THE TRUE QUEST AND NATURE OF MIND AND SOUL IN RELATION TO 
SPIRITUALITY
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'The nature of the mind is to become like its object. Superstition 
of any kind -- social, psychic, or spiritual -- influences the mind 
to such an extent that the mind, due to its worries, leads a person 
into difficulty. The mental equilibrium of those believing in 
superstition is disturbed; and the result is not only do people lose 
their peace of mind, but they may also be led to perform some action 
which is detrimental to themselves. This only further strengthens 
their belief in superstitions: for any ordinary incident is 
magnified and attributed to some bad omen. It is the characteristic 
of the mind to become like its object. People who believe in any 
superstition see ghosts which are purely their own mental creation. 
If only these persons had the courage and mental strength to catch 
the ghost, they would very soon realise that their error was 
believing nothing to be something. Such superstitions have 
contaminated every field of existence. In the social sphere there is 
no dearth of superstitions. Witchcraft, the persecution of widows, 
etc, are curses in society only due to such superstitions. 

In the psychic sphere also there are deep-rooted superstitions like 
the belief in ghosts, communicating with ghosts, etc. Not only this, 
but superstitions of funeral ceremonies, etc, have also burdened 
even the progeny of a person. In the spiritual field, too, ignorant 
people have been forced to do so many things only because of their 
deep-rooted superstition of heaven and hell. All of these only 
disturb people's psychic equilibrium and bring discord and anxiety 
in society. For the preservation of peace, the fight against 
superstitions is of prime importance.

These ideas are not rational and therefore it is erroneous to 
believe in them. 

The spiritual superstition of heaven and hell and fear of God 
suppress people and destroy their psychic peace. Not infrequently, 
fear of such superstitions has had very undesirable reactions on 
people, totally disturbing their equanimity. Spiritual practices 
must be based on rationality: a systematic and scientific method of 
spiritual practices leaves no place  for fear and superstitions.'
(SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, Ta'ttvika Praveshika', 1957)

There is no place for dogmas.

'The people of olden days imagined that there was a certain hell*. 
It was their conception that if one's son would do the ritual 
funeral offering then one would be saved from that hell. 

*In the Puranic imagination there is a hell where the god of death, 
Yamaraj's gate is guarded by sentries.'
(VARN'A VIJINA'NA - THE SCIENCE OF LETTERS, DISCOURSE 18, COMPOUND 
WORDS, 16 October 1983, Calcutta)

These things are just superstitions and fantasy.

The notion of heaven and hell is full of relativity.  All that is 
relative is subject to a process of generation, operation and 
destruction.  The idea of pleasure in heaven is also relative.

'After death the mind is incapable of any action due to the lack of 
its physical base, the brain, and has to be reborn for experiencing 
reactions of its previous actions. Hence the concept of hell or 
heaven where human beings are supposed to proceed after death is 
entirely incorrect. It is believed that one experiences all the 
pleasures in heaven as a result of one's good deeds and pain in hell 
for one's evil deeds. But pleasure and pain cannot be experienced by 
the mind which in the state after death is a non-functional unit, 
until it acquires a new brain at the time of rebirth. Conception of 
a world of heaven or hell after death is a greatly-mistaken fantasy. 
There is no other world where heaven and hell exist. It is in this 
mortal world only that one has to be reborn to experience the 
pleasures of heaven and the sufferings of hell.'
(WHAT IS MY RELATION WITH THE UNIVERSE AND THE COSMIC ENTITY?, 
A'NANDA MA'RGA (ELEMENTARY PHILOSOPHY))

Fundamentally, it must be remembered that God is omniscient and 
omnipotent and so loves the entire Creation.  

'God - the Supreme Consciousness is omnipotent no doubt, all-
powerful no doubt. But He cannot do two things. You may do those 
things, but the Supreme Consciousness cannot do them. And what are 
those two things? One thing is, He cannot create a second God -- 
this is one defect. And the second defect is, He cannot hate you. He 
cannot hate anybody. But you people, you can hate others, so in this 
respect you are greater and nobler than the Supreme Consciousness! 
If you so desire you can hate others, but God cannot hate; even if 
He so desires, He cannot hate others.

And nobody in heaven or on this earth can control Him. He is the 
Lord of all, He has no Lord.'
(UNIT SPIRIT AND COSMIC SPIRIT, SUBHA'S'ITA SAM'GRAHA PART 21, 21 
October 1971 DMC, Ernakulam)

All have the opportunity to attain spiritual liberation or 
salvation.  This requires surrender to the Supreme.

'When human beings ask for money they must send some application 
letters, but when God - the Supreme Consciousness - wants something 
from you, He will not ask for it, He will demand it. What He will 
ask you for, you will hesitate to give; for He will ask for nothing 
less than your whole existence. Those who are prepared to give their 
all, even though they may be the most ,degraded sinners, become the 
full responsibility of the Supreme Consciousness, because they have 
surrendered themselves completely to Him. They have not given away 
ninety nine cents, keeping one cent for themselves. Hence it is the 
moral responsibility of the Supreme Consciousness to care for such 
people. Those who dwell in the "Heaven of Knowledge" may say, "Such 
a degraded person has committed such a dastardly crime -- his 
spiritual liberation is impossible, for his past was so black!" The 
philosophers might busy themselves dabbling in knowledge, but those 
who have completely surrendered themselves to Him, will certainly be 
cared for by Him. 

Take the case of flower: it may be defiled with dirt and dust, but 
if that flower is offered to the water, will the water not accept 
it? Certainly it will. Likewise the devotees will never be concerned 
with what a person did in the past. They will think, "I am like a 
flower offered at His feet which He has graciously accepted."

The Lord says, "Even if the worst of the sinners worship me 
exclusively, they will be liberated from all worldly bondages." This 
total surrender is not attainable as long as there is any vanity of 
knowledge in a person's mind--it is not possible for such a person 
to become an A-grade devotee. (Devotees are of several categories). 
No matter how sinful people may be, they need not worry about 
anything if they come within the shelter of the Supreme 
Consciousness. Only this has to be ensured, that their surrender is 
cent per cent.'
(RELATIVITY AND THE SUPREME ENTITY, Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 10, 
29 November 1971, Calcutta)

God loves all.  To suggest otherwise, limits his jurisdiction.

'Those who are seated in Heaven are as dear to the Supreme 
Consciousness as those who are ensconced in Hell, scorched in 
eternal hellfire. Even for those infernal creatures the Supreme 
Consciousness has unbounded love and affection--even such people are 
not helpless. Their piteous wailings reach His ears, and accordingly 
He takes steps to help them. But this is not the case for certain 
human beings: rather even at the sight of the sorrows and sufferings 
of afflicted people they will say, "Well done! as you sow, so you 
reap! Those people are reaping the consequences of their past 
misdeeds!" In the human mind there is an ingrained sense of hatred 
for others. But there is no such feeling in the mind of God.

The Supreme Consciousness is the all-controlling Entity. No one else 
can dictate to Him. This is the major difference between a unit 
human being and the Supreme Being. In spite of such a serious 
difference, the Supreme Consciousness loves human beings and showers 
His Grace on them, and out of His infinite love for them, He has 
given them a valuable treasure -- mind. The characteristic of this 
mind is that as it thinks so it becomes. Hence if they so desire, 
human beings can merge their individual minds in the Macrocosmic 
Mind. While taking the ideation of the Supreme Consciousness, human 
minds will one day become identified with Him, and one auspicious 
moment all the inherent qualities of the Supreme Consciousness will 
be infused in their unit minds. One who knows God becomes God.

There cannot be two God's. So in the last stage of evolution, the 
living beings become completely identified with the Supreme 
Consciousness, and then only the microcosms will be fully 
established in their infinite blissful Cosmic Stance.'
(PARAMA PURUS'A AND HIS CREATION, Subha's'ita Sam'graha Part 10, 17 
November 1971, Nagpur)

In this regard, God is indescribable.

'Now if we want to write about His qualifications we require ink, we 
require paper, and we require - what? We require a writer. To write 
about His qualifications we require these things, So the poet 
said, 'If we get the mighty Himalayas as an ink tablet - we require 
ink - and as an ink pot, all the oceans of the world; and then a 
pen. If we use he biggest imaginary tree of Heaven as the pen and if 
this entire lithosphere is used as paper, then what - who is to 
write? If the imaginary goddess of learning, the mythological 
goddess of learning, Minerva, writes with this ink tablet, ink pot, 
paper and pen - for how many days? For an innumerable number of 
days - even then it won't be possible for her to write all His 
qualifications.

God is beyond the periphery of all qualifications.'
(THE SUPREME WITNESS AND THE GREAT THIEF, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 
12, 10 May 1979 evening, Fiesch, Switzerland) 

However, God is both infinitely pervasive and deeply and personally 
associative.  All have a direct personal relationship with God.

'You know if there is an impersonal entity controlling everything, 
having no link with you, in that case the psychology of discipline 
won't be created, because in that case an order is followed or 
obeyed or adhered to due to a fear complex - but in the field of 
spirituality there must not be any complex, neither fear complex nor 
shy complex nor any other complex. So the scriptures saying that if 
you do not obey Him you will go to Hell, like this, these scriptures 
are the worst enemy of human society. Because these scriptures 
create a complex, a fear complex, in the human mind, and that fear 
complex creates disparity in this human society.

This human society is one. It is a singular entity. It cannot be 
divided; it must not be divided; and we won't allow any entity to 
create any fissiparous tendency in this human society.

Whatever a man is to do in his spiritual life he is to do - why ? 
Because he is in love with the Supreme Entity. Love is the first 
word, love is the starting point, and love is the last point. And 
scriptures have no moral right to create a fear complex in the human 
mind.'
(9 May 1979 evening, Fiesch, Switzerland, THE STARTING POINT AND THE 
LAST POINT, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 12)

Each person must realise from this that the real progress is at the 
spiritual level.  To overcome dogma and more importantly to 
strengthen one's mind and the urge for spiritual quest, practical 
steps must be taken at an internal level.

'Actual progress is in spiritual level, not in physical or psychic 
level. Your progress is auto-suggestion or outer suggestion, when 
you say something like ...... "Sudarshan, be an ideal man. Sudarshan 
be an ideal man" When you say internally, what is it? It is auto-
suggestion. Sudarshan is giving suggestion to Sudarshan. The 
conscience goads Sudarshan's mind towards the idealistic stance of 
Sudarshan -- "Be an ideal man". The mental picture is in the mind of 
Sudarshan. And the conscience of Sudarshan says, "Sudarshan, be an 
ideal man". The conscience of Sudarshan goads towards that ideal 
figure. Do you follow the psychology? What is it? It is auto-
suggestion. "I must be a good man. I must be a good boy. I must do 
something concrete for the world. I won't be afraid of anybody in 
this world. I must be a good boy. I must do something concrete for 
the world. No power in Heaven or Earth can check me." What are these 
things? Auto-suggestion.'
(AUTO-SUGGESTION AND OUTER SUGGESTION, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 14, 
23 August 1979, Taipei)

Having the ideation of an ideal spiritual awareness, it is then 
relatively easy to see that God is divine love or what some call 
bliss.

'It is said about the way in which the Supreme Soul can be seen in 
the soul: In the same way that something can be seen in a mirror, a 
person can see the Supreme Soul by analysing the unit soul. The 
Supreme Soul (God) can be seen in 'heaven' in the same way that an 
entity is seen in a dream. 

The sages have said that that God has created this universe from a 
perennial fount of bliss. Having created the world, God gets joy 
from the creation of innumerable bubbles in divine sport and dance. 
Thinking this, He has created the world and continues to do so. By 
maintaining the creation He gets bliss and the created beings living 
in the world also get bliss. By appropriating the sportful essence 
of the created world, He gets bliss, and the created being gets 
bliss when a unit being loses himself in the Supreme Consciousness 
in the supreme stance of the divine play.

The sole duty of intelligent and judicious beings is to keep oneself 
in bliss and to conjoin the living being, world and God in the flow 
of bliss.

There is a heaven and hell difference between pleasure and bliss. 
But by way of explanation, one may say that bliss is the state of 
endless pleasure. Bliss is above both negativity and positivity. 
Bliss is not confined to the arena of either one. It is the 
consummation of the two.'
(SHABDA CAYANIKA' PART 1, DISCOURSE 5 A'NT TO A'HIIRA, 12 October 
1985, Calcutta)

To suggest otherwise through notions of condemnation to hell, is the 
creation of limited and dogmatic human minds - and a violent 
approach and outlook.  Civil society will no longer tolerate such 
attitudes.

'There is neither heaven nor hell.'
(A'NANDA SU'TRAM, Chapter 2)

A devotee of God will undergo anything to please Him.  So it has 
been said:

'"If God is in hell and we are in heaven, that heaven will be worse 
than hell for us. But if God is in hell, we can remain there with 
Him till eternity. We want to remain with God, whether in heaven or 
in hell."

So the relationship with God is personal, and quite mutual. People 
speak to God because they cannot help it.'
(NA'MA AND NA'MII, SUBHA'S'ITA SAM'GRAHA PART 21, 19 October 1971 
DMC, Bombay)

We must remember the universal approach.

'These created beings, they being the progeny of the same Father, 
are members of the same Universal Family. They have got a common tie 
of the Universal Fraternity. We must not forget this supreme fact. 
Now, everybody is within God's mind. Can a sinner go beyond the 
periphery of His mind, when there is nothing beyond His mind ? No, 
nobody can go beyond the periphery of His mind. And, He cannot 
say, "You naughty chap, get out". If such an order is given by Him, 
that naughty child will then and there say, "Oh Supreme Father, 
where am I to go ? Because you are infinite, everything is within 
you. If you say, 'Oh naughty chap, get out', then certainly there is 
something outside Your mind, and I am to go there. And, if there is 
something outside, then You are not infinite. So, either You please, 
Oh Supreme Father, withdraw Your order or change Your name." 

Sinners are also within His mind, virtuous people are also within 
His mind. The sinners are His naughty children, and He always wants 
that His naughty children should become good children by their 
conduct. He cannot expel anybody from His mind, from the arena of 
His universal mind. 

Now, after creation, after being freed from the tortures of 
monotony, what does God do? He is playing His eternal game with His 
loving children, and this is the world. So, nobody should suffer 
from the psychology of melancholia. None should feel that he or she 
is alone in this universe. None should feel that he or she is 
helpless or hopeless. And, nobody should suffer from inferiority 
complex or superiority complex. When the Supreme Father is with you, 
when you are within His mind, then you should not be afraid of any 
physical or any psychic enemy, that would be stronger than your 
Supreme Father. When the Supreme Entity is omniscient and 
omnipotent, no power in heaven or hell can do anything bad for Him. 

The final goal, the Supreme Desideratum of each and every living 
being is that Supreme Consciousness, is that Supreme Father. So, all 
living beings and all inanimate objects came from the same source, 
they live in the same ectoplasmic field of the Supreme Entity. And, 
their final goal, their desideratum is that Supreme Home.' 
(THE CAUSAL MATRIX, A'nanda Vacana'mrtam Part 1, 21 September 1979, 
Kingston)

from works of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti 




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