Saturday, September 7, 2013

Therefore, in this marketplace of the world, carry on work with your body and wealth, and allow your mind to go towards God.

SAYINGS OF SHANKARACHARYA SWAMI BRAHMANANDA SARASWATI


'Having become a devotee of God one can never remain unhappy. This is
our experience. The ego (Jiva) is going on doing its work from several
births; its tendency to work exists from time immemorial. Therefore, if
the work is just started with a little co-operation of the mind it
shall continue to go on just like the wagon moving a long way off ...
if it is just jerked and pushed by the engine. It is necessary to
bifurcate the work of the mind as main and secondary. Apply your body
mainly and your mind secondarily to you work (vyarabara).

When your mind is mainly engaged in God you shall receive his grace,
God is all-powerful. Even a little of His grace is capable of bestowing
on the ego all that is good in its entirety. The declaration of the
Lord that is proved by the scriptures is this; "Whosoever thinks of Me
with one-pointed devotion, I shall conduct his necessary work also".
The experience of the bhaktis also goes to prove the declaration of the
Lord. Accumulate wealth (artha), but in such a way that is not against
transcendental wealth (param-artha). That which hinders transcendental
wealth and results in accumulation in sin is not wealth but a burden, a
debt (anartha).

As is the cloth, so is the price. For carrying on the short-lived
activities of the work, employ your short-lived body and wealth. Mind
is a permanent thing, which remains with you always. Even in the other
world it will continue to stay with you. Therefore connect it with a
permanent thing, God, being the eternal existence in animate and
inanimate things, is the only permanent thing of the highest order.
Therefore connect your mind with Him. If the mind is satisfied with
wealth, wife or children, why does it go elsewhere? Because if cannot
stick onto anything. From this it is clear that it is not satisfied
with anything of the mundane world. It runs after things, taking them
to be good and desirable, but after a short while it leaves them.

Nobody wants your mind in this world, and the mind is not satisfied
with anything of the world. The mind is not fit for the world, or the
world for the mind. When the mind realizes God, it is permanently
established there and does not desire other things. From this we can
understand that God alone is fit for the mind and nothing else.

Keep this in mind; that your mind, which is not wanted by anyone else
in this world, is useful to take you near God. Therefore, in this
marketplace of the world, carry on work with your body and wealth, and
allow your mind to go towards God. Then your work in this world will
get on well, and the path to transcendental wealth will also be clear.'

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