Happiness on both Body and Spiritual

Meaning: According to the line of Rigved 1/75/1 – if you wish to achieve bodily and spiritual happiness, then be simple in your diet, in your daily routine and deeds and observe celibacy.

Message: Physical capacity is a very important requirement of the human life. No work is possible without good health. The labor for money, learning, status and honor is not possible for an unhealthy man. A man who is healthy can progress in carrying out the necessary works as well as working for the achievement of his ambitions. Proper alertness must be maintained for keeping good health and strength for sustaining physical capacity.

Proper diet, exercise, daily routine and restraint are required for individual health. If this system is disorganized, ill-health results. Bodily and spiritual happiness is achieved only by controlling the organs through restraint. The organs themselves are a means for the soul; they are the servants of the soul. God has provided the organs for fulfilling the soul’s needs and thus making man happy. All the organs are very useful and their activity is for the soul’s uplift and joy. If the organs are put to good use then man can continuously enjoy happiness in life and make it successful.

The fact is that the organs are an excellent means for satisfying the hunger of the conscience. Just as the body becomes weak if hunger and thirst are not satisfied with food and water, similarly the balance of the inner field (the heart or the conscience) gets disturbed if the hunger of the sense-organs is not properly satisfied and then many types of mental troubles occur. These days most men have become slaves of unbridled desires for indulging the senses and the uncontrolled desires devour the master himself.

Only self-control is the door to heavenly happiness and its main mantra is self-restraint. With self-restraint man obtains divine knowledge and peace of mind by the development of divine qualities. The person who does not realize the great glory and the extreme need of self-restraint cannot achieve spiritual freedom and spiritual wealth. As a result he becomes a slave of lust, temptations. Most of the material temptations in life are so attractive and intoxicating that they make us indiscreet, short-sighted and restless and we become the victims of desires of the senses, the desires for quick economic benefits, selfishness and similar temptations. We should strive for self-control by tremendous willpower and adopt the ideal of ‘simple living and high thinking’.

Self-control is the first ladder on the good path. With it, one achieves good virtues. This is the first and foremost requirement for real and organized religious life.

No Rain , No life

Living creatures are nourished by food, and food is nourished by rain, rain itself is the water of life, which comes from selfless worship and service.

Full Life-span should be maintain

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.

Guest is our Deity

Feed the Atithi (guest)

Meaning: As stated on the line of Athervaved  9/6 and 3/7 – O good householder men! You should first feet the ‘atithi’, the guest who comes unannounced and then eat.

Message: Atithi has been considered as the fourth great deity after the mother, the father and the Guru (i.e. the spiritual teacher). As such thieves, cheats and criminals may also pose as ‘atithi’ and ask for food, just as the demon-king Ravan cheated the venerable Sita by coming as a monk. In reality the implied meaning of the word ‘atithi is those generous souls who come to someone’s home, even if they may have to undergo hardship, for doing good and by their cooperation and grace, give benefit to the householder. In the ancient times, generous minded saints similarly used to grace householders by their visits and tried to make them happy and prosperous by their virtuous influence. It is but proper as well as necessary to welcome such excellent human being as one would welcome deities. That is why the scriptures advocate that the ‘atithi’ should be considered as a deity and to honor him properly by the injunction k=- ‘atithi devo bhava’ i.e. consider the atithi as a deity.

 Great importance is attached to five yagyas in the Veds and ‘atithi yagya’ is one of our daily duties. When a man comes to our home, who is learned in the Beds and scriptures and who has dedicated his life to the welfare of the world, then we should be hospitable to him by offering food, clothes etc. In addition if some poor, sorrowful, helpless person or orphan comes at our doorstep or meets us at some place, then we should help him in every way. That too is ‘atithi seva’ or service to the ‘atithi’

In the ancient times, the householders used to take meals only after feeding the ‘atithi’ and used to consider themselves unfortunate when they did not come across any atithi. We too should have such sentiments in our hearts. The meal fed to an atithi never goes waste. If by getting energy from our food someone works for the upliftment of the society or country or someone’s life is protected, that itself is important. An atithi should never be disappointed by us and asked to go, but it is also necessary to be cautious about wicked and bad men.

These days special hospitality is shown only to friends, guests, government servants etc because of the possibility of benefits through them. Under any excuse, whether a child’s birthday, marriage, or if someone has passed an examination people are invited with insistence and lavish arrangements made for food. Not only those but arrangements are also made for liquor and dance. Is this really atithi satkar? Is it not give and take that just because someone had invited us for a feast on his child’s birthday, then we too should go one better? Is it not pure business that by spending something on the guest, the path to earning a much larger amount is cleared? Is it not a means to get one’s work done by bribing the higher executives? We should also remember that the amount spent thus on one person’s food, liquor etc can go towards helping ten-twenty helpless persons who are really needy. This itself is real pious deed.

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.

Expanding Circles of Identity

Religion seeks to give a sense of meaning and direction to human existence, providing us with understanding of who and what we are. Accordingly, it is inextricably bound up with the different components of our human identity - as individuals, spouses, members of families, communities and nations.

These are the expanding circles of our human identity, each of which has its place and value. Sociological analysis indicates that much of the problems of alienation and disorientation within modern society are the result of a loss of traditional components of human identity.

These circles of human identity should spiral outwards from the smaller spheres such as family, through the larger, such as community and nation; to ultimately embrace the widest circles uniting all people in universal human solidarity. However; when these smaller spheres perceive themselves as threatened, the opposite happens. They close themselves off from others, isolating themselves in order to protect the component of identity that is perceived as threatened. Under such circumstances, religion all too often becomes part and parcel of that insularity, even nurturing and exacerbating it.

In order to free communities from fears and suspicions that isolate them from others, we have not only to address their physical security, but also to counteract misrepresentations, bigotry and stereotypes that make up barriers of suspicion and hostility that alienate one community from another. Because religion is so profoundly bound up with all aspects of human identity, inter-religious understanding is crucial to the process of breaking down prejudicial barriers and for generating mutual respect and trust.

To ensure a sustainable ecosystem for our common future, the need to comprehend and respect one another becomes all the more acute. Religion is central to our communities' identities and ethos; therefore East-West, inner-religious understanding is central to this imperative.

For effective engagement in this field, we are in need of theological humility. All of our traditions emerge out of specific cultural contexts. Moreover, truth, reality or the Divine Presence is greater than any one tradition. Accordingly, we need to be open to the others' spiritual and moral insights.

swedish Lutheran Bishop Krister Stendahl recommends that we follow three ground rules for inter-religious dialogue. Firstly, always view the other community according to the best within it. Secondly, strive to understand others as they understand themselves. And finally, leave room for holy envy. It is no act of disloyalty to one's own tradition to be able to see something of special beauty and insight in another.

East-West inter-religious dialogue must focus on the discovery of the beauty and wisdom of different traditions in the East and West. Accordingly, programmatic activity -whether through meetings or publications- must enlighten our own communities with insights from other traditions, on the subjects and issues of importance to our well-being and sustainable future. Then, we will be better able to perceive the reality that we are all limbs of one body; all valuable contributors to our collective wisdom that must be drawn upon for the good of all humankind and planet.