Monday, August 24, 2015

Duty with detachment vs. renunciation

When lord Sri Krishna explained Arjuna how one should not run away from his duties due to his emotions and also explained the concept of renunciation, Arjuna got confused and asked "Oh lord, you are telling about duty and also about renunciation. Please do not confuse me and tell clearly which one of these two Is good for me."

Lord Krishna explained "No doubt they both lead you to salvation. But, performing one's duties without attachment is always better than renunciation. It is almost impossible for an earthling to renunciate all deeds. In fact no one should renunciate three duties-Yajna, Daana and Tapa. But when one performs his duties with detachment towards the result, it leads him to salvation/Moksha."

Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to say leading a family life is easier for attaining moksha than taking sanyasa. He used to compare family life with a train in a station and sanyasa with a train on a bridge. If the train derails in a station it causes little damage and there is every possibility of getting it back on track. But when a train derails on a bridge, it plunges into the river and certainly kills everyone on board. Similarly when one commits a mistake in family life there is always a possibility of correcting it and proceeding in the path of nirvana. But when a sanyasi commits a mistake it leads to his downfall from the path of nirvana.

There is a story in the Jataka tales of buddhism. There is a lake full of lotus flowers and a tribal man jumps into it, swims and plucks lot of flowers, enjoys and leaves. A sanyasi watching this goes near the lake and smells a lotus flower. The Yaksha guarding the lake reprimands the sanyasi for doing this. The confused sanyasi asks the yaksha why he did not say a word to the tribal man who casued a lot of damage and finding fault with him just for smelling a flower. The yaksha explains that the tribal man is an ignorant one and his sins will be excused, but you renunciated all your duties and desires and you have no right to desire a smell. When a paper is already dirty, even a big stain doesn't make a difference. But, a tiny stain on a pure white paper makes it impure.

Coming to duty with detachment our Gurudev used to give a nice example. A cashier in a bank transacts money worth millions daily through his hands. But he never shows any attachment towards those millions and only yearns for the salary worth thousands he gets each month. The moment he shows an attachment to any money that's not his, he lands behind bars.

Same way we should perform our duties with detachment and be content with what god provides us. That leads to moksha and it's the easiest way as shown by many of our Rishis.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

The Form and the Formless

There is always debate happening in this world about "is God having a Form? Or is He Formless?" People ask "Do we have to worship Him in a form like and idol? Or do we worship him as a formless ultimate power?"

But these people, who argue on the form or formlessness of God and those, who even try to enforce their thoughts regarding this on others even by force or violence are forgetting a few things here.

The first thing is, all the religions and theists agree that God is almighty - meaning he is omnipotent, capable of doing anything. So, why can't these people agree that God has the power to be formless and at the same time the power to take any form he wants. Doesn't he have that much freedom? The truth is, there is no difference between the form and the formless. Aren't ice, water and water vapor the different forms of the same substance?

Now, let's come to the different forms of worship. People of all religions believe and agree that God is the creator of the whole universe. That means we are all His children, right? Let's say a father has 10 children. One fine day they all got the great desire to serve their father. Now do they make their father happy by sharing the work on different things he needs? Or by every child doing the same kind of service to him? He will be more happy if one child cooks food, a second child feeds him with love, another one buys him new cloths and some other child helps him in the gardening. Isn't it?

We hardly live for 70-80 years and in this minuscule lifespan itself we crave for variety in our food, clothing, entertainment, work and other day-to-day activities. We easily get bored doing or having the same things again. God has been here since well before the beginning of the universe and he will be here forever, even after the whole universe is destroyed. Then why do we expect (and try to restrict) God to be in the same form and to accept same kind of worship? What can we call such people who try to enforce this restriction?

This is the same reason the ancient Indian philosophy provided for worshiping God in different forms, with different names and rituals, including the formlessness. No father will be happy seeing his children fighting in his name. At least for his sake, he expects his children to love and respect each other. Let's make our father, the God, happy by not fighting in his name and loving and respecting each other, no matter what name or form or ritual each uses for addressing/reaching our common father.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Spirituality and Socialism

Some people misquote the verse from Bhagavad Gita that goes as "Chaaturvarnam mayaa srustham..." to argue that God himself created people unequal. They use this argument as a cover-up for their mistreatment and atrocities towards fellow human beings. In this process they conveniently forget the fact that the same Lord Sri krishna professed equality in several places in the same Gita.

Lord Krishna through the following Gita verse  "Vidyaa vinaya sampanne braahmane gavi hastini shunichaiva shvapakecha panditaah sama darshanah" says that an intellectual person sees and treats equally - a brahmin with education and humility, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater. A true intellect doesn't see any societal or biological differences and he only sees God in everyone and everything.

Another verse goes like this - "Suhrun mitraar yudaaseena madhyastha dveshya bandhushu saadhushvapicha paapeshu samabuddhir vishishyate". Means, a virtue of a great intellect is the ability to treat his close friends, regular friends, enemies, acquaintances, detractors, relatives, saints and sinners with equality. Another one says "Samatvam yoga uchyate" - "equality is Yoga."

Our Gurudev Sri Babuji Maharaj used to quote the following verse from Viveka Chudamani - "Jaati neeti kula gotra dooragam, naama roopa guna dosha varjitam, desa kaala vishayaativarti yat, brahma tatvamasi bhavayaatmani" - meaning "Understand and always remember that Brahman, which is also your self or soul is above and beyond all the petty differences of society, race, caste, morality, descent, names, forms, virtues, vices, places, times and things." He further used to say there is no better socialism than spiritualism.

In Vibhooti Yoga when Lord Krishna explained to Arjuna that he resides in and drives every living and nonliving thing in the whole universe, Arjuna expressed a desire to see that universal form, Vishwarupa, of the Lord. Krishna said "OK, here you see my universal form." But, Arjuna could not see anything special. Then the benevolent lord said "You cannot see my universal form with your earthly vision. Here I am giving you the divine vision, by which you will be able to see my universal form." Then Arjuna could see Lord Krishna in everything/everyone around him including within himself. And he could see the whole universe within Lord Krishna.

Arjuna, at that moment, became the personification of the Gita verse "Sarva bhootastha maatmaanam, sarva bhootaani chaatmani, eekshate yoga yuktaatmaa, sarvatra sama darshanah" - meaning "A Yogi who attained the vision of equality or Yoga sees the whole universe within himself and himself within everything/everyone in the universe." If you ask yourself the question here "Was Lord Krishna in a constrained form till then and attained the universal form at that moment?" the answer is a firm "No". Lord Krishna is always in his universal form without any change. The thing that changed here is the vision of Arjuna.

If we can change our vision like this through spiritual practice and self realization, then these words that are part of the daily prayer in our Ashram become true - "May there be no differences between human beings. May all the living beings in the world treat each other with equality and love. May there be peace and prosperity in the whole universe." Is there a better form of socialism than this?