The Rg-veda mantra says om tad Visnoh paramam padam sada pasyanti surayah diviva chaksur atatam: the divine feet of our holy Lord are like the sun above our heads. His holy feet are like the vigilant eye of a grand guardian hanging over our heads like the sun, and we are living beneath the glance of that vigilant eye.
We are interested not in objective, but in subjective reality. We shall always try to live not in objective but in subjective relativity. We should never think, «Under my feet I have firm ground to stand on; I am big. I shall stand erect.» Rather, we should think, «Above my consciousness is Superconsciousness; the vigilant guardian’s eye is always watching me. I am living under the glance of that eye.» Our support comes not from below, but from above. He is our shelter. We are hanging from that substantial upper world wherein He resides; our support is found there. We must always be conscious of that.
This is a principle mantra in the Rg-veda. Before anyone approaches a new duty, he should think about his own position. We have been instructed by this verse from the Vedas to think in this way: «You are under the vigilant eye of your guardian, and that great eye is as living as the sun; its glance is just like that of the sun which is over your head. Like a light that can pierce through to see anything within you, His piercing glance is upon you.» With this understanding of identity, we should approach our duty. We are never encouraged to think that we stand firmly here on solid earth, and that on the basis of a strong position, independent of His grace, we can carry out our dharma.
Actually, in our subjective relationship with Divinity, we are just like the rays of the sun. Where do the sun’s rays stand? They stand on the sun — that is their source. In the same way, we should think that our stand is in the realm of Divinity; we are so many particles of consciousness, and our stand, our motherland, is that conscious area. God consciousness means Krishna consciousness. We are consciousness, and we are meant for Krishna consciousness — that is our relationship. We should always be conscious of this fact. We are connected with Krishna consciousness. We are members of the Krishna conscious world. And we have come to wander in the foreign land of material consciousness, mayik misconception, thinking that we are units of this material world, but it is not so.
We are units of the conscious world — the Krishna conscious world — and somehow we have come within this material conception of existence, the world of matter. Matter is what we can exploit, the objective side of reality, and the subjective side is the element we should revere. Our relationship with the subjective is that of reverence and devotion to the higher entity, and not that of exploitation or enjoyment. Real enjoyment, divine enjoyment, comes from service — not from exploitation.
We must understand all these basic principles. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj once remarked to me that although the engineers in New York have built so many skyscraper buildings that will stand for ages, they were never mindful of how long their own bodies would last. The buildings will stand for a long, long time. But those who will live in those buildings have forgotten how long their bodies will stand. In this way, people are very busy on the objective side, but they are neglecting the subjective values. Their concern is with objects and not with who will use them. They think that no subjective cultivation is necessary for the user of the objective world. In this way, they give all importance to the objective side, neglecting totally the subjective side.