I asked a spiritual preacher to show me Sadguru. The preacher smiled and kept silent. What is the me

[dattaswami]

I asked a spiritual preacher to show me Sadguru. The preacher smiled and kept silent. What is the meaning of that smile?

Ans. Recognizing the Sadguru is the essence of the whole spiritual effort. In the chemistry practical exam, you are given a salt for analysis. If you ask examiner for the name of the salt, he will just smile. Even if you get the name, you will not get marks for just writing the name unless the clear procedure is mentioned. Your knowledge of the procedure is important. If somebody gives the name of the Sadguru, you may follow Him for sometime. When the Sadguru tests your faith, you will run away from Him because your selection of the Sadguru is not based on your logical analysis, aided by scripture. Therefore the recognition of Sadguru by logical analysis is important because the logical analysis will clarify all your doubts and your faith in Him will be doubtless and firm.

The knowledge of the Sadguru is always confined to your next higher level so that you can climb the next subsequent step. The knowledge of the ultimate level is not expressed by the Sadguru immediately till you complete the lower levels. Even a liberated soul assisting God (Sadguru) may serve your immediate requirement, but you have to constantly change the preacher as you rise to the higher levels. Sometimes there is a risk of meeting the preacher of lower level, who will drag you down. If you meet the Sadguru once in your life, it is sufficient, because He gives you the total knowledge analyzed in all angles. This total knowledge exists in the self qualitatively in complete sense. It may be defeated due to its lack of quantitative strength by the ignorance that is coming from several births due to its quantitative strength. But the qualitative concept of the total knowledge is never lost and in course of time it gains quantitative strength and you are sure to defeat the ignorance and reach the goal one day or other. This is the greatest fortune of meeting the Sadguru once in several millions of births (Bahunaam Janmanaamante…Gita).

The human birth is rare. Interest to reach God is still rare. Meeting Sadguru is very very rare.(Mahapurusha Samshrayah…Shankara).

[Raveness]

Because God is here, he's his creation...there's nothing separate from him, there's nothing that isn't him.

[dattaswami]

Because God is here, he's his creation...there's nothing separate from him, there's nothing that isn't him.

Just like the human incarnation is God (because of all over pervasion of God throughout the human being), can we also call this entire universe as God assuming that God pervaded all over the universe? In support of such all over pervasion, quotations like Sarvam khalu idam Brahma, Vishwam Vishnuh, etc can be referred here. But such concept is not acceptable because if God pervades all over the universe, the universe is not existing separately from God to become the object of entertainment like the cinema. If you pervade all over the cinema, there is no difference between seer (drashta) and the seen (drishyam). Then how to interpret the above quotations, since the whole world is under the control of God? The whole world can be called as God in a special way.

The statement that a kingdom is Kalinga (kalingoyamdeshah) can be explained like this: Kalinga is the name of the king but the kingdom is called as Kalinga because the king everywhere controls the kingdom. Ramanuja has given this interpretation. Once the address of the unimaginable God is obtained, it hardly matters whether God is in the human incarnation or in the world. Since the human incarnation is in the world, you can say that God is in the world also. However, the human incarnation is God but the universe cannot be so, due to the above-mentioned objection.

The present context is about the inference of the existence of unimaginable God as the ultimate cause of this whole universe and whether the address of God is direct as in the case of human incarnation or indirect as in the case of universe, it makes no difference.  The advantage of the direct address over the indirect address is that the human incarnation (direct address) establishes the unimaginable nature of God through miracles. If you are already convinced with the unimaginable nature of God through the miracles seen elsewhere, the indirect address is sufficient. In the human incarnation only, God can receive your service directly, but this is a different context.