Shree Swaminarayan Temple, Itasca

Jay Shree Swaminarayan

How to worship God ?

Chapter-23

In Samvant 1876, On the fifth day of the first fortnight of month of Paush, Shriji Maharaj was seated in the verandah facing east on a cot in the Durbar of Shri Dada Khachar at Gadhada. He had put on a white turban on his head and a white upper cloth and white trousers. A deep saffron coloured rich garment made of silk was wrapped about his waist. Paramhams and the devotees from the different places were seated before him.

Then Shriji Maharaj, with a deep compassion, began the spiritual dialouge with the Paramhams and said, "The Vasudev Mahatmya is highly enlightening in as much as it contains the ways and the methods that a devotee should adopt for engaging himself in devotion of God. There are two types of such devotees, one who has known here God in the human form but has not been able to shed the ego of his meterial self even though he is attached to God with devotional fervour. The other devotee believe his self which is Atma as separate from the three states of the body, namely, waking, dream and deepsleepstate, and also from the three bodies, namely gross, subtle and causal body. Believing his self to be Atma only which is fully independent of these attachments and worships God visualising him as seated within his Atma. Gradually he realises his Atma as extremely luminous, separate from the body and form the three states of his body. Within this Atma he sees the divine image of the God which he has seen before him in human form. A devotee, so long as he is not so enlightened, is likly to face obstacles. Shivji was lost in seductive charms of Mohini and Brahma of Saraswati his daughter. Narad burst into a desire to marry as he was drawn by such allurement. Indnra and Chandra as they lacked such spiritual states invited scandalous blots. Therefore, a man may have devotional fervour, but if he has not attained the Brahmic state, he would doubt the identity of God in human form. King Parikshit did not possess these attributes of the Brahmic state and therefore, immidiately expeirienced a sense of promiscuity. when he heard from Shukdevji the divine Rass Lila of Shri Krishna with the Gopis, where as Shukdevji who was in Brahmic state narrated the Rass Lila of Shri Krishna glorifying his divinity. Therefore a devotee who has attained Brahmic state does realise that, mundane acts can not bind him as he had acheived Brahmic state, then how can they have any impact on God by whose grace he has attained such high spiritual status ? Such a devotee whose mind is so concentrated on God, remains always conscious. His spiritual thoughts then become bifurcated into two, for two functions. One function is to engage the mind with all devotional fervour totally in God and the other function is to examine other spurious thoughts except of God which arise in his mind but are driven out instantly. It also drives out the vicious elements from his mind. By this process, the mind ultimately establishes a total rapport with God, as otherwise it remains attached at times to God and at times remains engaged in mundane activities. Such a devotee can not attain Brahmic Bhav. It is like dropping some water at a place on one day and then on day after or on the third day again and then expect all such water to get collected there. However, if one thin flow of water is allowed to flow continuously, water will accumulate there in great quantity. Similarly, during all the routine activities a devotee should be attached to God unbrokenly which ultimately will Brahmanise him."

Thus Ends Vachanamrit : Gadhada First - 23.

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