The path of descriminating wisdom (jnana yoga) is described

Those who have the ability to discriminate between reality and illusion can see the ultimate truth which is that God is behind all of creation, that He is equally present in all creatures and exists without end amidst all we see that perishes. That wise person can see that his soul is part of the imperishable Spirit and that all of one’s actions are really a result of the vibratory energy of your created body and mind. Your soul, the image of God within, is a silent witness. The full realization of that truth is accompanied by the conscious recognition, the actual experience beyond intellectual knowing, that the whole variety of creation is existent in God. When that happens, you will understand beyond doubt that your true soul-Self has none of the qualities of creation, that it is deathless and that it is not affected by anything done in this world. You will have reached the ultimate goal of life and will forever more be absolutely free from the bondage of nature’s hypnotizing spell of illusion.

Three Main Paths to God Realization + One

God is, therefore, present in your body and mind. In order to recognize this, i.e. realize this in a conscious way or actually behold this image of God within, some people follow the path of meditation, some develop the wisdom to discriminate between reality and the illusion that the world presents, and still others by living a life of selfless service to others. But even those who cannot follow one of those three main paths for whatever reason will still find God if they take to heart the words of a spiritual teacher and become moved to worship with true devotion, following the edicts of one of the world’s scriptures.

The ocean and the wave

The Gita once again tries to describe the indescribable essence of God. He is both existence and non-existence. He is knowledge itself, that which is to be known, and the goal of all learning. He is both within and without everything making Him simultaneously near and far, yet imperceptible because of his subtlety. God is unmanifested transcendent spirit beyond creation, without attributes that can be categorized. He is consciousness itself, therefore He is aware of all of the thoughts and perceptions of every human being. He is omnipresent to anyone who understands this, yet seemingly nowhere to be found by those who do not believe. God’s manifestation in creation is like a wave in the ocean. The wave is a part of the ocean, but it is not the ocean itself. It is made entirely of the ocean and yet is identifiable as separate from the rest of the ocean. It is from that wave of God that all the qualities of creation exhibit themselves.

Characteristics of the wise

The wise are humble and do not do anything to hurt others in any way. They are forgiving and virtuous. They serve their spiritual teachers with devotion. They maintain purity of both body and mind with steadfastness of conviction and self-control. Wise people are indifferent to what their senses are telling their minds because they understand that their bodies are connected to the painful cycle of birth, suffering, old age and death. They are, therefore, free from their ego identification with their bodies and see their oneness with all of humanity. They do not see their children, spouse or home as being their own and they remain constantly even-minded in the presence of either desirable or undesirable circumstances. They enjoy practicing meditation with devotion to God and naturally seek out quiet places while avoiding the company of worldly people. They persevere in their quest to know the image of God within because they recognize that it is the essence of their knowledge of the truth. To do otherwise is to pursue ignorance.

The "field" and its "knower"

In the philosophical school of thought which developed in India known as Sankhya (a parallel philosophy to classical Yoga), everything that we can know about the created universe is a combination of the following: the five great elements (earth, water, air, fire and ether); the ten senses (a combination of the five senses we know in the West and the five organs of perception) what is known as the “sense mind” (manas) that perceives them; discriminating intelligence; egoism; the five results of the sense mind (desire, hate, pleasure, pain and an aggregation of other diverse emotions); consciousness; and persistent will power.

Remain even-minded in the face of the dualities of the world

Those who want to follow the path of devotion should not disturb the world or be disturbed by the world. Do not be too excited by joy and be free from jealousy, fear and worry. Make your mind pure by being utterly detached from personal desires and worldly expectations. Remain fair to everyone and unconcerned by circumstances. Undertake nothing with ego, pride or vanity in mind. Do not rejoice at good fortune or loathe bad times so you can be free from grief and cravings. Transcend the whole concept of good and evil. Be tranquil in the presence of friend or foe, adoration or insult, heat or cold, pleasure or pain. Relinquish attachments and take refuge in silence. Keep your mind balanced no matter what the circumstances and remain content no matter what happens. Those who take this eternal wisdom to heart will become full of faith and devotion to seeking God as life’s highest goal.

An important reminder

If you have decided to practice the path of devotion to God as your way of realizing Him, renouncing attachment to the results of your actions is even more important than meditation because peace immediately follows renunciation. Hate no one. Be friendly and compassionate to all. Give up your ego, all sense of I, me or mine and don’t think of anything as your own. Remain even-minded when you experience either pleasure or pain because they are both temporary. Be forgiving. Always remain content and steady of mind through meditation. Learn to behave properly while being strong and consistent in your convictions. Offer your heart and mind to God and others. Meditation is certainly better than just having knowledge of these truths or simply observing religious rituals, but the wisdom to put these things into practice is better than either meditation alone or ritual worship.

If you have not developed the ability to keep your mind fixed on God at all times you should do so by regularly practicing meditation. If you do not have the discipline to meditate regularly, you should practice dedicating all your actions to others. And if you can’t even do that consistently, practice giving up your attachment to any selfish gain from the fruits of your actions. Thus, you will be giving up your ego and surrendering to the will of God, taking refuge in Him. This is what the Bhagavad Gita calls performing your actions “like a mastered self.”

Ch 12: Union with God through Devotion

Ultimately it does not matter if you worship God as a particular embodied deity or as the divine Spirit behind all the manifested forms as long as you do so with supreme devotion and dedicate yourself to the good of all beings. It is harder for most people to feel like they have a personal relationship with God if they worship a formless concept like the Holy Spirit, but both ways eventually lead to the realization of the truth. The important thing is that you renounce your attachment to the fruits of your actions, desire to do good above all else and meditate. If you do that consistently you will soon see that this is the way to remove yourself from the pain and suffering of the world and that there is no doubt that you and God are united forever.

Even though studying the scriptures, practicing self-discipline, giving gifts of charity and performing formal religious rituals will provide you with good merit, these alone will not bring about union with God. Only through steady devotion to offering all of your actions to others, thus shedding any selfish attachment to personal gain or feelings of ill will toward anyone will you have the same knowledge of God that Krishna gave to Arjuna in the story of the Bhagavad Gita.

Arjuna, still awestruck and trembling from the overwhelming experience of seeing God in all His forms, begins to praise Krishna now that he knows who he really is. Arjuna humbly explains that because he didn’t know Krishna was God, he must have treated Him disrespectfully at time and implores the Lord to forgive him like a father forgives his child, like a friend forgives a friend and like a lover forgives his beloved. So, in the metaphor of the Gita, the spiritual seeker, upon realizing God’s true nature, still aglow from the experience immediately becomes remorseful at the realization that he or she should have known this all along and asks God’s forgiveness. God is nearer and more real than a friend, a  lover or even one’s own child.

The metaphor contained in the Gita gets explained

Then, Arjuna began to see God’s fearsome side. He saw all those who are slaves to their senses, tied to their satisfaction by habits and full of ego, pride and vanity being swept up and carried into the jaws and teeth of a monstrous God who chewed them until their skulls were crushed to powder. Arjuna begged to know who this monster-God was and the Lord spoke saying, “I am insatiable Time, destroyer of worlds, and I have come to consume all in my burning maw.” It was then that the Lord explained to Arjuna (the spiritual seeker on the battlefield of life) that he really isn’t losing out on anything by fighting a battle that seems like it will kill some of the people he knew as friends and teachers (i.e. forgoing the sensual pleasures that lead to harm or putting his selfish ego aside in favor of helping others) because they were doomed to die anyway. In the metaphor contained in the Bhagavad Gita, the spiritual seeker, having realized God, awakens to the “big picture” of life and sees the uselessness of clinging to the illusion of the world and forever understands that God is the only permanent Reality.

Ch 11: Arjuna's vision of God in His infinite form

In the eleventh chapter of the Gita, Arjuna (who represents all sincere spiritual seekers) is granted divine sight to behold all of the created aspects of God in His multitude of forms. He saw God in heaven, bejeweled with robes and garlands and ornaments of all kinds, shining in every direction and seeing everything with countless eyes facing everywhere simultaneously. In His presence was a fragrance that contained every lovely essence. Then, Arjuna saw the entire universe with all its diverse manifestations residing within God’s infinite being. A thousand suns shining simultaneously appeared dim in God’s splendor. Seeing that God is the supreme unperishable reality, Arjuna’s hair stood on end and, awe-struck, he bowed in adoration before the God of gods. Upon seeing God’s infinite strength contained in a never-ending array of eyes, arms, legs and bodies that reach everywhere without start or end, each with a mouth uttering sounds that when combined speak the cosmic name of God, AUM, Arjuna became overwhelmed and fearful. He begged God to be merciful.

All of Ch 10 in one paragraph

The tenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita poetically describes the infinite manifestations of God as the source of everything. No one will ever be able to understand the origin of God’s unmanifested nature, but we can see Him in all the things He manifests. Knowledge of this truth is liberating and brings one wisdom, the ability to discriminate between reality and the illusion that the world projects, freedom from delusion, forgiveness, truth, self-control, equanimity, fearlessness, non-injury, tranquility, contentment, the ability to bear discomfort with an even mind, generosity and honor. But God also generates the opposite; pain, death, fear, ignorance, hate, suffering and dishonor. All these different qualities come solely from God because He is the source of everything. The wise simply understand that God is the unchanging and everlasting Holy Spirit that sustains and permeates the entire cosmos with only a fragment of His being.

God doesn't hate anybody

God is impartial toward all beings. Regardless of any of the social inequalities that societies or individuals place on people, God does not hate anyone, nor is He especially dear to anyone. No matter where or to whom you were born, whether you are male or female, rich or poor, if you take refuge in God and give him your love and devotion, He will respond and you will come to see that you are a part of Him and He is within you. Even the worst of sinners who worships God with sincere devotion and firm resolve will be counted as one of the good. He or she will quickly become virtuous and obtain unending peace until they realize absolute freedom and become united with God. A true devotee never comes to a harmful end. Saints and sinners alike find themselves living in this same transient world of suffering and unhappiness, needing to turn to God for their salvation. Therefore, resolve to bow with humble reverence before God, forgo your selfish desires and devote your life to offering all your actions to others, thinking of God constantly and you will be firmly on the path to realizing the ultimate goal of life, union with God.

The essence of Karma Yoga

Whatever you do, make it an offering to God by doing it for others, without thought of selfish reward. Whether it is eating to sustain yourself so you can do work for others, giving gifts or charity, or even disciplining yourself to be a better person so others will enjoy being around you, dedicate them all as if you were performing a spiritual ritual and they become offerings to God. When you perform your actions in that way, they will not bind you to a good or bad result through karma. Through this practice you become free of personal desires and are not bound to this world. Thus you can achieve total liberation and become one with God.

Anyone who is worshiping with true faith in their beliefs, no matter what they are doing, is really worshiping God, but not in the most optimal way. Those who worship saints or angels or lesser forms of God will see them in heaven. Those who worship their ancestors will see their ancestors in heaven. Those who are honoring the spirits in nature go to be with them. Whatever is offered to God with true devotion, even if it is only a leaf from a tree, a single flower, a piece of fruit or a sip of water, He accepts it because it was given with love.

Those who are still operating on the level of religious ritual and cleansing practices get their reward in heaven. There, sincere devotees enjoy the pleasures of that sacred kingdom. Such beings delight in the glory of that higher realm until their merit earned through good karma on earth runs out and they return to the world. Even though they have sincerely worshiped God, they have not realized the truth about reality and have not reached the ultimate goal. They remain caught in the web of personal desires and therefore must continue to travel the path between heaven and earth. However, for those who meditate on the image of God within themselves, without any thought of reward, and remain united by constantly thinking of Him, God will make up for any deficiencies in their worship and make all their progress towards realizing Him permanent even throughout the cycles of birth after birth.

God is everything

Those with discriminating wisdom see beyond the various religious rituals and know that God is the offering, the sacrifice and the ritual itself. He is that which is sacrificed in the fire and He is the fire as well. He is the potency in the medicinal herb and he is the sacred sound chanted with devotion. He is both the praise given to one’s ancestors and the one who receives it. God is that which is to be known. He is the father and mother of the whole universe as well as its grandfather, great-grandfather and most ancient ancestor. He is the omniscient, omnipresent vibrational energy of absolute existence. He is both the sacred scripture and the wisdom it holds. God sustains everything and established the rules over it. He is the foundation of all that is and is both the origin and the indestructible seed of creation. He is the shelter, the refuge and the one friend from beginning to end. He is the objective witness of all actions and the cosmic storehouse of the results of those actions. God is the heat from the sun and the one who give or withholds rain. He is both death and immortality. God is everything that exists and everything that does not exist.

In whatever way one worships God, he or she is offering it in a way that indicates their current level of understanding about the reality behind the illusion of the world. At first He is seen as being different and varied in name and form, but eventually all will see Him as the one absolute being who embodies the entire cosmos.