Sri Maharaja's Pravachan in English- Nov.5

                                                    Sri Rama Samartha

We Must Feel God is Our Maintay

God is the sole, Ultimate Reality. Where we go  astray is in taking prapancha for reality. Just as oiling the hand is necessary before dressing a jack-fruit, oiling in the form of love for God is essential before doing prapancha, undertaking any earthly job. Shree Samartha begins his Dasabodha, giving paramount importance to spiritualism, saying that with it other things may follow. The first wrong step we take is to arrogate doership to ourselves instead of ascribing it to God, to whom it really belongs. We bow to Him at the commencement of the wedding ceremony but forget or overlook Him in pursuing prapancha. The temptation of sense-pleasures can do no harm if we do not surrender ourselves to it.

If we do, after all, have to take somebody's help, why ask somebody who is as much handicapped, limited in authority and resources, as ourselves? So we must seek the aid of God the omnipotent. If we pray to Him for the grant of sense-pleasures, which are basically trifling and transitory, would it not be short-sighted? You know that Duryodhana and Arjuna both approached Lord Krishna for assistance in the impending war. Of the choice offered, Arjuna characteristically chose the lone Lord, while Duryodhana, again characteristically, opted for His vast army. If we ask for some worldly favour, are we not following Duryodhana?

Generally man is oblivious of the ultimate objective, and is guided by considerations of the world's esteem. One can become truly dedicated to God only when one has abandoned hope or expectations about all other things. We do not yearn for God, but we are careful about what the world will think of us; at the same time we complain that others scandalize us! What I say is, let alone the opinion of people; consider what Rama will have to say about you.

The elemental Reality is something imperceptible to the senses; what do we stand to lose if we say everything belongs to it? We do not realize the contentment that this 'hypothesis' will bring us. God is like the mythological tree that grants every desire; we are always weighed down by anxiety because we can think of nothing else. If we always ask for bliss, He will surely grant it.