Three powers for a great life!
God has provided three powers to every human being on this earth. The first is the power of doing, the second is the power of believing and the third is the power of understanding. These three powers from God is within every human being.
Doing, believing, and understanding…. But in the absence of spiritual discourse, the human is unable to effectively utilize these powers for the betterment of their lives. Thus, these powers are wasted and misdirected.
In return, this leads to dependency on worldly pleasures and unhappiness. This is Pathikji Maharaj, a great saint, and a holy man. In one of the poems that he wrote, he states, “What all we thought was ours in this world, all that did not stay ours forever”. Please pay attention and introspect on the depth of these lines. “What all we thought was ours in this world, all that did not stay ours forever. We cannot be with someone eternally, and we found this after exploring and pursuing it”. We attained health and wealth, we might attain the whole world, we might get all the joys of the world, but all that we thought was ours in this world, all that did not stay our forever”.
When a child is born, he or she cries, and when he grows up a little; he starts asking questions to his parents. He would ask Mother, What is this? She would say that is a crow, what is that? She would say that is the moon, what is that? that is the sun. What is that? that is the dog. What is that? She would say that is wheat growing in the field. Who is that? She would say that is your grandmother. Who is that? She would say that is your uncle. Now if he asks his parents, who am I? Pointing towards himself he asks Who am I? Even before he could raise this question, he is taught that “You are Ramesh or you are Mahesh, or that you are Sarla or you are Kanta or you are Sita or you are Gita or you are Mohini. You are etcetera. They are taught you are a Brahmin, or you are a Kshatriya or a Jain or a Marwadi or a Sindhi or Parsi or a Christian or a Sikh and so on and so forth. Even before a child tries to explore his being, he is fed what he or she is.
Now when this child grows up, as all of us did. He spends his life with this misunderstanding. Until we find a self-realized guru, who can actually tell us who we really are and about our real self. Up until that point, we continue spending our precious time, living with the misunderstanding of our true self.
We just keep wandering around with this ignorance. What would you call this? This is called wasting our power of understanding. Jai Ramji ki!
We have that power within us. God gave us that power, but we did not use this ability properly. The right use of this power would have been if we used it to know our true self. This liberated state of mind and self-realization is only attained with the help of a Guru.
That is when we realize Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What should I be doing and instead what am I doing? But the way we are taught, it is all backwards. Because of that, we are always on the wrong path, we end up misguided. It’s like, “We came to pray to God and become spiritual, instead we are spinning cotton”.
When someone renounces his or her home to become a monk, at that time they have a high sense of detachment, they have a high understanding and wisdom. They are very sensible and have enthusiasm for doing, learning, and achieving enlightenment. But if they don’t get the right company, even the best person gets misguided.
The second power is the power of believing. When we were born, we had not seen the world, nor we understood anything. We did not recognize who our parents and siblings are. We just did not have enough wisdom to understand this. At that time we were very innocent and naïve. As we grew up a little and the power of our minds expanded to understand, we were told and taught that this is your father, this is your mother, that “I am your father and this is your mother. This is your brother, and this is your sister. This is your grandmother, and this is your uncle and aunt”. And we believed. We believed because we had that power of believing within us. This ability is provided to us by God. We have never seen God. Even though you have never seen God, you believe and accept his existence and that is why you are sitting here today.
You believe in God. When you see the picture of Lord Krishna, you believe that a long time ago Lord Krishna existed in his reincarnated form. When you see the picture of Lord Rama, you believe that thousands of years ago Lord Rama incarnated on this earth. You believe that he had a personality and character as described by Tulsidas in Ramacharitmanas.
The third power is the power of doing. God has given us so much independence. He made our bodies such that we can use our hands, use our legs, see the world with our eyes, listen to the world, he gave us a mouth. You are independent to speak the way you choose to. If you want to say pleasant things or unpleasant things, it is completely upon you. He gave us the ability to see but now it is up to us, as to what we choose to watch. He gave us the ability to perform actions and deeds. Now it is up to us how we choose our actions – good deeds or actions that can destroy us. You are independent to choose your actions. God has given this power of doing and performing actions, but humans misuse and waste this power.
“My house, my family, my shop, just this egoistic my, my, my… engulfs us and all we do is perform our actions to satisfy this self-ego. We completely forget that our actions should also focus on the benefits of others, that our actions should also focus on the betterment of the disadvantaged. My God is there in every soul. I should be doing it for him.
I praise those fortunate human beings who get an opportunity to listen to spiritual discourses which helps them properly utilize these three powers bestowed upon by God. They sharpen their abilities and those who can properly utilize these three powers can lead a great and fruitful life.
Why do we revere the saints? Why do we respectfully bow down to our Guru? Why do we offer selfless service to our Guru? Why do we respect and admire holy men? It is because they have properly utilized these three powers of doing, believing, understanding. That is what makes them great. They neither feel happiness nor sorrow. They do not feel pain. It’s not that they do not face difficulties or encounter obstacles in their lives, but these difficulties do not scare or bother them. This is because they understand the secret of eternal happiness. They have thoroughly understood and adopted the ideas and solutions that can help them face the harshest of obstacles in this world without upsetting them.
Children start crying if you take away their toys from them. This is because they are innocent. We laugh at a child’s silliness and saints laugh at ours. A child might cry in an environment where crying or being unhappy might not be considered a usual response. This is because a little child is naïve and immature. In the same way, the saints laugh at us seeing that we are unhappy where we should not be unhappy. We are disturbed and perturbed in situations where we should not be. This is silliness. This is foolishness. This is stupidity. This is your lack of understanding. This lack of understanding will not be corrected in a college or university or school. This lack of understanding can only be rectified by Satsang. Jai Ramji Ki!
This lack of understanding can only be rectified by the blessings of the Guru. Therefore, those who have a spiritual Guru in their lives, are considered to have accomplished a lot. Lord Shiva’s GuruGita states that “Guru Hinastu Balish” which means that those who do not have a Guru in their lives have wasted their lives. Therefore, it is especially important to have a spiritual Guru and Guru Mantra in your life. You should chant Guru Mantra to focus your mind and senses and this is the real income of one’s life.