Today you are in the habit of perceiving the world externally. The external world creates a lot of illusions in you, which are causing you problems because you do not understand the true nature of your own mind. The nature of illusion is to change and predominantly create uncertainty and havoc in the mind. Thousands of people talk in a thousand different ways. They bring a lot of influences to bear on you consciously and sub-consciously and you suffer because of this since you do not possess a serene frame of mind. That is why most of the time you are confused and do not know how to deal with the external world.
The moment you start looking at the world internally, the true nature of your self is revealed to you by your own soul.
For this, your buddhi (intellect) should correspond with your manas (mind). Your bhavana (feelings) should correspond with your spiritual traditions, culture and upbringing (samskara).
Today, you are giving your external world one hundred per cent of yourself. Even god is external. For you, He exists outside you. You are searching for an external god. When you understand and internalise god, then your prayers will be fulfilled. Today, you are not successful because you are not internalising god. Unless you know how to, you can never be successful in life, no matter how many poojas you may perform or participate in because god is personal. Even though you know, the personal feeling is absent in you.
Some of you know god is in your conscience. You know it because you have felt it. Do you think god only pertains to your conscience? He is also a part of your consciousness. God works within your intellect, brain, along with your senses and all the nerves, all the nodal points inside you, everywhere and in each and everything which you cannot even imagine.
God wants you to live with full chaitanya (consciousness.) What do you ask god standing in the temple, or before a picture or an idol? You ask for everything other than knowledge. Your prayer should be, “Dear god, please hold my hand and lead me. Lead me from darkness to light, mortality to immortality, from untruth to truth.” That is where god is supposed to lead you to. Then, when you pray thus, god will appropriately lead you into that light. If you light a candle the whole room is illuminated. Likewise, with the light of knowledge, god leads you to realise your consciousness in order to realise yourself.
Sage Kashyapa in Kashyapa Sutra says ‘Srishti Dharmena Jeeva Yatra’-as per the nature of your tendencies or vasanas, so is your journey of life. So, you have the power of will to be used properly so as to increase the bandwidth of your freewill. For example, let us imagine it is two to three per cent right now, and you have to increase it to 60 per cent at least in order to live a fully harmonious life so that all your prayers are answered instantaneously.
The article has been written by Shri Nimishananda
