Swami Shivapadananada

Swami Shivapadananada

There's a stage when you take the Lord, singular, and meditate on him. Then it must [also] be in universal form - Vishwaroop. Your deity, whether it is Shiva, Kali, Krishna…because Krishna showed it practically. 

People only go for Krishna as a deity - but it's not just Krishna. [It's the same with] Any deity. First you meditate on the form. Then that form must be meditated on in universal form - Vishwaroop – and then it must become formless, nameless [Brahman]. Krishna gives you the three stages in the [Bhagavad] Gita. So that's how you reach the highest truth. 

First the formless, when the whole universe becomes God. You see it pulsating, then you find the universe has come out of something formless, nameless. It's not extracting anything but it's merging. Like a drop of water merges into the river and the river merges with the ocean. 

It's a wonderful meditation. Read between the lines in the scriptures and you'll see what I mean. Some people, when you tell them to meditate on the deity, they get so fed up [irritated], they think, "what this – this deity is not taking me any higher." 

But when you sit, inside here, you will know straight away, "no, it needs another step now, so it will push slowly." Until then, just get the intense yearning to know a little more truth and then the yearning will push you a little bit. 

Like Indra [king of the Hindu gods] came [to Prajapati] for the first time , Vairocana [king of the demons] came the first time. He made a mistake, He thought the body was everything. So he told his gang, "eat, drink and be merry." But Indra said, "wait a minute, that's not it, that doesn't die - this body dies." 

He came back to ask again. So intense yearning to know the truth [is essential]…and he came again…and each time he came to know a little bit more. Like that. I don't know how many times he came, three or four times or six times. And pushed and pushed until he got it. 

People make a mistake to think that ordinary people just touch and it happens like that. It won't happen. An Incarnation  will say, like Christ said, "behold!," and you could see it. Ramakrishna just touched – "wake up, Mother!" and the person got into samadhi [superconsciousness]. It can't happen to everybody. Others must go – pushing gear [working, struggling]