Many times we spend hours doing pūjā (worship), or pāṭh (the formal chanting of a sacred text), or any other worshiping formality, any jap. We spend hours doing such things. Yet we allow our mind to wander free.Why? Because we think we can all be rewarded because of making the effort.
“I did a thousand rounds on my jap beads today!”
Or, “I did this whole 24-hour!” .”
Or, “Every morning before I eat breakfast, I read the whole Gita!”
Whatever it may be, we think, “I’ll be rewarded for that physical effort.”
Thus, we just say, “Okay, let the mind go where it may.”
It doesn’t matter. But if we understood this fact, that God is not even looking at our physical action. He’s looking at what’s going on in here (our mind).
So someone who’s doing jap and watching TV. Where’s their mind? It’s in the TV. They’ll get the result of that. Someone who’s reading it online, just reading it through really fast, and their mental attachment is somewhere in the world then they’re not getting the result of the words coming out of their mouth. They’re getting the result of where their mind is. We know this on some level, because practically in the world, you always want to know the motivation of the people around you. That’s important to you.
I mean, look at our criminal justice system. The judge and jury always try to ascertain that okay, this person killed another person but was it his intention to kill him, or did it happen by accident? They look for the intention. Now, we can’t read another person’s mind, so we have to look for clues as to what his intention is.
“Although I’m not a God, if this person called me this many times, and texted me this many times, therefore they love me this much.” We try to deduce people’s feelings by their external actions. So for us, physical actions only have value because we use them to understand what’s going on in here.
But God doesn’t need that. God knows what’s going on in here (in our mind). So He’s not listening to the words coming out of our mouth, nor is He watching the action of our hands or feet, even if we bow down before Him. He’s not looking at the fact that we’ve done a daṇḍavat praṇām (full prostration in reverence). He’s looking at has our heart been surrendered to Him? Is this person humbly surrendering himself to Me? That’s what God sees, not the physical act of doing pranam. We do pranam because the physical act of doing pranam helps us develop humble feelings.
We sing Ramayan (the sacred epic of Lord Ram) because it’s supposed to help us remember (Lord) Ram. So if our mind is in Ram, then our mind has become attached to God. We do ārti (ceremonial offering of light) because it’s supposed to develop feelings of humbleness and dedication.
So we use what we could call ‘formalities’, or physical ways of doing ārti as a means of attaching our mind to God. But in and of themselves, they don’t have value. They have value because they help us attach our mind to God. So all actions are judged on the mental intention, or attachment. That’s the main thing.
