Where is God?

Where is God?
Your website is beautiful, informative and Excellent.
Article by M.P. Bhattathiri, Retired Chief Technical Examiner , to The Govt. of Kerala. Humble request that it may be published in your website and magazine after editing if necessary.
Where is God? Where is God? Somebody's (especially kids andyouth) curious enquiry .The parents and elders face the problem how it can be explained?. The only answer is that "God is everywhere means in living and nonliving things yet localized, all-pervading yet aloof. He walks yet doesn't walk. He is far away yet very near as well. also like taste of water , ligt of sun " Such contradictory statements are not whimsical. Rather, they indicate God's inconceivable power.We can only feel and enjoy. The Absolute Truth, Krshna,Chirst, can be realized in three phases: Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan. or father, son pure soul.These aspects of the Absolute Truth are comparable to the sunshine (Brahman), the sun's surface (Paramatma) and the sun planet (Bhagavan);three different features of the same reality. The Brahman aspect of God is the beginningless, impersonal form of the Lord, the effulgence of Krshna's transcendental body. Just as the root of a tree maintains the whole tree, Krsna, the root of all things, maintains everything by His energies: He is the heat in fire, the taste of water, the light of the sun ;the underline principle or foundatio of everything. Although Krshna spread Himself throughout His creation, He retained His own personality. "Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality," Krshna explains in Bhagavad-gita. "Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme" (Bg. 7.24). Although impersonalists may eventually achieve the Lord, their path is fraught with difficulties, for it is unnatural for the embodied soul to conceive of the unembodied, which is only a partial aspect of the Absolute Truth. Realization of God as "Paramatma," the Supersoul in the heart of every embodied soul, is compared to knowing the sun disc in the sky. The Paramatma is the supreme proprietor, witness and permitter, and He accompanies the wandering soul through its 8,400,000 embodiments. Acting as the soul's friend, He remains the soul's constant companion during his sojourn in the material world, no matter what type of body the soul inhabits;in pig, mosquito, philosopher, demigod. The Supersoul helps him fulfill his desires by supplying knowledge, remembrance, and forgetfulness. Although the Supersoul appears to be divided among all beings, He is never divided. Rather, He is situated as one and all;like the sun reflected in millions of buckets of water. Paramatma can be perceived through total surrender, meditation, cultivation of knowledge, working without fruitive desires and finally devotion. A person in full knowledge of Paramatma understands that the Supersoul is the localized aspect of the Supreme Personality of Godhead within this material world and that the next step is to worship Him as Bhagavan. The word "Bhagavan" refers to one who possesses in full all opulences that we possess in minute degree: riches, strength, fame, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. Although everyone can claim some degree of these opulences, only the Supreme Personality of Godhead can claim them all absolutely. "Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates," Krshna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita (4.6), "I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form." Krshna appears in this world "to deliver the pious, annihilate the miscreants, and to reestablish the principles of religion" (Bg. 4.. He does not change His body when He appears, like a common living entity, who appears in body after another. Rather, He appears in His original eternal form, with two hands, holding a flute. Still, it appears that He takes birth like an ordinary child and grows to boyhood and youth. But He never ages beyond youth. At the time of the Battle of Kuruksetra, He was more than one hundred years old by material calculations, but He looked like a young man. He is the oldest person, but neither His body nor His intelligence ever deteriorates or changes. To know Krshna as Bhagavan is a privilege reserved for bhakti-yogis. "I am never manifest to the foolish and unintelligent," Krshna explains (Bg. 7.25). "For them I am covered by My internal potency, and therefore they do not know that I am unborn and infallible." "One can understand me as I am, as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, only by devotional service. And when, by such devotion, one is fully conscious of Me, one can enter the kingdom of God" (Bg. 18.55). The Vedic scriptures declare that Bhagavan Sri Krshna is the source of both the Supersoul and Brahman and the origin of all avataras. Avataras are scheduled incarnations who descend from the spiritual world to execute the Lord's mission of protecting the devotees and annihilating the miscreants. Their descent is foretold in the scriptures so that unscrupulous persons can be checked from claiming to be avataras. . A common misconception of uninformed students of the Bhagavad-gita is that Krsna's universal form (described in the Eleventh Chapter) is the last word in God realization. The universal form is most impressive and spectacular: "If hundreds of thousands of suns were to rise at once into the sky, their radiance might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form. Arjuna could see in the universal form of the Lord the unlimited expansions of the universe situated in one place although divided into many, many thousands" (Bg. 11.13). The universal form frightened Arjuna and boggled his mind, especially the kala-rupa, the form of time that was devouring and chewing up all the combatants on the battlefield of Kuruksetra. Arjuna therefore requested Krshna to withdraw His terrifying universal form and show him His four-armed Visnu form. Krshna agreed. Then, reverting back to the two-armed form that Arjuna was accustomed to see, the Lord declared, "This form of Mine you are now seeing is very difficult to behold. It cannot be understood simply by studying the Vedas, nor by undergoing serious penances, nor by charity, nor by worship. Only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus been seen directly" (Bg. 11.53-4). The kingdom of God is called Vaikuntha, the place without anxiety, and it lies far beyond this world of matter. It is eternal, and every single one of its atoms is fully conscious and blissful. Shaped like a lotus flower whose petals are the countless spiritual planets where the Visnu expansions of Krshna reside, Vaikuntha has a whorl called Goloka Vrindavana, a planet where every word is a song and every step is a dance, where trees fulfill all desires, palaces are made of touchstone, and transcendental cows supply unlimited milk. The original Krshna enjoys life there as a cowherd boy with His loving devotees. Those who reach that supreme abode never return to the material world.In this Kaliyuga we are fortunate to see and worship Lord in the form of krishna, christ, allah, Budha to remove all our hurdles. Everywhere in this universe, in one respect man’s condition is the same. No matter how vastly different he may be in the outer appearance of his life, different countries, different races, different cultures, different languages, different ways of living, eating, dressing, etc., he may be completely different in all of these aspects, but there is one thing that is the same to all human individuals. And it is this factor that binds them into a global unity. If analyzed, it will be discovered that all humanity is engaged ceaselessly, day after day, from the cradle to the grave, only in trying to avoid painful experiences and in trying to attain that which gives them happiness. Yet, beloved seeker, let me ask you this one very important question. Since the time of creation, is there one single individual who has been born onto this earth who can stand up boldly and declare, "In my life I have never experienced any sorrow or pain or suffering whatsoever. My whole life has been a life full of joy, full of happiness, full of bliss". You will find that there is not even one single individual on earth who has not had at some time or another some type of pain or suffering or grief or sorrow. This is a world of pain and sorrow. With a few minutes thoughtful reflection you will see that this is so. Many painful experiences are brought about by natural forces beyond our control—floods, earthquakes, tidal waves, cyclones, fires, famines. Then there is suffering brought about by other forms of life—germs, microbes, bacteria, viruses, insects, reptiles, animals. But by far the greatest source of suffering is caused by man himself. It is suffering that is self-created, that arises within our own psychological self due to desire and attachment for worldly objects—love and hate, anger and passion, fear, worry, tension, anxiety, jealousy, envy, greed, frustration, disappointment, disillusionment, the sorrow of separation, bereavement, and all other varieties of restlessness of mind due to our multitude of desires. Everyone thinks happiness is to be found in objects and experiences. Everyone thinks, "If I could only attain certain objects, if I could only possess them, if I could experience them, I will get happiness." In spite of countless disappointments and disillusionments, man never learns. There is not an iota of happiness in earthly objects. No object is perfect. They do not have in them the power or ability to give you lasting happiness or joy because they are finite and they are imperfect. Otherwise, they must be able to give a homogeneous state of happiness to all beings at all times under all conditions. But what do you actually see? If you like milk and you take a glass full of sweetened milk flavoured with spices, the first glass may give you satisfaction. And if you are pressed upon to take another glass, the second glass may give satisfaction, but it is not the same degree of happiness or pleasure as was the first glass. And if your stomach is already full with two glasses of milk, if you try to take a third glass of milk, it becomes unpleasant, it becomes undesirable. And if it is forced upon you, a fourth glass of milk produces nausea and you will have to throw it up. Where then is real happiness?
Daily life can be made happier. It is a matter of choice. It is our attitude that makes us feel happy or unhappy. It is true, we meet all kinds of situations during the day, and some of them may not be conductive to happiness. We can choose to keep thinking about the unhappy events, and we can choose to refuse to think about them, and instead, relish the happy moments. All of us constantly go through various situations and circumstances, but we do not have to let them influence our reactions and feelings.If milk had in it the power of giving happiness, it must be able to grant you this happiness at all times, under all conditions. It cannot change its nature. Such examples show that all experiences derived from the contact of senses with their respective sense-objects ultimately are experiences that end in disappointment. Therefore, the great world teacher, Lord Krishna had this very important insight to impart to us when he said: "O Arjuna, all these experiences brought about by the contact of one or other of the five senses with their respective sense objects, these experiences are ultimately the source of sorrow. There is no real happiness in these sense contacts and sense experiences. They are but mere momentary sensations afterwards giving you pain."
REF. bbt.org, kamakoti.org, amritapuri.org, mahrshi.com, sai.org,chinmaya.org , vivekanada.org,neovedanta/gospel.com, spirituality.indiatimes.com, bhavan's journal.
Daily life can be made happier. It is a matter of choice. It is our attitude that makes us feel happy or unhappy. It is true, we meet all kinds of situations during the day, and some of them may not be conductive to happiness. We can choose to keep thinking about the unhappy events, and we can choose to refuse to think about them, and instead, relish the happy moments. All of us constantly go through various situations and circumstances, but we do not have to let them influence our reactions and feelings.If milk had in it the power of giving happiness, it must be able to grant you this happiness at all times, under all conditions. It cannot change its nature. Such examples show that all experiences derived from the contact of senses with their respective sense-objects ultimately are experiences that end in disappointment. Therefore, the great world teacher, Lord Krishna had this very important insight to impart to us when he said: "O Arjuna, all these experiences brought about by the contact of one or other of the five senses with their respective sense objects, these experiences are ultimately the source of sorrow. There is no real happiness in these sense contacts and sense experiences. They are but mere momentary sensations afterwards giving you pain."
REF. bbt.org, kamakoti.org, amritapuri.org, mahrshi.com, sai.org,chinmaya.org , vivekanada.org,neovedanta/gospel.com, spirituality.indiatimes.com, bhavan's journal.
4:33:15 AM
Posted By bhattathiri mp Comments (0) Society