Other than God there is none else!

If you reside in a house for ten years, you naturally develop attachment to the house. From birth, we are associated with a particular body. How much more attachment, we would have developed to this body? In fact, we are the residents of the body. If you are living in a house, will you call the house as “I”. No, it is stupid. Just like that none can claim the body as ‘they’. Whenever we say “I”, we mean the body and not the indweller god! This is a serious and fundamental mistake. Hence, first be clear that you are not the perishable body in which you reside. You may consider the body as a ‘vehicle’ which carries the traveler, which is you. Since you are travelling in a car, you won’t commit the mistake of claiming the car as you!

This is the fundamental teaching of ‘Advaita philosophy. Shri Ramana Maharishi always taught this to the visitors. He asked them the simple question, ‘who are you’? When they blurt out, they are Rama or Krishna, he will chastise them stating, ‘that is the label given to you by your parents after birth. This label is only for easy identification. But you are neither Rama nor Krishna. You are the immortal Self which wears a body simply for sporting with creation. God too has a desire which many may not know. Since god is Love, that love can be valid only when it is shared with someone. Hence god chose a circuitous way. He parted him from himself by veiling that action in the garb of illusion. In fact, God has no illusion. But for the sake of separation, he made his part ‘ignorant’. Now he has two entities, one all knows and the other is false self in the guise of individual self. This veil has enabled the entire creation and cosmos! This is really the creation of illusory mind, which acts as a thick veil between god and individual. There is a mathematical equation involving man, god and mind. God Mind=Man; Man- mind=God. In fact, mind emanated from the self and creation commenced. Once the mind merges with the self, then there won’t be any creation at all.

But, this game of hide and seek is termed as “creation and dissolution’ in scriptural parlance. Almost all individuals are veiled by this fundamental ignorance and thus creation goes on. Once, an individual self realizes these false phenomena, he is on the way to “Self-Realization” which is the summum bonum of human life. Ignorance is ‘darkness’ wherein nothing will be visible. For instance, there is a dark cave for thousands of years. The moment a single candle light is taken inside the cave by some adventurer, the inside of the cave is seen. It may be one thousand years darkness. But the small candle light was able to lit up the interior to some extent. Similar is human life. We were ignorant for millions of years, thinking that the body is us. Hence we undergo quiet a lot of misery in the process. There is separation once you consider yourself as an individual. When everything is seen as separate from you, all kinds of complexes arises within oneself which leads to sorrow and joy, in alternative succession!

Now we talk about time. We say that millions of years have elapsed for human evolution. But what is time itself. It is pure imagination of the mind. The mind makes one to think that there is passage of time for events and happenings and we start talking about ‘past, present and future’! But if you deeply contemplate, there is no such thing as past or future. Whatever Is only “Present and Now”. This aspect is termed as OMNIPRESENCE! This is how we define God, who is the only being ever-present, everywhere! We term it as Eternal Conscious! Hence while describing god, the scriptures term the power as SAT CHIT ANANDA! Sath is ever existing, eternal, Chit is full of wisdom, and Ananda is eternal Bliss! He alone IS, other perceptions are pure illusions created by the conjuring mind. These points have been elaborated in all the ancient scriptures like Upanishad and epics. In Western scriptures, it is termed as “Father in Heaven or “Allah”. Call it by any name and it represent only One! Water is called differently in different languages. It is ‘water in English”, “Pani” in Hindi, Neelu in Telugu and “Vellam” in Malayalam. Even within Indian states, it is called differently. But it is only water and its quality never changes when you call it differently. Similarly, God can be accosted in millions of names in many world languages. But he responds to all the prayers from all the people. He never says, you have not called me correctly, hence I won’t respond! He is Love He is compassionate and He is the Father of all children!