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--- In tiruvenkatam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Jennifer (Jayanthi)" 
<ilovemadras@xxxxxxxxx:

> Dear Friends,
> Hello. I have been asked to write and present a
> paper
> on Hindu culture. I am choosing the topic Guest as
> God. Can anyone refer me to any passages of holy
> scriptures to find some 'literature' background on
> this topic?
> Thank you.
> Regards,
> Jennifer 

                  -------------------

--- In tiruvenkatam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, mksudarshan2002@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Dear Jayanti (Jennifer),

Here's something that might be of use to you for your
paper on "Guest as GOD". Other members have also
already given their inputs.  

                   **************

There is a famous passage called "sIkshAvalli" in the
Taittiriya Upanishad (an ageless Vedic revelation of
India). In Sanskrit "sIksha" refers variously to the
science of phonetics, prosody, diction and intonation.
It is also a broad term for education, science, arts
and all crafts in general. The whole of this
Upanishadic passage is a Vedic teacher's convocation
address to his class of students who, having completed
their course of study with him for 12 long years, is
finally departing to return to its respective homes --
to face the world and live out its time on earth as
"brahmins", seekers of Truth.

While bidding them all good-bye, the Vedic teacher
gives his students wise counsel on a many matters. It
is a very moving scene indeed if one knows how to
visualize it vividly in one's mind. The teacher knows
he might be seeing his beloved students for the last
time. Their paths may not cross again in the journey
of life. And that's why he is eager to speak to them
from the depths of his heart. 

He tells them how they should conduct themselves in
life, what values they must embrace, what personal
qualities they must cultivate, what is the nature of
Truth, what is God, what is the meaning and purpose of
human life... The whole of the "sIkshavalli" is a
truly soul-stirring passage indeed full of lofty,
ancient Upanishadic thought and wisdom.

One of the most famous lines in the passage is the
following:

     "mAtr dEvo bhava
       pitr dEvO bhava
      AchArya dEvO bhava
       atithi dEvO bhava..."

In simple translation, the lines mean:

      "Regard Mothers as God,
              Fathers as God,
              Teachers as God,
       and the Guest that enters your home too
       As God incarnate!"

At first glance, the above lines may seem to us as no
more than obvious homily or stale truism. Respect and
love of parents and teachers is, after all, urged and
sanctioned in all cultures of the world. The ancient
Upanishad thus is not telling us anything particularly
new or profound.

But behind the apparent simplicity of the Upanishad
pronouncement, there is a not-too-obvious message that
affirms 4 great universal human values. They are 
(a)Family (b)Gratitude (c)Learning and (d)
Charitableness.

                   *************

The first two lines -- i.e. about looking upon the
Mother and Father as God -- emphasize the importance
of the Family as a human institution. If Mankind must
survive and thrive, the Family must survive and
thrive. ("The happiness of all Humanity lies in the
happiness of a Family", is in fact another old and
famous Vedic prayer --"lOkA samasthA sukhinO
bhavantu...") 

How are we to judge if the Family as an institution is
hale and hearty? The litmust test is to find out if
our aged and sick mothers and fathers are well cared
for. Where we find the old and the dying increasingly
being neglected by or alienated from their children;
where we find an increasing number of old-age homes or
sanatoriums springing up in the community or
neighbourhoods around us; wherever we find aged
"senior citizens" struggling in the evening of their
lives, living alone and anxiously, trying to scrape
through from one day to another, and living from
hand-to-mouth upon paltry pensions and pathetic
doles.... Wherever we come across such tell-tale signs
we can be sure they are symptoms of societal
degeneration brought about by the decline of the
Family institution. It is a sign Mankind is headed
down a wrong road...        

                    ************

The first two lines of the Upanishad edict above, when
read together, serve also to underscore the importance
of Gratitude as a human value. 

We owe an eternal debt of gratitude to our parents for
giving us so much in life that is priceless ---
unconditional love, care and support. Our parents
bring us from Nothingness into Being. It is they who
delivered to us God's gift of Life. Thereafter they
prepared us for everything in life. Thanks to them we
grew to maturity and evolved into full, fine human
beings. Everything needed to succeed in life, and to
find fulfillment in it, we surely received from our
parents. Hence, in that respect, the parent is like
God i.e. like He who has bestowed upon us all the
priceless, life-enhancing bounties of His Benevolence,
viz.: this very planet we live upon, which is our only
home in an otherwise vast, empty and terrifying
universe, and filled with sunshine, fertile earth,
food, air, sparkling water and beautiful forests...

If there is no gratitude in our hearts to show our
parents, there is really no true Gratitude that we can
return to God Almighty.
           
There is a beautiful affirmation of this same human
value in that grand religious Sanskrit epic of India
--Srimadh Valmiki "Ramayana". We have the hero of the
epic, Sri Rama, the very incarnation of God upon
earth, saying this about the debt of Gratitude every
man owes his parents:

    "yathA-shakthi pradAnEna snApanAcchAdanEna cha
      nityam cha priya-vAdEna tathA samvardhanEna cha"
                                      (II.111.10)

"A hundred things the mother and father do for their
child (as the English poet wrote, "little nameless
unremembered acts of kindness and love")! Who can
tell, who can measure, who can ever describe, who can
ever repay the million kindly acts received from one's
mother and father?"

                  ************

The third line of the Upanishad 'vAkya' (dictum) is

          "AchArya dEvO bhava"
         Regard the teacher as God!

This simple statement is not just about teachers as
persons. It about the universal value of Education.
Human life has no real meaning without Education. A
life spent without learning is sheer waste and futile
existence. It is the teacher -- the 'guru' and
'AchArya' -- who leads us from Ignorance to
Enlightenment. The school-room, the library, the
museum, the university laboratory, the seminar-hall --
it is these institutions of Man that are his spiritual
workshop and retreat. It is through Education alone
that we can hope to discover and understand the world
and what life itself is indeed all about, and who we
are, where we come from and where we are going... 

Without a "guru" or "AchArya", a teacher, guide and
mentor, there can be no progress in our lives, neither
material or spiritual. Hence we are exhorted by the
Upanishad to regard the Teacher as God incarnate.

                 ************    
  
The real profundity of the Upanishad commandment
however lies in the last line:

         "athithi dEvO bhava"
  "Regard the guest who enters your home as God!"

Mother, Father and Teacher are to be regarded as
veritable God since they give us so much that is
priceless in life. We find this quite easy to
understand. Those who give are god-like indeed. 

But what about the Guest? Why should he be regarded as
God? The guest who enters your home is not the one who
showers you with benevolence. On the other hand, it is
he who needs your benevolence and hospitality. He is
in the position of a 'receiver', not 'giver'. So why
should the Upanishad want him to be regarded as God?

The beauty of this Upanishad line is that it gently
changes our perspective of the Givers and Receivers of
the world. It takes away the god-like status from the
former and bestows it upon the latter. We are exhorted
to regard those in life to whom we give -- in
kindness, charity and generosity -- as Gods. 

We all give and engage in charity because deep down it
makes us "feel good". What is this "feel good factor"?
It is the feeling that makes us feel god-like. It
makes us take a little pride in our own nobility and
charitableness. Although we might not want to admit it
to ourselves even, the fact remains that we often Give
because it makes us secretly feel a bit like God. 

But that sort of giving is not Upanishadic in
character at all. It is, in fact, the very opposite of
genuine Charitableness. We Give truly only when it is
the Receiver who, by our act of charitableness, we
wish would feel like God... not the other way around. 
In true acts of Giving, it is the Receiver who realy 
counts, not the Giver.

When we entertain a guest -- an "athithi" -- at home,
we must ask ourselves what is our true intention? Is
it to make the guest "feel good" or is it make
ourselves "feel good"? If we brought guests into our
home only to show-off the pomp in the house, our
wealth or to make a statement about our social-status,
then it is not kindness or generosity that is extended
to the "athithi". It is mere vainglory and selfishness
on our part.

The Hindu religious scriptures, called "itihAsA-s",
are legendary accounts of the events of God's avataric
life on earth. The "Ramayana" and the "Mahabharata"
are two such splendid scriptural works. In both works
are recounted how the Almighty Himself went as humble
"athithi" to the homes of his devotees, how He
"received" their hospitality and how, as a result,
they came to be blessed with everlasting Grace. 

In the Ramayana, Sri Rama went as "athithi" to the
abode of Guha, a lowly tribesman of the forests; then
as "athithi" to the abode of the Sage "rshi" Gautama
deep in the forests; then as "athithi" to the humble
hut of the old lady Sabari, who had lain in wait for
years on end for the Lord's visit; and as "athithi"
again to the royal home of Sugriva... Throughout the
pages of the Ramayana, as we see the avatar of God
going as "athithi" from the home of one good devotee
to another's, we see the affirmation, again and again,
of the great Upanishad ideal of "athithi dEvo bhava".

(In the Mahabharata, too, we find similar affirmation
of the "athithi" ideal in the account of Lord
Krishna's visit to the home of Vidura.) 

To conclude, the long and short of the Upanishad
message is simply this: 

If we all did learn to look upon those to whom we give
as God Almighty; and again, if we all learnt to
sincerely please our "athithi-s" as we might want to
please God, then we can be certain of this: We will be
inspired to give more and more to each other in life
in the true spirit of Charitableness. And a world
filled with such universal generosity and kindness,
where each regards the other as an "athithi", would
surely be God's own kingdom founded upon earth!  

Regards,

dAsan,
Sudarshan  

--- End forwarded message ---





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