God is the supreme reality

Understanding of god

God is the ultimate reality. Being an ardent Vaishnavite and student of Visishtadvaita, my understanding is that god is the primary cause of creation, sustenance and dissolution of the universe. This cannot be realised by perception, inference or by any common human resource, but only through revealed scriptures namely sashtra or sruti.

Spiritual beliefs

God is the supreme reality. All living sentient beings and non-sentient entities are also realities but are dependent on the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent god. However, by his grace, every sentient being is bestowed with a limited independence called free will. How we utilise the facility determines our destiny.

Spiritual practices

I have been striving to internalise and put to practice what little I have understood of spirituality. I am strongly convinced that one should free oneself from the feeling of ‘I’ and ‘mine’ while performing any action, but it seems to remain more a theory than practice. But I am sure that if god wills to achieve that state which can lead me to the basic concept of surrender or saranagati, it will be in totality and not as a formality for me.

Take on miracles

Strong believers in the theory of karma invariably do not believe in miracles. But I prefer to call it faith, because events happen in one’s life based on one’s karma and the lord’s benevolence (anugraha). Thirty years ago,  when I was suffering from hepatitis, my wife and I prayed to the lord of Thirumala that we would come for his darshan in yellow attires. It was because of this that I was cured of the disease. The Lord obliged and made me fit enough to write this story after 30 years.

Pilgrimage sites

I have visited the holy shrine of Lord Venkateswara at Tirumala quite a few times.

I consider every visit of mine as a holy pilgrimage because of his (Lord Balaji’s) grace.

As told to Sonali Shenoy

(P Jagannivas is the director of the Heinz Nutrition Foundation, India)