September 29, 2008

Are you feeling struck up?????


Sometimes we feel struck up. Nothing seems to be moving. We feel let down on all fronts of our life. We start to wonder what is happening to us and Why? We feel as if our progress has been blocked for some unseen and unknown reasons. We start imagining the worst without any faith in the Universe and our patience shakes uncontrollably. We feel like ‘victim’ of circumstances. We want someone external to us to come forward and help us out of our rut. We start to doubt if there is any God at all. And it is a known fact that when ‘mind’ is in doubt, absorption of ‘knowledge’ becomes difficult. Here I am talking about the knowledge of the Divine which is not taught in modern schools and colleges.

As per sacred Hindu text, The Bhagvad Gita, our lives have been perfectly planned by the God/ Universe. Everything happens as per the Will of the Divine. Our lives would be chaotic if things were to happen in bits and pieces. Everything, every incident in our life is preordained. There are no accidents or coincidences. We are nothing but instruments in the hands of God. We have been created in the image of God. God is enjoying his creation through us. The unfolding of our lives’ drama is what we term as ‘Destiny’. Things would become easy to be explained and understood sensibly if we were to FEEL LIKE GOD to understand why things are happening the way they are happening in our lives.

Though we think that we are doing our actions consciously, it is not so. Bhagvad Gita describes two aspects of individual personality – ‘Purusha’ and ‘Prakriti’ i.e., Immutable Self (the soul) and Mutable Self (blind energy movement). The immutable self is pure bliss, existence and consciousness which is always in state of happiness, peace and joy and indestructible. The mutable self or Prakriti comprises of several elements ( > 20 ). The major being Manas – the physical mind, Buddhi (Intellect)– capacity for reasoning & logic and Ahankar (Ego). Our Ego is central axis around which rest of mutable elements of Prakriti revolve.

In Mahabharata epic, King Dhritrashtra can be compared to ‘Manas’ which was blind and its aim was to satisfy its ego (seeing his own unworthy and immoral son as King). He was duly supported by his wife Gandhari, who had deliberately closed her eyes to look at the reality of situation objectively and sensibly. This led to a major war preordained by the Divine to establish righteousness and morality in the society. Before the beginning of the war, Lord Krishna comforts and consoles Arjuna by explaining that these events have already been planned by the Universe and imminent end of the life of his enemies is as per divine plan. Therefore, Arjuna should stop feeling like a ‘Doer’ of action. Lord is using him as his instrument to carry out HIS Will.

We being instruments in the hands of God can easily be understood if we understand the role of Gunas in our day to day existence. At any given time, the individual’s Prakriti functions by using three modes of operation/principles. These Principles or ‘Gunas’ are called Tamo Guna (promotes physical inactivity, lethargy etc), Rajo Guna (promotes action, physical movement etc) and Sattva Guna (promotes peace, balance and harmony). These three modes of nature are constantly in a state of imbalance in any individual. At any given time, atleast One Mode is predominantly operational. This churning of modes determines the behaviour pattern of the individual at any particular time. Our actions are outcome of play of Gunas. For example, if someone misbehaves and we do not react it doesnot mean that we did no action. We did act. It was our Sattva Guna which was predominant at that time.

Thus, Gita establishes that an individual is always in a state of Action. There is ‘Inaction’ in ‘Action’ and ‘Action’ in ‘Inaction’. Therefore, as human beings we cannot remain inactive. We cannot achieve inactivity by not doing any activity (refraining/absent etc). Even for a moment we cannot be free from action. Inactivity is impossible as long as we are in the grip of Prakriti. Inactivity is an illusion. Everyone is being made to act under the influence of Gunas of Prakriti. Prakriti has made us forget our other aspect - the Purusha (soul).

Having understood the role of Prakriti’s principles of Gunas, we have to find a way to rise above the play of these 3 Gunas. This is the time to introspect. If we watch our behaviour carefully we will be able to understand which Guna is in operation at that given time. This is the first step. Prakriti always needs sanction of Purusha (our immutable self) for its activity. In our ignorance, Purusha automatically gives sanction to Prakriti to control all our activities and movement. Once we become an observer, we realize that it is our Manas (Mind) that stops Purusha to acquire control over Prakriti. All the elements of Prakriti have tendency to bog down unto Prakriti but it is our buddhi (intellect) which can help us out of clutches of Prakriti despite being its part. Buddhi is the way and mean to control movement of Prakriti. Under the help and direction of our Intellect, mind comes into control. Now Purusha doesnot give sanctions to Prakriti automatically. It uses its control. It uses Intellect to distinguish between Action, Inaction and Wrong Action. So even if our senses and gunas are working constantly, we can change direction of our mind in a positive direction which can be used for the maximum benefit of all around us.

Bhagvad Gita doesnot preaches desirelessness. It guides us to be aware of our desires and have enough control over our mind so that the unwanted and unhealthy desires can be checked. Our mutable self should be functioning under the control and check of our Immutable self. Our Immutable self will never let us down because it is the Divine. It will never let us feel struck and helpless. We will be in a better position to absorb the ups and downs of our lives without blaming any one. If we feel struck up, we have to accept that as the Will of God with firm faith and patience and let it pass on its own. External interference can take us out of our stagnation but this too shall happen only when the God so wills it. God wants us to overcome our deficiencies differently and without anyone’s help so that we emerge stronger. Sometimes such a situation is necessary for our own individual growth and improvement.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

September 3, 2008

Thoughts can create disease


Studies conducted by various Metaphysicians in the last century have revealed so many aspects and hidden secrets of human life and afterlife. One thing that never crossed modern science dependent society is the contribution of every ‘thought’ that a human being generates. Our every minor or major thought is heard, noted and registered in the Universe.

Normally, we all think that our action and speech is all that we contribute to the society. What we think in our mind is just a mere thought and if we have not acted as per that thought we have not done anything wrong. Metaphysics has revealed that this is absolutely wrong notion.


The human physical mind cannot remain quiet and inactive. Every minute hundreds of thoughts crowd our mind. Thoughts keep coming and going but some thoughts persist. These persisting thoughts create emotions and feelings in us. When these generated emotions become intense, its effect can be felt in our body in some form of local dis + ease i.e, not feeling at ease.

If we do not understand the emotional reason and cannot pin point that particular thought resulting in not feeling at ease, it becomes more chronic and body starts manifesting it in a stronger way causing chronic diseases like diabetes, heart ailments, asthma, cancer, TB etc. We rush to doctor and with help of medicines / surgery the disease is controlled. However, if even now we do not try to work on removing that wrong thought out of our system, the ailments persists or keeps coming back after relapsing. For complete removal of dis+ease from out of system, the very thought causing the disease has to be worked upon and flushed out of our emotional system.

Louise Hay suffered from terminal cancer and was required to undergo immediate surgery. But she took six months from doctor to try other means. She searched and found emotional reasons causing her ailment. She was holding a ‘deep resentment against one of her relatives for a very long time’ which had manifested into cancer. She worked on freeing her body from such toxic emotional thoughts and six months later she did not require any surgery and was ultimately free from cancer permanently. She went on to share her experience and came out with her best seller book ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. The book has changed lives of many worldwide.

Her advise to all is that one should manage one’s thoughts in such a way that it does not require doctor’s intervention apart from causing pain and discomfort to body. As soon as body feels uncomfortable, know that some ‘thought’ has generated unwanted emotions and chemicals which have started to manifest in body making one ill at ease i.e, dis+ ease. Change the thought fast and throw it out of your system quickly and recover immediately before the disease becomes chronic. E.g. if you have developed fever know that you have been suppressing anger towards something. Work internally, change the ‘thought causing anger’ suitably and get rid of fever. Similarly, feeling of guilt produces pain in body. Medicines work on physical aspects and not emotional aspect of any problem.

Normally thoughts can be divided into three categories. First kind of thoughts are those thoughts which are required for managing day to day affairs e.g., getting ready in morning, going to job, payment of bills etc. These thoughts are essential and hence cannot be avoided. Managing our daily activities in a disciplined manner will enable us to function on day to day basis in a smooth manner. Thus such thoughts will not generally affect our emotional system unless and until we are totally undisciplined all the time.

Next thoughts are those which come into our mind with respect to our SELF i.e, our origin, God, Soul, spiritualism, universe etc. These are good thoughts and do not cause any harm to body because these thoughts are being caused by the Supreme himself and through these thoughts the Supreme is trying to clarify itself and make us understand the universal principle of ONENESS.

Balance major thoughts are generated from our EGO. Thinking that we are separate, we think of ourselves only personally as separate individual and rest as different from us. These thoughts generate undesirable emotions like fear (false evidence appearing real), anger, doubts, insecurity, hatred, jealousy, insult, grief etc. If these thoughts and their resultant emotions persist for long, they manifest themselves in body as a form disease. Thus these thoughts should be avoided. Easiest way of removing them is to become observant. An undesirable emotion will generate feeling of uneasiness in body making you all uncomfortable. As soon as you start feeling uneasy in body, notice your emotion or feeling. Try to figure out which happening/ thought has made you feel uneasy. This one step in itself is so very effective in your healing. Once the root thought has been recognized, take necessary steps to drop it immediately. Thought is nothing but your perspective, way of looking at something. If you change your perspective in some other direction, the result will be different. We have to ultimately reach that perspective that will be desirable for our own system and will not bring us to the point of dis+ease.

Even day dreaming is considered as an harmless but undesirable thought even though our personal ego is at rest at that time. Negative day dreaming could take our thoughts in undesirable direction and create havoc in our emotional makeup. The third kinds of thoughts, explained above, come in the way of our spiritual progress and are obstacles in the path to self realization. These thoughts do not let us lead our life in peace and hence should be avoided as soon as the resultant undesirable emotions are noticed.

The above findings have already been available in India for ages. Our ancient saints have maintained good health and long life. The secret for this is available in their preaching where they have advised human beings to maintain inner peace & calm and curb desires & negative tendencies. The deeper aspect of this habit is that it helps not only in this birth but life after life.

Your thoughts are more important than your actions because behind every action a seed of thought has been sown. Hence Thought Management is a very important tool in managing our day to day life and making it happy, healthy and disease free.
Vandana Ritik
New Delhi