Essence of any Sadhana is Remembrance of God
Two carts left a village on official duty. One carried cash, the other building materials. Both were bound for the district headquarters, so they journeyed together. On reaching the destination at the end of the day, the drought animals were unyoked and all equally fed with same hay. Similarly, to God the learned and the ignorant are equal. The one with a head crammed with intelligent thoughts or beautiful ideas or a plethora of information is no nearer or dearer to God than the one with an empty head. Both have enough pride to take them to ruin. Learning for its own sake is evidently to be roundly decried; instead of making it becoming the goal of life it should be a means to attainment of God. The so-called learned often spend the whole life in just hairsplitting argument, whereas a plain man may merrily pass through life with nama on his lips and attain God. The learned man tries to first find out the attributes and properties of God, how we stand in relation to Him, whether He is aware of nama as we utter it, when nama came into existence, how it should be chanted, and so on and so forth. They carry this scrutiny to the end of their lives, which leaves no time for practising nama, and enjoying the pleasure of it. It would therefore be wise for a learned man to carryon his investigations into God and nama concurrently with chanting the latter; the doubts will get automatically resolved in course of time.
If a person is egoistic, God will mete out proper atonement for a sin committed by him; but He looks with kindly forgiveness on one whose ego is not dominant. If we commit a mistake unknowingly, and approach God in a spirit of repentful surrender, He will surely forgive us. If we dedicate all our past actions to Him with genuine remorse, He undertakes to guide us in the future.
Many, indeed, are the approaches to God; however, they involve much trouble for the body and the mind. Nama, on the other hand, is simple to chant, provided it is done with unswerving faith. Constant remembrance of God is the very core of all sadhanas; and it is the prominent aspect of nama. It is so powerful that all doubts are gradually overcome by persisting in chanting it.
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