THE PERSONAL GOD IS ALL LOVE AND EXPRESSES ITS NATURE IN THE EVOLUTION
When we say, “God is love,” we are not talking about that all-pervading, eternal essence or energy called the Impersonal God, for that remains just an energy. But that which expresses love is the totality of this universe. So, when we say God is love, we are talking of the Personal God. We are not talking about that Brahman or that always existent fine energy that does not have to go through cycles, that knows of no love. But the Personal God is the one who is all love.
What do we mean by this love? The Personal God has the universal mind because He is the sum totality of the universe, and therefore, it is love. Through that universal mind, the love that He is or gives is not conditional, nor is it by volition. It is its nature, and it expresses its nature in the evolution, the development of the cycle.
That is why right from the primal self, one progresses to the human stage through various kingdoms, and that very process is the love of God. That very process is the love of God, because it is forever taking you back home from where you have originated. And that is why we say, “God is love.” It is not a figure with a long beard sitting up there on a throne in Heaven, and says, “I love you, my son, I love you. Come unto me.” No. The process is love.
THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION IS THE LOVE AND THE WILL OF GOD
The more we become aware of the process, the more aware we become of love, and then we, in turn, express that love because we are aware of the process. So, the entire existence is nothing else but a process and, in the process, we are forever proceeding to greater and greater awareness of what is going on in this motion. But we understand more of commotion than of motion. Motion is peaceful. Commotion is not. But we use motion to create commotion, and the small mind does that, and that is why we want to meditate to reach the highest superconscious level of the mind, where even the motion, though being motion, would be so still, like a highly spinning top, spinning so fast that it would seem very still to us.
So, these are the things to understand; otherwise, it would just be a saying. Everybody says that “Love is God and God is love.” Just verbal words, words, words, and nothing understood. The love of God is the process, and the very process is God. Do you see how they tie up with each other? For even in this process, there is a system. No process can come about haphazardly, and because it cannot, we call it God’s will. That is the rule. We are involved in this process, which is God’s will. Therefore, we say that we are governed by God’s will, which is very accurate. It is very precise that we are involved in this process—we engaged in his love.
ONLY THE EGO-SELF CAN HATE, AND THE HATRED STEMS FROM THE SUBJECT
When there is love, it has to have its opposites, hate. Where does hate come from? In reality, there is no hate. There is no hate at all. It is the misinterpretation of love that is termed hate. As we all know, there is a very thin dividing line between love and hate. You can love someone very much now and later; it can turn to hate only due to misinterpretations by the little mind.
So, hate is an idea. If God is love and God is the universe, where is there a place for hate? There is no hate. Hate is an idea because we only use the conscious mind, which is only a fraction of the mind, and the conscious mind, with its ego self, wants everything conducive to itself and says that “I am the center of the universe.” When it says I, I, I, it does not mean the real “I” but the ego “I” and the ego “I” is forever grasping, is forever trying to preserve itself in whatever way. By hook or by crook, it wants to maintain itself, and when things do not go its way, it changes the energy of love into hate and projects it onto others. And that is what the ego thinks: “I hate someone.” The ego self finds an object of hatred. But where does the hatred really stem from? It stems from the subject.
EGO-SELF IS THE STUMBLING BLOCK, WHICH YOU CANNOT ANNIHILATE, BUT CLARIFY
So, then I am the hate. The ego self is the hate, and that is why we lose sight of the true meaning of the will of God, and God is love. So, what do we do with the ego self, the stumbling block? People say annihilate it! I say do not, keep it. It is good. For without self-identity, which the ego self brings about, how can you know the universal identity, which is God, without knowing yourself? So, preserve the ego self, but refine the ego self. It would be foolish for a person to say, “I was Jack, I am not Jack anymore. Now I am the universe,” and then he runs around like a madman. Therefore, we have had mad men coming into this world and saying, “I am God.” You really are, but have you realised that yet? Have you realised that universal self? Have you encapsulated that universal God within yourself to say, “I am He.” No, and that is why people like Hitler are born to boost their ego. That which we must refine is made much, much grosser. So, we become stagnant. We actually go back, instead of going forward.
WHEN THE SMALL SELF IS CLEANSED, THE HIGHER SELF COMES AUTOMATICALLY
So, we, in our sense, preserving the ego self, believing that we are it all, are really intoxicated in that. It is better to have the intoxication within the universal self than within the little ego self, for it gets you nowhere. But meditation and spiritual practices are a cleansing process that refines the ego self so that the higher self within oneself can shine through. It is a preparation, and then illumination will dawn.
First, the stage of Savikalpa Samadhi, which we have spoken about before, where you find the I and thou. You see the universal God, and you find your small “I,” and you learn to discriminate between the small “I” and the universal “I.” And then with further practice, the small “I” becomes so clarified that the force and light of the higher “I”, some call it the “over soul”, shines through. And yet while you are embodied, the ego self will exist, but in a clarified, refined form. That is what is called mergence, not throwing away or discarding or annihilating the ego. You cannot do that. If you annihilate the ego “I”, you will not be able to walk, talk, or perform any biological functions. However, the permeation does not come from yourself to the higher self; if the small self is cleansed, then the higher self comes automatically. You do not merge into God; God merges into you by giving you, and you know it, you become conscious of it, and life becomes peaceful and smoother. And when that happens, the step after that, to merge away like the drop of water in the ocean, into the Brahman, the Impersonal God, just becomes automatic.
WHEN A PERSON TRULY KNOWS LOVE, WISDOM IS AUTOMATICALLY THERE
What happens with these Incarnations is that they can merge away at any time they wish to, but being the emanation of the entirety of the universe, they still have desires. And the desire is to return again and again, age after age, when they are needed, when evil rises, or when there is an imbalance. They come again and again to show the path, universal truths that have always existed. They have done nothing new, but presented universal truths in a way that the times could understand them.
When true love is reached in this mergence of the big “I” with the small “I”, then that brings about love. Love is something spontaneous, and it is something that cannot be defined, but experienced, for we can talk about what it is about, but not about what it really is. So, when this mergence comes about, then you are automatically merged with wisdom. For that process is the wisdom, or how else can the process carry on? That is wisdom itself. So, when a person truly knows love, then wisdom is automatically there.
KNOWLEDGE IS MOSTLY ACQUIRED, WHILE WISDOM JUST FLOWS FROM INSIDE
There is a significant difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is mostly acquired. You can read a million books and acquire a lot of knowledge, as University Professors do. But that is something acquired, gained from outside, which most times burdens the mind, and a lot of it is useless knowledge too. For when we reach wisdom, we do not need knowledge, because knowledge always contains the elements of logic, rationalization, and analysis. Still, when we reach the stage of wisdom, it just flows from inside. It just flows. You put aside the mind that could carry wisdom, for you do not operate from that level. All knowledge is centered in the left hemisphere of the brain, but wisdom pours forth from the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain is the part that has that intuitive value to it. It is so connected to the universal mind.
That is another thing that meditation and spiritual practices do: they connect up the right hemisphere to the analytical left hemisphere by creating a greater synaptic force, and that is why our thinking from the left hemisphere becomes more and more powerful, more concentrated. In other words, it brings about this wholeness, where the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere can function together in their fullest capacity.
Then the left hemisphere, although being rationalistic, only becomes an interpreter, and that is how wisdom flows through you, from deep inside via the intuitive levels of the right hemisphere. Then, because of the excellent conjunction that exists because of spiritual practices, it filters through the left hemisphere, analyzes it, and interprets it to those who hear.
ALL WORSHIP IS GOOD BECAUSE YOU GO DEEPER INTO THE INTUITIVE LEVEL OF THE MIND
These are the mechanics. All worship is good because, through prayer, when the mind would not want to analyse, then worship is done, devotion is brought about. And through that, without analyzing it, you tap into the right hemisphere, and from there, you delve deeper into the intuitive levels of the mind.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1983 – 03
