DEVELOPING PURITY IN DEVOTION IS FIRST STEP
Selfish Love is the Essence in Worldly Bonds
O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,
Shri Anil Antony asked “why the lives of devotees are always full
of difficulties and miseries? Does this mean that God is always
associated with misery and not bliss?”
Swami replied: God is always associated with bliss. Everybody
approaches God to get that bliss just like you approach the fire to get the
heat. You love God only to get happiness, benefits and protection from
God. Such love is instrumental love and not the ultimate love.
Instrumental love means that you love somebody or something because
that person or that thing is the instrument to give you happiness. This is
stated by the sage Yajnyavalkya in Bruhadaaranyakopanishat. He says
that anybody loves anything or anybody to fulfill his desire for
happiness from that person or that thing (Atmanah kamaya sarvam
priyam bhavati…). One loves his wife because she gives him happiness.
One loves his son because he serves him in the old age. One loves
money because it gives all sorts of comforts in the life. If the wife or son
or money gives problems and misery, one throws away these. From the
childhood, the human being is habituated to love anything or anybody
for the sake of its happiness only. The child loves its mother because she
gives milk when it is hungry. All the worldly bonds are thus, selfish
only. Nobody loves anybody for the sake of that person. Therefore, the
human being is trained from the childhood with such selfish love only.
Therefore, when the human being loves God, naturally such selfish
love only flows towards God. The human being thinks that its devotion
to God is very pure and of very high level. No doubt, it is of very high
level, but the entire love is impure only. The magnitude of anything
with minus sign is to be condemned more and more only as its value
becomes more and more. You should not appreciate the intensity of the
devotion of a demon because such intensity of devotion is directly
proportional to the intensity of his selfishness only. In this aspect, there
is no difference between a human being and demon. This concept of the
devotion is not known to the human being and hence, it thinks that it is
the greatest devotee. In fact, it is not even one percent devotee because
its devotion is with negative sign. This point should be clarified to the
devotee. Therefore, God gives difficulties and miseries to the devotee. In
such case, the devotion vanishes away. Then the devotee will realize that
his devotion is only instrumental but not ultimate. The devotee should
not try to increase his devotion because the devotion is in negative sign.
Therefore, the first step is to transform the devotion from
negative sign to positive sign. The positive sign is to love God without
aspiring any benefit or happiness in return. For this purpose, God
gives misery to the devotee. By this, one should not misunderstand that
God is not associated with bliss and is associated with misery only. The
context here is to preach the devotee to purify his devotion. This should
not be mixed up with the other context that God is always associated
with bliss. The very fact that God is associated with bliss spoils the
devotees to get attracted for getting bliss from God. The root meaning
of the word Durga is that the God is to be gained through misery
(Duhkhena gamyate iti Durga). The meaning of this word contains all
the above analysis.
Written By
His Holiness Shri Datta Swami
website address: http://www.universal-spirituality.org
e-mail address: swami@universal-spirituality.org
Jai Guru Datta