27 Jul 2020
Swami replied: Practical devotion alone gives the fruit, which is pleasing God and attaining His grace. Knowledge and devotion are theory, which is also essential because practice is generated only from theory. Knowledge is like water, devotion is like manure and practice is like the mango plant. Only the mango tree bears the mango fruit. No mango fruit will appear from water alone, even if you have hundreds of water-tanks. No mango fruit will appear from manure alone, even though you have hundreds of bags of manure. But water is also essential and without it, the mango plant dies. Similarly, manure is also essential and without it, the mango plant will not grow into a mango tree to bear fruit.
Theory should thus, generate and promote practice. Practice is karma yoga, which consists of (1) karma saṃnyāsa, which means doing service and (2) karma phala tyāga, which means sacrificing or offering money, which is the fruit of one’s hard work. Karma yoga is the tree of practical sacrifice, which alone yields the fruit of the grace of God. Spiritual knowledge or jñāna yoga is the water and devotion to God or bhakti yoga is the manure. Both help the plant of practice survive and grow. One’s intellect must be full of sharp spiritual knowledge which gives correct direction to the spiritual effort. One’s mind must be full of devotion, which provides the force to covert the theory into practice. But ultimately, one must be involved in practice. The practice includes both practical service by offering one’s hard work as well as practical sacrifice, which is the offering of the fruit of one’s hard work (money) in the divine project of God on earth. God’s divine project on earth is the propagation of divine spiritual knowledge to uplift humanity. When the devotee’s spiritual effort is thus, complete with spiritual knowledge, devotion, service and sacrifice, it pleases God immensely. This is the essence of spiritual effort of any devotee.
Keywords:
| Shri Datta Swami | What sadhana should I do for progressing in my material and spiritual life? | Karma Samnyaasa Karma phala tyaaga Jnaana Yoga
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