GOD IN EVERYTHING

Right discrimination is of two kinds—analytical and synthetical. The first leads one from the phenomena to the Absolute Brahman, while by the second one knows how the Absolute Brahman appears as the universe.

Even those that have realise the Absolute in Samadhi come down to the lower plane of sense-consciousness, and have just sufficient ego left to hold communion with the Personal God. It is very difficult to raise the voice incessantly to ' Ni' (Si), the highest note of the gamut. Hence the necessity of devotion to Personal God.

To him alone who comes down from Samadhi to the plane of sense-consciousness is left a thin ego like a line (Rekha)—a length without breadth—just sufficient individuality to retain only the spiritual vision (Divya-chakshus). This enables him to see Jiva and JagaU including his own self, as the One manifesting Himself in different forms. This vision of glory comes to the Vijnani who has realised the Nirakara Nirguna Brahman (formless and attributeless Godhead) in Jada or Nirvikalpa Samadhi (ecstasy without objective content), and also the Sakara Saguna Brahman (Godhead with form and attributes) in Chetana or Savikalpa Samadhi, (ecstasy with objective content). You cannot conceive, think of, perceive, God otherwise than as a person, so long as you are a person with an ego of your own; the Unconditioned cannot but manifest Itself to you—both within and without—as a conditioned being, as Personal God. These personal manifestations of the Deity are by no means less real than the body, the mind, and the external world; rather are they infinitely more real than these.

It is a case of involution and evolution. You gc backward to the Supreme Being and your personality becomes lost in that of His—this is Samadhi. Then, with this higher personality, you retrace your steps and come back to the point whence you started, only to see that the universe and your ego, are evolved from the same Supreme Being, and that God, man and Nature are identities, so that if you hold on to one of them you realise the others.

Whose is this Lila (this universe of change., the manifestations of which can be called a play of God), His is that Nitya (the absolute state). And again. He who is in that Nitya state, His is this Lila. It is through the Lila that you must feel your way up to the Nitya. It is again from the Nitya that you must feel your way back to the Lila—now no longer unreal but the manifestation of the Nitya on the sense plane.

As the shell, the pith and the kernel of a fruit are all produced from one parent seed of the tree, so from the one Lord is produced the whole of creation, animate and inanimate, spiritual and material.

The Master used to say : ' I accept everything : the superconscious state, waking state, dream, deep sleep. Brahman, Jiva, the creation—I do accept all these (different states or manifestations of the Being). Otherwise the full weight will suffer diminution; so I accept both the Absolute and the manifestation."

If God alone exists, how has this world come to be, with its diversities and inequalities caused by individual egos ? Referring to this mystery the Master said: " It is His play, His Lila 1 A king has four sons. They are all princes, but when they play, one becomes the minister, another policeman, and so on. A prince, yet playing as a policeman!"