Way To Worship🔗

17.1 Arjuna said: What is the mode of devotion of those who perform spiritual practices with sincerity, but without following the scriptural injunctions, O Krishna? Is it in the mode of goodness, aggression or ignorance?

Arjuna asks a beautiful question.

Arjuna asks: 'Krishna, those who discard the ordinances of the scriptures and perform sacrifices, what is their position? Is it satvic, rajasic or tamasic? What is the state of people who don't follow the instructions of the scriptures, the ancient books, and instead worship according to their own beliefs? Is it rajas, tamas or satva? Are they in a peaceful (satvic) state, restless (rajasic) state or an ignorant (tamasic) state?'

Worship can occur at many levels. Arjuna's question is based upon the three attributes or guṇas. Worship is also dependent on our energy levels. Many people are comfortable worshipping at the physical level, the gross level, through techniques such as pūjā, going to temples to worship the deities, bathing in holy rivers, etc. From an energy point of view, these are linked to the earth energy and the water energy.

At another level of energy, one may perform fire sacrifices such as yajña or homa. These are related to the fire energy. Typically the energy of the fire is transferred to water pots that are placed around the sacrificial fireplace. This water, which is energized by the ritual, is then poured over idols, or sprinkled over people or upon the earth to energize them.

The energy of air can be accessed through breathing techniques such as prāṇāyāma or chanting of verses. In the first nine verses of Shiva Sutra, Lord Shiva explains about these types of techniques to Devi, His disciple.

It is possible to access the etheric energy through meditation, though this requires understanding and awareness.

Each form of worship or sacrifice is based upon one's aptitude and inclination. Each of these is guided by scriptural instructions as to how to perform the worship, when and where, etc.

Arjuna asks, 'How important is it to follow these instructions? What happens when one follows one's own inclinations and worships?'

This is an interesting question. A saint in Tamilnadu worshipped Shiva with such intensity that he cut out his eyes and placed them on the Shiva linga. Other masters placed all kinds of material at the altar including raw meat. Ramakrishna placed a thread under the nose of Kali's idol to check whether She was breathing before he offered Her the ritual food!

Many masters have followed their inclination when worshipping their favorite deity. Scriptures never stood in their way of worship. However, these masters were focused on what they were doing. They had śraddha. That is important.

Arjuna's query is in this connection.

Q: Throughout the history of mankind there has been strife based upon one's scriptural understanding and differences in understanding. You say all religions have the same fundamentals. Then why is there always this strife and violence?

All religions had the same fundamentals when they remembered the actual teachings of the founding masters. They have the same fundamentals even today with a few disciples who still vibrate with the energy of the masters' words.

All great masters had just a few disciples. Jesus had twelve. Ramakrishna had twelve and Ramana Maharshi had about the same. Only Buddha had many more. But these disciples sat with Him face-to-face to imbibe and internalize Him. Buddha forbade any kind of worship. He was remembered through the symbol of the Bodhi tree for 500 years following His death. Later, they built temples for Buddha.

Moses met God face-to-face and received the Ten Commandments because of his own experience. Moses had the ability to transmit that experience to a few whom he contacted personally, and these people believed him. Beyond that, the Ten Commandments merely became a rulebook to others. It became another set of manuals.

The Ten Commandments as well as the other rules and regulations that followed Moses were no longer the experience and understanding of people who received them. Masters spoke from their loving being while followers acted from their logical heads.

Religions are the rigid structures built by unloving followers, who thrust their partially understood wisdom upon others using fear and greed as their weapons. The wisdom of the masters must be understood in full. Either it is fully internalized or not understood at all. There is no midway point.

Love is the origin of all teachings of these great masters. Compassion was their sign. Unfortunately, religions lost their ability to love. They say they love. They love whoever accepts their religion. This is not love. This is bigotry.

Love is the original religion. It is the root of all spirituality. All other religions are offshoots. Love is the root; all other religions are like leaves or at the most, small branches. Even the greatest religions like Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism are only big branches. These religions are visible, love is invisible.

We can visually see churches and the temples, and we can read the scriptures. Love has no temple and love has no scripture. It is like the roots hidden underneath: it is underground, yet it is the nourishment. Without it, the whole tree dies. Love goes on creating more and more leaves, more and more foliage, more flowers and more fruits. Love is the original religion. Compassion of the founding masters is pure love.

We cling to the branches when we follow religions. Branches may look attractive but they are not the source. A Buddha, a Jesus or a Krishna, goes to the roots; from there, He experiences His own reality of God. And the only way to experience God is to go to the roots of life, of Existence.

Find the roots. Be more loving and you will enter the invisible temple. A root contains all the trees in this world and a dewdrop contains all the oceans because the dewdrop contains the secret of all waters.

If we understand the dewdrop, we can understand everything in the oceans on earth or on other planets. We can understand water itself. Water cannot be anything else; its chemical composition will be the same no matter where it is. That composition is ingrained in the smallest particle.

Man is an atom of love. He contains God because he contains the composition. The composition of man is not physical, chemical or even psychological. Otherwise we would have understood it easily. The composition of man is spiritual. Nobody can tell us what it is. We must experience it on our own. All other knowledge is transferable: physical, chemical, scientific and psychological. All such knowledge is easily transferable. Only spiritual knowledge is not transferable.

The master can give a few hints, just hints; and these too will be vague. Then we must find our way carefully, cautiously. Love is just a hint, but if we follow love slowly, very slowly, we will be surprised that God becomes more and more of a reality to us. He is no more a thought, no more an idea, but almost something that we can touch. The deeper we go into love, the closer we come to God. The day we dissolve into love we have arrived home.

Love is the secret of all religions. In spite of this, people are lost in logic and theology. Is logic about God? Theology is as far away from religion as anything can be. There can be no logic about God, only love. God is in poetry, music and in dance, not in logic.

God is not an idea and cannot be arrived at through logical processes. He is an interior experience, so deeply interior that we must go there alone, absolutely alone.

Bliss is possible for those who know how to love and trust. It is open to those who know how to surrender, how to be loyal and how to be obedient. Bliss is possible when our heart says 'Yes,' and when 'No' completely disappears from our being. Because 'No' is darkness, whereas 'Yes' is light. 'No' is ego whereas 'Yes' is egolessness.

'No' is the way of the unconscious man. 'Yes' is the way of the awakened one. Renunciation is a discipline of saying 'Yes' totally to all that is, and forgetting the language of 'No'. Then great harmony arises. All conflict disappears. All conflict is because of our saying 'No'. 'No' is fight, war. 'Yes' is love. 'Yes' is deep accord with the totality. Bliss is another name of that accord, that harmony.

One attains bliss if one deserves it, if one is worthy. The way to deserve it is to dissolve, not to Be. To Be is a hindrance. The ego is the root of all misery. When the ego is absent, bliss reaches us from every nook and corner of Existence, as if it were just waiting for the ego to disappear.

Ego is a closed state of consciousness: all windows and doors are closed. We then lead an insulated, encapsulated life. Ego surrounds us like a capsule. Ego is like the egg; there is not even a small window to allow anything to enter. Ego is fearful. It closes itself due to fear and shrinks into itself. This is how we create misery.

Bliss is being in the flow with Existence, to be totally with it. Ego is like frozen ice and egolessness is like flowing water. Only when we are liquid, do we become part of the ocean. Then we don't have any private goal or destination. Each moment is blissful, incredibly ecstatic. The mind cannot comprehend or conceive it. Mind is part of the ego. It only knows how to close; it does not know how to open up.

To love means to surrender. It means to renounce. It means that our whole effort will be to open up to Existence, to the flowers, to the trees and to the stars. How do we open to this beautiful music that fills the whole of Existence? How do we open up to this celebration that goes on and on - flowers dancing in the wind, trees enjoying the wind and the stars, always in a state of bliss? Except for man, everything is in harmony.

Man falls out of harmony because he has consciousness.

Consciousness can do two things: it can create ego and it can create egolessness. If it creates ego, we live in hell. If it creates egolessness, we live in paradise. The whole world is in paradise without knowing it. When man enters paradise, he enters with full knowing. That is the grandeur and beauty of man. And that is the danger also. Because out of thousands of people, only once in a while does someone enter. Others simply keep falling into the trap of the ego.

Be egoless and all the grace of God is yours!

Bliss is by the grace of God. We have forgotten who we are. We are emperors but we dream that we are beggars. We have the whole kingdom of God within our being yet we continue to beg for trivial things. We keep collecting trivial things not knowing that we have infinite, inexhaustible treasures within our being. We are oceans, yet we are thirsty because we have become disconnected from our own selves.

We have become disconnected from ourselves because of our personality. We have become personalities but what we really are is our individuality. We must move from personality to individuality, from the false, the pseudo, to the real and authentic. The search for the authentic is what surrender is about. And it is easily possible, because no matter how disconnected we are, no matter how we have forgotten it and no matter how long we have forgotten it, it can be remembered in a single moment and immediately we can become connected. Faith is the connector.

Religion is belief, not faith. Ordinarily, faith and belief are used synonymously. They are not synonyms. They are antonyms. They are opposites. The person of belief is not a person of faith. The person of faith knows nothing of belief. Belief is borrowed from others. Faith is our own experience. Belief is of the head. Faith is of the heart. Belief is close to logic. Faith is of the heart. Belief simply means that we have repressed our doubt; we have covered a dark hole of doubt with a beautiful belief, but it is there nevertheless.

This is not the way to eliminate doubt. In fact, it is more dangerous to cover it because we become unaware of it and it spreads inside us like hidden cancer. It is better to be aware of doubt. Then we can do something about it. To forget it and cover it up is dangerous. It can spread all over our being. Christians, Hindus or Muslims, all are only believers. Deep down there is doubt. Their beliefs don’t make them spiritual.

Up until now this has been history. The beliefs of people have shed more blood on earth than anything else; Christians destroying Muslims, Muslims killing Hindus and so on. It seems that every religious person is at someone else’s neck, ready to kill and murder. The most non-spiritual people have always been the so-called religious leaders. They kill in the name of God.

Beliefs never make anybody spiritual. They make Muslims or Hindus or Christians; however, they do not make anybody spiritual. Beliefs simply cover up our face while we remain ugly deep down inside. Nevertheless, people who believe in our beliefs, the fellow travelers, respect us. They worship us because they are in the same boat as us.

Someone once asked George Bernard Shaw, ‘When there are millions of Christians, how can Christianity be wrong?’ He retorted, ‘If there are so many Christians, one-third of humanity, how can they be right?’ Truth has never been a quality of the crowds. Rarely has a man arisen, in spite of the crowd, against the crowd, and attained the peaks of Truth.

Crowds always live in the valleys. And they help each other. They become props for each other. It helps to live with people who adhere to the same beliefs. It makes us feel protected and secure. Faith is different.

There is no need to believe. Don’t believe in anything written or spoken, including what I say and write. Live it, experiment with it, internalize it and experience it. When you experience it, it is no longer faith; it is trust. This trust alone liberates.