As I was rewinding the day’s activities with closed eyes, I got the answers for the two predominant questions that were constricting my thought processes.
1) Why is the innocent taken for granted?
Because innocent doesn’t know how to manipulate. Understand that innocence is a reward of living sublime thoughts.
2) How can I trust a person when I clearly know that he/she is talking nothing but lies?
Bother only about your truth and the words of truth that you speak.
Words that we pronounce speak volumes of our upbringing, attitudes and thought processes. They reflect how we maintain the inner sanctum of our being. Sadly we mutilate the rings of positive energy that surround us by our own words.
This trivial incident happened during our March trip to India.
I had to reach platform no.1 from 12 of New Delhi railway station to board Amritsar bound train with my fractured foot. My husband fixed a help for Rs.250/- to take me in a wheel chair and walked along with me throughout the round about journey. At the beginning of platform no.1, a child of around 2-3 years old in rags & dirt was seen walking casually with her mother in front of us. In fact, the child was totally unaware of us approaching her from behind. I expected the helper man to slow down upon seeing the girl but he didn’t. Instead, he scolded her loudly with such words that I got a cruel jolt. He had no patience to slow down or warn the girl gently. It is a rude behaviour on the part of man for it is also the girl’s right to use the platform. This incident may seem trivial to many. Probably the man and the girl would have forgotten about it in the next 5 minutes. But to this day, I feel guilty as I was the reason for the child to bear those words.
That brings a series of questions again –
* Is poverty a crime?
* Is abusing the weak a victory of power?
* What is power by the way?
Unfortunately, power is a factor that everyone dreads to face. The history has seen pages on men of power becoming so ruthless to the extent of annihilating lives for their own pleasure and thought. But, let us honestly dissect, how much of God given positive power do we abuse in a moment to moment life journey as liars & opportunists?
Thankfully, our world has always produced great visionaries, scientists, mathematicians, freedom fighters, erudite scholars, gifted orators, fine artists, writers, thinkers, social workers, spiritual giants etc from time to time to supply us with enough motivation and encouragement. With a vision so grand and mission too sublime, with truth as their base personality, they have lived only to say that power is one of internal.
The moment a person starts to build his inner power only on truth, he slowly gets transformed into a saint. His vision all encompassing, he accepts wholeheartedly all categories of people even when he is attacked brutally.
But does that guarantee that all truth speaking people become saints?
I happened to watch the reality show ‘Sach ka samna’ only once and felt so shocked that I vouched never to watch again. The contestants who are very well aware of the format are ready to gamble their past life for the sake of money so publicly. What are we to gain from this truth based show where truth has become a business strategy to pocket some quick money?
The inner power that we are talking about is one of selflessness. Such an inner power manifests more and more in a man of self control who extends his hands so long to hug the whole Earth with all beings intact. However, Avadhuta adds,
“Further a spiritual aspirant should learn from the mountains of the earth and the trees on them to strive unselfishly for the good of others and find the meaning of his existence in such striving. Becoming a disciple of trees, he should live for others.”
Now, as I read it for the second time, I find that the second part of the first lesson has become more intense to follow.
In my rendezvous with mountains, I had marveled at their meditative poise and beauty. As a nature admirer, I had always felt that mountains & trees have a mysterious aura and attraction of their own. Now I know why.
‘I cannot thank you enough for my Life travel so far. Give me a mountain of power to live selflessly. Good Night, God!’
I closed my eyes with an innocent belief that God would grant my wish happily.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
1.4 Scripting the rhetoric
I find a six month old baby deserted at the end of carnival in an island. It’s already nearing night and the bridge to the main land will be closed soon. Somebody tells me that the baby is an orphan, his adopted mother has left him unintentionally, that someone should take care of him and that she can be contacted only after 3 days. After cleaning the messed up place, I am the last to leave the island. I pick him up with great hesitation as I am afraid of the consequences of an unmarried girl (I am so in this dream) taking a baby home and my parents’ subsequent reaction. An unknown fear churns my inside. Still, tugging the baby on my hips, I move around with my bare feet begging for a glass of milk as I intuitively feel that the baby is extremely hungry and it would take a long journey to reach home.
Finally I come across a missionary lady who tells me that there is no milk but they have something spicy to eat. With much hesitation, I watch the quiet baby putting the offered food in his mouth. I am in near tears as the milk baby cannot eat that food. But he turns towards me to give a very, very beautiful innocent smile. I am no more confused now and board an auto to reach home because the baby has remained quiet so far. In fact, there are no tears, cries, tight hugs, demands, expectations... Together our journey begins….
This is just a dream sequence that I had experienced two days back. At first, I could not control my smile for sometime at its absurdity but as hours went by, deeper meanings unfolded i.e. tolerance was the baby’s way and acceptance was his living.
Smile awhile smile awhile
Whether you smell heavenly fragrance
Or roll over the purities of debris
Stay alive with a candid smile
Today’s newspaper carried news about an innocent tribal wrongly accused of murder charges and got acquitted on this June 29 after 22 years. He was hardly 18 years at the time of conviction. Who should be blamed for this injustice? Who could bring the lost youth and those precious 22 years for him? I just wonder if it is possible for any to smile under such painful situations.
I could not stop quoting Harper Lee’s ‘To kill a mockingbird’ that I read recently. We always find reasons to be biased against colour, creed, caste, language, religion, money power or muscle power.
This affirms the belief again that we have made the world into a den of injustice, prejudice, untruth, violence, malevolence, selfishness, corruption etc. We lose sight of our path, let loose our reins of senses, pollute our intellect with biased dark colouring of thoughts leading to wrong choices and end up as an opportunist who cannot think beyond our pleasures and as a sadist who enjoys giving deep wounds to others, indirectly to Mother Earth who has given shelter to us all. Thankfully, our planet is still not shattered into pieces (in spite of the wrongs that we do to her at all levels of existence) and is determined to move on in her orbit as always.
That’s why the great Avadhuta must have referred to King Yadu that he has learnt the greatest lesson of tolerance and acceptance from Mother Earth. He says, “A man of self control should not move away from his chosen path even when attacked by beings under the sway of their primordial tendencies, knowing it to be due to their own destiny (Prarabdha).”
The path that is referred to here is nonetheless the path of divinity. Mind you, it is not a joke to assume the result of all actions (whether good or bad) as direct ordinances of God or individual expressions of gunas. Self control alone can bring such a lofty understanding. But then what is the way to bring self control?
As far as my understanding goes, scripting the rhetoric can bring initial control to our minds.
Considering that I am in the beginning stage of evolution, I can practice self control in two phases:
1) To choose only positive words to speak.
2) To start believing that my words bring peace within and around.
Over a period of time, this would create its own beautiful grooves of purity and truth, which gets expressed in the form of actions and reactions.
By the way, why am I unable to forget the dream baby’s beautiful smile even after two days? Is the smiling baby trying to tell me that I can learn self control faster by maintaining silence during my journey?
At present, it is not my cup of tea.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
Finally I come across a missionary lady who tells me that there is no milk but they have something spicy to eat. With much hesitation, I watch the quiet baby putting the offered food in his mouth. I am in near tears as the milk baby cannot eat that food. But he turns towards me to give a very, very beautiful innocent smile. I am no more confused now and board an auto to reach home because the baby has remained quiet so far. In fact, there are no tears, cries, tight hugs, demands, expectations... Together our journey begins….
This is just a dream sequence that I had experienced two days back. At first, I could not control my smile for sometime at its absurdity but as hours went by, deeper meanings unfolded i.e. tolerance was the baby’s way and acceptance was his living.
Smile awhile smile awhile
Whether you smell heavenly fragrance
Or roll over the purities of debris
Stay alive with a candid smile
Today’s newspaper carried news about an innocent tribal wrongly accused of murder charges and got acquitted on this June 29 after 22 years. He was hardly 18 years at the time of conviction. Who should be blamed for this injustice? Who could bring the lost youth and those precious 22 years for him? I just wonder if it is possible for any to smile under such painful situations.
I could not stop quoting Harper Lee’s ‘To kill a mockingbird’ that I read recently. We always find reasons to be biased against colour, creed, caste, language, religion, money power or muscle power.
This affirms the belief again that we have made the world into a den of injustice, prejudice, untruth, violence, malevolence, selfishness, corruption etc. We lose sight of our path, let loose our reins of senses, pollute our intellect with biased dark colouring of thoughts leading to wrong choices and end up as an opportunist who cannot think beyond our pleasures and as a sadist who enjoys giving deep wounds to others, indirectly to Mother Earth who has given shelter to us all. Thankfully, our planet is still not shattered into pieces (in spite of the wrongs that we do to her at all levels of existence) and is determined to move on in her orbit as always.
That’s why the great Avadhuta must have referred to King Yadu that he has learnt the greatest lesson of tolerance and acceptance from Mother Earth. He says, “A man of self control should not move away from his chosen path even when attacked by beings under the sway of their primordial tendencies, knowing it to be due to their own destiny (Prarabdha).”
The path that is referred to here is nonetheless the path of divinity. Mind you, it is not a joke to assume the result of all actions (whether good or bad) as direct ordinances of God or individual expressions of gunas. Self control alone can bring such a lofty understanding. But then what is the way to bring self control?
As far as my understanding goes, scripting the rhetoric can bring initial control to our minds.
Considering that I am in the beginning stage of evolution, I can practice self control in two phases:
1) To choose only positive words to speak.
2) To start believing that my words bring peace within and around.
Over a period of time, this would create its own beautiful grooves of purity and truth, which gets expressed in the form of actions and reactions.
By the way, why am I unable to forget the dream baby’s beautiful smile even after two days? Is the smiling baby trying to tell me that I can learn self control faster by maintaining silence during my journey?
At present, it is not my cup of tea.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
1.3 Voice over the choice
In the last few days, I became emotional upon two happenings.
• Michael Jackson’s dilapidated physical, mental and financial states at the time of his death.
• Mercy petition to the President of India from the farmers of a Jharkhand village to legally commit mass suicide as there are no rains in their region for the past 3 years.
While I prayed for MJ’s soul to ascend to the next level of evolution, I was painfully frozen for a day thinking of the farmers’ present state. Both the situations have agonizingly reminded me of the challenging choices that loom large at every step of life. Remember, choices are only for the living and not for the dead.
Many a time, the turbulent mind doesn’t allow us to think rationally to make the right choice suiting the situation. That’s because emotions occupy the chair seat of the mind as the already coloured thoughts are retrieved at an incredibly faster rate from the memory reservoir. In other words, our attachments rule the choices instead of the (unadulterated) discriminative power of the intellect.
We might have come across proud, supercilious and selfish genre guffawing over others’ choices but takes pride of his decisions. At the helm of victory, he doesn’t realize that choices are given based on one’s karmic debts applicable only for a stipulated period and the joy of standing at the peak with pride may end at any moment as the decision taken out of the next level of choices may wipe out his enigmatic ascension. Mind you, for such a person of pride and prejudice, the fall would be highly damaging and disfiguring. Once identifying such a puffed man, it is better to avoid or ignore his advices even if it is given voluntarily, for he is imbalanced and immature in understanding his own situations completely, leave alone others.
Moreover, what holds good for one need not be for the other and what applies for one at one point of time need not apply at another time.
It is also quite natural of the human mind to think ‘why me?’ whenever painful choices are provided by the Providence when the whole world might appear to be enjoying its luxurious afternoon siesta.
So, when the choices are provided (whether hopeful or painful), either we should have the discriminative power to choose the right one among the options given or seek the guidance of a Master who has gained control over mind and shines through brilliantly amidst the clouds of emotions, for any change in gear in our coloured thoughts.
Now I can understand more clearly why a poignant Uddhava, sitting at the summit of emotions, applied a mercy petition to Shri Krishna to take him along with him to His world. Yet he has rightly chosen his beloved friend as his mentor using his discriminative intellect to the level of identifying his Master as a man of equipoise even during great calamities.
Shri Krishna answers to the intelligent Uddhava, “When a Jiva obtains a human birth, and becomes proficient in the path of knowledge and devotion, he comes to clearly understand Me, the Spirit endowed with all powers. Unable to find Me, the Pure Spirit, by sense perception, earnest spiritual aspirants seek Me in this body through presumption and inference. The presumption is that the Buddhi and other instruments functioning in the creation of knowledge are in themselves lifeless. The display of consciousness in them can be explained only by accepting a consciousness behind them. The inference is that as the Buddhi and the senses are in the nature of instruments, they must be functioning for the purposes of an intelligent agent.”
What a wonderful explanation! I read these lines again and again to absorb the declaration of Truth.
Further Shri Krishna continues, “In illustration of this, great men cite an ancient anecdote in the form of a conversation between Dattatreya, the Avadhuta (the naked wanderer) of blazing spiritual power and King Yadu, the knower of Dharma.
Kind Yadu requested Avadhuta with great humility: O holy one! Though possessed of great wisdom, you are found merely to roam about in the world like a young boy. Kindly tell me what it is that fills your heart always with joy, though you are without any object of sense enjoyment and are companionless and alone.”
Among a whole lot of choices that are present before me at present, I am very eager to hear Shri Krishna's voice on Avadhuta’s choices of learning.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
• Michael Jackson’s dilapidated physical, mental and financial states at the time of his death.
• Mercy petition to the President of India from the farmers of a Jharkhand village to legally commit mass suicide as there are no rains in their region for the past 3 years.
While I prayed for MJ’s soul to ascend to the next level of evolution, I was painfully frozen for a day thinking of the farmers’ present state. Both the situations have agonizingly reminded me of the challenging choices that loom large at every step of life. Remember, choices are only for the living and not for the dead.
Many a time, the turbulent mind doesn’t allow us to think rationally to make the right choice suiting the situation. That’s because emotions occupy the chair seat of the mind as the already coloured thoughts are retrieved at an incredibly faster rate from the memory reservoir. In other words, our attachments rule the choices instead of the (unadulterated) discriminative power of the intellect.
We might have come across proud, supercilious and selfish genre guffawing over others’ choices but takes pride of his decisions. At the helm of victory, he doesn’t realize that choices are given based on one’s karmic debts applicable only for a stipulated period and the joy of standing at the peak with pride may end at any moment as the decision taken out of the next level of choices may wipe out his enigmatic ascension. Mind you, for such a person of pride and prejudice, the fall would be highly damaging and disfiguring. Once identifying such a puffed man, it is better to avoid or ignore his advices even if it is given voluntarily, for he is imbalanced and immature in understanding his own situations completely, leave alone others.
Moreover, what holds good for one need not be for the other and what applies for one at one point of time need not apply at another time.
It is also quite natural of the human mind to think ‘why me?’ whenever painful choices are provided by the Providence when the whole world might appear to be enjoying its luxurious afternoon siesta.
So, when the choices are provided (whether hopeful or painful), either we should have the discriminative power to choose the right one among the options given or seek the guidance of a Master who has gained control over mind and shines through brilliantly amidst the clouds of emotions, for any change in gear in our coloured thoughts.
Now I can understand more clearly why a poignant Uddhava, sitting at the summit of emotions, applied a mercy petition to Shri Krishna to take him along with him to His world. Yet he has rightly chosen his beloved friend as his mentor using his discriminative intellect to the level of identifying his Master as a man of equipoise even during great calamities.
Shri Krishna answers to the intelligent Uddhava, “When a Jiva obtains a human birth, and becomes proficient in the path of knowledge and devotion, he comes to clearly understand Me, the Spirit endowed with all powers. Unable to find Me, the Pure Spirit, by sense perception, earnest spiritual aspirants seek Me in this body through presumption and inference. The presumption is that the Buddhi and other instruments functioning in the creation of knowledge are in themselves lifeless. The display of consciousness in them can be explained only by accepting a consciousness behind them. The inference is that as the Buddhi and the senses are in the nature of instruments, they must be functioning for the purposes of an intelligent agent.”
What a wonderful explanation! I read these lines again and again to absorb the declaration of Truth.
Further Shri Krishna continues, “In illustration of this, great men cite an ancient anecdote in the form of a conversation between Dattatreya, the Avadhuta (the naked wanderer) of blazing spiritual power and King Yadu, the knower of Dharma.
Kind Yadu requested Avadhuta with great humility: O holy one! Though possessed of great wisdom, you are found merely to roam about in the world like a young boy. Kindly tell me what it is that fills your heart always with joy, though you are without any object of sense enjoyment and are companionless and alone.”
Among a whole lot of choices that are present before me at present, I am very eager to hear Shri Krishna's voice on Avadhuta’s choices of learning.
P.S. The extracts are taken from the translation works of Srimad Bhagavata of Swami Tapasyananda, Ramakrisha Math.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
