The Song of God Almighty

by Swami Krishnananda

2: The Universal Religion

XVIII. 61-62

The Lord indwelling hearts of all,
Controls creation as His law,
And subjects all to Heaven's rule
As master techniques machines wield.

To Him resort with all thy heart,
With all thy soul and all thy mind,
With Grace descending from that One,
Thou, sure, shalt reach beatitude.

X. 8-11

Religious souls do worship Him
As Creator and Preserver,
As Source of all this universe,
From hatred free to anyone.

They think Him lone, their vitals He,
They discourse on His glorious deeds,
And rejoice in an ecstasy
By dwelling on His Great Grandeur.

Compassionate, the kindest Lord,
Bestows on them the radiant light
That dispels all their ignorance
In lamp of wisdom rare to find.

This wisdom is the path-leader
To glorious aim of every life.
Attaining which, the noblest gift,
One returns not to sorrow's realm.

IX. 13-15

Souls uplifted and truly great,
Abiding in conduct divine,
Resort and pray to God alone
Knowing the One is seen as all.

Singing His Name and fixed in Him,
Prostrating themselves joyfully,
In dance and music do revel
To hold the banner God's aloft.

Through wisdom do they sacrifice
To God eternal in their selves,
As one or twain or threefold viewed
They glory in Him multiformed.

IX. 22

As indivisible who think
And undivided who worship
The One alone as Being-All,
They gain their needs and protection.

IX. 26, 27

God requires no ritual's pomp,
No temple, shrine, or bells and gongs,
He receives even leaf and flower
Or water-drops as best of gifts.

A fruit from plant or sylvan leaf
Or folded palms as suppliant
Do please the greatest God of gods,
Who wants nothing but one's own soul.

Whatever is done, or spoken, thought,
Let that be offered lovingly
As offering to all creation
Encompassed by the Soul Supreme.

IX. 29-34

He has no near or dear or friend,
No one is foe or alien born;
Who love Him as their very self,
To them He runs, for He is they.

They are He Himself, blessed they,
For God needs them, what wonder this;
He seeks them, caresses them well,
And feeds them, guards, regards and loves.

The worst of beings He does raise
To heights of greatness and power
When they repentant seek His Grace
And sink themselves in Him alone.

Even the worst can saint become
When heart does dwell in Majesty
Of God who turns to gold the dust
And dirt of earth by Him rescued.

A past there is to every saint,
A future is to sinners too;
Hate not evil, cling not to good,
Know what things are in eyes of God.

Devotee God's perishes not,
God deserts not His devotee,
Even unasked in kind mercy
He procures all His lover needs.

There is no good or bad for God;
That is the good which gravitates
To universal system's norms
In daily life's patterns and ways.

Lo, transient is the world of pain;
Attach thyself to nothing here;
For fleeting shadows are these forms
Which look like beauties and treasures.

With mind and soul in rooted pose,
In concentrated communion,
Who rests ever on lap of God,
Such soul attains to God alone.

IV. 36

Knowledge destroys the worst of sins,
For sin is externality
Asserting 'gainst universal
And concentrating on object.

Sin is the sensuous impulsion
Towards what is outside oneself,
Which denies God's omnipresence
And sets up ego's rule on earth.

XIII. 27, 28

He sees who sees the One Essence,
The Lord, pervading all beings,
Immortal 'midst what's mortal life;
The Light ablaze in world that sleeps.

To know not oneself is suicide,
To kill oneself is love for things
That stand outside as non-self's forms;
To live, indeed, is life in God.

XII. 13-19

Who hates no creature, friend of all,
Compassionate to men and things,
Egoless, mine-less, mind composed,
Forbearing, content, steadfast, poised;

Self-controlled, firm in conviction,
With mind and reason fixed on God,
From whom the world shrinks not in hate
Who shrinks not from the world around;

Free ever from both joy and grief,
Depending not on things mundane,
Ev'r pure and prompt and unconcerned,
Untroubled in his being's core;

By casting off initiative,
Whom joys and sorrows afflict not,
Desiring nothing, self-reposed,
Risen above concepts opposed;

Who views the One in friend and foe,
Dishonour, honour, heat and cold,
In pleasure, pain, censure and praise,
Silent and content with what comes;

Homeless, and rooted in one's aim,
That blessed one hails excellent,
On earth as also in heaven,
Is loved by God as best of men.

XIII. 7-11

Humble and unpretentious,
With no intent to hurt or harm,
Forbearing, upright, self-restrained,
With distaste for the things of sense;

Brooding on facts of earthly life,
Evils of birth, death and old age,
Of sickness, pain and threat of death
Which's at the elbow as they say,

To son, wife, daughter unattached,
Detached from house and land and wealth,
With reason apprehending life
As filled with transient's promise vain;

Undivided in love of God,
To sequestration resorting,
Away from crowd and mob and noise,
Absorbed in pursuit glorious aim's;

He hails as greatest knower known,
Of him there is no peer in world,
All faiths, all cults and religions
Do merge in this the boundless sea.

XIV. 22-26

This is vision universal,
Wherein established no one clings
To statis, dynamis or poise,
Knowing things, yet indifferent.

For world is movement, wave of flux,
Unsubstantial as plantain's stem,
Forces of matter dash and soar
On themselves, such is mundane science.

Silver or gold or clod of clay,
In essence they are single force
Of matter's stuff in motion's dance;
All variety is sleep's vision.

The properties to properties
Of matter's stuff do gravitate,
The thing there's not which one does see
With eyes of flesh, deluded means.

Deluded they, they see things not
As truly fixed in ocean's heart,
The ocean of the omnifaced,
Transcendent Truth whose forms are things.

Knowing thus well, the wisdom's peak,
Shakes not from true devotion's height,
Rests ever in that all-knowing
Plenum of great felicity.