It is rare that we worship or do spiritual practices without a motive. We have endless motives for our worship. We need food, clothing, shelter and protection and once these basic desires are fulfilled, we go in specifics – we need husband, wife, children, home, furniture, school admissions, the latest gadgets, electronics, more friends, more popularity, power, increased salary packages, foreign holiday, savings, properties etc. We pray and bargain with God. We offer bribes in form of prayers, offering of flowers and sweets at temples, worship, meditation, reading of holy texts and other promises. In return, we seek the fulfillment of our endless list of demands which are regularly updated. God is loved always for His Gifts and rarely for Himself.
It is also right that we seek the blessings of Divinity to fulfil our needs. Divinity keeps granting our desires in hope that someday we are tired of the gifts given and seek the Giver. When we practice smaran, japa, meditation and other practices, these purify our being. We are slowly changed and a day comes when we are transformed. At that time, our list of priorities changes and we do not seek the original goals with which we started our practices. We seek to love God for sake of loving Him. This is one such story of Buddha and his cousin Nanda:
Once, Buddha was requested by his father King Suddhodana to visit the city of Kapilavastu. Buddha went there with his group of monks. The Palace of the King was very busy with the preparations of the marriage of Prince Nanda, the step brother of Buddha. Buddha went to Prince Nanda’s house for alms and handed over his alms bowl to him. Then Buddha walked out without taking back the bowl. The Prince carried the bowl with the alms and went behind Buddha as it was disrespectful to return the bowl to Buddha. The bride of the Prince ran after him asking him to come back soon. At the monastery, the Prince became a monk.
Nanda the monk was not happy moving around with Buddha. He was discontent and did his duties half-heartedly. He did not find any pleasure in the life of a monk. He wanted to go back to the palace and marry and return to the life of a householder. He kept recalling the words of the princess begging him to come back soon. Buddha knew of this and through his supernormal powers enabled Nanda to see beautiful damsels of the heavenly regions. He told Nanda he could have one of them if he worked hard and practiced the Buddhist Dharma. Other monks ridiculed him saying he was a hireling who practised Dharma for sake of a beautiful girl. Nanda was very ashamed of his weakness. Unknown to others, he practised Dharma diligently and eventually attained Enlightenment. Then his mind was totally free from all attachments and there were no lustful thoughts in him. This was foreseen by Buddha from before and hence he helped him attain it.
Most of the monks who knew Nanda and his desires, asked him how he was doing. He replied that he had no more attachments to the life of a householder. The monks felt that Nanda spoke lies. So they informed Buddha about Nanda. Buddha gave a sermon in which he explained that nature of Nanda had changed. Previously his mind was like house with bad roof where rain waters leaked into the house. Now his mind had developed and was like a well thatched home where the rain waters fell down but did not leak into the house. From the day Nanda was shown the heavenly damsels by Buddha, he worked hard to overcome the cycles of birth and death and attained enlightenment.
We can also train and transform our mind through SitaRam Mantra, meditation and the teachings of the Guru. Then the worldly desire and attachments will fall off us and not leak into our minds and lives. We may start with motives when we meditate, but ultimately the love of God will overtake us and show us the Light.
