Man loves his own riches,
and so he thinks that God loves His, too. He thinks that God will be
pleased if we glorify His riches. Once Sambhu, a devotee of Sri
Ramakrishna, said to him, “Please bless me, that I may die leaving
my riches at the Lotus Feet of God.” Sri Ramakrishna answered: “These are
riches only to you. What riches can you offer God? To Him these are mere
dust and straw.”
Can everybody sing? Singing is an expression of intense devotion. God can be bound by unselfish love and intense devotion.
In the Dakshineshwar
temple premises there were 12 Shiva temples and a temple dedicated to Vishnu
known as the temple of Radhakanta. Once a thief broke into the temple of Vishnu
and robbed the image of its jewels. Mathur Babu, who was the custodian of
the temple after the death of his mother-in-law Rani Rasmani (who built the
temple) and Sri Ramakrishna went to the temple after they were told about the
theft to get first-hand information about the matter. Addressing the
image of God in the sanctum sanctorum, Mathur said bitterly: “What a shame,
Lord! You are so worthless! The thief took all the ornaments from Your body,
and You couldn't do a thing about it.” Thereupon Sri Ramakrishna said to
Mathur: “Shame on you! How improper your words are! To God, the jewels you talk
so much about are only lumps of clay. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, is
His Consort. Do you mean to say that He should spend sleepless nights
because a thief has taken your few rupees? You mustn't say such things.”
Sri Ramakrishna says
further, "Can one ever bring God under control through
wealth? He can be tamed only through love. What does He want? Certainly
not wealth! He wants from His devotees love, devotion, feeling, discrimination,
and renunciation.”
We have reason to rejoice.
Here is somebody who cannot be controlled by wealth. But to control God we need
a few things. Do we have any of those – love, devotion, feeling,
discrimination, and renunciation – even a small measure? If we have them, and
if we can give them to Him, then we have the most powerful person under our
control.
There is a beautiful song
of Purandara Dasa, a poet saint of Karnataka, India, which goes like this:
If you lie down and sing,
He would sit and listen
If you sit and sing, He
would stand and listen
If you stand and sing, He
would dance
And if you dance and sing,
He would immediately appear before you...
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