When You Offer!

This post will tell you how you make an offering to the Lord. When you go to some temple and make an offering to the Lord in the form of some cash or kind or some sort of a pooja, you do it with an intention of gaining something from the Lord. The flowers, incense sticks, dhoopam, naivadya, colored powder called kumkuma, money, some special items that the Lord loves and show it with reverence with the aid of the panditji over there with prayers. The Lord accepts them and asks you after sometime if you remember what you had given the last time you visited me? You naturally remember what you had done there. You say that of course I had offered over a thousand bucks and some sort of prayers too. The Lord then knows this person has used his or her mind and remembers what was offered to me. I need to give it back to him a thousand times of what he gave me. So he gives you back. But if you do not remember having offered anything to Him or even praying there, He is very happy and clears the memory of some karmas associated with the offerings. Sometimes we offer money to holy people or saints and they accept it graciously but they soon ask you do you remember how much you gave them and if you do remember it then they quickly return it back to you since the offering was never with an open heart. it is a tainted offering from you so it needs to be monetarily returned back to you. They return it a thousand times back to you. But then if you have no recollection of having given the offering, they accept it graciously and in return they destroy a whole portion of your past karmas. You may remember the story of Saibaba when he asked people for money. Some he asked for 21, some 6,some more or less. He was actually in no need for that cash but He took it deliberately so that he could wash away a certain karmas from your sanchita(accumulated karma). They also ask some of their favorite disciples if they could call them for lunch or tea. This is a way of dissipating some of their karma too. Just remember this the saint has no need to ask you for some monetary or food benefits from you. He does it with his grace and makes sure you are not inconvenienced in your future lives. So offer whatever you got to but do not let your ahamkara(ego) ever come in the way of the selfless offering. Do not ask for anything in return otherwise the repercussions are too much to handle. There are people who have begged for gifts which have their own negatives attached to it. Just as when you ask the Lord for a child or a good job, you really have no idea what you are getting into. So offer the Lord or the saint selflessly without any ego.