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1. You are a Child of the Solar System
It has been well said that every particle of our body—call them cells, or whatever they are—are concretisations, manifestations, solid forms of the cumulative force exerted upon a particular centre called the human individuality by the total action of the planets and the Sun. So, you are a child of the solar system. You are not born to any father or mother; these are all social interpretations of your position, but you have a larger stellar relation. You are a citizen of the solar system. We should not be under the impression that the Sun is so far away, the planets are invisible to the eyes, and stars are still further. It is nothing of the kind. There is no distance in this electromagnetic field of the stellar region, the solar atmosphere. 'Electromagnetic field' is the description we can give of the manner in which the entire atmosphere works. It is not visible to the physical eye. So forceful, so powerful is this influence that it concretises itself in certain forms which are called individualities. They may be the forms of the plant kingdom or animal kingdom, or human kingdom.
2. The Characteristic of Beauty
Beauty is the characteristic of that object which exactly fits in as a counterpart of the lack in the mind of a person. There is a kind of lacuna in the mind, and the exact counterpart of it is the beauty of the object. It is a purely psychological question. There is a particular lacuna in the mental structure of a person which keeps that person restless, unhappy, etc. Though everyone is unhappy in some way, the cause of that unhappiness is not uniform in all cases. The restlessness and unhappiness may be caused by different factors in the case of different persons, and a corresponding object must be presented before that particular type of mind in order that it may be made to feel happy. What looks beautiful to me may not look beautiful to you. People sometimes get attracted even to ugly things. What you may consider as ugly and uninteresting may be an attractive thing for another person, because he/she is in a different kind of mental make-up. Each one has to find out what it is that attracts. Unless you are hungry, the food will not be satisfying. Your particular kind of hunger will determine the kind of diet that you need.
3. The Self is not a Person, It is a Super-person
In the ultimate existence, there is no he, she, it, I and you. Nobody will say “my Self, your Self,” etc. These ideas are empirical, tentative, relative, connected with personality-consciousness, and the Self is not a person, it is a Super-Person. I am giving a hint that there is something more for you to know than the level you have reached now by this analysis. It will take some time even to understand what this great thing is. Knowing your deepest Self is identical with knowing God Himself. That will be a terrifying thing to hear! How will knowing the deepest level of my being be the same thing as knowing God? You have an idea of God as the comprehensive Almighty, the universal omnipresent Being. Is He planted in my own heart at the deepest level of my being? Then what is my relationship with God? After having known that in that deepest level you will have a sense of completeness, the question still persists as to what the relationship is between yourself and God. That is the next step. Whatever we have been discussing up to this time is the first step only. We have not touched the second level.
4. Meditation is an Integration of Consciousness
Meditation is an integration of consciousness. It is not a routine or a ritual. It is not a religious exercise belonging to some religion. It is an opening of yourself to the final realities of life. It has nothing to do with Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, or any religion. It has no connection with any scripture. It is an impersonal act on the part of yourself, wherein you lift up your consciousness to a recognition of the fact that you are a temporary sojourning entity into eternity. You have come from a larger realm, and will enter into the same realm after some time, which will indicate gradually that your existence has a kind of cosmic sweep. From plane to plane you have journeyed in your millions of incarnations. How many planes of existence have you crossed, through what forms of life, what types of experience; how many parents, relations, types of work you have had! All these things you cogitate slowly in your mind so that you start thinking along these lines, and you will not think you are so-and-so any more. This is only a temporary form that the cosmic form has taken due to some karma, some pressure of circumstance.
5. A Method of Meditation
When you concentrate on any object, your consciousness is transferred to that object, and then the consciousness of your body becomes less. You are thinking too much of this body; therefore, the objects are cut off. But one of the techniques of meditation is to concentrate the consciousness on another thing. It may be anything. Then immediately the attachment to this body gets loosened. That is one method which is prescribed by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras. That thing which you are concentrating upon can be any object. It can be a little material thing, or it can be God Himself, or all the five elements, or the sun, the moon, the stars, space, time—to anything you can transfer your consciousness. Then, the attachment to this body gets loosened and becomes less and less. Slowly you will find that your mind spreads into a universal state. This is one method of meditation. Here, the consciousness exists between you and what is outside you! Wonder indeed! Keep doing it, and you will see that it comes under control.
6. You Must be Always Happy
In sleep, you had no father, mother, relations—nothing was there. Just, you were there. And, the state of sleep brought you such a joy that you would not like to have any other joy compared to it. Even a king cannot be so happy as a person who has entered into deep sleep, because he has entered the Self, the ocean of Self. And, you had no relations, no property, no friends, no body, no mind at that time. What was there? 'You' were there. This is what I call the ocean. Do not make a distinction between practical life and factory life, office life, etc. There is really no such thing. This is a very interesting and important point. You must be always happy, blissful—“Everything is fine; nothing is wrong. Everything is good; all is well with me. Why should it not be? It must be.” Nobody can create trouble for you. Who can create trouble? You are creating trouble for yourself, because you yourself are the trouble. So, why do you complain? The mind is very subtle. It cannot think like this. If it starts thinking thus, it will become giddy, and you will fall into sleep, again.
7. The Desire to Merge with the Object
Even when a person desires a thing, the subtle desire is to 'become one' with it. That is why if you hear that your object of desire is nearby, you feel happy. When it comes near, and you can see it, the joy increases; and when it is coming nearer still, there is more joy. When you touch it, it is still more, but even that is not sufficient. You cannot, unfortunately, go beyond that. You can touch an object of desire, but you cannot enter into it. That is why there is bereavement, suffering, death, birth, following desires. The ultimate desire is to make the object melt into your being. You do not want to stand outside it. You want perpetual enjoyment, but the space-time complex which is outside prevents the object from entering into you because every object is independent; so, how can it become your property? There is no such thing as possessing anything. It is a foolish idea, but actually, the intention is to merge yourself with the self of that object, so that the two selves become one self of a bigger size. If all the selves melt together, it becomes a larger self.
8. Creating a Flash of Intuition
When the intellect asserts itself in deep contemplation, it becomes feeling, and if the intellect and the feeling go together, they can create a flash of what is called intuition. Intuition is nothing but the blending together of intellect and feeling. They are generally acting separately. What we understand, we don't feel; and what we feel, we don't understand. It should not be like that. They must act together parallelly, so that it may be one action of understanding and feeling. Feeling is nearer to you than understanding. Feeling is what you are, actually speaking. Into that the understanding has to sink. This is what they call the process of sravana, manana and nididhyasana. Whatever we are discussing now is sravana, hearing. I hear what you say, and you hear what I say. Then you cogitate over this matter and sink these thoughts into yourself. Finally, you be that thought itself; that is called nididhyasana. This practice has to be carried on throughout the day.
9. The Absolute Wants You Only
The Absolute wants you. It does not want anything else from you, it wants you only. You cannot give anything to the Absolute, because nothing actually belongs to you. You are alone in the world. There is no such thing as property; it is an illusion. Nobody can own anything. Each thing is independent, so you cannot give anything to God; you can give only yourself. That is the final thing, the sacrifice. For giving yourself to God, there are other ways also, but they all finally lead to meditation only. The final thing is meditation. Where is the Absolute at present? If it is 'everywhere', is there anything outside the Absolute, or does only the Absolute exist? What about all these people sitting here? Are they inside the Absolute? If they are inside the Absolute, what is your attitude towards all things in the world? When you see a thing, what do you feel at that time? You may respect everyone. But there is no 'everyone'. You said there is only one Absolute, so why do you say 'everyone'? Everyone has gone into the Absolute. If this thought can continue always, that is the highest meditation on the Absolute. But, sometimes if you start feeling that there are many things other than the Absolute, then the meditation will not be complete.
10. The Highest Tapas is to Think like God Himself
Tapas is energy and heat, a force generated in the personality by preventing the sense organs from diverting energy outside in the direction of objects. The consciousness, the total quantum of your energy, is diverted by the sense organs outside towards objects of sense when you see a thing, hear, smell, taste, touch, or even think a thing. If you prevent the consciousness from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching or even thinking an externality of any kind, the energy will not go out of your personality. It will be retained inside. Then you will feel strong, energetic, forceful. This process is called tapas, an inwardisation of power. For the beginner, this much understanding about tapas is sufficient, but the highest tapas is to think like God Himself. When you can think as God thinks, that is the greatest tapas. You can imagine how God thinks; He will think in one Thought the whole cosmos directly, without the use of any sense organs, i.e. eyes, ears, nose, etc. His very Being is His Thought; His Thought and His Being are identical. In the case of human beings, thought is of an object, but in the case of God, Thought is of Being Itself.
11. God is Doing Everything
The whole universe is acting perpetually for the purpose of the evolution of the lower categories into the higher ones. Actually, there is only one action taking place in the universe. This is why some people say that God is doing everything. The idea behind it is something like the action that the physical body does. For example, whether you lift your hand, walk with your feet, see with your eyes, eat with your mouth, digest with your stomach—whatever be the diversity of these actions, you will agree that it is one action being done by the whole body. In a similar manner, the universe, being a large organism, sometimes called in religion the body of God, all these diversities of action which differ one from the other are actions of the central force which is the will of God or the Centre of the cosmos. There are not many actions taking place in the universe; only one action is taking place, regardless of who is appearing to do it. The problem is that each individual part imagines that it is doing it. It is something like the legs not agreeing with the eyes. You can imagine that they can assert and not give any credit for the cooperation received from the other limbs. Each one could say that it is independent.
12. You have to Open your Heart
You have to open your heart. You open it, and He will enter. Your mind is filled with thoughts which are other than God's. “Empty thyself and I shall fill thee,” is an old saying from the Bible. If you want to fill a basket with the fragrance of flowers, first the rubbish and dust that is inside it must go. Is the mind thinking of God, or is it thinking something else? That 'something else' is the obstruction. You have closed the gates, and you want God to enter. There was a painter in England who painted a picture of a beautiful house. He called all the artists to see if there was any defect in the painting. Everybody admired it, saying that it was beautiful. Finally, one man said that he had forgotten to put a latch on the outside of the door. The painter said that the latch is inside; it is always open from the outside. That is, God's doors are always open, and you put the latch inside so that He may not enter. The idea is that our thoughts are our bondages; our thoughts also are our friends. They can act in two ways, like a double-edged sword. When you develop integrated thought, harmonious thought, inclusive cosmically oriented thought, God will enter, because God is another name for integrated, harmonious, Absolute Consciousness. That cannot enter the little pin hole which is constricted on account of an abundance of other Earthly desires.
13. The True Religion
Some Christians have the feeling that converting also is a duty, because of the fact that Christianity is the true religion, and everyone else who follows another religion is following a lesser religion or perhaps a false religion, and so converting is an essential duty. This is one of the doctrines which has been inculcated to the priests. If a Christian feels that his religion is the true and best religion, it follows from that feeling that others are inferior. If the idea that others are inferior is simultaneous with the feeling of one's own superiority, there is a third corollary following from it that it would be good to transform people into the true religion. This follows automatically. So, if the priest does not do that, he is not doing his duty properly. I have met many good Christians, and they are honest people; one priest from Italy likes me very much. He used to tell people that I am a very nice person, and I am on the right path, and one day I will become a Christian!
14. You Yourself are Something Behind Science
Modern subatomic science is not measurable in terms of ordinary mathematical calculations. All the values of life get negatived in a realm where mathematics and logic do not operate. In this condition, science also will not operate. When you cross that limit, it becomes metaphysics. It is not physics any more; it is not geology. It becomes meta-geology afterwards, because any kind of measurement, observation and calculation cannot apply in certain realms. You are feeling that you are sitting here as a whole person, but how should you feel that you are one whole total being when you are made up of little parts? You have got ears and eyes and nose and bone and flesh, heart and lungs. Why don't you feel that you are an assemblage of so many little things? Who is sitting here? You should not say that you are sitting here; you should say that here is a bundle of little particles. Why don't you feel like that? Here you yourself are something behind science. Your very existence as so-and-so defeats the calculative process of science. Otherwise, if it is an observable, measurable thing that you are, then you have to describe yourself as an anatomical and physiological entity, and not so-and-so.
15. The Necessity for a Guru
Every student must have a Guru. Totally independent marching is not possible. You cannot even pilot an airplane of your own accord without training under some Guru; otherwise, somewhere wrong you will go. For everything a Guru is necessary. A teacher is absolutely essential, especially in this path where the future is totally unknown to us. We are passing through some track, of which we have no idea at all, and we do not know what is ahead of us. And so, we have to be guarded by the caution of the Guru only, and when you have got a competent Guru, you should have no problems. It is not that every day you should go to the Guru and put questions, but whenever you have a difficulty which is genuine, poignant, and eating your vitals practically, and you are in distress, at that time only you can tell him that this is the difficulty.
16. First Identify the Problem
No medicine can be considered as appropriate unless the diagnosis of the case is done properly. You cannot prescribe any medicine unless you know what the illness is. You may do vipassana, japa yoga, asana, pranayama, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, raja yoga, pilgrimage to holy places, satsanga with mahatmas, etc., but this is like eating all kinds of medicines from a chemist shop. All right, take it, but what is your illness? Unless you know what your illness is, these medicines will not be of any utility. Thus, each one who meditates must be clear about what the trouble is; if the nature of the trouble is clear, you also know what to do for that. You may do vipassana, you may stand on your head; do what you like, but don't unnecessarily do a thing without knowing what your problem is. What is your problem? What is wrong with you that you are running about in search of Gurus and yogas and meditations and all that? Let anybody be clear to one's own self. All right, if your problem is separation from the universe, how will you unite yourself with the universe? How are you going to rectify this mistake? What is the method that you are adopting?
17. This is the Secret of Yoga
Your energy becomes less and less as you desire things more and more. Whoever wants things loses energy; whoever is one with things, becomes filled with energy. One who is united with things has no desire for things; this is the way one becomes filled with energy. When things stand outside us, they take away our energy; if they are one with us, they give us energy. This is the secret of yoga. Nothing should stand outside us; everything should be one with us. You cannot be a friend of anybody when that person is outside you. A person has to be one with you in thought and being; then he is a real friend. This is how you can be a friend of all things, even God Himself. When you become the very things that you want, all energy comes in. This is the secret behind success. You have to intensely feel that you already have what you want. Then things will really come to you, without your asking for them. This is how energy increases. Yoga is the technique by which you do not run after things, but things, by themselves, will come to you. You have not only to know a thing but also to be it.
18. The Transcendent Element in Us
In a life which is characterised by momentariness and fluxation, with temporality reigning supreme everywhere, and nothing permanent worth the while, with no control finally over anything, what kind of happiness are you expecting in this world? Perhaps happiness that is going to be enduring and not merely fleeting cannot be had in a world which is fleeting by its nature. Nobody can be happy in this world, yet it is happiness that we seek. It looks like a contradiction in our approach. Involved in a world of fluxation and temporality, how do you expect permanent happiness? Yet our heart seems to be yearning for permanent happiness. It doesn't want a joy for one moment, and destruction the next moment. Actually, the joy that we seek is super-physical, super-terrestrial; it is transcendent. All that we empirically experience, sensorially perceive or contact, what we feel psychologically in terms of sense perception is not the joy that we seek, finally. There is a transcendent super-physical element operating in us, and if you can contact that transcendent element in your own self or in the world, you may be contacting the source of your joy. This is the work of religion.
19. Nothing is Equal to Satsanga
Meditation is better here because of the influence of the atmosphere. If you are in a different atmosphere, the thought gets diluted. Circumstances and the atmosphere around you have a great influence. If you are alone, you think in one way; if you are in the midst of many people as in a railway compartment, you will think in a different way. If you are inside a church or a temple, you will think in one way; if you are in a marketplace, you will think in a different way altogether. If you are in the presence of a holy man or a great soul, you will think in one way; if you are in the presence of a thief, you will think in a different way. This is to give an example of how circumstances and the atmosphere around have an influence upon oneself. That is why it is said that the most important requisite for a spiritual seeker is company of good people, called satsanga. Nothing is equal to satsanga. The company of noble persons is the best remedy for every kind of problem in spiritual life.
20. Personality is a Human Concept
Whether God is a person or not is a fairly important question in the study of theologies everywhere, in all religions. All the Semitic religions (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam) consider God as a Supreme Person, almost identifying Him with the concept of a Supreme Father. “Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,”—that is how the prayer goes. All these descriptions of God imply that He is a large inclusive universal personality. Personality is a human concept. When we talk of personality, we always think of the pattern of human personality. We don't think of the personality of a lion, or an elephant. Our thoughts are conditioned by the human way of thinking. Now, is it true that the human way of thinking is the only way of thinking, and there is no other way? A frog also thinks, a reptile thinks, a cow thinks, an elephant thinks. Do you think that their thinking is wrong? We generally think that God is a huge human form, as big as this universe.
21. India has the Blessing of God
India has the blessing of God, somehow. It has not died like other nations, and it does not appear that it is going to die easily. India has suffered due to one mistake that it has committed. It lost its independence for some centuries because it discredited the value of Earthly existence, and gave too much credit to a transcendental existence. That is, the love for God was not equally commensurate with the duty to the world, and so the worldly forces attacked, and God did not come to help because people segmented God Himself into two parts—the Creator and the created. The country suffered economically, militarily, and even in its concept of spirituality. Yet, in its aspiration for the transcendent, though it was not conceived properly in an integral fashion (it was segmented because it was separated from the world's existence), the intensity of the longing for the transcendent was such that its soul is still surviving, though economically, and from the point of view of defense forces, it is not possessed of much that can be admired. Most of the religious people in India asserted the importance of the transcendent Creator, and it was not so easy to bring together into a state of harmony the world and God.
22. Things Come, and Things Go
You must be affectionate, kind and compassionate, serviceful and charitable, they say. All this is very, very important indeed, but there is something more important than all these things, which is the destiny of the soul of the human individual—what happens, finally. This world shall vanish one day, with all its humanity. If it had a beginning, it shall have an end, also. Even the solar system may not survive eternally. It would not be a wise complacence on the part of anyone to imagine that everything is fine, as it appears on the surface to the sense organs. Things come, and things go. People are born, and people die. Empires rise, and empires fall. Caesars and Napoleons have come, and many have gone, also. Nothing remains. What is this drama? In this mysterious presentation of the history of the universe, the history of humanity, nothing seems to be enduring, and even when something appears to be enduring for some time, we do not know for how long it will endure. None of us knows how many minutes more we will be in this world, let alone years. There may be only a few minutes, for some reason. We have to learn by past experience, and by history.
23. Your Mind is the Same as Your Desire
You cannot concentrate on something with a desire for something else. Your mind is the same as your desire. As a cloth is made up of threads, and a cloth is not independent of the threads, the mind is made up of desires, and it is not independent of desires. So, how would you concentrate, except through the mind—which means to say, with your desires only? And, where are your desires? What are the things that you require? If there is chaos in the assessment of your desires, and if you are not very clear as to what it is that you really need in this world, the mind will not be prepared for meditation or concentration. You will be able to concentrate your mind only on that which you desire. You cannot concentrate on anything which you do not desire. Or, to put it more plainly, you can concentrate your mind only on that for which you have deep affection from the bottom of your heart. You cannot concentrate on anything for which you have no affection. Isyoga meditation a kind of unpleasant discipline that is imposed upon you by someone? Or, is it a joyful, spontaneous outpouring of your own feeling, because you want it?
24. You Cannot Know the Environment Unless You Know Yourself First
You are perfectly right in saying that you would like to know yourself. Scientists, philosophers, ecologists, politicians, sociologists, whoever they are, make the fundamental mistake of thinking that they are outside the universe, that they can handle it, and harness it as if it is a bull, or a horse, or an elephant—not knowing that they are included in that which they seek. You cannot know the environment, unless you know yourself first. Why should people have such problems, but for the fact that they have misconstrued the whole structure of the environment, which includes themselves, as if the environment is outside? We always think that the environment is sticking to us, like a shawl or a blanket, but, it is not so. The environment is not a blanket which we can throw it away. It is rather like skin; you cannot remove the skin. The environment is your skin itself, so when you handle it, you are handling yourself. Yet, no politician will understand this point because he is selfish, and is concerned with a little temporary gain, and not thinking of the future in the spirit of a statesman.
25. The Last Thought is the Cream of All Thoughts
If you have a secret affection for something which you are not telling anybody, that will come with great force at the end, and that only will work. But, if it is not so—emotionally, also—and you are thinking only this great wonderful thing, you do not want anything in the world, you have no friends, you have nothing, you are concerned only with the Supreme Being and He is everything for you, and all day and night you are thinking That only—then, in that case, the last thought will be That only. Whatever your emotion says, that will be the last thought. So, this is your question? How can the last thought be something different from what you have been thinking your whole life? It will be the same thought. Why should the last thought be different? The last thought is the cream of all thoughts. There is no distraction. How can there be, unless your mind is thinking very strongly about something—a property, a legacy, a bank balance. “If I die, who will take all this property?”—some people think like that, and then is the trouble.
26. The Whole Thing You have to See at One Stroke
There are no such things as males and females. But, if you say they are, then they are everywhere. Even in trees you will find male trees and female trees. It may be true, also. I am not joking. That is why cross-pollination takes place, and then fruits are produced in the trees. That is a male-female action only. Even insects have male and female distinction—like in honey bees, there are males like drones, and the female is the queen. Everywhere you find the same features. But, if you try to transcend this consciousness, and feel God's power present everywhere, then the positive and negative, both, will melt into God-consciousness. Then there will be no such distinction as you are thinking. In the lower levels, these distinctions are seen, but in the higher level, they all get fused into God-energy, God-consciousness. So, what is your doubt? What are you concentrating? Why do you want to concentrate on anyone's face? What is the purpose? You cannot judge a person by seeing the eyes, nose, ears, etc. It is a total that is there. The whole thing you have to see at one stroke—from head to foot simultaneously.
27. Religious Consciousness
Anyone who feels that there is something above oneself is a religious person. Religion is the consciousness of there being something above and beyond oneself. That is all. If you feel that you are complete, and there is nothing beyond or above you, there is no need for religion. This is a simple psychological definition. The consciousness that there is something above, beyond you, more than you, larger than you, transcending you, which you would like to reach, is religion. You may call it religious consciousness, if you like. Now, you are asking if it is necessary to have religion. The way in which you conduct yourself in your daily life, in the light of this consciousness, in this world, is religion. Firstly, there is a consciousness. Secondly, it has an impact upon your daily life and you conduct yourself in a particular manner accordingly. Your behavior, conduct and action are all determined by this consciousness; so one is the cause and another is the effect. You may say that religious consciousness is the cause; religion is the effect. They go together. One cannot be without the other. Experience is nothing but direct entry into this consciousness of religion. At present, your religious consciousness is only conceptual. It has not actually become you. When it becomes you, it is experience.
28. Wherever There is No Ego, It Looks Beautiful
So, the other thought, which is spontaneous, naturally will not be beautiful. It will be a fragmentary and broken thought. Only God-thought is beautiful; no other thought can be called finally beautiful. A complete structure is necessary for anything to be beautiful. Nothing that is not complete can be beautiful. So, who is complete in this world? Tell me. Nobody. And, therefore, nobody is beautiful. Sometimes the most beautiful thing, which is God, gets reflected in something; then, that also looks beautiful. Do you understand? Though God alone is ultimately beautiful, that in which God is reflected also looks beautiful. A child is beautiful, and a saint is beautiful, because both child and saint have no ego. Wherever there is no ego, that state looks beautiful. Wherever there is ego, it looks ugly. Egolessness is the nature of God. God gets reflected in a child and also in a saint, so both look beautiful; but the middle people are not beautiful because they are neither saints nor children. Do you understand? If you are a child, then you are beautiful, because in a child there is innocence, absence of egoism and self-affirmation, so God reflects Himself in that condition. God can be reflected in the things of the world also, provided these things are 'minus ego', and are innocent. Then, God will be reflected there.
29. In in the Eastern Side, the Emphasis is on the Universal Principles of Life
The European way of thinking is, as they usually call it, empiricist. It is based on sensory observation, and on inference based on that perception through the sense organs, believing in nothing that cannot be proved rationally. That is one of the traits of Western thought—believe nothing which cannot be established by rational investigation. And, it is also socially oriented, to a large extent; they think in terms of society and individuals. The value of the individual and the society of individuals is not given up. In the Eastern side, the emphasis is on the universal principles of life. It is not just empiricist. It is also rational. Its emphasis is on the basic principles of all the values of life, which the East thinks is universal in its nature. Western thinking deduces the universality of a thing by observation of particular instances. If many horses are there, there is a general universal principle called horseness, etc. The Universal does not exist by itself, according to Western thinking. It exists as a corollary followed from the observation of many particulars. In the East, the Universal precedes the particular, whereas in the West, the particular precedes the Universal. Here is the great difference between Western thinking and Eastern thinking.
30. God is All Perfection
God has not created distractions. He has created a universe which is complete in itself. And so, you have to see the whole world as God Himself would see it, as a total whole, in which all distractive elements find a proper place. And in their own place, they are perfectly all right. If you take them out of context, they look irregular and undesirable. Put everything in its own context and everything is all right. The whole world is perfect, and you are also perfect, because you are a part of that. This kind of meditation is what I have suggested in my little book The Problems of Spiritual Life. Think over that. God's creation is full of contradictions. Nothing is like something else. One leaf in the tree is not like another leaf in the same tree. One person is not like another person. Everything is different. There is so much contradiction; yet, it is a perfect blend of harmony and beauty of creation. This is symbolised in the contradictions of the family of Lord Siva, and the perfect harmony also that He maintains. The worst poison of the snake is the nectar on His body. Nothing will harm Him. So, God is all perfection, and in Him every contradiction that you see in life is harmonised beautifully.