Narada Bhakti Sutras Lecture 03 Su.1 on 15-December-2018

Full Transcript (Not Corrected)

Opening Invocation

ॐ जननीं सारदां देवीं रामकृष्णं जगदगुरुम पादपद्मे तयो: श्रित्वा प्रणमामि मुहुर्मुहु :

Om Jananim Saradam devim Ramakrishnam jagadgurum Padapadme tayoh shritva pranamami muhurmuhuh.

Bhakti is Universal

So, bhakti is meant for everybody. There are no qualifications needed, only one qualification: I want to become a devotee of God.

We Already Possess Bhakti

We discussed one important point, that we already have bhakti. Bhakti means what? Intense attachment. We have the intense attachment.

And if we do not have, we have to grow intense attachment. When you read spiritual books, usually they advise you, "Give up attachment." What does that mean? Can you live without attachment? It's impossible.

What does it mean really? In the first stages, you deepen your attachment. If you can love somebody, something, anything, to the maximum extent it is possible, then only you have something to turn towards God.

The Torch Light Analogy

I'll give you an example. You have a torch light, and it is petrified, 5 watts, it's very dim light. Wherever you take it, it will give only 5 watts. If you take it to the toilet, 5 watts. Take it to the shrine room, this is God's room, I will increase it to 500 watts—it's not going to happen. This is an issue most people don't seem to understand.

Why God Created Maya

Why God created this universe? Why did he create maya? Maya means what? Attachment. Maya means attachment. But attachment to what? Ephemeral objects, changing objects. But why did God create? After all, we came from God, we are children of God. Does God want our destruction, or does he want our betterment?

So, you say, "My child, you want to be very strong, then you grow your muscles." What muscles? Muscles of love, attachment. Mind, mouth, head and soul.

The Power of Attachment

What happens when the mind grows attachment to some person or to someone else? Instantaneously, we are prepared to offer our life for that object. If somebody loves money, for the sake of money, he would give up his life. Some robber comes and he says, "I will kill you if you don't give up." Many people die refusing to hand over their money, because what do they love more? Money.

So, is it a good thing or bad thing? It's a very good thing. Why is it a very good thing? You have got the power to attach yourself. The next thing needed is to redirect it towards God.

Understanding True Detachment

People do not understand. If you don't have the power of attachment, you will not have also the power of detachment. So, detachment means what? Withdrawing attachment from one object, attachment to one object and directing it towards another object.

There is nothing called, "I don't love anything." Such a psychology is absolutely wrong psychology. So, what is detachment here means? This is not valuable, but this is more valuable.

The Psychology of Hope and Desire

And the moment we do not have any attachment, we will die. Simply we will begin and die. Because what is hope? Tell me, you think the psychology of hope. Hope means what? You don't have something, you are very much eagerly hoping that I will get it. Suppose a person becomes hopeless, you know what happens? His prana will just dry up, he will die.

This can happen only under one condition. The holy mother says, if a man doesn't have any desires, then he becomes free. His body will follow him. Body can remain only when there is a desire—desire to eat, desire to drink, desire to enjoy, desire to sleep, etc.

So, is it a good thing or a bad thing? It is an extremely good thing. So, what am I trying to convey to you? Develop as much attachment as you can. Then there is hope, we will become greater devotees. Attachment towards God? Yes. So, there are conditions. That is what I am trying to explain to you.

The Mother's Love Example

Suppose you love your husband, or if you have a child, you have a child. Every good wife or good mother is prepared to give up her life for the sake of her husband or child. That means what? That person's whole life is in the other object. So, now, this is called love. We call it attachment, because it is not for God, it is for the worldly object.

But the point here is, the person is ready to sacrifice his or her life for the sake of the beloved object. Now, just imagine, will this person do any harm to the person whom he loves? Will this person destroy the object of his love? It can be anything—sofa, house, car, garden, plant, anything. On the contrary, he will try to protect it.

So, if a mother has a child, the mother has tremendous love for the child, then the mother, what is the first thing the mother does? I put it in a funny way. Suppose a child is there, loved very much by the mother, and it is a weekday, the child has to go to school, doesn't like to go, says, "Mommy, Mommy, do you love me?" "Yes, my darling." "How much do you love me?" "I am ready to give up." "So, will you permit me so that I don't need to go to school?"

Which mother will do that? If a neighbouring child comes, says, "Do whatever you like, I am not interested." Her own child, because she loves, if necessary, she will give a slap and drag the child to the school. Why does she do that? Why does she punish the child? Because of her love for him. That means my child doesn't know what is good for him. So, I know it. I will do everything. Even if he hates me, I want him or her to become better.

Loving Ourselves Through Loving God

So, what am I talking about? If we want to turn our power, first thing is, we must have the power of attachment. That means increase. How do we increase? This is the world provided by God for experimenting, gymnasium.

Second, if we love ourselves, then we will not spare ourselves. I'll give just one example. The mother will not spare the child, even if the child says, "I hate you," because I have not understood. "Why are you not allowing me to bunk this school, and to play, and to be happy? After all, you want me to be happy." Other says, "No, you don't know what can give you happiness. If you go through the school, become well-educated, get a better job, then the happiness which you derive then, will have no comparison with the happiness you are deriving without going to school."

You understand now? Apply it to ourselves. What is it? I want to love God. What does that mean? I want to love myself. If I don't love myself, then I will not wish good for myself. Are you following me?

Loving God means what? I derive the greatest joy from God. I wish to become a great devotee of God. Therefore, do you wish your neighbour should be loving God, or you wish you want to love God? Both. So that means, you love yourself. That is why you understand, loving God, becoming a devotee, is the greatest benefit anybody can do to anybody, including ourselves.

The Psychology of Spiritual Life

So what is the psychology? I am trying to explain. If I turn to spiritual life, who gets the benefit? Others will get, or will I get first? I am the person. So why do I want to? Because I love myself. When I love myself, I don't want to be harmed. I don't want to suffer. I want to be always happy. This is the characteristic of true love. I don't want my beloved object to suffer and to undergo any difficulty. I want that beloved's life to be a very, very happy life. Isn't it?

And that is the understanding. If we go to God, who gets the benefit? God or me? Who gets the benefit? That means now I am mortal, now I am ignorant, and now I am not that happy. If I realise God, I will be beyond the veil of death. I will never have any ignorance and I will be forever happy. Isn't it?

Are we doing this for this sake or for God's sake? For whose sake am I loving God? For our sake. And there is a law we will never do it to anybody that includes ourselves unless we love that somebody. So if I want to be a bhakta, that shows that I love myself very deeply and I want my girlfriend and I want my future goodness. I don't want to go through the samsara bandhana. Therefore, I want to become a devotee.

The Uniqueness of Bhakti Among the Yogas

The specialty of bhakta is something different. The specialty of Rajayoga is to get out of bandhana. The specialty of Jnanamargam, he wants to become free, mukta, and get out of samsara.

The specialty of Karma Yoga is to become Naishkarmiya. That means it's opposite. A Karma Yogi means a sadhaka who uses karma to approach God. What is his purpose? One day I will become perfect Karma Yogi. That means what? Then thereafter, I don't need to do any work. He wants to, in other words, be free from all work.

Whereas bhakta is the only person who says, "I don't want to be away from bhakti. If I get this much bhakti, my thirst for bhakti will increase. I want this much, I want this much. I want only bhakti." Therefore, Narada himself says, in every other yoga, mukti is the goal. In bhakti yoga, if God comes and says, "I will give you mukti," he says, "No, no, no, I don't want to be given mukti."

Mukti means what? Then thereafter he says, "I will not know who you are and where. I want to know. I am a devotee, I am your child, I am your servant, and I am your friend, and you are my God. I want always to enjoy you."

This is beautifully expressed in Bengali because Bengal had produced some of the greatest devotional literature. "I do not wish to become sugar. I want to eat sugar." So, after realisation, then he says, "Okay, what is mukti? I will become one with God. That is fine. Now I know what it is. Now I want to come back and keep God in front of me and go on looking at him, enjoying him." This is the only goal of every bhakta.

You ask him, "Do you want to become with your chosen date? One." He says, "No, I want to keep a little distance so that I can go on staring at him." This is the speciality of bhakti.

The Problem with Scattered Attachment

First point we already discussed. We already have bhakti. What is the problem? First of all, it is scattered. Bhakti means, I am talking about attachment. We already have attachment. We have attachment to our body, attachment to our good name and fame.

That is why when somebody criticises you, you get hurt. "Am I such a worthless person that this person is criticising me?" So criticism, you understand, he doesn't come and slap, he doesn't take a knife and injure you. Just some words, hearing that sound, then you become like that. Ego is there. So that means what? We are all terribly attached to our own body.

Name and fame belongs to whom? Body or not? Not the body. It is the body. Because if there is no body, where is name and fame? So you say that, "You know that person, oh my God, such a famous person. And where does he live? I don't know. How does he look? I don't know. What is the apartment? I don't know." In such a person who doesn't exist, will he have name and fame?

The moment name and fame means, "Oh, Jevala Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, like Einstein, or Shivaji, any Guru Nanak, any person," we must know, "Oh, this is the person who is such a great person."

The Necessity of Form

So without body, name and fame are totally meaningless. How are you going to give name and fame to some person who is not known at all? Without body, name and fame are totally useless. Without body, this knowledge is totally useless.

Think a little bit. Suppose Einstein, what is Einstein? He is a mind encyclopaedia of scientific knowledge. Isn't it? So suppose he is dead, where is the knowledge now? He had all the knowledge in the mind. But without a body, how are you going to access that? You understand? Body is the only thing we need.

You heard about a saint, great saint, say Thakur Sri Ramkrishna, and how does he look? Nobody knows. Where does he live? Nobody knows. What is his life? Nobody knows. What is your guess about his spirituality? What is your idea of his spiritual? Absolutely nothing. Therefore, without the body idea, this whatever bhakti or jnana, knowledge, is all totally useless for us.

That is why we need a body. The moment body is there, either good or bad, for both, body is needed. There is a wicked fellow, and he is terrible. "Where is he? What is his name? How does he look? I don't know." That means it is a formlessness. If it is formless, it is totally useless.

A devotee never wants to think of God in that way. "I want to see you in front of me, and then I want to adore you."

The Task of Channelization

So, we have all the equipment. What is the problem? It is scattered. So what is the task now? To channelise. We have to recognise. I told you in the past also, but I will tell you, because I talk these things to so many people, I don't know whether I spoke to you.

With regard to any object or any person in this world, so I use the word object. If I say it is a person, it is only a human being. But if I say it is an object, it could be anything. It could be a plant, it could be an animal, it could be poetry, it could be anything.

So, if we love some person or some object, and we love many things, do we love every object exactly in the same way? Or do we give what we call an hierarchical value, mathematical value? This person I love 90%, this person I love only 80%, this person 50%, this person 30, 20, 10, minus also 80%.

That means when you happen to see such a person heading towards your house, you will simply go the other way round. Why?

The Trinity of Love, Knowledge, and Happiness

So if you love somebody, love, knowledge, and happiness, these three are interrelated. Love, happiness, and knowledge. You have to understand it properly. This is because the supplies also took off. "You don't know what is the God. And you say you love. Can you be happy without love?" So love, knowledge, and happiness are synonyms. So first comes knowledge, then comes happiness, then comes love.

Try to understand it. Simple example. You don't have any knowledge of say, myself. Can you love it? To love it, you should have knowledge of it. What knowledge? So somebody told you, it makes no impression. You have seen it, it makes a little bit impression. "It looks like it," but you will not love it. The moment you take a small piece and put it on your hand, and then you know, you have the real knowledge. The moment you have real knowledge, what is the knowledge? "This is a very happy, good, sweet."

Without that happiness, you will not love it. You will have knowledge, but knowledge is useless.

Value Judgments and Life Choices

So, Sukha and Dukha are considered the value judgments. Our whole life is only working through these value judgments too. Where there is happiness, we run towards it. Where there is no happiness, we run away from it.

These are called value judgments. What you study, what job you do, what type of people you mix with, what type of objects you have, or you want to possess, everything has to be measured in these only two terms. What are the two terms? Whether it will contribute to my happiness or not.

So, our activity is geared towards two. If it is happy, we go towards it. That is called Pravrutti. If we have knowledge that it is going to give me unhappiness, all our endeavour will be to escape from it as much as possible.

The Foundation of All Yoga

Whole life, including breathing, including your sitting. Why am I going to such great depths? This is the foundation of understanding any type of yoga.

You are sitting there. There is a depression. Imagine there is a depression there and something is pricking you. What will you do? Automatically you will shift your position. Either you go this way, that way, back side, front side, to avoid that pricking sensation. Many times you are not aware of it.

It is a hot day and you are sitting there and you are feeling very hot and you can see that the fan is this. So, unconsciously your tendency is to move directly under the fan to get a little more breeze. Now, this example is enough.

Whole life you analyse. We love only first of all, we must have knowledge. Secondly, we must have that experience. What experience? Sukha and Dukha. Thereafterwards, our love or hatred comes into character. If it is happiness, good production, our love will come. If it is not happy or on the contrary unhappy, then it is our effort will be to escape that. Even if it comes, we want to escape.

The Laws of Hierarchical Values

This is the first law, very important. The second law is that even though many things are there which give us happiness and there are many things also which give unhappiness, we assign to each one an hierarchical value, mathematical value. "This is the best, most happy 95%. This is little less, 90%." How do we know? How do we know?

The other way round also. "This gives me 5% unhappiness. This gives me 10% unhappiness. This gives me 20% unhappiness." Imagine.

The Buffet Dinner Example

Now I will give you an example. Suppose you attend a buffet dinner and there are 100 varieties of things and you already have experience of many things. So what will you do now? First thing what will you do? What I am already aware of, I go for that. Whatever you know which will give me the highest happiness, that would be your first preference. You will go with your plate and first thing is you will take that one.

Suppose it is there but some fellows came and finished it. Then you opt for the next best, 90%. Though if you don't see you don't regret. But if you see and it is gone then you regret it. "Why did I not come 5 minutes earlier? I could have been there." See how thought process goes on.

Like that we give hierarchical value to objects, to persons, to situations, to jobs, to books, to sofas, to carpets, to phones, anything you name it, there is an hierarchical value.

The Bitter Gourd Example

On the other side, suppose the doctor tells you to eat bitter gourd. There are varieties of eating bitter gourd. If you eat any time Andhra bitter gourd preparation, you will never go back to Mysore park or Rasagulla. Iraniana knows that? Yeah, I was in Andhra PG.

See, they take out the inside, scoop out the inside and then they will stuff all very tasty things and then tie it with a thread including gourd, jaggery, also will be there. And then they will fry it with ghee, otherwise with oil. They tie a thread to keep that inside. It's called stuffing. A sandwich.

And once you put it inside your mouth, you say "I don't want anything else for today." Believe me, it is prepared properly. You will not want anything.

So what is the problem? All bitterness has gone. Sweetness has gone. Inside stuff is very tasty and it is fried in ghee.

Anyway, this is an extreme example I am giving, but I have to give an example of Durga. There are two ways of eating bitter gourd. One is just raw. Another is a little boiled, so that it is nicely boiled. Third is that you add a bit of salt to the second one. Hierarchical value changes.

The bitterest is the just raw. And the next is boiled. So I added a bit of salt, it is less bitter. And the third is even much less bitter, fried nicely with masala and other things. Now, what is the hierarchical value? This is 90% bitter, this is 80% bitter, this is only 25% bitter. If you have a choice, which one would you choose? Least bitter. Least bitter. This is what I am telling.

The Three Stages of Love

So two points we have more here. With regard to any object of if we want to love something, love is the last characteristic. What should be the first one? Knowledge. What is the second one? Happiness. Already it must be very happy or less less unhappiness if we have to choose. And then the third one is love comes towards that or hatred comes towards that. We are suffering.

Raga and Dvesha

Samsara means what? Raga and pleasure. Bhakta means who? Yogi. Bhakta means Yogi. Yogi means who? He says, "I have to treat both Raga and pleasure equally." It is very easy to give up what we hate but very difficult to give up what we like.

Knowledge of God Through Scriptures

So that is why with regard to God also apply the same principle. What is the principle? That first of all knowledge. Where from do we get knowledge of God? Because we don't see God. We don't experience God. How do we know? From the scriptures. But how do we know scriptures are telling the truth? When we have to see somebody I will tell you something very interesting.

The Ramakrishna Defense

Somebody started criticising Ramakrishna. He said, "Ramakrishna he was a hypocrite he enjoyed things and he was a man like that." Misunderstanding. He can't do anything. So one of our Swami confronted him and said "Do you believe in the law of cause and effect?" He said, "Yes of course I am a modern man. I believe in the law of cause and effect. If there is an effect there must be cause and if there is a cause there will be effect."

What is the relationship? This is manifesting, unmanifested and manifesting. Seed means cause means unmanifested. Waiting for manifestation. Effect means already manifested. So we don't see both. We see only either the manifestation or the cause.

So you say that Ramakrishna was a hypocrite and all that. That means you are saying he was not a sannyasi. Hypocrite means He was a worldly person. He was not a sannyasi.

He said, "Look at the Ramakrishna artwork. There are thousands of people who have renounced their so called worldly prospects. Joined the author. Became monks. Leading very wonderful lives. How can a man who is a hypocrite inspire so many people? A hypocrite will inspire and produce whom? Hypocrites. Only a genuine sannyasi can inspire because there is something here."

The Fake Musician Analogy

A fake musician will be found out very soon. Suppose somebody declares, "I am a great musician" and there will be sincere sadhakas who want to learn music. They will go. The moment he opens his mouth, these fellows know "He doesn't know anything. He only says sorry. Sorry to you." Because all your knowledge given is only sorry knowledge.

Understand? There are seven scales. He has not gone beyond three. He has not gone That is called sorry knowledge. Anybody can find out a hypocrite very soon. If this man were to be a hypocrite then he would have produced only hypocrites. But so many genuine sannyasins are there. That means he was a really a real sannyasi. This is the truth about it. If the seed is burnt out seed it will not produce anything. If the seed is alive only it will produce. So by the effect you can understand what Swami Vivekananda was saying. This is true also.

So why a person like me is attracted towards Sri Ramakrishna? Am I a stupid fellow that I mistook Sri Ramakrishna as a great monk but after studying also I am still mistaking him only about a fake monk? Is it ever possible? How long can I deceive myself or anybody? That means I know that he is a genuine person. That's why we are attracted.

Four Characteristics of Great People

So apply this to great people. How do we not believe that God is through scriptures? And how do we know scriptures are right? There will be some people who follow the scriptures, study their lives. So we said four characteristics. Always happy, cheerful, they love everybody without any distinction. Who can love? Only a genuine spiritual person can love.

And thirdly, a person is prepared to give up anything, his own life for the sake of other people. And fourth characteristic is he is samadarshi. He loves everybody equally. Atma upamyena sarvatra samamparshi. Like himself. "Who are you? Myself. Who are you? Myself. Who is a dog? Myself."

The Story of Pauhari Baba

Pauhari Baba. You heard about Pauhari Baba? He was a great yogi. Swami Vivekananda met him and then he wanted him to take initiation from him. But of course that did not happen. You never heard about Pauhari Baba? Great soul.

What happened one day, Pauhari Baba used to keep some dry chapati and he used to put it in water and use a little bit of ghee so that it is eatable. So one day a dog came and it was very hard. It saw the roti, it took it in its mouth and was running away. What was Pauhari Baba doing? Eating. With a ghee pot he was addressing, "Rama you see the roti might break your teeth. Let me put a little ghee." Genuinely.

What was he looking at? It is not a dog. It is Rama came in the form of a dog. A thief came in the form of a Rama came in the form of a thief.

The Thief's Transformation

You know that story? Thief story? In gospel it was there. Gospel I don't remember. But Swami Vivekananda says. By the will of Rama? No. One Swami Vivekananda was wandering in Himalayas. Wherever he used to go he used to enquire whether there is any great sadhu nearby.

And they pointed out. Everybody said "Here is a great sadhu." So Swami Vivekananda went there an old man and he prostrated himself and then he asked him "What made you a monk?" Then that man told the story "When I was young one day I was a thief. I went to steal something from Pavahari Baba at night."

So he made, there is a he made a hole and then he entered inside he found nothing much valuable what we call you know some cooking utensils etc. That was valuable for that thief. So he hunted them at midnight and was about to go away these vessels moved with each other and made some noise and Pavahari Baba instantaneously woke up saw the thief immediately the thief got frightened, dropped his bag there and ran off.

Pavahari Baba understood in a twinkling of an eye, he took up the motel and ran after him and then caught hold of that thief kept it at the gate of that thief and said, "Lord please forgive me for interrupting your work."

That thief "What type of life I am leading and what is this thinking genuinely he meant it genuinely the moment he said this word immediately he renounced the world he fell upon me, went to Himalayas and lived a genuine sadhu's life and he was pointed out as the greatest sadhu in that region."

So I advised my devotees, if you want to steal anything come to the ashram and steal there is a good chance you might become a sadhu in your next birth and like that so what is important for us.

Summary and Conclusion

So what am I talking about? We talked about bhakti is its own reward. We are all potential bhaktas because we all have attachments already, but it is scattered—a little bit here, a little bit there. We have to gather it, and then when this attachment is directed towards God, that is called bhakti. We will discuss it later on.

Another point we raised and said that for everything we come across an experience, we assign an hierarchical value of sukha and bhakti. We don't love everything equally, we don't hate also everything equally. For that I brought two concepts. What is it? Love is the effect of experience, happiness, and happiness comes only when there is an experience which I call knowledge.

So knowledge means experience, and we judge it. "This is very happy experience," and then automatically love for that object will come. Similarly, this is the knowledge, and this produces only unhappiness, therefore we don't want it. Life is only an activity avoiding what brings unhappiness and what brings happiness.

In course of time we will realise that we have to give up both happiness and unhappiness. So if we are attached to happiness, it is called raga. If we are attached to unhappiness, we are attached—that is called dvesha. So why do I call it we are attached to dvesha? Because it produces deep thought in us. Raga also produces thought. Dvesha produces even greater thought. Therefore it affects us in either way. It affects us—it should not affect us.

So bhakta means equally I say "this is also prasada, this is also prasada." But it will come through when bhakti improves, increases—then only correspondingly we will be able to look upon both of them as equally valuable. Because it is this, the essence of what I said is that we have to develop tremendous attachment to things already that we know, so that that will be like a pole vault by which we will jump and throw back the pole vault and then we will go to the other side.

We will discuss it next week—next either Saturday or Sunday. I am going out.

Closing Prayer

ॐ जननीम् शरदाम् देविम् रामक्रिष्णम् जगत् गुर्म्

पादपद्मे तयोः स्रित्वाः प्रणमामि मुहुरुमु

Oṁ jananīṁ śaraḍhāṁ deveṁ rāmakriṣṇam jagad-gurum

pādapadmetayosritvā pranamāmi-muhurumuhu