The essence of life:Total surrender to the Almighty, highest form of bhakti

[krsna]

 

 

posted at indiatimesspirituality

 

Meena Om

 

 

 

Total surrender to the Almighty is the highest form of bhakti. It stands for accepting every situation as a gift or prasad from God. It means living every moment to perfection by using all your mental, physical and spiritual potential to the maximum.

 

Spirituality means doing things in the right spirit and with complete faith. No situation is frivolous or insignificant because it always contains a hidden message.

 

There are no flaws in the Divine’s design, this is what we all must be aware of just like one dev-doot, or angel, did when he was banished from the heaven to lead a life as a cobbler to make him realize the consequence of questioning the wisdom of the Almighty.

 

This angel had become so evolved spiritually that he was just one step away from becoming one with the Supreme. Pointing to a young woman on Earth, God asked him to take away her soul as it was time for her to die. When the angel reached the woman’s house, he witnessed a heart-rending scene.

 

Dressed in rags, the woman was cradling a three-month-old baby in her arms and was trying to pacify her two other children, aged two and four, who were crying with hunger. All looked malnourished and pale. There was not a morsel in the house.

 

The woman had lost her husband, their sole breadwinner, a few months ago. With three little children to take care, she was unable to make ends meet. Now she was running high fever and was wondering what was to become of her and her children. The sight of the poor family living in such trying circumstances, brought tears to the angel’s eyes. He could not be so unkind and deprive the helpless kids of their only living parent!

 

His compassion and benevolence got the better of him so he decided to return to the Heaven empty handed. His disobedience earned him the Almighty’s displeasure. Since every act of the divine is guided by divine love and benevolence, God decided to make him realize his folly of interfering with the Supreme Law or design by banishing him to Earth for a lifetime as a cobbler. The only way he could return and be with the Almighty once again was by laughing at his plight three times.

Thus the angel was born on Earth into a family of cobblers. He grew up beating smelly hides into smooth leather to make footwear. One day as he sat making footwear, the irony of it all dawned on him and he laughed at his situation — once a Dev-doot, God’s chosen one, was now on Earth working with animal skins, making footwear for mortals.

 

Any way, instead of whining, the Dev-doot accepted his situation and continued leading his life in total surrender to the Almighty, giving his whole being to what ever work that came in front of him, whether it was beating leather into shape or making footwear.

 

Soon he became so good at his work that his masters and customers started praising his work. And one day he was asked to make shoes for none other than the king himself! The angel put his mind, heart and soul into his work and before he could realize, he had created the most beautiful pair of chappals ever.

 

But his masters were livid with him for being so careless, wasting raw material and time on a pair of chappals instead of the shoes that the king’s men had ordered. Soon they arrived but much to everybody’s surprise, the king’s men asked for a pair of chappals instead of shoes. The king had just died and they wanted chappals to the fit the corpse before it could be cremated. It was a ritual in those days that the body of the king was adorned with chappals rather than shoes on his final journey.

 

The dev-doot was speechless. Nothing seemed frivolous or meaningless in the Almighty’s scheme of things, he thought and laughed to himself the second time.

 

As days past by, the angel became increasingly well known for his fabulous footwear. One day, a rich elderly lady escorting three pretty girls came to his shop to place a huge order for fancy footwear for the girls as they were all of marriageable age.

 

When the angel asked her whether the girls were her daughters, the lady shook her head and replied that she was a rich businessman’s wife but could never have any children. But one day her neighbours told her about three helpless orphans who lost their parents.

 

She felt the Almighty had answered her prayers and she adopted the three kids. The lady was in fact talking about the same children whose mother the Almighty had once ordered him to take away! Marveling at the Divine’s design, the angel laughed to himself the third time.

 

It was all about surrender and accepting every situation as a gift from God, to be lived through with all our potential. He had been banished to Earth in the first place because he had failed to do so, but later he got the opportunities to laugh his way out of this human life because of his surrender.

 

His life’s mission was now complete. He was ready to leave for his heavenly abode where the Almighty was waiting for him with open arms. He knew it well that now he would be with the Supreme forever.

 

He had learnt the ultimate message meant for all humans on Earth that the only way to cut our Karma Cycle, the cause of birth and death, for total liberation and merging with the Supreme is to perform every given act may it be in thought, word or deed as an offering to the Lord in total surrender, without doubting or questioning the purpose behind it.

 

This is true realisation. This is the essence of life.