There is no difference between God and Saints. The latter is God incarnate. After a Saint has realized God, he inherits God's bliss, God's knowledge and everything else that we associate with God. Not only this, God becomes a servant of His devotees (saint). In the Bhagavatam, Shri Krishna has gone to the extent of saying that He follows His devotees wherever they go in order to collect the dust of their feet so that He gets purified.
anubrajamyaham nityam puyeyetyamgrirenubhih
(Bhag. 11.14.16)
Just think for a moment how great a Saint is! Lord Krishna who ould not bother to visit the samadhi (state of deep meditation) of highly reputed paramhamsas, (those who have attained the final stage of jnan or yaga) and of the great sages who have done severe penance for ages and have lived only on air, is eagerly treading on the heels of a Saint. Just think, how lucky you would be if a personality so great is approachable to you. Now, what price have you paid to have him in front of you? A person who has some power or position would be unwilling to visit someone who is inferior to him, would not like to talk to him, and would have nothing to do with him. This is the way of the world. What is our status before a Saint who is the incarnation of God, the Lord of the infinite universes and who has an inexhaustible treasure of Divine Knowledge, Divine Love and Divine Bliss? He is the abode of all Divine powers. If you find him just in front of you, you should go mad with exultation, with tears rolling down your cheeks. oh, how fortunate I am that my Guru is standing before me and looking at me. If anyone is overwhelmed with this recurring thought, he need not perform any devotional practice.
Anywhere in the world, if a cavalcade of a V.I.P. - a Prime Minister or a President is passing through and a poor, crippled, shabbily dressed person standing in his field flags down his car and succeeds in shaking his hand, he will naturally be very happy because he knows that he will never be in a position to be able to greet a V.I.P. with a handshake in this life and about his next life only God knows. He would be so happy that he will tell everybody he meets, that he shook hands with the Prime Minister. if by any chance he could get a photograph of that occasion, then he will show that photo ever to the collector of his area to flaunt his clout saying that he knows the Prime Minister very closely. Similarly, if it so happens that a Saint shows up before you and also talks to you, it is his kindness towards you, which you can fully understand only when you have realized God. Did you do anything extraordinary or did you undergo any penance or perform any devotional practice to deserve this? Why should a Saint whose eyes always see Shri Radha Krishna and who is constantly immersed in the infinite bliss of Their Love, condescend to glance at a hellish creature, a filthy dirty individual who is not worth it? Look, e are extremely filthy. Not only from out side we look dirty, but also inside our body there is nothing except filth. Our mind too is full of dirt. And our intellect? It is even worse. Just imagine, if while serving us some food to eat, somebody should place beside it a dollop of human excreta, how queasy and repulsive we would feel! We will immediately stop eating and leave in disgust.
We are more nauseating than heaps of feces. If a Saint turns his eyes towards us, is it not something wonderful? He is complete in all respects. Is it not his causeless grace that he chose to look at extremely filthy person that we are? Why should he bother to look at a heap of garbage? We look away and close our nostrils tightly when our eyes meet foul-smelling night soil on our way. An ordinary mortal when finds by his side an unclean person giving off bad smell, would instantly wrinkle up his nose in disgust. There is no question of his hugging that dirty person. On the contrary, the saint has not only looked at us, he has talked to us too and asked where we live, etc. He has embraced us too!! What more grace do we need and can there be? The Saint is all the time deep in the infinite bliss of love. Whatever he does to us dirty people is only his CAUSELESS GRACE. If a person can realize its importance, he is sure to realize God without having to do any devotional practice. Even it for a minute or rather a second you could find him close by and you totally surrender to him believing him to be a genuine Saint, you will immediately have God realization and you will not have to do any devotional practice for that. Lord Ram stayed with Shabari just for a short while and not for many days. So even one second’s association with the Guru is so valuable for anybody that if he accepts him as a Saint, he doesn’t need to do any other devotional practice. He will be thrilled with pride and joy and will proudly tell others that he was so lucky that the Saint talked to him, whom he could touch as well. Whatever the Saint does to a living being is only his grace and nothing else.
If somebody comes and says that he was able to meet the Saint who talked to him and also embraced him but he did not gain anything. It is so because that person did not realize that grace. He did not realize its value and importance. It is like somebody is given a ring worth cores of rupee and he keeps it away just like that thinking it was just an ordinary ring. If he had realize its true worth he would have immediately kept it safely under lock and key. Unfortunately, this person does not give any importance to it nor does he have any feeling that he owns a precious ring. Similarly, if a person had a chance of meeting with the saint but if he does not understand his value, does not feel it from within that he is in possession of a priceless treasure, he will not understand its importance. Supposing that somebody is eager to see the Prime Minister, to talk to him and hug him and the Prime Minister in turn appears in disguise wearing dirty clothes with unkempt beard and all, and offers to embrace that person, what would be his reaction? Surely, that person will reel back in revulsion and snub him not knowing that he is the Prime Minister. A little later, shedding his ‘put on’ appearance the Prime Minister comes back in his real person with all his security and other paraphernalia that come with his power and position, That person now realize that he is in fact the Prime Minister, whom he could not recognize earlier. Now his yearning to talk to the Prime Minister and even to touch him intensifies.
So when we come to know the real worth of something that we have, we tend to develop special attachment for that thing. On the contrary, so long as we are ignorant of the worth of a thing that we have, e won’t be able to benefit from it. Thus, if we are not able to benefit from his presence, it is entirely our own fault. It does not mean that he is not a saint. We have access to the Saint who has showered enough love and affection on us and yet we are not benefited. What is the reason? An eminent logician approached Gaurang Mahaprabhu and said, “Maharaj, I have been in your company and at the same time I have criticized you a lot. I am a reputed logician. I am extremely skeptical with my mind full of doubts. This is the reason why I never surrendered to you. Sometimes I do feel like surrendering but then again doubts start troubling my mind: ‘No, he cannot be a Saint. No! No he must be a Saint No, No he may not be a Saint but he must be some special soul. I cannot say he is a Saint but special personality he is for sure’. This iss how my opinion goes on changing.” Mahaprabhu replied, Those with doubts and mistrust in their minds will be liberated very late. The logician than asked, After how many rebirths will I be liberated? There was a big peepal tree at that place. Gaurang Mahaprabhu said, Your liberation will take as many rebirths as the number of leaves this tree has. The logician became very happy. He believed that Gaurang Mahaprabhu was a true saint and therefore he could not be wrong and so he would be liberated after as many rebirths as the number of leaves on that tree.
Mahaprabhu did not really mean that. He had said so just like that. He was merely replying to a logician. He had not counted the leaves on the tree. It was off the cuff reply. But the logician really believed in it thinking that words uttered by a saint will come true. So the logician readily believed in the words spoken casually by Mahaprabhu and immediately thereafter Mahaprabhu revised his statement saying, you will attain liberation in your present lifetime only. Believing again in what Mahaprabhu uttered, the logician was beside himself with excitement. Oh, in this lifetime itself I will be liberated! Mahaprabhu noted what he was feeling at that moment. Both the Saint and God take into account the present state of a person and do not bother about what he thought or did in the past. They think of his present only. Now as his faith was growing up, he was coming closer to the state of total surrender. At this, Mahaprabhu further advanced his liberation by saying, You will be liberated today itself. He could not withstand the force of this explosive statement and was about to fall when Mahaprabhu said, you stand liberated here and now! It was the same Gaurang Mahaprabhu whom he used to meet daily. The logician was also the same. In fact, he had reached a stage of total surrender and had understood the value of what the Saints had said and believed in it and therefore he was rewarded with the causeless grace of the Saint, Did he do something beyond the ordinary to deserve it? Did he offer something to Mahaprabhu?
If somebody says that he has offered his body to his Guru then he should know that there is a lot of filth inside our body. If he says that he has given away his mind, his intellect, he should know they are no better, rather they are wore. Let me know what is it that you have to offer, which the Mahaprabhu could find worth touching or looking at or which is something useful. The more we accept the importance of a Saint the more benefited will we be. But we will still be benefited even if we don’t. May be a little less but benefited we will be sure. Even a glimpse of him has a beneficial effect.
When sage Narad visited Shri Krishna in Dvarika, Shri Krishna asked him to sit on the simhasan (throne) and he himself sat on the floor near his feet. He told Narad, Jut the sight of you has destroyed all My sins. You will naturally ask, What are God’s sins? You can take it like this that God is speaking on behalf of all living beings. A Saint’s mere appearance destroys our sins. If we are able to find a saint in front of us, it is a great thing and is not achievable by any means. It is only as a result of all-merciful Shri Krishna’s boundless grace that one can have a glimpse of a saint. An association with him weakens our tendency to commit a sin. Hence, if we can truly understand its importance and value and realize God’s grace, our present and future will be happy and prosperous.
Whatever way a saint treats us, whatever he does to us by seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, it is his love, his kindness, his grace, his causeless grace!
No comments:
Post a Comment