Should we not ask god for help?

[Emgee]

Originally Posted by dattaswami

You should not blame God that He is unable to make us understand the unimaginable God. So far we are thinking that we are able to understand God after doing lot of penance. This wrong knowledge is removed by God and today, you understood that you can never understand God. This point is also supported by the absence of spatial dimensions of God.

You're right - I do not understand God. I do not understand why he doesn't deliver on his promises to take care of his creation. He/she/it must be a very weak character indeed, if humans have to defend his behavior.
I saw a quote on a website recently that said "26,000 children will starve to death today - what makes you think God is listening to YOUR prayers?" - and that is a sad fact of life. The estimate of an average of 26,000 dying everyday, worldwide, from hunger and disease comes from the United Nations - they know what they are talking about. This is hard, harsh, reality - if God exists he either does not care, or he is not all powerful as he would have humans believe.

[ahmed.zafar]

Originally Posted by Emgee

You're right - I do not understand God. I do not understand why he doesn't deliver on his promises to take care of his creation. He/she/it must be a very weak character indeed, if humans have to defend his behavior.
I saw a quote on a website recently that said "26,000 children will starve to death today - what makes you think God is listening to YOUR prayers?" - and that is a sad fact of life. The estimate of an average of 26,000 dying everyday, worldwide, from hunger and disease comes from the United Nations - they know what they are talking about. This is hard, harsh, reality - if God exists he either does not care, or he is not all powerful as he would have humans believe.

These facts are just to make you have sympathy with those children and to donate money for them so that the people who are collecting charity should take there share from charity. the more you donate the more they will have in there pockets... Some charity collectors just collect money and don't provide needs of the rightful owners of that charity. So you should donate your money to someone living near you who cant make good living. Allah(God) is great He has given this life to us and He can take it anytime He wants, we should be thankful to Allah for giving us this life...

[Emgee]

Originally Posted by ahmed.zafar

These facts are just to make you have sympathy with those children and to donate money for them so that the people who are collecting charity should take there share from charity.

So you acknowledge that it is a fact that more than 26,000 die each day of starvation and illnes. To die of starvation, I would think, must involve a lot of pain and suffering. And this is just the children, not to mention adults who die under terrible circumstances. Any god who allows this, when he could step in and fix it, is not at all loving, or lacks the ability to relieve this immense suffering.
I very much doubt that those sick and dying people are thankful for their lives - how can they be? Its day after day of misery, until death brings an end to their pain. What kind of life is that?

[dattaswami]

Originally Posted by ahmed.zafar

These facts are just to make you have sympathy with those children and to donate money for them so that the people who are collecting charity should take there share from charity. the more you donate the more they will have in there pockets... Some charity collectors just collect money and don't provide needs of the rightful owners of that charity. So you should donate your money to someone living near you who cant make good living. Allah(God) is great He has given this life to us and He can take it anytime He wants, we should be thankful to Allah for giving us this life...

The human life is precious and meant for realization and service to Lord and need not be ended for the sake of meaningless social service (Pravrutti). Therefore if the guest is only a human being and not the Lord, at this point itself, the guest should be warned. The second part of food was given to the guest but the guest still desired for the third part. Now family members have confirmed that the guest is only God who came to test them. Assuming that the guest is greedy he should have been satisfied by the 50% of the food because the other half has to be shared by four hungry devotees like him. Even the top most greedy person will stop at this point. The family members concluded that the guest was the Lord even while serving the 3rd part itself. The conclusion was reinforced when the fourth part was also desired by the guest. Even a person having the nature of a cruel animal also will not ask for the fourth part in that situation because if the fourth part is also eaten, all the four devotees will die with hunger due to his excessive eating.

As expected the guest appeared as the Lord and gave them Brahma Loka. Suppose the guest was really a cruel animal in nature and really cheated the family of Saktuprastha and went away after eating the entire food. What will happen? The guest will be punished by God with suitable action. Saktuprastha and his family members missed the Lord by a sharp margin only. Their total sacrifice was towards the Lord only in their minds. Therefore the Lord will protect them and give the Brahma Loka. Therefore there is no loss if you miss the Lord by a sharp margin because you have put all your efforts in the analysis and did not believe everybody blindly in doing the sacrifice.

Therefore we should start first with the social service limiting ourselves to one part for charity. The family members should divide the property giving one equal share to the justice. The charity is only Pravrutti but still it is related to God if you select a deserving devotee as a receiver. Even the Lord in human form will test you in the Pravrutti only in the beginning. He will appear as a deserving devotee and will test you in Pravrutti. If you cannot climb the first step of Pravrutti, how can you suddenly climb Nivrutti? If the Lord appears in the beginning itself, everybody in the world will fall at His feet surrendering everything. Therefore the Lord will come first as a deserving receiver in Pravrutti. Sometimes the Lord comes as undeserving receiver so that He is testing you about your knowledge of Pravrutti. If you are serving the undeserving person, the Lord will be displeased with you even though he is in the disguise of same undeserving person. Avoiding a charity to undeserving person and doing charity to the deserving person are the two important steps of Pravrutti. The knowledge of both these aspects constitutes the Pravrutti.

[Emgee]

Dattaswami - you are just repeating words like a parrot and not addressing the issue I have raised in that god is either not loving, or not capable of putting an end to suffering. This is not a debate about how much one should give to charity. If god were loving, there would be no need for charity. Instead of just reciting a lot of words which are meaningless in the context of the level of pain in the world, give some thought to that. Of course, each person has the right to believe whatever they want to, but when you are trying to promote your beliefs to others, you should point out what tangible benefits there are to those beliefs. Its not just all about making yourself feel good, because you think you are being blessed for your manner of worship. Many people don't do anything to help others because they are waiting for this life to end, and a better life to take its place, even though there is absolutely no evidence that this will, in fact, happen. Anyway, I'm not interested in arguing with you, I just wanted to state my point of view. I'll leave you to keep on posting millions of meaningless words here.
Just remember what I said previously... "Two hands working are worth more than thousands clasped in prayer"

[dattaswami]

Originally Posted by Emgee

Dattaswami - you are just repeating words like a parrot and not addressing the issue I have raised in that god is either not loving, or not capable of putting an end to suffering. This is not a debate about how much one should give to charity. If god were loving, there would be no need for charity. Instead of just reciting a lot of words which are meaningless in the context of the level of pain in the world, give some thought to that. Of course, each person has the right to believe whatever they want to, but when you are trying to promote your beliefs to others, you should point out what tangible benefits there are to those beliefs. Its not just all about making yourself feel good, because you think you are being blessed for your manner of worship. Many people don't do anything to help others because they are waiting for this life to end, and a better life to take its place, even though there is absolutely no evidence that this will, in fact, happen. Anyway, I'm not interested in arguing with you, I just wanted to state my point of view. I'll leave you to keep on posting millions of meaningless words here.
Just remember what I said previously... "Two hands working are worth more than thousands clasped in prayer"

The One and the Only Way

The only way to get rid of all the difficulties in this world is to become a real devotee of Lord Datta. Datta means something, which is given. Lord Datta means the human form, through which the ‘God’ (Parabrahman) is given to this world. All incarnations like Krishna, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha etc., are called Datta. God cannot be even imagined. So there is no question of worshipping the God, but such unimaginable God takes a human form and comes down to this world. Such human form is called incarnation. The human form is like a metallic wire. God is like the current, passing through the metallic wire. The current pervades all over the wire. Similarly, God pervades all over the body of human incarnation. Wherever you touch the wire the current is experienced. Similarly, the human body of incarnation is God everywhere. Lord Krishna is the human incarnation of God. When you touch the feet of Lord Krishna you have touched the feet of the God. But the human body of incarnation follows only the rules of the nature. If you beat such human body it suffers with the same pain as an ordinary human body suffers. Why this human body is not beyond the rules of nature?

The purpose of the human body is to suffer with pain like any other human body, whenever the results of the sins of the devotees are taken. If the human body is above the nature, then it will not suffer with pain. Then it becomes cheating the justice. So Datta means the human body given to this world of devotees for the sake of suffering their sins. The only way to get rid of your sins is to catch Datta (The contenmproary human incarnation). In no other way your sins are postponed. You will have to suffer your sins in the future life along with interest. The cycle of ‘Karma’ is very much inevitable. The scriptures say ‘Avasyam anubhoktavyam’, which means that one has to enjoy the results of his own deeds rather good or bad.
There are only 3 ways.

1) To enjoy the fruits of bad deeds now itself.

2) To enjoy the fruits of bad deeds in your future along with interest.

3) To catch Datta and transfer the fruits of all your sins to Him.

Out of these three ways a scholar will not accept the second way. A devotee will never agree to the third way. A scholar and a devotee will agree the first way only and is prepared to undergo the results of the sins now itself. He will never ask God to relieve him from the results of the sin. In such a stage nobody becomes a devotee of God, because there is no benefit from God. But still one can become a devotee. Let us take the case of a fan of a film hero. The fan does not get any benefit from the film hero. Instead of getting benefit, the fan spends from his pocket and the fan is put to loss. He became the fan attracted by good virtues of the hero shown in the various films. Such a fan is ideal for the devotee. The devotee is attracted towards Datta by the sixteen divine qualities. The devotee is worshipping Datta because he is attracted by the divine personality of Datta and not for any benefit from Datta. Even if he is put to loss he will not leave Datta.

He wants to undergo all the sufferings now itself. As a scholar, he does not want to postpone the suffering of his sins, because he has to pay the interest. As a devotee he does not want the suffering of Datta for his sake. Therefore, His devotee is not at all connected to the removal of his sufferings. His love (Bhakti) to Datta continues irrespective of his sufferings. The love to Datta is really proved by his service to Datta. He continues to serve Datta while suffering due to the sins. Such scholar-devotee is the real devotee of Datta. Now, Datta takes over all his sins and suffers for his sake. The devotee is not aware of this. If the devotee is aware, he will strongly object Datta. So Datta suffers for his sins secretly without the knowledge of the real devotee. This is the only way to get rid of your sins really. Except this one way there is no other way to escape your sins. In all the other ways either you have to undergo your sins then itself or if you pester God too much, your sins will be postponed and you have to enjoy those sins with interest.