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.
