BANGALORE: One of the essential requirements of a devotee, who desires to get released from bondage and seeks to realise God, is the acquisition of spiritual knowledge. A devotee should understand the nature of the object to be achieved, viz., the Supreme Being, the nature of the Self, their relationship, the means to reach God, the result that comes out of his efforts and the obstacles which prevent him from reaching his goal.
Both the ‘good’ and the ‘pleasant’ approach a man. The wise one discriminates between the two and having examined them, prefers the former while others choose the latter. The good and the pleasant represent the paths of spiritual knowledge and of sense pleasures. It is the deluded who take recourse to the latter. One gets mortality by pursuing illusion while immortality is assured to those who seek Truth.
Gold, gems and precious metals are hidden in the ground but they cannot be acquired easily. They can be located only with certain aids. Subsoil water can be traced only by divining. So too, God’s resplendent vision can be seen through ‘devotion’. Those who have cultivated this assiduously will certainly experience the presence of God.
Various textual authorities provide us with a complete chart of tackling every fundamental problem and teach us the doctrines as regards the nature of God, Man and the World and the relationship between them. One of them spells out two paths that are laid before us - one to gain ephemeral pleasures which will entangle human beings in worldly activities and the other, teaching Divine Wisdom, enabling to cut asunder, the knots of worldly bondage.
Individuals in bondage will be naturally inclined to indulge in material enjoyment and hardly one among them will possess the inquisitiveness to reach Divinity. So long as there is no awakening of devotion, one has to undergo rebirths and experience endless suffering. The highest gain in human existence is to approach God through devotion.
The form of God-realisation varies in every individual case according to the sentiment and faith of the worshipper during the period of his spiritual discipline. Those who worship Him in terms of identity, i.e. as their own self, realise Him in terms of identity; while to those who worship Him in terms of diversity, He reveals Himself as other than the worshipper. God is realised differently by different strivers according to their respective conviction.
God is free from any inauspiciousness. He is the storehouse of all that is good. Srimad Bhagavatham adds: Listening with rapt attentions to soul-enlivening narrations of the Supreme Being from the lips of devotees gives rise to unshakable faith in God, removing forthwith evil propensities from the heart and giving scope for developing a deep desire to realise Him.
Bodily purity, freedom from harbouring evil thoughts, performance of prescribed rites with zeal, goodwill to all (even to enemies) and contentment, are some of the virtues he should cultivate, to acquire spiritual wisdom.