The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : 14-9.

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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, bhajanty ananya-manaso".

The mind, ever united with That, knowing that God is the source of all beings—"jnatva bhutadim avyayam"—great souls resort to Him only as the ultimate refuge.


We have small refuges everywhere. We have a bank which is our refuge or an office as a refuge, a little land and a house and social relationships—these are all refuges in times of difficulty.

But they cannot be called ultimate refuges; they can desert us one day or the other. The props that the world provides to us are unreliable in the end. They cannot be trusted fully; everyone knows this.

 But there is a refuge which can be trusted wholly. There is a friend who will follow us ever and ever. The great souls resort to this ultimate refuge which will take care of them under any circumstance—satatam kirtayanto mam yatantas ca drdha-vratah, namasyantas ca mam bhaktya nitya-yukta upasate.

They become restless without the company of God. They feel homeless and homesick on account of their dissociation from God’s Being. They are like children who have lost their parents. They are agonised in their hearts and are crying for union with That which they have lost, worshipping Him in various ways.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ....


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