Friday, November 21, 2008

Q n A (Part 4)

Thousands of people celebrate Rakhi Poornima at the Ashram. Several devotees tie Rakhi to Guruji. His hands, right from the wrist to the elbow was full of colorful strings!! The count of which had reached more than hundreds!!

Guruji: Every one has tied me up. I have got tied up by everyone (Laughter!!)

Devotee: Guruji you look like Krishna.

G: I don't just look, I am. (Laughter!!) What to hide!? Why to hide? I am shameless.

How are you all? Love ties you down... beautiful.

These days people are celebrating Friendship all over the world. When is that? Huh? 1st Sunday of August? Oh ho! So only that day you should be friendly is it? 'Raksha Bandhan' is what we celebrate here in India. Raksha means to save, to protect. You tie this, which means everyday you protect me. Sisters tie it to brothers, saying that you protect me everyday.

What else? I think the nations should tie it to each other. So that they are friendly to each other and they protect each other and save each other from destruction. They should not do selective friendship! Isn't it?

Raksha Bandhan means, I am there for you. Like the sister say to the brothers, I am there for you wherever you are, or the brother tell that to the sister? Whatever..

Should we do some meditation now? What is the time now? 8:45? How is the TTC going? The TRM is over... The others are also doing some course?

Q: Guruji thank you for everything that you have given me. I don't have words enough to express my gratitude.
G: Don't tell me thank you. It will be only worth if you can bring more smiles in more number of people's face. That's the way to say thank you.

Ok what else? Someone wanted to perform some dance? Perform it tomorrow. Should we discuss some questions?

You know I want to discuss something today. There is a big difference between the East and the West. In the East, we believe that God takes care of the evil. Men don't have to do anything. But in the West they believe that individuals have to take care of the evil. Fight them. Face them. In Buddhism, Taoism, the Shinto's, the Jains, in all these religions it is said that it is God's duty to protect you from the evil. Whereas in the Middle East, the faith is that you have to guard yourself from the evil. You have to fight them. Interesting? !?!?

Here in India we say God is Love. The whole Universe is made up of a substance and that is called God. The sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the trees, everything is nothing but the manifestation of God himself. These are something that we can see. And the unseen, even that we refer to as God. The space is also God. The pure consciousness, the space, there is no form, shape, the formless divinity; we call it as 'Nirakara' is also referred to as God here. The same formless divinity is present in the one with the form. It is called the 'Sakara'. You see it in the trees, the mountains, the garden, the sun, the moon... everything. This is interesting analysis!! We say God is Love and that is what the whole universe is made up of. Nothing but pure love. That's what we believe here.

When the child is born he experiences love from his mother. Then from the father. Then from the teacher, the Guru... Here in India we refer the trees, rivers and the mountains also as God! The sacredness is all permeating. Even animals, cows, sheep goats,frogs... the same divinity is seen in everything. This is another school of thought. God comes to us in all forms. I met this 85 year-old Catholic nun lady in London. She told me if you don't see Jesus in the first person you meet in the morning, then you will never see him anywhere. It is very unusual. I tell you Mystics have different ways always.

Like in Islam we had Mansoor, he was a Sufi saint. He said this,"What do people know what my relation is with my God?" So Mystics had a different interpretation about God always. They spoke from the heart. Their entire approach was different. Divinity is not oneperson. It is omni-present, omni-potent, and omniscient!!

Love is again personified. Love is not something, which is hanging on the space. It is in all forms.

There is this common question that comes, is God there in the form or the formless?

Can I ask you something? What are you? Are you not both the form and the formless? In Sanskrit we say, 'Appadeepo Bhava'. Be a light to yourself.The mind has no form where as the body has a form. And you are both.The muscles have a form. But the temperature has no form. The formless divinity is present in all. We refer that to as Brahman here in Sanskrit. Like we say, Allah in Islam. Satchitananda, the Paramananda, beyond the self. The consciousness. The whole universe
is like the body of the formless. Even scientists have agreed to the fact that the whole universe has come from a void. It is sustaining itself in the void and it is going to dissolve in the void!!

In Karnataka, there is a custom, I think in a village, to call everyone as God. Like they would say, "Come in God". "Please have food God", etc. They simply see God in everybody. That does not mean they behave crazily. No no... They take good care of you. They serve you food; make you wash your hand. Again divine is perceived in every different way. You become like a child. Jesus said, "unless you become a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of my father". I am sure in Islam also there should be something like that mentioned.

Here God is our friend, (sakha), companion, and child. In all the three forms you see divinity. That's why in Christianity they pray to infant Jesus. If you really look into religion, there was only one Buddha. Today there are 42 sects in Buddhism!! There was only one Jesus, but today we have 55 to 60 beliefs in Christianity. 4-5 different Paigambars. Same with Judaism there are 3 to 4 sects. Hinduism, don't even ask! (Laughter!!) Countless!!

Our work is to unite everybody. Harmony in diversity. We have to move with everybody. Honor everybody. Honour every school of thought. Never condemn anyone. It is only the foolish people who condemn. Honour everybody. Practice meditation, Sudarshan Kriya, and serve everyone. And you know what, honouring everyone itself is the biggest service.

Q: Guruji why is there so much diversity?

G: Tell me why shouldn't it be? It is like that. See there are so many different varieties of vegetables available. Imagine if there was only potato. You had to eat potato all the time!! Morning, evening and night!! How would that be? The nature has provided us with so much of variety!

Q: Guruji, after death the body turns into ashes. The soul finds another body. Where is the scope to see 'Swarga' (heaven)?

G: (laughter!!) I tell you the entire concept of Swarga is how you live your life here, now!

Q: Guruji, why does people desire for Moksha?

G: Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha are the four things that we desire. You have the wealth. How much can you enjoy!?!?! Ultimately you feel Oh enough!! Then you desire for freedom. That is the desire for Moksha.

Q: What is your advice for lazy people?

G: If I tell you what is the guarantee that you will do it? What if even after that you are lazy? So you better find that out by
yourself. (Laughter!!)

Q: Guruji how to deal with the lust, in that moment when it is there?

G: That moment you can't deal with it. That's why you should deal with it much early. Should consume the right food. Right thoughts.. right behavior.. pranayama. Huh..

Q: Guruji, how to deal with fear of sorrow?

G: Do sadhana. If you do Sadhana the veil, the curtain will drop. You will start seeing life from a different perspective.

Q: Guruji, Krishna said 'When everyone sleeps, the yogi is awake'. What does it mean? Are we not supposed to sleep if we want to become Yogis?

G: No no. It is not interpreted correctly. It has a different meaning. It means when everyone is ignorant. The yogi knows and he is aware. Here awaking is referred to as awareness. Got it?

Q: Guruji, please tell us something about Vairagya (dispassion) and Sadness?

G: Maharajji will tell. Maharajji please tell us about dispassion.Maharaji's words are like ghee in the food. Unless he speaks it seems incomplete.It starts drizzling at the amphitheatre and Guruji asks the crowd to disperse saying "Will take it up tomorrow ok? Jai jai radha ramana Hari Bol...".

Kabir Poems

1.

Seeing the gardener approaching, the buds cried out: "Today the blossoms have been picked, Tomorrow will be our turn."
As the woodcutter advanced, the trees sighed and said: "It matters nothing that we are to be cut down,But, alas, the birds will lose their homes."
As the potter was kneading the wet clay, it said: "Today, O friend, thou art kneading me, But tomorrow thou wilt have to make a bed in my lap."
Kabir saw a mill grinding the wheat and cried: "Alas, no grain remains between the grinding stones,Yet those who cling to the pivot are not destroyed."

2.

The night you passed in sleep
And the day in visiting your false friends;
Alas! Thus have you wasted
The diamond of your life on naught.
You will die one day, perhaps tomorrow; Grass will grow on your tomb,
And your friends will forget you.
Therefore know your soul soon.
Whom will the son of a harlot call his father? Worship God in your being
And do not waste your life.
Your body is like a jar of unbaked clay;
It may break to pieces any moment
And all will be over,
Nowhere is there delight except in God.
This world is a house made of wood,
And, lo! it is burning furiously;
He who stays in it dies.
The Yogi withdraws from it in meditation
And he is saved.

3.

Thy birth as man is a ripe fruit
Which is seen only once;
Make the most of the practice of devotion and compassion
And the acquisition of true Knowledge.
O Kabir, there is a way out of this illusory world: Know the soul at any cost.

4.

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.
Man wanders about without purpose to Mathura or Kashi
Without the knowledge of the inner spirit,
Like a deer that runs listlessly from forest to forest
In search of the musk which lies within its own navel.
All men of the three worlds, even sanyasis, munis and yogis
Are infatuated by desire and a slave to the mind
Just as a large bee is infatuated by the buds of a lotus in the water.
The immanent and unmanifested 'Hans' is in my heart,
Which is worshipped by Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and 88,000 munis.
God is within but people think that he is somewhere outside.
O! Irony of ironies!

Kabir says: Listen, O Sadhu, this confusion cannot be removed without the help of a Guru.

Steps to Realization

First among the qualifications required of the aspirant for Jnâna, or wisdom, come Shama and Dama, which may be taken together. They mean the keeping of the organs in their own centres without allowing them to stray out. I shall explain to you first what the word "organ" means. Here are the eyes; the eyes are not the organs of vision but only the instruments. Unless the organs also are present, I cannot see, even if I have eyes. But, given both the organs and the instruments, unless the mind attaches itself to these two, no vision takes place. So, in each act of perception, three things are necessary — first, the external instruments, then, the internal organs, and lastly, the mind. If any one of them be absent, then there will be no perception. Thus the mind acts through two agencies —one external, and the other internal. When I see things, my mind goes out, becomes externalised; but suppose I close my eyes and begin to think, the mind does not go out, it is internally active. But, in either case, there is activity of the organs. When I look at you and speak to you, both the organs and the instruments are active. When I close my eyes and begin to think, the organs are active, but not the instruments. Without the activity of these organs, there will be no thought. You will find that none of you can think without some symbol. In the case of the blind man, he has also to think through some figure. The organs of sight and hearing are generally very active. You must bear in mind that by the word "organ" is meant the nerve centre in the brain. The eyes and ears are only the instruments of seeing and hearing, and the organs are inside. If the organs are destroyed by any means, even if the eyes or the ears be there, we shall not see or hear. So in order to control the mind, we must first be able to control these organs. To restrain the mind from wandering outward or inward, and keep the organs in their respective centres, is what is meant by the words Shama and Dama. Shama consists in not allowing the mind to externalise, and Dama, in checking the external instruments.

Now comes Uparati which consists in not thinking of things of the senses. Most of our time is spent in thinking about sense-objects, things which we have seen, or we have heard, which we shall see or shall hear, things which we have eaten, or are eating, or shall eat, places where we have lived, and so on. We think of them or talk of them most of our time. One who wishes to be a Vedantin must give up this habit.


Then comes the next preparation (it is a hard task to be a philosopher!), Titikshâ, the most difficult of all. It is nothing less than the ideal forbearance — "Resist not evil." This requires a little explanation. We may not resist an evil, but at the same time we may feel very miserable. A man may say very harsh things to me, and I may not outwardly hate him for it, may not answer him back, and may restrain myself from apparently getting angry, but anger and hatred may be in my mind, and I may feel very badly towards that man. That is not non-resistance; I should be without any feeling of hatred or anger, without any thought of resistance; my mind must then be as calm as if nothing had happened. And only when I have got to that state, have I attained to non-resistance, and not before. Forbearance of all misery, without even a thought of resisting or driving it out, without even any painful feeling in the mind, or any remorse — this is Titiksha. Suppose I do not resist, and some great evil comes thereby; if I have Titiksha, I should no feel any remorse for not having resisted. When the mind has attained to that state, it has become established in Titiksha. People in India do extraordinary things in order to practice this Titiksha. They bear tremendous heat and cold without caring, they do not even care for snow, because they take no thought for the body; it is left to itself, as if it were a foreign thing.


The next qualification required is Shraddhâ, faith. One must have tremendous faith in religion and God. Until one has it, one cannot aspire to be a Jnâni. A great sage once told me that not one in twenty millions in this world believed in God. I asked him why, and he told me, "Suppose there is a thief in this room, and he gets to know that there is a mass of gold in the next room, and only a very thin partition between the two rooms; what will be the condition of that thief?" I answered, "He will not be able to sleep at all; his brain will be actively thinking of some means of getting at the gold, and he will think of nothing else." Then he replied, "Do you believe that a man could believe in God and not go mad to get him? If a man sincerely believes that there is that immense, infinite mine of Bliss, and that It can be reached, would not that man go mad in his struggle to reach it ?" Strong faith in God and the consequent eagerness to reach Him constitute Shraddha.


Then comes Samâdhâna, or constant practice, to hold the mind in God. Nothing is done in a day. Religion cannot be swallowed in the form of a pill. It requires hard and constant practice. The mind can be conquered only by slow and steady practice.


Next is Mumukshutva, the intense desire to be free. Those of you who have read Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia remember his translation of the first sermon of Buddha, where Buddha says,

Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels.

None other holds you that ye live and die,

And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss

Its spokes of agony,

Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.

All the misery we have is of our own choosing; such is our nature. The old Chinaman, who having been kept in prison for sixty years was released on the coronation of a new emperor, exclaimed, when he came out, that he could not live; he must go back to his horrible dungeon among the rats and mice; he could not bear the light. So he asked them to kill him or send him back to the prison, and he was sent back. Exactly similar is the condition of all men. We run headlong after all sorts of misery, and are unwilling to be freed from them. Every day we run after pleasure, and before we reach it, we find it is gone, it has slipped through our fingers. Still we do not cease from our mad pursuit, but on and on we go, blinded fools that we are.


In some oil mills in India, bullocks are used that go round and round to grind the oil-seed. There is a yoke on the bullock's neck. They have a piece of wood protruding from the yoke, and on that is fastened a wisp of straw. The bullock is blindfolded in such a way that it can only look forward, and so it stretches its neck to get at the straw; and in doing so, it pushes the piece of wood out a little further; and it makes another attempt with the same result, and yet another, and so on. It never catches the straw, but goes round and round in the hope of getting it, and in so doing, grinds out the oil. In the same way you and I who are born slaves to nature, money and wealth, wives and children, are always chasing a wisp of straw, a mere chimera, and are going through an innumerable round of lives without obtaining what we seek. The great dream is love; we are all going to love and be loved, we are all going to be happy and never meet with misery, but the more we go towards happiness, the more it goes away from us. Thus the world is going on, society goes on, and we, blinded slaves, have to pay for it without knowing. Study your own lives, and find how little of happiness there is in them, and how little in truth you have gained in the course of this wild-goose chase of the world.


Do you remember the story of Solon and Croesus? The king said to the great sage that Asia Minor was a very happy place. And the sage asked him, "Who is the happiest man? I have not seen anyone very happy." "Nonsense," said Croesus, "I am the happiest man in the world." "Wait, sir, till the end of your life; don't be in a hurry," replied the sage and went away. In course of time that king was conquered by the Persians, and they ordered him to be burnt alive. The funeral pyre was prepared and when poor Croesus saw it, he cried aloud "Solon! Solon!" On being asked to whom he referred, he told his story, and the Persian emperor was touched, and saved his life.


Such is the life-story of each one of us; such is the tremendous power of nature over us. It repeatedly kicks us away, but still we pursue it with feverish excitement. We are always hoping against hope; this hope, this chimera maddens us; we are always hoping for happiness.


There was a great king in ancient India who was once asked four questions, of which one was: "What is the most wonderful thing in the world?" "Hope," was the answer. This is the most wonderful thing. Day and nights we see people dying around us, and yet we think we shall not die; we never think that we shall die, or that we shall suffer. Each man thinks that success will be his, hoping against hope, against all odds, against all mathematical reasoning. Nobody is ever really happy here. If a man be wealthy and have plenty to eat, his digestion is: out of order, and he cannot eat. If a man's digestion be good, and he have the digestive power of a cormorant, he has nothing to put into his mouth. If he be rich, he has no children. If he be hungry and poor, he has a whole regiment of children, and does not know what to do with them. Why is it so? Because happiness and misery are the obverse and reverse of the same coin; he who takes happiness, must take misery also. We all have this foolish idea that we can have happiness without misery, and it has taken such possession of us that we have no control over the senses.


When I was in Boston, a young man came up to me, and gave me a scrap of paper on which he had written a name and address, followed by these words: "All the wealth and all the happiness of the world are yours, if you only know how to get them. If you come to me, I will teach you how to get them. Charge, $ 5." He gave me this and said, "What do you think of this?" I said, "Young man, why don't you get the money to print this? You have not even enough money to get this printed !" He did not understand this. He was infatuated with the idea that he could get immense wealth and happiness without any trouble. There are two extremes into which men are running; one is extreme optimism, when everything is rosy and nice and good; the other, extreme pessimism, when everything seems to be against them. The majority of men have more or less undeveloped brains. One in a million we see with a well-developed brain; the rest either have peculiar idiosyncrasies, or are monomaniacs.


Naturally we run into extremes. When we are healthy and young, we think that all the wealth of the world will be ours, and when later we get kicked about by society like footballs and get older, we sit in a corner and croak and throw cold water on the enthusiasm of others. Few men know that with pleasure there is pain, and with pain, pleasure; and as pain is disgusting, so is pleasure, as it is the twin brother of pain. It is derogatory to the glory of man that he should be going after pain, and equally derogatory, that he should be going after pleasure. Both should be turned aside by men whose reason is balanced. Why will not men seek freedom from being played upon? This moment we are whipped, and when we begin to weep, nature gives us a dollar; again we are whipped, and when we weep, nature gives us a piece of ginger-bread, and we begin to laugh again.


The sage wants liberty; he finds that sense-objects are all vain and that there is no end to pleasures and pains. How many rich people in the world want to find fresh pleasures! All pleasures are old, and they want new ones. Do you not see how many foolish things they are inventing every day, just to titillate the nerves for a moment, and that done, how there comes a reaction? The majority of people are just like a flock of sheep. If the leading sheep falls into a ditch, all the rest follow and break their necks. In the same way, what one leading member of a society does, all the others do, without thinking what they are doing. When a man begins to see the vanity of worldly things, he will feel he ought not to be thus played upon or borne along by nature. That is slavery. If a man has a few kind words said to him, he begins to smile, and when he hears a few harsh words, he begins to weep. He is a slave to a bit of bread, to a breath of air; a slave to dress, a slave to patriotism, to country, to name, and to fame. He is thus in the midst of slavery and the real man has become buried within, through his bondage. What you call man is a slave. When one realises all this slavery, then comes the desire to be free; an intense desire comes. If a piece of burning charcoal be placed on a man's head, see how he struggles to throw it off. Similar will be the struggles for freedom of a man who really understands that he is a slave of nature.


We have now seen what Mumukshutva, or the desire to be free, is. The next training is also a very difficult one. Nityânitya-Viveka — discriminating between that which is true and that which is untrue, between the eternal and the transitory. God alone is eternal, everything else is transitory. Everything dies; the angels die, men die, animals die, earths die, sun, moon, and stars, all die; everything undergoes constant change. The mountains of today were the oceans of yesterday and will be oceans tomorrow. Everything is in a state of flux. The whole universe is a mass of change. But there is One who never changes, and that is God; and the nearer we get to Him, the less will be the change for us, the less will nature be able to work on us; and when we reach Him, and stand with Him, we shall conquer nature, we shall be masters of phenomena of nature, and they will have no effect on us.


You see, if we really have undergone the above discipline, we really do not require anything else in this world. All knowledge is within us. All perfection is there already in the soul. But this perfection has been covered up by nature; layer after layer of nature is covering this purity of the soul. What have we to do? Really we do not develop our souls at all. What can develop the perfect? We simply take the evil off; and the soul manifests itself in its pristine purity, its natural, innate freedom.


Now begins the inquiry: Why is this discipline so necessary? Because religion is not attained through the ears, nor through the eyes, nor yet through the brain. No scriptures can make us religious. We may study all the books that are in the world, yet we may not understand a word of religion or of God. We may talk all our lives and yet may not be the better for it; we may be the most intellectual people the world ever saw, and yet we may not come to God at all. On the other hand, have you not seen what irreligious men have been produced from the most intellectual training? It is one of the evils of your Western civilisation that you are after intellectual education alone, and take no care of the heart. It only makes men ten times more selfish, and that will be your destruction. When there is conflict between the heart and the brain, let the heart be followed, because intellect has only one state, reason, and within that, intellect works, and cannot get beyond. It is the heart which takes one to the highest plane, which intellect can never reach; it goes beyond intellect, and reaches to what is called inspiration. Intellect can never become inspired; only the heart when it is enlightened, becomes inspired. An intellectual, heartless man never becomes an inspired man. It is always the heart that speaks in the man of love; it discovers a greater instrument than intellect can give you, the instrument of inspiration. Just as the intellect is the instrument of knowledge, so is the heart the instrument of inspiration. In a lower state it is a much weaker instrument than intellect. An ignorant man knows nothing, but he is a little emotional by nature. Compare him with a great professor — what wonderful power the latter possesses! But the professor is bound by his intellect, and he can be a devil and an intellectual man at the same time; but the man of heart can never be a devil; no man with emotion was ever a devil. Properly cultivated, the heart can be changed, and will go beyond intellect; it will be changed into inspiration. Man will have to go beyond intellect in the end. The knowledge of man, his powers of perception, of reasoning and intellect and heart, all are busy churning this milk of the world. Out of long churning comes butter, and this butter is God. Men of heart get the "butter", and the "buttermilk" is left for the intellectual.


These are all preparations for the heart, for that love, for that intense sympathy appertaining to the heart. It is not at all necessary to be educated or learned to get to God. A sage once told me, "To kill others one must be equipped with swords and shields, but to commit suicide a needle is sufficient; so to teach others, much intellect and learning are necessary, but not so for your own self-illumination." Are on pure? If you are pure, you will reach God. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." If you are not pure, and you know all the sciences in the world, that will not help you at all; you may be buried in all the books you read, but that will not be of much use. It is the heart that reaches the goal. Follow the heart. A pure heart sees beyond the intellect; it gets inspired; it knows things that reason can never know, and whenever there is conflict between the pure heart and the intellect, always side with the pure heart, even if you think what your heart is doing is unreasonable. When it is desirous of doing good to others, your brain may tell you that it is not politic to do so, but follow your heart, and you will find that you make less mistakes than by following your intellect. The pure heart is the best mirror for the reflection of truth, so all these disciplines are for the purification of the heart. And as soon as it is pure, all truths flash upon it in a minute; all truth in the universe will manifest in your heart, if you are sufficiently pure.


The great truths about atoms, and the finer elements, and the fine perceptions of men, were discovered ages ago by men who never saw a telescope, or a microscope, or a laboratory. How did they know all these things? It was through the heart; they purified the heart. It is open to us to do the same today; it is the culture of the heart, really, and not that of the intellect that will lessen the misery of the world.


Intellect has been cultured with the result that hundreds of sciences have been discovered, and their effect has been that the few have made slaves of the many — that is all the good that has been done. Artificial wants have been created; and every poor man, whether he has money or not, desires to have those wants satisfied, and when he cannot, he struggles, and dies in the struggle. This is the result. Through the intellect is not the way to solve the problem of misery, but through the heart. If all this vast amount of effort had been spent in making men purer, gentler, more forbearing, this world would have a thousandfold more happiness than it has today. Always cultivate the heart; through the heart the Lord speaks, and through the intellect you yourself speak.


You remember in the Old Testament where Moses was told, "Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." We must always approach the study of religion with that reverent attitude. He who comes with a pure heart and a reverent attitude, his heart will be opened; the doors will open for him, and he will see the truth.


If you come with intellect only, you can have a little intellectual gymnastics, intellectual theories, but not truth. Truth has such a face that any one who sees that face becomes convinced. The sun does not require any torch to show it; the sun is self-effulgent. If truth requires evidence, what will evidence that evidence? If something is necessary as witness for truth, where is the witness for that witness? We must approach religion with reverence and with love, and our heart will stand up and say, this is truth, and this is untruth.


The field of religion is beyond our senses, beyond even our consciousness. We cannot sense God. Nobody has seen God with his eyes or ever will see; nobody has God in his consciousness. I am not conscious of God, nor you, nor anybody. Where is God? Where is the field of religion? It is beyond the senses, beyond consciousness. Consciousness is only one of the many planes in which we work; you will have to transcend the field of consciousness, to go beyond the senses, approach nearer and nearer to your own centre, and as you do that, you will approach nearer and nearer to God. What is the proof of God? Direct perception, Pratyaksha. The proof of this wall is that I perceive it. God has been perceived that way by thousands before, and will be perceived by all who want to perceive Him. But this perception is no sense-perception at all; it is supersensuous, superconscious, and all this training is needed to take us beyond the senses. By means of all sorts of past work and bondages we are being dragged downwards; these preparations will make us pure and light. Bondages will fall off by themselves, and we shall be buoyed up beyond this plane of sense-perception to which we are tied down, and then we shall see, and hear, and feel things which men in the three ordinary states (viz waking, dream, and sleep) neither feel, nor see, nor hear. Then we shall speak a strange language, as it were, and the world will not understand us, because it does not know anything but the senses. True religion is entirely transcendental. Every being that is in the universe has the potentiality of transcending the senses; even the little worm will one day transcend the senses and reach God. No life will be a failure; there is no such thing as failure in the universe. A hundred times man will hurt himself, a thousand times he will tumble, but in the end he will realise that he is God. We know there is no progress in a straight line. Every soul moves, as it were, in a circle, and will have to complete it, and no soul can go so low but there will come a time when it will have to go upwards. No one will be lost. We are all projected from one common centre, which is God. The highest as well as the lowest life God ever projected, will come back to the Father of all lives. "From whom all beings are projected, in whom all live, and unto whom they all return; that is God."

Scientists Life

1. Sir C.V. Raman

I thought of sharing with you an incident about Sir CV Raman –a Nobel Laureate in Physics for discovering Raman Effect. Raman gives the view that the color of sky is blue due to molecular diffraction, which determines the observed luminosity, and in great measures also its color. This led to the birth of the Raman Effect. Raman was in the first batch of Bharat Ratna Award winners. The award ceremony was to take place in the last week of January, soon after the Republic Day celebrations of 1954. The then President Dr. Rajendra Prasad wrote to Raman inviting him to be the personal guest in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, when Raman came to Delhi for the award ceremony. Sir CV Raman wrote a polite letter, regretting his inability to go. Raman had a noble reason for his inability to attend the investiture ceremony. He explained to the President that he was guiding a Ph.D. student and that thesis was positively due by the last day of January. The student was valiantly trying to wrap it all up and Raman felt, he had to be by the side of the research student, see that the thesis was finished, sign the thesis as the guide and then have it submitted. Here was a scientist who gave up the pomp of a glittering ceremony associated with the highest honour, because he felt that his duty required him to be by the side of the student. It is this unique trait of giving value to science that builds science.



2. Prof. Chandrasekhar Subramanyan

Chandrasekhar Subramanyan's most famous discovery was the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit. The limit describes the maximum mass (~1.44 solar masses) of a white dwarf star, or equivalently, the minimum mass for which a star will ultimately collapse into a neutron star or black hole following a supernova. The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar while on a ship from India to Cambridge, England. The Chandrasekhar Limit led to the determination of how long a star of particular mass will shine. In 1983, Chandrasekhar Subramanyan got the Nobel Prize for this discovery.

Two of Chandrasekhar's students in 1947 were the doctoral candidates Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang in Particle Physics research. Even though Chandrasekhar Subramanyan maintained his office at the Yerkes Observatory in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, he would regularly drive the one hundred miles to Chicago to guide and teach Lee and Yang and others many a times in difficult weather conditions. In 1957, these two of his students won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in particle physics research. This also brings out Chandrasekhar Subramanyan's commitment to science and there by to his students. Science indeed is a life time mission for Chandrasekhar. It is this characteristic which makes youth to become passionate towards science.


3. Prof. Norman E Borlaug


I would like to narrate an incident which took place during a function conferring Nobel Laureate Prof. Norman E Borlaug, a well known agricultural scientist and a partner in India's first Green revolution, with Dr. M S Swaminathan Award, at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on the 15th of March 2005. Prof. Borlaug, at the age of 91, was in the midst of all the praise showered on him from everybody gathered there.

When his turn came, he got up and highlighted India's advancement in the agricultural science and production and said that the political visionary Shri C. Subramaniam and Dr. M S Swaminathan, pioneer in agricultural science were the prime architects of First Green Revolution in India. Even though Prof Norman Borlaug was himself a partner in the first green revolution, he did not make a point on this. He recalled with pride, Dr. Verghese Kurien who ushered White Revolution in India. Then the surprise came. He turned to scientists sitting in the third row, fifth row and eighth row of the audience. He identified Dr. Raja Ram, a wheat specialist, Dr S K Vasal, a maize specialist, Dr. B. R. Barwale, a seed specialist. He said, all these scientists had contributed for India's and Asia's agricultural science. Dr. Borlaug introduced them to the audience by asking them to stand and ensured that the audience cheered and greeted the scientists with great enthusiasm. This action of Dr. Norman Borlaug, I call it as "Scientific Magnanimity".

One liners

1. A FOOLish man tells a woman to STOP talking, but a WISE man tells
her that she looks extremely BEAUTIFUL when her LIPS are CLOSED.


2. One GOOD way to REDUCE Alcohol consumption :
Before Marriage - Drink whenever you are SAD
After Marriage - Drink whenever you are HAPPY


3. Three FASTEST means of Communication :
1. Tele-Phone
2. Tele-Vision
3. Tell to Woman
Need still FASTER - Tell her NOT to tell ANY ONE.



4. A man got 2 wishes from GOD. He asked for the Best wine and Best Woman.
Next moment, he had the Best Wine and Mother Teresa next to him.

Moral : BE SPECIFIC


5. What is a BEST and WORST news you can hear at the SAME time ?
It is when your Girl Friend says YOU are the BEST KISSER among all your Friends.


6. Let us be generous like this : Four Ants are moving through a forest.
They see an ELEPHANT coming towards them.
Ant 1 says : we should KILL him.
Ant 2 says : No, Let us break his Leg alone.
Ant 3 says : No, we will just throw him away from our path.
Ant 4 says : No, we will LEAVE him because he is ALONE and we are FOUR.


7. If you do NOT have a Girl Friend - You are missing SOME thing in
your life. If you HAVE a Girl Friend - You are missing EVERY thing in your life.



8. When your LIFE is in DARKNESS, PRAY GOD and ask him to free you
from Darkness. Even after you pray, if U R still in Darkness - Please PAY the ELECTRICITY BILL.



9. "A Ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for"
- Albert Einstein


10. Divorce: Future tense of marriage.

11. Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous homelife.

12. Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

13. Etc.: A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.

14. Father: A banker provided by nature.

15. Boss: Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.

16. Love: An obsessive delusion that is cured by marriage.

17. How long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you're on.

18. Marriage is an institution in which a man loses his Bachelor's Degree and the woman gets her Masters.

Express Yourself

Our personality and attitude in life keeps changing with time. It could be for good or for worse.

It could be a moment or a person or an incident that can influence us for the good or bad.

Let me explain to you my the then personality. I was a very reserved in my childhood. I would often withdraw myself in my room, read books (school books, magazines, novels, newspapers anything that I can lay my hands on), listen to music and be in my own world. I was a brilliant student and was praised in my school for my academic talents. I was also good in theatre and writing and had won many prizes. I had an ego and would rather listen than talk. I was friendly but not open with anybody. I would never ask anybody nor would let anybody interfere with my privacy. I would happily take favours and stay PUT. I was different. I would visit my relatives and just smile and stay PUT. I liked the company of people but at the same time would stay aloof.

Two people changed my life:

I was in my early teens in 1993 struggling with college and diploma. I had to travel to V.T. (a station in Mumbai now called as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus) for my diploma and that's how I met this girl. We were a group of 10 girls. This girl was very elder to me but we hit off well. She would tell me the deepest secrets of her life, her thoughts and had considered me as her bosom pal. I would listen offer advice (though I was younger – always giving advice to people… used to it), but, I could never open up with her. In fact, I would be bewildered with the thought that how can she tell me so many things. We hardly know each other. I have never told anyone about how many sisters and brothers I have forget telling deep secrets and sharing life.. God…

She would carry food for me, book a seat for me in the train and was all for me. I was happy. I had the habit of people pampering me. I would not do anything in return but would enjoy all the attention that I get. Then suddenly I lost her in the Bomb Blast of 1993. I was very young and this episode shook me up. God, I never told her anything. I was never close to her. I never did anything for her. Now, that I want to do, she is not there with me. Now that I have lost her, I cannot change my past.

But, she changed my life. I was no more a reserved person. I never waited for anyone to say hello to me. I would go out of my way to help people, to initiate a conversation. I had no egos. I had no tomorrow. It is now or never. Till date I live that way and have changed at least 10 – 15 people since 1993. I explain to every one do not wait.. do and say now… now is yours, this moment is yours. I quote this incident to everyone and I do not feel shy to tell people that I was a reserved person. Today nobody believes me, as I am the most wanted person whether it is a party, small get-to-gether or any other occasion. Today I have people around every where.

I am happy for what I am today and happier when few people come and tell me that I have brought a pleasant change in their life.

My first job and my boss was in his early 20's. He was a millionaire but a very down to earth person. The moment he got off his car he would not only wish the security with warmth then the door keeper then the lift man but also drop one liner's that would make them feel happy. He was very friendly and cheerful throughout the day.

I learnt from him however big you are a smile and few warm words can bring light in any person. I follow him till date.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Paid in Full !!!!!!!!

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry.

He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?"

"You don't owe me anything," she replied "Mother has taught us never to accept payment for a kindness." He said... "Then I thank you from my heart."

As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt; stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Years later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.

Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown he we nt in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case. After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room.
She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally, she looked, and something caught; her attention on the side as She read these words.....

"Paid in full with one glass of milk." (Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly.

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: "Thank You,
GOD, that Your love has spread abroad through human hearts and hands."

A Girl with An Apple - True Story

August 1942. Piotrkow , Poland.

The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.

"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to me,"don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen." I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker.

An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, then asked my age. "Sixteen,"I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood.

My mother was motioned to the right with the other women, children,sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore, "Why?" He didn't answer. I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her. "No,"she said sternly. "Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers."

She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany . We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers."Don't call me Herman anymore." I said to my brothers. "Call me 94983."

I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator. I, too, felt dead. Hardened, I had become a number.

Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin. One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice,"Son," she said softly but clearly, I am going to send you an angel." Then I woke up. Just a dream. A beautiful dream. But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.

A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, around the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone. On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone: a little girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was half-hidden behind a birch tree. I glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German. "Do you have something to eat?" She didn't understand. I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life.

She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the fence. I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow." I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day. She was always there with something for me to eat - a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple. We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean death for us both. I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Polish.

What was her name? Why was she risking her life for me? Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples.

Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. "Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving." I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back, didn't even say good-bye to the little girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl with the apples.

We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed sealed. On May 10, 1945, I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 AM. In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived. Now, it was over. I thought of my parents. At least, I thought, we will be reunited.

But at 8 A.M. there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw people running every which way through camp. I caught up with my brothers. Russian troops had liberated the camp! The gates swung open. Everyone was running, so I did too.

Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived; I'm not sure how. But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my survival. In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life, had given me hope in a place where there was none. My mother had promised to send me an angel, and the angel had come.

Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hostel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics. Then I came to America , where my brother Sam had already moved.
I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned to New York City after two years. By August 1957 I'd opened my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.

One day, my friend Sid who I knew from England called me. "I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date." A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for me. But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma. I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk to,easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a better time.

We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat. As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you," she asked softly, "during the war?" "The camps," I said, the terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget. She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin ," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers." I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion.

And yet here we were, both survivors, in a new world. "There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."

What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like? I asked. "He was tall, skinny, and hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months." My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it. This couldn't be. "Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?"

Roma looked at me in amazement. "Yes!" "That was me! " I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn't believe it! My Angel.


"I'm not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait. "You're crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week. There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I'd found her again, I could never let her go.

That day, she said yes. And I kept my word. After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go.

Herman Rosenblat, Miami Beach, Florida

This is a true story and you can find out more by googling Herman Rosenblat. He was Bar Mitzvahed at age 75. This story is being made into a movie called "The Fence".

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Sardarji Jokes

SARDAR & FAMILY GO 2 A PARTY. HE INTRODUCES HIMSELF

I SARDAR,SHE SARDARNEE , THE BOY MY KID & THE GIRL MY KIDNEY....

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Sardarji standing below a tube light with a open mouth.................

WHY? because his doctor advised him "Todays dinner should be light".

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What is the difference between WATCH & WIFE .........

Ek bigadti hai to bandh ho jati hai......

Doosari bigadati hai to "SHUROO' ho jati hai

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Doctor to Sardaar : App ka aur aapki biwi ka blood group ek hi hai?

Sardaar : Hoga, Jarur hoga; 25 saal sey mera khoon jo pee rahi hai....
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American says "US mein shaadi E-mail se hoti hai.."

Sardarji " India mein to.. shaadi Female se hi hoti hai...!!!"

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ONE FINE DAY A GIRL PROPOSED TO A SARDAR AND SARDAR DENIED

SIMPLY SAYING THAT IN OUR FAMILY,

WE MARRY ONLY OUR RELATIVES..

MY MOM MARRIED MY DAD,

MY BROTHER MARRIED MY BHABHI ,

MY UNCLE MARRIED MY AUNT AND SO ON.
SO PLEASE EXCUSE ME !!!!!

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Sardar ji is buying a TV
"Do you have color TVs?"
"Sure."
"Give me a green one, please."
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What does Sardarji do after taking photocopies?
He compares it with the original for spelling mistakes.

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What does Sardarji do when he has one white sheet and wants an extra sheet?
He makes a photocopy of the white sheet.
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Dont be a Sardar Laugh now....

How do you make a Sardar laugh on Saturday? Tell him a joke on Wednesday.
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Sardar sent a SMS to his pregnant wife. Two seconds later a report came to his phone and he started dancing. The report said, "DELIVERED".

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One Sardar read a board "likhney wala briliant.....parhney wala idiot.." Sardar becomes engry, he rub the board and writes, "parhney wala briliant, likhney wala idiot...."
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A sardar walked up to the front desk of the library
and said, "I borrowed a book last week, but it was the most boring I've ever read. There was no story whatsoever, and there were far too many characters!"
The librarian replied, "Oh, you must be the person who took our phone book."

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What do you call an eternity?
Four Sardars in four cars at a four way stop.
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Prince Charles & Sardarji were having dinner.
Prince said, "Pass the wine you divine".
Sardar thinks "how poetic"
Sardar says, "pass the custard you bastard".
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Sardar at bar in New York .
Man on his right says "Johny Walker single"
Man on his left says "Peter Scotch single"
Sardar says - "Baljith Singh Married"
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Sardar's theory : Moon is more impt than Sun, coz it gives light at
night when light is needed & Sun gives light during the day when light
is not needed!!!
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Sardar shouting 2 his girl friend " u said v will do register marriage
and cheated me, I was waiting 4 u yesterday whole day in the post
office....
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2 sardarjis looking at Egyptian mummy.
Sar 1 : Look so many bandages, pakka lorry accident case.
Sar 2 : Aaho, lorry number is also written...BC 1760!!!....
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A sardar for an exam had studied only one essay 'FRIEND', but in the
exam the essay which came was 'FATHER' . he replaced friend with father
in the essay and>it read: AM A VERY FATHERLY PERSON, I HAVE LOTS OF FATHERS,
SOME OF MY FATHERS ARE MALE AND SOME ARE FEMALE. MY TRUE
FATHER IS MY NEIGHBOUR.
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Amitab : In which state Cauvery flows?
Sardar : liquid state.....
Audience clapped.. Amitab stunned, looks behind, ALL WERE SARDARS.......
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Part 1 Course w/ Ram

I just finished assisting a course with one of my very close friend cum teacher Ram....It was a group of 16 folks( who were full of innocence and fun) ... There were few who were waiting to do this course for 4 years.. It was sheer bliss to see Ram teaching the course so effortlessly. Sitting so close to him and see him deliver the brahma gyaan (Highest Knowledge) with so much enthusiasm and conviction is simply a treasure to watch.

Its such a great feeling looking at the expression on the face of such geniune seekers.Every one on the course were so open minded.The amazing answers they used to come up with for the homework questions or for the processes they went thru.. Even though it was my ....... course, The knowledge from this course wakes you up and brings a new dimension in your life... It was so heartening to listen to the experience sharing of participants .....




Of course there was so much to learn from this course ...

One distinct learning I can share here is, Throughout my life I was scared to make mistakes So, more than often I used to be gripped with feverishness to be Right Always....Even any amount of planning would not take away the mind block I had... At the end of 1st day, I decided if a mistake happens it happens...you cannot be correct always.. Be Natural and Smile.... everything is going to fine...You dont have to be grammatically correct ... It was like a wake up call to me...The realization that came to me definitely gave me the much needed support to be more natural and enjoy the course even better...

As wise ones say "The Fear of making a mistake is far greater than making a mistake"....

As always it feels so good to be around a bunch of satsangees, share my life . I donot know what good had i done in my previous births to have Guruji in my life and be surrounded by such wonderful people all my life ...

Monday, November 17, 2008

Teacher , Action and Inaction

Everyone is a teacher you know that?

Like everyone is a son or a daughter or a brother or a sister, everyone is a teacher. Everyone becomes a teacher at some point of time.

One who wants nothing but the growth of the disciple and one who is happy with the growth of the disciple is a Guru. He is the one who does something to uplift someone. That does not mean from tomorrow you go to somebody and say "Ok now I am your Guru, you do 'SO HUM".

The whole exercise is to become 'Nobody' from 'Somebody'. In that little role of that somebody you can play the role of a teacher. We need to be simple and natural human beings. As you move on the spiritual path, different ability dawns in you. You know you can bless people and heal people, but you should not use all these abilities to your own use.

As you bless people, most of the times you are surprised by what happened, right? If happens, so what? One must not pay too much attention. These are certain things you should not exhibit. Should not say, "Look I can bless, I can heal", as it simplicity counts. Bhavukta is very important. Never go to a level!

Must move on.. you know like if a professor is behaving like a professor all the times, how would it be?He comes home and he starts behaving like a professor with his wife and his children! Do not be a teacher all the time.Your family will find it difficult then! Your family will be tired of you and say 'Oh there he started!'

You know once a couple came to attend a Basic Course. Every time the teacher told a point, say, 'Accept people as they are', the husband would immediately turn to the wife and say, "Look haven't I told you this before. That's what I am telling you all the time". He is telling his wife but not applying that to himself! Honor everyone. Be natural, and at the same time know the depth of meditation.

Action - Inaction

The wise is the one who sees action in inaction and inaction in action. When you observe your heart beat, your breathing, what's happening in your head? In the head, a word cluster 'you are not doing anything' keeps making rounds, though everything is happening in the whole body. That is action in inaction.

Ask any convict, 'What did you do'? He will never say, 'I have done that which is totally wrong'. Something inside him was responsible for whatever happened. He will say, 'I have not done anything drastically bad compelling me to be here'.

Similarly ask any successful man, 'How did you do'? He will say, 'I have not done anything'.

When you sit and observe, your heart is beating, you are breathing - then something inside you settles down. As something settles inside, you start relaxing deep. When you relax deep, that gives rise to the intelligence. When your intelligence sharpens, you become dynamic. As you become dynamic, skills comes to you. All this all happens when you are not in a hurry.

When you are in a hurry you cannot come out with anything beautiful, anything creative. When you do a big project, after completion you often feel you have not done it. How many of you felt that you have not done it, it just happened? That is seeing inaction in action.

Part 2

Q: I heard that Native Indians can choose their time of death. Is it true that once a person is fully aligned to the nature, he can die when he chooses.

Sri Sri: Yes. It is true. When aligned with the nature, one can choose a day, and die *naturally*. One can set a day, and die by other means (he meant Suicide)…and laughed. But to die a natural death is possible!


Q: Have you decided who will carry on this knowledge after you?

Sri Sri: Yes! This knowledge will go on….even after me. It will be there for a long time.


Q: Dont you think, it is moving towards multiple people spreading the knowledge than a Single person. Dont you think that is better, that a group of people spread the knowledge together.

Sri Sri: Hmm…it is good. But also know, that is just Light that has come, to spread the knowledge. Dont tag it to a single person.


Q: Why is it that each time, when an Enlightened Master comes… the knowledge representation is different. The knowledge of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha etc., are different.

Sri Sri: (laughs) Yes… Nature loves Diversity. Why do you want everything to be in one way. For example, its the same wheat… that is used to make Bread, Cake, Cookie. In India, I would’ve given the example of Samosa, Chappati, Poori. But the essense is the same. So, look beyond the words.


Q: You said people take pride in Aggression these days….and you said this needs to reverse. People need to take pride in being Non-Violent & compassionate. How do we balance this? How do we balance in our life, by being aggressive in Goals…and also compassionate.

Sri Sri: Let me ask you something. How do you balance riding a bicycle? Once you lose balance on one side, you come back on other side. Thats how! You know it…when you lose the balance. And you correct yourself.


Q: Guruji you said there is a victim in a person who is committing crime. How do we care for the victim, if we are feeling hurt by the crime that person is doing to us. How do I deal this behavior of a person?

Sri Sri: (Guruji looked at her) and said…”Be Silent”. That will help!


Q: (By a 11year old) Will the world ever have peace again?

Sri Sri: Definitely. I define WAR as Worst Act of Reasoning. We’re going to give you a better world.

Yes Conciousness

I remember listening to one of the Guruji's talk, where Guruji narrated an incident that happened during the time He was with Maharishi. Guruji said, often Maharishi would give the instructions put all the chairs this way on the left side and after a while He would say why is it on the left side?

No one could argue saying You only told us to put it there! Maharishi would argue that He has not said so...And there was no way to win over Maharishi...

You have to simply accept and say YES. Guruji said it was training to really say YES to whatever it is.

It was very hard training. He would get angry for having followed His instructions, He would say put the chairs on right side and you put it there and you would get scolding for nothing. In either way you will be scolded!

I have heard Guruji saying if you suffer in the ashram, you will never have to suffer outside in the world. Yes all the buttons are pushed in the ashram to make you button proof, leaving you with only YES to whatever it is :-)

It seems the purpose of Divine is to get you to the state of YES, it doesn't matter where ever you are ashram, house, office, movie theatre or on the cross!

Smiling in Difficult Pose is Yoga - Sri Sri

Courtesy :- Jeevan Ek Khoj... (Blogger)


It was during Guru Poornima 2006 - my first and only so far - with Guruji . In a huge hall at the San Mateo Expo Center, CA. We were all participants in the "Yoga and Meditation Seminar" (also called PDS in India), being led by none other than Sri Sri Ravishankar.

About 300 of us were twisted like pretzels in a difficult pose - grunting, sweating and breathing at the same time, when Guruji's soft ethereal voice wafted over the microphone "Smiling In a Difficult Pose Is Yoga" .

Boom..crash...flash of lightning...the whole town visible from a hilltop.....Aho !

Suddenly it was so clear what He was saying - If you can smile through tough times in life, you have attained that state called Yoga. This was the MOST amazing definition of Yoga I had ever heard in my life.

The essence of the Bhagavad Gita says the same thing. Krishna exorts Arjuna to fire the arrow, but from a state of calmness. In the midst of what would have been a world war in those days, when Arjuna was in the most tumultous of times in his life, Krishna asked him to be centered and do his duty - no matter how difficult.

Guruji says this very directly too - The sign of success is your SMILE.

Ah - that elusive SMILE :) :) . Every week, at Long Kriya, the teacher asks us to do the same thing again and again - S M I L E. At times I feel like...Grr...just get on with the pranayams already, but its clear that the goal of Art Of Living is not just to teach folks a few asanas and breathing techniques - it is to bring back that lost smile on people's faces.

Especially on faces like mine that look perenially like :( .

And this smile has to be from within - not the polite smile that masks the agony from within - not the "Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho, Kya Gam Hai Jisko Chupa Rahe Ho" Smile, but the SMILE of the BEING ! The SMILE that shines through the clouds of darkness, misery, desires, failures, setbacks. The SMILE that makes others forget that they are in misery .

And after all who is not miserable ? Krishna had his uncle plotting his murder before he was even born and was hounded by him for years. Guruji's own mother Amma fell a victim to cancer when Guruji was about to address thousands at a satsang hundreds of miles away. Buddha had to leave his family and kingdom and walk away to attain nirvana. Jesus was nailed to the cross for showing people the path of love. The difference between these noble souls and us : The SMILE never went away even in these tough situations.

When Will I really SMILE ? Well until then as they say in the Art Of Living "Fake It Till You Make It" !!

Oh Gurudev, you have so much to give - am I ready to receive ? How much will I receive in this lifetime ? The Yoga Vasishta says "Self Effort" .

Part 1

Q: Guruji, how to always keep up with enthusiasm and joy?

Sri Sri: Leave always. If you think of always, then craving comes. If it is always there then you would not even know that it was ever there!! Like you take a dip in a river, you feel cold and when you come out you feel warm, and again do dip in water, you feel cold, and so you experience cold because you experience the warmth.

Leave it to the divine. Our nature is joy and enthusiasm. However sometimes it gets clouded but it can never go. Our consciousness is 'nitya-nutan' (Ever fresh) this is with us forever.

Q: Guruji, they say that if you are with Narayana then Laxmi follows. So should we not follow Lakshmi?

Sri Sri: Some people don't understand this. I would say pray to lakshmi. If you don't pray to either but just do some show off with some rituals, then that is of no use. Then you land up being nowhere!! I would say, do 'upasana' (prayer). If you do upasana, then how do you get corrupt and dishonest? Don't blame wealth, pray to wealth. In Sanskrit it is said everything is wealth. That doesn't mean only the note of money.

Health is wealth, Victory is wealth, Courage is wealth, you know the Ashta Lakshmi do Upasana and you will get the benefit. Just to fulfill our financial desires, you run behind lakshmi. Use skill; pray with devotion, lakshmi will come. It will never come with foolishness.

Q: Guruji, why do we want to spend time more with the person, we are in love with?

Sri Sri: It would be unusual if you don't want to spend time with the one you are in love with (laughter)!! Similarly when you love yourself, you spend time with yourself. When you do that, it becomes meditation. Then it is wonderful.

We like everything else, but ourself. The one who is resting inside, love that, know that!! Some people say oh ! I am bored with myself, cannot spend two hours alone. If you are bored with your self, how much boring will you be to others!! If you are not able to spend time with yourself, how will you manage to spend time with others? If you get to spend time with yourself, then I tell you are lucky. You will be contended. When this feeling comes, then no power in the world can make you shake and cry. Then Bhakti (devotion) comes, mukti (freedom) comes and then moksha (liberation) happens. Two hours you cant spend alone!! You start sending sms to your friends; you start calling them, talking, restless.

Know yourself by yourself. "Khudi khud mein khud ko pao."

Q: Guruji, my mind wonders everywhere how do I meditate?

Sri Sri: Take a stick and start chasing your mind. See where it goes. If it goes to Goa chase it to Goa, if it is going to Bhavnagar, chase it there, if it is going to bhelpuri, chase it to bhelpuri, if it is going to Bhagdad, chase it to Bhagdad….. Chase, keep chasing and you see your mind is so tired that it will come and fall at your feet. That's why Maharshi Patanjali says meditate on everything, meditate on elements, on Rishis, who are out of craving, even if you meditate on Rishis who are out of craving, you get into meditation. And when you sit for satsang, you get into meditation. But sometimes if you sit for santsang, and you are not there 100%, you count the ceiling, you look here and there. You have to bring interest yourself, You have to bring the juice (ras/ necter) yourself. It is already there, you have to see the one behind. The one who put the juice. Don't think I have to do, I tell you need not do anything its all burning for you, you don't have to lit it at all. When you are in Gangaji, you don't need a shower, when you are taking a dip in the Ganges, why do you need to have a tap and a shower? Become effortless. Just know that I am nothing and I don't want anything. But don't start thinking about it continuously, this is also a Maya.

That's why Adi Shankaracharya says it is foolish to even think that I am Zero.

Q: Guruji, I enjoyed my silence, I really found peace. So if I become dumb, will I get moksha?

Sri Sri: (Laughter!!! ) Oh ! God, if you find something good you will go on doing it!??!?! There are so many dumb people in the world, is everybody enlightened. Extremity is a problem in our country. There are some people who keep silence for 12 years. And after that their voice box don't function, looks like almost rusted. They cannot speak God has given an instrument, use it. Otherwise it would get rusted. But don't speak too much, and don't speak less as well. It your words are able to bring happiness, solace, definitely you should speak. Silence is also important. At least two to three times a year. Silence helps us to become more competent, become more courageous and efficient. So do both, keep silence and also speak. If you speak for 24 hours, then you loose your creativity.

Youth n Spirituality Meet

Guruji was in satya sai auditorium to release a spiritual book and for a discourse on YOUTH and SPIRITUALITY. The hall was jam packed even before he arrived. The moment he reaches the stage, he found that some people had no space to even stand. These people were taken aback when they were invited on stage by their graceful master. Such a wonderful way to love the people. During discourse everybody was feeling as if guruji is looking into his eyes. After a short discourse there was an interesting question answer session in which Guruji smartly hooked the bouncers of teenagers. Guruji said ask the questions. A teenaged boy raised his hand. Guruji said yes. He just came on stage and hugged guruji hard. Guruji smiled and blessed him.

Here are a few questions and answers…

1.Should students fall in love?

G : ya definitely, they should fall in love with their books and studies. If it is ok, they can go other way also.

2.Tell something about adolescent age?

G : It only begins, never ends.

3. What should we do, if somebody rejects our love proposal?

G: just move on. Think that he is an unlucky fellow who rejected the most valuable thing-love. It is his loss not yours. In life so many people are there who value your emotions. Just think about them.

4. What is the difference between religion and spirituality?

G: Religion is just an outer circle of spirituality. When we get the essence of all the religions, we get spirituality

5. If somebody thinks about his own happiness, is it a selfishness?

G: whatelse you can say it? If somebody in your family is unhappy, can you be happy? No. then why to think just about our own happiness.

6. Please redescribe the five finger concept which you told today morning in another discourse?

G: are vo to subah ki chai thi. Ab to sham ho gayi hai. Bas cheezon ko chchodo. Mai to aapke liye tazi cheezen lekar aaya hun.
Trans:- Oh,that was morning Tea now its already evening.Leave the things,I have brought you fresh tea now..

7.How to recognize a double faced person?
G : what is the need to recognize others, just recognize yourself. If somebody is doublefaced. Threefaced or fourfaced, does it matter? If somebody is fourfaced, treat him like brahma(hahaha).

Deeper Insights about yourself - Rishi Nityapragya

Four types of people come on the path of gyan or even bhakti (knowledge or devotion).

1) First are the Aart (suffering from pain or misery) and they come on the path to get rid of the misery

2) Second are Artharthi (who desire something from this world) come to the path to obtain that.

3) Third are Jigyasu, those who want to know something more about life, they are curious, enquiring kind.

4) Finally Gyani, those who have already learnt or known about the meaning or the lack of it (of life).They come on the path to progress.

The fourth type are the ones who are steadfast on the path, but the other types remain on the path till their needs get satisfied. This does not mean they are bad. One can start from anywhere and with effort the status can also change quickly from one to the next category.To make you more free, refined and skillful to tread this path and to lift the level of consciousness (chetna), whatever ingredients are required will be available automatically, so should not worry at all.Similarly for Seva, satsang or Sadhana- one can start anywhere but a balance is what is needed. Seva alone can get you tired quickly. The energy levels lifted in Sadhana will not be useful unless utilised in Seva. Similarly Satsang is required to have the celebration (utsav). Balance!

In Seva, it is good to provide food, clothing, waterto the hungry, naked or thirsty, for sometime the need is quenched but only for sometime. After sometime their need arises again. However if you are able to get the same person on the path, you are opening a door to infinity. This will influence his or her life till infinity, in this life and beyond.Samarpan is not contrary to using intellect, this is a wrong notion. Many say that 'do not use your mind just surrender'. Actually only those who have intellect can surrender. Surrender of an Agyani (deluded or person not in knowledge) will be temporary.

They would often complain, 'despite so much prayer I have not got the result that I wanted' as against the firm conviction that 'He is always with me, nothing can shake me'. Once in Rishikesh I shared my thought with Gurudev that we have lot of celebration (utsav/masti) in Art of living but less seva or knowledge. And you see, in recent times you would be amazed at the amount of seva projects and knowledge sharing that is happening. The depth of the questions during satsangs indicate this. How about some questions now.

Q: Out of the 7 levels of existence which one goes with you?
(for those who have forgotten, the 7 levels of existence are the Body (Sharir), Mind ( Man),Intellect (Buddhi), Breath ( Saans), Memory ( Chitta),Ego (Ahankar) and Self ( Atma)

Nitin bhaiya: Body is connected with the other 5 equipment though breath. When you die only the body is left behind as the breath stops. Remaining 5 continue to exist. Right at this moment there are so many people ( jiva) who are living without a body.

Q: When the body expires where is it that the memory or the experiences of the past kept, is it in the brain?

N: Is it the brain or the mind, which remembers, is the ears that hear or the mind that hears. Have you noticed that? Did you notice that the even the newborn have a nature (swabhav). Some kid keeps on crying without any apparent reason, others keep smiling. This is no coincidence. Effects of memory of past life iscarried on in the child's behavior who has no experience in this life. Scientists are also beginning to accept this.

Q:Will we be born as human beings in the next life?

N: Most of the human beings will be born as human beings unless ofcourse some very grave misdeed has got performed in this life.The jivas who have understood to experience in this life only through senses, in the next life also aspire to donn another body. They crave for a body the moment the body is no more.

For a meditative jiva the interest in the world reduces gradually and involuntarily. Mind matures and even the place where to look for joy changes. He no more looks in the object of senses for joy. Such a jiva has experienced in this life the Joy as if not in the body, while in meditation.A secret. When you leave the body, it is a freeing experience. No visa or passports here. But this exhilaration is only for those who are not connected to the body.

There is no desire to come back to a body. I will however came back if Guruji asks me to come! Sure! Another secret, When a body is being born, many jivas try to occupy the body. I do not know the criteria yet. They look for a environment of their liking. It is therefore customary to ensure that the expectant mothers are kept in happy and comfortable state so that the environment of the to be born is peaceful and the jivas who try to occupy such body are also noble ones.

There are five occasions when a soul enters a body.
1) At the time of conception, when the union of sperms and eggs happen
2) 3 months after conception
3) 5 months after conception
4) 7 months after conception
5) at the time of birth
So it is advised to have a peaceful ( sattvic) environment while the mother is expecting.

Impermanence in Life - Sri Sri

See the impermanence in this life. That is the truth. Turn back….and see that everything you did is like a dream. Whatever you do in the future – you may become mayor of a town, you may rise to the highest position, or you may have a lot of wealth – so what? You have cried and wept, got angry and agitated – so what?
It has all passed. The whole thing has finished …and like that, this very moment will also pass. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, it will pass. Tomorrow will pass. Now and then, a pinch of unplesantness comes… Do you know why? - Because it makes you aware of your pleasantness!

Suppose you had never had any unpleasant moments in your life… then, you would never have had any pleasant ones either – because you wouldn't know what unpleasantness is! Your life would stagnant our of utter boredom. You would become like stone. So, now and then, here and there, nature gives you a little pinch in order to keep you alive. This makes life livelier. Accept it.

God does the same thing to you..Now and then, He gives you a pinch… and you start weeping. But just turn back and see – every time you had a difficulty, were you not taken out of it? Any time you had problems, you got a helping hand; you were lifted up, Isn't it? Tell me very honestly. There are stories of people drowning in rivers, where there was nobody else; yet they were saved and they don't know how!
I don't mean that you should jump into the ocean, and see whether somebody pulls you out! I tell you, you don't have to be afraid in life. There is always support. So every pinch, you receive in life, is for the best; it makes your life more lively and enjoyable.

Where is the purpose in your life? Why are people born, and why go through all this, when we are going to die one day? Is this life? Are you born to just pay your bills?

If you are born to just pay your taxes and electricity and phone bills, life is not worth living. You work so hard, day and night, the whole week….and you wait for Friday to come. You spend the whole day working madly, coming home tired, eating, going to bed, sleeping…and then repeating the same thing all over again, the next day. Even weekends are routine, just another routine – the same gossip, the same sitting around and drinking, the same movies and the same type of converstations.

If you're "awake", then you see there is so much foolishness in this! Just watch, when four or five people get together and talk; have a gossip session…. In a gossip session, you can change the topic of converstation immediately. This is the thing about crowds – if ten people are talking about the weather and you change the topic to stock markets, then everybody will talk about stock markets, whether they know about them or not! If you change to health food from stock markets, they will all jump to this as well, even though they haven't completed the previous topic! It is great fun!

Being aware of this impermanent nature of one's life – the changing nature of happenings – you find that there is something in you that has not changed…. There is a reference point, in comparison to which, you can say things are changing. Getting to that reference point is "being"…and that is the source of life; that is wisdom.

Surrender - Sri Sri

Q: How does one truly surrender? How does one remain free of fear?

A: Surrender means an unshaking confidence. Surrender simply means unconditional love. When there is love, there is no fear, know it is one energy that functions in three forms, either love, fear or hatred. When there is hatred there is no fear.When there is fear, there is no love or hate. And with all these three, the sensations in the body is at a particular place, the heart, whether you are in fear, in deep love or in hatred.
And they are interchangeable. One changes into the other. You love somebody and that love slowly changes into hatred or you love something very dearly and the fear rises, thinking, Oh, I may lose it. Whatever you love most you hold onto. So, the same love has changed itself to fear.

So, true surrender happens. You cannot do anything about it. Like a mother is surrendered to the child. Mother does not say, Oh, I am sacrificing going to a party because my child is ill. She never feels she is sacrificing for the sake of the child. The topmost priority for her is the child. So, if you love something, very deep, that is surrender, true surrender. Surrender is not a burden, not a fear, not something which comes out of force. It is a spontaneous happening.

Only the strong can surrender, the weak can never surrender. We seem to understand it the other way. We feel that if someone is weak they will surrender. I am powerful. How can I surrender? No. To surrender it takes great courage and power,strength and confidence. Only then can you surrender. There is a difference between submission and surrender. You may submit to someone for a while and you are looking for an opportunity to raise your head back.

Surrender is always unconditional. It's not that "I will surrender, so I can have peace of mind or bliss or whatever". That is no surrender. If you love someone, because of what they have then you don't love them, you love the quality. Love is a very deep, intimate phenomenon in your consciousness. It just flowers.It cannot but flower. There is no way you can meddle with it. You go near love, you dissolve, you simply don't exist. That is the definition of love. Either you are there or there is love. You can never meet love or you can never love. Either you remain as love or you remain as somebody.

See, in conversation we say, "See, I love that because ……………." It is the most stupid thing. You love something and say because? I love you because you are very good, I love you because you are honest? You are not loving that person, you love those qualities. And there is nothing great in you loving those qualities. And I tell you, you seem to love those qualities which you don't have. That's how people make ideals and they remain far away from ideals.

If at all you meet God, as a person something in future, what will you ask? And if at all, you have to ask you can ask only one thing – Let love be there. Let love flower from the heart is the only desire that is worth asking for because you don't force or do anything to bring about that love in your heart. That's a happening, a phenomenon. That phenomenon in all its totality is called surrender. In surrender there is no pinch, no pain and if one has done this once, that is enough. That experience, once, is enough. So, to be free of fear, again have confidence. Look how futile it is to have fear, any fear.Meditation would help you a lot. Know that it is an emotion, another form of love.Accept it and go through it. If you resist it, then that becomes anger. Be with it.

Buddha said that any Vedana –any mood of the mind can be seen as a sensation.So, a mental agitation, feeling, emotion is associated with some physical sensation in the body and some specific point. All those feelings in the mind has been transformed as feelings in the body at the physical level, they dissolve through meditation. Meditation transforms all the different emotions.

When we remain as a small pond, a stone will create a big ripple. If somebody says something, that can blow your peace off. So the peace is thrown off by people around you. But when you become an ocean, even a big mountain falling into it, does not affect it. Being an ocean, we behave like a pond – that is the wonder. The greatest wonder is man who is an ocean of peace and joy, behaves as though he is a little pond when he is disturbed by any little small thing.The small somebody does something that irritates you. You go crazy over little insignificant things and that worries you over and over again, day and night for severalyears. Once you are surrendered, there comes a depth in you and nothing what so ever can throw you off.

Feeling Connected - Sri Sri

Q: How can one be spiritually connected on all levels of consciousness at all times without any doubt?

A: Whatever is there is all spirit. Spirit is nothing but energy. So, if you understand in that perspective, everything is made up of energy. You are always connected with God. There is not a single moment when you are separate from God or spirit. Even if you don't want, you can't be unconnected. Even if you want to be disconnected, you can't. That's God that is spirit.

So, spiritual plane is not a moral plane pr a mental plane. It's beyond those. It is ever existent and there all the time, all the time. Trying to connect to it, we accumulate pressure. We feel we are not connected. And all spiritual practices are to bring home this awareness, "Yes, I am connected". Recognition, you are that already. Now, what is the doubt and when does the doubt arise? Your doubt strengthens your faith. You never seem to doubt your dreams. Only in waking state of consciousness your doubt arises. Have you observe this? In a dream you are on horseback and the horse is flying in the sky. You don't ever doubt whether it is possible or not. You never doubt it. In dream there is no doubt, everything seems to be okay.

Doubt is the sign of intellect. Whenever intellect pokes in, it gives rise to a doubt. Only,we have to understand this phenomenon. And your doubt cannot be answered by some one else by questioning. Impossible.Every effort to clear a doubt will give rise to so many such doubts. Doubt is a big question mark. This question mark is also so closely connected to the point where sorrow also arises in life. Have you watched or observed or asked why you are so happy? Have you asked why there are beautiful things around? Why there are so many colors and such wonderful things in creation? But when there is a pinprick and pain you ask why. Of all people, this happens to you? Why this difficulty? Why this pain or suffering? You can drop every question, you can drop every doubt. That's a step of the enlightenment.

A Master or teacher never answers all your questions. He just sees that you could drop your doubt. Every question can be transformed into a wonder. See, what is the difference between a question and a wonder? Think on this. "Oh, See! How colorful this is !?" You are questioning there but does not expect an answer.That's a wonder. Question that arises in joy is wonder. Wonder always comes out of joy because it is your nature. You are joy. Question comes out stress, tension, sorrow, and an answer is given. See, many people go to ask different questions and then they are not really satisfied with the answers. That will produce more questions in the mind. So, it's a multiplication of questions over a period of time. ANUTTAROBAVA, the answerless.

The answerless is a state of joy. That is the spiritual plane where you wonder every moment, wonder what is there? What is this? Wonder brings joy in life. When you have nothing to wonder and you are intellectualizing everything and you have understood everything, there is no joy in life; it is as good as death.

Children when they are so enthusiastic, they keep asking questions, they keep wondering. They are not particular about what answer you give. Whatever is said, they are happy with it, they are satisfied. In fact, they are wondering. They are wondering at everything. A child wonders looking at its own hands and fingers. A professor, who thinks he knows everything, doesn't wonder about anything; see his face, see his life-it's so dull. He knows everything there is to life; there is no energy, no enthusiasm.

One who knows and knows not, is wise. This is a saying in India. One who knows not and knows that he knows is a philosopher. It's like a psychologist. Psychologist has never studied his own psyche, his own mind function, never meditated and never gone into the depth of mind. Simply studying about it in books will not help. A true psychologist should go within and see every level of consciousness and experience them. Then, he has really studied psychology. Everywhere in the world they simply study but not practice psychology, experience what consciousness is. So, drop this idea that you want to be connected.

Every spiritual experience cannot come with intellectual analysis. It can only come out of feeling it. You feel in the depth of your heart that you are connected. And if you feel in the depth of your heart you are not connected, do some deep meditation, do some breathing, Kriya and the experience will tell you, "Yes, I am connected."

Smile Please ( Rishi Vidhyadhar)

We base our happiness on factors which are outside our control. Life is ever changing and full of opposites. Basing our state of mind on such factors outside our control leads to depression, frustration and unhappiness. For e.g.; If we are happy because of good health then we are sure to lose our happiness.As and when our health deteriorates,We would be unhappy.If we feel secure because we have money then its opposite is also not far away. If we are in high spirits being in love then whenever we are alone again due to death or separation from partner and without any assurance that the partner will ever come back, we are bound to be depressed. If we are contented because of our progeny, then losing our progeny to death or separation due to some other cause will lead to utter discontentment. If we are happy due to fame and power then their lack will also cause total unhappiness.

All these factors are outside our control and hence basing our mental state on any one of these is dangerous and is bound to end in unhappiness. The only happiness which is stable and free from external influences is the one which is what we feel when we do sudarshan kriya, which is without any reason.The happiness based on the 9 factors- pleasures based on 5 senses, fame, love, progeny and money is short lived and leads to pain whenever one of these factors is missing from our lives.

On 26th June, 2000, Gujarat lost 120,000 people due to earthquake but was back on track in an year's time. In 2005, in Tsunami, a lady in Nagapattinam lost both her sons and when she met Gurudev sometime after,she was smiling.This is the power of spirituality which allows us to come back from setbacks and be happy.

Imagine being in an environment which is stinking with smell of dead bodies some of whom are your relatives and loved ones, very very unpleasant to the eyes, a depressing scene. This is what Krishna stood amidst and was still smiling. This is the power of spirituality. When you can smile through all these situations in life - losing a loved one to separation or death, losing fame and status, losing money and there is no hope for any redemption, then that state is of a liberated person. This is enlightenment and this is the Art of Living".


I remember couple of instances related to this talk.Here you go.....

1.An experience sharing :-

Once Guruji was giving darshan in Bangalore Ashram, he saw a friend of mine being silent(worring about something),

Looking at him Guruji asked him "What is the sign of AOl Person ?"

Friend replied "SMILE"

Then Guruji said "I donot see that on your face...... !!!!!!!!"


2. An AOL Teacher once said "Guruji says "BE HAPPY ",you know It can be taken as an Order as well as a Blessing".