Identify with the omnipresent and bring
happiness to all
Realizing that Lord is fully
present in all the animate existences in the world, that all are manifestations
of the self-same Lord or that all are one’s own selves, you should offer
worship to or gratify whatever living being come into contact with you, by
bestowing gifts on and treating them with respect with your mind, speech and
body with due regard to their form and external character. While contemplating
any action and performing it you should fully make sure that the action would
not prove harmful to any living being in any way and should also consider
whether or not it will to good not only to you but to others as well.
In proportion as your
conception of ‘self’ is cabined and cramped, your self-interested too is
harmful and impure, nay, conducive to disquietude and suffering in consequence.
Your self-interest, on the other hand, is pure, nay, conducive to your welfare,
peace and happiness in consequence in proportion as your conception of ‘self’
is broad-extensive. He who contemplates and pursues his own individual good
only or at the most the good of his own family—considers his self-interest to
lie in this alone, forgets even his own country, his eye being fixed on his
individual gain, thought of the animate and inanimate creation and humanity at
large being out of the question. Descending to the low level of narrow
self-interest, his devotion to God, love for his country and service of mankind
take the form even of hostility towards God, hostility towards his own country
and persecution of mankind. The so-called ‘devotee of God’, ‘lover of his
country’ and ‘servant of mankind’ of the aforesaid type is really far more
dangerous than an ordinary human being to the society, country and the universe.
For by his conduct imbued with object self-interest he tarnishes the holy name
of God, country and service, degrades them in the estimation of the people and
undermines the ideal
He alone deserves the rank
of a servant of society, lover of his country and devotee of God, whose
conception of ‘self’ emerges from narrow limits and , assuming a wider and
wider ‘self’ comprises the entire living creation can become a true
servant; he alone whose ‘self’ gets
merged in the identity of his country, is a lover of his country and awakens in
him a feeling of oneness with his country, is a lover of his country; and he
alone is devotee of God, whose ‘self’ has got identified with the infinite and
boundless Divinity, the soul of all, and who has thus become one with all, nay,
who ever sees the all-benign Lord in each and every animate and inanimate
being. Growing from more to more in the life of such men, the spirit of
self-abnegation ever continues to step up towards the infinite. In proportion
as the spirit of self-abnegation grows the conception of ‘self’ expands and
‘self-expands and ‘self-interest’ gets sublimated.
He who is given over to
sensuous enjoyment, he who seeks the false gratification of name and form, he
who seeks the reward of every action in terms of material enjoyment can never
practise true self-abnegation. If the spirit of self-abnegation ever manifests
itself in him it will really appear in the form of a means to enjoyment. Pure
self-abnegation will never appear in him and without self-abnegation will never
appear in him and without self-abnegation there can be no true service, no
devotion, and no love.
Thoughts and actions which
aim at one’s own gratification in the form of sensuous enjoyment have not only
no consideration for others’ well-being gratification, but one’s judgement
getting clouded with ignorance and perverted through disregard of others’
interests the base selfishness, gesture and efforts even for inflicting pain on
and harming others also begin to manifest themselves and it is certain that an
act which eventually brings sorrow and harm to others can never ultimately do
good to us. Hence it is incumbent upon a wise man seeking his own gratification
and welfare to widen his connotation of ‘self’ rather keep it combined and to
indulge in such thoughts and actions alone as may ultimately prove conducive to
happiness and welfare of all living beings in the world.
- Omnipresent and Bring Happiness
- Happiness to all