God, being omnipresent and souls, being small in the ultimate sense is part of cosmic design, writes AJIT KUMAR BISHNOI
It is crucial to accept the reality of God, who is all-encompassing, before we even get started on the spiritual journey. Arjuna did not getting convinced by the arguments of Lord Krishna till the Lord showed him the Universal Form. Similarly, the smallness of the soul must also be accepted.
God, being omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, and us souls, being small and helpless in the ultimate sense is a part of cosmic design. There is no other way the creation could have worked. There had to be an all-powerful entity, i.e. God and all others had to be very small in order for them not to be able to create chaos. As for souls, all souls are of the same size; they are not of different sizes. There is continuity of the system; there is never any change in this arrangement, i.e. God, being everything (Bhagavad Gita) (7.19) and we, souls, being his parts. (15.7)
Having understood this, one must take advantage of these. To begin with one must take God’s shelter. It makes no sense not to do so, especially that God is asking us to take His shelter. (18.62) He is not only easily available, but declares Himself as a friend of all. (5.29) What is our experience? Those, who took God’s shelter, could do unbelievable feats. How did we know centuries back when there were no spacecrafts and satellites that the earth is round. This is evidenced by us calling geography “bhugola”? This is one example. There are similar very compelling evidences that the Lord empowered saints, who had scientific bent of minds to know what is being discovered now with high power telescopes, etc.
There is no shame in taking God’s shelter. After all, every one of us has to do that if we wish to break out of the karmaphala principle, i.e. good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are punished. Only God can raise us above this cycle. Egoism will not pay; humility will. Purity and goodness will propel us to seek God’s shelter. Those who take God’s shelter can see the big picture, which helps in establishing duties. Without that we remain engaged in doing what would not benefit.
Those serious in wanting to improve the quality of their lives must go to the source, i.e. God. God will make us wise about the fact that seeking attention and fame does not pay? We need to become experts in whatever we do and success will follow us with all its benefits. We will feel less pressure because we will know that the all-powerful is assisting; we are not on our own. Alongwith God comes assistance from the system — the divine arrangement of the creation. Not only in the present life, all these benefits will continue to accrue life after life.
In case we don’t do what is desirable for a human being, we will try to become big, which no one can become because there is only one big and that is God. Helplessly, we will embrace the modes of passion and darkness — the natural tendency and suffer. Don’t these modes take us to lust, greed, anger, hate, enmity, etc? The choice is ours. What has been suggested may appear tough, because it involves change of personal nature but believe it or not, God helps if someone is so inclined. It suits God’s creation to have devotees and good people; He loves them, and gives them even the elusive peace and ‘sukha’ (bliss).
Bishnoi is a spiritual writer and can be reached at spiritual@ajitbishnoi.com
