Deivathin Kural Series - 118

Om Namah Sivaya.
Deivathin Kural # 118 of 18 Dec 2006.
1. To-day's title is 'Ennaie Enakku Kodu', that is, 'Give Me to Myself', occuring in pages 527 to 529, in Volume 1 of Deivathin Kural, Tamil version, published by Vanady Padippagam, Chennai.
2. A true devotee of God Parameswara, wants do Pooja to his God. Then he gets a serious doubt. He asks God, "Easwara, I have a major doubt. When I pray to You, I feel somehow, I am insulting You. Your feet encompasses the whole world. How can I have the temerity to wash it with a spoonful of water? You are in the form of the entire universe. How stupid of me to try and cloth you with this piece of cloth! When I prostrate before you, since you are, 'sarva vyapi', (meaning Omni-present), wherever I extend my feet, You are there. In trying to show obeisance to You, I end up showing disrespect! So, instead of 'Puja and Upachar', I decide to say my prayers. In doing so, whatever I may say, becomes an insult and affront to Your Omniscience. Still the very idea of praying to You, is due to the fact that, You are all endowed, while I am deficient. So I pray to You to make me complete."
3. Then again he continues in the same vein, "Even this prayer to make me complete, is a mistake! You are everything. That everything, includes me too! So I am actually endowed with what ever You are endowed with.
So all that You have to do, is very simple indeed! Simply make me realise that, I am You."
4. He goes on, "You are 'akhanda aananda swaroopam', (that is, in the form of indivisable bliss). Veda says that You are everything. In your total bliss, how can there be a person like me, with seeming defiencies and inadequacies, coming and praying to You, with tear filled eyes? So remove this seeming seperateness. Vedas can be true, only if You remove this anamoly, of my seperateness! Then only You and Me can be one. So I am not going to ask You to give me this or that material. I am asking You to, 'give myself to me'. "
5. Sri Sadasive Brhmendral, in 'Siva Manasika Pooja', says the same thing:- "Mahyam Dehi cha Bhagawan, Madiyameva Swaroopam Anandam", meaning, 'give my blissful self to me'.
6. Now we are all masquerading as something other than our real self! How much we agonise, when seperated from our near and dear ones? So, imagine what should be the intensity of our suffering, till we get ourselves back! To rejoin our real self, we should be endevouring constantly, with trepidation, anxiety and intense aspiration. That is real Bakthi! That is the Love of God! Initially 'agony' of aspiration and inspiration, ends in 'ecstacy' of realization!
7. As a first step in this process, outer pooja and visit to Temples, are all required. People too involved in worldly affairs, get acquainted with the divine inner self, gradually by these measures. At this stage, we may not be able to fully realise that God is omniscient, and so not only in the pooja room or in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, but in all including ourself. Thinking that God is only in the main idol, even if we wipe our hands in the pillar of the temple, it is not too great a sin! We start feeling the divine presence, at least in the main idol in the temple. Is it not so? This is better than the point of view of the agnostic. As we go along, we are certain to get the conviction experientially, of God's immanence and omniscience.
8. (KTSV adds:- Here I am reminded of two great ideas. Jesus Christ says, 'First seek the kingdom of Heaven and everything else will be added unto you.' Ramakrishna Paramahamsa says, 'To start on the journey is important. Even if you go in the wrong direction initially, someone will point out the right direction and you will reach the destination!') So let us start with the prayer to God, 'Give myself back to me!'
Sambhomahadeva.