Idhika Turya - शान्ति कैसे प्राप्त हो ।Praket Ehimay - Sudama and Krishna
Chapter 10 : Vibhuti Yoga or the Yoga of Manifestation
Ram Kishan Uncle’s Discourse
Chapter 10 is also called the ‘Doctrine of Grace’. “Those who worship constantly, worship and love God without desire and expectation, I give them the knowledge” says Krishna. Krishna gives this knowledge to those whose mind remains in communion with Krishna always.
The qualities of God are innumerable. Through the different objects, God manifests his qualities. Whatever thing that we find are glorious, should be considered to be an expression of the splendor of God. God’s potency is infinite and this expression should be considered to be one portion of the infinite.
Whenever Ramakrishna Paramhamsa used to see birds flying high, he used to admire the divine beauty in them and used to get into a daze. He could see the act of flying birds as one ’emanating from single source.’ This kind of true spiritual insight can see the essence of divinity in all that is splendorous and glorious.
However, human vibrations are diverse and different. Worshipping to contemplate is a form of ‘sakaar saadhana’ (worship with a finite form in mind). From the various forms such as Shiva, Hanuman, Ganesha etc., one picks a form which they want or according to the family tradition.
For people who want to stay clean of human interaction and choose to find God in solitary places, even the company of 2-3 people is a crowd. One has to train one’s mind to be not distracted. There is a divine space within the brain. This divine space is the same as the pure consciousness which is present in the physical and the spiritual world.
God does not create suffering. God creates only laws. To release oneself from the suffering, one can bind oneself to the continuous recitation of mantras. However, one cannot reach to God all by himself. By trying to climb to God, one discovers that as one has covered a long journey, there is more distance to be covered. Path to God comes when God himself shows the path to an individual and shows the purpose of the journey.
Question from audience : Why do people suffer? If everything is predestined, then why should one do Karma?
Answer : We all come with a package of karmas called the “prarabhdha” karma which needs to be burned. God does not create suffering. God simply instructs how to live. Karma is important because Prarabdha can be amended based on how strong or weak the karma is. If the prarabdha is ordinary then simple steps can remove the karma. If the karma is moderate, then stronger methods are required for the removal of the same. However, if Karma is extremely strong, then it cannot be amended and has to be suffered in this human birth. To explain the intensity of Karma, uncle cites a story as an example.
Once there a man who wanted to obtain political power and wealth. He, therefore, starts chanting the mantras of Durga. He chants the prescribed rounds of the mantras sixteen times whereas the mantra was said to confer the fulfillment of desires by chanting them only once. He therefore; gets dejected, gives up everything and becomes a sanyasi. As he chants the mantra round the seventeenth time, Goddess Durga appears and says that she appeared, because the chanting of the mantras is ‘Amogha’ (unfailing) and asks him of his desire. The man who had now turned into a sanyasi replies that he had been desiring political power and wealth, but that was before and he had chanted the mantras enough number of times (sixteen), but since she did not appear, he had given up on his desires and had therefore become a sanyasi.
Goddess Durga replies that her mantras were Amogha and she was bound to appear. However in his past life, the man had committed sixteen murders and the first sixteen rounds had only neutralized those reactions. It was the seventeenth time, when his chanting actually bore any fresh fruits and here she was to satisfy him of whatever desires he had. The man then became enlightened, and then he returned to the worldly life and became a spiritual scholar.
Question : How to surrender fully?
Answer : Human life is precious. We have a unique opportunity to grow spiritually. Since we have a prarabdha package, the opportunity for material growth is defined and limited according to the individual packages we have; however, the opportunity for spiritual growth is infinite.. and yet human beings spend a majority time in pursuit of the material pleasures and success. The devas of the heaven do not have this golden opportunity as human beings do. The devas can only exhaust their ‘punyas’ in the heaven. They cannot grow spiritually. Only human beings can use this birth to grow spiritually. The real aim of his life is to obtain God. By calming the mind, doing tapasya (penance), one is able to obtain God. God says that whatever is the last thought of a person while he does, that is what the person attains in the next birth. To obtain God, one should, therefore, have God in his last thought. However, since it is never known as to when one could die, it is useful to spend all the time thinking about God. However, while dying if a person is unconscious, then God says that “I remember him and bring him to me.” The entire human life should be a shrine. One should remember God in the beginning of a work, end of the work and if possible in between also. The key to achieving God is to become selfless and being committed to duty.
A wise man understands that multiplication of desires leads only to further entanglement in the chain of births and deaths. It is the elimination of the desires towards which one must be focused.
Moti Aunty’s Discourse
Many times, devotees ask things from God, but sometimes God himself becomes pleased with the devotee and starts enlightening him. In chapter 10, God starts enlightening Arjun without Arjun’s asking. God gives that knowledge called the ‘vibhuti’ of God.
What is yoga? The ability to connect with God’s strength and abilities is yoga. When God displays the splendor, that is the Vibhuti of God. During a yagya, we light the fire. However, we don’t pick it and put it to our foreheads. However, after the yagya, when all materials turn to ash, we pick the ash and put to our foreheads. This is because the yagya has purified all the materials and only these purified materials are worthy of being applied to foreheads.
To the point of karmas, Moti Aunty describes how Maharaj jee used to describe karmas and alteration of prarabhdha. If the karmas are small in magnitude, then just like a bent needle can be hammered and straightened, these karmas can be altered and fixed. If the karmas are moderate then just like a bent iron rod which needs to straightened, with lot of patience and efforts, these karmas can be altered.
However if the karmas are bent like crooked train tracks, then there is no way to fix them , but to endure them and burn them off.
God says whosever comes to my shelter gets liberated. Therefore; regardless of how the Karmas are we should strive to attain the shelter of God.
