EVOLVING THE SOUL

You know every soul is said to be the spark of God. Every Soul manifesting through a body has its own tinge, every organic form of life has its own individuality and originality too. Even two blades of grass cannot be found to be identical in all manners. How the creator does it, is a mystery and it will ever remain a mystery. You can very well understand when I say that creation of human beings is not only mystifying, it is as well magical. Every human body is wonder of wonders because it can do wonderful acts inimitable. What is it that brings about difference in men in all dimensions including behaviour, culture, character, their build up, complexion, and an inherent power of attraction or repulsion towards others of the same ilk, is a wonderful feature of this planet which cannot be expressed in words. You have to know that all that has been said above is the presentation of your past Karm. How a single life cell is programmed to design you from head to toe is miraculous, undreamt of phenomena. It has been rightly said ‘whatever you are is the result of what you have thought.’ Your parents, your figure, your mind and your character traits are all the reflection of your past Karm. It is therefore imperative that you don’t undermine your Karm. Each and every thought is like a brick to erect your building — bad, good or marvelous.

You have been told many a time that soul is the spark of God, an invisible partner who can be made visible, if you so decide. Like God, soul only experiences. Evolution or involution of Soul depends upon the thoughts, Karm, that consciously or unconsciously we store in our memory. These thoughts by their entangling produce resultant thoughts which we are forced to follow and by which our behaviour (गुण) is decided or expressed. We are all bound by our thoughts (कर्मबन्ध) release from this bondage is liberation (मोक्ष). सविषयं मनो बन्धाय निर्विषयं मुक्तै: भवति (मण्डलब्राह्मणोपनिषत्) — when the mind is with the objects of the senses, it is said to be in bondage; when free of the objects, it is said to be liberated. बन्धाय विषयासक्तं मुक्त्यै: निर्विषयं स्मृतं (अमृतविन्दूपनिषत्) — when under subjugation of the objects, it is bound; when free it enjoys freedom from the object, it is said to be Moksha. मन एव मनुष्याणां कारणं बन्ध मोक्षयो: (ब्रह्मविन्दूपनिषदत्) — mind is the cause of bondage, it is also cause of liberation (Moksha).

The prime purpose of your descent on this planet is to evolve your Soul so that you live in Anand, in peace and harmony. Evolving the Soul is a hard task, but it has been made easy by Dr. T R Sanjivi, the pioneer in the field of spirituality. A highly elevated Soul sent by the Almighty to propagate the teachings of Ancient Yog for the welfare of the humanity. The humility with which Dr. Sanjivi, a great Soul, a saint, an Adept, used his divine gifts rendered him worshipful. He in his writings has always laid emphasis on the fact that the powers one uses are not of him, he knows well that they emanate from the Divine Spirit. This wonderful power cannot be acquired by any other means except when one has freed himself from Egotism. Majority consists of those who are empowered by their ego, ego is the dominating part of their personality, hence such are devoid of manifesting their divine powers. Man is empowered with creative powers and he could accomplish far greater things if only he were willing to recognise the source of his powers. When a saint is endowed with divine powers they are meant to be used for the upliftment of the persons willing to evolve themselves. Egotism is the root of misapprehension because of which egoist considers himself among the elites, even though he has no outstanding gifts. One is called a saint when his ‘I’ is changed, he becomes humble and all his creative works are regarded as an offering to Divinity.

आत्मा का विकास: आप जानते हैं कि प्रत्येक आत्मा को ईश्वर की चिंगारी कहा जाता है। शरीर के माध्यम से प्रकट होने वाली प्रत्येक आत्मा का अपना रंग होता है, जीवन के प्रत्येक जैविक रूप की अपनी विशिष्टता और मौलिकता भी होती है। घास के दो तिनके भी सभी प्रकार से एक जैसे नहीं पाए जा सकते। सृष्टिकर्ता यह कैसे करता है, यह एक रहस्य है और यह सदैव रहस्य ही रहेगा। आप भली-भाँति समझ सकते हैं जब मैं कहता हूँ कि मानव सृष्टि न केवल रहस्यमय है, बल्कि जादुई भी है। प्रत्येक मानव शरीर अद्भुत आश्चर्यों में से एक है क्योंकि यह अद्वितीय अद्भुत कार्य कर सकता है। वह क्या है जो मनुष्यों में व्यवहार, संस्कृति, चरित्र, उनके शरीर-आकार, रंग-रूप और समान विचारधारा वाले अन्य लोगों के प्रति आकर्षण या विकर्षण की अंतर्निहित शक्ति सहित सभी आयामों में अंतर लाता है, यह इस ग्रह की एक अद्भुत विशेषता है जिसे शब्दों में व्यक्त नहीं किया जा सकता। आपको यह जानना होगा कि ऊपर जो कुछ भी कहा गया है वह आपके पिछले कर्मों का ही प्रतिफल है। एक जीवन कोशिका आपको सिर से पैर तक कैसे आकार देती है, यह एक चमत्कारी, अकल्पनीय घटना है। यह सही कहा गया है कि ‘आप जो कुछ भी हैं वह आपके विचारों का परिणाम है।’ आपके माता-पिता, आपका शरीर, आपका मन और आपके चरित्र लक्षण सभी आपके पिछले कर्मों का प्रतिबिंब हैं। इसलिए यह जरूरी है कि आप अपने कर्म को कम न आंकें। प्रत्येक विचार आपकी इमारत को खड़ा करने के लिए एक ईंट की तरह है – बुरा, अच्छा या अद्भुत।

आपको कई बार बताया गया है कि आत्मा ईश्वर की चिंगारी है, एक अदृश्य साथी जिसे आप चाहें तो दृश्यमान बना सकते हैं। ईश्वर की तरह, आत्मा केवल अनुभव करती है। आत्मा का विकास या अंतर्विकास उन विचारों, कर्मों पर निर्भर करता है, जिन्हें हम सचेतन या अचेतन रूप से अपनी स्मृति में संग्रहीत करते हैं। ये विचार अपने उलझाव से परिणामी विचार उत्पन्न करते हैं जिनका पालन करने के लिए हम मजबूर होते हैं और जिनके द्वारा हमारा व्यवहार (गुण ) तय या व्यक्त होता है। हम सभी अपने विचारों (कर्मबंध) से बंधे हैं विषयों से मुक्त होने पर उसे मुक्त कहा जाता है। बन्धाय विषयासक्तं मुक्त्यै: निर्विषयं स्मृतं (अमृतविन्दूपनिषत्) – जब वस्तुओं के अधीन होता है, तो वह बंध जाता है; मुक्त होने पर वह वस्तु से मुक्ति का आनंद लेता है, इसे मोक्ष कहा जाता है। मन एव मनुष्याणां कारणं मोक्षयो: (ब्रह्मविन्दूपनिषदत्) – मन बंधन का कारण है, यह मुक्ति (मोक्ष) का भी कारण है।

इस ग्रह पर आपके अवतरण का मुख्य उद्देश्य अपनी आत्मा का विकास करना है ताकि आप आनंद, शांति और सद्भाव में रह सकें। आत्मा का विकास एक कठिन कार्य है, लेकिन अध्यात्म के क्षेत्र में अग्रणी डॉ. टी.आर. संजीवी ने इसे आसान बना दिया है। वे एक उच्च कोटि की आत्मा हैं, जिन्हें ईश्वर ने मानवता के कल्याण हेतु प्राचीन योग की शिक्षाओं का प्रचार करने हेतु भेजा था। जिस विनम्रता के साथ डॉ. संजीवी, एक महान आत्मा, एक संत, एक सिद्ध पुरुष, ने अपनी दिव्य प्रतिभा का उपयोग किया, उसने उन्हें पूजनीय बना दिया। उन्होंने अपने लेखन में हमेशा इस बात पर ज़ोर दिया है कि व्यक्ति जिन शक्तियों का उपयोग करता है, वे उसकी अपनी नहीं हैं, वह भली-भाँति जानता है कि वे दिव्य आत्मा से उत्पन्न होती हैं। यह अद्भुत शक्ति किसी अन्य माध्यम से प्राप्त नहीं की जा सकती, सिवाय इसके कि व्यक्ति स्वयं को अहंकार से मुक्त कर ले। बहुसंख्यक वे लोग हैं जो अपने अहंकार से शक्ति प्राप्त करते हैं, अहंकार उनके व्यक्तित्व का प्रमुख अंग है, इसलिए वे अपनी दिव्य शक्तियों को प्रकट करने से वंचित रह जाते हैं। मनुष्य रचनात्मक शक्तियों से सशक्त है और यदि वह अपनी शक्तियों के स्रोत को पहचानने के लिए तैयार हो, तो वह और भी महान कार्य कर सकता है। जब किसी संत को दैवीय शक्तियाँ प्राप्त होती हैं, तो उनका उपयोग उन व्यक्तियों के उत्थान के लिए होता है जो स्वयं को विकसित करने के इच्छुक होते हैं। अहंकार ही भ्रांति का मूल है, जिसके कारण अहंकारी स्वयं को कुलीन वर्ग में मानता है, भले ही उसके पास कोई विशेष प्रतिभा न हो। संत तब कहलाता है जब उसका ‘मैं’ बदल जाता है, वह विनम्र हो जाता है और उसके सभी रचनात्मक कार्य ईश्वर को अर्पित माने जाते हैं।

LESSON V— Synopsis: The coming of God—The sense of God-Not the Xian concept here—Polytheism-Adjectives not to be used about God-concept-What in the ultimate is God-God has incarnated as man- He works in and through men-God is a Person, in the sense of being a Friend-Immanence and Transcendence God is not exactly the World- Ruler—But more or less our Greater Being-God as pouring into man.

The Coming of God

Then suddenly in a little while, in His own time God comes; the moment may be when we are alone in the darkness under the stars, or while we walk by ourselves, or in a crowd. It may come on in the sinking ship or in the tumult of battle. There is no saying when He may not come to us; out of the Burning Ghat, forth from the sacred love. The sense of God, says Evelyn Underhill, is not a metaphor; innumerable declarations prove it to be a consciousness as sharp as that which other men have, of color, of light, or heat.

In some way the idea of God comes to the distressed mind at first simply as an Idea without substance or belief; it is read about or it is remembered. In many cases the idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea floating about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in but it is realized that if there were such a Being he would supply the needed consolation and direction and that his continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take the sting off death–under this realization this idea is pursued and elaborated–says H. G. Wells in his “God the Invisible King.” And Wells adds: “For a time there is curiously a resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by such phrases as the purpose in things, as the racial consciousness, as the collective mind….”

About this God concept of Bhakti Yoga it is necessary to be as clear as possible in so far as it is not the Christian concept of God. Says James: “The practical needs and experiences of religion seem to me to be sufficiently met by the belief that beyond each man and in a sense continuous with him there exists a larger power which is friendly to him and his ideals. All that the facts require is that the power should be both other and larger than our conscious selves; anything larger will do if only it be large enough to trust for the next step; it need not be infinite; it need not be solitary; it might conceivably be only a larger and more god-like self of which the present self would be a mutilated expression and the universe might conceivably be a collection of such selves of different degrees of inclusiveness with no absolute unity realized in it at all. Thus would a sort of polytheism return on us, a polytheism which by the way has always been the religion of common people and is so still today, as it was in the ancient Vedic times.

We can therefore understand the Vedas when as quoted from the Rg, I.164 they say: “Him the sages call Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; he is the divine eagle with its outstretched wings.” One existent those versed in the various Vedas call by various names; fire, death and vital air–the energy that brings forth the universe, the principle that brings the universe. Not only is there no infinite God but it is not necessary for the moral government of the universe that there should be one God! Most of us pretend in some way to prop it upon our philosophy but the philosophy itself is propped really on this faith.

And herein we have at the start to say that, albeit there is flowery language used by the Bhakti Yogis of India, the language does not convey the idea of God having any metaphysical attributes. The pragmatist says that these attributes are but a shuffling and patching of pedantic dictionary  adjectives  aloof  from  morals, aloof  from human needs, something which might be used for the mere word God by one of those logical machines of wood and brass which recent ingenuity has contrived, as well as by a man of flesh and blood. They have the trail of the serpent over them; one feels that in the theologian’s hands they are only a set of titles obtained by a mere mechanical manipulation of synonyms; verbalism has replaced vision, professionalism has stepped into the place of life.

Instead of bread we have a stone; instead of fish a stone or serpent. Did such a conglomeration of abstract terms give really the gist of our knowledge of the deity, schools of theology might indeed continue to flourish, but religion, vital religion would have taken its flight from this world. What keeps religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems of concatenated adjectives and something different from faculties of theology and their professors. All these things are after-effects, secondary accretions upon those phenomena of vital conversation with the unseen divine, of which I have shown you so many instances renewing themselves in soecula soeculorum in the lives of humble private men. And, add James, from the point of view of practical religion the metaphysical monster which they offer to our worship is an absolutely worthless invention of the pedantic mind both in India and in the Occident. Leaving all these heresies apart we have to say that all religious testimony converges towards a single point.

There is that in the world, call it what you will, which responds to the confidence of those who trust it, declaring itself to them as a fellow worker in the pursuit of eternal values, meeting them with reciprocal loyalty. He is the helper of men sharing their business as creators of value, nearest at hand when the rest has to be encountered, the God who is Love, Prem. Kshetrajnam, mam cha vidhi, know thou the Spirit and Me too in all embodiments, sarva kshetreshu, Bharata, says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita; this is the first letter of the great mystery of being not the existence of the soul that can directly be seen by introspection (Unmani) by Hata Yoga practices, not the existence of the Spirit of God in man, but God Himself of whom every man is an incarnation!

This Incarnation of God is the central fact in the history of the individual, the most important contribution of the Hindu-Yogi philosophy to the history of human thought. It is a God, it is God Himself who is born in every Birth of man, it is God that dies with you in every death of man, as He died already countless of myriads of brave deaths; He will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether it is He or you that dies and the present death will be swallowed up in His victory.

And let us formulate the teaching about God as it occurs in the innermost teachings of the Ekanta, the core of the Sankyanta, Yoganta, Vedanta and Nadanta systems; it is given as a narration; the facts given are not matters for argument; they are offered not as dogmas but nevertheless without proof, but none the less they are subjects for experience and enjoyment; they are data of centuries of such experience, Svanubhuti, on the part of hundreds of sages of the various religious persuasions of India’s vast continent.

God comes we know not whence into the conflict of life. Why bother about seeking the causes of God, about seeking even the causes of yourself who art above all causes the first cause of your self, Svayambhu; enough that he was before Abraham, that Shiva saw only his feet, that Brahma told a lie when he said that he had seen the source of God !!

God works in and through men; he is a single spirit, a single Person; he has begun; he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of mankind; he has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He has by our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, boundless generosity.

And above all the fact that God is finite is one on which the adepts among the Bhakta Yogis are very insistent; he is above everything else a personality; to be a personality is to have characteristics–to be limited by characteristics. The most fundamental difference between this presentation of God and any other is that it promulgates a finite God, a Person, a strongly marked personality, a God of salvation, loving, lovable and inspiring who exists or strives to exist in every individual.

As says H. G. Wells: “About God as a person, it is necessary to be clear and as explicit as possible though perfect clearness, a definition of mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of things impossible. When we speak of a person or individual, we think typically of a man and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has forgotten much and may forget more, that he can be confused, divided against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged or asleep. On the contrary we are in our hasty way of thinking of him apt to suppose him continuous, definite, and acting consistently and never forgetting; but only abstract and theoretical persons are like that–we couple with him the idea of a body; indeed in the common use of the term person there is thought more of the body than of mind.

We speak of a lover possessing the person of his mistress, speak of offenses against the person as opposed to insults, libels or offenses against the property; and the Gods of primitive men and earlier civilizations were that kind of person. They were thought of as living in very splendid bodies and as acting consistently. If they were invisible in the ordinary world, it was because they were aloof or because their persons were too splendid for human eyes.

This is not the sort of personal God that the God of the Bhaktas is; the personality of God may be defined as the capacity for fellowship the fullness of which is, in that God in the heart, whose names are many and yet whose functions are one, a God who is neither the maker of heaven or earth, a God who has little to identify him with Jehovah; the God of the Bhakti Yogi is not the Ultimate Mystery of the Universe; he is not the Transcendence that has come to be part of the other religions; he is the Immanence that is in the heart of man, the Immanence called Spirit of God, Isvara, that is the pulling and formative process, the formative agency in the process, bearing with creatures the whole stress and pain and strain of the world and drawing them towards himself with the infinite patience of love, as says Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, XVIII-61.

In this battle of thought between Immanence and Transcendence there may be profound differences of human opinion; it is unnecessary for Bhakti Yoga to consider whether these two aspects of the reality are identical or even to consider the relation between these two presentations; every possible view is there in the stories of the great religions of the world from identification (Advaita), complete separation (Dvaita), to inequality (Vishisht-advaita) and disproportion; but none the less these two remain the basal elements of theology in the world everywhere; it is enough to note that the greatest mystics were among the Sufis who based their faith on the Transcendence of God. Men may differ profoundly in their opinions on these points and still be in perfect agreement on the essentials of religion which deals exclusively with Krishna the Hridayavasi, God in the heart, God the fragrance in the heart that enchants the soul.

In the words of the pragmatic, whatever it may be on its farther side, the more of ourselves that we in religious experience or Bhakti Yoga feel ourselves connected, is on its hitherside the subconscious continuation of our conscious life; but it is one of the peculiarities of the invasions from the subconscious region to take on objective appearances and  to suggest to the subject an external  control; it is  conviction of  all deep religious experience that it is a Power, a Person not ourselves, resident in the purpose of being that saves and also reveals and teaches.

In the process from sin to holiness there is a change of character so complete that the difference between the two stages may seem greater than the identity, and this leads to paradoxical expressions. The religious man seems only to have become a self in any full sense by abandoning himself to the inspiration and will-power of another, so that the strength and goodness and purity of that other gradually become his. But even this expression is inadequate, for it suggests an unchanging ego with changing properties, whereas it is the very “I” that needs to be changed in the sinner and that has been changed in the saint.

In the religious life of the Bhakti Yogi the control is felt as higher, but since on our hypothesis it is primarily the higher faculties of our own larger self that are controlling the sense of union with the power beyond us is a sense of something not merely apparently but literally true. If we ask how far our transmarginal consciousness carries us, if we follow it on its remoter side, over beliefs begin says James; here mysticism and conversion, rapture and Vedantism and transcendental idealism bring in their monistic interpretations and tell us that the finite self rejoins the absolute self, for it was always one with God and identical with the soul of the world. Here the prophets of all the different religions come with their visions, voices, raptures and other openings supposed by each to authenticate his own peculiar faith.

To the Bhakti Yogi, these visions, voices and raptures are, in the ultimate, acts of love, acts of affection, of Prem–which is the word used to “express,” that is to say, convey to our minds the idea of that concentration, or rather pouring of the ocean of God into the Dewdrop of the Human Soul. To us that seems a more correct rendering of the experience than the current simile of the waters joining the ocean. The ocean of God is already in, round and everywhere about us. Nearer is He than breathing, closer than Hands or Feet. His coming is an Act of Love, of Prem -for you are so dear (Priya) to Him.

LESSON VI— Synopsis: God as Love-The Living Christ-Man necessary to God-The under belief of current Xian-ity -The three schools of Hindu Doctrine about God. These are auto-suggestions about God-Christ- God is an Avatara born in every birth-The antiquity of the suffering Messiah-The fallacy of the “Inner Light”-Life a Divine Battle of Bhakti Yogis-Hence “Fight.”

In the prior lesson we spoke to you that the sense of God is not a mere metaphor, that innumerable declarations prove it to be a consciousness as sharp as that which other men have, of color, heat and light; that God is truly an Avatara, an Event that occurs suddenly, perhaps very quietly in ourselves, filtering (vatara) through the veil. Far beyond half way God hastens to meet the purblind; He is ready there on the Threshold just beyond the veil, but He is against the darkness in the eyes of men; the faith that is returning to-day to men, has no superstitious fear of this huge friend, of this Great brother and leader of mankind.

As says the Bhagavad Gita VII-1, the God- sense is the attainment of the certainty that one is not alone in oneself; it is as if one were touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, sympathetic beyond measure, wiser and steadfast and pure in aim; it is completer and more intimate. The cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God standing side by side with and touching us, as one who loves us very dearly and one we trust completely; the conviction that God, we Hindus shall call him Krishna, is still and now our constant though unknown companion.

This is the call of Bhakti Yoga, the call to make the experiment of trusting to this Heart of Things, throwing self-care to the winds in the sure and certain faith that you will not be betrayed, forsaken or deserted and that you are safe in the hands of the Great companion, one who is mighty to save, the moment we beckon him, swiftly responsive to any trust we have in his answering fidelity. God is not a more or less a justifiable inference from religious experience; religious experience is directly an awareness of God.

“It is the doctrine of the living Christ which is the most powerful incentive to strenuous effort in the life of Christendom of to-day. But how few of them who believe that He lives and watches over them can tolerate the idea that Krishna and Zoroaster, Buddha all live and watch too, and that all the great ones who have worked on earth for human good live on and watch!”….. There is the task to father up the power set free by this logical and racial difference and to garner it into the Divine treasure-house to be used as opportunity affords for the common helping of humanity.

It is, of course, for the Bhakti Yogi to explain this paradox, the doctrine the Living Christ offers to the modern civilized world; and in explaining the strange truism, the Bhakti Yogi bases his statements on the ancient Bhagavad Gita, itself a translation, as we have said, of the original conversation between God and man referred to in the Parsi Gathas of Zoroaster, and in the Gilgamesh epic of the Babylonians.

Says the Bhakti Yogi, the truly religious frame of mind is theocentric and not anthropocentric; the fact that God has need of us and not the fact that we have need of him is ultimate to the religious consciousness, to the religious experience. God is not the name for that activity that is divine to the human consciousness; but man is the name for the activity that is human to the Divinity, the Son of God that is Consciousness, that is Experience, and experience is here used in the sense of something that overcomes and includes within itself the distinction of varied experiences themselves, from each other and from the world’s experience. Humanity is the shadow of Deity, the veil through which God tries to reveal himself, casting about in the multiplicity of natural forms after an expression through physical means of his own nature; in the thought that God is the life of the universe, one should be reverent to a human being as a micro Deus; for as the purpose of nature is to personify the Invisible, human souls are the masks or persons by which the leading parts are enacted with many changes of scenery.

We come here to the peculiar under belief of Christian theology that Max Muller speaks of. We speak without hesitation of our body as the temple of God and of the voice of God within us; nay we repeat with St. Paul that we live and move and have our being in God–yet we Christians shrink from adopting the plain and simple language of the Upanishads that the self of man and the self of God are one; the reason here is psychological rather than otherwise, for while the Hindu in stating that the self of man and the self of God are one, yet is forced to accept a working hypothesis that the two are different at the start and have to be made one, or that the two have to be realized as one, or that the two can remain virtually one, interrelated and yet not internally unified.

Let us digress somewhat for the sake of Occidental readers so that the rapprochement between Christian doctrine and its correct import in Bhakti Yoga may be brought about. There are three chief schools of thought in India, firstly of Shankaracharya according to whom the spirit in man is identical with God or the spirit of God; the statements in the Hindu scriptures as to the individual becoming the supreme spirit are figurative. The second in order of time came Ramanuja who teaches that the spirit of God is the only reality and shares community of nature with nothing; conscious and unconscious nature are the two eternal powers of the spirit-consciousness, unconsciousness and the lord of both are the three eternal verities whose being is such that neither consciousness nor unconsciousness nor both can limit Him, is the supreme Lord who makes no effort to escape from limitation or to prevent change of condition.

To know these three verities to be what they are said to be, is to attain liberation. The third of the great schools of religion is that of Madhvacharya who maintains that the relations between God and man is the relation between master and servant; through evil and blindness this relation is an eternal verity, and not one that comes into existence after previous non-existence is not realized. The complete realization, the full realization consequent on a charge of nature by God’s grace is salvation.

We have stated these things only to show that these are auto-suggestions in the religious experience; it is not that God is as He has been stated by these to be, but that the God-sense is developed by any of these auto-suggestions. What we say here is that irrespective of all these auto-suggestions we can, without any distressful inquiry into ultimate origins or into the rationale of religious hypotheses, bring ourselves to a concept of a spontaneous and developing God arising out of the stresses and strains in our hearts and arising to overcome them.

This is the rapprochement between theological Christianity and Bhakti Yoga, that conformably with the doctrine of the Living Christ; Bhakti Yoga states that every man, every son of man, is informed by the Son of God; that Christ is an Avatara that is born in every birth, crucified in the pilgrimage of human life, crucified in every life, and resurrected by every Death of man. God waits always in us for all of us that have the quality to reach him; He has need of us as we have of Him; he desires us and desires to make himself known to us. As says the immortal Omar Khayyam:-

My true condition I may thus explain;
In two short verses which the whole contain;
From love to thee I now lay down my life
In hope that thy Love will raise me up again.

Injure not, dishonor not, kill not the God in thee, says Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita VI-30. The suffering Messiah is truly not Jewish in origin; students of comparative religion and of religious origins have traced him up to ancient Babylon; but he was from beyond Ethyopia, Yadava few see him in this Gita verse VI-30.

Let us pause to consider the implications of this teaching; Christians of all ages and times have found that they can come into personal touch with God (Christ); his spirit dwells in them; they are in him and he in them; but they are so lost in the suddenness, in the overwhelmingness of this experience, that they scarcely care to follow its logical implications in the world. Christians, you yourselves have conquered, have become perfectly indifferent, perfectly energetic, perfectly creative, but having united yourselves to the universe or to God, do you care to become acutely conscious that your own fortunate condition is not shared by that which you now are? Christian, the Hindu Bhakta says, “let not difference be made between any one thing and any other thing–confound not the space marks saying they are one, they are many.” Try, Christian, to bring it out.

Commenting on this defect of the Christian theology, G. K. Chesterton says: “Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment, the worst is what these people call the inner light; of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the God within. Any one who knew anybody knows how it would work; that Jones shall worship the God within turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the Sun, Moon, anything rather than the Inner Light, let him worship cats, dogs, crocodiles; the only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light but definitely recognized an outer light fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.”

Having found the Kingdom of God in yourself, find out His Purposes (anta) and works (karma) in the complex harmony of the external life; for each one of us is free to live as he will and the luxury of this Enjoyment is such that he becomes to avoid the disturbance (Himsa) of the equal rights of others; and the true Christian shall, above loving God, love his neighbor as himself; that love (prem) is what we are all tending on to in the onward march of civilization; from casting aside all invidious distinctions in its religious theory between children and believers, we are surely progressing on to the stage when we shall recognize the Divine Discontent, the Battle of Life in every creature, in every man, and thus recognizing, each one does not injure himself at all.

The phenomena of psychical research indicates that there is absolute connection between minds here and now existing in ways over and beyond those accounted for by the senses; though our ordinary normal consciousness are severed from each other and apparently distinct, so that we communicate with each other through speech and writing, we are nevertheless all in connection with each other in subliminal levels; but that is not alone what Bhakti Yoga teaches; it adds that just as God, in mathematical language, is a dimension existing beyond and interpenetrating the dimension of what is behind and beyond Thought and Mind, aye, even beyond Time and Space, we in the profoundest depths of being are a Divine Company with God as the Divine Captain; and we are as if the coming of God into the consciousness (Bodha) of Man; bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us into fellowship with a multiplitude of people.

God truly loves his followers as a great captain loves his men, who are foolish, so helpless in themselves, so confiding and yet whose faith alone makes him possible. God’s love is Dharma, an austere love; the spirit of God will not hesitate to send us to torment, poverty, and bodily death; in thought no less than in action we must be ready for the great Adventure called Life, ready to set forth into the unknown, each one for himself in reliance on the spirit of God! yudhyasva vigata jvarah, Gita III.30 ***