Respected devotees of Shri Maharaj Ji!
Respected guests!
Radhe Radhe!
It is a practice here at Radha Madhav Dham. We begin our satsangs with a prayer of humbleness. I will be reciting the prayer, and I want to ask that you all please repeat after me. I'd like to ask that we all please close our eyes. Join our hands in the spirit of aspiring, desiring their Divine grace In the form of this vandana - dainik prarthana (the daily prayer).
Spiritually inquisitive souls!
My Gurudev, Jagadguruttam Shree Kripalu ji Maharaj has described in one of his scriptures, Radha Govind Geet,
आनन्द पाने की घोविन्द राधे, जीव में नित्य आकांक्षा बता दे ।
Ānand pāne ki Govind Radhe, jeev meņ nitya ākānkshā batā de.
Shree Maharaj Ji, as we lovingly call him, explains in this doha that it is inherent, innate within every individual soul to seek, to aspire, for happiness. Through our every endeavor we seek only one experience and that is pleasure, joy, inner peace, contentment. That is what we seek with our every breath.
But we experience happiness in our life. Right? Yes. So what is new? We all know that. Yes, we do. However, our scriptures describe, they tell us the nature, the very nature of the happiness that we aspire for; what it is.
यो वै भूमा तत्सुखं…
Yo vai bhūmā tatsukham…- Chandogya Upanishad
“The nature of the happiness that we seek constantly and consistently is immeasurable; it is infinite, it is unlimited, and it is ever increasing. And this unlimited Divine happiness, joy, pleasure is synonymous with God.”
रसो वै सः।रसं ह्येवायं लब्ध्वा आनन्दी भवति ।
Raso vai sah. Rasam hyevayam labdhvā ānandī bhavati- Taittiriya Upanishad
So unlimited Divine happiness, infinite happiness is synonymous with God. This is what our scriptures describe. In essence, each and every one of us desires nothing except God. The question, however, is do we need God? We may understand that we seek happiness. We desire happiness. The question is do we need God? All of you will have your own answer to this question. One thing that is evident, however, is that when we look around in the world, we see a growing trend toward disbelief. The youth of today alienated from their cultural heritage, can be heard casually conferring that if God does exist, of what relevance is that to us? And if he does not exist, what difference does it make?
This question is an age old one and not merely the product of a misguided generation. People have such a long and enormous list of things that they want. There's so many things that each individual wants. When we go to the mall we are bombarded, literally bombarded, with advertisements from all sides telling us what we need. There are physical needs, conventional needs, imaginary needs, needless needs, which in time become necessary needs, as we are told. So, with so many needs on our list, where's the room to need God? Where? It is so difficult to imagine how little we need to lead a happy, content life. But the truth is that we are running in the same direction as everyone else, never pausing even once to think or to realize where we will end up.
So where does God figure in your list? The stark truth for the majority is that they don't know who God is, who they are, and what the purpose of life is. So what are people doing? In the absence of this understanding, what are people doing? Living a mechanical life. Doing what? Eating, drinking, sleeping, and procreating, mating. Why are we in this world? Why did we come into this world? Why did we receive this human birth, this human life, this human body? And where will we go after this? Such questions related to the essence of our existence are covered with a thick shroud of material desires and needs and wants. In a world that doubts God, our spiritual needs are withering. That is what's happening.
My Gurudev has reconciled this eternal conflict, riddle, (and) irony; whatever you may call it. And he tells us that only the Divine science is capable or can answer these questions. This very question, do we need God? Only Divine science has the answer. So he tells us that the energy that propels this world that we're in, this material existence, and other planets and galaxies in infinite universes, that energy also resides within us, within each and every one of us. It resides within us. This energy makes our heart beat and our lungs fill with air, and this energy is known as personified God. We also learn that our incessant search for happiness through material things and material objects and people is, in fact, a misguided search for God, for God who is the absolute embodiment of bliss. It is a misguided search for happiness. So our scriptures, they tell us, the Vedas, the Ramayan, and all other scriptures, the Bhagwatam, the Gita, they tell us:
(Recitation from Vedas, Gita, Ramayan, Vedant Bhagwatam)
All of these verses from our scriptures have been translated again by my Gurudev in the Radha Govind Geet.
जीव चह कृषानन्द गोविन्द राधे । जो है अनन्त दिव्य नित्य बता दे ।।
Jeev chah krishānand Govind Radhey, Jo hai anant divya nitya batā de.
So, this desire that we have for incessant desire, this perpetual desire that we are constantly and consistently haunted by comes from deep within us. This desire is inborn, it is natural to every one of us because we are a part, a fraction, of Divinity. We, the individual soul, we're just a spark of Divinity of that supreme entity called God. And when we do not apply this knowledge, what happens? We remain steeped in worldliness. And as a result of that, what do we do? We identify ourselves as this material physical body. That is what we do. And yet, ironically, we, at a funeral, each and every one of us can be heard saying what? “Oh, so and so left today. They left their body!”
So, with God's grace, we all possess the spark. It's there. However, we choose to suppress it or ignore it. That is what we do. So, now the answer to this question, “Do we need God? The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!” Yes, we need God. We all need God.
So we, the individual soul, are a part of God, the supreme soul. Every fraction, every part naturally wants union with its whole. And so God being the embodiment of bliss and we being a part of that God, we search for that happiness through our every endeavor no matter what, anywhere and everywhere. So, our search for happiness, for perfect happiness, which is infinite, it is unlimited, it is permanent, it is ever increasing, can never be satisfied or fulfilled by anything or anyone in this world. Our search for God is the rudimentary truth of our very existence. So, do we need God? Yes, we do.
My time is up. So I will leave you with these thoughts.
Please watch the video to fully grasp the essence of the discourse.
