Dharma Never Declines It Is The Practice Of Dharma That Declines

21 May 1976, Summer Course 1976 - Indian Culture and Spirituality, Ooty

Published English.

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The moment we hear the word , the name of our country, the Himalayas come to our mind. For centuries in the past, the essential and the great principles of Hinduism were symbolised in truth and . These two great principles of truth and are also symbolised in the silvery mountains of the Himalayas. These lofty mountains are the places where great men and great saints have performed their (austerities and sense control). Those mountains appear to us as the symbols of purity attained through truth and through . When we look at those mountains, we get the feeling that those silvery mountains are lost in the meditation of . In those mountains, where the (sages) had performed their , lies the origin of Ganges, the sacred river. Ganges is the flowing symbol of Hinduism. Ganges also symbolises what flows through the blood vessels of our country from its spiritual heart. We have to compare the blood vessels and the arteries of and of its citizens to the flow of the sacred Ganges. The moment we hear the name of Ganges, we are reminded of the two banks thereof on which are the centres of pilgrimage, and on which lie the great places of learning. We visualise, when we think of Ganges, the great spiritual centres like , , , and .

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In the same manner, as in this analogy of Ganges, we should also recognise the great pilgrim centres of our mind which lie on either side of the blood vessels. Our own intelligence and (inner consciousness) are the great pilgrim centres of our body. It is customary that in these sacred places of pilgrimage, sacred tasks are performed; and as a consequence thereof, sacred ideas are generated. In the inner body, alongside the life flow of blood, our mind, our (mind), our , etc., can all be recognised as places where good ideas can be generated.

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The fact that Ganges flows in our country has itself got a spiritual significance. The moment we hear about the name of our country, , we are reminded of the great epic the . The hero of this epic is Lord . However, the great deeds of Lord are being pictured in a distorted fashion, and one gets the feeling that we are forgetting the true nature and true character of Lord . is one who had mixed with the (cowherd maids) and (cowherds) as water mixes with milk. He moved intimately with and .

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In order to recognise the sacred truth behind the actions of , we should realise that in the great battle between the and the , he took to the centre of the battlefield and has taught the philosophy of or the path of work to and to us in the world at large, through the ears of . It is said in this context that asked a question and described the battlefield as (Field of virtue) - (Field of action.) asked a question according to which he wondered about the name . We should understand the hidden meaning and significance of this question. The question says “” - that is, those people to whom I am bound down by attachment and who are known for their sathwic (pure) qualities - what is it that these two groups are doing in the battlefield of ? We have to understand here that , in his ignorance, asked a question which really means, from an inner significance point of view, what are the (slothful) and (passionate) (qualities), represented by the , doing in the battlefield with the who represent sathwic . His ignorance was about what these and were doing in the battlefield of his heart along with the sathwic .

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In this context, to limit this battle between these qualities to a period of eighteen days is not correct. This battle between the and on the one hand and the sathwic on the other hand, is continually being waged, for all time, in the body which is the , in which symbolises the sensory organs. This continuous battle is always going on and when the battle is on, Lord in the form of or the witnessing consciousness is a witness of this battle all the time. here should be understood as the very essence of come in the human form. This symbolises the inner consciousness, the unseen of Hinduism.

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With a view to propound this aspect of the cult of in an ordinarily understood language to the people of the world, to the people in the political, in the cultural, and social spheres, , the Lord, has come in the ordinary human form.

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These basic ideas of giving equal opportunity and of distributing wealth equally amongst all human beings are being regarded as something new and novel, but this is not correct. Fifty centuries ago, , in fact, did these very same things and started these ideals. This historic figure, whom we call , really established the root of what we, today, call the new society of . This great figure in our history brought the worker, the agriculturist, and the educated person to the same level and exposed the political hypocrisy which the rulers of the country showed even at that time; and brought them to understand these concepts well. He ruled like an uncrowned king. From ancient times, we have had the sacred idea of referring to as . In the word , we have traditionally come to regard Go as representing a cow or an animal. This is not correct. In the historic times, everything that gave us prosperity and happiness we regarded as Go. We now regard Go as meaning an animal; but in reality whoever looks after the happiness of humanity and provides for the prosperity of humanity should be regarded as .

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In those days, propagated the view that what gives prosperity to the world is the Cow. Man, today, is ignorant and is unable to recognise what is true wealth and what gives true prosperity to humanity. We are now in an unfortunate position of looking at currency notes and thinking that they constitute prosperity or wealth. pushed aside the foolish concept that these artificial printed notes constituted wealth. This is not wealth; and he regarded the cow which gives us milk as wealth, and this wealth was distributed equally among the people. Not only do we get milk, , butter, curds, and other food material from the cow, but from the cow emanate the cattle; and we use these for purposes of agriculture. We generate all the food that we need from the cow and the cattle. When we talk about the harvest and the milk and the curds, these are in two different categories. The requirements of humanity are essentially of two kinds. One is the milk and related products and the other is the agricultural harvest. These were distributed between the two brothers. looked after the milk and other related products and the cows; and , symbolised by the plough, looked after the agriculture and the various products that come through agriculture. Truly the prosperity of the human race depends on the harvest and the milk and milk products. These requirements of the people do not drop from the sky nor do they generate out of the earth of their own accord. They must come through the cattle and the land.

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and were examples who showed that they do not care about their own physical strength and that they would sacrifice everything. They were willing to do hard work and showed through hard work that prosperity can be achieved by sincere hard work. The Lord was all-knowing, all-powerful, and divinity incarnate, and yet he worked as a charioteer for . was one who recognised the importance of service to the community; and by his own practice and by setting an example to others, he showed that service to others was important. After the battle of , these were the people who took the horses to the river, washed them and tended their wounds and applied medicines. They thereby demonstrated that hard work and compassion to all living beings constitute the duty of all human beings. These two people set such an example in those days.

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If we hear of or , we immediately think that they were just ordinary sons of either or . This kind of feeling is on an ordinary human level. But if we look at the root meaning of the name , we understand that “One who is an object of attraction to everyone is .” There is another meaning for this and we can say . According to this, is one who ploughs the field. Of course, we must realise that the field that ploughs is the field of your heart. By this ploughing of your heart, he produces the fruits of peace and distributes them amongst the human beings. symbolises the great person who planted the seeds of peace in the hearts of the people, and he distributed the fruits of peace among human beings. Such is the ideal picture of which we should form in our mind. He used to talk to great people and tell them that this represents the thinking of the great sages of this country, . There is another aspect to this. He made a sacred determination that he would bring peace and happiness to all human beings by setting an example. He was unmindful of the obstacles that came his way and was always showing a happy and blissful life. Such was the life of .

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He had the nature by which he radiated happiness, irrespective of whether he was in a battlefield, or a cremation ground, or in a peaceful place. This was a great quality of his. This is the reason why even in the midst of a battlefield, he taught the to . means and stands for a song. We sing only in our happy moments, but was singing even in a battlefield and was radiating happiness. He was permanently in bliss and he was permanently happy. This is the reason why he was also called (Being awareness bliss).

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As a human being, the divine power that was present in him can be seen more in the than in the . In a story of , he was simply showing some childlike (Divine sport), but in the he exhibited a unique combination of human nature and divine nature. In order to proclaim and establish from time to time, he himself stated in the that he will come again and again. It has been said that he will appear and reappear every time that declines. He appears in order to save the good people and punish the bad people and re-establish declining .

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Here we should understand what is. If is destructible, then why should the embodiment of , God, reappear to establish . If can disappear like all other destructible things, then it will not be at all. is not something which can be destroyed or weakened. If is not destructible, then where is the question of (establishment of )? We should interpret this as the establishment of the practice of and not the establishment of itself. What is declining is the practice of , but not . When we look in the traditional way, we see that in the earliest times, in the , was on all four legs, and we believe that later in the , was standing only on the three legs. Still later in the , it was only on two legs; and it is believed that in the it is standing only on one leg.

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We are also learning from our and sacred texts that was declining in the and that came to save and re-establish in the . But if re-established in the , what is the meaning of saying that had only three legs in ? Once again, as was declining, we believe that came in the to re-establish , and yet we believe that in , stood on two legs only. What is the meaning in saying that one leg has disappeared in the in spite of coming to save it. came in the and came for the purpose of re-establishing and yet we say that in the , has only one leg. If this is so, what is the great thing that has done in for the protection of ? These legs have to be interpreted as relating to the practice of .

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These never come to re-establish - was never destroyed - but the practice of went on decline. In the , only one way of practising remained and that is (Remembering God through the Name), and hence we say that there is only one leg in the . When man is born, he is born on two legs. After a few months he walks on four legs. After a few more months he gets back to the use of two legs. When he gets old, he walks on three legs as he uses a stick. All these legs cannot be called legs. They are simply supports to enable him to move his body in the daily life and do his duty. They are instruments which enable him to fulfil his life. So also, as went on, in order that might be practised by people, various methods have been introduced, and these methods have, from time to time, been described as legs which enable him to carry on in his life.

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The basis for is truth and truth is something which is permanent and so is also something which is unchangeable. Today some people give a meaning to which is different from the original meaning. But at the time when lived, he was explaining the meaning of in a different way. Today we want to interpret by saying that such and such a person is entitled to be happy, and such and such a person is entitled to all comforts. Today’s question is why should a wealthy person alone enjoy life? Why should a rich man alone enjoy the pleasures of life? Why should not a poor man also be given wealth? The wealth should be distributed equally between the poor and the rich people. These questions constitute what we call socialism of today.

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In today’s socialism, we find a hidden and concealed intent of wanting to provide prosperity to only a certain kind of people, and not wanting the same prosperity for another category of people. But the embodiment of in the human form of was one who desired the well-being of the entire humanity. The true interpretation of is to ask for the well-being of the entire human community in the universe. In this context, you may begin to argue that himself behaved as if he wanted to like some people and favour some people and dislike other people. But the situations were such that , who was all-knowing, had to make the determination of taking a certain line of action. We should look back and see what said when , in a state of great despondency, refused to go to battle against his own kinsmen, kill them, see their blood and yet become a ruler. told , “I am giving the future of and his family. Listen to it. He has one hundred sons but they are all selfish. There is no place for selfishness in this world, and all these must be killed. Even though had one hundred sons, there will not be even a single son left to perform the obsequies for him when he dies. Good or bad, or papa are not something which others will give you. These are simply direct results of whatever actions we perform.” What said and agreed to was that under such circumstances, to fight a battle was the right kind of . The reason for this is that these people were born to destroy such a nice family. For this process of destruction, the one, who is born of a slave, has become the help. And in order to add fuel to this fire, there was . The battle that was going to come up, the fire that was about to rage was something that cannot be stopped. If you want to save the world and the destruction thereof by this fire, battle cannot be avoided. You have to accept the power of the battle and of the arrows. The fire of has spread and taken possession so much that if you want to remove this fire, the only way that can be done is to have a heavy rain and not just ordinary drops of shower. Also this rain must be the rain of arrows. believed that the battle and this shower of arrows was necessary to stop the fire of engulfing the whole world.

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The youth of today may get a doubt. wanted the peace of this world and yet he encouraged this big battle in which forty of people were killed. Is this called (violence) or (non-violence)? Even then, gave an appropriate answer to this. He said, “! Let us take the case of a cancerous growth on the body. This cancerous growth gives pain to the whole human body, although the growth itself is confined to a localised area. In that cancer, you have so many small germs present in the wound. When the doctor performs an operation on this cancerous growth, he will no doubt kill millions of germs. He will not think that he is going to kill a million germs and therefore stop the operation. If he does not perform the operation, the germs will be saved but the patient will suffer. He will surely kill the disease-causing germs and save the patient.” further said, “In this body of the world this is the situation now. The cancer has come in the form of the who are ruling. The whole world has got upset, and a state of anarchy is prevailing in the world now. There is also a decline of . All families who are living peacefully are being broken up. Therefore, I will be the doctor, with as the compounder. I will perform the operation of cancer in the form of the battle of . In this battle or the operation, 40,00,000 (four million) of disease-causing germs will be killed for the benefit of the world. Is this bad or is this good for the world?” We can also look at this from another angle and we will see that all kinds of attachments and relationships are only bodily relationships. God is present in everyone and some people suffer because of their past actions while the others will not suffer because of the good actions done by them. In this context, we cannot decide what is right and what is wrong. Right and wrong depend on the actions. One body gets relationships with another body because of the bodily relationship, but there is no such relationship between one and another . There is only one in every human body.

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In our body there are several organs. Although the body is composed of so many organs, if one of the organs gets sick and has to be separated, we will be prepared to cut it away and remove it. In the same way, if we recognise that the very ancient (individual soul) who has entered this body, taking it as a temporary residence; and if a portion gets diseased, there is nothing wrong in cutting away and removing the diseased part of the body. Here is only demonstrating his authority.

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When there is a young child who unknowingly sets fire to a house, we think that he has done great harm and we begin to punish him. However, when burnt down the whole of , which was as prosperous as heaven itself, we not only did not punish him but we regard him as a sacred person. The reason for this is that in the first case something good was burnt down while in the second case what burnt down was the sin itself. He caused injury to the demons and the while the small boy caused injury to good people.

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Thus, in order to remove or promote the demoniac qualities in us, we have the complete right and power. It is in the context of recognising these various conflicting situations, in order to preach the inner meaning of these conflicting situations, gives various instances which will proclaim to us what good things are. was a selfless person, and he always desired the well-being of the human community. In that context, whatever he may have done, was always good, and there was never anything bad in what he did. He himself conquered many kingdoms, but he never became a king of any of these kingdoms. He gave those kingdoms to several people. Whatever he may have done, there was always an inner meaning. All his actions were directed towards preaching an inner meaning.

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To take another instance, the battle went on for eighteen days, the were defeated and the were victorious. In the victory, was the charioteer and was in the chariot. After the victory, they came back to their mansion. was in the nature of a human being and there was a little remnant of ego in him. As is the common practice even today, the driver of a car is expected to come and open the door of the car when the owner will get down from the car. In the same way, on that day also, when the chariot came and stood in front of his house, he insisted on getting down first and opening the door. did not agree to this; and, in fact, in somewhat strong language, he admonished , asked him to get down first and go inside. Not recognising the inner significance of what has been given to him as a command, still indulged in an argument with . thought that in the battle, victory was on their side because of ; and he was afraid that some danger might come to him if he enters into an argument with ; and so somewhat reluctantly, he finally accepted what has said. As soon as got out and no sooner did go inside, , in one leap, jumped out of the chariot. As soon as jumped out, the entire chariot was in flames. All the who were witnessing this were surprised and asked why the chariot had burnt away like that. Then explained that during the battle, very powerful weapons were sent by heroes like , , and others and all these weapons were subdued and kept under his feet. If he had not got down first, the weapons would have exploded, killing and the others. explained that this was the reason for asking to jump out first and his jumping out later.

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In order to save his devotees, God plans so many different actions in several different ways. Devotees, not being able to recognise and understand the inner meaning of such actions, misunderstand and think that God is giving them unnecessary difficulties. Man has only external vision. God has inner vision. is always caring for the well-being and good of his people. Whatever he does, he does it for the well-being of his devotees. Even if a son, who has been brought up very carefully by the mother, makes a mistake, the mother will punish the son by giving a slap. When we see this, we feel that a mother who has brought up the son with such care, love, and tenderness is harsh in beating the child; but the mother who beats the child does so with affection. In the same manner - God, the universal father, will punish his devotees, when need be with and with love. Just as a consequence of that, we should not get the idea that God is wanting to punish people. God is always full of grace. He never gets angry. However, at times He uses words which are harsh, but He is not harsh. It is only the words that are harsh, His heart is soft like (Divine nectar).

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We must first acquire competence to understand the kind of love and tenderness which God entertains towards His devotees. Pleasure comes out of pain. We should recognise that all pain will ultimately end in pleasure. Because the were in the jungles for twelve years and were hiding themselves unrecognised for another year, the people had an opportunity to see their divine qualities.

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Because of the many obstacles and troubles that came to , and because of the punishments that were given to him, it was possible for the rest of the world to know how great ’s devotion was. never had tears in his eyes and he never exhibited any pain when the were harming him. He was only uttering the name of the Lord and was asking the Lord to come to him. Because of such a situation, he was able to promote devotion and show others what real faith and devotion can do. On the other hand, had been looked after by his father with care and tenderness and if he took him in his lap, how would ’s devotion and faith be known to the rest of the world?

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So all the pains and difficulties that we get will ultimately turn out as means of getting happiness and pleasure. Even a quality diamond does not get its value unless we cut the facets on it. Even pure gold will not be turned into a beautiful ornament unless it is repeatedly beaten hard and put into fire. In all pains and troubles, we should recognise only paths for getting ultimate happiness. So we should be prepared to accept pain. To seek pleasure alone and not to welcome pain is not right. This sacred content of the and the sacred teachings of regarding the conduct of devotees and other aspects will be given to you from tomorrow. I hope that the students will listen, understand, and benefit by this story of the . I will bring this discourse to a close now.