Here is another thought for meditation: The Supreme Personality of Godhead is unlimited, and any service rendered Him is also unlimited because the Lord's unlimited energy is the dynamic force behind such service. When this supernatural energy is reposed in us, all our thoughts and feelings, our physical body, our mind, our knowledge, and so on, are energized by it. Every endeavor then simply merges into this flow of energy, and we become like a lotus growing from the mud—in the world but uncontaminted by it. This is how the nondual principle comes alive: our mind, heart, consciousness, and activities become nondifferent from the Supreme Lord, the Absolute Truth. We consider ourselves the Lord's property, surrendered at His lotus feet, His unalloyed, eternal slaves. Rejecting all mental speculation and mundane desire, with a serene mind we experience incessant spiritual bliss in rendering Him loving service. In the Bhagavad-gītā (3.30) the Lord describes the process of surrender in this way:
- mayi sarvāṇi karmāṇi
- sannyasyādhyātma-cetasā
- nirāśīr nirmamo bhūtvā
- yudhyasva vigata-jvaraḥ
Therefore, O Arjuna, surrendering all your works unto Me, with full knowledge of Me, without desires for profit, with no claims to proprietorship, and free from lethargy, fight.
To achieve such a state of surrender, one has to be free from selfish desires, unaffected by dualities, and devoid of all false prestige. Dualities are born of false ego, the worst enemy of surrender. One who transcends false ego, and with it the effects of duality, is very easily freed from material desires, and then he vanquishes hate, greed, anger, fear, and so on. In the stage of full surrender to the Lord, even negative qualities like mundane desire and envy, along with dualities like hunger and thirst, heat and cold, joy and sorrow, loss and gain, sin and piety, and honor and dishonor, are converted into spiritual energy by being brought into contact with the Supreme Lord. Saintly, blissful personalities who are devoid of undesirable characteristics like lust and envy are found especially in India. One can conquer duality, illusion, and so on only by spiritual elevation to the state of directly perceiving the Supreme Lord and seeing everything in relation to Him. The only method of achieving this state of consciousness is buddhi-yoga.
For the devotee of the Lord, this kind of vision develops easily. Conversely, the empirical philosophers, fruitive workers, and gross materialists cannot possibly attain this stage. The devotees are inspired by Him to develop spiritual perception, and thus the dualities fade into inconsequence. Such a state is the ultimate result of their devotional surrender and love for the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā Lord Kṛṣṇa describes the neophyte stage of such divine consciousness:
- brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā
- na śocati na kāṅkṣati
- samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu
- mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām
- (BG 18.54)
One who is thus transcendentally situated at once realizes the Supreme Brahman and becomes fully joyful. He never laments or desires to have anything. He is equally disposed toward every living entity. In that state he attains pure devotional service unto Me.
The living entity becomes bound up by the ropes of ignorance, duality, and illusion as soon as he sees this material world through the coloured crystal known as "me and mine." To nullify such false ego and contaminated consciousness, one must follow the process of buddhi-yoga, which is uncontaminated by the three modes of nature (ignorance, passion, and goodness). Otherwise superconsciousness is unattainable.