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  1. Swami Shailendra Saraswati
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    2020-11-03T10:24:37+05:30
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    Divine touch is experienced as warmth or a feather touch or touch of a blanket. For experiencing divine touch we have to revive our sensitivity towards touch.

     Being a doctor by profession I have always realized that my very touch to feel the pulse of my patients gives immense relief to them. However, I have felt that with growth of civilization we have forgotten the language of touch. We have to reclaim that forgotten language. For example during eating, I do not just eat, I try to touch the bread, feel the texture of it, feel with open eyes, and feel with closed eyes. While chewing, I feel that I am chewing God. It is really disrespectful not to chew well, not to taste well. It becomes a prayer for me, and I feel that a new consciousness is rising in me.

    I have felt that we should touch people more. We have become very touchy about touch. If somebody is talking to us and comes too close, we start moving backwards. We protect our territory. We don’t touch and we don’t allow others to touch; we don’t hold hands, we don’t hug. We don’t enjoy each other’s being.

    I often go to the tree, touch the tree, and touch the rock. I go to the river. I let the river flow through my hands. I feel it. I swim, and feel the water again as the fish feels it. I don’t miss any opportunity to revive my senses. And there are a thousand and one opportunities the whole day. There is no need to have some separate time for it. The whole day is training in sensitivity. We can use all the opportunities. Sitting under the shower, we can use this opportunity. We can feel the touch of the water falling on us. We can lie down on the ground, naked, feel the earth. We can lie down on the beach, feel the sand. Only then we will be able to learn the language of the senses again.

    As our sensitivity increases one day we can feel touch of God. Sufis say that we exist only when we confront God. We exist only when God looks into our eyes and we look into his eyes. We exist only when we are touched by God and we touch God. Before that, our existence is just emptiness, a dark night of the soul. It is just a stumbling, a hoping, and waiting. It is very insubstantial; it is dream stuff. It has no reality in it.

    God, when known, is touched as we touch your beloved, kissed as we kiss our beloved, looked deep into the eyes of as we look deep into the eyes of our beloved. Unless God comes to us like a lover, prayer is not possible.

    That is why when a master prays, the sky descends over him, surrounds him, touches him from all over, from all dimensions. And if the disciples are just there, sitting silently in deep zazen, meditating, their hearts will be thrilled. The unknown will touch them also, and the unknown will penetrate their beings also. Because when God rains, it rains tremendously; it fills the whole earth. Wherever people are waiting silently, meditating, suddenly they will be full of Him. Then prayer becomes possible, not before it. A real touch is needed, a contact is needed. God has to be touched, one has to be touched by God; only then, trust arises.

    — Swami Shailendra Saraswati.

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