754. Offering and Service

People pray to God. When their prayer is answered, they take a cash offering and visit the temple for worship. Of the three levels of bhaktas, these people belong to the third level - people who pray for a material benefit. The best of bhaktas prays for spiritual illumination. In the scheme of human affairs, even they need to give an offering to God. To them, Krishna said a leaf, a fruit, or a palmful of water will do as an offering. Still, offering is a must. Why? Man is a whole being, not only Mind. He lives in the body. Unless the body is in good health, the Spirit cannot do tapas. Work is the prayer of the body. Cash is the result of that work. Cash offering brings God's grace to the body as good health. In purer souls, cash can be replaced by a handful of water. Many devotees have an urge to give more and more. As their income increases, it is our habit to increase the cash offering.

To those who aspire for prosperity, cash offering is a must. Cash brings money. But its quantity is immaterial. As the experience of electricity needs only the slightest touch, any cash offering, however small will bring all the Prosperity one needs. Those who make larger cash offerings participate in the divine service. God's ways are mysterious. His response to cash offerings is one. He fully responds with His Grace to the least of offerings, but does not act if that little is not forthcoming. He defies human calculations, particularly human perversity. He offered a perverse devotee who exclaimed, "I am not after money, I only want service," thirty years of service and little money. Even his perversity was penetrated by Mother's curious response. He quickly reversed his original perversity and found in his heart emotions enough to make a cash offering. Thirty years of income flooded into his poor life in one month. Substantial cash offering is needed only for those who need to participate in the divine service.

It is needed for one more category of people. The Divine changes His rules with respect to those who find it difficult to spend. To them, prosperity comes only in proportion to their cash offering. It is so because they must get out of their smallness. How obstinate the Divine can be in the face of human stubbornness is a treat to the eyes of the divine observer, the observer of the Divine's play. His ways are mysterious. Sri Aurobindo says the Divine leads the Wise according to their wisdom and allows the ignorant to perish according to their ignorance. He explains this view as one way of Maheswari's action. The Divine is a true mirror of the human personality, as the Human is in its deepest secret Divine. Not all seek divine service. Even those who have the sanction for divine service do not always take to it. They are content with their human intensities. Sri Aurobindo left his body, The Mother says, as Man did not respond to the divine Solicitude.