In real life for you to get this feeling of detachment, the Gita gives you a strategy of
action, namely that of Dedication. Dedication to what? Gita says: Dedicate all your actions to God. If
you have reservations in believing in a God, or if you do not understand the
concept of God sufficiently to be able to dedicate your actions to Him, then
you may dedicate your actions to a Cause which you hold sacred. Or, dedicate
everything to one living person whom you respect, revere and adore, like your
mother.
Accepting suffering for the happiness
of others is dedication. Dedication means that you do a certain action because the god of your
dedication would like it to be done that way and you avoid doing a certain thing because the god of your
dedication would not like you doing that thing. Thus you totally submit
yourself to the will of your god of dedication and all your actions are
governed by your own understanding of what your god of dedication would accept
and not accept. Other than this one desire of pleasing the god of your
dedication you have no desires of your own.
Once you start living your life in such a
dedicatedly streamlined way you will see that your own mind will have no
selfish desires and every action that you do becomes an unselfish act. You may
have hopes and fears but the joys of one and the burden of the other are both
transformed to the god of dedication as far as you are concerned. This is Karma Yoga.
The Gita has a technical sanskrit word to indicate
this Dedication. It is yajna.
The Gita says that
one who does his actions in this unselfish way is uncontaminated even if
the action is harmful to somebody else. It is like a judge sentencing a
criminal to death because the sentence has been given by the judge in his
capacity as judge, with an attitude of total dedication to the Law of the
Nation. You may find it difficult to believe that his can happen. But you
should experiment with this in your daily life before you pass judgement on
this method. The method of dedication is bound to induce an alchemy in all your thought processes and this
alchemy will slowly change your personality itself in its upward path of
evolution.
Bhakti Yoga implies the recognition of the Supreme
Cosmic Power without the sanction of which not ev ente smallest movement can
take place in the universe. This supreme power manifests itself in the form of
one of several divinities. But when we worship any one of them it is with the
conscious understanding that it is the
one Almighty God Iswara, that is being worshipped in this form. This is the
rationale of idol worship.
Another main reason that different gods
and goddesses have arisen in Hinduism is the following: In the long mythological history of
Hinduism several manifestations of the Absolute Divinity have taken place.
Every one of these manifestations had a name and a form and this particular
representation of that nameless divinity had caught the imagination of the
people and they have been worshipped ever since. Not only this. In India every temple of olden times had arisen
like this. Though the physical environs of these large temples have been built
in historic times by historical personages, the deity enshrined in the sanctum
sanctorum very often goes back in origin to mythological times when that deity
really appeared as a manifestation for a specific purpose.
Another point worthy of note. This is peculiar to
Hinduism. In Hindu mythology, though heaven and hell are talked about, neither
nor heaven nor hell has any opportunities for you to exhibit your devotion to
God. They are only places for experiencing what you have to experience. Any
feeling of reverence that you may have to the Supreme Almighty has to be given
expression to, by your coming down to Earth. This Earth is the place where bhakti
can thrive, can yield fruits, and can make sense. So
even the divines who live in heaven – like Indra, Varuna, Vayu and
others – have to come down to Earth to do their worship, when necessity arises.
So there are legends and legends, of their coming down to this or that temple
on this Earth and offering worship or of atoning for any ignoble acts they
might have committed. Go to any Indian temple of olden times. They will tell
you stories of how Indra or another divine of his level offered puja in that temple and was cured of the curse on him. This makes the temple and the deity of the
temple more important for us, earthly devotees.
There is no other culture
in the world whose literature is so fully replete with myriads of such
manifestations of divinity and the exploits of that Supreme almighty for the
benefit of His devotees. This is not to say that Indians have been the most
religious or devoted, among all the civilisations of the world. It is only to
say that India’s past goes beyond the few milleniums into which history dares
peep into.
April 30, 2002 ©Copyright V.
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