22. This human body, so well-suited for Thy service, is now readily available for one like a bosom friend or a dear relative to be used for devotional purposes. So also, Thou art eager to bless the devotee, being very benevolent to him. But alas! Ordinary man shows no interest in Thee because of his indulgence in sense objects of a degrading nature. By this neglect of devotional life, he becomes an annihilator of the soul. By the force of tendencies developed through a life of attachment to this body, he roams about in inferior bodies in this terrible maze of samsara.
One cannot attain God if one has even a trace of desire. Subtle is the way of dharma. If one is trying to thread a needle, one will not succeed if the thread has even a slight fibre sticking out.
23. Through remembrance, Thy antagonists attained to the same spiritual goal as the sages that had established complete control over their vital force, mind and senses, and meditated on Thee in the their heart. The Sruti-Devatas look upon Thee as equally present everywhere, and ever commune with Thy lotus feet. The gopikas of Brindavan that longed for the embrace of Thy arms, powerful and handsome like Adisesha, similarly communed with Thy lotus feet.
Whatever is the nature of the passion that moves the devotee, if it makes him intensely think of Thee, Thy grace is ever on him! To develop love for God, scriptures indicate that the devotee has to build up an intimate personal relationship to God. They suggest that God may be regarded as the devotee’s parent, master, friend, child, husband or sweetheart. Each succeeding relationship represents a further intensification of love. These attitudes (bhavas) toward God are known as santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya and madhur.
Santa is the serene attitude. Bhishma of the Mahabharata, on the bed of arrows after the Great War at Kurukshetra, awaiting physical death was a glorious example of this attitude. The Vedic seers, too, had this attitude toward God. They did not desire any worldly enjoyment. It is like the single-minded devotion of a wife to her husband.
Dasya is the attitude of a servant toward his master. Hanuman had this attitude toward Rama. A wife feels this attitude toward her husband, with all her heart and soul. A mother also has a little of this attitude, as Yasoda toward Krishna. Sakhya is the attitude of friendship. The cowherd boys of Brindavan had this attitude toward Krishna.Vatsalya is the attitude of a mother toward her child, like Yasoda’s attitude toward Krishna. The mother feels happy only when the child eats to its heart’s content.
Madhur is the attitude of a woman toward her paramour. Radha had this attitude toward Krishna. A chaste wife feels it for her husband. This attitude includes all the other four.Unconditional love and longing are the two requisites for a devotee to attain the Godhead. Bhakti matured becomes bhava. Next is mahabhava. Next is prema. The last of all is the attainment of God. These are the conscious state, the semi-conscious state and the innermost state. In the conscious state, the devotee only chants the name of God. In the semi-conscious state, he dances in ecstasy. In the innermost state, he remains in samadhi.
24. Thou art the Primeval Being prior to whom or by whose side there none else existed. Lo! How can any one who came from Thee, and who is bound to dissolve into Thee, know Thee? From Thee, the creator Brahma arose, and from him the two types of divinities. And when Thou enter into Thy cosmic slumber drawing everything into Thyself, there is nothing left to be known as gross or subtle or as combination of both, no movement of time, no scripture. How can anyone, therefore, know the subtle truth about Thee unless instructed by Thee? So, to practise devotion to Thee, and win Thy grace is the easier way of salvation for man.
The Brahman is ontologically prior to everything. IT is, therefore, to be regarded as the origin of everything. The Vedanta Aphorisms define the Brahman as that to which the birth, maintenance and destruction of the world have to be attributed. The Brahman is, therefore, considered the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer of the world. The world-appearance is said to have the Absolute Brahman as its cause, in the same way as the sky (space) is the cause of the growth of the tree, for the sky does not obstruct its growth. In fact, the Brahman is not an active causative factor.
The Brahman has no initial cause. It is, therefore, uncreated (anadikarana). IT has no precedent state. IT is not a product. Nothing changes to be the Brahman, nor does IT change to anything else. IT does not undergo modification. The Becoming that arises out of IT takes place without affecting Its very nature (vivartakarana). Vivarta means change without being affected by change. The Brahman is changeless.
The Absolute is immaterial; IT is spiritual; so material sources of light like the sun do not illumine IT. IT is self-luminous. Therefore, IT is not inert or dark. The Absolute cannot be realized or experienced by another. Only the Absolute can realize Itself.The path of discrimination and knowledge is very difficult. Unconditional love and longing for the Divine are what can take a devotee to the God-head. Devotion matured
becomes bhava, mahabhava and prema (unconditional love), in that order. Prema is the attainment of God.
25. Different philosophers have different theories of Reality. The Vaiseshikas say that real entities arise from a previous state of non-existence. Naiyayikas have the theory that existent entities perish. The Samkhyas contend that the Spirit is many and, therefore, different in each body. The Mimamsa-ritualists find the truth in the fruits of
ritualistic works. All these theories are guess-work based on misconception. So also, the materialist’s theory that man is a product of the three gunas of Prakrti and that every being is, therefore, a separate and perishable individual, is a theory based on the ignorance of Thy nature. For Thou, Pure Consciousness, in whom ignorance has no place, is the ultimate Truth.
The Reality is that which exists in the beginning and in the end.
The Reality is only one and that is the Self. It is Pure-consciousness and eternal in nature. To one with the Reality, there is neither the mind nor the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. There is, therefore, no extroversion. The state of the sage with the Reality is the ever-awake state. He is ever awake to the eternal Self. His is the ever-dreaming state as the world is no better than a repeatedly presented dream phenomenon for him. His is the ever deep-sleep state as he is without his body consciousness ever.
Reality must always be real. It has no names or forms. It underlies all limitations, being limitless. It is not bound in any way. Being real, It is That Which Is. It transcends speech and is beyond description such as being or non-being. That alone is real, which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and changeless. Reality is Being, Pure existence, Consciousness.
Reality alone exists as a perfect undivided whole. The awareness of this Reality alone is the Truth. There is no other reality. The Reality is in the form of experience throbbing within one’s real self.
26. This universe of the three gunas, a mental projection, and the individual self or the Jiva, are asat, something non-existent in themselves, but become sat, or derive existential value, because of Thee who art the substance behind them. The knower of the Self, therefore, recognizes all this as sat or existing, because everything is an expression of Thyself. A product of gold is not rejected as illusory because it exists in identification with its substance, gold. Having manifested the universe, Thou dost indwell it as its substance as gold abides in all its products.Even as the un-carved image is forever present in a block, the world is inherent in the Absolute, whether we regard the world real or unreal. The Absolute is, therefore, not
void.
As in the tangible ocean, tangible waves are seen, in the formless Brahman, the world also exists without form. From the Infinite, the Infinite emerges and exists in It as the Infinite. Hence the world has never been really created – it is the same as that from which it emerges.
Water in the mirage does not come into being and go out of existence. So this world, too, does not come out of the Absolute, nor does it go anywhere. The creation of the world has no cause and, therefore, it has had no beginning. It is only an appearance based on the reality of the Brahman. It is not independent of the Brahman. The Brahman alone exists.
In the waking state there is no materiality in the objects seen in a dream, though, while dreaming, the objects appear to be solid. This dream-like appearance is yet true during the period of the dream itself. The world-appearance is but a long dream. This world, therefore, appears to be material, though, in reality, it is all pure consciousness.
The universe can be said both real and unreal. It is real because of the reality of consciousness and unreal because the universe does not exist as universe, independent of consciousness.
The existence of consciousness cannot be denied, as it is a matter of experience.The world is as true in relation to the Brahman as the dream-city is true in relation to the experience of the waking consciousness. Just as a mountain is seen both inside the mirror and outside it, this world is both within consciousness as solid matter and outside it as its reflection. The world and the cosmic consciousness are just synonyms.
27. Those who adore Thee as the soul and substance of everything overcome death. The others, who are averse to this truth, are bound by Thee to the life of samsara like animals, with the rope of Vedic ritualism, even though they are great scholars. Those who love Thee purify the worlds, not the others who put on a garb of spirituality withoutm love of Thee at heart.
There are three kinds of formal devotion – tamasic, rajasic and sattvic.
While showing devotion to God, if a person is actuated by arrogance, jealousy or anger then his devotion is tamasic. It is said to be influenced by the quality of inertia.If a person worships God for fame or wealth or any otherworldly ambition, then his devotion is rajasic. It is said to be influenced by the quality of activity.
If a person loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his duties to please God alone, and if he maintains the attitude of friendship and goodwill towards all, then his devotion is called sattvic. It is said to be influenced by the quality of harmony.
But the highest devotion to God transcends the three qualities. It is a spontaneous and uninterrupted inclination of the soul towards God. Such devotion springs up spontaneously in the heart of a true devotee, as soon as he hears the mention of God or His attributes. A devotee possessing love of God of this nature desires nothing even if he is offered the happiness of Heaven in whatever way it is conceived.
The devotee’s desire is only to love God under all conditions – in pleasure and pain, honour and dishonour, prosperity and privation.
