One God or many Gods?
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23 February, 2012
Let me give you an important truth - a sacred secret.
When you work just for money, your conscious mind and activities are aligned towards money. Along with the work, if you are also worshipping Lakshmi, your very unconscious falls in tune with money. It means, your whole being, everything, falls in tune with money. Same way with knowledge. If you are just working for knowledge, your conscious mind and actions work towards knowledge. Along with that, if you are worshipping Saraswati through prayer, then your whole being falls in tune with knowledge. This is the sacred secret of working with the Divine.
In the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4, Jnana Sannyasa Yoga, 12th verse, Bhagavan says, ‘Those who long for the result of an action worship with rites the divine energies, for in this mortal world, the success of an action comes immediately.’ Please understand, the Ultimate Source is only one, but each action of that Source becomes an independent energy. Each action of the Ultimate becomes an independent intelligence. I wanted all the followers of Vedic tradition, Hindu tradition, to celebrate the concept of multiple deities.
This verse gives the basis, gives the truth of multiple gods. Do not feel bad that your religion teaches many Gods!
Once, a pandit (scholar) made fun of a particular sampradaya (tradition) in front of Sri Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna immediately said, ‘You don’t know! With pure honesty and sincerity, in any way you worship, He will be there. There are many enlightened masters in that Sampradaya. So Ramakrishna tells the pundit, Don’t abuse! Many in that tradition have become enlightened. That is why, in the pooja vidhaanam of Ramakrishna publications, along with the deities of Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesha, there will be a deity called Kali-Krishna whose one hand is holding a sword, and the other is holding a flute! The mantras of Kali and Krishna will also be there. Bhagavan says very clearly, whoever calls me in whatever form, whoever approaches me in any form, in whatever way, I am there.
