God loves all good souls, and He is very keen to reward them and thus encourage them in life, writes AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI

We have to understand the Cosmic Design. On top is God — the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent and the Omniscient. He has all the good qualities in full. (Bhagavad Gita (10.41) It is impossible to imagine an entity, which is Him, but He is very much a reality, as experienced by millions of devotees of God, past and present. Then, come gods and goddesses. These are special souls, who are there to oversee the functioning of the material world. They do so under the superintendence of God. (9.10) They implement the Karmaphala principle, which is: what you sow you reap. They reward and punish based on this principle. They have limited powers and work within the limitations placed on them by their Master — God.

Then, come we souls. The Cosmic Design requires us to be supervised by gods and goddesses. Wise souls establish a relationship with God. This way they become special. They do so by doing spiritual acts like chanting God’s names like “Rama”, have “darshan” of God in His deity forms, etc. God takes notice of such acts, because He is omnipresent, and He rewards all such acts. The duty of punishing erring souls is generally left to the divine authorities. God seldom intervenes such as when He punished Ravana.

God loves good souls, and He is very keen to reward them and thus encourage them. These good souls are: those who have taken shelter of God (18.62); are “dharmaparayana”, i.e. follower of dharma; are “kalyan-krt”, i.e. doer of welfare acts. (6.40); and are mostly in the mode of goodness (14.11), in this order. As God is omnipresent, He notices such souls. How does God reward them?

Now I come to the details of God’s favours to the four types of persons named earlier. My favourite is when God reveals Himself, i.e. when devotees become aware of His presence. These are very special moments for them. My next favourite is God’s using them as His “nimitta” (instrument) for various purposes like conveying His instructions to others. Then, God helps in tackling “prarabdha” (fate); only He can do so. I wouldn’t be what I am today if God had not intervened countless times on my behalf. God shows such persons direction, which is all important, and He instructs them regularly. Obviously, He alerts/warns also, which saves them from getting into trouble. Surely, He protects them from bad people/ bad influence. He also helps out in getting over the influence of tamoguna-the mode of darkness.

The Lord maintains such persons; He provides all the needed resources. It is no wonder that they are blessed with peace and bliss, and can sleep peacefully. I can go on because God’s bounties are endless. Where do I get energies of all kinds like “atmabala”? God is my support and He forgives also when I inevitably make mistakes. These bounties are given in proportion to the efforts made, i.e. one must be deserving.

All of the above may sound dreamlike; they are. God is personally involved to judge what such deserve. What is their attitude towards Him? Is it the mood of taking shelter? Are they doing enough to deserve what they seek? Is the quality of their acts high class or they are just doing spiritual acts for the sake of doing them? Yes, God is very strict just as He is very generous. Summarising, I will be very honest; I cannot do without God now or ever, having become a beneficiary of his favours.

Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com