Reverence for the Holy Name: A Path to Deeper Connection

It's also very important—my experiment with this or my contemplation into this always felt that, like we once spoke about why it is so important not to take God's name in vain. It's like you just say it casually. And now and then we sometimes cringe when we're watching some television or something, how these people are talking, you know? So what happens there? Because the more reverence we give to it within ourselves, you see, the more potent it becomes as a link to Him in my heart. So if I really... there's this power within us of giving reverence, of having faith. So the more we elevate it for ourselves, you see, the more it connects with that which is highest within us.

So the name of God—the name of Ram, Jesus, Krishna, Allah, the Waheguru—the more respect we will give to it because it is the name of God, you see? Like, how much respect would be enough? So somebody said for like a high school principal, and you were in high school, you see, and you're just taking their name and you're not saying 'Sir' or 'Mr. This' or 'Professor This,' you know, then that's taken as disrespect. And you yourself may feel like if it's a teacher you really love, then you will just call them 'Sir' or you'll just call them 'Miss Whatever.' You will not take their name like that. Now here's God. So with His name, when we are privileged to be able to invoke Him using whatever, you see, that is such a huge honor and privilege that I can call out to God. And we can call out to Him in so many ways, but if you're using it as an invocation of Him, then how much respect would be the right amount of respect? Everything that we can fathom, isn't it? Every bit of respect that we can fathom.

So if you give it that reverence, if we give it that respect, then it becomes truly a connection with that which is the highest within ourselves. But if we ourselves treat it shabby, then He's not going to get affected by it. It is creating an obstacle in our own sadhana, isn't it? So that's why it's important. Like there's this very sweet teacher, forgetting the name, something Mackie, the Bible Project, the one who does that. So every time he says 'Jesus,' even when he's talking, he doesn't say just 'Jesus.' If you notice, he says 'Jesus' like he invokes Jesus every time he uses the name, which I found so touching, so beautiful. That we can say Ram, we can say Jesus. Now are we just going to say it casually? I can't even bring myself to imitate it. So we must offer all our loving reverence, all our love and humility and servitude in that invocation of the Holy Name.

When I was younger and more rebellious and all of that, then I used to think these things are all nonsense, they are all stupid, why would God be bothered? So it's not about God; it's about our own spirituality, our own depth. So if you've written His name a thousand times and then we just throw it away or we just treat it with disrespect, then that is loosening our own reverence, our own love for Him. So again, to use the worldly metaphor, if you're in the initial few weeks of a relationship, your beloved sends you a letter—do you just read it and throw it away? No, you keep it safely. In the olden days—now this may sound too old for all of you—but in the olden days people would send flowers to each other. Then people would keep those flowers in a book, in the books. You never lose those flowers.

So if you can do this for worldly relationships, we're talking about our relationship with God. How much respect, how much reverence should we have? So it's not fear-based, but love-based. Because we're not keeping the flower of the beloved because of a fear, but we're keeping it out of love. It's not about getting brownie points from God. It's about for us; we need to have that. It's needed for our own sake, for our own spiritual health. We need to keep our spirituality clean and beautiful like that. The temple has to be clean that way. If the same name that you invoke to meet that highest, if that itself we don't respect, then it's going to be a disservice to our own. Suppose we use the name of God casually and we became like a casual correlation or something like that. Then when we are saying it, our mind will bring us that also; it will bring us the garbage we put with it also. Because you think the label 'mango,' the visual of mango comes. So if you attached the Holy Name with things which are not so holy, then that will come to your antahkarana. So none of this is meant to make anyone guilty or anything. Just starting now. Just starting now. And you don't have to become fanatical about any of these things. You don't have to become anything like that. Just in your heart you should know that you are respecting it to the highest because He is the highest.