The yogi says there is hardly any difference between the terms “God” and “bliss”. It is just like two names, “water” and agua, used for the same entity. The yogi says, “What is God? He is bliss. He is ánanda.” And the functional side of this Supreme Father is, everything cometh from Him and goeth back to that Supreme Entity. And what is that Supreme Entity? It is ánanda.
God is the Generator, He is the Operator, and He is the benevolent Destructor: G-O-D. What is God? As Operator He is the controller also. The operator of a machine must have control over that machine. He must be a controller. And this controller is not only an ordinary mechanic, He is a great Magician, because He creates everything in His mind.
The magician creates so many things in his mind, and the spectators say, “Oh, he is a great magician.” But actually, these spectators are befooled. Their mental attachment goes toward the created objects and not toward the magician. But they should know that those created objects are of temporary nature. The magician is the truth.
So this controller is a great Magician: He is creating every- thing within His mind. And for those created beings, the mental world of this Magician appears to be a physical one.
Suppose you create a candle in your mind and a man in your mind. You know that both the candle and the man are of mental creation, are purely mental, not physical. They are within your mind. But for your mental man, your mental candle is a reality. Similarly, for you this world is a physical reality. But for that Supreme Magician, everything is transitory. So He is a magician and has control over the entire universe.
Now what is God, again? The yogi says, “He who has got occult powers, all the occult powers, all the faculties, is God.” Unless and until one possesses all the occult powers, how can one control the universe? The occult powers are eight in number. He who is the owner of all these occult powers is known as Iishvara in Sanskrit. And why is God called Iishvara? He can see [and do] everything. He can go to any place without the help of any organ.
Another explanation by the yogi regarding who God is: “He who remains unassailed, unaffected, by actions and reactions. He who requires no shelter, He who is the shelter of all, of everything – He is God.” Another explanation by the yogi is that the universe is a collection of so many electrons, protons and positrons, and the Supreme Controller is God.
You have only two eyes, and those eyes can function only where there are light waves in the external world. Where light waves are lacking you cannot see. But He has infinite eyes, and all those eyes are functioning within, because there is nothing without Him. Everything is within Him. In order to see your mental picture, do you depend on external eyes? No.
For you there are two worlds, internal and external. But in His case everything is internal. You are within His mind, and whatever you are seeing, whatever you are doing, whatever you are going to do, everything, is being done within His great mind. There is nothing external. “Oh, my child, oh, my little child, why did you commit such a sin?” You cannot say, “No, Father, I didn’t commit a sin,” because you are in His mind. He sees internally without the help of any eyes, because you are His mental creation, you are within His mind.
He is omnipresent; He is everywhere. The movement of a grain of sand is as important to Him as the movement of an atom bomb, as the movement of a megaton bomb. For Him there is nothing unimportant. You cannot be unimportant for Him. The Father is always with you. And because of His omnipresence there is one advantage and one disadvantage. What is the advantage? The advantage is, the Supreme Father is always with you, you are never alone. You must not be afraid of anybody because He is always waiting to save you. And the disadvantage is – that He is always with you, and therefore it is very difficult for you to do anything unpleasant, anything undesirable. This is the difficulty. The universe is surrounded by Him. Whatever you do, your doing is witnessed by Him. You cannot think secretly.
Máyá is that force which creates the illusion of this physical reality. It is the Operative Principle of God. Now this Máyá, it is insurmountable for an ordinary human being, for a non-sádhaka. A person who is not a spiritual aspirant is to serve Máyá as a slave. This is the case with all animals, with all brutes, and with all people of an animal temperament. Now, what is intuitional practice? What is yogic practice? Its purpose is just to overcome the influence of Máyá. This Operative Principle, the influence of Máyá, is just like a satanic chain, just like a serpentine noose, of afflictions and predicaments. One has to free oneself from this serpentine noose. And this is done through yogic sádhaná. When the yogi comes in close contact with the Supreme Father, the Lord says, “Oh, my child, it is very difficult for a person to overcome the influence of this Máyá. Máyá is insurmountable. But he or she who has taken shelter in Me, who has [ensconced] himself or herself in Me, who has taken shelter on My lap, will surely go beyond the influence of this Máyá.”
Unless and until you have developed implicit faith and sincere love for that Supreme Father, you will not become one with Him, you will be bound by this Máyá. Now, when do people begin to feel that they should love the world? When they free themselves from evil, from egotistic sentiments. But they will say, “They say God is gracious, but I am an unfortunate person, I am not realizing His grace”. There are many persons who talk like this, but you know, my boys, you know, my daughters, there is no partiality in Him. His heavenly shower of grace is for all. He is for every creature. But one feels His grace and another does not. What is the reason? There is a heavenly shower of grace. But suppose that you are holding an umbrella over your head. Will you be drenched by that shower? Oh, no. They who want to enjoy this shower of grace must remove this umbrella of ego over their heads, and they will be drenched by the divine shower. So spiritual aspirants, yogis, must give up all their egotistic sentiments. And in the next moment they will be in the proximity of the Supreme Father.
One is to get Him, to come in contact with the Divine Father, through jiṋána, karma and bhakti. What is jiṋána? Jiṋána is spiritual knowledge, not mundane knowledge. Mundane knowledge is distorted knowledge. It is not knowledge at all. Spiritual knowledge is the real knowledge. But what is spiritual knowledge? One must know what one is, what one’s goal is. This is the spiritual knowledge. Then comes karma. Karma means “action”. But if one knows what one is, what one’s desideratum is, then one will have to move towards one’s goal. One will have to do something practical and move towards one’s goal. This movement, this practical approach, this actional approach, is called karma. And then when, after karma, one comes near to Him, one will be united or unified with Him. This process of unification is devotion, bhakti.
Bhakti yoga can be divided into two broad categories: one is attributional devotion, and the other is non-attributional devotion. In attributional devotion there are three stages. The first one is the stage of static devotion. In static devotion, the devotee says, “O my Lord, I am your devotee. Mr. Y is my enemy. Please destroy Him.” In the case of static devotion, the devotee doesn’t want to be with the Lord. The devotee wants something bad or harsh done to his or her enemy. That is devotion of the worst type. As it was not the person’s longing to become one with the Father, that person never will become united with the Father. And also, the Supreme Father is the Supreme Father of the enemy also. So He may or may not kill that enemy. Static devotion is no devotion.
Then comes mutative devotion. In this case the devotee says to the Lord, “I am your devotee. Please give me money. Please give me name and fame.” A boy wants toys from his mother. If the boy starts crying for his mother, the mother must leave her duties and attend to the child. But if the child just wants the toys, he will never get [the mother]. Here also, the devotee in the example didn’t express the desire to become one with the Father, so he won’t attain salvation. He won’t become a devotee. (Yogii means “one who finally comes into unification with the Supreme Self”.) Also, this person asked for worldly property. Now you know that worldly properties are limited. The number of dollars in the world is very large, but it is not infinite. So the Lord may or may not fulfil such a desire. He has to look after the interests of so many children. He cannot fulfil your unjustified demand. So this mutative devotion is not devotion at all.
Now comes the third kind of devotion – of attributional devotion – called sentient devotion. In this case the person says, “I am your devotee. But, oh, Lord, I am an old man. Give me something concrete. I want salvation. And You know I am disgusted with the world. My digestive organs have become disordered. I can’t eat anything. Please give me peace. Please give me peace.” It is a sentient devotion because here the aspirant, the devotee, does not want anything physical. So it is better than static or mutative devotion. But it is also a very bad type of devotion. It is no devotion, because the person wants salvation from the Supreme Father, but he doesn’t want the Supreme Father. So he is not a yogi. A yogi has to unify himself with the Father. A yogi will not demand any toys from the Father.
Then there comes non-attributional devotion. In non-attributional devotion there are two phases. One is called rágánugá bhakti; the other is called rágátmiká bhakti. In rágánugá devotion, the devotee says, “O my Lord, I love You because in loving You I get pleasure. I want nothing from You. I want to love You because I get pleasure.” It is non-attributional devotion, but it is still not the highest form of devotion.
The highest form of devotion is called rágátmiká. In rágátmiká the devotee says, “O Lord, I love You. I want to love You. And why do I want to love You? Because I want my love to give You pleasure. I love You not to get pleasure but to give You pleasure.” This is the highest form of devotion. And by dint of this type of devotion, rágátmiká devotion, the yogi comes in closest contact with the Supreme Self and becomes one with Him. When the devotee’s love is to give pleasure to the Lord and not to enjoy pleasure for himself or herself, the person’s mind gets subjectivated. That is, the mind gets metamorphosed into the mind of the Lord. And that’s why this rágátmiká devotion is the only devotion. And through this devotion, the yogi gets established in the stance of supreme beatitude. The person and the person’s God become one. It is the only goal of human life – to become one with Him.
When one comes near the Supreme Father, he or she has to address the Father, “O Father, give me shelter on Your blissful lap, on Your graceful lap.” To say this, one has to establish a relationship of implicit faith and sincerest love with the Father. This implicit faith blended with spiritual zeal is called devotion. So knowledge and action are to help you in developing devotion, but your unification with the Supreme Self will be established with the help of devotion only. So where there is action and where there is knowledge but where there is lack of devotion, nothing can be done. So in the life of a spiritual aspirant, in the life of a yogi, nothing can be done if there is want of devotion. So you daughters, you sons, you must remember that you will have to develop devotion, implicit devotion blended with spiritual zeal. And that devotion will help you. Devotion is the only faculty to help you, to establish you in the supreme beatitude.
Now this supreme Puruśa, for the blessed, for the virtuous, He is their Father. He is their supreme shelter. But for those who are not virtuous, those who are sinners, for them is He not the Father? Certainly He is the Father. He is the Father of the sinners also. Otherwise where are the sinners to go? He must give shelter to the sinners also. He knows the past of all His daughters and all His sons. Even then He loves them, doesn’t He? Suppose the Supreme Father says that He is the Father of the virtuous only, not the Father of the sinners – then is He justified in this? Has He got the right to say this? Then the sinners will challenge His authority. They will say, “No, Supreme Father, you have no right to say You are not the Father of the sinners” – because when He is the Father of the universe, then do the sinners live out of the scope of the universe? No. Then the sinners may say, “O Father, if you are not the Supreme, if you are not our Father, in that case please expel us to some place outside the universe.”
The Supreme Father, the Lord of the entire universe, is the Witness of all witnesses. He is the King of all kings.
“If even sinners ideate on me, accept me as their only object of ideation,” sayeth the Lord, “they will be freed from all worldly fetters, all worldly bondages.” Sinners must attain salvation, must be freed from all sins, all bondages of sin, by the Supreme Father. So for the virtuous and also for sinners, the Supreme Father is the only shelter. The Supreme Father is the only object of ideation. What are sinners to do? They are to forget their past, and they are to move ahead on the path of spirituality to attain that supreme stance. To come in direct contact with the Supreme Father, you are to serve the universe as the ideal daughters and sons of the Supreme Father. You needn’t be anxious. You must not have any worries and anxieties about your personal problems. Your problems are to be solved by the Supreme Father. You serve the children of the Supreme Father as the ideal daughters and ideal sons of that Father.
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