Posted on: 14 Jan 2021
[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on December 20, 2020, in which several devotees participated. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]
[Smt. Padmaram asked: If there is someone who cannot do karma phala tyāga or karma saṃnyāsa because the person does not have money or strength, how can the person get God’s grace?]
Swāmi replied: Certainly, a devotee can get God’s grace equal to a devotee who has done full karma saṃnyāsa and full karma phala tyāga, provided the devotee is unable to do either of the two. Take the case of the oldest and poorest man. Being old, he cannot do karma saṃnyāsa (offering of service). Being poor, he cannot do karma phala tyāga (sacrifice of the fruit of his work). Devotees are advised to do both these only when they have the capacity to do them and yet are not doing even a little due to their fascination for themselves and their worldly bonds.
The climax of karma phala tyāga is called sarva karma phala tyāga, which means the total sacrifice of whatever is possessed by the devotee to God. It is meaningless to say that the devotee must sacrifice even what is not possessed by him. God is not so unreasonable. Of course, there is one person, who did even that. Even when he had nothing at all with him, he borrowed a small quantity of flattened rice from his neighbors to sacrifice it to God. The name of this devotee is Sudāma or Kucela. Even God was shocked by his extreme sacrifice and wanted to donate all His wealth to Sudāma! Even if God were to sacrifice all His wealth to Sudāma, that sacrifice of God would only touch the climax of sacrifice which is sarva karma phala tyāga. It would not go beyond that climax sacrifice which was done by Sudāma. This is the reason why God Kṛṣṇa became so emotional in rewarding Sudāma. Kṛṣṇa was unable to even become equal to Sudāma by getting a loan from others to sacrifice the wealth to Sudāma! Śaktuprastha donated all that he possessed. A poor lady donated a small fruit to Śaṅkara because she only possessed that fruit. Both these cases come under sarva karma phala tyāga, which means sacrificing whatever is possessed by the devotee. Both these devotees got the fullest grace of God.
God does not see the magnitude of the item you sacrificed. He sees what percentage of your total wealth the value of that sacrificed item is. A beggar donating one coin was praised by Jesus while rich people donating thousands of coins were not even mentioned by Him. Sacrificing everything you possess (sarva karma phala tyāga) is the climax of sacrifice and Sudāma stands even above that climax. None of us can be Sudāma or even Śaktuprastha or the poor lady. But we can keep these three as our theoretical goals. If the goal is the highest, our effort will be maximum. If you try to get 100/100 marks in the examination, you will at least manage to get 40/100 which is the passing mark. If you keep 40/100 as the goal, you will certainly fail.