When Bhagavad Gita says that we should offer the fruits of our work to God, where is the motive do the best of our work?

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Every action we are doing is sure to bring a fruit. Even though we may claim it to be a sacrifice to God (as per Karma Yoga), that fruit is sure to come back to us only, at some point of time, at some context, at some quantity and fashion. How and when cannot be exactly comprehended by us, because God is definitely going to give it back to us as per His will, with our welfare in mind. God is beyond needs and wants and He is not looking to retain the fruits of OUR labor with Himself!

My Guru Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) use to say that when Bhagavad Gita says work should be done by surrendering the results to God, it means we don’t have to break our head or worry about the fruits of Karma, which will in any case come back to us. It means we will be able to focus better on our work in hand by doing our best, without wasting our mental energy about what the results could be.

Since the results are sure to come back to us, it is always prudent to do our best, because we will get back the best fruits of it at some time, in some way, at some juncture (as schemed by God) for our betterment only!

Amma also used to point about two fruits in every action — one is drishta Phalam (visible result) and adrishta phalam (invisible fruit). Suppose a destitute boy who has not eaten for a couple of days knocks at our doors. Suppose we call the boy inside and offer him a sumptuous meal. As we watch the boy eating the food in a hurry and relishing every bit of it, it definitely gives us an instant joy. It is drishta Phalam. By feeding a poor boy, we acquire some punya to our credit. That is adrishta phalam.

If we had served the boy some stale food from the previous day’s remnants, he would have perhaps consumed it too to satiate his hunger. But by feeding him with fresh meals, we are offering our best. That satisfaction will be greater than offering him a stale food for sure. Giving the best definitely carries a bonus value!

 

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If the self is already eternal, deathless, and one with Brahman, why do I have to make any spiritual effort in life?

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Yes. All gurus, all scriptures say that my Self is already eternal, deathless and one with Brahman. Yes, I nod in agreement.

But I am worried about my debts; I get restless if my food is not served in time. I hate my neighbor for whatever omissions and commissions he does. I just cannot accept that he is also Brahman like me!

I am having pain on my left shoulders and I am deeply worried — is it the symptom for impending heart attack? What will I do if attack comes suddenly? Oh! I am scared of death. Who will look after my family if I die suddenly?

So, my theoretical knowledge that I am deathless and I am Brahman is absolutely useless to me, until I experience that state so that I remain in bliss always with no mundane worries.

Sadguru Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) says that if you write ‘ honey’ in a piece of paper and lick it, it will not taste sweet. She further says that it is indeed true that a tree is contained in the seed. We are like seed now. For the seed to become a tree, it has to go into earth, its outer sheath should split so that the sprout comes. Conditions should be favourable too. A seed fallen on a rockey surface or in a desert is not likely to sprout. It should get water, nutrients etc to grow. Climate should be favorable. When all things are favorable, only then the seed will become a tree and bear fruits.

That’s why spiritual effort is needed “for the seed to become a tree”. Going into the earth indicates surrender (to guru). Outer sheath breaking indicates breaking of one’s ego. Ambience, climate etc becoming favorable indicates guru kripa.

Amma says “kalam, pryatnam , and Easwara kripa” (Time, effort and divine grace) are the 3 things essential for success.

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Do people who undergo much suffering in life eventually attain happiness one day or other?

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Let me share a funny story that Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi) narrates:

A person was suffering from one hardship after another in life and got very much dejected. He went to consult an astrologer to know what he holds for the future.

The astrologer, after going through the horoscope said “ Your planetary positions are too unfavorable.You will have to go through sufferings till your age of 50”.

The man felt somewhat relieved. He asked eagerly, “It means I will lead a smooth and happy life after that, right?”

The astrologet said, “No. You will get used to facing troubles and managing them afterward!”.

Amma used to say that ‘parasthithi‘ (external circumstances) cannot be changed easily, but with effort, it is possible to change our ‘manasthithi‘ (state of mind). When, by spiritual effort, we manage to acquire mental strength and eaquanimity, we will be able to face joys and sorrows with lots of balance. We will not get over joyed in moments of fortune, nor get too disturbed and depressed against adversities.

When mindset changes, by divine grace, there is every chance that trials and tribulations too diminish in life.

Amma offering consolation to the sick

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I have committed wrongs and caused suffering to many people in the past. When I think of it, I suffer from guilty complex. I think even God will not forgive for the evil acts that I have done. I am even afraid of praying to God. What is the way out for me?

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To answer this question, here is the message from Satguru Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma) appearing in Tamil Matruvani magazine Feb 2018 issue:

“My children,

Knowingly or unknowingly, we may have caused pain and anguish to other people; practically all of us would have done some such thing at some time or other in our lives. Some people come to Amma (me) and say “Mother, I have done numerous mistakes in life; will God ever forgive me? Do I have the qualification even to pray to God? When I think about the wrongs I have done, I become weak out of guilty feeling. What am I supposed to do?”

By nature bad thoughts rule people’s minds more powerfully than good thoughts. So, every one is bound to do mistakes. The real valor in ourselves lies in accepting our mistakes, feeling truly sorry about them and practicing the mind to start doing good deeds. Keeping on thinking about the evil deeds for ever is akin to embracing a corpse. If we keep on thinking “Alas! I have done mistake; I am a sinner; I am a sinner”, all our skills will only get wasted. Our progress in life will be hampered.

When there is a wound in the body, is it not better to apply medicine to it instead of looking at it and crying? If we have consciously done mental or physical hurting on somebody, we should get the mindset to seek apology from them. We should try to console them. We should take a firm resolve saying “Hereafter, I will do only good deeds”

Knowingly or unknowingly we might have committed wrongs in many ways. We might have forcefully grabbed something that truly belong to others; We might have attained high posts and positions by wrong means without having any merit for it; We might have frustrated others from getting their genuine promotions or benefits; Due to a vengeance or hatred on a family, we might have lied and stopped the marriage of a girl in the family; Or we might have intentionally lied about the character of a woman in our town to her husband working abroad causing their marital bond to be shattered. Likewise, there may be people who have been suffering life long on account of our selfish and egoistic acts; there may be people who had lost all that they had in life; there may be people who committed suicide on account of our acts.

We cannot rewind the wheel of time; the time wheel always rotates forward. What has happened in the past is like a cancelled cheque. We only have the present moment for our use. We cannot get back in time and set right our wrong doings. Learn lessons from them and try to progress. The moment we have understood our mistake, we should start following the right path. If we think “Let me change from tomorrow” the tomorrow may never come — like the marriage of Lord Ganapathy.

‘Let me think of God only when the sins committed are all exhausted” – if we think like that, it is similar to thinking “let me take bath in the sea after all the waves have subdued” . It will never happen. It is like saying “let the disease get cured; then I will take the medicines”.

The only way to get rid of all sins is to think of God. We cannot ‘remove’ darkness. When light comes, darkness automatically goes away. Likewise, when we think of God, the sins will get gradually washed away and the heart will get purity. The darkness of ignorance will vanish. When we say think of God, it does not just include prayers, visiting temples, chanting hymns and mantras etc., but also includes stopping our bad habits, doing good deeds, living with discrimination, not giving trouble to others etc and these too are parts and parcel of worshiping God.

The moment sense of guilt comes, we should resolve to do prayachitta (remedial actions); correct our mistakes. This way heart gets purified. as we keep adding more and more pure water to a salty water, the saltiness will reduce. Likewise, if we keep an doing good deeds, it will automatically bring a change in our character.

But one thing is very important. Once we have identified and accepted our mistake, we should never repeat it. We should not be like an elephant that smears mud over its head again after taking a bath. When we write with a pencil on a piece of paper and a mistake happens in writing, we can use the eraser, erase the mistake and re write. But if we keep making writing mistakes again and again, repeated erasing will tear the paper. Likewise, you should ensure that mistakes are not repeated after correcting it in life.

Through prayer, the dirt in our heart will get cleaned and the light of goodness will start shining. Our prayer should be “My dear God! Please bless me that I do not cause any problem to others through my thoughts, speech or actions”

– unquote –

I believe the above message contains the total guidance needed by you.

Words of Mahatmas are whole truths. What Amma has stated elaborately has been stated briefly by Sri Ramakrishna paramahamsa too: “One who says ‘I am a sinner; I am a sinner’ end up as sinner. We should have a firm conviction – ‘I am chanting God’s name. How can sin do anything with me?”

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We think of God only in troubled times!

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24th December 2012 – Monday

Amma narrated this incident to explain how most of us think of God seriously only in trouble times.

Once Amma was travelling in flight with all her troup (sometime while in US or Europe tour).   It was time to take food and food was being served. Suddenly the plane got into a turbulance and flight became shaky and bumpy. All got frightened and most of the people were shouting aloud “Amma, Amma….” Many were loudly chanting other God names; many were praying feverishly with folded palms.

After a while, the turbulance was crossed and the flight became normal again. As though a power was switched off, all the people stopped praying and chanting, smile returned to their faces and they started to eat their food as though nothing had happened!

“We think about existence of our head only when we get a headache!” quipped Amma and all of us laughed. “Amma loves to see her children laughing” said Amma laughing.

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Getting rid of our likes and dislikes – only after self-realization?

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Satsang with Amma…

10th Dec 2012 – At Amritapuri Beach

Q: “Amma! We all know that our likes and dislikes are essentially due to our egos. To get rid of our ego, we have to get self-realization and only when we get self-realization, we will be in a position to love one and all equally without any reservations. It is quite a long drawn process and maybe advanced sadakas will be able to attain that state after quite some effort. But how about ordinary worldly people like us? Is there any quick mode of transport ( “a Concorde plane”) for us to reach such a state of self-realization?”

The gist of Amma’s reply was as follows:

“It is true that one can reach the ultimate state of loving all only after self-realization. But a lot depends on our mental attitude. It does not mean that we can neglect our shortcomings and need not take any efforts to eradicate our ego-based likes and dislikes. If one says ‘I will take bath in the sea after all the waves subside’, he is never going to have a sea-bath.

“We are all essentially Atman; it is our true nature. But our ego is a product that we created. Our ego is like a bubble in the sea that thinks it is different from the sea.

“Satsang (company with the holy) is very important for us to develop the right mental attitude and to get awareness about what is right and what is wrong. We should shun bad company. Take the example of Kaikeyi. She was in possession of such a good heart that she rewarded a servant maid with a diamond necklace when the maid brought the news that Rama was going to be crowned as the prince. But what happened to the same Kaikeyi when Mandara stated giving her evil counsel? Kaikeyi’s heart totally turned negative towards Rama and she went to the extent of forcing her husband King Dasaratha to send Rama on exile to forest for 14 years.

“Qualities like love and compassion must be cultivated by effort. Once there was this young girl of a rich landlord, who was always found playing with the physically handicapped little daughter of the servant maid.

“The landlord did not like to see his daughter playing with a lowly servant maid’s child. He scolded her several times on this issue, but to no avail. In order to wean her away from that habit, he brought to home a nice child from the family of another rich landlord befitting his status. His daughter exchanged pleasantries with the new girl just for while, but she went back to playing with the handicapped child again.

“This infuriated the landlord and he asked his daughter why she was bent upon doing it. The daughter replied: ‘Father! This nice, rich girl whom you brought to play with me can get any number of friends to play with her. But what about this handicapped little girl? No one except me is willing to play with her; she finds so much of joy when I spend time with her; that’s why I play with her always’. “It is developing such a mental attitude that one can gradually get over with likes and dislikes on others.

“Yes. It is true that getting self-realization is a very long drawn process. It requires lots of patience and effort. One cannot afford to slack efforts and abort one’s goal midway. Once two spiritual aspirants were doing ‘Sadhana’ under a banyan tree for quite some years. The Celestial Sage Narada happened to pass by one day. As Narada had his daily contacts with the Lord Narayana, the aspirants were eager to know from God when they would attain God-realization. They appealed to Narada to inquire about it when he would meet Lord Narayana the next time. Narada agreed.

“A few days later, Narada came by. One of the aspirants eagerly asked whether Narada spoke to Lord Narayana and got the answer. Narada said that he did and what Narayana told him was that this person would require as many births as the number of leaves found in the Banyan tree to attain his self-realization. The person who heard this was devastated. He felt highly infuriated. “I have been doing severe sadhana for so many years and still Narayana says I will require so many births? Oh! Then its all a waste of time. It’s all a mere humbug then; I would rather go back to the world and enjoy it instead of wasting my time here” . He left the place fretting and fuming.

“Now the other aspirant posed the same question and Narada gave the same reply. Upon hearing it, the second aspirant was full of joy and started dancing in ecstasy! “O! Is it true that Lord Narayana indeed said that I would get my salvation after these many births, for sure? Oh! I am really lucky then! I am indeed blessed!” So saying, he continued to jump around and dance.

“At that very moment, the second aspirant got his self-realization instantly. Such was the reward he got for his mental attitude and patience.”

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