Art of Living - Heart of Loving

Blind Bond

Even big scholars are attracted to the family bonds blindly in the name of tradition and finally are falling in well. Kunti was a great devotee of Lord Krishna. But she was attached to Dhrutarashtra and Gandhari in the name of traditional practice. Dhrutarashtra was blind. Gandhari covered her eyes with a piece of cloth. Both were blind because they were supporting their devil son Duryodhana. Kunti neither stayed with her son Dharma Raja (Deity of justice) nor with Krishna, the Lord. When Dhrutarashtra and Gandhari were caught in the fire in forest, Kunti was also burnt in that fire. So one must cut the blind bonds in the family. The bond shall be with Lord or attached with at least Justice. Association should be decided by wisdom and not by blind tradition.

Spiritual Effort

In spiritual effort, everybody is independent. Even the wife cannot get share in the spiritual effort from her husband. The share may be in the religious rituals, which gives temporary heaven. To reach God, everyone is isolated with his or her personal effort only. The Gita says the same thing ‘Uddharet’. You can advise your wife to follow the spiritual path but you cannot give any share from your spiritual effort.

Lord is Kindest

In the forest, sages asked the Lord to accept them as wives, since they can become women by their superpower. Lord did not agree to this and postponed to next birth. Then sages were after the Lord. Later on, Lord was born as Krishna and the sages were born as maidens. Krishna was after those maidens. The whole picture was reversed. Why? The kindest Lord protected the prestige of sages in the eyes of the world. When sages were after Him in the previous birth, He was alone with them. See the kindness of Lord towards His devotee!

Fasting

Upavasa (Fasting) means forgetting food, when you are immersed in God. (Upa = Near God, Vasa = Immersed). But today people are fasting by force, suffering with hunger. This is not Upavasa. When you do such fasting, Yogi Vemana says ‘Kūḍu viḍaci malamu kuducurā upavāsai’. This means a little excretory matter is leftover in the digestive system after motion. When you fast, the digestive system assimilates this little excretory matter. So, on that fasting day, one has eaten the excretory matter instead of food!

Similarly, if you do not get sleep due to thinking of God, that is Jagaranam (not sleeping in the night). But people are stopping their sleep by force.

There should not be force to stop eating or sleeping. If they are stopped without force, automatically due to immersion in God and then only Upavasa and Jagaranam are fruitful. Aspiring some benefit, people are doing Upavasa and Jagaranam by force. Such acts are waste and useless. The right knowledge is necessary in any religious deed.

Caste System

This is the cancer for Hinduism. The Gita says ‘Cāturvarṇyam…’, i.e., the four castes are created based on their qualities and deeds. Veda says ‘Brāhmaṇo'sya…’ i.e., the four castes are born from the four parts of the body of God. All of them are brothers as God is Father of all the human beings as the Gita says ‘Ahaṃ Bīja’. They are like present teaching community, doctor community etc., based on their talents and profession. Greatness is not by birth but by the work done as said ‘Janmanā jāyate…’. Rama and Krishna are non-brahmins whose feet are washed by Brahmins today in temples. Ravana was a Brahmin and he did not have any temple. Does this not clearly show that Hinduism is not based on the caste?

The untouchability is also meaningless. Shabari and Kannappa (hunter) are the so-called untouchables, whose photos are present along with God in the house of every Hindu. Suuta belonging to a low caste was made the president of a sacrifice performed by sages (Refer Bhagavatam). The actual meaning of untouchability is forgotten. A very bad student is expelled from school for a change in him. Similarly, very bad people were expelled from the village, expecting a change in them. This is the actual sense of untouchability. It belongs to an individual. The son need not be untouchable. The son of Hiranyakashipu (demon) Prahlada, need not be a demon. Prahlada was very pious. Datta came in the form of untouchable, and preached Shankara, and Shankara fell on the feet of Datta, which proves that an individual is not untouchable.

Even if you argue that according to the Gene theory a man of a particular caste is getting the qualities of all his ancestors and so caste is based on the birth. Even then you are finding good and bad qualities in all the castes. Can you show Me a caste, which is completely good or bad? We must give the value to good qualities as in the case of Rama and Krishna and reject bad in the case of Ravana. Due to Rama the entire Kshatriya caste is not good. Due to Ravana, the entire Brahmins are not bad. Analyse any individual independently and respect or discard him by his qualities and deeds and not by birth.

Energy And Work

In Science the first law of Thermodynamics shows that heat = Rise in internal energy + work done. Now, you have taken food which gives 100 calories of energy to you. If you make rise in internal energy (tension) as zero, all the energy supplied = work. You will do the work to your level best. The Gita says the same thing. ‘Karmaṇyevādhikāraste…’ i.e., concentrate all your energy in work only. The Gita says that tension becomes zero, when you do not spend any energy (thinking) for the sake of fruit of that work. On the day of examination, the student spends all his energy in this tension and his brain does not work in the interview. Don’t think about the fruit. Tension becomes zero. Then your work is maximum. This is the clue of success in your worldly life and also in spiritual life.

In spiritual line, your energy is wasted in 1) watching cinemas, 2) watching Televisions, 3) reading waste books and 4) talking unnecessarily, which neither helps here nor there. These four are the divine dancers called Rambha etc., to spoil and fail you to achieve success in this world or to achieve God.

A beggar praises you for food. You are rejecting him. A guest comes to see you and not for food. You are treating the guest in excellent manner. Similarly, you must approach God as guest and not as a beggar.

Nara And Narayana

Nara is a man. Rama acted as Nara only. His Godliness was hidden in Him like the sugar inside a wheat cover. Unless you cut with your teeth you cannot get the sweet. The Ramayanam is that type of sweet. Narayana is superman. Lord Narayana is like candy sugar. The Bhagavatam is like this. Only angels and sages can take the sugar directly. Coming to the Bharatam it is mixture of the story of Pandavas and the story of Lord Krishna. It is like what flour mixed with sugar in a sweet (Laddu). For human beings, both man (Nara) and superman (Narayana) are mixed as human incarnation as in Lord Krishna. Human beings cannot tolerate Narayana with His intensive divine qualities like the candy sugar. They cannot relish an ordinary human being like tasteless wheat flour. They can relish a human incarnation in which both the normal properties of Nara and divine properties of Narayana are mixed, which is like Laddu prepared by mixing sugar and wheat flour. Hence, human incarnations are mixture of Nara and Narayana in various propositions, which are Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha etc.

Rama And Krishna

Rama came to teach Pravrutti, which is the way to live in this world peacefully selecting justice and discarding injustice. Krishna came to teach ‘Nivrutti’, which is the way to reach God by selecting God only if there is a competition between God and justice. God is the highest and He protects even the justice. Protector is greater than the protected.

Sages in the forest asked Rama that they will become women by their superpower and get rid of the male egoism. Rama told that unless they are born as woman, they couldn’t get rid of male egoism. Accordingly, sages were born as Gopikas (ladies serving cows) and got rid of the male egoism. But they got the natural jealousy of woman. Headache disappeared but Malaria appeared. Hence Lord Krishna danced with all the Gopikas together to remove the jealousy from the heart of each Gopika. This is the aim of His dancing with all the Gopikas together (Raasakeli) in Brindavanam gardens. Thus, Raasakeli was a training program to remove jealousy from the hearts of the sages. God belongs to all devotees equally. When egoism is removed the soul becomes sage ‘Atri’ and when the jealousy is removed the soul becomes Anasuya. Atri and Anasuya only achieve Datta (God).

Service (Karma Yoga)

Knowledge means preaching others and not to know by himself. Love means loving others and not to be loved by others. If you love others, others will love you. So loving is the characteristic property of love. Bliss is giving happiness to others and not to be happy. Knowledge, Love and Bliss are the characteristic properties of Datta (God), which contain the sacrifice. By these three qualities only, you have to recognize the human form of Datta. Datta means sacrifice (donation).

Sacrifice (Datta) is the essence of the whole path to reach God. 1) Sacrifice of work (Karma Samnyaasa), 2) Sacrifice of fruit of work i.e., money (Karma Phala Tyaaga). Both these put together are called Karma yoga (service). These are the two eyes of God. Without these two there is no use of prayers, meditation etc., which are only the sacrifice of words and mind only. Lord gives you His grace and that grace is nothing but the fruit of the service in the above two ways. So whenever God shows grace on some person people should understand that such grace is the fruit of service of that person only. Lord is giving your own fruit only from His pocket and not His own fruit. You can earn this fruit only by your service and which is deposited in the pocket of the Lord. Lord does not give His grace to anybody simply by praise or expression of feeling or weeping or begging. He is impartial and cannot be prejudiced or fooled. He is the cleverest judge.

You cannot fool Him by praise (kaka) or by expressing feelings (artificial love) or by weeping (kindling His kindness) to any extent. Hanuman never did such low things in the presence of Rama as per Valmiki Ramayana. He served Rama, the then human incarnation in His work and stood like a majestic Hero always. He was given the fruit of His sacrifice i.e., the position of creator (Brahma), which He never aspired. So recognize the human form of God present before you and participate in His work doing service (Karma Yoga). Never weep, never beg, never praise Him and never do any other type of worship. Serve Him in His work without aspiring anything in return. Hanuman did only three things as per Valmiki Ramayana. 1) He recognized the human incarnation not by His miracles. In fact Hanuman Himself knows all the miracles. 2) He participated in the work of that human incarnation with full sacrifice. He had no personal work except the work of the Lord. 3) He never aspired any fruit for His service. He was given the highest fruit.