Steps on the path to God

Swami Prakashanand Saraswati explains how to find God

Discourse by Shree Swamiji

There's a question of how to find God. We are all here to listen to this very topic. Those of you here are doing some kind of devotion in your own style. We have to understand systematically what is the right thing to do to find God, and why we should find God. Aren't we happy in the world? 'World' means worldly attraction, worldly attachment, friends, family, people. Nobody wants to leave them, yet no one is fully happy with them either. There are two simultaneous situations: happiness and discontentedness. Both remain simultaneously. We have to find out what is the cause of that.

We feel happiness in the world. No one can deny it. It is your experience. Who experiences it? You. Suppose you found out about some kind of new food. You had to try it. You put it in your mouth. Do you feel good? Yes, very good! Is that the thing that you desire to have always? No. You want a change. Keep on eating that delicious item. "Oh, not too much!" When you ate the first morsel of your favorite food, you felt happy. Who felt happy? Your mind. Then who said, "This is not the only thing I want"? You have two things in your mind. You have something beyond your mind that tells you, "This is not my thing," and your mind says, "No, no! That is my thing." This conflict remains in your life from childhood until your death. You have to stop all this today, right now.

What does 'you' mean? You are two things: your conscious self and your true self. Your conscious self is your mind, senses, and body, all made of maya. The world is made of maya, so they naturally both like each other. But this is not the real you. When a person dies, his body and brain are there. Something went out - his soul, his true self. So your true self is soul. Your soul has been given a mind and body. You are a mixture of two things. Soul is your true Divine identity. Your mind and body are your material identity. Both are together and they remain together forever until God realization. So you receive the message from your mind, "Yes, I like it." But your soul says, "No I don't like it very much." This is the reason for the conflict. Your mind has a nature. It can't decide against itself. This is human nature. You can't say, "I'm foolish," even if you are. You can't accept it. This has to be understood.

Your true self is your Divine self and that desires perfect happiness which is only God, not this world. Your mind likes, desires, covets worldly things which are made of maya. Your true self is your Divine self. Every time you receive a new birth, you receive a new body and a new brain. When we understand this fact, we aspire for God, who is absolute Bliss, absolute love, absolute beauty and absolute Graciousness. This is why we need God's love for receiving full contentment in life, forever.

What happens after God realization? Your body, mind and senses become Divine. Suppose a soul is doing right devotion to find God. At the end of his devotion, at the complete purification of his heart, he realizes God with the Grace of His true Divine Master. What happened? Just instant transformation, nothing else. His soul is already Divine. Just the mind and senses are transformed. There are two things: the mind and brain, and the gross and subtle senses. When you are dreaming, you enjoy with your subtle senses. You see the dream with your subtle sense of sight. So there is gross seeing and subtle seeing, and a gross brain and subtle mind. That devotee's mind and subtle senses are Divinized. Then the mind is Divine, senses are Divine, soul was already Divine. He becomes Divine, a Divine personality. Then whatever he imagines are thinks in the world, he enjoys only the Bliss of God and nothing else and that is perfect. That is what you really desire from inside. From within yourself, you desire that state of perfection, absolute perfection, where there is no chance of any kind of misery. That is called God realization.

So what you really desire from inside is God realization, without question. But your consious mind sometimes confuses itself. It can't confuse your soul. So now we understand that we need God because we desire for God.

The second question is what is the path to God? People follow many kinds of devotions, recitations, chantings, all kinds of things. Are they all correct or not? They may all be correct, but that depends on how are you doing them. Whatever you are doing, could be made right without changing it. Suppose someone reciting some mantra or doing worshipping formalities or left the world and became a sanyasi or is a brahmcharya his whole life. So whatever a person is doing could be made right to fit the path to God. I'll explain this briefly.

Our scriptures say there are three paths to God: karm, gyan, bhakti, because these are related to our natural being. There can't be a fourth path. Karm - we have to perform actions, we can never be actionless. Gyan - we can't sit without thinking. "Oh, who is coming? Who is here? Why didn't he come?" You always keep on thinking. Bhakti means happiness. You always desire this. Action, knowledge and happiness - these are parts of our nature that we can't avoid. Accordingly it is said to do karm yog, gyan yog or bhakti yog, but they all are just ways of telling the path to God. I'll give you the essence of the path.

Think very logically. You go to a shop and you like something. You asked the owner the price. He said it was $500. You paid and got it. It was worth $500. What is the price of God realization? It has no price because it is unlimited. It has an unlimited price. Suppose someone in the world has a huge diamond, bigger than the African Star or Kohinoor. What is the value of that? It is priceless. How will you get it? Snatch it? Steal it? Or will you ask, "Please give it to me"? You can't rob God. It's impossible. There is only one way, "Please, my dear belvoed God, Grace me with your love." That is all you have to do, nothing else. "Oh my beloved God," but when you think of beloved God, a question again comes. Is He impersonal or personal? You can't think of impersonal God. The Upnishads say that impersonal God is achintya, avyapadeshya. It can't be though about. It is formless. It can't be imagined. It has no name. It can't be conceived. Now who will think of that? It is impossible. Those who follow that can't come on this path of "Oh God, please Grace me." They are now out.

When we say "Oh God, please Grace me," then which God? Vishnu, Shiv, Ram Krishn? Yes, they are all correct. They are all forms of God. But among all the forms of God, altough they are forms of one single God, there is no duality between them, but they represent various forms of Divnie Blissfulness. This is an extensive topic and I can't go into detail. In gist you can say that the supreme intimate Blissful love is received from Radha and Krishn. Supreme intimate Divine love. Think of Radha and Krishn. Think of Krishn alone, Radha alone or both Radha and Krishn . Because Krishn is in Radha and Radha is in Krishn and both are together also. Now the prayer becomes, "Oh, my supreme beloved Radha and Krishn, please give me Your Divine love." That is the only thing you have to do. That is the path. There is no other path. This has been said in may ways, prappati by Ramanujacharya, sharanagati by Shankaracharya and in the Gita, pushti byVallabhacharya, raganuga bhakti by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. They are all the same: asking earnestly, wholeheartedly, unquestioningly, with fullconfidence. When you do this 100%, you will be instantly God realized, take it for a fact, instantly.

Goswami has said this beautifully in a half-chaupai: Jasu naam sumirat ik bara, utarahin nar bhav sindhu apara. Ik bar - only once. To make that happen, you have to do something. That doing might take a long time: a few months, few years, a few lifetimes, many lifetimes. It depends on you. This is called bhakti. So, there is only one path to God realization and it is called bhakti. Just ask Him. In Sanskrit, bhakti means bhaj sevayam, to submit yourself unconditionally. Unconditional selfless submission. That has to be 100%. To make it happen 100%, you have to do something that is suited to your nature. Now came back to your self again.

What do you like? You like to eat delicious food. Make nice food and offer it to Radha Krishn and eat it. You like music. No problem, listen to the chanting. Your mind can never stay idle. No problem, think of the leelas of Radha Krishn, their pastimes, how He played with the Gopis, how He loved Mother Yashoda, how His playmates loved and teased him. He has uncountable leelas that suit your nature. You can't sit and do thoughtless contemplation. Impossible. Try it and you will fail. I have seen people doing this kind of meditation f or their whole life. In the end they failed because they couldn't do it. Your mind has a nature of being fickle. Arjun also had this problem. Chanchalum hi manah Krishn... Krishn said, "Arjun, you are perfectly alright." Asanshaya, No doubt about it, the mind is absolutely fickle. It can't be controlled except through abhyasen and vairagya. Abhyas means doing bhakti and vairagyen means thinking, believing that this world is where you live, but it isn't yours forever. This means thinking that worldly entertainments and enjoyments are only physical. They don't relate to your soul. Only God relates to your soul. Only He is truly yours; the world is not yours. Perfecting this idea in your mind is called renunciation. It doesn't mean physically leaving the world.

Suppose you have a friend. For a long time you believed, "He is a very great friend!" Then you discovered your friend wanted to cheat you. Now you become careful with him. When he comes to your house you offer him coffee or tea. You don't say, "You are a cheat!" You follow proper etiquette. You just know on the inside that you have to be careful with that person, that's all. You behave normally. Do the same thing in the world. Don't be fully attached in the world and think this is the only place to find happiness. Think instead it's just a place to live. This is called renunciation. Then keep your mind busy in devotion, thinking of God, Radha Krishn and their leelas. This is the easiest path to follow for any soul. This is the path of devotion, bhakti, divine love consciousness, divine love devotion, karm yog - you can call it whatever you like.

It is a very simple path. You don't have to study big huge books because our scriptures are so extensive, even a few lifetimes is not enough to study all of them. But, they all come to the same conclusion. I'll give you brief glimpse.

A descension of God happened 5000 years ago in the form of Bhagwan Ved Vyas. He produced all the Vedas in four big volumes, 100,000 verses. Then he produced 18 puranas, 18 upapuranas, 36 big volumes. Then all the smritis, all the upasmritis, Mahabarat, hundreds of books. In the end, he introduced Vedant Darshan (Sutra) in codified terms he consolidated the knowledge of God. He thought, "It's not enough. People won't be able to understand it." So then in the end he produced the Bhagwatam. In the Bhagwatam he incorporated the philosophies of all the books. In the Bhagwatam also he concentrated on the 10th canto, which is the main personality of the Bhagwatam. In this, there are 5 chapters called raas panchadhyay, which are referred to as the soul of the Bhagwatam. Think of the the knowledge of those hundreds of scriptures condensed into one scripture, which is found in a concentrated form in the 10th canto, which is found in a concentrated form in five chapters. The essence of those five chapters is the supreme Bliss of Radha and Krishn, also called maharaas. Maharaas is just a term to signify the Bliss of Divine Vrindaban. Maharaas only means to enjoy the close love, the closeness of Radha and Krishn together.

So the path to receiving maharaas bliss is only humble, wholehearted, 100% submission to Radha and Krishn, and earnestly, sincerely, faithfully asking Him to Grace you with that Divine love. That is all. This one sentence is enough to understand what is the path to God. But that has to happen 100%. Now what to do practically? Whatever faith you have in Krishn, 1%, 2%, 10%, with that, start doing devotion. You see, in the world suppose a person is out of a job. He has not much education or capital. He has to survive. He has saved $2000 over many years. He thinks to start a small business. He does this business with anxiety, sincerity and care. It may grow into a big business. I have seen people in India start a small business which later became big after 10 - 15 years. Do the same thing. Whatever love or feeling for Radha Krishn that you have - you all have this to some extent, that is why you have come here. You are here to listen about God, so that means you have some feeling for Radha Krishn. Whatever feeling you have, with that feeling, start increasing it. Practically, what do you have to do? You can do one thing. Every night before you go to sleep. Think of this meeting and whatever I told you about thinking of RK lovingly. "Oh Krishn, please Grace me with your love. Oh Radhey, please give me Your love." With this feeling, go to sleep. How to increase that feeling? Then we have quite a few chanting cassettes introduced by Maharajji for the devotees. Here I must tell you that our path of devotion is very specific. It isn't just the chanting of the Divine name.

I can tell you briefly about my Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj. He is not just an ordinary Saint. He is a descended Divine personality in his absoluteness. When I was in Vrindaban as a sanyasi, I studied some of the scriptures on bhakti darshan about Chaitanya Mahaprabhuji and his leelas. Shortly thereafter I met Shree Maharajji. Whatever I had learned about Mahaprabhuji, I saw everything in Shree Maharajji. That's all I can say. So he has introduced an abundance of devotional material for the devotees, His speeches, chantings, videos. We have plenty of literature. Just listen to one of those chantings of Shree Mahrajji. Just 20 or 30 minutes is enough for a beginner. This is all you have to do. It is the simplest path to God. There is nothing else to do. It will take care of itself. You will begin to experience within a couple of weeks that there is something in your heart that is contenting to you. Increase the time to one hour. Then do it twice a day. In this way, listening to the chanting faithfully, and studying the books for understanding, will put you on the path, and you will experience a true devotional joy in your life. This is the path to God.

2002-2009 © Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat, Barsana Dham . Used with permission.

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