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Source: The Hindu (http://www.the-hindu.com)

 

Remember God in all actions

 

CHENNAI, SEPT. 26. Man is essentially spiritual in nature but he

forgets this because of the adjuncts that make his personality

like the body and the mind. This mistaken identification arises

because of illusion (Maya) and it does not stop with this. The

attributes of the physical body, mind and intellect are

transferred to the Self, which is pure consciousness, blissful

and eternal in nature, due to ignorance and hence the limitations

of the psycho-physical personality are imposed on the Self.

 

Likewise the ego becomes strong in an individual when he starts

identifying himself with his worldly standing and achievements.

When a person is wealthy, for instance, the feeling of pride that

arises due to the status he commands in society distances him

from his true Self.

 

How does a spiritual aspirant overcome this problem? Ramakrishna

Paramahamsa used to emphasise the importance of remembering God

and chanting His names constantly. This practice does not allow

materialistic thoughts to disturb the mind and helps the aspirant

to remember that he belongs to God. The saint says that the thumb

rule to ascertain whether one is progressing spiritually is to

check whether the action one is engaged in helps him to remember

God; that which distances him from God must be shunned.

 

In his discourse, Swami Gautamananda said that the individual's

identification with the body-mind-intellect personality continued

till the dawn of knowledge of the Self. When the mind attains

union with the Self this mistaken notion ceases. The person who

has experienced this state of union (Samadhi) emerges as a Self-

realised one for whom there is no more illusion about his nature.

But this process of transforming the ego through knowledge is

difficult.

 

The easy way out is to sublimate the limited ego into good ``I''

by affirming oneself as a servant of God (Dasa). However much the

mind meditates on God, the ego will surface as soon as the

awareness of the body arises. So the constant thought that one is

God's servant will not cause any harm as the ego will get

obliterated. A devotee raised the doubt to Sri Ramakrishna

whether the thought that one was God's servant would fuel the

ego, to which the saint categorically stated that this would not

cause any obstacles and, in fact, would lead to envisioning God

by enhancing devotion.

 

The awareness that one lives only to serve the Almighty must

become constant in a spiritual aspirant. Such an attitude to life

will enable him to keep the distractions of the material world at

bay and progress towards the goal of liberation.

 

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