Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.

Whenever I try to speak about Bhakti or God, I always feel a kind of a vacuum because I don’t think the words are properly understood by the listeners.

For example, we are all given to worship and this should and will continue. The whole process of worship is an interaction between the worshipper and the worshipped. The worshipper is you, the individual, and the worshipped is God. In the whole worship, what actually becomes the focus is either a picture or an idol or some other symbol or insignia of God. At least this much is there, that is good.

We have so many temples, so many deities and so many different disciplines with regard to worship in different places. People are very much enamored of it. How many crores of people are proceeding to Sabarimalai in spite of the fact that it is a hilly temple and there is a traditional discipline which has to be observed? And this discipline is what makes it interesting for them. Because in the whole year, at least for a period of fifteen days or one month or forty one days, they are able to practice some departure, some discipline, some austerity. And austerity has a great place in our life. The more and more you become austere, the better and better your life becomes. The inner strength and the inner wish and will, everything goes on growing. Unfortunately we don’t understand the place and purpose of austerity.

Sri Krishna seems to have gone to Himalayas and done tapasya for twelve years before Pradyumna was born. Can you think of it? We all start worshipping Krishna and finish with it. You worship Krishna. What he did, how he lived, what were the principles and watchwords of his life? I don’t think we have any idea about it. The more and more you know, then Krishna’s  life will become more and more comparable and contrastable with yours, and you will know the elements where you have to touch, polish and improve and all that.

Coming to the question of worship, I always feel we are worshipping and we should worship. But worship whom - God. Who is this God? Everybody will agree that God is omnipresent. That is, he is present everywhere. Should you not strike this concept of omnipresence sooner or later? You have a certain form - very good. But that form represents God and God is omnipresent. This is called the vicāra-mārga. We start doing something in the form of āchāra. Through the āchāra, we grow and we reach a stage where we have to take up vicāra to intensify this āchāra and anushtāna.

So start thinking about the idol or the picture or the name I am using and I am worshipping, what does it present? It represents the whole universe. So your worship should be of the whole universe. These ideas are also presented in our culture. For example  there is a verse which is very, very prevalent. What is that verse?

What a great principle, statement, watchword and ideal does this verse offer! This is actually from eleventh skanda of Srimad Bhagavatam. It is from the conversation of Navayogīs with Nimi chakravarti.

Whatever you are doing, kāyena- with the body, vācā- with your mouth, words, manasa - by the mind, indriyair vā – by the senses, buddhyā - by the intelligence, ātmanā vā - by your own ego and soul, tell me now, what does it say? Whatever you are doing with your body, with your senses, with your mind, with your intelligence, with your ego, with yourself.

Karoti yad yat sakalaṁ parasmai nārāyaṇāyeti samarpayet - You must learn to make an offer of all these things to the Supreme Lord Narayana. This is called bhakti.

So if your bhakti or devotion has to become true sooner or later, the sooner the better, you have to grow to this level whereby all your activities become an offer to the Lord. You tell me – what is the problem in this? If you like half-an-hour worship, you should like twenty-four-hour worship. If you like material worship using flowers, water, milk etc. you must like all the actions you are doing where different materials are used at different times for different purposes. If you like half-an-hour pooja, you should like the idea of making the whole of your activities a full-fold pooja. How can that be done - only by an attitudinal orientation.

I am a devotee and my God is all-pervading. The entire creation is God himself including my own body, mind, intelligence and ego. So from my level it becomes Godly and to whom I offer, from that level also it becomes Godly. So every day I get up using the body, mind and intelligence which are Godly. I walk on the earth, I breathe air, I drink water, I have my food, I interact variously with the senses, with the different objects of the world. All of them are equally Godly. If you can think the idol in front is God, the picture in front is God, the flower that you offer makes it Godly, then if you start thinking in this manner, will not the whole life and activities become equally worship, incessant worship, unbroken worship?

I sometimes wonder, why we are not thinking about this. When I speak about devotion, it should be much simpler, much easier. You have ten grams of gold with you. I am saying, here I give you ten tons of gold. Will you take it or not? “Yes, I would like to take it.” This is what good and wholesome devotion is.

All activities you perform, all interactions which proceed from you, all the objects of the world including your own body, all are equally worship, equally Godly. To expand your idea of God thus and to make worship incessant, continuous, unbroken, is it not a grand idea which everybody should like?

I am saying why is it that you are not trying? There also you will come up and say, “Swamiji, it is difficult.” What difficulty is there? What is the difficulty there? To think of God in his own terms is difficult? How do you think an idol is God? Then this world itself is an idol which God has created. Find God in the rock, in the mountain, far more than you find rock in an idol made out of a small piece of stone extracted from the rock in the mountain. Find God in the earth. Find God in the air and water and sky and stars. Will you not like to expand in your mind? Will you not like to enlarge your idea of God? So this one shloka is sufficient.

In a practical form we have put it.

This Worldly Voyage For Your Pleasure Alone

My dear Lord, I get up in the morning. If I don’t get up, I continue to sleep. And nobody is able to awaken me, what will happen? So as you have provided for sleep, you have also provided for waking up from sleep. So my waking up, though it is very, very regular and usual, actually it is designed and instituted by your laws and processes. As the earth is revolving, the moon is revolving, my personality is also revolving between or with sleep, dream and wakefulness. This is provided for by you. So I get up, in my getting up I find your command, your arrangement and system. Then whatever I do in the bodily sensory level, oral level, mental level, intellectual level, all these are only for your pleasure, your satisfaction and your goal. The entire samsāra yātra, the worldly voyage that we all undertake day after day, day after day, tava priyārthaṁ, for your sake and pleasure, for your satisfaction.

Thinking in this manner can you not handle all your activities? What a beautiful concept is there! But are you doing it? – No. Are you trying it? – No.  When you try do you succeed? – No. Tell me what is the trouble? What is that process by virtue of which the ego will be eliminated, the possessiveness will go, the desire will vanish and godliness will prevail in a wholesome manner? This is the question before the mind and the intelligence.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.