In the next 8 slokas, the Lord has enlisted 33 qualities of a devotee. These are comparable to the 33 crore Gods who are mentioned in our scriptures. What is the reason for describing these qualities? Is it to certify a bhaktha or a stitapragya? It is not for the purpose of appreciating a bhakta. We should not use this as a checklist to evaluate saints or devotees. We should not take this list and say “adhveshtaa sarva bhuutaanaM – oh he has only dvesha –so he is not a devotee” This is not a yardstick to measure saints and bring them down to the plane of ordinary humans like us. They are emissaries of God who are an inspiration to us. It is for seeing what objectives we need to set for ourselves.
अद्वेष्टा सर्वभूतानां मैत्रः करुण एव च ।
निर्ममो निरहंकारः समदुःखसुखः क्षमी ॥१२- १३॥
AdveshhTha sarvabhutaanam maitraH karuna evacha
Nirmamo niraankarah samadukha sukhakshami
SarvabhuutaanaaM – to all beings : AdveshhTha – without enmity: MaitraH – friendliness : KaruNaH – compassion: Eva – also: Cha – and: NirmamaH – without the sense of “mine” : NirahankaaraH – without the sense of “I”: sama dukha sukhaH - alike in happiness and misery: Kshami – with patience
Adweshta sarvabhutaanam – means no hatred towards anyone. As long as we have the feeling of hatred even in our dreams or thoughts, towards any object or person, even for a moment, then, the Lord cannot be there in our minds. There is absolutely no compromise in this.
Once there was a great Muslim warrior. He was fighting a righteous war. The person whom he was fighting with fell on the ground. His disciple was watching. When the warrior picked up a sword to kill his opponent, that man spat on his face. ”.
Immediately the warrior dropped the sword and went away. The disciple asked him, “Why did you not kill that man? You were about to kill him when he spat at you”. The warrior replied, “right now, I have hatred for him and if I had killed him with hatred then I would have sinned and he would go to heaven
We should not have hatred for any body. If we think of our own lives, we will remember that incident which caused us deep hurt and caused hatred in our minds. Thus removing the hatred in our minds is the greatest Sadhana and the mark of a true devotee. So it does not matter whether a person is a devotee of Ram or Krishna or belongs to any other religion, the important thing is we should not have any hatred towards anyone.
The next quality described is “maitraH”. maitraH means one who is friendly with all and in whose heart, friendship is always there. If we are a friend, to only one friend, then we become victims in friendship. However if we are friends with everyone then our friendship expands to infinity. Therefore, here the lord says, “maitraH” or friendship with everyone. There shouldn’t be any enmity towards any one. We should not worry if a person is good or bad. If we are friendly, irrespective of how bad a person is, our affairs with him will be on a friendly basis. The technique for loving everyone is to address everyone with respect. If we address others with respect, then our conversation with them will also be with respect”.
Geese are very special birds. Firstly, it is the only animal that removes a dead one of its clan. When a man dies four people are required to lift him but a goose carries and cremates a dead goose by itself. Secondly, when one goose crosses the other in mid-air, they shake legs and say Hi, Namaste How are you? Have a good day and fly away. When even birds can do this, why can’t we ? Why can’t we have a smile and friendly word for everyone we see? It does not cost anything and if we do this then slowly we have friendship towards all “Maitrah”.
The third quality is “karuNa eva cha” – karuNa means developing an attitude of service upon seeing others. It is not merely compassion. If we see a beggar without legs and merely get pity on him, we will throw 10 paise at him and he has to crawl to even pick that up. We get even more pity and think, “Oh how the lord has created him”. We should never have pity towards anyone, because pity indicates that we treat the other person as being inferior to us. If we have the attitude of service, then it means that we accept others as being superior to us. Giving respect is the hallmark of a true devotee.
“karuNa” does not mean, we say, “I have pity in my mind towards the world. So many people are dying in this world of hunger” and then asking, “what is for lunch today”. There was an article in a book about poverty. There was authentic data proving that no business is more terrible than the so called “financial aid” programs. Of 169 financial projects that were sanctioned by the World Bank, 161 were total failures. Money in between evaporated before it reached the people who needed it. This is because of the underlying attitude of pity, “those poor third world countries need food for its people”. These meetings are conducted in five star hotels and each cost thousands of dollars and are supposedly for serving the poor. There should be no room in our hearts for this kind of pity.
The next quality is Nirmamah – more the extent of attachment, more the sorrow. For eg: In the case of small kids, the only ego that they have is the feeling of my mom and my dad. So a child’s world of attachments is very small and it does not have any sorrow. On the other hand, older people are attached to the house, building, car etc. So their world of attachment is very broad .So greater the attachment, the greater the sorrow. Sant Tulsidas says in Ramcharitra manas,
Sabki mamata tagg batori. Which means Bring attachment from everything else and keep it towards God.
We have to love someone or other in this world. It is the utmost need. If you go to “overdeveloped” countries, everyone has a dog. Why – To love?. They don’t love the children as much. They treat their kids like pets and their pets like kids. This is because with the kids, you cannot take as much liberties as with the pets. Suppose a person comes back from work and is tired and Tommy jumps on him, he scolds it and pushes it away. Later when spirit goes in and he becomes spirited, Tommy comes again, he shows love. One cannot even think of doing this with the kids. They can take liberties. So Nirmamah means one whose life has least attachments Secondly, the poison of ego can be removed only if we can win over the feeling of mine.
The lesser the attachments, the lesser the ego or Ahamkara. Ahamkar is the feeling that I am doing, I am responsible. When Ahamkara reduces, this feeling goes away. This is the meaning of Nirahamkarah.
Sama Sukha dukha means someone who can take happiness and sorrow equally. This does not mean if happiness comes the person becomes sad and when something bad happens, he starts laughing. Normally when happiness or sorrow comes immediately we become happy or sad. Though happy and sad events cannot be controlled by us, how we feel is upto us. If a person is miserable, it is because he wants to be sad and if someone wants to be sad, God says tataahasthu.
One might then say “If everything is as God wills, why do Sadhana ? However, “Whatever is bound to happen will happen. That cannot be changed.” It is 100% true that this body will decay in a particular fashion.. Once in Brindavan, a great siddha purusha was there. His speciality was he never got angry. People used to tell him, Maharaj, you should get angry atleast sometimes because everyone is taking advantage of you. He said that the day when I get angry, will be my last day. He had so much confidence on himself. Can we say this? The feelings that we express such as anger, happiness, sadness etc. are in our hands. Whatever happens will happens but how we react and tolerate is important.
Lastly Kshami or forgivance. A great saint once said… “Remember that person who gives us hatred, when praying at night. Talk to God about him and say I am tired. How long can I hate him? God, give me the strength to love him”. Tell once, twice repeatedly and it will come by itself. If we treat a person with love we can be 100% sure that it will have the same impact on him. There is no doubt about this. And what is the way to get this. Through forgiveness or Kshama, the second name for mother earth. Two Kids say bad things to each other and forgive each other. The parents come and fight. The kids say now they are busy, we can play by ourselves. Kshama or forgiveness is that virtue that can remove enemies and enmity from our hearts. When enmity goes out of our heart, it will automatically becomes light.
Once a great saint was taking a bath. When he came out, a man was standing there and he spat at him. The saint went again and had a bath and again when he came out, the man spat at him. 100 times he spat and every time the saint had a bath without saying anything. In the end the man came and begged the saint for forgiveness. The saint said, do not apologize. If not for you, I would not got the punya of taking 108 baths in one day. Kshama takes us towards God and makes Him manifest within us.
In Bhagavatham, we learned about Prahlad. Though he suffered so much, when the Lord came, Prahlada prayed to the Lord and requested him to forgive his father for all that he had done.Kshama is a great quality that only saints have. Once a scorpion fell into the water. When it came up, a man tried to help it by lifting it. But it bit him. He dropped it and again picked it up. Again it bit him. The others with him said Leave it to die. He replied, It is a scorpion and its nature is to bite. When a scorpion does not leave its nature, How can we leave our nature which is to forgive.
To summarise, firstly when do we have Dwesha? If we want something and someone is an obstacle., then Dwesha or hatred is born. Secondly if someone gives us problems or talks badly about us, then we can’t keep Maitrah or friendship towards them. Thirdly, when someone gives us difficulties, it will not be possible to show compassion or Karuna. Fourthly if someone takes something away from us, then we find it difficult to overcome our mamata or attachment. Fifthly when someone insults us, then our ahamkara or ego is hurt. Sixthly, when happy or sad events come in our life, we experience happiness and sorrow. Seventhly we think why should I forgive anyone. If all these feelings are reversed, then what happens? If a person has vairagya, then he will not hate anyone. When he does not hate anyone, then he has love and friendship towards all. Because he has vairagya , this love would be without any expectations, which is the true meaning of Maitrah. Thirdly the service mentality or karuna will automatically come. Thus all these characteristics of a devotee will be present in that devotee who has Vairaagya.
In the next post we shall see what other qualities are present in that devotee who is dear to the Lord.
