Chapter 3 - God-consciousness

Well has it been said by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the greatest poet-philosopher America has produced, that “a man is the facade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his actions would make our knees bend.” The eating, drinking, planting, counting man is limited and imperfect, and is what we call the ‘apparent’ man, but the real man is free and all wise, divine, and always happy. The soul in each individual is a centre of that circle whose circumference is nowhere but whose centre is everywhere. That circle is called universal Spirit. It is the source of infinite wisdom, all knowledge, all truth, all science, all philosophy, art, beauty, and love. This unlimited circle of infinite wisdom is the real background of each apparent individual. Not knowing that the eternal river of wisdom is constantly flowing within him, the apparent man seeks here and there, and struggles for a drop of knowledge to satisfy his intellectual thirst like the fool, who standing on the banks of a mighty river, digs a well for water to quench his thirst. We do not know how wise and good we are in reality. It takes a long time to discover that all wisdom and all goodness dwell in each individual soul. We are now seeking wisdom from outside, because we are thinking by mistake that it will come from Outside. The great sages, prophets, and wise men of the past were those who knew the secret of unlocking that door which prevents the outrush of that inexhaustible river of wisdom which is constantly flowing behind each individual ego. When the all-wise Self begins to manifest its higher powers, the apparent man is called an inspired seer of Truth. Then he realizes his divine nature, ceases to live like an animal, and attains to the state of God-consciousness, which is the highest goal of spiritual unfoldment. Then he is truly religious, and reaches the goal of all religions. All religions are like so many attempts of the human mind to rise above the animal plane, to go beyond the senses and to know the reality, and to reach the state of God-consciousness.

In India, from the Vedic period down to the present time, this attainment of spiritual perfection or God-consciousness has been regarded as the highest aspiration, and the loftiest aim of humanity. True religion begins, when the soul of man realizes this God-consciousness, arid not until then. The man who reaches this state does not seek anything from outside of himself. He finds all wisdom within his own soul. Amongst the Hindus, from the most ancient times, the attainment of God-consciousness has been the theme of rich and poor, of kings and beggars, of saints and sinners. It was for this attainment that many kings and princes renounced their thrones and sacrificed their wealth, name, fame, comforts, luxuries—in short, everything that was dearest to them., All the noble qualities which adorn the character of sages and make a man godly in this life, are but the outcome of the attempts for the attainment of God-consciousness. Is there anything more ennobling, more sublime, more divine than the matchless purity of heart, serene childlike simplicity, lofty self-abnegation, and disinterested love for all which are displayed in the character of one who is conscious of his divine nature? No. Such characters are the beacon lights that are ever shedding their guiding rays on our toilsome path and beckoning us onward to the haven of realization. They are the great leaders of humanity, they rule over millions. They are manifestations of God on earth; They are worshipped by the vast majority of mankind as the incarnations of God. They expressed in their lives the ultimate goal of all religions. The ordinary or apparent man is self-deluded and blind to Truth, is imperfect and limited in every way, and has no spiritual character, being ruled only by self-interest. All of us know that we are now living more or less selfish lives and acting under limitations, that we are not exactly what we wish to be. During the calm moments of our lives, we sometimes look at ourselves and feel that our souls, like eagles, are free by nature and able to soar into infinite space, but are now enchained by selfishness and confined in the cages of gross human bodies. At such times we realize our bondage and seek freedom. Longing to fly into the infinite space of eternal bliss, we struggle hard to break our chains, to throw down the barriers which confine us, and to conquer all environments which keep us in bondage.

Each individual soul is born to combat nature and her laws. Our lives consist in the constant effort of the soul to overcome the limitations imposed by them. The forces of nature are trying to drag the soul in one direction, while the inner forces impel the soul to resist and rise superior to them. The soul does not want to follow like a slave. It is struggling to subdue nature and to dominate over her laws. This struggle is the cause of the social as well as of the spiritual progress of humanity. A man who does not know how to fight against nature and how to gain victory over her laws, but who on the other-hand follows her blindly, is an uncivilized man, is a savage, and is on a level with the lower animals. True civilization means the conquest of nature by the human soul. The whole history of humanity teaches this fact. If we study external nature we find that nature tells us: “Obey my laws and commands but we say: “No, why should we? We are thy masters, thou must obey.” Physical nature tells us to go naked and live in caves or forests like the animals, without any cover overhead, but we say: “No, we will have clothes and proper shelter”, and we obtain them. Nature would destroy them, but we protect them by our strength and preserve ourselves from heat and cold and changes of weather by which nature would make existence impossible for us, and in the end we succeed. How do we succeed? By studying nature and her laws, and by utilizing her forces in such a way as to make her obey our commands. We know how tremendously powerful are the forces of nature—electricity, steam, etc., but we handle all these gigantic forces of nature and make them serve us. This victory of man over physical nature is due to those higher powers which are latent in the soul. The powers which overcome naure [nature?] are nothing but the intelligence and will possessed by man. That which conquers is higher than that which is conquered. Therefore physical nature is weaker than the powers of intelligence and will. Similarly, if we study internal nature, we find there also a constant struggle between the higher and the lower mind, between the higher and the lower intelligence, between the higher and the lower will-power, between the spiritual, real, or divine man and the apparent or animal man. The lower mind, lower intelligence, lower will, or the apparent or animal man is that which obeys the physical and sensuous needs of the body, as a slave obeys a master. The higher mind, higher intelligence, higher will, the spiritual, the real, or the divine in man is that which tries to conquer and subdue the lower nature and dominate over it. Of course, we do not find this fight in the lower animals, nor in those who live like them. When this struggle begins we are no longer purely animal, but we are human or moral. To be human or moral, however, is not to be perfectly spiritual. We make a distinction between the moral and spiritual planes. The moral plane is the intermediate stage. The moral man is partly animal and partly spiritual. In a moral man there is a constant struggle between the animal and the spiritual nature. The moral man strives to overcome the animal in him by fighting against it and by constantly watching his mind to prevent the lower or animal nature from spreading its influence over him. A moral man must, as far as possible, strive to avoid temptation, because he is not yet strong enough to overcome its influence. His effort must be to rise to the higher plane, which is beyond temptation. This struggle will only cease when the animal nature is completely conquered, and the moral man has become truly spiritual or divine. When that stage shall have been reached there will be no room for temptations. As long as a man is struggling with the animal nature, he is ethical; but when he has conquered it completely, he is spiritual. The moral man can be tempted by animal attractions, but the truly spiritual man is far above all temptations, and he is beyond the reach of the lower tendencies and animal propensities that trouble the moral man.

In a truly spiritual man all struggle of this sort has ceased forever. Then the true spirit, or the divine nature in man, reigns in its own glory and appears like the self-effulgent sun above the clouds of selfishness and imperfections. The angels, or the personified higher powers of the true Spirit, nay, the whole world bows down before the victorious conqueror and sovereign of nature. That is the state which was attained by Buddha and Christ. The Prince Gautama or Sakya Muni became the Buddha, and Jesus of Nazareth became the Christ when each attained this state of God-consciousness. Whosoever reaches that realization becomes perfect and free from

selfishness and all other imperfections. Man alone can reach such a state of God-consciousness. The lower animals and those who live like them must evolve to the human or moral plane first, before they can even attempt to attain the state of God-consciousness. As the animal nature evolves into the moral or human plane, the power of reaching this state is gradually developed, and the individual ego enters upon the different stages of spiritual unfoldment. When it reaches the ultimate point, it is conscious of its divine nature. That point is the climax of the spiritual development of the apparent ego. It is the state of eternal bliss and perfection.

We cannot think of another state higher than that of God-consciousness, because in this state, the soul communes with Divinity and is united with the infinite source of love, wisdom, and intelligence. The individual soul or the “I” becomes one with the Father in Heaven, or the infinite Spirit. Can you imagine any state higher than the state of the union of the individual soul and the universal Spirit? Thus we see that there are three principal stages through which the apparent ego passes before God-consciousness is attained. First, the animal nature, which must be overcome by human or moral nature; secondly the moral nature, which in its turn must develop into spiritual nature. When a man is on the animal plane, he is extremely selfish bound by desires and is a slave of passions and sense-pleasures which have no restriction of any kind; he has no purity, no moral standard of life or of truthfulness. His highest ideal is the comfort of his body, and he abhors things spiritual, thinking it a loss of time and energy to even hear about his spiritual nature, or to speak of it at all. But when such a man wakes up from this deep sleep of ignorance and self-delusion, either naturally or through the help of a holy Guru or spiritual teacher, he begins to seek the moral life. This is the state of awakening of the soul. It is the stage of a beginner in the path of God-consciousness. Then he tries to live a moral and virtuous life, and begins to examine his own nature, tries to learn his own faults and weaknesses, and having discovered them strives to correct them. This is the state of purification of the soul, and is the second stage of spiritual unfoldment. It is called in Sanskrit Sadhaka, or the neophyte state. A neophyte should struggle hard to conquer his nature, to subdue his passions, and to overcome, by controlling all his habits, the tremendous force which the animal nature exerts. If he does not know how to do this, he should follow the instructions of one who knows, or of one who has realized the state of God-consciousness. He must not forget his ideal in his every-day life, and he must try to be always on his guard against temptation. Especially must he remember that one cannot know the highest truth, unless he is truthful himself. Truth cannot be obtained by falsehood. Truth must be gained by truth. If we are not truthful we are not ready to reach that state. So a neophyte should try to be truthful in every word and action, because just so far as he fails in this will he fail to reach eternal Truth.

Four things are absolutely necessary for the purification of the heart and for conquering the animal nature. First, selfcontrol, which includes the control of senses and the control of mind by the practice of concentration; secondly, truthfulness; thirdly, disinterested love for all; fourthly, unsefish works. In one of the Upanishads we read: “He shall not attain to spiritual perfection who has not ceased to follow wicked ways, who has not subdued his senses, who has not controlled his mind by concentration, and who is not truthful and kind to all.*’ These lines contain the whole of ethics and the essence of all the scriptures of the world. The secret of spiritual progress lies in the practice of these four.

Whether we believe in God or not, whether we have faith in any prophet or not, if we have self-control, concentration, truthfulness and disinterested love for all, then we are on the way to spiritual perfection. On the contrary, if one believes in God or in a creed and does not possess these four, be is no more spiritual than an ordinary man of the world. In fact, his belief is only a verbal one. Wherever these qualities are manifested we should remember that there the spiritual unfoldment of the soul-powers has commenced. During the process of spiritual evolution the powers of self-control, concentration, etc., which are latent in each soul, begin to unfold from within and manifest themselves in the works of every-day life.

This world is a great school, as it were, in which the individual egos are students, and the various stages of spiritual evolution in the soul-life are the different grades. When one course is finished, the ego or apparent man begins upon another. If he wants to study one course or lesson over and over again, there is nothing to prevent him from doing so, He may continue in this one grade for years, nay, for many incarnations, if his desire does not change. But the moment he feels tired of repeatedly studying the same course, no longer finding pleasure in it, he naturally seeks a higher class and takes up new lessons. As long as one course continues to be attractive and absorbing, it satisfies us and we do not feel the necessity of another; but the time is sure to come when the lessons of today will lose their charm and will appear dull, insipid, and monotonous. Then we shall seek something higher, something better and more attractive. This search of the ego for something higher and better than it has yet possessed is the cause of its spiritual evolution.

The majority of mankind are so much captivated by sense-objects that they cannot think of any higher ideal; they have weakened themselves so much that they do not realize the slave-like condition of their minds. Therefore the Gita says: “Few among thousands of such slaves of passions and desires seek freedom, while others take delight in slavery; and few among thousands of such seekers after freedom persevere until the emancipation of the soul and spiritual perfection are attained.” No one can force another to become spiritual by making him swallow, as it were, the pill of spirituality.

Spiritual unfoldment is brought about by the evolution of the inner nature of the apparent man. The desire to know the spirit must arise spontaneously in the human mind, and when that desire shall have grown sufficiently strong, it will force man to discriminate spirit from matter, the eternal from the non-eternal, truth from untruth. This discrimination is the third stage of spiritual unfoldment. True discrimination leads to the fourth stage in the path. It is dispassion, or non-attachment to material and non-eternal things. In this stage, wealth, property, and sense-enjoyments will have no charm, no attraction for the discriminating soul. In this state the whole aim of life will be changed. If the entire world be shaken to its very foundations, it will not affect the soul which has reached this stage.

When this state has been acquired, the neophyte reaches the fifth stage, which is that of enlightenment. In the course of his onward progress he passes through many intermediate stages, where he experiences many wonderful powers and encounters many strange and sometimes alluring things. If he allows his mind to be attracted by any of those powers, then his spiritual progress will be stopped there. Psychic powers, such as the power of reading the thoughts of others, of knowing what is going on at a distance, of foretelling the future, of curing diseases, etc.—all the powers which are latent in every human being come to tempt the student and drag him downward. If ordinary sense-pleasures are so powerfully attractive, how much more so will be the new and strange temptations to which the attainment of higher mental powers exposes him! A seeker for spiritual perfection, however, must carefully conquer those temptations, or his quest will be in vain. He should remember the parable of the woodcutter and the Sage and march onward, without paying attention to anything outside of the ideal he has set before himself, which is the realization of God-consciousness.

A poor woodcutter lived in a village in India near the outskirts of a dense forest. He earned his living and supported his family by selling fire-wood which he collected in the forest. He spent his days in cutting up branches of trees, which, after drying, he made into a bundle. At the close of the day he carried the bundle to the market-place and sold it for a few cents. His whole family depended upon those few cents for their daily living. In this manner the poor man struggled for several years. One day, as he was coming out of the forest bending under the heavy weight of the big bundle of fire-wood on his back, he met a kind-hearted Sage. The Sage, seeing his miserable condition, spoke to him, saying: “Good man, why do you not go onward into the deep recesses of the forest?” The poor woodcutter replied: “Why, sir, I get enough wood here; what would be the use of my going farther into the deep forest?” Again the Sage urged him to go farther into the woods, and thus advising him went away. After his departure, however, the words of the Sage returned to the mind of the woodcutter and began to produce a deep impression. The next day, when he came to the spot where he had seen the Sage, he remembered the words of the holy man and decided to make an experiment, so he went into the denser part of the forest. As he pushed through the tangled undergrowth, wondering what the Sage had meant by his advice, he suddenly smelled the sweet odour of sandalwood, and looking about found himself close to a sandal-tree. He was extremely delighted. He mentally thanked the Sage, and, collecting as much sandalwood as he could carry, brought it to the market-place and sold the bundle for a very high price. That evening he had more money than he could have earned in five years if he had followed his regular work. Next day he went again to the forest, but he remembered the Sage’s advice and said to himself: “The Sage did not tell me anything about sandal-wood; he only told me to move onward.” Thus thinking, the woodcutter left the place where he had found the sandal-tree and went deeper into the forest. At last he came upon a copper mine. He collected as much copper as he could carry, and selling it in the market-place he got plenty of money. Next day, still following the Sage’s advice, he did not stop at the copper mine but moved onward. He came upon a silver mine, and carried away with him quantities of silver, which made him quite rich. But he did not forget the Sage’s advice to move onward. He pushed on and on into the forest, not allowing himself to be diverted by the many remarkable discoveries he made on his way. At last, after passing a gold mine, he came to a mine of diamonds and other precious stones. Feeling sure that this must be what the Sage intended him to reach, he did not seek farther, but took the jewels and ultimately became the wealthiest man in that part of the country. Similar is the case of the man who aspires to spiritual perfection. The advice of all the great Sages to seekers after spiritual wealth is to ‘move onward’ and not to stop after making a little progress, or after possessing some of the psychic powers. Being deluded by desire for name and fame and by ambition of various kinds, many people mistake psychic powers for spiritual gifts and think that if they can cure diseases by mental means, they have attained to spiritual perfection. The number of these self-deluded to spiritual power-mongers is daily increasing in America under various names. If you seek spiritual perfection and God-consciousness, beware of the temptations that these psychic powers offer to the unwary. None of these powers is the sign of true spirituality. Therefore the seeker after spiritual perfection should carefully overcome these obstacles in the path of his spiritual advancement.

Those who are attached to these powers will not attain to God-consciousness while that attachment lasts. They keep man on the psychic plane and delude him in such a way that he often ceases his effort to rise higher. These powers are described by Hindu sages (Yogis) as far greater and more subtle temptations than the grosser ones of a lower plane. We ought to avoid carefully the longing for such powers. Let them come if they will, but do not seek them. They are merely the sign-posts that mark our progress; they are not the highest objects to be attained nor are they of any real value in themselves. It is better to consider them simply as obstacles to be surmounted. They cannot produce any injurious effect on one who does not forget his real goal, but steadfastly pushes on, determined to reach the highest ideal of life, the God-consciousness, constantly keeping this aim before his mind’s eye.

After conquering the temptation of psychic powers, the true seeker after God-consciousness reaches the fifth stage of spiritual unfoldment. His spiritual eye gradually opens, he begins to see glimpses of the higher truth, he knows that the soul is separate from the body, he understands what the subtle body is, whether the soul reincarnates or not and whether the soul existed before his birth;—all such questions are solved in this state of enlightenment. He finds explanations of everything, both physical and mental, and discovers the true relation of the soul to God.

Having attained this enlightenment, the soul rises to a still higher plane of spiritual unfoldment. It is the sixth stage, that of perfect spiritual illumination. Then the goal has been reached, and even in this life, that soul has found eternal bliss in God-consciousness. This is called by various names by different philosophers and sages of different countries. In Sanskrit it is called Samadhi. The Buddhists call it Nirvana, which means the cessation of misery, sorrow, selfishness and all other imperfections, and the attainment of blessedness. It is not a sate of nothingness, as some people believe, but the attainment of perfection. The Christian Mystics of the Middle Ages described it as ecstasy, and modem Christians call it the state of communion with God. The name may vary, but the state itself appears to be the same in every case. This state is the ideal of all religions of the world. Among Christians, Mahomedans, Buddhists, Hindus, and others, the seekers after Truth struggle hard to attain this state of super-conscious realization. Jesus became the Christ after attaining it, and Sakya Muni became the Buddha or the Enlightened. Ramakrishna, the great Sage of the nineteenth century in India, reached that stage and is now worshipped by thousands of people as an incarnation of God upon earth. All the great sages and prophets described this as the highest attainment. In this stage, the river of the higher Self, the Real man, flows with tremendous force into the ocean of Divinity and nothing can resist the course of that current. The soul in each individual is constantly trying to manifest its Divinity or true nature; and its attempts are perfectly fulfilled when the sixth stage is reached. In this state of realization all problems of life and death are solved, all the doubts of the mind cease forever, and all questions are answered. In this state one sees the underlying unity of the whole panorama of phenomena, and the individual soul then transcends all phenomena and their laws. When such a man wakes up from the super-conscious state and comes down to the plane of ordinary consciousness, his whole nature is transformed, he manifests Divinity in every action of his life and sees the same Divinity in sun, moon, stars, in his own Self and everywhere in the universe. He puts on his eyes new glasses, coloured, as it were, with the tinge of the divine Spirit, and wherever he looks, he sees through them manifestation of divinity, and that everything exists in God. Many philosophers have attained to this state. Plotinus, the Neo-Platonist who lived two centuries after Christ, reached it four times in his life. Some people are afraid of losing their individuality. But we can never lose our individuality. Plotinus, after reaching this state, said to his friend Flaccus that in it we realize the Infinite: “You ask how you can know the Infinite? I answered not by reason. It is the office of reason to distinguish and define.

The Infinite cannot be ranked among its objects. You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty superior to reason, by entering into a state in which you are your finite self no longer, in which the divine essence is communicated to you. This is ecstasy. It is the liberation of your mind from its finite anxieties. Like only apprehends the like. When you thus cease to be finite, you become one with the Infinite. In the reduction of your soul to its simplest self, the divine essence, you realize this union, nay this identity.” Porphyrius attained to this super-conscious state when he was sixty-six years old. Dionysius, who lived in the fifth century, called it the state of the mystic union, or when the soul is united with God. The great Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, who lived in the fourteenth century, described the nature of this state of God-consciousness thus: “There must be perfect stillness in the soul before God can whisper His word into it, before the light of God can shine in the Soul and transform the Soul into God. When passions are stilled and all worldly desires silenced, then the word of God can be heard in the Soul.” The idea is that calmness of mind and concentrated attention are needed if we wish to hear the divine word. How can we expect to hear that divine voice within us if our minds are disturbed with sorrows, desires, and anxieties? We will have to make our minds free from these for the time being. In that peaceful state comes revelation, and revelation or inspiration means the disclosure of the higher Spirit within us. When that revelation comes, then we understand the nature of that’Unknown and Unknowable’, as it is called by modem science. Then it becomes known and knowable, not by the finite mind, but by the all-knowing Spirit.

He who has not reached this state of God-consciousness, will stumble hundreds of times before he can grasp its meaning. He will perhaps say: “How is it possible for the created to be one with the Creator?” Or, perhaps he will say: “Can a man who is a sinner by birth ever reach such a state?” Some will say this is the state, of nothingness. Horatio Dresser, Mr. Savage, and some others regard it as a state of unconsciousness. A learned professor once told me that there is no such thing as the super-conscious state. These people cannot be convinced by arguments or words, they need to experience this in their own souls. All great Seers of Truth have said that there is such a state. It is not trance, nor catalepsy, nor is it a state of hypnotic sleep. In that super-conscious state the whole nature is transformed. The man who has reached it no longer lives as he did before; he is illuminated, and his face is radiant with divine glory. His sight changes into spiritual sight. He may have been a dualist before and may have believed that God was outside of the universe, but now he sees God everywhere. Becoming dead to selfishness, he.sees the all-pervading divine will as working in the universe, and he thinks no more of his will as separate from the universal will. He has reached spiritual perfection who, having surrendered his own will to the universal divine will, keeps quiet like a leaf that has fallen from a tree. When the wind blows, the dead leaf is moved and carried from place to place. In like manner, when the truly spiritual man has become dead to selfishness and remains tranquil, the wind of the eternal will of God moves his mind and body. The mind and body of such a man become the instrument and playground of the Almighty will. This is the seventh and final stage of spiritual unfoldment. It is called in Sanskrit Jivanmukti or salvation in this life. The soul has now become a Christ, or a Buddha. Both these words signify the highest spiritual state of God-consciousness and not any particular person.

If it be claimed that such a state is impossible to attain, how then can the claim be made that Jesus the Christ was conscious of his divine nature? He is the foundation upon which the fabric of Christianity has been built, and he showed evidences of super-consciousness or God-consciousness. Some people may despise this state and call such teaching mysticism. If this be a mystical state, then Jesus was a great mystic, because he was conscious of his divine nature, and his religion is founded upon mysticism. If Jesus attained to that God-consciousness, then every individual may do so; he was not an exception, as some people may think. In fact, each one of us is bound to attain to that state. No one will be lost. There are various paths through which that God-consciousness can be gained. If we make God-consciousness the highest ideal of life, keep our minds open to truth, and do not blindly follow any teachings but use our common sense and reason, then sincerity and earnestness guided by proper exercise of reason and earnest search after truth under the directions of a truly spiritual teacher, will assuredly lead us through all these stages to the sate of God-consciousness and spiritual perfection. If you wish to attain to that state in this life and to live like a master on the spiritual plane, and not as a slave of sense-pleasures, you will have first to control the animal nature by the higher nature. The higher nature is already within you. Realize it. Control your lower mind and passions for the time being, then you will be able to live on the spiritual plane as the master over sense-pleasures. If you cannot live such a life, seek the company of those who are their own masters. Through association their life will reflect upon yours. You may say: “Where shall we find such characters?” If it be difficult for you to find such a character, then take an ideal life and follow that ideal and try to become like it. If you have faith in Jesus the Christ, keep that ideal before your mind. Take his life as a model and try to live up to it. Do not listen to anybody’s explanation of your ideal. Throw aside all theology, dogma, superstition and the scheme of salvation formulated by the priests, and try to live as Jesus lived. All explanations will come to you from within. If you cannot do that and still believe in God and in prayer, then worship God and pray to Him for this God-consciousness. Your prayer will be fulfilled. If you do not believe in God or in prayer, and do not care to follow the life of Jesus, your path will be entirely different from that of the believer. Still, do not despair, there are other ways. You do not have to believe in God, or worship Christ. Seek the Truth and try to realize the unchangeable reality of the universe; to discriminate the changeable from the unchangeable, the spiritual from the material. The power of discrimination exists already in your soul. You need not go begging for right knowledge. Open your mental eye and see what is spirit, what is matter; whether spirit is the result of matter, and whether this life is the result of chance or of law. If you cannot discriminate in this way, strive to know who and what you are and what is your relation to the universe. If you think that this is not easy, then do unselfish works, work for work’s sake without thinking of the result. Whenever you work in your every-day life, think that you are paying off your debts, as it were, and not working to gain anything. Do your duty in the best possible way, and do not worry about the results. If this seems to be difficult, then try to love all living creatures as you love yourself. If you think that you cannot do this easily and successfully, then try to concentrate your mind on your higher nature, or take one sacred word or, one holy idea and meditate on that. There are hundreds of ways by which one can attain to God-consciousness and spiritual perfection. There are as many ways to Truth as there are individuals who seek it. This is the peculiarity of the teachings of the Vedanta philosophy—it does not offer a single method only and then condemn all others. It says that each individual must suit himself or herself according to the powers, tedencies, and capacities of the individual ego. That path which is good for one individual may not be so for another. We have to start from where we are now standing. Each one of us is at a certain stage or rung of the ladder of evolution. Such being the fact, each must take the path suited to his nature and follow it sincerely, and must not let his mind be muddled by the opinions of other people. We must use our own reasoning powers and common sense, which is the best sense we have. Then the light of spiritual illumination will gradually dawn upon the horizon of our souls and we shall be able to see things as they are. On the contrary, if we are guided by the opinions of others, we shall not gain much. There are thousands of preachers, philosophers, ministers and priests in the world; each one of them is trying to impress upon the minds of his hearers that his path is the best and the only right one. Now, who shall decide which is right? We cannot decide upon the highest until we attain to the highest, because our decision always depends upon certain standards, which again are subject to change; that which seems to be the highest to-day may not seem so to-morrow. Only that man who has attained to the highest standard of life can say which is the highest and best in reality. All the greatest sages and wise men of the world, however, although they lived at different times and in different countries, are unanimous in declaring that the state of God-consciousness is the highest. Whenever they describe it they are unanimous in their description. The statements of Christ, Buddha and Krishna, of Plotinus, Eckhart, Ramakrishna, etc., are without material differences. They all teach that there is one universal goal for all the seekers after truth, and that that goal is the attainment of God-consciousness. It is the highest ideal of all religions. It makes no difference whether we belong to this sect or that denomination. Spirituality can never be confined within any sect, creed or denomination, nor can it be limited by any organized religion. It depends entirely upon the evolution of the inner nature of the apparent man. The religion which does not teach it, which does not say that God-consciousness is for every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, or nationality is not worthy to be called a religion. Such religions are artificial and consequently useless. Vedanta is not a dry system of speculative philosophy, as some think, but its ideal is to make each individual soul reach the state of spiritual perfection; to bring each soul face to face with eternal Truth.

According to Vedanta, each soul will attain to the state of God-consciousness, sooner or later, by the process of spiritual evolution.

“Even if the greatest sinner, who has sinned for a hundred incarnations, can realize his divine nature for even one half second, he shall be free from all sins, he shall be pure, perfect and godly in this life. Whosoever reaches the state of Samadhi or God-consciousness, becomes one with God.”