IN THE RIPENESS OF TIME

 
The very first descent of divinity into the heart awakens love for God. When love for God comes, fear of God disappears. Love for God removes all fear and prepares the aspirant to be lost in Him. The intensity of their love unites the aspirants with God. They thus eventually get the supreme "I am God" state.

Those who persist until the end get there. Those who get there are, however, very few; though many, without getting there, feel tempted to claim that they are God. To be an honest atheist is no fraud. But to claim that one is God before attaining real unity with Him, is definitely a fraud.

There are two types who do not have any use for religion: the materialist, and the one who is Self-realised. There are two who are indifferent to money: the brute and the one who is Self-realised. There are two who are free from lust: the child and the one who has attained Truth.

Though the Truth-realised person is, in the above respects, like the materialist, the brute, and the child, he stands completely apart from all these. He has attained unity with the infinite existence of God, while the others have not.

The Master enjoys the Madhur Bhava at will — that is, the sweet mood of Love, where duality is illumined by the realisation of the immensity of the One in the duality. Or he enjoys the Maha Bhava, the vast consciousness of unlimited Oneness, which has no room at all for any apprehension of manyness.

Maha Bhava, or the vast consciousness of unlimited Oneness, is much rarer than Madhur Bhava. But the Master can enjoy it even when he is engaged in acts like eating, talking and so on.

Madhur Bhava can be communicated by imparting suitable spiritual impressions to the disciple. But Maha Bhava, which is essentially beyond all impressions, is incommunicable. In the ripeness of time, it dawns from within.