Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Sri Maharaja's Pravachan in English- Nov.5
Sri Rama Samartha
We Must Feel God is
Our Maintay
God is
the sole, Ultimate Reality. Where we go
astray is in taking prapancha for reality. Just as oiling the hand is necessary
before dressing a jack-fruit, oiling in the form of love for God is
essential before doing prapancha, undertaking any earthly job. Shree
Samartha begins his Dasabodha, giving
paramount importance to spiritualism, saying that with it other things
may follow. The first wrong step we take is to arrogate doership to ourselves
instead of ascribing it to God, to whom it really belongs. We bow to Him at the commencement of the wedding ceremony but
forget or overlook Him in pursuing prapancha. The temptation of sense-pleasures can do no harm if we do not
surrender ourselves to it.
If we do, after all, have to take somebody's help, why ask
somebody who is as much handicapped, limited in authority and
resources, as ourselves? So we must seek the aid of God the
omnipotent. If we pray to Him for the grant of sense-pleasures, which are
basically trifling and transitory, would it not be short-sighted? You know that
Duryodhana and Arjuna both approached Lord
Krishna for assistance in the impending war. Of the choice offered, Arjuna characteristically chose the lone
Lord, while Duryodhana, again
characteristically, opted for His vast army. If we ask for some worldly favour, are we not following Duryodhana?
Generally man is oblivious of the ultimate objective, and
is guided by considerations of the world's esteem. One can
become truly dedicated to God only when one has abandoned hope or expectations about
all other things. We do not yearn for God,
but we are careful about what the world will think of us; at the same time we complain that others scandalize
us! What I say is, let alone the
opinion of people; consider what Rama will have to say about you.
The elemental Reality is something imperceptible to
the senses; what do we stand to lose if we say
everything belongs to it? We do not realize the contentment that
this 'hypothesis' will bring us. God is like the mythological tree that grants every
desire; we are always weighed down by anxiety because
we can think of nothing else. If we always ask for bliss, He will surely grant it.
Monday, November 4, 2019
Sri Maharaj's Pravachan-Nov.4
The Saguna Form of God
A certain gentleman I met said, "I agree that Hinduism is the best of religions. What I fail to see is, how can that God, the attributeless, formless, Ultimate Reality, be considered approachable through numberless forms, each with its own upasana?" Later, a certain person came to meet him. Different persons referred to him by various names. Somebody said, 'Dada is not at home'; somebody said, 'Damodar has gone out'; while somebody else said ,'The master will return at such and such an hour'. The concept of the absolute form of God in so many tangible forms is comparable to this. Once one conceives Him in a tangible form, all the laws applicable to material things apply to that tangible entity.
One who denies the tangible forms in favour of an absolute, formless, entity, has simply failed to grasp the real essence of the matter. The vedas, the upanishads, the Brahmasutras, and the Bhashyas all talk about the formless, attributeless, absolute Reality; the saints, as it were, filled details in the outline and painted it; they gave different habitations and names, that the natural devotional tendencies of men may find suitable objects; this, in a nutshell, is saguna bhakti. Such bhakti or devotion is a sine qua non for attainment of salvation.
Upasana literally means 'being very close to', acquiring the special qualities of feeling extreme regard and love for, the particular form that one worships. Saint Tulsidas so deeply venerated and loved his ideal, Rama, as to become identified with Him. Rama never said 'the world is for me'; on the contrary, He lived for the world. This is true paramartha. Extreme faithfulness to His wife, and extreme veracity in speech and action, are prominent traits of His character. Other manifestations, too, have their traits, but Rama's life stands out as an ideal for man to follow.
To yearn for God is the essence and aim of life. This yearning God Himself can not create. Only saints can generate it; that is why association with the saints is indispensable. Our natural bent of mind is for sense-pleasures; the saints gradually dissuade us from there and direct it towards God. The day our mind turns to God is truly the most auspicious day in our life.
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