Passage 8

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

Eternal Ānanda, the giver of the highest joy, the form of pure Jñāna

beyond the pairs of opposites, like the sky, the goal that ‘That thou art’ and the like point to; one, eternal, stainless, unmoving, the onlooker of every mind; beyond all states, free of the three guṇas....

God has no qualities of any kind. Nor has He birth or death. Who, after all, is God? “God comes in human form.” So all are embodiments of God! Whoever asks you, you should say, ‘I am God.’ Rāmayya and Lakṣmayya are names your parents gave you, not names you were born with. In truth you have no name at all. All are embodiments of God! That is why, whether one dresses up as Rāma, as Kṛṣṇa or as Śiva, it is always a man who is dressed up. God is in every man as the Ātma. “Ekātmā sarvabhūtāntarātmā.” In all beings there is the one God. Names and forms may appear different to you. But believe that God is one. Whomever you see, bow with the feeling that the Ātma in all is one. Even when you see a beggar, bow to him. In the eye of the body he may be a ‘beggar’, but in the eye of the Ātma he is ‘bigger’!

We must not look on anyone as one who hates us, or as an enemy. What is in all is you, you, you! That is why everyone keeps saying ‘I, I’. You say, “This is my body, my Manas, my Buddhi, my citta.” When you say ‘mine’, the ‘I’ must be something apart, must it not! Who is that ‘I’? That is divinity. It is that divinity we call by so many names. But we use the word ‘I’ out of attachment to the body and out of Ahaṅkāra. When the head of this ‘I’ is cut off, it becomes a cross. That is to say, Jesus taught that Ahaṅkāra must be given up. Keeping only the body in view, we say ‘I, I, I...’ about everything. We say, ‘I am coming’, ‘I am going.’ What comes and what goes is only the body! The ‘I’ is one and the same in all. You must hold firm within you this feeling of the one Ātma.