04 Feb 2016
(Shri Ranga Swamy, totally illiterate, is an exceptional devotee of Shri Swami. He participates in singing devotional songs along with Shri Swami. He is not aware of the contents of any message given by Shri Swami. Whenever, he sees Shri Swami, he keeps Rs.3,000/- as offering at the feet of Shri Swami. Shri Swami warned him several times not to offer like that because for a lower middle class man like him, it is not a small offering. He offers this amount every day to Shri Swami. Nobody knows how he earns that! Shri Swami went to the extent of saying that it is the divine order from God not to give the offering in this way. He obeys every word of Shri Swami except this one. Whenever Shri Swami comes from Hyderabad to Vijayawada, Shri Swami instructs all His disciples not to inform him about His arrival saying a joke that Shri Swami likes to save Himself from his such financial attack! But, somehow, he comes to know as soon as Shri Swami arrives and his usual offering continues every day. One day, he arrived while Shri Swami was dictating a message and personally asked Phani to explain the message of Shri Swami. Phani told him that he will explain it in course of time feeling that how can he understand such deep spiritual knowledge! Today, he came to Shri Swami and asked a question in presence of Phani.)
Shri Rangaswamy asked: I am reading the life history of Pundi Swami, who was suffering with a serious wound on His leg attacked by visible worms. A devotee tried to clean the wound by removing worms. The Pundi Swami became very angry with such devotee telling that nobody should touch the wound to harm the worms. What is the message of this incident?
Shri Swami Replied: The words and actions of the incarnations of Datta are unimaginable and hence I can say nothing more than this. However, I shall tell you one similar incident of Shirdi Sai Baba, which is also beyond the capacity of my mental digestion. Baba was walking along with a devotee. Baba saw a poor man and called him to bring a ladder from the opposite house and climb the roof of the house with its help and again to get down. The poor man did the same. Baba was pleased and gave him Rs.10/- and the poor man went away. The devotee asked Baba to explain this incident. Baba told “I want to help him by giving Rs.10/-. Without work, money should not be paid. Hence, I asked him to do this work and gave Rs.10/- to him”. What is the message of this incident? The devotee walking along with Baba became semi-mental after seeing this incident and became full mental after hearing the answer from Baba! What is the meaning of this incident and the words of Baba? (Shri Swami asked straight to Phani)
Phani: The inner meaning is that one should pay after getting the work from any poor man. One should not take the wrong advantage in not paying for the work especially got from a poor man.
Shri Swami: If this is the message to the world in Pravrutti, it is absurd. If you want to help the poor man and if you have no work to be done, give him Rs.10/- freely so that the poor fellow can save his time and energy to do work elsewhere and earn another Rs.10/-. Getting unnecessary and useless work from the poor man to help him with some money is the climax of madness. Do you think that Baba has given such waste message to the world, especially being the human incarnation of Lord Datta?
Phani: Then, what is the inner meaning of these two incidents?
Shri Swami: How can I understand the words and actions of Lord Datta since I am also a human being like you? I am sure of one thing. These incidents must have some important inner meaning related to God Himself (Nivrutti). Even the incident of Pundi Swami is not applicable to Pravrutti because one should not neglect the wound to become septic so that the leg may have to be removed shortly by surgery. I am sure that these incidents are not the advices to the world, but, must be some wonderful messages related to God Himself. Let Me pray Lord Datta to reveal the inner meanings of these incidents. Shri Swami prayed Lord Datta by reciting the following verse composed by Shri Swami in Sanskrit:
Brahmajnaana mahaapaaraa—vaara varija mutthitam,
Samanvaya sugandhena, Dattaatreya mupaasmahe.
(Meaning: I pray Lord Dattatreya, a lotus flower that arose from the mighty ocean of spiritual knowledge, emitting the co-relation scent.)
Attitude of Business Should Never Exist With God
Shri Swami continues: Hear with utmost attention! The Lord is speaking now: The incident of Baba is totally related to God only. When God wants to show grace on you by awarding a fruit, He creates a scene in which there appears a need of service to be done to Him. After getting the service from you, God pays the fruit to you as the salary for your work. The scene is created in such a way that you participate in His work with full love and dedication on Him. Such service does not appear like the useless work done by the poor man for Baba. The service appears to be fully useful to God and God derives the full benefit from the servant—devotee. Now, the payment of salary by God in the form of fruit is perfectly justified and nobody can criticize it as meaningless partiality of God to a specific soul. Rama killed Vali through a contract executed with Sugriva so that, in return Sugriva will help back Rama in searching and attaining Sita. Killing Vali, the sinner, was also justified so that Rama need not be criticized for selfish business. Hence, the service done by all the monkeys, who are the incarnations of angels, was rewarded back by God or Rama. In this case, there is a danger for the devotee, which is that the devotee need not be too much grateful to God since only the work is paid. Hence, the devotee has to understand the real background of the work done by him. Now, the payment by Baba for the useless work comes in to the picture. Actually, the naked truth in the case of God is that God has absolutely no need of your work for Him. In order to bless you with the fruit only, He created this work, which appears to be perfectly useful to Him to avoid criticism for unnecessary partiality. If the work appears useless externally also, the partiality attacks God. The work is useless only in hidden background as the absolute reality, which was exhibited by Baba. In the light of this background, how much grateful you should be to God? Just imagine! Hence, you should never aspire for any fruit from God since God has no need of any service from you in reality and therefore, the attitude of business should never exist with God. This is the inner meaning of the incident and the words of Baba.
Similarly, the incident of Pundi Swami has also another inner meaning related to God only (Nivrutti). The worms are harming Him, still, He does not want to harm the worms and likes to supply food to them from His leg. He is patronizing even His enemy! He is doing so for certain divine purpose only. The God, Producer—Director—Hero in this world-film pays remuneration to the actor in the Villain role also because in the film, the role of Hero relatively shines with respect to the role of villain and hence this bad role is very much essential. The atheists are essential in this world to test the true devotion of a devotee. If you interfere with the programme of God without understanding this and neck out the villain, God becomes furious with you. This is the inner meaning of this incident relating to God only and not related to any human being.
I am presenting my own story also which is similar to the incident of Baba. Lord Datta wanted to uplift me and hence asked me to do His work, which is the propagation of spiritual knowledge. This work externally appears to be useful service to God since welfare of humanity is His ultimate aim. He rewards me for generating and propagating this spiritual knowledge. In fact, the background reveals the naked truth that God alone generated this knowledge and propagated it by hiding Himself so that people think that I have done some service to God and in return received His blessings. This avoids the unnecessary partiality of God to me. You may argue that in the light of absolute reality, it is unnecessary partiality only. But, during the period of service, the soul gets reformed and becomes eligible for the fruit. Hence, the argument of unnecessary partiality fails. Such opportunity is open to everybody to do the service of God through propagation of spiritual knowledge and hence you cannot bring the unnecessary partiality shown to some devotees only. Some devotees only entered the open programme by their free will and got blessed.
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