Opening Address

May 1977, Summer Course 1977, Brindavan

Published English.

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One may have great physical strength. One may also be a great man by his achievements. One may possess many such qualities, but if unfortunately one gets into difficulties, his weaknesses will show up and he will not be able to achieve anything. There are several instances in the epic of to illustrate such a situation. gets into many difficulties, and at such times, it appears that everything is against him. We should say that unlike many ordinary people, even in those situations, he faced all of them with great courage, and demonstrated by his example to humanity at large how such situations are to be met in our daily life.

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Although by , one can get the grace of Lord , yet, if one does not understand and recognise the human qualities in Him, one cannot comprehend the divinity in Him either. It is very necessary, at the present time, to look upon as an ideal human being who is an example for all people rather than simply believe Him to be an incarnation of God. When we cannot understand as an ideal example of a human being, how are we going to understand Him as God?

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In every family, the kind of relationship that should exist between mother and son, between hus-band and wife, between brother and brother, has been amply demonstrated by during His life. The entire story of is such that all of it can be related to the daily experience in the life of all individuals. To forget this essential aspect of the sacred story, and to attach more importance to the trivial matters in that story, is not something which is correct.

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comes out of water. is born out of water. So also, poison is born out of water. Here we see that the birth place of as well as poison is one and the same. It is in this context that it has been said that for both the bondage and for the liberation of man, his mind alone is responsible. It becomes necessary that we should recognise the nature of the mind, if we wish to understand this dual part played by our mind.

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In the story of , we come across many situations where He starts as an ideal human being and as the situation develops, He shows us His divinity. But many took care to see that the human quality of is made clear to the world, and that the divinity of is hidden under the facade of this outward human form. We should note that if was recognised as divinity, as God, in the very first instance, then the killing of would not have taken place and the rest of the story would not have followed.

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This is the reason why, when took and for help, he argued with that the abundant strength possessed by and are known only to a few people. He said that the infinite glory of and the great power He had can be understood only by great men and not by ordinary individuals.

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is all-knowing, all-powerful and omni-present. For ordinary people, it is difficult to under-stand this infinite nature of divinity. To recognise and understand , we should ourselves be able to experience . One who comprehends becomes identical with .

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If we want to understand this aspect of the , we should ourselves experience what is contained in the and the story of . In this world, there are many people who claim to be devotees of . Is it possible to decide and to proclaim that they are all devotees of ? Some of these people are devotees of (pleasure), some of them are devotees of and some of them are devotees of . There are devotees and devotees. In this manner, people only claim and describe themselves as devotees of ; but in truth, to justify the claim, they do not promote and develop that connection and that closeness with the aspect of .

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Without any reason, we create havoc for our-selves during our life. But during our lifetime, the mansion of hope that we create for ourselves is going to break and fall down sooner or later. Life is like a flower which opens out in fair weather and is bound to fall when there is a storm. During our life, in order that we can face such storms and survive them, we should develop courage and mental strength. All the great people and great saints, who understood ’s divine aspect, took care to hide it from the general public. and were not ordinary people. They were great saints. They were people with great courage and strength. In fact, they had acquired proficiency in all the different aspects of learning and wisdom. It is not as if was unable to protect his own . He told , “It is not as if I do not have the strength to protect my , but I have come to you with the specific purpose of letting the world know the great , your son, and of spreading His reputation and your reputation.” is not taking just for the protection of his . We should see him only as an instrument for a higher purpose. He has no doubt prepared the ground for the destruction of the various demons, but he has also prepared the ground for the marriage of and . Having done all that, at a crucial time, goes out of the scene. Not only this, the situation then was such that we cannot easily determine whether is truly divine or is an ordinary human being with great qualities.

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In the same manner, good and bad give a lot of trouble to the mind of an ordinary human being and make his mind suffer. But to great people and great saints, good and bad are exactly the same. In that context is an , for He could look at the good and bad with complete equal mindedness. In the , there are not only instances where has displayed this quality of equal-mindedness but also instances where he displayed the absence of such a quality and thus appeared like a weak, ordinary human being. But how long could such a facade last? Only so long as he wanted to demonstrate to ordinary beings the weakness which is characteristic of such human beings. In such situations, he could give courage and strength to others. All the other great men are also like that. Just for the sake of man, for the sake of , for the sake of setting an example, great god-like saints do things as if they were ordinary human beings to illustrate how people should behave in such trying situations.

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It is only when God comes amidst men as an , that He will be close to man, and will be able to set an example to human beings. Only then, he will be able to correct the ways of human beings. The real connection that should exist between man and man is always demonstrated by an . Because God comes as an in human form, man is able to see and experience some ideal examples, in real-life situations. It is natural in that context that God takes the human form in and creates situations where man learns the virtue of adherence to .

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, the great poet, was essentially projecting as an ideal example to human beings. However, in many cases, he was also showing the sacredness and divinity that is contained in . In the same manner, the poet wrote the beautiful story of for the sake of propagating the great name of to the world, as an example of an ideal human being. In the lives of these poets, there were several incidents in which the strength of the name of is seen. On one occasion, gods began to quarrel amongst themselves as to who among them was greater than others. In order to get a decision, they all approached .

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It was decided that whoever goes round the world first will be adjudged as the greatest amongst them. As soon as they heard the decision, each one took his own chariot, and started going round the world. () by tradition has a mouse as his chariot, and because of this small vehicle, he was lingering behind and making very slow progress. At this stage, appeared and asked him how long he would take at that slow pace to go round the earth. suggested that () should write the word and just go round that word and quickly go to .

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wrote the name , went round the same and immediately went back to . decided that he was the best form of god. It is our tradition that whenever good work is undertaken, we first worship . This is the reason why is also called ; the superior one amongst all the . It is believed that he will remove all obstacles in the work that we undertake. This has now become a part of our culture.

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demonstrated the fact that wherever you go, whatever you feel, the name of is contained therein. Thus, reached the end of his life by proclaiming the greatness of the name of . In the , there are several instances which enable you to derive the strength that is necessary for facing various situations that come up in one’s life. Not only in worldly matters and in spiritual matters, but in daily life, every human being can perceive the grace of this name .

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There are three important reasons for the birth of a human being. These three reasons are sin, agitation and ignorance. Because of the sin that we commit we get a rebirth as punishment. Because of lack of peace in an agitated mind, we get rebirth. Because of ignorance and lack of knowledge, we get rebirth. If at one stroke, we want to get rid of sin, agitation in our mind and ignorance, the only way is to constantly think of the name of .

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In the word , there are three letters. They are ‘,’ ‘a’ and ‘ma.’ These three components can be described as and . In these three letters are also contained the and , the sun and the moon. The letter ‘’ is the letter which can be connected with the sun. The letter ‘a’ can be connected with the moon and ‘ma’ with fire. The letter ‘’ which we have connected with the sun, has got the potency by which to shed light and remove all ignorance. ‘A’ which has been connected with the moon, removes your agitation and gives peace. ‘ma’ which is connected with fire, burns out all your sins. This one name will thus remove, in one stroke, all your sins, the agitations in your mind and your ignorance.

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established that there is nothing greater than this one single name, . He has also given us a way by which ordinary people can under-stand and get the benefit out of it. The way by which we utter the word is such that first we open the mouth; and out of the mouth we then send out all that is within us, which is sin; and then we close the mouth to say . Nothing thereafter enters that way into your body.

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Truly, all are not able to recognise the great strength that is contained in this name . Some-times, we wonder whether the utterance of this one simple name will remove all our sins and all our troubles. This inability comes from the weakness in us and not because of the weakness in the name of . The first thing which one has to do is to strengthen one’s own faith.

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Today, a doubt about the existence of God is prevalent, to a large extent, in the world. We are now conducting a seminar on the . There are many people who ask why we need conduct any seminars on the in this modern age. There are people who ask why we are concerned with the at all. has no antiquity or modernity. They seem to be arguing about the compatibility of ancient traditions, and modernity and the usefulness of thoughts about God and divinity. Why do they not argue whether eating food, sleeping, etc., are modern ideas or old ideas? Why do they argue only about matters relating to God and divinity?

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The sacred stories from our ancient lore are the only stories which are going to save us either today or tomorrow. Times may change. New epochs may come. The world may change, but the aspect of divinity is one and the same and is unchanging. “.” Truth is only one and there is no second parallel. At the present time, we are only seeking things which keep on changing. Why do we not seek things which are permanent and unchanging?

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You are the future citizens of this country. I am hoping that you will respect ancient culture, that you will study the life-stories of divine personalities who had come from time to time to re-establish in this ancient land. When we talk of , it does not mean going back to old times. It means that we are wanting our present rulers to rule the country according to . As in the saying “” - “people will be like the king and the king has to be like the people.” Just as the ruler protects the people, looks after them, sees to their welfare; so also the people should take care of the ruler, make him take the right path, look after him and his spiritual . The people are like the body with different organs making up the body. The close connection between the people and the ruler should be one like that between the body and heart. Without the body, we cannot have heart. Without a heart, the body cannot survive. The connection between the ruled and the ruler should be such that they are inseparable from each other. That will be called the .

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People in those days were pure and sacred. This is the reason why they showed great reverence to . A wrong was never condoned. Untruth was never ac-cepted. This shows the sacred strength that was present in the people. That is why, the beginning of the destruction of the was established in those times.

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Several such great and sacred situations are present in the story of the . We should make an effort to understand the qualities of each individual character in the epic and try to get the lessons that gives us. Every individual and every character that is depicted in the story of the has stood forth as an example of an ideal person to all humanity.

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Even in , who is generally taken to be a bad person, has shown certain good qualities. In some places good qualities of also were described by .

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As has been stated earlier, great saints are equal minded. Because of the saintly character of , he showed the weaknesses in and he showed the good qualities in . He was a selfless person. He was called , because he could see the past, present and future. It is only a great saint or a that is entitled to write poetry. Poets like and were . Because of this, whatever they had written has come to be regarded as permanent truth and it remained so for all time.

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The poetry of today has in it lots of selfishness. It is used for the purpose of promoting the selfish interests of the poet. In the ancient days, there were several great saints who had looked upon poetry as an instrument for achieving the prosperity of our country and the good of our people. In the following few days, during which there will be lectures on the , I am hoping that our students will take some of the great examples from that sacred story and get them deeply imprinted in their minds and become ideals to others.