The personal God

I see God as a luminous Being, the most luminous Being, who has infinite Love, Concern and Compassion for mankind. My disciples approach the Supreme as a personal God, as a human being. Although the Supreme has both personal and impersonal aspects, if you approach Him as a personal Being, especially in the beginning, your journey will be safer because the personal way is easier. If you want to see God’s impersonal aspect, you may become confused or afraid of the vastness. A human being may be only six feet tall, but inside him the soul has boundless capacity. Let us take the soul as the impersonal God and the body as the personal God. In the beginning it is much easier for the seeker to identify with his body than with his soul. If my soul wants to manifest its beauty or its strength through the physical, then the soul will give my body luminous beauty or solid strength. So the seeker can take the form as an expression or manifestation of the formless.

When the beginner meditates early in the morning, he should meditate on the Feet of the personal Supreme. Then, along with his own devoted love, he will feel God’s Compassion and Concern. He will say, “Here is someone who is really great, infinitely greater than I. That is why I am touching His Feet with such devotion.” He will feel that there is some purpose behind what he is doing. By touching the Feet of the Supreme, he is trying to become one with the Supreme. He feels that for him this is the easiest approach. If someone is very tall, I won’t be able to touch his head. But I can touch his feet. Whether I touch his feet or his head, I can say that I have touched him. But when I touch his feet, immediately I get the feeling of purest joy and devotion.

Then after touching the Feet of the personal God, we have to concentrate on the Heart of the personal God. Touching His Feet may give us a devotional feeling, but we have to ask ourselves, “Do I consider Him as my very own? Or is it just because He is very great that I am touching His Feet?” We can touch the feet of a very great spiritual Master; but along with our veneration, we have to claim that person as our very own. If we feel that he is our very own, then our devotion gets dynamic power; It enters into activity. When you feel that the Supreme as a personal God in human form is your very own and that you are His very own, only then can you have complete identification and inseparable oneness with Him. And from that oneness you get boundless joy.

When you feel that someone is your very own, you want to give that person something of yours. If you have a dollar, you want to give it to him; If you have a mango, you want to give it to him. But there has to be an exchange. He will give you what he has and you will give him what you have. How do you actually exchange? It is through Light transmitted through the eyes. When the Master and the disciple look at each other, at that time what does each one do? The Master looks at the disciple with soulful Compassion and the disciple looks at the Master with soulful adoration. The Master, who represents the personal Supreme, has all Compassion: and the seeker has all adoration. So they barter, they exchange. The Master gives his property and the disciple gives his property. Here they meet, they exchange their offering and then they become inseparably one.

The eye is the place of vision and light. Adoration is a form of light and compassion is also a form of light. Here in between the eyebrows, a little above, is the third eye. This is the place through which we shall give what we have to the personal God and the personal God will give us what He has. This form of meditation can be practised by any aspirant who is trying to go beyond his limited existence.

Again, it is best to start with faith in the personal God. In this way we get the feeling that we want to become like ‘Him’. He is very great but just because we take Him as a personal being we feel that we can become like Him. Next we feel, “Am I not supposed to give Him what I have and to take Him as my very own? Anything that I have, any limited quantity of peace, light and bliss, let me offer to Him in the form of adoration, because in everything He surpasses me. Although He has infinite Peace and I have only an iota of Peace, He is the Supreme. So let me give Him all that I have.”

From:Sri Chinmoy,The Vision of God's Dawn, Agni Press, 1974
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/vgd