Qualifications Of Divinity🔗

16.1,2,3 Bhagavān Krishna says, 'Fearlessness, purification of the being, cultivation of spiritual knowledge, charity, and being centered on the being, performance of sacrifices, and accumulation of knowledge, austerity, simplicity, non-violence, truthfulness, freedom from anger, renunciation, tranquility, aversion to fault finding, compassion for all living entities, freedom from covetousness, gentleness, modesty, studied determination, vigor, more forgiveness, fortitude, cleanliness, freedom from envy, and from the passion for honor, these transcendental qualities, O Son of Bharata (Arjuna), belong to divine men, endowed with divine nature.'

Krishna lists a number of qualities that take us to a higher plane of consciousness; qualities that make us divine.

Now when we listen to these things with the attitude of 'me', what do we usually do? We start practicing all these virtues. Be clear that if we try to practice all of these qualities, one thing is sure: we will become mad. We will not be able to do anything because we will be fighting with ourselves. We will be controlling our senses to strengthen our ego. When we try to understand these ideas with our ego, with the attitude of 'me', we practice them to strengthen the idea of 'me', to improve ourselves and become better beings. Again and again, masters prove that they are not better beings; they are totally transformed beings. There is a difference between better beings and transformed beings.

The other day I shared the story of the lion and the sheep-lion told by Swami Vivekananda. It is a beautiful story. The sheep-lion does not want to realize that he is a lion. He wants to be a good, strong sheep. He asks the lion to give him a technique for becoming a strong sheep.

Similarly, if we start practicing these qualities listed by Krishna, we may have a stronger ego. That is why so-called tapasvi (ascetics, people performing penances), people who repress themselves, have a strong ego. People who perform penances or repress desires, radiate ego. We clearly see that they do these things to strengthen their ego.

When we are completely blissful and relaxed, austerity happens. I have seen many sanyāsīs (ascetics), especially in India, who blame householders for not being pure, for being sinners. When we force ourselves to do penance, we continuously burn inside; as a side effect we often have doubts about our path and ourselves. This doubt causes us to continuously do something; we then make others guilty about the path that they are following.

We make others feel guilty that they are doing the wrong thing when we feel what we are doing is right. This happens particularly when people come to us and admit their wrongdoings.

Listening to confessions makes a person's ego strong. The listener feels strong. He feels that the people confessing are doing wrong, whereas he is pure. When we do penance out of ego, we want others to feel guilty and we want others to confess to us. We feel strengthened listening to others' mistakes. We feel strong when we address others as sinners.

Swami Vivekananda says that calling man a sinner is the only sin. Penance is supposed to happen naturally out of joy and bliss. Just as a natural thing. Anything done by force is not going to help us or society.

Society teaches us that we are sinners. First of all, this is not true. No enlightened master who has realized the divinity within is capable of saying this. Secondly, who gains anything at all by calling everyone a sinner?

If a religious organization convinces people that they are sinners, that organization can control people. Unless an organization controls people, it cannot survive. There are only two methods that an organization can use to survive and grow - greed and fear. Either it attracts people by instilling greed in them, or makes them afraid by instilling fear.

Religions try both methods. They say that if we do this, we will be rewarded; we earn merit points and when we earn merit points, we go to this place called heaven. In heaven, we will be taken care of. We will not need anything. The picture of heaven painted by some religions is fantastic. All kinds of wine, women and songs will be provided if we do as the religious leaders say.

Some sects sell VIP (Very Important Person) passes that guarantee heaven after death! People pay huge sums of money for these. It is like people booking their final resting places with scenic views! They build superb cemeteries, which will have sea-view sites, hill-view sites, swimming pool-view sites and so on. You can be buried in these vaults and you can enjoy all these views.

You may laugh, but this is true. It happens around us every day. Like monkeys we are made to dance to someone else's tune - through sheer greed. The offer of such a wonderful opportunity after death is powerful because it is a realm of the unknown. The fear of what is going to happen after death, makes you listen to such nonsense.

Religions lay down regulations and commandments that we must not violate. If we violate these commandments, God will punish us and throw us into hell.

Krishna tells us to be without fear and greed. He also says to be without anger. He says to be truthful, simple, meek, gentle, non-violent, and to be without expectations and to renounce. These are qualities of the Divine; these are qualities that you express when you are focused not on your own self but on others. These are qualities that arise from the heart and not from the mind. These are qualities that arise from love and not from desire.

God, the very idea of God, should evoke love, not fear. God in any religion should be portrayed as compassionate. No enlightened master has experienced otherwise or expressed otherwise. The concept of a fearsome God with vengeance is a manmade myth. It is created by man, to set one man against another, to divide, control and conquer.

Man has devised sophisticated methods whereby you can commit sin and still be redeemed. He is told that he has sinned. Now that he is a sinner, he is asked to pay a particular institution to absolve him of his sins.

The cycle is endless. We commit sin, we pay, we are absolved of sin, and then we can go and sin again. So, we feel we cannot go wrong in this life or in any other life, or even if we do not believe in life after death, in whatever state we happen to be after death.

All this is nonsense. There is no hell or heaven. They exist only in our mind. We are conditioned to believe in them because this is the easiest way to control us, through fear and greed. The greatest fear of any religion is that we might start thinking for ourselves. Worse still, they are afraid that we may stop thinking, and drop our mind! Religions fear this because then we will be liberated and no one will be able to control us. We will have become our own master.

The saddest part is that religions say that we are born sinners. I can at least understand it if someone calls an adult a sinner because he is more exposed to the ultimate truths. The very lack of awareness that we are divine, in my opinion, is a sin; that is the original sin. When we got into thinking and started clutching onto our thoughts, we became ignorant. If at all there is an original sin, it is that – the clutching onto our thoughts. Conditioning makes us logical, it makes us sinners. We can accept that. However, what of a newborn infant? By what right can anyone claim that a newborn is a sinner? Especially if they do not believe that there is life after death!

So, do we assume that this sin comes from Nature, Existence or God? Does this mean that God is the Creator of sinful beings? What kind of a God is that? Why are such things promoted? All this is done to control others through fear and greed.

Do we seriously think that God has no other job except to lay down rules and regulations about what we should do and not do? After that, He still has more time, so He watches everybody to see whether they are observing or breaking rules!

God resides in you and me. We know everything that we do. When we do wrong, we know. No one has to tell us. That becomes our sin. The guilt makes our life hell, nothing else.

When we are free and liberated, we are in sheer enjoyment and we are in heaven. Watch a young child. Do we ever see him depressed and unhappy unless tortured by elders? When he is left free, he is really free. Children can be wild and they should be left wild. They explore with no inhibition. They are God-like and always in heaven. Anyone who calls a child a sinner is the biggest sinner.

As we grow, we are conditioned by others and we absorb their values, the society’s value system and beliefs. We stop believing in our own inner being; we lose that inner child, that magical and miraculous child, and we become an adult. We start being led by our nose, by rules and regulations, by concepts of sin and ‘me’.

If instead, we focus on others, on ‘You’, we expand. In fact, the more we focus on our inner awareness, the more we open up to others. We move from the ‘me’ to ‘You.’ As we move inwards, our higher intelligence awakens. Our higher intelligence is nothing but the Divine. That awareness alone makes us God.

Please understand that what we think of as God is not an old bearded man sitting on the clouds, playing on a harp! God is merely that energy of inner and higher intelligence. That same intelligent energy that is within us also drives the entire universe. The energy that powers us is the same energy that powers the sun. There is no difference at all.

As human beings we have the opportunity to expand into this energy, into this higher intelligence. Unfortunately, animals do not have this ability, this consciousness. Humans do. To ignore this gift, this opportunity, this consciousness, is our original sin. The entire meaning of our life is to discover this truth and become divine. That is why, if we die without realizing this truth, we are born again.

We go through this cycle of life and death again and again because we do not recognize who we are. As Buddha says, that is the cause of our suffering. When we realize our own Self, our true divine potential, we realize the meaning of our life, and there is no need to be born again. We become liberated.

Q: Great masters have created different religions. Yet, as you said, these religions move from love and compassion to control through fear and greed. Many of us do not know any route other than religion by which to seek God. What do we do?

This is a thought-provoking question that all of you must think about.

The great masters who founded the major religions were enlightened. They experienced and expressed the Divine. Over time those who followed them turned demonic. That is the truth.

Spirituality is the creation of masters. Spirituality is about our well-being. It is the root of our holistic well-being. This includes material well being, physical, psychological, mental, emotional, as well as relational and spiritual well-being. Spirituality is not just some intangible concept. These great masters never had any concern about their own well-being; they only addressed your well being.

For many years after Buddha's death, based upon his own injunction, there were no idols or pictures representing Buddha. A Bodhi tree represented him. However, about 500 years after his death, followers started making pictures and idols of him. Now, there are thousands of temples dedicated to the master who did not go by the concept of temples. This is despite the fact that Buddhism follows its founder's teachings more closely than most religions.

Once religions become institutionalized, they tend to become commercialized. They need methods to survive. The most basic tool of survival is control through fear and greed.

We can reject organized religion and seek God. We can go to a temple and see God without the need for a priest. Or if we prefer, we can relate to God at home, or wherever we choose. We do not have to submit to the pressures of any institution.

God is always available for help, but we never ask. Jesus says, 'Knock and the door shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be given.' But we never ask, we never knock on the door, and we go on missing immense good that can be ours just through the asking.

I say to you that there is no need to even knock. His door is always open. All we need to do is take that step to enter. That is all.

God is always standing behind us, just like our shadow, but we go on searching for money, power and prestige. We never look at the subtle presence of life that surrounds us. We never look within, where it burns like a flame.

That is why we never look into someone's eyes; we avoid them. There is a subtle contract among human beings all over the world to never look into each other's eyes for more than three seconds. It is strange that this is so in all cultures. Looking into someone's eyes longer than a few seconds is called staring and is considered impolite. It is thought to be uncivilized and rude, unless you are intimate with that person, unless you are in love with that person. However, even when people are in love, they do not look into each other's eyes as windows to the Divine; they look into each other's eyes just for bodily, sexual energies.

Our eyes express everything about us: our body, physiology, psychology, and also our spirituality. Our eyes are our windows: People can look through them to our deepest core.

In our Bhakti Spurana Program, BSP, there is a meditation where two people look into each other's eyes for thirty minutes. Ask those who have been through this experience about what it taught them. They are deeply moved. They look into another person's eyes, in most cases someone they have just met at that program, for a full thirty minutes. They discover themselves during this process. Not only do they learn about the other person, they learn about themselves. The 'me' in the person gradually melts and transforms into 'You.'

BSP is for those who have undergone the first few levels of Life Bliss Programs such as the ASP and NSP. BSP introduces the master, inculcates the understanding of the master and explains the possible relationships with the master. All meditations in the BSP help you drop your mind, your ego. By dropping the mind, we find the master and the Divinity within ourselves.

Look deeply into a flower and you will find God. Look deeply anywhere and you will find God. God simply means the depth of things. Whenever we are in contact with the depth of things, immense energy becomes available to us.

In fact, we start seeking God only when God has already started seeking us. We move towards God only when God has stirred in the deepest core of our being. We are so unaware; that is why we think that it is our desire to seek and know the truth. We are so small that we can't have that great a desire! Understand that. When we are small, our desires are bound to be small.

People seek God only when God starts seeking them, although they think that they are seeking. Only finally, at the highest stage of meditation, do they become aware of the phenomenon that their whole understanding has been foolish. It was God seeking them, and that is why they started seeking God. However, God is always the one who takes the initiative.

It is the same with masters. They seek out disciples. It is not disciples who are in search, but masters who seek out the disciples.