When talking about Bhakti, one question people usually ask is, “How can we love God whom we don’t see?”
I saw one short movie clip titled “Gubbare” which is one of the ten stories in the movie “Dus Kahaniyaan” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dus_Kahaniyaan. This is one of the only two stories in the movie that were worth watching, the other being “Rice Plate”.
The story of Gubbare as mentioned in Wikipedia is this:
“Anita and Rohit are newlyweds on a bus who start a small quarrel and Anita moves away from Rohit to sit adjacent to Nana who is carrying 11 smiley balloons with him. On questioning he tells her how he has to present his wife with the balloons every time he has angered her and how she bakes a cake if she angers him. He explains to her how life is too short to spend fighting. When getting down at the stop he forgets to take with him the sorry card that he had written for his wife. Anita follows him to give it to him and she notices him speaking to his wife’s grave and she is dead. She realizes how much in love with his wife the man is and returns to the bus. She sits beside Rohit and they do not begin to quarrel.”
The ace actor Nana Patekar has played his role wonderfully, as usual.
Though his wife is no more, he continues to live in her company. He does not sleep in the side of the bed where his wife prefers to sleep. He does not do things that she does not like him doing. He reports to her at her grave about the visit of a family friend, etc, etc.
If this is possible and acceptable, then why isn’t a relationship with God possible?
The famous book “Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence is a classic example. It is a very useful spiritual practice to consider God to be our Eternal Companion and keep talking to Him continually.
If it is possible to report everyday incidents at the grave of a deceased wife, it is surely possible and much more elevating to report at the altar of God. If it is possible to live life as if the deceased wife is still around and behave according to her wishes, it is surely possible to live life always keeping God in mind and behaving according to His teachings. There is always a tinge of sorrow about the missing wife, but there will only be joy with the company of the Eternal God. You will never miss God. The company of God is much more real than of the deceased wife.
One may argue that the wife was seen at a time in the past, which we remember. But there is no such remembrance of an interaction with God. The point the person misses is that every interaction in the world is with God only. There is never a time when we don’t interact with Him. It is an oversight due to ignorance if we don’t see God in every moment of our life.
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Seriously, it is a fantastic concept to Live with ones past but on the contrary it is impossible to follow. The reason being, man by nature cannot abstain from certain necessities of life. Like, lets say Lust, Embrace. To be frank it is only practical in movies and not in real life.
Now, coming back to the concept of God (Frankly this is one topic I can talk all day long), Christ once told his disciples “The kingdom of God lies within you” so taking the sentence by face value we could infer that we need to love and embrace ourselves first than to wonder about something which is not comprehended in any face of life. I generally ask people this question: What’s mans greatest Creation? And intrinsically speaking it is “God”. No offense, I am just one of your critics ‘God never existed to love him’ It is our lack of reason that has over rated his existence.
First, I will not agree that “Lust and Embrace” are necessities of life. They are emotional crutches for people who cannot handle themselves. I am fortunate to live in the company of several monks and I know the life they live. And they are happier than most of the non-monastic people. Sex is not a biological necessity like food or water. Thousands of monks are living happily on the face of this earth.
Coming to your statement on “God”, I don’t want to talk about a word that has not been concurrently defined clearly between us. We can argue for days together about any word for that matter and continue to differ, when what I mean by the word and what you mean by the word are entirely different.
Seriously, it is a fantastic concept to Live with ones past but on the contrary it is impossible to follow. The reason being, man by nature cannot abstain from certain necessities of life. Like, lets say Lust, Embrace. To be frank it is only practical in movies and not in real life.
Now, coming back to the concept of God (Frankly this is one topic I can talk all day long), Christ once told his disciples “The kingdom of God lies within you” so taking the sentence by face value we could infer that we need to love and embrace ourselves first than to wonder about something which is not comprehended in any face of life. I generally ask people this question: What’s mans greatest Creation? And intrinsically speaking it is “God”. No offense, I am just one of your critics ‘God never existed to love him’ It is our lack of reason that has over rated his existence.
First, I will not agree that “Lust and Embrace” are necessities of life. They are emotional crutches for people who cannot handle themselves. I am fortunate to live in the company of several monks and I know the life they live. And they are happier than most of the non-monastic people. Sex is not a biological necessity like food or water. Thousands of monks are living happily on the face of this earth.
Coming to your statement on “God”, I don’t want to talk about a word that has not been concurrently defined clearly between us. We can argue for days together about any word for that matter and continue to differ, when what I mean by the word and what you mean by the word are entirely different.