Bhakti and Success
As human beings we are engaged in varieties of activities at the personal level, family level, at the corporate level, or even at the national level. We are engaged in several activities in pursuit of some goal or the other. Nobody takes up any activity without a goal or a particular result in mind. Even a dullard will not embark on anything without expecting some result or the other. When the results comes for our activities, if it is in keeping with our expectations we call it SUCCESS. If it is not up to expectations or opposite to our expectations we look on it as FAILURE. Every human being is interested solely in success and nobody wants to face failures in life. Whether it is a small action or a huge venture every human being wants only success in life regardless of they being a ritualist, atheist, devout, Hindu, Christian, Tamil, Afghan etc. There is one universal fact, everyone wants success in life. Therefore “Jayahah” becomes important in everyone’s lives. And when a society becomes competitive as we have become, the value of success becomes very, very important. Right from LKG admission there is competition and we want success. In sports everyone wants success. Even in entertainment field there is competition and success. It has now spread into religious fields too. There are Gita chanting competitions in schools, navaratri kollams are judged and awarded. Our society has hyped the value of success so much. A winner (successful people) is considered extraordinary human being and the consequence of success is heady – the media is waiting. Success brings fame, name, and interviews in the papers including children who are in LKG classes, or on television. Success brings everybody and so every human being wants to be successful.
Even Swamijis are divided into “successful swamis” or “not successful”. Our society unfortunately grades swamijis also. If he has got several ashrams, many trusts, travels abroad, and has many followers then he is seen as “successful”. He is invited to every function for ribbon-cutting! Therefore we have become a society that has a huge demand for “vijayahah”. When a human being has great dreams of success for the market value is very high for success. Everyone is interested in the methods of success. There are so many programmes,” How to be a winner” or “Alpha Meditation” course. Whether other people will win or not, the programme will be a winner! There are special meditation courses or techniques, astrologers who prescribe remedies (pariharams) so that one may achieve success. There are special temples like Kuthonoor Saraswathi temple where students place their pens for success in examinations. Or a temple that is famous for people who wish to go overseas. All these promise one thing: How to become success in every field. We are not condemning any of these: special pujas, abhisekams, or astrology for they will certainly enhance the possibility of success. But they can never guarantee 100% success. We must remember that as human being, we can never avoid failures in life. When a company interviews 500 people for interviews to fill 10 posts; only ten will end up being happy while the rest 490 have to confront failure even if they had done special pujas, abhisekams, astrological remedies etc!! Therefore logically, we conclude that we will HAVE to confront failures in life both at the micro and macro level. If a person is wise he will prepare himself to confronting them.
No doubt working for success (it is important to work for success) but it is equally important to prepare ourselves to face failures. Safety measures are required as failure can hurt our mind as they damage us emotionally. We must bear in mind that failures are inevitable and cause emotional damage, we must learn to handle imaginary failures as well as actual failures. Before result comes in we are prey to imaginary failures that cause stress, tension, fear, panic etc. A doctor says a little investigation is required. Once he says that the mind starts to work very very fast. We all know the names of diseases thanks to newspapers. Imaginary failures causes stress and tension while actual failures cause disappointments, depression, anger, frustration, and hatred and all these are unavoidable. When frustrations overpower me, I am angry with the world and I get angry with the Lord also. I have done so many pujas and abhiskems, the Bhagavn has given me failure. God never guarantees success but one can only enhance the possibility of success even for a bhakta. So we get up getting frustrated arising out of failures and become angry with God. In fact our very faith in god gets challenged. We lament and bemoan: God does not have eyes, nose, or even heart is a constant lamentation of devotees when frustrated over failures. It leads to anger and crisis of faith. Therefore the emotional damage caused my failures is huge. Therefore I need to take safety measures to manage the emotional damage caused by the inevitable failures of life. Taking the safety measure is like wearing mental helmet. Even though wearing helmet is important for a motorist unfortunately no one wants to take precautions against emotional damages. We don’t take precautions as we are afraid of the very thought of failure. If we don’t want to think of failure, we don’t take precautions. Many people are so afraid of failure that they feel if they harbour thoughts of failure, it will come to pass. Out of sentimental reason we don’t think of failure. Some people feel that thinking of failures is against positive thinking. Therefore what is intelligence? It is taking precautions against emotional damage caused by failure. Taking precautions will not invite failure. A person wearing a helmet is not inviting an accident. Just because a person is taking a LIC policy he is not going to die tomorrow. Just because we wear seat belt in a car, we are not inviting accident. Therefore it is wisdom to wear a mental safety helmet. A person who wears this helmet is called a spiritually successful person. A person who prepares his mind, takes all the precautions against emotional damages caused by failures is spiritual success. We can define “spiritual success” as safety measures against worldly failures. Therefore our scriptures mention that one must work for worldly success and also parallelly work for spiritual success. Are you able to see the difference? Spiritual success means safety measures against emotional damage caused by inevitable worldly failures which we have to confront of and now. Because every day we were living with hundreds of expectations – expressed expectation and unexpressed expectation – we find success in some and failures in many. Do you think family members are going to do everything as per our expectations? Will the son listen? Each moment things happen against our expectation, we are confronting failures and consequent emotional damage. Therefore we have to bear a mental helmet called spiritual success. Therefore we require two types of successes- world success called laukikah jayahah and spiritual success called Adyathma jayahah.
Which is more important? Both are important and between them adyathma jayahah is more important as only then I can avoid stress, I can avoid tension, I can avoid anxiety, I can avoid fear, I can avoid disappointments, I can avoid frustrations, I can avoid inferiority complex, I can avoid anger with God. All these I can avoid by following spiritual success (Adyathma Jayahah. We can use Bhakti (in the form of prayers) and our scriptures for successes in both worldly and spiritual goals. Bhakti used in the pursuit of worldly goals (laukikah jayahah) is called Sakama Bhakti and bhakti for spiritual goals (Adythma Jayahah) is called Nishkama Bhakti. Both these bhaktis are available in our scriptures but unfortunately only sakama puja, or sakama abhishekam, or sakama pararthana is popular. All the newspapers, religious magazines, temples sadly only popularize sakama bhakti. We are not even aware of the existence of Nishkama bhakti, Nishkama puja and Nishakama prarthana. Lord Krishna highlights the value of “Adythma Jayahah” and nishkama bhakti in the Bhagavad Gita. HE says both nishkama bhakti and sakama bhakti must go hand in hand as they complement each other. Every venture must be preceded by two pujas: one puja for sakama (worldly goals) and another for nishkama (spiritual goals). Suppose a person says,” I can’t do two pujas. I can do only one. Which one should we do?” There is a secret here and that’s why we are having this Sivaratri talk.
We should choose ONLY nishakama puja for Adyathma Jayahah. How are we to do this nishkama puja? It is indicated by the Sankalpam: O Lord, I am undertaking a very important venture which has got serious consequences. I am going to give my best efforts and I will do a lot of special puja for the success of this venture. In spite of my “sakama pujas” the result can be success or failure despite by best efforts.” I must be intimately and intensely aware of this fact. It can be a medical investigation for a serious disease. When I do puja I must remind myself that the result can be anything. I am doing this puja so that Bhagavan will give me enough courage; courage to face to anything. I want success but I am not afraid of failure. Whatever will happen, will happen according to Bhagavan’s will and law of karma. I must have enough mental courage to accept both success and failure. I have the courage to confront imaginary failures and I have mental toughness to face real and actual failures. I must tell them in my sankalpa during prayers. After doing the puja, abhisekam, prarthana I must remind myself that I have the courage to face any blessed thing. Any result is welcome. If I enjoy a stress free mind stemming from this courage that Krishna calls “yogah”. A spiritually successful mind is called a yogi mind. In Gita, Krishna says: O human being, do a nishakama puja and prepare your mind to welcome any type of result. Be courageous enough to say: I want success but I am not afraid of failure. Loudly proclaim,” I am equally prepared for sidhis (expected results) and asidhis (unexpected results). So be emotionally prepared for both success and failures. Such an equanimous mind is a spiritual successful mind.
Lord Krishna emphasizes the value of “samatvam” where a mind does not have anxiety. Nishkama puja removes tension, nishkama puja removes anxiety, nishkama puja removes fear, nishakama puja removes disappointments, nishakama puja removes frustration. Therefore nishkama puja gives me courage. Krishna condemns people who only do sakama puja as they have not insured their minds and like not wearing the mental helmet. They don’t know how to avoid tension and stress. They are bhaktas alright but ignorant and stupid bhaktas who are full of tension. Their bhakti has not removed tension and fear because they have not used bhakti in a proper way in the form of Nishkama bhakti. Therefore Krishna says whether you perform sakama puja or not, may your life should involve a lot of nishkama bhakti and nishkama puja. That alone will save the individual from emotional problems. “Stillness in action means performing the action without tension,” If a person follows this, he will enjoy a calm mind and this will lead to spiritual growth, spiritual knowledge and ultimately to moksha. Therefore what is the message of Bhagavad Gita and scriptures: There are two types of bhakti. Sakama bhakti for worldly success and nishkama bhakti for spiritual success. May you use bhakti appropriately and attain worldly success. And whether you attain worldly success or not, may you attain spiritual success.” Therefore on this auspicious Sivaratri day let us ask Lord Shiva to give us nishkama bhakti along with sakama bhakti.
