Spiritual Knowledge...

Spiritual Knowledge

We may have spent years and years reading the Vedas, the Shastras, and the Holy Scriptures and yet we have failed to understand them properly with the result that we are not able to take any decision about what is right and what is wrong. we are only confused by a plethora of thoughts, ideas and opinions, sometimes seemingly self-contradictory contained in them and also those propounded by great scholars and philosophers like Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, Nimbarkacharya and many others.This state of confusion which has continued from time immemorial was so easily resolved by our great spiritual master, Jagadguru Shri Kripaluji Maharaj, who explained to us their implied sense and guided us towards our goal. We ordinary mortals could not do it our own in millions of years, rather in an infinite number of lifetimes. He i kind enough to give us the SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE that helped us to realize the supreme truth. Thus, we are saved of a hard work. Or else we would go on reading books after books, beat our brains out, nurture doubts, and do wrong (guided by our own theoretical understanding of the text). It i because our intellect is under the influence of maya. we will make our confusion worse confounded if we try to realize God merely by reading our scriptures.

Shruti purana bahu kaheu upai, chhutai na adhika adhika arujhai

(Ramayana)

Without having gained the spiritual knowledge, we cannot even perform any devotional practice. God realization i a far cry. Instead, we would indulg in fallacious reasoning with our mind full of doubts and apprehensions and would spend our entire life in this meaningless pursuit. we would let this human body go waste.

The devotional practice that we would perform would not benefit us because of our lack of proper or adequate knowledge. we would only be going around with external acts of going japa (repetition of some deity's name or vedic hymns), pattha (recitation of passages from scriptures), puja (ritualistic worship), and going on pilgrimage. So giving the spiritual knowledge is a great grace of the guru. The knowledge which we could not gain despite having made all efforts in infinite number of lifetimes, the same knowledge was so easily given to u our Guru.
Now it is our duty to repeatdly contemplete on that knowledge to fully assimilate it and make practical application of that. The level of understsnding that knowledge and alo of applyinf that knoledge in life differ from person to person. some people are not that careful, while some did make some serious attempt. but there are some who have with full dediciation understood and accepted it and surrendered fully to the Guru. The saints showered hi grace causelessly on all by giving them that knowledge, irrespective of how much dedicated one is. Some of them may be totally attached to the world and material possession, others may have lss attachment, in case of some others, the degree of attachment may be further less and someone of them may be compltely detached all the time thinking of attaining the goal. It would be foolish to think that the person who is concentrating round the clock on attaining his goal will be rewarded with ome pecial grace. The grace was showered on all equally. But it i like when falls on the hot metal, it will sizzle and disappear. The same water falling on a lots leaf ill shine like a pearl. If it gets into an oyster cell, it will turn into a pearl. Thus water is falling on everything similarly and equally but it depend on the receptacle what shape will it take.

The degree of benefit will therefore depend on how much faith you have, how important or valuable is the Guru in yor estmation and how mch detached you are. It is the Saint's second big grace that he gave you the spirital knowledge...