How the physical pain received by a person can be enjoyed?

[Q] Shri Anil asked, ‘Several people are asking that how the physical pain received by a person can be enjoyed?’ This question is with reference to the New year message given by Swami for 2012.

Swami replied: There are several illustrations to prove that the physical pain can be also enjoyed. In boxing, when the opponent embraces you strongly, you feel unhappy because such a situation leads to your defeat. But, when you are embraced by a beautiful girl, you feel more happiness and the degree of your happiness is proportional to the strength of the embracement!. Therefore, the physical pain in one situation is unhappy, whereas the same physical pain in another situation leads to happiness. Even when you eat the hot dish, your tongue is burning due to the vigor of chillies and your eyes are showering the tears. All these symptoms are the indication of unhappiness only. But still you enjoy the happiness in eating the hot dish. Therefore, you cannot link the enjoyment with mere external material. Ofcourse, the external material gives rise to the feeling and the feeling may be pleasant or unpleasant depending on one factor, which is that whether the external material is interacted continuously or not. If you are interacting with any item or situation of the creation continuously, you become unhappy. Even the embracement of the beautiful girl becomes unpleasant, if such embracement continues without gap. If you are exposed to the heat for a long time you feel happiness in cold as in the case of the Indian. If you are exposed to cold for a long time you feel happiness in the warmness and heat as in the case of a foreigner. Hence the process of enjoyment depends on the alternating interaction with the external items or situations in this world. Hence, any continuous interaction with the same item or situation gives unhappiness, whereas the change in the interaction gives happiness. 

God is the Father of the souls and hence arranges the life cycles of the souls with alternating pleasant and unpleasant scenes. Even though you have done sins continuously for some long span of time and good deeds continuously in another long span of time, God does not arrange the life cycles with the continuous misery and continuous happiness proportionally in corresponding long spans of time. God neglects this continuous span of time and arranges the life cycle in such a way so that every life cycle is fixed with alternating fruits of sins and good deeds. The re-arrangement of the good and bad fruits in alternating fashion by drawing good and bad fruits from both these span is done by God, who is omnipotent. You may expect God to cancel all the sins due to His omnipotent nature. If it is done like that, you will not enjoy since continuity of anything leads to misery. Hence even in such case, misery is inevitable. Therefore, if you do not pray God for removing the miseries, God has already arranged the life cycles in best way to give you continuous enjoyment. You are praying God to remove the difficulties, which are the fruits of your bad deeds. The law of justice does not accept the cancellation of the fruit of any deed. Hence, due to your prayers the difficulties are postponed to later births by God along with compounded interest. You also pray God to give continuous happiness. For this God, draws the good fruits from the future births with reduced interest to the present life cycle. Due to such continuous enjoyment of good fruits, you are again bored with misery. Hence, you are totally foolish in disturbing the already designed life cycles of God. As a result of this foolishness your future births will be full of continuous miseries. The continuity of the misery gives you unhappiness just like the continuity of happiness. Therefore, pray God always attracted by your love to His divine personality and not for disturbing the already best designed life cycles by God due to His paternal affection. Therefore, you will be continuously happy by enjoying the alternating pleasant and unpleasant scenes of life and by not asking anything from God.

Shri Anil asked Swami, ‘How to help the foolish people who are caught by such continuous troubles in their life from birth to death?’

Swami replied: If such people happen to do some good deeds, the good fruits of such good actions will be immediately introduced to give a break in the continuous suffering. God is always positive and tries to help His children even if there is a trace of possibility. But, remember one thing, that God will not do anything by your simple continuous praise in prayers. Unless some good deed exists, His hands are tightened. When Draupadi cried praying Lord Krishna for help, the Lord immediately verified her account book to see whether there is any credit of her good deed. The Lord found such credit which was infinitely multiplied by Him into infinite number of saris. The infinite multiplication can be done by God provided there is some basic credit from your side. Hence, you should always believe in practical philosophy than continuous begging and weeping before God through prayers. The practical philosophy can be according to your level and you need not worry about its magnitude since God can multiply it to the required extent. But, the extent of practical philosophy should not be below your capability imagining that God will multiply to any extent. The realization of all these concepts is called as Jnana Yoga or knowledge. The praise of God through prayers without any aspiration in return is called as Bhakti Yoga or Devotion. The implementation of the practical sacrifice is called as Karma Yoga or action, which alone is the fundamental basis for God to bless you.

In any case, the practical sacrifice should be without any aspiration in return. Draupadi sacrificed a piece of her valuable sari to bind the wound of the finger of the Lord without any aspiration in return. Even when she cried for help, she never thought about it since she did it without any expectation in return. Practical service to the society without the name of God gives you temporary heaven. The same service in the name of God brings the grace of God so that when you are ripened, God comes down in the human form to receive your service directly. If you are serving the humanity in the name of God, you will render the service to God in human form even if you don’t recognize Him. Serving the humanity removes the inherent repulsion to a co-human being due to ego and jealousy. Service to all the living beings is the basis since it is the starting stepping stone by which the service to inert statues and photos is stopped. Such service to inert objects is waste since the service is not received by the receiver. However, even such service is inevitable in the case of beginners, who are unable to eradicate their ego and jealousy towards living beings and especially to the human form of life.

At lotus feet of Shri Dattaswami

-Durgaprasad

Karma, Jnana Yoga and Karma Yoga

90% of Veda describes the process of preparing food from materials and this is called as Dravya Yajna or karma Yajna. Only 10% involves the process of analysis of spiritual knowledge as Upanishads and this is called as Jnana Yajna. Veda gives importance to karma. But, in Gita Lord said that jnana is better than karma (Shreyaan…). How to resolve this contradiction?

First, you must differentiate karma and karma yoga. In both, the process of involvement of materials is one and the same. Preparation of food is common in both. But, in karma, the prepared food is eaten by yourself, your family members, relatives and friends. In karma yoga, the prepared food is practically sacrificed to God. I mention the word ‘practical sacrifice to God’ here because the intellectual people started sacrificing food theoretically to God by offering to God through the posture of moving the hand and then the practical sacrifice is done to themselves only. This is an intellectual interpretation to get the fruit without the actual action. The Advaita philosophers have gone to the climax and offer the food to themselves theoretically also since they themselves are assumed as God by themselves. The meaning of pancha ahutis (pranaya svaaha … etc.) before taking food is offering of food to themselves assuming themselves as God. Such actions fall under karma only and not under karma yoga. Karma yoga means sacrifice of materials like food etc., practically to God. The conversion of karma to karma yoga can be achieved only through jnana yoga, which is the analysis to find out the truth. Therefore, what Gita says is that jnana yoga is better than karma. What Veda says is that karma yoga is better than jnana yoga and hence gives more stress on karma yoga than jnana yoga. If you think that karma and karma yoga are one and the same, this contradiction will come. In karma yoga also, the karma, which is the processing of the materials is present and by this you should not mistake karma yoga as karma. Gita says that both scholar and ignorant person do the same karma. But, since the karma (action) of the scholars is not selfish, it becomes karmayoga, whereas the same karma of the ignorant person remains as karma only since it is selfish (saktaah….). In Veda the 90% description is about karma yoga and not about karma. Yajna or sacrifice involves the processing of materials for the sake of practical sacrifice to God. When God is unimaginable how practical sacrifice is possible?. Based on this point, intellectuals try to escape from the practical sacrifice to God. They say ‘Is God directly receiving the materials?.’ This is only an excuse to cover up their selfishness.

In fact, the basic point that God is unimaginable and hence does not receive your service and sacrifice directly is really serious. Based on this, people started criticizing the exploitation done in the name of God. But, the careful analysis shows that the tradition is not blind. There are two types of service to God. The first type is called as “ Prateeka Upasanam”, which means the service to a representative model for God. But the model should be alive and deserving. Hence, service to statues and photos is not wise since the materials are wasted. But, this becomes inevitable in the case of a beginner. The methods involve defects in the stage of beginners ( Sarvarambha hi…Gita). Hence, the model can be selected from living entities. If you select a devotee for this purpose, God is always pleased that His devotee is served. Even if you serve God directly, the ultimate is only pleasing the God. Hence, you need not differentiate a devotee from the Human incarnation in doing the service. According to sage Narada, God lives in devotees also apart from human incarnations (Tanmayah….). In such case, service to devotees also becomes direct service to God. The worship to Hanuman is as good as worship to Rama. Therefore, select the available best devotee for your service. The Human incarnation is always not available for every one. The second type of worship is called as “sakshat upasanam”, which means direct worship of God through contemporary human incarnation. Veda and Gita say that God enters the creation through human form       ( Tadevanu Pravishat, Manushim Tanum…). The advita philosophers gave a trickish interpretation that God enters the creation in every human form. In such case, he himself being one of the human beings is God. Hence, self eating also becomes offering to God. You can never fool God since He is omniscient. All this means that you can serve God directly through practical sacrifice. Such practical sacrifice to a deserving devotee or human incarnation is called as Yajna, which is the karma yoga. Hence, there is  no contradiction between Gita and Veda since both say that knowledge (Jnana) is better than selfish action (karma) and the action involving sacrifice to God (karma yoga) is better than knowledge.

If you are serving the needy without the involvement of God, it is social service which is also good. But, it gives only a temporary heaven and not the abode of God (ksheene punye… Gita). You can help the needy to bring peace in their lives by solving their problems like hunger etc. but subsequently impart divine knowledge on them and transform them into devotees. Such social service pleases God and is also called as Yajna.

(Taken from Discourses of Shri Dattaswami)

At the lotus feet of Shri Dattaswami

-Prasad

Wishing a happy new year??? Read this.

[January 01, 2012, Message taken from Discourses of Shri Dattaswami]
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

The human being is reluctant to miseries and enjoys the happy situation. The human being can be compared to an ignorant child, who enjoys the sweets only and is reluctant to chillies. Hence, such a human being is ignorant. The grown up adult enjoys both sweets and chillies in the meals. Similarly, a realized soul enjoys both happy situation and miseries in the life. Therefore, it is only ignorance, which is the inability of art of enjoyment. God created this world with happiness and misery. People enjoy the cinema, which contains both pleasant scenes and tragic scenes. Similarly, people enjoy both sweet dishes and hot dishes in the meals. People enjoy the day and night. People enjoy the hot summer and the cold winter. The whole life and creation is full of alternating happiness and misery. If a person can enjoy both happy times and miseries in the life, he is equal to God. You may say that God enjoys the creation from outside. God also enters the creation in the form of human incarnation and enjoys both pleasant times and miseries in the life span. We see this truth in the life history of Rama and Krishna. Therefore, if you always crave for happiness only and reject miseries, it is unnatural and also ignorance of a child. The knowledge of the Gita preaches that you should enjoy even a top most misery, which is the time of death.

If you enjoy both miseries and happy situations, you are in a continuous state of enjoyment. You think that continuous enjoyment comes only through continuous times of happiness in the life. It is not correct. You get bored if you are served only with sweet dishes in the meals. Boring is misery. Therefore, misery is inevitable like summer after winter and winter after summer. The Indians denote happiness through cooling. The foreigners represent happiness through warming, which is heat. Therefore, the happiness to one is misery to the other. What is the reason? The foreigner is mainly exposed to winter, which bores him. Therefore, for a foreigner, the heat is happiness. The Indian is mainly exposed to summer and therefore, cool atmosphere is happiness to him. This is a practical proof that the enjoyment is not confined to happy scene or tragic scene only. This also proves that you can enjoy both happiness and misery. Therefore, it is ignorance to ask God for removal of misery and sanction of continuous happiness. Happiness should lie in the process of enjoyment. Whether it is misery or happiness, you will find real happiness in the process of enjoyment of both. The happiness neither lies in the sweet dish nor in the hot dish. The happiness lies in the process of eating the dish, which may be hot or sweet. If this secret of life is known, you will never pray God for removal of problems and tensions. You will enjoy the problems and tensions and hence, there is nothing to pray God for something. Your prayer to God must be due to your attraction to Him for His excellent personality. Your praise of God must be based on your love for His divine personality. But, today we find most of the people praying God for sanction of continuous sweet dishes. Therefore, the desire for something gets smashed if you know the secret of this concept. Hence, there is no meaning in wishing somebody for a happy new year because continuous happiness bores and leads to misery only. The aspiration for continuous happiness through out the year is based on foolishness and ignorance.

On the New Year, you must pray God thinking His divine personality and get attracted for His divine quality. You must at least achieve one of His basic qualities, which is enjoying both happy scenes and tragic scenes in the creation. On the Telugu New Year day, people generally take sweets and sour items mixed as offering of God (Prasadam), which shows the same concept of enjoyment of both happy and tragic movements in the life. This is the divine knowledge in nutshell present in all the divine scriptures of all religions. This is essence of the Gita preached by Lord Krishna. He enjoyed continuously in His life and even in the last situation, when He was shot dead by a hunter. This is essence to be learnt and practiced by every human being in this world. This is message of Lord Dattatreya to this entire humanity on the eve of this New Year 2012.

At lotus feet of Shri Dattaswami

-Durgaprasad