PART OF GOD AND ONE WITH HIM

 

From the moment we are born, our first and primary relationship is with our parents.

Through them, we become related to siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and many others. These relationships are not of our making. They come with our birth. Thus, whether we like or dislike them, own or disown them, they continue to exist. 

Relationships with friends and spouses are formed (inorganic formation) and can therefore be broken. Our relationship with our parents, however, lasts only during our lives..

Who is truly related to us in our life? Which relationship is the fundamental and the absolute one?

It is our relationship with God. I am a part and He is the whole. I am an individual  and He is the total. 

Can the part exist without the whole? How intimately is a part related to the whole? Is a part ever separated from the whole?

Upanishads describe God as the Virat Purush, Cosmic Being and every individual as part of God. 

While we are aware that the universe is made up of the five elements, space, air, water, fire and earth, are not individual bodies, made of the five elements, part of the totality of the five elements?

We are indeed an aggregate of these elements.  

There are countless waves in the ocean. Each wave is born in the ocean, exists in it, and subsides into it. Its relationship with other waves is temporary. But its relationship with the ocean is primary and absolute. 

Likewise we are all a part of God and one with him. How can we ignore this eternal relationship?

The Mundaka Upanishad offers a beautiful metaphor.

In a tree like body, two birds who are friends, dwell. One is God and the other is the individual.. The individual keeps pecking at sweet and sour fruits, alternating between happiness and unhappiness. Helplessly caught in the conflicts and confusions of life, it looks up to its God-friend and becomes truly happy.

Relationships bind us. We suffer because we seek support from those who are helpless and who are dependent elsewhere. We feel burdened by responsibilities. We are attached to possessions. We are worried about our children. We are hurt by rejection and insult. It happens like that because we forget that relatives and relationships are only relative - not absolute. We do not have to renounce worldly relationships to reiterate our relationship with God. 

When we realise it, we understand that not only do we belong to God, but so does everyone else - equally, totally and absolutely.  The awareness divinises all worldly relationships.

When we ignore our relationship with God, we suffer. 

How can I feel helpless when I am aware of God's support? How can I feel insecure when I am under the protection of the omnipotent? How can I feel lonely when I am always in His embrace?

Our relationship with God is binding forever.  It is the product of listening to and understanding the scripture and through the grace of God. The relationship is at once primary and absolute.

When the individual  through ignorance feels he is separated from the omnipotent, God nourishes him with the knowledge that  He never abandons him. He guides him through thick and thin.

You become one with God

Swami Tejomayananda of Chinmaya Mission in The Times of india of 30 June 2026 -          The Relationship Nobody Talks About - (slightly edited)