25 Feb 2021
[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on January 30, 2021, in which several devotees participated. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]
[Kum. Thrylokya asked: Padanamaskaram Swami! Few years ago, I used to follow a self-help book named ‘The Secret’ written by Rhonda Bryne and millions of its copies were sold worldwide. Byrne cites a three-step process: ask, believe, and receive. This is based on a quotation from the Bible (Matthew 21:22), where it is said: “And all things, what so ever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” The book says that if we visualise our desire and constantly think about it, then the whole universe would work for us to make our dream come true. We should work hard for that dream though. I used to visualise myself studying in IIT and thought about my dream all day. But I utterly failed in the JEE advanced exam and stopped following that book. I know some people who chant the lines “I love money and I attract money” every day and visualise themselves living a luxurious life, in order to achieve them. They also believe in the following quotes strongly where self-effort is given the highest value.
1. Believe in yourself.
2. Have faith in your dream when nobody else does.
3. One day, everything will become perfect.
4. Become the hardest working person you know.
5. You are not born to be average.
6. Kill them with your success and bury them with your smile.
Worldly people, following these quotes, keep waiting for a day when they become rich and their family relations would become joyful. They keep putting all efforts to set their life right on their own. I did the same for a long time. Now, I want to know what exactly happens if we do not pray to God and surrender to God’s will. You said that every quality directed towards God becomes a good quality and that directed towards the world becomes bad. Here, I want to clearly understand why going towards the world is bad? What is the exact consequence when we desire worldly things instead of God? I am understanding that God is good and feeling that the world is not-bad. I want to know the greatness of God compared to this world. I want to understand the value of God for whom great devotees gave up all the worldly bonds. Kindly enlighten me. -At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Thrylokya.]
Swāmi replied: If a person follows the above concept of self-confidence, dreaming that one day he would lift up a hill with his hands, will he succeed in that effort, even if he concentrates on that idea for his entire life? This approach to boost self-confidence is only applicable to people who suffer from mental issues and have very low self-confidence. The mental patient having lost self-confidence thinks that he cannot even lift a very small gravel stone. Such a mental patient should follow this theory of boosting self-confidence in order to succeed in lifting up a stone having a weight that is within the capacity of the person. This approach only helps such people who have lost their normal level of confidence. It will not help in increasing the capacity of persons having normal self-confidence.
The police will help you get back your lost money, but they cannot help you gain more money than you had. This concept has a certain limited boundary and that boundary is the maximum natural capacity of a person. Kṛṣṇa lifted the Govardhana hill, even without this approach. He did not do any such mental exercises before lifting the hill. This advice must be given only to mental patients, who live with very low self-confidence. A normal person always has the required quantity of confidence and also knows the limits of his or her own capacity. For such normal people this advice is useless.
You can use the word faith in the case of the mental patient because the patient does not have faith in his or her own capacity. The word faith will help such people in regaining the knowledge of their own capacity, but it cannot improve their capacity beyond its normal and natural level. Even in the spiritual path, the word faith is illogical and meaningless. If a beggar comes to you and goes on saying that he has faith in you that you will donate money to him, will you donate anything to him? If you donate to him based on his words, you are mad since you have been brainwashed by him! God is not such a mad person and no soul can brainwash God. Faith cannot yield any result from anybody, including God.
It is love or devotion involving self-sacrifice that brings the result from anybody, including God. The response for your theoretical love will come from the other side when your theoretical love is proved in practice in the form of service or sacrifice. This practical service and sacrifice can be called practical love. The entire theory presented in the book referred by you, including the concept of faith is only applicable to psychological patients whose self-confidence is lower than normal. It is not applicable to normal people, who have the normal level of confidence and are well-aware of their normal capacities.
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