699. Devotion as per Convenience!!!!!

http://www.speakingtree.in/public/spiritual-blogs/seekers/god-and-i/devotion-as-per-convenience

“Devotion as per their convenience” my father who was an Assistant Engineers in the Electricity Board, Karnataka used to say when the linemen came late and gave a lame excuse for being late because they had got stuck in an overcrowded temple, but my father would mark half day absent to the lineman. 

Now devotion and God are used for convenience, sometime back our BBMP (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike) was in a dilemma when they had to demolish illegal encroachment on a lake in the outskirts of Bangalore. They bulldozed the entire encroached area which consisted of twenty house and five shops but for a temple which was constructed by the locality to safe guard them from demolition. The officials were opposed from razing the structure as it was the famous temple in the locality though a furlong away stood an old temple under the Endowment department in a dilapidated condition. The priest in that temple was finding it difficult to even light a lamp inside the sanctum for lack of oil to the lamp. In contrast the new temple has the best of Marble flooring and recessed ceiling halogen lighting. Amazingly the deity worshiped in both the old and new temple was Sri Ganesh ji. So the people have started using the sentiments of devotion to cover their vested interests. But the BBMP officials went head and relocated the idol which was inside the sanctum to the old temple and demolished the new temple which was built as an alibi to stop demolition if there were any orders issued.  

My father once told me a similar situation which had happened when he was in service. Once he had sent a lineman to disconnect power from the premises which had failed to pay the arrears in the electricity bill. The lineman had taken three days to go around the area disconnecting power in those houses and business establishments which had failed to pay the bill. When he returned back my father asked him if he had disconnected every point, then the linesman had said he did not disconnect the power in a Hanuman Temple which had failed to pay the bill. The lineman knew my father would go to that Hanuman temple before he steps into the office every Saturday. He was under the impression that my father would not want him to disconnect the power lines of the temple. But to his surprise my father told him to go immediately and disconnect the power there.

The lineman then asked my father to send someone as he did not wish to disconnect the power in that temple and incur wrath of the deity. My father gave him Rs. 10 and asked him to buy camphor and light the camphor before the idol. He then asked him to tell loudly to the God that he had come to disconnect the power on the behest of A.E Mr. P.T. Sreeram and whatever shortcoming which befalls in disconnecting the power to the temple has to be directed to the A.E as he was just following orders.

The lineman then walked away and came back disconnecting the power to the temple and the very next day the temple in charge paid the arrears and got power to temple restored.