Posted on: 04 Dec 2020
[Smt. Priyanka asked: Pādanamaskāram Swāmi! Swāmi, thank You so much for giving us the golden opportunity to ask You any doubts we have and for the divine blessing of participating in the satsaṅgas. It is truly joyful to see You and hear You every week and there are no words to describe Your knowledge! I am so happy the sessions are recorded, which allowed me to listen to it in my own time zone. I have some follow-up doubts regarding a couple of questions that were discussed during a recent satsaṅga session.
You had mentioned that worshipping planet deities and cooking food with certain food items to donate them to deserving people can be done to help ourselves when we are going through troubling times. At the same time, if I remember correctly, You had also mentioned that if a person asks God to remove or reduce problems, sometimes God will remove it temporarily and push it to the future (and with interest). Therefore, I always felt one should never ask God for any such removal of materialistic problems and better to go through everything now itself so that one can have a better/ happier future. Also, sometimes problems can be tests of God, and sometimes it is purely brought upon oneself because of one’s actions. In that case, when a person is going through problems, can the person decide not to do any planet worship and donations for the removal of problems? If elders in the family suggest praying to the planet deities and donate food prepared from those specific items, and if we decide not to do it (with the intention of not asking God to remove problems), is it considered a sin/mistake or arrogance by God?]
Swāmi replied: I am a railway guide showing you the various train routes. The final decision of which destination you want to travel is your choice. Your elders ask you to worship the planets, by donating cooked food made of certain specific food grains. If you do not follow their advice, the reason for it is not atheism, but theism, which is based on true spiritual knowledge. Due to this holy intention behind you not following your elders’ advice, there is no question of the deities of planets getting angry with you. The planets are controlled by God since they are His own executive powers.