Change of OutlookIt will not do to forget that all the materials of life that we enjoy owe their origin to God or man who is himself the best creation of God. we may obtain things by our labour, but God has created the possibility of having our needs fulfilled through the application of industry. So there is no end to the responsibilities and duties that we have towards God and his creation. One of those duties is observance of Istabhriti. Through this we can establish a conscious link with the creator and His creation. That link is an active link involving the cultivation of love and the deepest sentiments of our being. As we go on sustaining this tie we gradually realize that we with all we have are His representatives whose main duty is to serve God and the world. That is not all. In fact, we belong to the whole universe and the whole universe belongs to us. The ‘I’ became the All, the All is ‘I’ and bliss. When I can discover myself in all and all others can find themselves in me, there emerges the culmination of becoming and bliss. So it is full of bliss.
That is why in the Gita we find the percept of partaking of remnants of sacrifice. First of all we are to offer Istabhriti and then we can have food and drink. If we take food without doing this, that is as good as enjoying the fruits of theft and sin. Because thereby the supreme source is actually ignored, excluded, and forgotten. We shall have to do away with this oblivious narrow, isolated move and invoke a conscious, expansive, well-attuned go of life. We shall have to be attached to the mainstream of a larger life that embraces both the Ideal and the environment. And that sort of life does have a material origination through the medium of Istabhriti.
Istabhriti and the Emergence of a Capacity to Overcome Dangers
The devout observance of Istabhriti generates such a potent existential strength and intelligence in the psycho-physiological system of a man that he can easily get rid of dangers, accidents, and calamities with the aid of the same. A man who is constantly engaged in materializing the wishes of the Ideal normally acquires the knack, volitional urge and mental strength to subdue all that is hostile to his existence. So he does not perish even in the midst of devastations. While others are swept away like so many straws in the face of disasters, he stands unmoved like a tower with an unsullied glory. Due to the emergence of a concentric, adjusted, fine responsive faculty, he often gets premonitions of imminent dangers and thus avoids and averts then skillfully. This is no miraculous phenomenon. This is just a scientific reality. Danger-averting inspiration and resourcefulness are likely to be the constant companion of him who is always active, alert and ardent in furthering the cause of universal well-being.
Detachment
Quite a lot of points may be discussed in connection with Istabhriti. Anyway we intend to conclude this chapter without going into sundry details. What we aim at emphasizing is that the meaningfulness of everything we acquire in life lies in employing the same in the service of the Ideal. Otherwise we do not have mastery over our acquisition. We become subjected to attachment, bondage, encumbrance and perversion by what we gather and pile up and ultimately ruin ourselves thereby. In that state we lose active communion with the Supreme source and eventually miss the dynamic flow and glow of an ever-evolving go of life. We start withering away like a narrow and shallow sheet of stagnant water. But whatever we dedicate to his service unexpectantly goes on growing owing to the unfailing operation of the invariable law of Nature. That alone emancipates us from the shackles of selfishness and delusion. That alone serves to make us great and expansive transforming us to be the vehicle of the infinite. His infinite power finds a free play and flow in and through us. But there does not grow any egoism or attachment about our achievements.
“You do not own anything for your narrow self even when you are in full possession of everything. So, you are always pure”.
We sincerely pray to God so that everything we possess may be used for the Ideal and the existential service of self and the environment and may thus make ourselves pure, enlightened and liberated. Let us ceaselessly advance towards the attainment of bliss.●
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