Remembering Godamidst worldy duties

June 13, 2008

Remembering God amidst worldly duties (TOI Photo) Can a worldly man devote himself to God?

There is a reference in the Bible that once the Pharisees , with a motive of entangling Jesus in their machination, sent unto him their disciples withthe Herodians. Reigned by their hypocrisy, they, deliberately, enquired of Jesus: Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? (Matt: 22:17)

The question was put with a motive that if he said, “No”, then they would inform the Emperor, “Jesus Christ is a traitor and is misguiding and provokingpeople against you”. And if he responded affirmatively, then they would prove his statement, “I am the son of God”, to be false. However, Christ said:Show me the tribute money... (Matt: 22:19).

Accordingly, a penny was brought. He then enquired, “Whose stamp is there on this penny?” “It is that of the Roman emperor, Caesar”, said the people. Hearingtheir response, Christ said: ... Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s ; and unto God the things that are God’s . (Matt: 22:21)

The import is that whichever entity was marked with the stamp of Caesar could be offered to him, and whichever was stamped with God had to be presentedto Him. Similarly our body, mind and intellect have been granted to deal with the world, but our attention is meant to be directed towards God and Hisservice.

The power of concentration, attention or remembrance is a divine treasure entrusted to us by God, and we are the trustees of this spiritual treasure whosereal owner is the king of kings, God. Our redemption lies in offering the treasure back to its owner, God.

Serve the world, deal with it, and enjoy it but with total vigilance and caution. What is required is focus and here, a good memory is useful. An abilityto ignore unnecessary information is the only way to remember vital details. Until now, it was believed that those with good memories are able to processand store more information than others. But it is now proven that it is the ability to filter what we need and leave out the clutter.

Vogel’s team noticed how well a group of students could memorise geometric patterns. Volunteers were shown images containing a selection of rectanglesand asked to memorise their position and orientation. After a few seconds, they were shown a second pattern and asked if it was identical to the first.In some cases, all the rectangles were red, while in others, half were red and half blue, and the students were asked to memorise only the red ones.

The researchers, then, using a technique for measuring brainwaves, tracked how many shapes they were committing to memory. Thus, they found that thosehaving the poorest recall were also the worst at keeping the extra or the blue shapes out of their minds.

A second experiment showed that the effect was not related to colours. In it, the students were asked to memorise just one section of the pattern and ignorethe rest. Again, those who fared worst were the ones who found it most difficult to filter out the irrelevant parts of the pattern.

Therefore, forgetting the frivolous events or thoughts yields good memory and hence success. However, this art does not require switching off brain circuits,but by deviating its current-flow towards the source of eternal peace i.e. God. So, what we need to do is not to give up our worldly duties, but be morefocused and rational in our approach.

Discourse: Ashutosh Maharaj

Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan

Best Regards,K.s.Vishwanathan.Tel No: 022-28738192