What you do is not important.

Why Prayers and social service might not give you peace?

What we do is never important. Prayers, spiritual acts, service, donations we do many such things – but do these give us happiness?

It’s not the act that is important but the attitude which is behind is important. The act of donating our money, time or assets achieves nothing if we do them with egoistic nature. When we expect praise, recognition in return for our so-called selfless acts, we are just strengthening our ego and getting bonded more.

All prayers can be classified as Rajasik, Tamasik and Satvik. So how can prayers alone be called a good act? If my prayers are only for my good, like the accumulation of wealth, education and so on, it is rajasik in nature. If my prayers are only out of fear isn’t it tamasik? If my prayers are for wisdom on liberation and willpower to achieve them we can classify that as Satvik.

For a few minutes think about your prayer and classify them.

Menial and boring jobs – Why they can take you spiritually higher

When it is about earning material things in life higher the hierarchy in a job, the higher the compensation will be. There surely will be more compensation for a CEO than for a Janitor, but if our goal is spiritual any job can catapult us towards spirituality. For a true Karma Yogi any job even a menial one is enough to attain Chitta suddhi with it. Most boring job or repetitive job if handled well can give us Chitta suddhi.

Drink water to attain liberation.

Drinking-Water the most basic of jobs, which doesn’t need our attention at all. Even such jobs can give us moksha if we do it with the right attitude. Imagine this, to drink water we need eye-hand coordination, thirst a signal from the body, our bones and muscles in hand working together, nose smelling for impurities, tongue tasting and checking for particles, food pipe opening and windpipe closing, saliva, digestive enzyme, kidney, bladder to store the resultant waste and many other functions to remove them. Such is the complex nature of the so-called simple act of drinking water. Add to this all the immeasurable amounts of functions of our body, which keeps us alive.  How fortunate we are to get such a marvellous body. when we pay attention to these details, Gratitude towards Ishwar or Universe will increase. The sheer magnanimity of Ishwar or Universe will make us humble and relieve us from the clutches of ego.

Normal acts like driving a car can give us Chitta suddhi. Instead of giving more inputs like music, news or other programs. If we are just with ourselves, aware of our thoughts we can attain Chitta suddhi. A person cutting in front of us in traffic is enough to jeopardize our tranquillity. In a few moments, our mind would have analysed all possible ways to confront the guy who cut in front of us. We should be aware of such thoughts and ignore them immediately. We will be encountering such people often on the roads and these thought patterns will grow stronger and this daily routine itself will become a nightmare for us.

Silence – Idle time is God’s workshop

We Al have heard the proverb, “Idle time is the devil’s workshop”.  I would strongly disagree with it. Our mind is working constantly. Whether we are idle or working devil is always working. Only when we are silent we hear the devil’s voice. It is not the fault of silence but our thinking patterns.

So by not being idle, we are just pushing the dirt below the rug. Instead, we should be in silence, be aware of our thoughts, look at them with non-judgmental awareness.

So it is not about the act itself, prayers, service, menial jobs or seemingly boring jobs or silence. The resultant Guna and self purification is the key.