Essence of Worship of Lord Satya Narayana Swami

Kishore Ram asked: Please explain the inner essence of the worship of Lord Satya Narayana, which is frequently done by several people in this country.

Swami Replied: A few days back, one person came to My house requesting Me to act as a priest for this worship saying that on that day priests were not available. I agreed to be the priest. Then, he asked Me “How much is Your fees?”. I replied “the fees is according to your capacity (Yathaa Shakti) and according to your impression on Me (Yathaa Bhakti). Between these two, whichever is lower, that must be followed by you. I will explain this point. You may have high capacity (100 rupees) but if you have a low impression about Me (10 rupees), you must give as per the low impression (10 rupees). If you have low capacity (10 rupees) and have high impression about Me (100 rupees), you must give Me as per the lower capacity (10 rupees). If the capacity and the impression are equal, there is no problem and you can give Me as per that capacity equal to impression. If your capacity is zero, you give Me one salutation (Namaskara) and I will bless you. This is the code of conduct of a priest that was followed by sages in our ancient India”. The person became very happy and took Me to his house and I performed the worship. At the end of the worship, stories present in five chapters are to be informed by the priests to the gathering. The stories are in the following manner:

a) First and Second Stories: A priest was very poor and was suffering with a severe poverty. God appeared in the form of an old priest and asked him to do this worship. The priest performed the worship and became very rich. One seller of sticks suffering with severe poverty came to the priest and heard about the worship from him. He also performed the worship in his home and became very rich.

b) Third Story: A king called Ulkaamukha also performed this worship on the banks of the river called Bhadrasheela and got his desires fulfilled.

c) Fourth Story: A business man called as Sadhu approached the above king and learnt about this worship. He came to his home and declared that he will do this worship if he gets issues. He got a daughter and his wife reminded him about the worship. The merchant declared that he will do this worship if his daughter is married with a good groom. His daughter was married with a good person. Even then, he did not perform the worship. God became furious and when this merchant went to another city for business along with his son-in-law, both were arrested and imprisoned by the king without enquiry. Then, his wife and daughter also became poor and somehow got reminded of the worship, which was performed by both subsequently. God entered the dream of the king and ordered him to relieve the merchant and son-in-law. Both were relieved and were returning with their ship containing lot of wealth. A saint appeared before them and enquired about the material present in the ship. The merchant told that some leaves and branches exist in the ship. When the merchant went inside the ship, he found all the wealth turned into branches and leaves. The merchant came out and fell on the feet of saint. The saint reminded about the worship, which was immediately performed by the merchant along with the family. The merchant was totally reformed by God.

d) Fifth Story: A king called Tungadhwaja went to forest and found some cowherds doing the worship. They brought some offering to God for the sake of the king. The king, due to ego of caste and wealth rejected it and went away. The king was surrounded by many tragedies, who returned to the forest and took the offering to God with apology.

I explained the essence of these stories in the following way:

a) The first two stories reveal that a poor man worshipping God even before receiving the fruit of the worship. The poor man is justified to worship God after receiving the fruit (wealth) since he can’t afford to do the worship due to poverty. Inspite of this, the worship was performed even before receiving the fruit. Imagine that if such poor person is not blessed with the fruit after worship, the heavy expenses in the worship will turn him to become more poor. But the poor person has full faith on God that God will certainly grant him the fruit. The faith was not let down by God.

A higher stage than this poor man is that in which a poor man performs this worship without aspiration for any fruit from God. The reason of such performance of worship is real love and real attraction towards the personality of God. Such stage of devotion is climax and a story of this highest stage was not revealed here because it is very very rare in this world. The human being performs such sacrifice only to his personal family and God is never equal to the level of family-bond. The human being is speaking lies in the prayers by saying that God is above everybody and everything!

b) The third story related to a rich king performing worship for the fruit is explained next which is a lower level than the first two stories. The reason is that those two persons performed worship in spite of their severe poverty even before obtaining their fruit. One is not sure about the fruit after worship. Inspite of this lack of assurance and inspite of their severe poverty to do the worship, the worship was performed by them due to their love and faith towards God. This king also performed worship before getting the fruit and this shows his immense faith in God. But performance of worship does not affect the king in any way since he is very rich. Hence, the level in this case is next to the level of above mentioned two poor people.

c) The merchant is very greedy. He doubts about the fruit after the worship. If the worship is done before getting the fruit, the expenses may become waste if the fruit is not received after the worship. Even in a shop, you get the item first and then only pay its rate. The merchant believes the consumer. This merchant kept God in a lower position than a business-man selling items in the shop! God blessed the merchant with a daughter. The merchant again declared that when his daughter gets a good groom in the marriage, he will perform the worship. This is against the ethics of even basic business. You want to get two items for the payment of rate of one item! God gave him a good son-in-law. Even then, the merchant did not perform worship and this shows the atheistic tendency. Due to this, the merchant suffered a lot. Finally, the merchant insulted the saint (devotee of God). For that, he was severely punished. He realized his greediness blended with atheism, got rectified himself and finally was blessed by God.

Upto this, the stories revealed the effect of greediness in the spiritual effort.

d) The final story deals with the ego of the king due to his upper caste and high wealth. The Gita says that the caste is to be decided by qualities and deeds only. The ego of birth and wealth are very dangerous and lead to immediate fall. This story deals with the effect of ego in the spiritual effort.

In this worship Lord Satya Narayana is explained to have white colour (Shukla varnam…) whereas Narayana is in blue colour. Satya Narayana means true Narayana. Does this mean that Satya Narayana is true God and Narayana is false God? No. Satya Narayana is the first energetic incarnation into which the unimaginable God entered and merged with it. This first energetic incarnation is called as ‘Datta’ and it is attributed by the word truth. This means that this incarnation will never end. This Satya Narayana (Datta) entered into another energetic form called as Vishnu (Narayana) and this second energetic incarnation will dissolve in the first energetic form in the final dissolution of creation. The same Datta entering into one energetic form called as Brahma is known as Hiranyagarbha. The same Datta entering another energetic form called Shiva is known as Sadaashiva. Thus, this Datta or Satya Narayana is the original eternal energetic incarnation of God appearing as the three subsequent energetic forms called as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Hence, you will find this form of Satya Narayana in a holy place called as Annavaram as these three in one unit (Hari Hara Hiranyagarbhaatmaka). Datta is not the name since it means that through this first energetic form the unimaginable God is given (Datta) to the creation with a proper address. This Datta also enters certain human forms (devotees) to become human incarnation. The white colour of this Datta indicates the white energy including all the colours.

When I explained this essence to the gathering in this way, all the devotees felt very much enlightened and encouraged in these spiritual path. Every priest shall enlighten the spiritual knowledge while performing any worship or ritual. The human beings progress towards God only through spiritual knowledge. Any human being, who does the propagation of the spiritual knowledge to lead people towards God, is called as a true priest or Brahmana (Brahma nayati iti). The priest must not have even a trace of his view on the earnings through the performance of ritual. If the priest performs this duty in true sense, God will bless him with immense wealth and also with protection here as well as there. God will inspire the people to reward the priest in excellent manner. The omnipotent God can give anything anywhere at any time. The priest shall never be worried about the livelihood and required wealth. He shall never ask the Guru Dakshina as fees! Today, the ritual is performed in a mechanical way without the preaching of the inner sense, which is the essence or spiritual knowledge. This is the most unfortunate aspect of the Hindu religion because neither the priest nor the gathering understands anything from the blind recitation of the scripture from the mouth of the alive priestly tape recorder!

At service of Lord Datta Swami

-Prasad

Cow slaughter

Cow is an animal of soft nature, which does not harm you in anyway. But, there are other soft natured animals also like goat, deer etc. The basic law is that you can kill even a human being if that human being is attacking your life. The same applies to any living being. You can kill a tiger or a lion or a wolf, which will certainly attack you even if you do not harm it. Applying this basic law, it is not justified to kill any soft natured animal, which does not harm you. You may argue that you are killing it for the sake of your food. You may say that you have to save your life by the food only and hence it is inevitable. I agree if the situation is like that in which you are unable to get food by any alternative way and you have to save your life in draught by killing even a soft natured animal. This is justified as special justice in emergency (Dharmasukhma in Apatdharma). But this is not justified when God has given plenty of alternative food. You may argue that even cutting the paddy etc, is also slaughtering living beings because plant has life. Here, you must distinguish life from awareness. Life is only an inert mechanism of taking oxygen and leaving carbon dioxide. In view of this, plants are said to be living beings. But, there is no development of this life into advanced stage called as awareness, which exists as mind, intelligence etc. When the awareness exists, the living being killed experiences the same pain, which you get when you are killed. There is homogeneity between yourself and zoological kingdom of life containing insects, birds, animals etc. All the plants come under a different subject called Botany in which the life is limited to simple mechanism of inert respiration only. If you have studied Botany and Zoology as different subjects, this question will not attack your mind. You may further argue that the flesh or vegetable contains the same chemical components like Carbohydrates, Proteins, Vitamins etc., and hence eating flesh and vegetable food are one and the same. I fully agree with your point and say that there is no sin in eating flesh because of the presence of same ingredients of plants. If you go to the cause of acquiring the flesh and vegetable food, an animal with awareness is killed for flesh and a plant without awareness is cut for grains. In the stage of cause, there is lot of difference because awareness exists in zoological items and the same does not exists in botanical items. You may argue that you are not directly cutting the animal for the flesh. You might have not done the sin directly, but since you are consuming the flesh, the butcher is cutting the animal. Hence, as a consumer, you are indirectly an equal participant of the sin. I do not want to enter much into ethics or scriptures in this subject. I stand simply on one point, which is that just you think that you are in the place of that animal being cut and then imagine the pain. This one point is sufficient in this subject.

Therefore, killing any soft natured animal or any soft natured human being is a sin provided it does not attack your life. Except this one point, you should not kill any human being or any soft natured zoological living being. All other reasons can be enquired by law and corresponding justified punishments other than death sentence should be given. Hence, cow slaughter is only a part of the total concept and this part should not be emphasized as the total concept. You try to extend this partial concept to the other similar items also and arrive at the general total concept. Taking the advantage of the slaughter of other soft animals, you should not kill the cow.

The fundamental cellular fluid in Botany is cytoplasm whereas the fundamental cellular fluid in Zoology is protoplasm. The neuro spot giving awareness exists even in unicellular organisms (Amoeba) of Zoology. If you justify killing of animals for the sake of food, you have to simultaneously justify the killing of human beings for food by demon or present carnivorous human beings present in the forest. Kaapaalikas eating the dead bodies of human beings are justified. Proteins primarily synthesized in plants are good for health whereas proteins re-synthesized in flesh are not good for health. Bhagavan Shri Satya Sai Baba even as a boy used to become curious if a bull of cart was beaten. The highest justice is non-violence (Ahimsa paramo dharmah…). If you say that you will kill the animal by giving anesthesia, it is also not justified because you have no right to take away the God given life from its enjoyment. Will you justify your killing also by the demon if anesthesia is given to you? In such case, even an atheist will argue such human killing is unjust!

Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was found killing blood (bed) bugs in His cot. The blood (bed) bug or a mosquito can be killed harming you seriously. But, non-harming ant or butterfly etc., should not be killed. Bhagavan Shri Shirdi Saibaba showed the wound on His body when a devotee beat a buffalo. By this, He is preaching that human being doing violence should keep in the place of victim and imagine the suffering of the violence. Can He be a non-vegetarian as some people criticize? Buddha left this family life on seeing when a swan was shot. In the Valmiki Ramayanam, an inserted incident was told that Rama killed a deer in Panchavati forest. He killed certainly the golden deer since He knows it as a demon in disguise. Rama was never a non-vegetarian as spoken in the Valmiki Ramayana itself (Na maamsam Raghavo Bhunkte…). Even Jesus, the embodiment of love, was not a non-vegetarian and reports otherwise are false, which were created by the non-vegetarian followers only. Mahavir preached extreme non-violence by restricting the justified non-violence also so that people will not do atleast the justified non-violence. Here, (n+1) rule applies, which is to preach the highest goal so that atleast high and higher goals are achieved by the followers.

Non-violence is the fundamental justice and no divine scripture in the world can preach atleast the justified non-violence. Scriptures are polluted by the insertions done by the followers and hence, logical analysis is the ultimate filter to reject such insertions. Sometimes the human incarnation may not oppose such fundamental non-violence also since it is strongly established. The human incarnation may neglect even such fundamental issue in view of concentration on other issues so that when other issues are rectified, this fundamental issue can be taken by next human incarnation in course of time. Such fundamental strong issue is dealt by partial controls step by step. The scripture says that fish should not be captured on holy days in holy places. This is a partial control in the initial stage. Finally, the scripture preaches the step called as ‘Mahavratam’, which is not to catch the fish in any place on any day. Full and permanent reformation on any issue can come only through the divine scriptural knowledge. Enforcement through rules can bring only partial and temporary control.