dattaswami Posted May 12, 2007 Report Share Posted May 12, 2007 The right way to view misery in life When Prahlada ( a child devotee, he has been tortured by demons for his devotion on God) was tortured, he cried taking the name of the Lord but never asked for the protection. He understood that the torture is taking him up to the climax of devotion. He always thanked the Lord for his exceptional kindness since God is giving him intensive coaching in devotion. His devotion reached the sky due to the torture. But every step of the torture failed at the end to prove the existence of God. If you are in the place of Prahlada, you will blame God for interfering in the last second after such a long torture. You will feel that you have wasted lot of time in the long span of torture. You will feel that God is cruel and finally became kind due to your pathetic appeals. But Prahlada thanked God for such long torture, which is the intensive coaching of devotion, and he was happier because the existence of God is also proved at the end. If you are not devoted to God during difficulties and if you have wasted that precious time in useless worry and tension, you have really lost the time. If you have used these difficulties for provoking your devotion more and more, you have used the difficulties very well. Once the interval of happiness comes, you are going to be lazy and egoistic and thus in happiness you cannot even dream about the devotion. You feel lazy in taking even name of the God in happiness. People who have missed the devotion in difficulties are unfortunate because they have suffered without any use. Therefore, difficulties are your golden opportunities to develop your devotion. If you have simply suffered the difficulties just for the sake of finishing the punishment without developing the devotion using those difficulties, even your silent suffering is also a big wastage. The Advaita scholar suffers the difficulties with patience and detachment by confining to the self. He does not use these difficulties to develop the devotion to the God and to cry for God. In happiness, you will not utter even the name of God and there is no point of crying for God. Only in difficulties you can cry for God and develop your devotion to the sky. Prahlada used the torture for developing his devotion to the climax by crying for the Lord. He did not detach from the body and confined to the self like an Advaita scholar to suffer the torture with detachment. You must realize the beautiful intention and design behind the miseries, which alone can develop devotion to God. Of course this devotion is theoretical because it is related to the mind. However, without the theory, where is the birth of practical? The love on God present in the mind alone can lead you in to practice, which is the service. Hence, you cannot rule out the theory for a beginner. If a person enters into practice straightly in this life, it means he had sufficient theory in previous birth, which is following soul as a strong feeling (Samskara or Vasana). At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami Anil Antony www.universal-spirituality.org Universal Spirituality for World Peace antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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