Nothing in creation is more valuable, beautiful and wonderful than the human being. Not all the gold, oil and diamonds have the worth of one single human being. There is nothing more precious in creation than man. For man alone is in a position to experience the Divine, the source of endless Treasures, source of eternal Life, unending Peace, Joy, Beauty and Perfection. Man alone enjoys this capacity. He bears within himself all there is in the Creator. God dwells in the human soul. Man is endowed with spiritual capacities that enable him to experience God here, there and everywhere in all conditions and circumstances of life and even death.

What is meant by death is only the dismissal of the body. In all circumstances the human soul can consciously experience its oneness with the Divine. Whether there is a body or whether it has been left behind, thrown off, in all circumstances man is capable of experiencing the Divine. Therefore there are so many saints, mystics and god-men.

This precious life has to be used. Continuously one should stay above the limitations of the body, mind, surroundings, time and space, and try to remain in tune with the Divine. Recognize your inner identity with the Divine. In your body you are not one with God, in your mind and heart you are not one with God, but in the depth of your soul you are identical with Him. There in your inner soul you are one with the Divine, eternally, in all circumstances, whether you are good or bad, a mean person or a saint. These outer psychological traits are non-valid in the divine Consciousness, which is always present in all human states. But only those who are on a higher plane of evolution are in a position to consciously experience the Divine. The whole life has to be built on the foundation of this central Reality.

This central Reality is boundless Intelligence. It is all-seeing, all-hearing. It perceives everything, reacts to everything, witnesses everything. It is able to converse with a devoted person, to protect him, guide him, enlighten him, to bestow on him the experience of oneness with the divine Perfection, to enable him to perceive his oneness with God in all nature, in the trees, the stones, the people, the animals, the air, the water, space - everywhere.

The Divine Mother is always at the service of such a person. She gives him wisdom, strength, enlightenment. She guides him, She shows Her protection. Those who recognize the value and beauty of this wonderful human life and realize its potential in the highest sense, make rapid progress and are enabled to unfold from their inner soul divine qualities and cosmic feelings. Suddenly there is the feeling that one is the whole universe, all stars are here and now, the whole cosmos is a small carpet. The soul expands further and further and reveals that it is greater than space and time, ageless.

That which is timeless and spaceless does not die. It knows no bounds. It is endless Perfection, absolute Perfection - absolute Love, Wisdom, Life, perfect in all qualities of the Eternal. One should use this life to experience the immediate presence of the Divine. One should do everything necessary to remain in constant inner cheerfulness with a totally uncompromising positive attitude and disposition. Take all challenges as an expression of divine Grace. With this as a basis, one should constantly progress.

In reality man is God himself. This is the truth. This is the climax of mystic perception and experience. This is reality. But as soon as this divine Principle comes into the limitations of a body, in the physical, biological, animalistic world, it forgets its origin and true nature and commits endless stupidities. It is polluted and confused, lost in temptation and the search for pleasures. It has lost boundless joy and bliss. In its consciousness it is no longer linked with the Divine but only with the world of senses and becomes a sinner. In its experience, thoughts, feelings and power of perception it is totally separated from the Divine. This tragedy is the human condition. In such a state it is difficult to understand God, to long for God, to strive for God-experience. Our instruments of sense-perception, the faculties of seeing and hearing, all misguide us. They reveal but an illusory, false, all-defiling world leading to suffering and death.

Yet the inner soul in good people, devout people, yearns for God. In this state one beseeches the Divine to live in one's mind and heart, one's thoughts and feelings, one's entire life. Everything is the Divine. The Divine is boundless, being full of endless treasures, the Wonder of wonders. And the supreme Truth is that this Divinity is nothing but the soul within you. You yourself are this Divinity. Imagine from your human state what it means to reach this divine Perfection. Again and again you should strive for this. For a little money, man gives his whole life. In this world, millions of people struggle all their life for a little money, a small piece of property, a little of this and that. Therefore, if you want the Treasure of treasures you have to be ready to make the sacrifices necessary. But these are no sacrifices, for what you gain is so great that no sacrifice is worth mentioning.

How to see God in a table? - Swami always tells us to see God in the table. He says, it is a sin to recognize the table as a table and not as God. Your question is, how to perceive God in the table? I have told you, fire is everywhere. There is nothing that does not contain fire. Iron, gold, wood, all contain fire, the whole cosmos is filled with fire in varying intensity. Science tells us that there is fire in the table. Yes, to awaken it, we have to light it from outside. When we light the wood it starts burning and unfolds its own fire.

If I ask Shanmukha whether she sees the fire in the table she may laugh, but if she is sensible and studies her own school-lectures that say that wood burns, there is fire in wood, then she knows there is fire in the table.

In the same way as there is fire in the table, there is the Divine in fire, in everything, as consciousness, as energy, as the soul of everything. This energy of energies is omniscient. Therefore the table is omniscient. The table as such does not know, but the soul within is omniscient. Even if the table could develop a brain and begin to understand, it would recognize itself as a table, not as the soul, not as an omniscient being. But there is an omniscient being in the table, as in space, as in air, as in everything and everyone, as in all beings, visible and invisible, there is the presence of the Divine.

When you tell your heart, 'God is the table, the table is God', though you have only thought of it, because Swami said you should adore the table as God, the mere thought is sufficient, it kindles a fire in you. The very thought that the table is God and God is the table is enough - even when uttered in joke! One day it will grow into a power, will unfold greater wisdom in you and will disclose to you the divine principle in everything.

If your faith and purity of heart are great, what happens when you look at the table and say 'table is God', suddenly the table vanishes and God appears before you. And when someone enters the room he vanishes and again there is a table. All this happens, when there is devotion and purity in the heart and one takes the instructions and wisdom and puts them into practice.

The true lover of God sees everything as identical with the Divine. There are no two things for him. Everything becomes God: the fields, the grass, the armchair, the walls, the trees and streets, the stars, air, sky, all appears to him as God himself. He perceives just one thing in the multitude of the universe - God. Man in general knows two things, his person and the multiverse. He is lost in the experience of diversity. The lover of the Divine knows only the One, in friend and foe, in all names and forms, visible and invisible. In all things he experiences one thing, God. The typewriter appears as the form of the Divine. Inside, outside, all appears as one image, all presents itself as the image of the Divine. He sees one, God. He touches one, God. He feels one, God. In all circumstances of life he is in the Divine, adores the Divine, perceives the Divine, experiences the Divine. Through constant exercise in this way, year after year, one remains rooted in the Divine in all conditions and circumstances.

It is stupid to suppose that God possesses a human form. God has all forms and is beyond all forms. God may take a human form, but he is immeasurably more than a human being. He can take the form of a tree, yet he is immeasurably more than a tree. He is in fact, the tree, water, air, space, whatever is visible or invisible to you. He is consciousness, he is love, he is all the qualities and characteristics one can think of. The whole of creation is his body. He feels when something is destroyed in the universe. But, in spite of the fact that he is in the universe and is the universe, he is immensely more and different from the universe. God is the air, God is fire, as fire he sees us. This fire is present everywhere in the whole cosmos in different kinds and ways, visible, invisible, very hot, less hot, cold, yet colder, in every imaginable degree of fire he is present everywhere as visible and invisible fire. The flame of a candle is a visible fire, the heat in your body is an invisible fire. One can feel it. There are fires one cannot feel, yet it is there as in firestone, etc.

In all forms the Divine is present. The Divine Mother can appear in every form, as gold, as copper, as elements. Every element has its own personality. Fire thinks, fire feels, fire possesses will-power, and so on. Fire is a person, so is space, so is water, so are the rivers and the oceans, so are the trees, so is everything.

Everywhere the lover of the Divine encounters God in every thinkable form, not only as Durga and Shiva, Rama and Krishna, but in all forms imaginable, as a good person, as a bad person. In all and everything resides the Divine without being touched by that in which it dwells. Thus, everywhere, at every hour the seeker of God constantly sees the Divine, meets the Divine, understands the Divine and behaves accordingly. He has great respect for every living being, visible and invisible, for the space, for the air - great reverence for everything in the universe. Through everything he is in communion with the unending, unmanifest, eternal, all-seeing, all-knowing God. All his life is rooted in the Divine.

Man as you see in daily life is one among many animals. He belongs to the animal-kingdom. This man is in fact a child of God, a light of God, inwardly eternally one with God. This revelation suddenly unveils the infinite dignity of man. What happens, when a beggar-maid suddenly discovers that she is the daughter of the emperor and the emperor too acknowledges this? From this moment the girl's life is totally changed. She becomes the empress of the world and rules with the emperor or after him. Such is this discovery that a worm-like human being in the animal-kingdom suddenly becomes an immortal being when the light of wisdom dawns on him, when he awakens to his inseparable, true, eternal relationship.

This girl is the daughter of the emperor, but their relationship is not so strong. The relationship between man and God is very strong, eternal, inseparable. It is so intimate that there is no distinction between them. Man has in him the capacity to experience the infinite Treasures of the Divine and God Himself. Suddenly his perspective in life changes. His limited peace grows into boundless peace. He gives up his chase after pleasures and finds infinite Happiness - all through this recognition, this vision, this wisdom, this new knowledge. A weak, mortal person discovers an inner way to grow one with the immortal Omnipotence consciously. He becomes boundless light. He recognizes this dying, stinking, ageing body, which he took to be himself, as something external and illusory. He is immeasurably more than this body. He dwells in the heart of eternal Life here and now. His intelligence is filled with dimensions of infinite Truth. He sees the world differently now. The multitude of individuals has disappeared. All are the one divine Light.

If you see people by X-ray-eyes what happens? The man disappears and you see only the skeleton. In the same way, when you possess divine eyes the flesh and bones disappear. Everywhere there is light, sunshine. Man becomes one with God, God becomes one with man and human life with all its limitations is gone, transformed. All darkness, envy, jealousy, etc. vanish. No one is more blessed, rich, beautiful, every happy, ever contented than the person in God-consciousness. His life is infinite fulfilment. This is the goal of all wisdom, all religions, meditations, ceaseless prayer.

This wonderful experience is ever present, here and now. It is waiting for you to take possession of it. Constantly one should see life from this standpoint, see oneself as light of God, see others as light of God. One gets boundless courage, power of endurance. All virtues grow limitless. Love becomes unending, cosmic, selflessness grows unlimited. Inwardly there is nothing but the Divine to experience, to enjoy, to express. Human life gets fulfilled.

'Dharma' means nature, motive, law. What is the Dharma of the earth? To attract the apples on the tree by the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation is its Dharma, its nature. Whatever you throw up is pulled down to earth. What is the Dharma of a person? To go back to the experience of the Absolute. There is but one goal, one law, the law of evolution, the law of self-realization, god-experience.

Whatever is born has to experience the Divine. This is the single central motive. This motive takes divergent forms. The search for unending happiness, the search for indestructible peace, the search for more and more wealth, all are nothing but an expression of the search for God. For all these are characteristics of the Divine and one cannot have peace, happiness, beauty, and so on without God-experience. Our only Dharma is to attract the Infinite. The Infinite attracts us in millions of ways.

A life in tune with such a law is a true Hindu-life, Sanatana-Dharmist-life. His Dharma in daily life is to remain rooted in God always. This is his first duty. First God, second God, third God, last God - always God. All life is divine for him. All nature is God for him. Every work, every thought, every feeling, every attitude, every activity in life becomes a means for God-experience. He sleeps religiously, rises religiously, walks religiously, feels religiously, breathes religiously. All life is religion. All life is ruled by a powerful awareness of the Infinite, the Absolute, the all-seeing, boundless Peace, Beauty, Love, Light. To lead such a life, that is our daily duty. It is not a duty, it is a joy, it is our nature, our being. This is our desire. These are our values. All outer values serve but this one goal, to realize, to reach the one central value, God.