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| Karunamayee Durga Maa |
All natural things
around us, created for a noble reason, should be used only after offered to God.
Because God has created the whole world and he has provided us with natural
resources like flower, fruit, greenery, water, soil etc. Hence, being grateful
to the provider, we should try to offer all affirmative stuffs to God. One can
ask, if all the stuff will be offered to the almighty, what is left for us?
Think practically, does God practically take away anything from us that we
offer during worship? No. The flower, fruit or food stuff (that we offer as ‘Prasad’)
can very well be used even after offering it to God.
Mother gives
birth to a child. Likewise God has created us and so she/he is our eternal
mother or father. He loves us and so affectionately longs for things from us,
like we expect gifts from our parents on our birthdays. Thus, if we really love
God, we should offer him good stuff around us.
One can
think, we can’t sit for worship throughout the day to offer things to the God.
But sages as well as mythological texts have solved this dilemma too. You don’t
need to sit before the idol always to offer something, rather you just hold it
in your hands and imagine that you are giving it to God and he is receiving it
from you. That’s all. The process will take only a second, not even a minute.
My personal feeling is that even if you don’t do so, still God is kind enough
not to hurt you, but yes, if you do so, definitely He will be happy to bless
you.
To explain
the aforementioned notion let us analyze the lyrics of the famous devotional
song - ‘Maili chaadar Odh Ke Kaise dwar tumhare aaun’. In this bhajan by great
singer Hari Om Sharanam, the interlude says, “In pairon se chalkar tere Mandir
Kabhi naa aaya, jahan jahan ho puja teri kabhi na sish jhukaya…..” The meaning
says, “I’ve never visited any of your temples after having a walk with the help
of my legs, I’ve never bowed down my head at any places of your worship”. The
inner meaning of these rich lines is – the lyricist feels guilty of not
visiting a temple using his legs or not bowing down his head before an idol and
so these body parts are useless. This is the thinking style of great devotees,
who want to dedicate all their efforts to God and when miss out, feel to be at
fault.
For further
understanding let me narrate a story – Once two friends were moving through the
forest and came across with a tiger. One of the friends at once climbed a big
tree. The other was unable to climb and so decided to lie down on the ground
like a dead body to pretend the beast. The tiger went close to him and first
observed his hands and behaved as if it did not get the thing it was expecting.
Then it inspected his legs and went on observing all his body parts. Finally it
spared him and returned back to the deep forest.
The first
man got down from the tree and asked his friend on the ground why the tiger did
not made him its prey. The friend was also surprised and had not any answer.
Subsequently, both of them went to a sage, who could read minds of both humans
and animals to uncover the reason. The learned person used his special aptitude
and explained the reason – The bear first observed his hands to find whether
this individual has any day worshipped God using his hands and it found it to
be negative. Then the animal approached his legs to check whether he has walked
to a shrine to offer prayer utilizing his legs and it was again negative.
Likewise it examined all the organs and found that none of those were used for
God and hence rejected to make him its prey. It was a shame that even a beast
rejected a human being since he never devoted a single effort to God.
The effect
of the above notion can be witnessed in our daily life even today. I would like
to narrate a real incident that occurred in my life in this context. My wife
wanted to create a roof top garden and accordingly brought some flower plants
along with their vases. She took care of the plants everyday and soon flowers
were there in these plants. I wanted to pluck some flowers for daily worship,
but she was of the opinion that the flowers should be in the plants for a
beautiful scene. Not to displease her, I started praying God to make some other
arrangement for the flowers and another lady volunteered me to take flowers
from her garden. To my surprise I found that almost all the plants erected by
my wife in the roof top garden dried up despite regular care in a couple of
days. You may take it as a coincidence, but my belief, that everything should be
used for God and if not used it is useless, earned a confirmation from the
incident.
God loves us
as His children and so waits for our gifts. These are very small things to
offer, in comparison to our cherished big material wants for which we waste the
whole of our life to earn. Again, it is not taken away from us after offering.
So what is bad in offering the same to God?