English Translation May 31st morning speech - Part I

[Guest guest]

Question:

We all come to you as devotees. We understand that you are God. Even

then, we seem to be missing something; something is lacking. Why?

 

Baba:

In this world there is nothing beyond God, there is nothing but God.

That same God resides in everyone. I have been telling this from the

beginning, I am not happy when someone says, " Shivashankar Baba is

God. " Because I know that you are That too. The questions asked and

the answers given are also an embodiment of God. There is nothing

other than God in this world. Ok, just because you and I are human

beings, is that the reason we are Gods? No, The smallest of the

beings in this world including an ant and a fly are also a

personification of God.

 

" Eeshwarassarva Bhutaanaam " God exists everywhere. That's the essence

of Bhagvat Gita. He exists as all the living things in this world.

You people are deluding yourselves by thinking that you are ordinary

human beings, you don't know you are God. That's why you think you

have joy and sorrow, problems and confusions in your life. You have

branded yourself with the label of a human being.

 

Once there was a King. His powerful enemies invaded his kingdom. The

king was fighting a losing battle. He had only two alternatives, one

was victory and the other to die fighting as a martyr. Victory would

be possible only if he dealt a deadly blow to the enemy at an

opportune moment. The king thought, " Let me escape for now, I will

consolidate our army and fight against the enemy at an appropriate

time. " Also, at that time, his wife, the Queen was pregnant. He along

with his wife tried to escape on a horse. The enemies saw the king

trying to escape and started giving him a chase. The king's horse

wasn't able to outrun the enemies because of the weight of the two

people it was carrying. The king said, " O Queen, we cannot sustain

this chase. I will turn around and fight our foes and try to win if

possible. Since you are pregnant, you have to somehow escape from

here, deliver the baby prince and with him try to wrest our kingdom

back later. " Saying so he sent the Queen away. The king fought a hard

battle but was killed. The horse took the pregnant queen to hunters'

village. After reaching the village, the queen fell down from the

horse due to fright and exhaustion and immediately delivered the baby

and died.

 

The hunters had no idea that this lady was a Queen and the baby was a

prince. They brought the prince up in the way of a hunter's boy.

About 15 years passed. The king's old minister had been asked to rule

the kingdom by his enemies. The minister thought, " If the king was

alive he should have come back by now, so he must be dead. Let me

organize a search and find out if the queen gave birth to a prince.

If so, I will bring the prince back and rally the people around to

support me. " His search party reached the hunters' village one day.

He was able to recognize the prince immediately because of the

resemblance to the king. He threatened the hunters to tell him

exactly what happened 15 years ago. The hunters told him what

happened and showed the minister the dress and the ornaments that the

queen was wearing. The minister said that all these were property of

the king. Then he turned around and said to the boy, " You are not an

ordinary person. You have a big kingdom and lakhs (100,000s) of

subjects to rule. You are a Prince, you will have to wrest our

kingdom back from our enemies. " This boy had no idea what a kingdom

was and for that matter what being a prince was like. He still

believed he was a hunter and pleaded, " O minister, please leave me

alone. I am not a Prince, I am just a hunter. " It took time for the

minister to convince the prince. He took the Prince back, trained him

in warfare with various weapons, taught him how to rule the kingdom

and finally wrested the kingdom back with the help of the Prince.

 

So you people are like that. In this forest called world, you

princes' are deluding yourselves as hunters. You think, " We are

ordinary human beings. We have hundreds of problems. We being Gods,

it's never possible. " I am like the minister in the story. I say, "

You have the kingdom of God for yourself, your Father called

Govidaraja/Nataraja lives there, you are not an ordinary person. Lets

go back and live happily instead of undergoing the trials in this

world. " If you understand this language you can rule your kingdom.

There are three types of forests, one is where they bury you if you

die, its called Irungaadu. The other is where they cremate you its

called Sudugaadu. The third type of forest is referred to by Adi

Sankara. Adi Sankara sang a song to Narasimha Swami. It's called

Lakshmi Narasimha Karaavalamba Stotram. In that he says, " This world

is a jungle. O Swami, I have lost my way in this thick jungle. I

don't know when I will become a prey to the lions, tigers and bears.

Even the darkness in the jungle is frightening, I am unable to

escape, O Narasimha, please lend me Your hand and help me out. "

 

You don't know how you came into this forest and you don't know how

to find your way out. What you know is that in this life in the

forest you are undergoing the sufferings. The fact that you are a

Siddha, a Rishi is veiled because of the small difficulties you are

facing. Your family life is not smooth or may be your economic

situation is not good or may be your children are not cooperative or

your body is not cooperating with you. So life has become nothing but

people and things not cooperating. Once everything starts to

cooperate then you enter into realm of spirituality. Your

intelligence, mind and body should be under your control, then you

become spiritual. If your wife, children, parents etc don't cooperate

the result is worldliness. That's all there is to life.

 

A man was chased by a tiger and was trying desperately to escape.

Other tigers joined the chase. Seeing no other route to escape, he

jumped into an old well nearby. As he was falling down, his shirt got

entangled in a small branch protruding out of the side of the well.

He grabbed hold of the branch and steadied himself. Looking up he saw

the tigers, but when he looked down, he saw a large python waiting to

grab him. There was no way he could jump down into the water now. In

the meanwhile, to his horror, a couple of bandicoots (extra large

rats) were steadily gnawing away at the branch he was hanging on to.

So he thought, " By the time the bandicoots break the branch I have to

escape. " He decided to jump to the other side of the well. So he

swung his body back and forth and with a final leap grabbed the other

wall of the well. He thought he was going to escape by doing that but

what happened was there was a beehive precisely at the place where he

jumped. All the bees started stinging him. Just imagine his

situation, on top you have the tiger, below you have the python and

now the beehive after trying to escape from the bandicoots.

 

Like this, in this world, our problems become more complicated

because we are seeking solutions. We get only one problem in life,

trying to solve that problem we get into myriad of other problems.

The first problem you had was people asking you why you haven't got

married. That's akin to the tiger chasing you. Trying to solve that

you got into the problem of begetting children. That can be likened

to the problem that man faced when the bandicoots were gnawing away

at the branch. Getting caught with your other relatives is akin to

getting stung by the bees, all these relatives are stinging you.

These relatives, they sting you either way. If you are well off they

sting you in the form of jealousy. If you are not well off then these

relatives insult you. Looking for a solution you get caught in

thousands of other problems, that's why you are not able to escape.

 

There is only one way to escape. In the beginning itself, you should

realize that this world is false, go sit in a forest and do dhyanam

(meditation). Its not possible because you yourself have sown the

seed in your previous birth of having to undergo a family life with

the associated joy and sorrow this birth. There is no way but to

harvest that. You will have to become like a Markandeya or Prahlada

and go and sit in a forest. Then you won't have all these problems of

wife and children, money, difficulties and health problems. You can

be like a Tarzan in the forest. Your own karma is what leads you to

all these trials and tribulations and prevents you from coming out of

it. That's all your life is. This karma is what confuses you and

deludes you into thinking that you cannot be God. You have forgotten

your natural splendour and stateliness.

 

Take the example of Anjaneya. As soon as he was born, he flew to the

Sun and tried to catch hold of him. At that time Rahu knowing that he

and not Anjaneya was the one to catch the Sun God, gave Anjaneya a

small blow which brought him down to earth. Seeing this Vaayu

Bhagavan (Wind God & Father of Anjaneya) got angry. At that time all

the Gods came together and said, " This boy is very powerful. If

events in the world have to happen according to plans, his powers

need to be hidden. " So in his childhood itself, they hid the power of

Anjaneya. Later someone had to cross the sea to reach Lanka, a

distance of 12 miles. When all the Vaanaras were discussing as to how

this could be done, Jaambavaan said to Hanuman, " You are not an

ordinary person. You have the power to fly and get hold of the Sun

God. Why are you frightened of a mere 12 miles? " Then suddenly

Anjaneya remembered his powers, jumped across to Lanka and set fire

to the entire city and jumped back.

 

You see, even a great person like Anjaneya needed a Jaambavaan to

remind him of his prowess. Likewise I am telling you like Jaambavaan

did to Hanumaan, " You have all the power in the world. You dont

realize this and you are deluding yourself that you are a human being

in this world. You can do anything you want. " Everyone has that power

to accomplish anything.

 

People generally say that on a full moon day, after performing

Satyanaarayan Pooja, you should pray to Moon. You come out and see

today is indeed Pournami (full moon day) but there is no moon to be

seen. It hasn't got lost, only a small cloud is hiding it. So you

think there is no moon. Similarly, you yourself are the full moon.

The cloud of Karma that you have to undergo in this life is veiling

your glorious nature making you believe you are in utter darkness.

The moment the clouds pass, the moon shines in all its glory.

 

In this world there is no one bigger or smaller compared to anyone

else. A Shivashankar Baba, a Shirdi Baba, a Jesus, a Rama, a Buddha

or a Krishna is in no way more powerful than you are. Shivashankar

Baba is telling you the truth. You are equally powerful like me. May

be somebody is more powerful than me. I know my powers, you dont know

yours, its as simple as that.

 

There was a rock on which lived two sea crabs. One crab said to the

other, " How long can we be sitting on this rock and get bored to

death! Lets get into the water and see what's there beyond. " The

other crab replied, " Don't do that, its definite death. " The first

crab said, " Instead of definite boredom, I prefer definite death. "

Going through the monotonous process of eating, sleeping, excreting,

begetting children and finally getting cremated is a boring life.

Instead of this boredom, I am suggesting lets take some risk and

follow another path. Coming back to the story, the first crab jumped

into water, it visited various mountains, streams and forests. It

thought, " We have so much to enjoy but without knowing this we have

been sitting on that rock for so long eating small insects that come

our way. " It came back to that rock and said to the other crab, " O

sister, you should also come with me. I will show all the wonderful

things you can enjoy. " What should the second crab have done? It

should have thought, " This crab has taken so much risk, gone around

places and has come back to take me. I should accompany her and see

all those wonderful places. " This crab was not prepared to do it. You

know what it did? It tightened its grip on the rock further and

praised the first crab, " Long live the king of Crabs! " and made it

the Guru.

 

Similarly, a Jesus, Budha, Rama and Krishna are like you, they were

born as human beings. Not being content with this run-of-the-mill

life of trying to hunt and eat food every day, gossiping, hurting

others, in the process undergoing difficulties, becoming old and

falling a prey to death, these people chose to follow a new path. In

the process they found the eternal bliss, and in the hope of making

everyone experience the same, they said, " Come, I will show you a

greater bliss than this world. Why do want a husband or a wife and

children? These are small things. There is something bigger than all

this called God. It is inside you itself. " But what you people do,

you don't listen to them. You respectfully place their photos against

your eyes and say, " Long live Jesus, long live Rama, Krishna Maharaj

ki Jay (Let Krishna be victorious). "

 

Why can't you follow them? Like the first crab, why can't you follow

the paths of a Jesus or a Rama or a Krishna? Why cant you become one

like them? If one starts thinking like that, then a Shivashankar Baba

gets created, a Siddhartha becomes a Buddha, a Nanak becomes a Guru.

That's all there is to life. Whoever has these higher ideals became a

mahaan or a Siddha or an Avatara Purusha. Whoever doesn't think on

these lines, is born a man, lives the life of a man, dies a man and

probably in the next birth may be born as a lower being. He would be

ok in this life but after doing something wrong, he may be born as a

leper the next life. Now at least you have the capability of thinking

about God. Later, in next life when you are a leper begging in front

of a temple, what's the chance of you taking to Godly ways?

 

This is what's called the Snake and Ladder game of life. Everyone

including you and me start this game of life similarly by throwing a

1 in the roll of a dice (One has to obtain a 1 in the roll of dice

before his coin gets on to the snake and ladder game board). If we do

good, we climb up a ladder. If we do something wrong we slice down

the mouth of a snake. The one who does only good quickly finishes the

game. The one who does some good and some bad keeps climbing up and

sliding down. That's the difference between a mahaan and an ordinary

man. The mahaans have done only good have climbed up and won the

game. You people are stuck traversing up and down.

 

It's like Gokulashtami Urimaram. On top of a pillar they would have a

piece of gold. When you climb up and try to get it, the people around

you will throw color water on you and pull your leg. The pillar

itself would have been smeared with oil making it slippery.

Similarly, whenever you try to go near God, the people around you

pull you down. They might be your family or your relatives. These

people don't allow someone who is trying to break free. That's why

you are not able to attain that bliss. You are merely climbing up and

sliding down. Whatever worldly things you are searching for in your

life is the obstacle in your search for God.