old3bob Posted July 18, 2020 (edited) A fine resource for the Upanishads with commentary well worth study and consideration... https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/ Edited July 18, 2020 by old3bob 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
old3bob Posted August 9, 2020 (edited) quote from Swami Krishnananda "....Over and above all things, what we lack is an ultimate faith in the existence of God. We have faith in God, but it is a child’s faith, faith in a God Who seems to be far away from us, Who may help us or may not help us, Who is physically distant from us, a concept of God which does not leave us even after long study of scriptures such as the Upanishads, the Gita, and so on. We can never believe that God is near us because it is something which the mind cannot contain. The mind is always under the notion that God is a little far off, and that is why we do clandestine activities. We entertain private notions, prejudices, and repellent attitudes in our own hearts due to the feeling that the divine principle ruling the world is a little far away from us. Even when we pray to God, we pray as if He is a little far from us. This is a notion which has been in engendered in our mind from our birth. But to the extent that we regard God as distant, to that extent there will also be delay in the response from God. We pray, and Prahlada also prayed, but the prayer of Prahlada was instantaneously answered on account of his trust in the omnipresence of God. The Vaikuntha, the Kailasa or the Satyaloka where the supreme divinities dwell, to speak in the language of our own theology, is not far away from us if we honestly believe it. If this belief takes possession of us, we will not stretch our hands begging for favours from other people. Vaikuntha and Kailasa are not away from us, and the Narayana of Vaikuntha or the Rudra or the Siva of Kailasa can come to our aid just at this moment because they are nearer to us than our own throat, our own nose and our own eyes. It does not take time for them to manifest themselves. The more clarified is your concept of God, the quicker is the response that you receive from God. If your concept of God is muddled, then there is no proper response. So clarify your intellect, purify your understanding, and then take to the path of yoga. Then you will see that the moment you sit for meditation, the mind will run to God like an arrow towards its target because of the similarity of nature between the mind and the object of your aspiration. But if the mind and the object of your aspiration are made differently in constitution, the one will not attract the other. Just as your mind is connected with your subjectivity, the ultimate Godhead that you are seeking also is a universal subjectivity. If you regard yourself as a subject and God as an object, then it will take a lot of time for God to come near you. You regard yourself as a subject, thinking God is an object; therefore, there is difficulty in contacting God. But God is not an object; He is the subject behind even subjectivity. So to conclude, the evolution of the cosmos is a tendency of the Spirit to gradually absorb externality and objectivity into subjectivity and universality. The outside God becomes the inward God, and then the universal God. The world that is outside us and away from us, of which we are very much afraid, becomes our own friend and becomes inseparable from our own self. Natural forces become our own friends. The world becomes our guide, and the God Whom we are seeking becomes our nearest and dearest possession...." Edited August 9, 2020 by old3bob 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
