Sunday, May 06, 2018

The Yoga of hate

God is a loving merciful being. Worship the one true God. What?! You don't agree?! You're going to be roasted for eternity in hell by God.

Do you see a logical problem with this thought?

Surprisingly, this is the belief of most religious people on our planet.

But Hinduism has an interesting angle to this.

In the Srimath Bhagavatham, Yudhishthira observes someone who has hated the divine for his entire life merging with divinity. He is puzzled. How is this possible? Narada explains.

The sense of I, created by the ego (aham) is a veil of the soul. Feeling happy when praised & angry when criticized is an attribute of the ego.

The divine is beyond ego. The divine will not reward someone for praising nor punish someone for criticizing.

You will become whatever you focus your mind on. In general, focussing the mind is difficult. If you do manage to focus the normally restless mind relentlessly on one goal, you will attain it.

If you focus your mind on the divine, you will merge with the divine. The emotion does not matter. Divinity does not differentiate between love & hate. Just as the sun radiates the earth without discrimination on good & bad, divinity will not discriminate on the emotion. The stronger the focus, the better. Since hate is a powerful emotion, if one is able to hate the divine with single minded focus, this will help one merge with the divine sooner than the other paths. This is called Sambhrama Yoga.

Source: Chapter 78-Yudhishtira's doubt, Page 153 in Srimath Bhagavatham translated by Kamala Subramaniam

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