It's often said that in matters of spiritual evolution one does not have the luxury of a measurement gauge, where as successes etc can be measured quite easily in the secular regime. While I have no great quarrel over this pearl of wisdom, what gives me unease is God's unique way of rewarding guys. If I cite instances from our own secular world we live in, I will likely encounter this additional bogey of a" bias" in addition to the charge of my being an eternal pessimist & a maverick. So I will stick to mythology..
There is this great Krishna Bhakth by name Sudama/Kuchelar -- a penniless Brahmin -- in total bliss with his eternal "Prem" for Lord Krishna. But survival in the secular world, especially for his wife & family, is a miserable affair. So, with a great deal of effort, she forces her husband to meet this great friend of his -- Krishna- to seek financial help to improve matters.
Sudama is embarrassed, but yet has no choice but to heed to his wife's request, & goes to see the Lord. The story is poignantly romantic but that's not the subject of this narration. So to cut it short, even before Sudamaa reaches Him, his family/ house, all are simply transformed by a shower of immense riches. Poor Sudama, after seeing the Lord, he forgets even to ask Him what he came there for. He returns, overjoyed with darshan of his beloved Lord, only to find that he is now immensely rich.
Maha Bali Maharaj was an Asura but a devotee of Lord Vishnu besides being a very noble King. Because he is a very powerful Asura, Vishnu had to take an avatar - Vamana- to finish him (I feel terrible to use this word "finish" but let that pass).
The 5 year old Vamana immediately after His initiation into Upanayanam/gayathri upadesa, goes to the King to ask for "bhiksha". The King asks the boy as to what he wants (some pundits add "arrogantly" a bit unfairly) The Lord only wants three steps of space, measured by HIM, & when the king offers it without a demur, the little boy Vamana, covers the entire Creation with His two steps, and asks the king as to where He should place His third. The King then offers his own head.
Lord is so pleased with this humility, that He gives him Immortality, offers a kingdom where He Himself is the Sentry Man guarding the gates of the kingdom.
To the penniless saranagathin Sudama He offers riches of the secular,& to the powerful & rich Asura king, reveling in secular nirvana, He gives a different kind of "moksh" namely immortality.
Well folks, it would appear (to me at least) that while Sudama has to first become rich, before He gets his ultimate Moksh, the king gets there much faster. The Bhaktha goes to Him, asks for nothing but eternal Bhakthi & yet gets everything that money can buy. But it's the Lord who goes to the secular King, to give him Moksh, which again he did not possibly expect.
Giving Sudama "Moksh", would have been an anti-climax perhaps. Sudama was poor, he had a huge family to support, so the obvious thing was to give him riches first & then take him aboard later.
As to the king ; The Avatar was to rid him but he gets immortality. What else could be more apt for the one who had everything else?
By any chance does it then follow that one has to get to saturation limits in the material world first, before He takes you into His spiritual moksh?
And does it also follow that He makes only those guys rich who are ripe for "moksh" & I can have no reservations if an Ambani or any one of those stinkingly rich guy gets an easier & quicker path to Moksh?
Krishna also says that one cannot ask for fruits of his/her action but there are no bars to pray & seek boons galore going by countless episodes in texts. If I am poor I have two options: (a) Pray & get boons if He so wills, & (b) Surrender & seek moksh, but when He condescends & listens He will still make me rich first before giving me "moksh". If I am rich, I do not have to ask, I am already on my path, & He will come & deliver me.
The only catch I see in all these: One can get astray after He showers riches. But I see no reason for this. After recognizing you, why should He abandon you?
The inescapable surmise therefore is simply this: The poor have a long way to go, the rich indeed are blessed, contrary to that great famous Christs cry "Blessed are the poor".
So the moment He showers me with riches I will know I am in the right path..... The metrics indeed are available apparently,quite contrary to the well known pearl of wisdom. .
No wonder every blessing the sages, the Gurus give you is Dhanam, Dhaanyam, bahu putra laabham, shata samvatsaram etc etc, all well within the secular sphere.....
So should I start asking for riches as there is no bar for asking & lose out possibly (but very unlikely) on Moksh or be like Sudama; ask nothing & get rich some day & Moksh some other distant day, leaving it all to His Will?
Should I take a banned but effective drug to get rid of my immediate problem namely a headache or go to the root cause & wait eternally to rid me of both the headache as well as the root cause in liberation?
Answer is not easy.....Alas, it is scary. Here is a perfect U turn to what I have been led to believe, and what I had faith "In" namely the only purpose of my current life cycle is to strive to return to HIM. But today, He probably is telling me that I have to live life to the full in His created secular world before He takes me back, & will have to patiently wait for the signs to emerge namely some riches coming my way!!!.
Without a guru, talking about Moksh etc is meaning less say the Gurus. They are however not easily access-able for guidance, and it is not easy for one who aspires for a better secular dispensation, to be easily in "jignyaasaa". (Moksham ichha Jignyaasaa.....)
"Don't worry, be happy" is a famous Holy wood song ! But how?
A very few Gyaanis by an act of renunciation reach the ultimate stage of oneness, says one of the Upanishads, but to me it appears more like "a large number of agyaanis reach that ultimate stage as God loves them".
Ignorance indeed seems to be Bliss .......
Ekalavya alias Vichu
There is this great Krishna Bhakth by name Sudama/Kuchelar -- a penniless Brahmin -- in total bliss with his eternal "Prem" for Lord Krishna. But survival in the secular world, especially for his wife & family, is a miserable affair. So, with a great deal of effort, she forces her husband to meet this great friend of his -- Krishna- to seek financial help to improve matters.
Sudama is embarrassed, but yet has no choice but to heed to his wife's request, & goes to see the Lord. The story is poignantly romantic but that's not the subject of this narration. So to cut it short, even before Sudamaa reaches Him, his family/ house, all are simply transformed by a shower of immense riches. Poor Sudama, after seeing the Lord, he forgets even to ask Him what he came there for. He returns, overjoyed with darshan of his beloved Lord, only to find that he is now immensely rich.
Maha Bali Maharaj was an Asura but a devotee of Lord Vishnu besides being a very noble King. Because he is a very powerful Asura, Vishnu had to take an avatar - Vamana- to finish him (I feel terrible to use this word "finish" but let that pass).
The 5 year old Vamana immediately after His initiation into Upanayanam/gayathri upadesa, goes to the King to ask for "bhiksha". The King asks the boy as to what he wants (some pundits add "arrogantly" a bit unfairly) The Lord only wants three steps of space, measured by HIM, & when the king offers it without a demur, the little boy Vamana, covers the entire Creation with His two steps, and asks the king as to where He should place His third. The King then offers his own head.
Lord is so pleased with this humility, that He gives him Immortality, offers a kingdom where He Himself is the Sentry Man guarding the gates of the kingdom.
To the penniless saranagathin Sudama He offers riches of the secular,& to the powerful & rich Asura king, reveling in secular nirvana, He gives a different kind of "moksh" namely immortality.
Well folks, it would appear (to me at least) that while Sudama has to first become rich, before He gets his ultimate Moksh, the king gets there much faster. The Bhaktha goes to Him, asks for nothing but eternal Bhakthi & yet gets everything that money can buy. But it's the Lord who goes to the secular King, to give him Moksh, which again he did not possibly expect.
Giving Sudama "Moksh", would have been an anti-climax perhaps. Sudama was poor, he had a huge family to support, so the obvious thing was to give him riches first & then take him aboard later.
As to the king ; The Avatar was to rid him but he gets immortality. What else could be more apt for the one who had everything else?
By any chance does it then follow that one has to get to saturation limits in the material world first, before He takes you into His spiritual moksh?
And does it also follow that He makes only those guys rich who are ripe for "moksh" & I can have no reservations if an Ambani or any one of those stinkingly rich guy gets an easier & quicker path to Moksh?
Krishna also says that one cannot ask for fruits of his/her action but there are no bars to pray & seek boons galore going by countless episodes in texts. If I am poor I have two options: (a) Pray & get boons if He so wills, & (b) Surrender & seek moksh, but when He condescends & listens He will still make me rich first before giving me "moksh". If I am rich, I do not have to ask, I am already on my path, & He will come & deliver me.
The only catch I see in all these: One can get astray after He showers riches. But I see no reason for this. After recognizing you, why should He abandon you?
The inescapable surmise therefore is simply this: The poor have a long way to go, the rich indeed are blessed, contrary to that great famous Christs cry "Blessed are the poor".
So the moment He showers me with riches I will know I am in the right path..... The metrics indeed are available apparently,quite contrary to the well known pearl of wisdom. .
No wonder every blessing the sages, the Gurus give you is Dhanam, Dhaanyam, bahu putra laabham, shata samvatsaram etc etc, all well within the secular sphere.....
So should I start asking for riches as there is no bar for asking & lose out possibly (but very unlikely) on Moksh or be like Sudama; ask nothing & get rich some day & Moksh some other distant day, leaving it all to His Will?
Should I take a banned but effective drug to get rid of my immediate problem namely a headache or go to the root cause & wait eternally to rid me of both the headache as well as the root cause in liberation?
Answer is not easy.....Alas, it is scary. Here is a perfect U turn to what I have been led to believe, and what I had faith "In" namely the only purpose of my current life cycle is to strive to return to HIM. But today, He probably is telling me that I have to live life to the full in His created secular world before He takes me back, & will have to patiently wait for the signs to emerge namely some riches coming my way!!!.
Without a guru, talking about Moksh etc is meaning less say the Gurus. They are however not easily access-able for guidance, and it is not easy for one who aspires for a better secular dispensation, to be easily in "jignyaasaa". (Moksham ichha Jignyaasaa.....)
"Don't worry, be happy" is a famous Holy wood song ! But how?
A very few Gyaanis by an act of renunciation reach the ultimate stage of oneness, says one of the Upanishads, but to me it appears more like "a large number of agyaanis reach that ultimate stage as God loves them".
Ignorance indeed seems to be Bliss .......
Ekalavya alias Vichu
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