“Swamiji you always say to pray to God, always, but I’m working on the outside. How will I attain the Divine?” ....

A few days ago, somebody asked me “Swamiji you always say to pray to God, always, but I’m working  on the outside. How will I attain the Divine?” I think many of you ask this question. The answer is simple. There is one sentence in the Gita about doing one’s duty. One can’t neglect one’s duty. In the Gita it said that the dharma, one has to do. No matter what, dharma is very important, but how one has to do it, that is the most important thing. There is one form of doing one’s duty, which is nishkama karma, which means to do one’s duty without expecting anything, to do one’s duty in rendering service to others without even thinking of the result. That is what the Gita said “Whatever one does, if one is attached to the fruit of the action, one will suffer.” It’s true, because when we expect certain things, when we do certain things, there is always certain expectation and when the expectation is not met, what happens? You get sad, no? You feel upset. Where does this come from? You created it. You make yourself sad.So when one does one’s duty without even expecting something that means that the mind is already surrendering to the Divine. In another way, the mind, when it has the sattvic quality, the mind doesn’t have any power into it. This is where whatever one does is a complete surrender to the Divine, but whereas when one gets a little mixture of rajasic quality with   sattvic quality, then one, always, says “I will do good to the world.” In that state we’ll see that the I is very big. Whenever the mind pictures the I, it doesn’t mean the I of the Self; it means, always, the I of the ego “I can do this; I can do that.” As long as you have not Realised your Self, the I of the ego is always big. That’s why it is said in the Scripture: Remove this I. Put Him, you know, the Lord, because as long as one has not realised anything, one has to remind oneself continuously that All is Him.Even what you perceive that you are doing yourself, actually, it is Him which is acting through you. That’s why the great Sages, when they have realised themselves, they always praise the Lord by saying “Lord, I am the vehicle, but you are the one who  is driving it. I am the chariot, but you are the charioteer. I am the wick of the lamp, but you are the light. I am the house, but you are the dweller of that house.” So in that state one has fully transcended the human nature seeing only the Divine working in everything. In that state, one sees the world in a different angle, not the same as with the egoistic mind point of view. Often people come, they say “Oh, Swamiji, I have seen this vision and that vision.” No, no, because people always want to think that they are special in whatever they do. Very often, without judgment, you see them very proudly “Oh, I have seen that. I have seen this.”, but what is that if it is not just pride? Because when one comes face to face with the Divine and really experiences something from the Divine, one doesn’t talk about it. One treasures it as the most precious treasure inside one’s heart.   In that state, the mere mention of the Divine Name will make one cry out of joy knowing that this experience that one has received from the Divine,  is real. And this is all due to the nishkama karma. Wherever your dharma is, wherever God has put you, no matter what kind of work he has lead you to, there’s a reason for that. Whenever you do your duty, it doesn’t matter where you are, it doesn’t matter what you do if you do it with a mind surrendered to the Divine, if you do it with your heart completely full of Love, even there God will come to you.