FROM YOUR HEART

Dear Readers,

Long back we posed a to a question you, in Vol 2 issue 11, in the article The true meaning of Darshan. The question was

Some say, “God knows whatever I do because He is my Indweller.” Others say, “I don’t do anything; He is the doer.” Which of these two is correct and why?

We have received several responses to the question and we are publishing three of the answers.

Response 1

Sai Ram, dear Uncle,

I love heart to heart as much as I love reading thought of the day as there is always something "meant specially for me." As for comments on ‘God knows whatever I do because He is my Indweller. Others say, I don’t do anything; He is the doer.’ Which of these two is correct and why? To my simple mind, they are both correct because he created us, the stage, the script and he is the director and producer. When He says in the Gita "Karmanyeva adhikaraste, ma phaleshu kadachana" why should it only be attributed to "our " successes? Why not also to trials and tribulations? After all ego, attachment and detachment are all part of His shrishti. Yes, he knows everything as he is the indweller and also the puppeteer. In an earlier article you had used the eg. of the puppet and puppeteer and said that as the puppeteer uses two strings to manipulate, the Lord has retained only one string and given us the other and that our life on this earth would be much easier if we handed back the other string to Him also. This is true only if we feel that he has given us that one string and that "we" are in control of even that string. To me, both those string are being controlled by him and there really is no 'freewill'. So the so called 'freewill' is only what he chooses to let us imagine in his great play. We get entangled in that play and act out our parts and go through various experiences in order to learn that this is His play.

Sai Ram
Gita

Response 2

Is God an indweller or is He a doer? The answer is: He is neither or He is both.

As Gita asserts: God does not claim fruits of people’s good deeds or evil deeds. God is only a witness. Towards the end in Gita, Krishna says He resides in the hearts of all of us, and we are mere puppets mounted on a machine. We act like puppets because of the illusion we harbor in our mind. That illusion makes us believe that we, and not God, is the doer.

If you are a philosopher (wise person - a gnani) or a realized person then you will accept God as the doer or even the indweller. For, you will think that God has created the entire creation and me too. Yes He has a mission and in that mission He needs an instrument. He decides regarding what I do or do not do much before I indulge in it.

But when I think I am the doer and Not He, then the new game starts. I begin to chase the shadow and consider me at times a winner and at times a loser. I rejoice when I consider myself as winner and grief takes over me when I feel I am the loser. It is at that stage that I create my illusory world and take upon myself the consequences of being a winner or a loser. As winner I crave more of what I mistakenly believe to be mine and if I consider me as a loser I allow myself to be a victim of anger. While in anger I find the cause of anger outside me. I feel that I am provoked by a person who wants to harm me. And that person is prompted by the devil in him. I forget that the so called devil is in fact in me, planted there by me. It is that devil that is projected by me into the world outside and the outcome is to my dislike.

Where is God in this game? In this shadow game God is a witness from within. He is absolutely no doer. All good acts and evil ones belong to me and not to Him.

But if I get the above enlightenment and start acting by seeking the guidance from within, the game changes. I get guidance from Him. He is present in me as my conscience. He is the indweller. He takes upon Himself the doer-ship. He takes upon Himself the consequences of my acts. In fact He has promised that in this game He will look after our worldly needs and put us on the right path of spirituality till we reach the goal. He takes us to the end. He helps reaching there. In fact He makes us wise to realize that the end and the path are not different and that He and we are identical. All the time He plays with us the shadow game. Why does He do this? We will know the answer to this question only when the game is over. Till then He wants us to act in the interest of the Humanity Loka Samasta Sukhino Bhavantu. The role of service to man is involved in this.

Working for the welfare of the humanity helps us make others and ourselves happy. On this path of making others happy we gradually first see ourselves in others. We then see God, in others and ourselves, who prompts and guides us to work for others. In the end we see that God is in us and in others and every where. We then realize, and that is the end part, that we and God are not different. There is nothing else beside God and He is an indweller as well as the doer. The game is over. And we see that there is nothing like in or out or doer and non-doer. Then the question asked at the beginning pales into insignificance. It disappears from our mind.

Response 3

Sai Ram!
I am trying to answer the question - which one of the following two questions is correct?
"God knows whatever I do, because He is my indweller"
"I don't do anything; He is the doer".

This triggered my memory of a conversation I had with Swami, several years ago. I asked Him, "When we do good deeds, You say that you were there and it was you who did it; whenever we go astray and do something bad, You say that You had nothing to do with it and it is all our doing. How can it be possible, since You are always with us?" The dear Lord answered thus: "Whenever you did a good deed, you listened to Me and hence I am responsible for it. Whenever you did a bad deed - think hard now- didn't I warn you and you chose to neglect Me? Under such circumstances how can I be responsible? Ijust merely watch you with pity! I am a silent observer here."
How true it is! We have been fortunate to have this living God guiding us. He is always with us wherever we are, whatever we do. Each devotee would have had plenty of experiences to this effect. We get immersed in the illusion of this material world and forget His presence now and then. Since He is always with us, the first statement is true. On the same note, if we truly realize that He is within us and we are not different from Him then the second statement becomes true, because we lose our physical identity and understand that He and I are one. This is total surrender.

I feel that most of us are at the first situation and all of us are working towards the second. At least I can speak for myself. I know that He is watching over me and guiding me at every step of my life. I still have a long way to go in destroying the ahamkara and mamakaras to achieve total surrender.

Yours in Sai
Kanchana

Editor’s observations: The three answers given here essentially speak of the same concept but in different words. To summarise what they say:

As long as we are in this game called Duality, we feel that we are separate from God and that He is the indweller who just witnesses our actions. But when the game is over and we have realized our oneness with God, we realize that there were never two entities called me and God and that GOD alone was. So, at the end of the game, we say, God is the doer, which is true!

Congratulations, dear readers, for the wonderful answers.