Aptavani 01

Author(s): Dada Bhagwan
Publisher: Dada Bhagwan Foundation

Page 17

Aptavani-1
Aptavani-1
God As the Boss : Liberation? When I was thirteen, it occurred to me that there should be no one in a position of authority over me. I did not want even God to be my boss. I would not be able to tolerate that. Such was the spiritual development I had brought with me. My wishes of countless past lives finally came into fruition in this lifetime. If God were in a position of power over us and if he were to grant us liberation, then we would be obliged to obey his commands. If I were sitting down and he asked me to get up, I would have to follow his command. That would be unacceptable. How can one call that liberation? Liberation means complete freedom, no superior over us or no subordinates under us either.
lives up there, above us.
Dadashri : So do you believe what others tell you? Should you not question this for yourself? I will tell you the correct address of God. God is in every creature, whether visible or invisible. There are infinite life forms between you and me, which are not visible even through a microscope, and God resides in them too. God resides as energy in all living beings, and within me, he is fully manifest. He is the effulgent light fully manifest within me. He is the fully manifest Supreme Soul within. There is tremendous light within. The person you see before you is Ambalal Muljibhai Patel of Bhadran (a town in Gujarat), who is a contractor by profession and that which has manifest within A. M. Patel is Dada Bhagwan. This is a tremendous and phenomenal surprise! But how are vou to understand this? This body is the outer packing and the One within is God. Similarly your packing belongs to Chandulal and within resides God. The outer packing of that animal is a donkey and God is within. People are foolish when they curse a donkey if it crosses their path, but they don't realize that the God within takes note of their condemnation, and consequently they will have to endure one birth as a donkey themselves. The outer packing can be anything. It can be that of a mango tree or anything else. What do the merchants and shopkeepers pay importance to the outer package or the goods within?
Questioner : The goods within.
Dadashri : Yes, of what use is the packing anyway? We are only concerned with the contents are we not? Some packing may be rotten or torn but the content within is pure, is it not?
From the time this Gnan manifested within me, I have not identified myself with this body of Ambalal Muljibhai even for a moment. I look upon him as my first neighbor.
You can experience the bliss of liberation through selfrealization here while living. No worries or external problems will affect you. Liberation is when your internal peace is not disturbed even when you receive a letter of audit from the income tax office. The final liberation will come later on, but first you must experience liberation here and now.
I got married at the age of sixteen. During the wedding ceremony, the turban on my head tipped slightly to one side. At that time it occurred to me that it was inevitable that one of us would become widowed.
Life after life man learns the same thing over and over again and yet ignorance creates veils over it again. One need not learn ignorance; ignorance comes naturally. It is Gnan (real knowledge) that one has to learn. The veil of ignorance was relatively less within me and that is why even at the young age of thirteen I became (spiritually) aware. In my math class, the teacher had asked the students to find the smallest indivisible number, which is common to all other numbers (LCM = lowest common multiple). From this search, I immediately discovered