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

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

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