Neither Love nor Hate in the World

 You have been told a number of times that God realization and freedom from the bondage of maya is not possible by practicing any devotional process. One may put rigorous effort for countless ages and may practice karm, gyan and bhakti, but that will not lead him towards the attainment of God or freedom from the bondage of maya. It is possible only through the Grace of God. But to receive the Grace of God it is necessary to prepare the receptacle (our heart). That has to be done by the individual soul. And what does it mean?

Our heart has been impure since eternity due to worldly attachments. Removing all these worldly attachments, you have to purify your mind completely. Neither God Himself nor any Saint can do it for you until you make the effort.

God is eternal and so are we; God it not senior to us. In our innumerable lives we have seen God in person and He also dwells in our heart, but even He cannot bestow His Grace until our heart is completely purified. Before that, no one can be free from the bondage of maya nor can one attain spiritual happiness or be free from the bondage of trikarm, trigun, panchklesh. It is naive to think that if a Saint had showered his Grace on us then all our problems would be solved. It is absolutely necessary to purify your heart. The Guru will help you and will guide you. In fact, without him, you cannot proceed on your spiritual journey.

Without spiritual knowledge you cannot progress. Your Guru will guide you towards the attainment of Divine Bliss. He will answer your questions like, "Why have we been suffering since eternity?" "Who is God, the individual soul and maya?" The Guru should be well versed in all the scriptures and also must have realized God. Only then can he guide us properly.

History tells us that there have been countless Saints. We met them, listened to their Divine words, but still we kept revolving in this endless cycle of birth and death because we did not have faith in them. People who had complete faith in them followed their instructions, practiced devotion under their guidance and completely surrendered to them, attained their supreme goal. We missed the chance.

So the Guru is indispensable. He alone guides us towards the attainment of God. In the material world we also need a teacher. No one can attain educational degrees without studying under the guidance of a teacher. How can you expect to traverse a spiritual journey without the guidance of a Guru? But as far as devotional practice is concerned, that you have you to do yourself.

As I have already explained, purification of the heart means to remove all the dirt which we have been collecting since eternity. Here 'dirt' denotes worldly attachment; that is of two types. Your mind can be attached to someone either through favourable sentiments (love) or through unfavourable sentiments (enmity). In both situations you bear the same fruit. Whether you love or hate, your mind remains attached to that person or object.

All your worldly relations, your mother, father, sister or whoever it maybe, are bound by maya. So they are just like you. If you love anyone then that will make your heart more impure. And if you hate anyone, that will also make your heart impure. In our innumerable past lives we had feelings of love for our father, mother and spouse, but instead of our heart becoming purified it became more and more sullied, because they were not Divine personalities.

Just use your common sense to understand this with an ordinary analogy. Suppose you want to wash your dirty clothes, which you never washed in your whole life. Definitely you will require water that is absolutely clean. It is so dirty that you need to wash it a hundred times to remove the dirt, provided the water is clean. If the water itself is not clean and you try to wash your clothes, you will continue adding only dirt, making your clothes dirtier.

You have unlimited accumulated actions that have not yet borne fruit. In our innumerable lives we have been performing good and bad deeds and whatever actions we do are mayic because we are bound by maya. Due to our ignorance, we may feel that we are performing good actions, but all our actions are mayic. They result in dirtying our mind more and more.

The scriptures and Saints advise to attach our mind only to pure (Divine) personalities. That is the only way to purify our mind. Love only them.

Who is Divine? Only God and God realized souls are Divine so your mind should be constantly attached to them alone. After God realization one becomes free forever from the bondage of trigun, trikarm, tridosh, panchklesh and panchkosh. Then one no longer bears the fruits of his accumulated actions. His heart becomes Divine.

So if you love Divine personalities, your heart becomes pure. This works the same way as pure, crystal clear water cleans the dirty clothes.

Listen to me attentatively! All of you are very familiar with the word vairagya meaning being devoid of attachment. Attachment of the mind can be either through the feelings of love or hatred. Normally, most of you think that vairagya means not to love anyone. But if you hate someone then you constantly think of him. You have only one mind. Simultaneously you cannot attach it at two places. Either meditate on a Divine personality or meditate on a worldly personality. You have a choice.

During the descension period of Shri Krishna, the Gopis so deeply loved Him that they reached such a high level of selfless devotion that even the great personalities like Brahma and Shankar sought the sacred dust of their lotus feet. Bhagwan Krishna highly rewarded the illiterate Gopis for having only favorable feelings (love) for Him. On the contrary, demons like Shishupal, Kans, and others had feelings of enmity, yet Shri Krishna sent them to His Divine abode, as their mind was totally absorbed in Him. Day in and day out, they thought of Him alone, no one else.

Whether you gently touch a piece of iron to a touchstone or you angrily bring them in direct contact with each other, the iron will definitely be transformed into gold. If you eat rasgulla (an Indian sweet) out of desire or you forcibly put it in your mouth, it will be sweet.

Similarly, whether poison is consumed knowingly or someone makes you drink without your knowledge, it will cause death. A fire burns equally for the sati who willingly sets herself on fire and for the one who is thrown into the fire. The holy river Ganga sanctifies even the water you spit into Ganga, which becomes a part of the holy Ganga. Just like the river Yamuna smoothly merges into Ganga at the confluence and becomes known as Ganga.

So either you have feelings of love or feelings of hatred. In both cases the mind is attached. Since eternity we have had these feelings of love and hatred in the world. We have to make ourselves free from these two feelings and also keep a watch on ourselves to not be afflicted in the future.

In ancient times we didn't have a matchbox or other means to ignite a fire. To produce fire for yagya, etc., people rubbed two pieces of wood together continuously. In the jungle sometimes two bamboo sticks produce fire due to their constant rubbing against each other. So to produce fire out of two pieces of wood, they must be rubbed together continuously. If you pause in between, the temperature goes down, and again you have to go through the same procedure. Uninterruptedly keep rubbing them and only then the fire will be produced.

Similarly, uninterruptedly meditate on God. Constantly meditate on Him alone. In this single verse of the Gita, Shri Krishna is emphasizing three times that a devotee should meditate on God continually.

Annya chetah sattam... Gita

If you look at this verse from the point of view of literary form, repetition is considered undesirable, but in a philosophical description this is very, very important. You should constantly, day in and day out, think of God exclusively. Not only one or two hours but all 24 hours, your mind should be attached to God. If even for one second your mind goes back into the world, it is like making your clothes dirty again after putting so much effort into cleaning them.

Throughout the day you worked hard to earn money and at the end of the day you carelessly left all this on the road and slept peacefully. All your money will be stolen. You will be left with nothing in your hands.

So I advise all of you to constantly meditate on God and Guru and be absorbed in Their loving remembrance. I am reminding you that both of them are Divine. Your heart will be completely purified if you meditate on them. The only condition is that you should constantly and uninterruptedly attach your mind to Them (God and Guru). You should be careful not to bring feelings of love or hate for any worldly object (or person) in your mind.

We have never practiced devotion in this way in any lifetime. Therefore, our heart could not be purified and we remained deprived of attaining God's Grace as the receptacle (our heart) was not purified. So neither could we be freed from the bondage of maya nor could we attain Divine Bliss.

Be careful not to develop love or hate towards anyone if you really want to purify your heart. And if you have any negativity towards anyone, remove it. This may not happen within a second or within a day or two. You have to seriously practice it.

Shri Krishna says to Arjun in the Gita, Abhyasen tu kauntey vairagyen... Gita 6/35

Constantly practice. It may take many lifetimes to attain perfection, but you have to do it. If you decide to neglect this kind of devotional practice, maya will bother you and will keep inflicting sufferings on you.

Thank You

Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj

2^nd Dec 2011 (Bakti Dham) Mangarh 

 

trigun -  the three mayic qualities - satvik, rajas, tamas

trikarm - the three kinds of actions (sanchit-past accumulated, prarabdh, fate of this life, kriyaman, new actions of present life)

tridosh - the bodily humors described in Ayurved - vat, pit, kaph).

panchkosh - five material sheaths – earth, air, water, fire and ether