Swami Answers Devotees' Questions

1. Can You please help me get relief from the ringing sound in my ear?

[Shri Sastry Teerdhala asked: Can I ask Shri Datta Swami to bless me for getting relief from the buzzing or ringing sound in my ear, which is affecting my health? I am unable to perform my mantra japam because of the constant ringing sound.]

Swami replied: Pray to God Datta. Your prayer will be answered.

2. Do children get the benefit of the worship performed by their parents in their name?

[Smt. Priyanka asked: Padanamaskaram Swami! I have often come across a situation where elders in the family get some special puja, dānam or homam done for the sake of their children's wellbeing and success, especially when they are going through troubling times. In these rituals, there is usually no participation from the children, especially in the case when the children are living far away, in a different country.

My question is whether the children receive the benefit of those pujas, even though they have not participated in them. The donations and pujas are all done by the elders in their childrens’ name. Is this a wrong practice by the elders? Should they be doing this, if they truly want the problems to go away from their childrens’ lives? At your feet, Priyanka]

Swami replied: All the methods of worship have some merit and some defect in the beginning stage. The merit is that God is involved in some way or other, which is far better than atheism. The defect is that we are doing business with God, which is business-devotion or vaiśya bhakti. If God did not allow any of this business, all these forms of worship would vanish like water in summer. No one would be found in any temple! Almost all people are interested in God, basically due to some benefit that they can get from Him.

Pure devotion also involves worship and prayers, but they are done without the aspiration for any fruit in return. For such pure devotion, God is very much pleased and takes care of us in every angle. Instead of doing these forms of worships with an aspiration for getting some fruit for ourselves or for our children, we should try to develop devotion that is free of the attraction to any fruit in return. For this purpose, we should develop our minds to study the divine personality of God through spiritual knowledge. Then, the attraction we develop will be towards God, due to His divine qualities and not towards any personal benefit in a business-minded manner. Instead of searching for the method of worship which will benefit us more, we must search for the method of worship which will develop devotion to God in us that is totally detached from the aspiration for any fruit in return. We are totally neglecting the main positive point and we are totally concentrating on negative points. A beggar praises us, not because he is genuinely impressed by our personalities, but because he is aspiring for some help from us. A well-wisher who has come to visit us as a guest to enquire about us, also praises us. But his praise is not because he expects to get some benefit from us. His praise is genuine because he is really impressed by our good personality, if our personality is really good. If our personality is bad, he will also scold us.

Keywords:

| Shri Datta Swami | Swami Answers Devotees' Questions. 1. Can You please help me get relief from the ringing sound in my ear? 2.Do children get the benefit of the worship performed by their parents in their name? | Vaishya bhakti

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