Three Stages of Life - Very Interesting

Three Stages of Life

Billions of people are born into this world. They pass through the same cycle of living a number of years in childhood, followed by the stage of youth, and ending in a final period of maturity before passing from this life.

There is a story about an angel who sat with God. The angel looked down at the world below and observed how the lives of human beings are filled with much suffering.

The angel thought, "Human beings get sick, have accidents, lose their money and possessions, love others and then lose those relationships, and then die." The angel turned to God and said, "I don't get it. If life is so filled with sorrow, why do these people want to return again and again to this world, instead of escaping this cycle of births and deaths?"

God said, "Go down to earth, and visit a home with a child, the child's father, and the grandfather, and listen to their conversation. Then come back and tell me what you learned." The angel scanned the planet and found a park where a child, a father, and grandfather sat on a bench and talked to each other. The angel drew close to them and listened to their conversation.
The child told the father and grandfather, "I cannot wait to grow up. I wish I could be your age, Dad. You are so lucky. You don't have to listen to your parents who tell you when you have to come home from play to do homework, or tell you when you have to go to bed. If I were your age, I would be able to play as long as I want. I could eat when I wanted. I could stay up as late as I wanted. I could do whatever I wanted without anyone telling me what to do. I could drive a car. I could make a lot of money without depending upon my small allowance. You are lucky, Dad. I cannot wait until I become grown up like you."

Next, the angel heard the child's father say, "No, son, I am not the lucky one. Grandpa is the lucky one. He does not have to listen to the sound of that awful alarm going off each morning to get him up from a nice sleep to get ready to go to work. Grandpa is retired and can get up when he wants to get up. He does not have to rush off to work, only to be slowed down by gridlock traffic. He does not have to spend a whole day working with people who are obnoxious and difficult. He does not have to work hard trying to feed his family and pay the high mortgage bills. He does not have to save up for the high cost of college expenses. He does not have to work hard just to get only a week or two of vacation a year. Grandpa is retired and everyday is a vacation for him. He can get up when he wants, do what he wants all day long, play, read the newspaper or a book, visit his friends, and go wherever he wants. You are the lucky one," the father said to his own father, who was the boy's grandfather.

The angel then heard the grandfather tell his son and grandson, "No, the boy is the lucky one. It is true that I am retired, and can spend the day anyway I want. But my body does not work properly anymore. I have aches and pains all over my body. I spend a good portion of my free time going to the doctors to have one medical test after another. When the doctor gets the results I am told that I have to see the specialist, so I have to run to more and more doctors, with one doctor for each part of the body. Then, I have to use up my retirement money to pay for part of the medical bills and the expensive medications I have to buy. The cost of living has gone up and the money I thought I could live on no longer stretches that far, so I have to do without many things I would like to buy or do. It is true I do not have to go to work, but I need to work to supplement my income. Yet, few people will hire me because I am either too old, or I have too many years of experience, which demand higher wages. People would rather spend money on an inexperienced young person so they can pay them less. I cannot find even a part-time job because of my age. Then, I cannot do all the things I would like to do with my time, because I lack the energy, stamina, and health that a child has.
I would give anything to be a child again!"

The angel noted everything the child, father, and grandfather said and returned to give God the report about what transpired. The angel said, "I heard the conversation of 3 generations. The child is not happy. He wants to be his father's age. The father is not happy being his own age, and wants to be his father's age and retire. The grandfather is not happy being his own age, and wants to be a child again." God said, "Now you understand that when people are in the third stage of life and leaving this world, their desire to be children brings them again to this world, where they start out again as children and get their wish!"

The story is telling us that our desires bring us again and again to this world. We are never happy with the place at which we currently are and want to become like someone else. Instead of making the best use of the time we have, at whatever stage of life we are, we are continually desiring to be someone else or at another stage of our life. For example, someone humorously has said, "Youth is the happiest time of all, but only the senior citizens know that!"

Each moment of life, there are numerous choices about how to spend that time. We can either make the best use of the current moment, or we can waste the current moment dreaming about becoming something or someone else than what we are at the time. This is true whether we are children, young adults in the first part of our life, or mature adults in the last part of our life.

Today we will look at some spiritual insight on the most valuable way to spend each of the three stages of life. says in this verse:There are three stages of one's life: childhood, youth, and old age, But all three are in vain, says Nanak, if one's whole attention is not in meditation of God.

The First Stage of Life
Every soul who comes to this world begins its life in the womb of the mother. The soul has to endure nine months of growth from a fertilized egg to an embryo to a developing fetus. The soul is conscious and has to bear the fires of development. When we were children and teenagers we had to undergo what are called "growing pains." Our body was growing. As our bones were growing, our muscles were stretching along with it. Imagine the amount of stress on a developing person from a barely visible speck to an eight or nine pound baby that will emerge from its mother. It must wait as the spine and brain forms, along with the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, the internal organs, the muscles and skin, arms, and legs, and every other body part needed for human existence.

One poet has said that the fires of birth are so great as one hangs upside-down in the mother's womb, with intense heat from the mother's body all around the developing fetus that the soul prays to God for deliverance. The soul promises that if God relieves it of its pain, it will remember God for its whole life to escape the cycle of births and deaths so it never has to undergo this ordeal again. Remembrance of God during this time of intense suffering is strong. Unfortunately, the illusion or maya is so great that the moment the child emerges into the world, it forgets the suffering it underwent in the womb.

Yet, even when the infant emerges from the womb through a difficult birth process it is met with more suffering. The baby must be squeezed down a narrow birth canal, and emerge in a room full of people. Bright lights shine in its eyes, a doctor may give the baby a slap to start its breathing motion, and the baby may be either very cold from air-conditioning or very warm from lack of air-conditioning. It has to be cleaned up and checked out medically with metal instruments that feel foreign to its little body. The soul enduring this experience is making all sorts of promises to remember God if it will be relieved of its suffering.As soon as the newborn baby starts its life, it is bombarded by challenges that threaten to take its attention away from keeping the promise made to stay in God's remembrances.

The life of a baby is one of much sleeping and resting while lying in a carriage or crib. During that time, the baby is like a blank slate. The baby is not as encumbered by the mind as an older child. The brain has not yet learned verbal language, so it is not bothered by all the thoughts that cycle through us when we learn to speak. The baby cannot crawl or walk on its own, so it cannot go anywhere. If the parents leave it alone in the crib, the baby must lay there and wait until someone picks it up. The baby cannot speak. The baby can look around, but generally there is not a lot to see in the crib other than some toys, mobiles, or decorations. It is a perfect time of life to remember God. There is not much else to do. The soul is not bombarded with a lot of distractions. The next phase of childhood is where the child learns how to talk, understand what others are saying, crawl, and explore. The mind becomes active as the child learns to behave and act in the way that its parents want it to act. This is an important stage in the development of a person. The child is left to the mercy of the parent or significant others as to what will be written on the blank pages of its life.

Most parents during this time concentrate on teaching the child to speak. Parents spend hours repeating, "Mama," "Dada," to the child or giving the child simple words to practice. They show the child a variety of toys and teach the child his or her name. The child learns the names of colors, objects in the house, foods, and gadgets. As all these words and images are programmed into the child, the mind begins to put them together to form some basic communication. The child learns to say what he or she wants or needs. Slowly that time in which it was free to remember its past experience with God is crowded out by the ever-increasing vocabulary of the world.

It does not matter in what country the child is born. The process is the same for a child born in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or South America. Each child may learn a different language, but all children learn language. The child's promise to remember God is kept only if the parents turn the child's attention to God. The child's life is spent in eating, sleeping, being carried around, played with, tickled, and being taught words and cultural habits. How can a child's mind think of God unless taught to do so by its parents? How many parents spend time teaching the child about God?

Some lucky babies are taught by their parents about God from infancy. Parents may read simple versions of the scriptures to their child. They may soothe the child by talking about God or singing a sacred song about God. The child may observe their parents in meditation.

Sant Darshan Singh used to talk about the importance of the parents being in a calm state, even while a child is in the womb. He said that being calm and peaceful has a beneficial effect on the developing child. What better way to be calm and peaceful than by sitting in prayer or meditation? If parents spend time in meditation, then that spiritual radiation is bound to have some beneficial effect on the child. The child is too young to understand meditation, but the child is absorbing the stimulus from the environment and people around him or her. If the environment is filled with calm and peace because people are meditating and exuding love for God, then that will have a positive effect on the child.

I remember as a small child, I saw my parents sitting in meditation. I recall that I wanted to sit with them and that I would join them, sitting alongside of them. A child copies whatever the parent is doing. That is how the human being is set up to learn. If a child sees the parents playing an instrument, the child wants to play an instrument. If a child sees the parents reading a book, the child wants to read. On the other hand, if the child sees the parents involved in arguing or engaging in habits that are detrimental, the child will pick that up. The early development of a child lies partly in the hands of the parents.

Guru Tegh Bahadur is saying in this verse that unless we spend the first stage of our life, our childhood, devoted to God, then that part of our life has been a waste. The stage of childhood is partly the responsibility of our parents. As parents, we can ensure that God becomes a part of our child's life by our own example. If we love God, we will be teaching them to love God. If we spend time in prayer and meditation, our children will want to pray and meditate. If we develop godly qualities of nonviolence, truthfulness, purity, humility, and selfless service, our children will want to imitate us and they too will imbibe those virtues.

The Second Stage of Life

Guru Tegh Bahadur speaks of remembering God during the second and third stages of life, our youth and old age. Nowadays, the definition of these two terms is open to many interpretations. During the time of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the period of youth ranged from the teen years and young adulthood, in which we might raise children, work, and have a family. Old age in those terms referred to the times when the children grew up and one retired to spend one's remaining years devoted to God and meditation. If we look at these terms now though, youth can refer to the range from teen and young adult years all the way up to one's seventies, eighties, and nineties. Why? Because all of us "baby boomers" born in the 1940's and 1950's—who are now in our 50's and 60's—do not feel old. We still consider ourselves young! There are people in the 70's, 80's, and 90's who still feel young, and some people who are over one hundred years old who still feel as young as when they were sixteen! Rather than give an age to the second stage of life, we can call it the stage of life in which we are involved in taking care of responsibilities such as family and career. This second stage can range from the teenage years until we decide we want to enter the third stage, where we retire from the world either by choice or due to physical disabilities in our senior years. The third stage is considered the time in which we devote ourselves wholly and solely to God and meditation as our family and career responsibilities have lessened or ended.

If we look at the second stage, most people are involved with finishing their education, whether it is at the level of high school, junior college, vocational training, a four-year college for a bachelor's degree, or graduate school in which one works towards a Master's or doctorate degree. Next, people are involved with getting a job or embarking upon their career. For many there is also involvement with marriage, having children, and raising a family. Along with these activities come other necessities, such as renting or buying a place to live, dealing with its upkeep, and getting a car for transportation. There are related expenses such as insurance for our medical care, our car, and our home. There are food and clothing expenses. We are bombarded by tons of commercials to buy all sorts of extra gadgets, either which make our lives easier, or that feed our never-ending appetite to fulfill our desires and wants.

Most are caught up in all these activities in the second stage of life. Few have time to think about spirituality and God. Guru Tegh Bahadur is issuing a warning that if during this second stage we do not remember God, this period of our life is a waste. Why?

God has created millions of species of life. There are millions of animals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects. All these creatures lack the one faculty that human beings have—the ability to know one's self and know God. Only humans have that capacity. God has given human beings a special gift where they can introspect and analyze themselves to discover that their true self is soul and that they are a part of God. Humans have the capacity to contemplate and meditate and find God within. Animals, birds, fish, and insects cannot do that. If we look at the odds, we find that out of the millions of species, there are millions of members of each species. If we take for example one species such as the ant, we find that in or around our home—on our own property alone—there may be thousands of ants. Multiply that by the number of ants crawling in the grass in every house around the world, we would find billions and billions of ants. Each of these ants has a soul inhabiting that form. Think about how many mosquitoes and flies there are. If you take even one species of fish, think of how many fish there are in that category swimming in the ocean. All these living things alive on earth now have a soul. We probably would need a computer to calculate how many species there are and how many members of that species there are. We also know that there are currently over six billion human beings alive. That is a small fraction of all possible living creatures alive on earth at this time. If we calculate the ratio of humans alive today to all life forms alive today, we would find the odds make it a rare chance to be lucky enough to have a human form, when we could have been born into so many other forms.

The human form is a special opportunity to do more than just live, eat, breed, and die as the other life forms do. It is the only form in which we can find God. Various scriptures talk about the human form as the roof and crown of creation. Guru Tegh Bahadur is reminding us that unless we take advantage of this opportunity and find God while we are in the human form, we have wasted our chance.

How can we find God? Scriptures of all the major religions tell us that God is within us. God can be found through inversion. If we withdraw our attention within ourselves, we will find God. The process of inversion has been called in different religions as prayer, inversion, contemplation, or meditation. Today, the term "meditation" is considered more common. Meditation involves closing one's eyes, inverting one's attention within, and finding God.

Guru Tegh Bahadur is speaking in this verse of bhajan and simran. He is talking about connecting with God within us who appears in the form of inner Light and Sound. God is an omnipotent power. God is an ocean of all-consciousness that always existed and always will exist. This ocean of consciousness was once alone, but decided to become many. This thought of bringing forth creation resulted in the manifestation of a vibration, with two aspects, Light and Sound. This radiant current brought into being all regions of creation, including the physical universe, the stars, sun, and moon, this Earth, and human beings and all life forms on the face of this planet. This Light and Sound or God-into-expression Power is also called by different Names in different religions such as Naam, Shabd, Jyoti and Sruti, Akash Bani, Kalma, Bang-i-asmaani, Saut-e-sarmadi, the Holy Word, or the Voice of Silence.

This Light and Sound current is also reverberating within us. It can be found at a point in our body known as the third or single eye. It is located between and behind the two eyebrows. If we pull our attention from focusing on the outer world, our body, and our mind, and absorb it at this point or single eye, we will contact the inner Light and Sound. Then, we follow the Light and Sound from awareness of our physical body into the higher spiritual realms until we return to God.

This process of meditation is simple. The meditation on the inner Sound or bhajan process involves sitting in silence and listening to the inner Sound within. The Sound Current has the irresistible and magnetic Sound of the power of God that attracts our soul and lifts us into spiritual realms within. Meditation on the inner Light or simran practice means sitting still, closing our eyes, and focusing it at our third or single eye.

Unfortunately, human beings do not know that meditation is the secret to finding God. They need someone to remind them that they are not the body and mind, but the soul. They have become so caught up in the business of outer life they have forgotten they are soul and that God is within. The role of the Master is to remind people that there is more to this world than matter. There are also spiritual realms that co-exist with the outer world. Masters come to remind us that we are not the body, which is subject to death and decay, but that our true self is soul, which is immortal. They come to remind us that God has made the world and them, and that they are not self-made. They come to remind us that God can be found in this lifetime by going within. Then, they come to show people the process of meditation. A Master does still more than just teach meditation. The Master is one with God and has the spiritual power to connect the soul back to God. The process by which this is done is called initiation. Initiation is the process by which the Master puts his spiritual attention on someone who wants to find God. That attention will give that soul a boost to the eye-focus where they can see the inner Light and hear the inner Sound of God.

While the process is simple, there is a major obstacle to achieving success. That obstacle is our mind. Our soul is covered by a body and also has a mind attached to it. The nature of the mind is desire. The mind is attracted to the world through the senses. It becomes attached to the outer world and it interferes with our meditation process. If you want to find out how powerful the mind is, try to sit with a still mind for even a minute or two. You will find that the mind cannot remain still and quiet. The mind is always trying to have intervening thoughts that distract our attention from God.

This is where the Master's help is essential. The Master gives us five Charged Words to repeat at the time of initiation that keeps the mind still for the duration of the meditation. The repetition of these Names of God is called simran. By giving our mind something to do, such as repeating these Names of God, our attention can stay focused on the inner Light. From there, we start seeing inner manifestations of Light. We may see inner stars, sun, and moon. We may see pinpoints of Light or flashes of Light. We ultimately see white Light and golden Light. Then, the radiant form of our spiritual Master will appear. This guide or Master takes the soul on a journey through the higher realms of creation. There are realms more spiritual, beautiful, and radiant that exist beyond this physical world. Compared to the regions of Light, this physical world is like being in a dark cave when there is the brilliant summer sunlight shining beyond the cave.

Through meditation on the inner Light we can take a temporary journey into the regions of Light. These realms are not only more beautiful, they are filled with love and bliss greater than anything we ever experienced on earth.The purpose of meditation is to help us realize our soul and realize God. By doing so, we discover that we are more than just the body. Most people fear death because it means the end of their existence. As long as we focus on the body, we are in doubt about what happens to us after death. Meditation gives us a chance to experience that we are soul and exist beyond the body. This will remove the fear of death. When we find God, we gain immortality because our soul merges back in God and we no longer have to return to the cycle of transmigration. It is rare to get a human form. If we miss this chance to make the best use of our human birth, we do not know when we will get this chance again. Why take chances? It is better to make the best use of this lifetime while we can.This is the reason that Guru Tegh Bahadur says that if we do not remember God in the second stage of life when we are healthy and able to meditate, who knows when we will get that chance again? Life is also unpredictable. We do not know how many years we have in our life. Many do not make it to the third stage of life, or their mature years. In the second stage of life, every day matters. Every day that we spend focused on God brings us closer to our goal.

Learning to meditate does not mean that we have to stop all our other responsibilities in life. We can find a balance in life. We can attend to our family, our jobs, our careers, and our duties to society, but we need to find at least two and a half hours a day to devote to meditation to find God. We can even remember God while engaged in the other responsibilities in life. We can remember God while raising our family. We can remember God while doing our work. We can remember God while serving humanity.

The Third Stage of Life

The third stage of life is when we either choose to retire or we are forced to do so because of declining health. Due to the wonders of modern medicine, there are many ailments that used to debilitate people which now can be overcome, giving us added years of good functioning. Thus, God has in a way extended the amount of years that we are capable of functioning as a younger person does. Again, why waste such an opportunity? Think of this stage as one in which we are given extra years where we can easily sit in meditation and find God. We have an added bonus in this century in that there are cures for diseases that used to cause people to become disabled. There are pain killers to dull our pain even if we have an illness, so that we can concentrate on what we want to do.

That means we can relieve our pain so we can concentrate on meditation. Ultimately, in the third stage of life we might reach a state in which we are no longer capable of functioning well. This is a stage in which we might be in a wheelchair or bed-ridden, or we might start losing our mental faculties. At this stage, we are not able to work. We cannot spend time doing the things we previously enjoyed doing. There are millions of people at this stage who are either in the care of the family or in nursing home facilities.

At this stage of life, many people just lie in bed, eat, and sleep. Some people watch television. Many find it hard to read because their eyes do not work properly. They have trouble hearing because their ears do not work properly, and sometimes even a hearing aid does not help. Many of them cannot walk and get around by themselves. Even people to whom they used to talk are not available because people are not finding time these days to visit their aged relatives. Thus, they have a solitary, lonely existence. They depend upon their nurses or caretakers to care for them. These days there is such a shortage of nurses and caretakers that the patient can barely get his or her physical needs taken care of, let alone having a companion with whom they can talk or be entertained. It is like they have reverted to their condition when they were helpless babies, unable to talk, walk, or take care of themselves.

There is a humorous story about two people at this mature stage of life who were having a conversation. One says to the other, "Somehow, you still look young. How do you do it?" The other says, "The secret of staying young is to eat the right foods, get enough exercise, get your beauty sleep, and….don't tell anyone your real age!"

Those in this stage of life wish they were much younger. Whereas in their working years they could not wait until they could retire, when people finally do get to this third stage of life, they wish they were younger. There is another humorous story about two ninety-year-old people who were walking through a park. They passed by other adults who were in their seventies. Some were playing golf. Others were playing tennis. Others were playing volleyball. One of the ninety-year-olds sighed and said, "Ah, I wish I were seventy again!"

People at each stage of life are always consumed in one desire after another. Guru Tegh Bahadur is saying that this third stage of life should be devoted to remembrance of the Lord. If we learn how to meditate in the first two stages of life, then we will know how to do so in the third stage of life. If we wait until the third stage of life, we can still learn to meditate. Then, we have a lot of time on our hands to devote to meditation. Then, instead of just sitting and lying around all day, we can be focused on God and meditation. That will help us get closer and closer to our goal of finding God.

If we devote our three stages of life to focusing on God, then we will be successful and reach our goal of God-realization within this lifetime. Then, we will not have to fear death as we get closer to it. We will already be taking temporary journeys in which we rise above body-consciousness during life and see the beautiful realms of spiritual bliss and love that await us when we breathe our last.

Guru Tegh Bahadur tells us in the next verse:
The world is like a beggar; while the Giver of all is God.
Nanak says: O mind, do simran, so your work is fulfilled.

Guru Tegh Bahadur compares this life to that of a beggar. A beggar asks for things from others, but gives nothing back. How is the world like a beggar? The world is asking us for our attention. It wants us to use our entire quota of our life breaths and all the years which that entails to focus on worldly life. It wants to strip us of every breath by engaging us in the worldly claims of eating, sleeping, working, playing, making money, achieving worldly goals, and fulfilling the desires of our body and mind. In return, what do we get? We use up all our breaths until our time to die comes. Then, we leave the world without gaining anything for our soul. We leave the world without finding God. We leave the world without finding any answers to the mysteries of life and death, and whether there is really God and where we go after this life ends. We gain nothing from this world.

On the other hand, the only source from which we can gain anything is God. God is the Giver. God can give us more than what the world can give us. God can give us spiritual realization of our true self and God. God can lift us above this world to find the inner spiritual realms and merge back in God. With this experience, God gives us all love, all bliss, and all-consciousness. God gives us a way to rise above the pains and suffering of this world. God gives us the greatest gift of all, immortality and freedom from death.

Guru Tegh Bahadur is telling us in this verse that if we meditate on God, our work will be fulfilled. What is our work? Our work is to know ourself and know God. That is our real work in this world. Every other work is geared only towards the upkeep of our body and the mental satisfaction of the desires of the mind. The only work that has lasting benefit in this world and the next is spiritual work. The only task that helps us accomplish our spiritual work is meditation. By sitting in silence and focusing on the spiritual vistas within, we return to God. That is the measure of success in our spiritual work, which is our true mission in life.There is another little-known side-benefit of spending time in meditation. God also takes care of our worldly work when we meditate and stay in God's remembrance. There are examples throughout history of those who were imbued with the love of God and absorbed in remembrance through meditation in which God took care of their worldly work as well.

One of the saints, named Namdev, worked as a textile printer. He was deeply immersed in the love of God and spent as much time as he could in meditation. Each morning, his wife would pack his printed cloths so he could go to the market to sell them. Born in the thirteenth century, people obviously did not drive to work in cars, so they had to walk from home to their place of work. It was a long trip, especially carrying a big sack of his printed cloths to sell, so he would sit down on the side of the rode periodically to take rest. As any true lover of God would do, rather than just sit there, he would close his eyes to meditate. He would become so absorbed in his inner meditation experiences that he would lose track of time. What would seem like minutes would turn into hours. When he came out of meditation, he would find that the whole day had passed and night was falling. As the markets would be closing, there was no point in him going to the market, so he would return home with his unsold bundle.

As this happened often, his family became impatient with him. After all, if he did not sell the cloths, there was no money. Without money they could not buy food.One day, part of their roof gave way and needed to be repaired. Namdev's wife asked him to contact a carpenter to fix the eaves. Namdev would tell her he would. But, after setting out for the market to sell his cloths, he would intend to stop along the way to find a carpenter, but whenever he sat to rest, he would start meditating again and would become lost in absorption in the inner experiences.

Days passed in the same way and his wife was growing more and more irritated with him. Even though life in the thirteenth century lacked the cars and modern conveniences we have today, some things do not change. When you do not do what someone in your family wants, you are in big trouble! That was as true in the thirteenth century as it is today! Finally, his wife said, "If you do not get a carpenter in here today, all pandemonium will break loose when you come home." Namdev told himself that whatever happens he must get that carpenter in today. As he stopped at his resting spot on the way to the market, he decided to meditate briefly and told himself that after meditating he would get the carpenter before reaching the market. But again, Namdev became lost in meditation and ended up meditating the entire day. When he came out of meditation he knew he was in big trouble. He walked home slowly knowing that he was in for it when he got home. As he neared the house, he was pleasantly surprised and relieved to see the roof had been repaired. A whole group of neighbors were gathered around the house looking at the new roof.

They said, "Wow, Namdev, this roof is the best repaired roof we have ever seen!" Another said, "Look how perfectly the eaves fit together. It is so neat and perfect." The best part of it was that his wife was smiling and thanking Namdev for sending such a skilled carpenter who not only did a good job but did it in only one day.

The big question that came was, "How much did you pay for such a carpenter so we can employ him also?" Namdev knew that he had not called for a carpenter as he had forgotten again. He realized that it was God who had repaired the roof for him. Namdev, knowing it was God who took care of his worldly work for him, said, "The wages my Master Carpenter requires are love for God."

This account from history illustrates a common event in which those who engage in doing God's true work of meditation and having love for God are taken care of by God even in helping them get their worldly work done. God does not forget devotees who have put their whole love and attention in the Lord. If the devotees love God and meditate to find God, there are many cases in which God gets their work done. God came in the disguise of a carpenter and got the roof repaired for Namdev out of love for him because Namdev sat in God's remembrance.While we should attend to our worldly responsibilities, when we do our meditations and are devoted to God, God will assist us in many ways in taking care of our worldly responsibilities. If each one thinks back over his or her life, one may finds cases in which God came to our rescue in some way in our worldly life.

If we spend the three stages of our life in meditation and remembering God, we cannot go wrong. We will not lose, but can only gain. We will find that while the world gives us little value, God will shower us with riches far greater than we can ever dream. Let us make sure that God is a part of each of the three stages of our life. We will find that we will receive the greatest blessing possible, and that is the merger of our soul with God.