What makes us remember Maharaj (Bhagwan Shree Swaminarayan) always? Does retiring from day to day works make you remember Maharaj more? Does accepting a renounced life helps you remember Maharaj better? None of them actually helps.
Only by discarding the attachment to worldly-things and worldly-relations makes you remember Maharaj more and more. There is not a thing or relation that stops you from remembering Maharaj. The attachment to them causes you forget Maharaj.
Relations and things need not be distanced physically. They should to be kept away mentally. King Janak had lots of luxuries, better than what we enjoy today. Still, he was so detached to all of them that he was not worried if his whole kingdom is burnt to ashes.
Attachment to things and relations is the real cause of birth and death. If a Saint is too much attached to scriptural reading and doesn’t share the knowledge, he becomes Brahm Rakshas (Ferocious Demon). If you are more attached to your accumulated money, you would take the form of a venomous snake in the next birth. If you are attached to your well-constructed house, then you would take birth in the form of some animal (like a big-rat) to go around your home.
We may think that not doing any work (retiring) makes us remember Maharaj but that doesn’t help much too.
There was a very good Bhagat named Mulji Bhagat in a village Gundasara near Rajkot. He had a lot of agricultural land. Many workers used to work on his farm for daily wages. One day they came for work, and just then it started raining.
They all went to Bhagatji and said, “Bhagatji, what should we do now? Because of rain, we don’t get today’s pay, and you know how our lives would be disturbed if we don’t get a day’s payment?”
Bhagatji thought for a moment and said, “Do not worry. I will give you today’s wage if you do what I say.”
“That is so good of you.”
Bhagatji took all of them to a temple nearby and gave them chanting mala.
“Now, do the chanting of God’s name until the evening. Collect the pay for today from me in the evening. Works for you?”
They happily agreed. “So easy. Perfect.”
All the workers started chanting names with mala for some time. After few minutes, they couldn’t continue.
They went back to Bhagatji. “Oh Bhagatji, we can’t do this work. You need not give us any pay. We are leaving.” They said and left without even listening to what Bhagatji would reply. Retiring from work doesn’t help remembering Maharaj.
Only if you strongly desire to remember Maharaj constantly by leaving aside all the worldly attachments, you could be successful.
If you are working for someone else, we do our job so well. Yet we don’t get attached to it. Let us say, you are working for a company, and one day when you are out of office, your office building gets burnt in fire. Do you get hurt by it? Not much. But if a small thing happens to our home, we can’t bear it. Why? Because of our attachment to it.
That is the reason everything should be done as if we are doing a paid job. Maharaj says that we must live in our own house like how a distant relative would stay in our home without much attachment.
All the worldly things and relations are compared to a peepal tree. Why? Peepal tree doesn’t need anything. You need not sow the seed. You need not water it. You need not protect it. It grows anywhere. It grows on the walls of a house, on the temple-top, on sadhu-ashram etc., It grows so big that it breaks the complete wall and collapses it.
Similarly, nobody asks you to have attachment to your house, to your relations, and to your possessions. The attachments start by itself and grows so big that it breaks the important purpose of life. Even a small attachment to one single thing throws you back into the cycle of birth and death.
Maharaj used to say that there can’t be two swords in a single sword-holder. Similarly, a single mind can’t hold both worldly relations and God at the same time.
Only when we completely clear off the attachments to non-God related things and get well attached to Maharaj and His Single-minded Saints, we could reach Maharaj for sure.
References:
5th June 2017: Gastonia, NC
Vachanamrut Kariyani 7, Gadhada Madhya 32, 49