look news india
Penance means dedicating oneself to one's goal and remaining engaged in continuous practice until the goal is achieved. Tapa does not just mean giving up everything and sitting in the mountains or caves or under a tree with closed eyes. Tapa is a broad term. Complete dedication towards any work or goal is called penance.
Whether that goal is related to family life or to attain God by renouncing worldly attachments. An essential condition for tapasya is that no other thought, worry or tension should come to mind apart from the goal for which the tapasya is being performed, because then our attention cannot remain completely focused on the goal.
We will fail to achieve this. Tapa involves a feeling of surrender and within surrender there is a miraculous magnetic power. This is the power that gives us and our goal the power to get attracted towards each other and a day comes when we achieve our goal. Tapa frees us from bad thoughts, vices, deceit, fraud, jealousy and bitterness and our mind attains a higher level of purity.
Purity of mind inspires us to create. As a small example, iron becomes soft when heated, similarly when we start warming our mind in the fire of penance, humility itself is drawn towards us. When humility becomes a part of our nature, ego becomes negative in us due to which people start liking our behavior and they start coming closer to us.
Whereas no one likes to approach an arrogant person. The bottom line is that no matter what the goal is, it is impossible to achieve it without penance. If we have set any goal in life, then to achieve it we must board the boat of penance and dedication.