It is necessary that you have to accept the existence of God first if you are to live a divine life. If you have no fear of God, you cannot have fear of anybody else. This is an old Kannada saying I heard when I was a small child, written on a wall in a school: "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." If you cannot fear God and you deny God's existence totally, then you have to be prepared for the worst of things that can happen to you in this world.

There was a humorous philosopher who said, "Well, if God does not exist really, well, so much the better for you, be free from all botheration. But suppose He exists – beware, be cautious. Incase He happens to exist, be cautious – anything can happen to you." This is a very jolly, humorous, very uplifting, a fact.

Now, we are not here to discuss whether God exists or not. It has to be taken for granted by devotees and admirers and disciples of Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj that God has to exist. And, as a thinker said, if God does not exist, we have to create one God. Just as if there is no President, we have to make one President, otherwise we cannot exist. Otherwise, people are not born as Presidents and Prime Ministers; they are like anyone else. But why do you create a President? Because without that person, we cannot exist. So he said that if God does not exist by any chance, we have to manufacture one – otherwise existence is not possible.

The idea is that the principle called God is the final controlling authority over not only the operations in the universe, but the behaviors of people and the conduct of anything else in this world. I am very fond of remembering again and again the oft-quoted saying of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj that in every enterprise of yours, God has to come first. Sri Ganeshaya Namaha, Om Sri Sarasvati Namaha, Om Namah Sivaya, Om Namo Narayanaya. You do not suddenly start gulping food or drinking your tea, because even the art of consuming food is regarded as a Yajna to the great divine authority that is the digesting principle and the determining principle, perhaps the principle that we are. This is a wider subject.

So, it is absolutely essential for every divine lifer to believe, and to be convinced, and to be rooted in the great ideal that God does exist and that God perhaps only exists, inasmuch as He is All-in-All.

Now, God exists, and God has created this world, and we are seeing this world. Therefore it is an effect of God – it is also to be respected. The world comes after because it is an effect of God, and we were subsequent creations. If we read the Vishnu Purana or the Srimad Bhagavatam Mahapurana, or even the cosmological descriptions given in such scriptures as the Mahabharata, you will find that we are not the first created beings – we were created afterwards. We are not the crown of creation in the sense of antecedence in the chronological system of the coming down of things from the original creation. God comes first, the world has to come afterwards, and you are the last creation. Therefore the first consideration should go to the cause, and not to the effect.

Here is also a great gospel of unselfish living. The statement that God is first, the world is next and yourself is last is also a principle of good living. You have to pay respect to the cause first before you consider the welfare of the effect. You have to pay respect and obedience and obeisance to God first, and be prepared to obey His commands, His ordinances, "the righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven", as Christ put it. That is first and foremost – you cannot avoid it. If you rule out the possibility of the very existence of God, and violate the law, then anything can happen to you – you should not make complaints afterwards. It is like a renegade, or an anti-governmental or anti-social element.

The world is the next thing that should command your respect. You do not come first – your consideration should be for the Ultimate Reality first and foremost, then your consideration for the world afterwards. This is a Purendradasa saying, "The first duty is the service of God; the next duty is the service of man." He does not say service of yourself – that is automatically involved and you need not too much bother about yourself. You shall be taken care of by the powers that be if the world receives your respect, honor, recognition, in the manner it is expected of you. You come afterwards.

But modern man, educated man, proud man, who, as Shakespeare puts it, plays such antic tricks, like an ape, as make the angels weep. Angels are weeping at our behavior. They are crying, "What sort of creation is this? How things are behaving!"

We need not be too eager to receive respect from people. It will automatically devolve upon us. This is not merely a spiritual gospel – it is also a sociological principle; it is also a method of ethical living; it is also an art of good conduct. Everything is implied in this great statement of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, "When you are united with the Ultimate Cause, It shall take care of you." The higher determines the lower and guides the lower, decides upon the way and the conduct and the maintenance of the lower, and entirely is responsible for the lower, as the head of the family is concerned with all the members of the family and each one need not concern himself or herself as an independent person.

So, one of the principles of divine life, which is a large subject to dilate upon, is pinpointed in this pithy saying of Sri Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, "God first, world next, yourself last." When there is a sweet dish, says Manusmriti, don't eat it for yourself; you must share it with others. Sweet, delicious, nice things should not be eaten independently by closing the doors. I remember this very well, and I feel ashamed also, when anything is offered to me which I would like to offer to other people also. Very delicious, valuable, precious, delicious, tasty things should not be eaten alone – give it to your servant. You would not like to give it, because servant is nobody, he's dirt. This is a very strange attitude of ours which has come upon us due to an overestimation that we have somehow or other imposed upon ourselves as the be-all and end-all of everything – the world has no concern with us.

We do not think of the world as much as we think of our own selves. We are putting the cart before the horse and doing just the opposite of what Sri Gurudev was expecting us to do when he said, "God first, world next, yourself last." We are anxious that we may lose our property, welfare, and goodwill and all satisfaction if our concern goes to other people and we lose concern about out own selves. The world is not outside you. Therefore you are not justified in exhibiting a sentiment or conduct of neglect of this world as if it is an extraneous dirt that you would like to get rid of or get out of at the earliest opportunity. We are not educated enough to understand the intricacy that is involved in the relationship between man and the world. There is a large set of two volumes written by Royce, a great idealist of America, under the title "The World and the Individual". Worth reading. What is the relationship between the world and the individual – he writes in 1,000 pages or 2,000 pages.

We cannot understand what is the way in which we are connected among ourselves. Most of us seem to be not connected at all among ourselves; each one has his own etiquette and each one can go secretly independently in any direction you like. What happens to others? It is not your business. This is a purely empirical, not even a good way of looking at things.

A divine living tries to raise your outlook of life into the vision of a prepondering principle that operates in the whole world, including your own self. A violation of this principle would be a violation of divine life. Today we are living in a world of mechanism and high industrialization and have a tendency therefore to feel that we are absolutely independent persons physically, biologically, socially, in every blessed way, so that we can independently work for our blessedness and salvation unconcerned with other people.

The concern with others, with the world and with God, is something unavoidably and inextricably related to you, and so Bhagavan Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj came to awaken us to this fact to shake up man from his slumber of ignorance. It does not appear he has come to chose one individual as his chief disciple so that he may push him up, up to the point of Moksha, though there were Gurus of that type, who had only one disciple and were concerned only with that person. But different masters and prophets had different types of vision. Buddha had one type of vision, Christ had another, and Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was a different type altogether. He has come to wake us up from sleep, and once you wake up you know what things are, and you need not be told that "this is the thing to be done, that thing to be done etc." When you can see things properly, further instruction is not necessary. So Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj used to say, "I have woken you up – the rest us up to you. I have told you everything that has to be told. Now it is up to you to follow these principles that I have placed before you as your good."

So the art of divine living is an art of ethical living, first and foremost. You may be wondering that ethical and moral living is only one aspect of life – it is not the whole of life – and sometimes you are inclined to feel these days that no truly ethical and moral man can succeed in this world; only a corrupt man can live. This is an erroneous error again; it is a mistake on your part. Truth always succeeds. If you can believe that truth triumphs, then corruption, black-marketing, exploitation cannot succeed. But you will say, "I'm seeing it's succeeding." It succeeds in the same way that Ravana succeeded. For ages he ruled with great pomp. Untruth triumphs as if it's a god itself, and no other god exists except untruth. For the time being, it may be for years together, it will succeed, and with great authority it will rule the world. But later on what happens? The great Manu says the root itself will be struck off. The great Ravana whose pomp is described in the Valmiki's Ramayana in more gorgeous verses than when he describes Rama, that Ravana had his root itself cut, and today we remember him not in the way he lived but in the way in which he ought not to have lived.

So, divine life is no doubt a divine, godly life. If possible we may live like gods, like angels in heaven, but for practical difficulties such an extreme step is not possible for us, we have our own weaknesses, little foibles. But these little foibles and difficulties have to be harnessed as appurtenances and not obstacles for living a good, serviceable, and virtuous and righteous life in this very world. Even the last person is going to be taken into consideration in the great system of organization which is God's kingdom. "He also prays who merely stands and waits," is what Milton said. They too pray who also stand and wait. So humbly, simply, without demonstrating too much our arrogance, whether intellectually, economically or physically, may we remember that this earth is not the last halting place for us. This is only one Dharmashala, one inn, one Chaultry, one hotel in which we are taking a little rest for the night, and tomorrow we have to pursue our own ways.

A divine life is not possible if you think that this world is the all and there is nothing else outside. There is a series of higher realms which we have to ascend, and this perhaps is the lowest of creation, the grossest manifestation – the earth plane. So, humbly recognizing the presence of higher realms, of greater realities to which we have to ascend, which is our goal, which is our ultimate aspiration, we have humbly to live as pedestrians, pilgrims, aspiring to reach that destination, and not taking for granted that this earth is the all and this is our property. This is not our property, even as the furniture of a hotel or an inn or a Chaultry does not belong to you though it has been given to you for utilization for that night. Nothing of that Chaultry or inn or hotel is your property. You have the authority – for the time being the permission given to you to use it – but you are not the owner of it.

So, we have the permission, a kind of blessing bestowed upon us, to utilize the facilities provided to us by this world, by this ashram, by the great ones, by every blessed thing, but we cannot possess anything. We are not owners of anything in this world – we are pilgrims. A pilgrim cannot own anything on the way. If this can be borne in mind, we shall be humble, humbler than what we conduct ourselves to be; and a humility, a humble nature, is not a put on appearance. This is also a thing that you have to remember. In the recognition of the might and the grandeur of the cosmos and the greatness of God, you automatically become humble. Before a huge elephant you are humble; before the ocean you are humble. You are not putting on humility there – you are automatically humble because you know the might and the grandeur and the terror that is there before you. Such is the mystery of God, such is mystery of creation, such is the glory of the great destination that we are aspiring for; and in the light of this, if we live and think and act and conduct ourselves, we would be living a divine life.