Find the Way to Create Love for God
The devotees and other people around a saint are often seen to be as morally depraved as the common run of people. This need not surprise us. If we visit a hospital, we are only likely to come across patients, not healthy people. Similarly, most people come to a saint to get relief from some worldly difficulty or other. What likelihood is there of getting such help from a saint in worldly matters who has renounced worldly life? It would evidently be advisable to consult a practical man than to refer to a saint. It is quite another matter, though, that chanting of nama, even if resorted to for relief in sickness, will not go unrewarded spiritually.
The saints deserve the world's gratitude for having discovered the root-cause of misery, and pin-pointed it to be the desire, to have or not to have a particular thing or situation. It is this desire that deprives us of steady satisfaction. There are only a few who aspire for God, and most of them want Him, not for His own sake but as a strong support for their worldly affairs. One who really wants God for His own sake will undoubtedly find permanent satisfaction, irrespective of age, education, intelligence, or wealth. All that is needed is earnest desire, yearning.
Paramartha is by no means a matter of conjecture. We feel it is beyond our capacity because we only talk about it, and never act. For our inaction we can always advance excuses galore. Even Arjuna, the great warrior, started giving excuses when Lord Krishna asked him to stand and fight the opponents on the battlefield; this made the Lord feel sorry. Ego, the "body-am-I" delusion, leads one to citing excuses to by-pass even the Lord's behests. If a man's daughter falls ill in a distant place, he will rush to that place, out of anxiety; but he advances all kinds of excuses if asked to go to Varanashi on pilgrimage. It is a great sin to give excuses.
A rich man may, under his guru's orders, give away all he possesses, but he will be unable to forget that act. He does not realise that the one who advises the gift is the real donor. Today, prapancha claims all our attention, our love; we must divert it and apply it solely to God.
* * * * *
