MAN NEEDS SOMETHING TANGIBLE TO APPROACH THE ABSTRACT We know that the spiritual energy that exists in the universe is abstract. The human mind is so constructed that it could never conceive of anything abstract, because it is tangible in a very fine, subtle form of energy. In contrast, the abstract is an energy beyond all tangible energies. It is an intangible energy. So, for the human mind to have any little comprehension of the universal energy, the intangible, the abstract energy, what must he do? Ancient Sages have devised a means; this was not something devised by the Sages, but something revealed to them. By revelation, we mean that the human mind can be brought to such a fine level, and yet, going beyond that fine level of the human mind, one can be in absolute communion with the abstract. In other words, we are led very systematically to that abstract state, whereby the abstractness produced in us becomes one with the universal abstractness, which means that the inner self of man finds its oneness with the universal self of man. That is the abstract conception, and therefore, we say that Divinity is indefinable by man’s mind. But man has to have something tangible. So, how to find that tangibility? If we have an air conditioner in the room with the heat on, we do not see the heat, yet it is there, warming the room. Because the human mind is incapable of conceiving, seeing, feeling, or touching the abstract heat or the abstract Divinity in our sense, he has to have a way and means by which he can communicate. We know for sure that the tangible cannot communicate with the intangible. So, in this case, the intangible or the abstract has to concretise itself so that the human being or the human mind can have a conception of something which is beyond itself. Through analysis, he can find that there is something more to me than just me. Through feeling, he can extend this principle in actually experiencing that there is more to me than the apparent me. THE ABSTRACT MADE TANGIBLE THROUGH PERSONALISED DEITIES So, to find all these various deities, a formulation has been developed. For example, the Hindu people have so many gods, tangible gods, gods that lived householders’ lives. If you take the God Brahma, the Creator, he would have his Lakshmi, and Shiva would have his Parvati. So, those Gods, those conceptions were brought down to such a level that the ordinary man can identify himself with something tangible. A householder can definitely identify himself with another householder. By that, we mean that a husband and wife can identify with a being that also has a husband-and-wife relationship. So, personal Gods were formed. What has happened here is that the abstract God has become a personalised God. What is the personalised God? A personalised God necessarily has to be the son of man, and the son of man we regard to be a personalised God. In different times and in different climes, the same principle has been followed. Buddhists have their Buddha, the Hindus have their Krishna and their Rama, and Christians have their Christ, the Mohammedans have Mohammed. Human beings will find it a spiritual and psychological necessity to have a personalised form of God, and that is why we find in the Bible the phrase “Our Father which art in Heaven.” It has many abstract meanings, but the literal meaning is time and place: there is a place where the Father is in Heaven. Yet the abstract Father is beyond the Father that we conceive of sitting in Heaven with long robes and a big beard. MAN NEEDS A TANGIBLE IDEAL ON THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY For man to proceed on the spiritual path, and this is worth repeating, he needs a tangible form to which he can relate. The best way that man can relate is to a superman, and that is the origin of all these films, like James Bond. Because man within himself feels that he has a greater capacity, a greater capability, and he is forever trying to identify himself with that greater capability and capacity. Therefore, we have these James Bonds, where, while watching James Bond in action, the viewer identifies with that James Bond on the screen. And the reason is not only escapism or daydreaming, because even escapism and daydreaming must have a basis. The basis is that man inherently has far greater capacity within himself than what he displays without himself. So, we know, and all psychiatrists and psychologists will tell us that we use less than ten per cent of our potential. Ninety per cent is lying dormant. So, for man to awaken the ninety per cent dormantness within him, he has to personify an ideal, an ideal which is greater than himself, and that is the purpose of having personalised Gods where God is seen in person. A PERSONIFIED GOD IS A COMBINATION OF THE CONCRETE WITH THE ABSTRACT According to Vedic tradition, certain forms of meditation lead one to the supreme state. The first form is what they call Savikalpa Samadhi, which means to reach Samadhi, to reach a supreme state with form, Kalpa, Savikalpa with conceivable form. So, by having an ideal which is a super-human being, we lead all our attentions to that super-human being and by leading the attention to the super-human being, we try to, and we do identify ourselves with that super-human being, which is Krishna, Buddha, Christ. And when one reaches total identification with the ideal of the personified God, we go beyond that to find the abstract God. So, the conceptions of a personalised God or an abstract God are not contradictory. The one idea is an extension of the other. They are stages that man has to go through. We cannot find Divinity by solving mathematical problems. Divinity has to become very, very tangible. What is a personified God? A personified