SALVATION REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING THE ONENESS OF GOD, COMPLEXES FORM 
NO PART OF SPIRITUALITY
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What does the real devotee of God know?  The devotee knows:

"He is the Supreme Glittering Entity." (INTERPRETATION OF RA'MA AND 
NA'RA'YAN'A, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 2, 25 September 1978, Patna)

The devotee also knows:

"The real essence of spirituality (dharma), its inner import, is 
hidden, is hidden in one's existential 'I' feeling.  The highest 
goal of dharma is spiritual progress; the terminating point of 
excellence is the Supreme Cognition.  Where is the abode of this 
Supreme Cognition?  Its abode is the human mind.  It is meaningless 
and unnecessary to run hither and thither and to journey to so-
called places of pilgrimage in quest of the Supreme Consciousness, 
because He is seated right inside the 'I' feeling of the human 
mind.  He is not an object of a distant heaven.

Now in each and every person there is an 'I' feeling, the small 'I' 
of an individual.  Similarly there is a great 'I' also in every 
person and that great 'I' is the Supreme Consciousness.  He is not 
an object of a distant heaven for human beings.  People are always 
preoccupied with their small 'I's and thus there is no limit to 
their afflictions.  But if they concern themselves with their 
great 'I' they will have no problem whatsoever: they can overcome 
all afflictions.  Therefore it is but natural that human beings will 
want to come in the closest contact with the Supreme, to sit near 
Him, to sit on His loving lap.  But how to do it?  This produces a 
little diffidence in the human mind.  People think, "Although the 
Supreme is mine, yet He is so great, so vast that it is well nigh 
impossible to measure or fathom Him.  He is the very embodiment of 
infinite knowledge and wisdom - how can a very ordinary person like 
me understand or realise Him?"  This is simply a form of inferiority 
complex.

Yes, it is true that the Supreme Consciousness is very vast and 
human beings are very small and insignificant in comparison.  But it 
is also true that the Supreme is the nearest relation of human 
beings.  Suppose a scholar has his Master's Degree in at least 
twenty subjects, but his son does not have even elementary 
knowledge.  Will his illiterate son not approach his learned 
father?  Certainly he will, because there is between them the sweet 
relationship of father and son.  Thus there is no room for any 
inferiority complex." (WHAT IS THE WAY, Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 
11, 26 February 1971, Jammu)

Many people prayer to God for boons or to protect them.  This is 
also a sign of inferiority complex and fear.  It is not the healthy 
attitude of a spiritual person.

"The best thing is not to ask the Supreme Consciousness for 
anything. According to the degree of their devotion human beings 
decide what to ask from the Supreme Consciousness. If their devotion 
is motivated by too much selfishness, what will they ask? They will 
say internally to the Supreme Consciousness, "Well, Mr. So-and-so is 
harassing me, my tenant refuses to vacate my house, and Mr. Such-and-
such is my sworn enemy; so, O Lord, please let them go to hell. 
Finish them off for good." Now, if one prays in this way, "O Lord, 
Mr. So-and-so is my sworn enemy, so please let him go to hell," the 
Lord will have to act intelligently, because that man's enemy will 
also say, "O Lord, let my enemy go to hell." So the Lord will be in 
a fix. Whom should He protect, whom should He please? He has to 
handle both sides. So if anyone says to God, "Please crush my enemy 
so that the thorns will be removed from my path", God will act as He 
thinks fit. 

It is certain that the so-called devotees of this category will 
never attain God because it is not Him they really want. And when 
they do not actually want Him, they cannot hope to attain Him." 
(DISCOURSES ON KRS'N'A AND THE GIITA', "YE YATHA' MA'M' 
PRAPADYANTE", A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 4, 8 November 1978 morning, 
Calcutta)

In fact, what is really going on in such cases.  It is simply the 
running around of an unstable and depraved mind.

"The evil mind, the depraved mind, that moves in all the ten 
directions, that entire evil force, the depraving force that moves 
in all the ten directions is goading the mind towards hell." 
(INTERPRETATION OF RA'MA AND NA'RA'YAN'A, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 
2, 25 September 1978, Patna)

Such people create an internal hell for themselves and an external 
hell by their exploitation of others.  They will try to call the 
name of God in their favour.  Money may also be involved.  But what 
is this really?

"There is an unhealthy collusion between capitalists and those who 
trade in religion to try to prevent human beings from forcefully 
asserting their rights. They try to persuade people that 
exploitation, the sucking of blood, by capitalists, is not an 
outrage but a law of nature; that it is useless to try to bring 
about social welfare by establishing human rights. They say the 
exploited people should forget about the world and support those who 
trade in religion in order to enjoy unlimited happiness in an 
imaginary heaven." (HUMAN SOCIETY PART 1, VARIOUS OCCUPATIONS)

"If those who go around looking for opportunities to enlarge their 
stomachs by sucking the vital force of others continue to control 
society or the nation through their own group of sinners, what can 
one expect to see in such a society except a horrid picture of hell!

Opportunistic astrologers or priests have in the past declared that 
the world would soon come to an end following the conjunction of 
several planets in a particular house of the zodiac. Perhaps they 
thought that the public would be frightened by such a declaration, 
and just prior to the cataclysm might renounce everything and donate 
a large part of their wealth to the priests in an effort to ensure 
that they would go to heaven." (HUMAN SOCIETY PART 2, THE VAESHYA 
AGE)

This is the nonsense of religion.  It has nothing to do with 
spirituality.  A particularly nasty form is when money is demanded 
and by:

"Priests who may say they have the capacity to arrange heaven for 
all sinners, all degraded persons, all degraded souls." (SHRA'DDHA, 
A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 3, 18 October 1978, Patna)

One needs a true spiritual perspective to move away from such 
dogmas.  That requires an understanding of what is spiritual 
salvation.

"What is salvation? People use words like salvation and liberation 
very casually. But what does it all mean? There are various kinds of 
bondages on each level of human society linguistic, social, economic 
etc. Spiritual liberation (mukti) means the state of liberation from 
all these bondages. When one attains liberation of a permanent 
nature it is called salvation (vimukti or moks'a). 

In a long life a person both acquires virtue and commits sin. One 
who acquires virtue enjoys the fruits thereof in the supra mental 
level. That is what is called `heaven' or `svarga'. There is no 
separate world named heaven. When one's virtue is exhausted, when 
the requital of one's acquired reactive momenta due to past actions 
is over, one is born on earth to serve the unrequited reactive 
momenta due to past actions (sam'ska'ras). And according to the 
nature of these reactive momenta imbibed, one may be reborn as a 
dog, or one may also get a human life. Heaven is the stage between 
the two lives lived as human beings. No-one acquires heaven 
permanently because no one acquires infinite virtue - that is a mere 
figment of the imagination. 

A person who does virtuous deeds in order to reach heaven never 
becomes immortal, can never attain salvation. One who performs good 
deeds, one who is charitable, acquires virtue and enjoys the bliss 
of virtue in the life after death. Thereafter, in order to requite 
the unserved or base reactive momenta as a result of past actions 
one is reborn as a human being or even as an animal. What is gained 
by all that? Where there is no desire for the attainment of heavenly 
pleasure, where there is no other consideration except elevation to 
the level of the Supreme Consciousness, human beings attain 
liberation. That is, people become one with the Supreme by the grace 
of the Supreme.

One who realizes God becomes God. This self knowledge, this 
attainment of God within one's own self, this unification of the two 
entities, is the path of attaining salvation. Now the question 
arises, who is entitled to salvation?

Human beings are creatures dominated by intellect. Those guided by 
mere inborn instincts are called animals. So those who have certain 
inborn instincts, but who are basically guided by intellect or mind, 
are known as `human beings'. That's why I say repeatedly that I 
strongly object to human beings defined as `rational animals'. How 
can human beings be rational animals? They are certainly not 
animals. When one acquires a human body what should one do? One 
should guide one's inborn instincts along the proper path. This only 
can be done after acquiring a human body." (THE MINIMUM 
QUALIFICATIONS FOR A SA'DHAKA, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 4, 9 
November 1978 evening, Kalika'ta')

So all human beings with a human body are entitled to spiritual 
salvation.  How is it attained?

"To attain Him, the unit mind, the base of all such discriminatory 
feelings, has got to be immersed in the cosmic flow. There is no 
other way."  (THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION, Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 
5, Ka'rttiik Pu'rn'ima 1956, Supaul)

Spiritual salvation cannot be attained through religious rituals. It 
requires spiritual practices and devotion.

"If someone argues that an arum dish rather than a potato dish 
should be offered in the temple of Jagannath because potato is non-
indigenous it is the height of absurdity. Does Jagannath make any 
discrimination between different countries? Is there any difference 
for God between the river Ganges and the Jordan? All lands are His 
own land; everything is within His mind, created with His own atoms 
and molecules, and resonated with His sacred ideation. 

Those whose preachings encourage such discriminatory feelings are 
the worst enemies of humanity. These are the people who in every age 
in the name of religion have caused blood to flow, and have injected 
the fear of heaven and hell, of ghosts and demons into the human 
mind. These are the people who made human beings lifeless puppets. 
And even today these vested interests are still trying to perpetrate 
discrimination in a thousand and one ways. In this way they have 
cheated the simple, mute and gullible masses for centuries together. 
They do not have the key to salvation; no, they hold only one thing 
in their hands: the binding rope. They don't possess the spirit or 
the valour to sing the songs of human emancipation. Their eyes do 
not shine with the radiance of universalism, but squint with the 
greed and cruelty of vultures." (THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION, 
Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 5, Ka'rttiik Pu'rn'ima 1956, Supaul)

For spiritual salvation, it is necessary to understand the infinite 
nature of God.

"O Lord, if the goddess of knowledge wrote for all eternity with an 
ink tablet the size of the Himalayas, an ink-well the size of the 
ocean, a branch of the tree of heaven as a pen, and the vast 
lithosphere for paper, still she could never finish writing your 
qualities."  (SHABDA CAYANIKA' PART 3, DISCOURSE 15, AOKTHA / 
AOKTHAKA / AOKTHIKA TO AOKS'A, 22 December 1985, Calcutta)

"The Supreme Consciousness, the father of all fathers, the multiple 
of all multiplicities, the nucleus of all nuclei, knows everything. 
He is omniscient. He knows everything. The Cosmic Father knows 
everything. He is omniscient, pre-scient and post-scient. The earth 
is established in Him. What has happened in the past is within the 
vibrational principle. What is going to happen in future is also 
within the vibrational principle. Present has got no independent 
existence. It is nothing but an adjustment between the past and the 
future. That is why the present varies in accordance with personal 
differences. The omniscient Consciousness is the Lord of both heaven 
and hell. There is no place outside Him." (SPIRITUAL CULT: PROGRESS 
FROM CRUDEST MATTER TO SUBTLEST ENTITY, Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 
19, 1 January 1971)

So, remember that God is One and the real spiritual practice is the 
union of unit consciousness with Supreme Consciousness (God).  All 
the rest is a bogus ism.

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All above extracts from the works of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti





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