Dealing with flaws

DEALING WITH FLAWS

Even then be grateful to God.
What good is the faith that shakes? Faith is that which remains firm even
during tough times. Suppose you place your trust in someone and got
betrayed. Then just remind yourself that it is all a play of the Divine.
Think that God wanted to make you learn some important lesson, and so he
came in this person’s form to your life. So just see the situation with
this understanding.

Why am I saying this? See, in the end, it is all one consciousness which
assumes different forms and different ways to teach us something important
in life. So have this understanding and just move ahead.

Do not go looking for faults in others. If you do so, then you will find
numerous flaws even in all the avatars (incarnations of the Divine). You
will find flaws with Narasimha Avatar (a fierce incarnation of Lord Vishnu
as half-man, half-lion); the Vamana Avatar (the incarnation of Lord Vishnu
as a young Brahmin boy seeking alms). In Lord Parshurama you will see so
many flaws. You will also find faults with Lord Rama. And don’t even ask
about Lord Krishna! (Laughter) If you get stuck in this habit of finding
flaws, then you will find flaws and shortcomings everywhere and in every
person.

To improve one’s understanding, our Puranas (sacred Hindu scriptures of
mythology) have linked even flaws and shortcomings with some or the other
form of Divinity. So in the Puranas, you find stories in which even the
ever-blissful Lord Shiva gets angry; Devi Parvati (a form of the Mother
Divine) also gets angry, and the ever-smiling Lord Vishnu too becomes sad
and dejected. So our Puranas have shown all these flaws and distortions in
the deities also, to make you understand that Divinity is truly
all-encompassing, and even flaws or shortcomings are an aspect of the
Divine.

Be it perfection or shortcomings - there is nothing beyond the Divine. So
the Puranashave portrayed even the deities with a few flaws, to make you
capable of accepting such things with ease, rather than getting entangled
with it.

Divinity is all-encompassing and beyond all attributes – whether good or
bad. That is why when we worship the Mother Divine, we say, 'Prakratim
vikratim vidhyam'. It means that both good qualities and their distortions
are in the Mother Divine. This is how our scriptures have mentioned about
the Divine. This (understanding of duality) is a step towards the Advaita
Siddhanta (the philosophy of Non-duality of the Divine).

The Advaita philosophy is the highest of all, and it is also the essence of
everything that exists. It says that everything is one and everything
arises from that One Divinity only, so that you do not forget the totality
of Divinity, or misunderstand the Divine in any way.

Our wise sages have described the aspects of Divinity in a very beautiful
manner. This is why even flaws have been given a rightful place and have
been shown as an aspect of the Divine.

All the six distortions that we know – anger, greed, lust, jealousy,
attachment, false pride and delusion – are represented through various
deities, to only strengthen your faith in the Divine. The wise sages did
this to pave a path for you to move forward towards the Divine.

|| Jai Guru Dev ||