God is Causlessly Merciful – Part 2

Cont.....A Short lecture by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj

Yesterday it was explained that although God is causelessly gracious, He doesn’t grace everyone. Since eternity we have been under the control of Maya, due to which we have revolved in the cycle of birth and death in the 8.4 million life forms, and experienced unending suffering. Yet God has also graced some selected souls with His divine knowledge, bliss and eternal life. He even says, “Aham bhakta paradheenah.” “I walk beyond My loving devotees to be blessed by their footdust.”

Once there was a great devotee of Lord Krishna named Ambarish. Ambarish was a king. Sage Durvasa, who had great yogic powers and also a very bad temper, went to Ambarish’s kingdom. Durvasa became so angry with Ambarish, that he created a kritya, a evil spirit, and ordered him to go and cut off Ambarish’s head. When God saw this, He also became angry and released His divine weapon, the chakra, and ordered it to cut off not only the demon’s head, but also Durvasa’s head – even though Durvasa was a brahmin. Out of fear, Durvasa ran everywhere seeking protection from the chakra, but he only received one answer wherever he went, “This is the order of supreme God. We can’t help you.”

Finally Durvasa went to Ambarish and begged him to save his life. Ambarish pleaded with God and requested him not to kill Durvasa. Thus, Durvasa was saved. So God says, “I am under the control of My devotees. Although it seems I am the supreme controller, but in reality, My devotees control me by their love.”

Prabhu taru tar, kapi dar par.

During the descension of Lord Ram, once all the monkeys including Hanuman Ji were sitting on the branches of a tree, and Lord Ram was seated below the tree. Because both were absorbed in love, neither Lord Ram nor the monkeys were aware that it was a breach of propriety and proper behaviour for a servant (the monkeys) to sit on a level higher than his master’s head (Lord Ram).

You may also be familiar with the helpless condition of Lord Krishna with the Gopis. Not everyone was as greatly blessed as these particular souls. But this partiality must mean that there is some kind of business transaction in the spiritual area just as there is in the world. God must have demanded something that all of these souls offered, and in turn they received His grace.

But what did they offer? Initially, they were also under the control of Maya like us. They even broke records for being controlled by Maya, which no one in the entire world’s population could break. Saint Tulsidas was so attached to his wife, he didn’t realize he used a snake as a rope to climb to her room to see her. But the same Tulsidas became God realised in that very birth. Is there any sinner like Valmiki on this whole earth planet who couldn’t pronounce ‘Ram’? Yet he also became a Saint, and wrote the entire Ramayana even before Lord Ram’s descension.

What could we offer to God? Our senses, mind and intellect are all material and everything God has is divine. The Kena Upanishad (1/3-8) says that our senses, mind and intellect function due to God’s power. They are enlivened by God. How could we expect our enlivened senses to give us knowledge of God, the supreme enlivener?

The Mundaka Upanishad (3/1/8) also says the God’s divine vision is not attained through any kind of spiritual practice. The Katha Upanishad (1/3/10-11) says that beyond the senses are their sense perceptions, beyond the sense perceptions is the mind, beyond the mind is the intellect, beyond the intellect is the soul, beyond the soul is Maya, and beyond Maya is God. How could our intellect reach up to God’s level? Maya is present even at the final limit of the mind.

Go gochar jahan lagi man jai,
so saba maya janehu bhai.

The mayic senses, mind and intellect can’t grasp God’s divine subjects. Let alone God, the material senses, mind and intellect fail to grasp even material subjects. For example, ears and eyes are both made of the same material elements. But the work of the ears can’t be done by the eyes and vice versa. When our material senses can’t grasp even material subjects, how could they grasp God, who is a divine subject?

If material eyes could see God, then that God would be completely false. In fact, we have seen God uncountable times during His descensions, but what did we do when we saw Him? We criticised him, “So He is the son of Nanda? I heard He was God. Oh, no – that is impossible! He is just a naughty boy.” When God’s descension ended, only then we started chanting His name.

We have met uncountable Saints in innumerable births. God is not senior to the eternal souls. We were always there during the descension of God and Saints in one form or another. But due to the decision of our intellect, we rejected them. Instead of respecting them, we criticised them and ruined whatever we could have earned spiritually. We were not able to take advantage of their presence.

Even beyond this, God dwells in our very heart, but we still are not benefiting from this. We don’t have faith in this. We are aware of this fact, but there is a doubt in our mind if God is truly present and seated in our hearts or not. If we could realise His presence, we would stop committing all kinds of sin. So God says, “Don’t try to understand Me. Just beg me for My divine happiness.”

There are three ways of getting something from someone. First, if you are strong, you could just snatch it away forcefully. Second, you could steal it. Third, if you are weak, you could beg for it. In God’s case you can’t snatch or steal anything. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. So the only possible way is to beg Him for His divine love. Just beg Him. He is your father. He is the form of bliss and compassion. He doesn’t expect anything from you.

We do beg, but we do this superficially. Instead we have to ask Him just as innocently as a newborn baby. An infant has only one remedy for every situation – he cries, then his mother comes. That mother is not all-knowing, but God is. So just shed tears of longing and beg Him. Don’t apply your intellect to spiritual matters; apply it in the world. God is not captured by our words, He only looks to our internal feelings.

So if we are able to attain freedom from Maya and eternal divine bliss simply by crying, then is God causelessly gracious or not?

Think about it.


Taken and published with permission from www.bhaktibliss.wordpress.com