18 Dec 2005
God is the Lord for both Pravritti and Nivritti. You have to please the Lord even in Pravritti. If the Lord is not pleased in Pravritti you cannot please Him in Nivritti. The fundamental requirement to please the Lord in Pravritti is to have satisfaction at every step. Contentment with whatever you have will always please the Lord. You must be happy with whatever is already given to you by the Lord and you must always thank Him for the past. You should not put your eye on the present or the future and put an application to the Lord [you should not aspire for more]. Even if you have travelled from one place to another, you must thank the Lord for having protected you during the journey. You have reached the destiny only by the grace of the Lord. It is not certain that one will reach the destination safely by bus, train or aeroplane. If any accident takes place, you are gone forever. Everybody is under the influence of strong ignorance and thinks that he has reached the destination by his effort. Some people think that reaching the destination does not need any special effort and that it is just a routine thing. Therefore, either you feel egoistic for your effort or you neglect the journey as a routine matter, which does not require any effort. Both these are illusions. You have reached the destination only by the grace of the Lord. Therefore, in every stage, you must remember the Lord and express gratefulness to Him. By such behaviour the Lord becomes immensely pleased and is encouraged to do everything for you.
Jesus always used to thank the Lord even in every little work. He always thanked the Lord for the past and was never worried about the present or the future. He thanked the Lord for the four breads already given by Him. He was never worried about the thousands of visitors who came to see Him and that they were hungry. He never planned for the future consequence of such a situation. The Lord was extensively pleased and multiplied the four breads into thousands of breads. Therefore, contentment with what you already have and thanking the Lord for whatever is already given will please the Lord. You must thank the Lord even for every breath that you take, because it is only by the will and grace of the Lord that your lungs are working and the air is going in and coming out of the lungs. The heart beats and every beat is only by the graceful sanction of the Lord.
Contentment in Pravritti
I find several people who crave for money all the time irrespective of what they already have. They never attain satisfaction at any stage of the growth of their financial strength. God becomes displeased with such people and will not grant further wealth because the fellow will never get satisfaction. There is no use of granting any amount of wealth because the fellow is never satisfied. When satisfaction is absent, the person will not thank the Lord with a full heart. Even if he thanks, it is only for the future sanction. Therefore, if you really wish to have the grace of the Lord to remove your present financial crisis and poverty, the first step you have to take is to have satisfaction and complete contentment with whatever you already have. Plan with the existing funds and adjust yourself accordingly. If you have the will to adjust, you can adjust to any quantity of wealth. When the adjustment is done, you will have full satisfaction. Then if you pray to the Lord, you will not ask for anything more because you are already satisfied. In that case your prayer is not for the fulfilment of any desire. Your prayer is for the Lord Himself and not for anything other than the Lord. Your prayer will be in His praise alone and not for any desire because you have full contentment already. Then the Lord gets real pleasure from you and will force His grace on you continuously. He will rain wealth on you forever.
The wealth will be multi-dimensional. Wealth does not simply mean cash. Wealth means health, good children, good appetite for food, good digestion, good sleep, perfect peace, success in every effort, continuous courage, knowledge and finally salvation. Goddess Lakshmi [Goddess of wealth] is in eight forms and only one form out of them is cash (Dhana Lakshmi). Therefore, if you really wish to get rid of the eight forms of poverty from your life and if you really wish for the eight forms of wealth, the only qualification you have to attain is full contentment with whatever you have already. The Gita says the same (Nitya Triptah…). Shankara was in such a state. When He praised Goddess Lakshmi, she rained golden fruits. He did not take even one fruit from that heap. He desired for Goddess Lakshmi and for Her grace, but He never desired for the fruit of Her grace. He derived bliss from praying to Her and from Her constant grace. The gold rained by Her does not give bliss. It only gives tension and worry. It always creates dissatisfaction. It destroys contentment. If you have ten gold coins, you will aspire for one hundred. After getting a hundred you will aspire for a thousand. There is no end to this. You will never achieve contentment and you will be in a stream of dissatisfaction till your death. Therefore, if you touch the beginning of this chain, this infinite chain of wealth carries you away. If you do not touch it, you will always have contentment. Shankara said that the poor fellow is always fortunate (Koupinavantah Khalu Bhagyavantah). Shankara also said that money would only lead to the misery of dissatisfaction (Arthamanartham…).
If Kaika [Kaikeyi] had remained satisfied with whatever position her son already had, she would have not lost her husband. Her son might have been happy in the palace. But by her greed, she became a widow and was scolded by all the public. Her son also left the palace and lived like a saint in a village. If Sita were satisfied with the ordinary deer present before her hut, she would have lived happily. Her desire for the golden deer brought all the troubles for her. If Ravana were satisfied with his beautiful wife Mandodari, he would have been happy. His attraction for Sita ruined the whole family and kingdom. Dasharatha gave two boons to Kaika who was his youngest queen. He gave the two boons due to his over attraction for her. She was very young and therefore, did not have any maturity of mind. Therefore, it was the foolishness of Dasharatha to have given the two boons to the youngest queen Kaika. Those two boons finally took away his life. Rama wanted to fulfil the desire of Sita due to His attraction towards His wife. But Lakshmana advised Rama not to go after the golden deer, which was obviously a trick of the demons. Lakshmana had that wisdom of analysis because he left his wife and came to forest with full control of his mind and senses. Rama, due to the constant association with the beautiful Sita, was so much attracted to her that He could not deny her desire.
Therefore, association with people decides one’s whole fortune based on the nature of those people. If Rama had valued the association of Lakshmana, He would have been very happy. But He voted for the association of Sita and landed in troubles. He lost the power of discrimination due to constant association with such a beautiful lady, who was very young and therefore had an immature mind. Thus, both Dasharatha and Rama were misled by the attraction towards their young and beautiful wives.
Bhishma was the protector of the throne of Hastinapuram. Protection means protecting the interest of the king and the way may be sometimes harsh. Bhishma knew that Dhritarashtra was doing wrong. Had he become harsh and controlled Dhritarashtra, the whole Kaurava dynasty would have been protected. Bhishma could not become harsh and this mistake led to the total destruction of the dynasty. Similarly, Dhritarashtra could not control his son Duryodhana. After all, Dhritarashtra was the king and any order of the king had to be followed. He need not have feared his son, because powerful people like Bhishma, Dhrona, Kripa etc., were associated with him and would have ensured the implementation of his orders. In spite of this, he blindly followed his son due to blind attraction. The result of that was that his son was completely destroyed. This teaches us that the head of the family, father, should control his children and should not mind using any amount of harshness for the future welfare of his children. Such harshness will be praised as real love.
Draupadi laughed and criticised Duryodhana when he came as a guest. Due to this, Duryodhana took his revenge on her. She reacted to his revenge and took an oath that unless he was destroyed she would not tie her hair. Bhima was emotional and always tried to fulfil her oath. But Dharmaraja was wise and tried to avoid the war even at the cost of her oath. Bhima fulfilled her desire but the final result was that she lost all her children on the last day of the war. Finally, she repented but it was of no use. Therefore, the husband as the head of the family, should always control his emotional wife and should follow the path of wisdom like Dharmaraja. He should not be blind like Bhima just to fulfil the desire of his emotional wife. In long run, the path of emotion will be very sad and irrepairable; no amount of repentance can rectify that. Krishna was hit by the leg of His wife Satyabhama. She was proud and was always controlling her husband. But finally, with the help of Narada, Krishna taught her a lesson and she landed in trouble. Rukmini was without any ego and was obedient to her husband. Finally, she won her husband and got ultimate success. This is a lesson for all household wives. Similarly, Rama also taught Sita a lesson about her undue attraction towards the golden deer. Therefore, unless you satisfy the Lord in Pravritti, how can you satisfy the Lord in Nivritti, which is more critical?
Richness of Shri Swami
I passed through a severe phase of poverty in My life. There were days when I just had a handful rice only once a day. But I am telling you without any trace of hypocrisy that I was fully contented with whatever I had. I allowed all the family members to eat the food first and whatever little was left over was taken by Me with full pleasure and satisfaction. I was with full health and I did not have any trace of illness in those days. I was very active both physically and mentally. My concentration on God was at its climax in those days. I always praised the Lord with full bliss and never asked the Lord for a single paisa. I always thanked the Lord for that handful of rice given to Me because I compared Myself with several beggars and pitiable animals like street dogs, which were not blessed even with that amount of food. My position in the list of all the living beings was very high. I never thought that My position was low. For that high position I always thanked the Lord. It was the best time for Me to test the faith, loyalty and sincerity of My wife towards Me. I searched for any trace of dissatisfaction or displeasure in her mind towards Me. But, I am proud to announce the truth that I could not find any such trace in her mind. She would always console Me and preach philosophy to Me whenever I acted in grief. Whenever I remember those days, I feel that those days were the most sacred days in My life. In those days, I rose to the highest spiritual level and was completely absorbed in God. Thus, poverty in the materialistic line was the richest time for Me in the spiritual line. Wealth and happiness bring ego and inertness to the brain. Poverty and misery destroys the ego and will make you think of God at all times. Therefore, if you really analyse, poverty is wealth and wealth is poverty.
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