Miscellaneous - Religion   

Self-transcendence

CHENNAI : It is said that one who is steeped in thoughts of God becomes one with Him, dissolving all subject object distinctions. The devout saints who have savoured God experience having withstood all obstacles stand testimony to this truth. Spiritual gain is measured in terms of inner experience. An intense spiritual seeker will be able to realise the various stages by which the bliss of God realisation is attained. In a lecture, Sri T. V. Venkataraman pointed out that Saint Manikkavasakar's spiritual attainment was so fulfilling that he became immersed in total oneness with the Lord, and the Tiruvachagam is a faithful record of the stages by which this was made possible through the sheer grace of the Lord.

This bliss is not easily to be grappled with for when the human consciousness begins to probe the essence of God it opens up to the wonder and magnitude of the Lord. Though such extraordinary grandeur remains infinite, just as the vastness of the ocean cannot be assessed on the basis of one wave or the powerful flow of a river remains elusive when one enters it at a particular point, the enquiry is worth the effort as it leads to liberation.

The saint poet acknowledges that when he neared the presence of God, the gradual understanding that the Lord is not only truth but also knowledge and infinity, remaining immutable and imperishable in His all pervasiveness, wrought a truly humbling effect in him.

The genuine plea to the Lord to help him transcend his ego indicates the difficulties and hurdles that prevent one's efforts to get disentangled from the limitations of ego.

The soul has to understand its unique relationship with the body and learn to remain distinct from it if its pursuit of liberation is to bear fruit.

God helps the soul to fulfil the karmic obligations in the illusory world of Maya with the help of the body. The body is an unintelligent substance and only seems to think, act and speak on its own. To understand that learning, scholarship or relationships are burdens and getting attached to them is a folly is the beginning of the effort to strive for liberation.

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