THE AVATAR KUSUMA HARANATH
(1865 – 1927)
Lord
Haranath compared Avatars to Comets who come to the earth to bring spiritual
awakening and to transform the souls to a level of living their lives charged with divine love and will come again
and again as long as Jeevas keep them in memory. An Avatar remains near and
gives fruits but when forgotten he goes far away from us.. Prophets, saints
etc. are constantly coming but they cannot make love to Jivas. For that purpose
the Lord Himself has to come. He comes to redeem millions of people and His influence lasts forever. When
the Lord decides to take a human garb He behaves just like an ordinary human
being to all intents and purposes but in Him time and space limits do not exist.
By His illusive power He makes us think that He is an ordinary being. Lord
Haranath kept His divine powers and glory in the background to freely mix and mingle with all. By display of His
divine powers closeness, friendship and love would have contracted. Lord Krishna manifested occasionally His
divine powers but was considered by the vast majority as a human
being with extraordinary skills and talents. Very few can recognize an Avatar
when He comes to live in our midst and still fewer realise Him though living
very near or moving in His company.
In His
Avatar as Kusum Haranath He chose the life of an householder and acted like an
ordinary human being, hiding away His infinitude, perfection and omnipresence. He
served in a Dharmartha office in remote Kashmir, was as father not much
attached to home. The divine element in Him which ran till about His middle age
came to dominate His career. With the veil drawn aside the Avatar Haranath
began to shine in all His splendour.He gave Darshan as Lord Rama, Krishna,
Kali, Jagannath, Christ, resurrected dead people back to life, multiplied food
etc. In later life He leapt into tremendous activity, scattering light , love,
mercy amongst the hundreds and
thousands that began to flock around Him.
He admitted
in clear unmistakable language that He is an Avatar who came down to earth to
extricate mankind from the clutches of sin, to lessen their load of suffering
by transferring it on to His shoulders, and to finally instil pure love into
their hearts. The diffusion of Prema amongst Jivas has been the mission of His
Life. He accomplished it so mysteriously and silently that by keeping company
or opening correspondence with Him, even for a short time, people become imbued
with love for God, unaware of how it happened. He was perpetually giving
Himself, sharing the lives of His finite creatures, bearing with them the whole
burden of their sinful wanderings and sorrows without which they cannot be made
perfect. Willingly He took upon Himself diseases, sorrows and sufferings of
humanity and asked all to lay their burdens of sins on Him. He said:”Many a
time have I come to this world. No sooner did I come here you occupied my heart.
I will not leave you, even if I leave this body. Don’t be anxious. You are my
fathers, mothers and dear ones. I want your love. You have attracted me from a
great distance. This, my play (Leela), has neither beginning nor end, never goes out of line and no human
effort can make it swerve. If you don’t hear from me don’t conclude that you
have slipped out of my mind. I have divested my heart of its hidden treasure –
PREMA – for you. Keep it carefully secreted in your heart. Again and again
shall I come into this world *, thus shall we meet together. Again shall we
change the scene and begin a new play. Separation will be only for a moment.
When I allowed myself to be bound where lies the necessity of strings? Once
you take hold of me keep holding on, remembering that this is the Lord’s play.
I am knocking at every door. The time will come when I shall knock at yours.
I have come to serve the Lord and I am doing it. God is
my only judge. Krishna has made me a public servant. He is always at my back
to guide and correct me. If I forget in any way the part I have come to play He
will prompt me to it. I have nothing to gain or lose here for myself.
Everything belongs to Him. All that is required of me it to live resigned to
His will. I have come half-way to meet you without your serious trying to reach
me. The more you desire to have me the more will I pull you up to me.
When you feel a yearning for me why sit idle? Run off for God,
try to get him with a soul pining for the Lord of your heart. It is not too
late. Make haste! Let us not belong to those who forget Him and stop calling
Him with diminished faith.”
The Lord is
Rasa (activated bliss). In order to taste His own Rasa in all its phases He
created the Jivas and used them as vessels to contain this Rasa, which, when made
enjoyable, is called Prema. In the beginning the Lord was all alone,
self-contained in His bliss. Then He willed to become many and became so many
Jeevas or individual souls. The souls are unchanging, only their physical
casing is. It is only Prema which rises a Jiva to the same
platform with the Lord. Every Jiva is a
divine channel through which should flow divine love, bliss, wisdom but the channel is blocked by holding the body for the self and identifying ourselves with this
perishable body. If a Jiva is able to excite this Rasa which is within himself
and forms the root of his existence into activity and he is turns it into Prema
sure to get direct response from the Lord. Man’s only glory is that he is born
of divine parentage once along with the birth of the creation which
entitles us to the wealth of Prema which is the exclusive property of the Lord.
The life of this universe is God and we
live not only in Him but also for Him. The Lord as Antaryamin (indwelling divinity) is sitting
in the heart of every Jiva, silently controlling all their actions. We are responsible
for what we are and wish to be. We did not come here to satisfy the cravings of
our flesh nor to gratify our passions but to serve God as His servants and to
do His biddings. All our misery here arises because we forgot our real home,
our divine parentage and that God is awaiting us to return to Him.
As soon as
the Ego (identification with the
body) is gone the obstruction to the flow of divine grace is removed. The self
unfolds when the Ego brakes and disappears. Once self-realisation is attained
the Ego loses its significance. Those who don’t seek God will not find true
awareness of the soul. They will continue to identify the soul with the body
and from this delusion be enslaved by every kind of desire and attachment. The
Lord is the only reality, all else false. Everything in the universe is ever
swinging – the only point still and calm are His Lotosfeet. His play is eternal, beyond time, space and causation.
It is a game of joy with the whole universe as its stage. He is the Being
forever shining in the innermost region of the soul. Krishna said to Uddhava:”it does not matter whether a man
knows that I am infinite, glorious, majestic or about all other qualities. Let
him worship me with all his heart and simply
think of me as being his own, his sole support and he shall be the greatest
of my Bhaktas.”
We think
that we act but it is only the Lord who
acts, not even a leave moves without His will. We have no free will. As long as we are
self-seeking, materialistic and live forgetful of the Lord Maya controls us. Sadly most indulge in their sensual
pleasures that only degrade them, make them wretched. Man becomes unwittingly a
murderer of his own Atma, his true destiny. Being attached to his body he
devolves and wanders the dreadful catacomb of Samsara. It is not our religion
that hinders us to reach out to Him, it is our want of love for Him, our selfish aims and the rewards we expect to
reap out of our actions. The moment we become inclined to love and adore God
for His own sake and generate longing in our hearts to get Him, feel our life
to be void without Him, we become Vaishnavas in its truest sense. As long as
the Ego persists spiritual effort won’t give results, even the slightest
assertion of the Ego-sense frustrates all progress made. Have full faith in His
motiveless, infinite grace and take complete shelter in Him. He is near us
every moment under all circumstances and is sure to listen even if we express
ourselves mentally. For one who is far off one must call aloud, for one close
whisper reaches him. But for one who is always in the heart it is enough to
just think of Him.
Lord
Haranath revealed to us:”This time I descended out of causeless mercy. I came
whether you called me or not and .will
not leave you even if I leave this body. I
have appeared to give you the only treasure of my heart - my Name -and hope you will receive if
affectionately and keep it carefully. I want your love. The price I paid to get you is indeed very
very heavy. If you shun me or forsake me altogether I cannot afford to forget or lose
you. You are all mine, you cannot realise how dear and valuable you all are to
me. I am now your property and shall feel much if you do abuse your entrusted
property.” In one of His letters to a devotee he wrote :” What greater penance is
there but Name? His Name is infinitely more fruitful than sacrifices,
austerities, penances as it is always pure, being one with the Lord. Even once uttered it has the power to blow
away such a heap of sins as no Jiva could ever dream of accumulating throughout
an entire lifespan. The whole world is my theatre. I have been incarnating
in many shapes from the beginning of creation. Don’t waste time to know me. If
at all you are able to catch me at any time do not leave Name, it generates
love and love (aimless, selfless, causeless) leads to the Lord of love.
Ceaselessly churn the ocean of the divine Name. The more you are immersed in Nama
Japa the nearer shall you come to Him.
Firmly believe that He will show His favour, be kind and reveal His presence”.
Constant waiting with intense longing for the Lord’s arrival is a sign of a true
devotee, it should be always his mental attitude. The Lord’s Name is Kali’s
sacrifice for us Jivas. Would we ever be able without this sacrifice to catch
the otherwise uncatchable one?
The one
supreme purpose of Lord Kusum Haranath’s descend was and is to make man
God-minded by sowing the seeds of His own Name into their hearts which will
grow by His blessings into the tree of devotion and bear Prema fruits. Once our
hearts are completely pure He Himself
makes them His abode. He will draw the soul to Himself like a magnet.
9th
November 2014
Ruth Baur
*- Page 1
-Lord Krishna said to Muchukunda (Srimad Bhagavatam) “You might count the dust
specks on this earth if you are born several times but you cannot count the
number of my births, names and attributes.”
