Queiry from a seeker

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

As your question may be of interest to others also, I am cc'ing this to dedicated to spirituality, after deleting references to your name.

 

First of all, dharma varies from person to person. Not every person can renounce. Not every person can perform rituals. Not every person can read scriptures. Not every person can contemplate the teachings of scriptures. Not every person can visit temples.

 

Different people have different duties given by Nature as a result of previous samskaras of the person. One needs to find out and fulfil the duties with as little attachment and ego as possible.

 

Pre-existing karmik debts of some may make it their dharma to make a lot of money and use it for some good causes. That may require bribing or lying.

 

That itself is not a great sin. We all do many sins.

 

One of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's sishyas, Surendra Nath Mitra, worked at a British merchant firm and was a rich man in Calcutta. He was one of the providers of Ramakrishna and the land where Belur Math was started was bought with the money he had donated. When he was confused, Ramakrishna told him:

 

"The renunciation of 'lust and gold' is for sannyasins. It is not for you. Now and then you should go into solitude and call on God with a yearning heart. Your renunciation should be mental.

"For you, like Chaitanya said, the disciplines to be practised are kindness to living beings, service to the devotees, and chanting the name of God.

"Why do I say all this to you? You work in a merchant's office. I say this to you because you have many duties to perform there.

"You tell lies at the office. Then why do I eat the food you offer me? Because you give money in charity; you give away more than you earn. 'The seed of the melon is bigger than the fruit,' as the saying goes.

"I cannot eat anything offered by miserly people. Their wealth is squandered in these ways: first, litigation; second, thieves and robbers; third, physicians; fourth, their wicked children's extravagance. It is like that."

 

Ramakrishna told Surendra to remember the Mother in all his activities and offer all his activities to Her mentally. He also told him to always give in charity.

 

* * *

 

Similarly, if your job requires you to lie or give bribes, don't worry about it. If that job is needed for fulfilling your dharma towards self or family or world, do what is needed. However, minimize selfishness. Do things for others. Do it for your family and for the society in general. Instead of using all the money for yourself or your family, be generous and donate some to the needy. Also donate some to devotees and saintly people and serve them. The lying and bribes and earning good money (which your samskaras are pulling you to do) will be worthwhile then.

 

 

> Some say to grow one has to do that. Some say to survive one

> has to give. So I am wondering what the correct way should be.

 

If you do it to survive, survive and do good deeds. If you do it to grow, grow and make sure that some unselfiish dharma around you also grows along with you.

 

Nothing is good or bad per se. How you do it and what frame of mind you do it with is more important than what you do.

 

At the end of the day, there is some good and bad and they balance out. The trick is to find the right balance.

 

* * *

As you engage in various activities related to the job, mentally offer them to the Divine Mother. This will eventually fill the mind with devotive energy even in the middle of mundane activities. If you are ashamed to do something, you better not do it. If there is justification for something and you are clear in your mind why you are doing it, then you should not be ashamed of it and you should be able to offer it to the Mother. So offer all your activities to the Mother mentally as you do them. If you get into this practice, it will make your mind more confident and calm and increase devotion.

 

* * *

 

People depending on your for their food etc will also get a part of your karma. So your wife and children will get some part of that karma.

 

However, if you engage in the activities with love, devotion and a calm mind and put a part of the money to good unselfish use, you need not worry about it.

 

Best regards,NarasimhaDo a Short Homam Yourself: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/homamDo Pitri Tarpanas Yourself: http://www.VedicAstrologer.org/tarpanaSpirituality: Free Jyotish lessons (MP3): http://vedicastro.home.comcast.netFree Jyotish software (Windows): http://www.VedicAstrologer.orgSri Jagannath Centre (SJC) website: http://www.SriJagannath.org

 

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Dear Narsimhaji Thank you for taking the time off your busy schedule.My queiry is as under It is my desire to grow spiritually as well as materialistically. In fact I feel that in the rat race of today, to live in a city one must have decent amount of money where one can survive and afford the necessities like car, villa, so on and so forth. I do believe that one must not hanker after money (specially if one is also bent to grow spiritually) but at the same time one must have enough money so that at least ones one or two generation does not have to worry about the same.Considering the above fact, I feel either you must be a specialist or be in a very special field or if you are in business you should have a niche product or be in a niche market. If the above is not possible, then you have to be in business with some competitive edge. Now if you are starting a business, to capture the market either you must have a very strong financial backing and/or have a special relationship with your customer. In fact even if there is a strong financial backing behind you, to beat the competition you should have a special relationship with the customer. I hope you agree with me and I would love to know your views on this.To elaborate the point, the special relationship consists of either taking the person out to dinner/lunch or doing a favor for him in some way or other or most of the time what it means is keeping a commission for him (this is because these days lunches and small gifts do not satisfy people). Here the customer does not mean the owner of the Company but the purchaser or if you are selling say technical products, then it would be the site engineer or the engineer who specifies your products. Now I know accepting bribe is considered sin, and I am fully aware of the consequences, I am talking of giving bribes and your views on this and how does that come in the way of our spiritual progress. You may be surprised to know why I ask this question,but this is very commonplace in India, Middle East and most of the developing nations of the world and I have talked to many many people, either business owners or people in sales (from small fishes to big sharks) and most of them offer the same in some form or the other. Some say to grow one has to do that. Some say to survive one has to give. So I am wondering what the correct way should be.Please give some detailed guidelines from the spiritual perspective and if I do the same, i.e. give bribe, will it come in the way or affect the karma of my family members, specially my wife . As a sideline, could you also explain if my action can affect the karmas of my wife or whatever my wife is today (spiritually, materialistically etc) and will be, is exclusively due to her karmas.If you could kindly throw light on these doubts, that would be much appreciated. Thanks and Regards<deleted>