Find out God, serve Him

Building is there. Implies Builder should be there. Creation is there. Creator should be there. I can see the building, which is in front of my eyes, but builder need not stand in front of the building. He will be in his own job. If you want to meet the builder, you should definitely put effort to locate the builder and see him. Likewise Creation is there in front of our eyes. But have we put any time and effort to locate and identify the creator?

Instead of that, with least effort we can propagate to others also that God is not there. They are not only blinded, they are making others also blinded. Some people who are theists may become prey for the propagation of this ignorance also, unfortunately. The greatest sin on the earth is to be unfaithful.

To identify the builder you should know the identification marks, where he lives, what he does etc.. and we have to enquire if we don't know. This is to say that knowledge is required to identify any person. This knowledge is called divine knowledge if the aim is to identify the Lord, which actually only is to be propagated.

Lord created this universe for the enjoyment without any selfish motive and we human beings are enjoying the creation. Like through nice parents, wife, children, beautiful nature consisting of pleasant looking mountains, rivers, sea, nature, changing weather etc. If we cannot please the Lord, the human life is incomplete.

We serve our family members by spending our hard earned money and also physically. Are we not serving family as Servant, and these family members are nearly equal to us. Whereas, Lord is omnipotent and requires no help from us, many times satisfied our desires, saved us from mishaps etc., and if we cannot bow our head in front of Him, it is very ridiculous. It is very great honour to serve Him. This is the path followed by His real devotees. These real devotees could overcome ego and always wants to serve Him as servant.

Jesus preached the gospel and His followers participated in His mission as servants for further propagation of divine knowledge. These great devotees never hesitated to serve Lord Jesus and their names have also been known even today.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji

http://www.universal-spirituality.org/

World Religions

If anyone says that his/her religion is the only path to God and that other paths lead to hell, I have one humble question. The question is for every religion without any trace of partiality. The simple question is: Today I have heard your Religion and if I follow that, I reach God and if I refuse I will go to the hell for my own fault? This is very much reasonable. But before your ancestors discovered our country, the literature or even the name of your religion was not known to our ancestor and he could not reach God for no fault of him. But your ancestor reached God through your religion at that time.

Even if I assume that my ancestor will take rebirth now and will follow your religion to reach God, such possibility is ruled out because you say that there is no rebirth for the soul. Thus my ancestor suffered forever for no fault of him and the responsibility for this falls on the partiality of God. Had the God been impartial, He could have revealed your religion to all the countries at a time. Had that happened, my ancestor might have also reached God as your ancestor. Therefore your statement proves your own God partial.

The only way left over to you to make your God impartial is that you must accept that your God appeared in all the countries at a time in various forms and preached your path in various languages. The same form did not appear everywhere and the same language does not exist everywhere. The syllabus and explanation are one and the same, though the media and teachers are different. Can you give any alternative reasonable answer to my question other than this? Certainly not! Any person of any religion to any other person of other religion can pose this question.

Moreover every religion states that their God only created this world. Unfortunately this world is one only and every God cannot create the same world. There are not many worlds to justify that each God created His own world. Therefore any human being with an iota of commonsense has to agree that there is only one impartial God who created this one world and He came in different forms to different countries and preached the same path in all the languages simultaneously at one time.

Let this logic sword of the divine knowledge cut the rigid conservatism of the religious fans in this world to establish the Universal Peace. I need not beg all these religious followers to be united and harmonious to each other for the sake of world peace. Such begging appeals are made enough in the past. The religious fans feel that there is no unity really in the religions but they have to be united since their kind hearts melted by these appeals. Thus a temporary change was only brought. At the maximum one generation of the followers got united. The next generation fights with each other because they feel that there is no real unity in them due to lack of the real unity in their religious scriptures.

A permanent solution for this does not lie in the begging appeals, which may or may not unite the followers. Even if the appeals unite such unity is not permanent. If the real unity in all the religious scriptures is exposed through the logical divine knowledge, the followers have to be united for generations together. Therefore, My attack is not on the hearts of the followers through love and kindness. My attack is on all the religious scriptures through intellectual logical analysis of divine knowledge.

The unity of hearts through love can be only temporary. The unity of brains through intellectual analytical divine knowledge will be permanent. Hearts agree but brains realize. Agreement is temporary, but realization is permanent. Thus this is My first blow of My divine Conch shell for the permanent unity of all the religions aiming at eternal Universal Peace.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org

Service and Sacrifice explained

The word karma in the case of a human being means the work done to earn money, which is essential for his food and offering the food to the guest. Money required for the self and his family is called ‘sareera yatra’ in Gita. Money required to prepare food to offer to the guest is called ‘yajna karma’. The word karma in Gita was used in these two meanings in the context of a human being (sareera yatra pichate, yajnah karma samudbhavah). Therefore the fruit of the work means only money.

The first mantra of the first Upanishad speaks about enjoyment and sacrifice of money (kasyasvit dhanam). The mantra says that the entire creation is the wealth of the Lord and one should store the money for his minimum enjoyment and the rest should be sacrificed to the Lord who comes in the human form for His mission to uplift this world. The second mantra says that one should continuously work and earn. Vasista said that money is the root of all this worldly family bonds (Dhanamulamidam jagat). When money is absent all the family members will leave you. All the family members and relatives approach you only due to money just like the frogs are present in the tank when it is full of water.

The ‘Srichakram’ means the wheel that surrounds the money. Therefore when the sacrifice of money comes into the picture, all the fraud devotees will run away because in their hearts the attraction to the family bonds exists as solidified darkness. Only the true devotees will stand, in whose hearts the darkness is removed and the light of divine knowledge exists.

The Lord came in human form and tested ‘Saktuprasta’ in the sacrifice of the food, which is another form of money. In draught he could secure a little flour and he was fasting for the past ten days. He was not tested in any other way of words and mind (japa, parayana, dhyana etc.). A real devotee will stand in this root test and this is the real fire test.

If the bond with the money is cut, all the worldly bonds are cut, since money is the root of this whole samsara. The fraud devotees want to escape this test and therefore interpreted the karmaphala as the fruit of prayers, japa, parayana, dhyana etc. The eyes in this world not at all see such fruit. Therefore such fruit of work done by words and mind is unreal. There is no difficulty to sacrifice such unreal fruit. Therefore they misinterpreted the karmaphalatyaga as leaving a spoon of water in the plate after doing such work by words and mind. Some people have fooled the ignorant people by doing such works and get the Gurudakshina. They are selling the unreal fruit for the real money, by promising that the fruits of their sins will be removed and results of good deeds, which were not done, will be attained.

In the state of theoretical devotion any view is right, since there is no difference between drinking two different drinks in a dream. The point is whether your devotion is theoretical (Songs, Meditation etc.,) or practical (Service). The practical devotion is possible only in the case of the present live human incarnation. When you are sprinkling rose water on the shirt of a present live person, the person receives and enjoys your service. The shirt is the human body and the person is God in present live human incarnation.

The past human incarnation existing as a statue or photo is like a photo of the non-existing past shirt of the same person. You will not sprinkle the rose water on even the existing shirt if the person is absent in it and not to speak of a non-existing shirt seen in a photo. If you sprinkle rose water on a photo in which a person who is away in a foreign country, it is also virtually the same.

Similarly the service to a photo of Vishnu existing in the upper world is as good as the service to a photo of Rama who existed in the past. Krishna asked Arjuna to surrender to Him only (Mamekam…Gita). Here Mam (Him) means the human incarnation. The word Ekam (only) means the present live one existing before the eyes of Arjuna. It means Krishna who was the contemporary human incarnation. Direct service to God is possible only in the case of present human incarnation.

When you divert the service or practical devotion from the world (family and society), which consists of the live human beings to God, the God must also be in live human form so that the service like feeding is diverted practically from one side to the other side.

If your world contains only the photos or statues of your forefathers, who are not alive today, then you can divert your service of cleaning the statues of your forefathers to the statues of God. The diversion of service should be in the same phase i.e., either all in alive human forms or all in forms of statues. There cannot be diversion of practical devotion from one phase to the other phase.

Suppose you have offered ten kg of food to a statue of God and offered half kg of food to your son, you cannot say that you have twenty times more devotion on God than your son. Here, the comparison is not in one phase. If God comes in human form, will you offer half kg of food to Him daily as you are offering the same to your son? Therefore, the proof of diversion or transformation can be in a single-phase system only.

Hanuman left His alive mother and worshipped alive Rama. He did not leave His alive mother to worship a statue in the temple or to meditate upon the formless God in a forest or to serve Himself feeling that He is God. Gopikas left the bonds with all alive forms (parents, in-laws, husbands, children etc.) only to worship a specific alive form, who was Krishna in their time and one should note that Krishna was not having any relationship with them.

At the lotus feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org

What is worship?

What do you mean by the real worship? Worship means service and sacrifice of everybody and everything for the sake of the Lord so that the Lord is pleased by such real love to Him. Worship means practical expression of the divine love or devotion towards God. The main essence of such divine love is the sole aim to please the Lord and not to please oneself or any other related soul. This means that the essence of worship is sacrifice for the sake of God and not sacrifice to please yourself or any other related soul. Such divine sacrifice is like the light.

When the light disappears, the darkness enters. The darkness is the selfishness which is extended towards ones own family or relatives or caste or Nationality or religion etc. These are the grades in the darkness only because all this is related to souls only and not to God. The darkness is getting diluted as you proceed from yourself to the society. The weakest darkness is still not light. But since concentration of darkness is decreasing by such dilution, it is appreciable. But you should not forget that you are still within the boundaries of darkness only. Thus, the power in your social service cannot save the society. A spoon of sugar cannot change the taste of the ocean. Only the Lord can change this ocean of salt-water in to the ocean of nectar.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org

The possessor of true spiritual knowledge is God

If you want to eat an apple, you have to search for the seller of apples in order to purchase an apple from him. Then, how to identify the seller of apples? The identity mark for recognizing the seller of apples is the apple itself. Therefore, your requirement itself is the identity mark to recognize the possessor of your requirement.

If you want to learn Physics you to have select the best teacher of physics. What is the identity mark of the best teacher of physics? The identity mark is the best teaching of physics itself.

Similarly the requirement of an aspirant of spiritual path is the correct direction in his spiritual journey. The correct direction in the spiritual journey can be given by the true spiritual knowledge. Apart from the true spiritual knowledge, there should be best way of explanation of such true spiritual knowledge. Therefore, your requirement is the true spiritual knowledge and its best explanation, so that you can get the correct direction in your spiritual effort. Now, the identity mark to recognize the possessor of true spiritual knowledge and the best preacher of such true spiritual knowledge is the true spiritual knowledge and its best explanation only.

Veda says that the true spiritual knowledge (Satyam, Jnanam…) along with its best explanation (Prajnanam Brahma) is required for the correct spiritual direction. Veda says that the true spiritual knowledge itself is God. It means that the possessor of true spiritual knowledge is God. It should not be confused that the knowledge itself is God. The possessor of your required important item is addressed as the item itself. You are calling the possessor of apple as apples. You call him “Oh Apples! Come here”. Here, the word ‘apples’ means the possessor of apples.

Gita clarified this confusion by saying that the possessor of knowledge is God (Jnanitvatmaiva…). You need not search the possessor of knowledge by going to various places. The knowledge given by a preacher is printed in the form of books. You can read various books, which are the messages given by various preachers. You can judge the true knowledge explained in best way.

How to judge the true knowledge? It is said that your inner consciousness is the best judge (Pramanamantahkaranapravruttayah). When something is true, your inner consciousness will always prick you, saying that it is truth, even though you may not like it. Similarly your inner consciousness will say the false thing as false, even though you may like it. Actually God is giving this hint to you through your inner consciousness.

Sometimes, the knowledge may be true, but, if the explanation is not good, you will be having confusion. Even in such situation, your inner consciousness hints you that it is true. Of course, if the true knowledge is explained in best way, you will not have any confusion. Therefore, not only the knowledge must be true, but also the way of explanation must be best.

When both these aspects are accomplished, know that the preacher of such true knowledge explained in best way is God alone. Such preacher is called as Satguru. Guru is the preacher and may give the true knowledge, which was already given by God through the scripture. But the best explanation of it, clarifying all your doubts is possible to God alone (chidyante sarvasamsayah).

The primary purpose of God coming in human form is only to give you the correct direction in your spiritual effort through the best explanation of the true knowledge, which clarifies all your doubts and inspires you to practically adopt the knowledge. The true knowledge explained in best way is like huge fire (Jnanagnih…Gita). Such true knowledge explained in best way is the huge power to bring implementation of theory into practice. If there is any hindrance in your implementation of theory in practice, it is only the imperfect clarification of the true concept.

Therefore, the contemporary human incarnation of God can inspire you to implement the true knowledge in practice. Inspired by the teaching of Lord Krishna, Arjuna fought the war and even killed his grandfather and teacher. Mandanamishra left the family and became a saint following Shankara, just after hearing the best explanation of true knowledge from Shankara during the debate that went on for several days continuously. Therefore nothing is as powerful as the best explained true knowledge (Sarvam Gnanaplavenaiva...Gita).

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org

Yoga is equality in situations of happiness and misery

Gita says that equality in situations of happiness and misery is Yoga (samatvam yoga…). Generally people misunderstand this concept. They think that keeping oneself inactive towards happiness and misery without any disturbance like a stone is the meaning of this verse. Such meaning is wrong and is not the actual opinion of the Lord. It is only the misinterpretation of misunderstood heart of the verse.

You are not a stone to show such inert behavior. You are a living human being and can never behave like that. You can behave like that by taking some sedative drugs and there is no need of the intensive spiritual effort to achieve such state. The actual opinion of this verse is that you should enjoy both happiness and misery like the sweet and hot dishes in your meals. While taking the hot dish, your tongue is vibrating and tears are flowing from your eyes! But still you are enjoying the taste of hot dish in your heart. Similarly, you weep in the situation of misery, but if you are able to enjoy your own weeping, you have achieved the state of continuous enjoyment through entertainment from the creation by which you have attained the state of God.

Gita says that you should enjoy even your death (eshaa brahmi sthitih…). In fact, the author of Gita exhibited His own concept in His practical life. The same sweet smile that appeared on the face of the Lord while dancing with the beautiful Gopikas, remained on the face of the Lord at the time of His last breath also after shot by an arrow.

According to Veda, God created this world for His entertainment and He is enjoying all the scenes of this creation. If you can enjoy all the incidents of your life in a similar way, you have attained the state of God and this is the monism (Advaita) preached by Shankara. Shankara told that the Lordship (Eshwara) is a myth (Mithya) in this context. This means that when God and the soul are enjoying the creation equally with continuous entertainment, there is no need of bringing the irrelevant Lordship of creation, ruling and destruction of the world in this context.

The peon is seeing the cinema along with the producer and director. To differentiate the state of producer with director and the peon is meaningless as far as the enjoyment of the cinema as a spectator is concerned. Mithya means neither true nor false. The producer with director is sitting in the hall and therefore the state of producer with director is not false. But still the state of producer with director is unnecessary and irrelevant as far as the common spectatorship is concerned. Therefore the state of producer with director is neither true nor false. Hence it is called as Mithya.

You need not show sympathy to the Lord if He is brooding over some personal misery. From the external weeping, you mistake the Lord as suffering from the misery. In fact, the Lord is enjoying His weeping resulted by the misery. You are always weeping externally and internally due to misery and therefore you should be consoled. The Lord need not be consoled since He is weeping externally and is enjoying the weeping internally. You should not judge the Lord on your standards. You should understand the Lord on His standards.

Therefore Yoga means the equality in the enjoyment of mind in both happiness and misery like God. The Yoga always refers the state of God achieved by you. Whenever a great fortune is achieved, it is denoted by the word Yoga. Therefore you will attain the state of Advaita through Yoga only. When such a state is achieved in practice, it is called as Karmayoga. When such a state is understood with full clarification, it is called as Jnanayoga. When such a state is achieved by you in practice through your powerful liking to God, it is called as Bhaktiyoga.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org

God follows the rules of His own Divine Administration

God will not use his super power as far as possible unless a very rare occasion of protecting the most deserving devotee arises. A good administrator will always run the institution on the natural wheels of the rules already setup. As far as possible, he will not disturb the routine and natural functioning of the system. This is the reason for the Lord Krishna not to change the mind of Duryodhana, who was rigidly favoring the war.

He did not use the super power in the case of Arjuna also, when Arjuna was against the war. In the case of Duryodhana the Lord tried His best to stop the war. In the case of Arjuna the same Lord tried His best to provoke Arjuna to fight the war. In both cases, He has taken lot of time and put best efforts through long preaching. In the case of Duryodhana the Lord failed and in the case of Arjuna the Lord succeeded. Of course virtually it is failure of Duryodhana and success of Arjuna to assimilate the advice from the Lord. However from the angle of the Lord, the effort was put by the Lord and hence from the point of effort it has to be considered as failure and success of Lord only.

The total essence is that the Lord is not bothered about the success and failure of His efforts put based on natural setup of the creation. If the individual soul fails in its effort, it will try to use the superpower if it is in possession of such superpower. But the Lord never used such superpower since He wants that everything should run on the natural rules setup by Him. In both the cases the Lord could have changed their minds in a fraction of second by using His superpower. In both the cases, He never used His superpower and tried to achieve result through the natural effort only. Therefore God is always fond of doing things based on the natural setup of administration. He is never fond of exhibiting His superpower.

The demon is quite opposite to God. He is always using the superpower achieved by him in the wrong direction of fulfillment of his ego. He often exhibits the superpower and gets his ego satisfied. The devotee is always in search of superpower to use it for selfish problems. The devotee is like the ONGC engineer, who is in search of oil hidden in the soil to use it for the generation of power for the sake of using it in improving the facilities. The devotee appears good since the superpower is not found. Once the devotee finds the superpower and achieves it, he will misuse it like the demon. The devotee is always a hidden demon waiting for the opportunity.

A true devotee is never in search of superpower. He is always in search of God to surrender his power in service of God without any aspiration for the returns. He always feels that the power in him belongs to God and therefore should be surrendered to God in his service. He does not aspire anything in return just like you are not aspiring anything in return while repaying the loan to the donor. This is the true attitude of a true devotee. You are not charging the donor for returning the loan given by him. A true preacher also preaches the same true knowledge.

He will say that the rupee given by you to God will not return back to you with interest because you have not invested your energy in the service of God as loan to Him. In fact it is reverse. You have taken the energy from God as loan and in fact you should return it along with interest. At least you can use a little of it for your selfish ends and return back the huge balance to God. At the worst, you should return at least a little to God after using a huge amount for your selfish ends.

Can we imagine the fate of the people, who do not return at least a little of the loan taken from God? The false preacher always propagates false knowledge to exploit the innocent people and get selfish benefits. He says that you will get back the money multiplied by several folds, if you donate a little to God. He collects that little money for his selfish ends posing himself as the representative of God. People are exploited for their ambition of getting back the money in multiple form.

The true preacher says that God has nothing to do with such business (naadatte kasyachit…Gita). He says that God will accept your offering in case it is offered without any aspiration for returns. He explains always the true concept without bothering about the returns in terms of business. Whether anything is given to him or not, he will not be concerned about it. He spreads always the true knowledge, which may be liked or not by the people. If he gets something through the propagation of such knowledge, he will feel that it is given by God only through the medium of human beings and expresses his gratefulness to God.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness, Sri Dattaswami

Dattaji
http://www.universal-spirituality.org