Q: With regard to the particular means of thinking of God: are you advocating the traditional forms of cultivating our relationship with God through perceiving the Divine as Mother, Father, Child, Lover or even a Transpersonal Tao?

No. Such an approach is totally egocentric: “I want a Mother, Father, etc.” This is most crassly expressed by the oft-cited statement: I don’t want to be sugar, I want to eat it.” God is not an object of our gratification or delectation.

It is not a matter of what we merely want or like, but what we need. And that is a single thing: knowledge of our Self (jivatman) and the Supreme Self (Paramatman). God is the Self of our Self and can only be approached in that way. These other ways of viewing God do not even begin to do the needful.

I am very aware of this since I wasted time with them before I gained real knowledge of Sanatana Dharma and Yoga. Nevertheless they have their place for those who do not have clear understanding. A person has to start somewhere. That is why Krishna said:

“At the end of many births the wise man takes refuge in me. He knows: All is Vasudeva. How very rare is that great soul. Those whose knowledge has been stolen away by various desires resort to other gods, following various religious practices, impelled thus by their own natures. Whoever wishes to worship whatever form with faith, on him I bestow immovable faith. He who, endowed with this faith, desires to propitiate that form, receives from it his desires because their fulfillment has been decreed by me. But temporary is the fruit for those of small understanding. To the gods go the worshippers of the gods. Those who worship me come unto me: (7:19-23).

Can this be expanded upon by what comes most naturally or arises most organically within each individual given our psychological disposition to find the essence of our lives?

No. That, too, is purely of the ego.

Should we commit to one form or can this evolve as our perception transforms?

Certainly it will change as the seeker changes. But will he attain enlightenment thereby? Playing with dolls does not really prepare a little girl to be a mother. Nor does playing with concepts of God that are imaginary and ultimately unreal prepare us for atmajnana and Brahmajnana.

I am not advocating the ego-based outlook of either “bhakti” or “jnana,” but rather Krishna’s exhortation: Be A Yogi.

“By persevering effort and mastery, the totally purified yogi, perfected through many births, reaches the Supreme Goal. The yogi is superior to ascetics, and considered superior to jnanis and superior to those engaged in Vedic rituals. Therefore be a yogi. Of all the yogis, he who has merged his inner Self in me and honors me, full of faith, I consider him the most devoted to me” (6:45-47).

Not just “Thinking of God”

Adi Shankara wrote that true bhakti is dedication and perseverance in the search for liberation, and that true jnana is the attainment of liberation. Yoga brings both of those about. Sadhana alone reveals the Sat, the Real.

As Sri Ma Sarada Devi said: “After attaining wisdom one sees that gods and deities are all maya” (Precepts For Perfection 672).

Sri Ramana Maharshi said:

“Since the Self is the reality of all the gods, the meditation on the Self which is oneself is the greatest of all meditations. All other meditations are included in this. It is for gaining this that the other meditations are prescribed. So, if this is gained, the others are not necessary.

Knowing one’s Self is knowing God. Without knowing one’s Self that meditates, imagining that there is a deity which is different and meditating on it, is compared by the great ones to the act of measuring with one’s foot one’s own shadow, and to the search for a trivial conch after throwing away a priceless gem that is already in one’s possession” (Collected Works, section 28).

Further Reading:

• Soham Yoga: The Yoga of the Self
• When the Mind and the Self Are One

Q: What are friends? Is it good to have friends?

Books can be written on the subject of friends and friendship, so I will confine myself to the perspective of a seeker for higher consciousness: a sadhaka. Not a religious or philosophical dilettante, but a committed yogi.

A true and worthwhile friend is one whose company is both elevating and strengthening, who also like the sadhaka looks toward eternal matters and values. These we should associate with and value.

Pleasant and enjoyable is not enough

There are very good and warm-hearted people whose friendship is most pleasant and enjoyable, but their minds never turn toward higher things. In time the friendship of such people is seen to be valueless, a waste of time for the serious sadhaka.

I do not mean that he comes to dislike or despise them: he likes and appreciates them, but realizes that association with them has little meaning. Just as an adult lays aside childish pursuits and interests, in the same way the evolving yogi simply lays such associations aside. And often they dissolve of themselves just as childhood friends often fade out of an adult’s life.

In his heart the sadhaka will still feel friendly toward them and even love them, but he has to recognize that their association really has no value. However, if they actively continue contact he does not end it. [Read more…]

Q: What is your opinion of those who preach the gospel of eclecticism?

There are those who because of their past life involvement with various religions need to pick up the threads of those religions and follow them to some extent.

One of my teachers at California State University, Los Angeles, had grown up in Hawaii attending a church that honored four major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism. The pulpit in the church had four panels depicting the founders/symbols of those religions, and the Sunday sermons were based on each of these religions in turn: one per Sunday. She knew a great deal about those religions and considered herself an adherent of them all.

Certainly there are those that just make a kind of mishmash of bits and pieces from religions, but that, too, is their prerogative.

Informed and respectful

One of the things I admire most about the swamis of the Ramakrishna Mission in the West (Vedanta Society) is their very real knowledge of all the major world religions and their genuine respect for all. Of course that just points out that fact that Sanatana Dharma is the only religion in the world that enables its adherents to comprehend all other religions.

Do you find Questions & Answers like this helpful?

Further Reading:

• Seeing the One in All
• Fool’s Gold in Religion
• The Four States of Understanding

Q: Would you address the interaction of karma and bad choices (for example, self defeating, free will choices in life possibly made from a poor sense of self esteem). If they do affect each other, how does one affect the other?

Simplistic statements are usually not very trustworthy, but I believe we can safely consider that our experiences within relative existence from beginning to end are a single thing: Karma. That is, karma is the seed from which the phenomena of our many lives result. Continued existence in relativity is the fruition of karma. That is why karma has to be ended to transcend relative existence and enter into perfect liberation (purna- or kaivalya- moksha).

Solomon expressed it this way: “That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). What is the present is really an extension of the past, and the future is an extension of the present which then will be the past. It is all one in actuality.

As a consequence, when we make a decision it is made from either a clear or cloudy state of mind and that cloudy or clear condition is a result of past thought and action: Karma. And when that decision is carried out in the form of action that makes new karmic force. And so it goes on perpetually. Karma, too, “reincarnates” as further karma. All of relative existence is completely interrelated because even duality is unity.

Further Reading on Karma:

• Caste and Karma
• Yogananda on America’s Good Karma
• Prayer and the Law of Karma

Q: Could you tell me the procedure to perform the standard Deity Puja as it is done in India?

I can tell you something much better than that. I will tell you how Ma Anandamayi told me to do puja.

During a conversation with Ma I asked her if the basic form of doing puja by making offerings with simple mantras was suitable for use in our ashram. To my surprise she told me that there was no need for mantras at all. She was very insistent about this.

She told me that she had long ago instructed the way puja should be done, but after a while all the Anandamayi ashrams (and the individual devotees, apparently) had abandoned that way and taken up the usual puja rituals. When I asked that she tell me the way she preferred worship to be done, she gave me these very simple but wonderful instructions:

Ma’s instruction on puja

• Prepare the offerings and keep them to the side.
• Take the first offering, place it before the deity and bow.
• Close your eyes and imagine the deity present before you in a living form and visualize yourself offering the same thing to the deity. Your mental offering(s) can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Then bow again.
• Put the offering to the side by the deity.
• Place the next offering before the deity, bow, visualize yourself making the offering(s) in the same way, bow and and continue in the same manner with the other offerings.
• After the final bow before the deity you are done.

The real puja, Ma said, is the mental puja, though material offerings are made. Otherwise, without the inner puja, it is not puja at all but just playing with dolls. She was very insistent about this.

[Read more…]