Material gains are nothing compared to heightened state of consciousness

There was an American boy born with serious mental problems, which afterwards became unmanageable. He was admitted to a hospital. Doctors could only make him sleep but not cure him. As time passed, this case drew wide attention. Many expert psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, etc., were called but nothing worked. Finally, they decided that they really could not help the boy. They called his parents and in a mood of despair told that they had done all they could and now only God can help. The boy’s parents took the advice literally and sent him to a known church and entrusted his care to the Father. This priest was exceptional. Years passed and the boy began to improve. Time came when he was considered fit enough to start missionary activities locally. The boy made tremendous progress and was allowed to travel abroad to continue his noble work.

The story tells us that all of us are small intrinsically; material bodies don’t make us big. Does it mean that God has been unkind to make us so small? No, it doesn’t. The creation cannot exist if we were any bigger. God has to be big, so big that it is incomprehensible. Only then, the creation can exist for any length of time. Fortunately, God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, and the world goes on.

Let us examine what a normal person does in this set up. I have identified five traits, which are normal to all of us. The first one is our thoughts. Most of these are related personally to us or with those linked to us closely like family members and friends. The other similarity is our desire to be given attention, appreciated, even venerated in some cases. The third commonality is our wanting to be feted through birthday parties or generally honoured publicly. Another common characteristic is to be addressed with respect, saluted, etc. And the last one is to take shelter of wealth or of some person or of some material opulence like fame, power, etc.

Lord Krishna instructs, “Develop My consciousness; become My devotee; make sacrifice for Me; and offer obeisance to Me.” Did you find similarities in what we normally do vis-à-vis ourselves and what God expects from us to do towards Him. He only expects us to change the direction of our thinking and activities. Whatever we are doing towards ourselves should now be directed towards Him. If we can do that the Lord promises, “You shall attain Me only. This I truly promise to you, because you are very dear to Me.” (18.65)

Beginning with thinking endlessly about ourselves, we only harm ourselves. What are worries, anxieties, fears, depression, etc.? How are they caused? Yes, by self-centered consciousness. And when we change our consciousness to God, we become deserving of God’s rewards. The next mistake we make is to become our own ‘bhakta’.

The third mistake we make is to celebrate our birthdays, etc. We gather a lot of people. Contrarily, if we celebrate God’s appearance days then all auspiciousness descends upon us and we qualify for God’s munificence. The fourth mistake we make is to expect and even make others salute us. Greetings are fine but ‘namaskar’ in a formal way is specially meant for God, who alone is really deserving of such respect. Remember how Arjuna began doing many namaskar to Lord Krishna after the Lord displayed His ‘Viswa-Roop to him.

(The author is a spiritual teacher)