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Our wish list defines our God
by
Dr. Mukul Shri Goel
While
asking God for monetary gains, a house, education, or a more healthy
body is not unethical, we may be worshipping only a self-limiting
aspect of the Divine if our mind is fastened to our own desires. As we
create a wish list of finite objects while worshipping, we do not try
to connect to the One Who is Absolute Truth, Consciousness, and
Infinite Bliss but apply for the blessings of a finite potency that can
fulfill our dreams.
In Hindu spirituality, this concept
becomes explicit as certain expressions of divinity have become
culturally associated with specific objects or gains that they can
bestow upon us. While the principal forms of God, including Lord
Krishna and Lord Shiva, are worshipped selflessly by followers as the
manifestations of Brahman (the Absolute Reality), the lesser forms
(demigods) are traditionally remembered only when their followers need
a specific object in life. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna promises
that whenever we desire something due to our ignorance and select a
demigod to achieve it, He fixes our faith on the selected form so that
our wishes may be easily fulfilled (VII: 20-21). Along these lines, the
thousands of demigods in Hindu mythology, all elements of the same
divinity, can also be understood as God’s reciprocation to our own
desires.
As we evolve and learn to connect, our wish list
may expand to include goodness, some knowledge, some truthful fellow
beings to interact with, some love in life, and some desires for
“letting go.” This would mean that we are getting closer to God and are
on our way to meeting Him. Eventually, we may start requesting Him for
realization and deliverance from the universe. But only when we
approach God with an empty wish list, not desiring even liberation, can
we actually sense the original inspirations within us that are a result
of a two-way connection with the Almighty.
Similarly, we can
worship the Divine Energy as the Mother for knowledge, wealth, and
strength. But it is not until we take refuge in Her by transcending the
short-term objectives of life that we worship the personification of
the infinite source of universal energy and power. We need to learn to
transfer the doership of all karma to Her and adore Her just for being
there for us in order to realize that we all are Her favorite kids.
God,
according to Hindu thought, is everywhere -- in you, in me, in all
matter, and yet He is beyond the universe. Accordingly, His
availability to the individual soul is never a constraint. Our aim is
to surrender to God so that we can experience Him within ourselves or
call Him for a visit in person. And when we remember God just to
remember Him, we start surrendering to God. The lack of any material
objective during remembrance indicates that the devotional foundation
of trust, truth, contentment, and an earnest aspiration to meet God has
been made. This is where pure love or Bhakti begins, for the love of
God, to exist in the heart, requires a permanent erasure of all human
inclinations towards scheming, passion, and slackness from the mind. On
the other hand, whether we opt for the "formless" God or a God with
attributes, large amounts of worldly knowledge and information about
the Lord may not be necessary to understand that God pervades us all.
Moving
from duality to the non-dualist school of thought, where the individual
soul and God are not really separate but appear to be separated due to
our own ignorance, our desires remain as the only barrier in our
connecting to our Self -- which is God. Because ignorance-borne selfish
karma, laden with desires, are inept in destroying ignorance and cause
repeated births in the world, any prayer to God solely for the
fulfillment of our own desires does not contribute to our awakening.
Through whichever yoga we choose, the introspective path of knowledge
or the emotional path of pure love, when spirituality purges the
difference between the individual soul and the Divine, ignorance,
desires and the feel of separation -- all leave together.
In spite of the fact that our desires, which are present when we
are spiritual beginners, prevent us from worshipping God in His
entirety, every prayer slowly and steadily helps us build a platform
for our inner rise due to the tiny bits of pure love that are often
unknowingly present in our communications. Even the elementary prayers
that are directed towards an object of the material world may
strengthen our habit of applying for a connection to the Divine. And it
may not be long before we turn to the selfless mode of praying to
activate selfless karma. Once we are in love with God, we are all set;
God remembrance with a feel of surrender can desert all our remaining
passions to connect us to God eternally.
Copyright © 2007 Mukul S. Goel
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