Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 02.05.2018, Rila)

(continues from the previous Monday)

If we accept that there is something beyond the daily experience, with all due rights and respect we can call it ‘divine’ or ‘God’. But there is a little distance between the humans and the divine. Just a little. It’s a huge gap for us, it’s only one step for Him.

Then the next question of philosophy is whether this superior, higher existence – if we don’t specify it as a loving and compassionate God – if this superior reality can show itself to the limited human experience or not? Because if we are left alone only with our experience, only with our brain, I’m not sure that these are the best instruments to inquire about something higher. Shrila Shridhara Maharaj explains that the human consciousness is like a torchlight. If you are in a forest and you use your torch very closely to show the path in front of your steps, then you can see clearly. If you use your torch straight ahead in front of you, you see something, but not very far. And if you use it upwards, you see nothing. So this is the human consciousness as an instrument of inquiries. If you have something that you can observe – all right, you can understand something; if you want to find your immediate future, maybe you can guess it; but if you want to understand something higher, it’s just impossible, you don’t see it.

So, beyond human capacities, beyond human instruments – like perception or consciousness – we need something extraordinary, we need something superhuman. This is what we discussed before – your scope, your radius, how far you can reach. It’s very simple: with a small radius you don’t go too far; the bigger your radius is, the further you reach.

Fortunately, our teachers tell us that although the human is limited, the divine is not limited. There is no obstacle for Him to show Himself – even to the blind.

(to be continued)