What is real Sanyasa?

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,[April 18, 2010] Sage Parashara banned the Sanyasa (leaving the family wearing saffron cloth) in this Kali Yuga, since the mentalities of all the people is changed. The saint is cheating the public after teaching the spiritual knowledge. The public is also very much interested to investigate the real color of a false saint than to hear the spiritual knowledge. The devotee approaches the saint after hearing one speech, addressing him as God. The devotee does not stand on this opinion for a long time and changes very shortly. The devotee should take long time to observe the saint through analysis before addressing as God (Swami ji). Therefore, the standards are not maintained on both sides and hence the sage banned the saffron cloth.

    Sanyasa means both attachment and detachment. It means both attachment to God and detachment from the world. The internal attachment to God is important, which is indirectly measured by the external detachment from the world.  You are not eating the food since you are engaged deeply in your studies. Your absorption in your studies is indicated by your fast. But, you may fast even if your stomach is suffering with some problem. You may also fast due to absorption in reading a novel. Therefore, your fast cannot exactly specify your studies. The fast can indicate various reasons. Arjuna wanted to leave the battle due to blind love on his grandfather and not due to detachment from kingdom. Therefore, Krishna advised him to fight the battle because his mind was not attached to God resulting in detachment from kingdom. In these days, the detachment of several saints is due to several reasons and cannot be attributed to real absorption in God. There is nothing wrong in marrying a girl for the sake of association, which helps in several aspects. If your wife is also spiritual interested and if you are engaged in thinking about God with the help of discussions with your wife, such a married life is real sanyasa. In sanyasa also, you have to be in association with several devotees to discuss about God. If you are wearing saffron cloth to achieve money, fame etc., such a state is worse than the state of householder. If you are engaged in worldly affairs always through the discussions with your wife, you will be born again and again in this world only and this is the normal middle level. Therefore, turning your family into devotees is the first step in the spiritual path. If your wife and children become devotees to God and participate in spiritual debates with you, you will reach the goal of a true saint.

    The main duty of a saint is to propagate the spiritual knowledge in this world and for this purpose sanyasa is taken. In olden days, the person has to travel by feet from one place to the other and therefore the family-life became inconvenient to take up such long tedious journey. Today there is no such need because you can travel to far places within very short time. You can convey your arguments through computer and receive the counter arguments from the other people through the same computer within no time. Such facilities made the propagation of knowledge very easy task and hence today there is no need of leaving the family for the sake of propagation of knowledge. Even from this angle also, you can be a saint in doing the duties of a saint while remaining with your family. You need not leave the family in physical sense. When God competes with your family to test your devotion, you can prove your real attachment to God and subsequent detachment from the family. Sanyasa means internal attachment to God and internal detachment from the world including your family, which can be proved externally in the time of test. Saktuprasta was a householder and passed the test of God. He reached the abode of God (Brahmaloka) along with his family and such fortune was not seen even in the case of several saints. All his family members were strong devotees to God and co-operated with him to succeed in the divine test. It is always better to become a householder and mould the family to the spiritual side. Then you will get the advantages from all sides. Doubting your ability to mould the family, if you avoid marriage, it is just like burning the house for the fear of rats. God Brahma told Narada that Krishna was the real sanyasin. Krishna was always fond of ladies and Narada was surprised about this statement. You can see the true color of Krishna, who watched the mutual assassination of all his family members without any interference. He was after Gopikas only to test the attachment to their families. Gopikas recognized Him as God and this point is revealed in their songs (Gopika Geetha) in Bhagavatam. Hence, God competed with their family bonds and those who failed in test complained to His mother with anger. Gopikas were sages in the previous life and all those lives were the study time of the academic year. The present life of Gopikas was just the time of three hour examination. Even in the past lives of sages, they were householders only and developed in association with their wives and children. In no life they were sanyasins leaving the family life. As sages their family members co-operated with them in spiritual development. But, during the time of examination, their family members opposed them because examination needs such environment. You can be tested only in the opposing circumstances.

     You need not approach only a saint for the spiritual knowledge. Krishna gave Bhagavat Gita, which is the top most spiritual knowledge and Krishna was a householder only and not a saint. Shankara was a saint and wrote commentary on Gita told by a householder! Shankara avoided the family because there were no facilities in those days in taking long travels for the propagation of spiritual knowledge. In your old age, you can limit yourself to the association of your wife only, so that both of you can participate in spiritual discussions due to old age of both of you. If you stay with your children, you will be associated with their worldly problems. This state is called as Vanaprastha. Today, people are avoiding the children due to the probable quarrel between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law or lack of freedom with the son-in-law! The old couple stays separately and thinks always about the worldly problems only. If the old wife is not co-operating with you spiritually due to her worldly attachment, you can leave her with the children and live in association with true devotees and this is the state of sanyasa. This state can happen if your old wife, who was a spiritual friend, passes away before you. This is called as Krama Mukti, which is the gradual sequential order of the life. In the present time, there is no need of leaving the family in the beginning itself like Shankara. If you cannot change your family into spiritual path, you are not competent to change the society into spiritual side. In spite of your trails to change your family in to spiritual side and if you feel the hindrance of your family in your spiritual development, you can still lead the married life taking its advantages and spend more time in association with true devotees than in the house. Of course, in extreme case of serious hindrance from your family, you can think of sanyasa as an exceptional extreme step and generally this does not happen unless it is a divine test.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-Prasad

Why God is After Money?

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,[May 19, 2006] People say that God is in money. It is correct because money is Goddess Lakshmi. Lord Narayana is always in her heart. Money is also in the heart of God because Goddess Lakshmi is in His heart. Whatever is in the heart of Lord, the same came out in His word which is the Veda. The Veda says that sacrifice of money alone can please the Lord (Dhanena Tyagenaikena). The Lord came down in human form as Lord Krishna who also told the same point with the highest intensity. The Gita, the word of Lord Krishna, says that one should sacrifice the entire money possessed by one, to please the Lord (Sarva karmaphala tyagam). Jesus told a rich man to sacrifice all the wealth possessed by him. Lord Vishnu said the same in the Vishnu Puranam “Yasyaanugrahamichchami Tasya Vittam Haraamyaham”, which means that the Lord is pleased by taking away money from the devotee. The Lord is the Sadguru and one point is appreciable with Him. That is, whatever is in His heart He speaks it out. The present gurus aspire for money in the heart but speak against money in in their words. It is said that great people think, speak and do the same thing (Karmanyekam, vachasyekam, manasyekam mahaatmanaam). Whatever the Lord told, was also done by Him. The Lord came as a guest to Shaktuprastha and took all the flour from him for eating. This was when Shaktuprastha was about to eat the same, since he was suffering from starvation for the last ten days due to a drought.

Sage Vashistha asked Rama to submit Guru Dakshina (money) before preaching Jnana Vaashistham (Dhanamarjaya kakutstha) to Him. A sacrifice is useless if Dakshina is not offered (Adakshina hato yajnaha). All rituals involve the sacrifice of food and Dakshina (money). Sai Baba used to ask for Dakshina everytime [people visited Him]. Yoga Vaashistham says that money is the root of the world (dhanamoolamidam jagat). Shri Yantram [Shri Chakra] which is based on Shri (money) speaks about the importance of money. Everybody should frankly accept that everything is revolving around money. If money is not there, all the family members will leave you. Even the body leaves the soul if food (which is a form of money) is not provided. The proof of real love is only the sacrifice of hard earned money. Your real love is only for your children because all the wealth is given to them alone finally. Therefore if you say that you have real love for God, God will catch your money and will ask you to give it to Him. Your real colour will then come out. Therefore sacrifice of the fruit of work (money) is the real proof of devotion as praised in the Gita.

What is the difference between the Lord and ordinary human beings if money is only the criterion? No doubt, money is the criterion because real love is tested only by the sacrifice of money. But there is a difference between the account of God and the account of human beings. If you go to a [railway] booking clerk, he will give you a ticket for a 100 miles-distance by charging Rs. 100 and he will not ask you about the money left over in your pocket after paying the hundred rupees. He will give you a ticket for ten miles if you pay Rs. 10 and will not ask about the balance in your pocket. This is the account of human beings. But if the Lord sits in the same ticket booking window, His account is totally different. Suppose you have asked for a 100 miles-ticket. He will not tell you the fare of the ticket. He will ask you about the total amount present in your pocket. If you have only Rs 10 and pay Him all the ten rupees, He will give you a 100 mile-ticket. Suppose you have Rs. 1000 in your pocket and give Him Rs. 100, He will give you only a ten mile-ticket because you have paid 1/10th of the total money present in your pocket. This is the difference between human beings and God. God sees the extent of sacrifice but not the extent of sacrificed item.

Dharmaraja performed the Ashwamedha-sacrifice and donated a lot of wealth to the sages. Let us assume the worth of his entire wealth as 7 crores [1 crore = 10 million] in view of the value of rupee at that time. He donated wealth worth 3 crores. The Lord gave him the ticket only up to the third world which is called heaven or Swarga Loka. The Swargarohana Parva [chapter] of Mahabharatam says that Dharmaraja went only up to heaven. The top most Brahma Loka is the seventh world from earth. Therefore we would expect that the cost of the ticket for Brahma Loka is Rs 7 crores according to the account of human beings, since Brahma Loka is the seventh world from the earth. But when the Lord came in disguise of a poor hungry Brahmin to Shaktuprastha, he offered the Lord a flour-meal which was only worth of 7 rupees. According to the above account of human beings, the Lord can give a ticket for only 7 miles on earth. But the Lord gave him the ticket to Brahma Loka for the Rs. 7! Shaktuprastha sacrificed everything and nothing was left over with him [after donating the flour worth Rs. 7]. This happened to be the total sacrifice of the fruit of work which is Sarva karmaphala tyaga as mentioned in the Gita.

Shankara went to the house of a poor householder. They gave a little food from their quantum of food that was prepared at that time. He gave blessings to them. Then Shankara went to another house of a poor lady. She searched the whole house and all she found was a small dry fruit. She immediately offered that to Shankara. Other than that fruit there was nothing to eat in the house. She could have kept that for herself or her family to pacify at least a trace of their hunger. Such sacrifice is Sarva karmaphala tyaga stated in the Gita. All these donors sacrificed without expecting anything in return from the Lord and hence, the sacrifice of all these people is very pure. But the sacrifice of Shaktuprastha and that lady was not only pure but also a total sacrifice as mentioned in the Gita. Shankara recited a prayer spontaneously called as Kanaka Dhara and gold was rained in her house immediately.

Similar was the sacrifice of Sudama to whom the Lord gave immense wealth. Sudama gave a handful of parched rice to the Lord even though his family was suffering with hunger for several days. The same Sudama in childhood had stolen a handful parched rice, which was the share of the Lord and hence was hit by poverty. This shows that enjoying the wealth of others, especially the wealth of the Lord, by cheating like corruption or a business-minded attitude, will lead to severe punishment. Therefore sacrifice should be without aspiring for anything and also should be total to please the Lord. For the same reason, Jesus praised the sacrifice of one rupee of a widow, as the greatest among all the other heavy donations from rich people.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-Prasad

1st World Parliament on Spirituality: details

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
1st world parliament on Spirituality  is being held in Hyderabad during 17-21, Dec 2012. Shri Datta Swami is delivering talks on Universal spirituality and the contemporary Human incarnation of God in this parliament as per following schedule:
1) 19 Dec, 2012: During 10.00-11.30: Hall-1
2) 21 Dec, 2012: During 10.00-11.00: Hall-3

For more details visit the webpage: http://www.wpsconnect.org/home.php

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami
-Prasad

EVERY SPIRITUAL ASPIRANT MUST BE A HOUSE HOLDER

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God, [December 12, 2012] In the spiritual path, the aspirant should be in the stage of a householder (Grihastha). Then only, God can test him or her whether the human being can practically sacrifice these three strong bonds (Eeshanatrayam), which are
1)    Dhaneshana: Bond with money and wealth
2)    Daareshana: Bond with wife or husband
3)    Putreshana: Bond with issues.

When the human being is in the atmosphere of these three bonds, then only, the testing can be done by God. For this purpose, you should be a householder and not a saint, who is far from these bonds. You can evaluate a student, who has appeared for the examination and submitted the answer script. Such a student is like the householder. A saint, who avoids these bonds, is completely out of the context of testing like a student, who does not attend the examination at all. Therefore, such a saint is not greater than the householder. The student not attending the examination is not greater than even the student, who has failed after attending the examination.

Therefore, even the householder, who failed in the test of God, is greater than the saint. The saint, who thinks that he is greatest among the human beings, is totally false. There is a famous joke. One circus master is passing through burning rings by jump. He is gradually reducing the size of the burning ring and as the size decreased, more risk is faced. Hence, the public seeing this feat gave more and more claps as the size of the ring is reduced. One fellow, seeing this feat, thought that the greatness of the jumper increases as the radius of the burning ring decreases. The person thought that if the radius is zero, the jump will be greatest because the radius is in the stage of least reduction. Therefore, he made a jump without the ring at all and expected claps from the public in greatest level. But, unfortunately, not even a single person clapped! The state of such person is the state of the saint.

Gopikas were householders and reached the highest place called Goloka by sacrificing these three strong bonds for the sake of Lord Krishna. Even Hanuman married Suvarchala, the daughter of the Sun. He got a son called ‘Matsyavallabha’. This means that even Hanuman became the householder. This indicates that even Hanuman appeared for the examination. Therefore, no saint should think that the householder is lower than his or her status since the fact is that the status of the saint is lower than the status of the householder. Shankara remained as saint since He has to walk to all places in India for the propagation of spiritual knowledge and becoming a householder disturbs this Divine program. They are exceptional since they are Incarnations of God and not the normal spiritual aspirants. Every spiritual aspirant must become a householder, face the testing done by God and pass the examination.

At the lotus feet of Shri Datta Swami

-Prasad