Relate Yourself Suitably to God
Set up some relationship with God. Imagine Him to be your master, yourself His willing slave; make Him your mother, be yourself the child; He the father, you the son; He the husband, yourself the dutiful wife; He the wire-puller, yourself the obedient puppet. When a child is adopted, do we not give him our parental love? A youth and a young girl marry and give each other conjugal duty, and love between them grows. Love begets love. So relate yourself to Him as you feel, as you please, and facilitate attachment for Him. Hanumanta took Rama for his master, and established Him in his heart. Guha had similar feelings. Ravana as an enemy, Bharata as a brother, Seeta as her husband, Bibheeshana as an ally, all these filled their heart with Him in one capacity or other.
Take Maruti for your model. Think it a sacrilege to live in a town or village that has no temple dedicated to Maruti; or at least have a Maruti idol at home. Sanctify your home with some upasana practices; let it be as holy as a temple. All food and drink you imbibe should be looked upon as a divine gift; never think otherwise, and never forget God, the giver. As His gift, we should have no special regard to taste. The main thing is to remember God in every act and in everything; whether it is eating, drinking, singing, playing, or walking. However, it is difficult to keep aware of God in singing, because the tune and the time-beats demand a lot of pointed attention. In any case, the singing should be so genuinely expressive of emotion that it should call forth tears even from God.
Rama never fails to provide enough to fill the needs of His people; conversely, we should learn to make do with what He provides. We think very earnestly of Him when there is a difficulty or calamity; we should have the same degree of earnestness at all times. Our faith in Him should be complete, then He takes over all anxiety for us.
The crux of upasana is to feel an earnest need for God. The individual soul is essentially the same as the Cosmic Soul, like a droplet of sea-water and the ocean. To recognize this, to unite with that Cosmic Soul, is the objective of the spiritual quest.
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