‘El Nino effect’, ‘Rainfall expected to be below normal’, ‘Super El Nino forming’, ‘Rainfall may drop to 90% of the long-range average' — every second day one gets notifications on the phone without active subscriptions. Just imagine what one receives when one does subscribe. This kind of fear-mongering is rampant on social media.
Bhakti And Acceptance
As spiritually inclined people, why are we letting this news stress us out? One essential quality for a spiritually inclined person living an ordinary life is bhakti. Bhakti, devotion, involves at a minimum an acceptance of situations we have no control over, like acts of nature.
We have had several good years of monsoon. The law of averages, which is part of Īśvara's order, is bound to catch up and deliver a difficult year of monsoon. Can we not accept this and meet it with equanimity? And ten percent less monsoon is not a drought. It simply means we need to be mindful of our use of an important natural resource, namely water.
Intelligent Response Through Devotion
Can we not, out of our sense of devotion, accept Īśvara's order and say: I will learn to deal with it, I will learn to manage it. By God's grace, we will not merely survive, we will thrive.
It calls for intelligent response: conservative use of water, ten percent less than what I normally use. That is all it takes.
If one has bhakti, some genuine sense of devotion, this response arises quite naturally. The real skill for a spiritual student is learning to extend one's bhakti from the pūjā room into daily life. Bhakti is not meant to remain confined to the pūjā room or to listening to bhajans. It extends into daily life as acceptance of the Lord's will, acceptance of Īśvara's order, and a recognition that the Lord has given us the capacity to think and to act — and therefore to use our intelligence to live wisely and well.
Bhakti And Intelligence Together
Bhakti and intelligence together allow us to navigate life with both competence and grace. So irrespective of what the monsoon brings, I can still live well, anchored in devotion.
(The writer is the founder of Aarsha Vidya Foundation. You can write to him at aarshavidyaf@gmail.com)
