August 22

The Whole World Is an Altar

Question: What did Jesus mean when he said, “Take, eat; this is my body which was given for you.”

Sri Gurudev: When he says, “It’s my body,” that means the bread itself is the manifestation of that spirit. Whatever you eat, eat it with the feeling that, “It is the spirit that has manifested as this food, and I am eating it.” “My body” means the body of the spirit. It is the spirit expressing as the bread. So when you eat the bread you don’t eat something ordinary, you eat the very spirit itself.

Everything is God. God comes in the form of bread and you are eating it. So be thankful to God who has come in the form of bread. And if that feeling is there, you don’t even have to go to the church to have Communion. Even when you go and buy a piece of bread in the market, it becomes Communion if you eat it with that feeling.

The whole world is the altar of God. Even when you eat something, it is the God in you that is eating. You are offering it to God. If we can only change our vision and the thought, whatever we do becomes spiritual practice. So, let our lives be a constant, constant service to God at the huge altar here. The whole world is an altar. Everything is God’s manifestation. Whatever you do to somebody, you are doing to God. Not only to people—to animals, to plants, to everything.

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