Sorrow is the manifestation of attachments
Nishkulanand Swami says that the detached person is the happiest because he is always facing towards God. He derives happiness only from the Murti of God.
The one who doesn’t like being detached and has lot of hunger towards the world can’t get attached to Maharaj even if he tries a lot. Because attachment takes him/her to somewhere else.
Difficult situations are not the cause of sorrow. Attachment is the cause of sorrow.
During Maharaj’s times, were Nand Santos in favorable situations or unfavorable situations? Unfavorable situations. Were they happy or sad? Happy. How could they be in difficult situations and still be happy? They were happy because they were not attached to anything. Whoever doesn’t have any attachment is always happy.
The one who has attachments is always sad. Sorrow is the manifestation of attachments. Happiness is the manifestation of detachment.
Who decides if a situation is unfavorable or favorable? Attachment decides it. If attachment is favored, then it is a favorable situation. If attachment is not favored, then it is an unfavorable situation.
Does unfavorable situations make you good or bad? It actually makes you good by making you strong, hard, and bold. Favorable situations may or may not make you good, yet people don’t think good about unfavorable situations.
Sadguru Nishkulanand Swami, Sadguru Gunatitanand Swami, and other great Saints were the heads of temples. Even now there are head administrators of temples. There is a huge difference between those great Saints and present Saints.The heads of temples now are always trying to satisfy their attachments through the temples. They can’t attach themselves to God even if they try hard because their attachments are somewhere else. Attachments drag them towards the sense objects.
Nishkulanand Swami and Gunatitanand Swami were the heads of temples and strained their bodies to the maximum extent to serve God. They were not the heads of temples to relax their body and enjoy.
Once, a head of a temple visited the Junagadh temple. He asked the person who was brooming the corridor to connect him with the head of the temple. The person asked him to be seated. Then he went inside, kept the broomstick aside, cleaned himself, and came back to the visitor.
He said, “Yes. Please tell me how I may help you.”The visitor asked, “Are you the head?”
“Yes.”
He wondered and asked, “Just now you were cleaning the temple. Weren’t you? You are the head too.”
“Yes. That is how we are.”
That is the reason Gunatitanand Swami was the head of the Junagadh temple for 40 years. If you have attachments elsewhere, you can’t maintain that position.
Saubhari Rishi followed the path of God to tie himself with God. But attachments dragged him and stopped him. Attachments don’t allow you to bond with God.Having attachment is like having a safety ring around you before jumping into the water. A safety ring doesn’t allow you to go inside the waters. Similarly, attachment doesn’t allow you to go inside the bliss of Maharaj. It doesn’t allow you to attach to Maharaj.
Attachments of detached person vs attached person
Nishkulanand Swami says that there is no end to the sorrow and misery until we have hunger for worldly happiness, until we have “meness” and “myness” feelings towards people and things. Even God will not be able to reduce the distance between them and sorrow.
A detached person is free from the hunger of attachments. He doesn’t have reason to be sorrowful or miserable. He joins with God and enjoys the immense pleasure of being with God.
An attached person can’t be happy even if God comes and serves them.
Even God can’t make a detached person unhappy. God knows that no one can make him sad.
Even if the detached person has “meness” and “myness,” it would be in the use of service to God. He converts all the activities related to “meness” and “myness” to the activities that help in the service of God. If any of his “meness” and “myness” is used for anything other than God, then it is called attachment.
In whatever position the detached person is, he uses his position completely in the service of God.
Discarding family and relatives doesn’t make one detached. Using everything in the service of God makes one detached.
How to be immersed in the divine form of God?
A Chukar bird only focuses on the moon and doesn’t see anything around it. Similarly, a detached person only focuses on the Murti of God and nothing else.
A fish finds it difficult to survive and leaves its life when it is brought out of water. Similarly, a detached person feels immense pain if his mind goes away from the Murti of God.
A “Common Swifts” bird keeps flying in the sky and doesn’t like to land on Earth. They would continuously fly in sky for more than ten months without landing on the ground. Nishkulanand Swami says that, similarly, the one whose mind is completely attached on God finds it difficult to think about his body and finds it difficult to work for maintaining his body.But Nishkulanand Swami says that to hold the divine Murti of Maharaj, first we should give up the affection towards our own body and the affection towards bodily activities and people. With every activity we do, we should give up thinking about our body and give up thinking about people attached with this body.
There is no detachment greater than the detachment to body and its activities. There is no attachment greater than attaching ourselves to the body and its activities.
Good qualities are poisonous snakes
In Atma-Nishta, we think of this body as, “I am not this.”
In Vairagya (detachment), we think this body as, “This is not mine.”
Atma-Nishta is about “who am I” and “who are you.”
Vairagya is about “what is mine” and “what is yours.”
If there is no detachment, all the good qualities are like poisonous snakes. All the hard work you put in to develop those good qualities is like the milk of those poisonous snakes.
We put in a lot of hard work to develop those good qualities. Hard work is the milk. All the good qualities you acquire with hard work are poisonous snakes if you do not possess detachment.
What is the purpose of acquiring those good qualities? They are acquired only to fulfill your attachments. Why do we study? To achieve our attachments. Good qualities with attachments are snakes. It kills the one who feeds it. The same good qualities that you developed brings you into problems.
To satisfy attachments, we take up families and worldly relations and worldly life. From there, it takes us to the deepest of hell. That is how good qualities, even though ir takes a lot of pain to develop, take the form of snakes and bite us if we don’t have detachment.
You may study well and deliver discourses. Why would you do that? You do that to develop your detachment? No. You do that to satisfy your attachments.
You learn musical instruments to develop detachment or to satisfy attachment?
Someone doesn’t become great by acquiring good qualities. Acquiring them increases your responsibility. If you are not responsible, it is better not to acquire the good qualities. If you use your good qualities to be detached and to completely use them in the service of God, then that is the best medicine for the soul. If you use the good qualities to satisfy attachments, then it is the poisonous snakes that bite and kill you.
All the good qualities reduce your self-pride or increase self-pride? Good qualities without detachment don’t remove self-pride, but actually increase your self-pride.Devotion to the Lord reduces your self-pride or increases self-pride? They increase your self-pride. If devotion increases self-pride, then of course other activities like learning musical instruments, reading more books, learning new languages, software, and all other worldly educations or learnings will increase one’s self-pride .
Nishkulanand Swami says that if you have a lot of good-qualities without detachment, all of them are useless.
If you serve your attachments, it takes you to hell and keeps you firm in the loop of birth and death. So, attachments are more poisonous than snakes.
So, Nishkulanand Swami says that, “With a lot of research, I would declare that the one who has detachment in him is the luckiest person.”
References:
Sarsiddhi Katha Part 11