Gems From Bhagavan

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>From the point of view of Jnana (Knowledge) or Reality, the pain seen in the

world is certainly a dream, as is the world, of which any particular pain

like hunger is an infinitesimal part. In the dream also you yourself feel

hunger. You see others suffering from hunger. You feed yourself and moved

by pity feed the others whom you find suffering from hunger. So long as the

dream lasted, all those pains were as real as you now think the pain of the

world to be. It was only when you woke up that you discovered that the pain

in the dream was unreal. You might have eaten to the full and gone to

sleep. You dream that you work hard and long in the hot sun all day, are

tired and hungry and want to eat a lot. Then you wake and find your stomach

is full and you have not stirred out of your bed. But this does not mean

that while you are in the dream you can act as if the pain you feel is not

real. The hunger in the dream has to be assuaged by the food in the dream.

The fellow beings you found so hungry in the dream had to be provided with

food in that dream. You can never mix the two states, the dream and the

waking state. Till you reach the state of jnana and thus wake up out of

maya you must do social service by relieving suffering whenever you see it.

But even then you must do it without ahankara, i.e., without the sense of 'I

am the doer', but with the feeling 'I am the Lord's tool'. Similarly one

must not be conceited by thinking, 'I am helping a man below me. He needs

help. I am in a position to help. I am superior and he inferior.' But you

must help the man as a means of worshipping God in that man. All such

service is for the Self and not for anybody else. You are not helping

anybody else, but only yourself.

 

(Gems from Bhagavan, selected by A. Devaraja Mudaliar)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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