Modern Addiction: Material Dreams vs. Spiritual Devotion
What do passion, goals, and ambition mean without god consciousness?
Yesterday I was watching a lady who runs a very famous restaurant chain (QSR) in Bangalore. In that interview, she expressed how she went through struggles in her life and what it took her to reach this stage.
She is a daughter of a priest, from a lower-middle-class family. Since childhood, due to poverty, she couldn’t go to Engineering or Doctorate College, so she decided to become a Chartered Accountant. And with a lot of hard work finally she established herself in her profession. Later she started a restaurant chain with her husband who is also a business partner. Currently, they are running five restaurants in the country, each restaurant earns 4.5 Crores rupees revenue each month, now they are expanding outside the country too. For a while I got inspired by this lady, I thought about what willpower, determination, passion, and patience this lady has and finally, she is now successful.
Now let’s for a while keep this story aside, and come to the story of a demon called Hiraṇyakaśipu. He was called a great demon. To enjoy immense wealth, fame, and prosperity and to conquer the entire universe including heaven he did severe austerity.
How severe the austerity was?
“Because of Hiraṇyakaśipu’s severe austerities, fire came from his head, and this fire and its smoke spread throughout the sky, encompassing the upper and lower planets, which all became extremely hot. All the rivers and oceans were agitated, the surface of the globe, with its mountains and islands, began trembling, and the stars and planets fell.”
He became so skinny that just a body of bones where there. Later his body became so much worse that “Hiraṇyakaśipu’s body was covered by an anthill and by grass and bamboo sticks. Because Hiraṇyakaśipu had been there for a long time, the ants had devoured his skin, fat, flesh, and blood.”
So you can imagine how much sacrifice he needs to do to gain the material things. Just to rule the entire world, become the King of heaven; and enjoy the material opulence he needs to make so much effort.
