A MANTRA THAT IS TRADITIONALLY GIVEN

Also, you are related to the Lord whose name you repeat. As a devotee you are related, the relationship being between the devotee and the altar of your devotion alone. One recognizes the Lord in a given name or recognizing the Lord, a name is given. That name can be given traditionally or by education.

If it is traditionally given, the word and the Lord are already bridged in your psyche. This bridge is a blessing because the word immediately strikes in your mind as the Lord. Whether by tradition or by education, the word and its meaning must become connected in your mind.

To the meaning of a word hnown to you as the Lord, you are a devotee. The devotee is a fundamental person who assumes a variety of relative roles such as father, mother, wife, husband, brother and sister. If you are an individual, you are first related to the total and, only afterwards, are you related individually.

I AM RELATED TO THE TOTAL

Individuality is possible only when I carve myself out as an entity from the total. The one who identifies with a given physical body-mind-sense complex is an individual. The individual is naturally related to the total because, from this total alone, he or she is carved out as an entity, just as a tree has an individuality carved out from the total, the forest. The forest includes the tree, but the tree does not include the forest.

In this way, there is an individual and his or her Lord is the total. The Lord is a being and I am a being. The Lord is looked upon by as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Thus, as an individual, my relationship with the total is fundamental, the total being the basis for the individual.

This individual entity is also related, but relatively, to all other individuals with whom he or she comes in contact - parents, aunts, uncles, husband or wife, children, neighbors, friends. And who is the person who is related? The person is fundamentally a devotee and this devotee is related to another person by assuming the role of son or daughter, sister or brother, niece or nephew, parent, and so on. Therefore, one becomes a devotee son or daughter, a devotee wife or husband, a devotee mother or father, a devotee friend, a devotee employee or employer, a devotee thinker, and a devotee seer.