Aptavani-1 by Dada Bhagwan (best affordable ebook reader .txt) 📕

Questioner : God may have created it.

Dadashri : Why did God have a need to create this world? Did he have any unmarried children he needed to marry? Where does God live? What is his address? Is there such a thing as liberation, moksha?

Questioner : Of course there is liberation.

Dadashri : If God is the creator of this world and if there is such a thing as liberation, then there is an absolute contradiction here.

Questioner : Dada, how is that a contradiction?

Dadashri : If God is the superior over you and he was to grant you liberation, then you would have to do whatever he tells you. That means that he can dictate what you do. So how can you call that liberation? Liberation means complete freedom; no superior over you and no subordinate under you.

The World Is The Puzzle Itself…

The Christians, the Muslims, the Hindus, say that God created this world. They are correct by their viewpoints, but according to facts, they are incorrect. If you want to know the facts, I can give them to you.

Real knowledge (Gnan) accepts and incorporates the entire 360° (of viewpoints). I too accept the 360° and that is why I am a Gnani. Those who accept all points of views are considered Gnanis (the Enlightened ones, Self-realized beings). I am sitting in the center and that is why I am able to show you the facts. By fact God is not at all the creator of this world. This world has not been created by anyone. So how did it come into existence? “The world is the puzzle itself.” We call it a puzzle because it has become puzzlesome. The world has formed itself. I have seen this in my Gnan (absolute knowledge, absolute vision and absolute experience). There is not a single atom in this world that I have not traversed through. I am telling you this by living in this world as well as living outside it.

The ones who can solve this puzzle are granted the degree of the Supreme Soul (parmatma). And those who cannot, have become dissolved within this puzzle. I have solved this puzzle and acquired the status of the Supreme Soul. I see both the animate (chetan – soul) and the inanimate (achetan – matter) as separate. Those who cannot see the two as separate are dissolved within the puzzle.

God is not the creator, never was, and never will be. What does it mean to be a creator? Creator means a potter. It means that God has to labor. Is God a laborer? When even the wealthy factory owners of Ahemedabad do not toil and yet enjoy the benefits of their factories in operation, then how can God be toiling as a laborer? To toil is to be a laborer. God is not like that. And if God were the creator, then everyone would look the same. Just like the impressions from a mold. But it is not so. Furthermore we say that God is impartial, then why does one person sleep on the pavement from the day he is born and another in a palace?

I can give you the answer in just one sentence as to how everything works in this world. You can find the details yourself. This world is run solely by scientific circumstantial evidences. There is no one up there who has the time to run all this. I refer to these scientific circumstantial evidences as vyavasthit shakti. It keeps everything and everyone organized. Do you wake up in the morning or are you awakened?

Questioner : I am the one who wakes up.

Dadashri : Are you sometimes unable to fall asleep even when you want to? And when you have to get up at four in the morning, why do you set the alarm? If you decide, before you go to sleep, that you want to wake up at four in the morning,

then you should be able to wake up at that time. Does that happen?

Vyavasthit Shakti

When one is not the doer and yet claims to be one, how can you call that a principle? It is a contradiction. So who wakes you up in the morning? It is a force called vyavasthit shakti that wakes you up. This same force keeps the sun, the moon, the stars and the entire universe in regulation. It is the same force that clears away the pollution caused by these industrial mills in Ahemdabad, otherwise people of Ahmedabad would have suffocated to death a long time ago. When it rains, who goes up there to make water for the rain? It is a natural adjustment, when two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen come together, along with some other evidences like air, etc. water is formed and the rain falls. A scientist may claim to create water but if you ask him whether he can do so with only one atom of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen, he will tell you that it is not possible. People are foolish to think that they are the doers, when in reality they are just one of the many evidences in a process. How can anyone be the maker? There is no maker in this world; everyone is simply an ‘instrument’ (nimit) in the process. Even God is not the maker or creator. If one becomes the doer of anything then he also becomes the sufferer of that action. God is just the knower and perceiver and in eternal bliss. He is always immersed in his own infinite bliss- the bliss of the Self.

God’s Address

Where does God live? What is his address? What if you want to write to him some day, where would you address your letter?

Questioner : That I do not know but people say that he lives up there, above us.

Dadashri : So do you believe what others tell you? Should you not question this for yourself? I will tell you the correct address of God. God is in every creature, whether visible or invisible. There are infinite life forms between you and me, which are not visible even through a microscope, and God resides in them too. God resides as energy in all living beings, and within me, he is fully manifest. He is the effulgent light fully manifest within me. He is the fully manifest Supreme Soul within. There is tremendous light within. The person you see before you is Ambalal Muljibhai Patel of Bhadran (a town in Gujarat), who is a contractor by profession and that which has manifest within A. M. Patel is Dada Bhagwan. This is a tremendous and phenomenal surprise! But how are you to understand this? This body is the outer packing and the One within is God. Similarly your packing belongs to Chandulal and within resides God. The outer packing of that animal is a donkey and God is within. People are foolish when they curse a donkey if it crosses their path, but they don’t realize that the God within takes note of their condemnation, and consequently they will have to endure one birth as a donkey themselves. The outer packing can be anything. It can be that of a mango tree or anything else. What do the merchants and shopkeepers pay importance to, the outer package or the goods within?

Questioner : The goods within.

Dadashri : Yes, of what use is the packing anyway? We are only concerned with the contents are we not? Some packing may be rotten or torn but the content within is pure, is it not?

From the time this Gnan manifested within me, I have not identified myself with this body of Ambalal Muljibhai even for a moment. I look upon him as my first neighbor.

God As the Boss : Liberation?

When I was thirteen, it occurred to me that there should be no one in a position of authority over me. I did not want even God to be my boss. I would not be able to tolerate that. Such was the spiritual development I had brought with me. My wishes of countless past lives finally came into fruition in this lifetime. If God were in a position of power over us and if he were to grant us liberation, then we would be obliged to obey his commands. If I were sitting down and he asked me to get up, I would have to follow his command. That would be unacceptable. How can one call that liberation? Liberation means complete freedom, no superior over us or no subordinates under us either.

You can experience the bliss of liberation through self-realization here while living. No worries or external problems will affect you. Liberation is when your internal peace is not disturbed even when you receive a letter of audit from the income tax office. The final liberation will come later on, but first you must experience liberation here and now.

I got married at the age of sixteen. During the wedding ceremony, the turban on my head tipped slightly to one side. At that time it occurred to me that it was inevitable that one of us would become widowed.

Life after life man learns the same thing over and over again and yet ignorance creates veils over it again. One need not learn ignorance; ignorance comes naturally. It is Gnan (real knowledge) that one has to learn. The veil of ignorance was relatively less within me and that is why even at the young age of thirteen I became (spiritually) aware. In my math class, the teacher had asked the students to find the smallest indivisible number, which is common to all other numbers (LCM = lowest common multiple). From this search, I immediately discovered God. We are all ‘numbers’ and God is within each one of us, in an indivisible form.

The speech that emanates from me shatters the veils of ignorance covering you and the enlightenment from within helps you understand what I am saying. Otherwise you do not have the capability to understand even a word I utter. Your intellect (buddhi) will not work here. Some people are recognized as intellectuals, but this belief is wrong. I am without intellect (abuddha). I do not have any intellect. What is intellect? What is Gnan? The knowledge of all subjects of the world falls in the domain of the intellect and the knowledge of ‘Who am I?’ is Gnan. Intellect is knowledge through the medium of the ego and Gnan is knowledge without the ego. Knowledge of the Self is real knowledge.

How can one remove conflicts and difference of opinion? How should one live life? Even when one has all the wealth and comforts, one still has conflicts, which create endless miseries.

Relative Religion And Real Religion

A circle has 360 degrees. Christians, Parsis, Muslims, Hindus etc., all have different viewpoints. One is sitting at 80 degrees, one at 120 degrees, and one at 220 degrees. Everyone sees through his or her own perspective and viewpoint. I am sitting in the center, having completed 360 degrees, as a fully enlightened being. A Gnani Purush, sitting in the center, can see and know things exactly as they are and can impart that knowledge to others exactly as it is. All religions are correct but they are relative religions. They are religions of viewpoints. But if one wants to know the facts, then he will have