Posted on: 03 Aug 2022
[Shri Satti Reddy asked:- Yesterday night, I became very emotional thinking about Your knowledge and devotional songs and phoned to You twice, but, You did not answer your phone. Hence, I have come today morning to You for Your advice.]
Swami replied:- I did not reply because you were in emotion. In emotion, intelligence sleeps and mind alone becomes very active. Intelligence has the capacity to do analysis whereas mind is devoid of that (analysis), thus is highly flexible. Intelligence is like strong land on which you can stand firmly. Mind is like mud pond in which you will be constantly sinking down. Hence, Krishna started the Gita with Saamkhya Yoga or Buddhi Yoga or the topic about intelligence and analysis in the beginning itself on which He stood firm to dictate all the future chapters of the Gita. The time you phoned was night representing tamas or ignorance and hence, I did not answer you. This morning, you have come and this time is of knowledge or Sattvam and hence, I am speaking to you.
First, you should settle in Pravrutti or worldly life and then concentrate on Nivrutti while balancing Pravrutti. Of course, from childhood, you shall be in touch with Nivrutti because we do not know on which day this human life ends. At the same time, you shall also accept the possibility of a long life for which you have to work for settlement in Pravrutti. You shall not take one possibility only and concentrate on it when there is a possibility of both happening.
Why am I stressing about the settlement in Pravrutti while I am a full preacher of Nivrutti? The reason is the atmosphere in this world present today. Today, people are not caring for even a guest and not to speak of a beggar. When the guest comes, people see whether the guest is a blood relation or not. If the guest is an outsider, people think about the use of the guest to them. If there is some use, they will entertain him with a cup of coffee and if the use is more, with an additional plate of tiffin also. If the use is more and more, the guest will be entertained with meals as well. If the guest starts leaving the house, people will press him to stay for more days if the use from the guest is very much! In such an atmosphere, if you go to a house without having the base of your practical use for them in worldly life and suppose you express your intention about your use to them in spiritual life, people will first think whether you have a house and also food in your house. They will immediately suspect that you have come to preach spiritual knowledge since you don’t have job and earnings or background property to feed yourself and hence, you have come for food with hunger. Even if you lecture spiritual knowledge for hours together, they will be constantly thinking about your food and its materialistic background only. Hence, they will not grasp even an iota of the essence of your spiritual knowledge rained by you. All your service to God in propagating the spiritual knowledge becomes a sheer waste. If you go to their house with settled background in Pravrutti like having the job or at least some sound property, they will not only hear your spiritual knowledge with full attention, but also, request you to stay for food and even may request for your stay in their house for few days more. Generally, job is better because if they know that you are employed, there is security for your earnings and food and the case of your property is not important since its details are not clearly known and it has no such vivid security of a job. In this context, I like to say that even the behavior of God is somewhat similar! If the devotee worships God (like your preaching spiritual knowledge), God (the owner of the house to whom you are preaching spiritual knowledge) is happy provided the devotee (you) is not with any worldly desire (hunger for food) hidden in his (Your) mind. Therefore, if you want to do God’s service by propagating spiritual knowledge to the society on perfect lines, you must follow my above given advice in view of the atmosphere today.
When Shankara propagated spiritual knowledge, the atmosphere was quite different. Everybody was helping beggars and was honoring guests giving a lot of importance to Nivrutti over Pravrutti and this merit was supported by the factor that there were no fraud beggars and guests in that time. We can’t imitate Shankara and Meera (Meera was incarnation of Radha, Radha was incarnation of Durvaasa and Durvaasa was incarnation of God Shiva) since they were incarnations of God Shiva who came down to the earth to propagate spiritual knowledge and devotion. Of course, a soul can also try to become Shankara and Meera through personal spiritual efforts, but the determination must be very very strong to face the cyclones of climax strength. One should be aware of one’s own strength and then only decide the future action. The advice from the Sadguru is very important in this context since He knows the past background of any soul. Therefore, My advice to you is that you shall try for a job and settle in worldly life before you take up God’s work in your life.