Cultivate Forgiveness and Love

Embodiments of Love:

Brahman is full of love and, in fact, is the embodiment of love. Your love should merge with this love. It is the only one and there is no second. It is the non-dual state. The essential nature of love is sacrifice. Under any circumstance it does not give room for hatred. It is love that brings even a person far away closer and more intimate to you. It is love that drives away the feeling of separateness and promotes the feeling of oneness. Love also raises a person from the animal to the human. Love (Prema) is the Life Force (Praana) of man and the Life Force itself is Love. One without love is like a lifeless corpse. Love is shown only to persons who are alive. No one will love a corpse. Love and life are therefore inter-related and intimately connected.

In this worldly life love is manifesting in several forms such as the love between mother and son, husband and wife, and between relatives. This love based on physical relationships arises out of selfish motives and self-interest.

But the love of the Divine is devoid of any trace of self-interest. It is love for the sake of love alone. This is called Bhakthi or devotion. One characteristic of this love is to give and not to receive. Secondly, love knows no fear. Thirdly it is only for love's sake and not for selfish motive. All these three angles of love jointly connote PRAPATTI or surrender. When one revels in this attitude of surrender (Prapatti) one experiences the bliss of the Divine. For this, the prime requisite is 'Kshama'.

Only a person who has this Kshama (attitude of forgiveness) can be considered to be endowed with sacred love. This cannot be learned from textbooks. Nor can it be acquired from preceptors nor from any one else. It is to be cultivated by oneself in times of difficulties, trials and tribulations that one is forced to meet. Only when we face problems and difficulties that cause grief and misery this quality of forbearance and forgiveness has the scope for taking root. When you are confronted with problems and difficulties you should not get upset, and become victims of depression, which is a sign of weakness. In such situation, you should bring tolerance and an attitude of forgiveness into play and should not get agitated giving rise to anger, hatred and revengeful attitude. You are embodiments of strength and not weakness. Therefore, in times of despair, you should be filled with feeling of forbearance and be ready to forgive and forget. This quality of Kshama or forgiveness is the greatest power for a human being. If one loses this quality, he becomes demonic.

The moment one is giving up this great quality, the evil qualities of anger, hatred and jealousy creep in, making him lose his human nature itself, driving him to indulge in wicked deeds of demonic nature and even to descend to animal nature. Human being should shine with human quality. Today we find jealousy and hatred dancing like devils all over the world; people with jealousy and hatred are pursuing the wicked path and bringing ruin on themselves. The best example for this is the Kauravas in Mahabharata. The brothers Duryodhana and Dussasana were the embodiments of the twin evils of hatred and jealousy. Krishna told Dharmaraja, the eldest of the Pandavas, that the Kauravas who were surcharged with these evil qualities could never improve and imbibe human qualities. Karna who was embodiment of ego joined their comparny with Sakuni as the evil adviser adding fuel to the fire. Though Duryodhana and Dussasana were born in a notable royal family, they discarded the human qualities due to jealousy and hatred and brought ruin to the family and the clan. Krishna added that jealousy is a dangerous canker that eats at the root of the tree of life, while hatred is a pest that attacks the trunk of the tree. Thus the tree of life is completely destroyed by both these pests. The Kauravas were victims of these two pests and sought their own ruin.

One may raise the question as to how to get over these dangerous pests of jealousy and hatred. This is possible when you make all the sense organs function in unison. If you look at the functions of the sense organs you may notice that even if one organ stops functioning in harmony, life will be limping. When mind conceives a thought, all the organs are coordinating to get the thought executed, if senses do not follow thoughts, life will become miserable. When there is forbearance, all organs co-ordinate harmoniously and work in unison. Once the organs of the body like eyes, ears, limbs became jealous of the tongue, saying that they make all efforts for securing food, but the tongue enjoys this they struck work and never sent any food. Tongue is the one that tastes the food and passes only palatable items of food inside which is converted by the internal organs into energy giving blood. The tongue does not retain it. But for this vital part played by the tongue, the other organs would not be able to function at all. When the other organs became Jealous of the tongue and stopped sending food with a view to harm it, they spelt their own ruin by such action, as they could not function when there was no food and consequently no supply of energy for these organs to function. Similarly jealousy on the part of a person ultimately results in his own ruin.

Students must have studied the Drama of Shakespeare in which a character was always filled with jealousy and finally met with his own end as his own jealousy made him very weak and forlorn. Basmaasura got a boon from Lord Siva after doing severe penance that the person on whose head he keeps his hand will be reduced to ashes. Finally, he himself brought his end by keeping his hand on his own head. Buddha was once confronted by a woman who was full of jealousy against Buddha because of his great popularity. When Buddha came towards her she expressed her wish to attack him with a knife and kill him, but Buddha smilingly told her 'I love you too demoness'. This surprised the demoness who thought no body would love her and changed her heart instantly; she became a dove and surrendered at His Feet. Anger begets anger and jealousy begets jealousy. The only way to conquer this is the sense of unity and love.

Happiness and sorrow have to be experienced in the worldly life as they are inevitable like the sunset and sunrise. You think New Year will give better experiences. It is not correct. It is the mind that is responsible for pleasure and pain. If your mind is good you will find anything good. You are embodiments of the Divine, which is nothing but bliss. While being so, is it not a folly on your part to say that you are suffering from pain and grieve over this?

When Bhaktas pray to Bhagavan sincerely making all their actions as offering to God, they will certainly receive appropriate Grace from the Divine. There are nine types of devotion: Sravanam, Keerthanam, Vishnosmaranam, Padasevanam, Vandhanam, Archanam, Daasyam, Sneham and Atmanivedhanam. In whichever way you offer worship, God responds in the same way. Man conveniently forgets what he gets. Without God's Grace living itself will be impossible for mankind. Even the troubles you may experience are the gifts of the Divine. When you surrender all your actions, you will surely receive His Grace. This is the purport of the Gita Sloka "Sarvadharmaan Parityajya Mamekam Saranam Vraja".

Some people want to have uninterrupted happiness. When you eat at, 10 a.m. you do not go on eating every hour thereafter without break. You have to give a break for the food to be digested. So also when you experience pleasure it has to be digested before you meet with another bout of such experience. Just as you have to do some exercise for helping the food to digest, you have to go through the exercise of confrontation of pain after experiencing pleasure. Therefore, you must take what ever is given by God as good for you.

The mother gets the pleasure of seeing her baby after going through severe pain. If you sit in an air-conditioned room throughout the 24 hours of a day you cannot feel the pleasure of it. Only when you come in after being away in the hot sun, you will enjoy the coolness of the Air-conditioned room. After the Mahabharata war was over, Krishna asked Kunthi the mother of Pandavas what she wanted. She requested that she should be blessed with troubles always as only then she would be constantly remembering as they did when they were in the forest for 12 years. She said she was not thinking of God when she was enjoying the palace life as a queen earlier.

JOY AND SORROW GO TOGETHER

You enjoy the sweetness of chanting the Lord's name only when you are in distress. The life is a mixture of sorrow and joy just as day and night, if there is night one cannot take the well-deserved rest after the day's hard toil. There is sweet juice inside the orange fruit. But it is covered by the bitter outer rind. It is the bitter rind that protects the juice inside. So we should put up with the bitter difficulties in order to enjoy real pleasure. Man is embodiment of the quality of 'Kshama' - forgiveness. There is nothing in this world that you cannot achieve with this quality.

We are now bidding farewell to the year 1993 and welcoming 1994. There is an intimate relationship between the two. We give send off to one while we welcome the other one. In the same way, we should bid farewell to bad qualities and welcome good divine qualities. You may offer all your bad qualities to God. There is nothing wrong in this. It is only God that can take them and bestow His grace on you to foster good qualities. For example, suppose you have a soiled, tom and mutilated hundred rupee currency note, no one will accept it. But, if the number is intact, the Reserve Bank will accept it and give a good note of same value in return. Similarly God only will accept the bad qualities provided they are offered with sincere devotion and repentance and shower His Grace on you. Basing on this principle the worshippers chant the Mantra "Papoham, Paapakarmoham Papaathmaaham" etc., surrendering the sins committed by one to the Lord and praying for His pardon and Grace. Even the Christians follow this principle of surrendering to God saying "I confess my sin and pray for redemption". Thus people offer all the bad qualities to God and receive good from Him.

We have "Upavaasa" living in proximity and "Upaasana" sitting near God, in our customs. People generally believe that Upavaasa means only curtailing usual food and taking some tiffin like Chapathi, ldlis etc. This is not correct. When you live near God, you will never feel hungry just as you get away from heat and enjoy the coolness when you sit near an air-conditioner. When you sit near God, your bad qualities are kept off and good thoughts and divine qualities will come to you. This is the significance of "Upaasana". People interpret it with distorted meanings.

The year 1993 was really an eventful one with lot of dreadful happenings all over the world and naturally the people are afraid what would happen in 1994 and whether it would be a better year. It is not the particular year that is of consequence. Cultivate good thoughts, speak good words and do good deeds with the broad view that everyone in the world should be happy. Give up your evil thoughts and evil qualities as they are the cause for all sufferings in the world. The New Year has set in at the right moment, for today it is Savithi (fourth day of the lunar fortnight). It may cause people some suffering akin to the suffering of a child under the stepmother. But in the wider perspective, moonshine is on the increase indicating the blossoming of the mind in a better way since moon is ruling the mind. Based on the thithi, we may expect this year to be better than the past year. There may be fire accidents in larger number, and certain conflicts may be there in the world. But we can hope that gradually human quality will be coming up and it will be a matter for delight, when there is transformation of mind to think that all are children of God. Such an attitude has to be developed to believe in the brotherhood of man and fatherhood of God. The bodies may be different but the soul is one. it cannot be fragmented.

One moon is reflected in hundreds of thousands of pots. "Ekoham Bahusyam'" and "Ekam Eva Adwitheeyam". There is only one Brahman, which is reflected in the millions and billions of beings. There is no second. You place one before zero, the zero gets value. World is zero, Sun is Zero, Moon is Zero. Actually they are all round-shaped like zero only. All these get value because of the one God behind them. God is the only Hero and all else are Zeroes.

Keeping God as your guide and savior, whatever work you may do will yield sure success. God is your only true friend. All other friends may be with you as long as you have wealth, but the moment you lose everything, the friends will desert you. God is the only friend who will be ever with you. He is always with you, in you and beside you. Therefore, the only way for prosperity is to develop friendship with the Lord. Being a human, you should make others happy. This is love. Your heart is full of love. You should share it with others. When you have some edible dish you have to eat it and serve to others. Otherwise, it will get spoiled. You must share your love with at least five persons per day. You should practice, experience and share with others this divine love.

On this New Year day, you should make resolve that you will start every day with love, spend the day with love, fill the day with love, and end the day with love. There should be no difference of caste, creed, color, religion or nationality. Love knows no distinction of any kind. You must wish everyone to be happy. Fill the heart with love. The country will prosper and the world will prosper and everyone will be happy.