Importance of Human Life

Importance of Human Life..............
Lecture by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj

There are three things that are attained only through God’s grace and all three are very rare. Number one is human body. Human birth has been given to us through the grace of God. It is not our doing. Ramayan says –
After millions of births; after revolving in 8.4 million forms of life, the individual soul is granted the rare human birth. God gives us a chance to attain the ultimate goal of our life. If we fail to attain the aim of life, then as the Vedas say –
–we will be forced to revolve in 8.4 million species. But we did not listen to God. Therefore, we are going round and round. Then once again God took pity on us and gave us the human form. So, this human life is attained with God’s grace and it’s very rare. You may think, “I have attained the human birth as a result of virtuous actions of previous lifetimes, and therefore why should I consider this to be God’s grace?” But I ask you; do you have any recollection of any action of any previous lifetime? You don’t even remember actions of the present lifetime. God graces us by keeping an account of our actions of past lifetimes and giving us the fruits of those actions. Do we pay God for this work? Or have we ever asked God to give us fruits of your actions? The answer is no. God does this work for us without our asking. This is His grace.

The human form of life is so rare that the same celestial beings (such as Agni, Vayu, Indra) that we pray to and to whom we offer oblations in the yagyas, desire to be born human themselves. Everyone knows that the body of a celestial being is the best out of the 8.4 million bodies. Their body exudes fragrance; it is very effulgent and attractive. However, the celestial beings merely reap fruits of previous actions. They do not have the right to perform fruit-bearing actions. God has given the privilege of performing fruit-yielding actions only to humans. Such is the value of the human birth. What this means is that we have waited a long time to become human, and we have undergone great suffering before attaining the human birth through God’s grace.

Alright then! We attained the human body. The question is, what did we do with it? We got an education and received fancy degrees, got married, gave birth to a few children, had grandchildren, built a few homes, accumulated a few billion dollars, and then died. We forgot the very aim of our life; we forgot it. By attaining the human birth we have made our situation even worse. How so? A human has the greatest intellect of all creatures.
We see creatures such as dogs, cats and donkeys. In fact we are all able to see every creature except the celestial beings. We see how small the intellect of the lower creatures is, and in contrast we see how developed our own knowledge is. A human can bring all creatures under his control. He can put even ferocious animals such as lions and cheetahs in a cage and control them using a whip. Such is the intellect of a human! If this knowledge is not put to good use, it makes us perform wrong actions. If a dog, a donkey or a bull wishes to steal something, how will it do it? It will steal right in front of your eyes, and will get a beating from you. But what about your knowledge? A human has such great knowledge that he robs banks despite heavy security. This means that a human commits very serious sins due to his knowledge. Other creatures commit small sins. So if we do not use our knowledge wisely, the misuse will be a first-class misuse.

Saint Tulsidas has disclosed the importance of the human birth.
All creatures beg God for the human form.

People asked Tulsidas, “Why is it that every creature wishes to be born human?” He answered, “The human body is so important that even the celestial beings (devtas) desire it. Shall I tell you why?” “Yes, tell us.”
It is because you can attain hell through the human form of life. Why has he mentioned hell first? He mentions hell first; secondly he mentions svarg, or the celestial abode; thirdly he mentions liberation; fourthly he mentions devotion equipped with knowledge and dispassion. He says that a human can attain these four things, and this is why the human birth is the rarest and the most important. Of the four, he mentions hell first. The reason is that very few humans employ their superior knowledge in the right direction. Because knowledge is being misused and abused, the individual attains hell as a result. There is only one in a million who uses his knowledge wisely, and he will attain svarg after death. There are very few individuals who are more knowledgeable. They opt for liberation. The wisest ones ask God for devotion equipped with knowledge and dispassion. So, the hidden reason behind writing ‘hell’ first is that the majority of the people do not make good use of their knowledge, which consequently puts them in hell after death.

Though the human birth is the most important, yet it is the worst of all births from two points of view. Firstly, the human body is a very dirty body. Secondly, a human misapplies his superior knowledge. Therefore, we need the second grace, and that is a genuine Guru. We need a guide to show us the path. We are not able to decide on the right course of action. By ourselves we are not able to understand the reason we have been given the human birth, nor do we understand its importance. We need someone to enlighten us. Someone has to point out to us that the ring we are wearing has a diamond that is worth a billion dollars; we are thinking that it’s worth only 10 or 20 dollars. A Guru has to tell us our aim and disclose to us how to attain that aim. In other words, he has to tell us about ‘Sambandh,’ i.e. our relationship with God, ‘Abhidheya,’ i.e. the method of strengthening our relationship with God, and ‘Prayojan,’ i.e. our reason behind practicing devotion. We need a Guru to give us solid knowledge so that we may make good use of the human birth. Otherwise, how will we do it? Our father, our mother, our brother and neighbours all teach us the same thing. What is that? Accumulate as much wealth as you possibly can. During His descent, Shri Ram delivered one discourse only.
He gave one lecture only. After the lecture, the public said to Him –
Even mother and father are selfish. What will they teach their child? They will tell him, “Son, become a millionaire and serve us.” No one will tell you about God. Of course they don’t know anything about God themselves, then how can they tell someone else?”

After attaining the human birth, it is the attainment of a Guru that will ensure that we will make good use of the human birth and attain the ultimate goal of life. However, we have come into contact with genuine Gurus countless times. We have been blessed with the human birth innumerable times and we have met countless saints in our countless lives. However, we did not derive any benefit. We went to a Guru and looked at him. How tall is he? How short is he? How thin is he? How fat is he? Is he dark-skinned? Is he fair-skinned? How capable is he? Why does he sit like this? Why does he stand like this? Why does he look like this? Why does he live in people’s homes? Why does he live in the jungles? He should live amongst us so that he may help us spiritually. In other words, we criticize saints no matter what they do, and as a result, we do not go any further towards our goal. We refuse to move from the spot where we are standing. Great Jagadgurus came and left, but we are where we were earlier. They tell us that God is ours, but we firmly believe the world to be ours. They tell us that there is happiness in God; we persist in our belief that there is happiness in the world. We believe that though we have not yet received happiness, yet if we persist we will one day attain it. A person gets $100,000 and he thinks that if he had one million he would become happy. When he accumulates one million, he thinks that if had one billion dollars, he would be happy. So thinking everyone is running towards the world. In other words, it is not enough to even have a genuine Guru’s guidance. Instead of gaining, we are in fact incurring loss. We take the intellect that we have in our possession and we use it to pass judgement on the Guru and in so doing we commit serious spiritual transgressions. We look at a saint and declare him to be even more ordinary than we are. But then we think, “No, no, he is a true saint.” But then, “No, no, he is not genuine.” “No, no, he is real.” Thinking this way we have deprived ourselves of the benefit that a genuine Saint’s association can bring.

This means that a third thing is necessary. Now what is that? It’s ‘Shraddha,’ i.e. 100% faith in the Guru and the Vedas and Shastras.

Gaurang Mahaprabhu says that the word ‘Shraddha’ means full faith in the words of the Guru and the scriptures. Shraddha means to accept the Guru’s words to be true and to accept them fully. Never must the intellect interfere. Valmeeki was a sinner of such great proportions that he could not utter the name of Ram. His Guru told him, “Keep chanting Mara-Mara until I return.” Valmeeki did not ask, “Guru ji, when will you be coming back?” He did not ask, “What will I get by chanting Mara-Mara?” He did not say, “Guru ji, you are trying to make a fool out of me.” We would have spoken such words to the Guru. Valmeeki had strong faith in the Guru’s words. Consequently he did what the Guru said, without asking all sorts of questions and employing his own intellect. As a result, he transcended Maya and became a saint.

You all go to a doctor when you are not feeling well. Putting full faith in that doctor you offer him your arm as he checks your pulse. The doctor tests your heart. You tell him your ailment and ask him for a diagnosis. He diagnoses your ailment and writes out a prescription. You quietly go and purchase the prescribed medication and take the medication in exactly the same amount as he has prescribed it. Four drops in one spoonful of water three times a day. You do not question the doctor. You don’t think to yourself, “Why did he ask me to add only four drops of medication to water? Four drops is really nothing. At this rate it will take me four years to get better. I shall consume an entire bottle everyday and get better faster.” If someone does this, he will die within 24 hours. However, we do not think like this. Innocent little children go to school to study. The English teacher says, “‘A’ looks like this.” Has any child ever asked why the letter ‘A’ looks the way it does, or why this letter is called ‘A’?” No child has ever asked such a question. The English language is such that 99% of the words have unusual spelling. You have to simply memorize the spellings. “But why do I have to write this letter when I am not speaking it?” “No, no, you have to write it; it’s a silent letter.” We accept all this. We do not ever argue with the teachers on this point. Otherwise, we would not ever graduate. It’s by having faith in the doctor that the patient gets better. We trust the doctor and the teacher but we are filled with doubts when we approach the Guru. We approach scriptures with doubts. How can it be that Arjun did not feel any anger and yet he committed millions of murders? That’s impossible. Before a person even slaps someone, his face becomes red with anger. He is not able to contain his anger, and then he slaps the other person. And you are saying that Arjun committed murder, he killed millions of people, and yet he saw Lord Krishna everywhere! What nonsense! “The Pandavas, Arjun and his brothers are all saints. They are five brothers with one wife. How wonderful! They all have children, and yet you expect me to believe that they do not suffer from lust! This is impossible. It cannot be. I am not a fool after all. This is how we employed our intellect every time God descended on earth and saints came to the world.

Thus, we must have ‘Shraddha,’ i.e. full faith. This is the third thing. If we have shraddha, it will not take us long to attain God-realization, divine bliss and freedom from Maya.

So, number one is the attainment of a human birth, which is given by the grace of God. Then with further grace of God a Guru enters our life.
Ramayan says that a Guru is attained only through God’s grace.

And the third thing is the greatest grace of God. To have ‘Shraddha,’ i.e. full faith in the Guru’s words. Tulsidas ji has said very beautifully – and I am speaking only from the Ramayan today, because you people are afraid of the Vedas –
Even if a genuine Guru enters your life, you must have full faith in that divine physician, and you must take the medication that he prescribes. You must take the precautions that the doctor tells you about. If precautions are not taken the medicine will not work. If a person suffering from diabetes takes his medication but keeps eating sweets, his medication will not work. Precautions are necessary. This is why it is said –
This is a reference to ‘Shraddha.’ If the disciple has shraddha, he will obey the Guru’s instruction, and practice devotion properly. He will not present material logic and faulty arguments in front of the Guru.

Shri Krishna says in the Gita, “Arjun! If he has doubts, his spiritual downfall is certain, though he may be Brihaspati himself.”

The Gita says, “Surrender fully to the Guru.” Complete surrender refers to the surrender of the intellect.

Thus, the three things we spoke of are attained through God’s grace and if someone has all the three, he is certain to attain God-realization. And if someone has the first two he must make an effort to attain the third thing.
Ved-Vyas says that if someone does not have the third thing, i.e. full faith, he should not be discouraged. Really? Tell us; tell us. He says, “The individual bereft of faith should associate with a genuine Saint, listen to his words and try to understand the philosophy.” What will happen consequently?

The knowledge attained with a Saint’s grace will give birth to Shraddha. Once we have a clear understanding of the philosophy we will develop full faith. The Guru says, “Listen, the laws of India are not applicable in Russia, then why do you take your worldly laws and try to apply them to the divine ones?
That world, the divine world, is beyond the reach of the material intellect. The divine ones possess divine powers. Their works are those of Yogmaya. While performing works of Maya, they remain untouched by Maya.” We are not able to do this, but we will be able to do the same once we become divine. Then we will start understanding everything very clearly. What we once thought to be impossible will become very easy to accept and understand.

Thus, we must understand the three acquisitions, accept them and work according to them. Only then will we reach our goal in life.


Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj
June 6, 2007