The Bible explains that God permeates every particle of this world

Two forms of suffering affect us. One relates to the body and one to the mind. You all know what physical suffering is – today you caught a cold, you came down with a fever, your stomach is hurting. There are even bigger diseases than this like cancer. Everyone suffers from these, regardless if they are a king or a billionaire.

But the greatest suffering of all is mental suffering. What is that? Lust, anger, greed, jealousy and so on. These mental afflictions are the most frightening. A person may live in a house made of gold and lack nothing in this world, but he feels no peace. He is in depression. He takes sleeping pills just so he can get two or three hours of sleep. Why? Because he is wealthy.

If someone became the ruler of the entire earth, he would still feel unhappy. He thinks, “The human body is so dirty. It becomes diseased. But a celestial body is really something special! It always exudes perfume. I have heard that the celestial gods never feel hungry or thirsty. If only I could go there…” He went there as Indra, the king of the celestial abodes. Even then he felt, “Brahma’s abode is still better than mine!” This disease never ends. We have been in the celestial abodes hundreds of thousands of times. The residents there also feel tense and agitated if they see someone who has more then themselves. Desires, anger, greed and all the mental vices still exist there.

So these mental diseases that cause mental suffering are the most frightening. This is called the disease of Maya. Saint Tulsidas wrote,

Kama vata kapha lobha apara, krodha pitta nit chhati jara.

The root cause of physical disease are the three doshas of vata, kapha, and pitta. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita describes that desire, anger and greed are not only the source of mental disease but also the doorway to hell and they lead to one’s utter destruction.

So just as we take medicine for a physical disease, so we should take some medicine for these mental afflictions, and there are many remedies prescribed for these that people practice. Saint Tulsidas writes,

Nem dharma achar tapa yoga yagya japa daan…

Proper behavior, good actions, physical austerities, yoga, Vedic rituals, repetition of God’s name, the giving of charity – even if you take millions of these remedies prescribed in the name of dharma, these mental afflictions won’t go away. No matter how many good actions you perform, you will only attain the celestial abode, and there this disease won’t stop. The source of this disease is Maya. If Maya goes away, then all these afflictions will also go away. If you cut the root of a tree, then the trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers and fruits all will cease to exist. But if you cut just one branch, you won’t eliminate the tree. Instead two, four or six more branches will grow in place of the one that was cut.

Desires are such that if you fulfilled any one of them, it gives rise to greed. If you don’t fulfill desire, it gives rise to anger. Both these enemies are standing before you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small desire or a big one. You had a desire that your child should obey you. “Son, give me some water.” He ran to get it. You thought, “He will really serve us when we become old.” Ten minutes later you said to him, “Bring my glasses.” He kept on sitting. “I said to bring my glasses.” He still continued to sit. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me?” He again remained seated. “I gave birth to a demon!” He was the embodiment of service a few minutes earlier and now he is a demon!

You fight all the time in your home with your mother, father, husband and wife. Why? If your desire wasn’t fulfilled, you fought. If your desire was fulfilled, you developed more desires beyond this. Did you earn $100,000? “Yes, but now how can I get $200,000? What should I do?” Did you earn a billion? “Yes, but what business should I do so that I can double it?”

So desire, anger, and greed are the generals in Maya’s army. Absolutely no one can defeat them, no matter if they are a human being, a celestial god, or a demon. No one has ever been born anywhere in this universe who could defeat Maya, and no one ever will be. Why? Because as Shri Krishna said (Gita 7/14), “Oh souls, listen carefully! Maya is My power. It belongs to Me. Only when I say, ‘Go!’ will it go. You can’t remove it through your own efforts.”

So dasi raghubir ki samujhai mithya sopi,
chhutai na Ram kripa binu Natha kahahu pad ropi.

God and the scriptures are issuing a challenge. Maya is a power of God and without God’s grace, Maya will not go away. As long as Maya doesn’t go away, none of its children will go away.

So everyone is suffering and we will continue to suffer as long as we don’t receive God’s grace. So how do we receive it? There must be some condition we have to fulfill because, after all, Saints like Shankaracharya, Nimbarkacharya, Madhvacharya, Tulsi, Soor, Meera, Kabir, Nanak, and Tukaram received God’s grace. They must have fulfilled some condition that we did not, and that’s why we are continuing to suffer.

So what do we need to give to God so He bestows His grace on us? We can’t see Him to render service to Him directly so He graces us. In the world, if we needed something from some great king, we could at least sweep the footpath outside his door. He would occasionally glance at us and perhaps say, “He comes here every day to sweep. Alright, what do you want? Tell me.”

God is omnipresent. He also resides in our hearts and hears our desires. But we don’t see Him and realise His presence. Rather, we dispute this, “Listen, if you mixed salt in water, it would become salty. If you mix sugar in water, it would become sweet. But if God is omnipresent, He is also in this water. Then why don’t I experience Him? Where did He go? I drink water every day!” Yet The Ved, the Puranas, even the Bible, explain that God permeates every particle of this world. All the scriptures say this.

Our response to this is another argument, “It’s just hearsay that God is omnipresent. Even if He is omnipresent, that’s fine. But what is He doing for me? He’s not fulfilling my aim now, nor will He in the future.” So God says, “Have faith.” What should we have faith in? He says, “That I am residing in your heart. There’s no need to go anywhere to find Me. I am seated in the temple of your heart.”

The Mundaka Upanishad says there are two eternal friends that reside in your heart – you and God. Just believe it. But this is where we have a problem. We don’t accept this. If we did accept this, then there would only be one thing left to do after this: Beg. What is required is to believe and then to beg.

A person may say, “But when I go to the temple I beg all the time. ‘Oh, God, let me see You. Grace me’.” Everyone prays to God like this wherever God is worshiped, and you also do it in your own home. But your begging is just superficial. You are only asking with your voice and words. You are not begging from the heart.

Food offered to God in the temple

Food offered to God at home

It is customary everywhere to offer food to God before eating. A person closes his eyes for a few moments and thinks, “Oh God, come and eat.” In temples, big food offerings are made to the deities. But does any temple priest have the faith that God will actually eat that food? If he had even .1% faith this was possible, after opening his eyes, he would look to see, “Alright, what did God eat?” And if he saw that God didn’t eat anything, he would feel bad.

If someone in your own family refused to eat, you would definitely feel bad. You also wouldn’t eat. You would cry and say, “He left without eating!” But if God left without eating what was offered to Him you have no reaction at all. Then why offer food to Him if you don’t believe He will actually eat it? You may respond, “It’s a tradition. My father did it so I do it, too, and besides that, everyone else does it. So I also sprinkle water over the food and say a few mantras.” So will God eat because you said a few mantras?

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