We all pray to God. We have been praying God for many many years. We generally are nice people. We don't intend harm to any one. We perform many rituals to please God. We strongly feel we are religious minded and ardent devotees. Since we have been pretty diligent about praying God and being a great Bhakti, we believe that God will take care of us. In many cases we believe that God should take care of us because we have been good to God and keeping our end of the bargain.
Many of us pray to God to get material things. We always ask for the next best thing. This is equivalent of treating God as a servant to get your wishes done. We demand our servants to bring this, bring that, provide me something etc.
We blame God for not giving us what we want. When we are successful, we take the credit for being successful. We feel that it is our greatness that we achieved something. We never say, it was possible with God's grace. On the other hand, we blame God for not fulfilling our wants and wishes.
Listen to this story!
Human beings are under the influence of indriyas. Indriyas provide pleasure; so humans are always in quest of satisfying the indriyas. Just like kids always want to watch TV or play video games. This gives them pleasure. Tell me which kid wants to pick studing vs watching TV or playing? When their mom takes away the TV or game, puts him in a room forces him to study, do you think the Kid is going to be happy ? Do you think the kid will go on to say this:
"My mom is a great person. She cares for me so much. She always wants the best things for me and I know this is the best thing for me: Not to watch TV. She wants me to study well and be successful in life. That's the reason why she is forcing me to give up all the TV time and study well. Oh Mom! Pranam! You are such a great mom. I am so lucky to have you as my mom! "
Do you really think the kid thinks this way when the parents take away the TV that they are so addicted to ?
No! Never!
The kid will hate the parent when this happens. He will be huffing and puffing about the situation. He will hate his mom for putting him through this misery. He curses his mom for not giving them he wants. The kid thinks that their parents are strict, never gives them what he likes/wants and his life is miserable.
You and I, being great parents, understand very well that the mom is doing the right thing in this case. You feel bad for the kid but you will do the same thing to your kids, because it is the right thing to do. You hope that one day your kids will understand that you did the right thing. You don't want your kids to be spoiled with distractions.
Now, God being our Parent, us being the kid, do you think God knows what's good for us ? You can say.. we are not kids.. we are all grown ups.. we know what's right from wrong.. and so on.
Really ? Do you think so ?
Only God knows what is good for us and what's not. We may not like what we get in the interim but in a long run, God knows why that particular thing is good for us. We fail to see the reasons on why God is giving us that instead of what we asked for.
"I have been working so hard at work, I feel that I deserve a promotion. I have been praying God for the promotion and it never seems to materialize. I know for sure i have done everything to be on top of my job, yet, I haven't been given the promotion. I am frustrated. I am loosing patience and God isn't helping me. I start questioning: getting a promotion can't be a bad thing. That's in fact a good thing in my career. Why can't God give that to me ? "
Now when i apply the above mentioned philosophy:
I don't know what happens in the future. God knows that it is a bad move for me at this point in time. May be the management is laying off all the senior folks and hiring bunch of junior folks to do the same job. May be i am not ready for the job, though i may think i am. May be there are things i need to fine tune and learn before i can be successful in that position. May be my family life will go out of balance. only Time can tell.
Does this mean we should stop trying and leave everything to God! You know the answer! Leave the result to God!
Yeah! Yeah! we have heard it many times!
The question we need to answer is:
Do we trust God that he is going to give us the right thing for us? If so, Never question his judgement or outcome! You can't selectively pick and choose in this case. Either you Trust Him or You don't! There is no ambiguity here.
If we understand this and practice this philosophy, there will be a lot peace in our lives.