GOD IS MOST DESERVING OF YOUR LOVE

[dattaswami]

GOD IS MOST DESERVING OF YOUR LOVE

The involvement in this world is inevitable. The consequence of such involvement is stress, which is also inevitable.  We may succeed in getting the fruit of the stress or we may not succeed in it.  The bullet is shot but hitting the bird is not certain.  The present Yoga [detachment from the world and remaining in one’s own awareness or Atman] is just a sleeping pill for a short time and it is in no way different from deep sleep.  In fact deep sleep is better than the present Yoga.  The reason is that in the present Yoga, the nervous system functions at a minimum level because awareness of oneself [awareness of the awareness alone] still exists as in the case of thoughtless self-meditation.  In deep sleep, even that pure awareness disappears and the nervous system takes complete rest.  In any case, the immediate involvement in the world is inevitable.  In such Yoga you only have peace, which is the absence of misery; but that is not bliss.  Such peace is not equal even to materialistic happiness.  When you are in self-meditation and if someone tells you that you have won a lottery of a crore [ten million], you clearly experience distinct materialistic happiness. 

It is also common practical experience that one is unable to stand firm in the state of self-attainment through self-realization.  The reason for this is, if you remain in the self and thereby detach yourself from misery, who will suffer the misery in your life cycle, which is ordained as a result of your past sins?  The results of the rest of your past deeds which have to be enjoyed [or suffered] by you in the future cannot be cancelled suddenly.  The force of the divine law governing the cycle of deeds is stronger than the self. The divine law is in the hands of God alone. The divine law will drag you into the world for the sake of the punishment.  Only God can save you from the misery.  The word Yoga actually means your meeting with God in human form.  If you remain in the self without proceeding further to God, thinking that the self is God, you are doing a sinful deed.  You are in no way different from an atheist who says that there is no God other than the self.  At least to enjoy the result of this sin, you have to be dragged out. 

If you divert this inevitable stress [of involvement in the world] to service in the spiritual field, God will protect you in both this world and the upper world.  This is a one bullet-shot that is sure to hit two birds.  When God takes care of you, there is no chance of uncertainty.  For you, solving all your problems in the world is not certain in spite of hectic stress [stressful effort].  Therefore, it is far better to divert the inevitable stress and involvement to the spiritual service of God.  You do not have complete faith in God.  Atheism imparted by the external environment is hidden in you without your knowledge. You are in daily association with people who always put self efforts with partial faith on God and this injects such an attitude into your brain. Hence you do not have full faith on the word of God.  You will always estimate your success based on worldly factors.  In reality, you do not have confidence on the super power of God, which can produce an ocean of sweet water in a desert. 

In practical situations, your faith in God and the extent of your theism is tested.  Wise people, who say that self-effort is the main component and that God’s help is a minor component in any action, often cover up such deficiency in your faith.  But when all the doors are closed, you will be worried about the possibility of success assured by God. Then you will put effort to open one of the doors so that God can help you through that door. This is utter foolishness on your part, because you think that God cannot help you unless some door is opened. God can even enter through the wall to help you, if all the doors are closed. Thus keeping full faith is important in the practical situation.

Complicated Cycle of Deeds

The Gita says that the concept of the cycle of deeds is complicated (Gahana karmano Gatih…). The action or deed by itself is inert without the intention of mind and has no result. When you are walking on the road, an ant may be accidentally killed under your foot. There is no sin for this deed because the intention of mind (samkalpa) is not there. Suppose you have an intention to kill the ant and subsequently kill it. This is a deed associated with mind and hence will lead to full punishment. Suppose you have the intention to kill the ant but somehow the deed was not successful due to the miraculous escape of the ant. Then you will have half of the punishment for your intention. Since the effect of your intention was not received by the ant, the other half of the punishment is cancelled. Therefore, action without intention has no fruit. Action with intention has full fruit. Intention without action has half the fruit. 

Why should you enjoy half the fruit for your intention when the action never materialized?  I will give you a small example. A daughter-in-law is serving her mother-in-law or father-in-law. The service is inevitable. If the service is done with good intention by treating the father-in-law as her own father or mother-in-law as her own mother, good fruit in heaven is fully enjoyed. Suppose the daughter-in-law serves them sincerely due to the unavoidable circumstances but scolds them with hatred in her mind, what is the result?  The good fruit in heaven is reduced to half and half bad fruit is received in hell for the bad intention.

The good fruit of a good deed can never cancel the bad fruit of a bad deed. Fruits of goods deeds and bad deeds have to be enjoyed separately. If you create a provision to cancel a bad deed by doing a good deed, everyone will commit sins under the influence of emotions and then will try to cancel the sins later on by doing good deeds. Therefore, when priests say that by doing a ritual, all your sins are destroyed, it is the climax of ignorance. No good deed can cancel the bad deed. The Kauravas had ninety nine per cent sins and one per cent good deeds. They went to heaven first to enjoy the little good deeds and later went to hell to enjoy all their major bad deeds. The Pandavas were vice-versa and hence went to hell first and then to heaven later on. In both cases, mutual cancellation of the results of good and bad actions was not seen in the Mahabharata (Swargarohana Parva). Now, I pity the daughter-in-law who sincerely served the in-laws but went to hell simply for the sake of her bad intention. The daughter-in-law who did not serve her in-laws and also had a bad intention goes to permanent hell. The daughter-in-law who served her in-laws sincerely but had a bad intention in her mind goes to both hell and heaven separately. The daughter-in-law who served her in-laws with good intention, thinking of them as her own parents goes to permanent heaven. The daughter-in-law who has a good intention in her mind to serve her in-laws will somehow serve them directly or indirectly and will not go to hell.

Suppose a bad intention has come into the mind, but the intention is not materialized and nobody is affected practically in the world.  Certainly there will be a partial punishment for this mental sin in hell. How to get rid of this mental sin? Only the powerful divine knowledge at the level of the intelligence can smash mental sins. The intelligence alone can control the mind. The intelligence is strengthened by the divine knowledge which is injected by the Sadguru. The mind is strengthened by repetition of sins and temporary experience of false happiness. When the divine knowledge is intense, the mind is purified and at a stage of climax, even the results of previous sinful deeds are smashed (Jnanaagnih sarva karmani—Gita). Divine knowledge at its climax makes you surrender to God and leads you to getting involved in practical spiritual service in the mission of God, without aspiration of any fruit in return. In such a stage, God attracts all the results of your past sins and suffers for your sake. This technique of God is not known to you. Somehow you are relieved from all mental sins and also from all the results of previous sinful deeds. The mental sins are cancelled by the divine knowledge. The results of previous sinful deeds are cancelled by the interference of God that results by the climax of divine knowledge. Therefore, when service is inevitable, better do it with good intention too so that you will not receive partial punishment in hell unnecessarily. This does not mean that I am encouraging you to do the sin fully and get full punishment.

Rigid Dharma for Sweet Love

You have to follow the constitution written by God strictly in this world as far as your behavior towards other souls is concerned. Here, justice [Dharma] must be followed and injustice must be discarded. Only in the case of God, can you overlook even justice for the sake of God which cannot be a sin in that particular case. For the sake of God, you can overlook any other soul including your own self and this shall not be a sin. In fact, it is the Best. If you do not overlook justice for the sake of God, it shall be a sin. But this special case (Nivritti) cannot be extended to one’s behavior with other souls (Pravritti).

God establishes justice in this world very seriously (Dharma Samsthapanarthaya—Gita). But the same God in the same Gita finally says at the end that one should violate even Dharma [justice] for His sake (Sarva Dharman Parityajya…). This is not a contradiction at all. You must follow justice and discard injustice in your behavior towards other souls in this world. But when you realize God, you have to sacrifice even justice for the sake of God. This is a point of contrast. The more powerful the villain, the more powerful will be the projection of the hero. The firmer the rules of Dharma, the greater is the love expressed for God by violating such Dharma. Therefore, the firmness and rigidity in the establishment of Dharma is directly proportional to the love expressed for God in violating such Dharma for His sake.

Let us take the example of the unclothed Gopikas saluting to Krishna. According to Dharma, a lady cannot come unclothed before a male. It is against justice and leads the lady to hell for punishment. Apart from this threat of hell, a lady is characterized by lot of shyness and no lady can overcome the shyness in such a situation under any circumstances. In the case of the Gopikas, this violation of justice and shyness might have been done because Krishna was God. For the sake of God, justice can be violated and even shyness can be overcome because God is the Creator and is aware of everything in this world. This is one excuse in the case of the Gopikas’ violation of Dharma and shyness. 

But there is a similar example which is even more serious. Shri Manikya Prabhu[1] was an incarnation of Lord Datta and Smt. Subbamma was His topmost devotee. Other devotees were jealous about her. One day the Lord called her by name while she was having a bath. Subbamma came running into the court in which all the devotees of the Lord were sitting. She was completely unclothed and did not even wear her sari to avoid delay in following the order of the Lord. All the devotees were astonished. The Lord threw a cloth on her and asked her to go back. She went away. The Lord looked at the faces of the devotees which were bent in repentance. This sin is a more severe test than the sin of the Gopikas. Here Subbamma stands unclothed not only before the Lord but also before all other human beings for the sake of the Lord by crossing her shyness and justice. The Gopikas stood unclothed only before the Lord.

When the Lord faces the exceptional devotion of such topmost devotees, He is immensely pleased. Such immense pleasure is the aim of this entire creation and the establishment of justice is the background in contrast. If Subbamma was used to coming out unclothed on the call of any other person, then there is no specialty when she came out unclothed on the Lord’s call and Subbamma would simply be called a mentally deranged lady. In such a case, the background will not serve any purpose to God. Other souls deserve your love only in a limited way, controlled by the rules of justice. But the Lord deserves unconditional love and kindness from His devotee.

If you realize the truth by taking away the layer of ignorance acting as a stage of this divine drama, you will be surprised to know that anything sacrificed by you for the sake of God, was given to you by God alone. He gave something to you and forgot that that it belongs to Him. He also covered you with His delusion (Maya) so that you will think that this something belongs to you. Now the drama of sacrifice is enacted over the stage of this layer of ignorance by which both God and devotee forget the basic truth. Now when the soul sacrifices that something to God, both God and soul enjoy the sweet love of sacrifice based on the concept of donor and acceptor. Realized scholars pierce through the stage of ignorance and find out the truth that, that something belongs to the Lord alone and the whole drama is just for the enjoyment of the sweet love of devotion between God and the devotee. If you compare God with other souls who love you just for the sacrifice of something which belongs to you (in the relative sense) and that their love for you is only for their selfish happiness, you can realize the difference between God and your beloved souls and the deservingness of God to your boundless love.

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[1] A great mystic saint and yogi (1817-1865) , hailed as an incarnation of Lord Dattatreya and has several devotees in India.

 

Universal Spirituality for World Peace