By: Devakinanda Pasupuleti

If somebody offers you a sweet and you happen to be diabetic, your immediate reaction is- 'Sorry! I am diabetic and my doctor said I cannot have sugar'. On the other hand, if that sweet laḍḍu is from Tirupaṫi temple, Sri Venkateswara's prasāḋam, immediately you take it with bhakti (devotion) and eat it. Everything is bhāvana (attitude, notion, frame of mind, thought, and perception) towards an object. The reason you take that laḍḍu (round sweet Indian confection) right away is because you know it is prasāḋam from Bhagavān (God), and that changes your attitude. Anything we offer to God, a fruit, flower, leaf or water becomes sanctified because we do not look it as a normal ordinary object because of our devotion toward the Supreme.

In their subtle or pure form, the five basic elements combine in definite proportions to form gross elements is called the process of quintuplication (pancheekaraṇam). These are:- space (ether), air, water, fire and earth. Without any one of them, we cannot survive a minute. Our own gross body is made up of these five subtle elements. The solid part is related to earth, the liquid to water, and body temperature to heat, breathing in and out is air and body occupies space. Thus these five elements are grossified  to form our body, which we enjoy without thinking. However, any person who stops and thinks for a second realizes the grace of God, who has provided us all these without being asked. He has also provided us with free will, action and the power of creation. He gave us the mind, and discriminative knowledge. We take everything as prasāḋam from the Lord. Manifestation from unmanifest, is not an random act as scientists boast. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Because of our free will and discriminative knowledge, our actions become karma as opposed to animals, who act on instinct. Hence, our actions have results, either meritorious or sinful. According to those results and their fruits accumulated over millions of births, we entangle ourselves in the cycle of birth and death and rebirth. We are responsible for our own actions and have to experience the fruits of those actions in one way or the other during this life time or in future births. That's why a jnāni (spiritual person) stays neutral towards pleasure and pain. He neither rejoices, nor gets dejected, and stays humble. He performs all his actions without selfish motives (nishkāma- karma) and offers his actions to the Lord. Everything he partakes, he does so with an attitude of acceptance after offering to the Lord.