God men and Men of God

Nowadays media is crazy about God-men, but not about men of gods. For instance not a single newspaper mentions anything on Swami Vivekananda’s birthday but a lot of newsprint is wasted on some god-men’s sexual exploits and consequences. Hilarious but pitiable is the condition of spiritual stupor into which this country has denigrated itself. Media is anyway a reflection of the socio cultural condition prevailing in a particular time. They sell what sells with the public. And what sells with public is dirt. Media also shows how the followers of the same god-men feel cheated and self proclaimed columnists in editorials raise doubts on the concepts of chastity and Brahmacharya as written in scriptures. That’s why it is said in Sanskrit – ‘Gandusha Jalamatrena Shafari Pharpharayate”, which is similar to the proverb “Empty vessels sound much”. The article writers are those empty vessels, without adequate knowledge or research they would like to draw attention to their opinions.

Ramakrishna Paramhansa had given two extremely valuable advices – First one is choose your Guru carefully and deliberately. Not everybody can be a true Guru. Similarly the Guru must choose the disciple carefully. If either of the choices is wrong, there can be much heartburn, as is happening today with the so called god-men’s so called disciples. If Guru is not good it becomes a classic case of blind leading a blind, both falls in the same pit. As Jesus said – "Ask and Ye shall be given, Seek and Ye shall find, Knock and Ye shall be answered", a true yearning for god can often connect the right Guru to the right disciple. Second one is that for being men of god you need to have unwritten writ from God itself. Without real God’s grace it is not possible to become a person of God. Without extreme devotion one cannot get God’s grace. This is what is described in a simple parable. In one village there used to be a person called Padmalochan, who was known as “Podo” by the villagers. There was a very old and ancient temple in that village, which was in a ruined state. Bats used to dwell inside that temple. One evening people of village heard that somebody is blowing a conch in that temple. People came flocking to that temple and found that ‘Podo’ was the one who was blowing a conch. The temple was in the same ruined state and there was no idol of any God. So they said “Mandire tor neiko Madhab, Podo shankh phuke tui korli gol, tai chamchike egorojona dibanishi dichhe thana”. Podo is here an unworthy man.The literal meaning is, “there is no god in the temple Podo, but you’ve brought in trouble by blowing the conch, moreover eleven bats are running this place”. The actual meaning of this is that unless you have God in your temple, i.e. extreme devotion and yearning for God in your heart, you should not blow the conch, i.e. call people to you. The eleven bats are the eleven senses or “Indriyas” – five gyanendriyas or the sensory organs (eyes, ears, nose, skin, and tongue), five karmendriyas or working organs and the Mind as a standalone entity. With these uncontrolled senses one cannot realize God. Only when senses are subdued completely it is possible to realize God. Men of God like Ramakrishna-Vivekananda, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed and Sri Chaitanya have that ability, not the so called god men.