Monday, December 17, 2018

ALL IS BLISS

 ALL IS BLISS

After the Lord created the universe He entered it with the Jiva as Antaryamin and charted the course of the Jivas through uncountable lives and worlds into various species, births and rebirths. He created them after His own image to reflect His own beauty and the Jivas reflect it truly in their Aprakrita bodies. We can never imagine how much care the Lord is bestowing on us. It is from that all-blissful Lord that all beings have sprung. From eternal bliss we came and unto eternal bliss we must return. At some time in the remote past we were thrown out of the heart of the universe, wandered far and wide and collected in birth after birth filth and rubbish in shape of sins. They sit on  us like a heavy load.The Devas praise humankind and pray to be born in their next life as humans on earth in India as the short-lived and perishable human body is the most suitable vessel  for the Atmans who drifted away from God. Only by  Lord’s grace does a Jiva receive such a birth and golden opportunity to serve Him. May we desire in life after life devotion  to  Him with no selfish motive behind it. The Lord is the Master of evolution, the one who feeds the Jiva so that it might grow and attain to higher spiritual life. He is the Guru, forever established in eternal light, no ignorance or darkness comes anywhere near Him. He is infinite Bliss and can set us free from the bondage of Samsar and  from fear. In order to taste His own Rasa *He  created  us Jivas and used them as so many vessels to taste it in all its phases. We belong to Him and He to us. This relationship can never be snapped. He Himself is the Jiva or individual soul in as much as the Great Soul  (Paramatman).

The bliss cannot be expressed in words, it has to be felt and realized through direct self-realization. We are Atman, not the body or mind. This awareness must become so strong that it enters our bloodstream. Lord Krishna said:”All souls are my favorites. I play many games with them till they forget all that is selfish, till they love me for the sake of love alone like you do, o Radha”. The cause of our present misery and lack of happiness lies in that we don’t constantly feeling the Lord’s nearness. Although He is playing His  wonderful game of love in  so many hearts and forms no one can realize or perceive it because our thoughts are not centered around Him, they have not established His presence in us.Outside attachments have rendered us ignorant of our real substance: that we are part and parcel of Him. The Lord has given to everyone the free will to choose between good and evil. He waits till the Jiva turns to Him on his own accord.Once the mind turns inward one begins to feel  He is  constantly near. The nearness-experience is supremely pleasant, it is the highest bliss causing supreme joy. The Lord’s grace is ever showered on us from every side, not a moment passes when we are free from His grace which comes as in a flood.

In His Avatar as Haranath  He came to release the great wave of superdivine  love so that even worst sinners will be saved . Out of spontaneous love He infused love and devotion into our dry hearts in many mysterious ways and gave us the supreme antidote to materialism ‘His Name’. His grace is ever ready to call us His own and to shower benedictions on us. No moment passes when we are free from His benign grace. When He touches our hearts skepticism, doubts, vanish, hearts begin to melt, we surrender unconditionally to Him. He never deserts anybody who sincerely surrenders. His kind eyes are always protecting even though the Bhakta may not look at Him with the same ardour. Whoever depends on His benign grace and  fully surrenders, ever experiences supreme bliss through His grace. True bliss, internal joy  is within us and it is everlasting. The cause of our misery is the lack of knowledge about our true everlasting internal  joy, the want of constantly feeling His nearness.

Lord Haranath said:”I ardently desire to see all creatures in real bliss. I feel inexpressible bliss in suffering for you all. I will give you everything that is good for you without ever being asked by you. All 24 hours in the day I think after all of you, even in dreams I see your faces. It is impossible for me to forget anyone. My happiness lies in your happiness, your joys and sorrows are intermingled with mine.I am always with you. I cannot say how dear you are to me, you are my body and  life, my only
hope and delight. Attracted by your love I lost sight of the dearest object of my life, Krishna. You are my constant companions, in my every incarnation I want your company. You can’t conceive from what stupendous heights I descended for your sake. The price I paid to get you is very, very heavy.You cannot realize how dear and valuable you all  are to me. Our comradeship has been sustained through many existences and will persist through future lives. This is an age of spontaneous love,  I love because this is my nature. I don’t weigh your merits or demerits. If you desire to leave me know that I cannot afford to leave you. You are mine and I am yours. All of you are constantly playing in my heart every  hour day and night. In this Kali Yuga success comes only from Japa. Take only His Name and from it you will get love and devotion. How much is your power that you will reach Him by own effort? Rather call Him to come out and down to you. Now is the time of causeless mercy. If you want to please me take Name.**”

  We mistaken souls are upset, thinking we lost you. What remains if you are lost? Everything is rooted in you, you are present in everything. The Lord is immensely pleased when we depend on Him in every way. We have to make our thoughts, words, deeds entirely sweet and attractive to Him and love Him with all sincerity. Never put  Him out of mind because He is out of sight, contemplate on His diverse sports, then He shall never be able to forget us. Let Him know every thought, good or bad. He ever hears  us from a place of concealment and surely listens to what we tell Him. When we feel and are  always aware that it is the Lord within us who eats, sleeps, thinks, we get rid of the Ego which is separating us from Him. Always try for His happiness, become His instrument, lose all sense of separate personality and be dissolved into Him like camphor in fire. Then the Ego will vanish.  He wants to see how much we yearn for Him, how intense our souls long for Him. The more we desire to get Him the more will He pull the soul like a magnet to Himself. Lord Haranath said:”The mind which constantly thinks of me dissolves into Me.”

One must become a vessel, renounce every thought of deriving pleasure from objects of desire, emptied of the Ego, waiting for the divine call to come when and how it will.When the Lord  is pleased with us what is there that such a man cannot have? The wind of Lord’s grace is always blowing but cannot lift us up as long as we carry our Ego-load and have worldly desires.A Bhakta finds his highest pleasure only in pleasing Him, He lives only for His pleasure, is free from sorrow, smiling, always cheerful, never despondent.Whatever the Lord regards as good for you, whatever He grants, therein lies your good. Remain busy in His service with ever increasing zest and zeal , perform in a spirit of worship whatever duty may come before  you and free yourself from every form of worry. Who  is in this way working for His pleasure serves the world in its true sense for he has no personal interest  in his actions. We have to understand that all works are His, our thoughts and deeds must be regarded as His. When there is love, one does not think of gain or loss. The uppermost thought is only how to gratify the most Beloved . Everything must turn out according to His wishes, the entire life has to conform to His will. Such a devotee has no own will, life, nor any work, He lives only for His pleasure. Such  love dispels all darkness of ignorance, is purely divine and intensely sweet. Unalloyed love is pure, soothing, exceedingly sweet nectar. It completely dispels all darkness of ignorance. We have to give up all ideas of agency to Him who alone acts.


*Rasa: most relishable divine nectar. Rasa made enjoyable is named Prema which is manifested Hladini Shakti
 
*NAME: The  Lord did not only advise us to take His Name but gave us a taste of its sweetness by infusing PREMA.In Name lies the alchemy, it turns Kama into Prema, and it is only Prema He requests from us – nothing else. Prema has two characteristic marks: forgetfulness of the outer world and no longer any caring for the body. When Prema reigns supremely in the heart all distinctions between God and man are effaced.

Ruth Baur

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