Why do we Pray ???

In simple terms prayer means communicating with Guru/God. Prayer or Puja can be Direct or Indirect/ Actual or Mental. Offering of actual objects like kumkum, flowers, naivedya, fragrance, lighting diyas etc to an idol / murti/ picture /form etc constitutes pratyaksh puja. If same object(s) is offered mentally in imagination to God, this will constitute apratyaksh or manas puja. Constant remembrance of God / Name of God (Naam Jaap) is said to be the most effective prayer.

2. Prayer means conveying your thoughts, beliefs, fears, aspirations, needs to God. Most often, we pray to God for expressing our gratitude or to seek favour with a belief that HE is bestower of everything we need. We believe that God has a vast unimaginable and replenishable reservoir of unlimited divine powers and boons. We pray with awe. We pray in fear. We pray when we want some material object/ position/ service etc. We pray when we want things to go easy for us. We pray when we are sick. We also pray for forgiveness from God. We pray when we want thorns in our life to turn into colorful petals. Some people pray without any reason because praying becomes a habit with them. However, such people are very rare.

3. In actual, we pray when we realize that things are not in our control. When we bend down our head in prayer, we surrender our ego at the feet of Lord. At that moment we admit that we are nothing but helpless in front of his Supreme divine power. We admit that he is magnificent. We admit that Lord is our fortress where we are absolutely safe. When we agree to receive from someone it implies that we have surrendered our ego, it reflects our humility. This means that we have realized we are incapable of manifesting what we are seeking.

4. Pre-requisites for Prayer - Of course there is no dearth of people who are seen asking for favours from fellow human beings with a belief that they can fulfil their needs. However, instead of asking for favours from fellow beings, we must pray to God who gives to each and all. Great Saint of Shirdi, SaiBaba, often said ‘Sabka Malik Ek’(God is One) and his mantra to win over God was ‘Shraddha’(faith) and ‘Saburi’(patience) which will help us in crossing any hardship in our life. Faith and Trust in God comes automatically if we Love God in thoughts, words and action. Patience to wait for the outcome of my prayer to manifest takes away the sting of suffering. This we often lack so much. Most of the time faith and patience swing like pendulum depending upon our present life situations. Needless to mention most of our prayers are towards materialistic gains and less towards spiritual blessings. Another prerequisite for puja is purity of mind, heart, body and soul.

5. What should we pray for - When I sit down to pray often I am confused what should I ask for. SaiBaba said so many times that HIS treasury is full and people can take whatever they want but people ask for worldly things only whereas HE/God/Universe wants to give more.

6. So many times I have tried to imagine and feel what I would do if Lord appeared to me and asked me what my wish is?????? I would be totally speechless in front of HIM. I would have nothing to ask for. If I found the Lord than there would be nothing left to seek. For God is our final destination.

7. Bible says seek the Kingdom of God which is within you. I believe that if I seek the God himself, Kingdom will automatically follow but then there will be no need for Kingdom anymore. The thought itself is so awesome. I doubt if I am deserving enough to reach that stage. Only God knows what my qualifications are.

8. Sometimes, devotees don’t pray with humility but make demands. However, it is felt that we should refrain from making demands from God for it is considered as a demonic virtue.

9. Wise people say that God knows what is good for us and HE will bless us with the same, time and again, at the most right and appropriate moment.

10. Benefits of prayer - Over the years I have come to understand that I pray to reach that hidden and unseen sanctuary of peace and silence within me where the Supreme God resides. With my eyes closed or open, I utilize my prayer time to talk to God just as I would talk to a respectable elderly person. I convey my fears and insecurities, my needs and seek HIS guidance to turn my thoughts and actions towards a positive direction so that I can meet HIM as soon as possible. They say understanding ways of God is very complicated and incomprehensive. I feel that it is possible to understand God provided he showers his Grace onto us. For that we have to reach that highest pinnacle of humanness and be qualified. Power of prayers is so strang that with Grace of God everything becomes possible. It is said that even a single prayer can avert a War-like situation into peace. A mind in prayer is always surrounded by a pious aura and sends out positive vibrations in the Universe.

11. The Divine Universal Power- the Spirit is within soul hidden in our body. This means that we should not consider us separate from HIM. GOD listens to all our spoken and unspoken thoughts and words. So many times I wonder if I have that finesse that will enable God to reside in me!!!!!!

12. Prayers are very powerful - When we pray from depth of our heart, our wish is fulfilled. But our faith shakes when our prayer remains unanswered. We feel God is not looking at us. We either blame ourselves or God. It rarely occurs to us that if our prayer remained unfulfilled than it must be for our own benefit. Sometimes not having something is better than having that thing. If you look back in your life, you will find that most of the time the biggest grace of God came to you when things did not happen the way you wanted. When a bad time comes in our life, it awakens us to so many inner and outer realities of life. Struggling and finding a way out of our hardship is a blessing that God has bestowed on us by not fulfilling our wish because God loves us and wants us to develop our faith, patience, character. So many times we get what we want but that same blessing separates us from God further because once we get what we want, we forget to pray again till another adversity starts to loom its head in our life.

Therefore, if we are spiritually sound, we will not be affected if the prayer does not yield the desire result. Most of us feel that once our material desires are fulfilled and we retire from family obligations we will pray for spiritual grace. However, I feel that we should not wait till old age to ask for such an important blessing. All through our life along with our material needs we should pray to God for guiding us in the righteous direction. We should atone for our mistakes and pray to God to give us enough discrimination so that we do not make such mistakes again. Lot of people confess their sins to Lord and seek his pardon. How relieving that must be.

13. Faith or Trusting in God means that if wish is not fulfilled we should understand that it must be for our own good which we are unable to understand in given circumstances. We are children of God. HE would give us all that that we need and much more at the appropriate time provided we are qualified for receiving the same. A sincere and heartfelt prayer will take us to the final destination – to attain nirvana (liberation from cycle of birth & death) and become Godlike.

Vandana Ritik

Heritage of Shirdi Sai
New Delhi

Why are we born ????

What is the purpose of our life ? Is it just to spend our life studying, getting married, having children, grandchildren, turning old and then dying? Is this all we come to earth for – to learn, struggle, reproduce, make property, enjoy life and then go back? What about those who are born abnormal at birth time itself? What about those who do not lead a normal life? Who told us to live the way we do? Who programmed this kind of life style of self preservation in our psychic? Is that all we are supposed to do?

There has got to be some higher reason for our coming to this earth. God could not have sent us on earth to simply enjoy life and then go back. There appears to be some hidden, secret agenda behind every creation on earth and since we all are unique, the agenda is also uniquely different for each creation of God.

The biggest gift that God/Universe has given us is our faculty to ‘forget’. How complicated it would be if we remember each and every event of this life, past lives and afterlife? If we do not forget, we will not be able to get over our sorrows and our losses. Our soul remembers all. However, in human body we forget that we have any soul at all. The greatest treasures of the world have been found hidden in unimaginable, difficult and yet reachable places. Similarly, the Divine Power of Lord is hidden deep within our soul but we cannot reach it because we have forgotten all about it.

Have you noticed that we are never content with what we have? If our one desire is fulfilled another desires comes up and the cycle goes on. There comes a point in life of a human being when he sits down and thinks that though I have got everything I wanted still I want something ‘more’. In trying to find out what that ‘more’ is we end up fulfilling more material desires and still find something lacking. If we introspect more at this point we will find answer to our actual reason for coming to this earth – which is to know ourselves and to know our creator. To know that we are actually ‘soul’ wearing different ‘body garments’ and our soul is tiny spark of that Divine unseen Power that we call GOD/Brahma/Universe.

But in our normal day to day life we do not think on those lines. Mostly ‘soul’ and ‘body’ is discussed when some one dies. These theories are explained to comfort the relatives of the bereaved and people go back home hoping and believing that nothing of this sort will happen to them or their loved ones or that they will cross the bridge when storm comes. But then why do we have to wait to suffer ourselves to learn this biggest lesson of life? Why cannot we stop and try to understand this mystery in the beginning itself? We all wait to get retired to introspect on the issue thinking that we still have lot of time with us.

In our free time we perform some exoteric religious practices – like going to our place of worship on some specific day, bowing at altar morning and evening, keeping some fasts to please God. Do you think it really works? Are these not mere rituals if we do not perform these rituals with ‘intense feelings’? At esoteric level all major religions in the world speak of that single power controller, a divine unseen form of energy of bright light from which the life begins and in same the life ends. It is like we all have one destination to reach. Only the routes & methods followed to reach the destination are different depending upon what religion one follows or believes in.

What we study in academic books only tells us about how this physical world functions. Religious books tell us about how universe functions. But how do we coordinate between the earthly and universal functions is something we have to realize ourselves. Science has revealed that all matter is made up of energy and at its smallest visible (invisible to naked human eye) form it is not joined to anything. There is a space in between. None has been able to find out what is that energy made up of and what is that space made up of. We are fooled by what we see. There is so much which we do not know despite so much technological advancement. Even our human body is combination of biology(different organs) and chemistry(reactions of different hormones). What is it that is giving life to it? When a person dies, the body is still here but what is it that goes out?

Why cannot we try to understand, feel, realize and see that specific life giving part(soul) inside our body when we are alive? If we cannot fathom our own soul how can we understand the bigger spirit – GOD?

God gave us free will to break free from pursuing this law of self preservation at some point of time in our life to get to know ourselves. Some break free at early age, some in youth age, some in middle age but most of us want to break free in old age when our so called worldly responsibilities are over. But by this time, our body is not healthy enough, our energy is depleting and some of us may not be lucky enough to survive that long. What a waste of life we have made then? It is said that sometimes it takes many lifetimes to understand and to break free from pursuing Self preservation to tread on the path of Self realization and ultimately God realization.

We all are at different levels of soul development and tied up with individually unique prarabdh and karma. This cycle will not stop if we keep on living life only for ourselves and our kiths & kins. The moment we realize what we are made up of and why we are here, we are free from karmas. Karmas are created as long as we think ourselves to be different from God. The moment we realize that God in within each and everyone of us, the pain and pleasure can no longer control us. We start to feel love for each and everyone and are finally free. But then it is easier said than done.

As per ancient Hindu philosophy there are different levels of understanding. Theory, reading or listening is first part. If we remember the same and think consistently on something we have read or heard, we start to contemplate on the same till we practice it. Ultimately, we assimilate this knowledge and get another new layer of understanding from our own experience and we finally realize what we learnt or read. If we start to understand our knowledge about soul in this manner, a day will come when we will be able to see, feel, listen and talk to our own soul.

Meditation is another important tool to get to know oneself. The great Indian Saint Shirdi SaiBaba said that barring our name and body what is left is our soul - the feeling of consciousness - the feeling of being alive. This is our soul. It is our true self.

Our soul talks to us regularly, guides us and reminds us of our purpose of taking birth but we are so lost in outside world that we do not want to look inwards. We just cannot sit alone for long. We are enjoying materialistic world. Sitting all alone, doing nothing makes us shaky and mad. Many workaholics feel this is wastage of time. It is not. Lord Buddha got enlightened during that moment of nothingness – the void – the moment when we are absolutely free of any thought. Weak man would say, ‘I am not Buddha’. But then who is stopping us from becoming like Buddha? We ourselves are creating hurdles for us. If we say that something is difficult then it becomes our reality and thus realizing our own soul becomes absolutely impossible.

Our soul is linked to the divine Spirit. If we cannot listen to our own soul, we will not be able to listen to God’s voice which is constantly emanating through the universe because our own frequency is not tuned precisely to be able to listen to it. During meditation, people have heard lot of such messages, sounds, seen visions which are beyond comprehension of a physical human mind. This happens because during meditation our frequency fine tunes and catches up with the universal frequency and we are able catch the same as per our own capability. The more we meditate the more we are able to catch from the universe and this continues even when we are not meditating. Gradually, our intuitive sense becomes strong and we become aware of our own increasing ‘knowingness’. The universal knowledge is symbolic, secretive and subtle. In moments of solitude, so many secrets are revealed which are beyond recognition of our physical five senses. It is up to us to maintain and continue this internal spiritual communication with universe despite continuing to live in material world.

For listening to our own soul, we need not give up on our worldly duties. Lord Krishna has said that we can connect with our own creator while carrying on with our day to day activities provided we have faith in HIS existence and we are sincerely regular in our efforts. If we have to take ten steps towards God, we have to initiate the journey towards self realization by taking that all important first step. Then the Lord/Universe will take the rest of nine steps towards us because HE knows how difficult it is for a householder, living on earth, to break free from the law of self preservation and to tread towards acquiring self knowledge.

The crux is that Universe listens to our earnest requests and responds to our faithful efforts even though we may not realize it immediately. But we are rewarded with enormous ‘retirement benefits’ in afterlife. No effort made towards spiritual pursuit goes waste. Are we eager to take a journey inwards and tap at the overflowing reservoir of treasure full of universal/God knowledge hidden within our own beings ?

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Life is a Game

Life is like a Game of Monopoly. We trade with money borrowed from Universe for purchasing house, building, hotels, property etc. We also invest on ourselves, our academic learning, growth and attaining a status in Society which makes us feel good.

But when the game of life is over, we go back to God empty handed. We cannot even take our body with us. All that we earn and make here on earth no longer belongs to us. Someone else takes over.

We take re-birth to feel like 'owner' & enjoy the pleasure of the Game again and the cycle goes on till we understand that it is just a game of illusion(God's Maya). The moment we realise this divine truth, we are merged with Divine Spirit and we are not born again.

Vandana Ritik

How to feel God ?

In earlier traditional Hindu Schools, apart from regular curriculum, young children were taught about omnipresence of God. Children were told that God is always watching them no matter where they are or what they are doing. God is aware of all that is happening inside as well as outside us. This ensured that young minds do not indulge in wrongful acts or thoughts from early age. The thought that some universal powers is their watchdog, stopped them from doing any wrong to others. Thus God was operating through their physical bodies correcting them at every wrong step. All actions and thoughts carried out by the human body in this kind of state is actually the WILL of God, i.e., God is the DOER. The person is a mere puppet/ instrument in the hands of God.
In the present modern world, things have changed dramatically. A persons takes out some time to think of God only after he is free and has some time spare from the worldly chores. The person selects a time of the day e.g. morning or evening, or a day e.g. Sunday, Monday etc. During this selected time, the man prays to God, lights few candles or incense sticks, listens to or reads some holy discourse etc and is satisfied. Some even do meditation. Then back to worldly duties.

This change in the attitude of the modern human today sets him apart from the earlier human in the sense that today the man thinks that he is the DOER. Thus he thinks that he is separate from God. In his quest to make his own destiny, the man has gone so far that he has stopped listening to his own inner voice i.e., God’s voice.

This has happened because the new age academic and technical education has completely over shadowed our traditional learning which formed a very strong foundation to our overall persona in childhood itself. Spiritual education is no longer on the curriculum of modern day schools. Today schools are busy generating technocrats and intellectuals who know more about outside world than inner self. The minds is very analytical and always in a state of reasoning. The emphasis today is to develop our skills so that we can earn our livelihood comfortably. But what about our inner thirst.

Our inner core understands all our troubles and obstacles. As our inner core is connected to the Supreme divine, it is always guiding us to take right action in any given situation for the benefit of all and ultimately the SELF. The inner voice cannot be heard, understood or trusted if the physical mind is always in state of reasoning and applying logic. If only we could listen to that perfect inner guidance.
The best way to listen to our Inner voice/ God’s voice is to always feel the presence of God around us. While eating, walking, reading, going to work, watching TV etc we should always feel that God is beside us, just like our shadow. Always be in mental conversation with God. Constant remembrance of God will do wonders to our personality. This will give us enough discrimination to differentiate right from wrong. We will soon understand the futility of meaningless gossip and passing unnecessary judgement on the character of others and thus will be speaking less and criticizing less.

This happens because God starts to work through us and brings about internal change is us. Conserving our energy in positive manner gives us clarity of thoughts and frees our mind from worldly clutter. Having attained peace of mind in this manner, the mind can now easily discard worldly logic and be fine tuned to listen to the inner guidance and act as per its directions. When we are acting as per directions of God we can never go wrong.
Vandana Ritik

Body, Ego, Soul & Spirit

Imagine a bottle filled with water and floating in an ocean. Now try to understand this. The bottle is our Body. The water inside is our Soul. The water in ocean is the higher Spirit or Universe.

All the time we think that we are the bottle, the outer covering. This is because of presence of ego which helps us recognise our bottle i.e, the body. Ego lives as long as body is alive. This body will have a name, color, creed, religion, family, relatives, friends. The body will experience all the pleasures and sorrows in the illusionary world alongwith other bottles floating in the ocean. The body will live, interact and will have social life. Thus the body with the help of physical mind will start having desires, possessions and more desires. Now the feeling of 'I'ness and 'My'ness will arise and ego will start to grow and the growth will be of such a magnitude that the body will be not be able to see the clarity of water/soul inside. The bottle will be so engrossed competing and floating with other bottles that ultimately the water outside will also become invisible to it. Now the bottle will only see the other bottles but no water.

In every bottle the color of glass is ego which alerts us to take necessary measures time to time to keep it fit. As long as ‘spirit’ is inside us we cannot ignore the body because the ‘water’ inside us knows that it is not different from the water outside. It is only body which cannot see the water inside and outside due to its overgrown ego. Just because you cannot see, it doesnot mean that it does not exist. The water is all around us. It is just a matter of being aware of the truth and make efforts to find it.

For a body to experience the human life and creation around, presence of ego is must. The darker the colour of bottle the denser the state of ego is in that individual body. The dark colored bottle will take longer time to see and realize the clarity of the inner ‘water’. Inflated ego creates desires, possessions, separatedness and ultimately pain.

All the activities taken up on behalf of the body represent our material life while all the efforts made to bring out the brilliance of the soul within represents our spiritual journey. The spiritual journey is nothing but removing the veils of ignorance of this reality and to finally experience the ‘oneness’ of water inside and outside and bottle being a mere illusion.

Ego represents our false fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) while Spirit represents love. The journey of the soul is to realise that fear is illusion which was created because of presence of body. Once we understand this illusion/Maya we realise that universe is nothing but love. Fear is nothing but absence of love.

Once we become aware and conscious of this role of ego, it would not take long to make the ‘bottle’ colorless, transparent, shiny and ‘one’ with the water outside.

A balance between material and spiritual life is must if we want to live a happy and contented life.

A wise man lives on the earth without losing sight of his space and place in the universe.

Vandana Ritik

Learn to Enjoy Life

Often we don’t enjoy our day to day activities because most of the time our mind is preoccupied in thinking & analyzing about past and worrying & planning about tomorrow.

It gives us peace to find reason behind every happening in our life otherwise we continue thinking about the issue till we finally get some logically convincing reason. We are baffled if we do not find any reason behind any occurrence in our life. It makes us powerful to know that we have control over happenings in our life. This feeling of ‘knowingness’ makes us feel elated. It gives us a sense of achievement.

No wonder when we are in trouble, most of the time our prayers are mostly centered on seeking answers from God about why we are faced with unfavorable circumstances. Its mostly ‘Why Me?’ And then we want to know the timing ‘When’ this situation will end. In the process we forget about our present life and our daily doze of fun, laughter and enjoyment.

Our analyzing and reasoning mind has our future chalked out well in our mind. If we are sure how our future will turn out, it gives us peace. However, most of the time things do not happen as per plan and our doubting mind will not let us rest in peace. This is the nature of mind. Have you noticed that once we have got what we wanted, the mind starts craving for the next desire and again it is without peace till it gets the same and the cycle goes on. We all know how we feel if the desire is not fulfilled.

Therefore, if we stop worrying about what has already happened earlier in our life and stop too much planning about our future, we will be able to enjoy our life today without any burden. Sometimes it is better not to know the reason behind happenings at all. It is easy to live life without any worry about tomorrow.

Just enjoy life as it comes. Enjoy early morning chirps of birds, rising of sun, feel the coolness in the air on your cheeks, enjoy having parents, enjoy chatting up with spouse, enjoy playing with children, enjoy patting the pet and so on. Thank God for what we have in our life instead of worrying about what we do not have or have lost in our life.

The crux is that if we are not enjoying our present moment than every luxury and facility that we have in our life is useless. Sometimes it is good to be ignorant. Leave worries to the all pervading God. Spend atleast 10 minutes of the day with yourself. Stop the daily grind, smile, smell & feel the beauty of countless 'Roses' God has very kindly filled our life with.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Journey of Soul

Our body is like tip of an iceberg. Hidden underneath is deep, vast, mysterious, unfathamable knowledge and glory of the SOUL.

Have you ever felt a very strong connection or feeling of ‘knowingness’ in your very first meeting with a person? Even with a known person, the feelings generated within us are not same all the time. If someone really loves and appreciates us deeply we will know it even without exchange of a single word. Similarly, we will understand the unfriendly vibes of the other person. How does this happen?

There are many reasons for this kind of feeling. One of them is presence of energy circle around our body which we know as aura. Our thoughts affect our aura and as a result our surroundings. We may enter a very small & unkempt home, yet we feel air of warmth in the air. This is because the habitants of the home feel positively about each other despite lack of space. Traces of their mutual warmth and individual aura can be felt even in the aura of their Home. The same could be missing from a big, spacious, neat and clean home if the members of family remain aloof and indifferent towards each other’s feelings and sentiments. The love, togetherness and mutual dependence of habitants on each other converts a House into Home sweet home where we like to wind up after a hard day’s work and find the peace instantly.

On deeper level, our behaviour patterns towards each other are based on our soul patterns. We vibe very well with people with whom our soul pattern matches. We all are on our own individual soul journey and our final destination is to realize and merge with the oneness of The Supreme Holy Divine Spirit we call God. Our each lifetime and its happenings are already pre-planned and pre-ordained keeping this goal in view.

Life after life, the soul changes body, picks up & assimilates the sanskars (impressions) collected in each life time and adds on to its own growth called soul/ spiritual progress. As a soul passes through many lifetimes, it gains knowledge and maturity. In every lifetime, the soul will be meeting all kinds of souls – souls with equal, more or less level of spiritual progress. WE feel most comfortable and understood with people whose soul vibrations are almost on same level as us. We often say that ‘so and so understands me so well’. However, the comfort and understanding level dissolves as soon as vibrations of one of these souls changes or the purpose for their interaction in this lifetime has been achieved.

In each lifetime, the soul is required to interact with other souls and gain experience and knowledge needed for its growth in that lifetime. The duration of this interaction with other souls varies depending upon mutual requirement of souls. In simple terms as soon as our one kind of learning is completed, our interaction with souls involved in giving us that learning is no longer needed e.g. changing school, job, home, relation breakups, separations etc.

We have heard of best friends no longer on good terms. The reason is that the soul vibrations are no longer the same. One of them has either spiritually progressed or otherwise. Their soul vibrations are not matching any longer and they need to move on to other souls for learning further lessons of lifetime.

Life situation changes and we change. Our past sanskars catch up with us and destiny takes us to those places, persons, situations and problems which are essential for spiritual progress of our soul. This change is continuous over the entire lifetime.

No person comes into our life or any happening takes place in our life without any reason. We understand and gain biggest mastery in our lifetime challenges through our so called enemies, tragedies, accidents etc. Faced with difficulties, pain, grief, when a soul struggles to come to terms with the life, it gains a lot in terms of experience, compassion, strength, purity, wisdom, peace, development of character etc and adds that on to its spiritual progress. Wise men have advised us to bless our enemies for this reason.

During tough time our faith in God is tested. Such situations make us realize that howsoever we may want, nothing is in our control. Religious texts are full of explanations regarding God being doer of everything. During such a time we understand the futility of selfish and centered behaviour of each and all. During such time we understand why scholars over the years have been advocating the practice of forget and forgive due to benefits being derived there from. Therefore ‘enemies’ present us challenges to overcome and progress and ‘friends’ provide love, peace, comfort and strength needed to overcome these challenges.

Thus there are no accidents or blunders. Things happen and changes take place perfectly as per laid out plan of our life. Blue prints of our lives are prepared long before our birth. Before a soul takes on a body it already knows its life plan. However, lesson has to be learnt thoroughly so the memory of life’s blue print fades as we enter the atmosphere of the earth where the frequency of our human body vibration is altogether different and dense. It is said that dim memory of our heavenly existence is alive in our physical mind till 6-7 years of age. As we get more engrossed in learning earthly knowledge and activities, the partial memory is completely erased.

If we stay close to God, we will always be working and progressing as per our life plan easily and smoothly. Sometimes, people seek company of Guru who tries to revive the forgotten memory.

It is always advisable to stay away from company of negative people who have strayed away from God so as to avoid any hurdles and delays in journey of our own soul. Our ancestors have advised us to interact with people of similar or higher status than us for this reason. Here our wise ancestors have been referring to interacting with people who are a match with our soul vibrations, whose sanskars match with our sanskars (or are higher up) so that our spiritual progress can be hastened. But, we have instead understood status as worldly/ financial /social/ economical, which is totally absurd.

Great saint Kabir belonged to economically weaker section but spiritually he was so very advanced, his status was so very high. Our birth in any country, color, caste, community etc has nothing to do with our spiritual progress. We will always find persons matching our soul vibrations in opposite class, community etc because of similarity in our soul-progress.

Our success and achievements on earth do not ensure our success in the eyes of God. Similarly our losses and sufferings on earth does not always imply some previous bad karma. Sometimes tough situations come up in our life to hasten our spiritual progress. These are already part of blueprint of our lifeplan. Success in spiritual life, on soul level is an altogether different journey and it has nothing to do with the success, name, fame that we gain in our earthly life.

In eyes of God we are all born equal but at different stages of soul-progress. In our journey to reach perfection, universal law helps us perfectly as per our individual need and requirement. The journey is from fear (of being a human) to love (of being God). The only precondition is to Feel Like God and Stay Close to God no matter what the circumstances in our life are. Our success is assured because the universal law is perfect and impartial.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

The Known & the Unknown

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda said:

We exhaust the known by knowledge and enjoyment of it, and then we turn to the exploration of the unknown because the known does not satisfy us permanently. If it did we would not have survived so long on this planet. Permanent satisfaction with the known, with no vision of the future, no effort to improve, no initiative to explore, no impulse to interpret would have meant stagnation of the human race and hence annihilation.

Talent is unknown quantity of personality born with the person. Training brings our talent that is already within. It cannot bring forth sprouts if seeds are not already there. Talent has various stages of expression, which can be observed in the development of personality to its consummate expression in that human being.

Every person who comes in the world carries within a general chart of his life, the details of which he fills in through out his lifetime. The highways and some byways are already in the chart when the person is born. These are the traits he brings with him from previous incarnations. He accepts them as his basic nature, and then connects them with alleys, and makes some additional byways. Sometimes he also extends the highways far beyond their original limits if he has real dynamic driving power. If he lacks this dynamism, he moves for the most part along with the limited maze of paths he had in his chart at birth and in the few pathways he has drawn in his present daily life. He does not push himself further. He is a common man.


But man cannot always remain uncommon. He will have to expand and move towards new vistas. The cosmic law of evolution will not let him rest. He may be idle for a while but the law of soul – progress is eternally active. God is always on the job. HE will through material working of his law, arrange circumstances that will at first coax the apathetic individual to turn in the right direction and move forward with positive action. If he does not heed, God will have to let him wander through the stinking open graveyard of his own follies until he wages his very life to get out of his abysmal condition and resolutely follows the proper road to progress and true happiness. Therefore, you have to recognize the tendencies that make you unique.

Be honest with yourself; do not do a thing that you inwardly feel to be wrong. Truly, to have a clean conscience, even if the whole world doubts you, is a joy and strength worth all the treasures of the universe.

Conscience is not the only companion of ourselves that we have to take care for. There are others too. A party of peeping desires, a group of half sleeping tendencies, a company of live-wire wishes, compose the crowd. In order to be true to ourselves, we cannot push aside these traveling companions with whom we started life. We have to be atleast attentive to them too, if we do not want to lose in life’s game. There may be some in the crowd that need shacking – the appetites, jealousies and others that are apt to choke our growth or hurt others. Some such as selfish desires, may need strong doses of advice and treatment. There are other that are safe enough to be relied on, or atleast tolerated such as the self preserving and social instincts. A special few need to be deliberately spurred on – sympathetic tendencies, spirit of reverence, service, love of truth. We have to attend to each propensity in a way that is most suitable. That is the proper education of the inner being. Every individual is a species unto himself.

There is no stereotyped way of promoting spiritual growth. Everyone has to work out his own salvation according to hints from his inner self after he has been started on the right road by stereotyped suggestions, standardized spiritual advice, be reverential, be patient , be contented, be self controlled, be meditative and so forth. The crowd of tendencies that one is born with, needs slightly different handling in different people. Some of the inclinations are to be curbed. Some tolerated, some developed, some sparingly fed, and some starved out. The tactics applied in the case of each individual will therefore necessarily vary according to the set of traits he possesses.

What is the origin of a tendency in a man? A conscious desire that he entertained in this life or a previous incarnation. A man with diplomatic ability ingrained in his nature will be a diplomat, no matter whether he is an ordinary laborer dealing with fellow workers or members of his family, or whether he is one of a board of a select men – a member of a legislature or a plenipotentiary in an international peace parley. Education or political training and opportunity will only sharpen his inborn diplomatic tool, and extend the scope of its use. The different in the capacity of talent in different people, even when increased by training is therefore due not only to the scope of the training but also to the inborn possession of that ability and its prior degree of development. Early training has much to do with stimulating or paralyzing the growth of this unknown part of our self. Our tendencies attract our companions and environments for the most part. The law of affinity is a matter of correspondence between what we are potentially and actually, on the one hand and the broad world on the other. The cue to our conduct is always supplied from the known and unknown with. What we are going to be is about seventy five percent foreordained by ourselves. That ‘horoscope’ of our tendencies from past incarnations attracts our present hereditary condition as well as the other circumstances we will draw to ourselves. The individual has free choice to change himself this way or that, free choice to decide between two courses of action. In most case, though the free will of man is nothing more than a slave – in the guise of freedom, but fettered to past tendencies.

Yet everyone knows there is such a thing as an unconditional decision that we make after rationally balancing the pros and cons of a certain matter. Having made such a decision, if we exercise our will, we can change many things in our lives that appeared unchangeable, or that may have been predicted to be inconvertible. This willing is freedom of will. Free will does exist. If it were not so, none could escape the vicious circle of his face once he was drawn to it. Growth would be circumscribed. Newer channels of activities would have little scope. The evolution of human beings would hardly emerge from the level of savagery. The conceptions of new social orders, progressive ideas in political government, advance methods of scientific explorations, new departments of research, literary activity – all prove the ability of man to exercise free choice in every line by the power of will.

You are born with about seventy-five percent of your life predetermined by your past. You will make up the remaining twenty-five percent. If you yourself, through your own free choice and effort of will, do not determine what that twenty-five percent will be, the seventy five percent will make the twenty five percent for you and you will become a puppet. That is, you will be ruled absolutely by your past tendencies. That is why spiritual training is vital. It takes into consideration not only the seventy five percent of our lives at we already are, but also designates the methods to mold the brand new twenty five percent that we ourselves are going to create by the exercise of our freedom.

All our impulsive and habitual acts, and motive-caused acts are the chariots that carry the will of the Lord, the Cosmic law, the Divine Final Cause, in other words, everything happens according to the will of God as expressed in his Cosmic Law. The first step towards understanding is to use your will to make those choice that are in harmony with the Eternal Good within the Cosmic law.

When you love life, not for God but for itself, every moment of it is incurring a debt to Him. Those debts pile up, day after day. Borrow from the commonly unknown bank of God, the Universal spirit and clear your debt to Him. You can get the loan only for the asking and you will not be hounded for payment of interest either. This is the only bank that makes loans and does not worry the recipients with the demand of interest because the Universal bank is always ready to invest in the betterment of its property, the world, and to look after the interest of its tenants. This is a form of banking that none but God allows. If you do not pay off the debts you have contracted by your life in matter, isolated from God, suffering will be your jail sentence.

What is the loan you should ask? the loan of spiritual wisdom, the eye to see every event of life as God sees it, to feel every details of life as He feels it, to live every moment of life as He lives it. When you ask God for his wisdom, the loan comes to you written off as gift.

Every event, fact, action or thought of a God-man such as Jesus or Krishna is the meeting point of the same wisdom coming from two sides – from God and from the God-man living in God. It is like a dot on the circle that you can approach from either side God fulfils His aim through the God-man and the God-man knowingly acts to fulfill God’s Will.

We do not know that He does the same thing through us, so we suffer and lament the bankruptcy of our so called freedom. This is not narrow determination. It is true idealism. We are absolutely free when we reach the Absolute. Until then we are relatively free, and it is a sin and source of suffering not to use wisely our relative free will. Working out way through relative freedom, we come to the Absolute freedom. Then the whole of the Unknown becomes Known, there is nothing more to know and knowing is all satisfying and ever-new.

Courtsey - 'The Divine Romance'

Why do we blame others?????

"I got up late this morning as my alarm did not go off on time and now I am destined to be delayed in everything for the whole day. Damn the clock!!! "

This is one type of excuse where we end up blaming even an inanimate object just to avoid taking responsibility of getting late on ourselves. Most of the time, we blame animate objects just to shrug off our responsibility. In our everyday life, whole time we keep finding faults with others. If so and so had not done this, I would not have done that. This is a very common phenomenon. But it is a fact, every time something goes wrong with us, we are always prepared to pass on the blame instantly.

This is the normal working pattern of human mind - trying to take credit for things going right and passing on the buck when results are totally unacceptable to us. Finding faults with other doesnot make us blemish free. We always find faults in others to hide our own deficiencies.

It gives us peace to know that we are pure, blameless and beyond error. Sometimes when we do take responsibility on ourselves for our wrong actions we don’t forget to feel elated and pat ourselves for this great deed of ours.

All above is nothing but our attachment to the result. In Bhagvad Gita Lord Krishna has clearly explained to perform all our major/ minor actions as an offering to the Supreme and leave the results in his hands with utmost faith that THY WILL will BE DONE. Lord Krishna means that we should not be attached with the outcome of our action. In simple terms, we should not be ecstatic when we gain something and similarly we should not be dejected if we lose something. Loss and gain should not affect our day to day life, our emotions and thus our body and soul.

Lot of people feel that if do not perform any ‘action’ we will be free from creation of any karma. This is totally wrong. Not doing something also means we have voluntarily stopped our persona to act. This act of volunteering in itself is karma and the person concerned is accountable for it. Thus no human can ever remain action less. If we do not act, when we are required to act, it forms a bigger karma. Therefore non-action is no solution.

A human being is accountable for all his/ her physical as well as mental actions and inactions. The flawless working of this Universe is automatically taking note of every thought, every emotion, every action of human mind, body and soul. That’s why God says that I do not need your eight – fold bhakti accompanied by rituals and paraphernalia. Even if a human offers a simple flower or leaf with true felt love, God accepts the same with love. The major governing force behind this is intention of the person and above all his heart felt LOVE

Now that we know that universal law is impartial and fixes responsibility on merits and every soul has to under HIS ‘watch’, why can’t we take responsibility of all our actions – irrespective of its outcome being in our favour or against. Each individual is responsible for his/ her actions as well its outcome. Whether that result is good or bad it should not matter to us if we make a practice to offer all our daily tiny to major karma to the Divine with the firm faith that HE knows what is suitable for us. He is our Judge. He is the DOER.

If we forgo this tendency of ‘I am doing this’ ‘I did this’ or ‘I did not do that’, we will be able to keep our EGO in check. If whatever is happening in our life is WILL of God, this implies whatever is happening around us is also WILL of God. If that be so, lets stop this blame game. Do not blame others and do not take blame on yourself. We all are kids of God. Lets Forgive others and above all let us Forgive ourselves too.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

Life is not about being educated!!!!
Life is Education in Itself.

It is nice to be important!!!!!
But it is more Important to be Nice.

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

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

The Plus Points of Human Birth

The Supreme God Almighty – the holy divine spirit - has endowed every human being with HIS complete divine power and knowledge - all Plus points. However, forgetting our divine origin, inherent Power, Knowledge and Reality, we convert our Plus points into Minus points by considering each other separate from us.

We think that we are an individual human being, with separate body, soul, and the God, the World is separate from us. We feel that we have taken birth on the earth to learn our individual lessons and to live happily. Whatever is agreeable to us and makes us happy is perceived as Right, rest is all Wrong.

Have you ever noticed that when we do not agree with someone, we are actually looking at their minus points and ourselves with plus points. We feel we are more knowledgeable and correct while the other person is ignorant. Similarly, when we interact with people who make us happy and comfortable, we are looking at their Plus while their minus are completely overlooked.

The fact is that there is no Minus. Only the Plus. Within You, Me and Each and every thing around us that we Sense ( including that which we cannot Sense ) is filled with divine knowledge, existence and bliss. The entire creation of God is Pure and Perfect.

Look at the nature. Tree, rivers, oceans, sun, moon, stars etc all are Perfect. A seed may be dry but God has hidden a life inside it. When we soak it overnight, we start seeing birth of a new plant from that very dry seed. Isn’t that a miracle of God. In our day to day life we overlook so many other miracles taking place around us. We ourselves are a perfect miracle of God. However, in our ignorance we develop a feeling of duality (separated-ness) in us. This starts when we are a baby. As we grow, we start calling selected couple as ‘my’ parents. Then I have ‘my’ siblings. Then something belongs to ‘me’ and something else belongs to ‘others’. As we grow our mind gets conditioned between ‘me, mine’ and ‘their, others’. I start thinking of myself as a separate entity.

As time passes, knowingly or unknowingly, some of us want to save that God given Plus only for us. We do not want to share it simply because we have conditioned our physical mind (call it Ego) to believe that we are lacking in our Plus so we need to hoard it for ourselves and for people whom we believe to be our loved ones. We unintentionally cover our divine bright spark with darkness of ignorance. This happens because we start judging everyone around us and then decide whether to let that divine love flow through us to the other person (depending on our judgment)? Whereas this divine love is meant to flow and pass through each and everyone of us but we arrest & lock it within ourselves because of our feeling of lack ness. We forget we are perfect, complete and full of divine love. We wrongly categorize people as – relatives, loved ones, friends, acquaintances, unknown, enemies, neutral etc.

As per sacred Hindu Scripture, The Bhagvad Gita, the Supreme Purushottam (the God) created Prakriti (i.e, us, his creation) from himself. In other words, the Supreme Divine Power fractured itself to generate a creation which was perfect just like the creator and had all the inherent power of its creator. At the same time, the Creator retained its own original form. This is just like an actor who enacts different roles, dresses up like different characters, behaves differently but does not lose his own originality. Though roles, the get up, the surroundings etc are different each time but the original actor is one i.e, Plurality in Singularity.

However, despite knowing this truth since centuries, we have forgotten our origin. In fact, we just cannot believe that something like this is possible. How can we be God? We are poor, meek and suffering creatures in human garb! We are convinced that God is sitting somewhere else, up above, and is sitting their in judgment over us. We need proof of all that has been said by Sages, Holy Messengers & scriptures related to God about our origin, our aim of life. What cannot be proved analytically and logically has to be wrong. But we forget one thing. It is a fact that just because something cannot be seen or proved, it does not mean that it does not exists or its untrue. This is creation of God and everything has definite logic behind it which we cannot perceive with our limited mental faculties. Our earthly acquired intelligence and reasoning skills have prompted us to ingrain this sense of duality in our mental makeup, thereby completely smothering our spiritual understanding. This has created chaos in the society.

Think about this. Normally, it is very difficult to perceive and believe that ALL IS ONE. Even when I write this, I know it is very difficult to imbibe the crux of this TRUTH. This is something which seems to make sense only in theory and just cannot be put into practice. The question is, if we know that WE ARE ONE and I AM THAT, how can we get rid of this sense of duality completely?

Firstly, we have to start believing that ALL IS ONE. This setting of Intention is very important. Secondly, we have to think consciously and continuously on these lines. Thirdly, we have to contemplate on its hidden meaning. Finally, we have to be prepared to sense, feel and experience that ALL IS ONE. I have firm belief that once we are able to experience it, we will be one with the Supreme Power and will be able to create our own realities which resonate completely with the Universal Divine Power.

All we have to do is to take an initiative to alter our thought pattern and work towards our inner and spiritual growth in firm belief with loads of patience. This does not mean that we will have to stop doing our day to day duties and living and enjoying our life. We do not have to go and sit atop a mountain, in a cave or in a jungle or a beach. While carrying on with our worldly life, we have to meditate for few minutes on regularly and reap the benefits..

It is said that one feels all united and one with the creation and the creator when one is all alone. It does not mean being lonely. It means being in solitude and peace, time when the mind is not occupied with day to day worldly and family work. As our first step is to start believing in non-duality, we have to focus our thoughts on our own inner being and ignite that spark which has been lying all extinct & hidden in our core/self. We have to be just with ourselves and our thoughts and nothing else. In still silence, our inner voice, which we do not hear otherwise, speaks with us. It gives us creative and positive ideas. It gently guides us on the lines of divine principles without harming anyone around. Truth is all inside us. We just have to tap it. Silence brings clarity in our thoughts and solves so many unseen mysteries around us. It is so very amazing. Just few weeks of sitting in silence, for few minutes regularly (at any time) without thinking anything and doing nothing, gives so much nourishment to our hungry soul and produces such outstanding results in our persona. But still we do not want to do it. Why?

It sounds very easy but is the most difficult thing to do. People are scared to be left alone. We are so very attached to this world around us. When we are alone we feel useless and cut off from the world. Our inner doubt prompts our ego ( mental logical mind ) to convince us that sitting idle is madness, laziness, selfishness etc. Lot of overly worked and socially active people call this as wastage of precious time. I call it proper usage of our spare time, a time when we are working just for ourselves and for our own betterment and growth. What’s wrong with that?. Have we taken birth to add to the worldly chaos or to discover our true self?

When we are discovering ourselves we are discovering society also and thereby making such an enormous contribution to our immediate world. A person who meditates is always enveloped with a magical, peaceful and divine aura. Have you noticed, last time you had a meeting with such a person and felt so very peaceful without him or you ever speaking a word. I use word ‘feel’ because ALL IS ONE is something that has to be felt and sensed, it cannot be seen with our physical eyes. We need that divine vision and for that we need grace and this grace will not come from outside.

This grace is all inside you. When we are working towards realizing our true potential we are not wasting our time. We are contributing to this universe through our positive thoughts, emotions, aura and by becoming a perfect creation once again. Just imagine the impact it will have on our actions henceforth. To escape from our own ego, we have to seek help of the universal power by admitting that our ego is coming in way. The universe will immediately respond and try to increase our focus because we are doing something which we should have done long time ago and it is the correct path and the reason for taking human birth.

When universal love surrounds, protects and helps us in our Self Discovery, I am sure that with enough faith and patience, a new layer of knowledge will sprout up within ourselves (just as it is hidden in dry seed) and make us realize the ultimate truth of ALL IS ONE which will bring to us what is known as sheer BLISS because in that state we will realize the ultimate knowledge that WE ARE GOD and ALL IS GOD.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

Love All Love God

When we say that we love God, it automatically follows that our love now extends to entire humanity. Humanity is creation of THAT creator. Not loving HIS creation would mean disregarding and disrespecting HIS existence thereby implying that our love for HIM is superficial.

Often we hear learned people saying that they love God and love everyone. However, it is easier said than done. The very same people will be seen judging others, telling others what is wrong in their behavior and how to behave rightly etc without realizing that each and everyone behaves in a particular manner due to various reasons (karmic, Prarabdh etc) which one cannot comprehend with his limited knowledge. We do not know why a person behaves in a particular manner because we know only about his present lifetime and not his past births.

Loving God means accepting each and everyone just the way they are and not passing any judgments. Everything that God has created is in perfection. All that we see around us and also what we cannot see or feel through our five senses is result of that Divine Will. Therefore, it has to be PERFECT. What is perfect need not be judged.

Our Shastras are full of stories where one person’s bad behaviour (like Kekayi in Ramayana) has resulted in destruction of demons. With our limited capabilities we cannot judge what the cause of someone’s action is and what will be the ultimate result of that action. Keeping this in mind, if we stop judging others, and love everyone equally we will be reflecting back what we have got - God’s Love back to HIS creation.

True divine love is impartial. It knows no difference. The Sun, the Moon, the Trees - The Nature offers its love, services, comfort & grace to all equally without any discrimination. We are also part of this creation and most intelligent of all then why do we distinguish when it comes to giving out love. It could be because we consider ourselves and others separate from each other. This is mine, that is theirs etc.

While interpreting a verse of The Bhagvad Gita, Shirdi SaiBaba has very kindly explained that “the disciple also is in fact of the same swarupa(form). But, it is overlaid by the effect of the samaskaras(impressions) of innumerable births in the shape of ignorance, which hides from his view that he is Shuddha Chaitanya (pure divinity)(see B.G. Ch. V-15). As stated therein, he gets the impressions - "I am Jiva(a creature) humble and poor." The Guru(spiritual guide) has to root out these offshoots of ignorance and has to give upadesh or instruction. To the disciple, held spell-bound for endless generations by the ideas of his being a creature, humble and poor, the Guru imparts in hundreds of births the teaching - "You are God, you are mighty and opulent." Then, he realizes a bit that he is God really”. In a state of ignorance, the human believes that I am a Jiva (creature), Body is the soul (I am the body), God, world and Jiva are different, I am not God, Not knowing that body is not the soul and Not knowing that God/ world /Jiva are one. Unless these errors are exposed to his view, the disciple cannot learn what is God, jiva, world, body; how they are inter-related and whether they are different from each other, or are one and the same.

Our body is vehicle of our soul and our soul is part of Divine Spirit. We have what God has but in our ignorance we fail to understand this and feel that we are different, separate and better than others. When in ignorance we compare ourselves with others we are admitting that we are separate from each other which is not true.

Now that we realize we are God really, it means the whole humanity is God indeed. If that be so we are all One with the creation and creator. If there is no separation, there can be no comparison and difference. All deserve love without any discrimination.

It is a fact that divinity is embedded in our inner being (we being his creation). Thus, we have vast ocean of divine love flowing gently within us. We all are full of Love and we are not even aware of this. All we have to do is to accept this fact, realize it, tap it and shower our inner divine Love outwards - towards whole humanity. What we give out we get back. Therefore, this greatest gift of God that we have- LOVE, is meant to be shared impartially with everyone so that it easily comes back to us too. SOW love REAP love.

Vandana Ritik

Heritage of Shirdi Sai
New Delhi

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.

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