10 Sep 2003
[Mumbai] The Majority Loses: In spirituality, the path of the majority should not be taken. For example, just because gravel stones are in majority and diamonds are in minority, we cannot say that the gravel stone is more valuable than the diamond. There is only one Adi Shankara, one Meera, one Swami Vivekananda, and one Tyagaraja. Such people are very rare. Only one in millions happens to be such a person. Our spiritual aim should be such a rare diamond alone. We should not take the majority as an example in our spiritual life. The Gita says that one only in millions reaches God. So should you follow the path of the majority or the path of that single person? In matters of this materialistic world, everybody should follow the path of the majority. You have to do your job for earning your livelihood. You have to earn and you have to sleep. So in all these worldly matters, you have to follow the majority. But in spirituality, you should not follow the path of the majority because the majority does not reach God. Only one person like Adi Shankara or Meera reaches God. So the concept of the majority fails in the spiritual path.
You must serve and love God without aspiring for anything in return from Him. This is pure love. Your aspiration is the impurity and your selfishness is the bad smell by which the Lord gets repelled. If you serve the Lord without aspiring for anything in return, such love is the purest and highest devotion. The Lord is fully pleased with such devotion alone and He will do anything or will go to any extent for you. This can be understood from the world itself. In learning philosophy, the world gives the real picture. Books may contain faulty knowledge, but the world contains only the truth. To know whether the concept in the book is right or not you must refer to the world. The first authority [1] for any knowledge is the scripture. The second authority is logic. Logic is more important than scripture because you should decide the validity of a concept in the scripture by logic alone. The third authority is the experience in the world, which is the topmost authority. Any concept in the scripture should be discussed with logic and finally approved only after its experience in the world. These three authorities are called Shruti (scripture), yukti (logic) and anubhava (experience in the world). So the purest love can be seen in the world. Suppose there is somebody who loves and serves you without aspiring for anything in return and his love is proved to be pure in all your tests. You can imagine how pleased you will be with him! You will do anything for him. It applies to God also. If you serve Him without aspiring for anything in return from Him, and if your pure love passes all his severe tests, he will do anything for your sake. Love is proved only through service. Mere words and feelings are of no use. Service can be accompanied with words and feelings, like a plate of rice is accompanied with curry and pickles.
The Right Attitude Before God
So how should you be before God? You should not ask Him for anything. You get troubles in life, which are the fruits of your own sins. By your mere payers, tears, weeping, begging and meditation, do you know what He does? He postpones your present problem to the latter part of your present life or to your future life. We have to suffer the postponed trouble with added interest. You do not know about this. You think that you have fooled God by your tears and weeping. Do not forget that God is cleverer than anybody in this world. Just see this infinite universe, which is designed and created by Him! You can understand His intelligence.
There are three types of people in the world. The first type is foolish people who do not give any thought to their old age. The second type of people is neither foolish nor wise. They save for their old age and so they are not foolish but they are not wise because they do not save anything for their future birth. The wise people [third type] save for their future birth as well.
When the file of karma of any person is opened after death in hell, that person is normally subjected to severe torture there and then he will be reborn as an animal, bird, insect or worm. Another human birth is almost impossible. Therefore, the Christian faith says that the present human birth is final. After this birth, according to Christianity, one has to go to hell or heaven forever. This is true because if one falls in the life cycles of birds and animals, he will continue to roll in those cycles alone. This is a permanent hell. If you have done some service to God here, which alone can be the proof of your real love for Him, your file is not opened in hell and you are sent to heaven to take rest for sometime. When the Lord reincarnates in the human form, you will follow him by getting a human birth. You are always associated with God in heaven as well as on the earth. So that is a permanent heaven. Your service to God must be only to the human form of God and not to statues or photos. The service to statues and photographs of God is only cheating done by you or by the priests. You cheat God when you offer food to the statue and then enjoy it yourself. The priests cheat you when they enjoy the food which was offered by you to God. The real sacrifice and service is proved only with the human form of God. The Gopikas offered butter to Lord Krishna, which was actually eaten by the Lord. The Gita says that God comes only in human form (Manushiim tanum aashritam…). The Gita also criticizes the worship of statues by such offerings. It says “Bhutejyah yanti bhutam….” This means that those who worship the five elements [2] as forms of God, through their offering, will become the five elements. This means that if you offer food to a statue made of stone you will be born as a stone.
Why is the Lord so harsh and severe about this point? You are offering the food to the stone in the name of God and you are eating it yourself. You are greedy and you are trying to fool God. You are not offering it to the human form of God because of your greediness. Sometimes you offer food to a statue in the temple. The undeserving priest may enjoy it. The priest is undeserving because he is cheating you in the name of God. Sometimes you may distribute that food to devotees who come there. Such a distribution becomes a waste because the devotees are capable of earning their own food. You must distribute food to only to beggars who are incapable of earning their own food. Lord Datta says that there are four types of beggars to whom you can offer food. They are children, very old people, diseased and crippled people. Except for these four types, food should not be offered to beggars, who are capable of doing work. For all other beggars you can help them by showing them how to find work. So a lot of analysis is needed whenever you are doing charity.
By your charity, if somebody gains strength and does a sin, you have to share that sin. If you feed milk to a snake with pity, it will bite you and others. So you have to analyze and use a lot of discrimination in doing charity because you may be purchasing sin. Therefore, you must take the help of Sadguru in doing charity. You pity a beggar but he is a sinner punished by God for his previous sin. Your pity and charity to him may annoy God because God wants to punish him and you are obstructing God’s punishment. Such a fellow may do sins again due to the effect of his previous mentality. In such a case, you will be sharing his sin. Some beggars also adopt certain methods to cheat others.
So before doing charity you should spend sometime in analyzing the case-history of the beggar. Instead of distributing one rupee to ten beggars by giving ten paise each, spend sometime in the analysis and give a rupee to one deserving beggar. Such charity brings a lot of good results to you. You are always hasty in doing charity at a particular place and time. Do you think you will get good results if you donate at the holy city of Varanasi on the auspicious occasion of Maha Shivaratri? Place and time are not important for charity. The deserving person is important. If you get a deserving person, that place is Varanasi and that day is Maha Shivaratri. So you must have a lot of analysis and patience in doing charity.
The Veda says “Samvida deyam” which means, “Donate after analysis”. The Veda also says, “Shraddhaya deyam” which means “Donate with patience”. Vyasa stated in the Mahabharata that sin comes to you if you do not donate to a deserving person and also if you donate to an undeserving person. The Lord alone can correctly know the deserving and undeserving aspects of people. So if you can identify the Lord in human form, it is better that you donate to Him and He will give it to a deserving person. He knows all the previous births of every human being and He knows perfectly who deserves and who does not deserve. Shirdi Sai Baba was such an Incarnation of the Lord. The Guru Dakshina given to Him was properly utilized. He used to distribute the dakshina given to Him by His devotees, among deserving people. Sometimes He used to give the money donated by one devotee to some wealthy person also. This is because the devotee who donated to Baba had to return money to that wealthy person, since he was indebted to him in his previous birth. Therefore, catching a Sadguru is very important for your spiritual effort.
Do not attach much importance to this material life because it is just like a short one-hour journey and it hardly matters whether you traveled by 1st class or 3rd class i.e. whether you are rich or poor. All passengers will get down at the same station and all of them will leave from here to lead a life there. That part is more important than the journey. So, the scene in the upper world after death is important.
[1] Valid means of getting knowledge.
[2] Space, fire, air, water and earth.
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