We know this is not so. Yoga - in all its varities and systems has proved it.

Today's question is whether there is something simple and practicable that we can adhere to in our day to day life.

Let us look at it logically.

When we want to listen to some one there are two things that we do to begin with. Firstly we focus our attention to the source and secondly we bring ourselves to the nearness of the source. Not exactly in physical terms but in mental terms.

This is the concept of Dhyana and Upasana. By Dhyana we mean hitching your dhi or mind to the source object. This is not difficult to understand because if I have to listen to you, my mind must first recognize you - give you a place - within myself. And the upasana means bringing yourself nearer to the source.(upa= near, asana= sitdown). The distance between the source and you must be reduced. You must so to say bring yourself nearer to the source.

So the first step which each of us has to take to be able to hear the voice of the inner self is to establish nearness to the self. The secret of this is to develop a consciousness that you are all the time in the proximity of the Divine-Self or The Lord.

With a little practice this can be achieved. Whether at your work place, at rest, your study, or what ever you may be doing in the entire twentyfour hours of the day, you must be conscious that you are not alone and the Lord is constantly beside you. When you are doing a job it should be done with the realization that you are not alone doing the job. The Divine presence beside you is assisting you and watching your performance. We are told in the olden days in Gurukulas or teachers' hermitages, the young children were taught these concepts, which helped them to grow up being God-conscious and thereby building their characters and regulating their actions. If you are face to face with a disaster, the mind must accept that you are not facing this alone, but together with the Lord beside you. When you achieve a success recognize that force, working beside you making your success a reality. In failures, be conscious of the kindness of Him explaining what a great lesson this failure has been. In pain feel the soothing hand of some one. In pleasure recognize that there is some one beside who equally shares your pleasure.

n your wakefulness, dream or sleep, you are never -never - alone. The God's presence is always there. You are all the time engulfed within His presence.

With practice and deliberateness, this feeling comes easily. Even if one can not have this feeling all the time it still does not matter if your mind retains this thought even for short periods. The intensity of this feeling varies from persons to persons, from novices to Yogis. But the feeling of God awareness is natural and inherent in every one.

Some people wonder that such a feeling may be possible in case of believers or Astiks but it has no meaning for those who are non believers or Nastiks. In a deeper sense this is not really so. God - correctly speaking that original source which is Bramhan - is an integral part of our constitution. The eight constituents that combine in you, me and every creation as we discussed on a previous occasin, are the five base elements, ten the mind, the discerning power and the life force, the last one being synonymous with Bramhan. Hence we all have divinity in our source. It is natural for everyone to discover belief in one's own source. There are no non-believers. A non believer is essentially a believer who is still groping for statement, and sooner or later returns to believe.

    We are all built that way.

  From this initial state, rest follows easily.

What happens when two intelligent entities are put together continuously? Each becomes an influencing factor on the other. None can dispute this. Eventually the stronger force exercises the total control over the weaker entity. The metamorphosis of the weaker towards the stronger takes place gradually. The characteristics of the stronger, flows into the weaker in a somewhat osmotic process enforcing the gradual change.