The Turnaround

Sunahu Sadhak Pyare - Part 13

So in this manner, you just need to turn towards God. Turning towards God means, “just like a girl has to go to her husband’s house from her parent’s house one day, the individual soul who is under the influence of Maya and bound with material afflictions has to break free from it and go to God’s abode one day”. You can compare this situation to that of a young girl who is very attached to her parents and all the belongings at her parent’s house. But, as soon as she gets married, she gets attached to her husband and the belongings at her husband’s house. She starts referring to her husband’s car as her car and his bank balance as her bank balance. Upon marriage her attachment to her parents and the material possessions at her parent’s house diminishes. In other words, she gets detached from her parents. Everything changes overnight, without any training or practice. Have you ever heard of any father teaching his daughter to consider everything at her husband’s house to be her’s. No, nothing like that has ever happened. Still things change in a moment.

Every soul is a part of God and desires God alone. Your mind will accept this fact, only by constant repetition. You hear it once and mistakenly think that you’ve understood. But you have not. Your old practice of thinking that the world is mine comes back and this new found knowledge is lost. So you have to make this decision firm in your mind, by repeating it over and over again. Decision comes with constant revision. Decision is the main thing. The decision should be so firm that we should realize that He alone is mine, all the time.

You always have this feeling of “I am”. You think, “I” went there, then “I” came here. Have you seen that “I”. No, still you feel that “I” all the time. You realize that “I” everywhere. You think in your mind, no-one knows what “I” am thinking! Throughout the day you look at people, meet people. You have good feelings towards some and ill feelings towards others. But you are confident that nobody knows what you are thinking. You forget that Shri Krishna is sitting inside and noting down all your thoughts. By thinking that you are alone, you have proven that you not a believer of God. You have become a disbeliever. You are considered a believer, only if you start feeling the presence of Shri Krishna everywhere, all the time.

So if somebody says, that I am very truthful and during 24 hours in a day, I lie only for 1 hour. For rest of the 23 hours, I speak the truth. Can such a person be called truthful? See if one person says to another, I have taken an oath that I will lie only once in my life. And I am not telling you a lie, because I have pledged that I will lie only once. The listener is in doubt thinking, that this may be the one time when he is lying.

So if you think about God 23.45 hours in a day, no-one knows where your mind can go in the last 15 minutes. You may become worse than a non-believer. So, a believer is one who realizes God everywhere, all the time. Just like you realize the “I”, you must also realize “my master” all the time. If you consider that, “I” and “my master” stay together all the time, you will not be alone at any time and will thus be saved from the sins that you commit when you consider yourself to be alone. See all of you are sitting here. If anybody sees you sitting here, they will think that you are all God realized souls, devoid of all ill feelings of anger, passion, jealousy etc. Everyone is at peace. But after the lecture where does your mind go, what do you think? See all the vices have resurfaced. In order that these ill feelings don’t get the better of you, you need to practice devotion. It is to highlight this fickleness of mind, Arjun had said to Shri Krishna

चंचलं हि मनः कृष्ण प्रमाथि बलवद्दृढ़म्। तस्याहं निग्रहं मन्ये वायोरिव सुदुष्करम्॥
गीता 6.34

caṃcalaṃ hi manaḥ kṛṣṇa pramāthi balavaddṛढ़m। tasyāhaṃ nigrahaṃ manye vāyoriva suduṣkaram॥
gītā 6.34

"Shri Krishna! The mind is extremely restless, obstinate and relentless. Sometimes it reaches the skies and at other times it reaches the nether (lower planets) world. It is faster than the speed of wind. Controlling it is very difficult ".

Shri Krishna also agreed with Arjun and Shri Krishna had stated the remedy,

अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते॥
गीता 6.35

abhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa ca gṛhyate॥
gītā 6.35

Attach your mind to God, consider God your very own, realize His presence, then you will be absolved of Maya and won’t consider yourself to be a body. And when you don’t consider yourself to be a body, you won’t be attached to this world and when you are not attached to this world, you won’t be miserable. And when you are not miserable, you will attain God.

दुख है आध्यात्म, भौतिक और दैविक प्यारे ।
लक्ष चैरासी में मै जन्मयो अगनित प्यारे ।
सकल दुख का मूल है एक, हरि विमुखता प्यारे ।
हरि हिन सन्मुखता है याकि एक औषधि प्यारे ।

dukha hai ādhyātma, bhautika aura daivika pyāre ।
lakṣa cairāsī meṃ mai janmayo aganita pyāre ।
sakala dukha kā mūla hai eka, hari vimukhatā pyāre ।
hari hina sanmukhatā hai yāki eka auṣadhi pyāre ।

When this knowledge is set that I am the soul and not the body, and that this world does not have my happiness, in God lies my happiness, God alone is mine, then this is the point from which sadhana begins. What is sadhana, how to do it? See if our mind was attached neither to the world nor to God then as soon as you obtained the knowledge that God alone is mine you would immediately attach your mind to God.

Once there was a zamindar, who had a son. In order to discipline his son, he once scolded him harshly. The son felt very bad and ran away from home. He went to a nearby town and gained empolyment with a wealthy businessman. He learnt the traits of the business and started his own business and became a rich man. After 25 years he decided to visit his village. During this time, his father had become mentally disturbed due to the grief of losing his son. When night fell the son decided to stay in an inn. Incidentally his father was also staying in the same inn and as luck would have it, both of them were staying in adjoining rooms. Since the old man was mentally disturbed, he kept making strange noises all night, which disturbed the son’s sleep. Being a rich man he was upset and demanded that the inn owner do something about it. The father heard the conversation between the young man and the innkeeper and got very upset. Both of them got into an intense argument.

The old man said, “Do not mess with me. I am a Thakur from Ramnagar. The son said, I am also a thakur. My father’s name is Bajrang Bahadur. He is so strong that he threw his only son out of the house to make him mend his ways. I am that Bajrang Bahadur’s son”. Hearing this, the father realized that he was speaking to no-one else than his own son. The animosity between the father and the son ended almost immediately and they embraced each other lovingly. The son confessed that he is that unfortunate son and begged for his father’s forgiveness.

But since our mind is already deeply attached to the world, it first needs to get detached.

So when we have this feeling that he alone is our father & mother, we will want to meet Him. And how will we meet Him? Our scriptures tell us how we can meet him. But how can we read all the scriptures. Neither do we have such a long life nor that much brains. One can’t even read all the scriptures, let alone understand them. One writer Ved Vyas has written 400,000 shlokas in the Puran. And there are thousands of saints, who have written numerous scriptures. In one short life span, how can we read all that and retain all that information in our mind. And even if one were to live for 1000 years, one would get confused reading all those. How can we reach a decision?

श्रुति पुरान बहु कहेउ उपाई। छूट न अधिक अधिक अरुझाई।।

śruti purāna bahu kaheu upāī। chūṭa na adhika adhika arujhāī।।

that is why scriptures state that one must go to a god realized saint – a guru

तद्विज्ञानार्थं स गुरुमेवाभिगच्छेत् समित्पाणि: श्रोत्रियं ब्रह्मनिष्ठम् ।
मुंडकोपनिषद् १.२.१२

tadvijñānārthaṃ sa gurumevābhigacchet samitpāṇi: śrotriyaṃ brahmaniṣṭham
Muṇḍakopaniṣad 1.2.12

तद्विद्धि प्रणिपातेन परिप्रश्नेन सेवया। उपदेक्ष्यन्ति ते ज्ञानं ज्ञानिनस्तत्त्वदर्शिनः।।
गीता 4.34

tadviddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā। upadekṣyanti te jñānaṃ jñāninastattvadarśinaḥ।।
gītā 4.34

तस्माद् गुरुं प्रपद्येत जिज्ञासु: श्रेय उत्तमम् । शाब्दे परे च निष्णातं ब्रह्मण्युपशमाश्रयम् ॥
भागवत ११.३.२१

tasmādguruṃ prapadyeta jijñāsuh śreya uttamam,
śābde pare ca niṣṇātaṃ brahmaṇyupaśamāśrayam
Bhāgwatam 11.3.21

You cannot read the shastras/vedas yourself. You need a guru.
1. You desire for God then
2. You need guru

if you need to study a language say English, first thing you need is a teacher. How will you learn it yourself? If you are ill, you need a doctor who knows how to cure your disease. Yes, you have to consume the medicine yourself, but the first step is to find the right doctor, who will prescribe the right medicine. But finding a genuine guru is not sufficient. You will have to meet the guru. Pay attention. You have eyes. Yes. You can see clearly. Yes. Switch off the light now. Can you see now? No. So eyes should be good and the thing that you wish to see should be kept in light, then only can you see it. Otherwise a blind man and a person with eyes are both the same.

So, the guru should be genuine and the soul has to surrender to the guru. Now, the equation is set. Now you will reach the goal in due course of time. If either one or both are wrong then you won’t meet your goal. E.g. if the guru is not genuine and you are totally unattached to the world and are determined to attain God, you will not realize God as the guru himself does not know the way, so how can he guide you? He might tell you to do a pilgrimage at all the 4 shrines. You visit all those places and still you are as attached or even more attached to the material world as before. Means he told you the wrong way. The other scenario is that we have no desire to attain God and we meet a genuine Guru who shows us the right way. You will say, yes he is very capable, yes what he says makes sense, but we are householders. You put one “but” i.e. you find a fault with the Guru’s words. We must have met real Saints numerous times; we might have even understood what they said. But we did not practically apply what they preached because we did not have the desire.

That desire is called faith.

आदौ श्रद्धा ततः साधु-सङ्गोऽथ भजन-क्रिया ।
ततोऽनर्थ-निवृत्तिः स्यात् ततो निष्ठा रुचिस् ततः ॥
भक्ति रसामृत सिन्धु 1.4.16

ādau śraddhā tataḥ sādhu-saṅgo'tha bhajana-kriyā ।
tato'nartha-nivṛttiḥ syāt tato niṣṭhā rucis tataḥ ॥
bhakti rasāmṛta sindhu 1.4.16

First you need to have that desire and then you need to meet a real saint, then practice devotion. This is what Tulsidas Ji said so beautifully.

सदगुरु वैद्य वचन विश्वासा, संजम यह न विषय की आशा रघुपति भगति सजीवन मूरी।
अनूपान श्रद्धा मति पूरी यही विधि भलेहिं कुरोग नासहिं, नाहिं तो कोटि यतन नहीं जाहिं ॥

“sadguru vaidya vachan vishwasa, sanjam yah na vishay ki asha raghupati bhakti sanjeevani moori, anumpaan shraddha ati oori yehi vidhi bhalehin kurog nasahin, naahi to koti yatan nahi jaahin”

If someone meets these 2 conditions i.e. has the desire to know God and meets a real guru who tells us the way and we practically walk the path shown by our Guru, then we can attain God.