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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
I am thinking of telling you something very, very naïve and simple. I go back to my life in Calcutta before I took up Sannyasa, when after getting initiated into Brahma Vidya from my Gurudev I was given intensely to meditational sadhana. This was supplemented by reading and as much as possible throughout the day, the anusandhāna process that was going on in the mind. I believe, if I can compare and evaluate matters now, the progress, though I was dissatisfied with it at that time, was quite remarkable. I was not satisfied with the meditative absorption which I used to have repeatedly.
This meditation is a special state. It has to be had by sitting in a room closing the doors and windows. I get into it and I get out of it. Why do I need meditation and absorption? Because whatever I am now is not what I want. The present is a worldly involvement. Meditation and absorption are a divine involvement. When is this difference going to be undone and removed? I have 2 hours or 2 1/2 hours of divine absorption, as against that 21 1/2 hours of worldly involvement. Will there be a time when both of them will equal and divine absorption will enhance, will increase and exceed the worldly involvement and finally all will become divine absorption? At this rate and in this manner, it cannot be, I felt.
That was the time because of my Sanskrit affinity and the scriptural greatness of the country, I used to get at very important revelations in the form of Sanskrit pronouncements. One pronouncement that came to my mind is
Bhedabuddhistu samsāre vidyamānā pravartate
In this world and life in this world, it is the differential intelligence that creates havoc. The very idea of difference is wrong. There is only one thing, one presence. Call it God religiously, The Ultimate Reality philosophically, call it The Self spiritually. So the success lies in dissolving the idea of difference and abiding in the feeling, thought and experience and perception of oneness.
I was going through my latest book, 12th book on Srimad Bhagavatam where Krishna speaks of the variety of powers the mind can develop by different types of contemplations. At one point he starts describing at the request of Uddhava, what are his glories, the glories and splendors of God. Then he goes on saying, referring to many items. He says, of the rivers I am Ganga, of the ashramas I am Sannyasa, of all the different types of Dharmas, disciplines, ethics, I am Sannyasa, amongst devotees I am Uddhava, amongst devotees I am Prahlada, like that, like that many things. Amongst the mountains I am Himavan. So I was wondering why these different references because at one stroke if you are told all are God, you will not hear it and it will make no meaning.
In reality, the entire world is God and God alone. God condensed is world, world rarified is God. Suppose there was only śūnya ākāśa, the empty sky, you will not be able to see anything, feel anything, have any knowledge or experience. To generate experience, knowledge, memory etc., there should be variety. This variety is what the world is and the whole variety including all the different facets it has, is the manifestation of God himself. It is like H2O becoming water, vapor and ice. The substance is the same. But in the case of H2O, different external factors and reactions are necessary to make the substance different but in the case of consciousness, it by virtue of its own inscrutable power becomes many as in dream. Your mind which is subtle within the body suddenly becomes another body, travels, goes to hotel, does many things and comes back, suddenly the dream breaks. So in the dream also you had a number of gross substances. Who made it? What made it? What became it? Everything is the subtle mind. Consciousness has this kind of an inscrutable power.
Though the world as such as it is, is God, we cannot accept it. Therefore you are told, go to Himalayas, go to Chaturdhaamas, go to Sabarimala, go to this place, go to that place, so when you start going to that particular divine spot or divine substance, a feeling of divinity is practiced, it enters your mind. I am going to Himalayas, I am going to have a bath in Varanasi, Varanasi, Varanasi, Varanasi, I am going, going, Siva, Siva, Siva, Siva. See, the thought of Varanasi instills devotion in you because you feel the rest of the world is world, non-Godly. To regard everything as God is not easy though it is very simple. You start seeing it, you may be mistaken. Think that charcoal is God, pillar is God, house is God, nail is God, earth is God, stone is God, tree is God. Just see, superimpose your perception on all the sensory ideas.
So I am wondering, the reference to a number of divine splendors and grandeurs is only to enable people to take one or the other of them and then bring about in the mind a sense of divinity, a sense of elegance, a sense of sanctity. But the whole process will continue and harm you at one particular time. So that bedhabuddhi, that differential outlook, it has to be dissolved. This is the purity of the mind in the language of the knowledge. Treat the differential outlook, dissolve it, then the mind becomes pure, conversely, make the mind purer and purer, then the differential notions will automatically dissolve.
I think all of you should think about what I have said. The same differential outlook we have when we look at ten people. ‘Oh, two people are good for me, eight, no good.’ He has spoken some things very harshly, he is not good. So harsh words you dislike, soft words you like, something you like, something you dislike and in this group you will find solid substances of the world, emotional things of the mind, ideas of the intelligence, calculations in philosophy, all these are subject to this differentiation. This differentiation should be overcome. On the one hand it is a mystery, on the other hand it is a great science, still on the other it is a very, very critical and subtle pursuit.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
