Divine Discourse by Swami on 21—12—2014

Shri Phani asked “Self-praise is said to be a sin since it gives ego

immediately. Of course, ‘I’ indicates the pure awareness or God and
concentration of ‘I’ means meditation on God. Please clarify my point”.
Shri Swami replied: “There is no doubt that self-praise brings ego
and is a sin. The same self-praise can be used as medicine in the context of
lowered self-confidence. The poison of snake is harmful in normal
condition. But, the same poison is used in preparing a medicine called
‘Vishaamrutarasa’ (Ayurvedic medicine), which is used in the final stage
of viral fever as a medicine. The same poison saves the human being in
that special context. Similarly, self-praise brings ego and is harmful to the
human being in ordinary condition. But, the same self-praise acts as
medicine in the state of lowered self-confidence leading to depression,
which on further intensification may lead even to suicide. In this context,
you cannot say that the self-praise is a sin. It is not a sin everytime in the
case of everybody. If it is a sin always, Hanuman must have not used it.
The self-depression effects even the physical health. Food, body and mind
are inter-related even as per the modern medical science. Even the pure
awareness is also related to food. If food is not given, the inert energy is
not generated, which enters nervous system and generates the pure
awareness. Mind is a specific faculty or deign of pure awareness. On
fasting, the mind disappears and slowly the pure awareness also disappears
resulting in death. Self-praise is inevitable when you are alone. You can
use the medicine prescribed by the doctor from your medical shop itself. If
your friend or preacher is with you, he will raise your confidence by
praising you. The same medicine can be given by the doctor or nurse also.
Hanuman was alone in Lanka and hence, He praised Himself. In Lanka,
even Sita praised Him by saying that He is courageous and capable
(Vikraantastvam…). She improved the self-confidence of Hanuman so that
Hanuman could burn Lanka. When Arjuna went in to the state of
depression, Krishna gave the right analysis in the form of the Gita. Krishna
also raised the self-confidence in Arjuna by saying that Krishna Himself is
Arjuna (Pandavanam Dhanamjayah) and saying that Arjuna is born with
all the divine qualities (Maashuchah…).
Concentration on ‘I’ means that you should analyze about ‘I’. If the
teacher says that you should concentrate on physics, it does not mean that
you should meditate or praise the Physics. It only means that you should
deeply study the subject of Physics. Similarly, concentration on ‘I’ means
that you should analyze the concept of ‘I’. When it is said that ‘I’ has a
source, it clearly means that ‘I’ is not the ultimate source or God. Since,
the source of ‘I’ is not revealed, it only means that source of ‘I’ is the
unimaginable God. You may think that in such case it must be said that the
source of ‘I’ should be concentrated upon. It is not told so because the
source of ‘I’ cannot be concentrated upon since it is unimaginable.
Concentration need not mean praise and meditation. It may also mean
that you should analyze deeply about ‘I’, which is not actually God but
appears to be God due to some misinterpretations. A thief appearing as a
gentleman should be also concentrated upon in the sense that such a person
should be detected through deep analysis. The intensive analysis shows
that even the pure awareness is not eternal, which depends on the supply of
inert energy generated from food. If you take the word ‘I’ uttered by
human incarnation like Krishna, you should concentrate on that ‘I’. Such
‘I’ denotes the unimaginable God present in Krishna. Since, such God
cannot be meditated upon, you have to meditate only upon the external
form of Krishna since God identifies with the external form also.
Concentration of ‘I’ does not mean only the ‘I’ used by you. It can be also
the ‘I’ used by Human form of God. Therefore, concentration on ‘I’ means
1) The ‘I’ used by you should be analyzed to know that the ‘I’ is not
God but pure awareness only.
2) The ‘I’ used by human form of God indicates the unimaginable God
present in the human incarnation and
3) The ‘I’ used by the human form God indicates the external form of
God to be meditated upon because unimaginable God is fully
identified with It.
All these conclusions are indicated by the word concentration and
you should not limit this word to the ‘I’ used by you only and say that the
‘I’ used by every ordinary human being like you is to be meditated upon as
God. If you want to say that ‘I’ is God, you should limit this ‘I’ only to
the ‘I’ used by the human incarnation or God. The ‘I’ used by you means
only the pure awareness generated by food and in such case, ‘I’ is only a
part of the creation and not God. You should also remember that the way
of Shankara clearly says that ‘I’ belongs to God and ‘you’ belong to the
individual soul. It means that the ‘I’ used by God should be taken as God
and the ‘you’ used by God, to denote the ordinary souls other than Himself
(God), should be taken as the created items and not God. The whole
terminology should be taken with reference to God only everywhere. ‘I’
is always singular, which denotes the one God. You can be singular or
plural denoting one soul or the multiple souls.