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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
I am a little amused by the manner in which all of you are responding when I explained the simple nature of expanding the devotional attitude and the devotional focus. I really still don’t know what is the trouble because it is one of growth, it is one of enrichment, it is one of expansion, all of which will facilitate your devotional approach and practice, will also make it extremely easy, facile and rewarding. In such an approach, why is it that you are rolling your eye balls? Am I asking you to climb the mountain or cross the sea or to fly into the end of the sky?
In any kind of a pursuit, when a mistake is pointed out, people immediately correct themselves. If a lack is pointed out they immediately fill it. In the context of devotion, why suddenly the remark, “So it is difficult, it is hard.” What is difficult? You are looking at a point, the center of a circle. I am asking you, this is the center of a circle and the circle is far extensive. So you draw a circle, maybe one foot radius. I say draw a higher circle. Increase that radius, increase the radius, increase the radius, let it be one kilometer. You may not be able to draw it on the ground or on the board. But are you not seeing something like air and space around you? Can you not draw the circle? Even visually in the sky, one kilometer, increase it to two kilometers. Our earth itself is only 25000 kilometers or miles in diameter. And the sky around the earth, how much extensive it should be? And our God has to be present in all these places.
So, as you are localizing God in an idol or a picture, try to give him a greater expansion. This is nothing but addition. From a millimeter you go to a centimeter, from a centimeter you go to a meter, from a meter you go to a kilometer. Are not these ideas possible? In the same manner, can you not make, think of a greater focus for God?
The next point is, God is inside as well as outside. He is in your gross body. He is in your subtle mind, subtle thought, subtle understanding. He is in your subtle ego, he is in your sleep, he is in your dream, he is in your wakefulness. Then only he becomes inside. So what is the nature of God who is present in sleep, dream and wakefulness, in mind, thoughts, understanding, in ego, and also in the earth, in the sea, in the air, in the fire, different forms of energy and in space?
My dear children, why don’t you spend some time? Do the same exercise which I am telling you now yourself. At least do it ten times, twenty times. This is also devotion, devotional practice because in this practice you are not worshipping God on a stone or on a picture with flowers. Your worship consists of thinking about God, trying to grasp his magnitude, measure. You can do it only with your mind. So the mind is exercised in devotionally grasping the measure of God, the magnitude of God. That is far greater than worship! Far greater than worship! There also, your mind is working. Even for doing pooja, the same mind is working. How does it work? It works through the eyes, locates the flower, extends the hand, picks them up, then lifts the hand, places it at the bottom of the idol or picture. There also the same mind is employed. But it is employed to catch hold of the flower, to pass it through the sky and place it at the altar. Here we are not using any flower nor the hand nor is the idol before us. It is the same mind by virtue of its own imagination and deliberation trying to grasp the real nature and magnitude of God.
You mean to say you have no mind and it cannot think? Suppose a member of your family gets up in the morning. When you see him you feel his face is showing a depression or a dejection, don’t you say that "The face looks very depressed, you are looking not very well, moody? What is the trouble with you? What happened to your mind?" Mind is invisible but you are making an enquiry about the mind noticing a dejection or shrinking on his face. So you are seeing the face and enquiring about the mind and its welfare. So from the gross, you are going to the subtle there. In observing the face also, you have only used the eyes. That it is shrunk is a conclusion that the mind makes comparing the face today with the normal face he had earlier. There also, it is the mind that works.
Here also it is the same mind. I am worshipping God in an idol or a picture. That picture is very limited, it has a certain color, it is framed. That picture is depicting or signifying God. So what is that God which my picture signifies? That God is all-pervading. So unless I am able to think of God in his all-pervading measure and magnitude, my devotion has got no meaning. Sometime at least, you should think about the picture and what it signifies or symbolizes. So the pooja is done. The picture is taken into account. The idol is felt, but never God. Don’t you think that this is the gravest contradiction that we have?
When I say this, my dear children, what is your problem, why are you staring and rolling your eyes? I really don’t understand. You should be so happy that "At least once Swamiji tells us that this is it. Why not we spend a little time to grasp this expanding approach to God?" And then, what am I saying? I am saying that God is something in which the entire world exists and he is something which is present in all the objects of the world. So you are surrounded by the objects. In all the objects, God is and the objects are in God. So you are through objects surrounded by God. And through thoughts, through understanding, through ego, through imaginations you are penetrated by God. So you are penetrated by Him and surrounded by Him. That this is so is the finding of devotion when it is subjected to a process of examination.
I don’t know, will there not be somebody who will say to me, “Swamiji is this so?" It is all a question of understanding what this God is. It is so beautiful. It takes away all tension. I am surrounded by God, I am penetrated by God, I cannot escape God nor can God escape me. This is not a fact that you have to produce and preserve. It is a reality, a fact already prevailing and you are only understanding it. You are lifting the cover and knowing the truth. It is such a beautiful proposition which takes away all tension, all obstructions, everything. It makes you float in the ecstasy of devotion in your mind and intelligence level.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
