Bliss and Sacrifice of Wealth

O Learned and Devoted Servants of God,

[Dr. Nikhil raised a point: To enjoy both happiness and misery, one should have choice. A king has choice to enjoy in the palace or in a hut, but a beggar has no choice since he cannot enjoy the palace.]

Swami replied: To think that the palace belongs to the king is only a feeling, which is relatively unreal with respect to the status of awareness or soul. The king is living in that palace for some time only with that feeling and goes to hut for some time for recreation. A servant also lives in the palace for more time in service without that feeling. Both leave permanently the palace or hut after death. If you go to the absolute level of reality, the king, servant, palace, hut etc., belong to the Lord only as movable and immovable property (Eshavashyamidam… Veda). In the absolute levels of Lord and soul, both the world and the feeling about the world are relatively true only. The servant can also feel that the palace or the big building of factory in which he works for more time as his own building and even the owner is also characterized with that feeling only. The liberated soul in the absolute level gets the status of God and feels the entire world as His own property. Therefore, to enjoy like this world, one has to attain the status of God and I have told about such enjoyment only after becoming liberated through divine knowledge and with the grace of God.

If an ordinary human being straightly takes this clue and applies, he cannot get the result. It is not an industrial formula to apply without the grace of anybody to get the corresponding result. Moreover, if you analyze carefully, the happiness and misery are not related to the wealth only. Generally, rich people suffer with problems and poor people enjoy the same lifetime with full contentment and good health. However, this does not mean that a poor man enjoys always and the rich man always suffers. But we can say that a liberated soul will enjoy continuously whereas an ignorant soul is vibrated with happiness and misery. The enjoyment by getting bliss is not related to the external world but it is related to the internal intelligence illuminated by divine knowledge and grace of God together.

All the wealth in this world belongs to God only. God tests your mentality, and you have to leave this world after some time with the certificate of your mentality and cannot carry on a single paisa you have earned. If the wealth earned by you is really yours, the divine justice should have made an arrangement to carry on your earnings to the upper world. The absence of such arrangement clearly proves that your earnings do not belong to you. God will never do injustice in His administration. The human Government has made arrangement to carry on your money to the foreign country through the exchange system. Here, the Government of human authorities cannot own your earnings and therefore, such exchange system is arranged on the will of God only. Such human justice need not be violated in the divine justice if it is correct in the divine administration also. The human justice may go wrong but the divine administration will never go wrong. Therefore, the absence of such exchange system to the upper world clearly shows that the arrangement is not done since it is not at all justified. The ignorance of owning wealth is the HIV virus in the spiritual path. This attraction to wealth is mostly based on the bond with children, which is generating the process of corruption also that finally leads to hell.

The Mentality to Wealth Decides Your Fruit

[Shri Phani raised a point: A person is going from India to a foreign country with a Traveler’s cheque for a better enjoyment. Similarly, the certificate carried on by the soul gives a better enjoyment in the upper world and therefore, the system is one and the same in both the cases.]

Swami replied: There is a fundamental difference in both the systems. The money earned by you in India belongs to you because the wealth of the country is common to all the people represented by the Government. Neither the people nor the Government created the wealth of the country and cannot have the real ownership. Therefore, you can apparently own the part of the wealth according to your talent and work. There is meaning in your apparent ownership of the part of the wealth to some extent though that is also not valid in the spiritual sense. But the wealth of the country and all the people including the Government are created by God and therefore, the ownership of God is perfectly valid from all the angles. Even you are a part of His property and thus, cannot be owner of any other thing. Therefore, here, the certificate carried by the soul is purely the result of the examination and cannot be compared to a Traveler’s cheque. Of course, if the soul is going to heaven for better enjoyment, the certificate becomes similar to the Traveler’s cheque in the final phase of the result, though not in the process of the generation of certificate. Now, the point is becoming meaningful when the certificate gives you the abode of God (Brahma Loka), as in the case of Saktuprastha, who got the eternal fruit in the test of mentality towards wealth only. Getting heaven, as in the case of Pandavas, which is a temporary fruit, is in no way different from a Traveler’s cheque and its subsequent enjoyment in a foreign country. Of course, the same wealth gives a negative certificate for the hell also as in the case of Kauravas. Therefore, the mentality to the wealth is going to decide your fruit, which may be Brahma Loka or heaven or hell like first, second and third class grades. The Veda says that the sacrifice of wealth alone decides the final salvation (Dhanena…). The same Veda says that salvation cannot be obtained by dharma (karma or action) or kama, the sex (The word Prajaya in the hymn denotes kama because the Praja or child is the product of kama only.). The sacrifice of wealth (Artha) alone decides salvation. Therefore, the sacrifice of the fruit of the work is given topmost place in the Gita (Dhyanaat…). The fruit of work is superior to work because the work may give fruit on success or may not give fruit on failure. Therefore, the fruit of work indicates the better phase of work, which is the successful work. Therefore, a householder is always tested in the sacrifice of wealth only. The Lord did not test Saktuprastha, a householder, in the Vedas or songs etc., but tested in the sacrifice of wealth only. People mistake that God is for money! How foolish this idea is! What is the necessity of wealth for God when He is the owner of everything and when everything is only just His will? But do not exploit this point to escape the sacrifice of wealth in the service because you are always very clever in not leaving any opportunity of misinterpretation for selfishness. It will be just like saying that there is no need of writing the answers in the examinations since there is no need of knowing the answer for the examiner.

A saint is also tested in the work. Since there is no possibility of wealth in the case of saint, only work is relevant in his case. Therefore, the word Karma Samnyasa denotes that work is mainly for the case of Samnyasins only. The householder has to do sacrifice of fruit of work and can also do the sacrifice of work if possible. Hanuman, the saint, is tested in the sincerity and dedication to the Lord in the work while jumping the sea and while searching for Sita. The obstacles created in jumping the sea pertain to testing His sincerity in work. When Sita was not found even after a long search, He was prepared to commit suicide and this shows His dedication to the Lord. He was also tested in the aspiration for the fruit of work and thus, in the work also the context of fruit of work is inevitable even for a saint. Hanuman did all the work without any trace of aspiration for fruit in return. He was tested at the end in this aspect. Rama rewarded every worker and neglected Hanuman, the main worker, without giving any reward. Sita presented Him a chain of pearls. If we were in the place of Hanuman, can you imagine the situation? If I were Hanuman, I will be boiling for such insult. I have done so much work and I am insulted like this! I will take the chain of pearls from Sita and put on My neck thanking her since at least she remembered Me. But Hanuman rejected it stating that He wants Rama only!

Desire for Wealth

People are dying day and night to earn wealth always. They worship God intensively for earning wealth more and more and there is no end to this. The anxiety for wealth can be compared to the anxiety of a person to come out of the water when he is drowned in a lake by force. God has arranged for the basic needs of every soul even for an atheist. Even the human Government is arranging the basic needs for criminals in the prison and how can one doubt about the divine Government in this? The desire for wealth is never satisfied and in fact, it grows more and more as the wealth comes. The fire grows more and more as the ghee is poured in it (Na Kamah…).

I will tell you a small incident of one of My childhood-friends. He suffered with severe poverty and all his efforts failed in earning money. He did several worships of God but they were of no use. The silence of God here is to be properly understood. God knows that addition of ghee in fire in that case will not solve the problem. One day, he went to the Railway Station at 3 pm to commit suicide by falling down before the train. On that day, I awoke very early and went to station under the pretext of morning walk. I met him there and started giving spiritual knowledge regarding the wealth and God. I sang several devotional songs to change his mind and asked him to sing a few songs daily. I told him “Your worldly life is ruined and there is no hope of revival. At least, try to win in the spiritual life. People who commit suicide will go to hell and they have ruined not only the worldly life but also the spiritual life”. I washed his brain and he came to a decision of building-up the spiritual life leaving all the materialistic efforts to earn wealth etc. Generally, people misunderstand Me in this point. They think that I have ruined that fellow completely in the worldly life. You know what happened in that case. Within a couple of years, he became the richest man in the town through some accidental business. But he forgot Me and also left the entire spiritual life. He started singing the same songs with a different aim to grow his wealth more and more.

Recently, I met him and advised him about the change in his aim etc. I asked him to do some practical service to God by participating in the propagation of the divine knowledge by doing at least a little sacrifice of the fruit of work. You know the result! He stopped coming to My house. Previously he was coming to My house expressing his gratefulness to Me before My family. In no time, just by single will, I can bring him back to his original position. But I thought of not doing like that because in such case, he will certainly commit suicide by the shock of the turn. Let him continue in that state without further materialistic progress so that he will not be spoiled more, I thought. There may be a hope of his turn before the end of his life. If he does not turn, anyway he will go to the same hell that he wanted to reach previously through the suicide. God is never unkind. He will be either kind or neutral to His devotees. His heart is a gate without doors (Dwaraka). Dwaraka means the gate, which is always opened acting as the passage continuously. Anyone can enter at any time and they will be honored with divine love from God. Anyone in the heart of God is free to go out at any time and God is never unkind to him and God becomes just neutral by withdrawing the love to him. There is no question of anger of God on the devotees even if they insult Him.

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