The Excuse of Difficulty :

Why Do Sadhana?



God-Realisation Has a Price :



In this world, everything has got a price-tag attached to it. If you want something, you must be willing to pay the price for it. You cannot get something for nothing. It is against the Law. If you say, "I can steal, I can rob", even there, you must be willing to pay the price of robbery, the risk of arrest and punishment. They say that in Malaysia, if you want to marry a Malaysian Muslim girl—and they have a reputation for their looks—and if you happen to be a Hindu or a Christian or a Buddhist, you must first get converted to the Muslim faith before you can marry her. Under the Malaysian law, this is necessary. In other words, you can get your girl if you can pay the price of your religion.

It is an old tale how King Edward VIII of England gave up his throne to marry his commoner wife.

It is recent history that the people of Bangladesh obtained their political freedom with the blood of thousands of martyrs, with the chastity and family happiness of their girls and womenfolk.

I once read the real-life story of how in Africa, in a certain tribe, a girl declared that she would marry only that man who brought her the milk of a tigress and how a certain youth who was mad after her fought with a tigress, grappled with it and secured a couple of ounces of the animal’s milk, a creamy, yellowish liquid. The girl married him, because he had paid her price.

Similarly, God-realisation has a price-tag attached to it. The price of God-realisation is total sacrifice of everything. Sacrifice of all. Nothing can be kept back. Everything has to be given up. All that you hold near and dear have to be sacrificed. You have to give up friends, give up relatives, give up name and fame and wealth and everything. You have to sacrifice your ego. That is the essence of it. You have to give up your particularised individuality. Now you are Mr. So-and-so. If you want to realise God, if you want to assert your true position as God, you must cease to be man. You must be willing to throw aside, to shake off, this cloak of a human being. You must cease to be Mr. So-and-so. When the little ‘I’ in you ceases to exist, the God in you will shine in unclouded splendour.

To win a school certificate is not very difficult. More difficult it is to get a degree in college. Still more difficult it is to secure a research degree. Yet more difficult it is to win the coveted Nobel Prize. Infinitely more difficult it is to acquire the badge of God-realisation.

So you have to struggle. So you have to practise. Maybe for a few years. Maybe for a thousand Janmas (lifetimes). But you have the consolation that you do Sadhana, that you undergo these difficulties for your own sake, not for anybody else’s.

Yes. You do not practise Sadhana for anybody’s benefit except your own. You are not doing a favour to any saint by following his teachings. God does not require you to build temples and churches to enhance or heighten His grandeur. His grandeur cannot be enhanced. It is perfect, full, Purnam, absolute. Your spiritual activities are for your benefit.

Sri N. Ananthanarayanan

END.