Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Before coming here, I started dictating a letter to a girl, whose mother has written a four page letter relating all the difficulties and sufferings she had in leading a married life – a household life and bringing up the children and she concludes saying, “You should write a letter to my daughter.” The mother says that, her marriage was alright, but later on the husband started behaving in a very unruly rough and tough manner. She was tolerating it, tolerating it beyond a level. At one point of time, the elder daughter said, “I will not stay in the house where my father stays.” When it came to this point, the mother left the husband seemingly and started living alone. The girl is quite educated, 85% marks she has scored in the university levels, but now she says, “I have no devotion. I will not worship God.” But she has been taught a number of recitations - religious recitations right from the beginning. So the mother finds it very difficult to accept that her daughter is refusing to accept the path of devotion.

Now I am wondering, what is wrong with our devotees? Is it purely a stray individual instance or it is a collective gross development? Just think of the disaster we had in Garhwal district or in Garhwal section of Uttarakhand. Tens of thousands of people have lost their lives. And these are the best people who had the best of devotion and devotional reliance on God and they were going visit, see their pet and beloved Lord and derive life’s fulfillment and salvation. Can you deride or devalue their devotion? Can you question their reliance? No. No - a thousand times. In spite of it, why did they encounter this kind of a difficulty? I think every devotional mind should take up this question and find an answer for it. This is where your Swamiji says, God is a concept of our mind. Devotion is a development - a culture, we adopt.  Just like we are getting educated and civilized in so many other aspects, we are also getting devotionally civilized. But it does not mean a civilized society will not perish if there is a misdoing, either in the part of a section of the society or the administration at large. This is where we have to understand devotion properly.

Srimad Bhagavatam, which is a supreme authority on devotion, devotee and God, it clearly says in the second verse, opening verse – ‘Anybody living in this world is subject to three kinds of affliction. Ādhyātmic, Ādidaivic and Ādibhautic.’

Ādhyātmic means the suffering caused by the body in the form of diseases, ill-health, and pain. Then, by the mind, by its wrong emotions, responses and attitudes. By the intelligence, by not being able to analyze and arrive at the right conclusions and interpretations to developments. Daśaratha died, when Śri Rama Chandra Mahaprabhu left the palace for the forest exile imposed by Kaikeyi. But Kausalya did not die. Between the two you tell me who was more involved in the birth and growth of Rama. Kausalya cried a lot. Śri Rama spoke to her, and in the conversation hardly half an hour passed. Kausalya came to her senses, accepted the course of Rama, complimented him saying that, “You are the righteous son and there is no other way for you. What you have done is right. You go with my blessings and I will be here to greet you when you return from the forest exile. Let the fourteen years of forest exile pass as fourteen months.” At the same time the father simply died, calling “Rama.. Rama.. Rama..” This is called the worst of ādhyātmic suffering - suffering caused by our own mind and our own intelligence. Where is it mentioned that devotion will mean no difficulty and no torment and no disease? Where is it mentioned? Devotion is a culture of the human mind. It has evolved this culture, and the purpose of devotion is to strengthen our mind, to enlighten our intelligence and to enable and empower life in this world to make it easy, light, comfortable and more and more happy and delightful.

Take Śri Rama, the object of devotion for millions in this world. That Śri Rama's life was a life of suffering. He was a very good prince, in spite of it he suffered. So in Śri Rama's life what you find are, questions posed by the world before a righteous mind. You are righteous, now in front of righteousness, this is the discomfiture I produce before you. Will you hold on to your righteousness and pursue it successfully? The day of coronation, I am going to send you to the forest. Will you take it up or not? Or like ordinary people, will you fall weak and helpless? Rama said, “I will, I shall. Before the sunset I will have left the palace. I only want time to disclose this to my mother and the others and console them and leave a better palace than a crying palace.”  This is all what he wanted.

Then came the question of renouncing his pregnant wife for no fault of hers. Even that, a righteous mind can do. There was a time when he had to abandon his Lakshmaṇa. He said, “Yes, I abandon that also. Finally, I abandon my own body.” This much the devotional and righteous mind is capable of doing. This is what Śri Rama's life is for.

In Śri Krishna's life you find a different picture. Holding on to dharma, will it be possible for us to succeed, when it is a question of destroying the wicked people in this world? Krishna's life says, it can be done. And as a part of this process, one has to become greatly enlightened. So much so, he will be able to understand the intricate course of Dharma, and what all seeming exceptional courses have to be taken in order to vindicate Dharma itself. He remained a human, but he displayed a supra-human dimension throughout. He was a man who used his bow and arrow, club and also a wheel discus he had. All these things he used for defense as well as offense. He remained delightful and happy and he made all people happy. That is also a dimension of the human mind. Śri Rama's is one, Śri Krishna's is another, Sudāma's is another, Śabari’s is another, Meera's is another. Devotional minds can be various and there are various dimensions. In each life you find one dimension.

So I want to tell this girl that, don't think that devotion means no difficulty at all. Devotion means the ability, the readiness, the skill, the tenacity, the wonderful dimensions of the mind by which all difficulties will be turned into favorable factors. When you have riches, your mind doesn't grow. When you have comforts, your mind does not grow. The growth of the mind is its strength, in lying strength to bear life situations, to go forward and forward. Hariśchandra's truthfulness tried him. I call truthfulness to be a peak. The Himalayan peaks will not rise as you go up to reach its top. But the peak of truthfulness will go on rising further and further depending upon your own tenacity, your own hidden potential, the devoutness that you have, as much as you can climb, so much it will go up further and further. Was he not tried in his life? What about Nala and Damayanti? What about Yudhishthira? Every one of them was tried. Devotion is to make you try, make you succeed, make you find life easy, easy, light! Devotion means the crowning of the human mind, the glory of the human intelligence and the winning of the ego. This is what devotion means. I would like to know, when are you going to understand?

India has its own geography. On the one hand it has Himalayas, on the three sides it has the sea. Surrounded by the sea and Himalayas this peninsula called India, ever since earth was born, has always been under national disasters. In our śastras it is called īti bādhā. It is the bādha caused by nature. ativrishti, anāvṛṣti, śatrusainya, śalabha, śuka etc. These calamities, we cannot call them calamities, nature's balancing measures. India is a country beset with all these. It did not become yesterday or day before yesterday. It is for the people of India to understand these situations and then learn to manage them, before the instances occur, during and after. What has happened in Uttarakhand is, the administration has failed to recognize that it is prone to these disasters. In the past seven years, four years have been beset with similar misfortunes though of a lesser magnitude. I am asking the Uttarakhand government, “You were formed in 2000. Why did you form a separate state? Did you learn the geography of the land? Did you understand the riverine places of Garhwal? And what have you done to manage this place? Before disasters, what you call a disaster. I don’t call it a disaster, and after that, did you stop the pilgrims from going upward the moment some signals were there? Every time, every time, it is a very narrow river on top, so the least of water and rain will bring up a rise like pouring water in a pot. It is not a broad river. What did they do? What about weather forecast arrangements where machines, gadgets installed? Were, are they functional? Why did you not do it?" There is a National Disaster Management Authority which is supposed to look after these things. Its population is only 1.1 (crores). But the pilgrims are three times that coming. It is not a state which alone can manage it because more than its population people are visiting. What do you think of such a state? Should not the Centre be more concerned about it? Monitor the whole activities? But our National Disaster Management Authority, Executive Committee supposed to meet every three months, did not meet for four years ever since 2008. When the administration goes wrong, our śastras say īti bādhās will grow. To reduce the īti bādhās and to alleviate them, there should be a stable and a righteous administration. This is something very much mentioned in our scriptures.

So India is not going to change its plight and fate, its character, its position, its susceptibility to īti bādhās we alone have. Japan is a volcanic nation. They are able to live there without being victimized by the volcanoes. In the same manner, can we not live? What for is the human intelligence, mind and presence of mind? These are some of the points which devotees should understand. Then only they will be able to make meaning of their devotion and understand and interpret God in a proper manner.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.