In plain words
There is nothing else in this world that is not God. "Do not doubt that He is here and not there." With your own faith, offer your worship. Everywhere divinity itself will appear to you. Divinity is everywhere, in the atom and in the vast. That is why the Gopīs said:
Can we find You, Kṛṣṇa! Can we find You! You are subtler in form than the atom, mightier than the mighty; of the eighty-four lakh living beings You never leave one, they say; from the speck of dust, the blade of grass, the twig, You shine as one undivided form, they say; among the great thieves You are the master thief; can we find You, Kṛṣṇa!
You are a thief among thieves. You are good among the good. You are present as the very quality suited to each thing. Everything is You. For those who have read the Vibhūti Yoga in the Bhagavad Gītā, what the Avatāra of God is, is settled right there. When you think that all forms are He Himself, you may ask, "Are excrement and urine God too?" Certainly they too are forms of God. If there is that faith, if there is the feeling of one Ātma everywhere, God will appear to you even there. But because the feeling of difference, "this is excrement and urine", comes up in you, He is not seen by you there. Differences must not arise. Regard everything as filled with God. That state is a very high level. Until then, though, we must go on worshipping a holy form. What is there in a hundred-rupee note? A hundred-rupee note is nothing but bamboo pulp and grass pulp put together. Has it any power? We give it value only because the government's seal is there. In the same way, a sculptor brings a rock that has no shape and carves its shape. After it has taken a shape, we worship it. A small example. On a hill there is a big rock. When you see it, no wish arises to worship it. A sculptor goes and carves a figure in the likeness of Kṛṣṇa. It takes form as an idol. We take that idol and install it in a temple. But some pieces of stone from the rock fall on the hill itself. Then those pieces say, so the story goes, "We ourselves are the ones in that temple. We pieces came out of the rock. One piece went there and was installed. That piece got a shape. We have no shape. That is the only difference." Worship comes only to the shape. But what has no shape is also divinity.
Nirguṇaṃ, nirañjanaṃ, sanātanaṃ, niketanaṃ, nitya, śuddha, mukta, nirmala svarūpiṇaṃ. What has attributes and what has none: both are divinity. We must develop such broad feelings. Only because we develop narrow feelings does our sādhana slide down day by day. If we want to develop, we must develop this breadth: everything is divinity, there is nothing else in the world that is not divinity. Our own feeling is the cause of everything. If you say God is, He is; if you say He is not, He is not. So only when we believe in divinity do we become people who believe in everything. So faith itself is our worship. Before the wedding, who is the bridegroom, who is the bride? After the wedding, the bond of bride and bridegroom is formed. As long as we have no faith, we do not know who God is and who the jīva is. Once worship is done with faith, the jīva is God and God is the jīva. These differences last only until it comes about. These differences last only until the bond is formed. Once the bond is formed, there is no difference at all. We must make the right effort to develop such non-difference. Everything in the world is divinity. Scientists say there is nothing that is not the atom. Scientists speak of magnetic attraction. But the Vedāntins: "The knower of Brahman becomes Brahman itself." The difference is only in the words; the two are one. This power belongs to everything. All that is in us is atomic energy. The coming together of these atoms is matter. So we must not think of divinity as without shape, as formless. How can you worship what has no form? How can you contemplate it? Until we see, a real shape is needed. Until we point and say, "That one", a finger is needed. Once we have seen, we have no need of the finger. In the same way, until we see the real power, we must keep up idol worship. Once divinity is recognised, the idol is not needed.
Today is Śivarātri. What does Śivarātri mean? It means the auspicious night. What is this auspiciousness? We have lived through so many nights, haven't we. But some nights came as dark nights. Today, though, has come as Śivarātri. That is, the auspicious night.