Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : 19-4. SWAMI KRISHNANANDA
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02/01/2020.
19. To Thine Own Self Be True-4.
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1.
How many of us can touch our hearts and confidently say that we do believe in the power of God? Do we also not believe in that which is not God?
Are there not non-Gods in this world, or do you say there is only God everywhere?
Is it possible for us to assert that there is no other thing in this wo
rld than God?
And, if a secret aspect of our psychic nature is not prepared to so openly proclaim that God only is and nothing else can be, is it true that we are also not secretly hanging on to something else which is anti-God, the non-spiritual?
Or, are we in a position to declare again that there is no such thing as the unspiritual?
Can religion say that even the worst evil is only a face of spirituality?
We are hard-pressed even here. Our mouths will not open, the tongue will not move when it is asked to proclaim that even the worst evil is a manifestation of God. There is a Satan before us. How would you say that he is an expression of God?
There is untruth, which is the opposite of truth; there is ugliness which is the opposite of beauty; there is vice which is the opposite of virtue; and there is unrighteousness or wickedness which is the opposite of righteousness. Can you say they are identical in their nature?
If they are not identical, have you got two Gods in this world?
These are problems before us. I am not trying to solve any problem, which I do not regard as my vocation or within my capacity, but I am only trying to think aloud in respect of the difficulties that man is facing and which he is not prepared to solve honestly, because of a certain axe that he has to grind in a very secret manner.
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2.
One may be a religious man, another may be a person with a vocation of religion in an official manner, but all that will not cut ice before the hard realities of the world. The world before us is not so simple as to be neglected by our religious attitude.
It has its own say, and it is a very hard substance before us. And we must be prepared, in a reasonable way, to pay our debts to this world; we may say the debt to the world of material forces. We often say that materialism is opposed to spirituality.
Yes, here we are declaring a permanent existence of a dichotomy between God and anti-God. The old gulf between Purusha and Prakriti of the Sankhya comes in always. No religious savant has been able to get over this difficulty of not being able to answer this question whether there is something other than God. An academic answer is not a solution.
Metaphysics is no help to us. Theory has not been able to appease the hunger of a starving stomach. We find that the world of matter has managed to assert its reality whatever be our intellectual affirmation of God's existence as a supreme Idealistic Being.
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=======================================================================
02/01/2020.
19. To Thine Own Self Be True-4.
======================================================================
1.
How many of us can touch our hearts and confidently say that we do believe in the power of God? Do we also not believe in that which is not God?
Are there not non-Gods in this world, or do you say there is only God everywhere?
Is it possible for us to assert that there is no other thing in this wo
rld than God?
And, if a secret aspect of our psychic nature is not prepared to so openly proclaim that God only is and nothing else can be, is it true that we are also not secretly hanging on to something else which is anti-God, the non-spiritual?
Or, are we in a position to declare again that there is no such thing as the unspiritual?
Can religion say that even the worst evil is only a face of spirituality?
We are hard-pressed even here. Our mouths will not open, the tongue will not move when it is asked to proclaim that even the worst evil is a manifestation of God. There is a Satan before us. How would you say that he is an expression of God?
There is untruth, which is the opposite of truth; there is ugliness which is the opposite of beauty; there is vice which is the opposite of virtue; and there is unrighteousness or wickedness which is the opposite of righteousness. Can you say they are identical in their nature?
If they are not identical, have you got two Gods in this world?
These are problems before us. I am not trying to solve any problem, which I do not regard as my vocation or within my capacity, but I am only trying to think aloud in respect of the difficulties that man is facing and which he is not prepared to solve honestly, because of a certain axe that he has to grind in a very secret manner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
One may be a religious man, another may be a person with a vocation of religion in an official manner, but all that will not cut ice before the hard realities of the world. The world before us is not so simple as to be neglected by our religious attitude.
It has its own say, and it is a very hard substance before us. And we must be prepared, in a reasonable way, to pay our debts to this world; we may say the debt to the world of material forces. We often say that materialism is opposed to spirituality.
Yes, here we are declaring a permanent existence of a dichotomy between God and anti-God. The old gulf between Purusha and Prakriti of the Sankhya comes in always. No religious savant has been able to get over this difficulty of not being able to answer this question whether there is something other than God. An academic answer is not a solution.
Metaphysics is no help to us. Theory has not been able to appease the hunger of a starving stomach. We find that the world of matter has managed to assert its reality whatever be our intellectual affirmation of God's existence as a supreme Idealistic Being.
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To be continued ...========================================================================
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