DIVINE BHAVA MUST BE CONSTANT

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

95. DIVINE BHAVA MUST BE CONSTANT
Divinity is as near or as far from you as your bhava (feeling) towards It. If you have that
bhava, It is here and now. If you lose that bhava, It is nowhere.
The truth is that all things exist, move and have their being in that great Reality. Countless
billions and trillions of universes abide in Him as grains of sand on the seashore or drops of water in
the ocean. That is His magnitude. Yet He is nearer than the nearest; He is a here and now God.
And you abide in that Being. There is no distance between you and the Eternal Reality. The
distance is created by vismriti (forgetfulness), by anya chintana (thinking of other things), by
viparita jnana (wrong knowledge). The Kathopanishad says that the proximate, the closest, is not
felt or realised because the mind has become outgoing. Therefore, withdraw the mind, take it
within!
But then, if it is outgoing, towards what can it go? When all that exists is the great Reality,
how can it go elsewhere? It is here that the distance is created by viparita jnana (wrong
knowledge)—that which the outgoing mind beholds through the five senses is regarded to be not
God. Thus this wrong knowledge deprives you of the experience of the ever-present Reality. That
Being which is everywhere present is regarded as not being present due to wrong knowledge, due to
non-perception of that which is right there in front of you.
Seeing It, you fail to see It. Hearing It, you fail to hear It. Touching It, you fail to feel It.
Thus, experiencing It every moment of your life, yet you regard what you see, hear and feel to be

other than Brahman. Forgetfulness and wrong knowledge deprive you of the experience of the
ever-present Reality.
Neha nana’sti kinchana (Here in this creation, not even the slightest diversity exists). It is
ekameva’dvitiyam (One alone without a second). In spite of that, we think of the many, of diversity,
and, therefore, anya chintana (thinking of other things) brings about a break in our abidance in the
thought of Brahman alone. Thus, constant abhyasa must be done, again and again, to evoke this
brahma-bhavana (feeling of Brahman).
Every day we chant: “You are my mother, You are my father, You are my relative, You are
my friend, You are my wealth, You are my wisdom.” We then conclude with “You are everything
to me, You are my all-in-all.” One way this last line is interpreted is “In addition to all these which I
have identified specifically, You mean everything to me, You are my all-in-all.”
However, another way of interpreting this last line is “You are before me as everything.
Therefore, Thou art my food, my clothing, my shelter; Thou art everything I behold day after day,
moment after moment.” If this vision and feeling is carefully invoked within our hearts, then we
will behold everything from the right angle of vision, with the right atma-bhava, brahma-bhava.
It was this bhava that inspired the practical, secular idealism of Swami Vivekananda. He
said: “Everything you do is connected with God. Nothing is unconnected. Nothing that you do is
other than worship.” He spoke of God in the poor, in the sick, in the distressed, and in the afflicted.
He said: “Go serve them. In serving the many you are but serving the One.”
The need is for constancy. When you hear these words, your heart and mind may be filled
with this bhava. But when you return to your room everything changes back to the worldly, prosaic
vision based on “I am so and so.” That is because the mind cannot hold on to a lofty, sublime, high
level of perception and feeling. It likes to come down. So there should be created in you a constancy
in bhava, a constancy in your vision. As and when it goes away, it should be reinvoked, brought
back. Then only will you gradually begin to ascend towards the ideal.
Constantly reinvoke the ideal in your mind and heart in your daily life. It is the only
guarantee of your attaining supreme heights. Constancy in your idealism, constancy in your
spiritual vision, attitude and approach, and constancy in your own atma-buddhi and atma-bhava,
your thought and feeling about yourself.
There should be constancy in all these spiritual factors that go to make up a divine way of
living your life. There should be constancy in order to keep this bhava ever there. This is the way!
This is divine life!