meaning of attaining the vision of god

THE MEANING OF ATTAINING THE VISION OF GOD

2012 49Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture

The Meaning of Attaining the Vision of GodSWAMI BHUTESHANANDA

Sri Ramakrishna has said, The goal ofhuman life is to attain God. We toooften use the term bhagavnlbh, thatis to say, attainment of God. It means as ifGod is not available to us; we have to obtainHim. And as a means to achieve that goal wehave to follow the path as shown by thescriptures or the Guru. According to thescriptures, chanting the name and glories ofGod is one of the ways of attaining devotion.The Bhagavata (11.2.40) says,

Evamvratah svapriyanmkirttyytnurgo drutachitta uccaih/Asatyatho roditi routi gya-tyunmdavannrityati lokavhyah//This is to say, he who has taken the vow

of chanting the holy name of God, graduallytakes great delight in doing so. As a result ofthis devotion, his heart melts so much that helaughs and weeps and dances caring littlewhat others would think of him.

Sri Ramakrishna also said that chantingthe name of God and singing His glory isa way of attaining devotionbhakti. Hehas also said, such practice gives usliberation. But the question is: How is itpossible? If some object is far from us, doesit come to my hand if we repeat the name ofthat object? That does not happen. Then howis it that God will come to us when we singHis glory?

The answer is, God is not an externalobject that we can obtain. The question itselfis fallacious because He is ever present in usas He is all-pervading. He is within andwithout right now. Sri Krishna declared inthe GitNatadasti vin yat synmaybhutam carcaram (10.39)There is

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nothing, moving or non-moving, which canexist without Me. Aaitadtmam idamsarvam (Chhndogya 6.9.4;6.10.3)Thattman (Self) is everywhere, in everything.Therefore, if God resides within us, and alsowithout, if He permeates everything and isomnipresent, how the question of obtainingHim can arise? Obtaining something makessense when we do not have that object, whenwe are far away from that something wewant. So when we talk now and thencasually about the attainment of God, we donot think deeply what we mean to say. Wedo not care to question ourselves what doesattainment of God signify! Everyone of usmust ask this questionwho is attainingwhom? And how? What is God like? Allthese questions are interrelated.

Does God exist in some distant heavencommonly called Svargaloka? Or does Hereside in Goloka, Vaikuntha, Shivaloka orSuraloka? These are far-fetched and toodistant from us. Can our conception aboutsomething which is beyond our reach andexperience be clear and correct? Forinstance, the moon, that we admire from adistance. The poets are enraptured by itsbeauty. Their enthusiasm to describe itsmagnificence is endless, so much so that alovely face is usually compared with themoon. But modern scientists who havelanded on the moon found no such beautythere. They say, our earth is far morebeautiful than the moon which has neitherplants, nor birds, nor any other animals. It isa desert, so to say. But the poets imaginethat nectar drips from the moon. But whereis nectar they talk about? There is not even a

SWAMI BHUTESHANANDA

50 FebruaryBulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture

drop of water. Thus you see, imagination isone thing and experience is another.Similarly, our knowledge of things based onimagination from a distance remains hazy. Isnot the attainment of God something likethat? A chimerical notion? A will-o-the-wisp? Such doubts not only haunt theatheists, but they also shake the mind of thebelievers from time to time. Therefore it isnecessary to have a clear idea about theattainment of God.

Let us first ask ourselveswhat anIncarnation or Bhagavn (God) is all about?What does these terms imply? Bhaga meansaishvarya or qualities. In the Vishnupurna(6.5.34) it is said,

Aishvarya samagrasya viryasyayashasah shriyah/

jnnavairgyayoschaiva yannm bhagaitingan//

That is, Bhagavn is one who isendowed with the six attributes, namelyinfinite treasures, strength, glory, splendour,knowledge, and renunciation. AchryaRmnujas description of Bhagavn or theGodhead is very beautiful. He describes Himas ashesha kalynagunasampannahnikhilaheyagunavarjitah. That is to say, He,who is the infinite repository of goodness,devoid of the slightest taint of blemish, isverily God. This is mans imagination ofGod. Who will judge such a God? Who canknow that He is God? The devotee. Thedevotee will judge Him. How? Through hisheart which is a mirror; the Infinite pureTruth will be reflected in that mirror. Putsimply, the devotee with the help of his mindand heart will feel Him. Those who havestruggled to feel Him have described Him ininnumerable verses and myriads of otherwritings. We read those descriptions andform our own mental image of the nature ofGod. The concepts thus formed are not veryclear. Not only that, these concepts arechanging constantly. As a result, we find

God is, as it were, evolving in our heartgradually. At present He has not manifestedto us His wholeness, His ever-perfectInfinite nature. He is revealing Himself littleby little. The more our heart will becomepure, the more Gods pure nature will bereflected there. That is to say, God will thenbecome more transparent, more vivid thanHe is now to us. Mind you, God is notchanging, only our ideas of God areundergoing changes.

Swami Vivekananda says, suppose wetake a photograph of the sun from this earthand then take another snap from a spot 1000miles above this planet and then anotherfrom a location still 1000 miles away fromthe second spot, in that case eachphotograph will be different from the rest.There is the sun in all the photographs butno picture is perfect because the power ofthe instrument we have used in limited orfinite. The more we advance towards the sunour impressions of it change. We havepresumed in the beginning that the sun [heremeaning the Truth or God] is unchanging orimmutableaparinmi. So it does notchange. That we are seeing it differently isdue to the fact that the power of our visionor the perspective is changing. Similarly, themore we shall think about God and advancetowards Him, the more our notions of andunderstanding about Him will change.

Thus we find that the image of Godreflected in the mirror of our heart goes onchanging constantly! This is bound tohappen because man conceptualizes Godaccording to his mental faculties. He cannotthink of anything that is Infinite, eternal,Unqualified, Formless because he has neverseen such an object. How will he? His visionis limited. Of course, imagination goes alittle farther, still it has its limitation. God,on the contrary, is not limited. Thereforewhen we say that God is omnipresent,Infinite and so on, that means God



transcends our mind and intellect. Whenmind fails to conceive Him, how intellectand the sense organs will do it? This isimpossible. This is why Swamiji saysdarby vidharttum iva yni yagatvidhtrimlike a baby, with our two tinyhands, we are trying to get hold of theMother of the Universe who Herself holdsthe entire cosmos. However, the babycannot be blamed for his effort, for all thathe has is a pair of hands. Likewise, adevotee tries to conceptualize God andembrace Him who is beyond intellect withthe help of his feeble hands. Such anendeavour is insufficient perhaps, but canwe call it ridiculous?

If this is the situation, how then shall werealize God? In answer to this question thesages say that ones understanding is alwayslimited by the capacity and inclination ofones mind. Man can understand only thatmuch of the truth which is reflected in hisintellect. It is useless to harbour an ambitionthat we will know God, catch Him as He is,or the whole of Him. That is not possiblealso because there is no universally acceptednotion of God. As minds are different, so arethe concepts. Swamiji also said in one of hislectures: we have millions of gods; even thatis not enough. I shall be happy if each one ofus has a god or devat of his own. Devatmeans an ideal of perfection. He is mydevat who represents this ideal fully.

There is one more point to ponder: Howmy attaining God will benefit me? Shall Iget eternal life? The Kathopanishad (1.1.27)says, api sarvam jivitam alpameva.Whatever may be the span of a long life, it isafter all a drop in comparison with eternity.Some of us may live seventy, eighty or atmost 100 years. But after that? The body isbound to perish. If that is so, what is thebenefit of God-realization?

Now, we think and speak in this mannerbecause we believe God-realization will give

us miraculous power. In truth, however, theattainment of God is nothing unnatural orstrange. It is, in fact, a changed state of myown. In other words, when one getstransformed into the best ideal man hasabout God through ceaseless contemplation,that transformed state is called theattainment of God. It is not somethingachieved from the external world. God isalready residing in our heart; yet, due to ourimpurities and narrowness arising from ourdesires and aversions, we fail to feel Hispresence within. These impurities havedefiled the mirror of our heart. The pureform of God will be reflected in the mirroronly when it becomes clean. SriRamakrishna said, pure mind and pureintellect are one and the same. Pure intellectis the higher or finer form of pure mind.When the mind becomes pure, when all theinternal impurities are wiped off, said SriRamakrishna, there will be no distinctionbetween God and myself. Then my I orlower ego will not be there, only He (God)will remain. As God is Infinite, so is ourheart which at present is limited by my punyI. Our scriptures sayYvn eshavahirkshah tvn eva antarkshah.That is to say, the antarksha or the skywithin us is as vast as the sky outside. Butthe I has made me small. It has separatedme from God. It has kept me under thethumb of birth and death. The moment thispuny I will disappear, we shall attain God,ie our true nature. Sri Ramakrishna saystherefore, All troubles cease to exist whenthe unripe ego dies. The Katha Upanishad(2.1.15) declares:

Yathodakam shuddhe shuddhamsiktamtdrik eva bhavati/ Evam munervijnatatm bhavati Gautama //

That is, as pure water poured on purewater becomes one, so also does dissolve theSelf (tman) of the man of knowledge intothe Cosmic Self (Paramtman).

SWAMI BHUTESHANANDA


Why do I feel now that I am separatefrom God, from the Infinite Ocean? BecauseI am just a drop of water covered byimpurities. When my impurities will go Ishall become one with the ocean. When theprocess of our transformation will come toan end, when there will not remain in us theslightest impurity to be given up, when weshall become absolutely pure, then we cansay we have realized God. AchryaShankara in his commentary says,upagamya sanam cintanam. That is,upsan or worship is to go near Him. Inother words, when we worship, we imagineHis true nature and think about Him deeply.By practising such contemplation, the finitejiva (individual) becomes verily infinite andthe unholy becomes holy. Sri Ramakrishnagives the simile of a cockroach and a kumiraworm and says, The cockroach becomesmotionless by constantly meditating on thekumira worm. . . . At last it is transformedinto a kumira. Swamiji also says that onewho thinks all the time about ghost,ultimately becomes a ghost and, he, whothinks about God, becomes God in the longrun. The scriptures therefore saycontemplate Him always, chant His holyname; keep Him always seated in your mind.This is the essence of all kinds of spiritualdisciplines in every religion.

We have to go forward in this manner.No use of calculating what will happen infuture. How can you guess in the beginningof your spiritual journey the last tune of thesymphony? Neither do you know where yourjourney will end, nor those who give youadvice. The shstras have pointed out oneparticular way for each aspirant. First try tosee that path clearly. Then keep going stepby step from where you are standing now.The shstras say, caraivetigo ahead. Ifyou move onward sincerely, at one point youwill discover you need not travel any farther;you have achieved whatever is there to be

achieved; you are fulfilledptakma. Atthat point your journey ends. But what isthat point? Where is it located? The answerisin your tman, your Self. You may callIt God, Personal-God, or whatever youlikeit does not matter.

Indeed, all religions say: See God inyour heart; there you will get Him. There arepeople of course who argue, Is it possiblefor us to do so much? We understand theirpoint, that in one bound we cannot scaleMount Kailas. True. But then, can we notmove a step forward from where we arenow? Sri Ramakrishna says, we have to goto the roof. But how do we go there? Wehave to climb the stairs one after another,step by step. Then gradually we reach theroof or God. But how do we go know thatwe are moving closer and closer to God?Bhgavata in a verse (11.2.42) gives theanswer and says,

Bhkti pareshnubhavo virakatiranyatracaiyo trika ekaklah/

Prapadyamnasya yathshnatahsyustushtih pushtih kshudpyonughsam//

The verse says, suppose someone hasbeen starving for two or three days. Becausehe is without food for a long period he has afeeling of suffering, discontent andweakness. Now when he is given foodand he starts eating, what happens? Eachmouthful of food begins to removehis suffering due to lack of food, discontentof mind, and physical weakness. All thesethree happen simultaneously, not just oneafter another.

Likewise, those who surrenderthemselves to God, proportionate to theintensity of this surrender, increases theirattachment to God. All attractions for otherthings except God lessens and their faith andunderstanding of God deepen. This we mustbear in mind. Often we shed tears in thename of God. But if tears do not purify ourmind, heart and actions, if they do not



transform our character, then they areuseless. In that case, we may well create aPacific Ocean out of the secretions of ourlachrymal ducts, but we do not change forthe better. We stay where we are.

We usually judge others. That wont do.We have to judge ourselves. When we willfind that we are shedding as much tears asfor other worldly objects, it is to beunderstood that our tears for God are notgenuine. A genuine love of God willdefinitely reduce our attachment to materialthings. In the language of Sri Ramakrishna,the more you move towards the East, themore you distance yourself from the West.The more we will approach God, the moreour lower instincts will become less and lesspowerful and our mind will become pureproportionately. No impure thought will thenarise in mind. The person who has attainedsuch a state will be a blessing to allmankind; no action of his can harm anyone.We imagine God as an embodiment ofextraordinary qualities. As a result of lovingand contemplating Him in that manner wewill develop and manifest slowly thosequalities. This is called God-realization.

Someone brought a picture to Swamijiand asked: Swamiji, please tell me whetherhe is an avatra or not? Swamiji smiled alittle and replied: My son, eat properly. Youare ill-nourishedyour brain has dried up.Do I have to see the photograph and declareif he is an avatra?

Then, you may ask, how do we knowthat someone is an avatra? The answer is,we must look at his character, his life. Themeasuring-tape is his immaculate purity. Wemust see how many souls have beenbenefited by his life. These are the things tobe considered. But, Sri Ramakrishna says,you wont do that, you will only call meavatra, avatra as if to jack me up!Mocking at such people, he saysWhat dothey understand about an avatra? One of

them acts on stage, while another is a doctor.Sri Ramakrishna was not at all happy whenhe was called an avatra by some suchpersons. He says, first cleanse the mirror ofyour heart. Then, when the mirror willreflect the ideal in its wholeness, call thatGod and when that ideal manifests in aperson, call him an avatra.

We call Sri Ramakrishna an avatra.Why? Is it because he had a beard? Or,because he thinned down due to disease andbore great suffering? If we look at him fromour mundane viewpoint, we find that he wasborn, suffered from diseases andbereavements and then died. We may ask: Ifan avatra had to suffer so much, what sortof help we can get from him? By meditatingon such an avatra, can we get rid of disease,old age, pain and death?

No, we cannot. And the reason is wehave absolutely no idea of an avatra.Holding some misconstrued notion wequarrel and ask if your God is true or mine.We ask: Who is greatKli or Krishna?This we do because neither do weunderstand Krishna, nor Kli. We only fightabout imaginary ideas. Each worshippercalls his Deity Parameshvara. Paramameans the best. So Parameshvara cannot bemore than one. Therefore the implication is,when I call my Deity Parameshvara, itmeans my Deity is the perfect embodimentof my concept. The other person is alsosaying the same thing with regard to theDeity he worships. The mirrors are different.But the essence of the image reflected invarious mirrors is one and non-different. AsI said before, pictures of the sun taken fromdifferent locations look somewhat different,but the essence, the sun is one and the same.Similarly, we view one and the sameParameshvara differently depending on ourideas and traditions. This is not to beblamed. It is quite natural.

So long as I try to conceptualize my

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ideal it remains just an imagination. Butslowly when I get transformed into thatideal, no more does it remain animagination, it becomes a reality then, thegreatest reality that will never change. Thus,you see, if the imagination is pure, it helpsus to reach our supreme goal. This is thevalue of imagination. However much lowlyand degraded we may be, each one of us hasan imagination, an ideal. As that ideal keepson getting increasingly purified, the idealitself gets transformed, and I too changeaccordingly. In the Bhgavata we find theGopis are searching for Krishna in theforest. At one point some Gopi said,Friends, here I smell the fragrance ofKrishnas body. Krishna gandha or thesmell of Krishna means Gods presence isbeing felt here. Not just groping in the dark!One feels and enjoys the presence of theDivine. Perhaps the feeling is somewhatvague, yet that power of feeling will inspireus, lead us Godward. If I hold on to my goaland move ahead with firmness anddetermination, then however impure I maybe, however immature my ideas are,gradually they are bound to be perfect and Ishall realize my highest ideal.

Sri Ramakrishna says, different opinionsand paths will meet ultimately at one point,ie all will reach the same destination. Thisdeclaration irks many who ask, Has SriRamakrishna examined all opinions? Has hetraversed all paths? To such persons we puta counter-question. Do we need to press allthe grains in the pot to see if the rice isboiled perfectly? No, we do not do that.What we do is to draw a general conclusionbased on the realizations of differentpersons. Is such a conclusion to be scoffedat? Sri Ramakrishna, by virtue of his ownrealizations, shows that the more we purifyour mind, the more it becomes capable ofintuiting the Purest Substance. Science alsosays the same thing. When a scientist carries

on his research, he remains alert so that it isnot retarded by his personal inclinations.Our scriptures similarly tell us that when wethink of God we should do it without beingswayed by love or hatred, attachment oraversion. If we can free our mind ofattachment and aversion the mind willbecome pure and transparent and that puremind will catch the reflection of God. JesusChrist has said at one place that so long aswe do not become as pure as God we cannotget His vision. It is very much true. We shallsee God only when we attain God-likepurity. Sri Ramakrishna has demonstratedthe truth of this statement socomprehensively through his countlessexperiences that if we think about his life wetoo can understand it easily. Of course, it isnot that everyone will reflect on such thingsor can do it. Still one should try as far aspossible and, when even that much is notdone, it is the responsibility of thoughtfulpersons to guide them so that none getsconfused, fazed or disorientated.

When we shall worship SriRamakrishna, we should think about hisholiness, purity, dispassion, renunciation andabsorption in God. These are the qualities tobe reflected upon. These form the essentialnature of Sri Ramakrishnas being.Therefore, the more we discuss his character,the more pure our understanding of himwould be and we will understand the path weought to follow. But suppose we chant hisname and at the same time live as we please,what will be the result? It would be plainlyself-deception as a result of which we cannotmove towards the goal. Therefore we have tobe careful. We must try to understand him asfar as our intellect permits. Sri Ramakrishnahimself said, How can you love someone ifyou know nothing about him?

Swami Vivekananda has described SriRamakrishna as purity and compassionincarnate. We too have to contemplate and



visualize him that way. With suchcontemplation will grow in us dispassion,compassion and a sense of oneness with allbeings. When this happens we willunderstand that we are advancing towardsGod. Singing the glories of the Lord andsome such practices have this end in view.But we must bear in mind while doing suchchanting and singing that the name and theperson whose name we chant are one and thesame; God and His name are inseparable. Forthis reason we must watch if our heart isgetting purer every time we chant His name.Sri Ramakrishna says, there are persons whotake the name of God, yet at the same time

* This article is from Sri Ramakrishna Bhavadarsha in Bengali by Srimat Swami BhuteshanandajiMaharaj, the 12th President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, published byUdbodhan Karyalaya (1992). The article has been translated by Swaraj Mazumdar.

call themselves sinners! We also take thename of God and say We are sinners. Itshows that the manner in which we chant thename of God cannot purify our heart. Thenwhat else is there we can do to sanctify ourheart? The answer is, when we take the nameof God, we should think about His realnature as far as possible. Then, as a result ofsuch ceaseless contemplation, some day thecockroach would turn into a weevil(kumure worm), as said Sri Ramakrishna.We must remember that when we getabsorbed in His thought, this I of ours willdisappear totally. Let that auspicious momentdawn in our life. This is my only prayer.

S wami Vivekananda often said that these visions, experiences etc., indicated howfar the aspirant had gone forward towards the goal; he called them the milestoneson the way to progress. Therefore let not the reader think that when there is a littleintensity of a particular spiritual mood or when one experiences the vision of the forms ofone or two deities through meditation, spiritual realization has reached its culmination. Inthat case he will fall into a great error. Falling into this kind of error in the religious world,aspirants miss the goal; they get bogged in a single idea or mood and are filled with hatredand animosity towards others. . . .

Again taking such visions to be the whole of religion, many come to the wrongconclusion that any one who has not had such experiences is not at all spiritual.Spirituality and aimless miracle-mongering seem to them to be the same thing. But thiskind of hankering after miracles does not make man spiritual; on the contrary it makes himweaker daily in all respects. That which does not lead to steadfastness and strength ofcharacter, that which does not enable man to take his stand on the rock of purity and truthin defiance of the whole world, or that which entangles him more and more in variouskinds of desires instead of setting him free from them,is outside the realm of spirituality.If extraordinary visions have not produced such results in your life and nevertheless youare having those visions, know that you are still outside the realm of spirituality, and thatthe visions are due to a diseased brain and so are of no value. If, on the other hand, insteadof having wonderful visions and experiences, you find yourself acquiring strength, knowfor certain that you are on the right path and that you will also have these visions andexperiences at the proper time.

From Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master by Swami Saradananda, Vol. I, pp. 402-3.

Milestones on the way to progress

meaning of attaining the vision of god

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