Title: Effect of Monism

User: Swami Gaurangapada Date: 2007-03-12 15:56:00

 

Q. Could you kindly explain some more about your very recent SQ no. 33 in relation to "those claiming to be God & misleading people into  chanting their names instead of the Holy Names of the Lord" as being a  "major cause for the quick decay of mankind"? There certainly does  appear to be a rapid increase in preoccupation with false ego and greed  for material sense enjoyment going on at present. So in what sense do  you understand that such chanting of bogus holy names can effect the quick spiritual decay of mankind? This might seem a slightly extreme  claim and difficult for many people to fully understand. However I am sure they would also be intrigued by your holiness's explanation, since

you would not write it without good cause and enlightened reasoning. - Michael, UK.

 

Answer by Swami Gaurangapada:

 

I will address this question even more deeply in future spiritual quotes but for now I will mention a few points.

 

When spiritually blind people blindly follow the spiritually blind people who claim that they are God and their names should be chanted instead of the Lord's Holy Names, it creates a very inauspicious situation for all those involved as well as the whole world for the following reason:

 

Consider a compounder working for a doctor. Daily the compounder comes and externally works hard for the doctor is his office trying to satisfy him but internally always harbors the thought of when he can displace the doctor and become the doctor himself and has a conspiracy going on in the clinic with some other staff on how to take over the clinic by usurping the position of the doctor.

 

Do you think that when the doctor finds out, the doctor will keep him and his supporters? No, the doctor will sack all of them immediately including even those who knew about it but did not try to stop it or inform the doctor.

 

Similarly those people who make others chant their own names or manufactured mantras or who even make use of the Holy Names of the Lord and some teachings of Bhakti to attract people and followers and then tell them that ultimately I am God, you are God or everyone is God or everything is void or God is formless and cannot be described in words etc. are actually leading people away for God and bringing atheism in this world.

 

They, their followers and the society which supports or does not try to stop their philosophy are also incurring the displeasure of the Lord because they are leading people away from our real Lord and father who wants all His sons and part and parcels to come to His service as soon as possible and not try to become Him. Can the son ever become the father of his father? Never, he always remains the son.

 

Thus, such people are liable to be punished by the Lord just like the doctor punished the conspirating compounder and his friends by sacking them. The society which supports and fosters such concealed atheism or voidism in the name of spirituality also takes a big part of the reactions and thus will have to suffer for it even though it is due to a lack of proper spiritual knowledge and guidance. Ignorance of truth is not pardoned in the laws of karma because if there is a sincere will to know the truth then there can always be a way to find it.

 

What I have said above is confirmed by Lord Shiva's own words in the Padma Purana:

 

vedante tu maha-sastre, mayavadam avaidikam

mayaiva vakshyate devi, jagatam nasa-karanat

 

"In the form of a brahmana (Shripada Adi Shankaracharya), I will propogate the monistic and impersonal Mayavada philosophy which is completely against all scriptures and truth (avaidikam) and which states that soul is equal to God. O Parvati, this atheistic philosophy will actually become the cause of destruction of the whole world because it will cause millions of people to loose complete faith in Bhakti or Devotional Service to the original pure Lord."

 

Lord Krishna Himself confirms this in the Padma Purana, Uttara-khanda (62.31):

 

svagamaih kalpitais tvam ca, janan mad-vimukhan kuru

mam ca gopaya yena syat, srishtir eshottarottara

 

Addressing Lord Siva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Krishna said: "Please make the general populace averse to Me by imagining your own interpretation of the Vedas by stating that the soul is equal to God. This bogus and imaginary philosophy will cover Me in such a way that people will take more interest in advancing material civilization just to propagate a population bereft of spiritual knowledge and thus become more and more miserable."

 

One may ask: "Why does the Lord want to make His part and parcels more and more miserable? The simple answer is because the souls ask the Lord for it. They ask the Lord for material desires and thus for the resultant misery and the Lord who has given them individual free unwillingly grants their desires while not interfering with their free will. 99% people wanted to become God so the Lord had to instruct His pure devotee Shiva to come and concoct a philosophy which would make them feel that they are God. But the evitable result was that this philosophy to try to become God led them to atheism.