A Spiritual person has to cross many stages before becoming an enlightened one. He must become a broad-minded human being and then realize the nature of God – omnipotence, omnipresence and the embodiment of light – beyond any doubt. Furthermore, it is essential for a spiritual person to understand clearly that the same God, with all such qualities, exists in his soul too.
Every spiritual person must aim at achieving everlasting life without end (maranamilla peruvazhvu)) during the current birth itself.
So many saints have reiterated that it is rare to be born as humans but we have read it but never took it seriously and forgot to realize its importance.
Those who have studied Vedas and puranas (religious texts) have kept their spiritual knowledge in the memory, but never practised what those treatises preached, as a saint ( siddhar)had pointed out with great concern for them.
Various Vedas, puranas, religious epics, Upanishads, numerous songs of self-realized saints (Siddhars) are available in Hindu scriptures. Must we read all of them? Well, all these books need not be learnt and understood by a human being. Understand that all of them treat the same theme –the relationship between man and God. Then why should we learn all of them? It is enough for a man to choose one, read it thoroughly, understand the deeper meaning and practise the message in his life.
Then what is the need for so many religious texts? There are millions of human minds and they think differently. They act independently and uniquely. All saints have written or sung these texts and given their messages with an intention of making the human beings read any one of them and think about their own self-realization. Even Arulmani Malai (A Jewel-garland of Divine Grace) and Kanmani Malai ( A Garland of Divine Vision) have been written with the same intention.
From time to time, these saints were born, and they to us in order to save us from the cycle of births and deaths. They simplified the meaning of extremely difficult texts like Vedas and Upanishads and rendered them in the form of puranas, religious epics and other simplified treatises in order to make man understand the significance of birth as human being, to live longer and to find an easy way for the confused human to reach God. Ramalinga Swamigal who lived in the 19th century taught us in simple words the nature of God and he showed the path to be followed in order to realize Him.
What is the reason for such a condition? Mankind is ignorant of the fruits of actions – joy and sorrow – they enjoy in the bonded life. Saints who are embodiment of love for fellow human beings became anxious and showed the path of salvation to human beings. Their interest in other fellowmen depended on the principle, “all people in the world should also reach the blissful state which the saints have already reached”.
If a man is guided by a wise saint, the follower will also sympathise with other fellow beings and share his divine experience with others. He starts thinking about the easiest way to attain Godhead and then preaches the way to get relief from the fruits of action. This is the nature of wise saints. That is why, from time to time, so many wise souls have been born in this country through the ages – They are still there to guide others.
However, many people want to have wisdom about man and God, but only a few succeed. What is the reason? This is because most of them do not know and understand the state of wisdom, and so they are stranded at half-way through. Moreover, bogus saints who do not understand the great path of reaching sainthood, are also taken for granted as great saints. This happens because of the ignorant people who are already affected by the fruits of their past actions.
For example, children go to nursery, primary and then secondary school. After this, they go to college and then do research, step by step. Likewise, people should start with basic knowledge obtained from qualified wise teachers and be guided by them to higher levels and finally reach the supreme state of wisdom. There are four stages to reach the pinnacle of wise experience: wise devotion (Jnana sariyai), wise action (Jnana kiriyai), wise yoga state (Jnana yogam) and wisdom through wisdom (Jnanaththil Jnanam)
Thus, one who achieves wisdom crossing all these spiritual levels, is a true saint. Such a person has conquered death. He will not suffer from birth and death hereafter. He lives in the form of light leading an everlasting life. We must follow such saints only.
On the other hand, one who has not undergone even the nursery education in the state of wisdom claims that he is a great saint. Without attaining the enlightened state, many people cheat themselves and others by proclaiming that they have achieved sainthood. As a result, they lead a sinful life. If that is the condition of saints with imperfect knowledge, what will happen to the common man who follows them?
Such people, because of their ignorance, accept the deceitful saints. Thirumoolar describes the nature of such bogus saints and their followers as:
The blind person leads the blind followers and finally both of them fall into the pit of everlasting darkness.
Oh, true devotees, you are the souls born to experience happiness. Learn about the true nature of man and God through true methodology, intuition and divine experience and then surrender to the feet of God. One who can show the true path of divinity alone can be a great saint to be followed. Such guidance has been given by great saints already.
What are required to become such an enlightened soul? There are three things: understanding what is morally right and what is not; code of conduct to understand and follow the first condition and choose a disciplined approach to reach the goal.
One who follows the disciplined path of justice becomes a man possessing true knowledge about life, man and God. When he follows such a code of conduct, he becomes a highly cultured man. As a disciplined person, he turns into one who loves all living beings and thus emerges as the embodiment of love.
These three qualities will help him to become an excellent person with universal love and lead him eventually to a stage where he will feel that all which have been created by God deserve to be loved equally.
Vallalar says : unconditional universal love towards all beings is the key to enter the heaven. All saints have given the same message. Love all. “If one slaps you on the cheek, show him the other cheek”. Love is the fountain of joy. All of us are children of God. All saints from various countries have passed the same message to us in different languages. If divine experience is one and the same, Gods cannot be many. Then we should also try to become one with the same God.
Those who have acquired limited knowledge ignorantly claim that they are superior to others and proclaim that their religion is far superior to other world religions. They also claim that their race is much superior to other races. All these people babble because of the limited knowledge their spiritual teachers possess. This is what is happening today.
In the past there were many systematic religious beliefs (Sanaadhana Dharmam) practised throughout the world, but owing to tribal and religious segregation, people have bickered and started quarrels and violent activities. This was caused due to the sheer ignorance of people. They start following the words of others blindly and end up in sea of troubles and suffering.
Our life will be joyful without any contradiction if we follow the principles of truth, true power and nature. We must practise love, compassion, joy and other good principles in our life to lead a peaceful life.
When we love all beings, there would not be any enemy. Religious, caste- based and racial differences will disappear.
Universal love and true knowledge will emerge when one leads a life with all the virtuous qualities. As a result, we will get in touch with saints and finally God himself will come to us as a spiritual guide.
Forget the past. If you decide to live a clean life from this moment onwards, the supreme guide will bless you. There are so many treatises available today on spiritual knowledge leading to wisdom and sainthood. Likewise, there are many saints waiting for more followers. Men can become wise if they learn and understand any one of the books leading to spirituality. Why have they not become spiritually wise?
This is because they have never practised the prescribed code of conduct or interested in spiritual path. One cannot get spirituality and wisdom unless he practises these three qualities – fair mind, the right path and recommended code of conduct. One who do not practise prescribed code of conduct will never become wise; one who does not practise universal love, cannot realize divine grace. Moreover, immoral person can never realize God. A great saint said : penalty for sins is death. Hence, a person who wants to overcome death, must not resort to sinful activities.
One who dies, is a sinned soul. One who has conquered death is the saint. If we want to live a deathless life, we must follow the path showed by such saints. It is wise to accept such saints as true spiritual teachers and follow the path of wisdom showed by those saints. One such spiritual guide is Vallalar Swamigal. He has transformed his human body into a body of spiritual light and attained the greatest position. He is the saint whom I worship and follow; he is my spiritual guide (Guru).
One who leads a disciplined life will become wise. One must abstain from smoking, eating meat and drinking alcohol. Five deadly sins to be avoided are: uttering falsehood, stealing/robbing, killing other living beings, intoxicating drinks and insatiable sexual thirst.
Uttering falsehood is acceptable if it is going to benefit others. Thiruvalluvar also says: if it is harmless and beneficial to others, falsehood is an acceptable conduct. Our ancestors have said: you may tell even a thousand lies in order to solemnize a marriage.
Let me give a wonderful episode which happened in my life. The wife of a friend of mine, came with tears in her eyes. She complained that her husband was all right so long as he was in my spiritual company. He does not meet the teacher nowadays. He has fallen into bad company and started spending all his earnings on alcoholic drinks. He picks up quarrels and becomes violent and beat us. He demands money from me for his unworthy expenses. He spends all his earnings drinking alcohol. We undergo unbearable sufferings. She pleaded that only I can solve this problem and make him a good person again.
I promised her to do something to set the matter right. However, I was not able to find a solution instantly. I resorted to the guidance of Vallalar and offered my prayers. He guided me. As a result, I told a lie to the friend. I went to his work spot and told him only one lie. He stopped drinking and shunned bad company and became a devout member in the Vallalar group. This incident happened about ten years ago. As he became a disciplined person, his family is happy now and greets me with gratitude.
The friend, afterwards, understood that I had told a lie. However, he realized his mistake and became a thankful friend. So, if it is beneficial to others, we can tell a lie.
Avviyar, a great Tamil saint said: learn about even stealing but forget it and never practise. This strategy will help us to understand the wicked plans of others and escape from their traps. As it yields bad results, she says that one must forget it and never resort to it again. We must never grab another’s property.
Killing living beings is the next sin to be shunned. If we consider and treat other lives as our own life, then we will never think of killing even an ant. When sympathy for others becomes one’s nature, universal love and non- violence will spring in the heart of a human being. This is the essence of spirituality.
However, a criminal is punished with death sentence while a nation wages war with an enemy nation and kills thousands of people. One who fights bravely and destroys the enemies is honoured with awards and gifts. Thus, killing has different definitions according to the context and situation.
Avarice can be classified as three types: extreme desire for earthly property, extramarital relationship with women and gold. Mahabaratham tells the story of wicked people who coveted his relatives’ property (kingdom / territory). Ramayanam explains the fall of a great king when he coveted another man’s wife. We read them understand them but find it hard to practise them. Because we are already imbibed with these qualities. A monk is one who has relinquished these three types of desire. Salvation is meant for only a monk who has given up all the desires. The best examples of monks are: Buddha and Pattinathar. Very great personalities!
Desire can be channelized and people can live peacefully by following the code of conduct. Becoming one with God must be a genuine desire for all people. Enlightened souls (siddhargal) say that desire to reach God must also be shunned eventually. That is the final stage of liberation.
Among the five deadly sins, stealing, killing and all sorts of desire can be justified at one point of time or other. On the other hand, drinking alcohol is never justifiable. Of all these five sins, having intoxicating drinks (boozing) is the deadliest of all.
An intoxicated person loses his senses and starts doing atrocities. He will never hesitate to do any kind of violent activities. As a result, the drunkard becomes stupid, and one who manufactures intoxicating drinks is a traitor ruining human race.
The first and foremost enemy to the state of spiritualism is drinking habit, which affects the reasoning sense, spoiling the health and eventually leads him to death.
A spiritualist must also shun smoking and eating flesh and other non-vegetarian foods. A smoker spoils his health, falls sick and dies soon. Flesh eating according to scientists will lead one to dangerous disease like cancer and finally it would result in death.
Intoxicating drink or drug abuse terribly affects the body. Man must abandon addiction to any intoxication, if he wants to have divine experience. Human beings have started eating fish, egg and flesh of hen, goat, sheep, cattle and all types of creatures and birds. They are none other than animals with killer instinct.
Dead bodies are buried or cremated in the cremation ground. But human beings send the flesh of animals and birds into the crematorium called stomach. They keep hens, goats and sheep and tend them carefully as their own kids, and then sell them to the butchers or eat their flesh themselves. A non-violent person cannot tolerate this cruelty to animals. I shudder to think about this act!
Those saints who were pained to see the crops suffering due to lack of water supply, will die instantly if they happen to see such cruel acts.
There is a speaker who lectures about devotion to God (spirituality) on the television. His breakfast menu contains “Idlis” (steamed rice cakes) and chicken. What a shame!
From time to time, saints and wise people have repeatedly preached that we must love all living beings. All these messages have fallen on deaf ears. We are greatly shocked when we come to know that many so-called saints, monks and wise people have resorted to smoking, drinking and eating meat. Those who are supposed to patronize our culture are ruining it. They should be severely warned.
An advocate whom I meet very frequently is a smoker. When I asked him whether it was a good habit, he replied that his master (Guru) also smoked cigarettes and asked what was wrong if a disciple smoked? I asked him to allow his son to smoke cigarettes. When you smoke, why don’t you allow your son to smoke? His master (Guru) died of cancer later on. The advocate still smokes. How can we correct them? God alone can save him.
One who is a spiritual teacher (Guru) is misguiding his followers. A few of the followers might be well off but most of them are ruined by the misguiding teacher as in the case of the advocate. A spiritual leader must follow the code of conduct and be a benevolent person. A disciple is ruined by a bad spiritual teacher. If the teacher does not set an example as a disciplined person, how can we expect his disciple to be good?
There are some spiritual leaders (Guru) who cannot control their thirst for worldly pleasures, leave their monastery and the position as the head, without any self -control. Their followers go in search of those confused teachers and with great difficulty bring them back to austere monastic life What can we say about such leaders and their followers?
Now let us have an example of a great saint. It is lord Shri Ramakrishna, a saint, nonpareil. Once a woman came to the saint and complained that her son, a child, ate too much of sweet. She requested Shri Ramakrishna to advise him. The saint advised her to come back after a week. The saint asked the mother to keep the child on her lap and advised the child to listen to his mother and not to eat too much of sweets. The mother retorted at once that he could have given the advice previous week itself. The saint quietly replied that he was eating sweets until last week and that he had already stopped taking sweets. That was why he decided to preach what he could practise. Saint Ramakrishna is a remarkable teacher who stood as an illustrious example for other followers.
Tholkappiar says: Sacred words (manthiram) are those uttered by well-read saints who have complete knowledge about the universe. When such enlightened souls bless others, their wishes will be carried out without fail. The blind cannot lead other blind persons. One leader of a monastery left all his honour, position and responsibility of a head. Another one would not hesitate to do any wicked deed in order to become head of the monastery. Yet another ego centric saint asked his follower to sing in praise of him. Another saint, a chain smoker did not care for his followers. There are heads of various monasteries that were established for their community, and different religious sects. There are many leaders like them without following the path of wisdom. These leaders are not going to become enlightened and their followers will also be in darkness without the guiding light of wisdom.
Saint Ramakrishna lived such an unblemished life. His life is the message for us. He was such a greatly enlightened personality.
Ramalinga Swamigal is one who practised all virtues of an enlightened soul every moment. He preached and practised the principles and attained endless life without death. He always insisted: Don’t praise me; praise the God and worship Him. Thus, he guided everyone into such a meaningful life.
Mahatma Gandhi, Father of our nation, fought for Independence of India through non-violent methods. His only weapon non-violence was supported by his honest thoughts, words and deeds. Now he is a world-renowned leader, a symbol of truth and honesty.
Kamarajar, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, was a great leader who followed the path of action and social service even though he was not a formally educated person. However, he was a well-read man who understood problems of the society through his experience and visionary dreams for the future of Tamil Nadu. He introduced mid-day meals scheme for school children, especially for the poor children who greatly benefited through formal education because of the unique scheme. The welfare of the people was his primary concern and he was not after wealth, power or position. He sacrificed his life for the well-being of the general public. He was never after position, and was ready to relinquish all positions any time.
Let us follow these great souls in the field of politics and spirituality and honour them by following their principles in order to get wisdom.
A person is good only when he acquires and possesses good qualities. Our spiritual leader must also be a good administrator with noble qualities and must be blessed by God. We will become enlightened souls only when we follow such leaders who are embodiment of all virtues including the universal love.
Another important message for you. We have already learnt about food habits of animal kingdom in our primary school. These animals are broadly categorized into two, herbivorous and carnivorous. Let us think about it. Carnivores have got mouth, teeth and intestines specially designed for eating flesh. On the other hand, herbivores have been provided with a different type of mouth, teeth and long intestines suitable for eating plants, roots and fruits. Have we not learnt about the differences already?
Mouth, teeth and intestine of human beings are designed for vegetarian foods. God has created us only to eat vegetarian food. One who eats non-vegetarian foods, violates this principle of nature, ruins his health and faces premature death. Moreover, generally speaking, carnivorous animals are threats to human beings, but herbivores are friendly and helpful to us.
Should we not understand from the above argument that we must shun eating animal flesh? Only vegetarian food is suitable for humans and it is really a great wonder that we are provided with plenty of plants and fruits for our survival.
The behaviour of flesh-eating humans highly resemble that of carnivorous animals. Just like herbivores which are peace loving, vegetarians are also quiet and peace-loving, and guide others to live a meaningful life. Flesh-eating humans resort to such cruel eating habits, because of their uncontrollable desire for meat. Rotten fellows!
So many devotees offer food to the needy in temples and monasteries. This is known as “Maheswara pooja” (Worshiping Lord Shiva through offering food to the needy). What is the reason for naming the offer of food as Maheshwara Pooja? A spiritualist understands the meaning. If one does not know this, he must learn more and more about spiritualism. What we have learnt in this world is just a handful when compared with what is not yet known, which is, as vast as the earth. We must understand this.
We must realize that the present birth as a human being is a golden opportunity given to us. Moreover, we must avoid bad company and bad habits and understand the qualities of a wise spiritual person. These steps will help us to conquer death and God will lead us to the blissful state.
Avviyar says, “one who helps others is superior to one who does not help others.” Thiruvalluvar says. “Virtuous life leads to blissful state.” And that is why it is considered far above superior to the life of human beings. The same ancient saint assures us: one who does not kill and avoid eating flesh is worshipped by all lives. All creatures will join their hands together and worship him who has never taken away life nor eaten flesh.