Chapter 11 - Complete Happiness
Day 60
When you are doing these practices, do not worry if obstacles come up. It is natural that they come. You say, "Gurudev, I meditated and did everything, but I'm the same person I was. I haven't changed."
Not only you, but your wife, children and the people you know say, "What is the use of going to satsang? You haven't changed a bit. Show us what has changed in you. What is the point of going?"
This is the question that the young ask their elders : “What did you learn by meditating? You aren't peaceful. You still get angry”.
“There was some change - you were better for a while, one or two months, then you returned to your normal behaviour." It is not surprising if people say this.
It is possible that in between, at some places, you will come across such problems. It is not necessary, but it is not unusual if you encounter such problems. It is natural.
Accept it as part of the process because in time everything will be all right again. Sometimes you will be lazy, and later laziness will disappear. It is not possible to always be lazy.
Anybody, no matter how lazy he is, will one day feel like getting out of his bed and doing something. At some point he will be filled with consciousness and life.
Similarly, even a man full of consciousness could become lazy one day. Even Vishnu slept, and not for one or two days but for an eternity - eternal rest.
We also sleep, and we put God to sleep to and wake Him up for ten days. Go to a temple and you can see them celebrate shayanotsava, the festival of sleep.
It is like we are saying, “It is a problem if God is always awake. So we pray for him to give us what we want and then go back to sleep”.
Even Venkateshvara of Tirupati cannot open his eyes because of all the sandalwood-powder we have put on him. He only has varadahasta, gift-giving hands.
It is as if we have requested, "Please, keep giving, but keep your eyes closed. Do not open them. Do not discriminate when you give."
There is a good lesson here. Whatever you give should be free from any strings. Do not differentiate between good and bad people.
What would happen if God started discriminating? "Keep giving me your grace and keep being kind, whether or not I have done good. If you do not do good, who will? Do not look at my karma,"
They said, and after a lot of thought, they placed a mark on his forehead. It is not a small mark either, but a very big one. It not only covers his eyes but stretches down to the tip of his nose.
There is some humour in this and also some fun. The mark on Venkateshvara's forehead was not made just like that. It came after lots of thought in the past.
We think that God does not like fun. Actually, God loves fun, and that is why there is so much diversity in nature. Look at nature. Everything undergoes transformation.
New desires keep arising. That is nature's secret and its beauty. The self is changing. Similarly, you should also be transforming. This is the way to progress in our sadhana.
That is the reason the poet Akka Mahadevi said, "You do not accept offerings from those who are not transforming." Why do we say "naivedya," offering?
When an offering is placed in the mouth, it will not stay in the same form once it is in the stomach. A banana changes the moment it enters the mouth.
Some chemical reaction takes place, and as it passes through the throat, stomach, small and large intestines, it keeps changing, and by then it has transformed and had an effect on the entire body.
When it leaves out the other end, it will have an entirely different form. Any offering that you take in has an effect on the body. This is a truth. Have you ever thought about this?
Just as an offering or what is consumed gets transformed, life is being swallowed by time. As time swallows you, if you move ahead with the wish to transform you will arrive at the ultimate happiness.
That is why it says, "You do not accept offerings where there is no transformation. Do you know why nobody eats stones or sand? Stones and sand will not be changed by a chemical reaction or undergo transformation once you eat them.
So they cannot be offerings. Similarly, if you are like sand or like a stone, what is the use? It is better to be an offering, like a fruit or a leaf.
However your life may be, whether like leaves, water, the harvest, fruits or flowers, however it may be, offer it with devotion. Your life itself is like the fruit, like the harvest.
It is not just that you go to the market, buy a banana and offer it to God. You become an offering, and it is only when you are transforming that you are qualified to be offered.
If in your head you carry the past around - thoughts from yesterday, the day before yesterday, or 10 years back - then you become like sand, you become absolutely inert.
Experience life anew every day. Then life becomes a proper offering. "You do not accept offerings from those who are not transforming.
