At first it is difficult to
experience this principle of surrender because there is a very big veil between
you and God. Due to this veil, you are easily subject to doubt and confusion,
and then you feel yourself unable to surrender completely. This veil is
illusion. What is the meaning of illusion? Illusion refers to that which does
not exist. When you are under the spell of illusion you imagine that which does
not really exist to exist. And you imagine that which really exists to not
exist. What never changes really exists and is true. What changes does not
really exist and is not true. The one thing which always exists, which is true
and unchanging is God, the one without a second. The world, when thought to be
devoid of God, will be seen as constantly changing. Since it is changing, it
cannot be true and, therefore, cannot really exist. But, in this, you are not
seeing the world correctly.
When you are under the spell of
illusion, you see the world as separate from God. You do not see the divinity
as the principle underlying everything in the world, and as a result, you
become afraid and find it impossible to surrender yourself completely. It is
like seeing a rope and thinking that it is a snake. But there is no snake there
at all. You are subjected to fear and tension by imagining that there is a
snake where there really is no snake, at all. What is the reason for this fear?
Imagining things which really do not exist, as existing, is the cause of fear.
This feeling is responsible for all your troubles. If you were to see all this
in total awareness, you would find that there is only a rope; there is no
snake. Then you would have no fear whatsoever. You would not be afraid to reach
out to it, to hold it and to play with it, because you would realize that all
there is, is only a rope.
You are subject to many sorrows
because you forget the fact that the entire world is the embodiment of God. It
is not just the world as you think it is. You see the world only from the
phenomenal point of view; you are not looking at it through the eyes of
inquiry. If you were to look at the world correctly, you would realize that it
is a stream of continuous change. This ongoing, uninterrupted flow of change is
the basic characteristic of the phenomenal world. But within and governing that
flow of change, is the one divine principle which is forever unchanging.
It can be likened to a river. The
water in the river will flow continuously and give rise to the apparent effect
of a steady stream, flowing without end. But at any given period of time, and
at any particular place along the river, the particles of water rushing by will
all be different; some will be muddy, some will contain rocks, some will be
foamy, some will be pure water. Although the flow is continuous, the exact
makeup of the water is constantly changing. We see that the river is a
combination of both changing and unchanging elements.
In a similar way beings, which are
the expressions of life, are born and die. Although they come and they go,
there is a continuity of life in the world. Life which goes on continuously can
be considered to be truth, whereas living beings which are born and die and are
constantly changing, represent untruth. Therefore, the changing expressions of
life are untrue, but life itself, which is a steady stream whose essence is the
divinity, is true.That is why the world has been
likened to a river, where reality has become associated with unreality, or
change. You can consider it a stream of changing truth, a truth which is
qualified and not fully true. The world is a combination of pure truth, which
remains the same and never changes, and untruth, which deals with things that
are constantly changing. The wisdom teachings have described this state as
truth-untruth, namely, a mixture or combination wherein both truth and untruth
coexist.
Spiritual practice is the process whereby you separate the truth from
the untruth, and retain the truth. You see the illusion that the world exists
separately from yourself and God for what it is, namely untruth. Once
recognized as untruth you are no longer deluded by it, and the truth, which is
the unity of God, man and world, stands revealed.
Ignorance, nature, world, illusion,
mind, maya are all synonymous. They are all the illusory power
of God. Thinking that things exist which do not really exist, and coming under
their spell, is illusion. A saint summarized this as, "God is true but the
world is false". You must understand this statement correctly. What it
means is that our mistaken perception and experience of the world is untrue.
The world itself, in essence, is true. God is the one, unchanging basis of this
world of change. When you examine this in some depth you discover that the
world is truly not world, but the divinity itself.
From the Sai Baba Gita
