He has no even trace of desire for the salvation and bliss. He wandered all over the India, debated with several scholars and took lot of strain to do the service of the Lord. He was killed by the black magic in such debates at the end. He did it in the service of the Lord because He felt that if the Lord is pleased by this service that must be His pleasure. He took even the death with pleasure in the service of the Lord. Even Jesus took the death by crucification in the service of the Lord while doing the propagation of the divine Knowledge. He felt even the death as bliss because that pleases the Lord. Hanuman took all pains to participate in the war and once the arrows of Meghanatha horribly wounded him, He took that also as bliss because that pleases the Lord. Radha wept throughout her life when she left Lord Krishna and that was her bliss. Arjuna killed Bhishma by shooting arrows on every inch of the body of Bhishma. You know how much he wept in doing so? Arjuna lost his father in the childhood itself and the grandfather Bhishma nourished him like his father. The love of Bhishma on Arjuna was highest among all the grand sons. The extreme pain in doing so is felt as bliss by Arjuna because that was the wish of the Lord and that pleased the Lord.

 

Therefore, sacrifice to the Lord is highest path and aspiring bliss for yourself and using God as instrument for that is not spirituality at all. You are in the materialistic path only under the mask of spirituality if you aspire bliss for yourself. In all the above examples the service was done only to God in the human form. Sankara propagated the knowledge on the order of His Sadguru Govinda Bhagavatpada who is in human form only. Jesus spread the knowledge based on the instruction of His baptising preacher. Radha and Arjuna served Lord Krishna. Hanuman served Lord Rama. The service is meaningful when the Lord is received through the human body, which is the best object in this creation. You can find the pleasure on the face of the Lord for the service you have rendered. Therefore, sacrifice in service and selection of human incarnation, which is the best object, is the result of the true divine knowledge.

 

In all these examples you can find the knowledge with analysis and logic. Veda says that in the heart God lies in the name ‘Prajna’ who will give bliss to you as the salary for your job. That is a lower state because the bliss belongs to heart, which is the lower level of mind (Manomaya Kosa). But in the brain (Vijnanamaya Kosa) the Lord dwells by the name Eeswara who gives the divine knowledge. Gita starts with Jnana Yoga stating that you should depend on the divine knowledge before you start the spiritual effort. In the entire Gita sacrifice and service to the Lord is explained, which is the proven love. Therefore, the knowledge of Shri Datta Swamiji is blissful knowledge but the word bliss refers to the bliss of the Lord and not to the bliss of the devotee. This knowledge is a scheme in which your bliss-fruit is infinitely multiplied and will be rendered to you whenever the Lord feels it as the right occasion.

 

The blissful knowledge given by other preachers gives you bliss to yourself here itself and that will be finished by your enjoyment here itself and will lead you to the risk. When you identify the human incarnation, you get love and bliss from His divine knowledge. When the identification is over you should leave the aspiration for the bliss and enter the service of the Lord, which is the path of thorns that leads to permanent heaven. The bliss you receive from the human incarnation at the time of identification is just a temporary experience only and you should not aspire for that forever. The service of other preachers will give you bliss immediately as long as you are alive or at the maximum in the upper world also. But it is a path of roses leading to the hell, which is this earth to which you have to return again and fall in the horrible cycle.