Shri Datta Swami Sri Datta Jnana Prachara Parishat

{1. Please keep these instructions in the beginning of every message and
song propagated. 2. Please propagate this knowledge of God Guru
Datta, the divine spiritual preacher, who will be highly pleased with your
propagation of spiritual knowledge (Jnaana yajnena tenaaham…-Gita)
3. Please create a big E-mail group as far as possible to send every
message and every song composed and sung by Shri Datta Swami to
develop devotion. 4. If anybody raises doubts or questions, please
forward those to the E-mail of Shri Surya (dattapr2000@yahoo.com) so
that Shri Datta Swami will answer. 5. If anybody is not interested, please
delete that E-mail at once because such a soul is very highly elevated
involved in more important worldly topics only! 6. Please send the
devotional songs also now and then in series. 7. For more details please
visit the website www.universal-spirituality.org.}

SARASWATI RIVER OF SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE

May 23, 2019
How can the cravings of the soul be identified?
Shri Hrushikesh Pudipeddi brought the following question to the attention of
Swami. The question was posed by a devotee on an online forum after the devotee
read one of Swami’s discourses related to Advaita. The devotee asked “How can one
know that the soul wants something? How can one identify if it is the craving of the
soul?”
Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! The
correct term to be used when referring to the awareness present in a
particular human being is the ‘individual soul’. The term ‘soul’ refers to
the inert energy that is required to generate the awareness (individual soul)
in the person’s functioning nervous system. The inert energy, thus, forms
the basic essential material of awareness. This awareness takes different
forms called as pulses (sphoṭa) and a bundle of these pulses is the
individual soul. When we talk about cravings, it is the awareness or the
individual soul that craves. Non-aware inert items like stones can
neither think nor crave for anything. The individual soul is loosely
called as soul. That is, the individual soul, which is a bundle of thoughts, is
loosely called awareness. It is just like calling a bunch of golden
ornaments simply as gold. This point is just basic commonsense and does
not involve much logical analysis. The individual soul, which can be
loosely called the soul, is what craves since only awareness is capable of
craving. Inert items have no awareness and hence, cannot think or crave
for anything. It is an extremely simple concept that is known even to a just
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Shri Datta Swami Sri Datta Jnana Prachara Parishat

born baby! We recognize the soul by the existence of the process of

thinking and the absence of thinking shows the non-existence of the
soul.
Why does God allow people gathered for worship to get killed in
terrorist attacks?
Shri Anil asked: Padanamaskaram Swami! In the recent terrorist attacks,
many people who had gathered for worship were killed. Some people are questioning
why God allows such killings to take place in a place of worship. They are asking if
God was sleeping while these people were being killed. Even if the killing were
inevitable, God could have easily made it happen in some other place so that this
blame would not come on God. At Your Divine Feet, Anil.
Swami replied: The time and place of punishment is decided by God
Himself. God Himself is punishing the sinners by killing them. Krishna
Himself killed several sinners and He also got several sinners killed.
Prophet Mohammad also killed several sinners, who were creating
violence by propagating the multiplicity of God. Of course, sometimes,
even God gets killed by sinners! Jesus, Śaṅkara, Dayānanda Sarasvati etc.,
were Human Incarnations of God, who were killed in this manner. All
these incidents have their own hidden backgrounds.

When God is not present in any statue or symbol that represents

God, what is the difference between temples, churches etc., and any
other place? The body of the Human Incarnation of God (God in human
form like Jesus, Krishna, Mohammad etc) is the true temple in which God
actually exists. Places of worship are mere buildings. God is not actually
present in them. While speaking about the resurrection of the Church in
three days, Jesus was referring to His body as the Church. Every Tom,
Dick and Harry attacks the administration of God and finds fault with it.
None of them understand the truths hidden in the background. It is merely
our faith that God exists in the statutes and other symbols
representing God. It is not the reality. This is clearly told in the Veda
(Na tasya pratimā…) and scriptures of other religions. However, this
concept must only be kept in mind by realized people. They should not
express it out and disturb the spiritual progress of the common person who
believes that God is in the temple or church or in the statue. The ordinary
person believes that the representative model itself is God and through this
belief he develops devotion to God. No assumption is wrong if it is helpful
in making good progress in the right direction.

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Shri Datta Swami Sri Datta Jnana Prachara Parishat

God is always holy and He remains holy in spite of the close

association of unholy things. Such cruel acts of killing occurring in a place
of worship do not make God unholy at all. Besides, the devotees
assembled for prayer in a place of worship need not be holy. They
might even be sinners. By this incident, God is giving us the message
that He will not interfere in the divine administration at any place, at
any time and under any condition. If a sinner is to be punished exactly at
a particular time, the punishment will certainly be delivered by God at any
place; even if the sinner is right before Him! On the other hand, devotees
who are actually holy and free of any sin, will not be punished even if they
are very far away from the holy place of worship. This shows the
impartiality of the divine administration of God, which remains totally
detached.

If the son of a judge who lives in his father’s house is found to be a

criminal, an honest and impartial judge will call the police and have them
arrest his own son in his own house. In that situation, the judge does not
see him as his son but only as a criminal. He gives no importance to the
fact that the son is living with him in his own house. Similarly, God does
not give any importance to the fact that His devotee is praying in the
holy place. If the devotee has previously committed a serious sin, God
will call the terrorists to come and kill His own sinful devotee even in
His own place.

The person’s devotion does not cancel the fruit of the sin. Both fruits
are given separately. A student is supposed to receive a gold medal on a
specific day. But on the same day, he gets arrested by the police for a
crime that he had committed earlier. Can the student say that he is willing
to forgo his gold medal if the police release him? Will the police release
him taking his gold medal as a bribe? The duty-minded policeman will
accompany the student to the award ceremony, allow him to receive his
gold medal and then he will put the student back in police custody. Hence,
it is foolishness to think that the worship to God will exempt the soul
from the punishment of sins. Such foolish lies are propagated by selfish
priests to earn money from people through their worship!

The only way to get rid of the punishment of not just one particular
sin, but the pending punishments for all other sins is the three-step path of
reformation. The three steps in the reformation of a soul are realization by

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Shri Datta Swami Sri Datta Jnana Prachara Parishat

knowledge, repentance by devotion and the non-repetition of the sin in

practice. Do you think that the devotion of the devotees standing near
the holy representative model of God had brought this reformation in
them. Had they attained realization? Had they truly repented? Had
they reached the state of non-repetition of the sin, practically? If there
is any devotee, who has completed these three steps and is fully reformed,
he will remain completely unharmed. He might be standing right next to
the terrorist and yet no harm will come to him. Hence, the point is not
about whether the place is holy or unholy. It is a question of the holiness or
unholiness of the devotee, which decides whether the person will be
protected or punished.