Are man.....

 

अरे मन ! मुरख निपट गँवार |

बिगरत आपु बिगारत मो कहँ , नेकु न करत विचार |

कोटि-कल्प भटक्यो ज्यों शुकर, विष्ठा-विषय मझार |

बिनु सेवा जहँ पाइय मेवा, गयो न तेहि दरबार |

दोउ कर-कमल पसारि निहारति, तोहिं वृषभानुदुलर |

अस अवसर नर देह सुदुर्लभ, मिलत न बारम्बार |

साधन बिनुहिं 'कृपालु' द्रवत जो, को अस सरल उदार |

अरे मन ! तू वास्तव में अत्यन्त ही मुर्ख एवं नासमझ हे | तू आप अपना भी नाश कर रहा हे , साथ ही मेरा भी नाश कर रहा हे | तू इस विषय में थोडा सा भी विचार नहीं करता | तुझे सांसारिक विषय-वासना रूपी विष्ठा में शुकर की तरह भटकते हुए करोड़ों कल्प बीत गए , फिर भी कुछ भी न पा सका | जिन किशोरी जी के दरबार में बिना साधन के ही तू सब कुछ पा जाता, उस दरबार में तू हठ्वश कभी न गया | तुझे वृषभानुनंदिनी अपनी दोनों कोमल भुजाओं को पसारे परख रही हे | एसा अवसर एवं देवदुर्लभ मानव-देह तुझे बार-बार न मिल सकेगा |

 'श्री कृपालु जी ' कहते हें कि सबसे बड़ी बात तो यह हे की वृषभानुनंदिनी के सिवा ऐसा सरल एवं उदार ह्रदय वाला और तुझे कोन मिलेगा जो बिना साधन के ही शरणागत को सदा के लिए अपना बना ले |

Contemplation...

Remember that you must always have positive thinking when you are in the process of surrendering to God and the Guru. Keep practicing it. Do not listen to, read or think anything else. Whenever you tend to listen to, read or think something else, be on your guard immediately. Like, while you are chewing food and suddenly you find grit in between your teeth. So what you do is throw it out. But in case you go on chewing that also, people will say you are crazy. Similarly, whenever a negative thought enters your mind you must expel it immediately. Do not entertain it. You already know it that such thoughts are harmful and still you have entertained them. Why, then, were you not alert enough and why did you not curse yourself for being so negligent? Why did you not start contemplating immediately?

You know that contemplation has boundless strength. It can make you a demon or a saint. It depends on your direction of contemplation. As you think so you will be. If you think of good things, you will be good. If you think on the evils, you will be evil. Your rise and fall depend on your thinking. So do not keep your mind idle. Do not let it be influenced by the company of the wrong people. Do not listen to the wrong people. Throw out all their words which you have heard, just as you spit out the grit which was mixed with your food. Always retain the thought of your Guru in your mind and heart.

True Well Wisher

It may be beyond our comprehension to understand the benevolent acts of a Saint but whatever he does that is for our well being. When a saint asks you to give him some money, your maya-infected intellect, will make you think - this is ordinary people also do. They also ask others to give them money just as the Saint is doing. But you forget that you ask fo money for satisfying your own needs and comforts, whereas the Saint want money for the welfare of others. This is the fundamental difference. A person, who does not understand this difference, thinks that the Saint is just like him or any other human being. If a Saint asks you to give him something, he is doing it for your well being. He was kind and merciful towards you that he asked you to give him a particular thing so that your attachment for that possession of yours could be removed. God has said in the Bhagavatam,

Yad yadishatamam loke yachchatipriyamatmanah

tattannivedayenmahyam todanantyaya kalpate

(Bhag.11.11.41)

"O human beings! Whatever thing you are most attached to whether it is your body or money give that to Me. By doing so, you will get rid of your attachment, your vanity. You will then get attached to Me." When you will have no money, your vanity will have no base to stand on. Then you will not be worried about anything. When you have donated all that you have in the name of God there will be nothing left to pamper your vanity or egoism? Where is now that money of yours which was in lakhs and crores? You have already donated that. So whenever you donate anything to God or a Saint, always think that They have no selfish motive behind it and you have done that for your own good, for the good of your parloka (next world). The wise always make donations with this objective in mind. Whenever you give a small amount in alms to a beggar this feeling is uppermost in your mind. So behind it, either there is a selfish motive or a wish of having a better next world. But the latter is again an act of selfishness. If you are doing it to purify your heart, that again is a selfish act. If we do so to seek the grace of the Guru, that too is selfishness. So a selfish person donates money and things with a selfish motive in mind. The selfishness may be positive or negative, good or bad. This difference is always there. But whatever God and the Saints give and do, They do it only for others.

Look, God or the Saints have no work to do. Take the case of the Saints. Before God-realization, they as ordinary human beings had been performing actions and have had suffered the fruits of their karmas, both good and bad in infinite lifetimes. But after God realization, they became Saints. Then, they too were freed from worldly tasks. They became complete in themselves. But they do perform all worldly tasks. History is replete with such examples. Prahlad, Dhurv, Ambarish – all of them ruled their subjects for many number of years. Even the greatest Saints did have a family life. They married and sired children. They fought in the battle grounds like Arjun did. They did everything that a mayic person does. As a rule, they are not supposed to do all these things. Because a Saint has got everything that he could wish for. Why should he do any work? The purpose of doing something is to attain bliss, which they have attained already. He has achieved his goals. Then why should he do any work?

Yastvatmaratireva syadatmatriptashcha manavah

Atmanyeva cha santuhtastasya karyam na vidyate

(Gita 3.17)

But, a Saint too works or does karma. God descends on the earth in various avataras and works day and night. Shri Ram came and stayed in this very orld of ours for eleven thousand years. So did Shri Krishna for hundred of years. And the Saints have always stayed here after realizing God and did everything that an ordinary human being has to do. They did to the ‘play-acting’ of all that i disapprovingly called kaam (sensuous gratification), krodha (anger), lobha (avarice), moha (attachment), jealouy and malice. But they could do all this through yogamaya, the personal power of God. Therefore, neither sin nor virtues can influence a saint. The reason being his mind is not attached to that karma. He does everything for the welfare of all living beings. Shri Krishna killed many demons like Aghasur, Bakasur, Putna and others. But what ultimately happened to them? They received the grace of God. All of them went to Golok, the abode of Shri Krishna. It means the Saints cannot but grace all living beings. They may kill us or love us. They may punish us or rotate us in 84 lakh species. Whatever they do to us is nothing but the manifestation of their grace. They do so, so that we become aware and seek the shelter of God and the Saint and avoid doing a crime by nursing a thought against them. In order to save us from committing all such wrongs a prison of eighty four lakh species has been created so that all living beings may become cautious and alert.  So God or a Saint can shower grace, though They may seem to perform any kind of action yet, whatever They do is for the welfare of all beings. An odinary human has the evils of love and hatred as he is bound by maya, that cause all the ailments. But God and Saints are free from both.

Samo’ham sarvabhuteshu na me dveshyo’sti na priyah

Ye bhajanti tu mam bhaktya mayi te teshu chapyaham 

(Gite 9.29)

God says that He does not have either an enemy or a dear one. Similarly, the Saints do not have an enemy nor do they have a dear one. They are Grace in Person. So whatever they do is only the manifestation of their grace. We may or may not understand it fully, since we are ignorant. A mother, for example, hugs and kisses her child. She feeds that child from her own breasts even if sometimes she does not have the strength to do so and gets emancipated in the process. This is her love, her grace. Sometimes, she slaps her chils too. That too is her grace. She does it, so that she could teach her child not to pick up wrong habits like lying. Father also punishes the child so that his child should become a person of character and good conduct and be inclined towards God. So, that punishment has his grace hidden in it. If this is the case with a worldly mother or father, then a Saint is all the more so because he has only grace for others. What else can he do? A mother loves her child punishes him too. Apparently they are two contradictory things but the purpose of both is grace.

My Lord, Everything is Yours....

God says that the amount of His grace or divine gift to a person depends on the degree of his surrender to Him. It means that there is a condition about the degree of one's surrender.

tameva sharanam gaccha ssarvabhavena bharata

tatprasadatparam shantim sthanam prapsyasi shashvatam

( Gita 18.62)

If you surrender to Him, He will shower grace on you depending on the degree of your surrender. God takes complete responsibility of a person who has wholly surrendered to Him. So it is only God and the Saints who give in proportion to the degree of one's surrender. For that you have nothing to offer. Because whatever you have, is of no use to Them. What can you offer? Your body? It is very dirty. It is not worth God's touch, just as you will not touch farces lying near you. A human body composed of the five elements is worse than farces. How can you possibly expect that God will touch it or even look at it? It is not worth His gaze. Mind is still filthier. And intellect is far worse.

What else can you offer? Is it some material thing that you would offer? But EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD BELONGS TO HIM. How can you say it is your? Did you bring it along from your mother's womb? If you offer God some water, that water itself is of this earth and it belongs to God. Then what is your own? This body of yours too was formed in your mother's womb by God's grace. Only your sins are your own, on which you can claim your right. The selfless offering of God and the Saints is conditioned by the degree of your surrender to Them.

When a disciple surrenders completely he receives his special grace. Without that grace nobody can attain God, because after one's heart is completely purified, the Guru blesses him with a divine power which destroys all his vices and virtues that have accumulated during his endless lifetimes and eliminates the very root, maya; all kinds of panchaklesh (five affictions) - rag, dvesh (all kinds of worldly love and hatred), abhinivesh (clinging to life), avidya (ignorance) and asmita (egoism) disappear and he becomes blissful till eternity. This is the special grace of the Guru. A disciple whose degree of surrender is comparatively less also receives his grace in many ways. The Guru goes to him, looks at him, talks to him, tries to make him understand and cautions him from time to time, forgives him. He points out his mistakes so that he will correct himself and for that he scolds him and also persuades him.

In case the effect of scolding and persuasion of the Guru brings him to a stage where free from all shortcomings, the whole being of the disciple is overwhelmed; it can be safely assumed that he has arrived. But so long it does not happen, he cannot be said to have surrendered fully. He is under misconception that as he has done pranam (salutation), taken the charanamrita, and done the aarti, he has surrendered to the Guru. All these are external activities. It is only by surrendering mind and intellect, that one can claim to have achieved that stage.