Prahlada was asked by Lord Vishnu, ‘what do you want?’ He said, ‘give me love for your lotus feet. – give me bhakti [deep devotion/love for God]’. The Lord said, ‘Ask me for moksha – complete liberation. Ask me for wealth. Ask me for a wife and children. Ask me for horses and elephants. Ask me for whatever you like, but please, I beg you, don’t ask me for this. This is the rarest gift. Don’t ask me for that.’
‘But Lord, why?’ The Lord says, ‘anyone that follows jnana, knowledge – they get moksha themselves. They do not bind anybody. They do not worry anybody. Didn’t you see that Radha [the consort of Sri Krishna] made me her slave? Every second she cries, I have to give her attention, 'Yes my dear – what do you want?' [devotees laugh]. Prahlada, they’re putting you in the fire, 'yes, what happened my dear?' [Swamiji plays the ‘harassed’ God to emphasise the point] Dhruva, crying in the forest - they make me virtually their slave. I’m so tired of being a slave. Ask me for anything else but for love, bhakti, devotion to me, don’t ask me.’
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said too, ‘O God, you can have everything but please leave my bhakti alone’. So when you’re asking God, ask him for...what? Love, increased love, in my heart, for you. Not for a new car. Not for a wife, they will get old. Then the trouble starts. So please, not those things. Ask for that which will never get old - that will remain constant. It will be a tremendous love and that love is ever constant. Can you imagine? You’ll be happy, happy always.
This human love fluctuates when a man grows old and a woman gets old. And that poor woman will dress up nicely one day to please her husband and he’ll say, ‘why are you dressing up so nicely?’ [devotees and Swamiji laugh heartily] This is true! Whether you like it or not. These are the hard facts of sensual pleasure. So ask for God alone and ask God, ‘give me bhakti.’ What has Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said? It’s very practical spirituality – it’s the attitude of the mind. He said, after worshipping God, say, ‘God, whatever merit I’ve got for all this spiritual worship, service to man, Lord whatever I’ve got, I wholeheartedly surrender it at thy feet. Om shanti, shanti, shanti.’
Don’t stand and think for one second longer or your mind will change. Your mind will change and you’ll say, ‘Lord, no I think tomorrow I’m going to look for work, please give me work.’ I know – because all this happened to this fellow [me]. Don’t worry, your mind will change. The final thing you should say to God is, ‘whatever merit I got, Lord, I surrender it at thy feet. Om shanti, shanti, shanti [peace, peace, peace].’ Don’t stand there please, because if there’s anything in this world you cannot trust - anything - it is your own mind. It is your own?...mind. Whether you may say out of ego, ‘I trust it’, you know how many times it’s let you down. [Swamiji chuckles] Don’t worry, you know that.
The mind…if you deal with other people, you have to deal with the mind. If you’re dealing with yourself, you’re still dealing with the?...mind. It is always there. It is the mind. That’s why ‘manu’, ‘man’ [in Sanskrit] manu, man, mind, manushya, mind – all these are minds. All these are?...minds. So, in English too, you get the word, man, ‘m’ which is mind. In Sanskrit you get the word, ‘Maya’ – it starts with ‘m’. Everything that starts with ‘m’, just watch it. Mother, capital letter, Maya, also. Maha Maya that is. So, there you are. Watch it.
So this mind should not be trusted [Swamiji chants in Hindi] The mind will say, ‘commit suicide.’ You think, ‘yes, I’ll do it, I’ll show these people a point’. When you have drowned yourself you’ll see how much chance you have to see people crying. You go to the sea and drown yourself. Only your mind will say, ‘very good. Look what I did.’ The mind is a thorough rogue. After putting you there, it’s going to laugh. ‘Look what I did.’ Don’t trust your mind. Trust God’s mind. And how to trust God’s mind? When you surrender your mind to God then it becomes God’s. As long as you don’t surrender it, it’s your mind. Don’t trust it...
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