Passage 3

His poems 82

Also in his talks (47)

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In plain words

We must understand that we were not born to enjoy physical pleasures. We must enter into spirituality. One without a spiritual outlook has no right at all to call himself a man. If you forget spirituality, you have as good as betrayed God Himself. God does not wish that all of you should worship Him. He longs for you to offer this world an ideal life. Since you are born as human beings, you must work for the welfare of society. You must do good deeds.

Once Nārada questioned Viṣṇu: ‘Swami, what is the way to attain freedom from birth?’ Then Viṣṇu said, ‘Nārada! You must grasp the truth that I am in all.’ Man is truly the embodiment of God, not merely the embodiment of a body. Because the negative called jīvatva is there, the positive called divinity comes and joins it. If God is to move among all the people of the world and protect the world, He must take on human form itself. Viṣṇu said, ‘Nārada! A part of Me itself shines as the Ātma in all. Wherever people contemplate the Ātma, there I will surely come and abide.’

The indweller is the God of gods

Embodiments of Prema! Recognise the truth that the very Ātma within you is in all. Then divinity will be in your very home, close behind you, right beside you. If you spend all your life in negative feelings, you will never gain the positive called divinity. God is everywhere. So you have no need to hunt about for God. Believe, ‘God is in me too.’ God is not someone with a special form. All of you are embodiments of the Ātma, not embodiments of the body.

The body is made of the five elements; the body must surely fall one day; the indweller, if you weigh it, is free from all ill; for the indweller, death and birth and the marks of the bonds that delusion ties, there are none; if you look at the truth, that indweller is the God of gods; weigh it in your mind: He is the Ātma in form.