Vanquishing Pride is True Sacrifice
Can we describe the colour of water? God is, likewise, indescribable. His appearance is like what you imagine Him. We see Him according to the magnitudes and proportions of our various passions. The more mitigated one's passions, the nearer one is to the true perception of Him. It is unwise to ask how a single Rama can be perceptible to many at the same time, for He is omnipresent, subtly inherent in all creation.
The Ultimate Reality is neither born nor dies; it exists everywhere, timelessly. Why, then, some may ask, celebrate His birthday? It is like this: some children were rollicking in the hall of the house, unaware that grandpa was at home and in the adjoining room; he just cleared his throat aloud, and that made the boisterous boys aware and silent. So, too, by celebrating a specific day annually as His birthday, we only re-awaken ourselves periodically that God is omnipresent; with this consciousness ever fresh in the mind, we shall indulge our senses and passions with some regulation, not licentiously.
That Universal Reality which even the vedas gave up the attempt to describe, the saints succeeded in attaining, and so brought Him within ken, made Him tangible, by giving Him a certain form, name, habitation. In our state today, we need to pray to such a tangible deity, in order to attain the blissfulness which lies with only the Cosmic Spirit.
Mere erudition leads to pride, and consequently not to God, to whom any sense of separateness is intolerable. In fact, true sacrifice calls for complete annihilation of separateness and the consequent pride. The proper purity of heart will come about by always acting without consideration of self altogether. Thus to shed all idea of a separate, individual self, is the true essence of sacrifice.
Only he who has recognition of his own true self realizes God, by expanding his identity to include the entire creation. Man's real importance, uniqueness, lies in resisting passions. Mere abstract morality is like an orphan, unless founded on the concept of a Supreme Being. Paramartha consists in a morally impeccable conduct, treating everyone with love, helping others, and chanting nama incessantly; and this everyone should sincerely pursue.
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