Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals : Ch-1. Part-6.

1. Sun – The Eye of the World : - Makara Sankranti - ( January )
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Part-6.

There is much behind these great observances such as the Makara Sankranti and many others of a similar nature, in the spiritual destiny of man. We live a material life, not knowing what we really are, what the world is. We seem to be so ignorant of the values that are inherent and within us that we are dashed hither and thither by the winds of fate, controlling the physical world and the physical body of people.

The more you move inward into yourself, the more you will also see the inner mystery of the world. When you go to the vital body within you, you can see the vital body of other people seated here. Because you are now in the physical body, you see the physical body of others. When you enter your mental body, you can see the minds of other people, and when you enter your intellectual body, you can see the intellects of other people seated here. And when you enter your spiritual principle within, you can see the spirituality in the world and the spiritual principle in the whole cosmos.

The twelve suns described in the Srimad Bhagavata and other scriptures are not twelve physical suns hanging in the sky, but twelve layers of principle, one behind the other, culminating in the spiritual Reality as the sun, wherein the individual, the world and God become one. In the physical realm you are different, the world is different and God is different. There is no connection apparently between one and the other.

When you go deeper, the three principles come nearer and nearer to one another. The world is absolutely isolated now. You have no control over it; it threatens you every moment. You are afraid of the world. Why? Because it is physically isolated from your physical body. And so God is also a transcendent something of which you have no concept today. But when you go inwardly by a power of concentration and meditation, you simultaneously, as a parallel movement, also enter into the subtler realms of the world outside, so much so that the outsideness of the world becomes less in proportion to the internal experience that you have in your own self.

The more you are physically conscious, the more the world also is external to you. The more you are inwardly conscious, the nearer is the world to you. The inimical world, the so-called unfriendly world, becomes friendly when you enter into the subtler and subtler realms of your own being. And when you reach the divine principle within you, the world does not merely remain as a friend but becomes an inseparable experience of your own. The world ceases to be an outer phenomenon. There will be no world as such. The thing called the world ceases to be the moment you enter into the spiritual principle within you, which is the same as the spiritual principle within the world, which is also the same as the spiritual principle of the universe. It is only here that God, world and the soul become united. This is the liberation that we are ultimately seeking.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...