Scientific reasons for honouring Gurus, Vaishnavas and Cows though they are humans and animals respectively!
This is the question for many!
Why should I honour other devotees who are also humans like me?
Why should I worship Cow who is an animal and perform Pujas for her?
Spiritually, we are said that Krishna feels happy when we honour the vaishnavas. That is true! Ok, Let it be!
All the acharyas and scriptures advise you to surrender to a Guru and Vaishnavas and also worship cows. But, as a unique media person who gives complete scientific and spiritual reasons behind every custom, it is my duty to explain why one should honour every human and other living beings.
Let us see the brilliance of the rishis who devised such customs!
We are packed with the subtle body inside this gross body. This subtle body is made up of mind, Intelligence and false ego.
This means, all of us are packed with FALSE EGO.
Have you observed the people’s egoistic mentality?
If I fail or forget to recognize any of the good performance of a devotee, he gets angry.
If a temple president does not appreciate his big service, but is supporting another new devotee who did just a small service compared to him.
He might have praised that new devotee to encourage him since he is new to the temple.
But, this regular devotee may show his ego.
From the next day onwards, he may behave as if the temple president feel his absence in the temple service.
When the temple president comes and explains why he praised that new devotee, he will say like this:
“Oh, no prabhu. I did not think like that. He is also a nice devotee. I just don’t feel well physically. Don’t worry”
Lies. Again false ego to accept his mistake.
What prevents him to accept that his praise of another devotee affected his ego?
He won’t accept. Because the people are packed with the false ego.
They will be in the first row if they have a chance of getting recognised. They will not readily come forward if they may not receive any honours or recognition for his service.
Also read: 10 SCIENTIFIC REASONS TO AVOID MEAT EATING AS A REGULATIVE PRINCIPLE!
But, there is a very important condition in the devotional service:
“UNLESS WE DESERT OUR EGO, WE CAN’T GET KRISHNA’S MERCY.”
But, we have abundant ego.
What to do?
Here, the ancestors and rishis showed their brilliance.
They placed these preconditions for an aspiring devotee:
(1) Surrender to a Guru like surrendering to Krishna:
Why this advice? When we surrender to a guru, we start to show abundant humbleness to him. Therefore, we consider ourselves lower to him. This destroys part of our ego.
He may think that he need to honour guru only, not others. Therefore he may insult other devotees. To avoid that, another advice is given:
(2) You must honour all the vaishnavas and if you dishonor a vaishnava, even Krishna will not forgive you:
Further advice is given to offer obeisances to the vaishnavas by falling on the ground through ASHTANGA NAMSKAR.
Ashtanga namaskar means when we fall under the feet of guru or vaishnavas, our eight components of our body should touch the ground. What are they?
Two legs, two hands, head = Total five.
Other three?
They are mind, intelligence and false ego.
That means, we should surrender our mind, intelligence and false ego at the lotus feet of the guru or vaishnava.
Wow! What a wonderful arrangement?
This makes that person to show his humbleness to all the other devotees also. He will start to consider himself lower than others and thus will get a SERVICE mindset, not a MASTERING mindset. Thus, his ego is destroyed further.
Is this sufficient? No. He may think that he can ill treat non vaishnavas. Hence further advice is given.
(3) One should see Krishna in everyone and a sadhu should see Krishna in a brahmana, a dog and a dog eater:
Now, this person will start to see Krishna in all the other people and hence will hesitate to ill treat them. He will be humble to all the people.
Is this sufficient?
Oh, may not be.
He may honour all the people sacrificing his ego further. But, he may still ill treat the other living beings like animals, birds, etc.
Therefore, another advice was given to him:
(4) Worship the Cow since she is also your mother:
Oh, mother. His sentiments are touched. Since we consume the milk of cow, she is also our mother. Hence we will not dishonor the cow. Our ego is further destroyed even in the case of animals.
(5) Not just cows, honour all the animals and birds because Krishna is there in every living being:
How to make the devotees honour even the birds?
Before answering that question, answer this question:
Why the Gods use animals and birds as their vehicles, not the air planes?
Krishna (Lord Narayana) Himself has Garuda as His vehicle.
Being the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he can use a Vimana. But, he uses a bird as his vehicle. Lord Siva uses a Rishaba (bull) as his vehicle. Yama uses Crow as his vehicle. Karthikeya uses a peacock as his vehicle.
Why don’t they use a vimana?
Because, they show us that we should honour every animal and bird and hence they themselves love them.
That is why, Krishna always remained with the cows and travel with garuda.
By respecting and even worshiping the cows and other vehicles of gods, we start to show topmost humbleness on all the living beings.
Now, our ego would have totally lost.
When a devotee is honouring all the people, animals, birds, etc, that means, HE NO MORE HAS EGO.
Now, he is qualified to install Krishna in his mind that is free from ego.
Krishna too comes and resides in his mind all the time.
He starts to remain in the thoughts of Krishna all the time.
He dies thinking of Krishna.
Therefore, he gets liberated, attain moksha and goes back to Krishna.
How scientific and psychological the advices are, to make the devotees sacrifice their ego and install Krishna in their mind!
They have understood the science and psychology of the mind and hence gave such expreme advices to honour all the living beings – not just the vaishnavas.
Every spiritual advice in Indian Scriptures is backed by the science and psychology. No doubts in that!
Also read: 28 SCIENTIFIC AND SPIRITUAL REASONS FOR WEARING TILAK (MARK ON FOREHEAD)