TWO QUESTIONS: DR. SHRINIWAS KASHALIKAR
1. Why is it advised by a guru that we should withdraw our attention from the urge of changing the world and pay attention to improvement of self?
2. Why is it said that everything works according to the wish of God?

1. The self improvement here; implies the process of overcoming subjective whims and fancies.

We cannot see the world as it is, unless we work on this self improvement and cannot respond to the circumstances appropriately. In absence of self improvement we generally respond in accordance with our gullibility or pettiness or both and keep on getting disappointed or delirious repeatedly. As a result we remain unsatisfied with ourselves.

Self improvement helps us see the world as it is and enables us to behave appropriately to the best our satisfaction; no matter whether it yields tangible results or not.

This can be understood also by the analogy of oxygen to self improvement. In airplanes it is rightly instructed to first use the oxygen mask yourself and then help others; so that you can help the others maximally. Similarly; self improvement through various means such NAMASMARAN is essential to help the others; maximally.

2. Our ancestors all over the world; searched for the causes of various phenomena in the universe. Many of them invented and discovered the causes of several physical and biological phenomena.

However some others were not satisfied completely as many phenomena remained unexplained.

They kept on searching through their dedicated study and experiments; the root cause of the thoughts, feelings, passions, actions, metabolic processes; and for that matter everything going on in the living and nonliving universe.

In the course of time; they did not discover or invent; but actually merged with the root cause! The state of being they experienced was variously termed; self realization, mukti, nirvana, samadhi, sthitapradnya avastha, amrutanubhava (experience of immortality and eternity).

They experienced that this state; unexplainable by any words; is beyond the human concepts (such as tangible cause and effect relationship) and beyond matter, space and time. They experienced this state as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. They proclaimed through this state; the holistic perspective of unity of universe, space and time!

They “saw” that this phenomenon is the root cause of everything. This omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent phenomenon into which; several “seers” are merged; is called God; by some; and nothingness, shoonya (zero), maha-shoonya (great zero), maha-karana (great cause) or nature by others.

This is why; and it is in this sense; that even as the cause and effect relationship and its study are undeniably valid; everything works according to the wish of God!