Power of the Puranas and Epics “There are some philosophers who say that God is only Nirguna, abstract attributeless being. How can He become Saguna, endowed with attributes? How can He become man? How can He take an Avatara or incarnation? Why do you ask how He can, when you hold that He is omnipotent? To say that He is only Nirguna, that He is only this or that, is to bring about a limitation on God. You say that God is limitless in every respect. You have to look upon God only with awe and love. You should not try to describe Him through your logic. This fact of Gods greatness, put in a humanised language and by a humanised application of fact, the Puranas and the Epics try to bring out in their beautiful, mellifluous style, and they speak to you in such a feasible and acceptable way that it goes into your heart. The method they apply by which the meaning enters into your heart is so effective that you think in terms of what they say, and there is no other way of thinking. This is how art works in a more effective manner that science and logic. The Puranas are artistic expressions of spiritual truth, and that is why they appeal to your heart more than philosophical treatises. The Harikatha Kalakshepa system (discourse by song and music) of which many of you may be familiar, is more interesting and appealing, more capable of bringing truths into your mind, than a scientific exposition of philosophy, because here there is intimacy established with your feelings rather than with your understanding. This is to say that the Puranas and Epics speak in the language of feeling and love, rather than in the rules of understanding and intellectuality. This is the speciality of the Itihasas and Puranas – God coming to man in feeling, in practice, in symbol, in art, in visualisation, in practical contact rather than merely a possibility of the future. God is today, not only tomorrow, and He is with us just now, capable of blessing us with His bounty. The Puranas make out that there is nothing that God cannot give us, and God does not take time to act. He does not say: Let me see tomorrow, come afterwards. Such an excuse God will not trot out. God has no time factor, and He has not space factor. He does not take time to travel. He does not take time to act. And there is nothing that He cannot give us. He is the superabundance of all the blessedness that the human mind can think of. He is not merely what He can give to man, but He Himself is the embodiment of what He gives. Devotion is the way to God.”
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 01:42:22 +0000
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