The 'P-N' Cycle' in our Lives.

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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.

justify"> 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.

TEXT-ALIGN: justify"> Jai Sai Ram From H-H (Sharing With Sai Love)

Ram.Chugani Ram ChuganiKobe, Japanrgcjp

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