02 Feb 2021
[A satsaṅga took place between Swami and several devotees who visited Him on January 16, 2021. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]
[Kum. Thrylokya asked: Pādanamaskāram Swāmi! My profession is to teach school kids online. How do I worship and remember God while performing my duty?]
Swāmi replied: You should teach with sincerity and interest (śraddhā). You are getting a salary for doing that duty. Hence, you will incur sin if you do not perform your duty properly. But if you use your salary for God’s work, then your teaching (worldly work) will also become a work of God. Even when you are doing God’s work, your focus should be on that work of God and not on God. Although God is pleased when you focus on Him, He will be more pleased if you focus on His work and do it perfectly. If you teach kids about God, then your teachings directly become the work of God. If you teach worldly subjects like maths, science, etc., then, you should focus on teaching the subject properly and earning your salary. If you spend that salary for the sake of God, then your work of teaching worldly subjects will also become a work of God.
While doing service to God, you should also spend money to fulfil your necessities. One can survive only if his or her basic necessities like food, housing, clothing, medicine, travel expenses etc. are met. One must first survive in order to serve God. If serving God is the only intention behind your survival, then even your personal expenses are considered to be sacrificed to God. If you serve God directly or if you sacrifice your salary to God, then your work becomes worship. Every worldly work is not worship. Suppose Lord Rāmā is worried about how to build the sea-bridge. He would be happy if you help Him in building the bridge. Instead, if you perform ārati to Him and sing songs for Him, do you think that He would be pleased with you? He would be happy if you helped in doing His work. Doing God’s work is worship. Clever people brought this slogan even into worldly work. They say that every work is worship. Your personal work or professional work is not worship. Doing the work of theft is the work of a thief. Can that become worship? No, it is a sin! Of course, doing work for yourself and your family is not sin, but it is not worship either.
Take the example of three students joining college for a degree. The first student wants to get a job, so that he can enjoy his life. The second student wants to get a job to enjoy life and also to do some divine work. The third student wants to get a job solely to serve God, without himself enjoying anything. The first student belongs to the third class in the eyes of God. The second student belongs to the second class in the eyes of God. The third student belongs to the first class in the eyes of God. One might claim that one needs money to buy food and necessities and that the total sacrifice of his or her money is not possible. But in the case of the third student, his personal expenditure also becomes a part of the sacrifice to God because one cannot serve God if one does not survive. His intention to survive is only to serve God. So, his personal expenditure is also counted as sacrifice alone. Even in law, the punishments are only based on the person’s intentions. If you hire a hitman to carry out a murder, then you will be given more punishment and the hitman will get a lesser punishment because the hitman had no intention to kill. Thus, intention plays a very crucial role in deciding the punishment. If a soul intends to live only to serve God, then the soul’s personal expenditure and family expenditure is counted as sacrifice to God alone. But the intention should be pure.
A person was carrying some flour in his palms and suddenly, a wind blew away the flour. The clever person immediately said, “Rāmārpanam”, which means, “I offer it to Lord Rāmā”! He knew that when the wind had blown away the flour, he could not get it back and use it. So, he thought that it would be better to offer it to God and earn some merit at least. He expected the same fruit which one would get on intentionally donating some flour to Rāma. You should never play any such tricks before God because God is a million times more intelligent than you are. You may use your intelligence before other souls because you may get cheated in the world, if you are not alert. But your intelligence will not work before God. In fact, you will incur sin for doing so. The first sin of that person was to waste food (flour) and the second sin was to deceive God by saying “Rāmārpanam”. He will get one beating for the first sin and ten beatings for the second sin because daivāpacāram or a sin against God is the highest sin.
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