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Gurupoornima-2015
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
I continue from where I stopped last morning. As a devotee, you should start worshipping God in your own manner but with a lot of joy and contentment. That worship should not be restricted to an idol and for a few minutes of the day. The attitude of worship should fill your heart and mind and you should continue to cherish and relish that devotion beyond the hours or minutes of worship. It should percolate your life to such an extent that you start speaking about God, worshipping him, how great, how fortunate, how beautiful, how nice, how fulfilling, exciting, exhilarating, delightful it is!
If you are a good devotee you will also have some devotional friends. You will feel like speaking to them, they will also cherish and relish your speaking to them about God. And then there will be a mutuality and collectivity in your assembly, in your temperament. So there will be a march, so to say, together, "tuṣyanti ca ramanti ca". That is a test for devotion.
A devotee cannot be morose; he has to be very light hearted. He has to be very jovial, jubilant, cheerful, that prasannata, that cheerfulness of the face is very important. When it comes to that level, he says, “I enter their heart and mind and I light the lamp of wisdom, ignite their intelligence.” Sri Krishna puts it in a very nice manner.
nāśayāmy-ātma-bhāva-stho jñāna-dīpena bhāsvatā
Teṣām-evānukampārtham - I become sympathetic and considerate to them and being so, I ignite the lamp of wisdom.
Jñāna-dīpena bhāsvatā - Their intelligence start getting illumined about the God whom they are worshipping. They are worshipping the God but they don’t know anything about God. Their worship is mostly with flowers and such material items like water, pudding, milk, sandal paste, vibhuti and things like that. Now these are all external and they are applied to a concrete form like an idol or a symbol of God. That is not devotion.
Devotion is something that you cherish, that nourishes you, you feel as an experience, an irresistible, warm, beautiful experience. When it comes to that, he says, “Now I will reveal to you where your worship has to be, how broad and widespread it has to be, where you can have a touch and feel of me.” My dear souls, listen to these words well. “Where can you feel me, where can you feel me?” All feelings are internal. Even your pooja which you consider to be external is actually an experience in your mind. You see the idol, you look at the flowers, take them in your hand, move the fingers, move the hand, place the flowers at the altar, all these are experiences. These experiences are inner. Then where can you have God except in your own inside?
Next, Krishna says,
Aham-ātmā guḍākeśa sarva-bhūtāśaya-sthitaḥ - This is the way the worship to Lord ignites your intelligence, lights the lamp of wisdom and make you realize, enable you to get a feel and touch of God.
Aham-ātmā - "I am first and last the atma, the self." Everyone says ‘I’. This ‘I’ denotes an inner constant presence. Ever since you were born till the body falls, you never lost the ‘I’. Everything else became products of the ‘I’, possessions of the ‘I’, remembrance of the ‘I’, the ‘I’ is the fulcrum, the pivot, the pith of your personality. "The one that is denoted by the term ‘I’ is atma, the inmost presence and that is what I am." God says, “I am that.”
Sarva-bhūtāśaya-sthitaḥ - "As the atma I am present in the hearts of all." Tell me now, where your pooja should be directed? If you take the flowers and put them on your head, will they go into the self? Will they go into the self? Is there any material object which will penetrate inside the body and touch the inmost presence? So the pooja stops, the pooja stops, the worshipping hands become still, the uttering lips close themselves, the thinking mind also stops, the intelligence understands that God is the self, the presence inside oneself denoted by the term ‘I’.
About the ‘I’ you have no doubt, equally so about the inmost presence denoted by the term ‘I’ also you should have no doubt. So God becomes a reality. He becomes the inmost undeniable presence. Undeniable presence he becomes. The entire focus becomes inside oneself. The external God internalizes himself. The object God becomes the subject and he becomes your personal experience. It is from there that you start feeling the objects and all the objects are imprints in your mind. So as you experience yourself, you experience everything as floating in the self. So the self becomes pervasive, permeating, everything is afloat on the self like a bubble on water. God becomes consistently present for you, inseparable from you, irresistible for you and you become relaxed and full forever.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
