Faith and Devotion

Hundreds of years ago there were hardly any temples, but people would make an attempt to go to those few temples with great devotion and would be contended and happy. Nowadays we have temples everywhere, almost one for a street, but people hardly go and they are also not experiencing peace and happiness. So what is the reason for this?

Earlier people believed that God existed everywhere. Some would believe that Sri’s existed in a “Neem” tree and would offer prayers to that tree, while some would believe that Sri’s exists in a particular “Stone” in their lands or fields and would pray to that Stone. Such was the extent of their devotion and this gave them happiness. Nowadays people hardly go to the temples saying that they have no time and they also lack faith and devotion and this leads to lack of peace and happiness. This shows that Sri’s is where faith is.

Faith is a form of God. In the present day there are temples according to caste and religion, but count how many actually go there. People go to temples only on occasions and other times ignore it. Those who believed that God existed everywhere and in everything experienced tremendous amount of peace and happiness. All this is due to their faith.

The belief that Sri’s exists only in big temples is false. Sri’s exists wherever there is faith. Stone or Tree worship, it doesn’t matter. Worshipping with faith and devotion is what matters and it is important to carry on this at all times. If you believe that Sri’s exists where you think Sri’s does, then Sri’s will definitely be there, be it a tree, stone or anything else for that matter. Sri’s can move from a big temple to a person praying to a tree depending on his faith and devotion. Prestige or grandeur is not important. It is faith and devotion that are of utmost importance.

The question is to how many items should I offer for abhishekam, what mantra should I recite, how many times should I recite are of no value at all if you have no faith and are doing it for the sake of doing it.

Offer what you can but only if you are offering it with faith and devotion. Each and everyone has a heart .So develop faith in it. Even offering mere turmeric water combined with faith is more important than those things offered without faith. Many would then ask why are so many huge yagas being performed here at the temple. These yagas and homas are being performed for the benefit of mankind.

Sri has so many names and forms. So any form of devotion to any name and form is accepted when offered with faith and devotion. Many of you have some time to spare. Don’t waste it. Cultivate it to develop a habit or service that will be useful for survival the Mother in turn will serve the world. eg. Plant a tree, take care of it and when it flowers, offer the flowers to the temple. This itself, is sufficient and this paves way for other services which will benefit mankind at large.

“Sri blesses all to develop faith and devotion and pave the way for the service to mankind”.