Passage 4

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In plain words

This whole world is the form of God! But the fool thinks that all he sees is the world and hopes to see God; he imagines that God is somewhere apart. “Paśyann api ca na paśyati mūḍho.” Though he is seeing God before his very eyes, he wanders about like a madman, hoping still to see God. Truly believe that all those you see are forms of God. All will surely appear to you as forms of God.

That has hands and feet everywhere, eyes, heads and faces everywhere, ears everywhere in the world; It stands enveloping all.

Nothing that is not the form of God is to be found in this world. Going by your shape, you imagine you are human beings, but you too are forms of God!

In the world there is no sorrow at all; all is Ānanda!

What shape does God have? ‘Daivaṃ mānuṣa rūpeṇa.’ God has taken on human shape. All we see is the form of God, all we hear is the voice of God, all we experience is the Ānanda of God. “Ever-blissful, the giver of the highest happiness, the very form of Jñāna alone...” All that is in this world is Ānanda. Sorrow is nowhere to be seen. “Swami! It may not be visible to you, but to us it certainly is,” you may say. Whether to me or to you, all that is seen is Ānanda! But because you turn your feelings from Ānanda towards sorrow, you see sorrow. But I see no sorrow at all. Ānanda... Ānanda... Ānanda... When we ourselves are full of Ānanda, all we see is Ānanda, is it not! You see sorrow only because you look at impermanent things and take them to be eternally true. What we see, what we hear, what leads us, what feeds us: all is divinity. Whoever reviles whomever, it is sin. Whoever honours whomever, it is merit. You think you are reviling someone or other. Not someone or other: you are reviling the very God you worship.