Continuing with the same verse of
last week, let us see what the worthy disciple of Swami Sivananda, Swami
Krishnananda, has to say on this verse.
Swami Krishnananda writes,
“The power of God is greater than
the power of all the people in the world, in all creation. Renounce all the
rules and regulations of the temporal world, which are temporary because they
require transformation, change, emendation from moment to moment; but stick to
the supreme dharma which is devotion to Me.
Leave other dharmas which are characteristic of performance of work, etc., in
the world of diversity, because all that variety of dharma is subsumed under
this greatest of dharmas, that is,
love of God. There is no dharma equal
to that.”
There are varieties of dharmas in this world: family dharma, individual dharma, social dharma,
political dharma, Kshatriya dharma, Brahmana dharma, and so on.
They are all good in their own
way, in their own place, but they are all nothing before the utter surrender of
the soul to God. And all these dharmas,
these rules, these Smirtis, these law
codes—these systems of operation of secular dharma—are all included in that
highest of spiritual dharmas, namely,
unity with God.
Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: “Surrender yourself to Me, and
resort to Me only. I shall destroy all your sins.” This is a great
statement indeed, because it is believed that sins cannot be destroyed.
Avashyameva
bhoktavyamkrtamkarma shubhā shubham, nābhuktamkśiiyate karma (B.V.):
These verses tell us that unexperienced karma cannot leave us; we have to
undergo the effect of what we have done. Wherever we go, the karmas will follow us.
The greatest sin is ignorance of
God, and every other form of crime, offence and sin is an offshoot of this
ignorance of the Ultimate Reality. Because the final sin is the separation from
God Himself, unity with God will destroy all sins—just as all evil that we
perform in the dream state will be destroyed automatically by waking up.
In dream we have borrowed so much
wealth from somebody, we have committed offence, and against that offence, all
our property is likely to be taken away, we are in a state of great grief.
All the experiences, all the
sorrows, all the agonies, all the obligations, all the duties, all kinds of
relationships that we were involved in during the state of dream do not produce
any effect whatsoever when we wake up into a consciousness higher in quality
than the dreaming state.
The mere transformation of
consciousness is equal to the fulfillment of all duties. Otherwise, even after
waking up from dream we have to pay the debts that we have incurred in dream.
We have to take care of all the children that we produced in the dream state
because deserting our own children is a great sin, so why should we not also
think of them when we wake up?
Nothing will affect us, because
consciousness determines everything. God-consciousness being the highest of
awakenings, the world stands in relation to it as a dream. So, all the values,
all the goodness and the badness, evil and sin in this world, whatever we call
it, is like mist before the sun.
When we unite with God, God takes
care of us to see that we shall not be punished, because we have done the
greatest duty, more than anything that the world can conceive; and we have
performed the greatest sacrifice, not comparable with any sacrifice that we can
think of in this world; and we have cut at the root of all sin by uniting
ourselves with God. Therefore it is that the Lord
says: “I shall free you from all sins.” Ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyo mokṣyayiṣyāmi mā
śucaḥ.
But we should not be under the
impression that we can go on committing some foolish acts and God will come to
our aid. He comes to our aid only when we are oblivious of our own existence,
we are totally unaware of even the existence of the world, and we are absorbed
in the Universal God utterly.
It is in that condition of total
transcendence of oneself that it is possible to expect this kind of blessing
from the Almighty whereby all our offences are pardoned.
Otherwise, as long as we are world-conscious and body-conscious—we know that there is a world and we know that there are people and that we also exist—then this law does not apply.
We will have to reap the fruits of our karmas. Therefore, this is not a blanket cover for every kind of state of consciousness. It is applicable only to one state of consciousness—which is unity with God, not otherwise.
Continued…….
Love.
