RFD on advaita-siddhi 12

[Anand Hudli]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2000 08:39:36 -0500, Savithri Devaraj
<sdevaraj at EXPLORER.CSC.COM> wrote:

>Jaldhar,
>
>Thanks for writing for all of us.  Good perspective, I think you have
covered
>almost all the categories.
>
>There is only so much time in a day, my work deadlines and my kids'
>responsibilities are quite over whelming to me. So, sometimes my complaint
to
>God is - why this interest when I cannot do justice to it?  Believe me, I
read
>all the posts and enjoy and learn from 90% of them.
>
>It does take quite a bit of effort to contribute sensibly to the list.  I
>sincerely appreciate all you contributors who, with similar deadlines,
still
>take the time and pain to contribute regularly.
>

 I have a slightly different take on this. Some people seem to have the
 belief that they can make life as complicated as they want and still be
 able to do justice to spiritual pursuits. Let me be a little more
 precise. When confronted with a choice of A) acquire more material
 wealth/comforts etc at the cost of making life more complicated
 and having less time for spiritual matters, or  B) live with
 relatively less material wealth but with relatively more time for
 spiritual matters, such people would choose A) over B). The justification
 given is: "Somehow I will be able to squeeze in a couple of hours here
 and there to do my meditation! Let me not give up this once-in-a-lifetime
 opportunity (to earn big bucks or something other material benefit)!"

 I believe this approach is one of delusion. Since I don't believe in
 pontificating, let me mention my personal choice that I had to make
 and that I am comfortable with. A couple years ago, I had a choice of
 two job offers - A) a reasonably good job with a reasonably good salary
 and benefits, B) a outstanding job with a salary + benefits at least
 50%-60% higher (or perhaps even more) than A). However, accepting B) would
 mean I would have considerably less time for anything else but my job.
 While I was trying to decide between the two, I remembered the words of
 Shankara  which seemed to ring in my ears,
 "mUDha jahIhi dhanAgamatR^ishhNAM, kuru sadbuddhiM manasi vitR^ishhNAm.h"
 "O fool! Give up your thirst for accumulating wealth. Think of the Reality,
 with contentment." Choosing A) was obviously the right thing for me and
 that is what I did. My accumulated materialistic loss may well be
 in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but I have the satisfaction
 of listening to Shankara's advice.

 So sometimes "sacrificing" one's thirst for wealth and/or other material
 benefits may be called for in order to maintain progress on the spiritual
 side. Instead, if one is deluded into thinking that no matter how
 complicated and materialistic life becomes, one can always find time to
 keep up with spiritual matters, that is a big mistake, in my opinion.
 In brief, if one has an opportunity to make life less complicated
 materialistically, then one must take that opportunity even if it
 means some "sacrifice" is necessary.

 Anand

--
bhava shankara deshikame sharaNam

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