Discourse 3 (Part 2)
Swami Pritam Muni
Karsanpura, 6 February, 2010.
Divya Sanskriti, May 2010.

In 2007 Bhagwan said ‘you can now remain in seclusion’. Two objects appeared in his hand. One was like a billi-fruit, (fruit of the billva tree) studded with gems and the other was like a golden staff with a hawk-like bird form at one end, and what appeared like 4 serpents twined around it from end to end. Bhagwan gave these two objects to Muniji and said, “As an indication of my blessings to my spiritual lineage, I give you these two mysterious symbols, which are associated with my form. Consider these symbols as the identifying symbols of my spiritual lineage. You will find concealed within these symbols the mysteries of Yoga which will be useful to you in your spiritual practice. You are now free to pursue your spiritual practice in seclusion but do make arrangements to ensure the continuity of the campaign that has been started for world-wide spiritual enlightenment”.

Having secured Bhagwan’s consent to his resuming seclusion, Gurudev once again adopted seclusion from February 2007. He agreed to give darshan twice daily, for a minute or so at 8:30 in the morning, and for another minute or so at 2:00 in the afternoon. This practice continues even into the present.

With Pujya Gurudev once again going into complete seclusion, the many hundreds of thousands of disciples in the divine spiritual lineage of Lord Lakulish began to experience a vacuum for spiritual guidance and the active presence of the head of the lineage in the task of the enlightenment campaign. Later on Pujya Gurudev gave me special Sannyas initiation in February, 2009. On 20th July, 2009, on a Monday in the month of Shraavan, he commanded me that Bhagwan had commanded Swami Kripalvanandji in 1956 the task of cultural enlightenment and had similarly commanded him the same task in 1993, which I must now take over and carry forward. In this way the task of cultural resurgence willed to the lineage by Lord Shiva has now reached me.

We have assembled here today in the context of that task set in motion by the command of Lord Shiva. From what I have said you will understand that this is not a task that originates from the mere decision of Swami Kripalu Muni or Swami Rajarshi Muni or Pritam Muni, but is being carried out according to the will, guidance and protection of Lord Lakulish. It is like the water of the Ganga carried in a vessel – the sacred water of the Ganga does not lose its original identity by the vessel in which it is carried, but remains what it is. The vessel is merely the medium. In the same way the task of cultural resurgence is willed by Lord Shiva, and Swami Kripalu Muni and Swami Rajarshi Muni and Pritam Muni are merely mediums selected by the controller of all the worlds. Thus, all those initiated into the lineage whether by Swami Kripalu Muni or Swami Rajarshi Muni or Swami Pritam Muni, they are all Lord Lakulish’s workers.

It is our very good fortune that we are given an opportunity to play a part in the execution of the Lord’s will by way of the cultural resurgence campaign. It will be my effort to do all I can to spread this divinely willed campaign for cultural resurgence to as many nations of the earth as possible. I shall most certainly do whatever may be necessary towards that end at whatever time and place. My single objective is the reestablishment of cultural values on the face of the earth. All of you try to do the same, each according to the best of his ability, so that this work may spread among your friends, acquaintances, loved ones and others. The blessings of the Lord will certainly be with everyone who takes the field in the execution of his will.

We just witnessed these small children executing yoga asanas. They are trained in the camps conducted by the Lakulish Yoga Vidyalaya, run by Life Mission. When we conclude that any work that we undertake is outstanding, what is the basis of such a valuation? Naturally, each will understand and evaluate according to his own understanding or according to his knowledge of our scriptures. But when Bhagwan himself says ‘do this work’, then in that time and place that work is surely the most outstanding and there can be no room for any kind of argument about it.

Bhagwan says in the Gita, “Where there is Dharma, there is victory”. He says further, “Where there is Krishna, there is Dharma”. Thus, when Bhagwan himself declares something, there is no argument there and we are not to question or argue or doubt or intellectualize. Lord Krishna commands Arjun “With faith, accept what I tell you. Even if you do not understand what I tell you, simply accept it with faith and do as I say. To doubt is to be destroyed”. When the Lord himself commands something, it can only be to the benefit of all mankind. All of us should join together and do the work Bhagwan has commanded for cultural resurgence.

What this work involves is that every human should become cultured and in that way the whole society may become cultured. For this it is necessary that instead of wandering about in the false comfort of unguided faith or fear or self interest or self imagined interpretations of the Scriptures it is better to know the principles of Dharma in their pure form and adopt them with discriminative understanding and also explain their true meaning to others as well. We should become cultured ourselves and exert our best efforts to make all others so as well. The worldwide propagation of the pure cultural, ethical and moral values of the eternal culture would be our way of expressing our love for God, Guru and the principle of the oneness of the entire human family.

Our Saints and Sages have delineated four endeavors (purusharth) for all human beings. These are, Artha Purusharth, Kaam Purusharth, Dharma Purusharth and Moksha Purusharth.

(1) Artha Purusharth: The effort that we put in with mind or body for the necessities of life such as food, water, shelter, medication, etc., is called artha purusharth. For the most part, most of us spend our entire lives engaged in artha purusharth.

(2) Kaam Purusharth: Activity connected with procreation and continuation of one’s line is called kaam purusharth. It is to be noted that these two endeavors are common to all living beings; even birds and animals pursue them, perhaps sometimes better than us humans, notwithstanding our perception that we are the more intelligent species. Our understanding is wrong in many ways. For example, birds are content with building a single nest for their needs. They do not build a nest in every tree. By contrast, we build a ‘nest’ in the village, another in the town and, if we are in a position to do so we run about trying to build some more in various places. We experience happiness in accumulating assets. Those whose minds are constantly engaged in the arithmetics of increasing house, land, wealth, property, etc., are to be considered as being deeply imbued by the stain of the world. One whose mind is deeply afflicted with such a stain is unlikely to quickly take to the idea of culture or service and even of he should take service on hand he is more likely than not to give even the work of service a worldly color. My Guru Reverend Sucharit Muni used to tell me, “Keep only the necessary minimum contact with the learned, the powerful and the wealthy”. The reason could be that such people could be using the name of culture or religion to gain honor, wealth and assets as is often seen to be the case. There can be exceptions, but these are few. On the other hand, there are also cases of those who are in every way fully endowed but are still engaged in selfless service of good causes.

So, it is in this sense that we can think of birds and animals being in many ways better than ourselves in that they are content with whatever is “sufficient unto the day”; they gather only as much as is necessary for their needs; they have not succumbed to the evil of greed and acquisitiveness.

Likewise, birds and animals too procreate and give birth just as we do. But, as a general rule, they look after them better than we do. They nurse them till they fledge or can move about on their on and feed and defend themselves, and then they give them their freedom. It is not always the case that humans give their offspring full freedom. We raise our offspring, make them capable; they attain ability to look after themselves and begin to want their freedom. They begin to desire to be left alone to lead their lives independently but, driven by our hunger for fame and name, we continue to remain entangled in the mesh of ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’ and cause misery to ourselves and our offspring. We remain strongly bonded and interfere in their most ordinary things. We are not prepared to let go even when our sons have sons of their own and they too are grown up. We should take pleasure in the happiness and wellbeing of our offspring, their wealth and fame, and should as far as possible adopt the vanprasthi life of asceticism and penance. If that is not practicable and we continue to live in a home, we should shut out the outer world and devote time to prayer and worship. But in most cases the worldly mind is unable to withdraw from the world even when the offspring have grown and taken over the management of worldly affairs. Such a state is an indicator of the ‘worldliness’ of our mind.

Generally, a child tries to remain with its parents between the years one to ten. Should the occasion arise for the parents to temporarily leave town and leave the children behind with a neighbor or relative, the young ones in this age group would insist on being taken along.

The mind is entangled in friends and companions during the years eleven to twenty. Now if the parents need to go and visit a friend, children in this age group would prefer to remain behind and pursue their own pursuits rather than accompany the parents. They would prefer to go to their own friends instead. This is the age of madness for friends and companions.

The years twenty-one to thirty are the years of attraction for the opposite sex. The young man disappears the moment opportunity arises, or he is constantly engaged on the mobile phone texting or talking with a member of the opposite sex; he often appears lost without apparent reason; often he is happy without apparent cause and equally often unhappy without apparent cause. The understanding know and understand the cause of it all. After all, this is the age for such things. But this is also an age when effort can led to excellent results. This is a time for disciplined and restrained living. Youth is the time when much dharma or wealth can be acquired with right effort. One must be careful not to fritter away one’s abilities and energies in worthless pastimes and pursuits. One way to do this is to remain engaged in worthwhile pursuits.

The following decade (31 to 40 years) is the period for acquiring assets and trappings, building up bank balances, and so on. The man works overtime and pays bank installments.

The years forty-one to fifty are marked by engagement in social activities. There are events and occasions of friends and family that one must remember to attend so that in turn they may attend one’s own family and social occasions. So, it is a round of marriages, engagements, illnesses, births and deaths – “forty-eight occasions in twelve months”.

The years fifty one to sixty are years of retirement, recall and remembering. One gradually withdraws from social engagements and seeks friends and companions of yore with whom to share joys and sorrows and unburden oneself of remorse and regrets for deeds done and undone. (Rest assured that those who have frittered away the years in embellishing the samsar (material existence) and accumulating wealth and objects but gave little time to dharma and Sanskrity (culture) will have time to rue their actions for wealth and property too will cause misery and the expanding trappings of the world too will cause misery).

The next decade is a decade of rounds of temples and pilgrimages for seeking relief from the pains that one’s own past actions have begun inflicting on one’s mind and body. It is merely an external attempt to forget the fire and pain within. The rounds of hospitals, temples and pilgrimages are all for ‘medicines’ of one kind or the other for all the ills one has brought upon oneself through the way one has lived. It is the last flight of the kite; there is no saying when the string holding it aloft may be severed. If life should extend beyond seventy years, that is a bonus. If one has not observed the rules of ayurved and pampered the body with all manner of food and indulgence, the remaining days will pass on one tablet a day or another, with pain in the legs one day and the back the next. Such is the course of the average life.

So, then, are not the birds and animals better than us in some ways? If this is all that life becomes, if it passes only in artha and kaam endeavors, then we can be said to have lived the life of animals though endowed with a human body.

(3) Dharma Purusharth: God has given man special intellect, and the power of discrimination and understanding so that he may understand dharma and perform actions accordingly. If we perform karmas (actions) in accordance with dharma we can be said to be living like humans but if we perform karmas like animals we can be said to be living like animals in a human body. We may dress like humans, keep ourselves clean by bathing and other means, move in polite society and take offence if someone should show us disrespect or disregard, but we aught to ask ourselves if we are living according to dharma or otherwise. To earn a livelihood, to build a house, acquire a car, acquire land and other assets, get our children married, entertain our relatives and friends as they come and go out of our lives – is that dharma?

Let us understand the significance of dharma. Consider that someone mounts a loudspeaker on a car and takes it around the town announcing that Pritam Muni is in town and is holding a dharma assembly. “All living beings are invited to come”. In response to the announcement only human beings assemble. We do not see a group of cows or a flock of crows assembled to hear the religious discourse. Birds and animals do hear the announcement but do not come for a spiritual gathering. On the other hand if there has been a birth or death in somebody’s house, dogs and crows are bound to have assembled noisily for the pickings from the leftovers. They know arth purusharth but they do not know dharma and that is what explains the difference. As humans we should perform karmas according to dharma.

(4) Moksha Purusharth: What is Moksha Purusharth? The universe is made up of 5 elements. Our body is made up of 5 elements. For so long as the body keeps dying, we have to keep getting reborn, no matter what great knowledge we may have gathered up in our brains. There is only one way of getting out of this endless cycle of birth and death and that is to attain a body devoid of all the five gross elements it is constituted of. When that happens we are not within reach of any of the elements of the cosmos. The Lord has said in the Gita, “After death, birth is certain”. Moksha or liberation is difficult. Let us try to understand Moksha Purusharth through an example.

There was a circular house comprising of a single room. On top was a circular dome with a single door. Enclosing the circular room, there is a second similarly circular room and that too has only a single door. Each room is locked. Enclosing both these rooms there is a third circular room and that too with a single door with a lock on it. Now, there was an individual within the inner most circular room. He is deeply read in the scriptures and is a knower of many rituals, but does not know how to get out of the room in which he finds himself enclosed. He spends much time singing the glories of God, reciting the scriptures, performing prayers and rituals and yet he is unable to find his way out. There is only one way in which he can do so. He must unlock the door of the room and enter the second room; then he must do the same thing again, namely, unlock the door of the second room and enter the third room, then once again repeat the process yet once more by unlocking the door of the third room and come out. There is no way short of this and no amount of knowledge of the scriptures and no amount of rituals and prayer will give freedom from the three rooms.

The question then is, what is the way to open the lock? The key to opening the lock is the practice of Yoga. The science of unlocking the lock is known as Yoga. Our soul is trapped within three bodies: the gross body, within that the subtle body and at the deeper level, the causal body. Perhaps you also have the knowledge of the soul being resident in the three bodies, but merely knowing this cannot suffice in securing liberation from imprisonment within them. For coming out of the three bodies one has to practice yoga and leave the three bodies one after the other while alive. This is something that cannot be done after death. If death occurs before liberation from the three bodies there is only one inevitable consequence and that is for the soul to return yet once more in a body of five elements.

Thus, Moksha Purushartha is the conversion of the five elements while alive and that is very difficult. Who can do so and what is his qualification? It takes a soul many lifetimes of quality Dharma Purushartha to be qualified for Moksha Purushartha. Then in some lifetime he receives true guidance in the path of Yoga through the grace of God or Guru. Once on this path he advances on it through many lifetimes until in one lifetime he is sufficiently qualified to be liberated in that lifetime.

So this is the result of Dharma Purushartha, performing actions according to Dharma. Many find this difficult. They do not have the time. Either all their time is taken up in earning wealth and accumulating material things or in engagement with wife and children and relatives and friends, and in moving about from place to place to keep up with social engagements and obligations. If after all this there is some spare time there are always films and television and serials to take that up and thus life goes by in ‘being busy’.

We are a small speck of the Lord Himself. The Lord has said in the Bhagvad Gita, “The eternal Jivatma (the embodied individual soul) situate in this body is a speck of myself” (Bhagvad Gita,15:7). Being a speck of divinity it is our duty that we should live our lives according to Dharma. We are the offspring of saints and sages. Each one of us has a Gotra, a shared common lineage. Each one of us descends from the same common progenitor through a long lineage of ancestors. Every human being on earth has one Gotra or another and each one of those is one or the other of the immortal saints and sages. In this way some belong to the Atri Gotra, others to Gautam Gotra, others still to Vasishtha Gotra, yet others to Bharadwaj, and others to Pulastya Gotra, and so on. Our ancestors had undertaken very hard spiritual practice and experienced the truth and left us with the message, “dharma alone is beneficial”. Live by Dharma. Assume Dharma. We are the offspring of saints and sages. It is our duty to perform actions according to Dharma. We are humans, not animals. God has given us discrimination and understanding. Therefore we should perform actions appropriate to humans. Further, if you desire happiness, then know that the root of happiness lies in Dharma and the root of Dharma lies in Karma. We will find happiness only through the performance of Karma according to Dharma.

Someone went to Kabir and questioned how many who do evil karmas are seen to be happy while others who live virtuous lives are seen to be suffering from unending unhappiness. Kabirji replied:

Kabira tera punya ka jab tak hai bhandar
Tab tak avaguna maaf hai, karo gunah hazar.

So long as the treasure of spiritual merit earned from the good karmas of past lives lasts, you will continue to receive happiness. But the moment that is over, unhappiness and suffering will be heralded in. So perform karmas according to dharma.

Once, a bank-owned car drove up to someone’s house. Two teams of occupants alighted from the car. Two or three officials from one team approached and knocked at a door. Someone came out of the house. The official said, “We have come from the bank. Your fixed deposit for 500,000 rupees has matured. You have placed the deposit some years back. The amount has now doubled. We have come to pay you the maturity amount”. The other team of officials knocked at another door. In response, the owner emerged from the house. “We are from the bank”, they told him. “You had taken a loan of five lakh rupees some years ago. We have served you notice a dozen times but the loan remains unpaid. We shall now attach your house to recover our amount. You have two days to remove your things from the house, after which we shall put it to auction”. Now, understand – the people from the bank have come to give money to one owner and to take away the house of the other to put it to auction to recover a past unpaid loan. The bankers do not know either person; one was not their friend and the other was not their enemy but one had a bank balance and the other had an unpaid debt. It is so with us too. If we have a balance of dharma karmas God shall come knocking on our door and send us wealth, fame, good health, discriminative intellect, good friends, command them to knock on our door and give us happiness. You must have noticed many times in day to day life that without any particular conscious planning or calculation, it comes to pass that we meet some friend or other person who makes our works easy and it helps us accomplish some essential goal. One would have not even imagined such a situation and someone comes by and work gets done. You have to then believe that some dharma karmas of some previous life have borne fruit and it is possible that God had inspired that person to come to your assistance. Many times the opposite happens, that is, some work or enterprise is going on smoothly and well when something unexpected happens with quite undesirable consequences. We then hold friends or relatives or sons accountable or blame our destiny. The last is not wrong. We reap the fruits of our own karmas. If we want happiness we should perform dharma-karmas. That is the key to summoning the officials from the Lord’s bank with bag loads of happiness. Performing dharma karmas with discrimination has benefits. We get good health, love and affection in the family, long life, discriminating intellect, honor and respect in society and even a selfless Guru to guide us on the path of Dharma. Dharma karmas ensure our welfare in this given life and future lives. Therefore let us perform dharma karmas.

Why should we perform dharma karmas? Listen to another short story. Once some person sowed baval (acassia nilotica, a thorny tree) seeds in his compound. He then went to the deity whom he usually worshipped and prayed that he would observe fasts, give alms, perform austerities, chant the mantra, study the scriptures, practice readings of the Hanuman Chalisa, light lamps, do homa and havan and offer prayers so that mangoes may sprout in the compound where he had sowed baval seeds. Will any amount of prayer and worship and all such things cause the seeds he has sown to sprout as mangoes? God would tell him, “Fool, if it is mangoes you wanted, you should have planted mango seeds. If you wish to eat mangoes, that is what you have to plant. But if you plant baval, all you get is thorns”. We too perform karmas in life which are like sowing baval seeds, and then pray to God and do all manner of spiritual practices so that those seeds may give us mango trees. God says, “You sowed baval and you get baval”. So the moral of the story is that if we wish good for ourselves then we should perform dharma karmas.

Which actions or Karmas can be called dharma karmas? Dharma is very vast and very deep. Still, our saints and sages have said that if we perform eight kinds of prescribed karmas (vihit karma)we can be said to have performed dharma karma.

The first of these is to be astik. Being astik means having vishvas in God. Understand what is vishvas. In normal day to day parlance we use two words: 1) shraddha, and 2) vishvas. What is shraddha? Belief that is influenced by circumstances is shraddha. What is vishvas? Vishvas is belief that is inflexible, never changes and always holds good under all circumstances and in all conditions.

There was some individual who was affected by some problem. Assume that he had some sickness or there was some unpleasantness in the house because of interpersonal problems among members. This person went to an astrologer and asked for a solution to his problem. The latter consulted his books and advised that this was the result of some adversely affected planets and he should perform some rituals on a given day at a given time. Our friend of the example noted that the day specified by the astrologer was a Tuesday. So he said that this was a working day and would have to attend office as it was not a holiday. The astrologer insisted that the planetary configuration required that the rituals be performed on a Tuesday and no other day. Our friend agreed to take leave from office. The astrologer advised that it was required that he perform the rituals not by himself but along with his wife and children. So the gentleman attended with his entire family and presented himself at the appointed place and time on the appointed day. The astrologer had given him a long list of articles that would be required for the rituals and our friend had gone to the market and purchased a few thousand rupees worth of articles of the best quality.

At the appointed time and place on the appointed day the prayers and rituals commenced. Our friend was not accustomed to sitting still in one place for any great length of time. After the rituals had been in progress for about fifteen minutes he began to fidget and shift and move in his seat but remembered to tell the astrologer to ensure that the rituals were performed in the prescribed way even if doing so took a lot of time. It is not difficult to imagine that if this very same person had to attend a dharma satsang (an assembly of people for prayers or listening to spiritual discourses or such spiritual pursuits) he would be unlikely to be able to sit still for long. But in the case of these rituals he had a self interest involved and so he did not hesitate to advise the astrologer to take his time, no matter how long it took.

The prayers lasted a couple of hours. After some days the work for which our friend had prayed and performed rituals was done. Some days later there was a dharma sabha planned in the village temple premises. The planners of the event thought that our friend’s family who come often to the temple to perform prayers and rituals must be a very religious family. So the planners informed our friend of the event, reminded him that it was a Sunday and thus a holiday, and invited him to the event with the family. Our friend promised to do so. Workers once again went around on Saturday reminding everyone of the event and renewing the invitation to attend. But this time our friend had a different answer: “I was certainly going to attend but I find I have to go for the birthday party of my maternal uncle’s son. They will feel bad if I do not go”. See? He had forgotten friends and relatives when he was unhappy and had time only for God. All his time was spent on prayer and rituals and entreating God to come to his aid: “Lord, you alone are my last resort and support; there is none but you.” Then he had time to take leave from work and attend to prayer and ritual; but now, when all was well, he has little time for God but does have time for friends and uncles and cousins and their sons and grandsons. “They will feel bad if I do not attend their function”. This is shraddha; it blows the way of the wind; it changes course according to circumstance. When the circumstances are bad we do everything to ameliorate them – take leave from work, spend money on purchases for prayers and rituals, sit through long rituals to appease fortune. But when the good times return we find excuses to forget dharma karma. This is shraddha.

Vishvas, on the other hand, is unflinching, unchanging, ever still and stable, steady as a rock. There is a bhajan of Ganga Sati which explains the nature of vishvas:

Meru re dage, Panbai, mana na dage
Bhaangi ne pade re brahmand re

(Mount Meru may move, Panbai,
Well may the cosmos itself collapse
but my mind shall not waver.

In day to day life vishvas is when our mind refuses to budge from its core spiritual beliefs even in the worst of circumstances. Consider the lives of Narsinh Mehta and Mirabai. What difficulties their lives encountered; how much they were reviled and defamed; they were ostracized and tormented in all manner of ways; but their vishvas in the Lord remained unflinching.

So the first lesson we have to learn is have vishvas in God. The soul advances on the rungs of the ladder of vishvas through many a lifetime. Sometimes it stumbles and falls. It rises again and falls again and again rises and advances. After many lifetimes of dharma karmas and the Lord’s grace some soul in some one lifetime finally reaches the rooftop of vishvas. When that happens, such events as we know from the lives of Narsinh Mehta, Mirabai, Tukaram and Prahallad begin to occur. Let us also strive and attain to this vishvas in the true sense.

Consider the firm and unshakable vishvas of Prahallad. His father Hiranyakashipu tries to persuade him to consider him as God and worship him alone but Prahallad was not prepared to be so persuaded. Hiranyakashipu was a king. He instructed Prahallad’s teachers to make Prahallad understand that he must worship his father as God So Prahallad’s teachers placed distorted interpretations on the scriptures and tried to teach Prahallad that his father Hiranyakashipu was God and he, Prahallad, must worship him. Prahallad was not persuaded. It therefore occurred to Hiranyakashipu that since his son was not open to persuasion and refused to offer him worship, he must be killed. Various stratagems were employed to destroy Prahallad but each time he was saved. The Lord has given his word to you, me, Arjuna and everyone else (Bhagvad Gita, 9:22) that “I take upon myself the responsibility for the spiritual and material welfare of the devotee who with unwavering devotion comes to my protection and worships me with exclusive devotion”. But do we believe?

Hiranyakashipu’s sister Holika must have done some sadhana or achieved some such attainment whereby she could not be burnt by fire. A pile of firewood was made and set afire with Holika seated on it with Prahallad in her lap. Holika thought she had the power to make herself impervious to burning in the fire but Prahallad would certainly be consumed by the fire. On the contrary, quite the opposite occurred. Holika was consumed by the flames and burnt to cinder; Prahallad sat through the ordeal chanting the mantra Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaiya and remained unscalded.

This mantra was Prahlad’s constant companion. He chanted it all the time. It is no wonder that he escaped from the ordeal of fire and that proud and vain tormentor of devotees Holika was burnt to death. In effect, even one that had the boon of not being burnt by fire was burnt to death, whereas one who had no such boon was saved. Perhaps both Hiranyakashipu and Holika forgot that if anyone of wealth and circumstance, knowledge, power or spiritual attainment uses his advantage to harass or torment a devotee then, most certainly, those very advantages end up becoming the means of his destruction. But they failed to understand this simple matter.

When a person becomes prone to pride and vanity, the first to desert him is intellect. One who denigrates or troubles a devotee, no matter who he is, loses his yash (good name, fame) and his vansh (line of successors).

Consider Prahallad’s vishvas. There is a lesson in it for us all. However hard the circumstances, let not vishvas be swayed. Also, even a child like Prahllad understands that God alone is worthy of worship. Worship should be offered to only God. Our temples should have images and idols of only God. Should anyone offer worship before my photograph he will receive no fruit sanctioned by the Scriptures. There may be an increase of shraddha in myself but certainly no accrual of any benefits sanctioned by Scriptures. You have to eat and drink to maintain the body – so do I; you will get fever if a mosquito bites you – so will I; we are alike – how then am I worthy of worship? Only he who is indestructible is worthy of worship. Only likenesses of God may be worshipped, not those of humans, certainly not. Hiranyakashipu was one who in his time thought that he was worthy of worship. In present times, keep only the likenesses of God in your prayer places. Do not keep the likenesses of Saints and the likes of me in your places of prayer, keep them elsewhere. But offer worship only to the likeness of God. For the rest, Saints, soothsayers and the like are not to be worshipped, only God may be worshipped. A mere gesture is enough for those with understanding. Let us learn this from the life of Prahallad.

Who is the devotee of Truth? One who recognizes that “this is Truth” and instantly discards untruth and illusion.

(To be continued)