All World
Gayatri Pariwar

Precious achievements require great efforts. This is the universal law of Nature.

Don’t dream of receiving divine gifts, blessings by merely uttering some prayers in the praise of God, chanting His names, offering flowers and sweets to the deity’s idols or pictures. Had it been so easy to find God or get blessed by divine grace, no saint, ascetic or sage would have performed arduous penance, self-restraint, yoga, chastity, and self-purification. People would have simply learnt the tricks in the form of some rituals or verbal utterances to attract and hold divine powers. Then someone would have also sold the formula of ‘catching’ Lord Hanuman, ‘meeting’ goddess “Santoshi Mata”, ‘appeasing’ Lord Ganesha and so on... Have you seen that happening anywhere? Why would there have been any need of ethics, moral values and disciplines then?

So please don’t rove in any hallucination, illusory convictions or superstitions. Don’t fool yourselves. Don’t run after the mirage of your mental imagination. The true meaning of sadhana is “to perfect”, “to master”. As a spiritual endeavor, it is a devout practice of self-purification, self-transformation (towards perfection) and self-ascent by self-determination. It requires mastery over the senses, over the mind and the intellect.

-Pujya Gurudev Pt. Shriram Sharma Acharya