Really Close to God
SWAMI SADYOJAT SHANKARASHRAM
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Once upon a time, a musk deer went searching for musk. Round and round the forest she went, month after month, unaware that the heady fragrance so desperately sought by her, lay beneath her own belly button. Many times, we humans, too, behave like the musk deer. We search for Self-realisation outside, blissfully unaware that it lies within us, untapped.To experience this bliss, however, the seeker has to put in a different sort of effort with regularity and devotion. One way lies through the world of forms through the path of bhakti where the seeker concentrates on any manifest form of the Ultimate. The more arduous way of knowledge involves seeking the truth as the Unmanifest without any attribute: the saguna upasana and the latter nirguna upasana of no-attributes.
“Of the two, which is superior?“ the Pandava prince Arjuna asks Sri Krishna his divine charioteer, in Chapter 12 of the Bhagwad Gita. Both have the same goal, but the way of noforms is not an easy journey for ordinary mortals, Krishna replies. How do you grasp That which lies beyond all epithets and qualities even as you control your senses?
The best way to get immediate and everlasting peace, Krishna finally tells Arjuna, is through renunciation of the fruit of all action. This means doing your duty with the full faith that the fruit, whatever it may be, is the prasad or blessing gifted by the Divine. One who is thus enlightened relates to the world out of his own fullness and not out of any calculated need to seek anything from anyone.
“Of the two, which is superior?“ the Pandava prince Arjuna asks Sri Krishna his divine charioteer, in Chapter 12 of the Bhagwad Gita. Both have the same goal, but the way of noforms is not an easy journey for ordinary mortals, Krishna replies. How do you grasp That which lies beyond all epithets and qualities even as you control your senses?
The best way to get immediate and everlasting peace, Krishna finally tells Arjuna, is through renunciation of the fruit of all action. This means doing your duty with the full faith that the fruit, whatever it may be, is the prasad or blessing gifted by the Divine. One who is thus enlightened relates to the world out of his own fullness and not out of any calculated need to seek anything from anyone.
