The Divine Personally Cares for You🔗

Let me tell you an amazing incident from my own life.

During the days of my spiritual journey, I was staying in Hardwar at a place called Kankhal. I was doing tapasya (spiritual practice). Everyday morning, I used to go for alms to places where they feed monks. In Bharat, in so many ashrams, they give alms to monks. I used to get my food, eat two or three rotis (Hindu bread) and then start meditating.

One day, I fell very sick. I had a high temperature and diarrhea. I was unable to even walk. I was thinking, 'What can be done? Alright! Let it be.' Suddenly, a young sannyasi came and gave me food. Not only for one day but continuously for three to four days, he came and brought food for me. Not only food, he brought medicine also. I asked him, 'Who are you? Where have you come from?' He said, 'Oh, my name is Shankar. They call me Shankar Maharaj. I stay at an ashram called Sadhana Sadan, a nearby ashram.' He pointed towards a distant place and said that is where he stayed.

He came and brought me food and medicine everyday till I recovered. He came for at least four days. Since he was coming everyday, I started talking with him and we became acquainted. I saw that he was wearing a beautiful pen with a diamond in it. I was surprised as to how a monk got a diamond pen.

I asked him, 'What is this, Swami?' He said, 'This is a diamond pen. Some devotee gave it to me. It looks nice, so I wear it.' After several days, when my health was back to normal, he stopped coming. Then I thought, 'I must go and see him. Now I can walk and move, so I should go and see him.' I felt a little connected to him because he served me. I felt I should meet him and thank him. After about a week, I became completely alright and was able to walk.

I went searching for the ashram Shankar Maharaj had told me he was staying in. When I found the place, I asked an elderly person sitting there, 'Swamiji, I want to see Shankar Maharaj.' The swami said, 'Shankar? Who are you talking about?' I said, 'I want to see Shankar, a young swami. I met him two to three days ago. He used to come everyday and bring me food when I was not well for the past few days. Is this Sadhana Sadan?'

The swami replied, 'Yes, this is Sadhana Sadan. But in our ashram, there is only one Shankar. Go to the temple and see. He is the only Shankar Maharaj we have!' He pointed towards a particular area.

I tell you, this is the truth. When I entered the temple, I saw Shiva as a white marble statue with the same pen on the cloth draped on his upper body! The same pen was on Shiva's clothes! The same diamond pen!

Of course, tears rolled down from my eyes. So much gratitude overflowed. Later, I asked the swami, 'How did this pen come to Shiva? Who put a pen on Shiva's statue?' He said, 'One week ago, a devotee came and offered the pen. It looked nice and they said it was a diamond. We just wanted to decorate Shiva with diamond jewelry. So we put the pen on him!'

I again asked, 'Who put a pen on Shiva?' Because at least if it is some other regular kind of jewelry, we can believe it. But who would put a diamond pen on the deity?

The swami replied, 'I don't know. A devotee came and offered this pen. I said, why should a sannyasi have a diamond? I will give it to god.' So I put it on Shiva.

He then continued, 'For the last few days all the food offering, prasad that we place in front of Him, disappears. I suspect that rats have been eating the food. So now I am careful. I sit for a while after placing the food for Shankar Maharaj.'

I did not want to tell him that I was the rat who ate Shankar Maharaj's food!

During the 2006 Himalayan yatra, we searched for this ashram and Shankar Maharaj's temple. After many years, it was still the same, the same temple and the same Shankar Maharaj, but no diamond pen now!

You may say, 'This is your experience. How can this be a truth for us, Swamiji?' An ordinary mind doubts. I say, you can experiment with this truth in your life.

Miracle Vs Accident

Let me tell you that your consciousness, your inner space has the quality to create miracles in your lives. Miracles can happen in your life. What you need, you will receive. Continuously, miracles are happening. Just trust that our consciousness is connected to the universe. Continuously, the universe cares for us. The Divine waits for us. It responds to our thoughts.

We create what we want. Just as we create the whole world in our dream, similarly we have the power to create the world when we are conscious, when we are in the waking state. When we can create a world in the dream state, can't we create that in the waking state? We can do it.

You can see in your life: if you carry that self-pity, you will always attract people who abuse and disrespect you. You will always attract situations which abuse you. Actually you are happy when you are abused. You can go on brooding over it; you can constantly remember, 'See what happens to me!' We start enjoying unconsciously. It is a kind of a mental setup which enjoys all this kind of things, which doesn't want to take the responsibility and stand up.

You start blaming, 'This is how life is. This is Kali Yuga; it will be like this only. God is punishing me.' God is not a sadist; He doesn't need to punish you!

You are not an accident. You are a conscious miracle of Existence. If you are here, Existence wants you to be here in this form. Existence is fulfilling itself through you.

Be very clear, there is no effect in Existence without a cause. Whether it is a 'miracle' or 'accident', the effect always happens because of some cause, some choice you made consciously or unconsciously.

Whenever after an incident, you like the result, you call it a miracle and you feel you are responsible. If you are not comfortable with the aftermath, you call it an accident and say that you are not responsible. This is actually hypocrisy! Taking partial responsibility of your own choices is hypocrisy.

Remember, straightaway when you start seeking, you awaken the energy which attracts all the things behind which you were running. This is the third truth; it is from my very experience. If you start internalizing it, you will see that it starts happening inside you.

If the old blueprint is erased and a new blueprint is created, the ability to take responsibility starts happening inside you. You will see you will start attracting even wealth.

You may think it is little impractical. No; please understand, I am not talking about what will happen after enlightenment. No! I am not talking about that. I am talking about even simple seeking. When you start the intense seeking, even seeking can release an amazing energy inside you, which will start attracting all the objects, persons, things, behind which you were running.

You may think it is a false promise. No. I tell you from my experience and my experience with millions of disciples.

Sometimes people come and tell me, 'For the last twenty years, I have been a seeker. But I don't have wealth; I am broke and sick.' Be very clear, maybe you are justifying your laziness as seeking. You don't want to contribute anything; you just go around, wandering in the name of seeking. And you are trying to justify your laziness as seeking.

A sincere seeker awakens a different energy inside him. He can attract, pull anything he wants in his life.

Right Reasoning

The whole problem why we are not able to relate with these mystical truths is our way of thinking. See, there are three types of logic as explained by the enlightened master Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras: tarka or simple logic, kutarka or negative reasoning and vitarka or the right reasoning beyond the simple logic or negative reasoning.

To explain all these three, I can give an incident from my own life.

As a young boy, I used to have a small idol of lord Ganesha with me and I would do puja (worship) everyday to that Ganesha. I would pour water, put little food in front of Ganesha and wave the lights, wave the camphor. It was like really I was living with Him. I was not just doing some puja, I was living with Him. There was a strong feeling of connection.

The whole day I would be sitting, fanning Him, or doing whatever I can. Anything given to me I would bring it and put it in front of Him. I used to go to satsangs (spiritual gatherings) as a small boy*. One day at a satsang*, the teacher was narrating an incident from the life of the saint Nambiyandar Nambi. He was a great saint born and brought up in South Bharat. The teacher was describing an incident from his life as a young boy.

The boy's father used to worship Ganesha in a temple every day. One day the father fell sick and he asked the son to go and do the worship. The son went with the food and all the worship articles. He did the worship and put the food in front of Ganesha. He thought Ganesha used to really eat every day. He was doing puja for the first time, so he thought Ganesha was supposed to eat. And he was sitting, waiting for Ganesha to eat.

Half an hour, one hour, two hours, the food was there untouched. The boy started worrying, 'What happened? Did I do anything wrong? Ganesha is not eating.' And he started talking to the deity but there was no response. Then he started telling, 'If you don't eat and if I go back, my father may fire me. He may shout at me, please do something. If I have done some mistakes, forgive me. Please eat.' Of course, Ganesha did not eat.

Suddenly, the boy felt deep trust or shraddha towards Ganesha. He felt Ganesha had to eat. He started weeping, 'Till you eat, I am not going to leave this place.' Five to six hours were over, but the food was there, Ganesha was sitting. Then the boy went to the extreme, he gave a suicidal threat. He said, 'I will hit my head on these steps and die if you don't eat,' and he started hitting his head.

Understand, even the doubt did not exist, he just knew that Ganesha was going to eat. He started hitting his head and the story says suddenly Ganesha appeared and ate the food and blessed him. When the boy went back to his father, the father asked what happened, where the food was. He said, 'Ganesha ate!' The father could not believe this! He questioned the boy, 'Did Ganesha eat or did you eat?'

The surprised boy innocently said, 'No, Ganesha ate! If you want to see, please come, I will show you.' Then he took his father and there the father saw the mouth of Ganesha smeared with the remains of the food. The story says the father fell at the feet of the son saying, 'All these years, what I was only doing as a ritual, you made it as reality, you made it as Truth.'

When I heard this story, suddenly I decided, I will also feed my Ganesha. I was possessed by a strong shraddha. See, when you are possessed by shraddha, you will not have kutarka or negative reasoning at all. I decided I will also make Ganesha eat. This is tarka, simple logic. When he made Ganesha eat, why not me?

I was brought up in a joint family. In the family, there was an old lady who was one of my relations like my grandmother. If the kids did not eat, she would always threaten them, 'Hey, I will put you inside the well.' There was a huge well in the center of the house. She would shout, 'I will put you inside the well.' So I had heard only that logic. So naturally what will I do? I went and put little food in front of Ganesha and told Him to eat.

When I saw that after half an hour He did not eat, I started using the same technique, 'I will put you in the well!' This is what is kutarka. Please understand, I had heard only that. The old lady had taught me kutarka. So just like her, I started shouting threats to Ganesha. I started using the same words she was using, 'Better eat now or you are going to be in the well...' But Ganesha was there silently. I decided I am going to put Him in the well.

What the old lady used to do was, she would hold the kid, and take little food in the other hand and show the well, 'See, see! I will drop you!' These kids would open their mouth and cry, 'Aaaah', and she would put the food inside. That was the way she would feed the kids. I decided I would also do the same thing with my Ganesha.

I took the Ganesha in one hand and food in the other hand, and I showed Ganesha the well, 'Eh, see the well, I will throw you inside!' But He did not open His mouth. I tried two or three times, then I decided to change my way of getting Him to eat. There used to be a vessel in which they would take water from the well. I put Ganesha in the vessel. I started lowering, threatening Him, 'See, I will really drown you, I will really drown you…'

When the vessel was about to touch the water level, suddenly I realized, maybe now He would have changed his mind and He wanted to eat, but there was no food in the vessel. So I brought Him out, put the food also in the vessel and started lowering Him again. The vessel was almost close to the water level but nothing happened.

I did not have the mind to really put Ganesha into the water also. It was too much. He really meant a lot for me. And it was a very strong relationship. So I could only threaten, I could not put Him in the well actually.

Finally, I took Him out. I said, 'Alright, maybe He did not like the cooking, maybe He did not like the food.' See how the kutarka works! Kutarka says everything is wrong, except you!

Then I started thinking the food is not right. Maybe my mother was not cooking properly. I went to the temple where they offer food to the deities. I thought that the food at the temple was eaten by deities every day. So I went to the temple cook. I used to do lot of voluntary work at the temple as a young boy, like washing the vessels and cleaning the floor.

So I asked the cook, 'Will you give me little food for my Ganesha?' He said, 'Why little food? Have more.' He gave lots of food. I brought it to the house and said to Ganesha, 'See, I brought the same diet which you eat at the temple every day. Now there is no reason, no excuse. Come on, eat! I was continuously sitting for maybe three or four hours but He was still not eating. I said, 'I brought the food you eat everyday at the temple. Why are You not eating? I am not going to let you off today!' So again I put Him in that bucket and started lowering Him into the well.

By then I had actually memorized all the abusive words my grandmother used to say to make a child eat! All those words, like a sloka (chant) I memorized and started repeating. I really thought those words were very powerful, they would make Him eat. And all the techniques I had tried with my old diet, I tried everything step by step with this new diet. I put Him in the bucket and as the bucket was about to touch the water, I even started shouting, 'Are you listening to what I am saying?' Of course He was not eating. But I could not drown Him because it was a very strong relationship, very loving relationship. So what to do? I took Him out. I can say I was really depressed, very worried.

I was sitting in a completely low mood, not knowing what to do! See, if my grandmother did all these things to any child, the child ate. And I knew only those techniques. I didn't know any other technique. I had not read any book on how to feed Ganesha or how to feed kids! Whatever manual was there in front of me, that whole thing I had tried. Nothing worked. So I was sitting. And the Ganesha was lying there.

One nice thing with shraddha or trust is, even if you start with kutarka, the power of trust is such, the power of shraddha is such, it turns the whole thing to vitarka. Please understand, the power of trust is such even if you start with the wrong logic it turns the whole thing to right logic. Because the trust is not just energy or logic, it is intelligence.

Tarka is logic, kutarka is negative logic and vitarka is trust with positive energy and logic.

The shraddha is so powerful, suddenly something clicked in me. I can say this was one of the powerful clicks that happened in my life. I realized that Nambiandar Nambi, the saint who made Ganesha to eat, tortured himself and not Ganesha. But here I was torturing Ganesha and not myself. In this strong click that kutarka became vitarka. The wrong reasoning became right reasoning. When that click happened I thought, 'Right! Yes!'

Nambiandar Nambi found fault with himself when Ganesha did not eat. When Ganesha did not eat the food, he found fault with himself, not with Ganesha or not with something else, not with the diet. In my case, I was complaining about Ganesha. I was trying what my granny was trying, I was talking about diet, I was thinking that my mother was not cooking properly and I was thinking about everything in the outer world. I was having kutarka, I was finding fault with everything external.

Suddenly I realized, I turned and looked in, 'The problem must be within me. Let me work.' That vitarka or click happened, the right reasoning happened. Please understand, it was a very strong click, 'Yes, with Nambiandar Nambi, he did tapas, but in my case I am torturing Ganesha. Let me do tapas.'

See, shraddha is like a loaded gun. When the right vitarka happens with shraddha, it is like triggering a gun. Without shraddha, without the strong trust, the kutarka can never become vitarka, the wrong reasoning can never become right reasoning.

With shraddha, when the right reasoning happens, the trigger is pulled. The trigger was pulled, the loaded gun fired. Trust is like a loaded gun and when right reasoning happens, vitarka happens, the gun is triggered.

Understand, suddenly the click happened, 'Yes, it is time I look inside, I turn inside and change something in me.' Then I decided now I am not going to eat till Ganesha ate. It was a strong will. Even in those days, I used to be very strong-willed. Once I decided, it had to happen, that's all.

I was sitting with Ganesha, brought the food, arranged everything. Actually I used to have a small shrine like a temple at the back of my house. I would be staying and spending time only there. I can say that is the first ashram I built for myself and for my deities! I used to spend my time there so that nobody would disturb me in the house. Usually they would send the food or I would go and bring my food, otherwise I would be spending time at my little shrine. So I sat with all the arrangements for Ganesha to eat.

I was very clear because of the trust, the shraddha. There was no doubt. See, if He did not eat, there was some problem with me, that's all! But about the incident itself there was no doubt. The possibility that Ganesha came and ate in Nambiandar Nambi's life, that incident was a reality for me. The factuality of that incident I never questioned.

Understand, the kutarka which happened with the factualities of our puranas is the worst thing that happened to the Hindu consciousness. Whether it happened because of Hindus themselves or because some foreign invasion taught it to them, that is the worst thing that happened to Hindus. The kutarka happened with the Vedic tradition, with the great puranas.

Please understand, I am working with thousands and thousands of patients, means people with different kinds of diseases. In Bharat I am well known for healing different kinds of patients, diseases etc. In the last six years I don't know how many people have been healed and helped.

In my experience, I have started understanding many important secrets about body and mind. I have read many of them in the Upanishads or the Puranas or the traditional scriptures, but experientially now I have started realizing. Please understand, literally what you believe as your body and mind becomes reality in ten to twenty days in your life. I have seen this happening.

What system you believe works for your body from the young age, that system actually works for you. From the young age, for what system your vitarka is developed, your right reasoning is built, that system exactly works for you. From the young age if a person is taught by somebody that yoga will work for him and he grows with that one idea, the yogic solutions straight away cure that person. There is no other logic.

From the young age, if somebody is brought up with the idea siddha works for his body and if two or three times the doctor gave him some siddha medicine and it worked for him, he is convinced siddha straightaway works for him. The idea with which his vitarka is developed, that straightaway works for him. If you are brought up with the idea or the right reasoning that puranas are reality, please understand, I promise, you can straightaway see those puranic deities and the heroes and relate with them!

Very beautifully, Aurobindo, a great modern-day master from the Vedic tradition, in one of his amazing books Savitri, beautifully says, the deities and gods and heroes and different energies described in puranas, are the physical manifestations of particular energies corresponding to the Cosmic Consciousness. They are the cosmic conscious representations. For example, Devi represents the Mother energy of the Cosmos, which gives birth, which reproduces, which creates. She represents that energy and you can connect with that energy through the manifestation with which you are brought up.

Please understand, if you are made to understand the trust that this is the form of Devi, if you connect to this form, you will connect to Mother Nature. If this vitarka is developed in your system, please understand you have a channel open for you to create miracles in your life; you are a superhuman.

Please understand, it is like the difference between having a ten channel television network and a hundred channel network. If you are brought up with this right reasoning, with this right vitarka, you are like a hundred channel television network. Now, you have the unique capabilities of expressing miracles in your life. You are capable of attracting miracles in your life. Your very being, your very consciousness is capable enough of creating the miracles.

Understand, I am working with millions of disciples. With my own experience I tell you, whoever has grown with that vitarka, I am able to heal them, play or express miracles in their life directly. One word is enough, that's all!

Anyways, coming back to the incident, I was sitting with Ganesha. One day was over and the food was there. I was very strong, there was no question of eating till He ate. I would go and bring food from the house and keep the food in front of Ganesha and I would sit. I would remove the old food, throw it away and sit.

One day was over, one night was over and I was not even sleepy, I was just sitting. The second day was also over. But I was very strong. See, for a small boy without food, naturally the logic would be imbalanced, the willpower will come down. I said, 'Nothing doing, I am going to do it. Till He eats I am not going to eat.'

Maybe on the third day, I touched that zone when this trust and vitarka, right reasoning, both became part of my very biomemory, the prarabdha. That is when that explosion happened. Suddenly, I fell into some state, surely not unconscious, and I saw very clearly, Ganesha sitting in front of me and eating! If it hurts your kutarka, I am sorry. Again, but I have to tell you the truth. When I opened my eyes and saw, I promise there was no food, the food had disappeared!

Whatever way you want to understand, you can understand. But the food was not there. And I know Ganesha ate. Maybe, people with kutarka can tell, 'Who knows when you were closing eyes, some rat could have come and eaten!' Whether Ganesha ate, His mouse ate, let the kutarkis think about that, I don't know about that!

But I know for sure, Ganesha ate. Because when He eats, He gives you some prasad means He gives you some benefits and boons. A strong trust, an extraordinary ecstasy, those are the prasadas, gifts, boons from the Lord. I received that prasad, I knew He ate. I had that experience in me so I know He ate. Even though it looks little strong, understand, what I say is honest truth. It is honest truth, that's all I can say.

Maybe the power of these words, the truth and strength behind these words will directly work on you. You don't even have to believe. You don't even have to have tarka or kutarka. You will see the power of these words because this is vitarka, this is satya. It will automatically create the right vitarka in you, the right reasoning in you.

I wanted you to understand this incident, my experience, so that you understand about right reasoning. Please understand, when I heard that master's story and started thinking, 'When he can, why not me?' that is tarka. When I started trying the wrong method, wrong technique, it is kutarka. And because of my trust, when the right thing clicked, it is vitarka.