Articles for Saadhana

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.

Sometime back, an article was published in Vicharasetu ‘Conversation with God’, ‘Converse with God’. It has been translated into Malayalam and it is on my computer and I am editing it. So the subject is quite fresh in my mind again. I thought I will share that with you today.

I always feel why this worship, devotion, which is the sensory form of true philosophy and spirituality, why is it becoming so very rare, difficult and so much widely misunderstood? I am sometimes wondering, wondering, wondering.

There are innumerable temples in the land and crores and crores, millions and millions of people who are given to devotion. For the Chaturdhama darsan every year, I think four to five crores means fifty million people are visiting the Himalayan region. About thirty-forty million are coming to Sabarimalai. For the Kumbhamela, Maha-kumbhamela which took place two years or three years back, I think hundred and fifty million people had visited and taken bath in the Ganga. What do you think of a land where people in teeming millions are given to the actual practice of devotion? In spite of it, if you ask them, “Have you experienced God? Have you experienced the truth? Are you happy?” They will not say they have fulfillment, but they are happy. They find a lot of joy. Why is this incompleteness? Why is this indefiniteness? In one sense, why is it this lethargy and indifference? I always wonder.

I have grown with temples, with village culture, village tradition. In all our traditions, God is a predominant element, indispensable element. So we are interwoven with God in one sense. Actually the truth also is that the world is interwoven with God. We are part of the world and we are also interwoven. In spite of it, why is it that this is so much distant?

After all, whether you say God or believe in God, the roots are in your mind. Our mind believes in God and our mind has to make the proper use of this belief. So the belief arises in the mind, the pursuit prevails in the mind and the result, outcome and fulfillment also should be in the mind. In other words, the entire God is nothing but a mental picture. Mind is a fact, everybody will agree. But the mind picture of God, becomes never a fact, it becomes a fiction. See the anomaly of it!

So I was always wondering, my devotion alone made me think in this manner. At one point of time, after meeting my Gurudev, taking deeksha from him, the devotion underwent a drastic transformation in the form of knowledge orientation, knowledge enrichment. Whatever was piety and devotional practice till then suddenly became one of knowledge and knowledge pursuit. So everything was subjected to knowledge orientation. So I wanted to revel in the ecstasy of freedom. I wanted to revel in the ecstasy of release, release, in the ecstasy of an inner affluence, abundance, fullness, transparence, buoyancy.

I used to feel it after doing my sadhana many, many times, but they were transitory. I would sit in meditation and a buoyancy will overtake me, a vibration which is still on in me, everything! But they are transitory. There is nothing like an unbrokenness or a continuity. So, where lies the mystery? What is this magic? This became an important point of thought. Naturally, it had revolutionary influences. Our sastras are very prolific. Don’t think that our sastras are always pious. They are dealing with piety. You will find impiety also there. Questioning, agnostic statements, everything will be there. But in all this, what is prominent is the human mind, the human intelligence, and the human ego, the humanness, the humanness.

Who says God? We say God. The same we, we also say ‘dog’. Dog is d-o-g. God is g-o-d. These letters are ours, words are ours and explanation also should be ours. Don’t say God unless you have a meaning for that word. Don’t say it at all. You have made the word ‘God’. So you have to say what God is or who God is. So in this way I used to think in a very simple manner. Don’t think that I was an agnostic and thinking in a questioning manner. With a lot of feeling. So I started making ecstatic statements.

Two such statements I was editing about. See, everybody is worshipping God. Everybody is fearing God, regarding God. Why don’t you replace it with conversation with God? Why don’t you talk to God? If you are doing pooja, you say “God, I have been doing pooja. I don’t know where you are and what you are, but still I have been doing pooja fondly and still something unfavorable has taken place. So I don’t like. I will not do pooja anymore. I will not light your lamp. I will stop. Atleast for a few days. Because I have been doing with a lot of piety and hope, but still some displeasure is there for me. Something not agreeable has taken place. You seem to be all-enfolding. Such a God when I worship, why should I have anything in the way of an unfavourableness? Maybe my thought is wrong. Why does it occur? Why did you not safeguard against that thinking or why did you not safeguard against the unfavourableness? One of the two. Both you have not taken place and I am taking refuge under you. So I am not going to light the lamp and worship.”

Stop the worship atleast for two three days. Stop it and see what happens. Get angry with God. Express your disgust, doubt. Say that “I will not give you anything. Everyday I offered milk. Today I will not offer you. Starve. Fast. As I am suffering the impact of unfavourableness, misfortune, you also feel part of it. Perhaps you will understand me better.” In any manner, you try to talk to God. This kind of a conversation is far more intimate a worship than with flowers and materials.

For pooja you require a place, an idol and so many other details. But for talking to God, anywhere and everywhere as long as you have a mind and tongue, you can talk. If you cannot talk, atleast you can think of Him and when there is no mind, you don’t need to think of anything. So feel free and converse with Him. Talk to Him with endearment, talk to Him with dislike, sulking. Whenever you want, whatever you want, tell Him, tell Him not. Say “For two days I will not talk to you.” That also you can say. Our sastras will say ‘yena tena prakaarena matih krishne niyojayet’. Whatever be the means adopted, your mind should be on God. This is one way.

Don’t necessarily think that he should be worshipped with endearment. No. You can get angry with him. Refuse him, keep away from him, just like yo will deal with a child or anybody dear and near to you.

Then I went on saying, would you like to hear? My intimacy with God is so much that I felt like telling Him many years back. My dear God, I give you two challenges. One, if you can, banish me from your kingdom, from your territory, from the place over which you have your sovereignty, banish me from that territory. Place me somewhere else if you can. Another is, if you can exit from my heart, exit from my heart. Both challenges poor God has not met. So many years have passed. He has never come and told me, “I have not met” or “I will meet”, “I cannot meet.” Nothing he has said. My words remain themselves and they are addressed directly to God.

Our beautiful sastras like Srimad Bhagavatam which is a test paper for master intellects in the world, the language, the concepts, the discussions,  the subtleties, the rational exuberance, the challenging reason, the subduing, the subduing imaginations, all of them are so much  a challenge and a test paper to the greatest intellects of the world. It says, that devotee is the best who can tie the feet of the Lord in his heart by having a rope of devotion. Take the rope of devotion. You cannot get it from the market. You have to spin and weave the rope in your own heart with the strands of devotion. Make a rope and tie firmly the feet of the Lord, so that He cannot escape. In whose heart God’s feet have been firmly tied as a result of which He cannot escape from you, He cannot escape from you, that devotee is the most exalted, excellent. This is the language of Srimad Bhagavatam.

My dear children, simply fly with the wings of devotion. Simply fly, fly. Why is it that the devotion doesn’t grace you? I say that it is devotion. But it is not devotion, it is an understanding. It is a play of your mind and intelligence. God comes next and second. Your mind and intelligence come first.  Many people say “God” and remain distant. Be atleast one who will remain close to and one with. Can you? Will you? When? You can! I don’t know whether you will, also when.

Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.