O Learned and Devoted Servants of God, [October 06, 2012] A Devotee asked: You are preaching the equal enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness so that there is no need of devotion to God. When such state is achieved, really, there is no need of God. When there is no need, the reason for devotion disappears. Nothing can be generated without reason. Hence, devotion is not generated. In the absence of devotion, where is the need of the practical sacrifice in service to God. The Veda says that the sacrifice of money alone can lead to God (Dhanena Tyagena …). Hence, the Vedic statement also becomes meaningless in the present context.
Reply of Swami: There is lot of confusion of the concepts in the argument projected by you. The real ground of devotion and the false ground of devotion should be separately differentiated. The equality in enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness is related to the removal of false ground of devotion. This does not mean that the real ground of devotion is also removed. The practical sacrifice is a point related to real ground of devotion. This point is related by you to the false ground and by removal of false ground, this point is also removed by you. Let Me explain this more clearly. The false ground of devotion is the link between selfish desire and the power of God. In false devotion, you always try to exploit the power of God in removing your difficulties and getting happiness. The difficulties are the fruits of your sins and happiness is the fruit of your good deeds. By exploiting the power of God, you want to avoid the fruits of your sins and want to get the happiness without the good deeds. Both are wrong. You want that God should commit these two blunders, soaped by your false devotion. The devotion is false because your love to God is based on business. You want this undue favor from God for which you expose your artificial love to God through worship and prayers. All this is false ground of devotion. You want to sacrifice money to God again based on this false ground only. You donate some money to God to get this undue favor. It is just like the corruption practiced by citizens in the offices of government. You bribe the official to do some undue favor. Therefore, such sacrifice of money is also not the real sacrifice as said in the Veda. If you develop equality in enjoying the happiness and unhappiness like the sweet and hot dishes in meals, you will not require this undue favor from host in requesting him to serve only sweets and not hot dishes. When the Yoga of equality in enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness is developed, the false devotion and false sacrifice of money also disappears. Therefore, this Yoga leads to the final disappearance of false ground of devotion and subsequently false devotion and false sacrifice. Today, if this false ground of devotion disappears, there will be no single devotee on this earth! The entire devotion in the present devotion is totally false and the only remedy for this is to develop Yoga. Lord Datta is called as Yogiraja, standing for the meaning that He alone is the preacher of the Yoga.
When Yoga destroys the false ground, false devotion and false sacrifice, this does not mean that there is no real ground, real devotion and real sacrifice. By attaining Yoga, you are expected to enter the real ground of devotion where real devotion and real sacrifice exist. The end of Yoga is not simple enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness continuously without the concept of God. When you have attained the Yoga completely, you have to put a question to yourself. What is the basis of this enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness? The basis is this creation including yourself. In the absence of creation, the enjoyment of happiness and unhappiness also does not exist. You are advised to enjoy both sweet and hot dishes equally. Here, the advice does not end only with the ultimate aim of development of psychology of equal enjoyment of sweet and hot dishes. The advice continues to remind you to express your gratefulness to the host, who served you the food containing both the dishes. Similarly, the creator of this creation must be always thanked for providing the basis of this very enjoyment. God is the creator of yourself and rest of the creation. You are not expected to finish the meals by enjoying the sweet and hot dishes equally and go away without thanking the host. You may raise the doubt that this expression of gratefulness is again based on the business between donor and acceptor. But, in this context, you are expressing your gratefulness for the past favor done by God even without your request. Therefore, this will not be a false ground of devotion. When your request is related to the present and the future, then only, the false ground of devotion appears. Therefore, the real ground of devotion starts with this expression of gratefulness to the past favor done by God even without your desire. Now, the real devotion starts. This real devotion can be further flavored by your attraction towards the divine qualities and diving personality of God in which also there is no selfish desire. In such attraction also, there is no false ground. When this real ground and the real devotion are established, the real proof of your practical sacrifice is required, which is your bond with money. Money is the root of all the worldly bonds (Dhanamoolamidam jagat…). All the worldly bonds are alive only when money exists. All these worldly bonds are like the branches of the tree of your family and root of such tree is money. Therefore, the test at the root will be the test of the entire tree. Hence, the Veda said that the sacrifice of money means the sacrifice of all the other bonds.
Therefore, the false ground and real ground of devotion are separate. The sacrifice of money in the false ground is only a part of the business. The sacrifice of money in the real ground stands as the acid proof for the real devotion. The Yoga, which is the talent of enjoying both happiness and unhappiness equally, is to be developed only to destroy the false ground of devotion. When this false ground is destroyed, the false devotion and the false sacrifice are also simultaneously destroyed. This does not mean the real ground does not exist. In fact, after attaining the Yoga, the real ground of devotion should start. After eating the meals, you are expected to thank the host. This thanking the host is the real ground of devotion. Enjoyment of sweet and hot dishes in the meals has nothing to do with this process of thanking the host. If you enjoy both the dishes equally in the meals, it does not mean that you can go away without thanking the host. Hence, the discrimination between truth and false should be carefully done through shrewd analysis. Hence, Shankara told that this shrewd analysis is one of the four eligible qualities of a spiritual aspirant (Sadasat vivekah…).
At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami
-Prasad
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