Parmarth Prasanga - Faith and Love for God

19. Faith works wonders—makes the impossible possible. Faith plies its boat, setting sail over dry land. The doubting self is drowned even in ankle-deep water.


20. Hope is life. Hope is the source of all strength and effort. If hope is given up, one suffers agonies of death, becomes dead though living. Cling to hope till the last breath. Never, till death comes, give up the hope of realising God. If He so wills, He may shower His grace upon you at any time. Have this faith that He may perchance reveal Himself to you even at
the last moment.


21. When God in His boundless mercy has, through the Guru, imparted the Siddha-mantra (mystic formula of the partic­ular name of the Deity) which is the key to the portal of His sanctuary—know that He has given Himself away freely. But it is necessary for you to have that firm conviction. If you lose that invalu­able jewel through carelessness and negli­gence, know that you are unfit for His grace. The right appreciation of this gift is the practice of the Mantra and the instructions imparted by the Guru with your whole heart and soul until the Goal is reached. Only by so doing will you be able to repay a part of the debt to him. The more you realise that God is nearer and dearer to you than your near and dear ones, the more you will be the recipient of His grace. Through His grace you will be free and ever blissful even in this life.


22. Until Love and Devotion to God grow, one cannot be aware of the transitory and insubstantial nature of the world. The mind is but one; and it cannot be parti­tioned into compartments, one part given to God and other parts filled with desires for name, fame and sense objects. God cannot be realised unless the whole mind be given to Him. Unless one can do that, one has to be born again and again in the world and suffer endless misery.


23. In order to renounce the world, one need not take to holy orders or retire to the forest. Real renunciation is of the mind. If you give up the world mentally, it is the same whether you remain in the world or the forest. If you run away to the forest, without completely renouncing from your mind attachment for worldly objects, the world will follow you there also and trouble you just the same; there will be no escape from it.

Source: Parmarth Prasanga -Towards The Goal Supreme- Swami Virajanandaji of Ramakrishna Math

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