All the Family Member should be Laborious and Happy

Meaning: According to the line of Athervaved 7/60/4 – all the member of the family should earn and be happy. They should not be upset with hunger and thirst nor should they be afraid of each other.

Message: We may not have money or wealth, we may not even be in a position to give anything to anyone, but we are always capable of one thing and that is cheerfulness. We can constantly get the benefit of virtue and contentment by distributing cheer. If you include cheerfulness in your nature, develop a sense of humor, and then wherever you be, you will be spreading cheer and whosoever comes in your contact will feel pleasant and will be impressed.

In its purest form, cheerfulness is a state of mind which depends on inner culture. There are innumerable men who keep smiling in poverty and can laugh whole-heartedly in troubles. People with a generous and balanced personality are able to laugh in any situation. They know that human life is full of facilities as well as difficulties, favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Up to now no such man has been born who received only facilities and favorable circumstances and had never to face any troubles. In the tales of our ideals Ram and Krishna, there is a description of only struggle against difficult situations in their entire lives. Whatever the great men of the world, they all have smilingly fought adverse situations and have turned them in the right direction by changing them.

The same is the basis for a happy and prosperous family. In every family, the situations of happiness or unhappiness, troubles and hardship arise. A man who keeps on weeping over his troubles, adversities and hardships will always be unhappy. If he keeps comparing himself with more prosperous people, then he will be continuously angry over his bad luck, and will express his frustration with every person in the form of anger. His entire life will be like a symbol of mental imbalance.

As against the above, the person, who compares himself with a person of lower status and is contented with whatever he has achieved, then he will always be cheerful, he will always feel that whatever he has got by the great grace of God is much better than what millions of others have got. In addition God has given us that something for which millions of people hanker. Such person will consider himself lucky. Only persons with refined temperament are blessed with this mental attitude. Such men find joy everywhere and have tremendous faith in people’s goodwill.

The family of people with such thinking always has a happy and peaceful atmosphere. Even by bearing hardships, but living with love and contentment they cooperate with one another. This creates an atmosphere of freedom from fear and worry and through that the path to everyone’s financial, social, religious and spiritual progress is opened up.

Deeds for the Progress

Meaning: The line of Athervaved 20/92/5 says us that – O God! May we, along with our sons, daughters, brothers and friends, always be involved in deeds for the progress of the soul?

Message: To go ahead for personal and spiritual progress, it is necessary for us to have within us the courage to fight against difficulties and lack of facilities. Man should give more emphasis on increasing his willpower instead of increasing the material means. In real progress there is not as much contribution of means and situations as of thinking and ambitions. The proper blend of all these is possible through profound resolve.

All the members of the family must make a firm resolve for spiritual progress and undertake their daily work. With that their personality will become excellent and the family will be uplifted. The formation of man’s personality is the result of his own insight, engrossment and velour, and is much more important than many other achievements in this world. One has to give an introduction of one’s willpower, daring and vision and one has to go in the opposite direction to the one adopted by common people regarding morals and methods. The common people are involved in achieving prosperity and praise in return for a price, while, on the contrary the spiritual persons have to satisfy themselves with little under the policy of ‘simple living and high thinking’ and also face the ridicule, non-cooperation and opposition from their colleagues.

One, who wins on the spiritual front, may not receive cheap praise, may suffer from want in material comforts, but becomes vitalized through the continuous grace of God. Only some rare individuals are lucky enough to achieve deep contentment and the glory of leaving behind an ideal worth following. Greatness is achieved only with idealism in thought, character and conduct.

Every member of the family must strive for spiritual uplift in individual life in this way. This itself is the education of good conduct. What kind of behavior should we have towards our own and others, those of the same group and those of the opposite group, with friends and enemies, known persons and strangers, with external enemies and internal enemies (like anger, lust, greed, attachment etc)? Only they are able to achieve the proper answers to all these questions and doubts, who are constantly engaged in the uplift of their soul. Man’s life is formed according to the results of his deeds. With good deeds he achieves progress and with bad deeds his moral downfall occurs. The Vedas teach us to constantly increase virtues in us and give up bad tendencies. In this way the life will become pure and excellent.

In a happy and prosperous family, all members should behave in this way. It is the special responsibility of the parents to provide the children the experience of excellent behavior and be helpful in their spiritual uplift.

Divine Musical Offering

The musician and the raga are like the priest and the deity. Each morning as the musician sits down to practice, the soulful lyrics and the rhythm rouses the raga’s divine force quite like the ceremonial prayer performed in a temple to ‘awaken’ the deity.

Like the priest, the musician first purifies his own mind, body and soul and seeks his guru’s blessings before he begins to sing. As the temple precincts are washed before the daily prayer ritual, the place where the riyaz is performed each day is cleansed likewise. The priest first 'calls' the deity, what is known as the 'aavahan' with mantras and invites Him to be seated in the idol. While bathing the idol, and before starting the puja, the priest decorates the idol with vermillion, ash, sand wood and silk cloth. So does the musical as he concentrates within himself and sings the initial movements of the raga in deep devotion, invoking the deity of the raga, rousing it awake.

To the chanting of mantras, the priest 'appeases' the divinity present in the idol, treating God as guest and offering one by one, water, milk, honey, perfume, flowers, incense, sweets and fruit and the light of the oil lamp. Similarly, the musician now mouths the lyric like a mantra appeasing the raga's deity by awakening its mandela or mystic svara configuration, note by note, to compose cyclical musical movements in the raga.

As the paragraphs of the raga are sung, in cycles of initiation, elaboration, and conclusion, they expand its presence and aura giving it life and a spiritual extension and each. This is called aaalaap -from aalaapnaa spaces between them, create a heightened presence of the raga's divine presence. The raga's veneration is of the Lord, in the process awakening cosmic love, both in the musician who is singing and in the listener who is present. The word 'raga' means 'LOVE'

The priest then narrates the story of the Lord, to the deity, chanting the many names of
God. The puja ritual intensifies to a climax as the mantra chanting goes on and the Lord is fanned amidst the ringing of bells and the blowing of conches. At which point the Lord begins to shower His blessings on all. in the same way, the raga, too, reaches an ecstatic peak, pitch or crescendo when the musical intensifies its story, composed from its own inner nature into paragraphs of the aalaaap unfolding its intense beauty and loving nature.

Composing in the raga is a very specialized task. The prabandha, composition or structural arrangement of all tree - raga, tala, and bandish or lyric - is in unison, and the musician composes pieces which are expanding wholes within wholes, inevitably evolving geometries of musical dialog with the self.
Each paragraph has assonance and variation by way of contrast, but it also artfully formulates constant answers or resolutions only to continue the process into the next paragraph or cycle of composition. Both processes are the externalization of the intense internal process going on.

In the temple the priest now symbolically showers the consecrated water on all those cian who has achieved laya or union with the raga. The musician who has achieved laya or union with the divine core of the raga symbolized by the heightened 'drut' or fast portion of the singing now showers the blessings of musical prasad on the audience.

Experience Evergreen Life

We have the power to think. But are you free to think? We are not free to think because we are in a system, in a frame, in a society, in our small hole, and there we can only think according to the size of our hole. Why? Because according to the present size of our frame, our consciousness is very limited. When we are in a frame, we are limited. We can think when we discover our unlimitedness. In truth, in reality, we belong to the unlimited.

Ignorance always forces you to worry and hurry with the question, "how to be secure?" Self-knowledge is different. it gives you that light to meet life which removes your worry about food and security. It gives you courage, confidence and strength. It connects you with your true self, with your soul and you start feeling protected. As long as we live with ignorance, we are always lonely and worried, confused and frustrated.

Do you want to live the day today with your limitedness or with your unlimitedness? With the use of our consciousness, we can change, we can choose and refuse. But we need to realize it, to become aware of that ability. Our ability and capability is that we have possibilities to change, but if we are not conscious about our abilities, how can we use them. Become aware of them.

The idea is that we should live our life with a new nature, attitude thinking, emotions and new dreams. Then life will be evergreen, flowing and growing with something new. Newness is the secret.... the secret of the river is that new water is being added and that is why it is always flowing and growing. The same process happens to us. Newness comes from our consciousness. Every day, wake up with a new consciousness. Every day, wake up with new ideas, new aspirations and new hopes with something new.

We always say "I can't do it". We are living with such a strong negativity. We are not seeing that we are able to do things. We are slaves to our habits, natures, likes and dislikes; slaves on the mental, emotional, vital and physical levels. This slavery is not allowing us to think and live more. Discover your slavery. If you don't want to live like a slave, then involve yourself with the Divine.

A small secret: Always feel the Divine in you. We feel love, emotions, desires, tastes, flavors..... We feel so many things inside us. When we remember someone, we feel for that person. Feel the Divine living inside you. This is your mantra. If one can practice this for 10 minutes every day, the divine involvement will begin. Practice a little bit to listen to your heartbeat. It is the Divine who is walking in this inner garden. Just grow your ability to feel that, to listen to that.

If you want divine possibilities, then you have to cut your present priorities and give importance to the Divine. Like the tree is waiting inside the seed to come out, all the possibilities of the world are waiting to come out, but we are not aware of that. Become aware of your possibilities, then of your abilities and become capable and make your life useful, meaningful and purposeful - in short, a divine life.

Full Life-span is our Right

Meaning: As explained in the line of Rigved 8/67/20 – our life should be such that we should live the full life span. We should live a life of restraint to avoid premature death.

Message: There is a never-ending treasure of powers in man’s body and mind. If these can be saved from destruction and put to good use, then promising success can be achieved in the expected direction. By not understanding this fact, we go on unnecessarily wasting our invaluable powers and with emptied powers, lead a hollow, diseased, weak and unsuccessful life, waiting for death to overtake us.

The body and the mind go on producing their powers constantly through their diet and the store of our powers gets restored. If this production can be used in the proper direction by saving it from worthless spending, then promising progress can be decidedly achieved in any field. Restraint means to avoid worthless depletion of powers. This worthless expenditure is mostly through our organs, the chief among them being the tongue and the organ of sex.

We waste our power through the tongue by absurd talk, slander, back-biting, boasting and gossip. If the tongue is restrained from untruthful and bitter speech, then our speech can be astonishingly influential. It will develop the capacity to bless. ‘Maun’ (observing silence) is considered an austerity. It is not possible for everyone to observe silence like the sages, but absurd talk can be controlled. Let our speech be properly controlled so that it is beneficial for us and others. The other indiscipline of the tongue is because of its desire for new and exotic tastes. As the tongue gets jaded we start eating undesirable foods to tickle the taste-buds. We overeat some very tasty food and because of over-eating, develop indigestion. This leads to fermentation and decay of food in the digestive tract and makes it weak, causing overall weakness. The toxins produced ultimately reach various organs and produce disease. We forget the fact that health is more important than taste and then suffer from the bad effects of this fault.

Discipline of the sex-organs is of utmost importance. Its overindulgence destroys the essence of the body. It is only because of this essence that there is alacrity in the body and luster on the face, authority in the speech shine in the eyes, intelligence in the mind and daring in the nature. Man becomes physically and mentally weak in proportion to the waste of this essence of the body. A man with sexual lust is not able to remain healthy and cannot enjoy along life-span.

The meaning of self-restraint is accumulation of energy. Indiscipline means ruin of one’s capacity. It is a major fact of life that a man becomes bankrupt through such ruin and the man who saves regularly drop by drop, ultimately gains.

Householder should fulfill their duty

Meaning: According to the line of Yajurved 19/39 – every good householder must fulfill his duty to make his sons and daughters learned, graceful and strong in character through brahmacharya, good conduct and education.

Message: Man receives the education for good culture in the school that is home. The gems of the society also graduate from this school. The individual and the society are two wheels of a chariot whose axle is the institution of home. If this fact can be understood, then just like the need for making a man capable and the society completely clean, the necessity of making the families also cultured will be understood. Every member of such a cultured family gets heavenly bliss and the vital wealth of progress in the small nest of home.

After the birth of the child, the responsibility for his proper upbringing, food and clothing, education etc also rests on the householder. Not only that, but it is also the duty of the elders to build the character of the children. If this is not properly carried out, then children become the victims of many bad tendencies and they become a curse for themselves, their families and the society. It is also their duty to save them from bad tendencies and to inculcate good habits in them. It is true that children are born with certain hereditary habits and culture, but their development or destruction depends mostly on the prevailing circumstances. The main basis of the children’s mental development is the mental condition of the parents and the family atmosphere. It is also a mysterious fact that the child starts learning as an embryo in the womb and by the age of his 5^th year, completes almost three-fourth of the work of forming his mental attitude. During this period, the child is extremely sensitive. Knowledge, wisdom, practical conduct etc, he learns afterwards, but the age during which his nature and character are formed and his culture and faith develop is up to the fifth year.

That is why the grabhadhan sanskar is the first of the 16 sacraments during a person’s life in the vedic-culture. And, description has been made in the Vedas about the requirements of the husband and wife before pregnancy is achieved. The husband and the wife must remove their faults and bad tendencies and refine their conduct, dealings and speech. In the formation of the child, the father’s seed (sperm) and the mother’s soil (the womb) both have equal importance. The foundation of capable children starts from here. Here the example of the great ancient warrior Abhimanys is well known.

Giving birth to children is not a subject of individual entertainment. The birth and formation of a new personality is a great responsibility. If we forget this duty, then we will be creating the demons who themselves remain unhappy, make their families unhappy and increase wicked activities, and thus by our own sins, we will be creating hell for ourselves as well as for all others.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation –plato

A gentleman can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice, benevolent and affectionate way – Mark Twain

Instruments of Peace

In my early morning meditations, I can hear the call of the world for peace – not just for an end to conflict, but for a deep, inner stillness and calm, which we remember as our original state.

To find peace, first we must teach ourselves to become quiet; only then we can become peaceful. Becoming peaceful means to seize the reins of mind and bring runaway thoughts to a halt. Once we have the mind’s attention, we can begin to coax it to take us into silence, a true silence; not the place without sound, but the place in which we experience a deep sense of peace and a pervasive awareness of our well-being.

To move into this state of profound silence, we must train the intellect to create pure, good thoughts and to concentrate. Our wasteful thoughts burden us. Our habits of creating too many thoughts and words exhaust the intellect. We must ask, “How can I cultivate the habit of pure thought?”

Who is it that yearns to go into silence? It is I, the inner being the soul. As I detach from my body and from the distractions of the world I can face inwards to the inner being. Like a perfectly calm lake when all whispers of wind have stopped, the inner being shimmers, quietly reflecting the intrinsic qualities of the soul. Feelings of peace and well-being steal across my mind and with them, thoughts of benevolence.

I let go of all thoughts of discontentment and am reminded of my oldest, most intrinsic state of being. I remember this inner calm. Thought I have not been here recently I remember it as my most fundamental awareness and a feeling of happiness and contentment wells up inside of me. In this state I know every soul to be my friend. I am my own friend. I am deeply quiet. I am silent and utterly at peace.

This deep well of peace is the original state of the soul. When I am in this state, I feel the flow of love for humanity and I feel a state more elevated than what I would normally call happiness, a state of bliss. It is when I attain this state that something truly miraculous can happen. When I am in this state of complete soul-conscious rest, I become aware that energy is beginning to flow into me. I feel this moment I know there is nothing I cannot do, nowhere can’t I reach.

When this happens, I am experiencing the connection with the divine energy and the flow of God’s power into my inner being. If I stay focused inwards connected with this stream of divine power, even the way I use the physical senses will be different. When I look at the world, I will see through my original nature of benevolence and experience compassion for the world.

It is this power that transforms me inside, making me pure and powerful. When the soul and God are linked together, there is a power that reaches me and invisibly across to others, bringing about transformation in them, in nature and in the world.

The secret of this power of silence is that I don’t have to do the work of transformation. Divine power automatically transforms. Let me do the inner work. Let me go deeply into that experience of the original sate of the self, and let there be silence so that God is able to do His work through me. His instrument.

Live with Restraint and Celibacy

Meaning: As stated in the line of Rigved 10/18/4 and Yajurved 35/15 – God has granted a longevity more than a hundred years to mankind. Therefore, man should live with restraint and celibacy and not die a premature death.

Message: The Creator has made this creation with his remarkable skill. He is everywhere. He is the guardian and decides the destiny of all. Everything works according to His rules and control. He does not allow disorganization anywhere. There are 84,00,000 forms of life in this world, each form of life more wonderful than the other, some so small that they cannot be seen or even fifty times more than a human being’s. Every life has a definite life-spam ranging from one to two seconds for some to several hours, for some others to some das, and for yet some others years. If we see all around us with open eyes, then by seeing this definite order, our mind fills with awe.

God has granted innumerable blessings including that of life-spam to all forms of life. Everyone’s life-span is decided. He has fixed the life spans of even trees and plants. The life of the wheat-plant is around four months, during that time it sprouts from the seed, grows and bears grains and then dries out. If we wish that wheat-grains should be ready within one month’s or that the plant should remain lush green for one year, then it is against the rules of Nature and also not possible. The same applies to all trees, plants and other forms of life.

In the same way He has decided man’s life-span as of one hundred years and it is expected of him that he should not break this limit and not cross it, i.e. all human beings should live for about a hundred years and should not die before that. We should push away premature death through our diligence. This is the promise of God to his dear children and His order also.

God has graced us and given this human body complete with all qualities for fulfilling certain special aims. These special aims can be fulfilled only when we maintain our schedule of diet and daily routine in such a way as not to fall ill. Except for man, other forms of life do not fall ill. In their rhythm with nature, they live their full life-span and die when their time is due, but never fall ill. In contrast to this man always conducts himself against the nature and is always suffering from one or the other illness. More money is spent on medicines compared to the amount spent on food, and man dies prematurely by leading a life of burden.

Man should make labor, austerity and diligence a part of his life while observing restraint and celibacy in life so that even if death comes to his door, it will turn away, seeing that the man is still busy and it is not yet time for him to depart from this world.

Mango as Spiritual Guide

This is the mango season. That has set me thinking.... Acharya Nagarjuna is a great Indian Philosopher. Many traditions regard him as a Tantric Acharya, in some other traditions he is regarded as an Ayurvedic expert and in yet others, even an Alchemist, but I am yet to come across a story of his being associated with horticulture. I will not be surprised if I discover that some traditions believe him to be a horticulturist. But as far as his knowledge about the mango is concerned it is universally accepted that what he says is but natural and common wisdom.

Nagarjuna in his letter talks to the king about different categories of mangoes. They are special varieties whose appearances and degrees of ripening can be categorized as follows :(1) those not ripe but appear ripe; (2) those ripe but appear not ripe; (3) those unripe and appear unripe; and (4) those ripe and appear ripe. He was extrapolating this with reference to people we come across in our daily lives.

In term of preference, obviously the kind of mango we must choose is the one belonging to the last category as it is ready to be served an there is no risk of waste involved. The second preference should be given to the in my opinion to the second last. Because it does not deceive you, you can just discard it right away or wait for it to ripen. Then the next in order of selection should be the one mentioned in number two. It involves some chances of waste but at least you can use it after some testing before cutting to see if it is really ripe.

 The one you must avoid is the first category of mangoes. Choice of the mangoes in any case is not a big deal and much insignificant, in comparison to the selection of people whether it is a matter of a kalayana mitra or spiritual friend, or an associate in mundane affairs. These days if we look around, there is no dearth of people who are likened by Nagarjuna to the first category of mangoes. They are those who have acquired special tricks to project themselves as friends. They cannot only be risky for spiritual path seekers but also to the society as a whole.

Spiritual friends should not only be spiritually ripe but should also appear to be so. They must be morally clean, compassionate, have association with good people. People promoting themselves as spiritual gurus with tricks are particularly dangerous. There is great chance of getting themselves corrupted, if already not corrupted, by name, fame, wealth and position. In mundane areas also, a friend should be an upright person, with clear mind and wisdom.

A friend can be depended upon as your mitra not because of your position or money power. It is not necessary that your friend or for that matter a political leader is a rhetoric speaker or writer. It is the inner values of the person that count.

This will remain true as long as the values placed on honesty and truthfulness have not vanished from this earth. And the reason why one should believe that is because all of us know the ripe mango which is both ripe and looks ripe enough for you to select, will always be preferred.

Nehru's Scientific Humanism

We attach so much importance to the nation of God that according to many thinkers like Voltaire, even if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him. According to them. God is a psychological necessity for "the mind of man has always been trying to fashion some such mental image or conception which grew with the mind's growth"

In addition, it is our natural tendency to depend on someone else - who we consider to be superior to us in all aspects - in knowledge, competence, power and perfection, for instance. God is the paradigm of virtues and ideals cherished, on whom we can rely in times of crisis and whom we can blame for our failures.

Countering the argument of those who upheld the necessity of God or a God-like concept, Nehru argued, "Even if God exists, it may be desirable not to look up to Him or to rely upon Him." He argued. "Too much dependence on supernatural factors may lead, and has often led, to a loss of self reliance in man." It would accord him; ultimately result in "blunting of his (man's) capacity and creative ability".

Nehru had a tremendous faith in the human. On order to show the supremacy of man over God he argued, "God we may deny, but what hope is there for us if we deny man and thus reduce everything to futility.

Instead of having faith in God and religion Nehru advocated humanism -which he termed as 'scientific humanism'. It represents 'synthesis between humanism and scientific spirit'. Scientific humanism advocated by Nehru "Is practical and pragmatic, ethical and social, altruistic and humanitarian. It is governed by practical idealism for social betterment".

The doctrine of scientific humanism rejects the philosophic, mystic or theoretical approach to humanism in which the quest is primarily for ultimate reality and for individual salvation. For scientific humanism on the contrary, "Humanity is its God and social service its religion". It recognizes the fact that "every culture has certain values attached to it, limited and conditioned by that culture". It also recognizes that human nature is such "every generation and every people suffer from the illusion that their ways of looking at things is the only right way or is at any rate, the nearest approach" to knowing and realizing permanent validity.

Nehru concludes that "we have... to function in line with the highest ideals of the age we live in, though we may add to them or seek to mould them in accordance with our national genius".

Like Sartre, Nehru, too, upholds the view that man continually accepts the challenges faced by him in achieving the targets and goals chosen by him. "Life," according to him, "is a principle of growth, not of standing still, a continuous becoming, which does not permit static conditions". For man, life is a long adventure and an opportunity to test his will and his worth. He does not rest until goals are reached. From every disappointment and defeat, the spirit of man 'emerges with new strength and wider vision'. Nehru expressed this characteristic of the human spirit poetically thus: "I count life just stuff/ To try the soul's strength on......"

Performing Good Deeds

Meaning: As stated in the Atharvaved 7/30/1 – Man should perform such good deeds as will give him the love of his mother, father and spiritual teachers.

Message: The cornerstone of man’s stability and progress is his responsibility to his duty. If we give up our responsibilities and ignore the prescribed duties, then such obstacles will also be created that life as a human being will also become impossible, leave alone progress. Every achievement of life depends only on responsible accountability. The stability and protection of every achievement depends only on dedication to duty. We have been granted the invaluable body. It can be made healthy, strong and long-lived only when bathing, cleanliness, work and exercise, punctuality, disciplined diet and restraint on pleasures of the senses are observed. The mind becomes powerful and capable when it is saved from worry, grief, disappointment, anger, excitement etc and fortified with enthusiasm, joy, daring, contentment, balance, patience, confidence, concentration or engrossment and similar qualities.

A person gets many facilities and a proper organization through the family. But these facilities are available only to those who fulfill their duties towards other family members with full eagerness, care and honesty. A wife is not obtained only for service. It is also one of the duties to fulfill all the needs for her development comforts, contentment and health. A cow gives milk only when the owner feeds her sufficient hay. Only he will get the joy of married life, who will win his wife’s heart by doing his duties. Also the children of only those persons will be cultured and well developed, who give them their love, time and cooperation and are always eager for their development and culture. And only they will receive the love and blessings of parents and spiritual teachers who will look after their comforts and honor them. Only they should hope for receiving the overwhelming love and cooperation of their brothers and sisters who are willing to sacrifice their lives for them and give them plenty of love. Only the people dedicated to their duties, can get the joy of family-life. Contrary to this, those who only claim their rights for facilities but forget the condition of doing their duty, for them there will be no difference between home and hell. The atmosphere of the home will be poisonous because of malice and quarrels. Neither will the wife be a life-companion nor will the children be obedient. The discontent of the parents and jealousy from the brothers and sisters will make the home like a crematorium

For those who are ready to carry out their duties at every step and bear with the defects of other family members, the home is like heaven. But, for those who have big expectations from family members and are themselves negligent towards their own duties, home is like hell.

Our responsibility is towards self as well as God. Our existence is also for God. It is also necessary that we listen to the voice of conscience and go on striving for making the human life meaningful by doing our duty for the tasks ordained by God.

Only by such good deeds do we receive everyone’s love and family-life becomes heavenly.

Purpose of the Mind

To bring a sense of purpose and better quality into our lives we must look at the nature and working of our very mind itself. The mind is meant to absorb information, transform it into knowledge and lead it into action. Action and speech determined the quality of our life and these comes from the mind itself.

First let us understand the nature of absorption of the mind. Wise man who have delved into the truth of this have said that most people’s minds are as hard as a rock. Just as a rock is impervious to water, information that falls on a hard mind bounces off without a trace. A hard mind offers immense resistance to previously absorbed information that prevents the flow of knowledge and action.

Our mind must be as soft as a sponge for maximum absorption. Just as water can be easily absorbed by the sponge and squeezed out, a soft mind easily absorbs information and allows free flow of knowledge into action. The two processes are reversible –a soft or open mind can be easily hardened and a hard or closed mind can be easily softened.

What makes our mind hard or closed? Ancient sages have said that this is an automatic, front-line defense mechanism for the protection of our belief systems based on our state of ego. If we encounter an idea or a situation that is not in line with our thinking, we immediately closed our mind by putting up a block against it. Ego creates mindset. Mindset is a protective mechanism of self-defense because we are scared of what others think about our notions and beliefs. This mindset is self-destructive. For example, a simple discussion develops into an argument and leads to a verbal or physical fight.

Mere gathering of information by our mind is useless. We must transform this into knowledge. Our mind must be extremely pure to be able to perform this conversion efficiently. The results of an impure mind will rebound while the work of a pure mind will reach out for common welfare.

A pure, soft mind is gateway to divine living. Thinking positive isn’t enough, you need to think divine. Only then can we soften and purify our mind. We should review the working of our mind at least three times a day. Was my mind aggressive or calm? Did my words and actions hurt or bring joy to people? An object that slips out of our hand can be recovered, but an inappropriate word that slips out of our tongue cannot be erased. Self-review will free our mind of all obstruction. Ideas and inspiration flash freely in a pure mind to transform information to knowledge.

Three basic steps can be followed: First, allow others the freedom to be as they are, without imposing your mindset of thoughts and ideas. Second, have faith and belief that God is in you. Third, spend some time quietly everyday thinking about your inner self and chanting the name of God. This way our mind which seeks information can be changed into a mind meant for the transformation of our very life itself from human to Divine.

The light that comes from the sun illuminates the whole world, and that which is in the moon, and in the fire; know that light to be Mine.  - Bhagavad Gita 15:12

There is a light that shines beyond all things on earth, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in your heart-Chandogya Upanishad

The Glory of the Society

Meaning: According to the line of Rigved 1/164/40 – the mothers should become knowledgeable to make their children properly educated. The glory of the society increases when women produce children after marriage with men of good conduct and make the children cultured. Her sacrifice is as pure as of cows.

Message: In her various roles, woman always spends her life by renunciation, sacrifice, patience, sympathy, love and faith for the human race. One sees in her eyes compassion, beauty and joy. Her speech is the source of nectar for the life. Her sweet smile has the incredible capacity to remove all the disappointment and bitterness of the world. As a wife, she is her husband’s partner, and co-performer of religious duties and rituals. The wife’s tender skill saves the husband from rudeness and animal-life and lends him the dignity of a householder. When a woman adorned with learning, grandeur, bravery, good tastes, warmth and compassion marries a man of culture, good conduct and character, then both in the family as well as in the society their names and fame spread.

The best identity of a woman is as a mother and through motherhood her personality becomes complete. To give birth to a child is not a result of physical entertainment, but a brave responsibility with far-reaching effects. Many and varied problems like the development of the fetus in the womb, the bringing up of the baby after the terrible pain of child-birth, the feeding and exercising of the baby, education etc are connected with it. Ultimately only the parents have to make proper arrangements for it. If the husband and wife have the capacity to bear all the above responsibilities, then they should try to bring forth a new life into this world. In advance, they must make their physical, mental background and family atmosphere so excellent that the child to be born will prove pure and cultured from every angle. Just as we prepare for any work in advance, similarly for this very important plan, there should not be any mistake in the preparation, the time of conception and remains for lifetime in the individual.

Without proper preparations, to give birth to uncultured and undeveloped children not only creates troubles for the parents, but simultaneously it becomes a breach of trust with the society and the country. A society filled with citizens who are wicked and addicted is collectively pushed into the chasm of downfall. Such children become a stigma on a woman’s motherhood. Only when the pious deeds of giving birth to proper, virtuous, well developed and cultured children is carried out with full faith and dedication, can the number of impressive and excellent men increase.

One has to try to develop one’s inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one’s mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don’t have to pay income tax on!

Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it backs

The Thirst of Fame

Generally everything in life comes in pairs. Not in terms of opposites but in terms of ensuring balance inexistence. Like rights come with duty, freedom comes with responsibility and so on. The secret is to identify the pairs. Some of them are visible and taken for granted. For some others, you have to play something like a memory game..... You have to search out the pair. When any concept is understood along with its pair then it becomes firmly rooted and gives more results than when it is tackled or pursued in isolation.

One such single which is hunting for its pair is fame. Most people seek fame. Some want international recognition and work towards that some want national acclaim and yet others are happy being the leader in the family circle or the colony community. Again the reason for the fame and the talent being showcased can be as varied as flowers in a garden. To celebrate the idea of fame we also have many record books that document the different fields.

Our quest for fame is perhaps only younger than our quest for truth. Psychologists say that every human being seeks immortality and therefore seeks fame..... So that they live beyond their calendar years at least in name. And that is why there is the obsession to 'become'.

Fame brings immediate power. Sometimes the power of fame may not bring any wealth. But it brings honor and respect. What makes the fame lasting? What pairs with fame? Much too often fame is confused with the riches it might bring it is believed that if money is made, dignity and respect will naturally accrue. That is not entirely untrue. Money does buy many things..... But that which is bought, also sells is it not? As the market decides the price for such things, the halo of fame remains, but the substances that makes it, in terms of adulation and trust that the famous inspire, gets whittled down.

On looking a little closer one finds that, since the power wielded by fame is derived from it, lasting fame will accrue only when you recognize from whom you have derived that power and invest it back in them or that. Sacred books live eternally because they invest the reader with the power of divine blessing. Leaders derive their power from the people, parents from their children, a cook from the people who scour his food, a designer from his craftsmen and so it goes, in every field of life.

The pair of fame is thus service, which is to be useful. When there is service, fame comes automatically and this fame is rooted in a noble activity. To remember this is the path to the kind of fame that lives after you is what makes you immortal. That is why a good teacher is remembered at all times and is 'famous' among students of the school and their families.

The Sanskrit tradition identified long ago that the eternal quality of fame and the dignity it inspires is oft-smudged by the grime of life. What remains and dominated all actions is the desire for fame. So it is said humorously in a subhashitani (a couplet which has an inherent lesson in it) that break a pot, tear your clothes and ride a donkey, if you may, but make sure you become famous - at any cost! But surely, not at the cost of crossing the thin line that divides fame from notoriety?

When a Rose is not a Rose

A wilting rose, wrinkling skin, graying hair, growing kid, all of these remind us of one fact of life, and that fact is: Impermanence. Has this fact of life ever troubled you? Disturbed you deeply? Then you are lucky, because in you, a Buddha could be born. All of us are aware of the story how Siddhartha became the Buddha because he was deeply perturbed by the scenes of a sick person, an old man and a dead body being carried to the burial ground. It prompted him to question the nature of life and led him finally to nirvana.

Let us enquire, is suffering truly in the fact that our skin is less charming or in the fact that we are not as much in control of our business or household as we were 20 or 30 years ago? No. Our suffering is in the non-acceptance of change.

Why do we resist change? It is because we are afraid of losing the beautiful experiences of life. Love, pleasure, significance, happiness, comfort and other beauties of life that we cherish, we do not want the ruthless wave of life to wash them away. We do not know what the 'new' might hold for us. Fear of uncertainty drives us to resist change. On the contrary if permanence were the nature of life, then what if pain, displeasure, anger, disappointment, fear, frustration and the whole host of unpleasant experiences continue ad infinitum? That would be, being stuck in a hellhole.

Seated beneath the Pipal tree 2,500 years ago, Buddha taught the Pratitya Samutpada Sutra which said, "True happiness is this is not, then that is not" True happiness is sourced in wisdom that everything changes. Change happens as the factors that go to constitute something change. Your skin changes when there are biological changes. That we know. What causes a relationship to change? The emotion you feel towards a person is dependent on the perceptions you hold at that point of time.

As life throws up more and more experiences, your perceptions keep changing. Love, affection, friendship do continue through life but they, too take on the changes life brings on them and evolve with time. That is why it started. It changes with passing years. If necessary awareness is brought to it, it has the potential to give you more joy and togetherness. In unawareness the relationship could degenerate into pain and displeasure.

As we observe the truth of what the Buddha spoke, we come to clarity, to peace with ourselves. Who have we to blame? What can really be held responsible for our unhappiness? Some deep seated anguish, disappointments and yearnings lose charge over us as this wisdom dawns. All of us have a control freak hidden in us shrieking for absolute power over everything; all of us have a perfectionist hankering for the creme de la creme in every situation; all of us have a lover in us looking out for ideal responses from loved ones. How do you think our thirst could ever be quenched? It can only be appeased. Hence, the Buddha spoke of freedom as the appeasement of all obsessions. Our obsessions can be appeased when we see what life is at this moment; it is not the next moment. A rose is not a rose if it stays forever.

Yoga of Universal Brotherhood

All that which falls within the purview of the five senses is known as the empirical. As these senses – of smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing – are the preceptors of pleasure and pain, it goes without saying that advancements in empirical science have been resulting in ever-increasing means to heighten both pleasure as well as pain.

If we devote just a few moments to look at our own such sensations from a third party point of view, we would conclude that these sensations are in fact being referred to our own ego, the sense of “I” ness. If this were not so then the same objects would have produced the same sensation in everybody and in equal degree. Thus, the ego is the traceable birthplace of all desires and also reason for the relentless but futile struggle to satisfy them.

The question is; who in reality is struggling in such a futile manner? If this is my body and this is my mind, then who is the real ‘I’? The wise call it Atman. It is always the Atman that wants to experience reality in all creation. It is always ego or ahamkara, the ruler of body and mind that always short-changes the Atman in the process. In other words, the ego domain forces an identification of the real self with body and mind.

So strong is the grip of ahamkara that even in death it remains attached to the karmana-sharira or casual body along with all unfulfilled desires. In due course the soul is reborn in another bodily form and there ensues yet another round of struggle to appease the ahamkara through the agency of available sense apparatus.

We can thus further conclude that in essence, the inequality amongst not just humans but across all creatures is simply the inequality in the latent and manifest desires, both good and bad along with the apparatus and opportunity made available by divinity to satisfy the same.

As far as humans are concerned, we see that the apparatus is misused since opportunity is greatly misconstrued. The high level of “I” ness or ahamkara inevitably makes us oblivious to our individually inherent differences in deservedness which we were born with. Leading too much distress and disharmony.

IN view of these underlying facts, all external efforts towards precipitating “peace” and “mutual brotherhood” will come to naught as the individual mind is distraught, being full of unfulfilled desires, having their roots in the subconscious, in the form of innumerable polarities. Experiencing the commonality amongst all, realizing that outer differences manifest as a result of differences in karmic past and finding an easy way to progressively free oneself from these deep-set differences would in reality pave the way towards attaining these noble goals.

Fortunately, animation of Atman into body and mind takes place due to the grace of prana shakti, the dynamic principle of Mother Nature.

If mind, which is forever engaged in desire-satisfying activities, dictated by the ego, merges into prana shakti, this divinely intelligent force which is our own higher dynamic aspect, finds its way into the hither to untraversed subconscious, which is the storehouse of all hidden, unfulfilled desires.

Prana shakti then neutralizes one by one, through precipitation of various autonomous yoga kriyas, all the hidden polarities which represent unfulfilled desires. As self-purification takes place, one can progressively experience Universal Brotherhood in its real aspect.