Last Birth

 

Self-Realization & Liberation

Vijayalaxmi: Will I have another birth?

Once Vijayalaxmi asked this delicate question. Will I have another birth?

Sage Agastya: God is duty bound to bestow the boon that a devotee asks. However, sometimes if the boon that is asked gives rise to a little dilemma, then it puts the God in a difficult situation to bestow the boon.

Normally, we are not allowed to give a conclusive response to such a question. This is because it is counteractive to destiny’s wishes.

There is another question arising in you right now. “You told about my husband (about his last birth)?” His situation is different from yours.

Yet, I will respond to your question.

This would be a normal question that someone may ask your husband tomorrow. You did not ask such a question for your own sake. It was who made you ask that question for the sake of the world.

If one asks that this be their last birth, the response to all of them is the same. If one wants this to be the last birth, then what is the type of characteristic such a man must possess?

The philosophy of this is this: The soul is  particle of the Absolute that has emanated from him. The soul that has emanated from the Absolute, yearns for the state of merging back with him.

Having taken birth as a human, they create karma by their actions, thoughts, which are contradictory to the created righteous norms.  It is only when completely forgets this state, can the soul break free and reach the Absolute. Such a soul has completed its birth cycle and will not have another birth.

So far I have talked about how the soul reaches the Absolute. This is the reasoning behind that. I will explain what one must do in terms of efforts, behavior, intellect, spiritual practices, if one must reach the Absolute.  

Who am I? What is a soul? Where does it come from? Where must it go? One must understand all this. To understand this people need books and discourses. This is what is known as knowledge or enlightenment. Once that understanding comes, then such a person must pray to God, and find a Guru.

Man must experience the desire for material, physical and money as necessary at the prescribed stages and then get away from them. He must consider each one separately. It is natural that man must have a desire for each of these, based on the phase of life. However, despite having had them, repeated births will come rolling towards one who continues to desire them.

It is such craving that is called desire. Attachment will arise where there is desire. Having acquired something, without having the desire to give it up, some keep looking at it, increasing their desire for it.

When such people refuse to part with those things and try to hold on to those things, desire keeps building up.

Attachment

Attachment arises from desire. From attachment arises lust. Lust is that which arises when one desires to experience something that he has obtained excessively.

Then comes greed. When one holds on to something more than the norm, then that person loses power of discernment. Which means, they will not understand the difference between right and wrong. Righteousness is lost in the world.

For example, the desire for money. Looking at money constantly and finding joy in it is an attachment. Enjoying it without sharing it with others is lust. Greed is when he does not understand that he is earning through wrong means.

Anger

When one’s money increases, and the person doesn’t want to give it to another; and when that another tries to steal it from him; then getting displeased with him, when one acts out, that is called anger.

Delusion is when one where accumulates more and more money, and sees someone who is wealthier than him, and feels that he doesn’t have enough and becomes jealous of him.

Hence, the one who wants this to be the last birth, must not have these: desire, lust, anger, greed, delusion, and arrogance.

The response to your answer is to reflect on each one of these. What is needed to end this cycle of life and death is righteousness. This is the guidance given for the world. Have you followed all this? You have achieved a lot of purity. However, you still have a couple of blemishes that are found ordinary people.

Those who have extreme desire or hate towards anything will not have the grace to progress higher.

In mind, speech, and action, one must only think good. Reflect only on the good. Do only good.

There are no good or bad people in God’s creation. You yourselves have created these characters.

 That is why you look at another and judge them as good or bad. There is nothing bad or good for the Gnani. He does not consider anyone good or bad. He has neither affection nor hatred. Why? He even forgets the ‘I’ at the very end.

When there is no longer ‘I,’ there is no body, no mind, only soul remains. Understanding your soul this way, is called ‘self-realization’ in English. 

 

Achieving Liberation

 

Achieving Liberation

Anuradha: Of all the people who are born, how many return to Brahman?

Sage Agastya: Light of knowledge, Gnaneshwara, my daughter has asked me this big question today.

Higher than high, smaller than small, is that blissful place of the Absolute. This soul is a small particle that has been emitted in creation by the Absolute.

The Absolute gave these small particles of souls form, connecting the universe with the soul; gave them love and hate, gave them body and created them.

Man who is the essence of the Supreme Power or the Absolute, without understanding his own self, lives in an egocentric state.

Morning, and night, considering all the things near him as his; losing his self-confidence, forgetting himself; and getting mired in passion and love, considers this as life and forgets his real self.

However, the soul that is within is unable to bear this and struggles to return to its source having understood the Supreme knowledge.

Some in the world understand this desire that is deep in their hearts. These are the ones who sit in meditation and seek to find the answers for questions like “who am I? why was I born? where do I need to go?” over and over again.

Such people are the wise. These are the great people who are rooted in knowledge. Such are the great ones who have understood the Supreme truth at various times and have given that truth they have understood to the world.

What came from this is called Veda and Vedantham. Puranas were conceived to help create understanding in those who do not comprehend the Vedas.

Hence, the primary comment of the Vedas is declared as, “He who comes from Him (the Absolute) must return to Him.”

Those who listen to this are very few. Those who understand what they have heard are even fewer. Among those that understand what they have heard, those that actually walk that path, are infinitesimal.

It is the pain that one suffers in life that triggers the bird that is deep within to wake up and help it to fly.

It is because of this trigger that man finally understands that life is but an illusion. He will reflect on this life so far and follow the type of Yoga that is fit for him and then through that reach the Absolute.

Because there were many such people in the olden days, they were able to attain the Absolute. It is because such souls did not have to take birth again, the population of the world was also less.

In the beginning of Kaliyuga, there were thirty-three crores of people in India. Today that number has multiplied enormously. What do you understand from this?

Explanation

Souls emanate from the Supreme Self at various times. In order to give them a physical body, parents were needed to live in this world.

Since the souls were eager to take birth, more babies than necessary were born to these parents.

Since only very few are able to attain that state which can help them return to the Supreme self, the population of the world is growing expeditiously.

In this Kaliyuga, some are working hard to return to the Absolute after having opened their eyes, having undergone life, and having understood that there is no substance in it.

The question you asked was this - you asked how many people in this world have attained liberation. As you said, it is written in one yogi’s path that only one mahatma has found liberation.

However, you all need to remember this always - what is hidden from the eyes, and that which is beyond research, is understood by different people differently.

You should not take this one example and based on that think that this is the only truth. That is because the truth that is known to one is different from the complete truth.

Only the Supreme Self knows the complete truth. The knowledge that we have understood as knowledge-temporal knowledge, spiritual knowledge, higher knowledge and even God realization can never be the complete truth.

When the population of the world has increased, the calculation of those that have achieved fruition is less and that of those that have increased is different.

When the number of those descending is increasing, those that are looking up and returning are very less.

Still, there are many souls that have not been considered when taking population into account. They live in forests, caves and in mountain peaks, without being accounted for by the outer world, and are doing penance from the time of their birth itself to attain liberation. Ordinary people of the world will not get the details of these people.

Some others go close to the Supreme God and upon his command are reborn in the world.

What I am going to say now is of great importance.

Sri Krishna came as an avatar. He is an element of Vishnu. Some people consider Vishnu as Para Brahman. But Vishnu is not Para Brahman. He is part and parcel of Para Brahman and emanated from him. That is why the Supreme being is different from Vishnu.

Krishna, who is the energy element that emanated from Vishnu is different. If you observe this, what is revealed through this?

If you look at it in one way, Vishnu, Krishna - all these are souls emanated from the Absolute just like us. But because they are higher in character, they are considered Gods.

The similarity between Gods and humans is that both have come from Supreme God. Gods too complete their tasks and return to the Supreme God. If we look at it in this strain, the thirty-three crore Gods have not yet attained the Absolute.

Gods have not yet gained the complete state that some ascetics that have taken birth as humans have attained, after undergoing their penance.

This is because the Supreme God has divided his work between the Gods. They are required to remain for some time to create, to protect creation from evil, to destroy evil, and to protect people.

Humans however keep coming back through rebirths because of their bad deeds, undue attachment to body, materials, and life. This is what Sri Shankaracharya has explained in four lines[1].

Still assuming human births, attaining the state of goodness they are working to show the path to the world and as swamis or muthadipathis. Such people also return again because of the attachment they have for the mutha’s and temples they have built.

Some have attained the state of enlightenment and are called paramahamsa’s. The moment they want to, they have the ability to return to the Absolute, without having to undergo rebirth.

Because they have this great desire to help people attain the same state that they have attained, they remain in the ether, in the form of spirit and work through some people and remain without returning to the Supreme Self.

Examples: The enlightened Sri Ramakrishna, Gnana yogi Vivekananda, Karma yogi Ramachandra, all these people have the ability to reach Supreme self but have chosen to remain here for the welfare of the world.

Some Rishis who were formed during creation, have completed their work, and have returned to the Absolute.

Me, Sage Agastya, where am I present? If I want to, I have the boon to return to the Supreme power right now.

I helped Parameswara in those days. I pressed down mountains that were imbalanced with my feet and stopped them from tilting over; I captured the unruly river that could not be tamed; I digested the demon Vatapi who tried to rip my stomach to come out. Whenever several Gods asked, I showed them the way to get rid of their problems.

I am now selecting and working through good people like you in Kaliyuga, to help correct the direction the world has taken. When the entire world rests on the foundation of righteousness, that day, I, and other Gurus like me and the Paramahamsa’s will all return to the Supreme Being.

You too were born in this life because you had that one desire that remained attached to your soul to help others.

The time for you to return to the Supreme will happen very soon. Once your work is completed, you can rip everything connected to the world, and return to the Supreme Being the day you want to. Once you are gone, I will still need to continue my work by selecting people like you.

I will tell you this finally: the birth of a human is higher than that of Godhood. There is a state of bondage between God and duty.

However, for man, the only thing that is required are the actions that lead to freedom from rebirth. To attain that, one needs to become a monastic. Or embrace the principles of being a monastic while being in this world.

I advise you all to understand the meaning of the Universal form (Vishwaroopa Darshanam) as expounded in the Bhagavad Gita in the Mahabharata either by reading or listening to it. All living things called Gods, demons, humans, earth, insects, snakes, birds emanate from Him and return to Him.

For this to happen, the great flood needs to take place. When that happens, the entire world and everything on the earth will return to the Supreme. This is the simple explanation of the cosmic law as I know. However, the question I declare was a big one!

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[1]In the hymn Baja Govidnam, Sri Shankaracharya says: “Punarapi Jananam Punarapi Maranam, Punarapi Jananijathare Sayanam, Iha Samsare Bahudustare, Krpaya pare Pahi Murare” loosely translated it means, constant rebirth and death, and laying in the mother’s womb, with no end, please help me cross this through your grace, Lord.”