Gita Satsangh: Chapter 9 - Swami Dayananda on Devotion

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

An expression of devotion is expressed in various forms and with

varied efforts. Also same efforts exercised by different people do

not yield the same result. The enclosed commentary on the reasons for

this and detailed explanation of the topic of Devotion is provided by

Swami Dayananda Saraswati. These commentaries are from his Home

Study Guide (over 2000 pages of written materials) and let me take

this opportunity to thank Arsha Vidya Gurukulam for permitting me to

post the relevant sections to this list. Those who are interested

should be able to buy the Homestudy Guide at the Gurukulam .

(http://www.arshavidya.org)

 

During the coming holiday season, his commentary has high potentials

to motivate all of us take some time for prayer on a daily basis.

 

Warmest regards,

 

Ram Chandran

 

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FOR THE SAME EFFORT. MUCH LESS RESULT DUE TO IGNORANCE

Here Sankara makes a note. Even though the effort is the same,

because they are worshipping me in ignorance, they only enjoy limited

results. Effort is common to all of them. In every yajna you have to

make effort. And all those devatas they worship are me, so they are

all worshipping me. But because of ignorance, they do not recognize

me as the real recipient of their worship. They think they worship

separate devatas for separate lokas etc. Because of that, they limit

themselves to that particular experience. The effort is the same as

it would be if they were doing rituals for antahkaranaSuddhi. But

they become the recipients of limited results due to ignorance.

 

It is like a person who knows that something he has is an antique.

But he does not know its value. So he makes a lot of effort to find

an antique dealer and finally finds one who gives him a hundred

dollars for it. He is happy. But actually its value is several

hundred thousand dollars. So even though he made the effort required

to find the antique dealer," he got a lesser result due to his

ignorance. To say that the Lord is everything, you have to know it.

Otherwise how can you say it? You do not see the Lord being

everything, you have to know. Unless you recognize atnjaas param

brahma who is the nimitta-upadana-ka'ranam, you cannot say the Lord

is everything, I am everything. If this is understood, on the other

hand, the result is limitlessness. There is no coming back once you

know because the ahankara is gone. You aremvktah, liberated. All

this was pointed out.

 

Not only that, in spite of the result being so great, it is also

easily achieved, sulabham, because it is already a fact about you.

For sugar to become sweet, what should it do? It simply has to

know. 'I am sweet. Similarly, "I am limitless." anandoham is simply a

thing to be known. Therefore it is sulabham. Because you require

antahkaranaSuddhi you may think it at least requires lots of rituals.

 

IMPORTANCE OF AN ACT OF DEVOTION

The action becomes important here because it produces a corresponding

emotion. If the action is not done, the emotions will also disappear.

So we have certain actions which cause particular emotions to

manifest. The form and the spirit, as I have mentioned earlier.

Suppose there is a form which is not backed by the spirit. It is a

mere form, a dead form. And when the spirit is there, a particular

form is not necessary. To make an offering to the Lord, you do not

need a physical action. If you have devotion for the Lord you have

it. You need no special action to express it. When you have an

appreciation of IsVara, its expression, devotion, is always in you.

But the problem is, devotion is not real as long as you think you are

a devotee. When there is an ahankara, an ego which thinks it takes

care of your yoga-ksema and uses IsVara as an accomplice, you need an

act of devotion. It becomes as important as the spirit of devotion.

 

As I told you before, if you hate a person the best way of getting

rid of that hatred is to act as though you have love for him. You may

say it is hypocrisy and if your intention is to deceive the person,

it is hypocrisy. If your intention is to get rid of the hatred, it is

not. You do something like giving a flower to him daily, for 41 days.

The act of giving a flower, in any culture so far on this planet, is

a symbol of love or affection. In Indian culture it also indicates

respect and devotion. That action, which in your psyche is connected

with love and affection, no doubt will come in conflict with your

emotion towards the person you hate. But you also want to get rid of

this hatred. So you give the flower and the day comes when you need

not do it anymore. In the act of love there is love expressed so the

opposite emotion, hatred, is converted into love. This is what we

call pratipaksa-bhavana. In order to eliminate a given emotion you

bring in the opposite emotion. If there is hatred, you bring in love.

If there is jealousy, you bring in understanding, acceptance, some

kind of admiration. This is how you change.

 

Here, the act of devotion is as important as the devotion. Only in

the act is the devotion manifest and this manifestation is very

important. It has to become an all-consuming passion; I must become

the very content of devotion which means the ahankara should not be

there at all. That is why they ask you to do your prayer daily. It

need not even be understood. It is just a cultural expression.

 

WHY WHAT YOU OFFER IS NOT IMPORTANT

God is not going to be pleased just because you have offered some

flowers. He Is not going to be flattered by your act of giving or by

your praising him because whatever you can think of, it is less than

the Lord. It is something like the child who has just learned how to

multiply. When his father helps him do his homework, he says, "Dad,

you are a great mathematician." How does he know? His understanding

of a great mathematician is limited by his own knowledge of

mathematics. A title should be given by a person competent to give

that title. We cannot even spell the word omniscient correctly, what

can we really understand when we call the Lord Omniscient? From the

little knowledge we have, how are we going to appreciate the Lord's

omniscience? We have no immediate knowledge of this at all. It can

never be immediate knowledge unless we step out of the individual

mind. Then we can say, "I am that sarvajfta" That is the freedom we

can get. With reference to our mind etc, there is no question of

being all-pervasive, all-knowing, ail-powerful. When a bhakta praises

the Lord, his praise always falls short of what the Lord is. So the

Lord cannot gel flattered, much less, can he take what you offer.

 

When you offer something to the Lord, he does not take it away. If he

did, nobody would give anything. But if a priest comes to your house

to perform a ritual, he always comes with a bag. At various stages of

the ritual, things are offered to him and he puts them in his bag. If

the Lord were to take what you offer, he must have a place of his

own, like this bag, to keep it. Where can the Lord have a place of

his own ? To say this is the Lord's own place, there must be some

place which is not his. Being sarvavyapl, all pervasive, all places

are his places; being everything there is no place of his own.

Whatever you offer remains there. Why then do I offer?

 

 

advaitin, "Ram Chandran" <rchandran@c...>

wrote:

> Namaste,

>

> I find Gita verse 25 to be quite symbolic indicating that the Lord

is

> just looking for worship from His devotees with love and purity of

> heart. The Lord is quite careful in the choice of His words in

this

> verse. The seekers are many and everyone achieves according to

their

> deeds! Those who take to the worship of gods go to the gods; those

> who worship the manes reach the manes; those who adore the spirits

> reach the spirits and those who worships Me attain Me. By using

the