Devotion

Hindu festivals often see large number of devotees throng towards religious places and there are many such place in India.

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But have you ever seen three million women celebrating a festival together with a small plane hovering above the crowd showering flowers over them?? This is the Kerala Festival for women

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I am thinking whether the God attending to their prayers is male or female?

What does 'Seva' mean to you?

When you get opportunity to do seva, are you proud? Does your ego get accelerated?

During my recent satsang meeting in January 2009 in Mumbai, this year, I saw many sevadars get frustrated when people asked for chairs? I heard one of the sevadhar shouting rudely at the devotee that she had no more chairs left and if the lady did not have ability to sit on the ground then she can very well stand in one corner for one full hour! And suddenly after ten minutes, I saw appearance of more chairs arriving when somebody known of better stature appear. Why was she lying?? Were there really no chair available (or ignorant?) or was she really frustrated with the crowd??

One of the finest qualities that one expects from a sevadar is the humility and patience.

Babaji gives special darshan to sevadhar and they are blessed, wouldn’t it be nice if they could reflect their blessings and services on more people who surround them and ask their help??

I agree, it is a tough job, arguing with the pushy ones, who want some comfort along with the discourse, but aren’t sevadhars aware of this?? How do they get so frustrated and yet are able to make things easy for people of their acquaintance?

Seva is unselfish service, full of devotion and care and if they are not able to show some empathy towards the devotees, they might as well do the seva which is easier and does not involve their emotions

Some people feel good by just donating the money, and not opt for physical seva. But I have noticed that they too worry about the benefits of their money-seva.

Once, a satsangi lady told Maharaj Ji that as she had no income of her own, she always asked her husband to give her some money for offering in seva. "Will this sewa ever benefit me? Does it have any value?"

Maharaji must have known the purpose of her seva then, He understood that people want benefits here too but, Maharaj Ji replied, "Yes if both of you are happy in giving this seva".

Maharaj Ji further explained this by giving an example of a satsangi with one leg who used to come during the bhandaras. "He used to come from the hills of Himachal, and was very poor. Just to save money to give in seva, he used to walk from his village in the hills to Dera, with the help of his crutches, covering a distance of over 75 miles.

"Once he was brought to me during 'money seva' by Mr Bolokani. He offered one rupee in seva.

"How can you value this seva? Is it not worth much more than the hundreds and thousands that the rich give?

"The value of seva is not in how much one offers, but in the feelings and love with which it is offered."

What Maharaji meant was that You do the seva (if you must) but without any selfish motives. Don’t think about the benefits, there is only one way to benefit from His grace, by obeying him and doing your bit of meditation to find Him.

Rest are all the choices that you make, if you feel that you have tolerance and patience to understand the needs of a devotee, then please continue to serve, we need you too…….

Guru, I Bow to You!

Yesterday was Guru Purnima and it was a great day to celebrate and remember the greatness of their Guru. In India, everybody has a Guru and first thing people will ask you is, ‘Who is your Guru?’. When I say ‘nobody as yet' then they are surprised and shake their head in regret telling me that there is no hope for me. I belong to a family of one Spiritual Guru, and I secretly believe and have faith in Him. He takes very good care of me. Why must I propagate my Spiritual Guru’s name in public?? Isn’t the relationship between Guru and disciple a personal matter, not to be gloated or advertised?? I respect everybody’s Gurus too. If people believe in any Guru and want to talk about his greatness, I have no problem at all but I wish they would not ask me about my beliefs. Anyways, my sister celebrated Guru Purinima in her house. Her sister-in-law is quite religious and she knows to perform many religious rites. Yours truly went to help with the decoration prior to puja Later, that evening, all the family and friends gathered in her house to sing and chant hymns while they washed the idol of their guru with oil, milk and water and then they prayed to the picture of their Guru, offering fruits and money, flowers and light from the incense coil. I was thinking of all the teachers during my school days and could not recollect any warm memories of the days with my teachers. None of the teachers ever loved me. I do remember the names of only those meanest teachers who hated me the most and they would compare me to the brightest student and point out my stupidity. Some of my teachers had promised me that I had no future at all and that I would be an idiot all my life. I have very unhappy memories of my school days cause I would be punished almost everyday and spanking was the order of the day. Some days I came home with cracked knuckles and some days with injured ear. My cheeks would always have the imprint of marks left by angry teachers. I learnt to hate them all and wanted so badly to teach them a lesson on tolerance and patience. Well, some people are lucky that they have found a good guide in their teacher and are happy to remember them on this day. It was a good feeling to see the devotion of people around me. All the people chanted happily about the greatness of their Guru and later enjoyed the feast of snacks and drink. I went away mid way, to a book store, to pay my patronage to the books at the store. Most of my life, I have done self study. Knowledge to me has come from that printed matter and it has given me all the joy. My spiritual Guru is in my heart and the printed words balms my mind. I am also grateful to my family and my close friends who have stood by me, have guided me, encouraged me and had faith in me. I am proud to be a person that I am, hopefully not as stupid as my teachers imagined me to be…...