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Shri Datta Swami

Posted on: 23 Oct 2018

               

Is serving God in one's leisure time sufficient to reach God?

Shri P. V. N. M. Sharma asked Shri Swami the following question: “You have said that serving God in the time remaining after completing one’s worldly duties and taking due rest is sufficient to reach God. Could You please explain this more clearly?”

Swami replied: O Learned and Devoted Servants of God! The preaching of God is always meant for the majority. Apart from that, separate preaching for the minority is given individually. In this age of Kali, the majority of human beings are in the level of animals (Dushpravrutti). The preaching given to them should be confined to their journey from the lowest level of animals to the middle level of ideal human beings (Pravrutti). This is the reason why the scriptures given by God are almost completely filled with preaching related to the progress from the lowest level to the middle level. The scriptures either mention very little about the progress from the middle level (Pravrutti) to the highest level (Nivutti) or do not mention it at all. The latter progress is confined to a very very small minority and this part of the preaching is done by the God-in-human-form individually. You can find Shri Satya Sai Baba preaching about the progress from the lowest animal level to the middle level of an ideal human being, in His public speeches. He used to preach about the progress from the middle human level to the highest divine level only to very few deserving devotees personally. God indeed stresses on the lower part of the journey, which is suitable for the majority. But just because of it, we should not think that this lower part of the journey is the ultimate and that the higher part of the journey is useless. We should certainly not mock at the devotees belonging to the higher part of the journey.

Suppose there is a village in which nobody usually goes to school. So, a preacher in the village is preaching to the people that everybody must go to school. But one student from the same village has completed his school and is now studying in college in a nearby town. He has come back to the village for the holidays and is present where the preacher is preaching. The preacher’s stressing on the point that everybody must go to school was clearly intended for the majority, who would not go to school. There is no reason for the villagers to mock at that student saying that he is foolish to go to college since everyone is only supposed to go to school!

Similarly, while preaching, initially only a partial entry into the path of devotion should be stressed, since it is suitable to the majority. For the initial level, it is preached that concentrating on the work of God in one’s leisure time, after completing all duties and taking rest is sufficient. Preaching about the highest goal to beginners will discourage them. Knowing this human psychology of the followers, one has to preach to them about doing such lower level service. Even if the highest level of service to God is preached to them, they will never follow it. We must tell them that the middle-level goal itself is the highest goal. In fact, we should not even mention the actual highest goal. We should tell them that their leisure time, which remains after completing their worldly duties and taking enough rest, is sufficient to attain God. Then they will allot at least that leisure time for the sake of God’s work instead of spending it on unnecessary worldly enjoyments. They will feel that they can attain God by merely donating to God their time and money, which would have been wasted anyway. They will think it is a waste-to-wealth scheme!

If we say that God will be attained only when you do God’s work without caring even for your worldly duties or rest, people will be discouraged. They will not even spend the time and money that they waste on leisure and enjoyments, for God’s work. They will think that even if they spend it for God’s work, it would be of no use since God cannot be attained by merely spending one’s wasted time and money for His work. Discouraging the public in such a manner should be avoided since allotting even the wasted time and money for God’s work is not useless. It is an intermediate step before reaching the final goal. If the intermediate step is said to be the ultimate step, the majority of devotees feel fully encouraged. But this majority, who is at the lower level, should not mock at the devotees of the higher level like Shankara and others, who did God’s work leaving even their worldly duties and without taking rest. Hence, awareness of the complete subject of spiritual knowledge, consisting of the lower and higher parts of the spiritual journey, is necessary from the very beginning.

 
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