SATYARTH
PRAKASH - THE LIGHT OF TRUTH
Summary of Satyarth
Prakash Telephone Sermons of May 2013
By Acharya Vedshrami, Resident Priest, Greater Atlanta Vedic Temple
English Translation by Raj Bhalla,
Phd (President, Arya Samaj of Suburban New York)
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Answer
given by Maharishi Dayanad Ji on various types of salvation believed by various
religions.
We shall
discuss the different kinds of salvation which the Jainees,
the Mohamedans, and the Christians believe in the
twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth chapters, respectively, of this book. The
salvation of the Vaama Maargis,
which consists in nothing else but eating meat and drinking wine, hearing love
songs and enjoying themselves with women, is no better than what you get in
this world. They look upon all men as Mahaadeva or
Vishnu, and all women as Paaravati or Lakshmi and enjoy
themselves with each other.
Now this is no better than what the princes and other
wealthy people do in this world except what they say that there will be no
disease in heaven and that you will always remain young, which can never be
true; because wherever there is enjoyment of sensual pleasures, there is
disease, and wherever there is disease, there is old age.
Pouraanik’s (the followers of the Puraanaas) believe in five kinds of salvation:
1. Residence in the same world with
God.
2. Living with God as His younger
brother.
3. Becoming
like God in nature.
4. Living near God as a servant lives
near his master.
5. Intimate union with God.
The puraaniks should be told that
their five kinds of salvation are attainable even to animals, insects and worms
without any effort on their part.
Take
for example, the first kind of their salvation. All these worlds wherein all
living beings exist are God's Who lives in all of
them, hence they live in the same world with God. Salvation number (2) is also
possessed by the soul without any effort on its part; because being smaller
than God and both being conscious entities it is like a younger brother to God.
(3) As regards the third kind of salvation, being a spirit and possessing,
consciousness and being pure in nature the soul is like God, but it can never
be like Him in infinite power, infinite activity and infinite attributes. As
regards salvation number (4), God being Omnipresent all souls are near Him,
hence all of them already possess this kind of salvation. The same may be said
of salvation number (5). God being All-pervading, He also resides in the soul.
Hence the latter is in intimate union with God.
The
disintegration of the body and the soul into their component parts, which is
called salvation (nirvaana) by some atheists
(Buddhists), is attainable even to dogs and donkeys.
All
these kinds of salvation are no salvation at all. They are really prisons,
because all those people believe their respective Heavens, such as Shivpuri, the fourth Heaven, or the seventh Heaven, shripur, Kailash, Vaikunth and Golaka, to be
definite worlds or places (of residence). If people residing in them were to
leave those places, they would lose their salvation. They are, therefore,
rather like prisoners imprisoned in dark cells out of which they dare not go.
The
true salvation or emancipation consists in this that the soul should go about
wherever it likes without any let or hindrance, and should have no fears,
doubts, or sorrows.
The
union of the soul with body is called its birth, while the severance of this
link is called death or dissolution.
Question: Is there one birth (life) or many?
Answer: Many
Question: If there are many births then why does a soul not
remember what happened in its previous births and deaths?
Answer: The soul is finite in knowledge and powers. It is not the
seer of the three periods of time - the past, the present and future - it
cannot therefore recall its past. Besides, the manas
- the principle of thought and attention - by means of which the soul knows
cannot have tow ideas, i.e., of the past as well as the present - at one and
the same time. Let alone things that happened in the previous life of the soul,
can a man remember all that happens in this very life form the time of
conception till, say, the age of five. We see and hear so many different things
while we are awake, and dream of so many different things while in slumber, why
can we not recall all those things when we are in deep sleep? You could never
tell, if you were asked, for example, what you were doing on the ninth day of
the fifth month of the thirteenth year of your life exactly at ten in the
morning; which way you were looking; what the position of your head and hands
was; whether your mouth was open or shut; and what you were then thinking of?
When such is the case even in this life, how absurd then to question the
validity of the previous existence of the soul simply because it cannot recall
what happened in that life?
It
is a good thing too that the soul cannot remember its past, otherwise there
would have been no happiness for it. It would have died of sheer pain and
mental anguish brought on by brooding over the terrible sufferings and sorrows
of it past lives. No man can ever know that happened in his past lives even if
he were to try to do so; because the soul's power and knowledge are limited.
God alone can know that.
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