Spirituality: Let īśvara decide about progress
By Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati *
Na Me Bhaktaḥ Praṇaśyati – 17
We think that progress will happen only when we satisfy our needs. But progress can happen when you are motivated to satisfy somebody else’s needs. When you have leisure from your own demands, you automatically do for others. Let īśvara decide about progress. You just do what you need to do.
We have to live in the world, with its own rules. Unless we are equipped with this understanding of īśvara—this knowledge, right attitude, and values—we just get thrown from here to there in this world. The only way to anchor yourself is the right understanding, the right values, and the right attitudes. Then you can function. It is not easy, it is true. To maintain the right values and attitudes when functioning in this world is very difficult. The world keeps on pushing your buttons. That is the nature of the world.
Pujya Swami Chinmayananda used to say, “If you want to sharpen your knife, you need a grinding stone.” You need a rough grinding stone, not a smooth stone, to sharpen your knife. A rough grinding stone, however, will only accomplish that purpose provided you know how to hold the knife. If you hold your knife against the grinding stone at the correct angle, it will get sharpened. If you hold the knife at the wrong angle, it will get blunted. The grinding stone can do either; it can sharpen your knife or it can blunt your knife. Or, if you don’t hold it properly, the knife can even fly out of your hands and into your face.
The world is like a rough grinding stone to sharpen your mind, to make it pure, to make it grow, to make it mature. Like knowing how to hold a knife against the stone, you must know how to manage your mind in the world. The world can give you all problems, conflicts, and misery, or the same world can help you grow and mature.
To grow in emotional maturity, there is no way other than living in the world. It is not possible to become a Swami and retire from the world and then grow. This world gives opportunities for growth by pushing your buttons. You need people and situations in the world to push your buttons so you realize what your buttons are. Then you can work on those buttons by following this programme of devotion.
If you have this input and this teaching, then you will know how to deal with those buttons. If you push a button, the fan automatically starts. But if you disconnect the wiring from behind the button, the fan will not operate. The world can push our buttons, but we have the choice to disconnect or remove that wiring and deactivate our buttons. That is how we progress toward emotional maturity and inner purification.
The devotee overcomes sorrow by devotion
Therefore, we need the right attitudes and the right values, which are all based on the right understanding of īśvara and our relationship with īśvara. We need the right understanding of our place in the scheme of things and how to conduct ourselves in this maze of things, while still negotiating our vehicle to reach our destination. For that, we make īśvara our charioteer. He is ready.
This programme of devotion is difficult at first, but it is much more rewarding than what we have been doing by trying to satisfy our demands all the time. Lord Krishna’s promise is, na me bhaktah pranaśyati, my bhakta never suffers. He never declines. If there is suffering, the bhakta accepts it only as a blessing. It is a blessing in disguise. Either what we want happens or what we do not want happens. If what we want happens, it is evident grace; if what we do not want happens, then it is a blessing in disguise. This is the attitude. There is nothing but grace.
Does that mean that we just sit there and do nothing? Lord Krishna says, “mā te sango’stvakarmani, let your attachment not be to inaction.” Do things and respond to the world, but with the right attitudes. We have to respond to every situation. Either we respond as an egoistic person with a reaction, or we respond as a devotee with the right attitudes. You have to live life, and life requires interaction. It requires a response. It requires receiving the stimuli and responding. Living life is not a problem. Living among people is not a problem. Responding is not a problem. The problem is in my wrong attitudes and values. The problem is in my wrong understanding. It is I who creates unhappiness for me and I have the freedom to create happiness for me. I have to make a choice. If I want to create unhappiness for myself, I am an expert in doing that. But I can also become the creator of happiness for me by understanding what īśvara is, what I am, what is the scheme of things, how to relate, and what attitudes and values to adopt. That is called bhakti.
If you have śraddhā in īśvara, he says to you, “na me bhaktah pranaśyati. My bhakta never suffers a decline.” There is nothing that can really harm my devotee who has right understanding and clarity of conviction. He never falls from his path. Even if he feels he is falling, he is not falling spiritually. Perhaps there may be difficulties in terms of the world. When Lord Krishna says “my bhakta never falls,” he means that spiritually, the bhakta never declines; he always grows. My devotee will attain his goal of limitless happiness.
That is the Lord’s promise.
To continue…
*Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati has been teaching Vedānta Prasthānatrayī and Prakaraṇagranthas for the last 40 years in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Throughout the year, he conducts daily Vedānta discourses, accompanied by retreats, and Jñāna Yajñas on Vedānta in different cities in India and foreign countries.
Inspiring swamiji , your kind words brings hope in a devotee.
Tamne maara koti koti pranam
Jai sri krishna
Regards
Sheetal Bhatia
Mumbai