The path of true worship involves three essential constituents: Upasana (sitting close to God, like two bodies and one soul), Sadhana (leading a correct, righteous life) and Aradhana ( service to humanity).
The enclosed text here explains the "rewards of public service " and how to engage in public service? In the below mentioned excerpt, Shriram Sharma Acharya also explains why public service is rewarding and why we should all engage in the same. He shares experiences from his own personal life and shares the rewards that accrued to him personally.He also explains that public service when done with a personal motive loses its rewards for the doer.
The enclosed excerpt is from the book - "My Life its Legacy and Message" authored by Shriram Sharma Acharya. The excerpt is full of wonderful examples and analogies and is a must read.
The enclosed excerpt is from the book - "My Life its Legacy and Message" authored by Shriram Sharma Acharya. The excerpt is full of wonderful examples and analogies and is a must read.
The responsibility for Public Service therefore lies with people who do have the resources to do good.
Gurudev had told me on the very first day of my meeting with him, “Whatever you possess, learn to sow it in the form of seeds in the field of Supreme God, the Virat Brahma .”
On sowing, one grain, that grain is bound to multiply a hundred times. Gurudev quoted the instance of Jalaram Bapa who was a cultivator. He used to spend all his savings in feeding the needy. God was extremely pleased with him and gave him such a perennial bag, the contents of which never got exhausted. The free kitchen that he started is still working at Virpur, a village in Gujarat in which thousands of devoted people take food every day. A person who invests his money for public service gets ready and glad cooperation from the divine. However, a person who accumulates money , keeps his money unused and goes on amassing more and more is never blessed in the same way.
Under Gurudev's direction, I decided to surrender my all viz. (1) competence to do physical labour; (2) capacity to do mental work; (3) sentiments and feelings and (4) and ancestral property, at the feet of God. I applied all the aforesaid four-fold wealth with deep faith and devotion for specific purposes and the return was a hundred times more. I did physical work for twelve hours daily and never got tired. My efficiency on the other hand went on increasing. Even at this old age, I have the capacity to work as hard as a young man. Both mental and physical work were done side by side and old age has never adversely affected my work and morale.
I have immensely loved people and have been in return profusely loved by them. Besides getting personal affection, respect and goodwill, people whole- heartedly responded to my appeals for working for this mission.
A grain of bajra or maize on being sown ripens and multiplies into hundred grains. This has actually happened with me when I sacrificed all I had. Members of the family should be maintained as long as they are not able to earn their livelihood. To go on spending money, labour and intelligence on able-bodied and earning family members and die leaving property in inheritance for them is immoral and I have always opposed it. Money which comes unearned or ‘gratis’ is ill-gotten although it may be ancestral and inherited. Having kept complete faith in this ideal, I did not allow my wealth in the form of physical and mental labour, emotional feelings and accumulated savings to pass on to the hands of undeserving persons. It was totally applied in the service of God, towards the growth of nobility and goodness in society. The result is self-evident. If like a miser, I had used all my resources in self- gratification, hoarding or in spending on members of the family to make them multi-millionaires, it would all have been wasted.
Sometimes, one has to wait for the next birth for getting the results of certain virtuous deeds, righteous actions. Public service, however, is such a universal good whose reward one gets instantly. We feel deep satisfaction in consoling others in the moment of their despair. There is a divine rule that the store of a benefactor never becomes empty. God’s grace always blesses him and whatever has been spent comes back multiplied manifold.
Sheep parts with its wool but it gets new wool every year. Trees yield fruits but their branches again get loaded with fresh fruits every season. Clouds go on raining but they never get emptied as they go on collecting water from the ocean. The coffers of magnanimous persons never get empty. It is a different matter if a person donates his time, labour and resources to undeserving persons and blindly encourages evil tendencies and considers it to be a righteous deed. Otherwise, public service is bound to be instantly rewarded. Whosoever invests in this enterprise is bound to be rewarded by soul-satisfaction, public respect and divine grace. Misers are those who foolishly boast of their shrewdness and cleverness but great is their loss in the ultimate analysis.
Public service loses its significance when in return a man expects to get name and fame. It then becomes a business like publication of an advertisement in the papers. If a person is reminded of the favour done or something is expected in return, the efficacy of virtuousness is lost. Donations given under pressure do not fulfill the true aims of a charitable purpose. The criterion is whether by such an act there is growth of kindly feelings and spread of righteous tendencies.
These days innumerable ostentatious benchmarks and hypocrisies are in vogue in society which promote the growth of social parasites who exploit simple people by fraudulent and deceitful means. Before spending any money a man should think a thousand times what its ultimate use will be. It is absolutely necessary these days to exercise such far-sighted wisdom. On such occasions I have declined to oblige and have even dared to incur the ignominy of being dubbed as inconsiderate.
One can have a glimpse of the philosophy of my life in these three aspects of Upasana, Sadhana and Aradhana. This is the path which has been followed by all the great ones who have achieved their goals and earned fame. There is no short-cut on this path."
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