Prasadam

There is a beautiful concept of "Prasad" or "Prasadam" in India. We go to different temples and offer certain items of food such as fruits and sweets to the Lord and the priest gives back something as Prasad. Sometimes, he keeps a part of the offering and returns a part from the same. Yet, the taste of the same food item improves significantly after it becomes Prasad and it tastes so well now. We don't crave taking the whole of it. Rather, we feel like distributing the same to everybody around us.

Can't we do our work in the spirit of offering to the Lord and take whatever results we get as the Prasadam and distribute the same to everybody around. Why do we become so selfish while carrying out the work, and that too a selfishness that is actually self-damaging. 

While going to the temple, we prepare the Parasadam to the best of our ability and actually put in more effort than the effort required to prepare the meal for ourselves and our family for the simple reason that the Parasadam is being prepared for the Lord. We wish to give our best. Similarly, if we carry out different works in our daily lives in the same spirit, we will give our best to the task at hand. The task at hand is our offering to the Lord. 

Each of the tasks brings certain results. The results may be the desired ones or undesired ones. When we offer Prasadam to the lord, what we get from the priest may or may not be something we ordinarily like. However, when that becomes Prasadam, that becomes very special. Similarly, when we perform different functions as offerings to the Lord, the result of these actions comes as Prasadam to us and it does not matter whether they are as per our wish or against our wishes. As Prasadam is so dear to us since it contains the blessings of the Lord, similarly, the result of the actions we perform is the blessing of the Lord. 

Sometimes the results may appear to be against our "wants" and "wishes", however, that is the blessing of the Lord to widen our horizon. As a student, at best I could have thought in 10th was to be a B.Tech, and after 12th, for the reasons still unknown to me, I started preparing for CA. Till I completed my CA, I had no idea of Civil Services till my employer in CA one day suddenly inspired me to prepare for Civil Services. I am almost 100% sure that he would not have given such guidance to many. It was the Lord speaking through him to take me to this path. After appearing in my first Mains, I somehow made a plan to go to Rajghat, that was not a normal thing since I had never been there earlier and got "My Experiment with Truth" and "Emotional Intelligence" that laid the foundation stone of my spiritual seeking for the rest of my life. In fact, I have experienced that whenever there is any question coming to my mind on any aspect of reality, whenever I visit the bookstore, I get some or other book related to the topic.

Isn't it so that the divine is always guiding us. Most of the time, we just resist listening to Him. Through our decisions, actions, and results, He is just trying to take us along the path of our spiritual evolution. Sometimes, we are not mature enough and start being stubborn like a young kid and then He leaves us to experiment and learn our lessons. Sometimes, when He sees that the stubbornness of His child will do some great harm to the child, He brings certain results that appear to be unacceptable or undesirable. However, such results or events come for our spiritual advancement.

There are many who are more stubborn than the others and therefore He has to bring different situations in their lives to ensure their spiritual evolution. While some have an intrinsic trust in the divine and very easily move along the path shown by the divine. 

I feel that the most crucial factor is our center of life. If the center of our life is the divine, each of our actions will be our offering to the divine and each of the results will be his Prasadam which will be equally fulfilling and satisfying despite its nature in the eyes of the world. We will carry out each of our actions with complete devotion since it is our offering to the Divine. As we do not offer adulterated Prasadam to the lord, the "work" should not be contaminated by the feeling of ego or selfishness. Also, the results of the work will be accepted in the spirit of Prasadam.