Mukundananda
waited for two minutes and nothing happened. He proclaimed, "If there is
a God, He is a coward. He did not accept my challenge and did not attack
me. Or, if He is not a coward, then there is no God at all."
One person stood up from the crowd and said "God is your father. In this
material world, if you ask someone to prove his identity as a father by
killing his son, you will not find anyone willing to do such an act. Why
should a father kill his son just to prove his identity? In the same way, God
is all merciful and all graceful. He is our eternal Father and Mother. He
does not need to go around killing people to prove His own identity."
Our relationship with God is eternal. We do not have this kind of
everlasting and endless relationship in this material world. Our material
father, mother and son will die one day. They are not our real father,
mother or relatives. Our true relationship is only with God. Why is that?
This word sambandh, or relation, is made from the Sanskrit root bandh,
with the prefix sam, and the suffix un. It means eternal and complete
bond. Do you have such a bond with your father? No, he passed away
twenty five years ago. And recently my mother also passed away. One of
my daughters has also died. That means they were not your sambandhis.
That is why all the scriptures strongly state:
vedaihcha sarvairamevavedyo
vedtakit vedavidevidevachham
Shree Krishna says "Arjun! What do you have to understand from all the
Vedas and Vedic scriptures? Only this much that your relationship is only
with Me, and you must love Me exclusively." Lord Brahma says:
bhagavn
brahma
krtsnyen
triranvkhya
manhay
tadadhyavatsatkuastho ratirtman yato bhavet
He says, "I have churned the Vedas and the other scriptures three times
and have come to the conclusion that they declare only one thing - Your
eternal relationship is with Shree Krishna alone, and you have to love
Him." Shree Maharajji says that God keeps on watching us and eagerly
waits in anticipation, "When will this soul come to me and love me? I shall
liberate him from all bondages that very instant, and bestow upon him the
nectar of Divine love." Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said:
tomr aham yadi kahe ek br
Dear Soul! Just say it once with all your heart, "O Shree Krishna! Only you
are mine." Not, "You are also mine and this material world is also mine."
Do not divide your affection between your material father at home and
your eternal father, God.
We could ask God, "You are never seen, and my father at home loves me
dearly." God says, "Accept that you are mine." We can question again, "On
what basis should we accept this statement?" God says, "Accept it on the
basis of knowledge. Understand fully and decide firmly that you are not
this material body but the eternal soul. You will then realize that the soul's
eternal relationship is only with God."
You will attain this knowledge of your relationship with God from the Guru.
Understand this from the Guru in various ways, so that you become
convinced. Then on the basis of this knowledge, you must repeated
contemplate about your relationship with God. How and what are you to
"The Guru is Lord Brahma (The God of Creation). The Guru is Lord Vishnu
(The God of Sustenance). The Guru is Lord Shiva (The God of Destruction).
My salutation to such a Guru, who is the Supreme God".
The key aspect is to think that God and Guru are one. God is present
amongst us in the form of our Guru and Graces us with His presence
amongst us as our Guru. If we continuously remind ourselves of this fact,
it will slowly give rise to feelings of 'Godliness' towards our Guru and help
us surrender our mind and intellect to him.
What is the difficulty in considering our Guru as God? We Indians are born
with innate devotion in our hearts. In certain faiths, it is believed that God
watches us from seventh heaven. Look at us Indians. We perceive Divine
presence in every animate and inanimate object. Our culture tells us:
atithi devo bhava, mati devo bhava, piti devo bhava
We consider our guests as God, our mother as God, our father as God. We
are able to think of a rock as God and we begin to worship it! We even
worship a tree as though it were God Himself. If we are able to accept
inanimate objects as God, what is the problem in accepting our Guru as
God?
So, Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj says, "Do not think of God and Guru
as two separate entities. They are one and the same. There is no
difference between them."
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reality, they do not genuinely care how you are doing. Now, if you start
telling all about yourself and your worries, they will get irritated. They
would wonder, "Why did I ever ask him in the first place?"
So, in this material world, etiquette is followed, and it is just an external
act. When two people cross each other while walking, they say, "Good
Morning!", even though they do not know each other. There is no feeling
from the inside; rather it has become a mere formality.
God says that acts such as ostentation, craftiness, artificiality, deception
and superficial words are of no importance in the spiritual realm. God
says, "I will only consider the feelings in your mind." You do not have to
say the word "Ram" even once but you have to feel from the inside. God
will note the feelings in your mind, and accordingly reward you with divine
results.
There was a boy in India. He was reciting the Hindi alphabet to God, 'Ka',
'Kha', 'Ga', 'Gha'. A saint came by and asked him, "What are you doing?"
He said, "I am praying to God." The saint said, "Is this how you say your
prayers?" The boy said, "I do not have the intelligence to recite a prayer,
and hence, I am just reciting the alphabets to God and asking Him to
make a prayer of His choice. I simply want to make Him happy." The saint
replied, "All glories to such innocence. God is attracted to such innocent
behavior, where there is no deception or pretence." So, Kripaluji Maharaj
says that in this spiritual realm, the mind plays a vital role. We have to
train our mind to think in the right direction.
This mind alone is the cause of liberation and bondage. Our mind's
attachment to the material world has kept us bound to the cycle of birth
and death. When we train the mind to detach itself from the material
world and concentrate on God, we are actually attempting to cleanse our
mind.
In this context, let us take a look at the views expressed by philosophers
from around the world. John Milton said, "The mind is a thing of its own. It
can make heaven out of hell, and hell out of heaven." This mind is so
unique that it can give you the experience of heaven while being seated in
hell, and make you feel like hell while living in heaven. It is through the
mind that we experience happiness and sorrow. The mind gives us the
feeling of pleasure and pain.
Sigmund Freud, popularly known as the father of Psychology, stated that
the nature of the mind is to be tense and unhappy. This is a fact that can
never be changed. It is a waste of time even to try it. Another well known
philosopher from the West, Arthur Schopenhauer, said, "The mind keeps
oscillating like a pendulum between happiness and pain. It will always
keep wavering between these two states and nobody can change this
principle."
Many of you may have heard the name of Bertrand Russell, the famous
English writer of the last century. He said that the mind is constantly
troubled. You can only do one thing, engage this mind in some work. By
engaging the mind in some work, it will be less distraught. An idle mind is
a devil's workshop. This principle is partially correct, but it is no cure.
So, we see that without the help of spiritual knowledge, Western
philosophers lose the battle against the mind. Shankarachaya said:
kirtans." This tridha bhakti is the best and most powerful. It is because of
the power of tridha bhakti that in this sadhana camp we are engaging in
devotion day and night. If we were practicing some other kind of devotion,
we would not experience that Bliss, and we would lose interest in 2 or 3
hours. For example, when we sit to perform a yagya, fire sacrifice, we can
hardly sit for a couple hours without getting distracted. We start to think,
"When will this get over? I cannot understand the mantras that the pundit
is chanting, nor am I able to enjoy the Bliss of God."
It is the grace of our Guru that he has gifted us this simplest and very
sweet form of bhakti that helps us attach our mind to God. Hence, tridha
bhakti is the easiest and best for people of this age since the three
primary senses (mouth, ears and mind) are engaged in remembrance of
God.