The next thing to be considered is what we know as Ishta-Nishthâ.
Being between these two poles of existence, if any one tells you that he is not going to worship God as man, take kindly care of that man; he is, not to use any harsher term, an irresponsible talker; his religion is for unsound and empty brains.
The human brute does not worship because of his ignorance, and the Jivan muktas (free souls) do not worship because they have realised God in themselves.
The extreme of ignorance and the other extreme of knowledge — neither of these go through acts of worship.
To him all nature has become his own Self. He alone can worship God as He is. Here, too, as in all other cases, the two extremes meet.
Two kinds of men do not worship God as man — the human brute who has no religion, and the Paramahamsa who has risen beyond all the weaknesses of humanity and has transcended the limits of his own human nature.
The Indian nation never stood for imperial glory. Wealth and power, then, were not the ideals of the race.
Quite content within their own boundaries, they never fought anybody.
Everything now in India hinges on the question of how little a man requires to live upon. But we find that the Indian race never stood for wealth. Although they acquired immense wealth, perhaps more than any other nation ever acquired, yet the nation did not stand for wealth. It was a powerful race for ages, yet we find that that nation never stood for power, never went out of the country to conquer.