The Path of Devotion in the Epics and Puranas: 7 - Swami Krishnananda.

 

=========================================================================================================

Thursay 13, January 2025, 08:40

Article

Scriptures

The Path of Devotion in the Epics and Puranas: 7.

Swami Krishnananda.

Post-7.

===============================================================================

The point is that these miraculous occurrences, the subtle working of God, above the ken of the human mind, physically portrayed in the Epics and Puranas, bring out that God is conscious always of what our needs are, and He takes incarnations, not merely as a four-armed Krishna or a Rama or a Narasimha or some such person, but in all necessary forms and manifestations as the occasion may demand. 

He works the miracles that are needed, and if you truly come to know of it, every incident of our life is a miracle. Nothing can be regarded as natural, if the truth about it is investigated. That we are breathing is a miracle. That we are alive in this world is a miracle. That the cells of our body have joined together to form this personality is a miracle. That the earth does not go and dash itself against some other planet is a miracle. That the ocean does not exceed its limits is a miracle. That the stars do not fall on our heads is a miracle. 

That you are able to stand on your two legs is a miracle. That your heart does not stop working is a miracle. What is not a miracle in this world? What power has man over even the smallest occurrence in this world? Have you the power to lift even your finger, if all the nerves of your body are not to collaborate? Do you know what wondrous co-operation there is among the internal mechanisms of our body to make even a finger lift itself? If you have seen a huge mechanism, do you know how many parts collaborate to make a small part tick or move or touch? 

A very humble cog is moving somewhere, unknown, unseen perhaps, but you know what co-operation it receives from all the other parts of the machine. Do you know that all the muscles, all the nerves, all the cells have to collaborate even to enable the eyelid to go up and down, what to talk of breathing which is a more complicated process? Are you sure that the next early morning you will wake up? In what confidence is it that you can say, “tomorrow morning I shall do this”? Who keeps this heart beating? What is this miracle? Life is a miracle, indeed. It is not an equation of mathematics. It is not a formula of science. 

Life is a miracle, because God is a miracle, all that is connected with God is a miracle, and that is why the creation of God also is a wonder, A human being himself, being a part of this creation, is a miracle, and when man begins to know this miracle which is God and His creation, he becomes humble before this gigantic machinery of the cosmos. What is this puny, tiny human body before the relentless movement of the astronomical universe? What power has this tiny being? The purpose of the teachings of the Puranas and the Epics is to humble down man's ego before the greatness of God. God's wondrous powers are portrayed in the description of His Avataras, in the instantaneous actions that God takes, and the premonitions of man's needs God has always in His omniscience. 

It is difficult to go into the vast field of the teachings of the Itihasas and Puranas, but all of them in their beautiful and grand personification of God as Father, Friend and even Mother, speak in a single language of God's love for man. As already mentioned, it is not man's love for God that is so much emphasised as God's love for man. Yes; it is the other way round. They say, rather than your running after God, when God starts running after you, then it is that your devotion is complete. You know Eknath Maharaj's story, wherein we are told that Sri Krishna became a servant as Srikhandia and washed the saint's clothes every day until He was discovered; and He vanished afterwards. He used to grind wheat for Sant Sakkubai. Such instances are countless as sung in the Epics and Puranas. 

Sceptics may laugh at these stories, but what is scepticism but ignorance of the mystery of God. You will easily believe me if I tell you that God shall see to it that even a spoon of sugar is supplied for your tea, when it is needed. This is not a joke or an exaggeration. Even the smallest needs shall be looked to. Your cup of tea shall come to you at the proper hour, if God sees to it, and He does. It is not human effort that works in the end, God's grace it is that works, so proclaim the Puranas, which is another way of saying that God alone works. Nobody else can work, because nobody else really is. The others are only secondary existences who exist only by sufference. The real existence is God's. While the portrayal of God existing in Vaikuntha, Kailasa, Satya-Loka, etc., and many other descriptions of this nature, are available in the Puranas and the Epics, they tell us, too, that God can reduce Himself to the level of human relationship also, if need be, and it is futile to think that God is only supra-rational, transcendent and qualityless. 

*****

Continued

==================================================================================================