Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Surrender - Part 5

Dear All,

Through the earlier posts, we understood that the linking factor between devotion and surrender is Love for God.

Shall we now get a little deeper in to this aspect of Love for God.

LOVE FOR GOD

• Almost every religious person has a mild feeling for God, and this feeling accepts the existence of God as the supreme reality, but it also accepts the reality of the world and of people around.

• A fraction of the mind believes in the existence of God but another fraction of the mind feels that it is also proper to love the world.

• As man leads his life with a mild love for God and also love for all worldly objects, a time comes when man has experiences in the world which awakens him into a different kind of feeling altogether, a feeling that things are not what they appear to be.

• Though it looks as if the world is all right and people are all right, they seem to be all right only for some time, and not for all times. This fact enters our mind occasionally, on certain conditions of experience such as when we are frustrated, defeated or done a bad turn, as we say, which makes us feel a kind of resentment towards everything which we originally felt to be worthwhile.

• In such a situation, our feelings for the world withdraw themselves.

• This pushing back of the force of the main current, which was channelizing itself in different directions, only increases the potentiality within, but it does not move it in the required direction. Here the feelings get intensified, no doubt.

• They become more powerful than they were earlier, and they must find an outlet for their expression.

• Not finding an outlet, they struggle inside and begin to search for an outlet. In this condition, our feeling for something that is not visible, though one may not be quite clear as to what it is, becomes strong; and if the pressure which has brought the feeling back to its source continues for a long time, it breaks its barriers, and perhaps moves in the direction of God.

• And when God calls us, He can bring about such a catastrophic situation. It is not that He will always call us very smilingly.

• In a wrathful mood, He can crush us down and then force us back to Himself. That is one of the ways in which God works.

• But very rarely does God take such action. If anyone can give a long rope, it is God; and perhaps, He gives the longest rope. Sama, dana, bheda, danda are the four methods of action in every field of life.

• A very polite, sweet and gentle advice which is perfectly positive in nature is given first. This is what the world does to us, what good people do to us, what God does to us. “This is the proper thing for you”, say people, says the world, and so does God advise!

• Thus, man is drawn more towards God!!

• The stream of water, flowing towards world all these years, all the births till now, changes its direction and starts flowing towards God.

• This stage can be better understood and felt this way- Till now, the devotee has been viewing/seeing infinite or many objects in the world with his eyes (experiencing with his senses). For the first time, the man’s eyes get fixed in God and only God!! Thus, from manifold object, now, the devotee's attention is only on one object - GOD!!

In the next post, we will explore "Love OF God".

Love.