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Devotees the world over gather themselves into a single focus of attention to the coming grace from Almighty God in the form of the blazing light of blessing. The world is eager to receive it so that humanity may be bathed in the energy and the resplendence of God. It requires a tungsten wire for an electric bulb to blaze into light. A rope or a straw will not receive the electric current. In the same way, even to receive the grace of God, there must be in every one of us the capacity to receive it, since this mighty grace is the quintessence, as it were, squeezed out from all potentialities of creation.
The Incarnation, as we call it, is the universal force concentrating itself at one point for executing a particular purpose. What is the purpose? It is the redemption of the human soul, and making it fit to be received back to God. It seems that God is too far away from us, at a frightening distance, and nobody has seen God. But what are we seeing around us but the fingers of God operating? If a leaf in the tree moves, one of the fingers of the Almighty is manifesting itself. If we believe that God created the world, from what material did He create it? Which wood, which steel, which cement? The Alone that God was had no necessity to utilise external material. He bathed Himself in the expanse of space, and creation flooded forth. That is one way of envisaging the majesty and the compassion of God. When He manifests Himself as a Christ or a Jesus, He combines in Himself the poverty of the human spirit and the force of the Creator God. Christ was physically like any other human being. Frailty of the body enshrined within itself the majesty of the incalculable power of the Almighty. Utter negation and utter fulfilment are the two characteristics that we see in the life of Christ. He was filled abundantly and completely with God-Being, but he was also a towering example of renunciation. He needed nothing because God gave him everything.
In religious parlance there are two types of renunciation: setting aside all the joys of the world, and living away at a distant place in some corner of the earth, imagining that one has renounced the joys of the world. The peculiarity of the path of the spirit is that things are not so simple as one may imagine. The world cannot be renounced because the human frame is constituted of the same brick and mortar as the world outside. The physical elements which form the world outside are the same stuff out of which our body is made. Who will renounce the world? It is like a brick wall in a large building saying that it will renounce the building. Such a thing is not possible. We forget that we are integrally related to all creation. The blood of all that God created pulsates through our veins. We cannot stand alone because the world is filled with the very power and life of God.
I mentioned to you: Out of what material did God create the world? He Himself was the material. Can anyone imagine what this could mean? He externalised Himself in the form of the multiplicity of the things that we behold with our eyes; and as one of the Upanishads tells us, He deceived everyone by veiling Himself with these forms. As a mother covering herself with a veil frightens her little baby by making some scary sound, God threatens us as a lion, as a flood, as a deluge, as thunder, as lightning, but He consoles us, and never leaves us. In the midst of the terrors of life and the incongruities and the most unwanted things, there is the hand of God operating. Every black cloud has a silver lining. The evils of the world are the negative sides of the goodness of God. God does not create evil.
In the life of Christ there is the embodiment of the mortal and the immortal: the perishable character of life, and the imperishable character of force and faith in God's existence. The Incarnation is something inconceivable. It is the descent of God into the flesh and the frailty of human nature, for the purpose of redeeming human weakness and raising it to the pedestal of God's benedictions. Every event in life is a universal event. Did not the poet tell us, “If you touch the petals of a flower in your garden, the stars are disturbed”? Such is the vital, organic connection of earth and heaven. This would be a good solacing comfort for us that we are surrounded by beneficent forces. The universe is a friendly gesture of God.
The un-understandable difficulties that the world poses before us are manifestations of the greatness of God. He is so great that His ways are un-understandable. He is so good that He is allowing us to breathe the fresh air of the atmosphere of His creation. Who can lift a finger without the order from the heavens? These are the messages given by the great master, Christ, in different parables, different expressions, different gestures and mythological pointers.
The Christmas that we are celebrating is the way in which we invoke the delight of God. “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” These are unforgettable words of Christ. He was a little baby born in a manger, and though his feet were planted on the earth, his head touched the heavens. Christ said, “Do you know that my Father will send angels to guard me if only I need it?”
Christ's life is also an example of a great sadhaka, an austere and persistent seeker of perfection. Whatever Christ uttered, and whatever the way in which he lived, were symbolic of the search for perfection in life. There was nothing fragmentary in his life. If he touched water, it became wine. If he touched a corpse, it rose up into life. If a person fell down, he raised him up. If a person was sick, he immediately healed him. What was it that he did not do and did not reveal in his life?
Here is a moment for us to deeply meditate on the true spirit that Christ was, that Christ is. There is no past tense or future tense for Christ. It is eternity scintillating through a particular form. The life spiritual is hard to lead. Firstly, it is practically impossible to understand what it is due to the vagaries of the mind, the stupidities, the passions, the desires, the egoisms which blow like a tempest and will not allow the mind to concentrate even for a moment. If with all these difficulties we can face the storm of life, stand strong on our own feet and believe in the expected grace of God, we will be saved.
Every hair of ours is counted, every wink of our eyes is known to God. We must be frightened that such a thing is going on. We cannot whisper something without this little whisper between two persons in a corner of the world being heard in the heavens like thunder, as if a huge microphone is kept there. Therefore, no secret action is possible in this world. No one can hide oneself from God.
Fear is God, love is God, compassion is God, beauty is God. All these are combined in this Great Being. Can we bring these terrible characteristics, these marvellous, magnificent features of God, into our meditations? If these wonderful ideas sink into our hearts at this moment, God has entered us, Christ has entered us. We are the most blessed.