God in Everything

[Guest guest]

We all understand that desires are wrong, but what is meant by giving

up desires? How could life go on? It would be suicidal advice,

killing the desire and the man too. The solution is this. Not that

you should not have property, not that you should not have things

which are necessary and things which are even luxuries. Have all that

you want, and more, only know the truth and realise it. Wealth does

not belong to anybody. Have no idea of proprietorship, possessorship.

You are nobody, nor am I, nor anyone else. All belongs to the Lord,

because the opening verse told us to put the Lord in everything. God

is in the wealth that you enjoy. He is in the desire that rises in

your mind. He is in the things you buy to satisfy your desire; He is

in your beautiful attire, in your beautiful ornaments. This is the

line of thought. All will be metamorphosed as soon as you begin to

see things in that light. If you put God in your every movement, in

your conversation, in your form, in everything, the whole scene

changes, and the world, instead of appearing as one of woe and

misery, will become a heaven.

 

" The kingdom of heaven is within you, " says Jesus; so says the

Vedanta, and every great teacher. " He that hath eyes to see, let him

see, and he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. " The Vedanta proves

that the truth for which we have been searching all this time is

present, and was all the time with us. In our ignorance, we thought

we had lost it, and went about the world crying and weeping,

struggling to find the truth, while all along it was dwelling in our

own hearts. There alone can we find it.

 

If we understand the giving up of the world in its old, crude sense,

then it would come to this: that we must not work, that we must be

idle, sitting like lumps of earth, neither thinking nor doing

anything, but must become fatalists, driven about by every

circumstance, ordered about by the laws of nature, drifting from

place to place. That would be the result. But that is not what is

meant. We must work. Ordinary mankind, driven everywhere by false

desire, what do they know of work? The man propelled by his own

feelings and his own senses, what does he know about work? He works,

who is not propelled by his own desires, by any selfishness

whatsoever. He works, who has no ulterior motive in view. He works,

who has nothing to gain from work.

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued