In the next Sloka, the Lord describes that devotee who excels in serving the Lord.
अनपेक्षः शुचिर्दक्ष उदासीनो गतव्यथः ।
सर्वारम्भपरित्यागी यो मद्भक्तः स मे प्रियः ॥१२- १६॥
AnapeskhaH shuchirdyakshaH udaasino gatavyathaH
Sarvaaramba parityaagi yo matbhaktaH sa me priyaH
AnapekshaH – one who is free from expectations : ShuchiH – pure : DakshaH – resourceful: UdaasinaH – above petty desires :
GatavyataH – free from worries : Sarvaaramba parityaagi – one who is free from the desire to start something or the other : YaH – who: MadbhaktaH – that devotee of mine: SaH – he: Me priyaH - is dear to Me
First anapekshaH – without apekshaa or expectations. apekshaa – apa does not mean up – as in English, it means below, iikshaa means looking – that due to which people look down. Very often people have great expectations from their children. My son will grow up and become a great person. Then he will look after me. For this purpose, we accumulate wealth and then export them abroad. Once there was a couple who had one son. Just as parents with an only child are likely to do, they suffocated their son with love and then sent him to London to study Chartered Accountancy.
After a few days the son telephoned and said on the phone, “Mom, we are coming. You don’t have to come to the airport, we will come ourselves”. After the call, the environment on the house looked like the aftermath of a cyclone!! The wife asked the husband, “Dear, he went as “I”, how did he become “we”? What does this mean?” Dear replied, “you son must have got married”. Till then whenever they went for parties, the parents had only one business. Girl scouting! They used to look at different girls and comment, “This girl will be suitable for our “Chotu” or that girl is either too short or too dark or less qualified in some fashion”. Now when “Chotu” said “We”, all their expectations crumbled and they started lamenting! They said, “we have such a big house. Next to it, there is a huge orchard with fruit trees of every variety. What will we do?”. They thought, “the son will get married and a beautiful girl will come and she will press hands, legs, neck etc!!”. All problems are only due to false aspirations. So one should be “anapekshaH or without false hopes”.
On another instance, a person was invited to speak at a meeting. He was well educated and had prepared a speech using complicated language. When he reached the venue he saw that the audience were a group of tribal kids. Forget English, they did not even know proper Hindi. Their knowledge was restricted to broken Hindi that too learnt from watching Hindi cinemas. The friend was prepared for a talk that even educated adults would find difficult to understand. So when he saw the crowd, he started sweating. What do I speak? The organizer said, “tell them a story. these are kids and they will understand stories”. He said, “But I have prepared a wonderful lecture! Now it will go waste”.
Whenever we go anywhere with a preplanned idea, this is what happens. So as long as there are false hopes and expectations, there will only be disappointment and a devotee is one who is anapekshaH and who is able to accept every incident in his life as a prasaad of the Lord.
“Shuchi” means simple life with purity. Simple living, high thinking is often mistaken as dirty living stupid thinking. One should not have the attitude, “I am devotee of the Lord and so it does not matter if I am clean or dirty. Swami Chinmayananda never used to compromise on this and he used to say, “How we dress and how we address, these two determine the culture of a person.”
“dakshaH” – is one who is always alert. Not lackadaisical. Once a Sardarji was working on his computer and he had problems while trying to print. So he telephoned the technical service department. The technician asked, “Sir, are you running it under windows”. The Sardarji replied, “No, my desk is next to the door. But that is a good point. My neighbour who is in the next cubicle is under a window and his computer is working fine”!! Nothing justifies our being lazy and repeating the same mistake over and over again. A good devotee is always alert to the needs of his Guru, and does not have to be told and this is called daksharata. This is possible only if our mind is tuned to that of the Guru. So daksharata means tuning our mind with that of the Lord.
UdaasinaH does not mean frustrated. “Ud” means above and “aasinaH” means sitting. Therefore, udaasinaH means sitting above the low desires in life. When we have thirst for material possessions, they will take us away from the lord and only lead us to ruin. Once, there was a frog in the forest. As it was a very hot day, the frog was desperately looking for a shady place to rest. After intense search it found such a place and was resting happily there, not realizing that the place that it had found was underneath the hood of a serpent that was waiting to eat it. When we go after material objects, the happiness that we get is similar to that of the frog resting under a serpent’s hood, because it is not only temporary, but also waiting to devour us! UdaasinaH means rising above smallness. Just as a man who trades in crores of rupees will not care for 10 rupees, so too a devotee does not care for the small desires of the world, because he only wants the Lord.
GatavyataH – means one is beyond worries. Once there was a saint who was in his last few days. He was sitting in a satsangh and for over two hours, they were narrating the glories of the Lord. After the Satsangh was over, his devotees came to pick him up and they saw that the chair on which he had been sitting was full of blood. They said, “you must have felt pain”. The saint replied, “no I was hurt, but I never felt pain”. When we are hurt and expect sympathy from others, it is called “vyata”. Devotees are those who never expect pity/sympathy from anyone and live in the dignity of devotion to the Lord, because they are able to accept even the pain as a gift from the Lord.
“Sarvaaramba parityaagi” – is one who has given up the desire to do different things. When a person joins an organization as a trainee, he always wants to do many things, but as he gains experience, he realizes that when a person becomes qualified, work will automatically come to him and he does not have to look for it. If we don’t have the qualities required such as patience or the strength to do it, work wont come. There is no need for us to hanker after different things, because God will get whatever work he wants from us, at the chosen time.
So a devotee who serves the Lord is one who is anapekshaH – free from expectations, shuchiH – pure externally and internally, dakshaH – one whose mind is tuned to the Lord and can perform without being told, udaasinaH – one who is above petty desires, gatavyataH and expects no sympathy. He is a sarvaaramba parityaagi – who knows that he is but an instrument of the Lord and such a devotee is dear to the Lord. Readers may recall that we have also elaborated on this concept in an earlier post “An Instrument in the hands of the Lord“
Nice stories melded in seamlessly with the explanations!
Better to avoid “Sardarji” or other similar stereotypes. No need to hurt any particular group of people when presenting such excellent material.
sowmyaji, great explanations. i remember our guruji’s advise ” no expectations and no complaints”. the ego is the one thing which takes us away from the awareness of the ultimate giver (whether we ask for it or not). our family itself becomes a great platform to practice these qualities winning which we can extend further to the outer world. hari om!