Why are we different from each other?

You explain one thing to ten people but  on inquiry you realise that some of them got it exactly your way while some got it half and a few got opposite or nothing at all. 

This happens because of the difference in the levels of intellect in each individual.  Intellect may be defined as our capacity to understand, assimilate and, if required, use knowledge at the appropriate time.  Our academic learning polishes and refines our intellect but it is certainly not the source of intellect.  We are born with our intellect.  But then, What is the source of our intellect?

As per Brahmakumaris,( the Indian Spiritual Organisation) intellect or intelligence is one of the three faculties of the Soul – the life force - running our body vehicle.  The other two faculties are Mind and Samskars (Impressions) left on our soul by all our experiences.  For example,  when a child puts finger in hot water, it leaves an impression of hot water causing burn so the child will avoid touching hot things in later life.  This is a small impression.  Can you imagine bigger and almost permanent impressions left by our intense Love or abhorrence of any person, place or a thing.  It becomes a strong impression and carries forward life after life till we correct it ourselves.

Now the body garment may change but the soul remains the same and with every birth brings with it the sum total of all the impressions carried forward from previous lifetimes.  You see a child of three years dancing like an expert.  This is very strong impression of one of the earlier lifetimes.  In each lifetime, the soul adds on more impressions and reaches different levels of its own growth. Of course human being cannot remember simply because remembering will cause so much confusion and problems.

In each lifetime, we start from where we left in previous life.   This explains the spiritual reason behind different levels of brain power in each person.

Our souls are on different levels of growth irrespective of age of our body. One person understands even a complicated logic while the other cannot understand even the simple logic, irrespective of body age.  This happens because they are on different levels of soul development and therefore you cannot expect a student of class II to understand books of class V.  The intellect level too works on these lines. 

Therefore, Common sense cannot be on exact level for all. It too differs.

In The Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna advised that each individual has to act righteously i.e., act as per his/her own commonsense, choose the best option (as per their intellect) and leave the results in the hands of Lord (the source that is running show of the world). We are not to judge. People get results as per their own efforts. Doing something is in our hands but how it is going to turn out is in hands of All That Is that knows all your past present and future and gives results accordingly.

Once we understand how we have reached our present state, we realize that we cannot do much about our past but with this knowledge we can now choose to create a better future. 

As per Dada Bhagwan, all visible actions are result of your impressions brought forward from previous lives.  Therefore understand that the real work is undergoing internally.  Now we can use this information, think positively, on purpose, and create positive impressions.  More intensely we pursue this, much better the results would be. 

This is the reasons we have to realize how powerful our own thoughts are.  Till now we  let these thoughts flow, uninterrupted, on their own.  But hence forth we exercise our freewill and choose (deliberately) to check and correct our thoughts.  Feel and think positive about everything. 

This is called living in total awareness.  This is path of Self Realisation i.e.,  Knowing myself,  my true nature.  When we know who we are, we experience our oneness with our SOURCE.

We realise that there is no outside source running our life, we ourselves have created this life and invited our so called family and friends into it and vice versa.  Source is same.  In actual we are responsible. Our internal actions are controlling our results.

This is spiritual law.  Understand it properly and utilize it effectively.   It will never fail you.

Vandana Ritik Mulchandani

Noida

How to maintain 'Balance'?

All through my growing years I often heard this advice from important people in my life that we must always maintain a balance in life.  I often read about this in religious scriptures, like, Lord Buddha advocated following middle path and to avoid living in extremes. What does all that mean?  I was not clear in my mind even though I had myself started advising my kids also that they should learn to maintain harmony and balance in life to be successful. 

Funniest part is I didn’t understand this ‘balancing’ thing.  I was blindly doing what others were doing.  I was mostly acting randomly and deciding what constitutes perfect balance in my life as a daughter, wife, mother, student, employee etc so many roles I am playing all at the same time.  I was doing what I ‘felt’ was right thing to do at that point of time.  Yet so many times I was not happy and feeling out of balance.

What constitutes the right balance is difficult to define.  What is that middle path.  Hindu scriptures talk of half male and half female aspect of God in order to define what is balance.  Chinese talk of yin(receptive female element of intuitive mind) and yang(strong male creative power) balance.  Whenever we come across something at extreme level we can easily identify and know that it is out of balance. 

In our day to day life to indicate this imbalance we often use the word ‘too’ - something or someone is too sweet, too rude, too thin, too fat, too studious, too lazy, too talkative, too quiet etc.  Here ‘too’ indicates that the quality we are talking about is out of balance.  We even have adjectives to label certain aspects of our personality e.g. extrovert, introvert, shy, aggressive, bold, timid, fearful, daring, brave, timid, workaholic, work-shirker etc.  We know we are talking about out of balance personality here – some aspect in personality which is either over or below normal level.  However, how do we know that we are in balance in any given situation?

I got an answer in Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda teachings who has stated that each human being has inbuilt masculine and feminine aspect in its personality which has to be in perfect balance for healthy body, mind and soul.  Masculine or positive aspect reveals itself as power to judge, discriminate, reason etc while feminine or negative aspect reveals itself through feeling of love, compassion, joy, and emotion.  If 'reason' lacks 'feeling' it becomes calculating and harsh and if 'feeling' lacks 'reason' it becomes blind emotion.  We go out of balance and thus unhappy. 

This philosophy made perfect sense to me and I could understand it clearly.  A perfect balance of these two aspects (reason & feeling) results in right action.  Have you noticed that sometimes we don’t do right thing just because we are not feeling good about doing it.  We get deceived by our ‘feelings’ and want to give ‘rest’ to our body.

If I am reasoning too much and overlooking the emotional aspect of a given situation, I am going out of balance.  I have to judge my friend, family or even enemy through intelligence and reasoning and not by emotional blindness.  From where does this intelligence comes from?  It is inherent part of our soul.  We call it as voice of conscience – which may differ from person to person.  What may be right to me could be 'not so right' to the other person.  


I should have faith in my own inner intelligence and reasoning for my own growth.  I may take advice from learned people, teachers etc but ultimately my decision should be based on my own inner understanding of the situation if I want to grow.  I have to understand that I am responsible for my life and its result.

If you know through your intelligence and reasoning that you have not wronged a person and the other person (even the world) insists that you are wrong, then you are not wrong.  Swami Vivekananda has insisted that a human being has to learn to ‘have faith in self’ to be successful in life.  To be able to say ‘I have a clear conscience’ is the most happiest state for any human being.  This is the perfect state of balance.

The pre-requisite here is taking responsibility of each and every happening in my life.  I get what I attract.  I am responsible for my failure and success.  We are mostly shrugging off our responsibility by blaming others for things going wrong in our life.  I have to do my part of karma in the most diligent manner as per guidance of my inner consciousness.  Nobody else is responsible for anything going wrong in my life.  The universe is working in divine perfect order.  Everything happens the way it should.

In this workplace called earth, I am the warrior (Arjuna) and God (Krishna) is nothing but my own inner voice of conscience-ness.  So many times we know what is right but still we don’t do it because we do not ‘feel’ like doing it.  We get deceived by our strong feelings and emotions and end up making wrong choices just to feel good.  We have to discipline ourselves if we want to live in balance.  Make it a habit to do right thing even when we don’t feel like doing it.  We have to discard those reasons which are making us emotionally and mentally blind (Dhritrashtra).

As a human, we are energy beings, made up of pure consciousness.  When we look at others too as pure consciousness, we act right and maintain balance.  When we personalize, we make wrong choices.  Right approach to maintain balance would be to look at the situation /person from non-personal level, try to feel what other person is going through, discriminate intelligently, listen to your own inner voice of conscience, reason out, take a decision, act and standby it.  Now don’t let judgments of others bother you.  You have done your best if you 'know' it in your heart.  This is sufficient.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

The other side of the Story

With liberalization and development India saw growth in number of professionals, coming of multinationals and lucrative jobs offering good pay scales resulting in increase in cost of living.

This is the changing scene in the middle class families of today’s India. Archana is the only child of her parents. She is worried who will take care of them when she grows up and gets married and moves over to her husband’s home. When she gets married she finds her husband also is the only child of his parents. She and her husband decide that they will manage not only their jobs, children but also look after their parents.

Parents have grown up in times when they saw parents spending all their income and savings on their children and left with nothing to take care of their needs in old age. They are depending on their grown up children to earn and take care of the entire household and old parents as well. But children neglected their parents and in most cases did not take care of their health forget about giving them money which they themselves got from their parents when they were young. They want their parents to do household work, take care of their children and not ask for anything.

With this learning behind them, the present age grandparents have become smart. They saved money, invested it wisely so that they get returns when they turn old in form of pension, did not Will away their property and learnt to live the life in a way they wanted because with their savings they are now self dependent. They do not have to ask for any money from their children and they like their financial independence. These senior citizens can now afford keeping household helpers like cooks, drivers etc. They are not depending on their sons or daughter in laws for their food, medical bills, grocery bills, restaurant bills, travel bills etc.

Archana got married into such financially independent family. Everyone had money. She herself and her husband were having good jobs and her in-laws had all sorts of savings for their old age. Every thing looked fine till a child was born in the family. Archana needed help from her in-laws because they had lot of free time with them and there were servants in home for other household work. Her In-laws were more or less free during day. Archana assumed that if she kept a maid for her child during her absence, her in-laws could act as a supervisor and also play with the grandchild who would always be so happy to be with his grandparents. But Archana did not realize that this is where the scene had changed in the Society. Her in-laws did not want to take any responsibility of their grand child. Why should they? They did not need any money from her or their son. They wanted to enjoy their old age with their own age group.

In all this new age financial independent environment so many things had gone missing – emotional dependence, family support and above all Love. Yes Love is there. But love is without any attachment or any kind of responsibility. We hear about senior citizens being troubled by their children in those places where they are penniless, where children have money. But in Metros and big places where senior citizens have learnt their lesson and have learnt to take care of themselves, they have stopped taking care of their own children, grandchildren.

Archana did everything she was expected to do as a good daughter in law, She cooked, cleaned, looked after her in-laws, husband and her child besides doing her job. But everytime her maid took leave, her in-laws refused to look after her son. Archana would wonder sometimes if the child was her responsibility only. When her in-laws were quite healthy and active why could they not help her sometimes. And whenever she offered any help to them they would refuse and could take help from servants etc on payment basis. Archana felt as if her in-laws had hired a 24 hour servant just to spite her that ‘look we are not depending on you, we have our servant, we don't need your help.’ This way they feel no obligation at all.  Whereas when she does anything for them, it is free of cost and out of love, respect and duty. 

May be in-laws take it as an obligation because they are not doing anything for her. However, it is easy when servant does anything because he works for money, he is paid and therefore there is no obligation at all. Archana feels totally misunderstood. First she is not allowed to do anything for her rich in-laws on her own and then she is accused that she does nothing for them. She cannot believe that sometimes these old people can really be so mean if they do not get things there way. Then why blame the young generation. They got this learning from their elder only. The great war of Mahabharata (The Bhagvad Gita) would not have taken place if elders in the family had acted wisely.
So in this story, Archana’s in laws take care of themselves only while she and her husband are expected to take care of everyone. Years passed on and all in the family realized that though they lived together they were not doing anything of each other. They lived in a loveless house and not home. How can family bonds develop if we do not learn to take care of each other, share with each other and help each other. We may be rich, have all the materialistic comfort but the most important thing is missing – Pure Unconditional Love i.e, service for each other without expectation of any returns.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

How to keep your Promise?

Have you given a promise to someone and are now unable to keep it? Is that making you guilty because you believe that when we give our word to do something, we should do it no matter what. That is why it is said that Silence is Golden. However, supposing you made a promise to someone many years ago and are finding it difficult to keep the same today, what would you do?

Well the Great Indian Epic Mahabharata

has a solution in this regard.

The Great Warrior Bhishma Pitamah had taken a vow that he would not claim the Kingdom of Hastinapur. To prevent any of his off spring from becoming King, he took a vow of celibacy. He also promised that he would be loyal to whosoever sits on the throne of Kingdom of Hastinapur. The vow was made when the times were good, the King was his own father and the whole environment was good.

However, two generations later, problem arose as now the Hastinapur was in the hands of an unworthy blind ruler Dhritrashtra, who wanted his selfish and ambitious son Duryodhana(Kaurava) to be the next King ignoring his royal cousin Yudhishtar(Pandava) who was the most fit person to be the King in those days and he also had the right to be the next King. Old Bhishma, who was still very strong and mighty warrior, knew these facts but due to his vow of loyality towards the ruler of Hastinapur he could not oppose the injustice, harrassment and foul tricks being played against the Pandavas family by the Duryodhana(Kauravas) and all the while blind king kept quiet and did not take any action to stop his son.

The big war of Mahabharata could have been avoided had wise Bhishma broken his vow in order to establish Dharma (righteousness) in the Kingdom. To keep his word, he fought and lost his life against Pandavas who had the support of God Lord Krishna himself. The wise Bhishma was struck up in the past. He was overlooking the new changes in the environment, the downfall in the values of the rulers of Hastinapur.

He was so powerful if only he had reconsidered his promise so many lives could have been saved.

In the same battle, Lord Krishna had also promised that though he would support the Pandavas but he would not wield any weapon against the Duryodhana’s army. He became Charioteer of Pandava Warrior Arjuna instead.

However, towards the end of the war, Lord Krishna did take up the weapon – the Sudarshana Chakra(the revolving disc of fire) to save life of Pandavas’ unborn progeny. Lord Krishna did not keep his word. He was looking at the situation from the present angle. The vow was made in the past. Now the circumstances had changed and if he had not stepped in the Pandavas' (who represented righteousness) future lineage would have stopped. Saving the future of humanity was more important to Lord Krishna than keeping his word of non-violence during the war.

Lord Krishna reconsidered his promise in the new set of circumstances to establish righteousness in the interest of all.

Resolve your inner conflict keeping the above points in mind. Lord Krishna is your own inner consciousness. It is always good to keep your word but if the situation demands, it is wise to break your promise when the circumstances have considerably changed and keeping your word is going to hurt interest of all.

Vandana Ritik
New Delhi

The Vedantic Philosophy of Hindus

Hindu religion and its philosophy are mostly based on teachings contained in The Vedas, The Upanishads, The Brahma Sutras and The Bhagvad Gita. Sum total of all these is called - The Vedantic Philosophy. It is very vast, very deep and very sacred. The Bhagvad Gita is the last and the recent Hindu scripture which is said to have originated some thousand years ago. It contains the teachings of Lord Krishna (The Spirit/ Inner consciousness) to the warrior Arjuna (The Soul) in a battle field (of mind) giving us a detail of how to carry on our day to day life in the Kurukshetra (struggle to survive) of life. How a righteous human should destroy the army of close relatives and friends, Kauravas (evil tendencies), with a feeling of total detachment. Nothing belongs to the body. God pervades all.

2. We have to do our prescribed karma with disinterest and offer its fruit to the Lord. The moment we start to say that ‘I am doing it’, we are taking responsibility of our action and creating new karma. This karma will bear some fruit - good or bad – and we will have to take on a body to pay it off by either enjoying or suffering. So we should press on, do our prescribed duties and keep marching ahead in life maintaining a sense of calm whatever the circumstances, good or bad, thinking all to be the will of the merciful God. Whatever happens is preordained and therefore it must be for our own good. When all is predestined than none is responsible for my own hurts and resentments. All is happening as per Karmic and spiritual laws of the Universe, the Brahman. Therefore whatever is happening in our daily life good or bad, we should enjoy or bear it calmly without any show off or unnecessary brooding.

3. Vedas are not books written by any human being. Vedas are knowledge collected over the years about the laws and working of the spiritual worlds. Through Vedas we come to know about creation and its creator. Mostly such continuous flow of religious revelations were collected by number of ancient high and pristine souls of India. These Ascendant masters were both men and women referred to as MahaRishi, Muni, Acharya, Sadhus, Sants, Sages. They collected this information in a state of deep trance. This could be compared to Mediumship / Channeling of universal knowledge ages ago when surroundings were more pure and pristine. During meditation, when we go out of state of body consciousness and reach the state of universal collective consciousness, we can access all the existing information in the universe. Our ancient masters have given us vast information on various universal spiritual laws in operation which operate flawlessly and are indiscriminating. They are same for Deva (Angels) and Rakshas (Devils / Demons).

4. Vedas tell us that creation is without beginning and without end. It existed before and will continue to exist eternally simply because God is indestructible. Where was this energy, that we see around us, before it was created? The universe continues to survive. It was never absent. There never ever was a state of no-energy. We are thinking of only earth, what about other bodies in the universe? Can all be destroyed and vanish into oblivion? No, Universe can never become empty and blank. Modern Scientists have opined that sum total of all cosmic energy is same. Therefore, the world around us was never without creation. Only cyclical destructions occurred. God creates and then makes it survive for sometime and then it is again recycled to come back in fresh and new form. This way the creation undergoes changes and grows. We have been evolving over the centuries. The creator and its creation have been active throughout the Ages and both have been enjoying this process of experiencing and growing. This creation will never end. It will go on evolving for better simply because energy cannot be destroyed.

5. Vedas speak of concept of soul consciousness. It is not ‘I’ the body, it is the ‘soul which lives in the body’. I am a soul living in the body made of 5 elements. After the soul camping in body discards it and flows back to universal energy centre, the body will merge back into these 5 elements. Vedas tell us that knowledge of soul cannot be learnt through books. It has to be experienced by each and all since all have the capability to do so.

6. Vedas teaches us that we are suffering because we are living in a state of body consciousness (we forget that we are not body but soul). To us everything is related to body and its interaction with the outside world – my home, my relations, my work, my social circle, the geographic world around me. The moment we start to live in the state of soul consciousness, our perception of the world around us begins to change and our joys and sufferings make no sense anymore. We become equally calm whether we are successful or not. This happens because we learn to discriminate. We realize that whatever is happening to body and its surroundings is unreal. The real - the truth - is soul. Wise man says that we fail when we ‘think & feel’ we have failed and not when the world tells us so e.g. in some exam etc. A pure, loving, powerful and eternal soul can never fail. We may not think of God but God is always thinking of us. A Hindu considers himself as an instrument of God, a tool that God uses to enjoy his own creation.

7. Great Indian Saint Shirdi SaiBaba said that little turtles live on one side of the shore while their mother tortoise lives on the other. Her loving glance is sufficient for the survival of the young ones. The same is the effect of Lord’s merciful glance on to us.

8. 'I' am a 'Soul'- master of my body - living and experiencing earthly dimension while the Spirit lives in spiritual realm - my permanent HOME. On earth, if we carry on our worldly duties without getting attached to the results and do not forget our spiritual aspect then the God/Universal Laws takes over. The God now brings about internal changes in us in such a way that we become desire free. Now the comforts of world run after us but we are not interested because we have realized they are not real. Thus the Lord makes us reach our final destination and frees us from cycle of birth and death. Supposing there are ten steps between us and our final destination, the Lord has promised that he will take the nine steps towards our spiritual upliftment provided we take that first and vital step towards HIM.

9. A Hindu believes in reincarnation and law of cause and effect. When we see all inequality around us we have to understand that there has to be a cause behind it. There are some past actions behind our present circumstances. What is happening to us today is our own creation in the past. We invited these circumstances and situations into our life knowingly or unknowingly. It is here our intelligence and knowledge of spiritual laws contained in Vedantic Philosophy can play a big role to help us stop creating things which are not for our own good in particular and society in general.

10. Hinduism teaches us universality of God, the essence of pure love existence and bliss called Advaita i.e, God is One. The destination is same however means and ways to reach it differ depending upon level of spiritual growth each soul has reached. One has to see Self in All. None is different from Self. Self pervades all. Therefore whoever worships another divinity, thinking it is other than oneself, does not know.

11. All religions have two aspect exoteric and esoteric. On exoteric level, a Hindu worships an image/ idol as God. On esoteric level, the Hindu knows that God is omnipresent and is not present in that image/idol. He finds it easy to relate to an image/idol representing God because when he bows down before it he is actually connecting to that God who pervades all. This he does at the lower /new stage of devotion. As his devotion grows he reaches a higher stage where he saws the Supreme Almighty in all images. Hindus do not have a single God. Hindus have 84 lakhs Gods. Hindu sees God in all nature around. God manifests itself in all forms of nature.

12. So a Hindu has a Sun God, Moon God, Mother Earth, God of Wealth, God of Knowledge. Animals, Birds, Insects, Trees, Tools of a workman using which he earns his livelihood, Balancing Beams of a shop keeper etc are all considered auspicious and worshipped. River Gods, Ocean Gods, Each planet represents a God and so on. But there is no confusion because for a Hindu, each creation of that Creator represents God and it is therefore worth worshipping. This way a Hindu realizes ‘Singularity in Plurality’. It is just like a ray of light which when hits a prism produces multiple rays of colored lights but still not losing its originality.

13. To a Hindu, the God is that ‘thread’ which passes through all the pearls in a necklace making a complete Circle. Therefore, all is Divine. A Hindu believes in universal brotherhood and is tolerant to all religions because he sees God in all. All are our brothers and sisters because even though many amongst us are on different paths and taking different routes, the destination is same – to realize self and then to realize the ultimate divine truth – the Spirit. This is the reason that a Hindu respects all the religions and does not hesitate to bow his head in all places of worship viz., Temples, Church, Mosque, Gurudwara etc. Hundreds of Gods and Goddesses and different methods of worship do not confuse a real Hindu for he knows that these are only outward symbols representing God ultimately the God is One. Therefore, a Hindu will never say my God is better than your God and that you are committing a sin by not worshipping my God. This gives Hindus one of their great virtues - Power of Tolerance towards all the religions of the world. No wonder Biggest Hindu country India is a Secular country letting all its citizens follow their own religion and treating them all equally.

14. A Hindu sees divinity in all. Therefore, a Hindu believes in Ahimsa (non violence) and majority are vegetarians. They feel what we eat has an impact on our mind and ultimately on our pure soul. When an animal is killed for his flesh at that moment his adrenal and fear level is high and if we eat such a flesh it will affect our mind in similar ways and ultimately leave a poor samskar (impression) on our soul. However, despite this Hindu will never despise a fellow brethern for being a non vegetarian because he sees divine in him too. How can a person who will not kill an animal will cause injury to a fellow human. This is what tolerance has taught a Hindu. To live and let live.

15. Vedantic philosophy is engraved in each Hindu from childhood itself which says that when the mind is not yet developed enough, doing external form of worship (pratyaksh puja) is the first step in the path of God. Once the universal phenomenon of the Spirit is understood, a Hindu starts to offer mental prayers (manas puja) to the Lord. This is because he considers that thoughts are very powerful, where thoughts go, human follows. If we are constantly chanting God’s name (by controlling our constantly wavering mind) through Naam Jaap we are giving positive direction to our thoughts and in course of time we will become the Name we are chanting. Here the precondition is chanting of a single name or hymn with single minded devotion backed with firm faith and patience. Finally, the God has to be realized and experienced by the soul. Vedas have taught us about four methods of union with the ultimate - Four Yoga(not to be confused with physical exercises). Practice of either of these Yoga help us attain union with our Source and we attain the position of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss.

16. To a Hindu this is the sole aim of taking human birth – first to know, learn, understand, contemplate and finally experience the Self. Ultimately, experience the Self with the Spirit. As per Vedas, this is the stage we become desire free forever. This is called the freedom from this unreal world of misery – the Moksha, the Nirvana.

17. The third largest religion of the world, for a Hindu, the entire Universe or Brahman is reflected in the sound and light of 'Aum' called as 'Amen' by the Christians, 'Amin' by the Muslims. Yes, ‘Sabka Malik Ek’ – The God is One.

Vandana Ritik

New Delhi

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