Nature, Pooja and Karma
Nature
At a discussion about digging deeper bore wells (1200 ft vs 400ft) on peedam lands in order to address the acute water shortage situation.
Below is Amma’s words of wisdom…..to us.
“How sad ….1000 ft and below why does one want the hurt and pain the earth so much ….it is very sad”. It is not that there is a shortage of water. This earth is millions of years old and so is the air and water.
It is this very same earth that has supported so many billion forms of lives on this earth over this period of time. When so much was supported over so many millions of years …does the earth not know how to take care of the present day life forms too??!
It’s not that there is shortage of water. The only reason is that water has moved back closer to where it comes from.! It is getting further away from the reach of man. It is this and nothing else. The pure element ‘water’ has been created for man for two purposes.
1) To wash and cleanse the physical body.
2) It was also created so that man may drink it and cleanse the inside. So that one’s thoughts remain pure and good actions follow.
However, in this age this is not so. There is impurity in thought and action, the agitations in the mind creates a negative energy and nature responds accordingly. There has been great misuse of this pure element in the form of wastage and pollution and that people now never really respect this nature’s divine gift to mankind.
When respect is lost and man’s thoughts and actions are not pure, nature has responded by moving the water element further away from man’s reach. There is no shortage it is just not within easy reach. Only when there is harmony, purity in thought, action and respect for natures gift that water will resurface and be within very easy reach of man. This world is like a giant mirror reflecting and reacting to all of man’s thoughts.’
“Amma blesses you to create harmony, purity in thoughts and actions and to respect nature’s Gifts.”
Pooja
Amma asks: “What is puja”? Devotees respond: “Offerings to God”. Amma agrees and invites the devotees to wonder: Isn’t that odd that we are making offerings to God since God provides us with everything we have? It is God’s duty to provide humans with the necessities like food, water and clothing. So, since God provides us with everything, we can’t really say, “This is mine and I give it to you God, as an offering”. Besides, God does not need anything from us. Why then do we bother giving God offerings like food and milk in the puja? In fact, why do we do puja? It is for the soul. The purpose of puja is to bring joy to the soul.
The world prays for things all the time. People are constantly asking for things, they want things. When, for example, devotees pray that Amma will come to their home so they can cook for Amma, this is an offering of love, it brings joy to the soul. These are offerings in the form of love. Many devotees have had the opportunity to cook for Amma at Kamala Nivaas, they have made pizza for Amma. These are offerings in the form of love and bring devotees joy.
Another example is when you see a parent dress their child. If you take a three year old child to shop for clothes, that child may decide the colour he or she wants to wear. If, however, a mother takes her six month old infant to shop, that baby can not say whether it wants a red or green outfit. So, in this situation, the mother is the one to make the decision. She will choose her favourite color. Of course, as it is the mother’s favourite colour, the mother will take great joy in seeing her child in this new outfit. The mother did something for herself and felt joy.
In the same way, when you do puja it brings joy. This is the real purpose of puja. In making the offerings, you’ll get real joy. Have you ever wondered why Narayani has such beautiful jewels? Like dressing the infant; does it make the infant happy? Does the child care? No, whether or not the child wants a new outfit, the mother buys it and it makes her happy. In the same way, devotees dress Narayani and it makes them happy and brings them joy.
As Amma mentioned in the discourse about temples, chanting creates a vibration and the temple statues hold the vibration. In the temples, the Divine is in the form of Statues. In one’s home, the Divine may be in the form of a photo. Your Faith is what creates Amma in your home. (Amma jokes: when you have Amma in your home, you may not sleep!).
When you have faith, it will bring you strength and energy. Further, because you can feel the Divine within you, you will want to serve. For this, look to your customs and traditions and do what others do. For example, some choose to serve God by offering food and flowers. Having the Divine in your home brings joy and serving the Divine brings joy. All this is for humans; it is not for the Divine. It brings joy to you and, in this way it develops love between you and the Divine.
Once there is this love, the Divine will begin to feel close to you. The Divine will begin to feel like a family member. Whereas when the Divine is thought of as “God”, then there will necessarily be rituals and protocols and these rituals and protocols will create a distance between you and God. However, when you start to offer love, you will connect with the Divine in the form of mother. With this thought and feeling, you will feel very close to the mother. When this happens, then our thoughts are always pure. To connect the soul to the Divine you’ll feel Amma is your family, the mother.
For this to happen, start with pujas. This is necessary for the soul. This will connect you to the Divine and you will feel close to the mother, to your family. Any form of puja is good. It need only be five minutes of chanting, “Om Namo Narayani”. This will create a feeling for the Divine as in the example of the feeling the mother gets when she dresses her child in the mother’s favourite colours. Puja takes you closer to the Divine. That is why everyone needs puja.
Amma blesses you all.
Amma : Every human being has a wish. Amma also has a wish, do you know what it is? What could it be? Can anyone guess?
Devotee : “Peace”?
Amma : To that ... (Amma points to the fire puja — the yagam). This is Amma’s wish... Amma’s wish is to do pujas —‘till Amma’s last day in this lifetime.
Amma wants to do all the pujas and yagams. As Amma already told you, the purpose of the pujas is to bring peace, joy and love. This peace, joy and love then create the path to the ultimate goal. This is all for humans.
Does this mean that Amma needs the peace and joy? As Amma already said, the purpose of the puja is that it brings peace and joy. Does it mean that the purpose of Amma’s pujas is to bring the peace and joy to Amma? No, whatever Amma is doing —whether it is the yagam, gho puja or other ritual, it is on behalf of the whole world. Amma is doing pujas on behalf of each and every creation.
So, it creates the positive energy in the world. A person’s mind changes: from thinking negative thoughts to thinking positive thoughts. As Amma already said, this specific Age is called the “Kaliyuga”. In this Age, humans attract negative thoughts very easily. To get good or positive thoughts in the mind will be very hard. It will be very easy to let in the bad or negative thoughts; very, very easy!
What the world needs now is the positive energy, good vibrations, and good thoughts. These are all the things that the world needs in the present time.
How can all this come about? As Amma explained in Calgary, when creation started in this world, it was pure because it came from the Divine. Each and every soul was pure. Later, because of situations and circumstances, it was diverted. It began to question about what to do or where to go.
So, the first thing you need during this Kaliyuga is for you to divert the bad thoughts. You need protection from negative energies. So, for that, the world needs good energies, positive energies, Divine energy. From where are they created? They are created from Amma’s pujas.
Sometimes, on a cloudy day, you can’t even see the sun. Even without the sun, there will still be Amma’s pujas. Sometimes the sun and the moon rest. The moon rests at the time of the New Moon. We can’t see the moon then. As when it is cloudy, you cannot see the sun. But there is no day without Amma’s pujas. This is Amma’s wish in this lifetime.
Hence, that is the purpose of Amma’s pujas; to create positive energy for the world. Whatever Amma does, it is on behalf of the whole world. On behalf of each and everyone, it doesn’t matter where they are. For example, let’s say that there is a fire somewhere. If it is a small fire, the chief will send the firemen to fight it. But if the fire is big; if it is out of control, then the fire chief himself will have to go and pick up the hose to put out the fire.
In the same manner, now in Kaliyuga, we are out of control!! ! I There are negative energies everywhere and they are out of control. So you won’t see the boss sitting around. In fact, you will see all the bosses out in the field and no one is left in the office, it’s empty now!
So Amma does pujas. . .and, out of that, love comes to the world. So, when Amma does these things it is for the world. This does not mean that you do not have to do puja anymore! It is for those who don’t have the opportunity, for those who do not know. So it does not mean that doing puja is not necessary - those who have this opportunity, they are blessed. But there are still lots of people, millions of people, no trillions.., who don’t have this opportunity. So for them, they need that energy. For them and on behalf of them, Amma is doing puja.
Amma blesses you all.
Karma
So on this day Amma is talking about Karma. Each and everything that ever happens in human life is because of Karma. You cannot wipe out Karma. No one can just get rid of the Karma for which they have done in the past. Everyone has to pay for the deeds they’ve done in the past.
In this case, why do humans need devotion? If you have to pay for the Karma this means you cannot do anything with your Karma. So then why do you need devotion, prayers, service or things like that? Why do humans need devotion? As Amma already said you can’t wipe it out, but you can reduce the intensity of those actions, so you can reduce the intensity of the Karma. So what will help reduce the intensity? The devotion will help to reduce the intensity because Karma is very strict and strong.
Sometimes it seems why, if God, the Divine gives unconditional love from Amma, why is God so strict with Karma? Why can’t there be some relaxation or an exemption. Why; because it is good for the human world. If there are some exemptions or relaxation, humans will not take Karma seriously and they will commit more sins. So this is why there is Karma, to have the fear of doing wrong things and bad things. Karma is like very strong glue and no one can wipe the Karma away. Your actions and deeds can help to reduce the Karma. You can reduce the Karma through devotion and through faith.
How can you reduce Karma, the Karma you have now; the suffering you are experiencing now? If it is from the past how can you reduce it through devotion or faith? How is it possible? When you are on the path of devotion, it will not just help only for the present but it will help to reduce the intensity of the past Karma and not create Karma for the present and the future.
When you are devoted, first you will be prevented from committing bad acts because with the devotion means you will engage yourself with activities of the divine, either Bhajans, Puja, Yagam, Meditation or things like that; anything that will connect you with the divine in some way. So the time you spend in doing good things, is the time you are prevented from committing bad deeds. The first benefit is, due to the devotion there is prevention of doing bad things and having bad thoughts.
The second benefit is, if there is no present bad Karma, this means there will be no bad Karma for the future. So what you do today is going to be the Karma for tomorrow. So if there is no Karma for today then there is no Karma for the future. When you are devoted to the divine, you engage yourself in good actions, and you are prevented from the bad activities; because of this you will have good thoughts and you won’t create any bad Karma in the present or in the future. Ok this is for present and for future Karma.
Now the topic is what is the solution for the past, how can we get rid of the Karma and suffering of the past? So because of your devotion and because of your thoughts you will have that love, the love will be created in you; and out of that you’ll start to do the service, the good deeds. This will create the good karma and that good Karma will also reduce previous bad Karma.
The good deeds you are doing out of love and what you have done through your spiritual life, through devotion will allow you to think good thoughts and to do good deeds. So out of that it will create good Karma and that good Karma, if it is bigger than the past Karma, will have returns. The Karma that you have done in the past will have its returns, if the Karma you are doing today is bigger than your previous Karma. You will get a bigger result.
So maybe from the Karma from the past is small and for that you have suffering, and the deed that you have done today creates a big Karma; it will bring the bigger result which will help to reduce that past Karma. So devotion is the solution to get rid of the Karma of past, present and future.
Devotee: ‘Can humans live with their own freedom, can’t they live without the Divine?’ Why is it a must that everyone should follow the spiritual path? Why everyone should be devoted to God? Why can’t they live how they want?
Amma: Yes. You can live how want, but it is not how you are living, it is how much joy you are getting out of life and how much sufferings you are experiencing. Those are the things to consider in human life. If someone leads their life as they wish without Divine faith or trust, what will happen?
Each and every human birth will have suffering because of Karma and due to this one might say ‘I don’t believe in Karma’. Even though you may say you don’t believe in Karma that doesn’t mean that the Karma is not following you, whether you want it to or not. It will be ahead of you, you cannot say ‘I am not going to believe in Karma; therefore I’m not going to have any suffering’. Whether you believe, whether you trust in it or not, it follows, in fact it does not follow, because this means behind, no. It is always just ahead of you; therefore every human has Karma.
Ok, if someone lives without devotion, what will happen? They will have to live without any remedy, solution, courage or faith. Whatever they have to face; someone out there will tell them this, this or this happened because of this and that happened because of that, but they are still going to have to suffer because of those actions. There will be no possibility to reduce the suffering, they have to suffer the whole thing.
So what is someone is devoted? What if someone is God fearing or if someone has faith? What will happen? If someone accepts God in their life what will happen to them? Even for them there will be problems, but now the trust that you now have will make you tell all your problems to the Divine and that itself will lessen your suffering, because just by sharing instead of keeping everything in you, just by sharing the feelings you are having, just by sharing the suffering with someone, that itself will help take away the frustration.
If you keep everything inside of you, even though you know sharing it with someone will help, if you just keep it in your heart and make your heart tight, it will cause frustration, it creates inner tightness. Isn’t it true? It creates frustration, but if we share our suffering with our friends or with our parents that itself will bring some relaxation.
So the first is by having trust in the Divine, by accepting the Divine in your life you are not going to lose faith. You are going to lose worry. You are going to lose suffering; because once you accept the Divine you will just convey all your feelings and thoughts you will expose everything to the Divine. That itself will bring relaxation and secondly you will get courage just by conveying your suffering and worry to the Divine. You will get confidence because you already told everything to Amma. So Amma will take care; and half of the problem disappears because of the sharing and courage.
So for the rest of the problem, the second half, you already have courage because you have faith and you have trust and because you already told the problem to Amma, you already prayed to Amma, so Amma will take care. Knowing that Amma will take care brings more courage and strength. So with courage and strength, the rest of the problem will be very easy to handle. To get rid of it will be very easy because you know you will have the strength, you will have the energy because of the faith and trust.
Accepting that human life is a gift you are not going to lose anything, physically or psychologically; you are going to get benefits. You are going to be more relaxed. If your problem is not shared then it remains your problem, since you are not ready to share it. Your problem will stay in your heart and that one problem will create another problem.
So just by sharing, just by sharing in the way of prayer, whatever it is, it will first bring relaxation and secondly faith. The trust we develop will bring courage and confidence. So with faith, courage and confidence you can handle the problem very easily. By having the Divine in human life, it helps to accept pain very easily, to reduce the suffering. This is the necessity of the Divine in the life of mankind.
Amma bless you all.