Upadesa Saram - Post 7

Verse 5

जगतईशधीयुक्तसेवनम्

अष्टमूर्तिभृद्देवपूजनम्||

jagata īśadhīyuktasevanam

aṣṭamūrtibhṛddevapūjanam

Worship, united with the understanding that the universe is the Lord, is worship of God bearing eight forms.

In the previous verse we only talked about the idea of a relationship with God. Now we are ready to make a practical start to develop such a relationship. 

Pooja is that which establishes us in a relationship with God. Pooja concretizes a natural human tendency of using symbolism to express things or to represent ideas. 

The devotee who starts in a small way in his little Pooja room, grows and matures into the great devotee for whom the whole world becomes his “Pooja Room”! 

Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a great patriot and servant of India, and worked day and night for its freedom. His grandson one day complained to him, “I don’t see you doing any Pooja, so I also will not do it.”

The saintly grandfather told the boy, “Till you are able to do Pooja of all the millions of people in this country, you have to continue to do your daily Pooja in the prayer room.” 

The Eight-Fold Forms of the Lord: 

Ashta Moorti: the “eight-fold form”of the Lord. It represents the entire manifested world, called Jagat. Here are two derivations for the word ‘Jagat’. 

The eight forms of the Lord are: 

The five elements, namely, Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth; 

The two heavenly luminaries, namely, the moon and the sun; and

The eighth is the Jiva or the individual souls.

These eight factors constitute the entire creation and the creation is the Lord.

Since the creation is not separate from the Lord, the problem of searching for a form to worship the Lord is not there anymore.

This idea is expressed in Isavasya Upanishad ,

“All this, whatever moves on the earth, and the universe which itself is moving, is covered by the Lord”.

How to See God in All 

There is the following story from the Buddhist tradition. One cold night, a traveler knocked at the doors of a monastery. After some time a junior monk opened it, and allowed the visitor to spend one night. Feeling very cold, the visitor made a fire to keep himself warm. 

The next day, the junior monk noticed that the wooden statue of the Buddha was missing from the shrine. 

Thinking it to be a theft, he reported the matter to the High Priest. The High Priest scolded the junior monk: “For you the dead Buddha seems to be more important than the live Buddha!”

Love for God by seeing Him in all beings is true worship of Him – and there are no exceptions! 

Swami Vivekananda taught, “When I close my eyes, I worship the Lord in a form, when I open my eyes, all the forms I see is the Lord Himself”.

There is a Hospital run by Rama Krishna mission in which, to live the above teachings of Vivekananda, on important occasions in a year, the monks of the ashram visit the hospital and do the Paada seva to all the patients there and the monks literally worship the patients with flowers. 

Thus, in this way, Karma itself becomes worship. 

Note:

Though one can and one must believe in the truth that the entire creation is Lord and start serving all, as the author has been sharing with few devotees of late, the true experience of seeing Lord in all can actually happen only after experiencing the Lord within himself (AS LOVE).

There is another way in which a wise man lives this verse (in the path of wisdom)

When the entire creation is nothing but Lord, I, existing in this creation, is also God, as I cannot be left out from the creation, which is Lord.

‘I am indeed the whole creation” is the highest form of worship. 

When I say, “I am everything”, then this I is not my body, my mind, my intellect, my ego.

“I”is the consciousness which is me and the consciousness which is everything in this creation.

When I say, the entire creation is the Lord, then it is surrender in the path of Bhakti.

When I say I am the entire creation, then it is surrender to the SELF that I am and this is surrender in the path of Jnana.

Love.