What do passion, goals, and ambition mean without god consciousness?
Yesterday I was watching a lady who runs a very famous restaurant chain (QSR) in Bangalore. In that interview, she expressed how she went through struggles in her life and what it took her to reach this stage.
She is a daughter of a priest, from a lower-middle-class family. Since childhood, due to poverty, she couldn’t go to Engineering or Doctorate College, so she decided to become a Chartered Accountant. And with a lot of hard work finally she established herself in her profession. Later she started a restaurant chain with her husband who is also a business partner. Currently, they are running five restaurants in the country, each restaurant earns 4.5 Crores rupees revenue each month, now they are expanding outside the country too. For a while I got inspired by this lady, I thought about what willpower, determination, passion, and patience this lady has and finally, she is now successful.
Now let’s for a while keep this story aside, and come to the story of a demon called Hiraṇyakaśipu. He was called a great demon. To enjoy immense wealth, fame, and prosperity and to conquer the entire universe including heaven he did severe austerity.
How severe the austerity was?
“Because of Hiraṇyakaśipu’s severe austerities, fire came from his head, and this fire and its smoke spread throughout the sky, encompassing the upper and lower planets, which all became extremely hot. All the rivers and oceans were agitated, the surface of the globe, with its mountains and islands, began trembling, and the stars and planets fell.”
He became so skinny that just a body of bones where there. Later his body became so much worse that “Hiraṇyakaśipu’s body was covered by an anthill and by grass and bamboo sticks. Because Hiraṇyakaśipu had been there for a long time, the ants had devoured his skin, fat, flesh, and blood.”
So you can imagine how much sacrifice he needs to do to gain the material things. Just to rule the entire world, become the King of heaven; and enjoy the material opulence he needs to make so much effort.
Now on the other side let’s take a story of a great devotee of the Lord called Dhruv Maharaj. He too did great austerity at the age of five, to get a much bigger empire than his father's & forefathers' rule.
Here you first need to understand the difference between Demons (Danav) and Demigods (Devta). Those who are the devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead are called Demigods, and the rest those who are not devotees of the Supreme are all called Demons.
Dhruv Maharaj did the austerity of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, whereas Hiraṇyakaśipu did the austerity of Lord Brahma. Both of them had material desires. Eventually, Lord Brahma granted Hiraṇyakaśipu a powerful blessing, making him nearly invincible. But when the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared in front of Dhruva Maharaj, he felt ashamed of himself. And after self-realization, he didn’t ask for any material benediction from the Supreme. But the Lord is so merciful that, he still gave Dhruva Maharaj an entire planet ‘Dhruvaloka’ (Polestar) to rule which is many times bigger than the Earth.
Now both ruled the planet, but what’s the difference between both?
Hiraṇyakaśipu ruled the entire universe including heaven for many years, but just satisfied his senses. He had beautiful women around, immense wealth, and all great demigods as his servants. In the end due to the havoc & destruction that he created, finally, the Supreme Personality of Godhead appeared and killed him. On another side, Dhruva Maharaj ruled the earth's planet for thirty-six thousand years and later went to Dhruvaloka (Polestar) and ruled that planet till today.
Now here is the basic difference, Hiraṇyakaśipu ruled to satisfy his own senses and desires, and Dhruva Maharaj ruled to satisfy & serve the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and not for his material desires and sense gratification.
Now let’s come back to the story of the great entrepreneurial Lady that I mentioned above. In that interview further, the lady said “Now I’m four months pregnant, and yesterday I worked till 4.30 am and went home, back again by 5.30. am I was at the airport of business travel.” Later she said “For me, home is just for sleep. If I’m waking then I’ll be in my office.”
Recently great business tycoon Mr. Narayan Murthy stated “If India wants to grow then Indian Youth should work for 70 hours a week.” This was a very trending topic in the business world a few months back.
Now can you tell me if today’s world is working in a demonic or demigod mentality? Now let’s take the example of the successful restaurant-running lady. She is making immense efforts to earn money or become successful. Today it is famously called “Think Big”. So with this aspiration, she’s running the business and wants to grow big and become a great, famous entrepreneur in the country. Earn immense money, and enjoy the luxurious life. And later give back to society by building hospitals, and schools or distributing food to poor people. This all seems nice and perfect.
But this is not the real perfection of life. No matter how great you build your business or empire, it all will diminish one day.
“No great personality on the earth has been remembered more than a few hundred years. Only the Supreme God & His Pure Devotees are being remembered for thousands of years.”
Remember this lady is pregnant and working almost 18 hours a day. And she thinks home is just to sleep. She is doing everything to please her senses. Eating, meeting, defending & sleeping, these things all species do in the universe. Humans are exceptional. They can think and come above it. Above these four things is ‘Soul’. Like you’re providing food to your body, you need to provide to your soul.
Why do we need to uplift ourselves to the soul?
Because this body is temporary, birth, death, diseases, and old age are inevitable. Now you see the demon Hiraṇyakaśipu burned his body to fulfill his material desires. In the end, with lots of effort, you may gain whatever you have dreamed. But later you’ll leave that wealth for your children and grandchildren. Maybe for a few years, you’re loved once and friends, some people will remember you. That’s it.
But do you know, after death, you’ll take birth as a human or any other species, and again you’ll run after material desire, such process of birth and death will continue life after life. To break free from the cycle of birth and death, it's important to rise above the body and mind and connect with the soul.
How to build God Consciousness?
To build god consciousness you need to devote yourself to devotional service. This process will not develop in a day or month, it takes time. But eventually, you’ll be in complete God consciousness.
Now when I say God consciousness, it doesn’t mean you need to leave your job and go to the Himalayan Mountains like the sadhus and do severe penance and austerity. If that were the case then Lord Krishna would ordered Arjuna at the Kurukshetra battlefield to leave everything and go live in the mountains.
In the Bhagavad Gita Lord says, do every act keeping me in your mind, serve me whatever you do. Keeping this in mind we should act. Secondly, to develop God consciousness we need to devote time to chanting the holy name, reading the scriptures, listening to the glories of the lord from a pure devotee, visiting holy places, etc.
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