Love The Lord!
H H Maa Purnananda
Founder Chairperson
Sree Guru Swami Chinmayananda Sewa Nidhi ®
“……Chaturvidha Bhajantey Maam Janaah Sukritinoarjun; Aarto Jignyaasu Arthaarthi Gnyaani Cha Bharatarshabh.” – (Sreemad Bhagawad Geeta – 7/16)
Objects and beings get impacted by the environment. Living beings get affected by the environment, surroundings and situations. Human beings get influenced by the environment, surroundings, situations and circumstances. This is natural evolution. Creatures and most of the beings of animal kingdom live instinctively. Human beings have evolved to the extent of logic and rationale; and gain intellectual knowledge – “Aadhyaatmik Gnyaan”. Our Shastras have given us the techniques of evolving further, even beyond rationale and seek Intuitive Knowledge “Aatm Gnyaan”. Seeking the Intuitive Knowledge is synonymous to seeking Self-Knowledge. The journey from intellectual knowledge to the Intuitive Knowledge is called “Spiritual Pursuit” – “Aadhyaatmik Saadhna”. When “Aadhyaatmik Saadhna” is practiced diligently and sincerely and is subsequently accomplished by the seeker, it ultimately culminates into “Aatm Gnyaan” and the ‘seeker’ becomes the ‘Seer’ – “Aatm Gnyaani”.
As far as the inert world of objects and living creatures of least evolution is concerned, they are helplessly impacted by the environment. A crawling insect found on a Shivlingam in a village temple has not embraced the Lingam due to its Shraddha, Bhakti or Gnyaanam! The flood-waters had entered the low-lying temple premises, which pushed the poor insect into the sanctum-sanctorum, and lo! the simple-hearted villagers started to pray to even that innocent creature, calling it as great devotee of Lord Shiv! It can happen!
Let us remember the advice from the scriptures. In Sreemad Bhagawad Geeta, Lord Krishna tells Arjun that the devotee who has inculcated certain virtues, is extremely dear to Me. From this, we can understand that one surely needs to shun his lower instinctive behaviour and try to get motivated by the higher thoughts so that he might be able to live a more humane and purposeful life. Else, that the human beings are also a part of the animal kingdom, he would conveniently follow his lowly desires and land up living an animalistic life, which, for an animal, is not at all condemnable. The animalistic nature in a human life pulls down the man from his stature of being a human.
In the Shlok given in the beginning, the Lord says that four kinds of virtues people worship
me; a man in distress, a man who is thirsty of knowledge, a man having wants and desires and
a wise man.
Here the Lord calls all the four kinds of men as virtuous, because they worship Lord anyways, though it could even be to fulfill their personal desires or whatever! The categorization of the worshipers is based upon the intent of the worshiper. Man performs acts with some intention, which could be good or bad, or rarely, with the pure intention of obeying the scriptural ordinances.
a wise man. Here the Lord calls all the four kinds of men as virtuous, because they worship Lord anyways, though it could even be to fulfill their personal desires or whatever! The categorization of the worshipers is based upon the intent of the worshiper. Man performs acts with some intention, which could be good or bad, or rarely, with the pure intention of obeying the scriptural ordinances.
Moreover, the intent behind even a seemingly good act, could be bad or not so good! Man’s intent depends upon his inherent tendencies. At times, due to the upheaval of his lower tendency, even a man otherwise a good person, could fall prey to some undesirable act. Hence, the Guru-s advise the devotees to keep a close watch upon their own tendencies, as human race is intelligent enough to do so. But there is a big obstacle due to which man is unable to overcome this obstacle, which is his own mind.
When mind overshadows the intellect, man gets drifted into the unwanted and undesirable thoughts, words and deeds. The saving factor for a man thus getting carried away would be his devotion to the Lord. So, when in a dire situation, he would pray hard to his Lord. As much more he worships the Lord, he would be more inquisitive to know about his Lord. He would worship in every possible way to fulfill his desires for prosperity. And of course, a wise man, sufficiently evolved to understand and accept the glory of his beloved Lord as both Manifest (Sagun) as well as the Un-manifest (Nirgun), would definitely be constantly worshipful towards the Lord in every way! The Lord is very dear to such a wise devotee and he too is loved greatly by the Lord!
To intently worship the Lord, the Supreme Truth, is the prerogative and a special advantage of the human being – the crowning glory of Creation. Therefore, worship, worship and worship hard and be blessed by the Lord, be dear to Him!