Connection with the Supreme Being showers nectar and brings experience of real peace and happiness. When God is remembered after realising the worthlessness of the worldly life, attention effortlessly turns within and results in God-realisation. This remembrance can be understood in three ways:

(1) Remembering God is Knowing Your True Nature

You consider yourself to be like a seed, a human being. If you continue to believe this, you will end up being just that. You will never see any possibility to grow and transcend your conditionings to manifest as the divine. Unable to find the way out, you will remain jailed in worldly existence. Only when you believe yourself to be a flower – the divine and stay aware of the possibility that you too can manifest as the divine, you will begin genuine efforts to transcend your idea of being a seed – a human. Your yearning to be a flower, to manifest as the divine will make your way to sprout and let you break open and grow towards the sky. That is, through the way of cultivating virtues, your focus will turn within and you will attain the experience of being the divine.

In this way, to remember God is, to remember your divine nature. It is the process to go beyond your limited identity to manifest the divinity. It is the zeal to bring your future into the present. It is the cry of transforming your possibility into reality. This cry becomes the journey. The remembrance of being of the nature of flower becomes the cause to manifest as the flower.

The yearning to manifest as a flower begins while you are still like a seed and have known yourself to be essentially like a flower. This pain occurs to a truly spiritual person who is content with the world but experiences discontent spiritually. Your present condition is such that you are discontented with your wealth, house, car, status and so you want more wealth, bigger house, new car and higher social status. You are satisfied with yourself and have no discontentment whatsoever regarding your spiritual state. Therefore, you remain focussed on the outside. This is extrovert consciousness.

Once you know the worthlessness of wealth, social status, family then you do not get attached to them. Any changes in them will not affect you. Instead, you remain focused on how you can overcome your shortcomings and cultivate virtues. Your only discontentment is that you know that you are essentially a flower but you have not been able to manifest it yet. The goal to attain a complete, pure state gives you pain, divine discontentment until you have attained it. The goal to stay connected with the eternal, does not let you remain with the thoughts of the fleeting for long. Instead, it makes you grow spiritually and move towards liberation.

(2) Remembering God is Thinking of God

If to move towards divinity is to remember God, then its first step is to think about the divinity. Just as a man gets a wave of thought to have a new, bigger house. Seeing others’ big houses, he ruminates on that thought. This takes the form of remembrance. From constant remembrance arises the pain of discontentment. The growing pain leads to a firm resolve to have a bigger house. Resolve turns into an imaginary sketch of the house. With it he approaches an architect, who gives it a proper shape. This becomes a project. Then buying a plot and the construction begins. Constantly looking after it, increases love for it, creates a sense of my-ness in it. The work takes speed and ultimately gets done followed by the house warming. Thus, residing in a new house began with just a wave of thought and its accomplishment happened by constant remembrance.

In the same way, remembering God is the beginning of thinking, remembering, dreaming etc. of the unseen goal. A tiny thought changes the direction: ‘I am whatever I am is not enough. I can manifest as the eternal. It is not appropriate for me to rest in this state. I need to take up the journey. I still have to blossom into a fragrant flower.’

You will need to bring changes in your goal of life. This is true love. Mere chanting, visiting temples, putting tilak, lighting lamps and incense sticks, studying scriptures etc. cannot lead to realisation of the divine. For that you will need thirst for the divine. Just as lion does not eat grass, you must want only and only the divine. Nothing other than the divine should quench your thirst.

(3) Remembering God is to Stay Connected

Connection is to live in constant awareness that, ‘I am essentially a flower. I can blossom like a flower. Though I have not yet manifested my true nature but I want to be just that’. A man away from home keeps remembering his home even when he is busy at work, with people. A strong desire to go home keeps pulling him towards his home. All his energy gets harnessed and one-pointed. The only desire is to return back home. Such a connection with your essential nature; not merely repeating the name of God but staying connected is the remembrance of God.

You can attain connection with the divine only if you have become weary of the temporary, when you have seen the worthlessness of wanting the impermanent. Turning away from the fleeting is the beginning of facing the eternal.

Saints address about the eternal to those who are tired of the transient, who are emptied of worldliness. To those interested in worldliness, these words pain like piercing thorns. To those who approach saints to adorn their world like wishing to win election, get good business deals; to those who are filled with the bitter juice of worldliness, to them the words of the saints appear bitter like poison and not sweet like nectar.

People go to saints, show respect and devotion, to seek blessings. But what blessings you ask for shows what you are interested in, what is your goal. Saints won’t be of any help to you if you wish to fulfill your worldly desires like wining a court case, getting your disease treated, etc. Saints nourish not your worldliness but they strengthen your spiritual inclination. Else he is not a saint, he is just another businessman who takes service and respect from you and in return nourishes worldliness. Beware of such fake so-called saints.

An Invitation

He whose passions have reduced, who has become weary of desires of sense pleasures, who has yearning for liberation alone, when such a deserving disciple approaches the Guru, the Guru opens up His inner wealth to him. He receives an invitation from the Guru to know about the inner truths, ‘Come, understand, recognise and get the experience. What is within me is within you too. The wealth of the whole world will seem to you worth mere blade of grass.’

The deserving disciple accepts his Guru’s invitation and becomes the fortunate one to understand the Guru’s inner treasure. Having accepted the invitation, he wishes to remain in the same state. ‘What has occurred in my Guru can happen within me also. I certainly want that state, that inner wealth.’ He becomes detached towards worldliness and gets impetus for the inner journey. His pursuit strengthens and his waiting becomes joyful. Being with the Guru his journey does not feel painful. Even though he hasn’t completed his journey, he does not feel despair or become doubtful. His love for the Self grows day and night. He constantly has only one resolve.

Resolve means whether he is eating or in business, resting or working, but the mind remains in the Self alone. Just as in singing there is a line that keeps repeating, remains constant when the verses change; for the deserving disciple the thought of the Self has become constant. Destiny may call him for any activity but he keeps remembering the Self. Living in the transient world, he remains focused on the Self alone.