Try to enjoy unhappy scenes

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God, [August 25, 2012] Several devotees are posing a problem on the concept of equally enjoying the happy and unhappy scenes in the life like the sweet and hot dishes in the meals or like the happy and unhappy scenes in a cinema. The enjoyment of the scenes in the cinema may be different from the enjoyment of the sweet and hot dishes in the meals. In the cinema, the happy and unhappy scenes roll alternatively, but, those are related to the story of somebody else. In the case of meals, you are directly eating the sweet and hot dishes. The enjoyment of sweet and hot dishes can be the exact simile to the enjoyment of happy and unhappy scenes in one’s own life. The reason is that in both these cases, the enjoyer is directly involved. In the case of cinema, the enjoyer is not directly involved because the scenes are related to somebody else in the story. Therefore, as you have grown, you have become capable of enjoying sweet and hot dishes in the meals. In the childhood, which is the beginning stage of the life, you might have felt difficulty in enjoying the hot dishes and you enjoyed the sweet dishes only. The elders start giving hot dishes to the child in the childhood itself so that the child will not be bored by sweets in course of time if only sweets are continued. In the case of continuing the sweets, the child will never like any sweet in its life even after becoming adult. In course of time, you have started tasting the hot dishes introduced by elders with great reluctance and inconvenience. But, as time proceeded, you have overcome the reluctance and inconvenience in tasting the hot dishes. After sometime, you have developed the taste for hot dishes also and slowly you have started enjoying the hot dishes like the sweets.

The concept in our issue arises from this simile itself. The concept is that you may develop reluctance and inconvenience to the unhappy scenes in the beginning, but, in course of time, this reluctance turned into liking and the inconvenience turned into attraction. Not only the hot dishes, any worst material like the sour tobacco, sour wine etc., also develop reluctance and inconvenience in the beginning. But, after sometime, people become addicted to these materials to such extent that they cannot live without tasting these materials! Therefore, coming to the actual concept, you may have reluctance and inconvenience to the unhappy scenes in the beginning for sometime as you had the same to hot dishes in your childhood. But, after sometime, you will enjoy the unhappy scenes also in the life. The continuous happy scenes will certainly bore you and lead to permanent unhappiness. If you eat the sweets continuously for sometime, you will never taste the sweet again in your life time! Without tasting anything, you will get bored and such state itself is the state of unhappiness. Hence, the unhappiness is inevitable. Instead of developing reluctance to the inevitable situations, it is better to enjoy the inevitable situation. By avoiding the unhappy scene always, you cannot get rid of it since continuous happiness also results in unhappiness only. Since the unhappiness is inevitable, better to enjoy it so that you can maintain the state of continuous happiness in the life. This continuous happiness is called as bliss, which is the divine state of God. In fact, God is continuously enjoying the unhappy and happy scenes by involving Himself directly by coming to this world as human incarnations continuously.

The Gita says that you can achieve anything by practice (Abhyasena tu…). This practice can be implemented in the beginning stage of facing the unhappy scenes so that in course of time, you will start enjoying the unhappy scenes also. Anyway, you have to start tasting the unhappy scene one day or other. In such case, why to postpone? If you face the unhappy scene now itself, start facing it and try to enjoy it, instead of trying to avoid it by praying God. Realized souls never pray God to avoid the problems and difficulties in the life. The unhappy scene acts as interval between two happy scenes. An unhappy scene is like tasting the sour pickle between two sweets. The sour pickle tasted in the interval gives you the real taste of the sweet once again. If you taste the second sweet after the first sweet, the second sweet cannot be enjoyed. This is the reason for the elder people eating the sweet and hot items alternatively in the meals. After facing some unhappy scenes in your lifetime, you will certainly develop the taste of enjoying the unhappy scenes so that you will enjoy both the sweet and hot scenes in the life alternatively without any inconvenience and reluctance.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-Prasad

God takes Devotee’s Sin when Reformation Possible

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,[May 18, 2012] The punishment for the sin is to reform the mental setup of the soul so that the balance of the society is maintained. The reformation is not to develop devotion to God. God does not wish a soul to be devoted to Him. The devotion should be from the side of the devotee and God does not encourage it. In fact, God discourages the devotion. The soul has to surpass the hurdle created by such discouragement. Therefore, the aim of God is only Pravrutti (social justice) and not Nivrutti (devotion to God). God undergoes the punishment of some sins of some devotees due to their intense devotion to Him. This is quite natural even in the worldly bonds. Somebody, who loves some other soul, prays to God to give punishment to him or her instead of punishing that soul. This is found in the worldly bonds. Lord Narasimha Saraswati, who is the incarnation of God Dattatreya, adjusts the longevity of the wife by transferring a portion of it to her husband on the prayer of that devoted wife. Such transfer of punishments is seen even in the worldly bonds. But, in such transfer, the blind love is only the basis and not the reformation of the soul. The wife wanted to transfer the sin of her husband on to her, by reducing her longevity, only due to her blind love towards her husband. The reformation of the mental setup of her husband is not in her aim.

 

But, when God transfers the punishment of the sin of His devotee on to Him, the basis is not mere blind love towards His devotee. The basis is the reformation of the mental setup of the devotee for the welfare of the social justice. If such possibility for the reformation exists, then only, God transfers the punishment of the sin of His devotee. Raavana was a strong devotee of Lord Shiva. The punishment of Raavana was not transferred by God on to Him because, by such act, Raavana will not be reformed. Therefore, God does not transfer the sin of every devotee on to Him.

Lord Krishna transferred the punishment of the sin of Kuchela (Sudama) on to Him because there is a possibility of reformation of Kuchela by such transfer. Kuchela stole the food of Krishna. Such stealing affects the social justice. If Kuchela is not punished, he will steal the food of several human beings in the future. Therefore, he was punished with poverty. There is a difference between Raavana and Kuchela. Raavana did not change after suffering some punishment. Even though several family members of Raavana were killed, there was no change in the mental setup of Raavana. He fought with Rama till he died. Therefore, there will be no use by the transfer of partial punishment in the case of Raavana. Hence, the punishment was completely given to Raavana. In the case of Kuchela, the poverty has changed his mental setup and he never stole the food of anybody even though he and his family suffered with severe hunger. The punishment can be withdrawn after sometime and there is no need of complete punishment. Even though Kuchela became rich, he did not become proud and did not commit any sin. Hence, there is possibility of total reformation in the rest of his life. Hence, Lord transferred the sin on to Him and became partially poor. The wealth of Kuchela was drawn from the wealth of Krishna. Therefore, Krishna underwent the partial punishment.

Hence, the transfer of punishments of sins of certain selected devotees is only for the reformation of their mental setup helping the Pravrutti and such transfer has nothing to do with Nivrutti. Therefore, there is no blind love in the case of God when He transfers the sins on to Him. This is the thought in the verse “Kshitram Bhavati Dharmaatmaa…” said in the Gita. Hence, the reformation of mental setup for the sake of Pravrutti is maintained even in the transfer of the sins of certain selected devotees by God. In the Bible also, it is said that God comes to save His people (Emmanuel). It does not mean that God saves all the people or all the devotees by undergoing their punishments.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-prasad

Rituals in right direction

Avoid Sin in the Wastage of Food

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God, [August 4, 2012 Evening-2] You think that a ritual should be performed with a specific procedure and specific materials involving the recitation of the specific Vedic hymns, which alone becomes fruitful. You think that the specific procedure and specific hymns alone can protect you, giving the desired results. People fear that the specific rituals should be strictly performed involving the recitation of specific hymns using specific materials in a specific procedure. The priest takes lot of unnecessary advantage about this concept and earns huge money and respect and due to this, sometimes poor people suffer. The fear existing in the heart about the negative results in the absence of such ritual is tremendous and hence, the innocent people suffer a lot.

The main objection to this concept is about the universality of rituals performed in various countries. The procedures of the rituals and the involved recitation of hymns and usage of the materials differ from religion to religion all over the world. In such case, God becomes partial to a specific region of the world in which only the so called correct hymns, procedures and materials are given by God. If you say that the ritual of a specific religion practiced in a specific region only is correct, God becomes partial in giving the correct hymns, procedure and materials to a specific region only. The partiality of God is not justified since He is the divine Father of the entire humanity. If you observe the essence of all these rituals performed in various religions, you can easily understand that the basic essence consists of two points only in the rituals of every religion:

1)          The ritual of every religion mainly consists of prayers in mother tongue to God that should be understood by the priest and everyone attending the ritual.

2)          The next essence is the donation of food, clothes and money to deserving devotees of God.

Since the ritual of every religion performed in any region satisfies these two essential points, no favour is done to any specific religion existing in any specific region. Hence, God becomes impartial Divine Father of the entire humanity. Unfortunately, the only religion that misses this essence is Hinduism! In ancient India, these essential points were fully satisfied and by way of the depth of the spiritual knowledge of the scripture, Hinduism was considered to be the greatest religion in the world. Today, the same religion came to the lowest level due to the missing essence. The hymns are recited in Sanskrit and nobody including the priest knows the meaning of even a single word of recitation. Due to the absence of the knowledge of the prayer, the devotion exists neither in the priest nor in others. By this, the priest becomes the most undeserving fellow. Donation to such priests is not only waste but actually a sin. In ancient India, this problem was not there because Sanskrit was the mother tongue in that time. Therefore, [you] either recite the prayers in your mother tongue or at least, the priest should explain the Sanskrit hymns to others. Alternatively, every Hindu should learn the Sanskrit language. In such case, the priest becomes a real devotee and the donation to the deserving priest becomes fruitful. Then only, the Hindu religion will rise from the present lowest level to the highest level, which existed once upon a time in ancient India. Fortunately, other religions do not have this problem because even today, the hymns recited from their scriptures, are in their mother tongues only.

While serving the food, you should request the guests to observe the served items before they start eating so that if any item is allergic, it can be removed from the plate. Nobody should leave any food item after eating, which is greatest sin. The cook should prepare the food in a careful way so that the items are properly prepared. After cooking or during the process of cooking, a spoon of the item can be removed separately and tasted for addition of anything deficient. Tasting the food in this way is not wrong since there is no contamination with the hand that touches the mouth during tasting. If the food is not properly prepared and is thrown away by the people, the sin goes to the cook. Anyway utmost care should be taken in not wasting the food.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-Prasad