What Bliss is......

na hi kashchit kshanamapi jatu tishthatyakarmakrit

(Gita 3.5)

"No soul can remain inactive even for a moment." It is the inherent nature of every individual to constantly perform actions with the aim of attaining happiness. He will not cease to work until he attain Supreme Bliss. From this we can conclude that every soul desires only Bliss and is constantly making an effort for its attainment. Now let us find out since when this endeavor has been going on. "Every soul is eternal, without a beginning."

mamaivamsho jivaloke jivabhutah sanatanah

(Gita 15.7)

This verse of the Gita also states that the soul is eternal. If someone asks you, "Since when have you existed?" the straightforward reply is, "Ever since God existed." And if you are asked "How long has God existed?" the reply is, "Ever since I have." And if you are asked, "Since when have you and God existed?" the straightforward answer will be, "Since the time when even "When did not exist." This means that 'time' came into existence after God and us, and as such cannot be used as a frame of reference to determine our beginning. That is to say, we are all eternal. There is one more point worth considering, Any existing entity cannot cease to be. In other words, if one exist today, one would have always existed. If one does not exist today, one could never have existed in the past.

"All individual souls are eternal, immortal and unborn." So, it has been proved that we have been striving every moment since time immemorial to attain Bliss and will continue to do ssso. Now the asstonishing fact is that, in spite of our continuous efforts of countless lifitimes, we have not as yet attained this Bliss. What is the reason for this? The fact is that we have not yet understood or made a firm decision as to what Bliss is, where it is to be found and how it is to be attained? Now let us reflect on what Bliss is. According to the Vedas,

yo vai bhuma tatsukham

Bliss is always infinite in nature. it is never limited, because attainment of Bliss itself implies that it can never be overcome by suffering and there should be no other pleasure greater than it. Just as light can never be overpowered by darkness, the person who has attained Bliss can never be overcome by sorrow. Let us now contemplate, where such everlasting and unlimited Bliss can be found. This question itself is a profound one. There have been innumerable contrary viewpoints on this subject since eternity. However, there is no reason to give up hope. It will be conclusively resolved right now. we can divide all the prevalent theories for the attainment of Bliss into two categories. One is the materialitic viewpoint and the other, the spiritual one. If we thoroughly understood these two, then this controversy will be resolved indisputably. Let us first consider materialism. The materialism hold the view that the creation, sustenance and destruction of the universe are all mechanical processes governed by natural laws. There is no entity named God. He is merely a product of a weak, degenerate mind. It is man who has fabricated a being called God. God has not made man. To bring God into the picture is an indication of insanity. The world has come into existence from the four elements: earth, water, fire and air. These materialists further assert that every individual desires happiness. This happiness is attained only when the individual acquires the cherished objects of his every desire. Happiness will not be attained if these objects of desire are not acquired. This is a self-experienced fact.

However, the matrialists are unable to prove whether these desires are fulfilled forever once we acquire the desired objects, or whether the desires recur. If the desires multiply, then striving to fulfill them is as ridiculous as adding fuel to fire to extinguish it. If the materialists claim that fulfillment of desires leads to happiness, then I challenge their claim with my own experience of the truth. The happiness that is experienced upon the fulfillment of any desire is only transitory. It is immediately replaced by another tronning desire. Thus, there is no end to fulfillment of desires through acquisition of material things. Is there any individual in the history of materialists who has declared that such and such a person, after receiving a material thing, was completely satisfied forever? This is impossible because desire is an ever-increasing decease. A person suffering from scabies experiences temporary relief by scratching, but this scratching only makes it worse later. In the same way, the happiness which is experienced upon the attainment of desired objects is temporary and limited. Very soon the desire reappears in an even more formidable form. Whenever desires for material objects are fulfilled, the inevitable result is greed for more and if the desires are unfulfilled, the result is anger. Thus misery follows with the advent of desire. No materialist can escape this inevitable consequence of material desire.

The Vedas declare,

raso vai sah, rasam'hyevayam labdhva" nandi bhavati

(Taitti.Up.2.7)

"God alone is Bliss. It is only by attaining Him, that the individual soul can become blissful."

loke nahi sa vidyeta yo na ramamanuvratah

The great Saint Valmiki says, "There is not a single individual soul in the universe who is not a devotee of Lord Rama." We may not know the path to attain Him, and could be endeavoring in the wrong direction. Yet, the fact remains that we do believe in God because we are seeking only Bliss. If someone declares, "I am determined to oppose God," then he is definitely a staunch believer in God. In our history, there have been demons like Hiranyakashipu, etc. who vehemently opposed God. Such people should be considered staunch believers because only a being that exist can be opposed. If God did not exist, how could they oppose Him? It is also a historical fact that those demons who opposed God finally attained Him as their mind was totally absorbed in God with feelings of great enmity. Devotion means absorption of the mind in God ith any emotion. It does not matter whether this absorption is through favorable emotions or unfavorable emotions.

Now we may accept the existence of God, but he may question the purpose or necessity of worshiping Him. We could argue that just as we have a President in a country, God may be the President of the entire universe; but why do we need to worship Him? Such an argument is naive because our relations with the President of the country are limited and formal, whereas our relations with God are complete, loving and eternal. Further, we are selfish by nature. We are naturally attached to whoever or whatever fulfills our self-interest. This is an experienced fact. We all desire true, everlasting, unlimited happiness and that happiness is only in God. Therefore. Our most intimate and only relationship is with God. If we could attain even an iota of happiness elsewhere, then our relations with God would have been the same as that with the President of the country.

However, you don’t need to worry about attaining God. He is easily attainable. I can assure you that you do not have to engage in any spiritual discipline to realize Him. You may argue, “if we do not have to engage in spiritual discipline, how is it that we have not yet attained Divine Bliss?” Yes, this is a valid question. That is just what needs to be understood.

“Having acquired a human body if we do not realize God, we will have to suffer in the endless cycle of birth and death.” This will be our greatest mistake. Therefore, realizing the importance of the human form, we must acquire knowledge of God so that we can attain our absolute, ultimate goal of Supreme Bliss.

The Nature of God...

indriyebhyah para hyartha arthebhyashcha param manah

manasastu para buddhirbuddheratma mahanparah

(Katha. Up.1.3.10)

The Vedas declare that beyond the senses are the sense objects and beyond the sense objects is the mind. Beyond the mind is the intellect. Beyond the intellect is the soul. Beyond the soul is Maya and beyond Maya is God. The soul, being divine, is beyond the material mind and intellect.

God is divine. A material mind cannot conceive Gods true divine form. It is just not possible. You could make the greatest effort for millions of years but you would still not be able to meditate on God's actual divine forms even for a second. Even for the greatest intellectuals, with capabilities beyond Sarasvati and Brihaspati, it would be impossible. It is unnatural, because God is beyond the grasp of the material senses, mind and intellect. God is divine and the senses, mind and intellect are material. A material mind can only conceive and think about material things belonging to the material world and made of the five material elements. How could it meditate on God? God is the embodiment of eternal Existence, Bliss and Knowledge. How could an impure material mind meditate on Him? It is not even capable of meditating on the objects of the material world properly. You have seen a lot of beautiful sights in India. If you were asked, "Have you seen the Taj Mahal?" You would respond, "Yes." If you were further asked to visualize it, you will express your incapbility, though you have seen it many times. You would say, "I only have some vague idea." You see your mother, father, brother and other loved once every day. So try to visualize your father's ear. It is very difficult to do this! So if you cannot correctly visualize things that you see daily, how could you visualize God? This being the case, meditating on His divine form is out of the question.

The fact is that we have seen God innumerable times, not just a thousand or a million times. Whwnever God descended in this world, we were also present. God is eternal, and so are we. We are revolving in the endless cycle of birth and death in this world and this is where God repeatedly descends. He is only recognized by a very few forunate souls, Saints such as Vashishtha, Vishamitra, Durvasa and so on. At the time of descension of Shri Krishna when such saints declared Him to be God, we did not agree with them. we further misinterpreted His divine pastimes to be material and criticized them. However, now after Shri Krishna returned to His divine abode, we loudly sing, "Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna!.."

Even if He were to descend now in His divine form we would be unable to see Him. what could we actually know about Him? What do we know? How could we confidently say that there is no descension of God present now? We would observe Him with our material intellect and pass judgement about Him being a good person with an attractive personality. we would never accept Him as God. Until you get divine vision, how could you conceive His divine form? And if you are repeatedly instructed to meditate on His divine form, this would be like having your feet bound by shackles and being told to do a quick march. How could you do the impossible? Now let us understand this situation through simple logic. There have been innumerable great saints who have seen God. Before attaining God, they must have also engaged in meditation. The meditation practised by them must ahve been absolutely on a material level. Then ho did they continue their practice? Their minds must ahve been material, like ours, and the material mind cannot conceive God. But they attained perfection, which indicates that rupdhyan can be practised even by a material mind.

jaki rahi bhavana jaisi, prabhu murati dekhi tin taisi

Lord Ram was also perceived differently by different people, during His descension, according to their individual sentiments towards Him.

The simple solution for the above problem of meditating on God is that proper remembrance and recollection of material objects in the world is very difficult, but the remembrance of Shri Krishna is very easy. The reason is that your mother, father, wife or brother has a specific fixed form on which you have to meditate and the slightest alteration you make, will turn them into a different person. Even a mother who constantly lives with her identical twins, sometimes makes a mistake in identifying them. However, meditating on the divine form of Shri Krishna is very easy beacuse He has not established one specific form for Himself. Therefore, the devotee can visualize any form that is most pleasing to him. He is even free to change it whenever he wants, and in whichever way he prefers. He can dress Shri Krishna as he likes and can use the ornaments of his choice. He can also visualize pastimes according to his own inclinations. This is because Shri Krishna has uncountable names, qualities, forms and pastimes.

ananta nama rupaya vishnave

The devotee is completely free in this regard. out of His causeless Grace, Shri Krishna made this simple rule to enable the most ignorant and illiterate devotees to practise His rupdhyan. Do not feel that because a learned person has visualized a very beautiful form in his meditation and an ignarant person has visualized something very ordinary, there will be a difference in their experience of the divine vision of the actual form of Shri Krishna. It is not so. The divine vision of Shri Krishna that everyone attains is always the same. The form of Shri Krishna that Radha Rani sees is the same form that Brahma and Shankara see. That very same form could be seen by an illiterate devotee like Dhannajata and others.....

Why Despair.....

What is it that drives a person into despair? There are several reasons. Sometimes, a person is dismayed to discover that someone else is dedicated to the service of God and the Guru, which he is not. Again if he finds some other person performing devotional practice whose vices have considerably gone down, it causes frustration in him because he could not do so. Such people should think wisely.

You tend to associate with wrong kind of people who either tell lies or overstate or exaggerate facts about their devotional practice and you tend to believe them and feel overawed by their stated achievement or success and get disappointed. It may also be that somebody is able to get special benefit because of his samskaras. But it should not cause frustration in you.

Agreed that some people are ahead of you but there are many people who are behind you. If you want to go ahead of others, you should work hard for that. Just think about yourself. Now you are B.A. and M.A. How did you reach this stage? when you were in First standard, there were many people who had passed B.A. and M.A. when you were studying for your High School examination, you must have met people who were in higher classes. Even now there are people who are ahead of you in different areas, i.e. intelligence, looks, physical might, etc. Should one consume poison and kill oneself just because of this? Why should you be out of your mind with worry? If you are a junior teacher and you are worried that are Principle is holding a position higher then you. Why should you worry? You will alo become Principle one day but there will still be someone senior to you.

There are two aspects of this problem. One, if we go on wallowing in this despondent mindset, there will be no end to it. We must firt think on this aspect. If you go on thinking that other have progressed much ahead, they are more active compared to you, you are not able to achieve anything and that Guru and God have not been helpful to you. Let u assume for a moment that your impression of this kind was justified but the question is where this thinking of yours will lead you? It may force you to commit suicide. It may turn you into a demon. It can have far more serious repercussion. Frustration invariably leads to unpleasant situations ending in death. There are people who are so disturbed on minor things that they go on ruminating on them and finally commit suicide. Thousands of people are committing suicide all over the world every day. Now I think you have got the point that frustration has disastrous consequences. It turns a human worse than an animal. If being a human we continue to wallow in despair, it is the most unwisse act on our part. The other aspect which needs to be pondered over is what causes this feeling of despair and how we can get over it.

If God has gifted us something and we disregard it, it will certainly bring in despair.

So, the only way to get rid of despair is to repeatedly ponder over the grace that you have recived. If you do not understand its value, any amount of grace that God may bestow on you, will not benefit you. If somebody gives you so much wealth and you do not want to assess its value, it i your fault. If you are overpowered by a feeling of frustration and dejection, it means you have disregarded all forms of God's grace that came to you. You have not time and again reflected on the munificence of God and the Saint. The moment you begin to have a feeling of dejection, you must tell your intellect off for nurturing such feeling which is a crime. Why should this feeling come to you? You must nip this negative thinking in the bud. It is like a woman working in the kitchen finds that her clothe have caught fire. If she doesn't do something immediately to douses it that carelessness can cost her a lot. Think wisely on such matters and let not a feeling of frustration or despair take root in you. And if it does, then do not let it grow further. Concentrate your mind on what is right.

Do not spoil your idle time. In fact, we do not make good use of our spare time and that causes negative feelings of despair to set in. The best remedy of this problem is not to let your mind remain idle. Wherever you go, engage yourself in the thoughts of God.

Be always on the alert. Negligence and carelessness is the root cause of all our problems. Whether in worldly chores or in philanthropic deeds, one who is ever alert can alone make progress. A careless person cannot achieve anything. Even his good deeds bear no fruit.

So the only way to get rid of frustration is to contemplate repeatedly on the Guru's grace.....

The Embodiment of Grace...

An image or idol is made of a particular material. It is made of iron, wood, clay, stone, gold, silver, etc. But what is there in the image? The material which is used to make an image is both inside and outside that image. For example, if an image is cut in stone, it is stone alone inside and outside that idol. No other material is mixed in it. Like in a stone image, iron or wood will not be mixed. In an image cut in stone, everywhere, inside and outside, on top and bottom there will be stone and stone alone. Its hands, its feet, its mouth, its nose, its ears, its eyes are all made of stone. That is why it is called an image.

All the different parts of a human body are made from different elements - earth, water, fire, air, ether and somewhere inside God's divinity is also lying. In the case of an image, it i made of a single material. So both outside and inside Radha Rani, only Radha Rani is there both in soul is not different from the body. Both the soul and the body of Radha Rani are sat, chit and ananda (Existence-Knowledge-Bliss).

Your body is composed of the five elements. But inside your body it is you, the individual soul which is divine, part of God. This is the difference. So when what lies inside, has left the body, it starts decomposing, decaying and people burn it down. Why do people set fire to their own father, mother, son, husband, etc.? It is because what was earlier staying inside has left it. In the case of all human beings, the body is different from the soul. They are two different entities. But in the case of Radha Rani, both the body and the soul are composed of the same element that is sat, chit and ananda. So sat-chit-ananda personified is Radha Rani’s inner self and so is Her external body.

dehadehibhida chaiva neshvare vidyate kvachit

(Padma Puran)

There is no difference between the outer body and the inner thing, that’s why it is an image. Just as in a stone image it is the only thing both inside and outside. Same is the case with Radha Rani, who is Grace Personified, which means She is grace inside and grace outside. She cannot be anything but kind and gracious.

Just think how lucky we are! We may be kind to others, or we may hurt them. We may kill others, or we may be indifferent to them. But Radha Rani only showers grace on us. She has to. She cannot help it. If she says she doesn’t want to, she has to be kind and graceious. She has no other way.

So, Radha Rani is the Embodiment of Grace. She has only grace both inside and outside. She is not required to do anything. Why should she? Is there anything that she has yet to achieve? If somebody does something, the purpose is to achieve something. But if there is nothing left for one to achieve, why should one do anything? This is the case with Radha Rani, Thakur Ji and the saints. There is nothing achievable for Them. Therefore, there is no question of Their doing any work. But still They do to make others prosperous, to give them the supreme bliss, to remove their ignorance, to get them detached from the materialistic world and turn their attachment towards Them. In short, Their aim is to only grace, grace and grace.....

My Radha is the greatest treasure of my life. Beloved Radha is an unfathomable ocean of beauty and Divine love. Without Radha,