I once saw an insane person who spent his entire day painting landscapes. He would take a mass of different paints, smear it on the canvas and then would stand back and, highly pleased, would admire his piece of art. One canvas after another he would finish. He saw beauty where others could see only a mixture of paints. The pictures were in his mind and the canvas reflected them.
The universe is in our mind. We look at God and our universe is reflected in Him. We have to clean the mind first and remove from there all pictures — only then can we see God. Avidya, ignorance, gives colour to the mind. When that ignorance is removed through religious practices and discrimination, then Truth shines.
The rose held near the crystal colours the crystal. Remove the rose if you wish to see the crystal’s clearness. This is the wisdom-sacrifice of the Advaitin, seeing God and God alone, no paint, no roses, no pictures, but God pure and simple and Him always and everywhere. Wisdom is the greatest purifier. Others, says Sri Krishna, worship Me as separate from themselves. These are the dualists who make a distinction between God and themselves. Bhagavan is the vine; they are the branches. Bhagavan is the Beloved; they are the lovers. Bhagavan is the door; they are the sheep that enter, eternally united with God and eternally separate from Him. They keep their own individuality and so they enjoy the presence of Bhagavan. Others, again, worship Me as manifold, as various divinities, Brahma, Rudra and so on. And there are some who worship Bhagavan as the Spirit of the universe.