Pundit Shashadhar

The way to realize God is through discrimination, renunciation, and yearning for Him.  What kind of yearning?  One should yearn for God as the cow, with yearning heart, runs after its calf.  Add your tears to your yearning,  And if you can renounce everything through discrimination and dispassion, then you will be able to see God.  That yearning brings about God-intoxication, whether you follow the path of knowledge or the path of devotion.

Pilgrimage becomes futile if it does not enable you to attain love of God.  Love of God is the one essential and necessary thing.  Do you know the meaning of 'kites' and 'vultures'?  There are many people who talk big and who say that they have performed most of the duties enjoined in the scriptures.  But with all that their minds are engrossed in worldliness and deeply preoccupied with money, riches, name, fame, creature comforts, and such things.

A devotee who can call on God while living a householder's life is a hero indeed.  God thinks:  'He who has renounced the world for My sake will surely pray to Me; he must serve Me.  Is there anything very remarkable about it?  People will cry shame on him if he fails to do so.  But he is blessed indeed who prays to Me in the midst of his worldly duties.  He is trying to find Me, overcoming a great obstacle--pushing away, as it were, a huge block of stone weighing a ton.  Such a man is a real hero.

Live in the world like an ant.  The world contains a mixture of truth and untruth, sugar and sand.  Ben an ant and take the sugar.  Again, the world is a mixture of milk and water, the bliss of God-consciousness and the pleasure of sense enjoyment.  Be a swan and drink the milk, leaving the water aside.  Live in the world like a waterfowl.  The water clings to the bird, but the bird shakes it off.  Live in the world like a mudfish.  The fish lives in the mud, but its skin is always bright and shiny.  The world is indeed a mixture of truth and make-believe.  Discard the make-believe and take the truth.

God-Intoxicated State

Some may say about the devotees: 'Day and night these people speak about God.  They are crazy; they have lost their heads.  But how clever we are!  How we enjoy pleasure--money, honour, the senses!' The crow, too, thinks he is a clever bird; but the first thing he does when he wakes up in the early morning is to fill his stomach with nothing but others' filth.  Haven't you noticed how he struts about?  Very clever indeed!
  But like the swan are those who think of God, who pray day and night to get rid of their attachment to worldly thing, who do not enjoy anything except the nectar of the Lotus Feet of the Lord, and to whom worldly pleasures taste bitter.  If you put a mixture of milk and water before the swan, it will leave the water and drink only the milk.  And haven't you noticed the gait of a swan?  It goes straight ahead in one direction. So it is with genuine devotees: they go toward God alone.  They seek nothing else; they enjoy nothing else.

'Woman and gold alone are the world; they alone constitute maya.  Because of them you cannot see or think of God.  After the birth of one or two children, husband and wife should live as brother and sister and talk only of God.  Then the minds of both will be drawn to God, and the wife will be a help to the husband on the path of spirituality.  None can taste divine bliss without giving up his animal feeling.  A devotee should pray to God to help him get rid of this feeling.  It must be a sincere prayer.  God is our Inner Controller; He will certainly listen to our prayer if it is sincere.

If a householder is a genuine devotee, he performs his duties without attachment; he surrenders the fruit of his work to God--his gain or loss, his pleasure or pain--and day and night he prays for devotion and for nothing else.  This is called motiveless work, the performance of duty without attachment.  A sannyasi, too, must do all his work in that spirit of detachment; but he has no worldly duties to attend to, like a householder.

If a householder gives in charity in a spirit of detachment, he is really doing good to himself and not to others.  It is God alone that he serves--God, who dwells in all beings; and when he serves God, he is really doing good to himself and not to others.  If a man thus serves God through all beings, not through men alone but through animals and other living beings as well; if he doesn't seek name and fame, or heaven after death, if he doesn't seek any return from those he serves; if he can carry on his work of service in this spirit--then he performs truly selfless work, work without attachment.  Through such selfless work he does good to himself. This is called karmayoga.  This too is a way to realize God.  But it is very difficult, and not suited to the Kaliyuga.

He who works in such a detached spirit--who is kind and charitable--benefits only himself.  Helping others, doing good to others--this is the work of God alone, who has created for men the sun and moon, father and mother, fruits, flowers, and corn.  The love that you see in parents is God's love.  He has given it to them to preserve His creation.  The compassion that you see in the kindhearted is God's compassion:  He has given it to them to protect the helpless.  Whether you are charitable or not, He will have His work done somehow or other.  Nothing can stop His work.

Pray to God with a longing heart.  He will surely listen to your prayer if it is sincere.  Perhaps he will direct you to holy men with whom you can keep company; and that will help you on your spiritual path.  Perhaps someone will tell you, 'Do this and you will attain God.'

One must have faith in the guru's words.  The guru is none other than Satchidananda.  God hiimself is the guru.  If you only believe his words like a child, you will realize God.  God cannot be realized by a mind that is hypocritical, calculating or argumentative.  One must have faith and sincerity.  Hypocrisy will not do.  To the sincere, God is very near; but He is far, far away from the hypocrite.

One must have for God the yearning of a child.  The child sees nothing but confusion when his mother is away.  You may try to cajole him by putting a sweetmeat in his hand; but he will not be fooled.  He only says 'No, I want to go to my mother.'  One must feel such yearning for God.  Ah, what yearning!  How restless a child feels for his mother.  He to whom the enjoyment of worldly happiness appears tasteless, he who takes no delight in anything of the world--money, name, creature comforts, sense pleasure--becomes sincerely grief-stricken for the vision of the Mother.  And to him alone the Mother comes running, leaving all Her other duties.

Whether a man should be a householder or a monk depends on the will of Rama.  Surrender everything to God and do your duties in the world.  What else can you do?  If the householder becomes a jivan-mukta, then he can easily live in the world if he likes.  A man who has attained Knowledge does not differentiate between 'this place' and 'that place.'  All places are the same to him.  He who thinks of 'that place' also thinks of 'this place.'

How much of the scriptures can you read?  What will you gain by mere reasoning?  Try to realize God before anything else.  Have faith in the guru's words, and work.  If you have no guru, then pray to God with a longing heart.  He will let you know what He is like.

How long must a man continue formal worship?  As long as he has not developed love for God's Lotus Feet, as long as he does not shed tears and his hair does not stand on end when he repeats God's name.

By no means all people are attracted to God.  There are special souls who feel so.  To love God one must be born with good tendencies.  If a man slips from the path of yoga, then he is reborn in a prosperous family and starts again his spiritual practice for the realization of God.  While thinking of God the aspirant may feel a craving for material enjoyment.  It is this craving that makes him slip from the path.  In his next life he will be born with the spiritual tendencies that he failed to translate into action in his present life.  No salvation is possible for a man as long as he has desire, as long as he hankers for worldly things.