Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-6. That seeking of God as the ultimate goal of love, devotion and aspiration is the ananya bhakti that is mentioned in this verse of the Bhagavadgita. And in the case of those devotees, who are rare to find in this world, it is God’s responsibility to take care of them. The Yoga Vasishtha says that as the solar system is taken care of by powers that are not human, as the planets move in their orbits systematically by the ordinance of a force which is not man made, as the universe is maintaining its balance by a power we cannot think of in our mind, that power shall take care of us also. Why not? If the whole solar system can be sustained in mathematical precision and utter perfection, unthinkable to the human mind, how is it that that power cannot take care of a human being? It shall, and it always does. So the great promise that is divinely bestowed upon us here, in this majestic utterance, is that not only shall we be provided with everyth...

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-5. How the grace of God works instantaneously in the case of such devotees, how God takes action in a timeless manner is dramatically displayed and demonstrated in the experiences of the great saints and sages of yore. These sages could speak to God more intimately then we speak with one another. Even the so-called inanimate idols could wake up into consciousness and speak to them due to the intensity of their feeling of the presence of God. If we study, with concentration of mind, the lives of such faiths as those who lived sometime back in Maharashtra, for instance, around the holy place of Pandarpur, the Shaivite saints known as the Nyanars and the Vaishnava saints known as the Alvars, we would simply be wonderstruck as to the sincerity of those saints in their devotion to God and the unimaginable miracles that God automatically worked around them, even without their knowing what was happening. These devotees never asked anything fro...

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-4. The undivided ness or ananyas that is mentioned in the verse is the absorption of the consciousness of the devotee, a total saturation of the devout spirit in the magnitude and the immensity of God’s existence. The prayer that is offered to God and the worship that is performed here is not intended to receive any boons or benefactions from God. This is parabkakti or the supreme form of devotion to God, where offers of any kind, religiously or spiritually, do not become a means to an end. The prayer becomes an awareness rising within oneself of the presence of God everywhere. It is an offer of prayer by the lower self to the higher Self. It is a rise of the lower to the higher and not merely a movement of the individual finite to the so-called imagined distant Infinite. This particular verse is one single magnificent teaching. This particular sloka : - "ananyas cintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesam nityabhiyuktana...

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-3. The planes of existence that are above this mortal earth may be the regions of higher satisfaction and enjoyment by the denizens of that region, but all planes of existence are relative to one another. The seven planes above the earth plane mentioned in the Epics and the Puranas, reaching up even to the seventh plane known as satya-loka—all these are comprehended within the fold of creation. Even if we reach the highest plane, we may have to revert to the place from which we rose to it, because of the exhaustion of the momentum of the meritorious deeds that were performed for the sake of reaching those celestial delights. Every finite cause produces a finite result. An infinite result cannot follow from a finite aspiration or action. Everything that we do in this world is infected with finitude and limitation of various types, and hence nothing that we do can produce an infinite result. Thus, infinite realisation or the experienc...

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-2. Anything that is conceivable must exist, and therefore to think of the non-existent is an anomaly and a misnomer. There is no such a thing as non-existence, because the moment we think it, it becomes existent. Therefore the so-called ‘non-existent’ is also included in this existence. The impure, ugly and what is usually considered as undesirable are not so in the eyes of God, because a relative judgment of things and a comparison and contrast of values is impossible in the all-inclusiveness of the indivisibility of Being. The standards of reference with which we judge things, considering one or the other as of this character or the other, are themselves relative, and that which is relative cannot pass an absolute judgment. Hence, our judgments are relative, and thus our ideas of even non-existence, ugliness and the like are not to be regarded as complete in themselves. Having been given an outline of the idea of what God could...

Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees-1. The ninth chapter of the Bhagavadgita gives us an idea of the universal religion, an approach to the God of all gods, standing above all human concepts of even religious ideals, and yet accessible to everything that is manifest in any form whatsoever. The Supreme Being is all things. Aham kratur aham yajnah svadhaham aham ausadham, mantro’ham aham evajyam aham agnir aham hutam. Pitaham asya jagato mata dhata pitamahah, vedyam pavitram omkara rksama yajur eva ca. Gatir bharta prabhuh saksi nivasah saranam suhrt, prabhavah pralayah sthanam nidhanam bijam avyayam. Tapamy aham aham varsam nigrhnamy utsrijami ca, amrtam caiva mrtyus ca sad asac caham arjuna. God is all things—this is the sum and substance of these immortal passages in the Bhagavadgita. There is nothing that is not included in the Being of God. Conceivable or inconceivable, manifest or unmanifest, subtle or gross, holy or unholy, transcendent or immanent, imperis...

Chapter 14: The Absolute Pervading the Universe-11. We live in a sense world, in an intellectual world and also in a spiritual world. We are sensory beings, rational beings and spiritual beings—all things put together.  When the sense world is sitting hard on our face as a phenomenon of diversity and differentiated objects, we are likely to admire God as that which is present behind this variety, and worship symbols, isolated forms as channels for our entry into That which is behind these forms. This is the significance of the worship of symbols, forms, idols, images, etc. Even our concept is only a symbol—an idol or a symbol is not necessarily physical and visible to the eyes. A concept in the mind is also an idol, because it has a form and a shape and is localised. But this localisation, this channelisation and this idealisation are intended to take the mind above itself to That which is transcendent and lies behind it as the principle conditioning it. So t...

Chapter 14: The Absolute Pervading the Universe-10. Here is a psychic knot, in a verse which the Bhagavadgita gives us, revealing the universality of its approach in the matter of religion. "Jnana-yajnena capy anye yajanto mam upsate, ekatvena prthaktvena bahudha visvato-mukham" : - By the sacrifice of knowledge people worship God in three ways— 1. as the One, 2. as the all-inclusive, and  3. as the variegated. These central points, mentioned in three words here, 1. perhaps become the seed of what later on develops as the schools of philosophy known as "Advaita," 2. "Vasishthadvaita" and 3. "Dvaita"—the school that emphasises unity, the school that emphasises all-inclusiveness of variety, and that which emphasises variety alone. We can approach God in any manner, and at any point in the world, in any form and in any attitude, provided that this attitude or approach is exclusive and fully dedicated to the cau...

Chapter 14: The Absolute Pervading the Universe-9. But human beings are frail in their understanding.  "Avajananti mam mudha mamusim tanum asritam, param bhavam ajananto mama bhuta-mahesvaram." Our God is a human God. Human beings worship a God who looks like a human being, and even when we conceive of God as an all-comprehensive universal Creator, we only magnify His human personality. The anthropomorphic idea does not leave us, because human thought cannot become a superhuman faculty. To regard God as a human being is to apply a derogatory epithet to the supremacy of His infinitude. "Avajananti mam—”Insult Me,” as it were. “People talk to Me as if I am a human being, not knowing the transcendent infinitude of Mine”—param bhavam ajananto. So what is available to this finitude of human intellect under the circumstances of this inaccessibility of the infinitude? A humble surrender of oneself— "mahatmanas tu mam partha daivim prakritim asritah, bha...