The Mind is the Performer of Action-Part 3

(Part 3 – Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

So the conclusion is that it is the mind alone that has to be purified. Whether you practice devotion to the world or to God, wherever the mind is attached is where you will have raga or love. Vairagya or without raga means to detach the mind from the world. But what do we think detachment means? “Look! That renunciate is living in the jungle! He doesn’t wear any clothing and he only eats fruits! He never speaks to anyone!” But we don’t see that he is still thinking of the world. Instead we fall at his feet thinking he is as great as God’s own father.

This is due to our ignorance. Renunciation means to have no mental attachment in the world. There were uncountable Saints in the age of Sat Yuga, some who ruled over this entire earth like Prahlad, Dhruva and Ambarish. There were Saints like Vasishtha and Bharadwaj, and Lord Ram, Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatrughan – they were all living in family life. The Gopis, whose foot dust was desired even by Brahma and Shankar, were all in family life. But if we had seen them, we would have thought, “Poor things, they are attached to the world.” And when we see a so-called holy man in the jungle sitting under a tree, we think, “This is a God realised Saint.”

We don’t recognize who has love for the world and who has love for God. Everything depends on the mind. For the amount of time your mind remains lovingly attached to God, your devotion is correct. Everything apart from this is just acting, and there is no devotional benefit from this. If someone in the world discovers that you are merely acting with them, they will consider you an enemy. The fact is we act with others all the time.

If a dangerous criminal came to your home, you would say to your wife, “Quick! Serve him tea and make sure he has some snacks.” If you don’t pretend to be hospitable he could turn against you. You do this out of fear. A person may say to his business partner about a rich businessman, doctor or lawyer, “Show him a lot of respect and spend a hundred rupees on him, and then later we’ll make two thousand rupees off of him!” We act like this all the time.

All souls are suffering. Even in one’s own home there is so much tension, fighting, and arguing between family members. But if you ask someone, “Hello, Mr. Srivastava, how are you?” He will say, “I’m alright!” There is not a single right thing happening in his life. It is all wrong, yet he lies and says the opposite, “I’m fine!” Apart from the sufferings we undergo from our family, we also have physical suffering, and even more frightening than this is our mental suffering – lust, anger, greed, jealousy and so on. The emotional pain caused by family emergencies – a mother or wife becomes sick, a son has an accident – is in addition to these other sufferings. Yet we tell others, “I’m all right.” This means we keep on acting with others. The problem is we also want to do this same kind of acting with God.

We get what we want in the world by acting and fooling others. But God is residing in our heart, noting all our actions. When you had a thought, He noted it. He noted what you thought. And you claim to want God’s grace! “You are extremely compassionate! Oh, God, grace me!” Should He grace you when you are deceiving Him? The only way He will listen to You and give you His grace is if you sincerely call out to Him and shed tears. This won’t happen through cleverness and cunning. Learning and scholarliness won’t work here, and neither will the wealth of being a billionaire. You have to shed tears and beg God for His love. Please pay attention to this particular point.

In the devotion that is commonly seen nowadays, 99% of the people go to the mountains on pilgrimage to visit famous temples located there. Why did you go to such extremes to visit Vaishno Devi or Tirupati when there is a temple right next door to your house? “Oh, the God over there performs a lot of miracles!” This means the God over here isn’t worth two cents. Yet the scriptures say,

Prabhu vyapak sarvatra samana.
“God is equally omnipresent everywhere .”

Just as ghee (clarified butter) is subtly present in milk and fire is subtly present in wood, so God is subtly present everywhere in the world. Whether you go to one temple or another or even to God’s actual divine abode, there is no difference. But our intellect doesn’t understand this. We think, “In Vaishno Devi, God is 100%, and in the temple next door to my house, He is only 10%.”

In fact, the very same God who resides in His own divine abode is also seated in your heart. God is only one, whether one is a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or anything else. There is only one God. Give Him any name you wish; He has uncountable names according to our scriptures. You could even leave the names that have been written in our scriptures for God and make your own name for Him. The Ved says that even the individual letters of the alphabet are God’s names.

Shri Krishna’s mother, Yashoda, never called her son “Shri Krishna”. Instead she said, “Oh! Kanua! Come here!” Where is the word ‘Kanua’ written in the scriptures? The Gopis used to make Shri Krishna dance in exchange for chhach, what is left of milk when the butter is taken out. He happily danced for them, in spite of how many bad names they called Him. Krishna is walking behind a Gopi. She would angrily say, “Where are you going? Lafanga! Shameless womaniser!” Even in the scriptures He was referred to as chaur jar shikhamani, the foremost leader of thieves and adulterers. Hearing these names, Shri Krishna would become overwhelmed with love.

It matters not what name or form of God you adopt. Call out to Him with whatever name you prefer, whether that is in Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi or any other language. But however you remember Him, do it with love.

Continued in Part 4

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009
Reproduced with courtesy from www.bhaktibliss.wordpress.com