Swami answers questions of Shri Ramakanth
1. When is the right situation to ask You something and when can we do Your service without consulting You?
[Shri Ramakanth asked:- Paadanamaskaaram, Swami. My humble salutations at Your Lotus feet🙏. I have already asked You this question, so I sincerely apologise for asking You the same question again. When I associate with few devotees for the opportunity to contribute to Your divine service, I am being told to get Your permission and only then, they will involve me in Your service. First time, I phoned to You for permission and You told me to proceed. You clearly explained me that I don't need Your permission to do Your work and also sent this answer in writing to all of us through Your website. Again, I encountered this situation recently. Hence, I phoned to You yesterday to take Your permission and You graciously gave the permission...(Click here to read full question)
These multiple incidents has led me to reflect on the devotee's perspective, who don’t want to do Your service without Your oral permission. Am I wrong or are they wrong? In one way, it looks like they are completely surrendered to You. In another way, I feel like they are just using You as a safety net by thinking, "If Swami gives permission, then it must be the right thing to do and I wouldn't waste my precious time and energy on something, which maybe prone to failure. Since He gave permission, that thing will definitely succeed. So, it's better to get a guarantee from Him first before I do something." Kindly forgive my bold and arrogant assumption here. I just want to correct my thinking and hence, putting out my thoughts before You.
My time, money, energy and entire life is very insignificant before You and I am ready to make innovative attempts in Your service even if it fails. If You don’t like what I did, I will rework on that until You are pleased. You always give the example of issue devotion. Parents find out what is needed for their child and get the best for them without asking them. Not just in childhood, even after the child is grown up, they do a lot of sacrifice for their children till they die. In my understanding, without asking You, we can also do our contribution of sacrifice (Karma Phala Tyaaga) and service (Karma Samnyaasa) to You and Your mission without bothering about permissions or success or failure of that work. After all, success in any work comes only when You show Your grace on us. One more situation is when two devotees have contrary opinions about Your work, they tend to simply say, "Please ask Swami". Every devotee wants to work in the way they think is the best and don’t agree to the other opinion to take the work forward.
In these conflicting viewpoints, I felt that as long as it's a reasonable service, which benefits Your Divine Mission without causing any trouble to You, we can proceed without taking Your permission. I feel that this falls in line with fan devotion explained by You and I am convinced by this theory that a fan does whatever he can in his power to please his hero. So, we need not phone to You, our Hero, and disturb You for everything. Few people also said, "It is just a phone call. What do we lose? Why not call Swami and then, take a decision?". Just because You shared Your phone number with all of us, is it correct to reach out to You for something we can handle on our own? Some devotees say that young devotees should always follow the senior devotees, who will be our future leaders and we should work under their guidance only. But, I am personally not convinced with this. In a conversation, Ms. Thrylokya, once told me in my initial days about how a devotee should be. I am very much attracted towards her style of doing things like a mad fan and I am personally convinced by that approach. But, when I need help and collaboration with other devotees, it is becoming inevitable for me to phone You for seeking permission in every single work. I apologise for asking Your permission on two different occasions despite knowing Your answer. I feel disturbed and hence, writing this question. My Swami, only You can do correct analysis in any topic and no one else. Hence, I want to request You to please clarify on this. When is the right situation to ask You something and when can we do Your service without consulting You?]
Swami replied:- I read your answer like a question. I like to give a question like answer. I read every word of your question with deep concern. After reading, I thought and analysed every point presented by you. What I sincerely feel is that you are perfectly correct in every point. Unless one starts the work, problems and doubts will not appear in the beginning itself. In a classroom, we have to learn the answer. In an examination, we have to answer the question. Therefore, doubting a future problem is correct in case the problem is very significant and generally, a future significant problem strikes to our mind or anybody’s mind in the beginning itself. But, sometimes even a significant problem does not strike our brain in the beginning itself and appears as we proceed in the work. Such unexpected significant problem is to be faced by analysis and by discussion with other devotees. If we discuss with our devotees about the work, sometimes they (or one of them) may suggest the possibility of a future significant problem. If the devotees ask you that whether you discussed with Me, you say “Yes! But, Swami told me to discuss with other devotees in the beginning itself and then, proceed into the work for which no permission from anybody including Swami is necessary”. Discussions with others is always good, which does not mean permissions from others including Swami.
Focus of the devotee must be on bringing perfection in the work of God and not in seeking permissions. When worship (puja) is done to the idol of God, the devotees make sure that no mistake (apacaara) happens so that God is pleased by that worship. Devotees must show the same attitude while serving the contemporary human incarnation of God because this is the real worship to God. It is wrong to think that seeking permission indicates surrender and doing work without permission is arrogance. It is the depth of your interest and your analysis in the work that will bring climax perfection in the work and pleases God ultimately. Even if a devotee gets permission from God, but does not put efforts for perfection sincerely, it will not please God. Some mistakes can happen due to limited capability of any human devotee. The devotee shall not bother about those mistakes because by the grace of God, those mistakes will naturally get rectified by themselves.
2. Why should devotees discuss astrological advice with Swami after recognizing Him as God Datta?
[Swami, I saw some devotees seeking astrological solutions for marriage, house warming, etc., from You and I felt surprised thinking “Why can’t they go to an Astrologer? Why should they discuss these things with Swami after recognizing Swami as God Datta? God Datta came down to preach excellent spiritual knowledge that gives permanent salvation to the soul. Everything else is just not His level”. Please correct me.]
Swami replied:- Higher exceptional level is different from ordinary low level. All classes exist in a school, starting from LKG to 10th standard. The teacher teaching 10th standard can also teach LKG standard. But, the reverse is not possible. Some parents may feel that their LKG kid will have a better strong foundation in case a higher standard experienced teacher takes the LKG classes. To some extent, this point is correct and to some other extent, this point is meaningless. We should take the negative side of a point and shall be prepared on that side. I also tell devotees to consult Shri Jannabhatla Veerabhadra Shastri in Astrology because I taught him the Astrological scriptures. This is to save My time and energy, which is to be used more and more in the propagation of spiritual knowledge.
3. Will Swami also feel sad for the devotee, who feels sad for staying away from Him?
[Swami, I learnt from Your spiritual knowledge that God is the reflection of the devotee (Rūpaṃ rūpaṃ pratirūpo babhūva) and God responds to us in the same way as we approach Him (Ye yathā māṃ prapadyante...—Gītā). Some of Your devotees stay close to You and some devotees stay far from You in different cities. When a devotee feels sad that he/she is away from Swami, will Swami also feel sad for the devotee, being the reflection of that devotee?]
Swami replied:- Reflection of the devotee does not mean that the Sadguru is exactly equal to every disciple. It only means that as per the problem of the devotee, the answer from the Sadguru will be in the same level. This is related to the context of preaching the subject and not in the context of total personality.
4. Kindly requesting You to provide an answer Swami, for the following.
[Swami, You clearly explained that taking dowry is wrong and in case any such amount is to be given by the bride's family side, it has to be deposited under the account of the bride only for her security and shall not be touched by the bridegroom's family. But Swami, now-a-days, we are seeing a lot of alimony cases wherein the bride and bride's family are colluding to get the bride married with a rich bridegroom and then breaking up the relationship with false allegations without any real cause in the background. Most of the cases are also won in the favour of women as it's easy to fabricate assaults on women. This happened to someone I know as well. There are many more such cases as well. Of course, alimony is for the dependent person and applicable for either spouse. After I told Your answer to someone, they asked me, "In light of possible alimony, is it still a sin to take dowry? I can keep the women and her family under check by taking at least some dowry". Kindly requesting You to provide an answer Swami. At Your feet 🙏]
Swami replied:- The answer purely depends on the individual case entangled with so many other issues. We cannot generalise and give universal opinion in this matter since no case is universal. Every case is highly specific due to specific parameters that influence the main problem in several ways. God told that any matter of any soul is not universal because it is complicated by several specific and unique factors. Every case is very deep and complicated by its specific nature and this is told by God (Gahanā karmaṇo gatiḥ…- Gita). This is the reason why a judge has to study every individual case and analyse various influential factors, which completely differ from one case to the other. In such case, how can we draw a general conclusion? Somebody may be very rich and fascinated to his sons only, who are also very capable and rich. The daughter may be poor. But, the father is not giving anything to the daughter. In this case, taking dowry from the father of the girl is very much justified provided the husband of the girl invests it in the name of the wife for her future security. If the bridegroom is very rich and the father of the girl is very poor, it is not justified to take dowry in any way from such father. Hence, judgement differs from one case to the other case.