Day 11
Once you know the nature of your being - total bliss and total pleasure - even the fear about the gunas and the fear about the world will disappear. It is like diabetic patients being afraid of sweets. The sight of sweets frightens them because they are forbidden. But the one who has sweetness in him doesn't mind if there are sweets near them. This is parama vairagya.
Supreme dispassion, ie., not being scared or running away from the world but being in it, completely centered. People have very peculiar ideas about enlightenment. Every culture and religion has got its own ideas about it.
In the Christian religion a rich man cannot be enlightened. It is impossible. You have to be poor to be enlightened. Form the Christian point of view, Rama could not be enlightened. He ws a king. How could a King be enlightened? Even if a camel could go through the eye of a needle, a rich man could not be enlightened.
Once, I was traveling from Bangalore to Delhi. I met a gentleman at the airport. He was a Christian priest. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and he came over to talk to me. Addressing me as his dear brother, he said that he felt like talking to me.
Being encouraged by me to do so, he said that I seemed to be a very nice person. Then, he asked me if I believed in Jesus. I replied that I did. He was a little stunned. He asked me again if I really believed in Jesus. When I reaffirmed that I did, he asked me if I wasn't a Hindu. I replied that perhaps I was. Then, he pointed out that I believed in Krishna. I said that I believed in Krishna, too.
He asked me how Krishna could be God. Be was a butter thief. He was married. How could somebody who stole butter and who ws married be God? Continuing, the priest said that Krishna could not give me salvation and Jesus was the only way. He said that he was also a Hindu at one time but he has converted to Christianity later.
He said that from the time that he had become a Christian everything had begun happening. Jesus was taking care of him. Then, the priest advised me to convert to Christianity, too. And he was so sincere in telling this and in trying to convert me. Jains do not consider Krishna to be enlightened because he had started the war.
Arjuna had decided to renounce the world and take sanyas. But Krishna had brainwashed him and had made him fight in the war. Since Krishna was responsible for the big war, how could he be enlightened? Then, again he had been stealing butter and had so many wives. It was impossible that he was enlightened. Jains don't think that an enlightened person, a sadhu, should ever wear clothes.
They think that such persons should always be naked. One who is not so, is not enlightened. How will it be known whether they are free from lust or not? What will be the proof? Jain sadhus are nude and they are considered enlightened. This is their idea of enlightenment. They don't consider anybody who eats and enjoys two meals a day to be enlightened. If a saint eats chocolate, he is not considered a saint at all.
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS
