Bhakti Bliss

(Part 3 of a talk given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj in Ganganagar, Rajasthan, India, on November 27, 2009)

The body was produced by your parents and it is made of material elements. It was for the maintenance of the body that God manifested the world. We should make use of the protein, vitamins and anything else the body requires so that it remains healthy for devotional practice and the aim of the other “I”, God realisation, is attained. If this body isn’t cared for properly, then you will experience physical suffering and as a result, you won’t practice devotion to God.

Nowadays everyone suffers due to the body and this is because we wrongly understand that our happiness is in this world. “Today there’s a wedding, which means lots of malpua (a rich Indian sweet) to eat!” You ate a lot. Keep on eating – you are still young, but when you get older you will see that diabetes and heart disease are waiting for you. God said, “Eat the food I produced in this world in its original form.”

Instead we mix, fry and spice everything, and in the process destroy all the vitamins that the food contains, and then say, “I really enjoyed that!” It is these kinds of preferences that cause disease in the body.

So we experience physical suffering and our mental suffering – desire, anger and greed – is separate from this. Even beyond this there is the attachment we have to our loved ones. If your child gets a fever, you exclaim, “Oh! What is his temperature?” But why are you so excited? You don’t have the fever. “No, I don’t have the fever, but it’s my son!” If your son also has an accident, “Rush him to the doctor!” The doctor says, “He has to have an operation. He broke a bone. It will cost $100,000.” “$100,000? But I’m poor!” We experience so much unhappiness due to our relations, and our personal suffering is separate from this.

Out of ten or twelve of our closest relations, if one of them dies, we cry. We cry for all of them them, and the last one to go cries the most. How does a human being continue to live in the face of all this suffering? In spite of this he doesn’t turn towards God. Saints try hard to help the souls, but even they get tired. The scriptures are a treasure of divine knowledge, but we never paid attention to them.

Therefore we have to think about this and understand it and increase our movement towards God. To do this, we have to divert our desires for the world towards God. You might think this is too difficult to do, but it is actually quite simple.

Imagine there is a young girl of 18 or 20 years of age. She lives with her parents. She considers everything that belongs to her father as her own. She was just married to someone which whom she was completely unacquainted previously. She left her parents’ home and went to her in-laws home, but what magic happened in her going that as soon as she arrived, she thought, “This is my home. This is my car. This is all mine”? if she were asked, “What about the things at your mother’s home?” She would say, “Those aren’t mine; they belong to my brother.” Did that young girl practice detachment for many years to reach this state? No, it happened in one second.

If you realise, “I am the soul and my self-interest is only served by God,” you will start to love Him. Imagine there is a beggar. He went to someone’s home and spoke to a servant in that house, “Please give me something to eat, and in return I will give you a paras (a touchstone fabled to turn iron into gold).” That servant had never heard of a paras so he had no idea what it was. He thought, “It might be something good. I’ll give it to my master, and then he’ll be happy with me.” He said, “Alright, I’ll give you something to eat.” Later that evening when his master came home, he said, “Sir, a beggar came to the door today. He asked for some food in exchange for a paras, so I fed him and he gave it to me.” His master laughed, “Fool! Would the owner of a paras be begging? Even billionaires would be his servants!” He picked up the stone and threw it. It struck a metal hinge on the door, which turned to gold. The master picked up the stone and touched it to another hinge. That also became gold. “Oh, this is really a paras! I don’t have to work any more!”

That object which he threw away in anger he now considered dearer than his own life. Similarly, it is a fact that God dwells in our hearts, but we don’t believe this. Every moment he is noting our thoughts and ideas. We have to understand this and accept it – because without accepting it, knowing about it doesn’t produce any results. If someone explained the scriptures to us and we accepted that philosophy, then we benefited. If we merely knew it but didn’t accept it, there is no benefit.

This is like a funeral procession where “Ram nam satya hai” (God’s name is the only truth) is traditionally being recited. If the corpse being carried were to suddenly sit up, everyone in the procession would simultaneously say, “Hey! Quiet! Stop saying this! He might die again!” This is the state of our understanding.

If we know and understand that God alone is ours, and that by attaining Him we will fulfill our self-interest and find happiness, then,

Jatey kachu nij swaratha hoi, tapar mamta kare sab koi.

We love someone up to whatever limit he fulfills our self-interest. If our self-interest is being served, we automatically love.

You are all suffering in the world. When some religious person comes, you say, “Let’s go listen to him. Maybe it will make a difference and we’ll find happiness.” Otherwise, why would you ever leave your home in this cold weather? Everyone works to fulfill their self-interest. So what is in your true self-interest, and by “your” I mean what is in the self-interest of the soul, is to attain God’s supreme divine bliss. To do this you have to form desires for Him and accept Him as your own, that is all. So we have to divert our desires for the world towards God. When we do this, this is called sadhana or devotion.

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009