I can do it. I alone can do it. What is the difference between these two statements? I did it. I alone could do it. No one else could have done it. Is it right to think so or wrong?
- Sri Baldev, Kolkata.
Answer: Dear Bala, can it be ever right to think so?
If one thinks, one can do it, it is confidence. But if he brags, he alone can do it and no one else can do it, that is absurd, over-confidence. Just like a cotton flake always tossed by wind, bragging its pseudo glory before the mighty the Mother Nature.
Suppose you are assigned a project in your office and you also skilfully complete it, there is nothing wrong in feeling proud. But if you start bragging about it, well remember the cotton flake before the mighty Mother Nature.
Understand how God and Nature activate us. How blessed it will be, if only, we understand that we are mere drops in the cosmic energy of the Almighty. That will be an experiential knowledge.
Do you know the contribution of the many that lies behind the food on your plate?
The farmers, the reapers, the laborers, the one who procured such others have worked hard for your food without even knowing you.
The cooked rice on your plate has travelled from wholesaler to retailer, to your cook or to your wife before reaching your table.
The yellow paddy growing in the field turns into white rice before reaching you. What is your contribution in this journey of hard labour and sacrifice? For that matter what little have you done either to the one who sowed or to the one who cooked? May be you have paid a small price for the nature’s bounty. That's all.
Remember that divine power and nature have done all these works silently for your sake. OK. Now let us see what happens within your body. You eat. That is you move the food from plate to palate. This is simply what we do. But the food strengthens your nerves, blood, brain, why even your mind, if it is offered to God.
Accepted food becomes energy. Rejected one becomes waste. What is your role in all these? If only we understand this, we will always remain humble and grateful before the Mother Nature.
Please observe that such wonderful workings are happening every day without and within us. As we lack the patience and responsibility to observe them, we brag even if accomplish a small task. Isn’t it childish?
Will you give a chance for the wise people to ridicule at such childishness? Bala, please don’t.
Swami Vimurtananda
01 March, 2021
Ramakrishna Math, Thanjavur