How Does It Work?

 

What you are really doing is lightening your load, freeing yourself from a lot of burdens. When you give up meat, your health improves and the world's economy improves because of the wasted economic resources involved in the meat industry. In fact when you become devoted to God you are in effect letting go of a lot of material expectations that don't deliver what is promised. That is the nature of material expectations they do not deliver what is promised and the result is people get very frustrated.

 

An example is marriage, people don't think they are going to get divorced when they get married. They went into something with expectation that did not get fulfilled. These bodies are like that also. We get these bodies but we don't think we are going to die. How much do you think you are going to have to leave this body someday. Very few people think about their death. How many people like to get old? Nobody likes it.

 

But when you get into God Consciousness you tap into a source of pleasure that is not transitory, not temporal, in other words it is a pleasure that cannot be changed or tampered with by any change of circumstance or way of being, disease, marital problems, you tap into the spiritual level of existence. God consciousness means to get in touch with your soul. When you get in touch with your soul you don't have to worry about external circumstances. You don't try to ignore them. What I mean is you try to connect all that you do to that spiritual ingredient of the soul.

 

The more you give the more you get. I want to make two points here. One, we are giving up expecting something from that which cannot deliver. Expecting from material existence happiness which only comes from spiritual existence. Material existence cannot deliver happiness.

 

A second point I want to make is giving or serving, which gives greater satisfaction to give or to receive. Now our culture in the USA tells you that when you receive you will really get satisfaction. We are talking about serving God without any thought of return. Its called causeless service to God in that it has no cause or result desired. It is selfless service and another word for it is called love. What is the definition of love? To serve someone without any thought of return. That is actual satisfaction.

 

This principle of God Consciousness is based on the principle of causeless love with the result being love and satisfaction in the heart. And that cannot be valued. You cannot put a price on that because it is so rare and wonderful. It is exactly what we are all searching for in life. We are looking for love. We are searching for love, but because we are trained in this business attitude of love no one can get love. Love comes when you decide to serve the Lord, whether He cares for me or not, whether He sends me anything in return or not. I am satisfied simply with the ability to serve You. That is called devotion. In Sanskrit it is called Bhakti.