Posted on: 06 Jun 2024
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Paadanamaskaaram, Swami. It is said in Gita that single pointed devotion is the best (Eka bhaktih…) and also was told that no other form other than God Krishna shall be thought (Ananyaah…) and such statements exist in every religion provoking to say that except their form of God, other forms of God shall not be worshipped. What is Your answer?]
Swami replied:- Everybody is forgetting the most important basic fundamental point, which is that God is only one present in different forms like a person present in different dresses. Hence, “Worship Me Only” means that anybody shall worship the same one God present in his/her desired form (dress). When it is said that one shall not concentrate on other forms, it means that one shall not divert his attention to the forms (items) of the world. There are two items only:- i) God in different forms and ii) World in different forms. The above statements of any religion mean that the first item (God in different forms) alone is to be worshipped and any devotee shall not be attracted to the different items of the world. Instead of taking it as the items of the world to be leftover, you are mistaking that various forms of God are to be leftover. The correct conclusion is that you have to leave the world and concentrate on God. Instead of this correct conclusion, people are mistaking that one particular form of God alone should be meditated upon leaving all other forms of God. This is the most dangerous crack in the foundation of the huge building of true spiritual knowledge.
We say that God is singular and world is plural. God is singular means that the person wearing different dresses is only one. World is plural and this means world is consisting of different items. The forms of God are superficially different. The forms of the world are different internally also. Ex.:- Different elements of matter differ from different forms of energy. Thoughts made of awareness are different from both the forms of matter and forms of energy. Here, the singular and plural concept is not important. The important conclusion is that you must take the singular God and must leave the plural world (You may consider that the world is also singular since all the world is made of energy only.). Even if you take the world as singular, the advice is that you shall select the singular God and leave the singular world. Even if you worship all the forms of God present in all the religions, you are worshipping only one God like one person in different dresses. Hence, you are in single pointed devotion only.
Between two items, if you have to select one item and leave another item, those two items must be opposite to each other like north and south poles (Dūramete viparīte viṣūcī…- Veda). If you proceed to north, you are leaving south and vice versa. The Veda says that God and the world are opposite like north and south poles. It did not say that one specific form of God is the north pole and all other forms of God are south pole. From this, we can easily understand that God should be selected and the world should be rejected.