Transcription
[Music] [Applause]
All of us wish to become better. It is a universal common desire. No matter what we do, where we are, or how we are, we wish to become better at our work, better husbands, better wives, better children, better parents, better citizens. This urge to be better is common to everyone.
God has written a script within us that urges us ever upward, ever forward, to be more like Him. Where is this urge coming from? To feel better, to be better, to do better? There is a word for God that explains it all. This word is Brahma. It's a Sanskrit word for God, translated in English as Brahman.
Brahma has two meanings. We had wat Brahm bringer, not wat Brahma. Brahma is He who is big. God is big. How big? The Vedas say, "Onion madam he are not ma Nieto siento." They start off by saying God is small. How small is God? He is so small, so subtle, that the smallest thing in existence, God is smaller than that.
Think of something small: the atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks, Higgs bosons, God particle. God is smaller than that God particle because He is the energy that creates the God particle. It's just like a clot is made from threads; the threads are subtler than the clots they constitute. Everything is composed of the energy of God.
The Vedas are saying He is smaller than everything in existence, but the same mantra goes on to say, "Mahato Bahian." God is also big. And how big is He? Bigger than the biggest thing. Now let's stretch our imagination: conceptualize the mountain, go bigger, the Pacific Ocean, bigger, the earth, bigger, the solar system, the Milky Way, the universe. Anything bigger than the universe? God, because He's holding the universe within His being.
If He were not bigger than the universe, how would He uphold it? That is why the Vedas say He is smaller than the smallest and bigger than the biggest.
The word Brahma means He who is big, and how big we have just discussed. There is nothing as big as Him. However, the word Brahma has a second meaning as well: "ring not wat Brahma." God is He who makes others big. He is not a miser. Those who reach Him, those who attain Him, who unite with Him, He makes them as big as Himself.
Brahma wit Brahma even poverty. Those Saints who attained God became godlike. So He has created us such that we all strive for that ultimate perfection of becoming like Him. The Bible says, "Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect."
It will not do to say that you know He is perfect and I am a sinner. Swami Vivekanand said the prophets were not unique; they were men as you and I. They had attained super consciousness, and you and I can do the same. The very fact that one person attained that state indicates that all people can do so, and that ultimately is religion.
What is religion? It is the means of attaining the perfection that God has designed for all of us. That is why we march ever forward, ever upward, ever higher, like the slogan of the Olympics: faster, higher, and longer.
Take a look at how the Olympic records have kept tumbling. I had a little study in Wikipedia. In 1900, there was an American jumper called Irving Baxter. He got the gold medal in pole vault and in high jump. In high jump, he jumped six feet two inches.
In the 1900s, people thought that the human body is so designed that nobody will ever jump higher than seven feet. But there was another gentleman called Fosbury. He refused to limit himself to that constraint of thinking. He said, "Let me look at this in a different way."
The popular style of jumping was what is called the scissor jump. You go running and jump, taking your feet over so your head is higher. He found another way of jumping. He said, "Let me take my head over first, and the feet will follow." He called it the Fosbury flip, the flip jump.
The people said this will never happen. They called it the Fosbury flop. But in 1968, he broke the world record; he crossed more than seven feet. Today, the world record has crossed eight feet.
Then I took a look at pole vault. In 1952, the record was under 15 feet, and people said 15 feet is absolutely the human barrier. But somebody said, "I refuse to accept." He tried jumping with a fiberglass pole, and immediately the world record tumbled. It went on; today it is beyond 20 feet.
These are mere instances of the human capacity moving ahead in the physical realm. The same applies to the mental realm of consciousness. The difference is the mind, once stretched, will not come back to its original shape.
So how to stretch ourselves and become better?
[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]