July 31, 2008

Importance of Pain


A soul takes birth to learn different lessons in each lifetime till it grasps the complete knowledge of its own origin, its being, the whole universe. Once the soul gets enlightened in this manner, it need not take birth again. If it so desires, it can stay in that other dimension (which we know as 4th Dimension) and from there try and help other souls on earth (3rd Dimension) to get out of this cycle after learning their lessons fast.

Undergoing pain is an important part of this whole learning process. Pain is said to be a real ‘eye opener’. It awakens us to inner/ hidden realities of human existence. Whether it is a physical, emotional or mental pain, all types of pain teach us very big lessons in any lifetime. Pain reminds us of our true purpose of taking human form i.e, to realize that we are soul and that we have strayed away from that Supreme Divine form thinking that HE is separate from us. A soul has to ultimately learn that ALL PLURALITY IS PART OF THAT SUPREME SINGULARITY. God is experiencing his creation through us. What our five senses perceive as separate entities is sheer illusion.

We do not realize this till we are enjoying life and are happy in our day to day life. We simply feel that being happy and sad is part and parcel of life. But there is a hidden learning behind every happening in our life which we do not realize or maybe we do not want to realize because we consider ourselves so learned that we feel that we know everything that is there to know about this world. Had that been the case, than all academically brilliant minds would have got enlightened and found our creator. It is said that to learn about Supreme we first have to de-learn our earthly knowledge because it is so very limited. But we are so very content with our existence and life that we do not care till something drastic happens in our life which is beyond our logical understanding.

When pain enters our life and we are unable to get over it despite our best efforts. We become helpless. Ultimately, we give up our EGO. This is the Starting Point. We pray for intervention of God. During that painful time, we start our search for that Supreme force firmly believing that someone, somewhere will take mercy on us and help us get over our pain. When the pain reaches its pinnacle and we start to pray seeking relief from our pain with utmost intensity, it reaches Universal power and and we start to feel the response in some way. Thus, we gain an understanding that there exists some ‘divine’ power which can be felt but cannot be seen or touched. We start our journey in search of that power which can cure us of our terrible pain. This quest for God is our first step towards achieving our life purpose - Self realization and God realization.

Unless we desire something, we will not strive to achieve it and God (Universal Divine Force) will not be able to help us if we do not seek HIM with firm belief in its existence. We realize that our persistent prayers of help have resulted in getting response from the GOD. Our life becomes livable. The pain either disappears or we stop feeling the effect of that pain anymore. We come to terms with our pain.

As we progress in our journey, we want to know more about God and crave to peep into HEAVEN to get HIS glimpse, to see HIS world. But where is God? Did God help you in easing your pain. Think. Wasn’t it your own feeling of helplessness, giving up of ego, belief in existence of universal power which cured your pain? Then where is God. God is not separate from you. God does not have a limited human form. The God – that UNIVERSAL DIVINE POWER – is within us.

It existed in form of energy in our soul before we took birth on this earth. IT will stay with us till we are alive. When all our lessons for this lifetime are learnt, it will be our time to leave. At that time our soul will discard the body and go back to that 4th Dimension till it decides to come back on earth to enjoy life again and to learn new lessons if we are yet to achieve the purpose of human birth. The PAIN makes us learn many of our lessons faster and hastens in achieving purpose of our human birth. That is why we say that when we lose, we gain.

But then why do we need to wait for Pain to make an appearance in our life for attaining the purpose of our life. Can’t we start this important journey when we are in a state of JOY.

The choice is entirely ours. We have to take that the first step. The rest will follow automatically because the entire source of divine knowledge is confined within us. When will we start to TAP on it?

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi.

July 14, 2008

WHO is God?


When I was young, I thought that God was some kind of a judge who was sitting somewhere beyond the moon and the stars, who was looking at me and whatever I was doing. Sometimes I would think, may be God is too busy to observe my tiny day to day actions. Why will God bother himself with my daily routine? When I am doing something for myself and not harming others, God will not bother about me. God always observes us when we do something significant and different from our daily routine etc. etc. I had heard that when we die, we stand before someone on the gates of that God’s land who measures our good and bad deeds on some sort of balancing machine and we are allowed to enter Gates of heaven when our good deeds out weigh our bad deeds and Gates of Hell when bad deeds out number our good deeds. Heaven is a beautiful and good place and Hell is very dreadful. As I did not wish to end up in Hell and being punished there, I would read holy scriptures to find what are Good deeds and what are bad deeds and it was so very difficult to understand them. Sometimes being good to others hurts ourselves and our near dear ones and sometimes being bad to others was good for someone else. It was so very confusing. I always ended up thinking that when I died, I will be punished because I was finding it so very difficult to keep everyone happy and above all keep myself happy.

Later, I thought, there were number of Gods depending upon which religion one follows and supposing one converts oneself into another religion, the new God will take over. Being Hindu, I had heard there are 84 lakhs Gods and Goddesses and I would wonder whom I should pray to because each God represented one dominant trait. It was all so confusing again. I would bow down before all Gods of different religions and pray to them for giving me true knowledge on the subject.

My elder son was 4-5 year old when he asked me innocently, ‘Mom, why are we born?’ and I was answer less so I directed him to his grandfather to find the answer who replied, ‘Good question, when you grow up you will come to know the answer’. Honestly, that day I really felt so very foolish that I could not satisfy this query of my son. What was the use of my academic qualification? We do not get answer to such question in Science, Commerce or Art books.

I started reading religious and spiritual books to find answer to above question. I understand that our first aim in this life is Self realization - realize that we are ‘pure soul’ and not body and our ultimate aim is God realization - strive to merge our soul with the Divine Spirit. But still I was not sure of the answer to our reason for existence or who and where is that divine spirit, we all call God?

Many years later a tragedy struck my life and I was full of questions myself on Where is God? What is the use of God in my life? What can God do for me? Does God help me when I am suffering? Do prayers work? Where do we go after we die? Where is this heaven and hell? And this time I was not scared of any punishment. I realized I had to refresh my thinking on the subject and that my knowledge about God till date was all wrong. God is not what I had been thinking for all these years or what I see in pictures. These are all symbols or symbolic of God but God was something else, much larger and beyond my so called earthly perceptions. Now my younger son asked, ‘Why do we die?’ This time also I wanted answers.

To overcome my grief, I started to meditate and as I was in so much emotional pain, I guess, some cord of me struck the God and changed my understanding of God. God was no longer a person with imaginable human form. Thinking of God in human figure is initial stage of our journey towards self realization. When we lose a loved one, only the body is left behind and the energy giving life to that body goes back into Universe. Nothing is lost. Heaven and Hell is just in our thoughts. God is not sitting in judgement over anyone simply because God is not separate from us. It is not God, it is us judging ourselves and decide how we are going to live our life

I feel that God is infinite and limitless. God pervades everything in this universe and beyond. God is sum total of all living and non living things around us. God is everything we see, feel, experience or touch. God is active and alive each and every second. God is in my existence and I am in existence of God. God is energy that pulsates and glows in all animate and inanimate creations around us. Everything we sense around us is God. In fact, God is much more because our understanding of God is limited by what we perceive through our five senses. What about that part of God which our five senses cannot recognize or register? It does not mean that IT does not exist. Thus, I feel God is EVERYTHING and God is NOTHING. What we can sense is God and what we cannot sense is also God. God is pure existence, knowledge and bliss. All the Gods and Goddesses are different pure qualities of nature which are blemish free. Nothing is separate. God is in us and we are in God. ALL IS ONE. ALL IS GOD AND GOD IS ALL. This is why it is said that though different religions believe in different concept of God but in actual GOD IS ONE. Once a human understands and internalises this concept, he experiences, what we call as BLISS.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

July 6, 2008

Karma with Dharma

Any idea, intention, thought or deed is Karma i.e., the Act. If you look at it closely you will realize that majority of our karma is creation of our thoughts and ideas that keep invading our mind again and again. Every such karma(cause) embraces within, its hidden fruit(effect). This means karma and its fruit cannot be separated for any individual. Breathing, eating, sleeping, walking, talking etc all are karma. Thinking is the biggest karma. When we get a thought in our mind the universe starts to receive and starts working towards it. If that thought persists in our mind it becomes reality but if we start having doubts about result of that thought, it fails.

Karma can be classified into Sanchit (past accumulated Karma), Prarabdh(karma being experienced in present lifetime) and Kriyaman(karma which will bear fruit later). Thus karma consists of all our actions or thoughts not only in this birth but also all previous births put together. Karma cannot be erased. Karma cannot be avoided or changed. It can be exhausted only by experiencing it. You pay your past debts and be free.

No karma can produce absolutely good result and no karma can produce absolutely bad results. An action can be good for one person and at the same time it may be having a bad impact somewhere else in this universe. We should try and perform that type of karma which produces maximum good result and minimum bad result. It is here Dharma comes into picture. Karma performed with Dharma will do the trick.

Dharma is said to be the righteousness which results in maximum benefit for the person concerned as well as the society. Human beings have to live collectively and perform day to day karma. Therefore, Dharma-Karma would be that action, thought, idea which gives benefit to the subject as well as to the society in general. This means that we will have to keep a watch over all our thoughts.
Controlling of mind - If the thought is not positive, we have to discard it immediately otherwise it will start to manifest itself. Mind cannot remain idle. It has to think and think which is its very natural function. Wise men have said that we should focus our thoughts on God. Chanting God's name is well known in our scriptures but we always feel that in modern society having beads in our hands and chanting god's name does not go with our social image. Also we feel that this kind of activity should be done in old age, after retirement. But NO! NO! NO! What will be left of our life at that age.
Why not we start and do it today with little modification. Everytime we find we are bit free (that's the time mind starts to play), we should mentally start chanting God's name (any God we believe in). This way our mind will get a direction and its energy will be channelised positively and keeping with your modern image the outside world will not even know what your mind is doing. The biggest benefit is that no negative thought will cross your mind because mind is already busy in something of greater value. After some time, when you start feeling the benefits of channelising your mind like this, you will not even bother what the world thinks and your life will reap the benefits of positive thoughts.
It is true that the quality of our external life depends upon how healthy we are internally. And our internal health depends upon our basic thoughts. Thoughts are the starting point for any event, incidence and happenings in our life. We thus create our own reality.
If we follow Dharma before performing a Karma, life would be on right track. For following Dharma we have to make our thoughts as well as ideas very pure. We have to understand that every thing pervading this universe has emanted from one source and We all are children of that one same divine source or energy which we call God. In fact, that tiny spark of God is within each of us. It is very difficult to understand this if we do not have proper guidance. But if we are keen, our inner divine consiousness itself takes us in right direction, right place and at right time. Our thoughts create our reality.
Therefore, if in our thoughts we have sought guidance and help from God and repeatedly we are seeking it with full faith and are waiting patiently to receive it, the universe will set out in motion to bring the same to us when we are ready and fit enough to receive it. Why do we have to wait to get old to receive it. Why not now? Once we imbibe this in our day to day life all our Karma will be in accordance with Dharma and everything will happen just the way we( the God) willed it.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi