Fwd: Sai Inspires - 5th February 2006 from Prashanti Nilayam

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right. Endeavour, at every moment, to be aware of the omnipotence of God. -

Prema Vahini, P. 19. Do no evil - do what is good - Baba. The 'P-N

Cycle' In Our Lives Dear Subscriber,

Roman">Loving Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. Almost everyone on

earth is proud of his or her achievements. The achievement may in the field of

art, literature, adventure, business, profession, science, sport, and so on.

But whatever it is, the successful person, while no doubt thanking a few here

and there, does at the end of it all feel unabashedly, “I did it!” In sports,

in tennis for example, one sees this self- glorification loudly in the body

language. Do we for a moment ever stop to think where exactly this so-called

success came from? Every human being on earth gets several gifts from God,

starting with life

itself. Some might object to this by saying, “Listen, what about those who are

born severely handicapped?” This is no doubt an important question and we shall

certainly not sweep it under the rug. We shall consider that issue on a later

occasion. But meanwhile, let us not forget that God does give us many gifts,

apart from the supreme gift of life in human form. Just take a look at the

fingers of the human body. Do we ever spend even a minute to reflect on how

many wonderful things these

fingers can do? The list is long and amazing. Without fingers, one would not be

able to play the flute or the piano or the violin or the drum, etc. One would

not be able to sculpt and paint, one would not be able to write and type, and

so on. Just think of sports, cricket say. Can one bowl without fingers? And

what variations of spin are possible thanks to the fingers! Or take surgery;

would surgery at all be possible if it were not for the fingers? You know

something? The great Isaac Newton once exclaimed, “The thumb alone is enough to

prove that God exists!” Yes, try opening a bottle without using your thumb and

you would know what Newton meant.

There is no creature on earth that can do what humans can do with their

fingers. It is not the fingers alone that have remarkable Divine powers in

them. In conjunction with the dexterity of the fingers, the hands and the arms

can do wonders. In his book on the Gita, Swami Chidbhavananda says that when

one describes Lord Subramania as having twelve hands what it really means is

that God has given man the power that is the equal of twelve hands. Yes, we may

have only two hands but supplementing them with

machines, we can do wonders, like driving and aero stunts, for example. It is

really not necessary to go on and on in this vein. In simple terms, God blesses

all, each in some measure, in accordance with the role that person is supposed

to play in the Cosmic Drama of His. Some may have the gift of health, some may

have the gift of wealth, some may have the gift of speech and oratory, and some

might have the gift of intellect. In the Gita, the Lord makes it abundantly

clear that whatever excellence humans

might exhibit using these various gifts, they all are manifestations of His

Glory and Power. So our first point really is that we all receive some extra

gifts from God, apart from the gift of life and the gift of the human form. The

question now is what do we do with these? For most people, this question

simply does not arise. They all believe that whatever it is they have by way of

talent, ability and so on is self-created and self-acquired and that therefore

they are not obliged to anybody else, except

perhaps in a marginal way. This simply is not true. However, deluded as people

usually are, they often start from this wrong premise and then step by step

systematically misuse the gifts they have. Misuse means using these precious

gifts of God for pandering to the desires of the body and the mind. For example,

a wealthy person may spend a lot of money in gambling. A person with great

computer skills might be busy generating computer viruses, just for kicks as

they say. You might ask, “Then what is one supposed to

do with what you call the gifts of God?” That precisely is what we are coming

to. In the Indian tradition, there are two words that are used in the

rituals one performs as adoration of God. These words are: Prasaadam, and

Naivedyam. The former word we all have heard, since Prasaadam is often

distributed during functions here; the word essentially means a blessing from

God. The other word Naivedyam means an offering to God. In the ritual, food and

other items are offered to God by way of

consecrating them but in our context, any loving offering we make becomes a

Naivedyam. OK, all this is fine, but what exactly is the point we are trying

to make? That point is this. We all, each in our own way, receive some gifts

from God. Some of these have been mentioned earlier. These gifts are the

Prasaadam of God. Life must be so lived that one makes use of these Prasaadams

and gives it back to God as Naivedyam. For a moment, let us go

back to the offerings made to God. People offer flowers to God. They pluck the

flowers and make a garland before offering. In worldly parlance, “some value

addition” is made before offering to God – that is the key point. We must offer

the talents we have in a suitable manner before offering to God. In this

context, it is useful to remember that Society is God. Swami reminds us of this

often but we tend to forget. Thus, when we use our gifts for the benefit of

Society in a reverential manner, we are actually

offering Naivedyam to God. Let us say there is a scientist and he makes a great

discovery of an anti-cancer drug. These days, the scientist is most likely to

patent the drug and make tons of money on it. On the other hand, if the

scientist waives his patent and allows one and all to freely use his discovery

in the service of Society, then he is offering his knowledge, a Prasaadam of

God, back to God as Naivedyam in the shape of his discovery. If you think

about it, there are any number of such

examples one can offer. The point is that in each case, there is a cycle – God

gives Prasaadam, and it is offered back to God as Naivedyam; that is to say,

life becomes a P-N cycle. You might wonder whether at all people do feel this

way. Sure there are such people, and here are two examples. In December 1996,

an unusual event took place here in Prashanti Nilayam – that was the staging of

a one-day international cricket match between an India XI and an International

XI, the Unity Cup Match as it was known. Speaking during the concluding

function, the famous West Indian cricketer Clive Lloyd said, “Talent is a gift

of God and it must be offered back to God.” Similarly, a Pakistani singer of

Ghazals[islamic devotional music popular in Pakistan and India] when asked why

she was not adopting modern methods of singing replied, “I can’t do that.

Ghazals are a gift of Allah and I must offer it back to Allah in a pure form

and not with modern distortions.” The P-N cycle is not our invention;

Krishna commends it in the Gita though He does

not quite put it the way we do. And people who have not even heard of the Gita

[likeCliveLloyd,forexample] have felt it in their bones for the simple reason

that God has spoken to them from Inside. Life, as Swami says, must be lived

for God because that is the easiest way of going back to God – from God we have

come and to God we must return. The P-N cycle guarantees a safe return journey –

that is what we think. What about you? Please write and tell us what you feel.

We would love to hear from you.

Jai Sai Ram With Love and Regards, "Heart2Heart" RadioSai's

e-Journal Team, In Sai Service. To see the complete schedule of

today's RadioSai programmes, Visit us at www.radiosai.org to know

more about RadioSai and our e-Journal "Heart 2 Heart".

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