‘Do your duty’, this is the slogan that we hear every now and then. Parents tell their wards to keep busy with their subordinates and a master always order his servant to mind his duties and complete the work assigned to him. Work, work and work, everyone in this world is busy in doing one thing or the other. May it be an animal, a bird or even an insect, work is a ‘must’ for all.
Beside a purpose a work is a source of joy and pleasure for all of us. We shirk a work that is not meaningful. We desire what is not desirable, we do what is not worthdoing. Right or wrong, good or bad, sinful or pious; are not the consideration associated with a particular task, but the foremost thought and object connected with it is no other then our own interest. Self interest is the motive behind all our endeavours. This is the scale that weights all our performances.
We never think that ‘work is worship’ or that a work is itself its reward or that a work should start a work and end as a work in its very true spirit. Work is always thought as a means and not as an end, its real worth and outcome is always underestimated. It is evaluated in terms of fulfillment of our ego. What prevails in the modern world is very miserable and frustrating. It is there for want of guidance and proper understanding of the nature and meaning of work and how should it be done as our foremost duty. For most of us it is a state of helplessness as we have no other wayout, while for others it is all manipulations of worldly affairs and duties. We generally say that the work we do is predestined and already by our destiny, fate or say Almighty. Our Attributes physical, mental and moral culture and constitution and above all our wisdom and circumstances lead us to adopt a profession, say a means of earning our livelihood which more or less determines the direction and mode of our life and thence our ‘karma’. It is our actions and deeds or ‘karma’ that make and mould our character and thinking and form the very basis of our future life. A doctor, engineer, teacher or a businessman keeps in his line throughout his life. No doubt exceptions are there but they are not so many. All works must be done with utmost sincerity, devotion, dedication, sense of purpose and above all with a spirit of honesty. If all of us take a vow of this effect it is not only our society, the country rather, the whole world that can be made free from social evils, crimes, thefts and all types of corruptions. A feeling of universal brotherhood and unity will prevail everywhere.
We know that everyone is this world is possessed with a work that one has to do. There is no escape from it. All this is very simple and understandable But our purpose to discuss the ‘karma’ is somewhat deeper. Whatever we do in the whole span of our life rather every moment of it we must observe that we don’t have even a bit of the feeling of ego. A work must be performed in its true sense and considered as something desired by God. Honesty, sincerity and devotion will follow of their own. Surrender it to ‘Him’ after execution as it has not been yours. You have no right to attach yourself with it. Be free and be happy to have obeyed your Master. Don’t except or hope for the reward otherwise it would affect the execution and performance of the ‘karma’. The work is itself the reward. You did it because He gave you a body and you did it, just Arjuna the great warrior of ‘Mahabharat’ was only instrumental in killing mighty heroes of the great war that were far more powerful than him in the battle, at the instance of Lord Krishna. Since ‘Lord’ had desired them to be killed, they were already virtually dead. Only a drama was to be played for the world.
If you don’t think so, you may own and load yourself with the responsibilities of thinking doing and even foster yourself with a sense of pride. You are free to call yourself the master of big estates, big business establishment and immense wealth in the form of huge currency, jewellary and jewals. But be sure by doing so you are befooling none but yourself. And that you are not the winner rather a great loser. What to say of your wealth, relatives and friends and your near and dear, even your body is not your own. When you are not the doer, how can you claim the ownership of the material world. For you folly you have to pay a very price Dreadful diseases and disorders, mental tension and such like agonies surround you for your pride and ego, Peace and bliss disappear as if they had never been yours.
Therefore, perform all ‘karmas’ with a sense of detachment but with devotion as a token of service to your Master. Don’t own the responsibility for the success of the failure. Be free from all fear and such like feelings and you will find that worries, anxieties, pains and miseries would never dare to reach even your doorsteps.
It is all very easy smooth and spontaneous, as you have not to put in any efforts. Simply let loose yourself from all burdens and pressure and your ego and be one with the Supreme Force. The very moment you will feel released as you become ‘His’ tool and a tremendous energy will flow in you from His infinite reservoir. Great saints had repeatedly stated in the pat that is was very simple to one with the God. What you have to do is to detach from tether and fasten yourself with the other. We have seen that even huge logs of wood from the forests in the mountains reach their destination, driven freely by the fast water current. It is only possible when they flow down stream. By owning oneness with God one has not to work upstream or face the violent force of storms and volcanoes. Therefore, you must do what the ‘Destiny’ chance or the fate or say the Supreme Force, wants you to do. Your consciousness, capacity mental alertness, intutional urges through surrender to the Divinity are there to help you to take the right decision. You are able to hear the inner calls and acts accordingly. Thus you are free from a state of tension or bewilderness for taking decisions of ‘what to do’. or ‘what not to do’. Everything is predestined and preplanned by your ‘Master’.
Blind faith in Him is the first step for achieving a state of fearlessness. An innocent child knows none except his parents. He feels fully protected and safe in the lap of his mother. Similarly, a disciple in the home of ‘Sadgurudeva’ feels free like a bird. He knows he is secure at his lotus feet. He feels happy in obeying his orders. His victory lies in how and to what extent he is able to fulfill his, order and follow his instructions. And indeed, in due course of time he gets transformed in to the ‘Real Human’ fully developed in all respects merely through the obeyance. God is all merciful to his children. So is Sadgurudeva who takes utmost care of his disciples. It is said that cat taught a lot of the lion and made him the king of all animals and the forest but kept for herself the skill of climbing the trees. But a ‘guru’ is prepared to give all to his dear disciples. It is also known that a ‘paaras’ transforms iron into gold but a ‘guru’ is so generous that he makes ‘paaras’ the disciples who surrender at his feet. They develop in them all the greatness of the ‘guru’ through his blessings. Therefore, everything depends upon the disciple or the man is general as to how much he is able to achieve through devotion or selfless service at the feet of ‘sadgurudev’ or unto the Master of the Universe.
Sometime we feel annoyed and miserable. In such moments if we contemplate it becomes clear that we have astrayed from the path of our sacred duties and have gone against the flow of divine current. So change the course, and we atonce return to normalcy. Tension disappears. The spirit gets elevated. The gravity of an ocean with a music and harmonious rhythm of life descends in us with perfect balance and stability of mind.
Remember, there is no place for acting, artificiality, outward show of respect, apparent behaviour or a drama, to win a reward. This is what most of us do in our lives. We act, talk and do our duties in a deceitful manner, just to befool our friends, officers, relatives or even the Master. We play tricks to serve our malign motto, serve our perverted instincts, deformed desires, meet our selfish worldly attachment and sensualities. Our outward behaviour may show us to be a noble, sincere and devoted person but the inner of our innerself is coated dark black with the colour of our mischieves. We serve to become master of ourselves. A student shows timely respect to get more marks or other do likewise for personal benefits. It is just like bribing which is so common in the modern society, ruined and marred with adultration, corruption and dishonesty.
Do people succeed in their such like evil designs? The answer is that temporarily it may appear so. But they have to pay back for heavily for their wickedness in the form of deep mental anguish. They gain less and loose more. They gain the matter but lose the spirit. They grab sensualities and worldly pleasures to consume them at the cost of divine bliss and heavenly joys. Infact they totally loose themselves to convert them into a toy or a machine without any feelings of life and spirit.
So, do you will think that ‘Divinity’ can be deceived ? Can Almighty be betrayed? Or that the persons you feel you had played fool out of your vanity have really been done so. No, no, not the least. Infact you have just the battle. You have yourself been deceived. In the guise of your victory you have been badly defeated, not to be able to stand on your feet again for rest of your life and win faith of others. Helish fires and catastrophies are ready to swallow you with their jaws wide open.
Kabir also says: O, poor man don’t deceive others rather get deceived by others if you can, or you fall a victim to pains and agonies when you deceive other whereas immense joy and divine bliss become yours when you make yourself suffer for others. Therefore be the same from outside as you actually are. If it is not so the robbers, thieves and dacoits are far more better than you as they display the same what they really are.
Follow the principle of ‘Nishkam karma’ as Lord Krishna had propounded in the sacred ‘Gita’. Do your duties without worrying for the result or desiring for the reward, Although it sounds simple to hear but it is very difficult to understand and still more difficult and obscure to execute and observe in practice. You have to be ‘pure’ chaste, innocent, true and pious in the very letter and spirit. Every act of yours, must originate from very depth and core of your heart and soul.
So the only way left is to mould yourself into an obedient true disciple of your Sadgurudev or be the most humble servant to your master and surprisingly you will become the ‘Master’ yourself.
The might sound hollow but it has even been observed in day to day life that many a people who had served as servants are the owners of a number of business, houses, factories and estates. Many who had served with great devotion are the great masters in the fields of medicine, art, painting, music, dance and drama. A true disciple in course of time become the ‘Guru’ himself is not something new in the Indian tradition. So part with your ‘ego’ to dissolve yourself to bloom into a bud and then cherish extreme to become a flower.
A question may arise in the mind of the reader that how merely by becoming a humble servant or doing selfless or doing one’s duties without the least ‘ego’ one can rise to the heights of realisation and godhood.
It is very difficult to answer or say it is not possible to express and explain only few words. It may cover pages after pages to draw the very soul and spirit hidden as under current in the above saying to be engrossed successfully by the readers. What we can say is that we must adopt and follow it practically to our utmost to see ourselves the outcome that our great saints and sages had experimented to be transformed into noble souls, brimming and bubbling with ‘Divinity’.
Practice one and be an expert in all. Achieve perfection in one and be the master of all. Go on writing to gain proficiency in it and you will find that you have become a good reader, orator or even a scholar. Practice in one branch of a skill or art and you develop knowledge, attachment, love and intimacy for the rest. A famous poet had said “Truth is beauty and beauty is Truth”. This is the only thing we need to know and understand, Learn to love and appreciate the beauty of the nature and the Creator. From beauty you will spontaneously shift, quite unknowingly, quite unnoticed to the ‘Truth’ and then to the Realself the Divinity and the Supreme. Start worshipping Lord Shiva, Rama or Krishna or any of the ‘gods’ or even great saints or your ‘Sadgurudeva’, you love to praise and miraculously in moments of your climax you will vividly observe a wonderful ‘Oneness’ in them all. Your joy will have no bounds, tears will roll down from your eyes at the amazing realisation of all spreading ‘Divinity’ on the vast horizons of the endless, limitless and magnanimous Universe.
In yoga we have eight parts viz. yam, niyam, asan, Pranayam, pratyahar, dharna, dhyana and Samadhi. Yam and Niyam have five parts each. There are great number of asanas too. Similarly the rest of parts are also divided into many more sub parts. If yoga is to be mastered it is not that we proceed one by one or systematically from the first to the last. Rather it is at sweet will of ‘Sadgurudeva’ as to how he starts with a disciple. He could bless with any parts of it and the practice of that very part in due course of time grants the disciple a perfection in Yoga as a whole.
This all amply establishes the ‘truth’ of the statement that mere dedication to our duties or serving selflessly our sadgurudev can make us a true yogi bestowed with perfection. It is also evident from the accounts available in the holy scriptures that the ‘Guru’s in the past assigned the work of ‘cow grazing’ to the entrants and this they did with such perfection and dedication without the least notion that they were doing something for the ‘guru’ or say without feeling of ‘ego’ that they were accorded ‘knowledge’ and bliss by various gods and forces of nature(Varuna, Air, Fire, etc.) or divine agencies.
The competent ‘gurus’ had a vital role to play at the cosmic level. But after the above stage they had simply to impart the formal knowledge and education, which was not difficult for the disciples who had already embraced divinity through service. How this actually took place is of course a topic for research and further exploration.
How the true observance of one’s duties can grant perfection and divine powers can be understood from an instance.
There lived a mahatma in a jungle. He had a lot of ‘tapas’ penance to his credit. Once he rose from ‘Dhyana’. He opened his eyes. The dropping from a bird fell on his head. The gazed towards the bird. And lo, the bird fell on the ground burnt dead with the fire of the anger of the ‘mahatma’. At once spark flashed his mind, “Oh, I am a great yogi. No one can equal my powers. Let me now take a round in the city and make a show of my powers so that people worship and adore me”.
With these ideas he entered the city. It was a hot day. The mahatma felt thirsty. He located a house and knocked at the door to have some food and water. The lady in the house responded that she was busy and that she would attend to him within a few minutes. “Oh, it is great insult to a mahatma of status like me, I will teach her a lesson so that in future she will never dare behave like this”, the mahatma murmured. After a short while the lady appeared at the door, she said,”Excuse me, great mahatma, for the delay. I was busy in attending to my husband who had just come for the lunch. Now please enter our house and be seated, so that I could entertain. You with food and water. “But Mahatma did not hear to all her apologies. He was determined to punish her for the delay. He roared, I should have been attended before anybody. Are you not afraid of my anger? Perhaps you are ignorant of my great powers?”At this the lady gently smiled and said,”O mahatma I have great regards for the noble souls but I may add that I give top priority to my duties. At the same time you must realise merely through your gaze.” As the last sentence struck his ear, he felt greatly astonished as nobody had witnessed that incident. All his anger disappeared. Ego and pride were brought to naught. He felt anxious to know truth. His tone softened. He said,”Oh kind lady, please tell me as to how you have come to realise the truth.” She said,”Please have some food and go to the man I ask you. It is he who will tell you the truth.” The mahatma after taking the food set for his onward journey and reached the shop of a grocer. He was surprised as to how a grocer could make him realise the ‘truth’ that he, although a mahatma, did not know. The very moment the grocer, on finding that all the customers has been served and that it was the time to close the shop, came to the mahatma. He said,”O, mahatma, I am thankful to you for your kind visit. I know that the particular lady has sent you to me for resolving your queries. But instead that I tell you all about this, I will guide you to contact another man who will prove more helpful to you. After my closing the shop you may accompany me and have you dinner with me. After the night stay you may leave tomorrow for the place.
It was on the next day that the mahatma after travelling many miles on foot, very hungry and thirsty reached the particular place, towards mid day. He saw but he could not believe his eyes. He was sure he had reached a wrong place or that he was being mocked. He felt greatly humiliated. It was a butcher’s shop and the man was selling meat to his customers. As he was about to ran from the place, the butcher came down from the shop. The mahatma was stunned when he called him by name. After praying due regards he said,”I know that you had been to the lady and then to the grocer and now you have been sent to me for telling you about the secret of ‘truth’. I will accompany you to my place in a short while and we shall sit together to discuss the whole situation.” Normally the mahatma would have kept himself miles away from ever the shadow of the butcher but now it was a question of knowing the ‘truth’ and satisfaction of his ever increasing incuriosity. He felt all the more anxious. The butcher took the mahatma with him to his place. Firstly he took bath, then prostrated at the feel of his aged parents. Then served them with food. His wife now served food to the mahatma and her husband. The butcher then said,”O, mahatma, you have come a long way. You have dined with a butcher. Thus you have shed away all your ego to know the truth. It is all very simple. We all do our duties honestly. I don’t kill the animals. I simply sell the meat. This had been our profession for many generations. I am strictly vegetarian. Similarly the grocer did all his duties with utmost sincerity. He served the people. He never weighed less. He also served his parents. The lady you first met is a very pious lady. She is all devoted to her husband, with her heart and soul. She is honest and religious. She is also devoted to her duties.
Thus, we are all living in the families but at the same time due to our sincerity, devotion to our duties and our selfless service to all we have been able to realise the ‘Truth’. How could we have ‘ego’ when ‘He’ alone is supreme and we are simply ‘His’ creation to serve ‘Him’ as per ‘His’ wishes. Let alone God be there to have mercy over his children, bless and shower benevolence and divinity and make them feel enlightened and be very much close to ‘Him’.
The mahatma had nothing to say. He simply fell at his feet thanked him again and again and bade him good bye and started for his destination. He felt light hearted. All his tension, anxiety and anger was gone forever. His face was radiating with joy as he too had realised the truth.