Swami Shivapadananda on conceptualising God
SWAMI SHIVAPADANANDA
DAILY READINGS
From Mother Radha's recordings of Swamiji
Day 552
[Pictured: A seldom-seen beautiful picture of the Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, her body in old age, in samadhi]
Happiness cannot come to the home without unity. I am talking about a Hindu home where the devotees want to be happy, where the family wants to be happy. The whole universe is made out of unity. Though unity starts with a selfish purpose it later includes the family, the society, nature, the universe. The idea is to reach the universality of unity. But this only comes with practice.
We must set a goal. Saints and sages say that the goal is to know God in ordinary life – not out of
the ordinary – in thought, word and deed. God is Omnipotent so know Him everywhere and in everything. Where to start? Let us start with ourselves. A person must never think he is a sinner. He must always think he is pure, that he is the creation of God and God cannot create something impure, something against his dharma [righteousness]. Slowly, after that, you see the body as the shrine, with the heart as the altar.
You may think of your deity as with form or without form. It is like a man posing for a photograph, he poses differently each time. Similarly, God's poses are many. He may sit like this or like that, He may dress up as Lord Shiva, as Hanumanji, or as Mother Lakshmi. He may dress as AUM or He may be natural, like Mother Kali, with no clothes. Nature cannot be dressed by something else. It must be dressed by nature. If God is nature, and is dressed up with his own nature, then He would be depicted with no clothes; nature is naked.
Think of God in any pose, in any form, provided that the idea of God expresses the highest positivity. Think of God as full of mercy, full of love, full of immortality. He is Infinite, and that which is Infinite brings peace and bliss. One must meditate on this aspect of God always. Remember, anything finite must end, and must ultimately bring unhappiness.
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was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.
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